Part 50 (1/2)

One of the performers, who has been throughout pre-eminently the funny man of the piece, is singing a solo, accompanied by many facetious gestures. The drift of the song is the excessive happiness of the singer--a theme which is enlarged upon through half a dozen successive verses:

'The lark is blithe, And the summer fly; Blithe is the cricket, And blithe am I.

None so blithe, so blithe as I!'

Peggy happens to have some acquaintance with the singer off the stage; knows him to be sickly, melancholy, poor; to-night racked with neuralgia, yet obliged to do his little tricks, and go through his small antics, on penalty of banishment from that society, his sole _raison d'etre_ in which is his gift of making people laugh.

'La Comedie Humaine!' she says to herself--'La Comedie Humaine!'

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

'We men may say more, swear more; but indeed, Our shows are more than will, for still we prove Much in our vows, but little in our love.'

The Hartleys are wise enough to avoid the error so common amongst amateur actors and managers, of prolonging their treat until pleasure is turned into weariness. They are obviously mindful of the fact that among their audience are a number of dancing feet, whose owners not even the acting of Rachel or Mrs. Siddons would indemnify, in their own opinion, for having the fair proportions of their dancing hours thrown away. The operetta has only three acts, and is followed by no farce or afterpiece.

In point of fact, it is contained within the limits of a couple of hours. Yet to two of its auditors it appears practically interminable.

To two amongst them it seems as if there never would be an end to its songs, its facetious misunderstandings, and jocose makings up; and when at length the curtain falls amid a hurricane of applause, only to be instantly drawn up again in order that the whole of the final quartette may be repeated, it appears as if they must have sat watching it for nights. At last the curtain drops finally. At last there is an end to the endless encores. The performers, in answer to the shouts which demand them, have appeared in turn before the curtain, and made their bows, and picked up their bouquets, with such differing degrees of grace and _aplomb_ as their native gifts, or more or less familiarity with the situation, allow.

The sad little merryman has cut his final caper, and made a grimace of so surpa.s.sing a ludicrousness as will allow him to be peacefully melancholy for the rest of the evening.

And now all eyes are turned away from the stage; all tongues are loosed.

The doors at the end of the hall are opened, and a stream of people is beginning rapidly to issue through them. Every one has risen and is looking about, glad to s.h.i.+ft their position, say 'how do you do' to their friends, and exchange comments on play and actors.

There is a general stir and buzz; a seeking out of expected friends, and delighted greeting of unexpected ones; a reciprocal examination of gowns, now first possible; and a universal aspiration for supper.

Milady and her girls have risen with the others. Prue, indeed, has been the first person in the room on her legs. She is looking round, like the rest of the world; at least, so to a casual observer it might appear.

But, alas! what is there in common between the smiling careless glances, lighting with easy amus.e.m.e.nt on indifferent objects, and the tragic searching--terrible in its one-ideaed intentness--of those despairing blue eyes? Peggy has firm hold of one burning hand, and is murmuring broken sentences of comfort into her inattentive ear.

'Yes, dear, yes! I will go with you wherever you like; but you know we cannot quite leave milady; and he is more likely to find us here. I dare say he has been looking at us all the while from behind the scenes, trying to see how you were enjoying yourself.' She leaves off hopelessly, since Prue is not listening to her. s.n.a.t.c.hes of talk, disjointed and mixed, reach her ear.

'Jackson was the architect; built the new schools at Oxford; they always strike one as rather like a splendid country house.'

'Thoroughly well built; made all his own bricks; sent them up to London to be tested; best that ever were made!'

'Really nearly as good as professionals; better than some professionals; might easily be that. They say that the one who acts best of all did not act to-night--the eldest.'

'Why did not she, I wonder?'

'Better employed perhaps--ha! ha!'

At the same moment Peggy feels a convulsive pressure on her arm, and hears Prue's pa.s.sionately excited voice:

'There he is! at the far end of the room; he is looking for us! Oh, how can we make him see us?'

She has raised herself on tiptoe, and is sending a look of such agonised entreaty down the hall as, one would think, must penetrate even the ma.s.s of s.h.i.+fting, buzzing humanity that intervenes between her and its object. Perhaps it does. Perhaps the magnet that Freddy once prettily suggested to be in the hearts of all good people drawing them together is exercising its influence on his. At all events, in a few minutes they see him smilingly pus.h.i.+ng his way, stopped at every step by greetings and compliments--for it has somehow become generally diffused through the room that to him is to be ascribed most of the glory of the entertainment--through the crowd. In a moment more he is before them.

'Here you are, you dear things!' he says, taking a hand of each, looking flushed and handsome, and speaking in an excited voice. 'Did not it go off wonderfully well?--not a hitch anywhere. Did you hear the prompter once? No? Neither of you? I thought not; and yet if you had seen us half an hour before the curtain drew up, you would have said that the whole thing was going to be a fiasco.'

He stops to draw a long breath of self-congratulation.