"I want you to help me in getting up a dramatic entertainment of
some sort," said the Baroness to Clovis. "You see, there's been
an election petition down here, and a member unseated and no end
of bitterness and ill-feeling, and the County is socially divided
against itself. I thought a play of some kind would be an
excellent opportunity for bringing people together again, and
giving them something to think of besides tiresome political
squabbles."
The Baroness was evidently ambitious of reproducing beneath her
own roof the pacifying effects traditionally ascribed to the
celebrated Reel of Tullochgorum.
"We might do something on the lines of Greek tragedy," said
Clovis, after due reflection; "the Return of Agamemnon, for
instance."
The Baroness frowned.
"It sounds rather reminiscent of an election result, doesn't it?"
"It wasn't that sort of return;" explained Clovis it was a home-
coming."
"I thought you said it was a tragedy."
"Well, it was. He was killed in his bathroom, you know."
"Oh, now I know the story, of course. Do you want me to take the
part of Charlotte Corday?"
"That's a different story and a different century," said Clovis;
"the dramatic unities forbid one to lay a scene in more than one
century at a time. The killing in this case has to be done by
Clytemnestra."
"Rather a pretty name. I'll do that part. I suppose you want to
be Aga--whatever his name is?"
"Dear no. Agamemnon was the father of grown-up children, and
probably wore a beard and looked prematurely aged. I shall be his
charioteer or bath-attendant, or something decorative of that
kind. We must do everything in the Sumurun manner, you know."
"I don't know," said the Baroness; "at least, I should know better
if you would explain exactly what you mean by the Sumurun manner."
Clovis obliged: "Weird music, and exotic skippings and flying
leaps, and lots of drapery and undrapery. Particularly
undrapery."
"I think I told you the County are coming. The County won't stand
anything very Greek."
"You can get over any objection by calling it Hygiene, or limb-
culture, or something of that sort. After all, every one exposes
their insides to the public gaze and sympathy nowadays, so why not
one's outside?"
"My dear boy, I can ask the County to a Greek play, or to a
costume play, but to a Greek-costume play, never. It doesn't do
to let the dramatic instinct carry one too far; one must consider
one's environment. When one lives among greyhounds one should
avoid giving life-like imitations of a rabbit, unless one want's
one's head snapped off. Remember, I've got this place on a seven
years' lease. And then," continued the Baroness, "as to skippings
and flying leaps; I must ask Emily Dushford to take a part. She's
a dear good thing, and will do anything she's told, or try to; but
can you imagine her doing a flying leap under any circumstances?"
"She can be Cassandra, and she need only take flying leaps into
the future, in a metaphorical sense."
"Cassandra; rather a pretty name. What kind of character is she?"
"She was a sort of advance-agent for calamities. To know her was
to know the worst. Fortunately for the gaiety of the age she
lived in, no one took her very seriously. Still, it must have
been fairly galling to have her turning up after every catastrophe
with a conscious air of 'perhaps another time you'll believe what
I say.'"
"I should have wanted to kill her."
"As Clytemnestra I believe you gratify that very natural wish."
"Then it has a happy ending, in spite of it being a tragedy?"
"Well, hardly," said Clovis; "you see, the satisfaction of putting
a violent end to Cassandra must have been considerably damped by
the fact that she had foretold what was going to happen to her.
She probably dies with an intensely irritating 'what-did-I-tell-
you' smile on her lips. By the way, of course all the killing
will be done in the Sumurun manner."
"Please explain again," said the Baroness, taking out a notebook
and pencil.
"Little and often, you know, instead of one sweeping blow. You
see, you are at your own home, so there's no need to hurry over
the murdering as though it were some disagreeable but necessary
duty."
"And what sort of end do I have? I mean, what curtain do I get?"
"I suppose you rush into your lover's arms. That is where one of
the flying leaps will come in."
The getting-up and rehearsing of the play seemed likely to cause,
in a restricted area, nearly as much heart-burning and ill-feeling
as the election petition. Clovis, as adapter and stage-manager,
insisted, as far as he was able, on the charioteer being quite the
most prominent character in the play, and his panther-skin tunic
caused almost as much trouble and discussion as Clytemnestra's
spasmodic succession of lovers, who broke down on probation with
alarming uniformity. When the cast was at length fixed beyond
hope of reprieve matters went scarcely more smoothly. Clovis and
the Baroness rather overdid the Sumurun manner, while the rest of
the company could hardly be said to attempt it at all. As for
Cassandra, who was expected to improvise her own prophecies, she
appeared to be as incapable of taking flying leaps into futurity
as of executing more than a severely plantigrade walk across the
stage.
