What we really loved were historical dramas, full of great names and affecting incidents. Our crowning triumph (several times repeated) was “Zuma,” a Peruvian play in which an Indian girl is accused of poisoning the wife of the Spanish general, when she is really trying to cure her of a fever by giving her quinine, a drug known only to the Peruvians, and the secret of which the young captive has sworn never to divulge. “Zuma” was a glorious play. Its first production marked an epoch in our lives. Gladly would we have given it a season’s run, had such indulgence been a possibility. There was one scene between the heroine and her free and unregenerate sister, Italca, which left an indelible impression upon my mind. It took place in a subterranean cavern. The stage was darkened, and far-off music—the sound of Spanish revelry—floated on the air. Italca brings Zuma a portion of bark, sufficient only for her own needs,—for she too is fever-stricken,—but, before giving it, asks with piercing scorn: “Are you still an Inca’s daughter, or a Castilian slave?”—a question at which poor Zuma can only weep piteously, but which sent thrills of rapture down my youthful spine. I have had my moments of emotion since then. When Madame Bernhardt as La Tosca put the lighted candles on either side of the murdered Scarpia, and laid the crucifix upon his breast. When Madame Duse as Magda turned suddenly upon the sleek Von Keller, and for one awful moment loosened the floodgates of her passion and her scorn: “You have asked after Emma and after Katie. You have not asked for your child.” But never again has my soul gone out in such a tumult of ecstasy as when Zuma and Italca, Christian and Pagan sisters, the captive and the unconquered, faced each other upon our convent stage.
And now for the first time I—I, eleven years old, and with no shadowy claim to distinction—was going to take part in a play, was going to tread the boards in yellow Turkish trousers, and speak eleven times for all the school to hear. No fear of failure, no reasonable misgivings fretted my heart’s content. Marie might scorn the Spanish lady’s rôle; but then Marie had played “Zuma,”—had reached at a bound the highest pinnacle of fame. Elizabeth might grumble at giving up our recreation hours to rehearsals; but then Elizabeth had been one of the souls in Purgatory, the sinfullest soul, and the most voluble of all. Besides, nothing ever elated Elizabeth. She had been selected once to make an address to the Archbishop, and to offer him a basket of flowers; he had inquired her name, and had said he knew her father; yet all this public notice begot in her no arrogance of soul. Her only recorded observation was to the effect that, if she were an archbishop, she wouldn’t listen to addresses; a suggestion which might have moved the weary and patient prelate more than did the ornate assurances of our regard.
With this shining example of insensibility before my eyes, I tried hard to conceal my own inordinate pride. Rehearsals began before we knew our parts, and the all-important matter of costumes came at once under consideration. The “play-closet,” that mysterious receptacle of odds and ends, of frayed satins, pasteboard swords, and tarnished tinsel jewelry, was soon exhausted of its treasures. Some of the bigger girls, who were to be Spanish ladies in attendance upon Queen Isabella, persuaded their mothers to lend them old evening gowns. The rest of the clothes we manufactured ourselves, “by the pure light of reason,” having no models of any kind to assist or to disturb us.
Happily, there were no Spanish men in the play. Men always gave a good deal of trouble, because they might not, under any circumstances, be clad in male attire. A short skirt, reaching to the knee, and generally made of a balmoral petticoat, was the nearest compromise permitted. Marlow, that consummate dandy, wore, I remember, a red and black striped skirt, rubber boots, a black jacket, a high white collar, and a red cravat. The cravat was given to Julia Reynolds, who played the part, by her brother. It indicated Marlow’s sex, and was considered a little indecorous in its extreme mannishness. “They’ll hardly know what she” (Mrs. Potts) “is meant for, will they?” asks Mr. Snodgrass anxiously, when that estimable lady proposes going to Mrs. Leo Hunter’s fancy ball as Apollo, in a white satin gown with spangles. To which Mr. Winkle makes indignant answer: “Of course they will. They’ll see her lyre.” With the same admirable acumen, we who saw Marlow’s cravat recognized him immediately as a man.
