IN WHICH CHARITY SUFFERETH LONG, AND
JOAN MISSES HER CUE
Hughie spent the next few months chiefly in wondering.
He wondered what Mr. Haliburton's game might be. What was he doing
behind Lance Gaymer? That the latter might consider himself justified in
poking his nose into his only sister's affairs was understandable
enough--but why drag in Haliburton? Was that picturesque ruffian a
genuine friend of Lance's, enlisted in a brotherly endeavour to readjust
Jimmy Marrable's exceedingly unsymmetrical disposition of his property,
or was he merely a member of that far-reaching and conspicuously able
fraternity (known in sporting circles as "The Nuts"), to whom all
mankind is fair game, and whose one article of faith is a trite proverb
on the subject of a fool and his money, pursuing his ordinary avocation
of "making a bit"? In other words, was Lance Gaymer pulling Haliburton,
or was Haliburton pushing Lance Gaymer?
Hughie also wondered about a good many other things, notably--
(_a_) Joan.
(_b_) More Joan; coupled with dim speculations as to how it was all
going to end.
(_c_) More Joan still; together with a growing desire to go off again to
the ends of the earth and lose himself.
But for the present life followed an uneventful course. Since Lance's
display of fireworks at Hughie's luncheon-party, Hughie's friends had
studiously avoided the mention of the word money in their late host's
presence; and Master Lance himself, evidently realizing that, however
excellent his intentions or pure his motives, he had made an unmitigated
ass of himself, avoided Hughie's society entirely.
Of Joan Hughie saw little until the beginning of October, when he
arrived at Manors to shoot pheasants.
He was greeted, almost with tears of affection, by John Alexander Goble,
who had been retained by Jack Leroy as butler when Hughie relinquished
his services; and found the house packed with young men and maidens, the
billiard-room strewn with many-hued garments, and the atmosphere charged
with the electricity of some great enterprise in the making.
"Theatricals!" explained Mrs. Leroy resignedly, as she handed him
his tea. "Tableaux, rather. At least, it is a sort of variety
entertainment," she concluded desperately, "in the Parish Hall. In aid
of some charity or other, but that doesn't matter."
"Joey's latest, I suppose?"
"Yes; the child is wild about it. What, sweet one?" (This to the infant
Hildegard, in an attitude of supplication at her side.) "Cake? certainly
not! You are going out to tea at the Rectory in half an hour. Do you
remember what happened the last time you had two teas?"
Stodger reflected, and remembered; but pleaded, in extenuation,--
"But I did it _all_ at the Rectory, mummy."
"She was sick," explained her sister, turning politely to Hughie.
"Twice!" corroborated Stodger, not without pride.
"Yes; in a decent basin provided by the parish," continued Duckles
hazily. She had recently begun to attend church, and her reading during
the sermon had opened to her a new and fertile field for quotation.
"Tell me more about the tableaux, Jack," said Hughie hastily, as Mrs.
Leroy accelerated her ritualistic progeny's departure upstairs.
"They're spendin' lashings of money on them. Won't make a farthing
profit, I don't suppose; but the show should be all right. They're
getting a 'pro.' down to stage-manage 'em."
"My word, they are going it! Hallo, Joey!"
Miss Gaymer's entrance brought theatrical conversation up to fever heat;
and for the rest of the meal, and indeed for the next few days, Hughie
lived and breathed in a world composed of rickety scenery, refractory
pulleys, and hot size, inhabited by people who were always talking,
usually cross, and most intermittent in their feeding-times.
One afternoon Joan took him down to the Hall, ostensibly as a companion,
in reality to shift some large flats of scenery, too wide for feminine
arms to span.
Captain Leroy had already offered himself in that capacity, but his
services had been brutally declined, on the ground that the scenery was
not concave.
"The programmes are being printed to-day. We are going to have the
tableaux in the first half," Joan rattled on, as they walked through the
plantations. "Well-known pictures, you know. Some of them are perfectly
lovely. I am in three," she added, rather naïvely.
Hughie asked for details.
"Well, the first one is to be The Mirror of Venus--a lot of girls
looking into a pool."
"Are you in that?"
"Not much! _That_ is for all the riff-raff who have crowded in without
being invited--the Mellishes, and the Crumfords, and the Joblings. (You
know the lot!) There's another tableau for their men: _such_ horrors, my
dear! But that disposes of them for Part One: they don't have to appear
again until the waxworks. Then there's a perfectly sweet one--The
Gambler's Wife."
