Madame Flirt
fire hissing and roaring from within the house and mingling in one huge
flaring flame.
Looking over the parapet she caught sight of a gaunt figure on the
abutment now strongly illuminated, now in deep shadow according to the
height and strength of the flames and the wayward wind. So fantastic, so
grotesque was this figure, his gesticulations, his waving hands, he
suggested a demon rather than a human being. Now and again he put a
curved hand to his mouth. Doubtless he was shouting but the roar of the
fire and the howling of the mob smothered every sound.
It was Rofflash--his true character revealed, nerve stricken, a coward
at heart. Yet he was in no immediate danger. The fire could not reach
him. The only thing he had to fear was the rising tide should it chance
to wash over the abutment and sweep him off his feet.
But it is always the unexpected that happens. Some receptacle with
inflammable contents which the fire had overlooked--probably it was
stored in one of the upper rooms--exploded with terrific violence. Roof,
rafters, tiles, brickwork, shot into the air and fell in every
direction. Sally with many others was sent prostrate by the shock, but
was uninjured. When she was able to rise and look over the parapet no
one was on the abutment. Jeremy Rofflash had met his fate.
"The Beggar's Opera" continued on its triumphant way. Night after night
the theatre was packed. Night after night Polly was listened to with
increasing delight. She had never sung her plaintive ditties with such
pathos. No one suspected the reason. No one knew that she had given her
heart to the poor young man killed in a brawl--so the newspapers
described it--in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Polly's love for Lancelot Vane
was a secret sacred to herself. She gave her confidence to nobody--not
even to Gay. She had been happy in her love dreams, happier perhaps than
if they had become realities. Her roaming life had not brought romance
to her until she met Lancelot Vane. The sweetheartings of others had
always seemed sordid and commonplace. Had Vane been presumptuous she
would have had nothing to say to him, but she was drawn towards him
because he was drifting to his ruin and she yearned to save him. That
she should see him no more deadened her heart and numbed her brain. So
she made no effort to find out the why and wherefore of his death and
the story never reached her.
Sally Salisbury could have told her, but Sally, to her credit, be it
said, did not seek to inflict a wound for the mere satisfaction of
witnessing the agony of her rival. Vane was dead and retribution had
swiftly overtaken his assassin. What was left? Nothing. Sally had also
found romance, and some tender womanly instinct--an instinct too often
blunted by her life and temptations--sealed her lips. She had avenged
the death of the only man she ever loved with anything like purity. Let
that suffice.
The opera had an unprecedented run of sixty-two nights. Every one
marvelled. Such a thing had never happened before and when the next
season the run was continued its attractions were undimmed, save in one
particular--the original Polly Peachum was no longer to be seen or
heard. Gradually it became gossipped about that the Duke of Bolton's
suit had succeeded. The Polly over whom everybody, rich and poor, high
and low, for nearly five months had lost their heads and their hearts,
had quitted the stage for ever. Twenty-three years later the duke was
able to prove his devotion by making her his duchess. Even then she
rarely took part in fashionable functions. Her simple tastes and dislike
of display never deserted her. Yet she was not and is not forgotten,
though nearly two hundred years have passed away since she burst into
the full flush of fame. Her memory is preserved in every one of her
innumerable successors who have succeeded in reproducing in any degree
her charm and artlessness. This memory is not attached to Lavinia
Duchess of Bolton, but to "Pretty Polly Peachum."
THE END.