Imogen: or, Only Eighteen

Acting and not Acting

Some guests had left The Fells that afternoon, but others had arrived. There were further goings and comings during the next few days, but more of the latter than the former. The Helmonts were in their glory, but to Imogen and her mother, fresh from their uneventful monotonous life à deux, the effect was almost as confusing as that of a kaleidoscope too rapidly turned. It became a relief when the party settled down as it were, for a little, into the chosen guests especially selected for the private theatricals which had been for some time under discussion, and at which the “assistance” of the Wentworths had not been desired.

But Imogen was undoubtedly pretty; every one, even Miss Forsyth, allowed it. And her face was a novelty. She proved to have more spirit, or “go,” as Trixie called it, in her, than had seemed probable; on the whole, she bid fair to be a very creditable success. Her inexperience and shyness were amusing, not tiresome. Her mother watched her with enchantment, ready and eager to swallow any amount of even the most thinly disguised flattery on Imogen’s account from the astute Mabella.

“She is really turning everybody’s head. I never saw anything like it,” said the young lady in question over and over again, whenever she got a chance of Mrs Wentworth to herself. “Noll is grateful for a glance; and Fred” – Fred was Captain Helmont – “who is considered a tremendous critic, admires her out and out, only, of course, his admiration is due elsewhere.” He was shortly to be married to a girl not at that time one of the party at The Fells. “I don’t know what Lady Lucy would say to it if she were here.”

Mrs Wentworth smiled. Captain Helmont had been one of her dreams for Imogen before they came.

“Lady Lucy is very pretty herself, some one said,” she remarked politely.

“Not a patch on Imogen, if I may call her so,” Miss Forsyth continued. “But the marvel,” and here she dropped her voice discreetly, “is Major Winchester! A man who never knows if a woman has a nose on her face or not – who stalks about the world like the great Mogul. Of course, we all admire him and respect him – oh, immensely! – but we look upon him as a being quite apart. And there he is – perfectly devoted – taking the greatest interest in these theatricals, which as a rule he would have thought beneath contempt, and all, I am sure, for your daughter’s sake. Trixie and I can’t get over it.”

Mrs Wentworth’s smile was positively beaming.

“My dear Miss Forsyth, you are too kind, too partial,” she said. “I quite appreciate all you say, but – I must not have Imogen spoilt. She is so young. Major Winchester, for instance – I am sure he considers her a perfect child.”

“But she is not – not in some ways,” Mabella went on, insidiously. “She has been so well brought up,” – and here she sighed deeply – “so well educated. I heard Rex saying to some one that he could see she had excellent abilities. It will be such a good thing for my poor Trixie if a girl like that takes to her – her influence would be everything. Much better than mine,” here she sighed again. “I can do my friends no good, I can only love them. I was not well brought up – far from it, as I daresay you can see for yourself.”

“Poor dear!” said Mrs Wentworth, too ingenuous herself to doubt another, and too candid to express any civil disagreement. She gently stroked Mabella’s hand, while the ready tears rose to her eyes. “You had no mother, perhaps?”

“Yes, my mother is still living, but – she never understood me,” said Miss Forsyth, vaguely. And Mrs Wentworth, suspecting some painful family history behind the words, forbore to question further. She would have been not a little amazed had she heard the true side of the story. A father and mother, simple-minded and devoted to their daughter, erring only in their too great unselfishness, to be repaid by contempt and scorn, when, by dint of a certain unscrupulous cleverness, Mabella made her way into a higher social sphere. She and Trixie had met accidentally, and the elder girl at once laid herself out to obtain an ascendency over the spoilt Helmont “baby,” in which she succeeded only too well.

“No,” Mabella repeated. “I was never understood, and – I was not naturally patient and docile, I fear; and now, though I see it all, I am too old to change, I suppose.”

“Too old!” repeated Imogen’s mother. “Nonsense, dear Miss Forsyth. You can’t be more than seven or eight and twenty?”

“I am three-and-twenty,” said the girl, which was true. She was furious, but she hid it. “Will you take me in hand, dear Mrs Wentworth,” she went on, “if you don’t think me too old! You can’t be many years older yourself,” she added, sweetly.

“I shall be thirty-eight next month,” Imogen’s mother replied. “That is dreadfully old, is it not?”

“I shall count you my elder sister then, and you must tell me when you see me doing anything you don’t like, and dear Imogen will look after Trixie. Shall that be a compact? Who knows how much good you may not do me in a fortnight! Even Major Winchester himself would not give me up as incorrigible, if he heard of it.”

And under Mabella’s direction, hints, though less broad, were not wanting on Trixie’s part to Imogen herself. They were seed for which circumstances, including her own inexperience and vanity, her mother’s blind devotion and Rex Winchester’s well-intended kindness, were steadily preparing a congenial soil.

Everybody knows the atmosphere of excitement, general fuss, anxiety, and eager anticipation which seizes upon a house – a country-house especially – where “private theatricals” are in question. And to those fortunate people who have never themselves had personal experience of it, it has been too often described to need more than an allusion. It is a grand test – almost as good as a sea voyage – of temper and unselfishness. So far, perhaps, we may consider it salutary. But no doubt such a state of things has its undesirable side. To the inexperienced, especially, it brings with it a curious sense of unreality, a throwing off of one’s actual self and responsibilities which call for peculiar good-sense and self-control.

