CHAPTER 8
AN EVENING ENTERTAINMENT
HECTOR AND LUCY WERE infuriatingly secretive about what they’d been doing all day. I found Hector limping up and down the hallway with a silly smile on his face, occasionally pausing to raise a fist in the air. Lucy used the poker from the nursery fireplace to practice what she seemed to think were the moves of a dashing swordsman. Lucy frightened Dot nearly out of her wits by lunging with her weapon just as the maid opened the door to say that the volunteer actors were wanted in the ballroom to be costumed.
“I could bring you a cup of tea, Miss Agatha,” said Dot, once the others had slipped away and down the stairs. “Only, it’d have to be right now. It’s Christmas Eve, you see. We’ve already laid out the supper for after the play, because we servants are at liberty tonight. We watch the entertainment just as you do, and get handed drinks by her ladyship and the rest of you lot. My brother, Fred, and another of the footmen have roles in the pantomime.”
“It’s not really a pantomime,” I said. “You might be disappointed if that’s what you’re expecting.” I explained that a tableau was more like a living photograph or painting, with everyone in costumes and makeup, frozen in the most dramatic moment of the book. It was usually a book, or a famous painting, or something from the Bible.
“The actors don’t move or speak to each other. And they won’t be acting silly or singing naughty songs.”
“Whatever it is,” said Dot, “it’ll be better than washing out socks.”
Grannie Jane and I passed the last hour of the afternoon threading popped corn to make garlands to decorate the numerous statues and busts that inhabited the rooms of Owl Park. Marjorie eventually led us to the ballroom, where we sat with Dr. Musselman and tried not to twitch with excitement.
A curtain of plush maroon velvet hung in deep folds in front of a platform at one end of the room. On the evening of a real ball, the orchestra would play on this little stage, just two feet above the dance floor. Tonight, there’d be as many people on the stage as sitting in chairs, even counting the dozen servants who’d come to watch. James was backstage, becoming an actor, but Marjorie made a fine show of escorting Mrs. Frost and Mrs. Hornby to seats in the front row. Soft notes from a piano tinkled out from behind the curtain. Once we’d all found seats, we rustled and murmured for a few minutes until the lights dimmed and the gentle music stopped.
I loved this minute in a theater, when the lights went down on the audience and came back up inside a play. The curtains were drawn back to show three people encircling an impressive goose, trussed and roasted upon a platter. Mr. Mooney was dressed in a caped overcoat and tweed hat. He held aloft a magnificent jewel, the size of a plum and glowing blue in the stage lights. He examined it through an oversized magnifying glass. The other actor, Mr. Corker, wearing a stiff brown suit, gaped into the innards of the goose as if there might be more treasure to discover. I barely recognized Annabelle Day as the plump, astonished housekeeper. Padding and makeup increased her girth and age remarkably.
I leaned over to whisper directly into Marjorie’s ear. “Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in ‘The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle’! The story by Mr. Arthur Conan Doyle! I mean, Sir Arthur, now.”
Marjorie had sent me the book and I’d read it aloud to Papa during the weeks of his illness. The gemstone in the story is stolen from a countess and turns up in the gullet of a Christmas goose. Mr. Holmes makes clever deductions by simply examining a man’s hat.
“That’s why I selected it from their list of tableaux,” said Marjorie. “For you! Now, ssh.”
The curtains slid together after a bit, the piano music started up, and the audience began again to breathe.
“I’d faint dead away,” said Mrs. Hornby loudly, from the front row, “if such a stone turned up inside any bird I cooked! That bird weren’t washed proper before it went into the oven.” Everyone laughed. And then the lights dipped, signaling the second tableau.
Another Christmas feast, a crowded table this time, again surrounding a roasted goose. The same goose, I could tell, made of painted plaster with a garland of cranberries draped across its breast. Mr. Mooney, who moments ago had been Sherlock Holmes, was now dressed in a wrinkled nightshirt with a striped nightcap on his head, gazing in at a merry dining room through a window in the scenery and beaming with pride. Miss Annabelle Day was the mother of the household, a silver ladle in her hand, ready to serve from a tureen. Mr. Corker played her husband. Their family was shabby of costume, each watching the unexpected gift of a roasted bird with hungry anticipation. I spotted Lucy in a cap and patched pinafore, Frederick the footman with a pretend piece of pie, and Dot holding the pose of a ghostly sprite.
“A Christmas Carol!” I said. “By Charles Dickens!”
Marjorie squeezed my arm and then began to clap.
“Look at Hector!” I said. “He’s Tiny Tim!”
He wore a huge checked cap, a rough linen shirt and a gleeful grin. “God bless us, every one!” he cried. His crutch, waving in the air, came close to knocking off the head of his stage-Papa, Mr. Corker. As promised, my hands were warm from clapping so hard.
“One more,” said Marjorie, when the curtain had closed.
“Another book?” I said.
“You’ll see.”
We had a longer wait this time, but the audience cheered when the curtain parted. A painted backdrop showed the rolling waves of a bonny blue sea. We were aboard a pirate ship in a rare moment of merriment. Five grimacing pirates were dressed alike in rough muslin shirts, wide orange trousers, and dark curling wigs beneath battered hats or kerchiefs. One of them was a bit taller—Frederick, the footman; one a bit shorter—Mr. Roger Corker; and one small and slim—Miss Annabelle Day. Mr. Sivam and James were like twins, almost, except for their coloring. All of them wore high buckled boots and had hands and faces smeared with coal smut and pot rust to make them appear sea-roughened and sunburnt. Mr. Mooney was dressed in a frock coat with gold epaulets. He had a peg leg and a tattered parrot pinned to one shoulder.
“Dastardly rogues!” Dr. Musselman began to clap his hands with great enthusiasm.
“Three cheers for Long John Silver!” called out Kitty Sivam. For that’s who Mr. Mooney portrayed.
“I’m meant to be the hero!” cried Lucy, stepping out of her character to hurl an unfriendly glare at Mrs. Sivam. “I’m Jim Hawkins!”
“And so you are, darling,” said Kitty. “But I thought the villain might need some encouragement before you trounced him.”
Lucy froze into position again, but did not quite erase the look of pique on her face. Long John Silver laughed a mighty pirate laugh. He swung a cardboard cutlass over their heads, keeping the real sword and dagger safely attached to his belt.
The curtain closed and the entertainment was done, an excellent night in the theater.
And a party still to follow!