Again the curtain fell, the band struck up some dance music and the
audience were treated to 'something light,' and roared with laughter
at a pretty chambermaid at an inn who captivated and bamboozled a
young booby who was staying there, pitched him overboard; 'wondered
what he meant;' sang an audacious song recounting her many exploits,
and finished with a pas-seul.
The performers and their friends were invited to a sumptuous supper,
and the Fenmarket folk were not at home until half-past two in the
morning. On their way back, Clara broke out against the
juxtaposition of Shakespeare and such vulgarity.
'Much better,' she said, 'to have left the Shakespeare out
altogether. The lesson of the sequence is that each is good in its
way, a perfectly hateful doctrine to me.
Frank and Madge were, however, in the best of humours, especially
Frank, who had taken a glass of wine beyond his customary very
temperate allowance.
'But, Miss Hopgood, Mrs Martin had to suit all tastes; we must not be
too severe upon her.'
There was something in this remark most irritating to Clara; the word
'tastes,' for example, as if the difference between Miranda and the
chambermaid were a matter of 'taste.' She was annoyed too with
Frank's easy, cheery tones for she felt deeply what she said, and his
mitigation and smiling latitudinarianism were more exasperating than
direct opposition.
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