captive by the Moors, and was occupying herself when the play opened
with the conversion to Christianity of Ayesha, the assumed daughter of
the ever-famous Hiaya Alnayar,--a splendid anachronism (at the siege
of Granada), worthy of M. Sardou. Inez embodied all the Christian
virtues, as presented only too often for our consideration. She was
so very good that she could hardly help suspecting how good she was;
and she never spoke without uttering sentiments so noble and exalted
that the Moors--simple children of nature--hated her unaffectedly, and
made life as disagreeable for her as they knew how. The powers of evil
were represented by Zara, sister of Hiaya, and the ruling spirit of
Granada. Enlightened criticism would now call Zara a patriot; but we
held sterner views. It was she who defied the Spaniards, who refused
surrender, and who, when hope had fled, plotted the murder of Isabella.
It was she who persecuted the saintly Inez, and whose dagger pierced
Ayesha's heart in the last tumultuous scene. A delightful part to act!
I knew every line of it before the rehearsals were over, and I used
to rant through it in imagination when I was supposed to be studying
my lessons, and when I was lying in my little bed. There were glowing
moments when I pictured to myself Mary Orr falling ill the very day of
the performance, Madame Rayburn in despair, everybody thunderstruck and
helpless, and I stepping modestly forward to confess I knew the part.
I saw myself suddenly the centre of attention, the forlorn hope of a
desperate emergency, my own insignificant speeches handed over to any
one who could learn them, and I storming through Zara's lines to the
admiration and wonder of the school. The ease with which I sacrificed
Mary Orr to this ambitious vision is pleasing now to contemplate; but I
believe I should have welcomed the Bubonic plague, with the prospect of
falling its victim the next day, to have realized my dreams.
"One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name."
It was a pity that none of this dramatic fervour found expression in
my own rôle, which, though modest, was not without its possibilities.
But I was ardent only in imagination, dramatic only in my dreams. When
it came to words, I was tame and halting; when it came to gestures, I
was awkward and constrained. In vain Madame Rayburn read and re-read
me my lines, which, in her clear, flexible voice, took on meaning
and purpose. In vain she sought to impress upon me my own especial
characteristics,--a slavish spitefulness and servility. It was my
privilege to appear in the first scene, and to make the first speech of
any importance,--to strike, as I was told, the keynote of the play. The
rising curtain revealed Ayesha (Julia Reynolds) in her father's palace;
Lilly and I in attendance.
_Ayesha._ Send hither Inez.
_Lilly._ (Her one great effort.) The Christian slave?
_Ayesha_ (impatiently). Is there another Inez in the household? You
may both retire.
Obediently we bowed and retired; but on the threshold I remarked to
Lilly in a bitter undertone, audible only to the house: "Ay! ay, we
may retire. And yet I think her noble kinsmen would deem our songs and
tales better amusement for a winter's eve than all these whispered
controversies on the Christian faith that last sometimes the whole
night through. I've overheard them. But wait until Zara returns."
"Try and say those last words threateningly," Madame Rayburn would
entreat. "Remember you are going to betray Ayesha's secret. '_Wait_
until Zara returns.' And you might clench your right hand. Your _right_
hand. No, no, don't raise it. Julia, if you giggle so, I shall never be
able to teach the children anything. You embarrass and confuse them.
Try once more: '_Wait_ until Zara returns.' Now enter Inez. 'Lady, you
sent for me.'"
Rehearsals were, on the whole, not an unmixed delight. A large circle
of amused critics is hardly conducive to ease, and the free expression
of dramatic force,--at least, not when one is eleven years old, and
painfully shy. I envied Marie her fervour and pathos, her clasped
hands and uplifted eyes. I envied Elizabeth her business-like repose,
the steady, if somewhat perfunctory, fashion in which she played her
part. I envied Lilly, who halted and stammered over her three words,
but whose beauty made amends for all shortcomings. Yet day by day I
listened with unabated interest to the familiar lines. Day by day
the climax awoke in me the same sentiments of pity and exultation.
Moreover, the distinction of being in the cast was something solid and
satisfactory. It lifted me well above the heads of less fortunate,
though certainly not less deserving, classmates. It enabled me to
assume an attitude toward Annie Churchill and Emily which I can only
hope they were generous enough to forgive. It was an honour universally
coveted, and worth its heavy cost.
