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Page 54
This time he did not reply, "But we're here to rescue a
baby." For he saw a charming picture, as charming a picture
as he had seen for years--the hot red theatre; outside the
theatre, towers and dark gates and mediaeval walls; beyond
the walls olive-trees in the starlight and white winding
roads and fireflies and untroubled dust; and here in the
middle of it all, Miss Abbott, wishing she had not come
looking like a guy. She had made the right remark. Most
undoubtedly she had made the right remark. This stiff
suburban woman was unbending before the shrine.
"Don't you like it at all?" he asked her.
"Most awfully." And by this bald interchange they
convinced each other that Romance was here.
Harriet, meanwhile, had been coughing ominously at the
drop-scene, which presently rose on the grounds of
Ravenswood, and the chorus of Scotch retainers burst into
cry. The audience accompanied with tappings and drummings,
swaying in the melody like corn in the wind. Harriet,
though she did not care for music, knew how to listen to
it. She uttered an acid "Shish!"
"Shut it," whispered her brother.
"We must make a stand from the beginning. They're talking."
"It is tiresome," murmured Miss Abbott; "but perhaps it
isn't for us to interfere."
Harriet shook her head and shished again. The people
were quiet, not because it is wrong to talk during a chorus,
but because it is natural to be civil to a visitor. For a
little time she kept the whole house in order, and could
smile at her brother complacently.
Her success annoyed him. He had grasped the principle
of opera in Italy--it aims not at illusion but at
entertainment--and he did not want this great evening-party
to turn into a prayer-meeting. But soon the boxes began to
fill, and Harriet's power was over. Families greeted each
other across the auditorium. People in the pit hailed their
brothers and sons in the chorus, and told them how well they
were singing. When Lucia appeared by the fountain there was
loud applause, and cries of "Welcome to Monteriano!"
"Ridiculous babies!" said Harriet, settling down in her stall.
"Why, it is the famous hot lady of the Apennines," cried
Philip; "the one who had never, never before--"
"Ugh! Don't. She will be very vulgar. And I'm sure
it's even worse here than in the tunnel. I wish we'd never--"
Lucia began to sing, and there was a moment's silence.
She was stout and ugly; but her voice was still beautiful,
and as she sang the theatre murmured like a hive of happy
bees. All through the coloratura she was accompanied by
sighs, and its top note was drowned in a shout of universal joy.
So the opera proceeded. The singers drew inspiration
from the audience, and the two great sextettes were rendered
not unworthily. Miss Abbott fell into the spirit of the
thing. She, too, chatted and laughed and applauded and
encored, and rejoiced in the existence of beauty. As for
Philip, he forgot himself as well as his mission. He was
not even an enthusiastic visitor. For he had been in this
place always. It was his home.
Harriet, like M. Bovary on a more famous occasion, was
trying to follow the plot. Occasionally she nudged her
companions, and asked them what had become of Walter Scott.
She looked round grimly. The audience sounded drunk, and
even Caroline, who never took a drop, was swaying oddly.
Violent waves of excitement, all arising from very little,
went sweeping round the theatre. The climax was reached in
the mad scene. Lucia, clad in white, as befitted her
malady, suddenly gathered up her streaming hair and bowed
her acknowledgment to the audience. Then from the back of
the stage--she feigned not to see it--there advanced a kind of
bamboo clothes-horse, stuck all over with bouquets. It was
very ugly, and most of the flowers in it were false. Lucia
knew this, and so did the audience; and they all knew that
the clothes-horse was a piece of stage property, brought in
to make the performance go year after year. None the less
did it unloose the great deeps. With a scream of amazement
and joy she embraced the animal, pulled out one or two
practicable blossoms, pressed them to her lips, and flung
them into her admirers. They flung them back, with loud
melodious cries, and a little boy in one of the stageboxes
snatched up his sister's carnations and offered them. "Che
carino!" exclaimed the singer. She darted at the little boy
and kissed him. Now the noise became tremendous.
"Silence! silence!" shouted many old gentlemen behind.
"Let the divine creature continue!" But the young men in
the adjacent box were imploring Lucia to extend her civility
to them. She refused, with a humorous, expressive gesture.
One of them hurled a bouquet at her. She spurned it with
her foot. Then, encouraged by the roars of the audience,
she picked it up and tossed it to them. Harriet was always
unfortunate. The bouquet struck her full in the chest, and
a little billet-doux fell out of it into her lap.
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