Adam, with an elaborate false beard, slept under a tree. Then to the accompaniment of the choragus' explanation a mechanical snake appeared in the branches with an apple in its mouth. An unseen person off the stage made the snake twist and writhe. Eve put out her hand, took the apple, and ate a bit. Adam waking, she pointed to the tree and to the fruit, offering him a piece. He demurred in pantomime, but accepted and swallowed what was left of the apple. Instantly there appeared at the wing an angel with a long, flaxen wig, who threatened the guilty pair with a tinsel sword. They cowered, and then shading their eyes with their hands, were walking sadly away when the curtain fell. It was tableau number one, showing the fall of man.
The audience on the whole received the exhibition with devotional reverence, but a knot of young men openly tittered and jeered, commenting satirically upon the deficiencies in the stage management. Then, with more music, began the scenes from the New Testament. One was rather pretty, introducing the woman at the well, Christ being impersonated by a sweet-faced young man in white, with a light brown wig and beard. The girl who played the Virgin was not more than twenty, and had a serene prettiness, with an air of grave modesty, which were very attractive. She wore her own long hair falling like a mantle over her dark dress, as far down as the knees.
Each scene lasted perhaps five minutes, the characters on the stage speaking no word, but opening their mouths and moving their bodies in time with the recitation of the choragus. We had the betrayal in the garden, the trial before Pilate, the scourging, the crucifixion, and the resurrection, all given with feeling and surprising dignity, and in the crucifixion scene, with pathos. Most of the women in the audience were in tears, their compassion spending itself noticeably more upon the Virgin's sorrow than upon her Son's agony; and all through the representation the same irreverent knot of scoffers continued to laugh, to whistle, to mimic. From many parts of the tent there were indignant cries of "Shame!" and "Silence!" but the disturbers went on to the end, quite regardless of good taste and the pious feelings of the majority.
I heard whispers which informed us that this company of players had no repertoire; such a thing they would have considered sacrilegious, but they travelled all over France in caravans, carrying their own scenery and costumes. We dared not stay till the very end of the performance, but had to get up and steal quietly out, with Aunt Mary heavy on our consciences.
I believe poor little Miss Randolph really was afraid of that scolding she had prophesied. But behold, vice was its own reward, and the enemy was delivered into our hands. We arrived at the mews, and there was the car; but there was not Aunt Mary nor yet Sherlock-Fauntleroy. In their place, curled up in the tonneau, reclined a callow French youth, comfortably snoozing, with his coat-collar turned up to his ears. We roused him, learned that he had been caught en passant and hired at the rate of two francs an hour to await the return of a lady and gentleman; also that he had been in his present position for nearly an hour. One lady and gentleman seemed to his mind as good as another, for when offered a five-franc piece he showed no hesitation in delivering up his charge to us, although, for all he could tell, we might have been the rankest of rank impostors. After the departure of this faithless guardian, Miss Randolph and I sat enthroned in the car for some twenty minutes before Aunt Mary and Jimmy came speeding round the corner of the mews. They brought with them an atmosphere of warmth and good cheer, and at first sniff it was evident that they had dined where dining in both solid and liquid branches was a fine art.
In my part of servant I was not "on" in the ensuing comedy; but I listened "in the wings," and chuckled inwardly. Well did Miss Randolph fill the rôle of injured virtue which she had taken up at such short notice. Her surprise that Aunt Mary and Jimmy could have been capable of betraying her trust in them, that they should have gone off and left a valuable car, which wasn't even hers, to the tender mercies of a stupid little boy, a perfect stranger, was bravely done. It was represented as a miracle that the Napier and everything in it had not been stolen during their absence; and the good dinner the culprits had enjoyed at the neighbouring hotel could not fortify them against the blighting sense of their own depravity so vividly brought home.
Not a reproach for us; all the wind had been taken out of their sails. A sadder and wiser Jimmy and Aunt Mary meekly allowed themselves to be driven on through the cold moonlight, with distant gleams of towered towns, to Narbonne, where I am writing to you, after having dined and cleaned the car. Our hotel is not an ideal one; yet on my hard pillow my head, I ween, will lie easier than on a downy one last night. We arrived late, and will leave early, to lessen the chances of being pounced upon by the clutches of the law. But I begin to hope that, after all, those peasants decided to let well alone, and that we shall escape scatheless.
When I was a little boy we used to have honey in red-brown earthenware pots labelled "Finest Narbonne Honey," and for years the place figured in my imagination as a smiling region of brilliant flowers. But the disillusioning reality is a dusty, rather noisy, very commercial town, paved with stones the most abominable; and between Carcassonne and here the roads grow more abominable with every kilometre. I am tired, but not unhappy; and so, good night.
Your fraudulent friend,
Brown-Winston.