Complete Works. Anna Buchan
cakes and crucifixes and little stucco figures, presided over by a dignified lady with black lace on her head. I remembered Mrs. Jowett's passion for stucco saints in her bedroom, and picked one up, remarking that it would be a nice remembrance of Stratford. 'Oh, surely not, madam,' said the shocked voice of the shop-lady, 'surely a nobler memory'—and I found it was a figure of Christ."
"Jean simply rushed out of the shop," said Jock, "and she hadn't paid, and I had to go in again with the money."
"See what I've got," Mhor said, producing a parcel from his pocket. He unwrapped it, revealing a small bust of Shakespeare.
"It's a wee Shakespeare to send to Mrs. M'Cosh—and I've got a card for Bella Bathgate—a funny one, a pig. Read it."
He handed the card to Lord Bidborough, who read aloud the words issuing from the mouth of the pig:
"You may push me,
You may shove,
But I never will be druv
From Stratford-on-Avon."
"Excellent sentiment, Mhor—Miss Bathgate will be pleased."
"Yes," said Mhor complacently. "I thought she'd like a pig better than a Shakespeare one. She said she wondered Jean would go and make a fuss about the place a play-actor was born in. She says she wouldn't read a word he wrote, and she didn't seem to like the bits I said to her…. This isn't the first time, Richard Plantagenet, I've sat up for dinner."
"Isn't it?"
"No. I did it at Penrith and Shrewsbury and last night here."
"By Jove, you're a man of the world now, Mhor."
"It mustn't go on," said Jean, "but once in a while…."
"And d'you know where I'm going to-night?" Mhor went on. "To a theatre to see a play. Yes. And I shan't be in bed till at least eleven o'clock. It's the first time in my life I've ever been outside after ten o'clock, and I've always wanted to see what it was like then."
"No different from any other time," Jock told him. But Mhor shook his head. He knew better. After-ten-o'clock Land must be different….
"This is a great night for us all," Jean said. "Our first play. You have seen it often, I expect. Are you going?"
"Of course I'm going. I wouldn't miss Jock's face at a play for anything…. Or yours," he added, leaning towards her. "No, Mhor. There's no hurry. It doesn't begin for another half-hour … we'll have coffee in the other room."
Mhor was in a fever of impatience, and quite ten minutes before the hour they were in their seats in the front row of the balcony. Oddly enough, Lord Bidborough's seat happened to be adjoining the seats taken by the Jardines, and Jean and he sat together.
It was a crowded house, for the play was being played by a new company for the first time that night. Jean sat silent, much too content to talk, watching the people round her, and listening idly to snatches of conversation. Two women, evidently inhabitants of the town, were talking behind her.
"Yes," one woman was saying; "I said to my sister only to-day, 'What would we do if there was a sudden alarm in the night?' If we needed a doctor or a policeman? You know, my dear, the servants are all as old as we are. I don't really believe there is anyone in our road that can run."
The other laughed comfortably and agreed, but Jean felt chilled a little, as if a cloud had obscured for a second the sun of her happiness. In this gloriously young world of unfolding leaves and budding hawthorns and lambs and singing birds and lovers, there were people old and done who could only walk slowly in the sunshine, in whom the spring could no longer put a spirit of youth, who could not run without being weary. How ugly age was! Grim, menacing: Age, I do abhor thee….
The curtain went up.
The youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys, the young Orlando, "a youth unschooled and yet learned, full of noble device, of all sorts enchantingly beloved," talked to old Adam, and then to his own most unnatural brother. The scene changed to the lawn before the Duke's palace. Lord Bidborough bade Jean observe the scenery and dresses. "You see how simple it is, and vivid, rather like Noah's Ark scenery? And the dresses are a revolt against the stuffy tradition that made Rosalind a sort of principal boy…. Those dresses are all copied from old missals…. I rather like it. Do you approve?"
Jean was not in a position to judge, but said she certainly approved.
Rosalind and Celia were saying the words she knew so well. Touchstone had come in—that witty knave; Monsieur le Beau, with his mouth full of news; and again, the young Orlando o'er-throwing more than his enemies.
And now Rosalind and Celia are planning their flight…. It is the Forest of Arden. Again Orlando and Adam speak together, and Adam, with all his years brave upon him, assures his master, "My age is as a lusty winter, frosty but kindly."
The words came to Jean with a new significance. How Shakespeare knew … why should she mourn because Age must come? Age was beautiful and calm, for the seas are quiet when the winds give o'er. Age is done with passions and discontents and strivings. Probably those women behind her who had sighed comfortably because nobody in their road could run, whom she pitied, wouldn't change with her to-night. They had had their life. It wasn't sad to be old, Jean told herself, for as the physical sight dims, the soul sees more clearly, and the light from the world to come illumines the last dark bit of the way….
They went out between the acts and walked by the river in the moonlight and talked of the play.
Jock and Mhor were loud in their approval, only regretting that Touchstone couldn't be all the time on the stage. Lord Bidborough asked Jean if it came up to her expectations.
"I don't know what I expected…. I never imagined any play could be so vivid and gay and alive…. I've always loved Rosalind, and I didn't think any actress could be quite my idea of her, but this girl is. I thought at first she wasn't nearly pretty enough, but she has the kind of face that becomes more charming the more you look at it, and she is so graceful and witty and impertinent."
"And Rabelaisian," added her companion. "It really is a very good show. There is a sort of youthful freshness about the acting that is very engaging. And every part is so competently filled. Jaques is astonishingly good, don't you think? I never heard the 'seven ages' speech so well said."
"It sounded," Jean said, "as if he were saying the words for the first time, thinking them as he went along."
"I know what you mean. When the great lines come on it's a temptation to the actor to draw himself together and clear his throat, and rather address them to the audience. This fellow leaned against a tree and, as you say, seemed to be thinking them as he went along. He's an uncommonly good actor.… I don't know when I enjoyed a show so much."
The play wore on to its merry conclusion; all too short the Jardines found it. Jock's wrath at the love-sick shepherd knew no bounds, but he highly approved of Rosalind because, he said, she had such an impudent face.
"Who did you like best, Richard Plantagenet?" Mhor asked as they came down the steps.
"Well, I think, perhaps the most worthy character was 'the old religious man' who converted so opportunely the Duke Frederick."
"Yes," Jean laughed. "I like that way of getting rid of an objectionable character and enriching a deserving one. But Jacques went off to throw in his lot with the converted Duke. I rather grudged that."
"To-morrow," said Mhor, who was skipping along, very wide awake and happy in After-ten-o'clock Land—"to-morrow I'm going to take Peter to the river and let him snowk after water-rats. I think he's feeling lonely—a Scots dog among so many English people."
"Stark's lonely too," said Jock. "He says the other chauffeurs have an awful queer accent and it's all he can do to understand them."
"Oh, poor Stark!" said Jean. "I don't suppose he would care much to see the plays."
"He told me," Jock went on, "that one of the other chauffeurs had asked him to go with him to a