Part 9 (2/2)

Mary, waiting in the audience till the quartette had finished its first song, did not appear on the scene behind the curtain until Malcolm was dressed in his black robe and long white beard and wig, and Lloyd was laid out on the black bier.

”Stay just as you are,” whispered Miss Allison. ”It's perfect. I'm going out into the audience to enjoy the effect as the curtain rises.”

As she pa.s.sed Miss Casey, the elocutionist, she felt some one catch her sleeve. ”I've left that copy of Tennyson at the house,” she gasped.

”What shall I do?”

”I'll run and get it,” volunteered Elise in a whisper, and promptly started off. Mary, standing back in the shadow of a tall lilac bush, clasped her hands in silent admiration of the picture. It was wonderful how the moonlight transformed everything. Here was the living, breathing poem itself before her. She forgot it was Lloyd and Malcolm posing in makes.h.i.+ft costumes on a calico-covered dry goods box. It seemed the barge itself, draped all in blackest samite, going upward with the flood, that day that there was dole in Astolat. While she gazed like one in a dream, Lloyd half-opened her eyes, to peep at the old boatman.

”I wish they'd hurry,” she said, in a low tone. ”I never felt so foolish in my whole life.”

”And never looked more beautiful,” Malcolm answered, trying to get another glimpse of her without changing his pose.

”Sh,” she whispered back, saucily. ”You forget that you are dumb. You mustn't say a word.”

”I will,” he answered, in a loud whisper. ”For even if I were really dumb I think I should find my voice to tell you that with your hair rippling down on that cloth of gold in the moonlight, and all in white, with that lily in your hand, you look like an angel, and I'm in the seventh heaven to be here with you in this boat.”

”And with you in that white hair and beard I feel as if it were Fathah Time paying me compliments,” said Lloyd, her cheeks dimpling with amus.e.m.e.nt. ”Hus.h.!.+ It's time for me to look dead,” she warned, as the applause followed the last encore. ”Don't say anything to make me laugh.

I'm trying to look as if I had died of a broken heart.”

Elise darted back just as the prompter's bell rang, and Mary, turning to follow her to their seats in the audience, saw Miss Casey tragically throw up her hands, with a horrified exclamation. It was not the copy of Tennyson Elise had brought her. In her haste she had s.n.a.t.c.hed up a volume of essays bound in the same blue and gold.

”Go on!” whispered Malcolm, sternly. ”Say something. At least go out and explain the tableau in your own words. There are lots of people who won't know what we are aiming at.”

Miss Casey only wrung her hands. ”Oh, I can't! I can't!” she answered, hoa.r.s.ely. ”I couldn't think of a word before all those people!” As the curtain drew slowly apart, she covered her face with her hands and sank back out of sight in the shrubbery.

The curtain-s.h.i.+fter had answered the signal of the prompter's bell, which at Miss Allison's direction was to be rung immediately after the last applause. Neither knew of the dilemma.

A long-drawn ”O-o-oh” greeted the beautiful tableau, and then there was a silence that made Miss Allison rise half-way in her seat, to see what had become of the interpreter. Then she sank back again, for a clear, strong voice, not Miss Casey's, took up the story.

”And that day there was dole in Astolat.

Then rose the dumb old servitor, and the dead, Oared by the dumb, went upward with the flood.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”A LONG-DRAWN 'O-O-OH' GREETED THE BEAUTIFUL TABLEAU”]

She did not know who had sprung to the rescue, but Joyce, who recognized Mary's voice, felt a thrill of pride that she was doing it so well. It was better than Miss Casey's rendering, for it was without any professional frills and affectations; just the simple story told in the simplest way by one who felt to the fullest the beauty of the picture and the music of the poem.

The red lights flared up, and again the exclamation of pleasure swept through the audience, for Lloyd, lying on the black bier with her hair rippling down and the lily in her hand, might indeed have been the dead Elaine, so ethereal and fair she seemed in that soft glow. Three times the curtains were parted, and even then the enthusiastic guests kept applauding.

There was a rush from the seats, and half a dozen admiring friends pushed between the curtains to offer congratulations. But before they reached her, Lloyd had rolled off her bier to catch Mary in an impulsive hug, crying, ”You were a perfect darling to save the day that way!

Wasn't she, Malcolm? It was wondahful that you happened to know it!”

The next moment she had turned to Judge Moore and Alex Shelby and the ladies who were with them, to explain how Mary had had the presence of mind and the ability to throw herself into Miss Casey's place on the spur of the moment, and turn a failure into a brilliant success. The congratulations and compliments which she heard on every side were very sweet to Mary's ears, and when Phil came up a little later to tell her that she was a brick and the heroine of the evening, she laughed happily.

”Where is the fair Elaine?” he asked next. ”I see her boat is empty. Can you tell me where she has drifted?”

”No,” answered Mary, so eager to be of service that she was ready to tell all she knew. ”She was here with Sir Feal till just a moment ago.”

<script>