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.