Only a clod
dresses and let down her sunny hair in the classic disorder of the
period, and she would be the loveliest _Pauline_ that ever won the
simple heart of an aspiring young gardener. But how about _Claude_? At
first every one of the amateurs had desired to play _Claude_, and
nothing but _Claude_. To wear that impossible velvet coat, with its
lavish embroidery of gold and spangles; to snub _Beauseant_, and to
patronize _Damas_; to flourish diamond snuff-boxes and rings, and filmy
ruffles of point d’Alençon, which are _so_ becoming to the unhappy
amateur, whose hands are apt to assume the rich purple hues of raw beef
under the influence of extreme terror; to hold Miss Hillary in their
arms, and cry, “Oh, rapture!” in a ponderous bass voice apparently
situated somewhere in those martial jackboots, without which _Claude_
would be less than _Claude_,--to do all this seemed to the young men at
the Cedars a glory and delight which would be cheaply won by the cutting
of one another’s throats in a _champ clos_.
And then to what base hypocrisies these amateur actors descended!
declaring to one another that, after all, _Claude_ was _not_ such a
great part! Nay, indeed, was not the heroic gardener something of a
spoon, liable to provoke laughter if his velvet coat failed to fit, or
his humble blouse looked too much like a little boy’s pinafore? _Claude_
might be a very fine part, the amateurs argued to each other, in a
regular theatre, where there were the gallery fellows to applaud the
long speeches, and to stamp their hob-nailed boots in the great
situations, and all that sort of thing, you know; but your drawing-room
audiences are apt to laugh at strong sentiment; and, in short, for a
private performance, _Damas_, or _Beauseant_, or _Glavis_ were the great
parts.
So there was a good deal of chopping and changing, with vengeful
feelings attendant thereupon; and at last, after almost all the
privileged guests at the Cedars had made themselves hoarse in the
endeavour to cultivate that bass voice and peculiar melodious gurgle so
often heard on the stage, and so rarely heard off it; after innumerable
tryings-on of velvet coats and cocked hats before cheval-glasses,--it
transpired all at once that nobody wanted to play _Claude Melnotte_. The
noblest hearts sank with a sickly terror before the thought of all
Twickenham assembled in solemn conclave to listen to those long speeches
with which the peasant husband endeavours to appease the natural anger
of his bride. One by one the amateurs had made the awful discovery, that
after all there is some touch of art, not to be learned in a day, even
in the actor’s trade. One by one they had discovered that they lacked
_physique_ for the leading character; and that, after three acts or so
of blank verse, they were apt to become hoarse and roopy, and to break
ignominiously from that melodious bass gurgle into a treble squeak. So
it came about that there was no one to play _Claude_, and Miss Hillary
clasped her hands in anguish, and demanded what was to become of her.
All Twickenham and Hampton Court, Richmond and Ham, and all sorts of
people from town invited to witness the “Lady of Lyons,” and no _Claude_
_Melnotte_! One of the government clerks, who fancied himself an embryo
Buckstone, timidly suggested “Box and Cox” as a fitting substitute for
the drama; but Miss Hillary turned from him with disdain. “Box and Cox!”
she exclaimed, contemptuously; “why, my dresses are all ordered, and the
white satin for the wedding-dress is to be five-and-twenty shillings a
yard. I _must_ have some one for _Claude_.”
And then at last it was discovered that Francis Tredethlyn, who had
volunteered to carry a tea-tray or a coal-scuttle, or to announce a
carriage, or to perform any ignominious part in the drama for Miss
Hillary’s pleasure,--it was discovered all at once that this young man
was able to act. He was no untaught Macready, no ready-made Kean; but he
was able to do what the best of the government clerks and literary
barristers failed in doing; he was able to roll out the melodious blank
verse in a big, deep voice, that never failed him to the end of the
chapter. The stage is almost as great a leveller as death himself, and
on that little platform at Twickenham uneducated Francis Tredethlyn was
quite as much at his ease as the well-bred young men about him: more at
his ease, for he was not so bent upon distinguishing himself, and was
indeed only eager to oblige Miss Hillary. All this had happened before
the autumn visit to Brighton; and now when Maude returned to the Cedars
she found busy workmen making a perpetual hammering in the apartment
which had been chosen for the scene of the entertainment. Mr. Hillary
did everything in a superb manner; there was to be no pitiful
contrivance of folding-doors festooned by suburban carpenters, but
accomplished people from town had come down to the Cedars, and a
magnificent archway of white and gold spanned the lofty billiard-room
which the merchant had built at one end of his house. All the
arrangements were to be perfection; the lighting of the small stage was
to be a miracle of art; the grouping of the furniture had been studied
by _genre_ painters of no mean pretensions. Poor Maude grew sick at
heart as she heard all these details discussed. She looked back, and
wondered, as she remembered what a frivolous creature she had been only
a few months ago, and how this amateur dramatic performance had seemed a
matter of supreme importance to her; and now she repeated the words
mechanically during those long rehearsals, in the course of which the
amateurs had so many angry disputations, and so cruelly victimized Mr.
Hillary’s pale sherry.
