Successful Recitations Part 3

I turned away shuddering.

"Terrible gales," said my father, rustling the newspaper comfortably in his easy chair. "Great disasters among the s.h.i.+pping. I shouldn't wonder if the yacht young what's-his-name went out in were come to grief."

I grew pale, and thin, and dispirited. I knew the ladies of our company made nasty remarks about me. One day I overheard two of them talking.

"She never was much of an actress, and now she merely walks through her part. They never had any feeling for art, not one of those Gascoigne girls."

No feeling for art! What a low, mean, spiteful, wicked thing to say.

And the worst of it was that it was so true.

I resolved at once that I would do something desperate. The last piece brought out at our theatre had been a "frost." It had dragged along until the advertis.e.m.e.nts were able to announce "Fifteenth Night of the Great Realistic Drama." And various scathing paragraphs from the papers were pruned down and weeded till they seemed unstinted praise. Thus: "It was not the fault of the management that the new play was so far from being a triumphant success," was cut down to one modest sentence, "A triumphant success." "A few enthusiastic cheers from personal friends alone broke the ominous silence when the curtain fell," became briefly "Enthusiastic cheers."

But n.o.body was deceived. One week the public were informed that they could book their seats a month in advance; the next that the successful drama had to be withdrawn at the height of its popularity, owing to other arrangements. What the other arrangements were to be our manager was at his wit's end to decide. There only wanted three weeks to the close of the season. Fired with a wild ambition born of suspense and disappointment, I suggested that Shakespeare should fill the breach. "Romeo and Juliet," with me, Sybil Gascoigne, as the heroine.

"Pshaw!" said our good-humoured manager, "you do not know what you are talking about. Juliet! You have not the depth, the temperament, the experience for a Juliet. She had more knowledge of life at thirteen than most of our English maids have at thirty. To represent Juliet correctly an actress must have the face and figure of a young girl, with the heart and mind of a woman, and of a woman who has suffered."

"And have I not suffered? Do you think because you see me tripping through some foolish, insipid _role_ that I am capable of nothing better? Give me a chance and see what I can do."

"Oh! bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,"

I began, and declaimed the speech with such despairing vigour that our manager was impressed.

Well, the end of it was that he yielded to my suggestion.

It seemed a prosperous time to float a new Juliet. At a neighbouring theatre a lovely foreign actress was playing the part nightly to crowded houses. We might get some of the overflow, or the public would come for the sake of comparing native with imported talent. Oh! the faces of my traducers, who had said, "Those Gascoigne girls have no feeling for art," when it was known that they were out of the bill, and that Sybil Gascoigne was to play Shakespeare. I absolutely forgot Jack for one moment. But the next, my grief, my desolation, were present with me with more acuteness than ever. And I was glad that it was so. Such agony as I was enduring would surely make me play Juliet as it had never been played before.

At rehearsals I could see I created a sensation. I felt that I was grand in my hapless love, my desperate grief. I should make myself a name. If Jack were dead or had forsaken me, my art should be all in all.

The morning before the all important evening dawned, I had lain awake nearly an hour, as my custom was of nights how, thinking of Jack, wondering if ever woman had so much cause to grieve as I. Then I rose, practised taking the friar's potion, and throwing myself upon the bed, until my mother came up and told me to go to sleep, or my eyes would be red and hollow in the morning. But I told my mother that hollow eyes and pale cheeks were necessary to me now--that my career depended upon the depths of my despair.

"To-morrow, mother, let no one disturb me on any account. Keep away letters, newspapers, everything. Tomorrow I am Juliet or nothing."

My mother promised, and I got some hours of undisturbed slumber.

Rehearsal was over--the last rehearsal. I had gone through my part thinking of my woes. I had swallowed the draught as if it had indeed been a potion to put me out of all remembrance of my misery. I had s.n.a.t.c.hed the dagger and stabbed myself with great satisfaction, and I felt I should at least have the comfort of confounding my enemies and triumphing over them.

I was pa.s.sing Charing Cross Station, delayed by the streams of vehicles issuing forth, when in a hansom at a little distance I saw a form--a face--which made me start and tremble, and turn hot and cold, and red and white, all at the same time. It could not be Jack. It ought not, must not, should not be Jack. Had I not to act in suffering and despair to-night? Well, even if he had returned in safety from his cruise it was without a thought of me in his heart.

He was engaged--married--for aught I knew. It was possible, nay, certain, that I should never see him again.

And yet I ran all the way home. And yet I told the servant breathlessly--"If any visitors call I do not wish to be disturbed."

And yet I made my mother repeat the promise she had given me the previous night. Then I flew to my den at the top of the house; bolted myself in, and set a chair against the door as if I were afraid of anyone making a forcible entry. I stuffed my fingers in my ears, and went over my part with vigour, with more noise even than was absolutely necessary. Still, how strangely I seemed to hear every sound. A hansom pa.s.sing--no, a hansom drawing up at our house. I went as far from the window as possible. I wedged myself up between the sofa and the wall, and I shut my eyes firmly. Surely there were unaccustomed sounds about, talking and laughing, as if something pleasant had happened. Presently heavy footsteps came bounding up, two steps at a time. Oh! should I have the courage not to answer if it should be Jack?