"Who is she to be?"
"Sylvia Tarrant. She sits under a tree in an old garden, looking sad,"
gabbled Joan without pausing, "while her husband gambles with some other
men on the lawn behind. You'll cry! I come after that--Two Strings to
her Bow. A girl walking arm-in-arm with two men. She looks quite pleased
with herself: the men have both got camelious hump."
"Who are they?"
"It's not quite settled yet. I told them they could fight it out among
themselves. I expect it will be Binks and Cherub, though. But they must
decide soon, because time is getting on, and Mr. Haliburton says--"
"Who?"
"Mr. Haliburton."
"Haliburton?" said Hughie, stopping short.
"Yes. Didn't you know? He is stage-managing us. He came down this
morning."
"Is he staying in the house?" was Hughie's next question.
"No: we couldn't get him in. He's putting up at The Bull, in the
village," said Joan. "I wish we could have found room for him," she
added, with intention. She knew that most men neither loved Mr.
Haliburton nor approved of their girl friends becoming intimate with
him; and this alone was quite sufficient to predispose her in that
misjudged hero's favour.
In her heart of hearts Miss Gaymer was just a little _éprise_ with Mr.
Haliburton, and, as becomes one who is above such things, just a little
ashamed of the fact. She had found something rather compelling in his
dark eyes and silky ways, but, being anything but a susceptible young
person, rather resented her own weakness. Still, the fact remained. She
had seen a good deal of Mr. Haliburton in London--how, she could hardly
explain, though possibly Mr. Haliburton could have done so--and had
listened, not altogether unmoved, to tales of a patrimony renounced for
Art's sake, of an ancestral home barred by a hot-headed but lovable "old
pater"; and to various reflections, half-humorous, half-pathetic, on the
subject of what might have been if this world were only a juster place.
Joan, who did not know that Mr. Haliburton's ancestral home had been
situated over a tobacconist's shop somewhere between the back of Oxford
Street and Soho Square, and that his "old pater" had but lately retired
from the post of head waiter at a theatrical restaurant in Maiden Lane,
in order to devote his undivided attention to the more perfect colouring
of an already carnelian proboscis, felt distinctly sorry for her
romantic friend. When a young girl begins to feel sorry for a man, the
position is full of possibilities; and when heavy-handed and purblind
authority steps in and forbids the banns, so to speak, the possibilities
become probabilities, and, in extreme cases, certainties.
Joan glanced obliquely at Hughie. That impassive young man was advancing
with measured strides, frowning ferociously. She continued, not
altogether displeased:--
"The next tableau is Flora Macdonald's Farewell--very Scotch. A man in a
kilt stands in the centre--"
She babbled on, but Hughie's attention wandered.
Haliburton again! He did not like the idea. Consequently it was not
altogether surprising if, when Joan paused to enquire whether he
regarded Queen Elizabeth or a suffragette as the most suitable vehicle
for one of Mrs. Jarley's most cherished "wheezes," Hughie should have
replied:--
"Joan, how did that chap come here? Was he engaged by you, or did he
offer himself?"
"He offered himself--very kindly!" said Joan stiffly.
"I suppose he is being paid?"
"Yes, of course--a guinea or two. It's his profession," said Joan
impatiently. "Do you object?"
The occasion called for considerable tact, and poor heavy-handed Hughie
sighed in anticipation. Joan heard him.
"What _is_ the trouble?" she asked, more amused than angry. "Out with
it, old Conscientiousness?"
"Joey," said Hughie, "I don't like the idea of your taking up with that
chap."
On the whole, it could not have been put worse.
"It seems to me," said Miss Gaymer scornfully, "that it's not women who
are spiteful, but men. I wonder why every male I know is so down on poor
Mr. Haliburton. Silly children like Binks and Cherub I can understand,
but _you_, Hughie--you ought to be above that sort of thing. What's the
matter with the man, that you all abuse him so? Tell me!"
Hughie's reply to this tirade was lame and unconvincing. The modern
maiden is so amazingly worldly-wise on various matters on the subject of
which she can have had no other informant than her own intuitions, that
she is apt to scout the suggestion that there are certain phases of life
of which happily she as yet knows nothing; and any attempt to hint the
same to her is scornfully greeted as a piece of masculine superiority.
