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Beatrix Randolph

Beatrix Randolph image
Parent Issue
Day
18
Month
March
Year
1891
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Copyright by American Press Associatiom, On the day appointed for the selling of tickets for the first performance the extent of the popular interest that had been aroused was indicated by the length of the "cue" of buyers, who made a line from the box office all the way round the block, and who began their session, or station rather, upward of twenty-four hours before -the office opened. Accounts of their nocturnal experiences, their jokes, and their good humor appeared in the morning papers, together with plans of the interior arrangements of the opera house, the precautions against fire and panic, the uneqnaled splendor and perf ection of the scenery, and the cost of the whole enterprise. The usual safeguards against the imposition of speculators were taken, and met with the usual success. By five in the afternoon the house was sold from ceiling to cellar, and the impresario, leaning in an iusouciant attitude against the bar of the hotel, with his hat on one side and his face broader than it was long, treated his numerous friends to drinks and received their congratulations. This was on a Saturday. On Monday the performance took place "before the most fashionable, cultivated and appreciative audience ever assembled on a similar occasion in the city of New York." So recent and eminent a triumph is not likely to have been f orgotten by those who witnessed it. The opera selected was "Faust." It is perhaps the most satisfactory one for a first appearance, not only because of its musical merits. but because everybody is familiar with it, and can estímate the comparative success of the newcomer in "creating" afresh the immortal character of Marguerite. There had been a great number of rehearsals, and Mlle. Maraña had grown somewhat weary of the repetitions, and latterly had begun to fear that when the great night came Bhe would, if not unnerved by stage fright, at any rate be unable to go through the part otherwise than mechanically. All spontaneity of action and sentiment would be gone from her. She stivid in her apartment all day on Monday, refusing tö see any one, and even dispensing the greater part of the time with the presence of Mme. Bemax. She wished to dismiss the whole subject of the opera from her mind, and to aid herself in doing so she fixed her thoughts upon her brother Ed, and recalled all his ways and escapades and the happy times they had spent together. bhe pictured him and herself running races, and climbing trees, and finding birds' nests, and tending their red and white roses, and going on hunting expeditions after woodchucks and squirrels, and she brougbt back to her memory the talks they used to have together, when they would lay out bef ore themselves the course of their future lives - what they would do and what they would be. How different from their anticipation it had turned out! But he was her brother just the same, and she loved him none the less than she had ever done; on the contrary she loved him more, for he had given her an opportunity to show her love by repairing an injury which he bad noot. It wa pieasant to think that, when he retumed home, expecting to meet only distress and reproaches, he would find instead prosperity as great, if not greater than bef ore extra, vagance began, and all owing to his own sister! If he had done ! wrong, his sister thought, the discovery that she had worked to repair it would be more certain than anytbing else to make him hencef orward do right. Then she began to speculate as to what sort of wrong he had done - whether it wer6 anything more than thoughtlessness and extravagance. A few weeks ago she would have said that it could be nothing more; but she had been forced to see and htsar certain things of late which made her hesitate. She had seen what gome young men, possessed of money and freedom, were and did; why might not her brother Ed be like them? She put the thought away from her; she would not believe evil of her own brother. He was a Randolph and a gentleman. He might be selfish and reckless, but he would never do anything wieked or disgraceful. It was more to be feared that he would deern her to have disgraced herself in stealing another woman'a name a ad reputation. It was all very well to plead that she had been persuaded into it half ignorantly, half against her will; the f act that she had done it remained. Well- it was too late ! to_turn back_now! i The long Ticrars passed on, and as the evening approached she fonnd herself thinking not of Ed, but of another person, who had come into her mind, not by herowninvitation, butinvoluntarily; ot possibly he had been in the background all the while, and advanced as the other receded. She had had no conversation with Bellingham since that day at the theatre, but they had met several times and exchanged a few words, and there had been something in his manner that had strengthened and reassured her, she knew not why - something that seemed to show that intuition was acquiring more weight with him than reason. And yet he had not seemed happy nor