Part 3 (1/2)
An election was just over, when one evening a small incident occurred during a performance of ”Miss Multon” that we would gladly have dispensed with. In the quarrel scene between the two women, the first and supposedly dead wife, in her character of governess to her own children, is goaded by the second wife into such a pa.s.sion that she finally throws off all concealment and declares her true character and name.
The scene was a strong one, and was always looked forward to eagerly by the audience.
On the evening I speak of the house was packed almost to suffocation.
The other characters in the play had withdrawn, and for the first time the two women were alone together. Both keyed up almost to the breaking point, we faced each other, and there was a dead, I might almost say a _deadly_ pause before either spoke.
It was very effective--that silence before the storm. People would lean forward and fairly hold their breath, feeling there was a death struggle coming. And just at that very moment of tensest feeling, as we two women silently measured each other, a man's voice clearly and exultantly declared:--
”Well, _now_, we'll get the returns read, I reckon.”
In one instant the whole house was in a roar of laughter. Under cover of the noise I said to my companion, who was showing her annoyance, ”Keep still! keep still!”
And as we stood there like statues, utterly ignoring the interruption, there was a sudden outbreak of hissing, and the laughter stopped as suddenly as it had burst out, and our scene went on, receiving even more than its usual meed of applause. But when the curtain had fallen, I had my own laugh; for _it was_ funny, very funny.
In Boston there was an interruption of a different nature. It was at a matinee performance. There were tear-wet faces everywhere you looked.
The last act was on. I was slipping to my knees in my vain entreaty to be allowed to see my children as their mother, not merely as their dying governess, when a tall, slim, black-robed woman rose up in the parquet. She flung out her arms in a superb gesture, and in a voice of piercing anguish cried:--
”For G.o.d's sake, let her have her children! I've lived through such loss, but she can't; it will kill her!”
Tears sprang to the eyes of every one on the stage, and there was a perceptible halt in the movement of the play. And when, at the death scene, a lady was carried out in a faint, we were none of us surprised to hear it was _she_ who had so far forgotten where she was as to make that pa.s.sionate plea for a woman whose suffering was probably but a faint reflection of her own.
_CHAPTER V
THE ”NEW MAGDALEN” AT THE UNION SQUARE_
One night at the Union Square Theatre, when the ”New Magdalen” was running, we became aware of the presence of a distinguished visitor--a certain actress from abroad.
As I looked at the beautiful woman, magnificently dressed and jewelled, I found it simply impossible to believe the stories I had heard of her frightful poverty, in the days of her lowly youth.
Her manner was listless, her expression bored; even the conversation which she frequently indulged in seemed a weariness to the flesh; while her applause was so plainly a mere matter of courtesy as almost to miss being a courtesy at all.
When, therefore, in the last act, I approached that truly dreadful five-page speech, which after a laconic ”Go on!” from the young minister is continued through several more pages, I actually trembled with fear, lest her _ennui_ should find some unpleasant outward expression.
However, I dared not balk at the jump, so took it as bravely as I could.
As I stood in the middle of the stage addressing the minister, and my lover on my left, I faced her box directly. I can see her now. She was almost lying in her chair, her hands hanging limply over its arms, her face, her whole body suggesting a repressed yawn.
I began, slowly the words fell, one by one, in low, shamed tones:--
”I was just eight years old, and I was half dead with starvation.”
Her hands closed suddenly on the arms of her chair, and she lifted herself upright. I went on:--
”I was alone--the rain was falling.” (She drew her great fur cloak closely about her.) ”The night was coming on--and--and--I begged--_openly_--LOUDLY--as only a hungry child can beg.”
She sat back in her seat with a pale, frowning face; while within the perfumed furry warmth of her cloak she s.h.i.+vered so that the diamonds at her ears sent out innumerable tiny spears of colour.