DANTE'S IDYLL.
'We shall just have a quiet Easter here with nursie, Vava; you won't
mind not having sea-breezes now that you have her, will you?' Stella
inquired of her sister a week before the Easter holidays began.
They were sitting in the Enterprise Club waiting for Amy, who now had
frequently to go home alone, as Eva was often very late, and had told
her friend not to wait for her. So, as it only meant getting home
half-an-hour later, the sisters had promised to wait for Amy to-day.
All round them were girls talking of their Easter holidays, and every
one was going away somewhere, either to the sea or to the country, or to
their respective homes, wherever they were.
Stella knew very few of them, and those only to say good-morning to; but
they all turned to ask her where she was spending her holidays and how
long she had; and when she had told them she had ten days, and meant to
spend them at home, they were loud in their expression of surprise.
And Vava too seemed to be depressed at hearing of all these plans for
pleasure; though when they asked her if she did not want to go away she
immediately answered by saying of course she did not.
One of the girls, with less tact than the others, guessing that it was a
matter of expense, remarked, 'I should go away if I were you if only for
the day, if you can't afford more. But it really wouldn't cost much;
there are lots of places where they take in business girls for as little
as ten shillings a week, and it will cost you nearly that at home. I can
give you some addresses if you like.'
'No, thank you,' said Stella with stiff politeness, and she was glad
that Amy appeared just then, so that she could get out of the club-room,
which had never been so distasteful to her before.
'All the same, Stella,' observed Vava, when the three of them were in
the train, and although Stella had made no remark upon the subject, 'I
should like to go away for the day on Easter Monday. They say Bank
Holiday is a horrid day in London, and you can get very cheap tickets to
the sea on that day.'
'Go in an excursion train!' cried Stella in accents of dismay.
'You would not like it at all, Vava; it would be ten times worse than
stopping in town. Besides, Blackstead is not town, and you will not see
many holiday-makers down Heather Road; it will be quieter than an
excursion train, with twenty people crowded into one carriage, and then
spending the day at a crowded seaside resort,' said Amy.
'Oh well, I think it was only to say I had been somewhere; all the girls
at school are going away, even Doreen will be away; but I don't really
mind,' said Vava.
And so it was arranged, and the next week was spent in rehearsing a play
for Founder's Day.
'Fancy, Stella, I am to be Beatrice in our play; only it is not called
Beatrice, but "Beatreechee,"' explained Vava, pronouncing it, as she
hoped, in correct Italian fashion.
'What play are you acting--Shakespeare's?' inquired Stella.
'No, Dante's, and the proper Beatrice has got ill, and they have chosen
me, partly because I am the same height, and so her clothes will fit me,
and partly because they say my face suits, though I don't think I am a
bit Italian-looking. Do you think so, Stella?' Vava demanded.
Stella looked at her sister, and then remarked with a smile, 'No, I
don't think you are; at least, not the type we call Italian.' But she
privately thought the stage-manager had made a very good choice, for
Vava had improved in looks since her arrival in London, and would make a
handsome Beatrice.
'Miss Briggs says it does not matter, as none of us are Italian, nor
look it; but that, as I have a good memory and can learn quickly, I
shall be able to learn up her part. It's a lovely part, Stella, though
Miss Briggs says it's not historical at all, and that Dante never said
anything about talking to Beatrice, and she doesn't believe he ever
spoke to her; but that's nonsense. How could any man write pages and
pages of poetry about a person he had never spoken to?' demanded Vava.
'Quite well. Imagination goes a long way with poets, and I was just
wondering how you were going to act Beatrice. She does not say much in
the poem, and then only as a spirit; so you don't want clothes to fit.'
'Ah, but it is all her life before she dies; the play begins at the
party where Dante first meets Beatrice,' said Vava, who had the book of
words in her hand and was studying it.
'But you, or rather Beatrice, are only nine years old at that party. How
are you going to manage that?' demanded Stella, for Vava was a tall
girl, and had grown taller and slimmer since she had been in London.
'We can't take any notice of that; you have no imagination, Stella. How
can I make myself into a little child in the first act, and then be
grown-up in the second?' she asked impatiently.
'Then I think I should not attempt such a play; it is making a parody of
Dante's glorious poem,' protested Stella, who had studied Dante with her
father, and thought this play presumptuous.
'It's not a parody, and my opinion is that it's better than Dante's,'
declared Vava.
Stella laughed outright at this assertion.
But Vava was not crushed. 'You wait and see; it's got some lovely scenes
in it, and the stage scenery is beautifully painted by ourselves--at
least, in the school by the painting-mistress and the girls. There's the
Bridge of the Trinita at Florence, where Dante meets me and makes a
beautiful speech, and I have quite a lot to say to him there,' said
Vava.
'You ought not to have,' interposed Stella, meaning from a historical
point of view.
But Vava--who was 'rehearsing her play' to Stella more for her own
benefit than to entertain her sister--was not at all pleased at this
criticism, and replied irately, 'If you want to see your old Dante you'd
better not come, for we are not going by it at all.'
'So it appears,' observed Stella dryly.
'How could we--horrid, gruesome stuff? Pray, how would you expect us to
put on the stage a lake of boiling pitch, with a lot of people in it
heads downwards and their legs struggling in the air? And who would come
to see it if we did? I wouldn't take part in such a horrid piece! Why,
even the reading of it made me feel quite ill,' argued Vava.
'You need not pick out that particular scene; there are beautiful
passages in Dante; but I do not think it is suitable for staging, and I
can't understand why it has been chosen,' remarked her sister.
