“Temperament!” I scoffed; “what’s temperament to two eyes like those? Why, they’re as big as golf-balls! And her voice—why, a violin—a very superior violin—if it could talk, would have just such a voice as that woman has! Temperament! Oh, you make me ill! Why, man, just look at her!” I said, conclusively.
Charteris looked, I presume. In any event, the Juliet of the evening stood before the curtain, smiling, bowing to right and left. The citizens of Fairhaven were applauding her with a certain conscientious industry, for they really found Romeo and Juliet a rather dull couple. The general opinion, however, was that Miss Montmorenci seemed an elegant actress, and in some interesting play, like The Two Orphans or Lady Audley’s Secret, would be well worth seeing. Upon those who had witnessed her initial performance, she had made a most favorable impression in The Lady of Lyons; while at the Tuesday matinee, as Lady Isabel in East Lynne, she had wrung the souls of her hearers, and had brought forth every handkerchief in the house. Moreover, she was very good-looking—quite the lady, some said; and, after all, one cannot expect everything for twenty-five cents; considering which circumstances, Fairhaven applauded with temperate ardor, and made due allowance for Shakespeare as being a classic, and, therefore, of course, commendable, but not necessarily interesting.
V
“Well?” I queried, when she had vanished. I was speaking under cover of the orchestra—a courtesy title accorded a very ancient and very feeble piano. “Well, and what do you think of her—of her looks, I means? Who cares for temperament in a woman!”
Charteris assumed a virtuous expression. “I don’t dare tell you,” said he; “you forget I am a married man.”
Then I frowned a little. I often resented Charteris’s flippant allusion to a wife whom I considered, with some reason, to be vastly too good for her husband. And I considered how near I had come to remaining with the others at Willoughby Hall—for that new game they called bridge-whist! And I decided I would never care for bridge. How on earth could presumably sensible people be content to coop themselves in a drawing-room on a warm May evening, when hardly a mile away was a woman with perfectly unfathomable eyes and a voice which was a love-song? Of course, she couldn’t act, but, then, who wanted her to act? I indignantly demanded of my soul.
One simply wanted to look at her, and hear her speak. Charteris, with his prattle about temperament, was an ass; when a woman is born with such eyes and with a voice like that, she has done her full duty by the world, and has prodigally accomplished all one has the tiniest right to expect of her.
It was impossible she was in reality as beautiful as she seemed, because no woman was quite so beautiful as that; most of it was undoubtedly due to rouge and rice-powder and the footlights; but one could not be mistaken about the voice. And if her speech was that, what must her singing be! I thought; and in the outcome I remembered this reflection best of all.
I consulted my programme. It informed me, in large type at the end, that Juliet was “old Capulet’s daughter,” and that the part was played by Miss Annabelle Alys Montmorenci.
And I sighed. I admitted to myself that from a woman who wilfully assumed such a name little could be hoped. Still, I would like to see her off the stage … without all those gaudy fripperies and gewgaws … merely from curiosity. … Then too, they said those actresses were pretty gay. …
VI
“A most enjoyable performance,” said Mr. Charteris, as we came out of the Opera House. “I have always had a sneaking liking for burlesque.”
Thereupon he paused to shake hands with Mrs. Adrian Rabbet, wife to the rector of Fairhaven.
“Such a sad play,” she chirped, “and, do you know, I am afraid it is rather demoralizing in its effects on young people. No, of course, I didn’t think of bringing the children, Mr. Charteris—Shakespeare’s language is not always sufficiently obscure, you know, to make that safe. And besides, as I so often say to Mr. Rabbet, it is sad to think of our greatest dramatist having been a drinking man. It quite depressed me all through the play to think of him hobnobbing with Dr. Johnson at the Tabard Inn, and making such irregular marriages, and stealing sheep—or was it sheep, now?”
I said that, as I remembered, it was a fox, which he hid under his cloak until the beast bit him.
“Well, at any rate, it was something extremely deplorable and characteristic of genius, and I quite feel for his wife.” Mrs. Rabbet sighed, and endeavored, I think, to recollect whether it was Ingomar or Spartacus that Shakespeare wrote. “However,” she concluded, “they play Ten Nights in a Barroom on Thursday, and I shall certainly bring the children then, for I am always glad for them to see a really moral and instructive drama. That reminds me! I absolutely must tell you what Tom said about actors the other day—”
And she did. This led naturally to Matilda’s recent and blasphemous comments on George Washington, and her observations as to the rector’s dog, and little Adey’s personal opinion of Elisha. And so on, in a manner not unfamiliar to fond parents. Mrs. Rabbet said toward the end that it was a most enjoyable chat, although to me it appeared to partake rather of the nature of a monologue. It consumed perhaps a half-hour; and when we two at last relinquished Mrs. Rabbet to her husband’s charge, it was with a feeling not altogether unakin to relief.
VII
We walked slowly down Fairhaven’s one real street, which extends due east from the College for as much as a mile, to end inconsequently in those carefully preserved foundations, which are now the only remnant
