Later in the evening Mary, as Ruth Pinch, charmed and puzzled every one by bustling through the paths, in evidence of being busy, dressed in an old-fashioned flowered muslin, with short sleeves and round neck, and carrying in her hand a yellow mixing bowl in which she stirred hard with a kitchen spoon, to represent Ruth Pinch’s famous “beefsteak pudding.”
Yet of them all, players of the game and actors in it, none was happier, prettier, more charming, none as successful in acting as Mrs. Garden. Costume succeeded costume, as rôle succeeded rôle for her, assuming a wide range of characters, each as perfectly sustained as the other. As Ariel she flitted along the paths so lightly that she conveyed the sense of flight. As the White Rabbit, whom Alice knew, she hopped along with sidewise, timid glances, for all the world like a magnified bunny. As Blue-eyed Mary, of the old song, she wistfully vended flowers, slow of step and drooping with fatigue and hunger. As the Marchioness she flaunted herself pertly in rags and with a smutty face, carrying her cribbage board, ready for a game with Dick Swiveller. And as Little Miss Muffet she was incredibly childlike and lovely in a Kate Greenaway costume, carrying her bowl and spoon on her way to look for a tuffet to sit on to eat “her curds and whey,” and murmuring a little song under her breath, like a rhythmic chant of a happy child.
“THOSE WHO KNEW HER BEST WERE AMAZED AND A LITTLE STARTLED”
“She’s perfectly wonderful!” Vineclad agreed. Even though there were Vineclad matrons who felt Mrs. Garden’s talent was unsuited to the mother of three big girls, however young a mother she might be, still they all agreed that she “was wonderful.”
The most beautiful picture of the evening, the impersonation longest remembered in Vineclad, was Jane as Ophelia, however. Jane threw herself into her part with such self-forgetfulness, such enthusiasm, talent so extraordinary in so young a girl, that those who knew her best were amazed and a little startled. All in white, with her masses of red-gold hair falling around her, crowned by a wreath of old-time garden flowers, intertwisted with long sprays of wild flowers, which straggled downward and mingled with her marvellous hair; her pale face uplifted, her eyes set with an unseeing look in their dilation; her hands holding up her apron filled with flowers, which she lifted and dropped, and lifted again, sometimes kissing them, sometimes throwing them from her; singing the Willow Song from Othello, and singing it with a voice as pure and true as it was high and sweet, singing it with an abandonment of grief that proved Jane’s talent, for she had not yet reached the sixteenth of her happy years, and understood heartbreak only through her intuitions, Jane glided on through the garden paths toward the fountain. No one stopped her to ask a question; she could be none other than Ophelia, mad. Conversation died out, the murmur of voices everywhere was silent, as the guests fell into groups to watch this enthralling young loveliness pass, and to listen to the pathos of her despairing song.
“She’s more than I ever would have dared to dream of being!” cried Mrs. Garden in an ecstasy. “She can soar higher than I could ever have climbed; she is an artist! Think of her now, but fifteen! Oh, I’m so glad, glad, that one of my girls is Jane!”
“And you can be just as glad that only one is Jane,” retorted Mrs. Moulton dryly. “She’s a dear girl, very fine and dear; I don’t mean that she’s not, but I do mean that the old-fashioned talents, like Mary’s, make everybody happier than Jane’s cleverness can—not excepting, indeed, first of all!—their possessor.”
“Jane is devoted, generous, unselfish, as well as clever,” said Mrs. Garden. “Of course I know you think so. I appreciate Mary, or appreciate her as well as I am able. I realize that no one can sound Mary’s depths in as short a time as I’ve known her. But you must let me rejoice in having one artist daughter, Mrs. Moulton, please! It is such a great thing to be a true artist!”
“I doubt that it makes a woman happier. I want Jane to find her happiness in simple things—for her own sake. Don’t foster an ambition for a career in her, Lynette,” Mrs. Moulton urged.