"Woe! Trojans, woe to Troy!" was the most inspired remark she
could produce after several hours of conscientious study of all
the available authorities.
"It's no earthly use foretelling the fall of Troy," expostulated
Clovis, "because Troy has fallen before the action of the play
begins. And you mustn't say too much about your own impending
doom either, because that will give things away too much to the
audience."
After several minutes of painful brain-searching, Cassandra smiled
reassuringly.
"I know. I'll predict a long and happy reign for George the
Fifth."
"My dear girl," protested Clovis, "have you reflected that
Cassandra specialized in foretelling calamities?"
There was another prolonged pause and another triumphant issue.
"I know. I'll foretell a most disastrous season for the
foxhounds."
"On no account," entreated Clovis; "do remember that all
Cassandra's predictions came true. The M.F.H. and the Hunt
Secretary are both awfully superstitious, and they are both going
to be present."
Cassandra retreated hastily to her bedroom to, bathe her eyes
before appearing at tea.
The Baroness and Clovis were by this time scarcely on speaking
terms. Each sincerely wished their respective rôle to be the
pivot round which the entire production should revolve, and each
lost no opportunity for furthering the cause they had at heart.
As fast as Clovis introduced some effective bit of business for
the charioteer (and he introduced a great many), the Baroness
would remorselessly cut it out, or more often dovetail it into her
own part, while Clovis retaliated in a similar fashion whenever
possible. The climax came when Clytemnestra annexed some highly
complimentary lines, which were to have been addressed to the
charioteer by a bevy of admiring Greek damsels, and put them into
the mouth of her lover. Clovis stood by in apparent unconcern
while the words:
"Oh, lovely stripling, radiant as the dawn," were transposed into:
"Oh, Clytemnestra, radiant as the dawn," but there was a dangerous
glitter in his eye that might have given the Baroness warning. He
had composed the verse himself, inspired and thoroughly carried
away by his subject; he suffered, therefore, a double pang in
beholding his tribute deflected from its destined object, and his
words mutilated and twisted into what became an extravagant
panegyric on the Baroness's personal charms. It was from this
moment that he became gentle and assiduous in his private coaching
of Cassandra.
The County, forgetting its dissensions, mustered in full strength
to witness the much-talked-of production. The protective
Providence that looks after little children and amateur
theatricals made good its traditional promise that everything
should be right on the night. The Baroness and Clovis seemed to
have sunk their mutual differences, and between them dominated the
scene to the partial eclipse of all the other characters, who, for
the most part, seemed well content to remain in the shadow. Even
Agamemnon, with ten years of strenuous life around Troy standing
to his credit, appeared to be an unobtrusive personality compared
with his flamboyant charioteer. But the moment came for Cassandra
(who had been excused from any very definite outpourings during
rehearsals) to support her rôle by delivering herself of a few
well-chosen anticipations of pending misfortune. The musicians
obliged with appropriately lugubrious wailings and thumpings, and
the Baroness seized the opportunity to make a dash to the
dressing-room to effect certain repairs in her make-up.
Cassandra, nervous but resolute, came down to the footlights and,
like one repeating a carefully learned lesson, flung her remarks
straight at the audience:
"I see woe for this fair country if the brood of corrupt, self-
seeking, unscrupulous, unprincipled politicians " (here she named
one of the two rival parties in the State) "continue to infest and
poison our local councils and undermine our Parliamentary
representation; if they continue to snatch votes by nefarious and
discreditable means--"
A humming as of a great hive of bewildered and affronted bees
drowned her further remarks and wore down the droning of the
musicians. The Baroness, who should have been greeted on her
return to the stage with the pleasing invocation, "Oh,
Clytemnestra, radiant as the dawn," heard instead the imperious
voice of Lady Thistledale ordering her carriage, and something
like a storm of open discord going on at the back of the room.
. . . . . . . . .
The social divisions in the County healed themselves after their
own fashion; both parties found common ground in condemning the
Baroness's outrageously bad taste and tactlessness.
She has been fortunate in sub-letting for the greater part of her
seven years' lease.
_________
-THE END-
[Hector Hugh Munro] Saki's short story: The Peace Offering
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