Just as the sun began to sink, several little pages came out of the house, and with low salutations, distributed among the guests daintily embossed and painted programmes of the ‘Tableaux Vivants,’ prepared for their diversion in the extemporized bijou theatre. Numbers of people rose at once from their chairs on the lawn, eager for this new spectacle, and began to scramble along and hustle one another in that effective style of ‘high-breeding’ so frequently exhibited at Her Majesty’s Drawing-Rooms. I, with Sibyl, hastily preceded the impatient, pushing crowd, for I wished to find a good seat for my beautiful betrothed before the room became full to over-flowing. There proved however, to be plenty of accommodation for everybody,—what space there was seemed capable of limitless expansion, and all the spectators were comfortably placed without difficulty. Soon we were all studying our programmes with considerable interest, for the titles of the ‘Tableaux’ were somewhat original and mystifying. They were eight in number, and were respectively headed—‘Society,’—‘Bravery: Ancient and Modern,’—‘A Lost Angel,’—‘The Autocrat,’—‘A Corner of Hell,’—‘Seeds of Corruption,’—‘His Latest Purchase,’—and ‘Faith and Materialism.’
It was in the theatre that everyone became at last conscious of the weirdly beautiful character of the music that had been surging round them all day. Seated under one roof in more or less enforced silence and attention, the vague and frivolous throng grew hushed and passive,—the [p 274] ‘society’ smirk passed off certain faces that were as trained to grin as their tongues were trained to lie,—the dreadful giggle of the unwedded man-hunter was no longer heard,—and soon the most exaggerated fashion-plate of a woman forgot to rustle her gown. The passionate vibrations of a violoncello, superbly played to a double harp accompaniment, throbbed on the stillness with a beseeching depth of sound,—and people listened, I saw, almost breathlessly, entranced, as it were, against their wills, and staring as though they were hypnotized, in front of them at the gold curtain with its familiar motto—
“All the world’s a stage
And all the men and women merely players.”
Before we had time to applaud the violoncello solo however, the music changed,—and the mirthful voices of violins and flutes rang out in a waltz of the giddiest and sweetest tune. At the same instant a silvery bell tinkled, and the curtain parted noiselessly in twain, disclosing the first tableau—“Society.” An exquisite female figure, arrayed in evening-dress of the richest and most extravagant design, stood before us, her hair crowned with diamonds, and her bosom blazing with the same lustrous gems. Her head was slightly raised,—her lips were parted in a languid smile,—in one hand she held up-lifted a glass of foaming champagne,—her gold-slippered foot trod on an hour-glass. Behind her, catching convulsively at the folds of her train, crouched another woman in rags, pinched and wretched, with starvation depicted in her face,—a dead child lay near. And, overshadowing this group, were two Supernatural shapes,—one in scarlet, the other in black,—vast and almost beyond the stature of humanity,—the scarlet figure represented Anarchy, and its blood-red fingers were advanced to clutch the diamond crown from ‘Society’s’ brow,—the sable-robed form was Death, and even as we looked, it slowly raised its steely dart in act to strike! The effect was weird and wonderful,—and the grim lesson the picture conveyed, [p 275] was startling enough to make a very visible impression. No one spoke,—no one applauded,—but people moved restlessly and fidgetted on their seats,—and there was an audible sigh of relief as the curtain closed. Opening again, it displayed the second tableau—‘Bravery—Ancient and Modern.’ This was in two scenes;—the first one depicted a nobleman of Elizabeth’s time, with rapier drawn, his foot on the prostrate body of a coarse ruffian who had evidently, from the grouping, insulted a woman whose slight figure was discerned shrinking timidly away from the contest. This was ‘Ancient Bravery,’—and it changed rapidly to ‘Modern,’ showing us an enervated, narrow-shouldered, pallid dandy in opera-coat and hat, smoking a cigarette and languidly appealing to a bulky policeman to protect him from another young noodle of his own class, similarly attired, who was represented as sneaking round a corner in abject terror. We all recognised the force of the application, and were in a much better humour with this pictured satire than we had been at the lesson of ‘Society.’ Next followed ‘A Lost Angel,’ in which was shown a great hall in the palace of a king, where there were numbers of brilliantly attired people, all grouped in various attitudes, and evidently completely absorbed in their own concerns, so much so as to be entirely unconscious of the fact that in their very midst, stood a wondrous Angel, clad in dazzling white, with a halo round her fair hair, and a glory, as of the sunset, on her half drooping wings. Her eyes were wistful,—her face was pensive and expectant; she seemed to say, “Will the world ever know that I am here?” Somehow,—as the curtain slowly closed again, amid loud applause, for the picture was extraordinarily beautiful, I thought of Mavis Clare, and sighed. Sibyl looked up at me.
“Why do you sigh?” she said—“It is a lovely fancy,—but the symbol is wasted in the present audience,—no one with education believes in angels now-a-days.”
“True!” I assented; yet there was a heaviness at my heart, for her words reminded me of what I would rather have forgotten,—namely her own admitted lack of all religious [p 276] faith. ‘The Autocrat,’ was the next tableau, and represented an Emperor enthroned. At his footstool knelt a piteous crowd of the starving and oppressed, holding up their lean hands to him, clasped in anguished petition, but he looked away from them as though he saw them not. His head was turned to listen to the side-whisper of one who seemed, by the courtly bend and flattering smile, to be his adviser and confidant,—yet that very confidant held secreted behind his back, a drawn dagger, ready to strike his sovereign to the heart. “Russia!” whispered one or two of the company, as the scene was obscured; but the scarcely-breathed suggestion quickly passed into a murmur of amazement and awe as the curtain parted again to disclose “A Corner of Hell.” This tableau was indeed original, and quite unlike what might have been imagined as the conventional treatment of such a subject. What we saw was a black and hollow cavern, glittering alternately with the flashings of ice and fire,—huge icicles drooped from above, and pale flames leaped stealthily into view from below, and within the dark embrasure, the shadowy form of a man was seated, counting out gold, or what seemed to be gold. Yet as coin after coin slipped through his ghostly fingers, each one was seen to change to fire,—and the lesson thus pictured was easily read. The lost soul had made its own torture, and was still at work intensifying and increasing its own fiery agony. Much as this scene was admired for its Rembrandt effect of light and shade, I, personally, was glad when it was curtained from view; there was something in the dreadful face of the doomed sinner that reminded me forcibly and unpleasantly of those ghastly Three I had seen in my horrid vision on the night of Viscount Lynton’s suicide. ‘Seeds of Corruption’ was the next picture, and showed us a young and beautiful girl in her early teens, lying on a luxurious couch en deshabille, with a novel in her hand, of which the title was plainly seen by all;—a novel well-known to everyone
present, and the work of a much-praised living author. Round her, on the floor, and cast carelessly on a chair at her side, were other novels of the same ‘sexual’ type,—all their titles turned [p 277] towards us, and the names of their authors equally made manifest.
“What a daring idea!” said a lady in the seat immediately behind me—“I wonder if any of those authors are present!”
“If they are they won’t mind!” replied the man next to her with a smothered laugh—“Those sort of writers would merely take it as a first-class advertisement!”