Melbourne House Part 137

"In dudgeon, hey?" said the lady. "I expected as much. Well, Daisy ? I will take you. I might perch you up on a foot- cushion to give you a little more alt.i.tude. However ? I don't know but it will do. Theresa will be letting down her own height."

"I think I am letting myself down altogether, Mrs. Sandford, in allowing Ahasuerus to pick me out in that lordly style. But never mind ? I shan't touch his sceptre any way. Boys, boys! ?

are you ready?"

"Splendid, Theresa!" said Preston, as he came in. "Splendid!

You are the very thing."

"I am diamonds and satin, you mean. I thank you. I know that is what I am at present."

"You look the character," said Hamilton.

Theresa made him a mock little courtesy. It was admirably done. It was the slightest gesture of supercilious disdain ?

excellent pantomime. The boys laughed and shouted, for Theresa's satin and diamonds gave effect to her acting, and she was a good actor.

This picture had been delayed so long, that at last, hearing the shout of applause behind the scenes, the audience began to call for their share. In haste, but not the less effectively, Theresa and the rest threw themselves into att.i.tude, and the curtain was pulled aside.

Daisy wished she could have been in the drawing-room to see the picture; she knew it must be beautiful; but she was supporting one jewelled arm of Queen Esther, and obliged by her duty to look only at the Queen's face. Daisy thought even that was a good deal to look at, it was so magnificently surrounded with decoration: but at the same time she was troubled about Nora and sorry for her own foolishness, so that her own face was abundantly in character for the grave concern that sat upon it. This picture met with great favour. The people in the library were in much glee after it was over; all but Daisy and Nora.

"It is all spoiled!" said the latter. "The evening has been hateful. I wish I hadn't come."

"Oh, Nora! don't say that," Daisy urged. "The pictures are almost over now; and then we shall have supper."

"I don't want supper! I only wanted to be Queen Esther; and you said I might. It was the prettiest picture of the whole lot."

"But I couldn't help it, Nora."

"I could have done it just as well as Theresa! She didn't look handsome a bit."

"Oh, Nora, I think she did ? for a picture."

"She didn't a bit; the things she had on looked handsome."

Daisy was called away. Her last dressing was to be done now, and the one of which Daisy was most doubtful. She was to stand for the angel in the "Game of Life." Other people had no doubt about it. Mrs. Sandford was sure that the angel's wings would make a good representation, which Daisy was slow to believe; near by, they looked so very like gauze and pasteboard! They were arranged, at any rate, to appear as if they grew out of her shoulders; she was arrayed in flowing white draperies over her own little cambrick frock; and then she was ready.

Hamilton came in. He was to be the young man in the picture.

Daisy liked his appearance well. But when Preston followed him, she felt unspeakably shocked. Preston was well got up, in one respect; he looked frightful. He wore a black mask, ugly but not grotesque; and his whole figure was more like the devil in the picture than Daisy had imagined it could be. She did not like the whole business at all. There was no getting out of it now; the picture must be given; so the performers were placed.

Hamilton and Preston sat on two sides of a chess-board, and behind them the little angel stood watching the game. Mrs.

Sandford was right. By a skilful placing and shielding of the lamps, the lights were thrown broadly where they ought to be, on faces and draperies, leaving the gauze wings of the angel in such obscurity that they just showed as it was desired they should. The effect was extremely good, and even artistic. The little angel herself was not in full light; it was through a shade of gloom that her grave face of concern looked down upon the game on the chess-board. Truly Daisy looked concerned and grave. She thought she did not like to play such things as this, One of the figures below her was so very wicked and devilish in its look; and Hamilton leaned over the pieces on the board with so well-given an expression of doubt and perplexity, ? his adversary's watch was so intent, ? and the meaning of the whole was so sorrowfully deep; that Daisy gazed unconsciously most like a guardian angel who might see with sorrow the evil one getting the better over a soul of his care. For it was real to Daisy. She knew that the devil does in truth try to bewitch and wile people out of doing right into doing wrong. She knew that he tries to get the mastery of them; that he rejoices every time he sees them make a "false move;" that he is a great cunning enemy, all the worse because we cannot see him, striving to draw people to their ruin; and she thought that it was far too serious and dreadful a thing to be made a _play_ of. She wondered if guardian angels did really watch over poor tempted souls and try to help them. And all this brought upon Daisy's face a shade of awe, and sorrow, and fear, which was strangely in keeping with her character as an angel, and very singular in its effect on the picture. The expressions of pleasure and admiration which had burst from the company in the drawing-room at the first sight of it, gradually stilled and ceased; and it was amid a profound and curious silence and hush that the curtain was at length drawn upon the picture. There were some people among the spectators not altogether satisfied in their minds.

"How remarkable!" was the first word that came from anybody's lips in the darkened drawing-room.

"Very remarkable!" somebody else said. "Did you ever see such acting?"

"It has all been good," said a gentleman, Mr. Sandford; "but this was remarkable."

"Thanks, I suppose you know to whose management," said the soft voice of the lady of the house.

"Management is a good thing," said the gentleman; "but there was more than management here, Mrs. Randolph. It was uncommon, upon my word! I suppose my wife came in for the wings, but where did the _face_ come from?"

"Daisy," said Mr. Randolph, as he found his little daughter by his side again, ? "are you here?"

"Yes, papa."

Her father put his arm round her, as if to a.s.sure himself there were no wings in the case.

"How do you like playing pictures?"

"I think I do not like them very much ?" Daisy said, sedately, nestling up to her father's side.

"Not? How is that? Your performance has been much approved."

Daisy said nothing. Mr. Randolph thought he felt a slight tremor in the little frame.

"Do you understand the allegory of this last tableau, Daisy?"

Dr. Sandford asked.

"I do not know what an allegory is, Dr. Sandford."

"What is the meaning of the representation, then, as you think of it?"

"This last picture?"

"Yes."

"It is a trial of skill, Dr. Sandford."

The room was still darkened, and the glance of intelligence and amus.e.m.e.nt that pa.s.sed between her friend and her father, their own eyes could scarcely catch. Daisy did not see it. But she had spoken diplomatically. She did not want to come any nearer the subject of the picture in talking with Dr.

Sandford. His mind was different, and he went on.

"What is the trial of skill about, Daisy?"

The child hesitated, and then said, speaking low and most un- child-like ? "It is about a human soul."

"And what do you understand are the powers at work ? or at play?"

"It is not play," said Daisy.

"Answer Dr. Sandford, Daisy," said her father.

"Papa," said the child, "it isn't play. The devil tries to make people do wrong ? and if they try to do right, then there is a ?"

"A what?"

"I don't know ? a fight, papa."

Mr. Randolph again felt a tremor, a nervous trembling, pa.s.s over Daisy.

"You do not suppose, my darling," he said, softly, "that such a fight goes on with anything like this horrible figure that your cousin Preston has made himself?"