The night came. The stage was erected at one end of our big study-room
(classic-hall, we called it); the audience, consisting of the school
and the nuns, for no strangers were admitted on these occasions, sat in
serried ranks to witness our performance. Behind the scenes, despite
the frenzy of suppressed excitement, there reigned outward order and
tranquillity. The splendid precision of our convent training held good
in all emergencies. We revolved like spheres in our appointed orbits,
and confusion was foreign to our experience. I am inclined to think
that the habit of self-restraint induced by this gentle inflexibility
of discipline, this exquisite sense of method and proportion, was the
most valuable by-product of our education. There was an element of
dignity in being even an insignificant part of a harmonious whole.
At the stroke of eight the curtain rose. Ayesha, reclining upon
cushions, and wearing all the chains and necklaces the school could
boast, listens with rapture to the edifying discourse of Inez, and
confesses her readiness to be baptized. Inez gives pious thanks for
this conversion, not forgetting to remind the Heavenly powers that it
was through her agency it was effected. Into this familiar atmosphere
of controversy the sudden return of Zara brings a welcome breath of
wickedness and high resolve. Granada is doomed. Her days are numbered.
The Spanish army, encamped in splendour, awaits her inevitable fall.
Her ruler is weak and vacillating. Her people cry for bread. But Zara's
spirit is unbroken. She finds Inez--in whom every virtue and every
grace conspire to exasperate--distributing her own portion of food
to clamorous beggars, and sweeps her sternly aside: "Dare not again
degrade a freeborn Moslem into a recipient of thy Christian charity."
She vows that if the city cannot be saved, its fall shall be avenged,
and that the proud Queen of Castile shall never enter its gates in
triumph.
Dark whispers of assassination fill the air. The plot is touching in
its simplicity. Inez, a captive of rank, is to be sent as a peace
offering to the Spanish lines. Ayesha and Zoraiya (Elizabeth) accompany
her as pledges of good faith. Zara, disguised as a serving woman, goes
with them,--her soul inflamed with hate, her dagger hidden in her
breast. Ayesha is kept in ignorance of the conspiracy; but Zoraiya
knows,--knows that the queen is to be murdered, and that her own life
will help to pay the penalty. "Does she consent?" whispers a slave to
me; to which I proudly answer: "Consent! Ay, gladly. If it be well for
Granada that this Spanish queen should die, then Zara's niece, being of
Zara's blood, thinks neither of pity nor precaution. She says she deals
with the Castilian's life as with her own, and both are forfeited."
The scene shifts--by the help of our imagination, for scene-shifters
we had none--to Santa Fe, that marvellous camp, more like a city than
a battlefield, where the Spaniards lie entrenched. It is an hour of
triumph for Inez, and, as might be expected, she bears herself with
superlative and maddening sanctity. She is all the Cardinal Virtues
rolled into one.
To live with the Saints in Heaven
Is untold bliss and glory;
But to live with the saints on earth
Is quite another story.
When I--meanly currying favour--beg her to remember that I have ever
stood her friend, she replies with proud humility: "I will remember
naught that I have seen, or heard, or suffered in Granada; and therein
lies your safety."
The rôle of Isabella of Castile was played by Frances Fenton, a large,
fair girl, with a round face, a slow voice, and an enviable placidity
of disposition; a girl habitually decorated with all the medals,
ribbons, and medallions that the school could bestow for untarnished
propriety of behaviour. She wore a white frock of noticeable simplicity
("so great a soul as Isabella," said Madame Rayburn, "could never stoop
to vanity"), a blue sash, and a gold crown, which was one of our most
valued stage properties. Foremost among the ladies who surrounded her
was Marie, otherwise the Marchioness de Moya, mother of Inez, and
also--though this has still to be divulged--of the long-lost Ayesha.
It is while the marchioness is clasping Inez in her maternal arms,
and murmuring thanks to Heaven, and all the other Spanish ladies are
clasping their hands, and murmuring thanks to Heaven, that Zara sees
her opportunity to stab the unsuspecting queen. She steals cautiously
forward (my throbbing heart stood still), and draws the dagger--a
mother-of-pearl paper knife--from the folds of her dress. But Ayesha,
rendered suspicious by conversion, is watching her closely. Suddenly
she divines her purpose, and, when Zara's arm is raised to strike, she
springs forward to avert the blow. It pierces her heart, and with a
gasp she falls dying at Isabella's feet.
Every word that followed is engraven indelibly upon my memory. I have
forgotten much since then, but only with death can this last scene be
effaced from my recollection. It was now that Elizabeth was to make her
vehement recantation, was to be converted with Shakespearian speed.
It was now she was to fall upon her knees, and abjure Mohammedanism
forever. She did not fall. She took a step forward, and knelt quietly
and decorously by Ayesha's side, as if for night prayers. Her volcanic
language contrasted strangely with the imperturbable tranquillity of
her demeanour.
