Two or three days afterwards, Kendal, in looking over his
engagement-book, in which the entries were methodically kept, noticed
'Afternoon tea, Mrs. Stuart's, Friday,' and at once sent off a note to
Edward Wallace, suggesting that they should go to the theatre together on
Thursday evening to see Miss Bretherton, 'for, as you will see,' he
wrote, 'it will be impossible for me to meet her with a good conscience
unless I have done my duty beforehand by going to see her perform.' To
this the American replied by a counter proposal. 'Miss Bretherton,' he
wrote, 'offers my sister and myself a box for Friday night; it will hold
four or five; you must certainly be of the party, and I shall ask
Forbes.'
Kendal felt himself a little entrapped, and would have preferred to see
the actress under conditions more favourable to an independent judgment,
but he was conscious that a refusal would be ungracious, so he accepted,
and prepared himself to meet the beauty in as sympathetic a frame of mind
as possible.
On Friday afternoon, after a long and fruitful day's work, he found
himself driving westward towards the old-fashioned Kensington house of
which Mrs. Stuart, with her bright, bird-like, American ways, had
succeeded in making a considerable social centre. His mind was still full
of his work, phrases of Joubert or of Stendhal seemed to be still
floating about him, and certain subtleties of artistic and critical
speculation were still vaguely arguing themselves out within him as he
sped westward, drawing in the pleasant influences of the spring sunshine,
and delighting his eyes in the May green which was triumphing more and
more every day over the grayness of London, and would soon have reached
that lovely short-lived pause of victory which is all that summer can
hope to win amid the dust and crowd of a great city.
Kendal was in that condition which is proper to men possessed of the true
literary temperament, when the first fervour of youth for mere living is
gone, when the first crude difficulties of accumulation are over, and
when the mind, admitted to regions of an ampler ether and diviner air
than any she has inhabited before, feels the full charm and spell of
man's vast birthright of knowledge, and is seized with subtler
curiosities and further-reaching desires than anything she has yet been
conscious of. The world of fact and of idea is open, and the explorer's
instruments are as perfect as they can be made. The intoxication of
entrance is full upon him, and the lassitude which is the inevitable
Nemesis of an unending task, and the chill which sooner or later descends
upon every human hope, are as yet mere names and shadows, counting for
nothing in the tranquil vista of his life, which seems to lie spread out
before him. It is a rare state, for not many men are capable of the
apprenticeship which leads to it, and a breath of hostile circumstance
may put an end to it; but in its own manner and degree, and while it
lasts, it is one of the golden states of consciousness, and a man
enjoying it feels this mysterious gift of existence to have been a kindly
boon from some beneficent power.
Arrived at Mrs. Stuart's, Kendal found a large gathering already filling
the pleasant low rooms looking out upon trees at either end, upon which
Mrs. Stuart had impressed throughout the stamp of her own keen little
personality. She was competent in all things--competent in her criticism
of a book, and more than competent in all that pertained to the niceties
of house management. Her dinner-parties, of which each was built up from
foundation to climax with the most delicate skill and unity of plan; her
pretty dresses, in which she trailed about her soft-coloured rooms; her
energy, her kindliness, and even the evident but quite innocent pursuit
of social perfection in which she delighted--all made her popular; and it
was not difficult for her to gather together whom she would when she
wished to launch a social novelty. On the present occasion she was very
much in her element. All around her were people more or less
distinguished in the London world; here was an editor, there an artist; a
junior member of the Government chatted over his tea with a foreign
Minister, and a flow of the usual London chatter of a superior kind was
rippling through the room when Kendal entered.
Mrs. Stuart put him in the way of a chair and of abundant chances of
conversation, and then left him with a shrug of her shoulders and a
whisper, 'The beauty is shockingly late! Tell me what I shall do if all
these people are disappointed.' In reality, Mrs. Stuart was beginning to
be restless. Kendal had himself arrived very late, and, as the talk
flowed faster, and the room filled fuller of guests eager for the new
sensation which had been promised them, the spirits of the little hostess
began to sink. The Minister had surreptitiously looked at his watch, and
a tiresome lady friend had said good-bye in a voice which might have been
lower, and with a lament which might have been spared. Mrs. Stuart set
great store upon the success of her social undertakings, and to gather a
crowd of people to meet the rising star of the season, and then to have
to send them home with only tea and talk to remember, was one of those
failures which no one with any self-respect should allow themselves to
risk.
