"No murderess!" I declared, with an air of authority recognized by those about me as a fair copy of his own. "If Miss Cushman is not a murderess, pray how can she act Lady Macbeth—who is?" And the laugh that followed helped a little to scare away the bugaboo his words had raised in my mind.
Then, ridiculous as it may seem to an outsider, the question of dress proved to be a snag, and there was any amount of backing and filling before we could get safely round it.
"What are you going to wear, Miss Morris?" asked Mr. Cazauran one day after rehearsal—and soon we were at it, and the air was thick with black, brown, gray, purple, red, and blue! I starting out with a gray traveling-dress, for a reason, and Mr. Cazauran instantly and without reason condemned it. He thought a rich purple would be about the thing. Mr. Palmer gave a small contemptuous "Humph"! and I cried out, aghast: "Purple? the color of royalty, of pomp, of power? A governess in a rich purple? Your head would twist clear round, hind side to, with amazement, if you saw a woman crossing from Calais to Dover attired in a royal purple traveling-suit."
Mr. Palmer said: "Nonsense, Cazauran; purple is not appropriate;" and then, "How would blue—dark blue or brown do?" he asked.
"For just a traveling-dress either one would answer perfectly," I answered; "but think of the character I am trying to build up. Why not let me have all the help my gown can give me? My hair is to be gray—white at temples; I have to wear a dress that requires no change in going at once to cars and boat. Now gray or drab is a perfect traveling-gown, but think, too, what it can express—gray hair, white face, gray dress without relief of trimming, does it not suggest the utterly flat, hopeless monotony of the life of a governess in London? Not hunger, not cold, but the very dust and ashes of life? Then, when the woman arrives at the home of her rival and tragedy is looming big on the horizon, I want to wear red."
"Good God!" exclaimed Cazauran; and really red was so utterly unworn at that time that I was forced to buy furniture covering, reps, in order to get the desired color, a few days later.
"Yes, red," I persisted. "Not too bright, not impudent scarlet, but a dull, rich shade that will give out a gleam when the light strikes it; that will have the force of a threat—a menacing color, that white collar, cuffs and black lace shoulder wrap will restrict to governess-like primness, until, with mantle torn aside, she stands a pillar of fire and fury. And at the last I want a night-dress and a loose robe over it of a hard light blue, that will throw up the ghastly pallor of the face. There—that's what I want to wear, and why I want to wear it."
Mr. Palmer decided that purple was impossible and black too conventional, while the proposed color-scheme of gray, red, and blue seemed reasonable and characteristic. And suddenly that little wretch, Cazauran, laughed as good-naturedly as possible and said he thought so, too, but it did no harm to talk things over, and so we got around that snag, only to see a second one looming up before us in the question of what was to kill Miss Multon.
I asked it: "Of what am I to die?"
"Die? how? Why, just die, that's all," replied Cazauran.