The barbarous babes

I ’LL never do any more plays, never. It would be all very well if one could act all the parts oneself, but making the others learn theirs was awful. Besides, you wouldn’t believe that the Corpse could give so much trouble.

We got it up while Mother was still away in Algiers, and that was the first mistake. But we’d often had acting games before, and I never thought that this would be so much harder. The idea of doing it came into my head one day at lesson time, and it seemed perfectly splendid, so I pinched Humphrey directly, and whispered, “We are going to act a real play with refreshments and a curtain. I shall write it.”

I was rather disappointed that Humphrey didn’t answer, but after a long time he suddenly said quite loud, “Like Shakespeare.” Fortunately, Fräulein didn’t understand. It was rather silly of him too, because of course I didn’t mean to make it long like that. Why, Humph has taken six months to learn “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” and he still says, “Half a leg, half a leg, half a leg onwards”; besides, I knew that Violet and Ted would like to come in too.

That afternoon I began to write the play. I tried at first to make it all up out of my own head, only when I sat down nothing seemed to come. So I thought I’d adapt it out of a book, like Father says all the best plays are done nowadays. I took Aytoun’s “Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers.” I’m very fond of them, you see, and I know them nearly all by heart, but I don’t believe it was me that loosened the frontispiece as Fräulein says, just because I took the book to bed one evening. Not that we read in bed, because Mother’s very particular about that, but I like to feel that Dundee and the Young Pretender are near me all the night. It was the “Burial March of Dundee” that I thought would be the best for the play, but it didn’t seem to need much adapting, because we could just have a bier with Ted as Dundee (he’s the lightest, and his hair is curly). We three would march on bearing it, and I’d recite the lay; then we’d march off again of course.

So, as this was easy, I thought we’d have another play as well, and I settled on “Young Lochinvar.” Humphrey would be Lochinvar; I should have liked to be the bride, who is the heroine, of course, but then I settled it would be better if Violet was, partly because I thought Mother would have been pleased at my not being selfish, and partly because it looks so silly to see the lady taller than the gentleman, like when Cousin Sophy was married. Then I and Ted would be the wicked mother and father. Of course, he’s heaps smaller than me, but that didn’t matter because we’d both be old, and he might have shrunk quicker. Our old nurse told us once that she’d got to the time of life when she was growing downwards like a cow’s tail; and certainly, when she came to see us the other day, she did seem a lot shorter than she used to be when we were little and she lived with us.

The others were all very pleased with their parts, and it was settled that the acting should be on April the 10th, which is Ted’s birthday, and Fräulein asked some children to come to tea. It didn’t leave us very much time, but I thought it would do, because I never guessed how slow Humphrey would be. At each rehearsal he seemed to get worse, and the dress one was awful.

To begin with, we left it to the very afternoon of the birthday because the others said that when the children came, we could go straight on and needn’t dress up twice. Only it made me feel nervous, and then, just as we were starting, cook sent up word that she was bothered enough with extra to tea and couldn’t let us have anything for the banquet in “Young Lochinvar.” It was really because there’d been a fuss about the butcher’s bill; as if we could help that!

The others were very good, I must say, and Humphrey said that he’d give us a Brazil nut that he’d got, and lend us his peppermint. It’s a most enormous one, that goes different colours as you suck, and he keeps it for when he’s put in the corner. And Violet said she’d put some of her doll’s sham dishes on the table; still, that wasn’t very much for a wedding feast. So I said perhaps we’d better pretend that they had had the feast before the curtain drew up, and there could be just a goblet of water for Young Lochinvar to quaff.

“He couldn’t have been very thirsty when he had just ‘swum the Esk river,’ and he would enjoy the peppermint because——” Humphrey began, but I told him quickly that we wouldn’t have any eating or drinking at all, for when he once begins explaining anything he never stops. Besides, it was only because he remembered that he was to be Young Lochinvar himself.

So we began to dress up, and when they were all ready, they looked so nice and real that I began to feel happier. Humphrey had on my white flannel pyjamas with a red sash, like we always have for the hero; they’re rather big for him, but he wears nightshirts himself, for though he isn’t very strong, he never catches cold, and of course you couldn’t be a hero in a nightshirt. The worst of it was that it looked rather bare at the back, because the hero always has Mother’s fur-lined cape, inside out, across his shoulders and we hadn’t got that, nor Mother either, so we began to feel rather miserable. Even Father was not there. He had gone out to Mother for the Easter Holidays.

Violet had on the lace window-curtains and Mother’s old blue silk dress that she has given us for dressing-up, and Teddy wore his pyjamas with a green sash, of course, because he was the villain; at least, he wasn’t exactly a villain, but he was a very disagreeable and horrid sort of father for any one to have. He had on a tow beard, too, that I made out of some that was over when Fräulein did the grates, and I’m sure Mother won’t like them, though Fräulein does think them so beautiful, but the beard wasn’t a great success because it would come off in the middle.

As for me, we didn’t know what to do, because I’d tied on so many pillows to be fat, that I knew I couldn’t get on any one’s dress but cook’s. So we sent Teddy down to ask her if she would be so very kind as to lend us one. We always make Teddy ask for things, because he’s pretty, and we’ve found out that helps. I think cook thought he wanted the dress for himself, for he said she laughed a lot, but anyway she fetched him her best one—green stuff, it was, with red plush trimming.

