His Majesty's Well-Beloved by Baroness Orczy - HTML preview

EPILOGUE

Ring down the Curtain. The Play is ended. The Actors have made their final Bow before You and thanked You for your Plaudits. The chief Player—a sad and lonely Man—has for the nonce spoken his last upon the Stage.

All is Silence and Mystery now. The Lights are out. And yet the Audience lingers on, loath to bid Farewell to the great Artist and to his minor Satellites who have helped to wile away a few pleasant Hours. You, dear Public, knowing so much about them, would wish to know more. You wish to know—an I am not mistaken—whether the Labour of Love wrought by good Master Honeywood did in due course bear its Fruitfulness. You wish to know—or am I unduly self-flattered—whether the Play of Passion, of Love and of Revenge, set by the worthy Clerk before You, had an Epilogue—one that would satisfy your Sense of Justice and of Mercy.

Then, I pray You, turn to the Pages of History, of which Master Honeywood's Narrative forms an integral and pathetic Part. One of these Pages will reveal to You that which You wish to know. Thereon You will see recorded the Fact that, after a brief and distinguished Visit during that Summer to the City and University of Stockholm, where Honours without number were showered upon the great English Actor, Mr. Betterton came back to England, to the delight of an admiring Public, for he was then in the very Plenitude of his Powers.

Having read of the Artist's triumph, I pray You then to turn over the Page of the faithful Chronicle of his Career, and here You will find a brief Chapter which deals with his private Life and with his Happiness. You will see that at the End of this self-same year 1662, the Register of St. Giles', Cripplegate, contains the Record of a Marriage between Thomas Betterton, Actor, of the parish of St. Margaret's, Westminster, and Mary Joyce Saunderson, of the aforesaid parish of St. Giles'.

That this Marriage was an exceptionally happy one we know from innumerable Data, Minutes and Memoranda supplied by Downes and others; that Master John Honeywood was present at the Ceremony itself we may be allowed to guess. Those of us who understand and appreciate the artistic Temperament, will readily agree with the worthy Clerk when he said that it cannot be judged by ordinary Standards. The long and successful Careers of Thomas Betterton and of Mistress Saunderson his Wife testify to the Fact that their Art in no way suffered, while their Souls passed through the fiery Ordeal of Passion and of Sorrow; but rather that it became ennobled and purified, until they themselves took their place in the Heart and Memory of the cultured World, among the Immortals.

THE END