“THE BIRD IS NETTED.”
The ladies had got their outdoor things on; but Olivia stood at the
teatable with her gloves off to give the gentlemen their tea. As
Faradeane went up to her for his cup, she raised her eyes to his face
curiously, and felt no surprise at seeing it wear its usual grave and
half-sad expression. She had instinctively known that he had been
acting during the dinner, and the light-heartedness which had so
enchanted the rest, was but seeming.
He met her gaze and smiled faintly, and her eyes fell.
“Were you going to ask me something?” he inquired, in a low voice.
“No, no,” she said, confusedly. “Will you have some sugar?”
“You see,” he said, “you were going to ask me something.”
Feeling as if his dark eyes had read her innermost thoughts, she
flushed, and turned away to put on her gloves.
“We really mustn’t be late, Mr. Faradeane!” exclaimed Aunt Amelia, who
was “got up” in a hat and jacket rather more youthful than Olivia’s.
“The dear people will be so anxious, you know.”
“I am ready,” he said, and he went toward Olivia to offer her his
arm to the carriage, then stopped suddenly, as if he had remembered
something, and looked round for Bertie, who sprang forward to her side
instantly.
Olivia saw the sudden change of partners, and for a moment she
hesitated; then, with lowered eyes, she put her hand on Bertie’s arm.
The rest followed, and Faradeane got into the carriage with Annie and
Mary, much to their delight, and somewhat to their awe.
“Well,” said Bertie, eagerly, in a low voice to Olivia, “what do you
think of him?”
“Of him?” asked Olivia, with an affectation of doubt.
“Of Faradeane,” said Bertie. “Isn’t he splendid? By Jove! he was at his
best to-night--I mean I should think so,” he stammered, with a mental
banning of his carelessness. “That’s what I call humor, Olivia, don’t
you? Anybody can make you laugh--I mean any low comedian, but not as
he does. He makes you think at the same time, don’t you know. You know
what I mean.”
“Yes, I think I do,” she said, in a low tone. “Is Mr. Faradeane always
in such good spirits?”
“No, by Jove! poor old fellow!” said Bertie, regretfully. “He is
generally awfully sad and quiet. I think he came out strong to-night
to please the squire and amuse Annie and Mary. They were delighted,
weren’t they?”
“Yes. And you think Mr. Faradeane had no thought of our amusement and
applause--yours and Mr. Bradstone’s and mine?” she asked, with her rare
smile.
“No; I think he exerted himself for the squire and the girls. It’s just
like his good nature.”
“You appear to have become very intimate with him in a short time,”
said Olivia.
Poor Bertie colored a deep red, which the darkness luckily concealed.
“Well, you see, he’s the sort of man you do learn to know quickly;
so--so frank.”
“Frank!” with a smile.
“Well,” he stammered, “not exactly frank, but----”
Olivia laughed.
“Never mind,” she said. “What you mean to say is that you admire him
very much, and that, like papa, you have ‘taken to him.’”
“That’s it,” said Bertie, with a sigh of relief. “So the squire likes
him, does he? Well, I’m not surprised. I hope they’ll be great friends.
He’ll cheer the squire up, and he wants it, dear old squire.”
Olivia turned to him with anxious eagerness.
“Then you have noticed that papa has been dull and low-spirited
lately?” she said.
“Yes; I--I don’t think he has been quite up to his usual form. He looks
bothered and worried about something,” said Bertie. “But don’t be
uneasy, Olivia; it can’t be anything serious. What could trouble him?”
Olivia looked vacantly at the feathers nodding on Aunt Amelia’s hat.
“I don’t know of anything,” she said, thoughtfully. “No, there can be
nothing. What is Mr. Faradeane going to recite to-night?” she asked,
after a pause.
“I haven’t the least idea,” replied Bertie. “He has said nothing to me
about it. Whatever it is will sure to be well done, you may depend.
Here we are.”
The entertainment had evidently been regarded as an event of some
importance, for there was a tolerably long string of carriages at the
door, and Olivia, as she entered the schoolroom on Bertie’s arm, saw
that the place was crammed. Their appearance was the signal for a burst
of clapping and stamping, and passing up a narrow lane between the
chairs, they made their way to the platform amid a hearty welcome.