Consequently Joey thought she knew all about Mr. Haliburton; wherein she
was manifestly wrong, but not altogether to be blamed; for when your
knowledge of human nature, so far as it goes, is well-nigh perfect, it
is difficult for you to believe that it does not go all the way.
It was a most unsatisfactory conversation. All Hughie did was to
reiterate his opinion of Mr. Haliburton without being able (or willing)
to furnish any fresh facts in support of it; and the only apparent
result was to prejudice Joan rather more violently in Haliburton's
favour than before, and to make Hughie feel like a backbiter and a
busybody. It was a relief when Joan abruptly changed the conversation,
and said:--
"Hughie, have you seen anything of Lance lately?"
No, Hughie had not. "Why?"
"I'm bothered about him," said Joan, descending from her high horse and
slipping into what may be called her confidential mood. "He used to
write to me pretty regularly, even after he married that freak, and we
were always fond of one another, even though we quarrelled sometimes.
But he seems to have dropped out of things altogether lately. Do you
know what he is doing?"
"Can't say, I'm sure," said Hughie.
"Could you find out for me?"
"Of course I will," said Hughie, quite forgetting the present
awkwardness of his relations with Lance in the light of the joyous fact
that Lance's sister had just asked him to do her a service. "I'll go and
look him up. He may be ill, or short of cash. But can't you get news of
him from--from--"
He stopped suddenly. He had been about to ask a question which had just
struck him as rather ungenerous.
"You mean from Mr. Haliburton?" said Joan, with her usual directness. "I
did ask him, but he says he has seen nothing of Lance for quite a long
time; so I'm afraid I must bother you, Hughie. I don't like to, because
I know you won't want to go out of your way on his account, after--"
"Never mind that!" said Hughie hastily. "I'll go and look him up."
Joan turned to him gratefully.
"You're a good sort, Hughie," she said. "I don't know what I should do
without you."
Hughie glowed foolishly. Her words did not mean anything, of course;
still, they warmed him for the time being. He never thought of making
capital out of Joan's impulsive outbursts of affection. He regarded them
as a sort of consolation prize--nothing more. He had never attempted to
make love to her since his first rebuff. The memory of that undignified
squabble still made him tingle, and in any case it would never have
occurred to him to renew the attack. Man-like, he had taken for granted
the rather large proposition that a woman invariably means what she
says. To pester Joan with further attentions, especially in his
exceptional position, savoured to him of meanness.
For all that, the girl and he seemed of late to have adjusted their
relations with one another. Joan never played with him now, encouraging
him one moment and flouting him the next, as in the case of most of her
faithful band. Her attitude was that of a good comrade. She was content
to sit silent in his company, which is a sound test of friendship; she
brought to him her little troubles, and occasionally ministered to his;
and in every way she showed him that she liked and trusted him. A vainer
or cleverer man would have taken heart of grace at these signs. Hughie
did not. He was Joan's guardian, and as such entitled to her confidence;
also her very good friend, and as such entitled to her affection. That
was all. It was rotten luck, of course, that she was not sufficiently
fond of him to marry him, but then rotten luck is a thing one must be
prepared for in this world. He would get accustomed to the situation in
time: meanwhile there must be no more castles in the air.
"I'll tell you what," he continued presently. "I shall be in town on
Wednesday. I'll go and look Lance up then."
"But, Hughie," cried Joan in dismay, "Wednesday is the day of the
entertainment. You _must_ come to that. What is your engagement, if it's
not indiscreet to inquire?"
"Dentist," said Hughie lugubriously.
"Dentist?" Joan laughed, or rather crowed, in her characteristically
childlike way. "Hughie at the dentist's! It seems so funny," she
explained apologetically.
"It will be the reverse of funny," said Hughie severely, "when he gets
hold of me. Do you know how long it is since I sat in a dentist's chair?
Eight years, no less!"
"You'll catch it!" said Miss Gaymer confidently. "But you simply must
not go on that day. I want you at the show. Can't you change the date?"
"The assassin gave me to understand," said Hughie, "that it was a most
extraordinary piece of luck for me that he should be able to take me at
all; and he rather suggested that if I broke the appointment I need not
expect another on this side of the grave. Besides, next Wednesday is
about our one off-day from shooting. I also--"
Miss Gaymer fixed a cold and accusing eye on him.
