Ellen Terry and Her SistersPemberton, T. Edgar (Thomas Edgar)
History
Ellen Terry and Her Sisters
Pemberton, T. Edgar (Thomas Edgar)
Actresses -- Great Britain -- Biography; Terry, Ellen, Dame, 1847-1928
In the third act the amorous Cheviot returns from his mission to
Scotland to find that during his absence his two English lady-loves,
Belinda Treherne and Minnie Symperson, have (at least) been amusing
themselves with the dangerous Belvawney. Prompted by absurd jealousy,
the ridiculous man expostulates; he cannot bear to hear that the girls,
who ought to have been pining for him, have been amused by the
impostor's conjuring tricks, that they have, in short, to use his own
words, been "Belvawneying." The following conversation ensues:--
MINNIE. Have you seen him (Belvawney) bring a live hen, two
hair-brushes, and a pound and a half of fresh butter out of his
pocket-handkerchief?
CHEVIOT. No, I have not had that advantage.
BELINDA. It is a thrilling sight.
CHEVIOT. So I should be disposed to imagine. Pretty goings on in
my absence. You seem to forget that you two girls are engaged to
be married to _me_!
BELINDA. Ah, Cheviot, do not judge us harshly. We love you with a
reckless fervour that thrills us to the very marrow--(_to_ MINNIE)
don't we, darling? But the hours crept heavily without you, and
when, to lighten the gloom in which we were plunged, the kindly
creature swallowed a live rabbit, and brought it out, smothered
with onions, from his left boot, we could not choose but smile.
The good soul has promised to teach _me_ the trick.
Could anything be more superlatively or irresistibly ludicrous than
this? And yet Marion Terry, with an unmoved and quietly angelic face,
spoke the words as if she absolutely believed in them, and scored a
success for the author that he could hardly have anticipated.
Again, when with all her own carefully planned motives in full play,
Belinda comes dressed in funereal and stately black to the home of her
rival, Minnie Symperson, on the day of that outwardly artless young
lady's strictly "quiet" wedding with the fickle and faithless Cheviot
Hill, she serenely says: "At last I am in my darling's home, the home of
the bright, blythe, carolling thing that lit, as with a ray of heaven's
sunlight, the murky gloom of my miserable schooldays. But what do I see?
Tarts? Ginger wine? There are rejoicings of some kind afoot. Alas! I am
out of place here. What have I in common with tarts? Oh, I am ill
attuned to scenes of revelry," and then takes a tart, and, with calm
appreciation, eats it. Once more the house shook with merriment, but she
remained as composed as if she were taking part in some solemn and
sacred rite.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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