April Hopes

by William Dean Howells

  XIX.

  The evening's entertainment was something that must fail before anaudience which was not very kind. They were to present a burlesque ofclassic fable, and the parts, with their general intention, had beendistributed to the different actors; but nothing had been written down,and, beyond the situations and a few points of dialogue, all had tobe improvised. The costumes and properties had been invented from suchthings as came to hand. Sheets sculpturesquely draped the deities whotook part; a fox-pelt from the hearth did duty as the leopard skin ofBacchus; a feather duster served Neptune for a trident; the lyre ofApollo was a dust-pan; a gull's breast furnished Jove with his greybeard.

  The fable was adapted to modern life, and the scene had been laid inCampobello, the peculiarities of which were to be satirised throughout.The principal situation was to be a passage between Jupiter, representedby Mavering, and Juno, whom Miss Anderson personated; it was to bea scene of conjugal reproaches and reprisals, and to end inreconciliation, in which the father of the gods sacrificed himselfon the altar of domestic peace by promising to bring his family toCampobello every year.

  This was to be followed by a sketch of the Judgment of Paris, inwhich Juno and Pallas were to be personated by two young men, and MissAnderson took the part of Venus.

  The pretty drawing-room of the Trevors--young people from Albany, andcousins of Miss Anderson--was curtained off at one end for a stage, andbeyond the sliding doors which divided it in half were set chairs forthe spectators. People had come in whatever dress they liked; the menwere mostly in morning coats; the ladies had generally made some attemptat evening toilet, but they joined in admiring Alice Pasmer's costume,and one of them said that they would let it represent them all, andexpress what each might have done if she would. There was not much timefor their tributes; all the lamps were presently taken away and setalong the floor in front of the curtain as foot-lights, leaving thecompany in a darkness which Mrs. Brinkley pronounced sepulchral. Shemade her reproaches to the master of the house, who had effected thistransposition of the lamps. "I was just thinking some very pretty andvaluable things about your charming cottage, Mr. Trevor: a rug on abare floor, a trim of varnished pine, a wall with half a dozen simpleetchings on it, an open fire, and a mantelpiece without bric-a-brac,how entirely satisfying it all is! And how it upbraids us for heaping upupholstery as we do in town!"

  "Go on," said the host. "Those are beautiful thoughts."

  "But I can't go on in the dark," retorted Mrs. Brinkley. "You can'tthink in the dark, much less talk! Can you, Mrs. Pasmer?" Mrs. Pasmer,with Alice next to her, sat just in front of Mrs. Brinkley.

  "No," she assented; "but if I could--YOU can thick anywhere, Mrs.Brinkley--Mrs. Trevor's lovely house would inspire me to it."

  "Two birds with one stone--thank you, Mrs. Pasmer, for my part of thecompliment. Pick yourself up, Mr. Trevor."

  "Oh, thank you, I'm all right," said Trevor, panting after the ladies'meanings, as a man must. "I suppose thinking and talking in the dark isa good deal like smoking in the dark."

  "No; thinking and talking are not at all like smoking under anyconditions. Why in the world should they be?"

  "Oh, I can't get any fun out of a cigar unless I can see the smoke," thehost explained.

  "Do you follow him, Mrs. Pasmer?"

  "Yes, perfectly."

  "Thank you, Mrs. Pasmer," said Trevor.

  "I'll get you to tell me how you did it some time," said Mrs. Brinkley."But your house is a gem, Mr. Trevor."

  "Isn't it?" cried Trevor. "I want my wife to live here the year round."It was the Trevors' first summer in their cottage, and the experiencedreader will easily recognise his mood. "But she's such a worldly spirit,she won't."

  "Oh, I don't know about the year round. Do you, Mrs. Pasmer?"

  "I should," said Alice, with the suddenness of youth, breaking into thetalk which she had not been supposed to take any interest in.

  "Is it proper to kiss a young lady's hand?" said Trevor gratefully,appealing to Mrs. Brinkley.

  "It isn't very customary in the nineteenth century," said Mrs. Brinkley."But you might kiss her fan. He might kiss her fan, mightn't he, Mrs.Pasmer?"

  "Certainly. Alice, hold out your fan instantly."

  The girl humoured the joke, laughing.

