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The example thus set by the master of the house was followed at once
by the family--with the solitary exception of Norah, whose incurable
formality and reserve expressed themselves, not too graciously, in her
distant manner toward the visitor. The rest, led by Magdalen (who had
been Frank's favorite playfellow in past times) glided back into their
old easy habits with him without an effort. He was "Frank" with all of
them but Norah, who persisted in addressing him as "Mr. Clare." Even the
account he was now encouraged to give of the reception accorded to him
by his father, on the previous night, failed to disturb Norah's gravity.
She sat with her dark, handsome face steadily averted, her eyes cast
down, and the rich color in her cheeks warmer and deeper than usual. All
the rest, Miss Garth included, found old Mr. Clare's speech of welcome
to his son quite irresistible. The noise and merriment were at their
height when the servant came in, and struck the whole party dumb by
the announcement of visitors in the drawing-room. "Mr. Marrable, Mrs.
Marrable, and Miss Marrable; Evergreen Lodge, Clifton."

Norah rose as readily as if the new arrivals had been a relief to her
mind. Mrs. Vanstone was the next to leave her chair. These two went away
first, to receive the visitors. Magdalen, who preferred the society of
her father and Frank, pleaded hard to be left behind; but Miss Garth,
after granting five minutes' grace, took her into custody and marched
her out of the room. Frank rose to take his leave.

"No, no," said Mr. Vanstone, detaining him. "Don't go. These people
won't stop long. Mr. Marrable's a merchant at Bristol. I've met him once
or twice, when the girls forced me to take them to parties at Clifton.
Mere acquaintances, nothing more. Come and smoke a cigar in the
greenhouse. Hang all visitors--they worry one's life out. I'll appear
at the last moment with an apology; and you shall follow me at a safe
distance, and be a proof that I was really engaged."

Proposing this ingenious stratagem in a confidential whisper, Mr.
Vanstone took Frank's arm and led him round the house by the back way.
The first ten minutes of seclusion in the conservatory passed without
events of any kind. At the end of that time, a flying figure in bright
garments flashed upon the two gentlemen through the glass--the door was
flung open--flower-pots fell in homage to passing petticoats--and Mr.
Vanstone's youngest daughter ran up to him at headlong speed, with every
external appearance of having suddenly taken leave of her senses.

"Papa! the dream of my whole life is realized," she said, as soon as she
could speak. "I shall fly through the roof of the greenhouse if somebody
doesn't hold me down. The Marrables have come here with an invitation.
Guess, you darling--guess what they're going to give at Evergreen
Lodge!"

"A ball!" said Mr. Vanstone, without a moment's hesitation.

"Private Theatricals!!!" cried Magdalen, her clear young voice ringing
through the conservatory like a bell; her loose sleeves falling back and
showing her round white arms to the dimpled elbows, as she clapped her
hands ecstatically in the air. "'The Rivals' is the play, papa--'The
Rivals,' by the famous what's-his-name--and they want ME to act! The one
thing in the whole universe that I long to do most. It all depends on
you. Mamma shakes her head; and Miss Garth looks daggers; and Norah's as
sulky as usual--but if you say Yes, they must all three give way and
let me do as I like. Say Yes," she pleaded, nestling softly up to her
father, and pressing her lips with a fond gentleness to his ear, as she
whispered the next words. "Say Yes, and I'll be a good girl for the rest
of my life."

"A good girl?" repeated Mr. Vanstone--"a mad girl, I think you must
mean. Hang these people and their theatricals! I shall have to go
indoors and see about this matter. You needn't throw away your cigar,
Frank. You're well out of the business, and you can stop here."

"No, he can't," said Magdalen. "He's in the business, too."

Mr. Francis Clare had hitherto remained modestly in the background. He
now came forward with a face expressive of speechless amazement.

"Yes," continued Magdalen, answering his blank look of inquiry with
perfect composure. "You are to act. Miss Marrable and I have a turn for
business, and we settled it all in five minutes. There are two parts in
the play left to be filled. One is Lucy, the waiting-maid; which is the
character I have undertaken--with papa's permission," she added, slyly
pinching her father's arm; "and he won't say No, will he? First, because
he's a darling; secondly, because I love him, and he loves me; thirdly,
because there is never any difference of opinion between us (is there?);
fourthly, because I give him a kiss, which naturally stops his mouth
and settles the whole question. Dear me, I'm wandering. Where was I just
now? Oh yes! explaining myself to Frank--"

"I beg your pardon," began Frank, attempting, at this point, to enter
his protest.

