An Opera in Two Acts.
William Tell Mr. Archer Baldwin Lewis
Arnold von Winkelreid Mr. James Hathaway
Walter Furst Mr. Julian Todd
Melcthal Mr. Appleton Wingate
Gessler Mr. James Smith
Rudolph Mr. John Porter
Ruodi Mr. Joseph Randall McHenry
Leuthold Mr. Henry Barnes Smith
Matilda Mr. Gwynne Peters
Mrs. Tell Mr. Oliver Hunt
Mrs. Gessler Mr. Theodore E. Johns
Jemmy, Tell's son Mr. Junius Brutus Breckinridge Taylor
Chorus of Peasants, Knights, Pages,
Ladies, Hunters, Soldiers, etc. Mr. Robert Carson
Scene: The Schactenthal Waterfall.
The uninformed might very well inquire, as did Doctor Vardaman,
what under Heaven Arnold von Winkelreid was doing in this
_galère_? He appeared among the other historical personages with a
baseball-catcher's padded guard tied about his chest, and stuck full of
enormous arrows; at one time or another every young man in the cast,
including Jimmie Hathaway himself, was overheard laboriously explaining
to Muriel that it was "all just nonsense, you know; of course
Winkelreid didn't have anything to do with Tell--but there was an
Arnold in the cast of the real opera--and then there was that funny old
piece about Arnold von Winkelreid in McGuffey's Reader, you know: 'Make
way for liberty, he cried, make way for liberty, and died!' and he
somehow seemed to fit in pretty well with the rest of the foolishness.
They had thought of having Casabianca, too, but gave it up," and so on
and so on.
"Don't pay any attention to their excuses, Miss Baxter," said the
doctor fiercely, yet shaking with laughter. "It's all miserable
horse-play--vandalism--desecration. 'Guillaume Tell' is a beautiful
opera, the creation of a great musical genius. I've seen Sonntag and
Lablache in it; it ought to be sacred from these barbarians--you hear
me, boys, barbarians!" He menaced them with a closed fist; and they
went on shamelessly:
_Gessler_ (_in a loud voice_)--Who are these fellows?
_Rudolph_--My lord, these are Swiss.
_Gessler_ (_louder, pointing to Tell_)--Who's that fellow with the
freckles?
_Rudolph_--My lord, that is a dotted Swiss.
_Gessler_ (_louder still_)--Take away that dashed Swiss!
_Rudolph_--My lord, I said _dotted_.
_Gessler_ (_very loud_)--Well, I said _dashed_----
It took little enough to make us laugh, for we thought all that very
funny indeed. And an interesting point might be made of the fact that
"William Tell," whether the men had greater abilities, or easier parts,
or from whatever reason, was, as a whole, far and away superior to the
play in which the girls appeared. Doctor Vardaman, for all his old-time
gallantry, betrayed his preference more than once; but it sometimes
seemed to me as if the old gentleman took a malign satisfaction
in viewing our performances, theatrical and otherwise, as one who
should stand by and observe the antics of so many apes with an amused
detachment.
"Of course, of course, I enjoy the comedy. Don't you want me to enjoy
the comedy?" he said when I taxed him, and eyed me sidelong with his
discomfiting grin. The doctor was a queer old man; not the least
evidence of his queerness was the interest he displayed in our affairs.
He watched us drill for "William Tell" and "Mrs. Tankerville's Tiara,"
day by day, appearing to find therein unfailing entertainment. To be
sure he had little else to do; he had long retired from practice,
and, as he said of himself, was the weak-minded victim of his own
whims. With all his oddities, we were fond of him; and his advice
and suggestions were a real help to such of us as took ourselves and
our parts seriously. The stage was one of his many hobbies; he had
collected a huge library of books relating to it; had seen all of the
celebrated actors of his day and known not a few of them; and could
recall Laura Keane in the very rôle which Muriel was now essaying.
"Do you remember what she wore, Doctor?" Mazie asked him,
characteristically enough, by the way.
"White gauze, I think," said the old gentleman, considering. "Yes, it
was white gauze, and a touch of green about it somewhere."
"Huh! Touch o' green was a fig-leaf, I s'pose--hope so, anyhow!"
said Mrs. Botlisch, and "wallopped" down another oyster. She _was_ a
terrible old woman.