_Zoraiya._ Oh! Zara, thou hast slain her, slain the fair flower of
Granada. The darling of Hiaya's heart is dead.
_Spanish Lady._ The girl speaks truth. 'Twas Zara's arm that struck.
_Zoraiya_ (conscientiously). From this hour I do renounce the creed
whose fatal worship of bad passions has led thee on, step by step, to
this blood-guiltiness.
_Zara._ Peace, peace, Zoraiya! Degrade not thyself thus for one not of
thy blood nor race.
_Zoraiya._ Thy brother's child not of our blood nor race! Thy crime has
made thee mad.
_Zara._ Thou shalt see. I would have word with the Marchioness de Moya.
_Marchioness de Moya_ (springing forward). Why namest thou me, woman? O
Queen! why does this Moslem woman call on me?
_Isabella_ (with uplifted eyes). Pray, pray! my friend. Naught else
can help thee in this hour which I see coming. For, oh! this is
Heaven-ordained.
_Zara._ Thou hadst a daughter?
_Marchioness de Moya._ I have one.
_Zara._ One lost to thee in infancy, when Hiaya stormed Alhama. If
thou wouldst once again embrace her, take in thine arms thy dying child.
_Marchioness de Moya_ (unsteadily). Thy hatred to our race is not
unknown. Thou sayest this, seeking to torture me. But know, 'twere not
torture, 'twere happiness, to believe thy words were words of truth.
_Zara._ I would not make a Christian happy. But the words are spoken,
and cannot be withdrawn. For the rest, Hiaya, whose degenerate wife
reared as her own the captive child, will not dispute its truth, now
that she is passing equally away from him and thee.
_Spanish Lady._ Oh! hapless mother!
_Marchioness de Moya_ (proudly). Hapless! I would not change my dying
child for any living one in Christendom.
And now, alas! that I must tell it, came the burning humiliation of my
childhood. Until this moment, as the reader may have noticed, no one
had offered to arrest Zara, nor staunch Ayesha's wound, nor call for
aid, nor do any of the things that would naturally have been done off
the stage. The necessity of explaining the situation had overridden--as
it always does in the drama--every other consideration. But now, while
the queen was busy embracing the marchioness, and while the Spanish
ladies were bending over Ayesha's body, it was my part to pluck Zara's
robe, and whisper: "Quick, quick, let us be gone! To linger here is
death." To which she scornfully retorts: "They have no thought of thee,
slave; and, as for me, I go to meet what fate Allah ordains:" and
slowly leaves the stage.
But where _was_ I? Not in our convent schoolroom, not on our convent
stage; but in the queen's pavilion, witness to a tragedy which rent
my soul in twain. Ayesha (I had a passionate admiration for Julia
Reynolds), lying dead and lovely at my feet; Marie's pitiful cry
vibrating in my ears; and Zara's splendid scorn and hatred overriding
all pity and compunction. Wrapped in the contemplation of these things,
I stood speechless and motionless, oblivious of cues, unaware of Zara's
meaning glance, unconscious of the long, strained pause, or of Madame
Rayburn's loud prompting from behind the scenes. At last, hopeless
of any help in my direction, Zara bethought herself to say: "As for
me, I go to meet what fate Allah ordains:" and stalked off,--which
independent action brought me to my senses with a start. I opened my
mouth to speak, but it was too late; and, realizing the horror of my
position, I turned and fled,--fled to meet the flood-tide of Mary
Orr's reproaches.
"Every one will think that I forgot my lines," she stormed. "Didn't you
see me looking straight at you, and waiting for my cue? The whole scene
was spoiled by your stupidity."
I glanced miserably at Madame Rayburn. Of all the nuns I loved her
best; but I knew her too well to expect any comfort from her lips. Her
brown eyes were very cold and bright. "The scene was not spoiled," she
said judicially; "it went off remarkably well. But I did think, Agnes,
that, although you cannot act, you had too much interest in the play,
and too much feeling for the situation, to forget entirely where you
were, or what you were about. There, don't cry! It didn't matter much."
Don't cry! As well say to the pent-up dam, "Don't overflow!" or to
the heaving lava-bed, "Don't leave your comfortable crater!" Already
my tears were raining down over my blue tunic and yellow trousers.
How could I--poor, inarticulate child--explain that it was because
of my absorbing interest in the play, my passionate feeling for the
situation, that I was now humbled to the dust, and that my career as an
actress was closed?