  Trevor pressed his lips to the perfumed sticks. "I will tell Mrs.Trevor," he said, "and that will decide her."

  "It will decide her not to come here at all next year if you tell herall."

  "He never tells me all," said Mrs. Trevor, catching so much of the talkas she came in from some hospitable cares in the dining-room. "They'reincapable of it. What has he been doing now?"

  "Nothing. Or I will tell you when we are alone, Mrs. Trevor," said Mrs.Brinkley, with burlesque sympathy. "We oughtn't to have a scene on bothsides of the foot-lights."

  A boyish face, all excitement, was thrust out between the curtainsforming the proscenium of the little theatre. "All ready, Mrs. Trevor?"

  "Yes, all ready, Jim."

  He dashed the curtains apart, and marred the effect of his owndisappearance from the scene by tripping over the long legs of Jove,stretched out to the front, where he sat on Mrs. Trevor's richest rug,propped with sofa cushions on either hand.

  "So perish all the impious race of titans, enemies of the gods!" saidMavering solemnly, as the boy fell sprawling. "Pick the earth-born giantup, Vulcan, my son."

  The boy was very small for his age; every one saw that the accident hadnot been premeditated, and when Vulcan appeared, with an exaggeratedlimp, and carried the boy off, a burst of laughter went up from thecompany.

  It did not matter what the play was to have been after that; it allturned upon the accident. Juno came on, and began to reproach Jupiterfor his carelessness. "I've sent Mercury upstairs for the aynica; buthe says it's no use: that boy won't be able to pass ball for a week.How often have I told you not to sit with your feet out that way! I knewyou'd hurt somebody."

  "I didn't have my feet out," retorted Jupiter. "Besides," he added, withdignity, and a burlesque of marital special pleading which every wifeand husband recognised, "I always sit with my feet out so, and I alwayswill, so long as I've the spirit of a god."

  "Isn't he delicious?" buzzed Mrs. Pasmer, leaning backward to whisper toMrs. Brinkley; it was not that she thought what Dan had just said was sovery fanny, but people are immoderately applausive of amateur dramatics,and she was feeling very fond of the young fellow.

  The improvisation went wildly and adventurously on, and the curtainsdropped together amidst the facile acclaim of the audience:

  "It's very well for Jupiter that he happened to think of the curtain,"said Mrs. Brinkley. "They couldn't have kept it up at that level muchlonger."

  "Oh, do you think so?" softly murmured Mrs. Pasmer. "It seemed as ifthey could have kept it up all night if they liked."

  "I doubt it. Mr. Trevor," said Mrs. Brinkley to the host, who hadcome up for her congratulations, "do you always have such brilliantperformances?"

  "Well, we have so far," he answered modestly; and Mrs. Brinkley laughedwith him. This was the first entertainment at Trevor cottage.

  "'Sh!" went up all round them, and Mrs. Trevor called across theroom, in a reproachful whisper loud enough for every one to hear, "Mydear!--enjoying yourself!" while Mavering stood between the partedcurtains waiting for the attention of the company.

  "On account of an accident to the call-boy and the mental exhaustion ofsome of the deities, the next piece will be omitted, and the performancewill begin with the one after. While the audience is waiting, Mercurywill go round and take up a collection for the victim of the recentaccident, who will probably be indisposed for life. The collector willbe accompanied by a policeman, and may be safely trusted."

  He disappeared behind the curtain with a pas and r swirl of hisdraperies like the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe, and the audience againabandoned itself to applause.

  "How very witty he is!" said Miss Cotton, who sat near John Munt. "Don'ty
ou think he's really witty?"

  "Yes," Munt assented critically. "But you should have known his father."

  "Oh, do you know his father?"

  "I was in college with him."

  "Oh, do tell me about him, and all Mr. Mavering's family. We're sointerested, you know, on account of--Isn't it pretty to have thatlittle love idyl going on here? I wonder--I've been wondering all thetime--what she thinks of all this. Do you suppose she quite likes it?His costume is so very remarkable!" Miss Cotton, in the absence of anylady of her intimate circle, was appealing confidentially to John Munt.

  "Why, do you think there's anything serious between them?" he asked,dropping his head forward as people do in church when they wish towhisper to some one in the same pew.

