"Oh, no they won't!" he answered, sharply. "Of course you won't expect a success, but you need fear no gibes for trying to help me out of a dramatic hole. Will you help me?" And of course there was nothing to do but swallow hard and hold out my hand for the unwelcome part.
Imagine my surprise when, on my way to rehearsal, I saw posters up, announcing the production of the play of "Alixe." I met Mr. Daly at the door and said: "Why this play was always called 'The Countess of Somerive.'"
"Yes," he replied, "I know—but 'Alixe' looks well, it's odd and pretty—and well, it will lend a little importance to the part!"—which shows how heavy were the scales upon our eyes while we were rehearsing the new play.
Everyone sympathized with me, but said a week would soon pass, and I groaned and ordered heelless slippers, and flaxen hair parted simply and waved back from the temples to fall loosely on the shoulders, to avoid the height that heels and the fashionable chignon would give me, while a thin, white nun's veiling gown, high-necked and long-sleeved, over a low-cut white silk lining, buttoned at the back and finished with a pale blue sash and little side pocket, completed the costume, I prepared for the character. I was beginning to understand, as I studied her, and shamefacedly—to love!
Oh, yes, one often feels dislike or liking for the creature one is trying to represent. Just at first I said to myself, here is a modern Ophelia, but I was soon convinced that the innocence of Alixe was far more perfect than had been that of Shakespeare's weakling, who, through the training of court life, the warnings of a shrewd brother, and the admonitions of a tricky father, had learned many things—was ductile in stronger hands and could play a part; could lead a lover on to speech, without giving slightest hint of the hateful watching eyes she knew were upon him.
Poor "Rose of May," whose sweetness comes to us across the ages! As the garden-spider's air-spun silken thread is cast from bough to twig across the path, so her fragile thread of life looped itself from father to lover, to brother, to queen, and all the web was threaded thick with maiden's tears, made opalescent by rosy love, green hope, and violet despair. But each one she clung to raised a hand to brush the fragile thing aside, and so destroyed it utterly. Yet that tangled wreck of beauty, sweetness, and "a young maid's wits," remains one of the world's dearest possessions—the fair Ophelia!
But this modern maid was yet unspotted by the world. She found all earth perfect, as though God had just completed it, and loved ardently and without shame, as the innocent do love. For this pure flower of crime was ignorant, to the point of bliss, of evil in the world about her. While her adored mother was to her as the blessed Madonna herself.
More and more convincing, as I carefully studied the part, became that perfect innocence. Not cold or reserved, but alive with faith, quivering, too, with girlish mirth, yet innocent. And as with roots deep in rankest, blackest ooze and mud, the lily sends up into the sunlit air its stainless, white-petaled blossom, to float in golden-hearted beauty upon the surface of the stream, so all sweet and open-hearted Alixe floated into view.
And I was expected to act a part like that! I worried day and night over it. Should I do this, should I do that? No—no! she was not coy—detestable word. I recalled the best Ophelia I had ever seen—a German actress. Would she do for a model? Perhaps—no! she was mystic, strange, aloof!
Oh, dear! and then, by merest accident, my mind wandered away to the past, and I said to myself, it should not be so hard. Every woman has been innocent. I was innocent enough when my first sweetheart paused at my side to say to me the foolish old words that never lose sweetness and novelty. I recalled with what open pleasure I had listened, with what honest satisfaction I accepted his attention. With a laugh I exclaimed: "I didn't even have sense enough to hide my gratification and pride, or to pretend the least bit." I stopped suddenly—light seemed to come into my mind. Innocence is alike the world over, I thought; it only differs in degree. I sprang to my feet! I cried joyously: "I have caught the cue, I do believe—I won't act at all! I'll just speak the lines sincerely and simply and leave the effect to Providence."