Say and Seal Volume Ii Part 11

"Then you must suppose me different too," said Faith laughing. "Suppose me to have been like Portia; and I should have done as she did."

The doctor shook his head and looked gravely at her.

"Are you so impracticable?"

"Was she?" said Faith.

"Then you wouldn't think it right to obey Mrs. Derrick in all circ.u.mstances?"

"Not if she was Portia's mother," said Faith.

"Suppose you had been the Prince of Arragon--which casket would you have chosen?" said Mr. Linden, as he came from his table, letter in hand.

"I suppose I should have chosen as he did," said the doctor carelessly--"I really don't remember how that was. I'll tell you when I come to him. Have you done letter-writing?"

"I have done writing letters, for to-night. Have I permission to go to Venice in your train?"

"I am only a locomotive," said the doctor. "But you know, with two a train goes faster. If you had another copy of the play, now, Linden--and we should read it as I have read Shakspeare in certain former times--take different parts--I presume the effect would excel steam-power, and be electric. Can you?"

This was agreed to, and the "effect" almost equalled the doctor's prognostications. Even Mrs. Derrick, who had somewhat carelessly held aloof from his single presentation of the play, was fascinated now, and drew near and dropped her knitting. It would have been a very rare entertainment to any that had heard it; but for once an audience of two was sufficient for the stimulus and reward of the readers. That and the actual enjoyment of the parts they were playing. Dr. Harrison read well, with cultivated and critical accuracy. His voice was good and melodious, his English enunciation excellent; his knowledge of his author thorough, as far as acquaintanceship went; and his habit of reading a dramatically practised one. But Faith, amid all her delight, had felt a want in it, as compared with the reading to which of late she had been accustomed; it did not give the soul and heart of the author--though it gave everything else. _That_ is what only soul and heart can do. Not that Dr. Harrison was entirely wanting in those gifts either; they lay somewhere, perhaps, in him; but they are not the ones which in what is called "the world" come most often or readily into play; and so it falls out that one who lives there long becomes like the cork oak when it has stood long untouched in _its_ world; the heart is encrusted with a monstrous thick, almost impenetrable, coating of bark. When Mr. Linden joined the reading, the pleasure was perfect; the very contrast between the two characters and the two voices made the illusion more happy. Then Faith was in a little danger of betraying herself; for it was difficult to look at both readers with the same eyes; and if she tried to keep her eyes at home, that was more difficult still.

In the second act, Portia says to Arragon,

"In terms of choice I am not solely led By nice direction of a maiden's eyes," etc.

"What do you think of that, Miss Derrick?" said the doctor pausing when his turn came. "Do you think a lady's choice ought to be so determined?"

Faith raised her eyes, and answered, "No, sir."

"By what then? You don't trust appearances?"

Faith hesitated.

"I should like to hear how Portia managed," she said, with a little heightened colour. "I never thought much about it."

"What do you think of Portia's gloves, doctor?" said Mr. Linden.

"Hum"--said the doctor. "They are a pattern!--soft as steel, harsh as kid-leather. They fit too, so exquisitely! But, if I were marrying her, I think I should request that she would give her gloves into my keeping."

"Then would your exercise of power be properly thwarted. Every time you made the demand, Portia would, like a juggler, pull off and surrender a fresh pair of gloves, leaving ever a pair yet finer-spun upon her hands."

"I suppose she would," said the doctor comically. "Come! I won't marry her. And yet, Linden,--one might do worse. Such gloves keep off a wonderful amount of friction."

"If you happen to have fur which cannot be even _stroked_ the wrong way!"

The doctor's eye glanced with fun, and Faith laughed The reading went on. And went on without much pausing, until the lines--

"O ten times faster Venus' pigeons fly To seal love's bonds new made, than they are wont To keep obliged faith unforfeited!

----Who riseth from a feast, With that keen appet.i.te that he sits down?

Where is the horse, that doth untread again His tedious measures with the unbated fire That he did pace them first? All things that are, Are with more spirit chased than enjoyed."

"Do you believe in that doctrine, Miss Faith?" said the doctor, with a gentle look in her direction.

"I suppose it is true of some things,"--she said after a minute's consideration.

"What a wicked truth it is, Linden!" said the doctor.

"There is 'an error i' the bill,'" said Mr. Linden.

Faith's eyes looked somewhat eagerly, the doctor's philosophically.

"Declare and shew," said the doctor. "I thought it was a universal, most deplorable, human fact; and here it is, in Shakspeare, man; which is another word for saying it is in humanity."

"It is true only of false things. The Magician's coins are next day but withered leaves--the real gold is at compound interest."

The doctor's smile was doubtful and cynical; Faith's had a touch of sunlight on it.

"Where is your 'real gold'?" said the doctor.

"Do you expect me to tell you?" said Mr. Linden laughing. "I have found a good deal in the course of my life, and the interest is regularly paid in."

"Are you talking seriously?"

"Ay truly. So may you."

"From any other man, I should throw away your words as the veriest Magician's coin; but if they are true metal--why I'll ask you to take me to see the Mint some day!"

"Let me remind you," said Mr. Linden, "that there are many things in Shakspeare. What do you think of this, for a set-off?--

'Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compa.s.s come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out e'en to the edge of doom.

If this be error, and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.'"

"There's an error proved upon _me_," said the doctor, biting his lips as he looked at Faith who had listened delightedly. "Come on! I'll stop no more. The thing is, Linden, that I am less happy than you--I never found any real gold in my life!"

"Ah you expect gold to come set with diamonds,--and that cannot always be. I don't doubt you have gold enough to start a large fortune, if you would only rub it up and make it productive."

The doctor made no answer to that, and the reading went on; Faith becoming exceedingly engrossed with the progress of the drama. She listened with an eagerness which both the readers amusedly took heed of, as the successive princes of Morocco and Arragon made their trial: the doctor avowing by the way, that he thought he should have "a.s.sumed desert" as the latter prince did, and received the fool's head for his pains. Then they came to the beautiful "casket scene." The doctor had somehow from the beginning left Portia in Mr. Linden's hands; and now gave with great truth and gracefulness the very graceful words of her successful suitor. He could put truth into these, and did, and accordingly read beautifully; well heard, for the play of Faith's varying face shewed she went along thoroughly with all the fine turns of thought and feeling; here and elsewhere. But how well and how delicately Mr. Linden gave Portia! That Dr. Harrison could not have done; the parts had fallen out happily, whether by chance or design.

Her ladylike and coy play with words--her transparent veil of delicate shifting turns of expression--contriving to say all and yet as if she would say nothing--were rendered by the reader with a grace of tone every way fit to them. Faith's eye ceased to look at anybody, and her colour flitted, as this scene went on; and when Portia's address to her fortunate wooer was reached--that very n.o.ble and dignified declaration of her woman's mind, when she certainly pulled off her gloves, wherever else she might wear them;--Faith turned her face quite away from the readers and with the cheek she could not hide sheltered by her hand--as well as her hand could--she let n.o.body but the fire and Mrs. Derrick see what a flush covered the other. Very incautious in Faith, but it was the best she could do. And the varied interests that immediately followed, of Antonio's danger and deliverance, gradually brought her head round again and accounted sufficiently for the colour with which her cheeks still burned. The Merchant of Venice was not the only play enacting that evening; and the temptation to break in upon the one, made the doctor, as often as he could, break off the other; though the interest of the plot for a while gave him little chance.

"So shines a good deed in a naughty world."

"Do you suppose, Miss Derrick," said Dr. Harrison with his look of amused pleasure,--"that is because the world is so dark?--or because the effects of the good deed reach to such a distance?"

"Both," said Faith immediately.