Moors, and Peruvians, and ancient Romans were more easily attired. They wore skirts as a matter of course, looked a good deal alike, and resembled in the main the “Two Gentlemen of Verona,” as costumed by Mr. Abbey. It is with much pleasure I observe how closely—if how unconsciously—Mr. Abbey has followed our convent models. His Valentine might be Manco or Cléante strutting upon our school stage. His Titania is a white-veiled first communicant.
The Turkish trousers worn by Lilly and by me—also by Elizabeth, to her unutterable disgust—were allowed because they were portions of feminine attire. Made of rattling paper muslin, stiff, baggy, and with a hideous tendency to slip down at every step, they evoked the ribald mirth of all the other actors. Mary Orr, especially, having firmly declined a pair as part of Zara’s costume, was moved to such unfeeling laughter at the first dress rehearsal that I could hardly summon courage to stand by Lilly’s side. “The more you show people you mind a thing, the more they’ll do it;” Elizabeth had once observed out of the profundity of her school experience,—an experience which dated from her seventh year. Her own armour of assumed unconcern was provocation-proof. She had mistrusted the trousers from the beginning, while I, thinking of Lalla Rookh and Nourmahal (ladies unknown to the convent library), had exulted in their opulent Orientalism. She had expressed dark doubts as to their fit and shape; and had put them on with visible reluctance, and only because no choice had been allowed her. The big girls arranged—within limits—their own costumes, but the little girls wore what was given them. Yet the impenetrable calm with which she presented herself dulled the shafts of schoolgirl sarcasm. You might as well have tried to cauterize a wooden leg—to use Mirabeau’s famous simile—as to have tried to provoke Elizabeth.
“Isabella of Castile” was a tragedy. Its heroine, Inez, was held a captive by the Moors, and was occupying herself when the play opened with the conversion to Christianity of Ayesha, the assumed daughter of the ever-famous Hiaya Alnayar,—a splendid anachronism (at the siege of Granada), worthy of M. Sardou. Inez embodied all the Christian virtues, as presented only too often for our consideration. She was so very good that she could hardly help suspecting how good she was; and she never spoke without uttering sentiments so noble and exalted that the Moors—simple children of nature—hated her unaffectedly, and made life as disagreeable for her as they knew how. The powers of evil were represented by Zara, sister of Hiaya, and the ruling spirit of Granada. Enlightened criticism would now call Zara a patriot; but we held sterner views. It was she who defied the Spaniards, who refused surrender, and who, when hope had fled, plotted the murder of Isabella. It was she who persecuted the saintly Inez, and whose dagger pierced Ayesha’s heart in the last tumultuous scene. A delightful part to act! I knew every line of it before the rehearsals were over, and I used to rant through it in imagination when I was supposed to be studying my lessons, and when I was lying in my little bed. There were glowing moments when I pictured to myself Mary Orr falling ill the very day of the performance, Madame Rayburn in despair, everybody thunderstruck and helpless, and I stepping modestly forward to confess I knew the part. I saw myself suddenly the centre of attention, the forlorn hope of a desperate emergency, my own insignificant speeches handed over to any one who could learn them, and I storming through Zara’s lines to the admiration and wonder of the school. The ease with which I sacrificed Mary Orr to this ambitious vision is pleasing now to contemplate; but I believe I should have welcomed the Bubonic plague, with the prospect of falling its victim the next day, to have realized my dreams.
“One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.”
It was a pity that none of this dramatic fervour found expression in my own rôle, which, though modest, was not without its possibilities. But I was ardent only in imagination, dramatic only in my dreams. When it came to words, I was tame and halting; when it came to gestures, I was awkward and constrained. In vain Madame Rayburn read and re-read me my lines, which, in her clear, flexible voice, took on meaning and purpose. In vain she sought to impress upon me my own especial characteristics,—a slavish spitefulness and servility. It was my privilege to appear in the first scene, and to make the first speech of any importance,—to strike, as I was told, the keynote of the play. The rising curtain revealed Ayesha (Julia Reynolds) in her father’s palace; Lilly and I in attendance.