Part 29 (1/2)
The strings in the orchestra quavered a few languorous notes and Madge started her song ”Can love be controlled by advice.” Her voice was a singularly sweet one, of no great volume and yet possessed of a certain carrying quality. The excellence of her instruction, combined with her own good taste, had brought it to a state of what, for that voice, might be called perfection. She also had the good sense never to sing anything too big for her. But though her voice might not be suited to Wagner or Strauss it was far better suited to certain simpler things than a larger voice might have been, and the song she was singing now was one of these. Probably no more happy combination could be effected between singer and song than that of Madge and the slow, plaintive, seventeenth-century melody of ”Grim king of the ghosts,” which Gay had the good sense to incorporate into his masterpiece.
To say that the audience was spellbound by her rendering of the song would be to stretch a point. It sat, for the most part, silently attentive, enjoying it very much and thinking that it would give her a good round of applause and an encore at the end. Harry, standing in the obscurity of the back part of Aunt Selina's box, was of very much the same mind. For about half of the song, that is. For near the end of the first verse he suddenly realized that Madge was singing not Gay's words, but his own.
It was absurd, of course, but at that realization the whole world seemed suddenly to change. The floor beneath his feet became clouds, the theater a corner of paradise, the people in it choirs of marvelous ethereal beings, Mrs. Peachum (alias Smith) a ministrant seraph, Madge's voice the music of the spheres, and Madge herself, from being an unusually nice girl of his acquaintance, became....
What nonsense! he told himself; the idea of getting so worked up at hearing his own words sung on a stage!--You fool, replied another voice within him, you know perfectly well that that's not it at all.--Don't tell me, replied the other Harry, the sensible one; such things don't happen, except in books; they don't happen to real people--ME, for instance.--Why not? obstinately inquired the other; why not you, as well as any one else?--Well, I can't stop to argue about it now, the practical Harry answered; I've got to go out and see that people are ready for their cues.
He went out, and found everything running perfectly smoothly. People were standing waiting for their entrances minutes ahead of time, the electricians were at their posts, the make-up people had finished their work, the scene-s.h.i.+fters and property men had put everything in readiness for setting the next scene; no one even asked him a question.
He flitted about for a few moments on imaginary errands, asking various people if all was going well; but the real question that he kept asking himself all the time was Is this IT? Is this IT?
”I don't know!” he said at last, loudly and petulantly, and several people turned to see whom he was reproving now.
When he got back to the box he found Madge still singing the last verse of her song. He wondered how many times she had had to repeat it, and hoped Cosgrove was living up to his agreement not to give more than one encore to each song. In reality this was her first encore; his hectic trip behind the scenes had occupied a much shorter time than he supposed. Madge was making a most exquisite piece of work of her little appeal to maternal sympathy; she was actually taking the second verse sitting down, leaning forward with her arms on a table in an att.i.tude of conversational pleading. He had not told her to do that; it was so hard to make effective that he would not have dared to suggest it. When she reached the line, ”If heart ever beat in your breast” she suddenly rose, slightly threw back her arms and head, and sang the words on a wholly new note of restrained pa.s.sion, beautifully dramatic and suggestive. The house burst into applause, but Harry was seized with a fit of unholy mirth at the irony of the situation--Madge, perfectly indifferent, singing those words, while he, their author, consumed with an all-devouring flame, stood stifling his pa.s.sion in a dark corner. An insane desire seized him to run out to the middle of the stage and shout at the top of his voice ”Have pity on me, for I love!” It would be true then. He supposed, however, that people might think it peculiar.
From then on, as long as Madge held the stage, he stood rooted to the spot, unable to lift his eyes from her. Presently her lover came in, and they started the lovely duet, ”Pretty Polly, say.” At the end of the encore, according to Harry's instructions, Barnaby leaned over and kissed his Polly on the mouth. A sudden and intense dislike for Mr.
Barnaby at that moment overcame Harry....
The act ended; the house went wild again; the curtain flopped up and down with no apparent intention of ever stopping; ushers rushed down the aisles with great beribboned bunches of flowers. This gave Harry an idea; as soon as the second act was safely under way he rushed out to the nearest florist's shop and commandeered all the American Beauty roses in the place, to be delivered to Miss Elliston with his card at the end of the next act.
As he was going out of the shop he stopped to look at some peculiar little pink and white flowers in a vase near the door.
”What are those?” he asked.
”Bleeding hearts,” said the florist's clerk. ”Just up from Florida; very hard to get at this time of year.”
Harry stood still, thinking. If he sent those--would she Know--Of course she would, answered the practical Harry immediately; she would not only Know but would call him a fool for his pains.--Oh, shut up! retorted the other.
”I'll have these then, instead of the roses, please,” he said aloud.
”All of them, and don't forget the card.”
They did not meet till after the performance was over. He caught sight of her making a sort of triumphal progress through the back of the stage, on her way to the dressing rooms, and deliberately placed himself in her path. She was looking rather surprisingly solemn, he noticed. Her face lighted up, however, when she saw him. She smiled, at least.
”Well, what did _you_ think of it?” she asked.
”I think the performance was very creditable,” he answered. ”To say what I think of you would be compromising.”
She laughed and went on without making any reply. He could not see her face, but something gave him the impression that her smile did not last very long after she had turned away from him.
He walked home alone through the crisp March night, breathing deeply and trying to reduce his teeming brain to a state of order and clarity. The walk from the theater home was not sufficient for this; he walked far beyond his house and all the way back again before he could think clearly enough. At last he raised his eyes to the comfortable stars and spoke a few words aloud in a low, calm voice.
”I really think,” he said, ”that this is IT. I really do think so ...
But I must be very careful,” he added, to himself; ”_very_ careful. I must take no chances--this time. Both on Madge's account and on mine.”
”No,” he added after a moment; ”not on my account. On Madge's.”
CHAPTER II
CONGREVE