During the three weeks which elapsed between the two expeditions of the
'Sunday League,' Kendal saw Miss Bretherton two or three times under
varying circumstances. One night he took it into his head to go to the
pit of the _Calliope_, and came away more persuaded than before that as
an actress there was small prospect for her. Had she been an ordinary
mortal, he thought the original stuff in her might have been disciplined
into something really valuable by the common give and take, the normal
rubs and difficulties of her profession. But, as it was, she had been
lifted at once by the force of one natural endowment into a position
which, from the artistic point of view, seemed to him hopeless. Her
instantaneous success--dependent as it was on considerations wholly
outside those of dramatic art--had denied her all the advantages which
are to be won from struggle and from laborious and gradual conquest. And
more than this, it had deprived her of an ideal; it had tended to make
her take her own performance as the measure of the good and possible.
For, naturally, it was too much to expect that she herself should analyse
truly the sources and reasons of her popularity. She must inevitably
believe that some, at least, of it was due to her dramatic talent in
itself. 'Perhaps some of it is,' Kendal would answer himself. 'It is very
possible that I am not quite fair to her. She has all the faults which
repel me most. I could get over anything but this impression of bare
blank ignorance which she makes upon me. And as things are at present, it
is impossible that she should learn. It might be interesting to have the
teaching of her! But it could only be done by some one with whom she came
naturally into frequent contact. Nobody could thrust himself in upon her.
And she seems to know very few people who could be of any use to her.'
On another occasion he came across her in the afternoon at Mrs. Stuart's.
The conversation turned upon his sister, Madame de Châteauvieux, for whom
Mrs. Stuart had a warm but very respectful admiration. They had met two
or three times in London, and Madame de Châteauvieux's personal
distinction, her refinement, her information, her sweet urbanity of
manner, had made a great impression upon the lively little woman, who,
from the lower level of her own more commonplace and conventional success
in society, felt an awe-struck sympathy for anything so rare, so unlike
the ordinary type. Her intimacy with Miss Bretherton had not gone far
before the subject of 'Mr. Kendal's interesting sister' had been
introduced, and on this particular afternoon, as Kendal entered her
drawing-room, his ear was caught at once by the sound of Marie's name.
Miss Bretherton drew him impulsively into the conversation, and he found
himself describing his sister's mode of life, her interests, her world,
her belongings, with a readiness such as he was not very apt to show in
the public discussion of any subject connected with himself. But Isabel
Bretherton's frank curiosity, her kindling eyes and sweet parted lips,
and that strain of romance in her which made her so quickly responsive to
anything which touched her imagination, were not easy to resist. She was
delightful to his eye and sense, and he was as conscious as he had ever
been of her delicate personal charm. Besides, it was pleasant to him to
talk of that Parisian world, in which he was himself vitally interested,
to any one so naive and fresh. Her ignorance, which on the stage had
annoyed him, in private life had its particular attractiveness. And, with
regard to this special subject, he was conscious of breaking down a
prejudice; he felt the pleasure of conquering a great reluctance in her.
Evidently on starting in London she had set herself against everything
that she identified with the great Trench actress who had absorbed the
theatre-going public during the previous season; not from personal
jealousy, as Kendal became ultimately convinced, but from a sense of keen
moral revolt against Madame Desforêts's notorious position and the
stories of her private life which were current in all circles. She had
decided in her own mind that French art meant a tainted art, and she had
shown herself very restive--Kendal had seen something of it on their
Surrey expedition--under any attempts to make her share the interest
which certain sections of the English cultivated public feel in foreign
thought, and especially in the foreign theatre. Kendal took particular
pains, when they glided off from the topic of his sister to more general
matters, to make her realise some of the finer aspects of the French
world of which she knew so little, and which she judged so harshly; the
laborious technical training to which the dwellers on the other side of
the channel submit themselves so much more readily than the English in
any matter of art; the intellectual conscientiousness and refinement due
to the pressure of an organised and continuous tradition, and so on. He
realised that a good deal of what he said or suggested must naturally be
lost upon her. But it was delightful to feel her mind yielding to his,
while it stimulated her sympathy and perhaps roused her surprise to find
in him every now and then a grave and unpretending response to those
moral enthusiasms in herself which were too real and deep for much direct
expression.
