Murder at Mansfield Park - Lynn Shepherd [32]
‘You must excuse me, Fanny,’ said Julia, rising from her seat, ‘but this passage has been omitted.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Miss Price quickly, returning to her own voice, ‘I recall. Mr Rushworth, we now move on to the next page.You begin again with “Proceed, proceed”.’
Lady Bertram and her sister happened to choose this moment to join the small audience, and therefore witnessed only the closing moments of the scene. Mrs Norris was loud in her disappointment at missing Fanny’s triumph, but eventually accepted her assurance that there were several more scenes of equal potential, and took her seat.
The next scene brought Mr Yates to the stage for the first time. He had been severely displeased to find that his blue cloak was still unfinished, a failure he did not scruple to attribute to Mrs Norris’s insistence on completing it without sending out for another roll of satin. It took some moments for him to rant himself back into a good humour, but by the point of Mary’s entrance he was in full voice.
‘The name of Wildenhaim will die with me!’ he stormed. ‘Oh! Why was not my Amelia a boy?
’ Mr Yates’s voice was so thunderous, his manner so ridiculous, that it was as much as Mary could do to avoid laughing aloud. In consequence, she did the comedy of the scene some credit, and they proceeded with great éclat, especially after the entrance of Henry, whose appearance in a cocked hat he had discovered in the Mansfield schoolroom was such a piece of true comic acting as Mary would not have lost upon any account.
They were obliged to stop half way through the act, where Mr Norris’s character would have entered, and Mary returned to her seat to watch Rushworth and Yates roar through the next scene. Frederick drew his sword upon his unknown father, and the Baron imprisoned his unknown son, both hallooing at one another from a distance of less than a yard. The act closed with the solemn pronouncement from Mr Yates that ‘Vice is never half so dangerous, as when it assumes the garb of morality’, and the fervent applause of the spectators. Both audience and actors then repaired to the dining-parlour, where a collation had been prepared, and the company began upon the cold meat and cake with equal enthusiasm.
Everyone was too much engaged in compliment and criticism to be struck by an unusual noise in the other part of the house, until the door of the room was thrown open, and Maria appearing at it, with a look of meaning at her cousin and Mr Rushworth, announced in trembling tones, ‘Edmund has come! He is in the hall at this moment!’
Not a word was spoken for half a minute, but there was no time for further consternation, for Edmund was following his cousin almost instantaneously into the dining-room, intent on losing no time in giving them a full report of his uncle’s health, and the particulars of their journey.
‘And what of you all?’ he asked at the end of it. ‘How does the play go on?’
‘We have chosen Lovers’Vows,’ replied Mr Yates, his voice still rather hoarse from his exertions. ‘And I take Baron Wildenhaim.’
‘I see,’ said Edmund, then, ‘I am afraid I do not know the play,’ unaware of the relief this declaration afforded to at least one person present.
‘You are to be Anhalt, Edmund,’ said Tom quickly. ‘We have cast all the other men. Indeed, we were in the midst of a rehearsal when you arrived.’
‘Pray do not leave off on my account, Tom,’said Edmund with a smile. ‘I will join the audience and spur you on.’
‘Would it not be better,’ began Miss Price, with a look at Mr Rushworth, ‘if Anhalt were to read through his scene with Amelia here, in the dining-parlour? The rest might then take the opportunity to have another rehearsal of the first act.’
No-one making any objection, and some amongst them being anxious to be gone, the greater part of the party returned to the theatre. Mr Norris was evidently surprised to see that Miss Price made one of them, while Mary made no movement to leave the room.
‘He must have thought they were to act together,’ thought Mary with a sigh, as she rose and called Julia back again.