To the schoolgirls the dress rehearsal was, if possible, more of an
ordeal than the performances themselves. The head mistress attended in
state with the entire staff and such of the girls as were not themselves
acting. Stray relatives, unable to be present at the play proper, dotted
the more distant benches, or were bestowed in the overhanging galleries,
while the servants, from portly matron to jobbing gardener, clustered at
the back of the hall.
The platform at the upper end had been built out to form a stage, and
when, late in the afternoon, the final signal had been given and the
improvised curtains drew audibly apart, Clare had fair reason to plume
herself on her stage-management.
The long blinds of the windows had been let down and shut out the
sceptical sunshine; and the candle footlights, flickering
unprofessionally, mellowed the paintwork and patterned the home-made
scenery with re-echoing lights, pools of unaccountable shadow, and
shaftlike, wavering, prismatic gleams, flinging over the crude
stage-setting a veil of fantastic charm.
The play opened, however, dully enough. The scenes chosen had had
inevitably to be compressed, run together, mangled, and Clare had not
found it easy work. Faulconbridge, bowdlerised out of all existence,
could not tickle his hearers, and King John, not yet broken in to crown
and mantle, gave him feeble support. But with the entrance of Constance,
Arthur and the French court, actors and audience alike bestirred
themselves.
Agatha, her dark eyes flashing, her lank figure softened and rounded by
the generous sweep of her geranium-coloured robes, looked an authentic
stage queen. Her exuberant movements and theatrical intonation had been
skilfully utilised by Clare, who, playing on her eager vanity, had
alternately checked and goaded her into a plausible rendering of the
part. She was the reverse of nervous; her voice rolled her opening
speech without a tremor; her impatient, impetuous delivery (she hardly
let her fellow-actors finish their lines) fitted the character and was
effective enough.
Yet to Clare, note-book in hand, prepared to pounce, cat-like, on
deficiencies, neither she nor her foil dominated the stage, nor the row
of schoolgirl princes. Her critical appreciation was for the little
figure, wavering uncertainly between the shrieking queens, with scared
anxious eyes, that swept the listening circle in faint appeal, quivering
like a sensitive plant at each verbal assault, shrinking beneath the
hail of blandishments and reproaches. The one speech of the scene, the
reproof of Constance, was spoken with un-childlike, weary dignity--
"Good my mother, peace!
I would that I were low laid in my grave;
I am not worth this coil that's made for me."
Yet it was not Arthur that spoke, nor Louise--no frightened boy or
overwrought, precocious girl. It was the voice of childhood itself,
sexless, aloof; childhood the eternal pilgrim, wandering passive and
perplexed, an elf among the giants: childhood, jostled by the uncaring
crowd, swayed by gross energies and seared by alien passions.
"She's got it," muttered Clare to Alwynne, reporting progress in the
interval; "oh, how she's got it!" She laughed shortly. "So that's her
reading. Impudent monkey! But she's got her atmosphere. Uncanny, isn't
it? It reminds me--do you remember that performance of hers last autumn
with _Childe Roland_? I told you about it. Well, this brings it back,
rather. Clever imp. I wonder how much of my coaching in this act she'll
condescend to leave in?"
"You gave her a free hand, you know," deprecated Alwynne.
"I did. But it's impudence----"
"Inspiration----"
"Impudence all the same. When the rehearsal is over I must have a little
conversation with Miss Denny." She showed her white teeth in a smile.
Alwynne caught her up uneasily--
"Clare--you're not going to scold? It wouldn't be fair. You know you're
as pleased as Punch, really."
Clare shot a look at her, but Alwynne's face was innocent and anxious.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Am I? I suppose I am. I don't know. On my word, Alwynne, I don't know!
But run along, my deputy. There's an agitated orb rolling in your
direction from the join of the curtains."
Alwynne fled.
The opening scene of the second division of the play--as Clare had
planned it--showed Arthur a prisoner to John and the old queen. The
child's face was changed, his manner strained; his startled eyes darted
restlessly from Hubert to the king and back again to Hubert; the pair
seemed to fascinate him. Yet he shrank from their touch and from
Elinor's embrace, only to check the instinctive movement with pitiful,
propitiatory haste, and to submit, his small fists clenched, to their
caresses. His eyes never left their faces; you saw the tide of fear
rising in his soul. Not till the interview with Hubert, however, was the
morbid drift of the conception fully apparent. He hung upon the man,
smiling with white lips; he fawned; he babbled; he cajoled; marshalled
his poor defences of tears and smiles, frail defiance and wooing
surrender, with an awful, childish cunning. He watched the man as a
frightened bird watches a cat; turned as he turned, confronting him with
every muscle tense. His high whisper premised a voice too weak with
terror to shriek. Yet at the entrance of the attendants there came a cry
that made Clare shiver where she sat. It was fear incarnate.