'Whenever I am next in Paris, she said to him, when she perforce rose to
go, with that pretty hesitation of manner which was so attractive in her,
'would you mind--would Madame de Châteauvieux,--if I asked you to
introduce me to your sister? It would be a great pleasure to me.'
Kendal made a very cordial reply, and they parted knowing more of each
other than they had yet done. Not that his leading impression of her was
in any way modified. Incompetent and unpromising as an artist, delightful
as a woman,--had been his earliest verdict upon her, and his conviction
of its reasonableness had been only deepened by subsequent experience;
but perhaps the sense of delightfulness was gaining upon the sense of
incompetence? After all, beauty and charm and sex have in all ages been
too much for the clever people who try to reckon without them. Kendal was
far too shrewd not to recognise the very natural and reasonable character
of the proceeding, and not to smile at the first sign of it in his own
person. Still, he meant to try, if he could, to keep the two estimates
distinct, and neither to confuse himself nor other people by confounding
them. It seemed to him an intellectual point of honour to keep his head
perfectly cool on the subject of Miss Bretherton's artistic claims, but
he was conscious that it was not always very easy to do--a consciousness
that made him sometimes all the more recalcitrant under the pressure of
her celebrity.
For it seemed to him that in society he heard of nothing but her--her
beauty, her fascination, and her success. At every dinner-table he heard
stories of her, some of them evident inventions, but all tending in the
same direction--that is to say, illustrating either the girl's proud
independence and her determination to be patronised by nobody, not even
by royalty itself, or her lavish kind-heartedness and generosity towards
the poor and the inferiors of her own profession. She was for the moment
the great interest of London, and people talked of her popularity and
social prestige as a sign of the times and a proof of the changed
position of the theatre and of those belonging to it. Kendal thought it
proved no more than that an extremely beautiful girl of irreproachable
character, brought prominently before the public in any capacity
whatever, is sure to stir the susceptible English heart, and that Isabel
Bretherton's popularity was not one which would in the long run affect
the stage at all. But he kept his reflections to himself, and in general
talked about her no more than he was forced to do. He had a sort of
chivalrous feeling that those whom the girl had made in any degree her
personal friends ought, as far as possible, to stand between her and this
inquisitive excited public. And it was plain to him that the enormous
social success was not of her seeking, but of her relations.
One afternoon, between six and seven, Kendal was working alone in his
room with the unusual prospect of a clear evening before him. He had
finished a piece of writing, and was standing before the fire deep in
thought over the first paragraphs of his next chapter, when he heard a
knock; the door opened, and Wallace stood on the threshold.
'May I come in? It's a shame to disturb you; but I've really got
something important to talk to you about. I want your advice badly.'
'Oh, come in, by all means. Here's some cold tea; will you have some? or
will you stay and dine? I must dine early to-night for my work. I'll ring
and tell Mason.'
'No, don't; I can't stay. I must be in Kensington at eight.' He threw
himself into Kendal's deep reading-chair, and looked up at his friend
standing silent and expectant on the hearth-rug. 'Do you remember that
play of mine I showed you in the spring?'
Kendal took time to think.
'Perfectly; you mean that play by that young Italian fellow which you
altered and translated? I remember it quite well. I have meant to ask you
about it once or twice lately.'
'You thought well of it, I know. Well, my sister has got me into the most
uncomfortable hobble about it. You know I hadn't taken it to any manager.
