Mr. Vanstone’s inquiries into the proposed theatrical entertainment at
Evergreen Lodge were answered by a narrative of dramatic disasters; of
which Miss Marrable impersonated the innocent cause, and in which her
father and mother played the parts of chief victims.
Miss Marrable was that hardest of all born tyrants—an only child. She
had never granted a constitutional privilege to her oppressed father
and mother since the time when she cut her first tooth. Her seventeenth
birthday was now near at hand; she had decided on celebrating it by
acting a play; had issued her orders accordingly; and had been obeyed
by her docile parents as implicitly as usual. Mrs. Marrable gave up the
drawing-room to be laid waste for a stage and a theater. Mr. Marrable
secured the services of a respectable professional person to drill the
young ladies and gentlemen, and to accept all the other
responsibilities incidental to creating a dramatic world out of a
domestic chaos. Having further accustomed themselves to the breaking of
furniture and the staining of walls—to thumping, tumbling, hammering,
and screaming; to doors always banging, and to footsteps perpetually
running up and down stairs—the nominal master and mistress of the house
fondly believed that their chief troubles were over. Innocent and fatal
delusion! It is one thing in private society to set up the stage and
choose the play—it is another thing altogether to find the actors.
Hitherto, only the small preliminary annoyances proper to the occasion
had shown themselves at Evergreen Lodge. The sound and serious troubles
were all to come.
“The Rivals” having been chosen as the play, Miss Marrable, as a matter
of course, appropriated to herself the part of “Lydia Languish.” One of
her favored swains next secured “Captain Absolute,” and another laid
violent hands on “Sir Lucius O’Trigger.” These two were followed by an
accommodating spinster relative, who accepted the heavy dramatic
responsibility of “Mrs. Malaprop”—and there the theatrical proceedings
came to a pause. Nine more speaking characters were left to be fitted
with representatives; and with that unavoidable necessity the serious
troubles began.
All the friends of the family suddenly became unreliable people, for
the first time in their lives. After encouraging the idea of the play,
they declined the personal sacrifice of acting in it—or, they accepted
characters, and then broke down in the effort to study them—or they
volunteered to take the parts which they knew were already engaged, and
declined the parts which were waiting to be acted—or they were
afflicted with weak constitutions, and mischievously fell ill when they
were wanted at rehearsal—or they had Puritan relatives in the
background, and, after slipping into their parts cheerfully at the
week’s beginning, oozed out of them penitently, under serious family
pressure, at the week’s end. Meanwhile, the carpenters hammered and the
scenes rose. Miss Marrable, whose temperament was sensitive, became
hysterical under the strain of perpetual anxiety; the family doctor
declined to answer for the nervous consequences if something was not
done. Renewed efforts were made in every direction. Actors and
actresses were sought with a desperate disregard of all considerations
of personal fitness. Necessity, which knows no law, either in the drama
or out of it, accepted a lad of eighteen as the representative of “Sir
Anthony Absolute”; the stage-manager undertaking to supply the
necessary wrinkles from the illimitable resources of theatrical art. A
lady whose age was unknown, and whose personal appearance was stout—but
whose heart was in the right place—volunteered to act the part of the
sentimental “Julia,” and brought with her the dramatic qualification of
habitually wearing a wig in private life. Thanks to these vigorous
measures, the play was at last supplied with representatives—always
excepting the two unmanageable characters of “Lucy” the waiting-maid,
and “Falkland,” Julia’s jealous lover. Gentlemen came; saw Julia at
rehearsal; observed her stoutness and her wig; omitted to notice that
her heart was in the right place; quailed at the prospect, apologized,
and retired. Ladies read the part of “Lucy”; remarked that she appeared
to great advantage in the first half of the play, and faded out of it
altogether in the latter half; objected to pass from the notice of the
audience in that manner, when all the rest had a chance of
distinguishing themselves to the end; shut up the book, apologized, and
retired. In eight days more the night of performance would arrive; a
phalanx of social martyrs two hundred strong had been convened to
witness it; three full rehearsals were absolutely necessary; and two
characters in the play were not filled yet. With this lamentable story,
and with the humblest apologies for presuming on a slight acquaintance,
the Marrables appeared at Combe-Raven, to appeal to the young ladies
for a “Lucy,” and to the universe for a “Falkland,” with the mendicant
pertinacity of a family in despair.