"The second character in the play," pursued Magdalen, without taking the
smallest notice of the protest, "is Falkland--a jealous lover, with a
fine flow of language. Miss Marrable and I discussed Falkland privately
on the window-seat while the rest were talking. She is a delightful
girl--so impulsive, so sensible, so entirely unaffected. She confided
in me. She said: 'One of our miseries is that we can't find a gentleman
who will grapple with the hideous difficulties of Falkland.' Of course
I soothed her. Of course I said: 'I've got the gentleman, and he
shall grapple immediately.'--'Oh heavens! who is he?'--'Mr. Francis
Clare.'--'And where is he?'--'In the house at this moment.'--'Will you
be so very charming, Miss Vanstone, as to fetch him?'--'I'll fetch him,
Miss Marrable, with the greatest pleasure.' I left the window-seat--I
rushed into the morning-room--I smelled cigars--I followed the
smell--and here I am."

"It's a compliment, I know, to be asked to act," said Frank, in great
embarrassment. "But I hope you and Miss Marrable will excuse me--"

"Certainly not. Miss Marrable and I are both remarkable for the firmness
of our characters. When we say Mr. So-and-So is positively to act the
part of Falkland, we positively mean it. Come in and be introduced."

"But I never tried to act. I don't know how."

"Not of the slightest consequence. If you don't know how, come to me and
I'll teach you."

"You!" exclaimed Mr. Vanstone. "What do you know about it?"

"Pray, papa, be serious! I have the strongest internal conviction that
I could act every character in the play--Falkland included. Don't let me
have to speak a second time, Frank. Come and be introduced."

She took her father's arm, and moved on with him to the door of the
greenhouse. At the steps, she turned and looked round to see if Frank
was following her. It was only the action of a moment; but in
that moment her natural firmness of will rallied all its
resources--strengthened itself with the influence of her beauty
--commanded--and conquered. She looked lovely: the flush was tenderly
bright in her cheeks; the radiant pleasure shone and sparkled in her
eyes; the position of her figure, turned suddenly from the waist upward,
disclosed its delicate strength, its supple firmness, its seductive,
serpentine grace. "Come!" she said, with a coquettish beckoning action
of her head. "Come, Frank!"

Few men of forty would have resisted her at that moment. Frank was
twenty last birthday. In other words, he threw aside his cigar, and
followed her out of the greenhouse.

As he turned and closed the door--in the instant when he lost sight of
her--his disinclination to be associated with the private theatricals
revived. At the foot of the house-steps he stopped again; plucked a
twig from a plant near him; broke it in his hand; and looked about him
uneasily, on this side and on that. The path to the left led back to his
father's cottage--the way of escape lay open. Why not take it?

While he still hesitated, Mr. Vanstone and his daughter reached the
top of the steps. Once more, Magdalen looked round--looked with her
resistless beauty, with her all-conquering smile. She beckoned again;
and again he followed her--up the steps, and over the threshold. The
door closed on them.

So, with a trifling gesture of invitation on one side, with a trifling
act of compliance on the other: so--with no knowledge in his mind, with
no thought in hers, of the secret still hidden under the journey to
London--they took the way which led to that secret's discovery, through
many a darker winding that was yet to come.



CHAPTER V.

MR. VANSTONE'S inquiries into the proposed theatrical entertainment at
Evergreen Lodge were answered by a narrative of dramatic disasters; of
which Miss Marrable impersonated the innocent cause, and in which her
father and mother played the parts of chief victims.

Miss Marrable was that hardest of all born tyrants--an only child. She
had never granted a constitutional privilege to her oppressed father
and mother since the time when she cut her first tooth. Her seventeenth
birthday was now near at hand; she had decided on celebrating it by
acting a play; had issued her orders accordingly; and had been obeyed
by her docile parents as implicitly as usual. Mrs. Marrable gave up the
drawing-room to be laid waste for a stage and a theater. Mr. Marrable
secured the services of a respectable professional person to drill the
young ladies and gentlemen, and to accept all the other responsibilities
incidental to creating a dramatic world out of a domestic chaos. Having
further accustomed themselves to the breaking of furniture and the
staining of walls--to thumping, tumbling, hammering, and screaming; to
doors always banging, and to footsteps perpetually running up and down
stairs--the nominal master and mistress of the house fondly believed
that their chief troubles were over. Innocent and fatal delusion! It is
one thing in private society to set up the stage and choose the play--it
is another thing altogether to find the actors. Hitherto, only the small
preliminary annoyances proper to the occasion had shown themselves at
Evergreen Lodge. The sound and serious troubles were all to come.

