“Oh! dear, no ma’am—nobody suspected you—Well, Edmund,” he continued, returning to the former subject, posture, and voice, as soon as Lady Bertram began to nod again—”But this I will maintain—that we shall be doing no harm.”
“I cannot agree with you—I am convinced that my father would totally disapprove it.”
“And I am convinced to the contrary.—Nobody is fonder of the exercise of talent in young people, or promotes it more, than my father; and for anything of the acting, spouting, reciting kind, I think he has always a decided taste. I am sure he encouraged it in us as boys. How many a time have we mourned over the dead body of Julius Caesar, and to be’d and not to be’d in this very room, for his amusement! And I am sure, my name was Norval,15 every evening of my life through one Christmas holidays.”
“It was a very different thing.—You must see the difference yourself. My father wished us, as schoolboys, to speak well, but he would never wish his grown up daughters to be acting plays. His sense of decorum is strict.”
“I know all that,” said Tom displeased. “I know my father as well as you do, and I’ll take care that his daughters do nothing to distress him. Manage your own concerns, Edmund, and I’ll take care of the rest of the family.”
“If you are resolved on acting,” replied the persevering Edmund, “I must hope it will be in a very small and quiet way; and I think a theater ought not to be attempted.—It would be taking liberties with my father’s house in his absence which could not be justified.”
“For everything of that nature, I will be answerable,”—said Tom, in a decided tone.—”His house shall not be hurt. I have quite as great an interest in being careful of his house as you can have; and as to such alterations as I was suggesting just now, such as moving a book-case, or unlocking a door, or even as using the billiard-room for the space of a week without playing at billiards in it, you might just as well suppose he would object to our sitting more in this room, and less in the breakfast-room, than we did before he went away, or to my sisters’ pianoforte being moved from one side of the room to the other.—Absolute nonsense!”
“The innovation, if not wrong as an innovation, will be wrong as an expense.”
“Yes, the expense of such an undertaking would be prodigious! Perhaps it might cost a whole twenty pounds.—Something of a theater we must have undoubtedly, but it will be on the simplest plan;—a green curtain and a little carpenter’s work—and that’s all; and as the carpenter’s work may be all done at home by Christopher Jackson himself, it will be too absurd to talk of expense;—and as long as Jackson is employed, everything will be right with Sir Thomas.—Don’t imagine that nobody in this house can see or judge but yourself.—Don’t act yourself, if you do not like it, but don’t expect to govern everybody else.”
“No, as to acting myself,” said Edmund, “that I absolutely protest against.”
Tom walked out of the room as he said it, and Edmund was left to sit down and stir the fire in thoughtful vexation.
Fanny, who had heard it all, and borne Edmund company in every feeling throughout the whole, now ventured to say, in her anxiety to suggest some comfort, “Perhaps they may not be able to find any play to suit them. Your brother’s taste, and your sisters’, seem very different.”
“I have no hope there, Fanny. If they persist in the scheme they will find something—I shall speak to my sisters, and try to dissuade them, and that is all I can do.”
“I should think my aunt Norris would be on your side.”
“I dare say she would; but she has no influence with either Tom or my sisters that could be of any use; and if I cannot convince them myself, I shall let things take their course, without attempting it through her. Family squabbling is the greatest evil of all, and we had better do anything than be altogether by the ears.”