"Confess, miserable shuffler!" she said. "You arranged that date with
the dentist on purpose, so as to escape the theatricals."
"Guilty, my lord!" replied the criminal resignedly.
"Well, you are let off with a caution," said Joan graciously, "but
you'll have to come, all the same. You _will_, won't you, Hughie?"
"Will my presence make so much difference?" said Hughie, rather boldly
for him. He was inviting a heavy snub, and he knew it.
Joan raised her eyes to his for a moment.
"Yes," she said, rather unexpectedly, "it will."
"Then I'll come," said Hughie, with vigour. "I go to the dentist at ten.
I'll get that over, ask Lance to lunch, and come down by the afternoon
train. What time does the show begin?"
"Eight."
"The train gets in at seven-fifty. I'll come straight to the Parish
Hall--"
"You'll get no dinner," said Joan in warning tones.
"Never mind!" said Hughie heroically. "There's to be a supper
afterwards, isn't there?"
"Yes."
"I'll last out, then. By the way, does it matter if I'm not in evening
kit?"
"Not a bit, if you don't mind yourself. Of course the front rows will be
full of people with their glad rags on," said Joan. "But if you feel
shy, come round behind the scenes. Then you'll be able to keep an eye on
me--and Mr. Haliburton!" she added, with a provocative little glance.
* * * * *
Hughie duly departed to town, promising faithfully to come back for the
theatricals, and wondering vaguely why Joan had insisted so strongly on
his doing so. Joan felt rather inclined to wonder herself. She was a
little perplexed by her own impulses at present. But her mind was
occupied by some dim instinct of self-preservation, and she felt somehow
distinctly happier when Hughie promised to come.
However, there was little time for introspection. Rehearsals--"with the
accent on the hearse," as Mr. Binks remarked during one protracted
specimen--were dragging their slow length along to a conclusion; tickets
were selling like hot cakes; and presently the great day came.
Amateur theatricals are a weariness to the flesh, but viewed in the
right spirit they are by no means destitute of entertainment. The
drama's laws, as interpreted by the amateur, differ materially from
those observed by the professional branch--the members of which, it must
be remembered, have to please to live--in several important particulars;
and with these the intending playgoer should at once make himself
conversant.
Here is a _précis_:--
(1) Remember that the performance has been got up entirely for the
benefit of the performers, and that you and the rest of the audience
have merely been brought in to make the thing worth while.
(2) Abandon all hope of punctuality at the start or reasonability in the
length of the intervals. Amateur scene-shifters and musicians do not
relish having their "turns" curtailed any more than the more conspicuous
members of the cast.
(3) Bear in mind the fact that the play is _not_ the thing, but the
players. The most thrilling Third Act is as dross compared with the
excitement and suspense of watching to see whether Johnny Blank will
_really_ kiss Connie Dash in the proposal scene, or whether the fact
(known to at least two-thirds of the audience) that they have not been
on speaking terms for the past six months will result in the usual
amateur _ne plus ultra_--a sort of frustrated peck, falling short by
about six inches. Again, the joy of hearing the hero falter in a
stirring apostrophe to the gallery is enhanced by the knowledge that he
is reading it from inside the crown of his hat, and has lost the place:
while the realistic and convincing air of deference with which the
butler addresses the duchess is the more readily recognized and
appreciated by an audience who are well aware that he happens in private
life to be that lady's husband.
The entertainment to which we must now draw the reader's unwilling
attention was to consist of three parts. First, the Tableaux
Vivants--thirty seconds of tableaux to about ten minutes of outer
darkness and orchestral selection; then a comedietta; and finally, Mrs.
Jarley's Waxworks.
The largest room behind the scenes had been reserved for the lady
_artistes_; a draughty passage, furnished chiefly with flaring candles
and soda-water syphons, being apportioned to the gentlemen. The _loge
des dames_ was a bare and cheerless apartment, but tables and mirrors
had been placed round the walls; and here some fifteen or twenty maidens
manoeuvred with freezing politeness or unrestrained elbowings (according
to their shade of social standing) for positions favourable to
self-contemplation.
Joan and Sylvia Tarrant foregathered in the middle of the floor.