Aunt Amelia, “all becks and nods and wreathed smiles,” ushered them
into chairs--all except Faradeane, who took his seat in a corner among
the audience--and the performance was proceeded with.
It was like the usual village entertainment. There was the church choir
with a part song--sung by half-a-dozen girls and young men, the former
all giggles, the latter all hands and feet. Then the vicar, with a
vacuous smile, obliged with a solo on the concertina--by no means badly
played; and Faradeane would have enjoyed it if the worthy man had not
opened his mouth at all the high notes, and frowned terribly at all the
low ones. Then a pale young lady sang a sentimental ballad in a voice
which only reached the first two rows of chairs; and, following her, a
pale young gentleman, with narrow shoulders, growled out “The Village
Blacksmith.”
The audience, gentle and simple, applauded everything vociferously, and
when the pale young lady forgot her words, applauded louder than ever.
A lady and gentleman sang the “Glou Glou” duet, which, though they
had practiced it, say, two hundred times, was not quite in time even
then; and then the vicar, adjusting his eyeglasses, announced that Mr.
Faradeane had kindly consented to give them a recitation.
Every eye turned upon the handsome, grave-faced man in the corner, and
Olivia’s among them.
He rose, amid the stamping and clapping which welcomed every
announcement, and slowly and unobtrusively mounted the platform.
For a moment he looked round, as if to ascertain the size of the room.
Then, in a low, but clear tone, said, “The Dream of Eugene Aram.”
Everybody knows the poem. It is the best of Tom Hood’s, far and away,
and he was a poet of no mean order. It is the confession of a murder
made to a schoolboy by the usher, who pretends that he is only telling
a dream, whereas he is really giving every detail of his crime, and the
remorse that haunts him.
Faradeane began, in a light tone that reached the remotest corner of
the room, to describe the school and the boys, and then gradually, and
yet as it seemed suddenly, to assume the character of the murderer,
upon whose conscience the crime rides so terribly that he feels
constrained to confess it.
Gradually the voice grew deeper, graver, more intense; and as he
approached the verse which tells of the crime, the silence in the
crowded room was intense. Step by step the confession proceeded, until
it reached the point where the murderer in vain endeavors to conceal
the body of the man he has slain, and at this point the voice, the
gesture, the very face of the reciter were so awful that a shudder ran
through the audience, and from the center of the room a woman’s sobs
rose audibly.
Olivia sat, her eyes fixed on Faradeane’s face, her heart almost
motionless. She had seen good actors in their strongest characters, but
she had seen nothing more terrible than this “Dream of Eugene Aram” as
recited in the village schoolroom.
Every now and then a thrill of horror shot through her; then, as the
guilty man told of the remorse that haunted him as he stood among the
school children, all so pure and innocent, and tried, unavailingly, to
join in their evening prayers and hymns, she felt the tears rise to her
eyes, and a big lump grow in her throat.
The effect was awful, and when, in his ordinary tone, the reciter
wound up with the lines which record the arrest of the guilty usher,
she sank back with a sigh of pity and relief. For a moment or two the
audience stared at the reciter, at this stranger with the handsome face
and sad, dark eyes, in awful silence; then Lord Carfield broke the
spell by a vigorous clapping of hands, and amid a storm of applause,
Mr. Faradeane, with a faint smile, stepped quietly and slowly from the
platform.
As he did so he glanced--was it by accident?--toward Olivia.
She met his glance for a moment, then lowered her eyes, and turned to
speak to the vicar, who, worthy man, was sitting with his hands clasped
on his knees, and his eyes and mouth wide open.
“My dear Miss Vanley,” he gasped, “what an exciting recitation! I--I
don’t think I ever heard anything more--more terrible. Mr. Haraden----”
“Faradeane,” said Olivia.
“I beg your pardon--Faradeane--is a most accomplished actor, most
accomplished.”
“Oh, thank you so much, so very much,” murmured Aunt Amelia, jerking
her feathers at Faradeane. “It was wonderful, perfectly wonderful. I
was never so horrified in my life! Why, it has made our poor little
entertainment quite distinguished! How could you do it?”
