THE HANDSOME STRANGER.
Chris went upstairs feeling uncomfortable and unhappy. Instead of
opening a way out of the awkward position in which, as she had truly
said, she found herself now that the Graham-Shutes had come down, she
had drawn upon herself a proposal which had served only to complicate
the situation. She had settled nothing, moreover. Mr. Bradfield had
treated her suggestion of going away in the lightest manner, and
she could scarcely doubt that his persuasions would be successfully
exercised upon her mother, who was already strongly averse from the
idea of her daughter’s departure. She knew also that her mother would
be disappointed to hear that she had not given more encouragement to
Mr. Bradfield’s hopes of marrying her. These thoughts all troubled
her, but there was one other which distressed her still more, the
remembrance of the unhappy madman, whose treatment at the hands of Mr.
Bradfield and of Stelfox was as perplexing to her as his own conduct.
Everything in connection with Mr. Richard was a puzzle. She had herself
witnessed one of his fits of fury, culminating in savage violence, and
yet Mr. Bradfield, whose regard for her she could not help knowing to
be real, had left her alone with him in the barn. She remembered seeing
Stelfox come breathless, panting and disordered out of the east wing
after a struggle with his charge, and yet he had scoffed at the notion
that Mr. Richard would do her any harm, and had even offered to let her
meet him again.
Mr. Richard’s own conduct was more bewildering still. At one moment he
would seem to understand everything she said, the next he would pay no
attention whatever to her words. For a little while he would be silent
and perfectly gentle, then he would begin to frighten her by curious
moans and incoherent sounds. Neither of the explanations offered was a
satisfactory one. Stelfox had said that the language he talked was a
South African one, but at the idea of this Mr. Bradfield had burst into
uncontrollable laughter. His own explanation that Mr. Richard had not
enough intelligence to pick up even the rudiments of speech, was more
incredible still. The girl’s experience of madness in any form was very
slight, but she had never heard of any idiot or lunatic who was not
able to talk at all, and whatever his mental deficiencies in certain
directions might be, whatever mania he might be suffering from, it was
clear to Chris he was far from being utterly devoid of intelligence.
Rather luckily, so Chris thought a little later, Mrs. Abercarne was not
upstairs, for the girl thus had an opportunity of thinking the events
of the afternoon over carefully before she saw her mother, and decided
not to mention any of them. Poor Mrs. Abercarne had quite enough to
worry her, not only in accommodating the housekeeping arrangements
to Mrs. Graham-Shute’s erratic habits and projects, but in parrying
that lady’s persistent attempts to cast slights upon her and her
daughter. If now she were to hear, all in one breath, as it were, of
her daughter’s encounter with the madman, of her quarrel with “that
most objectionable young person,” Donald, and her refusal of the rich
Mr. Bradfield’s attentions, Chris felt that her poor mother would spend
a Christmas even less merry than she expected to do.
So the girl kept her little secrets to herself, which proved easy
enough to do, as the preparations for the _tableaux_ kept her fully
employed, and away from her mother.
The following day was a long, confused nightmare to Chris. The din of
Mrs. Graham-Shute’s voice was in her ears all the morning, and until
the time when the hastily-summoned guests began to arrive.
They had been invited for four, with a promise of tea. This, not being
within the jurisdiction of Mrs. Graham-Shute, duly came to hand. The
_tableaux_ did not. So the guests “stood about,” cold, bored, and
critical, and waited. They had assembled in the drawing-room, whence
Mrs. Graham-Shute, at the last moment, had had most of the chairs
removed to the barn, with a sudden and unnecessary spasm of fear that
there would not be seats enough for the audience.
Mr. Bradfield, in whose name the invitations had been issued, was “not
at home,” in his study. Mrs. Abercarne, whom he desired to play the
part of hostess, was completely overshadowed by Mrs. Graham-Shute, who
not only occupied a good deal of space, and made her voice resound to
the furthest extremities of the rooms, but who had a way of looking
over the heads of the assembly as if she was counting her flock, which
suggested to the meanest intelligence that she considered them all to
be for the time being her property.
