Fair Margaret - Page 189/206

But in the scale of emotion and excitement the theatre comes next to

fighting, whether you be the author of the play or opera to be given

for the first time before the greatest and most critical audience in

the world, or the actor, or actress, or singer, who has not yet been

heard or seen and of whom wonders are expected on the great night.

Margaret had not believed it true, though she had often heard it, and

now she was amazed at the strangeness of the physical sensation which

came over her and grew till it was almost intolerable. It was not

fright, for she longed for the moment of appearing; it was not ordinary

nervousness, for she felt that she was as steady as a rock, and now and

then, when she tried a few notes, to 'limber' her voice, it was steady,

too, and exactly what it always was. Yet she felt as if some

tremendous, unseen shape of strength had hold of her and were pressing

her to itself; and then again, she was sure that she was going to see

something unreal in her brightly-lighted, whitewashed dressing-room,

and that if she did see it, she should be frightened. But she saw

nothing; nothing but the dresses she was to wear, the handsome court

gown of the second act, the limp purple silk tights, the doublet, long

cloak and spurred boots of the third, all laid out carefully in their

newness, on the small sofa and the chairs. She saw Madame Bonanni's

cadaverous maid, too, standing motionless and ready if wanted, and

looking at her with a sort of inscrutable curiosity; for the retired

prima donna had insisted upon doing Margaret the signal service of

passing on to her one of the most accomplished theatrical dressers in

Europe. A woman who had made Madame Bonanni look like Juliet or Lucia

could make Margarita da Cordova look a goddess from Olympus; and she

did, from the theatrical point of view. But Margaret was not yet used

to seeing herself in the glass when her face was made up, beautifully

though it was done, and she kept away from the two mirrors as much as

she could while she slowly paced the well-worn carpet, moving her

shoulders now and then, and her arms, as if to make sure that she was

at ease in her stage clothes.

There was no one in the room but she and the maid. She had particularly

asked Schreiermeyer not to come and see her till the end of the second

act, and Madame Bonanni stayed away of her own accord, rather to

Margaret's surprise, but greatly to her relief. At the last minute Mrs.

Rushmore had refused to come at all, and had stayed in France, in a

state of excitement and almost terror which made her very unlike

herself, and would have rendered her a most disturbing companion. She

could not see it, she said. The daughter of her old friend should

always be welcome in her house, but Mrs. Rushmore could not face the

theatre, to see Margaret come on in the last scene booted and spurred

like a man. That was more than she could bear. You might say what you

liked, but she would never see Margaret on the stage, never, never! And

so she would keep her old illusions about the girl, and it would be

easier to welcome her when she came on a visit. Margaret must have a

chaperon of course, but she must hire one of those respectable-looking

stage mothers who are always to be had when young actresses need them.

It would have broken her old friend's heart to see her daughter

chaperoned by a 'stage mother,' but it could not be helped. That much

protection was necessary. She had burst into a very painful fit of

crying when Margaret had left her, and had really suffered more than at

any time since the death of the departed Mr. Rushmore.