'It is called _Dante: an Idyll_; and, as I said before, you wait and see
whether it is not splendid. I must go and rehearse this with Doreen
now,' replied Vava.
'Is Doreen to be in the play too?' asked Stella.
'Yes, she's a Florentine painter named Giotto. It's very funny, but her
features are just like his in his picture; and there's a Jewish girl in
the school with a long face who makes up very well as Dante. Oh you will
be astonished when you see our play; we do things in style at our
school, I can tell you!'
'Don't boast, Vava; it's very vulgar,' said Stella.
Vava did not answer back as she used to do, but went off to Doreen, whom
she found studying her part diligently. 'I'm so glad you've come; it's
no use saying this play to one's self. I know the words all right, but
it's the coming in at the right place and the pronunciation. I wish, if
you didn't mind, you would just say these speeches over first, and let
me say them after you, and see if I can pronounce them like you. I would
like to speak well, but I can't twist my mouth into shape as you do!'
she exclaimed.
'But we don't twist our mouths; that is just what you do that you should
not. See, talk like this, Doreen,' explained Vava; and for more than an
hour she sat patiently repeating the words and correcting Doreen, who
had a quick ear and copied her way of speaking fairly well, until at
last Vava said, with a sigh of satisfaction, 'That's all right now,
Doreen; you pronounce those words quite nicely, and you say your
speeches ever so much better than the other girls; one would think you
were a painter yourself, you speak with such feeling of the beautiful
pictures you are supposed to be painting.'
'I don't know much about painting, though I like looking at pictures;
but I do feel what I am saying, and I think it must have been splendid
to have been Dante's friend as Giotto was, and have been inspired by
him. No wonder he painted beautiful pictures, and one day I will go and
see them all,' announced Doreen.
'I never thought of all that; then I ought to feel more still, because
it is I that inspired Dante; but the worst of it is, Doreen, that I
don't feel Beatrice at all,' Vava confided to her.
'How do you mean?' demanded Doreen.
'I don't feel as if I could possibly inspire a person like Dante; and,
what's more, I don't want to,' she announced in a burst of confidence.
'You wouldn't like to have inspired the most beautiful poem that was
ever written?' cried Doreen incredulously.
'No, I wouldn't like to have inspired a vision of such horrors,'
maintained Vava stoutly.
Doreen could not help laughing at her tone. 'Then you can't admire some
of my pictures,' she suggested.
'I like your little dog,' Vava replied, laughing too. This was an
allusion to Giotto's famous sculpture of shepherds with a dog, on his
beautiful tower at Florence.
And with this Doreen had to be satisfied.
'And you know, Doreen, they say I inspired him; but in this play I don't
say anything very inspiring; it's Dante who has all the say, and utters
all the beautiful speeches; I only have to try and look noble, and
that's fearfully difficult and frightfully dull,' complained Vava.
'It's not difficult for you to look noble, because you are noble--in
character, I mean--and you have a noble face,' declared Doreen.
'Oh Doreen! you horrid flatterer; that is just because you like me. I
don't feel at all noble; but don't let's talk about that. Tell me if
this is the proper way to move my hands when I am talking; the Italians
gesticulate all the time they are talking, it appears. I don't know how
they do it, for I have never been in Italy,' said Vava, talking rapidly,
to prevent Doreen making any more such embarrassing remarks.
'You must wave them gracefully in the air, one at a time,' said Doreen,
suiting the action to the word.
Doreen's action was anything but graceful, and Vava gave a peal of
laughter.
'What is the matter?' demanded the former, stopping her windmill
movements.
'I beg your pardon, but you did look so funny. I think I had better not
pretend to be Italian; I can't move my hands gracefully, and I feel
awkward all the time,' she said.
'Luckily I have not to be graceful, and I have a palette and paint-brush
in my hands all the time; that gives me some occupation for my hands,'
observed Doreen.
'Yes, but I don't believe you ought to point at people with your
paint-brush; the Italians are a very polite nation, and I do not think
they would do such a thing as that,' commented Vava.
Doreen looked grave. 'But I've got to point, and how am I to point
except with my paint-brush, or the palette, which would be worse? I have
one in each hand, and I haven't a third hand,' she said, after
consideration.
Vava laughed. 'I suppose you can put one of them down for a minute.
Giotto did not paint all day long,' she suggested.
'No, but I am going to. I would not be without them for the world, and I
should feel as if I had six pairs of hands. I shall do like you, and not
attempt to be an Italian,' she announced.
However, the two of them were very enthusiastic players, and at the
dress-rehearsal it was doubtful which was the better. Vava, of course
was prettier, and acted well, but hers was a difficult part; and Doreen
seemed to have become an Italian artist for the time being, and entered
into the life and feelings of a Florentine painter of the Middle Ages,
and her dress was an exact copy of Giotto's. It was as well that the
girls had become word-perfect in their play before the last week of the
term; for that week, at least, Vava would have found it difficult to fix
her mind on it. However, it was arranged that the dress-rehearsal should
come off before the examination began, so as to leave the girls' minds
free for them, and the girls all knew their parts a week beforehand.
Vava gave herself up to preparing for her examination, and took up
nearly two hours of Mr. Jones's time one Saturday morning in having her
algebra explained to her; and Stella, finding she could not stop this,
decided that it would be best to take no notice of Mr. James Jones's
goodness, and treat it as a personal matter between him and Vava, and
have nothing to do with the matter, which was also Vava's opinion; for,
as she said candidly to Stella, 'You are not so civil to him that he
would care to do you a favour.'
Afterwards she felt that her candour both to Stella and the junior
partner had been rather a mistake.