Between The Acts

Mrs. Manresa takes the lead, and the other villagers follow her to get tea. Mrs. Swithin and Bart walk together, and Isa keeps quoting the speaker, who said, “Dispersed are we” (51). Miss La Trobe comes out of hiding and hopes she has gotten the other villagers to see what she wants them to see, but she concludes that they do not and that she has failed. Giles heads to the barn, kicking stones along the way. He finds a snake trying and failing to swallow a toad. It reminds him of an inverted birth and, disturbed by this, he crushes the snake and toad to death with his foot. Though his shoes are covered in blood, he feels good about his action, preferring it to passivity.

The servants and helpers enter the barn to serve the tea and food. Mrs. Manresa gets her tea and speaks to another woman named Mrs. Parker while looking for Giles and William in the crowd. William approaches Isa, and the two of them discuss poetry and the play. George then runs to her, and she gives him milk and cake.

Mrs. Manresa soon gets away from Mrs. Parker, finding women in her social class boring, and she sees Giles with his bloody shoes. She finds him heroic and appealing. Mrs. Manresa and Giles meet with Bart and Mrs. Swithin. Isa, William, and Mrs. Parker join them. Isa sees Giles’s shoes and tells him she does not admire him for his action—rather, she finds him silly and immature. Mr. Streatfield then appears, and Mrs. Parker congratulates him on his work with the village and the pageant. Isa and William then go to the greenhouse and talk, and Isa feels that she has known him forever. In the distance, they hear someone practicing the scales and a nursery rhyme playing. Giles finds Bart and Mrs. Swithin at the house, but they soon leave to return to their seats outside.

The audience returns to their seats and the play continues. The play then portrays the Restoration Period, during which Queen Anne ruled England. The scene begins with the nursery rhyme Isa heard during the interval playing on the gramophone. One of the villagers, Mabel Hopkins, appears onstage, but the audience is not sure who she is supposed to be. The villagers sing and then a Restoration-style play begins. One of the villagers, Mrs. Elmhurst, explains to her husband in the audience that the play is titled, “Where There’s a Will there’s a Way” (64). In the play, Lady Harpy Harraden tells Sir Spaniel Lilyliver, with whom she is in love, that her brother’s will states that he will give his inheritance to his daughter Flavinda if she marries a man Lady Harraden likes. Sir Spaniel is in love with Flavinda and finds Lady Harraden repulsive. Lady Harraden offers to have Sir Spaniel marry Flavinda, and she says he and Lady Harraden will share Flavinda’s inheritance—she says she has always been fond of him, and she recalls him being fond of her. Sir Spaniel agrees to this arrangement. They then embrace, but, in an aside, Sir Spaniel complains of her stench.

An old woman in the audience laughs as they wait for the next scene. Flavinda appears and waits by an orange tree for her lover Valentine. She then recalls her father’s inheritance and her times with Valentine. When she sees him coming, she hides behind the orange tree. Valentine looks for her and believes she has not shown up. He touches his sword, and Flavinda fears that he will stab himself with it, so she reveals herself to him. They then embrace. Then, the villagers appear and start singing songs that are not connected to the play. To save time, Miss La Trobe has omitted a scene from the play in which Lady Harraden and Sir Spaniel try to get Flavinda, but Valentine saves her. Mrs. Manresa thinks this was a good decision.

In the last scene of Where There’s a Will There’s a Way, Lady Harpy Harraden is alone in her room. She is furious that her niece tricked her and went away with Valentine. Sir Spaniel is also upset because Valentine called him old. Lady Harraden tries to get him to calm down and offers to marry him. Sir Spaniel spitefully rejects her, calling her old, in turn. She is offended and rebukes him. He then leaves, complaining about his gout pain. She then calls for her maid, but she is gone too. Lady Harraden laments that her niece, the man she loves, and her maid are all gone now, leaving her alone and miserable. The play then ends with the moral: “Where there’s a will there’s a way” (75). The actors all come onto the stage and bow, and there is another interval. Giles finds courage in the play’s moral and asks Mrs. Manresa if she would like to accompany him to the greenhouse. She accepts.

Mrs. Elmhurst then says that the next scene in the pageant will be the Victorian period. As Miss La Trobe prepares the next scene, Mrs. Swithin goes up and talks to her about how fulfilling it has been for her to help with the pageant and then see it performed. She remarks that her help makes her feel like she could have played Cleopatra. Miss La Trobe is unsure what to make of this statement and then returns to her work directing the villagers in setting up the scene. Miss La Trobe tells the villagers to play the next tune on the gramophone.