His serenity continued during two or three following days, when,
continuing at the castle, he got pleasant glimpses of Paula now and
then. Her strong desire that his love for her should be kept secret,
perplexed him; but his affection was generous, and he acquiesced in that
desire.
Meanwhile news of the forthcoming dramatic performance radiated in every
direction. And in the next number of the county paper it was announced,
to Somerset’s comparative satisfaction, that the cast was definitely
settled, Mr. Mild having agreed to be the King and Miss Power the French
Princess. Captain De Stancy, with becoming modesty for one who was the
leading spirit, figured quite low down, in the secondary character of
Sir Nathaniel.
Somerset remembered that, by a happy chance, the costume he had designed
for Sir Nathaniel was not at all picturesque; moreover Sir Nathaniel
scarcely came near the Princess through the whole play.
Every day after this there was coming and going to and from the castle
of railway vans laden with canvas columns, pasteboard trees, limp
house-fronts, woollen lawns, and lath balustrades. There were also
frequent arrivals of young ladies from neighbouring country houses, and
warriors from the X and Y batteries of artillery, distinguishable by
their regulation shaving.
But it was upon Captain De Stancy and Mrs. Camperton that the weight
of preparation fell. Somerset, through being much occupied in the
drawing-office, was seldom present during the consultations and
rehearsals: until one day, tea being served in the drawing-room at the
usual hour, he dropped in with the rest to receive a cup from Paula’s
table. The chatter was tremendous, and Somerset was at once consulted
about some necessary carpentry which was to be specially made at
Markton. After that he was looked on as one of the band, which resulted
in a large addition to the number of his acquaintance in this part of
England.
But his own feeling was that of being an outsider still. This vagary
had been originated, the play chosen, the parts allotted, all in his
absence, and calling him in at the last moment might, if flirtation were
possible in Paula, be but a sop to pacify him. What would he have given
to impersonate her lover in the piece! But neither Paula nor any one
else had asked him.
The eventful evening came. Somerset had been engaged during the day with
the different people by whom the works were to be carried out and in the
evening went to his rooms at the Lord-Quantock-Arms, Markton, where
he dined. He did not return to the castle till the hour fixed for the
performance, and having been received by Mrs. Goodman, entered the large
apartment, now transfigured into a theatre, like any other spectator.
Rumours of the projected representation had spread far and wide. Six
times the number of tickets issued might have been readily sold. Friends
and acquaintances of the actors came from curiosity to see how they
would acquit themselves; while other classes of people came because they
were eager to see well-known notabilities in unwonted situations. When
ladies, hitherto only beheld in frigid, impenetrable positions behind
their coachmen in Markton High Street, were about to reveal their hidden
traits, home attitudes, intimate smiles, nods, and perhaps kisses, to
the public eye, it was a throwing open of fascinating social secrets not
to be missed for money.
The performance opened with no further delay than was occasioned by the
customary refusal of the curtain at these times to rise more than two
feet six inches; but this hitch was remedied, and the play began. It was
with no enviable emotion that Somerset, who was watching intently, saw,
not Mr. Mild, but Captain De Stancy, enter as the King of Navarre.
Somerset as a friend of the family had had a seat reserved for him
next to that of Mrs. Goodman, and turning to her he said with some
excitement, ‘I understood that Mr. Mild had agreed to take that part?’
‘Yes,’ she said in a whisper, ‘so he had; but he broke down. Luckily
Captain De Stancy was familiar with the part, through having coached the
others so persistently, and he undertook it off-hand. Being about the
same figure as Lieutenant Mild the same dress fits him, with a little
alteration by the tailor.’
It did fit him indeed; and of the male costumes it was that on which
Somerset had bestowed most pains when designing them. It shrewdly burst
upon his mind that there might have been collusion between Mild and De
Stancy, the former agreeing to take the captain’s place and act as blind
till the last moment. A greater question was, could Paula have been
aware of this, and would she perform as the Princess of France now De
Stancy was to be her lover?
‘Does Miss Power know of this change?’ he inquired.
‘She did not till quite a short time ago.’