"The Rivals" having been chosen as the play, Miss Marrable, as a matter
of course, appropriated to herself the part of "Lydia Languish." One
of her favored swains next secured "Captain Absolute," and another laid
violent hands on "Sir Lucius O'Trigger." These two were followed by
an accommodating spinster relative, who accepted the heavy dramatic
responsibility of "Mrs. Malaprop"--and there the theatrical proceedings
came to a pause. Nine more speaking characters were left to be fitted
with representatives; and with that unavoidable necessity the serious
troubles began.

All the friends of the family suddenly became unreliable people, for the
first time in their lives. After encouraging the idea of the play,
they declined the personal sacrifice of acting in it--or, they accepted
characters, and then broke down in the effort to study them--or they
volunteered to take the parts which they knew were already engaged,
and declined the parts which were waiting to be acted--or they were
afflicted with weak constitutions, and mischievously fell ill when
they were wanted at rehearsal--or they had Puritan relatives in the
background, and, after slipping into their parts cheerfully at the
week's beginning, oozed out of them penitently, under serious family
pressure, at the week's end. Meanwhile, the carpenters hammered and
the scenes rose. Miss Marrable, whose temperament was sensitive, became
hysterical under the strain of perpetual anxiety; the family doctor
declined to answer for the nervous consequences if something was not
done. Renewed efforts were made in every direction. Actors and actresses
were sought with a desperate disregard of all considerations of personal
fitness. Necessity, which knows no law, either in the drama or out of
it, accepted a lad of eighteen as the representative of "Sir Anthony
Absolute"; the stage-manager undertaking to supply the necessary
wrinkles from the illimitable resources of theatrical art. A lady whose
age was unknown, and whose personal appearance was stout--but whose
heart was in the right place--volunteered to act the part of the
sentimental "Julia," and brought with her the dramatic qualification
of habitually wearing a wig in private life. Thanks to these vigorous
measures, the play was at last supplied with representatives--always
excepting the two unmanageable characters of "Lucy" the waiting-maid,
and "Falkland," Julia's jealous lover. Gentlemen came; saw Julia at
rehearsal; observed her stoutness and her wig; omitted to notice that
her heart was in the right place; quailed at the prospect, apologized,
and retired. Ladies read the part of "Lucy"; remarked that she appeared
to great advantage in the first half of the play, and faded out of it
altogether in the latter half; objected to pass from the notice of
the audience in that manner, when all the rest had a chance of
distinguishing themselves to the end; shut up the book, apologized, and
retired. In eight days more the night of performance would arrive;
a phalanx of social martyrs two hundred strong had been convened to
witness it; three full rehearsals were absolutely necessary; and two
characters in the play were not filled yet. With this lamentable story,
and with the humblest apologies for presuming on a slight acquaintance,
the Marrables appeared at Combe-Raven, to appeal to the young ladies
for a "Lucy," and to the universe for a "Falkland," with the mendicant
pertinacity of a family in despair.

This statement of circumstances--addressed to an audience which included
a father of Mr. Vanstone's disposition, and a daughter of Magdalen's
temperament--produced the result which might have been anticipated from
the first.

Either misinterpreting, or disregarding, the ominous silence preserved
by his wife and Miss Garth, Mr. Vanstone not only gave Magdalen
permission to assist the forlorn dramatic company, but accepted an
invitation to witness the performance for Norah and himself. Mrs.
Vanstone declined accompanying them on account of her health; and Miss
Garth only engaged to make one among the audience conditionally on not
being wanted at home. The "parts" of "Lucy" and "Falkland" (which the
distressed family carried about with them everywhere, like incidental
maladies) were handed to their representatives on the spot. Frank's
faint remonstrances were rejected without a hearing; the days and hours
of rehearsal were carefully noted down on the covers of the parts;
and the Marrables took their leave, with a perfect explosion of
thanks--father, mother, and daughter sowing their expressions of
gratitude broadcast, from the drawing-room door to the garden-gates.

As soon as the carriage had driven away, Magdalen presented herself to
the general observation under an entirely new aspect.

