AMATEUR CHARITY.
As soon as the ladies were in the drawing-room, Mrs. Graham-Shute
returned to her point. As her daughters, used to mamma’s ways of
“getting up” entertainments, were unsympathetic, and as Mrs. Abercarne
was on her dignity, she was forced to pour out her proposals into the
ear of Chris. Anxious to secure at least this one ally, she became very
gracious to the girl.
“I’m sure you would be glad of some gaiety to vary the monotony of your
life here,” she said, with condescension. “Now, what do you say to
_tableaux vivants_? I’m sure we might get some up by Thursday. This is
only Monday, so we have three clear days.”
“There would be a great deal to do in such a short time,” said Chris.
“And where would you have them?”
“Oh! in this room of course. It is beautifully adapted for the
purpose. There’s the opening for the curtains between the two rooms,
and a door to each, one for the audience, the other for the performers.”
She was so enthusiastic that Chris felt quite sorry that she must
destroy this charming arrangement by pointing out that the room was
wanted for the ball on Friday night, and that there would be no time to
put up a stage on Thursday and to take it down and re-arrange the room
for the night after.
“Well, there must be some other room in a big place like this,” said
Mrs. Graham-Shute, still buoyantly. “Come, you set your wits to work
to help me, like a dear girl, and I’m sure we shall manage something
between us.”
Chris began to see that she had better indulge her, as she would want
something to keep her occupied during the next few days.
“There’s a great place that was built for a barn, that was used for a
school treat in the summer, I believe. It’s down by the new stables, a
quarter of a mile away. I don’t know whether that would do. There are
some tables and trestles piled up in one corner; perhaps they could be
made into a stage.”
“The very thing!” cried Mrs. Graham-Shute, enthusiastically. “I knew we
should manage it somehow.”
But Chris saw difficulties where her companion saw none.
“But you will want a lot of people, performers and spectators too,” she
objected. “And then, have you considered that there will be dresses to
be made, and scenes to be rehearsed? There’s a lot of work to be done
to get _tableaux_ up properly.”
But to get a thing up properly was what Mrs. Graham-Shute never
troubled to do. To get it up somehow was always the extreme limit of
her ambition. She was already perfectly satisfied, and she proceeded at
once to settle other details as summarily as the first.
“We will do fairy tales, I think,” she said. “The dresses will be
cheap and easily made. We can have the ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ with Lilith
as Beauty, and ‘Robinson Crusoe’ and ‘Red Riding Hood,’ and--and any
of those things, don’t you know? With all my cousin’s curiosities and
things we can make a lovely palace for the ‘Sleeping Beauty.’”
Mrs. Abercarne had raised her double eye-glass, and was looking
horror-struck at this suggested desecration.
Chris, with a frightened glance at her mother, hastened to say:
“But, then, the performers? Who would you have for the _tableaux_?”
“Oh, well, there must be some family in the neighbourhood quite used to
such things. There always is, you know. I must ask my cousin John about
that. I suppose you wouldn’t know of anybody?”
“Well, there are the Brownes. Mr. Browne is a brewer, the head of the
firm of Browne & Browne. It’s a large family, and they can act, I
believe.”
“Then they will do beautifully,” said Mrs. Graham-Shute, complacently.
“We will have them just to fill up. They can play the pages and
court ladies, and one of them can be the Wolf in ‘Red Hiding Hood;’
and another can black himself for Man Friday. Of course, Lilith,
and Rose, and Donald will take the principal parts, for they want a
little acting, you know. People think it’s only just to stand still,
but really you have to be quite clever to do it really well. And now
there’s nothing left to decide but what’s it to be for. Of course, it
must be in aid of something. I must go and see the vicar’s wife--if he
has a wife--to-morrow, and settle that.”
“You don’t mean to charge to see them, do you?” exclaimed Chris, in
astonishment. “Done in such a hurry, would they be worth it?”
“Oh, people don’t mind when it’s for a charity,” answered the lady,
breezily. “Besides, I’m sure they’ll be very good. You will spare no
pains in getting the dresses ready, and all the little etceteras, will
you? I don’t mind organizing these things a bit, but I must have a
willing lieutenant to carry out the petty details,” she ended, with a
smile.