“It is not very difficult,” said Mr. Faradeane, with a smile. “You are
all too good-natured, Miss Vanley,” and he sank into his corner and was
hidden from the curious and awestruck gaze of the audience.
The entertainment proceeded; but after the event of the evening,
the part songs and duets fell flat, and the big audience dispersed,
thinking and talking of nothing but “The Dream of Eugene Aram” and the
strange gentleman who had made them shudder and turn pale.
As the Grange party left the room, Lord Carfield came up.
“Where is your friend, Mr. Faradeane, Bertie?” he asked. “I wish you
would introduce me. I never heard Hood’s poem better done.”
Bertie, who had Olivia on his arm, looked round and beckoned to
Faradeane.
“My father,” he said, “wants to know you, Faradeane.”
Mr. Faradeane came forward and bowed.
The old earl looked at him with a rather puzzled expression.
“Haven’t I seen you before, Mr. Faradeane?” he said.
Mr. Faradeane looked him steadily in the face.
“I think not, Lord Carfield,” he said.
“No! That’s strange. I had a fancy that we had met before this. Allow
me to thank you for an intellectual treat. Your recital of ‘Eugene
Aram’ was remarkably good; remarkably good. I never heard it better
done, never.”
Mr. Faradeane smiled.
“There are hundreds of people who could do it better, Lord Carfield.”
“I dare say,” said his lordship, “but I have never heard them. It
made me shudder; but that is the effect you wanted to produce, no
doubt. What amazes me, though, is how a man who hasn’t committed a
murder--I don’t suppose that you have, Mr. Faradeane?” Faradeane smiled
strangely. “What astonishes me is how a man who hasn’t slain a fellow
creature could portray the feelings of the criminal so closely as you
have done.”
“It is all trickery, Lord Carfield,” said Faradeane.
“Oh, of course,” said Bartley Bradstone, who was standing near, and
listening with a moody bitterness. He had been watching Olivia during
the whole of the recital, and had remarked, with furious jealousy, the
effect produced on her. “It’s just a knack,” he said.
Lord Carfield turned to him with that slow, calm regard which always
drove Bartley Bradstone half mad.
“Mr. Bradstone is quite right,” said Faradeane, and the pleasant assent
chafed Bradstone still more than Lord Carfield’s cold glance.
“We’d better be going, hadn’t we?” he said, and almost pushing past
Bertie, he offered Olivia his arm.
As she put her hand upon it, he felt that she was trembling, and looked
at her with an ugly red glowing in his face.
“This confounded business has frightened you!” he said, almost loud
enough for Faradeane to hear. “In my opinion, that kind of thing isn’t
fit for a mixed audience.”
“I am not frightened, thanks,” said Olivia, coldly.
“You are trembling, then,” he said, with barely suppressed fury.
Olivia looked at him very much as Lord Carfield had looked, and taking
her hand from his arm, turned to Miss Amelia. “Are you ready, aunt?”
she said, and waited until she came up to her.
Bartley Bradstone bit his lip at this distinct rebuke, and was forced
to walk down the room alone.
As he approached the door, chafing with envy and mortification, a lad
entered, and, looking round, came up to him with a telegram.
“What’s this?” demanded Bartley Bradstone, roughly.
“A telegram, sir,” the lad said. “The postmaster said I was to bring it
here, as it might be important----”
“He is a fool,” said Bartley Bradstone. “Besides, a telegram at this
time!”
“I had to ride over with it from Wainford, sir,” said the lad, shyly,
“and I didn’t like to come in till the entertainment was over.”
Bartley Bradstone opened the envelope, scowling, and read the telegram.
It ran thus:
Have got all you want. The bird is netted.
MOWLE.
He crushed it in his hand, and looked furtively round as if he almost
suspected that the rest of the party knew its purport; then his face
cleared, and he glanced at Olivia with an ugly smile of sinister
significance.
“You snub me, do you, my lady?” he said, under his breath. “You’ll
change your tone presently, I fancy.”
And he went into the open air mumbling the words of the telegram.
“Mowle’s a fool to send such a wire,” he said, wiping the perspiration
from his forehead. “But he’s right. The bird is netted!”