This statement of circumstances—addressed to an audience which included
a father of Mr. Vanstone’s disposition, and a daughter of Magdalen’s
temperament—produced the result which might have been anticipated from
the first.
Either misinterpreting, or disregarding, the ominous silence preserved
by his wife and Miss Garth, Mr. Vanstone not only gave Magdalen
permission to assist the forlorn dramatic company, but accepted an
invitation to witness the performance for Norah and himself. Mrs.
Vanstone declined accompanying them on account of her health; and Miss
Garth only engaged to make one among the audience conditionally on not
being wanted at home. The “parts” of “Lucy” and “Falkland” (which the
distressed family carried about with them everywhere, like incidental
maladies) were handed to their representatives on the spot. Frank’s
faint remonstrances were rejected without a hearing; the days and hours
of rehearsal were carefully noted down on the covers of the parts; and
the Marrables took their leave, with a perfect explosion of
thanks—father, mother, and daughter sowing their expressions of
gratitude broadcast, from the drawing-room door to the garden-gates.
As soon as the carriage had driven away, Magdalen presented herself to
the general observation under an entirely new aspect.
“If any more visitors call to-day,” she said, with the profoundest
gravity of look and manner, “I am not at home. This is a far more
serious matter than any of you suppose. Go somewhere by yourself,
Frank, and read over your part, and don’t let your attention wander if
you can possibly help it. I shall not be accessible before the evening.
If you will come here—with papa’s permission—after tea, my views on the
subject of Falkland will be at your disposal. Thomas! whatever else the
gardener does, he is not to make any floricultural noises under my
window. For the rest of the afternoon I shall be immersed in study—and
the quieter the house is, the more obliged I shall feel to everybody.”
Before Miss Garth’s battery of reproof could open fire, before the
first outburst of Mr. Vanstone’s hearty laughter could escape his lips,
she bowed to them with imperturbable gravity; ascended the house-steps,
for the first time in her life, at a walk instead of a run, and retired
then and there to the bedroom regions. Frank’s helpless astonishment at
her disappearance added a new element of absurdity to the scene. He
stood first on one leg and then on the other; rolling and unrolling his
part, and looking piteously in the faces of the friends about him. “I
know I can’t do it,” he said. “May I come in after tea, and hear
Magdalen’s views? Thank you—I’ll look in about eight. Don’t tell my
father about this acting, please; I should never hear the last of it.”
Those were the only words he had spirit enough to utter. He drifted
away aimlessly in the direction of the shrubbery, with the part hanging
open in his hand—the most incapable of Falklands, and the most helpless
of mankind.
Frank’s departure left the family by themselves, and was the signal
accordingly for an attack on Mr. Vanstone’s inveterate carelessness in
the exercise of his paternal authority.
“What could you possibly be thinking of, Andrew, when you gave your
consent?” said Mrs. Vanstone. “Surely my silence was a sufficient
warning to you to say No?”
“A mistake, Mr. Vanstone,” chimed in Miss Garth. “Made with the best
intentions—but a mistake for all that.”
“It may be a mistake,” said Norah, taking her father’s part, as usual.
“But I really don’t see how papa, or any one else, could have declined,
under the circumstances.”
“Quite right, my dear,” observed Mr. Vanstone. “The circumstances, as
you say, were dead against me. Here were these unfortunate people in a
scrape on one side; and Magdalen, on the other, mad to act. I couldn’t
say I had methodistical objections—I’ve nothing methodistical about me.