I've been keeping it by me, working it up here and there. I am in no want
of money just now, and I had set my heart on the thing's being really
good--well written and well acted. Well, Agnes, in a rash moment two or
three days ago, and without consulting me, told Miss Bretherton the whole
story of the play, and said that she supposed I should soon want somebody
to bring it out for me. Miss Bretherton was enormously struck with the
plot, as Agnes told it to her, and the next time I saw her she insisted
that I should read some scenes from it to her--'
'Good heavens! and now she has offered to produce it and play the
principal part in it herself,' interrupted Kendal.
Wallace nodded. 'Just so; you see, my relations with her are so friendly
that it was impossible for me to say no. But I never was in a greater
fix. She was enthusiastic. She walked up and down the room after I'd done
reading, repeating some of the passages, going through some of the
situations, and wound up by saying, "Give it me, Mr. Wallace! It shall be
the first thing I bring out in my October season--if you will let me have
it." Well, of course, I suppose most people would jump at such an offer.
Her popularity just now is something extraordinary, and I see no signs of
its lessening. Any piece she plays in is bound to be a success, and I
suppose I should make a good deal of money out of it; but then, you see,
I don't want the money, and--'
'Yes, yes, I see,' said Kendal, thoughtfully; 'you don't want the money,
and you feel that she will ruin the play. It's a great bore certainly.'
'Well, you know, how could she help ruining it? She couldn't play the
part of Elvira--you remember the plot?--even decently. It's an extremely
difficult part. It would be superb--I think so, at least--in the hands
of an actress who really understood her business; but Miss Bretherton
will make it one long stagey scream, without any modulation, any shades,
any delicacy. It drives one wild to think of it. And yet how, in the
name of fortune, am I to get out of it?'
'You had thought,' said Kendal, 'I remember, of Mrs. Pearson for the
heroine.'
'Yes; I should have tried her. She is not first-rate, but at least she is
intelligent; she understands something of what you want in a part like
that. But for poor Isabel Bretherton, and those about her, the great
points in the play will be that she will have long speeches and be able
to wear "medieval" dresses! I don't suppose she ever heard of Aragon in
her life. Just imagine her playing a high-born Spanish woman of the
fifteenth century! Can't you see her?'
'Well, after all,' said Kendal, with a little laugh, 'I should see what
the public goes for mostly--that is to say, Isabel Bretherton in
effective costume. No, it would be a great failure--not a failure, of
course, in the ordinary sense. Her beauty, the medieval get-up, and the
romantic plot of the piece, would carry it through, and, as you say, you
would probably make a great deal by it. But, artistically, it would be a
ghastly failure. And Hawes! Hawes, I suppose, would play Macias? Good
heavens!'
'Yes,' said Wallace, leaning his head on his hands and looking gloomily
out of window at the spire of St. Bride's Church. 'Pleasant, isn't it?
But what on earth am I to do? I never was in a greater hole. I'm not the
least in love with that girl, Kendal, but there isn't anything she asked
me to do for her that I wouldn't do if I could. She's the warmest-hearted
creature--one of the kindest, frankest, sincerest women that ever
stepped. I feel at times that I'd rather cut my hand off than hurt her
feelings by throwing her offer in her face, and yet, that play has been
the apple of my eye to me for months; the thought of seeing it spoilt by
clumsy handling is intolerable to me.'
'I suppose it would hurt her feelings,' said Kendal meditatively, 'if you
refused?'
'Yes,' said Wallace emphatically; 'I believe it would wound her
extremely. You see, in spite of all her success, she is beginning to be
conscious that there are two publics in London. There is the small
fastidious public of people who take the theatre seriously, and there is
the large easy-going public who get the only sensation they want out of
her beauty and her personal prestige. The enthusiasts have no difficulty,
as yet, in holding their own against the scoffers, and for a long time
Miss Bretherton knew and cared nothing for what the critical people said,
but of late I have noticed at times that she knows more and cares more
than she did. It seems to me that there is a little growing soreness in
her mind, and just now if I refuse to let her have that play it will
destroy her confidence in her friends, as it were. She won't reproach me,
she won't quarrel with me, but it will go to her heart. Do, for heaven's
sake, Kendal, help me to some plausible fiction or other!'
