Now at last the Hayworth people had had a first-hand view of the
actors--the whole company, dressed up and performing--and they fitted
Sara Pinkney’s description to them. Olivia, that was Miss Tracy,
the one she said was so refined and pleasant-spoken. And the Duke
was Alexander Stokes. He was the feller that had come after the
others because the first man took sick--wonderful the way he did it
considering, didn’t miss a word. And the woman who stood round and
“tended on” Olivia was his wife. Sara hadn’t said much about her. Well,
she wasn’t of much importance anyhow or she’d have had more acting to
do. But that boy who was Viola’s twin, he was Miss Tracy’s brother, and
Sara had said he and Miss Saunders didn’t get on well, _she_ could see
it though they didn’t say much. And here piped up the butcher’s wife
who was more interested in the play than in personalities:
“I don’t see how Olivia took him for the page she was in love with. He
didn’t look like Viola in the face. She was real pretty, but he’d a
queer sly mug on him, that boy.”
“Aw, you can’t be too particular. You don’t need to have it so real.”
“I guess she was meant to be blinded by love. And him dressed the same,
hair and all, might lead her astray.”
“I don’t see how you could have ’em look just alike unless they’d get
an actress who had a real twin brother, and maybe you’d go the whole
country over and not find that.”
“He ain’t like her no way,” growled old Gabriel from the wheel, “I seen
’em both when they wasn’t acting and he’s an ugly pup, that one.”
Then the boat grating on the Hayworth wharf, Gabriel urged them off. He
hadn’t got through yet, got to go back for part of the company who were
calculating to get the main line at Spencer, and after that back again
for the Tracy boy. He muttered on as they climbed out, grumbling to
himself, which nobody noticed as it had been his mode of expression for
the last thirty years.
The swaying throng of boats emptied their cargoes and the thick-pressed
crowd, moving to the end of the wharf, separated into streams and
groups. Farewells, last commending comments, rose on the limpid
sea-scented air. Everybody was a little tired. The villagers, dragging
their feet, passed along the board walks to their vine-draped piazzas.
They would find their kitchens hot and dull that night after two
hours in the enchanted land of Illyria. The waiting line of motors
absorbed the summer visitors, wheeled off and purred away past the
white cottages under the New England elms. The matrons sank gratefully
upon the yielding cushions, rolling by the dusty buggies, the battered
Fords, the lines of bicycle riders, into the quiet serene country
where the shadows were lying long and clear. Yes, it had been a great
success; from first to last there hadn’t been a hitch.
II
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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