"Not your nearest and dearest. Be as gruff as you can, and limp as you did last night. We're not going to let you off! Don't you think it! Why, we couldn't possibly do the piece without you!"

The young people, ostensibly for the entertainment of their elders, but largely for the amus.e.m.e.nt of themselves, had been acting in the evenings to an audience of Aunt Nellie, Uncle David, and Father and Mother. Their last performance had really been so successful that they felt they might venture to give it in so great an emergency. They began at once to pack their various properties.

"Rather a score to be asked to appear on a public platform! I wish Miss Mitch.e.l.l could be there to see us!" triumphed Merle.

"The joke is that I don't believe Chagmouth people will recognise any of us," said Mavis, hunting for a pair of spectacles she had mislaid. "I'm going to bargain that our names aren't announced beforehand."

"Right-o! The audience can imagine we're a London Company on tour in the provinces, or anything else they like. They'll think far more of us if they don't know who we are till afterwards. Tudor mustn't give us away!"

CHAPTER IX

Facing the Footlights

The big five-seater car came punctually at three and conveyed the young people and all their belongings to The Warren, where their arrival caused much satisfaction.

"You've saved us from a most awkward predicament," declared Mrs. Glyn Williams. "I hardly know how to thank you. Wasn't it clever of Babbie to think of it?"

"We've never forgotten how you did a scene here once!" said Tudor.

"Couldn't do it myself to save my life! And Gwen says the same. Oh, here she is! I was looking for you, Gwen! Here are the Ramsays, and Talland."

The Gwen who advanced to shake hands was so different from their old acquaintance that the girls felt they scarcely would have recognised her.

She did her hair in a new fashion, and was wonderfully grown-up, and even more patronising than formerly. She said a languid "How d'you do," then left Babbie to entertain them, which the latter did with enthusiasm, for she was fond of Mavis and Merle.

"I expect you're thinking of all the improvements you'll make here when you come of age?" said Mrs. Glyn Williams, trying to be pleasant to Bevis over the tea-cups. "It's a nice place, and will really look very well when it's been redecorated. You'll have to do it up for your bride, won't you?"

At which joke Bevis blushed crimson and dropped his cake on the carpet, to his own confusion and the delight of the fox-terrier Jim, who thought it was done for his especial benefit, and promptly swallowed the piece, icing and all.

"I don't want to hurry you to turn out," protested Bevis shyly.

"Oh, we shall have Bodoran Hall ready by that time. We were there last week looking at the new building. The workmen are really beginning to get on with it at last."

"You'll have to build fresh stables here, Talland, if you mean to do any decent hunting," advised Tudor airily. "If I were you I'd get those lawyers to start them at once, then they'd be ready when you want them. I suppose you _will_ hunt?"

"I'm not sure yet what I mean to do," replied Bevis guardedly.

He did not like so much catechism about his future plans. In the old days of his poverty he had never admired the Glyn Williams' ideals of life, and he had no wish to mould himself upon their standards. The sporting landlord, with a horizon bounded by the local meet or a county ball, was a type that did not appeal to him, and he saw no reason why he should be forced by a spurious public opinion into lines that were uncongenial.

Though on the surface he and Tudor were friends, at bottom the old antagonism existed as in the days when they had quarrelled on the cliffs near Blackthorn Bower.

It was only to please Mavis and Merle that he had accepted this invitation to The Warren, where he found himself in the peculiar position of being patronised in his own house.

With Bevis rather gloomy and restrained, Tudor slightly aggressive, and Gwen too fashionable to trouble to entertain her old friends, matters were not as exhilarating as they might have been, and everybody seemed relieved when it was time to walk down to the Inst.i.tute.

"I suppose I shall have to go!" yawned Gwen. "These village concerts of Mother's are _such_ a nuisance! Why can't the people get up their own instead of always expecting her to bother with them! _I_ don't want to hear Miss Smith and Miss Brown and Miss Robinson! It bores me stiff."

"Not very polite of her when _we_ are going to act!" whispered Merle to Mavis as they put on their hats.

"It certainly isn't! But Gwen's always like this. I vote we try not to mind," returned Mavis heroically.

The entertainment was to be given in the local Inst.i.tute, which was fitted with a platform and curtain, but otherwise held no great facilities for theatricals. A large and very unruly crowd of young people were outside waiting for admission, and through these our party had to push their way to a side entrance. At the back of the platform great confusion raged. The whole of the Castleton family seemed to be trying to dress one another among a rich jumble of costumes, while Mr. Castleton, altering the poses in his tableaux at the eleventh hour, kept sending messengers home to his studio for articles which he had forgotten.

"The pantry's the only place for the Ladies' Dressing-Room, and it's full of tea-cups!" said Beata, kneeling on the floor to b.u.t.ton Lilith into a mediaeval robe that reached to her toes.

"Tea-cups or no tea-cups, I'll have to use it!" said Merle. "Come with us, Romola, and mount guard over the door while we change. I'm not going to have all the parish popping in. How sublime you look!"

"Very hot and uncomfortable!" sighed Romola. "I'd put on the blue costume and then Dad suddenly altered the whole tableau and made me get into this instead. Wasn't it tiresome of him? Now he's fussing about and I know we shall be late! We always are!"

"So shall we be if we don't hurry up. Have you got the right bag, Mavis?

Oh, here are some of Bevis's things! I must rush out and give them to him before we begin."

Dressing in a pantry full of tea-cups, by the aid of candles and a hand- mirror, was not at all an easy performance, but the girls did their best for one another and were pleased with the result. As soon as they were ready they went to help Bevis and Clive, who needed much a.s.sistance, and were beginning to suffer from stage-fright.

