you.” The Judge sat down on the pew beside her. “Are you sure you’re fine?” he asked. “You look a bit down-in-the-mouth to me.”
“Yes. I’m okay. I was just wondering if . . ..” In spite of herself, Elizabeth felt tears inching their way into her eyes.
“Come on, now.” The Judge’s voice was firm. “You’re not upset because I’m calling you ’Your Majesty’ again, are you? You know that’s just my little joke; a judge’s reverence for a young lady who looks so much like a famous queen.” He reached out a hand and patted her on the shoulder. “Come on, now. Don’t cry. Just let me take off this wig, then tell me all about it.”
Elizabeth grubbed in her pocket for a Kleenex, found a rather sad looking one, and firmly blew her nose, banishing the ready tears. “No. I like your nicknames for me, Judge. It’s not that. I guess I need someone to talk to. Can you listen for a while?”
The Judge’s moustache, freshly waxed for every performance, now drooped slightly in the heat. He placed his heavy horsehair wig on the pew beside him. Small beads of sweat marked where it had framed his face during the performance, and his cheeks were flushed, but he still looked impressive — tall and dignified and every inch a judge.
“Bess, my dear, I’ll listen as long as you want to talk. I know about the disagreement you and your mother had last night.”
Suddenly, Elizabeth didn’t know how to begin.
“No, it’s not that either. It’s . . ..”
The Judge sat patiently, waiting for her to start, but the words just wouldn’t come. Then, gathering her courage, she began, “Judge, did you ever think that you were going crazy?”
The Judge laughed, a great booming laugh that seemed to come from beyond him, from the boisterous, robust days when Barkerville and Judge Begbie were both young. “You ask an actor that?” he said. “Listen, my young friend, when you act, especially when you act three or four times a day, day after day, when you portray a person who is not yourself, you sometimes get very mixed up. Actors often wonder who they really are.
“You see, the characters sometimes spill over into your real life and you find yourself thinking and behaving like them, rather than like yourself. And when you pretend to be a real person, someone who actually existed, like Judge Begbie, the problem becomes worse.
“I know Judge Begbie so well. I know where he lived, what he read, how he spoke, what he liked to drink — and how much! I know him so thoroughly that sometimes I think he’s taken over a part of me. Sometimes I have to stop and say to myself, ’Hey! Did I, Evan, say that, or was it the Judge himself putting words into my mouth?’
“Once in a while I don’t even know for sure just who I am. Judge Begbie was such a powerful person that I’ve had times when I think he’s taking over and shoving Evan aside. Often I wonder if . . . . Yes, Bess. Everyone sometimes thinks they’re going crazy.”
Elizabeth thought she knew her friend fairly well, but he had just shown her a whole new side of himself. She momentarily forgot her own problem, and just sat and stared at him.
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