"I think we'd better dress here, dear," said Joan cheerfully, "and leave
the nobility and gentry to fight for the dressing-tables. After all,"
she added complacently, "you and I need the least doing up of any of
them."
The tableaux on the whole were a success, though it was some time before
the audience were permitted to inspect them. The musical director, a
nervous individual with a _penchant_ for applied science, had spent the
greatest part of two days in fixing up an electric bell of heroic
proportions controlled from the conductor's desk, and ringing into the
ear of the gentleman in charge of the lighting arrangements. A carefully
type-written document (another by-product of the musician's versatility)
apprised this overwrought official that one ring signified "stage-lights
up," and two rings "stage-lights down."
Just before the curtain rose for the first tableau the conductor pressed
his button once. After an interval of about two seconds, since the
stage-lights showed no inclination to go up,--as a matter of fact the
controller of illuminants was tenderly nursing a hopelessly perforated
eardrum,--the agitated musician, convinced that the bell had not rung,
rang it again. Consequently, just as the curtain rose, every single lamp
on the stage, from the footlights to the overhead battens, was hastily
extinguished. Confusion reigned supreme. The conductor pressed his
button frantically and continuously; the electrician lost his head
completely, and began to turn off switches which controlled the lights
in the dressing-rooms and the hall itself; while the faithful orchestra,
suddenly bereft of both light and leadership, endeavoured with heroic
but misguided enthusiasm to keep the flag flying by strident
improvisations of the most varied and individual character.
The audience, who had come prepared for anything, sat unmoved; but
dolorous cries were heard from the dressing-rooms and vestibule. Above
all rose the voice of the conductor, calling aloud for the blood of the
electrician and refusing to be comforted. The first _tableau vivant_
partook of the nature of an "extra turn," and was not foreshadowed in
the programme. It took place in the middle of the stage, and depicted
two overheated gentlemen (one carrying a _bâton_ and the other _en
déshabille_) explaining (_fortissimo_) the purport of a type-written
document to a third (who caressed his right ear all the time) by the
light of a single wax vesta.
After this gratuitous contribution to the gaiety of the proceedings the
official programme came into force, and various attractive and romantic
visions were unfolded to the audience. Certainly the tableaux were well
mounted. The success of A Gambler's Wife and Two Strings to her Bow was
beyond question. Haliburton, too, made a striking appearance in
Orchardson's Hard Hit--the famous gambling picture with the countless
packs of cards strewn upon the floor--wherein the broken gamester turns
with his hand on the door-handle to take a last look at the three men
who have mastered him.
There were minor blemishes, of course. The composure of the beauteous
band who were discovered--when the conductor had been hounded back to
his stool and the bemused electrician replaced by a man of more enduring
fibre--contemplating their own charms in The Mirror of Venus was utterly
wrecked--yea, transformed into helpless giggles--by a totally unexpected
ejaculation of "Good old Gertie!" proceeding from a young man in the
front row--evidently a brother--chiefly remarkable for a made-up tie and
a red silk handkerchief, and directed apparently (if one may judge by
consequences) at a massively-built young woman kneeling third from the
end on the prompt side. During another tableau, as Prince Charles stood
rigid in the embrace of Flora Macdonald, the audience sat spellbound for
thirty breathless seconds, what time the unhappy prince's tartan
stockings slipped inch by inch from the neighbourhood of his knees, past
the boundary line where artificial brown left off and natural white
began, right down to his ankles--a _contretemps_ which, as Mr. D'Arcy
remarked to Mrs. Leroy, added a touch of animation to what would
otherwise have been a somewhat lifeless representation.
The comedietta was not an unqualified success. It was one of those
characteristic products of what may be called the Back-Drawing-Room
School, in which complications begin shortly after the rise of the
curtain with the delivery and perusal of a certain letter, and are
automatically adjusted at the end of about thirty-five minutes by the
introduction of another, which explains everything, settles differences,
precipitates engagements, and brings the curtain down upon all the
characters standing in a row in carefully assorted couples.
This somewhat trite and conventional plot was agreeably varied by the
vagaries of the talented gentleman who played the footman responsible
for the delivery of the letters. He brought on the second letter first,
with the result that the heroine found herself exclaiming: "How foolish
I have been! Gerald had been true to me through all! I must go to him at
once! We can be married to-morrow!" after the drama had been in progress
some three minutes,--a catastrophe only tided over by some perfectly
Napoleonic "gagging" by the comic man and an entirely unrehearsed
entrance (with obvious assistance from the rear) of the footman, with
the right letter.
