Fair Margaret - Page 184/206

'Don't be afraid,' she said, 'I'm not going to cry again--never again,

I think! It's over and finished, with the other things!' She remained in the same position nearly a minute, and then sat up

quite straight before the glass, as if nothing had happened, and

powdered her cheeks again.

Margaret sat still on the corner of the table, not at all sure of what

she had better say or do. She only hoped that Madame Bonanni would not

ask her whether she cared for Lushington and would marry him, supposing

that his scruples could be overcome, and she had a strong suspicion

that it was to ask this that Madame Bonanni had come to see her. It

would be rather hard to answer, Margaret knew, and she turned over

words and expressions in her mind.

She might have spared herself the trouble, for nothing could have been

further from her companion's thoughts just then. The dramatic moment

had passed and Margaret had scarcely noticed it, beyond being very much

surprised at the news it had brought her of the great singer's retiring

from the stage. Perhaps, too, Margaret was a little inclined to doubt

whether Madame Bonanni would abide by her resolution in the future,

though she was perfectly in earnest at present.

'I shall be at your first night,' said the prima donna, finishing her

operations at last, and carefully shutting her little gold box. 'If you

have a dress rehearsal, I'll be at that, too.' 'Thank you,' Margaret answered. 'Yes--there is to be a dress rehearsal

on Sunday. Schreiermeyer insists on it for me. He's afraid I shall have

stage fright because I'm so cool now, I suppose.' She laughed, contentedly and perfectly sure of herself.

'The only thing I don't like is being brought on in the sack to sing

that last scene.' 'Eh?' Madame Bonanni stared in surprise.

'The sack,' Margaret repeated. 'The last scene. Don't you know?' 'I know--but it's always left out. Nobody has sung that for years. It's

a chorus-girl who is brought on in the bag, and when Rigoletto sees her

face he screams and the curtain goes down. You don't mean to say that

Schreiermeyer wants you to do the whole scene?

'Yes. We've rehearsed it ever so often. I thought it was strange, too.

He says that if it does not please people at the dress rehearsal, we

can leave it out on the real night.' 'I never heard of anything so ridiculous in my life!' Madame Bonanni

was evidently displeased.

She had once done the 'sack' scene herself to satisfy the caprice of a

foreign sovereign who wished to see the effect of it, and she had a

vivid and disagreeable recollection of being half dragged, half

carried, inside a brown canvas bag, and then put down rather roughly;

and then, of not knowing at what part of the stage she was, while she

listened to Rigoletto s voice; and of the strong, dusty smell of the

canvas, that choked her, so that she wanted to cough and sneeze when

Rigoletto tore open the bag and let her head out; and then, of having

to sing in a very uncomfortable position; and, altogether, of a most

disagreeable quarter of an hour just at the very time when she should

have been getting her wig and paint off in her dressing-room. Moreover,

the scene was a failure, as it always has been wherever it has been

tried. She told Margaret this.