However, fortune was once more kind to one of her chief favourites. Mrs.
Stuart was just listening with a tired face to the well-meant, but
depressing condolences of the barrister standing by her, who was
describing to her the 'absurd failure' of a party to meet the leading
actress of the _Comédie Française_, to which he had been invited in the
previous season, when the sound of wheels was heard outside. Mrs. Stuart
made a quick step forward, leaving her Job's comforter planted in the
middle of his story; the hum of talk dropped in an instant, and the crowd
about the door fell hastily back as it was thrown open and Miss
Bretherton entered.
What a glow and radiance of beauty entered the room with her! She came in
rapidly, her graceful head thrown eagerly back, her face kindling and her
hands outstretched as she caught sight of Mrs. Stuart. There was a vigour
and splendour of life about her that made all her movements large and
emphatic, and yet, at the same time, nothing could exceed the delicate
finish of the physical structure itself. What was indeed characteristic
in her was this combination of extraordinary perfectness of detail, with
a flash, a warmth, a force of impression, such as often raises the lower
kinds of beauty into excellence and picturesqueness, but is seldom found
in connection with those types where the beauty is, as it were,
sufficient in and by itself, and does not need anything but its own
inherent harmonies of line and hue to impress itself on the beholders.
There were some, indeed, who maintained that the smallness and delicacy
of her features was out of keeping with her stature and her ample gliding
motions. But here, again, the impression of delicacy was transformed half
way into one of brilliancy by the large hazel eyes and the vivid
whiteness of the skin. Kendal watched her from his corner, where his
conversation with two musical young ladies had been suddenly suspended by
the arrival of the actress, and thought that his impression of the week
before had been, if anything, below the truth.
'She comes into the room well, too,' he said to himself critically; 'she
is not a mere milkmaid; she has some manner, some individuality. Ah, now
Fernandez'--naming the Minister--'has got hold of her. Then, I suppose,
Rushbrook (the member of the Government) will come next, and we commoner
mortals in our turn. What absurdities these things are!'
His reflections, however, were stopped by the exclamations of the girls
beside him, who were already warm admirers of Miss Bretherton, and wild
with enthusiasm at finding themselves in the same room with her. They
discovered that he was going to see her in the evening; they envied him,
they described the play to him, they dwelt in superlatives on the crowded
state of the theatre and on the plaudits which greeted Miss Bretherton's
first appearance in the ballroom scene in the first act, and they allowed
themselves--being aesthetic damsels robed in sober greenish-grays--a
gentle lament over the somewhat violent colouring of one of the actress's
costumes, while all the time keeping their eyes furtively fixed on the
gleaming animated profile and graceful shoulders over which, in the
entrance of the second drawing-room, the Minister's gray head was
bending.
Mrs. Stuart did her duty bravely. Miss Bretherton had announced to her,
with a thousand regrets, that she had only half an hour to give. 'We poor
professionals, you know, must dine at four. That made me late, and now I
find I am such a long way from home that six is the latest moment I can
stay.' So that Mrs. Stuart was put to it to get through all the
introductions she had promised. But she performed her task without
flinching, killing remorselessly each nascent conversation in the bud,
giving artist, author, or member of Parliament his proper little sentence
of introduction, and at last beckoning to Eustace Kendal, who left his
corner feeling society to be a foolish business, and wishing the ordeal
were over.
Miss Bretherton smiled at him as she had smiled at all the others, and he
sat down for his three minutes on the chair beside her.
'I hear you are satisfied with your English audiences, Miss Bretherton,'
he began at once, having prepared himself so far. 'To-night I am to have
the pleasure for the first time of making one of your admirers.'