at ease; but his uneasiness was of a kind that soothed and inspirited her. It was like the trouble of a clondy dawn, out of which the sun at last rises clear. He was not treacherous nor intangible, like so many men; his qualities were large and firmly based; he could not play monkey tricks, and talk one thing while he thought another. The process of his feelings was honest and open; he was reserved and reticent precisely because he could not be insincere. The prima donna longed with all her soul to be as frank and undisguised as he. She feit that could she be so all would be well bet ween them; but that until then all would not be well. And she said to herself, how perverse a mishap it was that this disguise of hers should have become necessary just when they met; had she met him at any other time of her life he would have known her as she really was, and his intuition and his reason would have been at one. But then, agaiu, her pride arose, and she vowed that if he did not care enough about kuowing her to discern her real self beneath the false disguise he should never know her at all. But did what she called her real self exist any longer? Had not the disguise destroyed it? And, if so, could she expect him to discover what was no longer there? She pressed her hands ver her eyes and breathed heavily. The time of waiting was now over, however. Mme. Bemax was knocking at the door, and coming in with madei moiselle's cloak and bonnet in her hand, and saying that the carriage was ready and that they must drive to the theatre at once in order that mademoiselle might have time to put on Marguerite's dress before the curtain rose. The prima donna stood up, and the realization of what lay before her came sweeping over her mind like a storm. She was slighüy tremulous and feit cold and feeble. Mme. Bemax made her drink a glass of wine, and conducted her down to the i carriage. She seemed hardly to know where she was, she could speak only with an effort; a benumbing preoccupaj tion had got possession of her. At the carriage door a gentleman was waiting, ! ciad in evening dress, with a light overcoat. Her heart beat for an instant, then became oppressed and tremulous again; it was only Jocelyn. He helped her into the carriage, and got in after her and Mme. Bemax. He began to say various things in a caressing, encouraging voice; she exclaimed sharply, "Don't speak to me! I must think my thoughts!" The rattle of the wheels on the pavement agitated her; she could not keep her hands or her lips still. Sometimes she fancied they had been driving for hours; sometimes that they had scarcely Btarted. When at length they arrived at the theatre everything seemed at ; once familiar and strange; she had seen j it all scores of times before, but never I with the eyes she saw it with now. Several persons addressed her, but she walked on to her dressing room without appearing conscious of any one. The room was small, but prettily decorated; there were two full leugth mirrors in it, and it was fragrant with flowers. On the table was lying a bunch of Marguerites, tied about with a narrow blue ribbon. The knot by which the ribbon was fastened caught the prima donna's eye; she had seen something like it before. It was not an ordinary knot, but one such as sailors make. She took up the little whito and golden cluster and looked them over; there was nothing to show whence they came - nothing but the knot. While she was putting on her dress her mind occupied itself with this little mystery, and the oppression of her heart was relieved. She put the Marguerites in her girdle, feeling kindly disposed toward them, for they had done her good. Then a desire suddenly took possession of her to go out and see the audience. The overture was still in progress, and she might cross the stage and look through a peep hole in the curtain. Mme. Bemax asseuted, and accompanied her. The stage was dimly lighted, and a number of people were moving hither and thither upon it; the scène shif ters were giving the last touches to the arrangement. Mlle. Maraña, with a light shawl over her shoulders, glided unobserved up to the great curtain and looked through. The spectacle was like nothing else she had ever seen or imagined. The house was brilliant with light and alive with movement and murmur. But the thousands of faces, row after row and tiet aböve tier; the glance of innumerable eyes, all turned toward her; all come there to see her! - it was astounding and terrifying! Those innumerable eyes - nothing could escape them, nothing be invisible to them. They were overpowering, hostile, exterminatingl All impression of individual human beings was lost, and the audience seemed to be a i sort of monster, without sympathies and respousibilities, immense, incontrollable, omniscient - a merciless, multitudinous : inquisición! How could a jringle jjirl , contencl against {hem? "By what miracle could her voice and presence reach and snbdue them? Rather her spirit would evapórate from her Ups before them and leave her inanimate. As she stood gazing there some one crossing the stage from the wings passed near her. She knew the step, and turned. Yes, it was Bellingham. He recognized her and paused, apparently surprised