But it was not. Kitty's voice shouted--

"Sybil, Sybil, come down. Here's----"

"Kitty, be quiet," I called out furiously. "If you do not hold your tongue, if you do not go away from the door immediately, I'll--I'll shoot you."

She went away, and I heard her telling them downstairs that she believed Sybil had gone mad.

I waited a little longer,--then I stole to the window.

Surely Juliet would not be spoiled by the sight of a visitor leaving the house. But there was no one leaving. Indeed, I saw the prospect of a fresh arrival--Isabel Chisholm was coming up the street in a brand new costume and hat to match. Her fringe was curled to perfection. A tiny veil was arranged coquettishly just above her nose. Flesh and blood could not stand this. Downstairs I darted, without even waiting for a look in the gla.s.s. Into the drawing-room I bounced, and there, in his six feet two of comely manliness, stood Jack, my Jack, more bronzed and handsome and loveable than ever. He whom I had been mourning for by turns as dead and faithless, but whom I now knew was neither; for he came towards me with both hands outstretched, and he held mine in such a loving clasp, and he looked at me with eyes which I knew were reading just such another tale as that written on his own face.

Then when the knock sounded which heralded Miss Chisholm, he said:--

"Come into another room, Sybil; I have so much to say to you."

And in that other room he told me of his adventures and perils, and how through them all he had thought of me and wondered, if he never came back alive, whether I should be sorry, and, if he did come back, whether I would promise to be his darling little wife, very, very soon.

But all this, though far more beautiful than poet ever wrote, was not Shakespeare, and I was to act Juliet at night--Juliet the wretched, the heartbroken--while my own spirits were dancing, and my pulses bounding with joy and delight unutterable.

Well, I need hardly tell you my Juliet was not a success. I was conscious of tripping about the stage in an airy, elated way, which was allowable only during the earlier scenes; but when I should have been tragic and desperate, I was still br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with new found joy. All through Juliet's grand monologue, where she swallows the poison, ran the refrain--"Jack has come home, I am going to marry Jack." I had an awful fear once that I mixed two names a little, and called on Jackimo when I should have said Romeo, and when my speech was over and I lay motionless on the bed, I gave myself up to such delightful thoughts that Capulet or the Friar, I forget which, bending over the couch to a.s.sure himself that I was really dead, whispered--

"Keep quiet, you're grinning."

I was very glad when the play was over. We often read the reverse side of the picture--of how the clown cracks jokes while his heart is breaking; perhaps his only mother-in-law pa.s.sing away without his arms to support her. But no one has ever written of the Juliet who goes through terror, suffering, and despair, to the tune of "Jack's returned, I'm going to marry Jack."

THE STORY OF MR. KING.

BY DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY.

This is the story of Mr. King, American citizen--Phineas K., Whom I met in Orkhanie, far away From freshening c.o.c.ktail and genial sling.

A little man with twinkling eyes, And a nose like a hawk's, and lips drawn thin, And a little imperial stuck on his chin, And about him always a cheerful grin, Dashed with a comic and quaint surprise.

That very night a loot of wine Made correspondents and doctors glad, And the little man, unask'd to dine, Sat down and shar'd in all we had.

For none said nay, this ready hand Reach'd after pillau, and fowl, and drink, And he toss'd off his liquor without a wink, And wielded a knife like a warrior's brand.

With a buccaneering, swaggering look He sang his song, and he crack'd his jest, And he bullied the waiter and curs'd the cook With a charming self-approving zest.

We wanted doctors: he was a doctor; Had we wanted a prince it had been the same.

Admiral, general, cobbler, proctor-- A man may be anything. What's in a name?

The wounded were dying, the dead lay thick In the hospital beds beside the quick.

Any man with a steady nerve And a ready hand, who knew how to obey, In those stern times might well deserve His fifty piastres daily pay.

So Mr. King, as a.s.sistant surgeon, Bandaged, and dosed, and nursed, and dressed, And worked, as he ate and drank, with zest, Until he began to blossom and burgeon To redness of features and fulness of cheek, And his starven hands grew plump and sleek.

But for all sign of wealth he wore He swaggered neither less nor more.

He talked the stuff he talked before, And bragged as he had bragged of yore, With his Yankee chaff and his Yankee slang, And his Yankee bounce and his Yankee tw.a.n.g.

And, to tell the truth, we all held clear Of the impudent little adventurer; And any man with an eye might see That, though he bore it merrily, He recognised the tacit scorn Which dwelt about him night and morn.

The Turks fought well, as most men fight For life and faith, and hearth and home.

But, from Teliche and Etrepol, left and right, The Muscov swirled, like the swirling foam On the rack of a tempest driven sea.

And foot by foot staunch Mehemit Ali Was driven along the Lojan valley, Till he sat his battered forces down Just northward of the little town, And waited on war's destiny.

War's destiny came, and line by line His forces broke and fled.

And for three days in Orkhanie town The arabas went up and down With loads of dying and dead; Till at last in a rush of panic fear, The hardest bitten warriors there Turn'd with the cowardly Bazouk And the vile Tchirca.s.se and forsook The final fort, in headlong flight, For near Kamirli's sheltering height; While through the darkness of the night The cannon belched their hate Against the flying crowd; and far And near the soldiers of the Tsar Pour'd onward towards the spoil of war In haste precipitate.