“Yes, the ideal of womanhood has changed since the old aunties were young; but when I listen to Rosa and then look over at Rachel with her black ringlets, and at Anna with her old-fashioned 'front,' I shudder and ask myself, 'Why do I struggle?' What is the reward if one gives up the fascination of life and the world? There is no reward. Nothing but solitary old-maidism, unless two of you happen to be sisters, for who else will join her shame to yours? Dreams, dreams, only dreams of the dearest thing that ever comes into a woman's arms—and then you awake and there is no one there. A dame's school, when the old father is gone, but no children of your own to love you, nobody to think of you, scraping a little here, pinching a little there, growing older and smaller year by year, looking yellow and craned like an apple that has been kept on the top shelf too long, and then—the end!
“Oh, but I'm trying so hard, so very hard, to be 'true to the higher self in me,' because somebody says I must. What do you think I did last week? In my character of Lady Bountiful I gave an old folks' supper in the soup kitchen, understood to be in honour of my return. Roast beef and plum duff, not to speak of pipes and 'baccy, and forty old people of both sexes sitting down to 'the do.' After supper there was a concert, when Chaise (the fat old thief!) overflowed the 'elber' chair, and alluded to me as 'our beautiful donor,' and lured me into singing Mylecharaine, and leading the company, when we closed with the doxology.
“But 'it was not myself at all, Molly dear, 'twas my shadow on the wall,' and in any case man can't live by soup kitchens alone—nor woman either. And knowing what a poor, weak, vain woman I am at the best, I ask myself sometimes would it not be a thousand times better if I yielded to my true nature instead of struggling to realize a bloodless ideal that is not me in the least, but only my picture in the heart of some one who thinks me so much better than I am?
“Not that anybody ever sees what a hypocrite I can be, though I came near to letting the cat out of the bag as lately as last night. You must know that when I turned my back on London at the command of John Knox the second, I brought all my beautiful dresses along with me, except such of them as were left at the theatre. Yet I daren't lay them out in the drawers, so I kept them under lock and key in my boxes. There they lurked like evil spirits in ambush, and as often as their perfume escaped into the room my eyes watered for another sight of them! But in spite of all temptation I resisted, I conquered, I triumphed—until last night when Rosa talked of Juliet, what a glorious creature she was, and how there was nobody on the stage who could 'look' her and 'play' her too!
“What do you think I did? Shall I tell you? Yes, I will. I crept upstairs to my quiet little room, tugged the box from its hiding-place under the bed, drew out my dresses—my lovely, lovely brocades—and put them on! Then I spoke the potion speech, beginning in a whisper, but getting louder as I went on, and always looking at myself in the glass. I had blown out the candle, and there was no light in the room but the moon that was shining on my face, but I was glowing, my very soul was afire, and when I came to the end I drew myself up with eyes closed and head thrown back and heart that paused a beat or two, and said, 'I—I am Juliet, for I am a great actress!'
“Oh, oh, oh! I could scream with laughter to think of what happened next! Suddenly I became aware of somebody knocking at my door (I had locked it) and of a thin voice outside saying fretfully: 'Glory, whatever is it? Aren't you well, Glory?' It was the little auntie; and thinking what a shock she would have if I opened the door and she came upon this grand Italian lady instead of poor little me, I had to laugh and to make excuses while I smuggled off my gorgeous things and got back into my plain ones!
“It was a narrow squeak; but I had a narrower one some days before. Poor grandfather! He regards Rosa as belonging to a superior race, and loves to ask her what she thinks of Glory. He has grown quite simple lately, and as soon as he thinks my back is turned he is always saying, 'And what is your opinion of my granddaughter, Miss Macquarrie?' To which she answers, 'Glory is going to make your name immortal, Mr. Quayle.' Then his eyes sparkle and he says, 'Do you think so?—do you really think so?' Whereupon she talks further balderdash, and the dear old darling smiles a triumphant smile!
“But I always notice that not long afterward his eyes look wet and his head hangs low, and he is saying to the aunties, with a crack in his voice: 'She'll go away again. You'll see she will. Her beauty and her talents belong to the world.' And then I burst in on them and scold them, and tell them not to talk nonsense.
“Nevertheless he is beginning to regard Rosa with suspicion, as if she were a witch luring me away, and one evening last week we had to steal into the garden to talk that we might escape from his watchful eyes. The sun had set—there was the red glow behind the castle across the sky and the sea, and we were walking on the low path by the river under the fuchsia hedge that hangs over from the lawn, you know. Rosa was talking with her impetuous dash of the great career open to any one who could win the world in London, how there were people enough to help her on, rich men to find her opportunities, and even to take theatres for her if need be. And I was hesitating and halting and stammering: 'Yes, yes, if it were the regular stage ... who knows? ... perhaps it might not be opened to the same objections, ...' when suddenly the leaves of the fuchsia rustled as with a gust of wind, and we heard footsteps on the path above.
“It was the grandfather, who had come out on Rachel's arm and overheard what I had said! 'It's Glory!' he faltered, and then I heard him take his snuff and blow his nose as if to cover his confusion, thinking I was deceiving them and carrying on a secret intercourse. I hardly know what happened next, except that for the five minutes following 'the great actress' had to talk with the tongues of men and angels (Beelzebub's) in order to throw dust in the dear old eyes and drive away their doubts. It was a magnificent performance, 'you go bail.' I'll never do the like of it again, though I had only one old man and one old maid and one young woman for audience. The house 'rose' at me too, and the poor old grandfather was appeased. But when we were back indoors I overheard him saying: 'After all there's no help for it. She's dull with us—what wonder! We can't cage our linnet, Rachel, and perhaps we shouldn't try. A song-bird came to cheer us, but it will fly away. We are only old folks, dear—it's no use crying.' And on going to his room that night he closed his door and said his prayers in a whisper, that I might not hear him when he sobbed.