CHAPTER VIII

Amateur Theatricals

The half-term had seen Aldred at the head of her form, and by dint of hard application she managed to keep her position there fairly steadily; with such a clever rival as Ursula to contend against, it was impossible to win the coveted prize every week, but she scored a success so often that her average record was higher than that of anyone else. Miss Drummond was manifestly pleased with her progress; it was not often that a new girl came so quickly to the fore. Aldred had been sent to her with a reputation for both shirking lessons and defying authority, so she flattered herself that the atmosphere of Birkwood had worked a change, and remedied both these defects.

Aunt Bertha, who was kept well informed of her niece's progress, wrote to express satisfaction.

"I am glad to hear you are settling down and becoming more reasonable," ran her letter to Aldred. "It is high time you learnt sense, and if you can turn into an ordinary, rational being at the Grange, it will be well worth having sent you there. I hope the improvement will show itself during the holidays."

"How hateful she is!" thought Aldred, tearing the letter angrily into little bits. "She always rubs me the wrong way, and makes me feel I'd like to do the exact opposite to what she wants. I don't get top to please her, at any rate! If she would improve during the holidays, perhaps I might too! I don't care what she thinks of me!"

Keith's approval was a different matter, and it was a keen pleasure to Aldred to be able to tell him of her triumph, and to receive his hearty congratulations.

"I know what it is to swat hard," wrote Keith, "so I think you've turned up trumps, and I'm proud of you. I'll take you into town as often as you like this Christmas, even to the National Gallery, though I detest the Old Masters."

With so much to fill up the time, the autumn term seemed to pass very quickly away. The weeks flew by, and dull November fogs were succeeded by early December frosts. It was no longer possible to go into the garden after tea; the days had closed in rapidly, and the lamps were lighted now by five o'clock. Every afternoon, when the weather allowed, the girls played hockey to keep themselves warm, and Aldred began to grow interested in the game, though she had not yet secured the proficiency that her ambition would have wished.

The situation of Birkwood, between the downs and the sea, so delightfully breezy and fresh in spring and summer, was decidedly cold in winter; Aldred was amazed at the number of blankets she required on her bed, and fully appreciated the hot brick that was allowed. Miss Drummond was indulgent in that respect. The bricks were placed every evening on a special stone intended for the purpose connected with the heating apparatus; by nine o'clock they were delightfully warm, and each girl carried her own upstairs, returning it next morning to its place.

"They're the greatest comfort; I should shiver all night without mine!" said Mabel. "I'm glad Miss Drummond lets us have them. One of my cousins goes to an absolutely Spartan school; they're obliged to wash in cold water always, and to take ice-cold baths, even in the depth of winter. Lilian put an india-rubber hot-water bag in her box, but she was not allowed to use it; the head mistress says she likes girls to be hardy. I think it must be wretched; we are better treated at the Grange."

Miss Drummond's arrangements were certainly calculated to make everyone at Birkwood as cosy as possible when the winds blew chill outside. There was always a cheerful blaze in the recreation room, and the girls were also permitted to keep up the fires in the classrooms, if they wished to do anything special there during the evening--a privilege of which they were glad to avail themselves towards the end of the term.

They were all very fond of acting, and each form intended to prepare a play for the last week. The strictest secrecy was observed about rehearsals.

"We don't want the others to have a hint of what we mean to do," said Phoebe Stanhope; "they mustn't even know the name of our act."

"And we must make all our dresses here too," said Myfanwy, "and any wigs, or moustaches, or anything we need."

"Shall we have time?" enquired Aldred.

"Yes; Miss Drummond excuses sewing when we're getting up theatricals. We may have the room to ourselves the minute we've finished prep. It gives us a good hour every night, and that ought to be enough, if we work hard."

"What are we going to act?"

"That's just the question."

"It's so difficult to decide!" said Mabel.

"I have a kind of notion that both the Sixth and the Fifth have chosen scenes from Shakespeare," observed Agnes Maxwell. "They keep talking in such grand language, and making quotations that aren't particularly appropriate! When Lilian Marshall wanted to call me back for something yesterday, she said: 'Tarry, Jew: the law hath yet another hold on you!' and the others sniggered."

"Then they'll be taking the Trial Scene from the _Merchant of Venice_. Yes, I'm certain they must be, because Eleanor Avery has a lovely red dressing-gown that they'll use for Portia's robe."

"And what about the Fifth?"

"Something from _As You Like It_, I fancy. Their classroom door was open as I passed last night, and I caught a glimpse of them painting scenery on great pieces of brown paper. It was evidently for a wood."

"It might be for _A Midsummer-Night's Dream_."

"Well, yes, of course it might."

"One thing is certain," said Lorna Hallam; "we mustn't decide upon Shakespeare."