'I hope it will please you,' she said, with a shyness that was still
bright and friendly. 'You will be sure to come and see me afterwards? I
have been arranging it with Mrs. Stuart. I am never fit to talk to
afterwards, I get so tired. But it does one good to see one's friends; it
makes one forget the theatre a little before going home.'
'Do you find London very exciting?'
'Yes, very. People have been so extraordinarily kind to me, and it is all
such a new experience after that little place Kingston. I should have my
head turned, I think,' she added, with a happy little laugh, 'but that
when one cares about one's art one is not likely to think too much of
one's self. I am always despairing over what there is still to do, and
what one may have done seems to make no matter.'
She spoke with a pretty humility, evidently meaning what she said, and
yet there was such a delightful young triumph in her manner, such an
invulnerable consciousness of artistic success, that Kendal felt a secret
stir of amusement as he recalled the criticisms which among his own set
he had most commonly heard applied to her.
'Yes, indeed,' he answered pleasantly. 'I suppose every artist feels the
same. We all do if we are good for anything--we who scribble as well as
you who act.'
'Oh yes,' she said, with kindly, questioning eyes, 'you write a great
deal? I know; Mr. Wallace told me. He says you are so learned, and that
your book will be splendid. It must be grand to write books. I should
like it, I think, better than acting. You need only depend on yourself;
but in acting you're always depending on some one else, and you get in
such a rage when all your own grand ideas are spoilt because the leading
gentleman won't do anything different from what he has been used to, or
the next lady wants to show off, or the stage manager has a grudge
against you! Something always happens.'
'Apparently the only thing that always happens to you is success,' said
Kendal, rather hating himself for the cheapness of the compliment. 'I
hear wonderful reports of the difficulty of getting a seat at the
_Calliope_; and his friends tell me that Mr. Robinson looks ten years
younger. Poor man! it is time that fortune smiled on him.'
'Yes, indeed; he had a bad time last year. That Miss Harwood, the
American actress, that they thought would be such a success, didn't come
off at all. She didn't hit the public. It doesn't seem to me that the
English public is hard to please. At that wretched little theatre in
Kingston I wasn't nearly so much at my ease as I am here. Here one can
always do one's best and be sure that the audience will appreciate it. I
have all sorts of projects in my head. Next year I shall have a theatre
of my own, I think, and then--'
'And then we shall see you in all the great parts?'
The beauty had just begun her answer when Kendal became conscious of Mrs.
Stuart standing beside him, with another aspirant at her elbow, and
nothing remained for him but to retire with a hasty smile and handshake,
Miss Bretherton brightly reminding him that they should meet again.
A few minutes afterwards there was once more a general flutter in the
room. Miss Bretherton was going. She came forward in her long flowing
black garments, holding Mrs. Stuart by the hand, the crowd dividing as
she passed. On her way to the door stood a child, Mrs. Stuart's youngest,
looking at her with large wondering brown eyes, and finger on lip. The
actress suddenly stooped to her, lifted her up with the ease of physical
strength into the midst of her soft furs and velvets, and kissed her with
a gracious queenliness. The child threw its little white arms around her,
smiled upon her, and smoothed her hair, as though to assure itself that
the fairy princess was real. Then it struggled down, and in another
minute the bright vision was gone, and the crowded room seemed to have
grown suddenly dull and empty.
'That was prettily done,' said Edward Wallace to Kendal as they stood
together looking on. 'In another woman those things would be done for
effect, but I don't think she does them for effect. It is as though she
felt herself in such a warm and congenial atmosphere, she is so sure of
herself and her surroundings, that she is able to give herself full play,
to follow every impulse as it rises. There is a wonderful absence of
_mauvaise honte_ about her, and yet I believe that, little as she knows
of her own deficiencies, she is really modest--'
'Very possibly,' said Kendal; 'it is a curious study, a character taken
so much _au naturel_, and suddenly transported into the midst of such a
London triumph as this. I have certainly been very much attracted, and
feel inclined to quarrel with you for having run her down. I believe I
shall admire her more than you do to-night.'
'I only hope you may,' said the American cordially; 'I am afraid,
however, that from any standard that is worth using there is not much to
be said for her as an actress. But as a human being she is very nearly
perfection.'