"I don't know what we'd do without you, doctor," said Mazie
precipitately. "You know so much about it--what we ought to do, I mean,
and how the whole thing ought to go. It's ever so kind of you----"
"Not at all--the kindness is on your side," said the doctor. He glanced
about with a smile in which there lurked a whimsical melancholy. "I
don't aspire to the post of guide, philosopher, and fr----"
"Talkin' o' guides," old Mrs. Botlisch interrupted him. "Ever hear
that story 'bout the English feller that went aroun' Niagry Falls with
a guide, out to Table Rock an' Goat Island, and down under th' Falls
an' everywheres, an' when they got through, he took an' wrote in th'
visitors' book, 'Why am I like Desdemona?' That's th' white girl that
married a nigger in one o' these here plays, you know. He took an'
wrote, 'Why am I like Desdemona? Becuz----'"
"Ahem!" interrupted Doctor Vardaman, with extraordinary vehemence. "You
were asking me for the address of the man that sells make-up boxes, one
of you the other day. I meant to bring it with me to-night, but forgot.
Any time you want, you can stop at my house, and in case I'm out, ask
Huddesley, I left it with him. It's Kryzowski--bowski--wowski--some
such unpronounceable Russian name, and his shop is somewhere on Sixth
Avenue, I think, but I can't exactly remember."
All of which speech the doctor delivered in a rapid and vigorous
outburst of words, not pausing until he was quite out of breath; and
even then he had the air of one skirting by a hair's-breadth some
desperate verge.
"I'll stop in to-morrow," said J. B. "Huddesley isn't likely to get
mixed up about it, is he?"
"Huddesley? Oh, no, trust _him_. Besides I'll leave it written down.
But Huddesley is perfectly reliable--a remarkable man, that--never had
a such a servant is my house--he's really unusual."
"Snake in th' grass--don't tell _me_!" Mrs. Botlisch grunted. She had
taken a bitter prejudice against the doctor's man-servant; partly, no
doubt, because although he was a good deal about the house, coming
and going on the doctor's errands, he had managed to avoid both her
bullying and her patronage. There is nothing more offensive than
the servant whose manners are better than our own. And Huddesley's
manners were perfect in his degree; he was English, we supposed from
the short fragment of his history we had heard, and had not been long
enough abroad to lose the insular standard of domestic service, and the
insular traditions of class.
"Huddesley'll get spoiled if you don't look out, Doctor," Colonel
Pallinder warned him. "None of my affair, of course, but, pardon me,
too much notice and perhaps too much pay----"
"I know some of 'em that ain't sufferin' from _that_ anyhow!" growled
the old woman pointedly.
"I believe ma thinks we ought to give all these lazy darkies as much as
we spend on ourselves," said Mrs. Pallinder with an indulgent laugh.
"As if they weren't eating us out of house and home already! But
William's right, doctor, Huddesley will be spoiled if we're not all
more careful. A white servant can't stand petting and familiarity the
way black ones do; sooner or later he'll presume on it. Did you know
that all these boys have been going down to your house to get Huddesley
to hear them their parts?"
"It's my fault, I began it," J. B. explained, reddening. "I said to Ted
that if he wanted to know how an English butler behaved he'd better
get a few pointers from Huddesley. Huddesley'd make an ideal 'Jenks,'
you know, as far as looks go, I mean. He's the real thing in butlers.
And it's funny, he's got ever so many good ideas about _business_, you
know, and all that. But we won't do it any more if you'd rather not,
Doctor."
"Pooh, you can't spoil a man like that," the doctor said. "Reverence
for class is born in 'em; it runs in the blood. That's what I admire
about these English servants--their perfect self-respect, and idea of
the dignity of their own position, without presuming on yours."
"It's awfully convenient having him to prompt anyhow," said Mazie, who
needed a great deal of prompting. "Nobody wants to sit and hold an old
prompt-book and watch for mistakes. What bothers me is all those funny
little pairs of letters '_r.u._' and '_cross over_' and '_sits right_'
scattered all through your speech like hiccups. I don't know what
_r.u._ means, anyhow."
"Huddesley says it means _retire up_--walk toward the back of the
stage, you know."
"Well, but I thought you oughtn't _ever_ to turn your back on the
audience."
"Depends on yer figger, I guess," said Mrs. Botlisch. "Some girl's
backs and fronts ain't no different--they're flat both sides like a
paper doll!"
"Huddesley has aspirations," said Doctor Vardaman briskly. "I
discovered that some time ago. At first I thought he wanted to
study medicine; he used to be forever poking about my little room,
pretending to dust and arrange the bottles, and asking all manner of
questions. But since this business of your plays has come up, he's been
tremendously interested in them. The fellow has some education, you
know. I've found him two or three times reading in my library, with the
feather duster under his arm--perfectly absorbed. He was very mortified
the first time I caught him at it, and humbly begged my pardon. 'Hi
can't resist a book, sir, sometimes,' he said. 'Hi wouldn't wish to be
thought to presoom, but Hi've tastes hother than my lot can gratify;
and Hi've 'ad 'opes--but,' says he, with a sigh, 'that's hall hover and
gone, now.'"
