"A little sadness now and then won"t hurt them," he said. "It is the shadows that make us appreciate the sunshine, you know."
There was a long wait before the curtain was raised on the last picture in the poem: "The dead steer"d by the dumb."
The barge had been a problem, until Judy solved it by placing an ironing-board across two chairs, and draping the whole into the semblance of a boat-like bier.
Perkins, under protest, was pressed into service as the dumb boatman, and with a long beard of white cotton, and a cloak and hood of funereal black, he was a picturesque and pessimistic figure.
"It"s so wobbly," said Anne, powdered with corn-starch to an interesting paleness and draped all in white. "It"s so wobbly, Judy,"
and she shrieked softly, as she laid herself flat on the ironing-board.
"Steady," advised Launcelot, as he shifted her carefully to the center, "now for the lily and the letter, Judy," and he threw over the prostrate Anne a yellow silk shawl of Judy"s which was to serve as cloth of gold.
"Now, Perkins," and Perkins climbed to the high stool, which had been set in an armchair and formed the bow of the boat.
"If I falls, I falls," said Perkins, cla.s.sically, "and my blood be on your head, sir," and while Judy writhed in agonies of laughter, Launcelot turned off the lights and adjusted the great lantern, which was to throw on the barge the effect of moonlight, while all else was to be in shadow.
The illusion from the front was perfect. Even the green piano cover with its dots of white cotton foamed up around the barge like real waves.
"How lovely she is," whispered all the children, as Anne lay there so still and quiet, with her fair hair streaming over the blackness of the bier.
"I don"t like it. I don"t like it," whimpered Bobbie Green, whose imagination was a thing to be reckoned with. "I don"t like it. Anne, oh, Anne--"
And Anne"s tender heart could not withstand that cry of fear.
"I"m all right, darling," she said, right out, and then the tension was broken, and all the children laughed, with relief, as Elaine sat up smiling and waving her hand to them.
"Bobbie Shafto" came next and was a dig at Tommy.
Judy"s great marine picture made the background, and on the sh.o.r.e little Mary Morrison bade little Jimmie Jones "Good-bye" with heartrending sobs. But this Bobbie Shafto never went to sea. As picture followed picture, he was shown pulling at a rowing machine, sailing toy ships in a tub, fishing in a pail, and digging for treasure in a tiny sand pile--and after each funny scene, the curtain would drop, and tiny Mary Morrison would come to the front and wail:
"_Tommy_ Shafto"s gone to sea, Silver buckles on his knee, He"ll come back and marry me, Pretty _Tommy_ Shafto!"
It brought down the house, but Tommy got very red and murmured in Bobbie"s ear that "They might think it was funny, but _he_ didn"t,"
which Bobbie Green did not understand in the least.
"That"s all," and Launcelot gave a sigh of relief, as Mary and Jimmie made their bows amid uproarious applause. He had been stage manager as well as actor, and he was tired.
"No, no," whispered Judy, as she came on the stage dressed as a fishermaid, and dragging a great net behind her. "No, no. Dr.
Grennell is going to read "Break, break, break." I sha"n"t need any change of scene. Just leave the big picture, and put this net and the sh.e.l.ls around, and smooth out that sand to look like the beach."
She was making a rock out of two boxes covered with a gray mackintosh as she spoke. "Now, if you could just whistle like the wind," she said. "Do you think you could, Launcelot?"
"I"ll try," and he did whistle, so effectively, that he did not get his breath for five minutes.
Judy had read the poem one day when she was helping Anne to plan the pictures, and it had, like all songs of the sea, sung itself into her heart.
Again the big picture with its stretch of sea made the background, and Judy sat on the rock looking at it. The plaid lining of her mackintosh showed, and the wind sounded wheezy, but the pathos in Judy"s face, the tragedy in her eyes as the third verse was read:
"And the stately ships go on, To the haven under the hill, But oh, for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!"
made the Judge wipe his eyes, and Mrs. Batch.e.l.ler say hurriedly, "She should not have done it. She should not."
And behind the dropped curtain Judy was saying to Dr. Grennell, "I want to go back to the sea. I hate the country. I want to go back to the wind and waves. I can"t stand it here."
But the doctor put his hand on her shoulder and looked down into her troubled face with grave eyes.
"Not now," he said, quietly, "not while your grandfather needs you, Judy."
Judy drew a long breath, then she put out her hand as if to make him a promise.
"No, not while grandfather needs me," she said, "not while he needs me, Doctor."
CHAPTER XII
LORDLY LAUNCELOT
The children of the town of Fairfax never forgot that afternoon at Judge Jameson"s. For years they had peeped through the hedge at the fascinating Cupid of the Fountain, but never had one of them put foot in the old garden, with its mysterious nooks and formal paths, which lay in the shadow of the Great House.
But to-day with its gipsy band playing wild music, with its gaily decorated tables, its awe-inspiring Perkins,--who with his satellites offered food fit for the G.o.ds,--with its riot of spring color, it was beyond their wildest dreams.
Before they went home they all a.s.sembled again in the great dining-room from which the chairs had been taken, and on the polished floor every one, old and young, danced the Virginia Reel, the Judge leading with Miss Mary, and Mrs. Batch.e.l.ler bringing up at the end of the line with Jimmie Jones.
"It was a success, wasn"t it," said Launcelot, when the children had trooped away, and Anne and Mrs. Batch.e.l.ler and the smiling Miss Mary had been driven home in the Judge"s carriage.
"Yes," said Judy, abstractedly, watching the musicians, who were having their refreshments under the lilac bushes.
"What handsome faces they have," she said, "so dark and wild. And their lives are so free--grandfather says they just roam around from place to place, living in the woods and picking up a little money here and there. He says their camp is just outside, and when he was driving yesterday, he saw one of them playing and asked them if they wouldn"t come here to-day."
When the gipsies had finished they rose and went down the path towards the gate. They were talking and laughing with a vivacious play of feature and a recklessness of gesture that proclaimed them the unconscious children of nature.
"How I wish I could go with them," said Judy, impulsively, as the young leader of the band took off his hat and waved them a debonair "good-bye." "How I wish I could go!"
But Launcelot shook his head. "It"s all very romantic from the outside," he said, "but the women don"t have a very good time. They tramp the dusty roads in summer and almost freeze in their open wagons in the winter, and they bear most of the burdens. Those men are handsome, all right, but some of them are brutes."
As he spoke the leader of the band came back up the path.
"Come to our camp, pretty lady," he said, flashing his dark eyes upon Judy, "and our queen will tell your fortune. For a piece of silver she will tell you the things that are past and the things that are to come."
"Oh, will she?" asked Judy, eagerly. "Will you be at the camp next Sat.u.r.day?"
"We will be there until you come," said the gipsy with a glance of admiration at her vivid face.
But Launcelot"s hand was clenched at his side. He did not like that fellow"s face or his manner, he told himself, and Judy should not go near that camp if he could help it.
"You don"t want to have your fortune told, Judy," he said, a little roughly.