Clare fidgeted. It was too bad of Louise.... And what had Alwynne been
thinking of? A free hand, indeed! Too much of a free hand altogether!
The fact that she was listening to a piece of acting, that, in a
theatre, would have overwhelmed her with admiration, added to her
annoyance. A school performance was not the place for brilliant
improprieties. Certainly impropriety--this laborious exposure of a naked
emotion was, in such a milieu, essentially improper--Louise must be
crazy! And in what unholy school had she learned it all--this baby of
thirteen? And what on earth would staff and school say?
She stole a look at her colleagues. Some were interested, she could see,
but obviously puzzled. A couple were whispering together. A third had
chosen the moment to yawn.
Her contradictory mind instantly despised them for fools that could not
appreciate what manner of work they were privileged to watch. She saw
her path clear--her attitude outlined for her. She would glorify a
glorious effort (it was pleasant that for once justice might walk with
expediency) and her sure, instant tribute would, she knew, suffice to
quiet the carpers. But, for all that, the performances themselves should
be, she promised herself, on less dangerous lines than the
dress-rehearsal. She would have a word with Louise: the imp needed a
cold douche.... But what an actress it would make later on! Clare sighed
enviously.
The scene was nearly over. With the glad cry--"Ah! now you look like
Hubert," the enchantment of terror broke. A few more sentences and
Arthur was left alone on the stage.
As the door clanged (Alwynne was juggling with hardware in the wings)
the child's strained attitude relaxed and the audience unconsciously
relaxed with it. He swayed a moment, then collapsed brokenly into a
chair. The long pause was an exquisite relief.
But before long the small face puckered into frowns; a back-wash of
subsiding fear swept across it. The hands twitched and drummed. You felt
that a plan was maturing.
At last, after furtive glances at the door, he rose with an air of
decision, and crossed quickly to the alcove of the window. For an
instant the curtains hid him, and the audience stared expectantly at an
empty stage. When he turned to them again, holding the great draperies
apart with little, resolute fists, his face was alight with hope, and,
for the first time, wholly youthful. In the soft voice ringing out the
last courageous sentences, detailing the plan of the escape, there was a
little quiver of excitement, of childish delight in an adventure. He
ended; stood a moment smiling; then the heavy folds hid him again as
they swept into position.
There was a tense pause.
Suddenly as from a great distance, came a faint wailing cry. Thereon,
silence.
The curtains wheezed and rattled into place.
Alwynne, hurrying on to the stage to shift scenery for the following
act, nearly tripped, as she dismantled the alcove, over a huddle of
clothes crouched between backing and wall. She stooped and shook it. A
small arm flung up in instant guard.
"Louise? Get up! The act's over. Run out of the way. Stop--help me with
this, as you're here."
Obediently the child scrambled to her feet. She gripped an armful of
curtain, and trailed across the stage in Alwynne's wake. Till the
curtains rose on the final act, she trotted after her meekly, helping
where she could.
With King John embarked on his opening speech, Alwynne drew breath
again. She ran her eye over the actors, palpitant at their several
entrances, saw the prompter still established with book and lantern, and
decided that all could go on without her for a moment. She put her hand
on Louise's shoulder and drew her into the passage.
"What is it, Louise?"
"Nothing."
"What were you doing just now? Were you scared? Was it stage fright?"
"Oh no." Louise smiled faintly.
"Then what were you doing?"
Louise considered.
"I was dead. I had jumped, you know. I was finding out how it would
feel."
"Louise! You gruesome child!"
"I liked it--it was so quiet. I'd forgotten about shifting the scenery.
I'm sorry. Does it--did it hurt him, do you think, the falling?"
Alwynne put both her hands on the thin shoulders and shook her gently.
"Louise! Wake up! You're not Prince Arthur now! Gracious me, child--it's
only a play. You mustn't take it so seriously."
Louise made no answer; she did not seem to understand.
Alwynne was struck by a new idea. She took the child's face in her hand
and turned it to the gaslight.
"Did I see you at lunch, Louise? I don't believe I did. Do you know
you're a very naughty child to take advantage of the confusion?"
"Miss Durand, I had to learn. I was forgetting it all. I slipped the
last two lines as it was--you know, the 'My uncle's spirit is in these
stones' bit. I wasn't hungry."
"And you were very late, too. What did you have for breakfast?"
An agitated face peered round the corner.
