The entertainment was to be the second night after that, and Mrs. Milray
at first took the whole affair into her own hands. She was willing to
let the others consult with her, but she made all the decisions, and she
became so prepotent that she drove Lord Lioncourt to rebellion in the
case of some theatrical people whom he wanted in the programme. He
wished her to let them feel that they were favoring rather than favored,
and she insisted that it should be quite the other way. She professed a
scruple against having theatrical people in the programme at all, which
she might not have felt if her own past had been different, and she
spoke with an abhorrence of the stage which he could by no means
tolerate in the case. She submitted with dignity when she could not help
it. Perhaps she submitted with too much dignity. Her concession verged
upon hauteur; and in her arrogant meekness she went back to another
of her young men, whom she began to post again as the companion of her
promenades.
He had rather an anxious air in the enjoyment of the honor, but the
Englishman seemed unconscious of its loss, or else he chose to ignore
it. He frankly gave his leisure to Clementina, and she thought he was
very pleasant. There was something different in his way from that of any
of the other men she had met; something very natural and simple, a way
of being easy in what he was, and not caring whether he was like others
or not; he was not ashamed of being ignorant of anything he did not
know, and she was able to instruct him on some points. He took her quite
seriously when she told him about Middlemount, and how her family came
to settle there, and then how she came to be going to Europe with
Mrs. Lander. He said Mrs. Milray had spoken about it; but he had not
understood quite how it was before; and he hoped Mrs. Lander was coming
to the entertainment.
He did not seem aware that Mrs. Milray was leaving the affair more and
more to him. He went forward with it and was as amiable with her as she
would allow. He was so amiable with everybody that he reconciled many
true Americans to his leadership, who felt that as nearly all the
passengers were Americans, the chief patron of the entertainment ought
to have been some distinguished American. The want of an American who
was very distinguished did something to pacify them; but the behavior of
an English lord who put on no airs was the main agency. When the night
came they filled the large music room of the 'Asia Minor', and stood
about in front of the sofas and chairs so many deep that it was hard to
see or hear through them.
They each paid a shilling admittance; they were prepared to give
munificently besides when the hat came round; and after the first burst
of blundering from Lord Lioncourt, they led the magnanimous applause. He
said he never minded making a bad speech in a good cause, and he made
as bad a one as very well could be. He closed it by telling Mark Twain's
whistling story so that those who knew it by heart missed the point; but
that might have been because he hurried it, to get himself out of the
way of the others following. When he had done, one of the most ardent of
the Americans proposed three cheers for him.
The actress whom he had secured in spite of Mrs. Milray appeared
in woman's dress contrary to her inveterate professional habit, and
followed him with great acceptance in her favorite variety-stage song;
and then her husband gave imitations of Sir Henry Irving, and of Miss
Maggie Kline in “T'row him down, McCloskey,” with a cockney accent. A
frightened little girl, whose mother had volunteered her talent, gasped
a ballad to her mother's accompaniment, and two young girls played a
duet on the mandolin and guitar. A gentleman of cosmopolitan military
tradition, who sold the pools in the smoking-room, and was the friend of
all the men present, and the acquaintance of several, gave selections of
his autobiography prefatory to bellowing in a deep bass voice, “They're
hanging Danny Deaver,” and then a lady interpolated herself into the
programme with a kindness which Lord Lioncourt acknowledged, in saying
“The more the merrier,” and sang Bonnie Dundee, thumping the piano out
of all proportion to her size and apparent strength.
Some advances which Clementina had made for Mrs. Milray's help about the
dress she should wear in her dance met with bewildering indifference,
and she had fallen back upon her own devices. She did not think of
taking back her promise, and she had come to look forward to her part
with a happiness which the good weather and the even sway of the ship
encouraged. But her pulses fluttered, as she glided into the music room,
and sank into a chair next Mrs. Milray. She had on an accordion skirt
which she had been able to get out of her trunk in the hold, and she
felt that the glance of Mrs. Milray did not refuse it approval.
“That will do nicely, Clementina,” she said. She added, in careless
acknowledgement of her own failure to direct her choice, “I see you
didn't need my help after all,” and the thorny point which Clementina
felt in her praise was rankling, when Lord Lioncourt began to introduce
her.