At last the new year began, and at ten o’clock upon the first night in
January long lines of carriages filled the avenue at the Cedars, and the
road outside the lodge-gates, until the neighbourhood was luminous with
flaring lamps that glared redly in the winter darkness. People came from
far and wide to see Miss Hillary play _Pauline_, and to devour Mr.
Gunter’s supper, though Miss Hillary’s heart might be breaking, and the
merchant’s head splitting with the weight of care that pressed just now
upon his overtaxed brain! But people _do_ get through, these things
somehow; and Lionel Hillary walked about his drawing-rooms, looking
supremely gentlemanly in a stiff cambric cravat, and uttering mild
commonplaces for the edification of new arrivals.
People get through these things. Poor Maude’s head ached with a dull
pain as her maid arrayed her in a dress of white silk, showered with
rosebuds, and flounced and looped with lace and ribbon. Would any of
this finery be paid for, Miss Hillary wondered, as she saw her splendour
reflected in the cheval-glass; or was it altogether dishonesty and
wickedness? She shuddered as she thought of this: but the entertainment
of to-night was only a part of the grand hypocrisy which might help to
float Mr. Hillary safely over the terrible crisis, and Maude determined
to be true to her promise. So she smiled at Julia Desmond, when that
young lady, who was to play _Madame Deschappelles_, came to exhibit
herself in powder and patches, and brocade and diamonds, and with half
the point-lace in South Audley Street bestowed upon her handsome person.
Miss Desmond had consented with amazing graciousness to perform the
matronly _rôle_ allotted to her; but she had determined to look like a
marquise of the time of Louis Quinze, and she had despatched Francis
Tredethlyn on half-a-dozen shopping expeditions, until that gentleman
was fain to wonder how a few ribbons, brocaded fabrics, and yellow old
lace flounces, could cost the big sums for which he wrote cheques in
favour of the West-end tradesmen to whom Julia sent him.
The two girls admired each other’s dresses, and the maid joined in a
perfect chorus of laudations with the young lady who _would_ play the
_Widow Melnotte_ in a nine-guinea black moire antique, and a point-lace
cap and apron, and who kept snatching a manuscript copy of her part from
her pocket, and furtively gabbling its contents in dark corners. The
girls admired each other, and sailed down the broad staircase together,
and then went straight to a little ante-room, where half-a-dozen
gentlemen, in attitudes expressive of supreme mental agony, were bending
over half-a-dozen copies of the “Lady of Lyons,” and gabbling
vehemently.
There is no occasion to describe this amateur performance at the Cedars,
inasmuch as it very closely resembled all other amateur performances.
Miss Hillary, stepping on to a stage for the first time, was, to say the
least, not _quite_ a Helen Faucit, and was on the point of breaking down
now and then in some of her grand speeches; but she looked so beautiful
in her perplexity and confusion, that the elegant audience encouraged
and supported her by the gentlest tappings of spangled fans and pattings
of tight kid gloves. There were no tiresome boys in the gallery to urge
her to speak up; no critical chimney-sweeps to murmur their disapproval,
or hint that she had better go home and learn her part. There was only
admiration for her timid loveliness, and the soft music of her tremulous
voice.
Of course there were the usual number of dead pauses in the drama,
technically known as “stage-waits,” the solemn silences in which the
actors stood still and looked imploringly at one another, while the
voices of amateur prompters--always inciting their victims to the
utterance of long speeches--were painfully audible throughout the
assemblage. Mr. Tredethlyn rolled out his blank verse with a sturdy
courage that was worthy of all praise; and if his hands were a little
red, and his blue-cotton blouse slightly suggestive of Newgate Market,
he had acted with his brother soldiers in very rough amateur
performances out in Van Diemen’s Land, and now and then some touch of
natural fire, some little bit of tender pathos, startled the well-bred
audience into applause. It may be that now and then Francis Tredethlyn
found himself carried away by the spirit of the scene. Did not that
romantic drama bear some likeness to his own story? This beautiful
_Pauline_, this unapproachable being whose lovely image filled the
peasant’s dreams, who was she but Maude Hillary herself? Perhaps if Miss
Desmond had been the _Pauline_, Francis might have seemed as cold and
tame as the rest of the Twickenham amateurs: but the eyes that looked at
him tenderly or reproachfully to-night, were the only eyes in all the
world that had the power to move him deeply. He acted well, therefore,
as the dullest man will act sometimes under the influence of some
factitious excitement: and when the curtain fell upon the final scene of
happy and triumphant love, the audience were loud in their praise of
“that handsome-looking Mr. Tredethlyn, who was just the very man for
_Claude Melnotte_.”
Then there was a final parting of the curtains and a shower of bouquets,
all in the orthodox style, and Maude felt perfumed petals fluttering
about her as she curtseyed to her indulgent audience.
All through that last act she had surprised those well-bred spectators
out of their natural languor. The _Pauline_ who had been so tame and
unimpassioned in the grand cottage scene, was carried away by a strong
tide of passionate feeling in that last act, where the half
broken-hearted daughter pleads for her insolvent father. Sobs almost
choked Miss Hillary’s utterance more than once in this scene; and when
at last her head lay for a few moments on Francis Tredethlyn’s breast,
the young man’s martial decorations were wet with real tears. The sight
of that emotion moved him strangely, though he beheld in it nothing more
than the natural excitement of a highly sensitive organization. After