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[Entered according to Act of
Congress, in the Year 1862, by Harper & Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of the
District Court for the Southern District of New York.]
AUTHOR OF "THE WOMAN IN WHITE,"
ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN M'LENAN.
Printed from the Manuscript and
early Proof-sheets purchased by the Proprietors of "Harper's Weekly."
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
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 theatre. 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 back-ground, 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 Antony 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 every where, 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 Marrabies 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
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 every body."
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 green-house to smoke
"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 any body. 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 bedchamber. 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