He made rather a mess of it, but as soon as he came to an end of his
well-meant blunders, she stood up and began her poses and paces. It was
all very innocent, with something courageous as well as appealing. She
had a kind of tender dignity in her dance, and the delicate beauty of
her face translated itself into the grace of her movements. It was not
impersonal; there was her own quality of sylvan, of elegant in it; but
it was unconscious, and so far it was typical, it was classic; Mrs.
Milray's Bostonian achieved a snub from her by saying it was like a
Botticelli; and in fact it was merely the skirt-dance which society had
borrowed from the stage at that period, leaving behind the footlights
its more acrobatic phases, but keeping its pretty turns and bows and
bends. Clementina did it not only with tender dignity, but when she
was fairly launched in it, with a passion to which her sense of Mrs.
Milray's strange unkindness lent defiance. The dance was still so new a
thing then, that it had a surprise to which the girl's gentleness lent
a curious charm, and it had some adventitious fascinations from the
necessity she was in of weaving it in and out among the stationary
armchairs and sofas which still further cramped the narrow space where
she gave it. Her own delight in it shone from her smiling face, which
was appealingly happy. Just before it should have ended, one of those
wandering waves that roam the smoothest sea struck the ship, and
Clementina caught herself skilfully from falling, and reeled to her
seat, while the room rang with the applause and sympathetic laughter
for the mischance she had baffled. There was a storm of encores, but
Clementina called out, “The ship tilts so!” and her naivete won her
another burst of favor, which was at its height when Lord Lioncourt had
an inspiration.
He jumped up and said, “Miss Claxon is going to oblige us with a little
bit of dramatics, now, and I'm sure you'll all enjoy that quite as much
as her beautiful dancing. She's going to take the principal part in the
laughable after-piece of Passing round the Hat, and I hope the audience
will--a--a--a--do the rest. She's consented on this occasion to use a
hat--or cap, rather--of her own, the charming Tam O'Shanter in which
we've all seen her, and--a--admired her about the ship for the week
past.”
He caught up the flat woolen steamer-cap which Clementina had left in
her seat beside Mrs. Milray when she rose to dance, and held it aloft.
Some one called out, “Chorus! For he's a jolly good fellow,” and led
off in his praise. Lord Lioncourt shouted through the uproar the
announcement that while Miss Claxon was taking up the collection, Mr.
Ewins, of Boston, would sing one of the student songs of Cambridge--no!
Harvard--University; the music being his own.
Everyone wanted to make some joke or some compliment to Clementina
about the cap which grew momently heavier under the sovereigns and
half sovereigns, half crowns and half dollars, shillings, quarters,
greenbacks and every fraction of English and American silver; and the
actor who had given the imitations, made bold, as he said, to ask his
lordship if the audience might not hope, before they dispersed, for
something more from Miss Claxon. He was sure she could do something
more; he for one would be glad of anything; and Clementina turned from
putting her cap into Mrs. Milray's lap, to find Lord Lioncourt bowing
at her elbow, and offering her his arm to lead her to the spot where she
had stood in dancing.
The joy of her triumph went to her head; she wished to retrieve herself
from any shadow of defeat.
She stood panting a moment, and then, if she had had the professional
instinct, she would have given her admirers the surprise of something
altogether different from what had pleased them before. That was what
the actor would have done, but Clementina thought of how her dance had
been brought to an untimely close by the rolling of the ship; she burned
to do it all as she knew it, no matter how the sea behaved, and in
another moment she struck into it again. This time the sea behaved
perfectly, and the dance ended with just the swoop and swirl she had
meant it to have at first. The spectators went generously wild over her;
they cheered and clapped her, and crowded upon her to tell how lovely it
was; but she escaped from them, and ran back to the place where she had
left Mrs. Milray. She was not there, and Clementina's cap full of alms
lay abandoned on the chair. Lord Lioncourt said he would take charge of
the money, if she would lend him her cap to carry it in to the purser,
and she made her way into the saloon. In a distant corner she saw Mrs.
Milray with Mr. Ewins.
She advanced in a vague dismay toward them, and as she came near Mrs.
Milray said to Mr. Ewins, “I don't like this place. Let's go over
yonder.” She rose and rushed him to the other end of the saloon.
Lord Lioncourt came in looking about. “Ah, have you found her?” he
asked, gayly. “There were twenty pounds in your cap, and two hundred
dollars.”
“Yes,” said Clementina, “she's over the'a.” She pointed, and then shrank
and slipped away.