'I wish I could,' said Kendal, pacing up and down, his gray hair falling
forward over his brow. There was a pause, and then Kendal walked
energetically up to his friend and laid his hand on his shoulder.
'You oughtn't to let her have that play, Wallace; I'm quite clear on
that. You know how much I like her. She's all you say, and more; but art
is art, and acting is acting. I, at any rate, take these things
seriously, and you do too. We rejoice in it for her sake; but, after all,
when one comes to think of it, this popularity of hers is enough to make
one despair. Sometimes I think it will throw back the popular dramatic
taste for years. At any rate, I am clear that if a man has got hold of a
fine work of art, as you have in that play, he has a duty to it and to
the public. You are bound to see it brought out under the best possible
conditions, and we all know that Miss Bretherton's acting, capped with
Hawes's, would kill it, from the artistic point of view.'
'Perfectly true, perfectly true,' said Wallace. 'Well, would you have me
tell her so?'
'You must get out of it somehow. Tell her that the part is one you feel
won't suit her--won't do her justice.'
'Much good that would do! She thinks the part just made for her--costumes
and all.'
'Well, then, say you haven't finished your revision, and you must have
time for more work at it; that will postpone the thing, and she will hear
of something else which will put it out of her head.'
'There are all sorts of reasons against that,' said Wallace; 'it's hardly
worth while going through them. In the first place, she wouldn't believe
me; in the second, she won't forget it, whatever happens, and it would
only put the difficulty off a few weeks at most. I feel so stupid about
the whole thing. I like her too much. I'm so afraid of saying anything to
hurt her, that I can't _finesse_. All my wits desert me. I say, Kendal!'
'Well?'
Wallace hesitated, and glanced up at his friend with his most winning
expression.
'Do you think _you_ could earn my eternal gratitude and manage the thing
for me? You know we're going to Oxford next Sunday, and I suppose we
shall go to Nuneham, and there will be opportunities for walks, and so
on. Could you possibly take it in hand? She has an immense respect for
you intellectually. If you tell her that you're sure the part won't suit
her, that she won't do herself justice in it; if you could lead the
conversation on to it and try to put her out of love for the scheme
without seeming to have a commission from me in any way, I should be
indeed everlastingly obliged! You wouldn't make a mess of it, as I should
be sure to do. You'd keep your head cool.'
'Well!' said Kendal, laughing, balancing himself on the table facing
Wallace. 'That's a tempting prospect! But if I don't help you out you'll
give in, I know; you're the softest of men, and I don't want you to give
in.'
'Yes, of course I shall give in,' said Wallace, with smiling decision.
'If you don't want me to, suppose you take the responsibility. I've known
you do difficult things before; you manage somehow to get your own way
without offending people.'
'H'm,' said Kendal; 'I don't know whether that's flattering or not.' He
began to walk up and down the room again cogitating. 'I don't mind
trying,' he said at last, 'in a very gingerly way. I can't, of course,
undertake to be brutal. It would be impossible for any one to treat _her_
roughly. But there might be ways of doing it. There's time to think over
the best way of doing it. Supposing, however, she took offence?
Supposing, after Sunday next, she never speaks to either of us again?'
'Oh!' said Wallace, wincing, 'I should give up the play at once if she
really took it to heart. She attaches one to her. I feel towards her as
though she were a sister--only more interesting, because there's the
charm of novelty.'
Kendal smiled. 'Miss Bretherton hasn't got to that yet with me. Sisters,
to my mind, are as interesting as anybody, and more so. But how on earth,
Wallace, have you escaped falling in love with her all this time?'
'Oh, I had enough of that last year,' said Wallace abruptly, rising and
looking for his overcoat, while his face darkened; 'it's an experience I
don't take lightly.'
Kendal was puzzled; then his thoughts quickly put two and two together.