"No; it would be too stale if we happened to choose the very same scene."

"Can't we have something comic?" suggested Myfanwy James.

"Yes, a short farce," agreed Ursula Bramley. "There are several very jolly ones in the book Miss Bardsley lent me. It would be quite a change."

"Where's the book? Let us look at it."

The little plays were mostly old friends with new faces. Well-known tales had been dramatized, and given a humorous element that made them very suitable for Christmas performances.

"They're screamingly funny!" said Phoebe. "I expect we shall die of laughing when we're acting. Shall we have 'Beauty and the Beast', or 'Bluebeard'?"

"Which has the easier dresses?" asked Mabel.

"They're pretty much the same, and there are the same number of characters, eight in each. We can't take 'Cinderella', because there are too many parts; and 'Goody Two Shoes' has too few."

"'Bluebeard' seems the more dramatic," said Aldred, hastily dipping into the book.

"Who votes for 'Bluebeard'?" queried Mabel.

Six hands went up immediately; so the matter was considered settled, Myfanwy and Agnes, who preferred 'Beauty and the Beast', being in the minority.

"And now we shall have to decide the caste," said Ursula. "I think the tallest ought to be Bluebeard."

"Oh, I dare say, when you're an inch above everyone else in the Form!" Agnes sounded indignant.

"No, we must draw lots for the parts, as we always have done," said Mabel. "It's the fairest way, because then nobody can complain. We're all pretty equal at acting, so it doesn't much matter who gets Bluebeard or Fatima. There are eight characters, so get eight slips of paper, Dora, and we'll write one on each."

"We must fold them exactly evenly," said Dora, "so that they all feel the same. What shall we shuffle them in? Can you make a place on your lap? Now, each girl must draw one in turn."

"Who's to begin?" said Aldred.

"The eldest. We always take it in order of birthdays. Nobody must unfold her slip until everyone else has drawn. Agnes, it's your turn first."

Aldred opened her paper with much anxiety, and read its contents with a frown. "An Attendant"--that was all! She was very disgusted to be obliged to take such a humble part, having hoped to get either Bluebeard or Fatima, or, at least, Sister Anne. She knew she could act well, and thought she certainly ought to be one of the more important characters in the play. It was particularly aggravating, because Fatima had been drawn by Lorna Hallam, the girl with the worst memory and the least dramatic talent in the class; and Bluebeard had fallen to the lot of little Dora Maxwell, whose chirpy voice would not be nearly so appropriate to the occasion as the deeper tones of Ursula Bramley. If anybody except Mabel had suggested the plan of deciding the caste by lot, Aldred would have disputed the matter hotly; but she did not like to argue with her chum, so she was obliged to suppress her feelings and agree with the best grace she could. Mabel herself was to be Sister Anne, Phoebe Stanhope and Myfanwy James were the two brothers, Ursula Bramley was the Beneficent Fairy, and Agnes Maxwell another attendant.

"We ought to alter some of the parts," Aldred could not help suggesting. "It's ridiculous for Ursula to be a fairy! She's too tall, and her hair is brown. Why can't she change with Dora?"

"No, thank you!" protested Dora. "I'm sick of being a fairy; because I'm small, and my hair is light, I'm always given a gauze dress and a wand. I'm tired of coming in disguised as a beggar woman, and then flinging off my cloak--it always catches on my wreath and pulls it crooked; and I've said I don't know how many ending-up speeches. I've drawn Bluebeard this time, and I mean to stick to him, whatever sort of a fairy Ursula makes."

"I shan't be such a bad one, I'm sure!" declared Ursula, rather offended. "You wouldn't make a better, Aldred; your hair's darker than mine."

"Well, I don't know how Lorna is going to learn all Fatima's long part," Aldred ventured to object; "she never gets through her recitations in class without a mistake."

"I'll manage, thank you!" retorted Lorna. "Besides, there's always the prompter behind the piano."

"The prompter! You ought never to rely on that!"

"I didn't say I was going to."

"Yes, you did! If people undertake a part, they ought at least to know the words, or let somebody else have it."

"I shan't give up my part at your bidding!"

"You're misunderstanding each other," interposed Mabel. "Aldred never meant she wanted you to give up your part, Lorna; I'm sure she was only sympathizing because she knows you find it hard to learn things."

"It's a queer form of sympathy, then!" grumbled Lorna. "I thought she wanted to be Fatima herself."

"Oh, no! That's most unlike Aldred. I wonder you could imagine for an instant that she would have such a motive! I think, when we decided to abide by the lot, it would be a mistake to have any changing; and we'd better set to work and learn some of our speeches, so that we can rehearse the first scene, at any rate, to-morrow. We must each borrow the book in turn, and keep looking at it in any odd moments we can spare."