"If any more visitors call to-day," she said, with the profoundest
gravity of look and manner, "I am not at home. This is a far more
serious matter than any of you suppose. Go somewhere by yourself, Frank,
and read over your part, and don't let your attention wander if you can
possibly help it. I shall not be accessible before the evening. If
you will come here--with papa's permission--after tea, my views on the
subject of Falkland will be at your disposal. Thomas! whatever else
the gardener does, he is not to make any floricultural noises under my
window. For the rest of the afternoon I shall be immersed in study--and
the quieter the house is, the more obliged I shall feel to everybody."

Before Miss Garth's battery of reproof could open fire, before the first
outburst of Mr. Vanstone's hearty laughter could escape his lips, she
bowed to them with imperturbable gravity; ascended the house-steps, for
the first time in her life, at a walk instead of a run, and retired then
and there to the bedroom regions. Frank's helpless astonishment at her
disappearance added a new element of absurdity to the scene. He stood
first on one leg and then on the other; rolling and unrolling his part,
and looking piteously in the faces of the friends about him. "I know
I can't do it," he said. "May I come in after tea, and hear Magdalen's
views? Thank you--I'll look in about eight. Don't tell my father about
this acting, please; I should never hear the last of it." Those were the
only words he had spirit enough to utter. He drifted away aimlessly
in the direction of the shrubbery, with the part hanging open in his
hand--the most incapable of Falklands, and the most helpless of mankind.

Frank's departure left the family by themselves, and was the signal
accordingly for an attack on Mr. Vanstone's inveterate carelessness in
the exercise of his paternal authority.

"What could you possibly be thinking of, Andrew, when you gave your
consent?" said Mrs. Vanstone. "Surely my silence was a sufficient
warning to you to say No?"

"A mistake, Mr. Vanstone," chimed in Miss Garth. "Made with the best
intentions--but a mistake for all that."

"It may be a mistake," said Norah, taking her father's part, as usual.
"But I really don't see how papa, or any one else, could have declined,
under the circumstances."

"Quite right, my dear," observed Mr. Vanstone. "The circumstances, as
you say, were dead against me. Here were these unfortunate people in a
scrape on one side; and Magdalen, on the other, mad to act. I couldn't
say I had methodistical objections--I've nothing methodistical about
me. What other excuse could I make? The Marrables are respectable
people, and keep the best company in Clifton. What harm can she get
in their house? If you come to prudence and that sort of thing--why
shouldn't Magdalen do what Miss Marrable does? There! there! let the
poor things act, and amuse themselves. We were their age once--and it's
no use making a fuss--and that's all I've got to say about it."

With that characteristic defense of his own conduct, Mr. Vanstone
sauntered back to the greenhouse to smoke another cigar.

"I didn't say so to papa," said Norah, taking her mother's arm on the
way back to the house, "but the bad result of the acting, in my opinion,
will be the familiarity it is sure to encourage between Magdalen and
Francis Clare."

"You are prejudiced against Frank, my love," said Mrs. Vanstone.

Norah's soft, secret, hazel eyes sank to the ground; she said no more.
Her opinions were unchangeable--but she never disputed with anybody. She
had the great failing of a reserved nature--the failing of obstinacy;
and the great merit--the merit of silence. "What is your head running on
now?" thought Miss Garth, casting a sharp look at Norah's dark, downcast
face. "You're one of the impenetrable sort. Give me Magdalen, with all
her perversities; I can see daylight through her. You're as dark as
night."

The hours of the afternoon passed away, and still Magdalen remained shut
up in her own room. No restless footsteps pattered on the stairs; no
nimble tongue was heard chattering here, there, and everywhere, from the
garret to the kitchen--the house seemed hardly like itself, with the one
ever-disturbing element in the family serenity suddenly withdrawn from
it. Anxious to witness with her own eyes the reality of a transformation
in which past experience still inclined her to disbelieve, Miss Garth
ascended to Magdalen's room, knocked twice at the door, received no
answer, opened it and looked in.