Fortunately these divergences from the drama's normal course were lost
upon the majority of the audience; for the actors, whether from
nervousness or frank boredom, were inaudible beyond the first three rows
of seats. Even here the feat of following the drift of the dialogue was
rendered almost impossible by the persistent and frantic applause of two
obvious "deadheads" in the front row,--poor relations of the gentleman
who played the footman,--who, since they occupied free seats, evidently
considered it their bounden duty to applaud every entrance and exit of
their munificent relative, even when he came on with the wrong letter or
was elbowed off to fetch the right one. The only member of the company
who performed his duties with anything like thoroughness was the
prompter, a retired major with lungs of brass. He had evidently decided,
with the true instinct of a strong man, that if you want a thing well
done you must do it yourself. Consequently his voice re-echoed through
the hall in an unceasing monologue which, while it lacked the variety
inseparable from the deliverances of a whole company, did much to keep
the occupants of the back benches _au fait_ with the intricacies of the
plot. The best laugh of the evening, however, was aroused by the
temerity of one of the actors, who suddenly interrupted the prompter to
remark mildly but distinctly: "All right, old man, I know this bit!"
Then came Mrs. Jarley's Waxworks. The curtain rose upon the usual group
of historical and topical characters, seated round the stage in a
semicircle, most of them twitching with incipient hysteria, and all
resolutely avoiding the eye of the audience. Presently Mrs. Jarley
(Binks), accompanied by Master Jarley (Cherub, in a sailor suit and
white socks), made her appearance, and plunged into a slightly laboured
monologue, what time her offspring walked round the stage, and, by dint
of dusting, oiling, and other operations, stimulated any of the figures
which could possibly have been mistaken for waxworks into a fitting
display of life and activity.
One "Mrs. Jarley" is very like another, and the audience, who were
beginning to suffer from a slight attack of theatrical indigestion, were
a little slow in responding to Binks's hoary "wheezes" and unfathomable
topical allusions. It was not until a bench at the back of the stage,
occupied by Oliver Cromwell, General Booth, Dorando, and a Suffragette,
suddenly toppled over backwards, and discharged its tenants, with four
alarming thuds, into the chasm which yawned between the back of the
staging and the wall, that the entertainment could be said to have
received a proper fillip. After the first sensation of surprise and
resentment at finding themselves reposing upon the backs of their necks
in the dust, the four gentlemen affected (who, it is to be feared, had
been priming themselves for this, their first appearance on any stage,
in the customary manner) accepted the situation with heroic resignation.
Remembering that they were waxworks, and for that if for no other reason
incapable of getting up, they continued in their present posture,
invisible to the naked eye except for their legs, which stuck straight
up into the air. The flagging audience, imagining that the entire
disaster was part of the performance, applauded uproariously, and Mrs.
Jarley seized the opportunity to deliver a pithy _extempore_ lecture
upon character as read from the soles of the feet.
The performance concluded with a song and chorus, specially composed for
the occasion, and sung by Mrs. Jarley and her exhibits in spasmodic
antistrophe. Mrs. Jarley began,--
"Some ladies have one figure--one, home grown!
But I have quite a lot, like Madam Tussaud.
And whatever sort of one you'd like to own,
Just order me to make it, and I'll do so.
I can make you waxen figures that can walk,
Or wave their arms, or turn and look behind 'em--"
Here, in attempting to suit the action to the word, the singer tripped
heavily over her own train, and was only saved from complete
_bouleversement_ by the miraculously animated and suddenly outstretched
arm of Henry the Eighth, who was sitting close behind. Binks continued,
quite undisturbed,--
"And some of them (the female ones!) can talk,
And it's wonderful how useful people find them.
"So send for Mrs. Jarley on the spot!
And she'll reproduce each feature that you've got.
It will save a deal of trouble
If you have a waxen double,
Which will do your work when you would rather not!"
"Now then, waxworks! All together! Give them a lead, Sousa!"
Mr. Sousa (second from the end, o. p. side) obediently began to agitate
his _bâton_, partially scalping Sunny Jim in the process, and the
waxworks sang out, _fortissimo_, with a distinct but unevenly
distributed _accelerando_ toward the end,--
"Then send for Mrs. Jarley on the spot!