"Miss Durand, which side do I come on from? Hubert's nearly off."
"The left." Alwynne hurried to the rescue, dragging Louise after her.
She hustled the anxious courier to his entrance, twitched his mantle
into position, and saw him safely on the stage. Then she turned to
Louise.
"Louise, will you please go to the kitchen and ask Mrs. Random for two
cups of tea and some buns--at once. There is some tea made, I know. I'm
tired and thirsty--two cups, please. Bring it to me here, and don't run
into any one with your hands full. Be quick--I'm dying for some."
Louise darted away on her errand. Poor Daffy did look hot and
flustered.... Daffy was such a dear ... every one worried her ... it was
a shame.... Wouldn't Daffy have been a pleasant mother? Better than
shouting Constance.... What was it she had asked for? A plum, a cherry
and a fig? No, that wasn't it. Oh, of course, tea--tea and buns.
Alwynne looked after her, smiling and frowning; she was not in the least
thirsty. What a baby it was.... But nothing to eat all day! Mrs. Denny
ought to be ashamed of herself.... She, Alwynne, would keep a vigilant
eye on her to-morrow, poor little soul.... Had she really lost herself
so entirely in the part--or was there a touch of pose? No, that was more
Agatha's line.... Agatha was enjoying herself.... She listened amusedly,
watching through a crack in the screen, till a far-away chink caught her
ear. She went out again into the passage, and met Louise with a laden
tray.
Alwynne drank with expressive pantomime and motioned to the other cup.
"Drink it up," she commanded.
"It's a second cup--for you----" began Louise.
"Be a good child and do as you're told! I must fly in a minute."
The child looked doubtful; but the steaming liquid was tempting and the
new-baked, shining cakes. She obeyed. Alwynne watched the faint colour
flush her cheeks with a satisfaction that surprised herself.
"Finish it all up--d'you hear? I must go." She hesitated: "Louise--you
were very good to-day. I am sure Miss Hartill must have been awfully
pleased."
She went back to the stage. She had had the pleasure of bringing a look
of relief to Louise's face. Alwynne could never remember that the
kindest lie is a lie none the less.
In the part of Arthur the child, unconsciously, had seen embodied her
own psychological situation. She had enacted the spirit, if not the
letter, of her own state of mind, and in the mock death had experienced
something of the sensations, the sense of release, of a real one. Left
to herself, she might gradually have dreamed and imagined and acted
herself out of her troubles, have drifted back to real life again, cured
and sane. But Alwynne, with her suggestion of good cheer, had destroyed
the skin of make-believe that was forming healingly upon the child's
sore heart. Louise awoke, with a pang of hope, to her real situation.
"I am sure Miss Hartill must have been awfully pleased." ... So pleased
that, who knew, she might yet forgive the crime of the examination? If
it might be.... "What might be must be," cried the child within her.
There came a crash of clapping; the rehearsal was over at last, and in a
few moments flocks of girls, chattering and excited, came trouping past
Louise on their way to tea.
She did not follow them. She was suddenly aware of boy's clothes. She
must change them.... She could not find Miss Hartill till she was tidy,
and she had determined to speak with her.
Miss Durand had said.... She would do as Arthur did to Hubert--she would
besiege Miss Hartill, force her to be kind, till she could say, "Oh, now
you look Miss Hartill! all this while you were disguised." She shivered
at the idea of undergoing once more the emotional experience of the
scene--but the vision of Miss Hartill transfigured drew her as a magnet
pulls a needle.
She went towards the stairs.
The big music-room at the top of the house had been temporarily
converted into a dressing-room, and she thought she would go quickly and
change, while it was still quiet and spacious. But as she pushed open
the swinging doors that divided staircase from passage, she saw Clare
coming down the long corridor. There was no one else in sight. Again
wild, unreasoning hopes flooded her. She would seize the opportunity ...
she would speak to Miss Hartill there and then.... She would ask her why
she was always angry.... Perhaps she would be kind? "I am sure Miss
Hartill must have been awfully pleased...." She must have speech with
her at once--at once....
She waited, holding open the door, her heart beating violently, her face
steeled to composure.
Clare, passing with a nod, found her way barred by a white-faced scrap
of humanity, whose courage, obviously and pitifully, was desperation.
But Clare could be very blind when she did not choose to see.
"Miss Hartill, may I speak to you?"
"I can't wait, Louise. I'm busy."
"Miss Hartill, was it all right? Were you pleased? I tried furiously.
Was it as you wanted it?"
"Oh, you played your own version." Clare caught her up sharply.
"But Miss Durand said--you said I was to."
