The Daft Days

“Look!” said Ailie eagerly – before them was a portrait of a woman in the dress of Desdemona. The face had some suggestion that at times it might be childlike and serene, but had been caught in a moment of alarm and fire, and the full black eyes held in their orbs some frightful apprehension, the slightly parted lips expressed a soul’s mute cry.

“What is it? Who is it?” asked Bell, pausing before the picture with a stound of fear.

“It is Bud,” said Ailie, feeling proud and sorrowful – for why she could not tell. “There is the name: ‘Winifred Wallace.’”

Bell wrung her hands in the shelter of her mantle and stood bewildered, searching for the well-known lineaments.

“Let us go up,” said Dan softly, with no heed for the jostling people, for ever self-possessed, sorrowful to guess at his sister’s mind.

“Yes, yes, let us go up out of this crowd,” said Ailie, but the little woman hung before the portrait fascinated. Round her washed the waves of rustling garments like a surf on the shore at home; scents wafted; English voices, almost foreign in their accent, fell upon her ear all unnoticed since she faced the sudden revelation of what her brother’s child, her darling, had become. Seekers of pleasure, killers of wholesome cares, froth of the idle world eddied around her chattering, laughing, glancing curious or contemptuous at her grey sweet face, her homely form, her simple Sabbath garments: all her heart cried out in supplication for the child that had too soon become a woman and wandered from the sanctuary of home.

“We are blocking the way here, Bell. Let us go up,” again said Ailie, gently taking her arm.

“Yes,” said her brother. “It’s not a time for contemplation of the tombs – it’s not the kirkyard, Bell. You see there are many that are anxious to get in.”

“Oh, Lennox, Lennox!” she exclaimed, indifferent to the strangers round about her, “my brother’s child! I wish – oh, I wish ye were at home! God grant ye grace and wisdom: ‘Then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble. When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet.’”

They went up to the box that Molyneux had kept for them, to find his wife there nursing an enormous bouquet of flowers, all white as the driven snow. “A gorgeous house!” she told them. “Everybody that’s anybody, and in the front push. Half a hundred critics, two real Count Vons, a lot of benzine brougham people who never miss a first night – there are their wives, poor dears! shining same as they were Tiffany’s windows. My! ain’t our Bud going to have a happy night!”

They sat and looked for a while in silence at the scene before them, so pleasing to the mind that sought, in crowds, in light and warmth and gaiety, its happiest associations; so wanting in the great eternal calm and harmony that are out of doors in country places. Serpent eyes in facets of gems on women’s bosoms; heads made monstrous yet someway beautiful and tempting by the barber’s art; shoulders bare and bleached, devoid of lustre; others blushing as if Eve’s sudden apprehension had survived the generations. Sleek shaven faces, linen breastplates, opera-glasses, flowers, fans, a murmur of voices, and the flame over all of the enormous electrolier.

It was the first time Bell had seen a theatre. Her first thought was one of blame and pity. “‘He looked on the city and wept’!” said she. “Oh, Ailie, that it were over and we were home!”

“All to see Miss Winifred Wallace!” said Mrs Molyneux. “Think of that, Miss Dyce, – your darling niece, and she’ll be so proud and happy!”

Bell sighed. “At least she had got her own way, and I am a foolish old country-woman who had different plans.”

Dan said nothing. Ailie waited too, silent, in a feverish expectation; and from the fiddles rose a sudden melody. It seemed the only wise and sober thing in all that humming hive of gaudy insects passing, passing, passing. It gave a voice to human longings for a nobler, better world; and in it, too, were memory and tears. To the people in the box it seemed to tell Bud’s story – opening in calm sweet passages, closing in the roll of trumpet and the throb of drum. And then the lights went down, and the curtain rose upon the street in Venice.

The early scenes were dumb and vacant, wanting Bud’s presence: there was no play for them till she came slowly into the council chamber where sat the senators, timidity and courage struggling in her port and visage.

“No, no; it is not Bud,” Bell whispered. “It is not our lassie, this one is too tall and – and too deliberate. I fear she has not dared it at the last, or that she has been found unsuitable.”

