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CHAPTER III--THE PLAY-ACTRESS OF ANSTEY CROSS - Rodney Stone| Set Display | Please Turn On Your Virtual Bookmarks | Help Support This Site | Table of Contents | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle |
Page 21 of 163
CHAPTER III--THE PLAY-ACTRESS OF ANSTEY CROSS - Rodney Stone
"How like you that, then?" she cried. "That was my way in the days when Sally Siddons would turn green at the name of Polly Hinton. It's a fine play, is Pizarro."
"And who wrote it, ma'am?"
"Who wrote it? I never heard. What matter who did the writing of it! But there are some great lines for one who knows how they should be spoken."
"And you play no longer, ma'am?"
"No, Jim, I left the boards when--when I was weary of them. But my heart goes back to them sometimes. It seems to me there is no smell like that of the hot oil in the footlights and of the oranges in the pit. But you are sad, Jim."
"It was but the thought of that poor woman and her child."
"Tut, never think about her! I will soon wipe her from your mind. This is 'Miss Priscilla Tomboy,' from The Romp. You must conceive that the mother is speaking, and that the forward young minx is answering.
And she began a scene between the two of them, so exact in voice and manner that it seemed to us as if there were really two folk before us: the stern old mother with her hand up like an ear-trumpet, and her flouncing, bouncing daughter. Her great figure danced about with a wonderful lightness, and she tossed her head and pouted her lips as she answered back to the old, bent figure that addressed her. Jim and I had forgotten our tears, and were holding our ribs before she came to the end of it.
"That is better," said she, smiling at our laughter. "I would not have you go back to Friar's Oak with long faces, or maybe they would not let you come to me again."
She vanished into her cupboard, and came out with a bottle and glass, which she placed upon the table.
"You are too young for strong waters," she said, "but this talking gives one a dryness, and--"
Then it was that Boy Jim did a wonderful thing. He rose from his chair, and he laid his hand upon the bottle.
"Don't!" said he.
She looked him in the face, and I can still see those black eyes of hers softening before the gaze.
"Am I to have none?"
"Please, don't."
With a quick movement she wrested the bottle out of his hand and raised it up so that for a moment it entered my head that she was about to drink it off. Then she flung it through the open lattice, and we heard the crash of it on the path outside.
"There, Jim!" said she; "does that satisfy you? It's long since any one cared whether I drank or no."
"You are too good and kind for that," said he.
"Good!" she cried. "Well, I love that you should think me so. And it would make you happier if I kept from the brandy, Jim? Well, then, I'll make you a promise, if you'll make me one in return."
"What's that, miss?"
"No drop shall pass my lips, Jim, if you will swear, wet or shine, blow or snow, to come up here twice in every week, that I may see you and speak with you, for, indeed, there are times when I am very lonesome." 
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