And she'll reproduce each feature that you've got.
All your business she will see to,
Black your boots, and make your tea, too,
If you'll only put a penny in the slot!"
The tune was good, and the chorus went with a swing. But now a
difficulty arose. The second verse should have been sung by one of the
late occupants of the back bench--Dorando, to be precise; and Mrs.
Jarley, realizing the circumstance, was on the point of beginning it
herself, when a muffled voice, proceeding apparently from the infernal
regions, struck into the opening lines. Dorando, faint yet pursuing, was
evidently determined to fulfil his contract, even if he had to do it on
his head. For various reasons (chiefly dust and incipient apoplexy), his
articulation was not all that could be desired, and the verse, which
told of the ingenious device of one Tommy Sparkes, who, faced by the
prospect of corporal punishment,
"Sent for Mrs. Jarley on the spot,
And explained that he was going to get it hot"--
whereupon that resourceful lady
"Made a figure, small and ruddy,
To be Tommy's understudy;
And the figure got--what Tommy should have got!"
was lost upon the audience. But every one took up the chorus with a
will, and the third verse entered upon its career under the happiest
auspices.
On this occasion the lines were distributed among the figures
themselves.
"Now Mrs. Bumble-Doodle gave a ball"--
began Queen Elizabeth;
"But twenty-seven men all wired to say"--
continued Peter Pan;
"That they very much regretted, after all"--
carolled Sunny Jim;
"To find they simply _couldn't_ get away!"--
bellowed a voice (Oliver Cromwell's) from under the platform.
"Said Mrs. Bumble-Doodle, in despair"--
resumed Master Jarley, after a yell of laughter had subsided;
"The ball will be a failure--not a doubt of it!"
announced a Pierrette, with finality.
"The girls won't find a single partner there"--
wailed a waxwork in a kilt (possibly Rob Roy or Harry Lauder)--
There was a break. The piano paused expectantly, and all the waxworks
turned their heads (most unprofessionally) to see what had happened to
Cherry Ripe, whose turn it was to sing the next verse. Apparently that
lady had permitted her attention to wander, for she was scrutinising the
audience, to the neglect of her cue. The sudden silence--or possibly the
attentions of Master Jarley, who bustled up and assiduously oiled her
mouth and ears--seemed to recall her errant wits.
"Sorry!" she remarked calmly, and sang in a clear voice,--
"Oh, what a mess! How are we to get out of it?"
"She sent for Mrs. Jarley on the spot!"
declaimed that lady triumphantly,
--"And the girls were quite content with what they got.
True, a dummy cannot flirt;
But he does not tear your skirt,
Or say that he can dance when he can not!"
"Now, then, _all_ together!"
Mrs. Jarley, waxworks, and audience swung into the final chorus. Even
the four inverted Casabiancas at the back assisted by swinging their
legs.
"She sent for Mrs. Jarley on the spot!
And the girls were quite content with what they got.
They were spared that youth entrancing,
Who says: 'I don't much care for dancing,
But I don't mind sitting out with you--eh, what?'"
But Cherry Ripe was not singing. She was saying to herself,--
"Not in the hall, and not behind the scenes! I wonder where he can have
got to! He _may_ have missed his train, of course; but then he could
have wired, hours ago. Well, Hughie, _mon ami_, if that's the way you
treat invitations--"
But the curtain had fallen, and all the waxworks were scuffling off
their high chairs and trooping to the dressing-rooms. Cherry Ripe,
following their example, put an arm round Pierrette, and said:--
"Come along, Sylvia! Home, supper, and a dance! That's the programme
now."
On reaching Manors, Joan enquired of Mr. Goble,--
"Is Mr. Hughie back, John?"
"'Deed, no, mem."
"Any telegram, or anything?" asked Joan carelessly.
"Naething whatever! He'll no be back till the morn, I doot," said Mr.
Goble.
Two hours later, when supper was over and the dancing at its height, Mr.
Haliburton approached Joan.
"Our dance, I think, Cherry Ripe?" he said.
Cherry Ripe concurred.
"Will you come and sit in the conservatory?" continued Haliburton. "I
want to say something particular to you."
Joan regarded him covertly for a moment.
"All right!" she said.