There sat Magdalen, in an arm-chair before the long looking-glass, with
all her hair let down over her shoulders; absorbed in the study of her
part and comfortably arrayed in her morning wrapper, until it was time
to dress for dinner. And there behind her sat the lady's-maid, slowly
combing out the long heavy locks of her young mistress's hair, with the
sleepy resignation of a woman who had been engaged in that employment
for some hours past. The sun was shining; and the green shutters outside
the window were closed. The dim light fell tenderly on the two quiet
seated figures; on the little white bed, with the knots of rose-colored
ribbon which looped up its curtains, and the bright dress for dinner
laid ready across it; on the gayly painted bath, with its pure lining
of white enamel; on the toilet-table with its sparkling trinkets, its
crystal bottles, its silver bell with Cupid for a handle, its litter
of little luxuries that adorn the shrine of a woman's bed-chamber. The
luxurious tranquillity of the scene; the cool fragrance of flowers and
perfumes in the atmosphere; the rapt attitude of Magdalen, absorbed over
her reading; the monotonous regularity of movement in the maid's
hand and arm, as she drew the comb smoothly through and through her
mistress's hair--all conveyed the same soothing impression of drowsy,
delicious quiet. On one side of the door were the broad daylight and the
familiar realities of life. On the other was the dream-land of Elysian
serenity--the sanctuary of unruffled repose.

Miss Garth paused on the threshold, and looked into the room in silence.

Magdalen's curious fancy for having her hair combed at all times
and seasons was among the peculiarities of her character which were
notorious to everybody in the house. It was one of her father's favorite
jokes that she reminded him, on such occasions, of a cat having her back
stroked, and that he always expected, if the combing were only continued
long enough, to hear her _purr_. Extravagant as it may seem, the
comparison was not altogether inappropriate. The girl's fervid
temperament intensified the essentially feminine pleasure that most
women feel in the passage of the comb through their hair, to a
luxury of sensation which absorbed her in enjoyment, so serenely
self-demonstrative, so drowsily deep that it did irresistibly suggest a
pet cat's enjoyment under a caressing hand. Intimately as Miss Garth was
acquainted with this peculiarity in her pupil, she now saw it asserting
itself for the first time, in association with mental exertion of any
kind on Magdalen's part. Feeling, therefore, some curiosity to know how
long the combing and the studying had gone on together, she ventured on
putting the question, first to the mistress; and (receiving no answer in
that quarter) secondly to the maid.

"All the afternoon, miss, off and on," was the weary answer. "Miss
Magdalen says it soothes her feelings and clears her mind."

Knowing by experience that interference would be hopeless, under these
circumstances, Miss Garth turned sharply and left the room. She
smiled when she was outside on the landing. The female mind does
occasionally--though not often--project itself into the future. Miss
Garth was prophetically pitying Magdalen's unfortunate husband.

Dinner-time presented the fair student to the family eye in the same
mentally absorbed aspect. On all ordinary occasions Magdalen's appetite
would have terrified those feeble sentimentalists who affect to
ignore the all-important influence which female feeding exerts in the
production of female beauty. On this occasion she refused one dish
after another with a resolution which implied the rarest of all modern
martyrdoms--gastric martyrdom. "I have conceived the part of Lucy," she
observed, with the demurest gravity. "The next difficulty is to make
Frank conceive the part of Falkland. I see nothing to laugh at--you
would all be serious enough if you had my responsibilities. No, papa--no
wine to-day, thank you. I must keep my intelligence clear. Water,
Thomas--and a little more jelly, I think, before you take it away."

When Frank presented himself in the evening, ignorant of the
first elements of his part, she took him in hand, as a middle-aged
schoolmistress might have taken in hand a backward little boy. The few
attempts he made to vary the sternly practical nature of the evening's
occupation by slipping in compliments sidelong she put away from her
with the contemptuous self-possession of a woman of twice her age. She
literally forced him into his part. Her father fell asleep in his chair.
Mrs. Vanstone and Miss Garth lost their interest in the proceedings,
retired to the further end of the room, and spoke together in whispers.
It grew later and later; and still Magdalen never flinched from her
task--still, with equal perseverance, Norah, who had been on the watch
all through the evening, kept on the watch to the end. The distrust
darkened and darkened on her face as she looked at her sister and Frank;
as she saw how close they sat together, devoted to the same interest
and working to the same end. The clock on the mantel-piece pointed
to half-past eleven before Lucy the resolute permitted Falkland the
helpless to shut up his task-book for the night. "She's wonderfully
clever, isn't she?" said Frank, taking leave of Mr. Vanstone at the hall
door. "I'm to come to-morrow, and hear more of her views--if you have
no objection. I shall never do it; don't tell her I said so. As fast as
she teaches me one speech, the other goes out of my head. Discouraging,
isn't it? Goodnight."