What other excuse could I make? The Marrables are respectable people,
and keep the best company in Clifton. What harm can she get in their
house? If you come to prudence and that sort of thing—why shouldn’t
Magdalen do what Miss Marrable does? There! there! let the poor things
act, and amuse themselves. We were their age once—and it’s no use
making a fuss—and that’s all I’ve got to say about it.”
With that characteristic defense of his own conduct, Mr. Vanstone
sauntered back to the greenhouse to smoke another cigar.
“I didn’t say so to papa,” said Norah, taking her mother’s arm on the
way back to the house, “but the bad result of the acting, in my
opinion, will be the familiarity it is sure to encourage between
Magdalen and Francis Clare.”
“You are prejudiced against Frank, my love,” said Mrs. Vanstone.
Norah’s soft, secret, hazel eyes sank to the ground; she said no more.
Her opinions were unchangeable—but she never disputed with anybody. She
had the great failing of a reserved nature—the failing of obstinacy;
and the great merit—the merit of silence. “What is your head running on
now?” thought Miss Garth, casting a sharp look at Norah’s dark,
downcast face. “You’re one of the impenetrable sort. Give me Magdalen,
with all her perversities; I can see daylight through her. You’re as
dark as night.”
The hours of the afternoon passed away, and still Magdalen remained
shut up in her own room. No restless footsteps pattered on the stairs;
no nimble tongue was heard chattering here, there, and everywhere, from
the garret to the kitchen—the house seemed hardly like itself, with the
one ever-disturbing element in the family serenity suddenly withdrawn
from it. Anxious to witness with her own eyes the reality of a
transformation in which past experience still inclined her to
disbelieve, Miss Garth ascended to Magdalen’s room, knocked twice at
the door, received no answer, opened it and looked in.
There sat Magdalen, in an arm-chair before the long looking-glass, with
all her hair let down over her shoulders; absorbed in the study of her
part and comfortably arrayed in her morning wrapper, until it was time
to dress for dinner. And there behind her sat the lady’s-maid, slowly
combing out the long heavy locks of her young mistress’s hair, with the
sleepy resignation of a woman who had been engaged in that employment
for some hours past. The sun was shining; and the green shutters
outside the window were closed. The dim light fell tenderly on the two
quiet seated figures; on the little white bed, with the knots of
rose-colored ribbon which looped up its curtains, and the bright dress
for dinner laid ready across it; on the gayly painted bath, with its
pure lining of white enamel; on the toilet-table with its sparkling
trinkets, its crystal bottles, its silver bell with Cupid for a handle,
its litter of little luxuries that adorn the shrine of a woman’s
bed-chamber. The luxurious tranquillity of the scene; the cool
fragrance of flowers and perfumes in the atmosphere; the rapt attitude
of Magdalen, absorbed over her reading; the monotonous regularity of
movement in the maid’s hand and arm, as she drew the comb smoothly
through and through her mistress’s hair—all conveyed the same soothing
impression of drowsy, delicious quiet. On one side of the door were the
broad daylight and the familiar realities of life. On the other was the
dream-land of Elysian serenity—the sanctuary of unruffled repose.
Miss Garth paused on the threshold, and looked into the room in
silence.
Magdalen’s curious fancy for having her hair combed at all times and
seasons was among the peculiarities of her character which were
notorious to everybody in the house. It was one of her father’s
favorite jokes that she reminded him, on such occasions, of a cat
having her back stroked, and that he always expected, if the combing
were only continued long enough, to hear her _purr_. Extravagant as it
may seem, the comparison was not altogether inappropriate. The girl’s
fervid temperament intensified the essentially feminine pleasure that
most women feel in the passage of the comb through their hair, to a
luxury of sensation which absorbed her in enjoyment, so serenely
self-demonstrative, so drowsily deep that it did irresistibly suggest a
pet cat’s enjoyment under a caressing hand. Intimately as Miss Garth
was acquainted with this peculiarity in her pupil, she now saw it
asserting itself for the first time, in association with mental
exertion of any kind on Magdalen’s part. Feeling, therefore, some
curiosity to know how long the combing and the studying had gone on
together, she ventured on putting the question, first to the mistress;
and (receiving no answer in that quarter) secondly to the maid.
