Fair Margaret - Page 188/206

The dressing-rooms had been disposed with respect to this old entrance,

and their position had never been changed. It had been convenient for

the prima donna to be able to reach her carriage after the performance

without crossing the stage; whereas, as things were now arranged, she

had a long distance to go. The new stage door had been made within the

last ten years, so that every one who had known the theatre longer than

that was well aware of the existence of the old one, though few people

knew that it could still be opened on emergency, as in case of fire,

and that it was also used for bringing in the unusually big boxes in

which some of the great singers sent their dresses. The dressing-rooms

opened upon a wide but ill-lighted corridor which led from the stage

near the back on the left; the last dressing-room was the largest and

was always the prima donna's. Just beyond it a door closed the end of

the passage, leading to the doorkeeper's former vestibule, which was

now never lighted, and beyond that a short flight of steps led down to

the locked outer door, on the level of the street. In the same corridor

there were of course other dressing-rooms which were not all used in

Rigoletto, an opera which has only two principal women's parts;

whereas in the Huguenots, for instance, the rooms would all have been

full, there would have been a number of maids about and more lights. In

Rigoletto, too, the contralto does not even come to the theatre to

dress until the opera is more than half over, as she is only on in the

third act. The Contessa and Giovanna do not count, as they have so

little to do.

This short explanation of the topography of the building is necessary

in order to understand clearly what happened on that memorable

afternoon and evening.

Margaret Donne was in her dressing-room, quite unaware that anything

was going to occur beyond the first great ordeal of singing to a full

house, a matter which was of itself enough to fill the day and to bring

even Margaret's solid nerves to a state of tension which she had not

anticipated. The bravest and coolest men have felt their hearts beating

faster just before facing cold steel or going into battle, and almost

all of them have felt something else too, which has nothing to do with

the heart, and which I can only compare to what many women suffer from

when there is going to be a thunderstorm--an indescribable physical

restlessness and bodily irritation which make it irksome to stay long

in one position and impossible to think consecutively and reasonably

about ordinary matters. There is no sport like fighting with real

weapons, with the certainty that life itself is depending at every

instant on one's own hand and eye. No other game of skill or hazard can

compare with that. It is chess, played for life and death, with an

element of chance which chess has not; your foot may slip, your eye may

be dazzled by a ray of light or a sudden reflection, or if you are not

a first-rate player you may miscalculate your distance by four inches,

which, in steel, is exactly enough; or if the weapons are fire-arms you

may aim a little too high or too low, or the other man may, and that

little will mean the difference between time and eternity.