It seemed to Lyndhurst that half-past one would probably be quite late enough.
The assemblage of guests took place in the drawing-room which opened into the garden; a waiter from the “Crown” inn, with a chin beard and dressed in a sort of white surplice and carrying a lantern in his hand, who might with equal reasonableness be supposed to be the Man in the Moon out of the Midsummer Night’s Dream, or a grave-digger out of Hamlet, said “Character names, please, ma’am,” and preceded them to the door of this chamber. He bawled out “Cleopatra and Mark Antony.”
Another Cleopatra, a “different conception of this part,” as the Kent Chronicle said in its next issue, a Cleopatra dim and white and willowy, advanced to them. She looked vexed, but as she ran her eyes up and down Mrs. Ames’ figure, like a practised pianist playing a chromatic scale, her vexation seemed completely to clear.
“Dear Cousin Amy,” she said, “how perfectly lovely! I never saw—Wilfred, make your bow to Cleopatra. And Antony! Oh, Major Ames!”
Again she made the chromatic scale, starting at the top, so to speak (his face), with a long note, and dwelling there again when she returned to it.
Other arrivals followed, and this particular Antony and Cleopatra mingled with such guests as were already assembled. The greater part had gathered, and Mrs. Ames’ habitual manner and bearing suited excellently with her regal rôle. The Turner family, at any rate, who were standing a little apart from the others, not being quite completely “in” Riseborough society, and, feeling rather hot and feverish in the thick brocaded stuffs suitable to Falstaff, Mistress Page and King Theseus, felt neither more nor less uncomfortable when she made a few complimentary remarks to them than they did when, with her fat prayer-book in her hand, she spoke to them after church on Sunday. Elsewhere young Morton, with a white face and a red nose, was the traditional Apothecary, and Mrs. Taverner was so copiously apparalled as Queen Catherine that she was looking forward very much indeed to the moment when the procession should go forth into the greater coolness of the night air. Then a stentorian announcement from the waiter at the Crown made every one turn again to the door.
“Antony and Cleopatra ten years later,” he shouted.
There was a slight pause. Then entered Mr. and Mrs. Altham with high-held hands clasped at finger-tips. They both stepped rather high, she holding her skirt away from her feet, and both pointing their toes as if performing a pavanne. This entry had been much rehearsed, and it was arresting to the point of producing a sort of stupefaction.
Mrs. Evans ran her eye up and down the pair, and was apparently satisfied.
“Dear Mrs. Altham,” she said, “how perfectly lovely! And Mr. Altham. But ten years later! You must not ask us to believe that.”