Ailie leaned forward, quivering, feeding her eyes. “It’s no one else,” said she. “Dear Bud, our Bud! Those two years’ training may have made her someways different, but she has not changed her smile. Oh! I am so proud, and sure of her! Hus-s-sh!”

“I do perceive here a divided duty:To you I am bound for life and education;My life and education both do learn meHow to respect you; you are the lord of duty:I am hitherto your daughter: but here’s my husband.”

Desdemona’s first speech broke the stillness that had fallen on the house: her face was pale, they saw the rapid heaving of her bosom, they heard a moment’s tremor in her voice matured and wonderful, sweet as a silver bell. To the box where she knew her friends were sitting she let her eyes for a second wander as she spoke the opening lines that had so much of double meaning – not Desdemona, but the loving and wilful child asking forgiveness, yet tenacious of her purpose.

To Ailie came relief and happiness and pride: Dan held a watching brief for his elder sister’s prejudices and his own philosophy. Bell sat in tears which Shakespeare did not influence. When next she saw the stage with unblurred eyes Desdemona was leaving with the Moor.

“My dears,” said Mrs Molyneux, “as Desdemona she’s the Only One! and Jim was right. It’s worth a thousand times more trouble than he took with her. He said all along she’d dazzle them, and I guess her fortune’s made, and it’s going to be the making of this house too. I feel so proud and happy I’d kiss you right here, Mr Dyce, if it wouldn’t mess up my bouquet.”

“A black man!” said Bell regretfully. “I know it is only paint, of course, but – but I never met him; I do not even know his name.”

It seemed as if the play had nothing in it but the words and acts of Desdemona. At each appearance she became more confident, charged the part with deeper feeling, found new meaning in the time-worn words. Even Bell began to lose her private judgment, forget that it was nothing but a sinful play, and feel some pity for Othello; but, as the knavish coils closed round her Desdemona, the strain became unbearable.

“Oh! I cannot stand it any longer,” she exclaimed, when the voice of Lennox quavered in the song before her last good-night, and saying so, pushed back her seat into the shadows of the box, covering her ears with her fingers. She saw no more; she heard no more till the audience rose to its feet with thunders of applause that swelled and sunk and swelled again as if it would never end. Then she dared to look, and saw a trembling Desdemona all alone before a curtain bowing.

“What is the matter? What is the matter? Why are they crying that way on her?” she asked, dumbfounded.

“Why, don’t you see they’re mad!” said Mrs Molyneux.

“Oh, dear! and I thought she was doing splendidly.”

“Glad mad, I mean. She has carried them off their feet, and I’ll bet Jim Molyneux is standing on his hands behind that drop and waving his legs in the air. Guess I needn’t waste this bouquet on a girl who looks like the morning hour in Covent Garden.”

Molyneux burst into the box in a gust of wild excitement. “Come round, come round at once – she wants to see you,” he exclaimed, and led them deviously behind the scenes to her dressing-room.

She stood at the door, softly crying; she looked at them – the grave old uncle; Ailie who could understand, the little Auntie Bell, – it was into the arms of Bell she threw herself!

CHAPTER XXXIV

“The talk of the whole of London! The beauteous Lady Anne herself’s not in it with her!” said Will Oliver, scratching behind his ears. “Man, is it no’ just desperate? But I’ll warrant ye there’s money in it, for it’s yonder folk are willing to pay well for their diversion.”

“Are you sure,” said P. & A., “it’s not another woman altogether? It gives the name of Wallace in the paper.”

The bellman, sitting on a soap-box, slapped his thigh and said, “I’m telling ye; I had it long ago from Kate MacNeill that her name on the stage was going to be Wallace – Winifred Wallace, and there it is in print. Tra – tragedienny, tragediennys are the head ones in the trade: I’ve seen them in the shows – tr-r-r-emendous women!”

The Provost, who had just stepped into P. & A.’s for his Sunday sweeties, smiled tolerantly and passed his taddy-box. “Bud Dyce,” said he, “is never likely to be round this way in a caravan to do the deid-drap three times every night for front-seats sixpence. I doubt we have seen the last of her, unless we have the money and the clothes for London theatres.”

“It’s really her, then?” said the grocer.