"Yes; there won't be too much time, with all the costumes to think about as well," agreed the others.

Aldred mastered the dozen lines that fell to the Attendant in a few minutes, and handed the book on to Sister Anne. Feeling sure of her portion in the play, she could afford to criticize the others, and set to work to coach them vigorously at the evening rehearsal. Though some of them were not willing to fall in with her suggestions, she managed to make herself so prominent that, in spite of themselves, the girls allowed her to assume the leadership, and to constitute herself a kind of stage manager.

"Aldred is quite right," said Mabel, backing her up; "we certainly were not saying our speeches with half enough dramatic emphasis, and we weren't putting any spirit into them. I feel I was too tame."

"We haven't got as far as 'dramatic emphasis'," said Phoebe. "That would come afterwards."

"It's better to practise it as we go along, and as Aldred has had so much experience of private theatricals, we had better take her advice, and let her show us how it ought to be done."

Aldred's boasted experience was really confined to a few charades with the Rectory children at home; but she had considerable natural talent for acting, and could throw herself heart and soul into a part. It tried her very much to hear Fatima and Bluebeard give a dialogue as if they were repeating a lesson, to see the Brothers come strolling up to the rescue, instead of rushing in with hot haste; and to watch the very un-sylph-like movements of the Fairy.

"This is the way it should be done!" she would cry, and would go through the speeches herself, giving word and action as if she were really the character she was impersonating, her eyes flashing with enthusiasm and her cheeks aglow. Not one of her stage pupils could approach her fire, or the various delicate modulations of her voice; even Mabel, who tried her best, was very far behind.

"I can't put so much expression into what I'm saying!" declared Dora. "I have to think all the time whether I'm getting the words right."

"But you ought to know the words so well that you don't need to think about them--only to feel what Bluebeard would be feeling!" returned Aldred, who by this time could remember every separate speech in the play much better than the actresses themselves. "Can't you imagine yourself haughty and pompous, when you give Fatima the keys?"

"Why, no! I want to laugh!" giggled Dora.

Aldred stamped her foot; it was too irritating to see the part of Bluebeard usurped by one who had so little conception of his character. Dora's undignified rendering of the part was a constant annoyance. Fatima, too, was a great trial; she repeated her sentences in a monotonous, sing-song voice, without a vestige of passion.

"You take the keys from Bluebeard as if Miss Bardsley were handing you an exercise-book!" remonstrated Aldred. "And as for the cupboard scene, you look inside and say, 'Oh!' as casually as if there were nothing there!"

"Well, there is nothing there!" retorted Lorna, rather resentful of so much interference.

"Oh, Lorna! There are the horrid, bleeding heads of all the former wives. Can't you pretend you see them, and give a proper shriek? Do let us have the piece again! You ought to look half-curious half-frightened, as you open the door, and then, when you've taken one peep, you should scream, and fall back nearly fainting with horror!"

It seemed no use, however. In spite of all Aldred's coaching and practical illustrations, Lorna could not rise to the required pitch, and continued to give the thrilling scene with the utmost tameness. Aldred was desperate. She felt that the success of the play depended upon this particular situation being adequately depicted, and was determined that Lorna should be forced to give a genuine start; and with that end in view she hatched a little plot. The rehearsals took place in the classroom, and Fatima was accustomed to use the ordinary door, to represent that of the fatal cupboard. Aldred persuaded one of the servants to dress up in a sheet and wait about in the passage, so that when Lorna looked out she should see something calculated to surprise her. Nellie, an under-housemaid, willingly entered into the scheme, and even improved upon it, according to her own ideas, by whitening her face with flour, so as to make herself as ghost-like as possible.

Aldred felt quite excited when Scene III was begun. She managed, without attracting anybody's attention, to take a stealthy peep through the doorway. Yes, there was Nellie, standing quite ready, and horrible enough to make even Aldred jump, though she was expecting to see her. All was in good training, and Lorna was rapidly coming to the fatal lines. She delivered them with her usual lack of fire:

"The key fits well--now, wherefore should I fear? I will at last discover what's in here! Bluebeard's a hundred miles away in Spain; In ignorance no longer I'll remain. Turn, little key! Ope, door, for good or ill! Reveal your secret--know I must and will!"

She flung open the door, as she had done at every rehearsal, in an absolutely wooden manner, and with neither interest nor curiosity in her tone; but her expression changed when she saw the vision in the passage, and for once in her life she accomplished a very excellent representation of the part. She shrieked with a horror that was only too natural, and drew back with a face as white as that of the sham ghost outside.

The girls applauded furiously.

"Well done!"

"Good!"

"Splendid!"

"Why, what's the matter?"

"Lorna, are you acting?"

"Oh, I say! Catch her, quick; she's really fainting!"