"I was a silly owl to let myself in for it!" groaned the former. "I expect I'll forget every word I ought to say and disgrace myself!"

"You'll do nothing of the sort!" declared Merle firmly. "If you could act it last night you can act it to-night, so don't be ridiculous. You've just _got_ to--there!"

"All right, Soeurette! Don't get baity! I won't let you down if I can help it!"

The audience by this time had been admitted, and had surged into the room and struggled for seats, slightly restrained by the boy scouts, who were acting as stewards, and who vigorously turned out the rank and file if they invaded the reserved benches. The noise was tremendous, everybody was talking, and rough lads at the back were indulging in whistling and an occasional cat-call.

"The tickets have gone well, at any rate," said Nan Colville, who was helping in one of the tableaux. "It's something to have the room full, Dad says! But just listen to them! Aren't they rowdy?"

"If everybody's ready we really _must_ begin!" declared the Vicar, making a hurried visit behind the scenes. "I don't think they'll wait any longer."

Furious stamping from the audience endorsed his words, so Mr. Castleton, who had contemplated yet another alteration, was obliged to be content and allow the curtain to go up. The scene was 'the first meeting of Dante and Beatrice,' and was a charming presentment of mediaeval Italy.

Constable, robed in pale green velvet with a Florentine cap on his picturesque curls, made a very glorified representation of the youthful poet, while Lilith, in the traditional red dress described in the _Vita Nuova_, looked ethereal enough to inspire a lifelong devotion and whole volumes of poems.

The rest of the Castleton family, and a few friends, were grouped as relations and n.o.bles, in some of the richest dresses of the studio, and made a very brave show, evoking much applause. It was years since the villagers had seen 'Living Pictures,' and this was superior to anything of the sort given before. Without the Castletons the entertainment would have been almost non-existent. They provided the greater half of the programme. They were so accustomed to posing as models that they took most graceful positions in the tableaux, and preserved their postures admirably without moving so much as a finger. They included Babbie in a scene from _The Vicar of Wakefield_, and she made a dear little 'Sophia' in muslin dress and mob cap, hugely to her mother's satisfaction.

Morland, who was at home for Christmas, gave two piano solos, and though his beautiful artistic playing was much above the heads of most of the audience, there were some who were musical enough to enjoy it. Everybody appreciated Claudia's songs. Her voice was of a rare quality, and even the rough lads at the back of the room stopped 'ragging' and listened in silence. It was very highly trained singing, but held that divine throb of pa.s.sion which uses art as the instrument of nature, and united the correctness of a musician with the spontaneous carolling of a bird. With youth and so pretty a face added to her talent it was no wonder that Claudia had an ovation.

"I'm not supposed to sing anywhere in public till I've finished with the college," she announced behind the scenes. "Signor Arezzo would be simply furious if he knew. He's a terrible Turk about it. I don't see how he's going to get to hear about it though! I shan't tell him myself, you may be sure."

Fay, who had considerable skill at elocution, gave a most amusing recitation, to which Morland played a very soft and subdued accompaniment on the piano, and for the encore that followed she repeated some quaint poems of American child-life, which were such a success that the Vicar mentally voted her a discovery, and decided to ask her to help the programme on future occasions.

It was now the turn of our party from Durracombe, who were trying to keep up one another's spirits behind the scenes. The audience, owing to long sitting still, was growing a little obstreperous. The chairman had to keep constantly ringing a bell and reminding people to be quiet. The noise at the back waxed so violent that his voice could hardly be heard, and the occupants of the front seats had to turn round and shout, 'Order!' 'You'll be turned out!' before the delinquents preserved a decent hush. The little piece evolved by Mavis and Merle was ent.i.tled:

_A Rich Relation._

The first scene disclosed Mrs. Hardup, a widow lady, lamenting her lack of means, and regretting that her son, Augustus, should have engaged himself to Isabella, a charming but utterly impecunious damsel. She cheered up, however, when the young people came in bearing a letter; for it was from Uncle Cashbags, their rich relation, announcing that he was coming that very day to have lunch with them. Mavis, as the diplomatic widow, with grey hair and tortoise-sh.e.l.l-rimmed spectacles, looked at least fifty, and preserved her disguise admirably. As for Merle, not a soul in the audience would have recognised her as Augustus. She wore Clive's Eton suit and overcoat, had a brown wig and a moustache, and affected a deep-toned fashionable drawl. Clive, arrayed in some of Mrs.

Ramsay's garments, with a hat and veil and a fur, looked a thorough member of the smart set and acted the most modern of modern damsels. He entered, affectionately leaning on the arm of Augustus, and almost embarra.s.sed that youth by his attentions.

Bevis, as Uncle Cashbags, with white hair, long beard, false eyebrows, and a gouty foot, came limping on to the stage, and was received with effusion by the widow and Augustus, and especially by Isabella, who was a minx, and set herself to captivate the old gentleman. In vain the luckless Augustus tried to ingratiate himself with his rich relation; he was unfortunate enough to tumble over the gouty leg and make several other most exasperating mistakes, which ended in Uncle Cashbags wrathfully repudiating him as his heir, and announcing his intention of marrying Isabella himself, finally hobbling away with the fair and faithless damsel clinging fondly to his arm and blowing a good-bye kiss to her former fiance.

Mischievous Clive was in his element, and played the part with such tremendous zeal that the audience, who had not yet grasped his youth and his s.e.x, watched his manoeuvres breathlessly, and several old ladies looked quite scandalised and disapproving. It was only when called before the curtain that, at a whisper from Mavis, he pulled off hat and veil, revealing his unmistakably boyish head, whereupon a great shout of laughter arose from the benches and a perfect storm of applause.