CHARADES.
The drawing-room at Leeholme was filled with a brilliant party of
guests. It was the eve of Lady Hermione’s birthday, and they were
invited to do her honor.
All the _élite_ of the country were present, for though Clarice Severn
was perhaps more beautiful, no one was so dearly loved as the charming,
gifted daughter of Lord Lorriston.
Apart from the others was a group of young people, busily engaged in
discussing the morrow’s _fête_. It was the general wish that charades
should be the feature of the entertainment. Lord Lorriston, who
indulged his daughter in every caprice she chose to adopt, had arranged
one of the largest rooms in the house as a theatre. It was one of the
most perfect and complete little theatres ever seen. There was a pretty
stage with a row of foot-lights, a greenroom, scenes painted by a
celebrated artist, and Lady Hermione had no greater pleasure than the
arrangement and management of her favorite plays.
The group holding this discussion had sought refuge in the deep recess
of a large bay window. The lamps were lighted in the drawing-room,
but the fairy nook seemed filled yet with the evening gloaming. The
long curtains were not drawn, the window was slightly open, and the
fragrance of the flowers floated in. Lady Hermione was speaking, and
Sir Ronald, who listened to every note of that sweet, musical voice,
thought how perfectly it harmonized with the fragrance of the flowers.
“We must have everything arranged beforehand,” she was saying; “nothing
spoils tableaux so entirely as long waiting between the pictures--the
audience grows tired beforehand. Let us go to the greenroom now and
rehearse.”
An idea that was most warmly received. The other members of the party
were engaged with cards, chess, or in conversation. Miss Salve, a
beautiful Italian, visiting in the neighborhood, was singing, and
singing so delightfully that she was listened to with the most profound
attention. One by one the members of the little group stole away
unperceived, and met in the greenroom with a laugh. There were Lady
Hermione, Miss Severn, pretty Clara Seville, Isabel Gordon, a beauty of
Spanish type; Lilian Monteith, a calm, grand, impassive blonde, whose
share in the programme was simply to look beautiful and say nothing.
There were Sir Ronald, Kenelm Eyrle, Captain Gordon and Sir Harry
Bellaire. It seemed to Lady Hermione that her assistants were much
disposed to waste their time in sentimental conversation. She looked
around with that pretty, willful impatience that was one of her
greatest charms.
“Do let us begin to work,” she said. “Clarice, you open the tableaux
with what is really the prettiest of all.”
“Your own design,” interrupted Sir Ronald.
“Ah, never mind; it is easy to design, but difficult to carry out. Now,
‘Sunshine.’”
For the first tableau represented a picture called “Sunshine,” Miss
Severn standing in the middle of the stage, her golden hair falling
like a bright, gleaming veil around her. Her dress was of some
golden-hued fabric that resembled nothing so much as sunbeams. Flowers
of every hue were heaped on her white breast and arms, and lay at
her feet. The light, arranged so as to fall above, poured a flood of
radiance on the brightest picture that was ever seen.
“It is simply perfect,” said Kenelm. “I should like all the world to
see ‘Sunshine.’”
“But you must remember,” said Miss Severn, with a bright blush and a
smile, “that every one would not see it with your eyes.”
It pierced her to the heart, knowing that she had never looked more
beautiful, to see that Sir Ronald did not look at her, made no remark
upon the beauty of the picture, neither praised nor suggested, but was
simply indifferent. All Kenelm’s admiration was wasted after that.
The next tableau was “Evening,” a picture almost as beautiful; Isabel
Gordon in a dark dress studded with stars, the light subdued and
silvery as moonlight, her dark hair crowned with a wreath of stars,
her dreamy, lovely Italian face inexpressibly tender and lovely in the
glittering starlight.
Clarice noticed that Sir Ronald did admire Isabel Gordon. She overheard
him say to Lady Hermione:
“If you had searched the world through, you could not have found a
lovelier ‘Evening.’”
“I think Clarice is the more beautiful of the two,” Lady Hermione
replied.
“I like the gleam of ‘starlight’ better than the glitter of
‘sunshine,’” he said, and Clarice Severn overheard the words.