to see her there, bnt his expression could not be discovered in the shadow. "Doea the house satdsfy you, mademoiselle?" he said, approaching her. As he did so he glanced at the flowers in her girdla The glance did not escape her, and then she knew where it was she had seen the knot before. It was that day of their interview in the corridor; his fingers had been busy idly tying and untying a bit of string. "I didn't Iedow you would be here," she said in a whisper. "lam glad." "They expect a cali for the architect," he replied, "and I must make a bow." "Will you be in the audieuce while 1 Bing?" "Yes. Why?" "Show me which seat is yours." He stepped to the peep hole. "You see that chair half way down the center aisle? That is mine." "Thank you," she said; "and thank I you for these flowers. I feel made over anewl Now I can sing." She put out her hand and Geoffrey ; took it in his. For a moment it seemed to them as if they were alone together. When two i persons meet in complete sympathy all i other human association seems so trifling in comparison that they cease to be aware of it. At this moment the overture came to an end, and the order was issued for the stage to be cleared. The prima donna found herself againinher dressing room, ! but not in the same mood as she had left I it. She was warm, composed and happy. She looked in the tall mirror, and for the I first time saw Marguerite reflected there. Then into her serene and awakened mind entered all the tenderuess, siniplicity and pathos of Gretcheu's lovely ; story, and she feit the spirit of the German peasant maiden take possession of her. The appurtenances of the stage, the mechanism of the effects, the glare of the footlights, no longer had power to disturb her illusion. They seemed themselves an illusion, and only the l story was real. And when the moment came that she stood before the mighty audience they were to her no longer a hostile and opposing presence, with which she must struggle in hopeless contest, but a vast reservoir of human syinpathy, aiding her, supporting her, comprehending her, supplying her with life and inspiration, and responding a thousandfold to every chord she touched. As her voice flowed out and abroad from her lips it seemed to owe its enchanted sweetness and resonance not to her, but to its echo in the hearts of her listenere. Whence, then, had come this marvelous change in the mutual relations between her audience and herself? She was conscious only of the joy of unrestrained expression; the audience, only of the delight of ear and eye; and Geoffrey Bellingham, sitting with folded anus and charmed pulses in the midst of the assemblage, had no suspicion that any part of this triumph of harmony and beauty was due to him. His eyes and all his senses were turned toward her, but how should he imagine that amid j the crowd of that great amphitheatre her glances were conscious of no face bnt his, and that all the stupendous magnetism of their silence and their applause was centered and concentrated in him? He had even forgotten that his Marguerites were in her girdle. As has already been intimated, however, it would be superfluous to give any account of this memorable performanca from the audience's point of view. Competent judges, who attended many repetiüons of the opera, have declared that Mlle. Maraña never afterward surpassed the standard of excellence she attained on this first occasion. It was the topic of the time, and the fame of it spread all over the United States, and was spoken of next day in London and Paris. The public, which is so inhuman and tyrannical in its apathies and antipathies, is like a child and a slave in its favoritism and its homage. Xt idolized the incomparable Maraña, and would have built her a house of gold, with jeweled windows, if she had demanded it. The unknown girl from the upper reaches of the Hudson was crowned queen of New York f or the sake of two or three hours" sweet singing. It is seldom that Adam, and even di viner Eve, in the days of their youth, are wholly insensible to the worship of their fellow creatures. They may say and believe that flattery cannot make them alter their own estímate of their merit; nevertheless, the eye that sees admiration in all other eyes involuntarily waxes brighter and more assured, and the presence bef ore which others bow down, if it do not bear itself more commandingly, can at least scarcely avoid a graceful condescension. Doubtless it is not the merit but the homage which the merit causes that creates the elation. And by and by the suggestion will insinúate itself that there may, after all, be something exceptional in the nature gifted with such talents, apart from the talents themselvee. From this point it is not far to the conclusión that exceptional natures demand exceptional treatment and conBideration - should not be made accotmtable to ordinary rules; should be a law unto themselves. No position is more susceptible than this of being vindicated by plausible argumenta, and a poor argument wanned by good will has always been worth a dozen better ones chilled and torpid from the breath of disinclination. Now Mlle. Maraña, though she could not estímate the influence upon others of the personal