He remembered a young Canadian widow who had been a good deal at Mrs.
Stuart's house the year before; he recalled certain suspicions of his own
about her and his friend--her departure from London and Wallace's long
absence in the country. But he said nothing, unless there was sympathy in
the cordial grip of his hand as he accompanied the other to the door.
On the threshold Wallace turned irresolutely. 'It will be a risk next
Sunday,' he said; 'I'm determined it shan't be anything more. She is not
the woman, I think, to make a quarrel out of a thing like that.'
'Oh no,' said Kendal; 'keep your courage up. I think it may be managed.
You give me leave to handle _Elvira_ as I like.'
'Oh heavens, yes!' said Wallace; 'get me out of the scrape any way you
can, and I'll bless you for ever. What a brute I am never to have asked
after your work! Does it get on?'
'As much as any work can in London just now. I must take it away with me
somewhere into the country next month. It doesn't like dinner-parties.'
'Like me,' said Wallace, with a shrug.
'Nonsense!' said Kendal; 'you're made for them. Good-night.'
'Good-night. It's awfully good of you.'
'What? Wait till it's well over!'
Wallace ran down the stairs and was gone. Kendal walked back slowly into
his room and stood meditating. It seemed to him that Wallace did not
quite realise the magnificence of his self-devotion. 'For, after all,
it's an awkward business,' he said to himself, shaking his head over his
own temerity. 'How I am to come round a girl as frank, as direct, as
unconventional as that, I don't quite know! But she ought not to have
that play; it's one of the few good things that have been done for the
English stage for a long time past. It's well put together, the plot
good, three or four strongly marked characters, and some fine Victor
Hugoish dialogue, especially in the last act. But there is extravagance
in it, as there is in all the work of that time, and in Isabel
Bretherton's hands a great deal of it would be grotesque: nothing would
save it but her reputation and the get-up, and that would be too great
a shame. No, no; it will not do to have the real thing swamped by all
sorts of irrelevant considerations in this way. I like Miss Bretherton
heartily, but I like good work, and if I can save the play from her, I
shall save her too from what everybody with eyes in his head would see to
be a failure!'
It was a rash determination. Most men would have prudently left the
matter to those whom it immediately concerned, but Kendal had a Quixotic
side to him, and at this time in his life a whole-hearted devotion to
certain intellectual interests, which decided his action on a point like
this. In spite of his life in society, books and ideas were at this
moment much more real to him than men and women. He judged life from the
standpoint of the student and the man of letters, in whose eyes
considerations, which would have seemed abstract and unreal to other
people, had become magnified and all-important. In this matter of Wallace
and Miss Bretherton he saw the struggle between an ideal interest, so to
speak, and a personal interest, and he was heart and soul for the ideal.
Face to face with the living human creature concerned, his principles, as
we have seen, were apt to give way a little, for the self underneath was
warm-hearted and impressionable, but in his own room and by himself they
were strong and vigorous, and would allow of no compromise.
He ruminated over the matter during his solitary meal, planning his line
of action. 'It all depends,' he said to himself, 'on that,--if what
Wallace says about her is true, if my opinion has really any weight with
her, I shall be able to manage it without offending her. It's good of her
to speak of me as kindly as she seems to do; I was anything but amiable
on that Surrey Sunday. However, I felt then that she liked me all the
better for plain-speaking; one may be tolerably safe with her that she
won't take offence unreasonably. What a picture she made as she pulled
the primroses to pieces--it seemed all up with one! And then her smile
flashing out--her eagerness to make amends--to sweep away a harsh
impression--her pretty gratefulness--enchanting!'
On Saturday, at lunch-time, Wallace rushed in for a few minutes to say
that he himself had avoided Miss Bretherton all the week, but that things
were coming to a crisis. 'I've just got this note from her,' he said
despairingly, spreading it out before Kendal, who was making a scrappy
bachelor meal, with a book on each side of him, at a table littered with
papers.