“I don’t feel as if I knew who I was,” said Imogen, looking up at Major Winchester somewhat wistfully one day, about ten days after her arrival at The Fells, when a long rehearsal had tried everybody’s patience and good-humour to the utmost. “I don’t think I am the least good at acting, and yet I feel as if I weren’t myself. I seem more than half ‘Valesca.’ Yet I shall never be able to do it the way Mr Villars tells me.”

“He is rather inexorable, certainly,” Rex agreed; “but then he wouldn’t be fit to be stage-manager if he were not. I think you will do very well, quite well enough.”

He did not add the truth – that though she was quite without dramatic power of the mildest kind, she looked the part so charmingly that no one would be inclined to be critical.

“That is faint praise,” said Imogen with one of her little pouts. “Of course I know it is a most unimportant character; still I would like to manage it decently well. How capitally Trixie and Miss Forsyth act, Major Winchester!”

He glanced at her sharply.

“Then I hope no one I care for will ever act capitally,” he said.

Imogen reddened.

“You are very severe on them,” she said. “I don’t mind what you think of Miss Forsyth, for I don’t like her; but I am, sometimes, at least” – and here, for some unexplained reason, she grew still redder – “very fond of Trixie. She is very kind to me generally;” for candour compelled her to qualify the statement. Trixie not being so case-hardened in diplomacy as her ally, was not always able to keep her temper or to hide her growing jealousy of Imogen’s universally acknowledged beauty. “And I think she would like to be more – more like what your sister must have been. I think you can scarcely judge of Trixie, Major Winchester. She shows to disadvantage to you because she is so frightened of you.”

Rex laughed; he could not help it.

“My dear child, you really must not be so desperately confiding,” he said. “Trixie is frightened of no one – man or woman.”

But Imogen’s advocacy touched him and increased his favourable opinion of her character. An opinion to a great extent deserved, for below some superficial selfishness and vanity, there was in her real sweetness and generosity – material, in wise hands, for much good. The generosity in this instance was conspicuous, for Rex had himself been witness to some far from amiable conduct on Beatrix’s part towards the young guest.

“How is it,” he went on, “that you seem to see so little of Florence?”

“I don’t know,” Imogen replied. “I have tried to make friends with her, because I knew you wished it,” she added naïvely. “But I’m afraid she does not care for me. And she is always so busy. I think she does a great deal to help her mother.”

“Yes, Florrie’s a good girl,” said he approvingly. “I wish you could know her better.”

It was as Imogen said. Florence did not care for her. Yet, when taxed by her cousin with her disregard of his protégée, it was difficult to prove her to blame.

“I really did what I could,” she assured him. “But she threw herself into Trixie’s arms from the very first, and unless I actually speak against my own sister, I cannot help it.”

“No ‘speaking against’ any one would have the desired effect with Miss Wentworth; rather the other way,” said Major Winchester. “There is a strong strain of chivalry in her composition.”

“What a high opinion you seem to have of her!” said Florence, half pettishly. “To me she is just a pretty, shallow child – with something ingenuous and sweet about her – yes, that I must allow. But really, I know little more of her than on the day she came. I have had to give up taking any part in the theatricals, you know, Rex, and it is the one thing I could have thrown myself into, and – forgotten myself a little. But Alicia took it into her head to act, and mother would have been left all to herself really. Besides which I couldn’t have kept my temper with Trixie and that Mab of hers,” she concluded, honestly.

“I am sorry you had to give it up. But I am sure you did it for the best. It makes me still more anxious about that child, however,” said Rex. “And I am afraid her mother is – well, very silly.”

“You will have to look after her doubly,” said Florence. “She couldn’t have a better guardian. It may distract your thoughts a little – poor Rex. What is your last news, by the bye?”

“No better, except that she has stood the journey so far pretty well,” he replied.

The same question was asked him again that afternoon in the interval of one of the daily or twice-a-day rehearsals. Imogen, blushing as she did so, asked gently what news he had.

“No better, thank you,” he said half absently, “except that the crossing has been accomplished pretty successfully.”

“The crossing?” Imogen repeated. “Then is she – is your sister to undergo the operation abroad? Or is it over?”

Rex recollected himself.

“Oh no,” he said quickly. “I was confusing – no, no – Angey, my sister, is pretty well in herself. Nothing can be done about her eyes for some time yet.” He gave a half sigh and hesitated. “I was thinking of – ”

But Imogen would not let him finish.

“I am so sorry,” she said, “for speaking of it. It was very thoughtless of me, for I know it must be very painful to you.”

She really felt guilty, for only the day before Mrs Wentworth had told her that Miss Forsyth had warned her never to allude to Major Winchester’s anxieties; he “could not bear them spoken of to him.”

“All the kinder of him,” Imogen had said to herself with a little thrill of pride, “to have confided in me about them,” though she had not expressed this to her mother.

There were times when Imogen’s confidence in Beatrix received a shake. Trixie was too unused to self-control of any kind to keep it up for long, even in a bad cause. And Miss Wentworth’s acting often gave opportunity for ridicule, it must be allowed. Then Mr Villars was severe and enthusiastic, and Imogen’s perfect fitness in appearance for the part assigned to her made him doubly provoked at her absolute incapacity to carry out his directions. More than once the close of a rehearsal found the poor girl all but in tears, and the sympathy she met with was often but scant.