“It was a hard case, upon my word;” and, “I do think you were very much to be pitied;” were the kind responses of listening sympathy.
“It is not worth complaining about, but to be sure the poor old dowager could not have died at a worse time; and it is impossible to help wishing, that the news could have been suppressed for just the three days we wanted. It was but three days; and being only a grandmother, and all happening two hundred miles off, I think there would have been no great harm, and it was suggested, I know; but Lord Ravenshaw, who I suppose is one of the most correct men in England, would not hear of it.”
“An after-piece instead of a comedy,” said Mr. Bertram. “Lovers’ Vows were at an end, and Lord and Lady Ravenshaw left to act My Grandmother by themselves. Well, the jointure may comfort him; and perhaps, between friends, he began to tremble for his credit and his lungs in the Baron, and was not sorry to withdraw; and to make you amends, Yates. I think we must raise a little theater at Mansfield, and ask you to be our manager.”
This, though the thought of the moment, did not end with the moment; for the inclination to act was awakened, and in no one more strongly than in him who was now master of the house; and who having so much leisure as to make almost any novelty a certain good, had likewise such a degree of lively talents and comic taste, as were exactly adapted to the novelty of acting. The thought returned again and again. “Oh! for the Ecclesford theater and scenery to try something with.” Each sister could echo the wish; and Henry Crawford, to whom, in all the riot of his gratifications, it was yet an untasted pleasure, was quite alive at the idea. “I really believe,” said he, “I could be fool enough at this moment to undertake any character that ever was written, from Shylock or Richard III down to the singing hero of a farce in his scarlet coat and cocked hat. I feel as if I could be anything or everything, as if I could rant and storm, or slash, or cut capers in any tragedy or comedy in the English language. Let us be doing something. Be it only half a play—an act—a scene; what should prevent us? Not these countenances I am sure,” looking towards the Miss Bertrams, “and for a theater, what signifies a theater? We shall be only amusing ourselves. Any room in this house might suffice.”
“We must have a curtain,” said Tom Bertram, “a few yards of green baize for a curtain, and perhaps that may be enough.”
“Oh! quite enough,” cried Mr. Yates, “with only just a side wing or two run up, doors in flat, and three or four scenes to be let down; nothing more would be necessary on such a plan as this. For mere amusement among ourselves, we should want nothing more.”
“I believe we must be satisfied with less,” said Maria. “There would not be time, and other difficulties would arise. We must rather adopt Mr. Crawford’s views, and make the performance, not the theater, our object. Many parts of our best plays are independent of scenery.”
“Nay,” said Edmund, who began to listen with alarm. “Let us do nothing by halves. If we are to act, let it be in a theater completely fitted up with pit, box, and gallery, and let us have a play entire from beginning to end; so as it be a German play, no matter what, with a good tricking, shifting after-piece, and a figure-dance, and a horn-pipe, and a song between the acts. If we do not out do Ecclesford, we do nothing.”
“Now, Edmund, do not be disagreeable,” said Julia. “Nobody loves a play better than you do, or can have gone much farther to see one.”
“True, to see real acting, good hardened real acting; but I would hardly walk from this room to the next to look at the raw efforts of those who have not been bred to the trade,— a set of gentlemen and ladies, who have all the disadvantages of education and decorum to struggle through.”