“All the afternoon, miss, off and on,” was the weary answer. “Miss
Magdalen says it soothes her feelings and clears her mind.”
Knowing by experience that interference would be hopeless, under these
circumstances, Miss Garth turned sharply and left the room. She smiled
when she was outside on the landing. The female mind does
occasionally—though not often—project itself into the future. Miss
Garth was prophetically pitying Magdalen’s unfortunate husband.
Dinner-time presented the fair student to the family eye in the same
mentally absorbed aspect. On all ordinary occasions Magdalen’s appetite
would have terrified those feeble sentimentalists who affect to ignore
the all-important influence which female feeding exerts in the
production of female beauty. On this occasion she refused one dish
after another with a resolution which implied the rarest of all modern
martyrdoms—gastric martyrdom. “I have conceived the part of Lucy,” she
observed, with the demurest gravity. “The next difficulty is to make
Frank conceive the part of Falkland. I see nothing to laugh at—you
would all be serious enough if you had my responsibilities. No, papa—no
wine to-day, thank you. I must keep my intelligence clear. Water,
Thomas—and a little more jelly, I think, before you take it away.”
When Frank presented himself in the evening, ignorant of the first
elements of his part, she took him in hand, as a middle-aged
schoolmistress might have taken in hand a backward little boy. The few
attempts he made to vary the sternly practical nature of the evening’s
occupation by slipping in compliments sidelong she put away from her
with the contemptuous self-possession of a woman of twice her age. She
literally forced him into his part. Her father fell asleep in his
chair. Mrs. Vanstone and Miss Garth lost their interest in the
proceedings, retired to the further end of the room, and spoke together
in whispers. It grew later and later; and still Magdalen never flinched
from her task—still, with equal perseverance, Norah, who had been on
the watch all through the evening, kept on the watch to the end. The
distrust darkened and darkened on her face as she looked at her sister
and Frank; as she saw how close they sat together, devoted to the same
interest and working to the same end. The clock on the mantel-piece
pointed to half-past eleven before Lucy the resolute permitted Falkland
the helpless to shut up his task-book for the night. “She’s wonderfully
clever, isn’t she?” said Frank, taking leave of Mr. Vanstone at the
hall door. “I’m to come to-morrow, and hear more of her views—if you
have no objection. I shall never do it; don’t tell her I said so. As
fast as she teaches me one speech, the other goes out of my head.
Discouraging, isn’t it? Goodnight.”
The next day but one was the day of the first full rehearsal. On the
previous evening Mrs. Vanstone’s spirits had been sadly depressed. At a
private interview with Miss Garth she had referred again, of her own
accord, to the subject of her letter from London—had spoken
self-reproachfully of her weakness in admitting Captain Wragge’s
impudent claim to a family connection with her—and had then reverted to
the state of her health and to the doubtful prospect that awaited her
in the coming summer in a tone of despondency which it was very
distressing to hear. Anxious to cheer her spirits, Miss Garth had
changed the conversation as soon as possible—had referred to the
approaching theatrical performance—and had relieved Mrs. Vanstone’s
mind of all anxiety in that direction, by announcing her intention of
accompanying Magdalen to each rehearsal, and of not losing sight of her
until she was safely back again in her father’s house. Accordingly,
when Frank presented himself at Combe-Raven on the eventful morning,
there stood Miss Garth, prepared—in the interpolated character of
Argus—to accompany Lucy and Falkland to the scene of trial. The railway
conveyed the three, in excellent time, to Evergreen Lodge; and at one
o’clock the rehearsal began.