"That fellow can hump, can't he?" said Clancy admiringly. "You just gotta where he comes from. Tell you, New York's th' place!"
CHAPTER TWENTY
Before "William Tell" was half over it became evident that Teddy's place was more than filled. There were those among the audience who assured me later that they had penetrated the disguise early in the performance; but, if so, they exhibited rare powers of self-control, for they did not remark upon it at the time, nor indeed until the whole calamitous story had come out and been town-talk for days. Some queer esprit de corps kept the girls from spreading the miserable truth about Teddy. Sick! We knew only too well what was the matter with him; but that was no reason why we should proclaim it to the world. We entered into the conspiracy of silence, partly from a real generosity of spirit and desire to shield the poor fellow, and partly because, as Mazie sagaciously pointed out, talking about it would certainly discredit a girl (in a manner of speaking) with the other men. Mazie undoubtedly possessed some of the qualities of a born leader, among them that of getting herself listened to, without being either disagreeable or ridiculous; no one of us, not even Kitty, would have questioned her knowledge of men and their ways. We knew a dozen who were prettier, better bred, cleverer, and kinder than Mazie Pallinder, but, when it came to influence, they were nowhere beside her. Even now, I believe if she came into my life again, with her sallow, paint-touched face, her slip-shod pronunciation, her odd flat black eyes, her ineffably appropriate and beautiful clothes—I say, even now, I should probably follow and imitate her as I did then!
But when the curtain went up on "Mrs. Tankerville's Tiara," and the moment arrived when Huddesley must appear as Teddy with no disguise save that of a livery and false whiskers, we trembled for the success of the deception. We might have spared our worry; Huddesley came on in the ballroom scene with which the play opened, handing a tray of ices—and he was so like Teddy in face and movements that even upon the stage where the devices of his make-up could be studied close at hand, the effect was startling. Plus roi que le roi, he was; he passed his tray not like a butler imitating a gentleman, but like a gentleman imitating a butler; he dropped his h's and stumblingly forgot to drop them with all Teddy's humorous self-consciousness. He managed his double part so well, no light task even for a finished actor, that he achieved a kind of equality with us; we forgot that he was Doctor Vardaman's servant. The thing was so much a matter for gratulations that I think we scarcely remembered it was also a matter for wonder. If J. B. or the other men felt any uneasiness they did not reveal it; but, so ingenuously self-centred is youth, it is probable we were much too deeply interested, everyone in his own appearance and the impression he was making, to be genuinely concerned about anybody else.
The audience about whom I had had such fearsome fancies must have been singularly lenient, even more so than such audiences usually are to such performers. My recollection is that, excepting Huddesley, we were too bad even to be funny. "Mrs. Tankerville" is a good stirring comedy-drama, of the type Boucicault and Tom Taylor made so popular during the quarter-century succeeding 1850; there is an abundance of vivid dialogue, with plenty of "points," and plenty of "situations." But what it all became in our hands is a dire memory. Mazie, it is true, made a splendid figure on the stage, and was quite dashing and theatrical, but she forgot two-thirds of her lines, and in the great scene where she accused Muriel of the robbery, had to be prompted at every other word. And Muriel—well, there was no blinking the fact, Muriel was a "stick." She was so big and gentle and honest-looking that no sane person in stage-land or out of it, could have suspected her for a moment of anything more criminal, say, than hopping into bed to say her prayers because her feet were cold! The excitement flushed her so that it was visible through her paint, and she did not look so statuesquely calm and finished as usual; nervousness, which is unbecoming to everybody, set particularly ill on a person of her weight and inches. She knew every word of her part, and recited it with the conscientiousness which she would have shown to the Catechism—and with much the same expression! She replied to Mazie's halting tirades in the tone and with the air of someone declining a cup of afternoon tea. "Will you drive me into the street?" she remarked amiably, and her manner suggested: "Well, all right, just wait till I get my hat on!" Kitty mimicked her in the bedroom, until the rest of us were feeble with laughter. Owing to Colonel Pallinder's forethought, the machinery of the curtain and footlights worked perfectly, and the stage-settings were orderly and accurate; but aside from these, every accident known to the production of amateur theatricals befell us. At one juncture, when there should have been a "loud crash" behind the scenes, none occurred, no one in particular having been entrusted with that feature of the performance; and, in the midst of a dead silence, Jimmie Hathaway found himself obliged to exclaim, "Good Heavens! What is all that infernal din about?" To make matters worse, some over-zealous person immediately thereon made a "loud crash," and Jimmie, lacking the presence of mind to repeat his former remark, went on with the next speech: "Everything is quiet as the grave, now. What could it have been?" The general verdict was that J. B. did very well, even in the love-scenes where we had thought he would make a failure of it; but J. B. was deservedly popular anyway. He triumphed by sheer force of personality. The young fellow was so kind and hearty and good-looking he could not but be pleasing. Whatever applause "Mrs. Tankerville" brought forth (and that of a sadly feeble and perfunctory nature, I fear) went to him, and none of us grudged it.
The play has three acts, and our much-enduring audience had sat through two of them, when Huddesley waylaid Mazie behind the scenes as she was rushing back for one of her numerous changes of costume. These afforded a species of entertainment that was "not in the bill," as some humourist observed; "Mrs. Tankerville's" clothes were one of the few points of real interest about the performance.
"Miss Pallinder?" said Huddesley, timidly halting in her way.