He controlled his impatience till the beginning of the second act. The
Princess entered; it was Paula. But whether the slight embarrassment
with which she pronounced her opening words,
‘Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,
Needs not the painted flourish of your praise,’
was due to the newness of her situation, or to her knowledge that De
Stancy had usurped Mild’s part of her lover, he could not guess. De
Stancy appeared, and Somerset felt grim as he listened to the gallant
captain’s salutation of the Princess, and her response.
De S. Fair Princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.
Paula. Fair, I give you back again: and welcome, I have
not yet.
Somerset listened to this and to all that which followed of the same
sort, with the reflection that, after all, the Princess never throughout
the piece compromised her dignity by showing her love for the King; and
that the latter never addressed her in words in which passion got the
better of courtesy. Moreover, as Paula had herself observed, they did
not marry at the end of the piece, as in Shakespeare’s other comedies.
Somewhat calm in this assurance, he waited on while the other couples
respectively indulged in their love-making, and banter, including Mrs.
Camperton as the sprightly Rosaline. But he was doomed to be surprised
out of his humour when the end of the act came on. In abridging the play
for the convenience of representation, the favours or gifts from the
gentlemen to the ladies were personally presented: and now Somerset saw
De Stancy advance with the necklace fetched by Paula from London, and
clasp it on her neck.
This seemed to throw a less pleasant light on her hasty journey. To
fetch a valuable ornament to lend it to a poorer friend was estimable;
but to fetch it that the friend’s brother should have something
magnificent to use as a lover’s offering to herself in public, that
wore a different complexion. And if the article were recognized by
the spectators as the same that Charlotte had worn at the ball, the
presentation by De Stancy of what must seem to be an heirloom of his
house would be read as symbolizing a union of the families.
De Stancy’s mode of presenting the necklace, though unauthorized by
Shakespeare, had the full approval of the company, and set them in
good humour to receive Major Camperton as Armado the braggart. Nothing
calculated to stimulate jealousy occurred again till the fifth act; and
then there arose full cause for it.
The scene was the outside of the Princess’s pavilion. De Stancy, as
the King of Navarre, stood with his group of attendants awaiting the
Princess, who presently entered from her door. The two began to converse
as the play appointed, De Stancy turning to her with this reply--
‘Rebuke me not for that which you provoke;
The virtue of your eye must break my oath.’
So far all was well; and Paula opened her lips for the set rejoinder.
But before she had spoken De Stancy continued--
‘If I profane with my unworthy hand
(Taking her hand)
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this--
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.’
Somerset stared. Surely in this comedy the King never addressed the
Princess in such warm words; and yet they were Shakespeare’s, for they
were quite familiar to him. A dim suspicion crossed his mind. Mrs.
Goodman had brought a copy of Shakespeare with her, which she kept in
her lap and never looked at: borrowing it, Somerset turned to ‘Romeo and
Juliet,’ and there he saw the words which De Stancy had introduced as
gag, to intensify the mild love-making of the other play. Meanwhile De
Stancy continued--
‘O then, dear Saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purg’d!’
Could it be that De Stancy was going to do what came next in the stage
direction--kiss her? Before there was time for conjecture on that point
the sound of a very sweet and long-drawn osculation spread through the
room, followed by loud applause from the people in the cheap seats. De
Stancy withdrew from bending over Paula, and she was very red in the
face. Nothing seemed clearer than that he had actually done the deed.
The applause continuing, Somerset turned his head. Five hundred
faces had regarded the act, without a consciousness that it was an
interpolation; and four hundred and fifty mouths in those faces were
smiling. About one half of them were tender smiles; these came from the
women. The other half were at best humorous, and mainly satirical; these
came from the men. It was a profanation without parallel, and his face
blazed like a coal.
The play was now nearly at an end, and Somerset sat on, feeling what
he could not express. More than ever was he assured that there had been
collusion between the two artillery officers to bring about this end.
That he should have been the unhappy man to design those picturesque
dresses in which his rival so audaciously played the lover to his,
Somerset’s, mistress, was an added point to the satire. He could
hardly go so far as to assume that Paula was a consenting party to this
startling interlude; but her otherwise unaccountable wish that his own
love should be clandestinely shown lent immense force to a doubt of her
sincerity. The ghastly thought that she had merely been keeping him on,
like a pet spaniel, to amuse her leisure moments till she should have
found appropriate opportunity for an open engagement with some one else,
trusting to his sense of chivalry to keep secret their little episode,
filled him with a grim heat.