"I expect it was all right," said Clare lightly. "I'm afraid I was too
busy to attend much, even to your efforts, Louise." She smiled
crookedly. "And now run along and change."
She pushed against the door, but Louise, beyond all control, caught back
the handles.
"Miss Hartill--you shall listen. Are you always going to be angry? What
have I done? Will you never be good to me again as you used to be?"
Clare's face grew stern.
"Louise, you are being very silly. Let me pass."
"Because I can't bear it. It's killing me. Couldn't you stop being
angry?"
Clare, ignoring her, wrenched open the door. Louise, flung sideways,
slipped on the polished floor. She crouched where she fell, and caught
at Clare's skirts. She was completely demoralised.
"Miss Hartill! Oh, please--please--if you would only understand. You
hurt me so. You hurt me so."
Clare stood looking down at her.
"Once and for all, Louise, I dislike scenes. Let me go, please."
For a moment their eyes strove. And suddenly Louise, relaxing all
effort, let her go. Without another look, Clare retraced her steps and
entered the Common-room. Louise, still crouching against the wall,
watched her till she disappeared. The doors swung and clicked into
rigidity.
There was a sudden uproar of voices and laughter and scraping chairs. A
distant door had opened.
Louise started to her feet, and sped swiftly up the stairs, flight on
flight, of the tall old house, till she reached the top floor and the
music-room. It was empty. She flung-to the door, and fumbled with the
stiff key. It turned at last, and she leaned back against the lock,
shaking and breathless, but with a sense of relief.
She was safe.... Not for long--they would be coming up soon--but long
enough for her purpose.
But first she must recover breath. It was foolish to tremble so. It only
hindered one ... when there was so little time to lose.
Hurriedly she sorted out her little pile of everyday clothes--some
irrelevant instinct insisting on the paramount necessity of changing
into them. Mrs. Denny would be annoyed if she spoiled the new costume.
She re-dressed hastily and, clasping her belt, crossed to the window.
It was tall and divided into three casements. The centre door was open.
A low seat ran round the bay. She climbed upon it and stood upright,
peering out.
How high up she was! There was a blue haze on the horizon, above the
line of faint hills, that melted in turn into a weald, chequered like
the chessboard counties in _Alice_. So there was a world beyond the
school! Nearer still, the suburb spread map-like. She craned forward.
Directly under her lay the front garden, and a row of white steps that
grinned like teeth. It was on them that she would fall--not on the
grass....
She imagined the sensation of the impact, and shuddered. But at least
they would kill one outright.... One would not die groaning in rhymed
couplets, like Arthur....
Clasping the shafts, she hoisted herself upwards, till she stood upon
the inner sill. Instantly the fear of falling caught her by the throat.
She swayed backwards, gasping and dizzy, steadying herself against the
stout curtains.
"I can't do it," whispered Louise hoarsely. "I can't do it."
Slowly the vertigo passed. She fought with her rampant fear, wrenching
away her thoughts from the terror of the death she had chosen, to the
terror of the life she was leaving. She stood a space, balanced between
time and eternity, weighing them.
With an effort she straightened herself, and put a foot on the outer
ledge. Again, inevitably, she sickened. Huddled in the safety of the
window-seat, stray phrases thrummed in her head: "My bones turn to
water"--"There is no strength in me." He knew--that Psalmist man....
She slipped back on to the floor, and walked unsteadily to the littered
table. Her hands were so weak that she could hardly lift them to pour
out a glass of water.
She leaned against the table and drank thirstily. What a fool she
was.... What a weak fool.... An instant's courage--one little
second--and peace for ever after.... Wasn't it worth while? Wasn't it?
Wasn't it? She turned again to her deliverance.
As she pulled herself on to the seat, she heard a noise of footsteps in
the passage without, and the handle of the door was rattled impatiently.
In an instant she was on the sill. This was pursuit--Miss Hartill, and
all the terrors! There must be no more hesitation. Once more she
crouched for the leap, only, with a supreme effort, to swing herself
back to safety again. Her hands were so slippery with sweat that they
could barely grip the window-shafts. There was a banging at the door and
a sound of voices calling. She swayed in a double agony, as fear strove
against fear.
She heard the voice of a prefect--
"Who is it in there? Open the door at once."
They would break open the door.... They would find her.... They would
stop her.... Coward that she was--fool and coward.... One instant's
courage--one little movement!
She stiffened herself anew. Poised on the extreme edge of the outer
sill, she pushed her two hands through the belt of her dress, lest they
should save her in her own despite. She stood an instant, her eyes
closed.
Then she sprang....