Chris thought that upon the whole the “petty details” would be quite
equal in value to the “organisation,” but all she said was:
“Of course, I will do all I can. But I’m afraid you will have to give
up the idea of making a charge for admission. Mr. Bradfield would never
allow it, I’m sure.”
Mrs. Graham-Shute, losing her good humour in a moment, looked at her
with fishy eyes. Who was this girl that she should profess to know more
than she did about her “cousin John?”
“Oh, that would take all the sense out of the thing altogether,” she
said, coldly. “If any little thing should go wrong, the lights all go
out, as happened once, I remember; or the people be obliged to go on in
their ordinary dress, as we had to do once for the murder of Rizzio,
people can grumble or make fun of you if it’s not for a charity. Young
people don’t consider these things. I’m sure, if Mr. Bradfield doesn’t
like it much, he’ll give way if I coax him.”
Chris said nothing; and as the gentlemen came in at that moment, Mrs.
Graham-Shute proceeded straightway to use her blandishments on her
cousin.
“We’re going to give _tableaux vivants_ in the barn by the stables,
John,” she said, attacking him at once. “Miss Abercarne says we can
make a lovely stage there with some trestles and things that are there
already for us. And she says that the Brownes will play the smaller
parts beautifully, and I’m going to see them about it to-morrow. And
we’re going to do the ‘Sleeping Beauty.’”
“I’ve no objection. But if you must have a ‘Beauty’ picture, have
‘Beauty and the Beast.’ Of course Miss Abercarne will play Beauty, and
I’ll play the other chap.”
Mrs. Graham-Shute’s face fell.
“We had thought of making Lilith play Beauty; you see it wants some
aptitude, and a little experience in these things to play an important
part like Beauty. But, of course, if Miss Abercarne thinks she can do
it better----”
“She can _look_ it better, that’s the point,” interrupted Mr.
Bradfield, with conviction. “The prettiest girl must play Beauty, and
you can’t deny that Miss Abercarne _is_ the prettiest. Ask William.”
Mr. Graham-Shute agreed enthusiastically; and the girls, who were all
three gathered round the piano, wondered what was amusing the gentlemen
so much, and making mamma so angry. But it was at the suggestion of
making a charge for admission that John Bradfield put his foot down
the most cruelly on his cousin’s little plans. He would not hear of it.
He was quite ready to pay them to come in, he said, if that should be
necessary; but he could not think of allowing people who would be his
guests on the following night, to pay for what was not worth paying for.
And Mrs. Graham-Shute had to swallow her mortification as best she
could.
“Perhaps,” she said, when she had mastered her vexation sufficiently to
speak, “we had better give up the idea of having the _tableaux_, and
think of something else. The time is very short, and if we are to have
a lot of incompetent people in the principal parts, it will not, as you
say, cousin John, be worth paying to see, or even seeing at all.”
“But,” said John Bradfield, who saw through the poor lady’s little
manœuvres, and loved to tease her. “I won’t have them given up. They
will amuse you at any rate, and I want to see Miss Christina with her
hair down. She’ll have to wear it down as Beauty, won’t she?”
Each word was making the poor lady more angry. She saw her husband
laughing at her, and at last she could bear it no longer.
“Oh, if the affair is going to be spoilt in this way, I wash my hands
of it. I thought it was to be kept in the family.”
“What family? The Brownes?” cried John Bradfield, as he crossed the
room and broke up the knot of girls. “Miss Christina, there’s a
difficulty about the part of Beauty. I’m sure you won’t mind playing
it, if I play the Beast, will you?”
Poor Chris grew crimson, and Lilith looked surprised. It was her
mother’s fault that she had been taught to consider herself, not an
ordinarily pretty girl, but a peerless beauty, with whom all other
good-looking girls were out of the running.
“Mrs. Shute doesn’t think you are clever enough to stand and be looked
at, Miss Christina,” he went on mischievously. “But I want you to
vindicate your claims to intellect.”
“On the contrary,” interrupted his cousin in a shrill, offended tone,
“I thought Miss Abercarne’s talents would be wasted in such a trifling
part. I thought she would like better to play the music. We must have a
musical accompaniment.”
“Yes, yes; I should like that much better,” said poor Chris, who saw
that she had been made the instrument for worrying the stout lady to
the verge of apoplexy. “Make me of use in any way you like, as long as
you don’t want me to go on the stage.”
And so the incident ended in a discussion of the dresses, and in
choosing the subjects to be illustrated.