“It will not be always,” she said to herself; “the time will come when
he will love me best.”
“Those are two beautiful pictures,” said Kenelm; “but we must have
variety. The next should be full of figures. What is it? A scene from
‘Henry VIII.’”
It was a simple little scene that Lady Hermione had read in some
historical novel: Queen Anne Boleyn, dressed for some grand court
ceremonial, was seated in an armchair waiting while a white ostrich
plume was fastened in her dress. Her beautiful maid of honor, Jane
Seymour, was standing behind the chair. The king, waiting half
impatiently, half admiringly, for the queen, stood watching the little
group. The attendant sewing on the plume let it fall. Jane Seymour
raised it from the ground. Bluff Henry said with a smile:
“Never mind; keep it for your own adornment, Lady Jane.”
It was then, and for the first time, that the unhappy Anne Boleyn
suspected the love of her false lord had left her. There was some
discussion as to how the different characters should be distributed.
Sir Ronald was to be King Henry.
“Clarice,” said Lady Hermione, “you will make a better queen than I
can. I will be Jane Seymour.”
She went away then to attend to some one who was seeking a costume, and
Clarice raised her eyes to Sir Ronald’s face.
“I would so much rather take the part of Jane Seymour myself.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I have been thinking over the scene and I am quite sure the
king loved Jane best.”
Then she suddenly remembered all that her words implied and her
beautiful face flushed crimson, her eyes drooped, her white hands
clasped each other nervously.
But Sir Ronald was too deeply in love to even draw the very palpable
inference.
“If you prefer the part, you must have it,” he said, and that picture
was, perhaps, more loudly applauded than any other. Sir Ronald, dressed
in the rich costume of King Henry, looked superbly handsome. Lady
Hermione, as Queen Anne, was beautiful, even with that expression of
sudden, keen, unutterable pain on her face. Jane Seymour was more
lovely still, for the king’s bold, admiring glance caused a sudden
flush of joy in her face, as she looked proud to receive it, yet half
afraid the queen might resent it.
“I know you do not care for tragedy, Lady Hermione,” said Sir Ronald;
“but I entreat you just for once to lay aside your prejudice. There is
a picture in our gallery at Aldenmere that would make a splendid sequel
to this--Anne Boleyn the night before her execution--a queen no longer,
but a despairing, unhappy woman. It is the very sublimity of woe. Will
you try it?”
She would have tried anything he asked her. Sir Ronald gave her every
detail of the picture, and many people pronounced it the gem of the
night.
Lady Hermione, as Anne Boleyn, wore a robe of plain black that showed
to full perfection the outline of her graceful figure. She was
represented as kneeling, praying in her cell alone. Her face was a
triumph of art; the color, the brightness, the light, the happiness had
died from out it; the eyes were filled with unutterable woe, the white
face with anguish deeper and stronger than death.
When he saw how faithfully Lady Hermione rendered the picture, Sir
Ronald repented of having asked her to undertake it. He went to meet
her as she came off the stage.
“Smile at me,” he said. “Was I mad, Hermione, to ask you to look like
that sorrowful queen? Smile at me, that I may forget it, or it will
haunt me all night.”
She smiled, but her lips quivered. How little he dreamed the time was
to come when he would see the face he loved in sadder guise than that
of the murdered queen.
“My king, when I find him,” she said, laughingly, “will not slay me.”
“Nor shall my queen die while I live,” he replied; and then Lady
Hermione hastened away. She could not listen to love words, even from
him, just then.
Then came a very beautiful tableau of Antony and Cleopatra, followed
by some taken from scenes in Lord Lytton’s novels.
Lady Hermione bore her part in all, but her heart and soul trembled
with the passion of anguish and sorrow into which she had thrown
herself so as to fully represent the murdered queen.
“If we succeed to-morrow night as well as we have done at rehearsal,”
said Mr. Eyrle, “the _fête_ at Leeholme will be long remembered.”
Yet the picture that haunted him was the bright-faced, golden-haired
girl, clasping rich flowers to her breast, and called “Sunshine.”