In Retreat
We were on the eve of a "spiritual retreat,"--four whole days of
silence,--and, in consideration of this fact, were enjoying the unusual
indulgence of an hour's recreation after supper. The gravity of the
impending change disturbed our spirits, and took away from us--such is
the irony of fate--all desire to talk. We were not precisely depressed,
although four days of silence, of sermons, of "religious exercises,"
and examinations of conscience, might seem reasonably depressing. But
on the other hand,--happy adjustment of life's burdens,--we should have
no lessons to study, no dictations to write, no loathsome arithmetic
to fret our peaceful hearts. The absence of French for four whole
days was, in itself, enough to sweeten the pious prospect ahead of
us. Elizabeth firmly maintained she liked making retreats; but then
Elizabeth regarded her soul's perils with a less lively concern than I
did. She was not cursed with a speculative temperament.
What we all felt, sitting silent and somewhat apprehensive in the
lamplight, was a desire to do something outrageous,--something which
should justify the plunge we were about to make into penitence and
compunction of heart. It was the stirring of the Carnival spirit within
us, the same intensely human impulse which makes the excesses of Shrove
Tuesday a prelude to the first solemn services of Lent. The trouble
with us was that we did not know what to do. Our range of possible
iniquities was at all times painfully limited. When I recall it, I
am fain to think of a pleasant conceit I once heard from Mr. Royce,
concerning the innocence of baby imps. Thanks to the closeness of our
guardianship, and to the pure air we breathed, no little circle of
azure-winged cherubim were ever more innocent than we; yet there were
impish promptings in every guiltless heart. Is it possible to look at
those cheerful, snub-nosed angels that circle around Fra Lippo Lippi's
madonnas, without speculating upon the superfluity of naughtiness that
must be forgiven them day by day?
"We might blow out the lights," suggested Lilly feebly.
Elizabeth shook her head, and the rest of us offered no response.
To blow out the schoolroom lamps was one of those heroic misdeeds
which could be attempted only in moments of supreme excitement, when
some breathless romping game had raised our spirits to fever pitch.
It was utterly out of keeping with our present mood, and besides
it was not really wrong,--only forbidden under penalties. We were
subtle enough--at least some of us were; nobody expected subtlety from
Lilly--to recognize the difference.
A silence followed. Tony's chin was sunk in the palm of her hand. When
she lifted her head, her brown eyes shone with a flickering light. An
enchanting smile curved her crooked little mouth. "Let's steal the
straws from under the Bambino in the corridor," she said.
We rose swiftly and simultaneously to our feet. Here was a crime,
indeed; a crime which offered the twofold stimulus of pillage and
impiety. The Bambino, a little waxen image we all ardently admired,
reposed under a glass case in the wide hall leading to the chapel.
He lay with his dimpled arms outstretched on a bed of symmetrically
arranged straws; not the common, fuzzy, barnyard straws, but those
large, smooth cylinders, through which all children love to suck up
lemonade and soda water. Soda water was to us an unknown beverage,
and lemonade the rarest of indulgences; but we had always coveted the
straws, though the unblessed thought of taking them had never entered
any mind before. Now, welcoming the temptation, and adding deceit
to all the other sins involved, we put on our black veils, and made
demure pretence of going to the chapel to pray. Except to go to the
chapel, five little girls would never have been permitted to leave the
schoolroom together; and, under ordinary circumstances, this sudden
access of piety might have awakened reasonable suspicions in the breast
of the Mistress of recreation. But the impending retreat made it seem
all right to her (she was no great student of human nature), and her
friendly smile, as we curtsied and withdrew, brought a faint throb of
shame to my perfidious soul.
Once outside the door, we scuttled swiftly to the chapel hall. It was
silent and empty. Tony lifted the heavy glass cover which protected the
Bambino,--the pretty, helpless baby we were going to ruthlessly rob.
For a moment my inborn reverence conquered, and I stooped to kiss the
waxen feet. Then, surging hotly through my heart, came the thought,--a
Judas kiss; and with a shudder I pulled myself away. By this time, I
didn't want the straws, I didn't want to take them at all; but, when
one sins in company, one must respect one's criminal obligations.
"Honour among thieves." Hurriedly we collected our spoils,--ten shining
tubes, which left horrid gaps in the Bambino's bed. Then the case was
lowered, and we stood giggling and whispering in the corridor.
"Let's"--said Tony.
But what new villainy she meditated, we never knew. The chapel door
opened,--it was Madame Bouron,--and we fled precipitately back to the
schoolroom. As we reached it, the clanging of a bell struck dolorously
upon our ears. Our last free hour was over, and silence, the unbroken
silence of four days, had fallen like a pall upon the convent. We took
off our veils, and slipped limply into line for prayers.