Mrs. Abercarne, seeing that the message summoning the company to the
barn tarried in its coming, ordered some chairs to be brought in from
the dining-room, since people who are cold and shy and bored look
more comfortable sitting than they do standing. Mrs. Graham-Shute
countermanded the order.
So the guests continued to stand, and to try to talk, and to wonder
whether the fat and fussy lady was in her right mind.
Even Mrs. Graham-Shute, happy as she was in the consciousness that she
was doing “the right thing,” began to get rather “fidgety,” and to send
messages to the performers to know whether they were ready.
And Lilith’s answers, more frantically worded every time, were always
to the effect that they were not.
At last Mrs. Graham-Shute, telling the lady nearest to her, in the
innocence of her heart, that “if they waited about any longer the
affair would be completely spoilt,” insisted on “making a move” in the
direction of the barn. And, it having by this time grown quite dark,
while the wind had got up, and sleet begun to fall, the whole party
provided themselves with such shelter as was to hand in the shape of
waterproofs and umbrellas, and started on their way across the meadow.
When they reached the barn, they found the auditorium dimly lighted
with a few lamps and candles, while sounds of hurrying and scuffling
behind the curtains gave them a pleasing assurance that they had
still some time to wait. It was very cold and very draughty, and the
spirits of the miserable audience sank too low for the strains of “Il
Trovatore,” arranged as a pianoforte duet, and very indifferently
performed, to revive them.
For it had been discovered that Chris Abercarne was the only person
who could be trusted to ring the curtain up and down, and to be
scene-shifter, property-master, as well as wardrobe-mistress and
dresser. Therefore the local amateur musical talent had been summoned
in the shape of a young lady, whose performance was of the slap-dash
order, for the treble, and a young gentleman, whose forte lay in a
steady thumping power, for the bass. Mrs. Graham-Shute had followed the
usual rule in such small musical affairs. When in doubt play pianoforte
duets.
The fiction upon which this maxim is founded is probably that two bad
performers are equal to one good one. Besides, there is always the
chance that when one performer is wrong the other may be right, and
that the sounds made by the one who is right may drown those made by
the one who is wrong.
“Il Trovatore” having come to an end, there was a little faint
applause, and then a long interval, filled up chiefly with coughs in
front of the curtain, and loud, excited whispers behind it.
At last, when nobody had any hope left but the ever-buoyant Mrs.
Graham-Shute, the curtain did at last wobble apart, and disclose a
group of male performers, in nondescript attire, belonging to a period
so vague that one could only say that it was not the present. They held
in their hands sombrero hats, each adorned by a long ostrich feather;
but this indication of the Stuart period was contradicted by the
table-cloths which they wore round them after the fashion of the Roman
toga. On a small table in the centre of the stage was a large open
volume, on which the principal performer laid one hand, while he raised
the other in the direction of the roof.
In the bewildered audience there was a rustle of programmes, which,
written out hastily by Mrs. Graham-Shute while she was “superintending”
some other work, were not too legible.
“Taking the _Bath_!” exclaimed a perplexed old lady plaintively,
addressing Mrs. Graham-Shute, who hastened to explain that the
_tableau_ was meant to illustrate “Taking the Oath.”
But the unconscionable old lady was not yet satisfied.
“Oh, yes, of course. Very interesting, and very well done. And--let
me see, I’m afraid my history is getting rather rusty,” she said,
apologetically. “What oath was it?”
“Oh!” answered Mrs. Graham-Shute, with a little impatience in her
voice--for really, you know, people might be contented with the
pleasure you gave them, and take things for granted a little!--“it was
the Covenanters or the Wyckliffites, or some of those people in the
Middle Ages. They were always taking the oath for something or other
then, you know!”
“Oh, yes, so they were, of course,” murmured the old lady, ashamed at
her momentary thirst for exact knowledge.
“It makes an effective picture, you know,” said Mrs. Graham-Shute,
relenting when she found her questioner so meek. “And we wanted to use
the feathers and the hats.”
Then the curtains wobbled back again across the picture, and there was
a little more applause, and another duet. Then another long interval
before the curtains opened upon “The Sleeping Beauty.”