quality of her voice, could not help knowing that she sung in tune and correctly; but, inasmuch as many other women could do this, she was forcod to infer that her being made qneen of New York must be due to some personal quality, a,s aforesaid. This just persuasión gave her pleasure on more accounts than one; but one account was that it seeined to justif y in some measure the deception which she was maintaining bef ore the world. Though still chargeable with purloiniuar Marana's name,"" shè might, "pernaps, acquit her conscience of damaging that lady in her musical reputation. If she were listenec to with as great favor as the genuine Rnssian diva would have been, surel; the latter could not complain of ani very great practical injury. On the contrary she wonld have earned an American renown without beinj troubled to so much as open her lipa. True, renown was all she would earn but she had voluntarily given up the offer of other emolumenta before the false Maraña had ever been thought of Of course a lie is a lie, after every ex cuse has been made for it; yet there may be cause for congratularon if a lie ] prove to contain no other mischief than j the simple invasión of a truth. In this opinión she was, it need scarcely be said, cordially supported by Hamilton Jocelyn and Mme. Bemax; nor was her father disinclined to take an optimistic view of the situation. The latter gentleman, by the way, seemed to have taken a fresh start in life since his troubles came to head, therein following the example of many prominent citizens o] New York and other places who, when other sources of supply run dry, are accustomed to tap with golden success the unfailing spring of insolvency. Mr. Bandolph had taken rooms in a small bul elegant flat on Fifth avenue, and was living the life of a rejuvenated bachelor and man about town. The possession of a momentous secret flattered his sense of self importance, and the incumbency of a minor sinecure in the municipal : government, which he had obtaini'ü through Gen. Inigo's friendly interest with the Democratie mayor, enabled him to assnme the air of one who is on confidential terms with statesmen. He had been at considerable pains to devise ambiguous explanations of his possession of ready money and of the singular disappearance of his daughter, and had been somewhat disappointed to discover that no one seemed to be aware that he had ever lacked the former or owned the latter. Tho world, Mr. Randolph thought, must be a barbarously large as well as a reprehensibly inattentive place, since it had failed to follow with solicitude the course of his domestic concerns. However, if there was neglect on one side of the account, it was balanced by convenience on the other, and the unsuspected father of the great prima donna made a virtue of impunity. He visited his daughter twice or thrice a week, besides being present at her performances; but it afforded him a certain gratification to surround their interviews with an elabórate network of secrecy and intrigue, as if he were an enamored Montague seeking to commune at peril of their lives with a lovelorn Capulet. There was evidently a vein of romance in this old gentleman which, had it been properly cultivated in due season, might have considerably enlarged his character. To return, however, to the prima donna's conscience. It would probably have subsided into a condition of comfortable acquiescence in destiny had it not been for the stimulus unconsciously applied to it by a gentleman of her acquaintance. She could uever meet Geoffrey Bellingham without wishing that Mlle. Maraña hal never been born, or at least that she herself might have achieved her f ame in some straightforward and unencumbered way. When a certain tender look and smile, very -winning in one whose features were naturaüy severe, carne into his face the pleasure it gave her was marred by the reflection, How would he look if he knew what I am? It is trne that he believed her to be a woman whose moral character was currently snpposed to be less immaculate than a good many aliases would render that of Beatris Randolph; noDe the less she feit, when in his presence, that her one actual sin waa more burdensome than all the vicarious naughtiness of the unknown Bussian. She told herself that Geoffrey had perhaps made up his mind to condone Marana's delinquencies, taking into account her foreign training, her temptations, and the loóse standard of moráis that prevailed in Europe, but that he never would forgive Beatrix for having deliberately misled him - she, an American girl, brought np amid all the enlightenment and fastidious rectitude of the great republic. This was the crumpled leaf in her bed of roses, and it chafed her relentlessly. But persons whose perception of their valué - social, artistic or other - is on the way to begnile them into making a golden calf of theraselves in the wildernees, may have reason to be grateful for the implicit criticism of some severe eyed young lawgiver, whose exhortations are none the less effective because they happen to be the utterance of the süent voice of character.

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Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Courier