A Mummer's Wife Part 45

A tall, gaunt woman of about forty-five whose striding gait caused a hooped and pleated skirt of green silk, surmounted by a bustle, to sway like a lime-tree in a breeze, wore a bodice open in front, with short sleeves, the f.a.g end of some other fashion, but the long draggled-tailed feather boa belonged to the eighties, as did the Marie Stuart bonnet. Her blackened eyebrows and a thickly painted face attracted d.i.c.k's attention from afar, and when she approached nearer he was struck by the dark, brilliant, restless eyes. 'A strange and exalted being,' he said to himself. 'An auth.o.r.ess perhaps,' for he noticed that she carried some papers in her hand; 'or a poet,' he added; and prompted by his instinct he began to see in her somebody that might be turned to account, and before long he was thinking how he might introduce himself to her.

'She's forgotten her parasol; I might borrow one for her from the girl at the bar,' and the project seeming good to him he rose, and with a specially large movement of the arm lifted his hat from his head.

'You will excuse me, I hope, madam, addressing you, and if I do so it is because I am in an official capacity here, but may I offer you a parasol?'

'It's very kind of you,' she replied with a smile that lighted up her large mouth, dispersing its ugliness.

'She's got a fine set of teeth,' d.i.c.k said to himself, and he answered that he would borrow a parasol for her in the theatre.

'It's very kind of you,' she returned, smiling largely and becomingly upon him. 'It's true I forgot to bring a parasol with me, and the sun is very fierce at this time. It will be kind of you,' and much gratified that his proposal had been so graciously received, he hobbled away in the direction of the theatre, to return a few moments after with the bar girl's parasol, which he had borrowed and which he opened and handed to the lady.

'Might I ask,' she said, 'if you're one of the directors of the theatre?'

'No,' he answered, 'I'm an actor.'

'An actor in this theatre,' she replied. 'But they only sing trivial songs and dance in this theatre, and you look to me like one of Shakespeare's imaginations. Henry the Eighth, almost any one of the Henries. King John.'

'Not Romeo,' d.i.c.k interposed.

'Perhaps not Romeo. Romeo was but sixteen or seventeen, eighteen at the most. But when you were eighteen....'

'Yes,' d.i.c.k answered, 'I was thin enough then.'

'But you must not disparage yourself. Heroes are not always thin. Hamlet was fat and scant of breath. I can see you as Hamlet, whereas to cast you for Falstaff would be too obvious.'

'I've played Falstaff,' d.i.c.k replied, 'but I never could do much with the part, and I never saw anyone who could. The lines are very often too high-falutin for the character, and they don't seem to come out, no matter who plays it; the critics look on it as the best acting part, but in truth it is the worst.'

'Macduff would fit you, no; Lear,' the lady cried.

d.i.c.k thought he would like to have a shot at the king, and they were soon talking about a Shakespearean theatre devoted to the performance of Shakespearean plays. 'A theatre,' she said, 'that would devote itself to the representation of all the heroes in the world; those who spoke n.o.ble thoughts and performed n.o.ble deeds, thought and deed encompa.s.sing each other, instead of which we have a thousand theatres devoted to the representations of the fashions of the moment. So I'm forced to come here at midday, for at midday there is solitude and sacred silence, or else the clashing of waves. Here at midday I can fancy myself alone with my heroes.'

'And who are your heroes, may I ask?' said d.i.c.k.

'Many are in Shakespeare,' she answered, 'and many are here in this ma.n.u.script. The heroes of the ancient world, when men were nearer to the G.o.ds than they are now. For men,' she added, 'in my belief, are not moving towards the G.o.dhead, but away from it.'

'And who are the heroes that you've written about?' d.i.c.k asked, and fearing she would enter into too long an explanation he asked if the ma.n.u.script she held in her hand was a play.

'No, a poem,' she answered. 'I'm studying it for recitation, one I'm going to recite after my lecture at the Working Men's Club; and the subject of my lecture is the inherent n.o.bility of man, and the necessity of man worship.

Women have turned from men and are occupied now with their own aspirations, losing sight thereby of the ideal that G.o.d gave them. My poem is a sort of abstract, an epitome, a compendium of the lecture itself.'

d.i.c.k did not understand, but the fact that a lady was going in for recitation argued that she was interested in theatricals, and with his ears p.r.i.c.ked like a hound who has got wind of something, he said with a sweet smile that showed a whole row of white teeth:

'Being an actor myself, I will take the liberty of asking you to allow me to look at your poem, and perhaps if you're studying for recitation I may be of use to you.'