  "Why, yes, it seems so," murmured Miss Cotton. "His admiration is quiteundisguised, isn't it?"

  "A man never can tell," said Munt. "We have to leave those things to youladies."

  "Oh, every one's talking of it, I assure you. And you know his family?"

  "I knew his father once rather better than anybody else."

  "Indeed!"

  "Yes." Munt sketched rather a flattered portrait of the elder Mavering,his ability, his goodness, his shyness, which he had always had to makesuch a hard fight with. Munt was sensible of an access of popularity inknowing Dan Mavering's people, and he did not spare his colours.

  "Then it isn't from his father that he gets everything. He isn't in theleast shy," said Miss Cotton.

  "That must be the mother."

  "And the mother?"

  "The mother I don't know."

  Miss Cotton sighed. "Sometimes I wish that he did show a little moretrepidation. It would seem as if he were more alive to the greatdifference that there is between Alice Pasmer and other girls."

  Munt laughed a man's laugh. "I guess he's pretty well alive to that, ifhe's in love with her."

  "Oh, in a certain way, of course, but not in the highest way. Now, forinstance, if he felt all her fineness as--as we do, I don't believe he'dbe willing to appear before her just like that." The father of the godswore a damask tablecloth of a pale golden hue and a classic pattern;his arms were bare, and rather absurdly white; on his feet a pair oflawn-tennis shoes had a very striking effect of sandals.

  "It seems to me," Miss Cotton pursued; "that if he really appreciatedher in the highest way, he would wish never to do an undignified ortrivial thing in her presence."

  "Oh, perhaps it's that that pleases her in him. They say we're alwaystaken with opposites."

  "Yes--do you think so?" asked Miss Cotton.

  The curtains were flung apart, and the Judgment of Paris followed rathertamely upon what had gone before, though the two young fellows who didJuno and Minerva were very amusing, and the dialogue was full of hits.Some of the audience, an appreciative minority, were of opinion thatMavering and Miss Anderson surpassed themselves in it; she promised himthe most beautiful and cultured wife in Greece. "That settles it," heanswered. They came out arm in arm, and Paris, having put on a stripedtennis coat over his short-sleeved Greek tunic, moved round among thecompany for their congratulations, Venus ostentatiously showing theapple she had won.

  "I can haydly keep from eating it," she explained to Alice; before whomshe dropped Mavering's arm. "I'm awfully hungry. It's hayd woyk."

  Alice stood with her head drawn back, looking at the excited girl with asmile, in which seemed to hover somewhere a latent bitterness.

  Mavering, with a flushed face and a flying tongue, was exchangingsallies with her mother, who smothered him in flatteries.

  Mrs. Trevor came toward the group, and announced supper. "Mr. Paris,will you take Miss Aphrodite out?"

  Miss Anderson swept a low bow of renunciation, and tacitly relinquishedMavering to Alice.

  "Oh, no, no!" said Alice, shrinking back from him, with anintensification of her uncertain smile. "A mere mortal?"

  "Oh, how very good!" said Mrs. Trevor.

  There began to be, without any one's intending it, that sort of tacitmisunderstanding which is all the worse because it can only follow upona tacit understanding like that which had established itself betweenAlice and Mavering. They laughed and joked together gaily about allthat went on; they were perfectly good friends; he saw that she and hermother were promptly served; he brought them salad and ice-cream andcoffee himself, only waiting officially upon Miss Anderson first, andAlice thanked him, with the politest deprecation of his devotion; butif their eyes met, it was defensively, and the security between them wasgone. Mavering vaguely felt the loss, without knowing how to retrieveit, and it made him go on more desperately with Miss Anderson. Helaughed and joked recklessly, and Alice began to mark a more explicitdispleasure with her. She made her mother go rather early.

  On her part, Miss Anderson seemed to find reason for resentment inAlice's bearing toward her. As if she had said to herself that her frankloyalty had been thrown away upon a cold and unresponsive nature,and that her harmless follies in the play had been met with unjustsuspicions, she began to make reprisals, she began in dead earnest toflirt with Mavering. Before the evening passed she had made him seemtaken with her; but how justly she had done this, and with how muchfault of his, no one could have said. There were some who did not noticeit at all, but these were not people who knew Mavering, or knew Alicevery well.