"Kind of stagey, wasn't he?"
"Yes, of course, he must have got that out of some book. Once in a
while, he uses very fine language, indeed, and then I know he's been
reading. I said, 'Well, Huddesley, it's a pity, if feeling that way,
you can't raise yourself as high as you choose here in America.' I only
said it to draw him out, you know. He shook his head mournfully. 'No,
sir,' says he, 'Hi won't never be anything but a butler--a servant
pourin' out wine an' blackin' boots for the rich and light-'earted
like yourself, sir.' I asked him what he would like to be if he could
begin over again. 'A hactor, sir,' said he respectfully. 'Hi feel the
stirrin' of Hart within my buzzom.' 'That's where we commonly feel 'em,
Huddesley,' says I. 'Hi don't mean 'eart, sir, beggin' your parding, Hi
mean Hart--with a Hay, sir--that's what Hi feel, but they'll never 'ave
no houtlet, sir, Hi'm a butler--the die is cast----' and then I escaped
into the garden to laugh."
"That isn't all funny--it's pathetic too," said J. B. thoughtfully.
"Poor devil!"
At least two people in the room looked at the young man with a quicker
interest--Doctor Vardaman and Muriel, the doctor with an odd and
pleased surprise in his keen quizzical face. As for Muriel, she and J.
B. looked at one another pretty often, as I remember. Mrs. Botlisch
raised her hard old features from a close inspection of her empty,
swept and scraped platter, and fixed the doctor with a little twinkling
porcine eye.
"How long you had him anyway, Doc.?"
"Three months, or so, I believe."
"Oh, no, it's not that long, Doctor," exclaimed Mazie. "I remember
Huddesley came after the holidays, just as I was starting to
Washington. That was a little after the Charity Ball. I put off going
so as not to miss it. I remember about Huddesley because you had just
got rid of that awful man that had d.t's and came up here with an axe
wanting to kill somebody."
"Huddesley's arrival raised the tone of our neighbourhood appreciably,"
said the doctor, with a laugh. Doctor Vardaman's men were a byword
in the community. Men of every colour and nationality had drifted
through his hands; it was a long procession of lazy, drunken, thieving
rascality, or honesty so abysmally stupid and incompetent as to be
equally worthless. "I'll never let him go, now I've got him," said the
old gentleman. "I have a fellow-feeling for all you ladies that keep
house. Rather than lose him, I'd give him everything I own even unto
the half of my substance."
"He'll git more'n that 'fore he's through with ye," said Mrs. Botlisch.
"You young Taylor feller,"--she always called J. B. and in fact all the
young men that frequented the house, by the last name--"you'd better
git that bottle o' rye away from Johns. He's had about enough, 'f _I'm_
any jedge--an' I reckon I'd oughter be, all th' drunks I've handled----"
"Pioneer times, pioneer times," said the colonel, hastily. "Er--um--the
ice to Mr. Johns, Sam."
"When Mirandy's pa useter came home loaded," pursued the old woman,
unmoved, "many's the time I've shet him in th' woodshed, him hollerin'
bloody murder--'Let him holler!' says I. Time mornin' come I'd git him
under th' pump--oh my, yes, I've had lots of experience."
"Pioneer times," said Colonel Pallinder again desperately. (But J. B.
_did_ take the bottle away from Teddy's neighbourhood.) "Pioneer days!
Good God, gentlemen, when I think of what men and women had to contend
with then, I'm ashamed, yes, ashamed of the luxuries we live in. You
were saying, Doctor----"
"About--ahem--oh--ah--yes, about Huddesley," said the doctor, who had
not been saying anything. "I can't always make the fellow out--I'm
rather puzzled----"
"Speakin' o' puzzles," said old Mrs. Botlisch, "I was goin' to tell
ye that one 'bout th' English feller that the guide was takin' 'roun'
Niagry Falls. After they had gone down under th' Falls, an' out to
Goat Island, and everywheres else, ye know, he took an' wrote in th'
visitors' book, 'Why am I like Desdemona?' (That's the white girl that
goes off with a nigger in th' play, ye know). He wrote just that: 'Why
am I like Desdemona?' Th' answer is: 'Becuz----'"
This time, in spite of an outburst of coughing that threatened
serious results to Doctor Vardaman, in spite of a fusillade of loud
irrelevant talk from the colonel, in spite even of Teddy Johns' quite
unintentionally falling over a chair, this time, I say, we all heard
the answer!