'Of the very greatest use,' the lady answered, and handed him her ma.n.u.script; 'one of a set of cla.s.sical cartoons,' she added.

'Humanity in large lines,' he replied.

'How quickly you understand,' she rapped out; 'removed altogether from the tea-table in subject and in metre. What have you got to say, my hero, to me about my rendering of these lines?

'"The offspring of Neptune and Terra, daughters of earth and ocean, Dowered with fair faces of woman, capping the bodies of vultures; Armed with sharp, keen talons; crushing and rending and slaying, Blackening and blasting, defiling, spoiling the meats of all banquets; Plundering, perplexing, pursuing, cursing the lives of our heroes, Ever the Harpyiae flourish--just as a triumph of evil."'

'Hardly anything; and yet if I may venture a criticism--would you mind pa.s.sing your ma.n.u.script on to me for a moment? May I suggest an emendation that will render the recitation more easy and more effective?'

'Certainly you may.'

'Then,' d.i.c.k continued, 'I would drop the words--"just as a triumph of evil," and run on--"flourish from childhood, ensnaring the n.o.ble, the brave, and the loyal, spreading their nets for destruction,"

'"Harpyiae flourish in ball-rooms, breathing fierce breath that is poison Over the promise of manhood, over the faith and the lovelight That glows in the hearts of our bravest for all of their kind that is weaker----"

'All that follows,' d.i.c.k added, 'will be recited without emphasis until you come to these two magnificent lines:

'"Harpyiae stand by our altars, Harpyiae sit by our hearthstones, Harpyiae suckle our children, Harpyiae ravish our nation," etc.'

d.i.c.k finished with a grand gesture.

'I think you're right. Yes, I understand that a point can be given to these verses that I had not thought of before. I hope my poem touched a chord in your heart? Do you approve of my manner of writing the hexameters?'

'I think the idea very fine, but----'

'But?'

'If you will permit me?'

'Certainly.'

'Well, there are questions of elocution that I would like to speak to you about. I've to run away now, but we're sure to meet again.'

'I'm on the pier every day at noon, or you will find me in my hotel at five. I hope you'll come, for I should like to avail myself of your instruction.'

'Thank you; I hope to have the pleasure of calling upon you to-morrow afternoon. Good-bye.'

'You don't know my name,' she cried after him. 'Heroes are full of forgetfulness and naturally, but in this tea-table world we can't get on without names and addresses. Will you take my card?'

d.i.c.k took the card, thanked her and turned suddenly away.

'Like a man filled with disquiet,' the lady said, and she watched the burly actor hurrying up the pier. 'Is this woman coming to meet him?' she asked herself as d.i.c.k hurried away still faster, for in the distance the woman coming down the pier seemed to him like his wife, and if Kate caught him talking to a woman on the pier all chance of doing any business with his new acquaintance would be at an end. But the woman who had just pa.s.sed him by was not Kate, and the thought crossed his mind that he might return to his new acquaintance with safety. But on the whole it seemed to him better to wait until to-morrow. To-morrow he would find out all about her. 'Her name,' he said, and taking the card out of his pocket he read: 'Mrs.

Forest, Mother Superior of the Yarmouth Convent, Alexandra Hotel, Hastings.' 'Mother Superior of a Convent! I should never have thought it.

But if she is a nun, why isn't she in a habit? Cla.s.sical cartoons and nunneries. I think this time I've hit upon a strange specimen, one of the strangest I've ever met, which is saying a great deal, for I've met with a good few in my time. It will be better to tear up her card, for if Kate should find it----'

And then, dismissing Mrs. Forest from his mind, he wondered if he should find Kate drunk or sober. 'Quite sober,' he said to himself as soon as he crossed the threshold; and in the best of humours his wife greeted him, and taking his arm they went down to the pier and gave an entertainment that was appreciated by a fairly large audience.

'Why didn't she ask me to come to her at five to-day?' he asked himself as he returned home with his wife. 'She may fall through my fingers,' and he would have gone straight away to Mrs. Forest, if he had been able to rid himself of Kate.

'You'll take me out to tea, d.i.c.k?' she said, and to keep her sober he took her to tea. For the nonce Kate drunk would have suited him better than Kate sober, and he dared not go down to the pier next morning in search of Mrs.

Forest, it being more than likely that Kate might take it into her head to sun herself on the pier, so he decided to wait; the pier was too dangerous.

If he weren't interrupted by Kate the directors might see them together, and they might know Mrs. Forest and tell her that he was a married man. No, he'd just keep his appointment with her at five. But to get rid of Kate required a deep plan. It was laid and succeeded, and at five he arrived at the Alexandra Hotel.