As Beauty herself and her Court ladies were all in low-necked light
dresses, and as the _tableau_ had taken some time to arrange, they
shook so much from cold, and looked so blue and pinched, that they set
the teeth of the whole audience chattering for sympathy.
The next _tableau_, “Mary Queen of Scots on her way to Execution,” was
a more ambitious one, the effect being heightened by a recitation from
a gentleman with a slight lisp. It would have gone very well but for
the fact that something had amused Her Majesty, Lilith, Queen of Scots,
who shook with laughter as long as the picture lasted.
Then followed an illustration of Millais’s picture “Yes.” This was
easy, though it was not very like the original; for, as all the male
talent among the performers was occupied in making itself up for the
next and more ambitious _tableau_, the gentleman who makes the lady say
“Yes” had to be impersonated by Miss Browne, in her brother’s ulster
and a burnt-cork moustache.
Then followed “The Fall of Wolsey.” This was a great success, and
nobody minded that Wolsey wore a moustache, thickly coated with
flour indeed, but yet perfectly visible to the naked eye. The only
_contretemps_ was the failure of memory on the part of the reciter, who
spoke Wolsey’s speech from Henry VIII., got hopelessly “mixed” in the
middle of it, and had to be audibly prompted by Cromwell.
The last _tableau_ of all was, unhappily, too ambitious. It was an
attempt to illustrate Long’s “Babylonian Marriage-Market”; but the
presence of the realistically blacked Africans unluckily suggested a
nigger entertainment on the sands to the unthinking minds among the
audience, and, the contagion rapidly spreading, the curtains were
hastily drawn amid a chorus of titters impossible to repress.
Then everybody, anxious to get home to eat the dinners which would,
undoubtedly, be spoiling, made a rush for Mrs. Graham-Shute, and told
her they had enjoyed themselves _so_ much, and that the _tableaux_
were _beautifully_ done, and that she must be quite proud to have such
clever daughters, and such a clever son.
And Mrs. Graham-Shute, quite happy, said, in her best Bayswater manner,
that she thought they were rather good, “considering they were got up
quite in a hurry, you know, and with no help at all.” And she kindly
added that she was coming to live at Wyngham, and that she would get
up “a lot more things” when she had settled down among the delighted
inhabitants.
In the meantime, Lilith, who had had an opportunity, while posing as
one of the beauties in the marriage-market, to survey the audience
as well as the dim lights would allow, was running to Chris in great
excitement.
“Do you know who the very handsome man is, sitting near the door?” she
asked eagerly.
Chris, who was tired out, and past interest in mundane affairs,
answered, wearily, that she did not know anybody, that if there was
a handsome man among the audience he didn’t belong to Wyngham, where
there were only ugly ones. Then Rose, who was present, spoke sedately:
“Oh, you don’t know Lilith, Miss Abercarne! She’s always in love with
somebody or other, and as she’s had time to forget the man she was
in love with when we left town, she is obliged to fall in love with
somebody here to fill up the time.”
However, Chris could give no information, and would not interest
herself in the matter. Her head ached; she had been too hard at work to
spare the time for a proper luncheon, but had had a sandwich brought
out to her, which she had scarcely found time to eat. Nobody had
thought of bringing her a cup of tea. She had promised her mother, who
was in dread lest the barn should be set on fire, as the result of the
afternoon’s entertainment, not to leave the building until everybody
else had gone away, and a servant had been sent to put out the lights.
While the performers were changing their dress, therefore, in the
screened-off spaces on either side of the stage, which had been fitted
up as dressing-rooms, she occupied herself in putting out such of
the footlights as had not put themselves out, and in taking down the
curtains and folding them up.
By the time this was done, the performers were leaving the building in
a body, tired and rather cross, smarting as they were with the sense
that the whole thing had been something like a failure, and that they
had not been well treated by somebody. Donald, who had not dared to
come near Chris since the severe snub he had received on the previous
day, hung about for a brief space in the rear of the rest, talking
loudly, though somewhat vaguely, and pushing about the chairs, in the
hope of attracting her attention.
But Chris never once looked round; so he presently followed the others,
feeling more bitterly than they, that he had been made a fool of, and
rendered ridiculous to the eyes of the world.