“You can take Wull’s word for that,” said the Provost, “and I have just been talking to her uncle. Her history’s in the morning paper, and I’m the civic head of a town renowned for genius.”

Wanton Wully went out to drift along the street in the light of the bright shop-windows before which bairns played “chaps me,” making choice of treasures for their gaudiness alone, like most of us, who should know better. He met George Jordon. “Geordie,” said he, “you’ll have heard the latest? You should be in London: yon’s the place for oddity,” and George, with misty comprehension, turned about for the road to London town. Out of the inn came Colin Cleland, hurried, in his hand the business-looking packet of tattered documents that were always his excuse for being there.

“Winifred Wallace – Great Tragedienny! It’s a droll thing life, according to the way you look at it. Stirring times in London, Mr Cleland! Changed her name to Wallace, having come of decent worthy people. We know, but we’ll not let on.”

“Not a word!” said Colin Cleland comically. “Perhaps she may get better and the thing blow by. Are you under the impression that celebrity’s a thing to be ashamed of? I tell you she’s a credit to us all.”

“Lord bless me! do you say so?” asked Wull Oliver. “If I was a tragedienny I would be ashamed to show my face in the place again. We all expected something better from the wee one – she was such a caution! It was myself, as you might say, invented her: I gave her a start at devilment by letting her ring the New Year bell. After that she always called me Mr Wanton, and kindly inquired at me about my legs. She was always quite the leddy.”

Miss Minto’s shop was busy: a boy was in with a very red face demanding the remnants that by rights should have gone home with his mother’s jacket, and the Misses Duff were buying chiffon.

“This is startling news about young Lennox Dyce,” remarked Miss Minto. “It’s caused what you might call a stir. There’s not a weekly paper to be had for love or money.”

“She was always most peculiar,” said Miss Jean.

“Bizarre,” cooed Miss Amelia, – it was her latest adjective.

“I was sure there was something special about in her since the very first day I saw her,” said the mantua-maker. “Yon eye, Miss Duff! And what a sweet and confident expression! I am so glad she has pleased them up in London; you never can depend on them. I am thinking of a novel blouse to mark in what I think will be a pleasing way the great occasion – the Winifred Wallace Waist I’m calling it: you remember the clever Mr Molyneux?”

“I doubt we never understood her,” said Miss Jean. “But we make a feature now of elocution,”

“Not that we wish to turn out great tragediennes,” said Miss Amelia. “There’s happiness in humbler vocations.”

“I daresay there is,” confessed Miss Minto. “I never thought of the stage myself; my gift was always dressmaking, and you wouldn’t believe the satisfaction that’s in seeing a dress of mine on a woman who can do it justice. We have all our own bit art, and that’s a wonderful consolation. But I’m very glad at that girl’s progress, for the sake of Mr Dyce – and, of course, his sisters. Miss Ailie is transported, in the seventh heaven, and even her sister seems quite pleased. ‘You’ll have a high head to-day,’ I said to her when she was passing from the coach this afternoon.”

“And what did she say to that?” inquired Miss Jean, with curiosity.

“You know Miss Dyce! She gave a smile and said, ‘But a humble heart – it’s the Dyces’ motto.’”

The doctor put his paper down, having read the great news over several times with a singular satisfaction that surprised his sisters, who were beat to see much glory in a state of life that meant your name on every wall and the picture of your drawing-room every other week in ‘Homely Notes.’ Drawing on his boots, he took a turn the length of the lawyer’s house.

“Faith! London has the luck of it,” he said on entering. “I wish I was there myself to see this wonderful Desdemona. I hope you liked your jaunt, Miss Bell?”

“It wasn’t bad,” said Bell, putting out the cards. “But, mercy on me! what a silly way they have of baking bread in England – all crust outside, though I grant it’s sweet enough when you break into it.”

“H’m!” said Dr Brash, “I’ve seen Scotch folk a bit like that. She has rung the bell, I see; her name is made.”

“It is, they tell me,” answered Bell, “but I hope it will never change her nature.”

“She had aye a genius,” said Mr Dyce, cutting the pack for partners.

“She had something better,” said Miss Ailie, “she had love;” and on the town broke forth the evening bell.

THE END