Then we began. It was awful. Ted gabbled so that no one could hear him, and Humphrey had never known his part properly, though I used to run into his room every night after Fräulein had put out the lights and make him go through it. He couldn’t escape me then, but often he was asleep, which was just as bad, because even if you woke him up it was no use—he’d be so stupid. Well, Humphrey seemed to have forgotten everything he’d ever known, and the more I went on the more he forgot until he began to say the “Charge of the Light Brigade” by mistake; at last he turned sulky and wouldn’t speak at all.

Violet knew her part beautifully—I will say that—and she spoke it very clearly and slowly, but without the least bit of expression. When she came to—

which was a piece that I’d made up myself, you might have thought she was saying the multiplication table.

“Can’t you speak it like you really would to any one?” I said.

“I’d never say such a silly thing,” she answered, “because trains always make me sick and you know Mother says I’d be a dreadful sailor.”

Well, I told her at any rate she ought to take Young Lochinvar into a corner and throw her arms round his neck and kiss him, so that the people could tell she was pleased to see him; and she did it, because she’s very obedient, but it was just as if she were hugging a signpost.

So I said she was a perfect idiot, which I oughtn’t to have done, however silly she was, and she began to cry.

Well, I thought we’d better get on to “Dundee.” It begins—

We didn’t know exactly what pibrochs and all those things were, but we thought some Burmese gongs and bells of Father’s would do as well, and we’d brought them up out of the case in the drawing-room.

But when I came to look on the mantelpiece, where I’d put them all ready, they were gone.

Then Violet, who was still crying, of course, because she’d been started off, sobbed out that Fräulein had taken the things back and had locked up the case and was very angry. They don’t belong to Fräulein anyway, so I don’t see what business it was of hers. But there we were in a nice fix.

Humphrey said at last that he would blow his penny whistle. He hasn’t got any ear at all, and the noise he makes is more like a railway engine than anything else; however, I had to say Yes. Then Teddy suggested that if we covered up his face he could do “Nearer, my God, to Thee” on the comb. Teddy’s the most musical of us all, but I didn’t think it would do, because even if the audience didn’t notice that he was playing his own funeral march, the comb doesn’t seem to be quite right somehow. I said we’d better tie the dinner-bell round Violet’s waist instead, and she could shake herself now and then. Of course she had to hold up the bier with both her hands, so she couldn’t do anything else.

We made the bier out of stilts with a long cushion tied between them, and then I thought we were ready. So we lifted it up and Teddy climbed on to the window-sill and got on to the bier from there. He lay down and immediately the strings broke and he went on to the floor—crash! He shrieked and roared and he wouldn’t stop, though I tried to put my arms round him, because he had come a horrid bang, and I promised him my old penknife with half a blade. He thought we’d done it on purpose, so he’d only scream out, “Go away! I won’t act—I won’t! You beast, beast, beast!”

At this moment the door opened and we saw—Mother! We all gave one shout and rushed at her. Ted began to squeal with joy instead of screaming, and Violet stopped whimpering, and Humphrey started off talking quite fast. As for me—well, it was dreadfully silly and babyish—but now they’d all stopped I began to cry. I was so happy it seemed as if I couldn’t bear it.

Mother understood, like she always does. She didn’t say anything, but put her arm round me tight and let me hide my face in her cape. The others all started talking at once, and she kissed the lump on Teddy’s head and made it well and said she’d do the bier herself, so it would be quite safe. She sent Humphrey down for her fur cape for Young Lochinvar, and she told us Fräulein was quite right about our not taking the musical instruments without leave, but she was sure Father would let us have them. And she said—but this was when I was all right again—that it wouldn’t matter if Violet couldn’t quite get the expression, because brides were always shy and that when she was married to Father her voice sounded like some one else talking and without any expression at all. And then she admired all our dresses very much and went downstairs to ask cook to let us have things for the feast and a bottle of red currant wine, which was more grandeur than we’d ever thought of.

After that everything was different, like it always is when Mother’s at home. Oh, I forgot to explain that why we didn’t expect Mother was that Fräulein had never got the last letter. Besides, Mother rather wanted to surprise us.

By this time the other children were arriving downstairs, and so we started the acting as soon as we were ready. Well, you wouldn’t have thought it after all this fuss, but the plays went beautifully; every one said so. Certainly once Teddy opened his eyes as dead Dundee, and when he saw that Mother was really sitting there he began to laugh, but he’s got such a nice laugh one couldn’t mind much. Mother shook her head, though she couldn’t help smiling, so Ted shut up his eyes tight and screwed up his face all the rest of the time as though he were going to sneeze. Humphrey, too, in the wedding feast stuffed his mouth so full that he couldn’t speak, but Mother began to clap, so the people didn’t notice that.

At the end everybody clapped lots and we all came forward and bowed—at least Teddy curtseyed by mistake—and then Mother called out, “Author. Author and Stage-manager!” and the others pushed me on alone. I did feel proud.

All the same, I don’t think I’ll ever do any more plays—at any rate not unless Mother is at home all the time, and of that I’m quite certain.