At last, when nobody had any hope left but the ever-buoyant Mrs. Graham-Shute, the curtain did at last wobble apart, and disclose a group of male performers, in nondescript attire, belonging to a period so vague that one could only say that it was not the present. They held in their hands sombrero hats, each adorned by a long ostrich feather; but this indication of the Stuart period was contradicted by the table-cloths which they wore round them after the fashion of the Roman toga. On a small table in the centre of the stage was a large open volume, on which the principal performer laid one hand, while he raised the other in the direction of the roof.
In the bewildered audience there was a rustle of programmes, which, written out hastily by Mrs. Graham-Shute while she was “superintending” some other work, were not too legible.
“Taking the Bath!” exclaimed a perplexed old lady plaintively, addressing Mrs. Graham-Shute, who hastened to explain that the tableau was meant to illustrate “Taking the Oath.”
But the unconscionable old lady was not yet satisfied.
“Oh, yes, of course. Very interesting, and very well done. And—let me see, I’m afraid my history is getting rather rusty,” she said, apologetically. “What oath was it?”
“Oh!” answered Mrs. Graham-Shute, with a little impatience in her voice—for really, you know, people might be contented with the pleasure you gave them, and take things for granted a little!—“it was the Covenanters or the Wyckliffites, or some of those people in the Middle Ages. They were always taking the oath for something or other then, you know!”
“Oh, yes, so they were, of course,” murmured the old lady, ashamed at her momentary thirst for exact knowledge.
“It makes an effective picture, you know,” said Mrs. Graham-Shute, relenting when she found her questioner so meek. “And we wanted to use the feathers and the hats.”
Then the curtains wobbled back again across the picture, and there was a little more applause, and another duet. Then another long interval before the curtains opened upon “The Sleeping Beauty.”
As Beauty herself and her Court ladies were all in low-necked light dresses, and as the tableau had taken some time to arrange, they shook so much from cold, and looked so blue and pinched, that they set the teeth of the whole audience chattering for sympathy.