The afternoon guests departed, and just as the last had gone, Mr. Forbes
was announced. He came in in a bad temper, having been delayed by
business, and presently sat down to dinner with Mrs. Stuart and Wallace
and Kendal in a very grumbling frame of mind. Mr. Stuart, a young and
able lawyer, in the first agonies of real success at the bar, had sent
word that he could not reach home till late.
'I don't know, I'm sure, what's the good of going to see that girl with
you two carping fellows,' he began, combatively, over his soup. 'She
won't suit you, and you'll only spoil Mrs. Stuart's pleasure and mine.'
'My dear Forbes,' said Wallace in his placid undisturbed way, 'you will
see I shall behave like an angel. I shall allow myself no unpleasant
remarks, and I shall make as much noise as anybody in the theatre.'
'That's all very well; but if you don't say it, Kendal will look it; and
I don't know which is the most damping.'
'Mrs. Stuart, you shall be the judge of our behaviour,' said Kendal,
smiling--he and Forbes were excellent friends. 'Forbes is not in a
judicial frame of mind, but we will trust you to be fair. I suppose,
Forbes, we may be allowed a grumble or two at Hawes if you shut our
mouths on the subject of Miss Bretherton.'
'Hawes does his best,' said Forbes, with a touch of obstinacy. 'He looks
well, he strides well, he is a fine figure of a man with a big bullying
voice; I don't know what more you want in a German prince. It is this
everlasting hypercriticism which spoils all one's pleasure and frightens
all the character out of the artists!'
At which Mrs. Stuart laughed, and, woman-like, observed that she supposed
it was only people who, like Forbes, had succeeded in disarming the
critics, who could afford to scoff at them,--a remark which drew a funny
little bow, half-petulant, half-pleased, out of the artist, in whom one
of the strongest notes of character was his susceptibility to the
attentions of women.
'You've seen her already, I believe,' said Wallace to Forbes. 'I think
Miss Bretherton told me you were at the _Calliope_ on Monday.'
'Yes, I was. Well, as I tell you, I don't care to be critical. I don't
want to whittle away the few pleasures that this dull life can provide me
with by this perpetual discontent with what's set before one. Why can't
you eat and be thankful? To _look_ at that girl is a liberal education;
she has a fine voice too, and her beauty, her freshness, the energy of
life in her, give me every sort of artistic pleasure. What a curmudgeon I
should be--what a grudging, ungrateful fellow, if, after all she has done
to delight me, I should abuse her because she can't speak out her
tiresome speeches--which are of no account, and don't matter, to my
impression at all,--as well as one of your thin, French, snake-like
creatures who have nothing but their _art_, as you call it; nothing but
what they have been carefully taught, nothing but what they have
laboriously learnt with time and trouble, to depend upon!'
Having delivered himself of this tirade, the artist threw himself back in
his chair, tossed back his gray hair from his glowing black eyes, and
looked defiance at Kendal, who was sitting opposite.
'But, after all,' said Kendal, roused, 'these tiresome speeches are her
_métier_; it's her business to speak them, and to speak them well. You
are praising her for qualities which are not properly dramatic at all. In
your studio they would be the only thing that a man need consider; on the
stage they naturally come second.'
'Ah, well,' said Forbes, falling to upon his dinner again at a gentle
signal from Mrs. Stuart that the carriage would soon be round, 'I knew
very well how you and Wallace would take her. You and I will have to
defend each other, Mrs. Stuart, against those two shower-baths, and when
we go to see her afterwards I shall be invaluable, for I shall be able to
save Kendal and Wallace the humbug of compliments.'
Whereupon the others protested that they would on no account be deprived
of their share of the compliments, and Wallace especially laid it down
that a man would be a poor creature who could not find smooth things to
say upon any conceivable occasion to Isabel Bretherton. Besides, he saw
her every day, and was in excellent practice. Forbes looked a little
scornful, but at this point Mrs. Stuart succeeded in diverting his
attention to his latest picture, and the dinner flowed on pleasantly till
the coffee was handed and the carriage announced.