A Mummer's Wife

by George Moore

'Don't begin to think about anything. If you don't like the run, I'll tell you how to do it,' said Dick, his face lighting up with a sudden inspiration; 'do it with a cheeky swagger, walking very slowly, like this; and then when you get quarter of the way down the stage, stop for a moment and sing, "Who speaks ill of Serpolette?" Do you see?'

'Yes, yes, that will suit me better; I understand.'

Then standing under the sloping wing, they both listened anxiously for the cue.

'She loves Grenicheux.'

'There's your cue. On you go; give me your shawl.'

The footlights dazzled her; a burst of applause rather frightened than reassured her, and a prey to a sort of dull dream, she sang her first lines. But she was a little behind the beat. Montgomery brought down his stick furiously, the répliques of the girls buffeted her ears like palms of hands, and it was not until she was halfway through the gossiping couplets, and saw Montgomery's arm swing peacefully to and fro over the bent profiles of the musicians that she fairly recovered her presence of mind. Then came the little scene in which she runs away from her uncle Gaspard and hides behind the Baillie. And she dodged the old man with such sprightliness from one side of the stage to the other that a murmur of admiration floated over the pit, and, arising in echoes, was prolonged almost until she stepped down to the footlights to sing the legend of Serpolette.

The quaintly tripping cadences of the tune and the humour of the words, which demanded to be rather said than sung, were rendered to perfection. It was impossible not to like her when she said:

'"I know not much of my relations,
I never saw my mother's face;
And of preceding generations
I never found a single trace.

'"I may have fallen from the sky,
Or blossomed in a rosebud sweet;
But all I know is this, that I
Was found by Gaspard in his wheat."'

A smile of delight filled the theatre, and Kate felt the chilling sense of separation which exists between the public and a debutante being gradually filled in by a delicious but almost incomprehensible notion of contact—a sensation more delicate than the touch of a lover's breath on your face. This reached a climax when she sang the third verse, and had not etiquette forbade, she would have had an encore for it alone.