The next morning a new order of things reigned throughout the hushed
school. The French conversation, which ordinarily made pretence
of enlivening our breakfast hour, was exchanged for a soothing
stillness. In place of our English classes, we had a sermon from Father
Santarius, some chapters of religious reading, and a quiet hour to
devote to any pious exercise we deemed most profitable to our souls.
Dinner and supper were always silent meals, and one of the older
girls read aloud to us,--a pleasant and profitable custom. Now the
travels of Père Huc--a most engaging book--was laid aside in favour of
Montalembert's "Life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary,"--which also had its
charm. Many deficiencies there were in our educational scheme,--it was
so long ago,--but the unpardonable sin of commonplaceness could never
be counted its shortcoming. After dinner there was an "instruction"
from one of the nuns, and more time for private devotions. Then
came our three-o'clock _goûter_, followed by a second instruction,
Benediction, and the Rosary. After supper, Father Santarius preached
to us again in the dimly lit chapel, and our fagged little souls were
once more forcibly aroused to the contemplation of their imminent
peril. Death, Judgment, Hell, and Heaven--which the catechism says are
"the four last things to be remembered"--were the subjects of the four
night sermons. Those were not days when soothing syrup was administered
in tranquillizing doses from the pulpit.
A sense of mystery attached itself to Father Santarius, attributable, I
think, to his immense size, which must have equalled that of St. Thomas
Aquinas. It was said that he had not seen his own feet for twenty
years (so vast a bulk intervened), and this interesting legend was a
source of endless speculation to little, lean, elastic girls. He was
an eloquent and dramatic preacher, versed in all the arts of oratory,
and presenting a striking contrast to our dull and gentle chaplain,
one of the kindest and most colourless of men, to whose sermons we
had long ceased to listen very attentively. We listened to Father
Santarius, listened trembling while he thundered his denunciations
against worldliness, and infidelity, and pride of place, and many
dreadful sins we stood in no immediate danger of committing. The
terrors of the Judgment Day were unfurled before our startled eyes with
the sympathetic appreciation of a fifteenth-century fresco, and the
dead weight of eternity oppressed our infant souls. Father Santarius
knew his Hell as well as did Dante, and his Heaven (but we had not yet
come to Heaven) a great deal better. Moreover, while Dante's Hell was
arranged for the accommodation of those whom he was pleased to put in
it, Father Santarius's Hell was prepared for the possible accommodation
of _us_,--which made a vast difference in our philosophy. Perhaps a
similar sense of liability might have softened the poet's vision. The
third night's sermon reduced Annie Churchill to hysterical sobs; Marie
was very white, and Elizabeth looked grave and uncomfortable. As for
me, my troubled heart must have found expression in my troubled eyes,
when I raised them to Madame Rayburn's face as we filed out of the
chapel. She was not given to caresses, but she laid her hand gently on
my black-veiled head. "Not for you, Agnes," she said, "not for you.
Don't be fearful, child!" thus undoing in one glad instant the results
of an hour's hard preaching, and sending me comforted to bed.
The next afternoon I was seated at my desk in the interval between an
instruction on "human respect"--which we accounted a heavy failing--and
Benediction. We were all of us to go to confession on the following
day; and, by way of preparation for this ordeal, I was laboriously
examining my conscience, and writing down a list of searching
questions, which were supposed to lay bare the hidden iniquities of
my life, and to pave the way to those austere heights of virtue I
hopefully expected to climb. It was a lengthy process, and threatened
to consume most of the afternoon.
"Is my conversation always charitable and edifying?"
"Do I pride myself upon my talents and accomplishments?"
"Have I freed my heart from all inordinate affection for created
things?"
"Do I render virtue attractive and pleasing to those who differ from me
in religion?"--I wrote slowly in my little, cramped, legible hand.
At this point Elizabeth crossed the schoolroom, and touched me on
the shoulder. She carried her coral rosary, which she dangled before
my eyes for a minute, and then pointed to the door, an impressive
dumb show which meant that we should go somewhere, and say our beads
together. There were times when the sign language we used in retreat
became as animated as conversation, and a great deal more distracting,
because of the difficulty we had in understanding it; but the
discipline of those four days demanded above all things that we should
not speak an unnecessary word. We became fairly skilled in pantomime by
the time the days were over.
On the present occasion, Elizabeth's rosary gave its own message, and
I alacritously abandoned my half-tilled conscience for this new field
of devotion. We meant to walk up and down the chapel hall (past the
de-spoiled Bambino), but at the schoolroom door we encountered Madame
Rayburn.