'Could anything be more prettily done? If you don't succeed to-morrow,
Kendal, I shall have signed the agreement before three days are over!'
It was indeed a charming note. She asked him to fix any time he chose for
an appointment with her and her business manager, and spoke with
enthusiasm of the play. 'It cannot help being a great success,' she
wrote; 'I feel that I am not worthy of it, but I will do my very best.
The part seems to me, in many respects, as though it had been written for
me. You have never, indeed, I remember, consented in so many words to let
me have _Elvira_. I thought I should meet you at Mrs. Stuart's yesterday,
and was disappointed. But I am sure you will not say me nay, and you will
see how grateful I shall be for the chance your work will give me.'
'Yes, that's done with real delicacy,' said Kendal. Not a word of the
pecuniary advantages of her offer, though she must know that almost any
author would give his eyes just now for such a proposal. Well, we shall
see. If I can't make the thing look less attractive to her without
rousing her suspicions, and if you can't screw up your courage to
refuse--why, you must sign the agreement, my dear fellow, and make the
best of it; you will find something else to inspire you before long.'
'It's most awkward,' sighed Wallace, as though making up his perplexed
mind with difficulty. 'The great chance is that by Agnes's account she is
very much inclined to regard your opinion as a sort of intellectual
standard; she has two or three times talked of remarks of yours as if
they had struck her. Don't quote me at all, of course. Do it as
impersonally as you can--'
'If you give me too many instructions,' said Kendal, returning the letter
with a smile, 'I shall bungle it. Don't make me nervous. I can't promise
you to succeed, and you mustn't bear me a grudge if I fail.'
'A grudge! No, I should think not. By the way, have you heard from Agnes
about the trains to-morrow?'
'Yes, Paddington, 10 o'clock, and there is an 8.15 train back from
Culham. Mrs. Stuart says we're to lunch in Balliol, run down to Nuneham
afterwards, and leave the boats there, to be brought back.'
'Yes, we lunch with that friend of ours--I think you know him--Herbert
Sartoris. He has been a Balliol don for about a year. I only trust the
weather will be what it is to-day.'
The weather was all that the heart of man could desire, and the party met
on the Paddington platform with every prospect of another successful day.
Forbes turned up punctual to the moment, and radiant under the combined
influence of the sunshine and of Miss Bretherton's presence; Wallace had
made all the arrangements perfectly, and the six friends found themselves
presently journeying along to Oxford, at that moderated speed which is
all that a Sunday express can reach. The talk flowed with zest and
gaiety; the Surrey Sunday was a pleasant memory in the background, and
all were glad to find themselves in the same company again. It seemed to
Kendal that Miss Bretherton was looking rather thin and pale, but she
would not admit it, and chattered from her corner to Forbes and himself
with the mirth and _abandon_ of a child on its holiday. At last the
'dreaming spires' of Oxford rose from the green, river-threaded plain,
and they were at their journey's end. A few more minutes saw them
alighting at the gate of the new Balliol, where stood Herbert Sartoris
looking out for them. He was a young don with a classical edition on hand
which kept him up working after term, within reach of the libraries, and
he led the way to some pleasant rooms overlooking the inner quadrangle of
Balliol, showing in his well-bred look and manner an abundant
consciousness of the enormous good fortune which had sent him Isabel
Bretherton for a guest. For at that time it was almost as difficult to
obtain the presence of Miss Bretherton at any social festivity as it was
to obtain that of royalty. Her Sundays were the objects of conspiracies
for weeks beforehand on the part of those persons in London society who
were least accustomed to have their invitations refused, and to have and
to hold the famous beauty for more than an hour in his own rooms, and
then to enjoy the privilege of spending five or six long hours on the
river with her, were delights which, as the happy young man felt, would
render him the object of envy to all at least of his fellow-dons below
forty.
In streamed the party, filling up the book-lined rooms and startling the
two old scouts in attendance into an unwonted rapidity of action. Miss
Bretherton wandered round, surveyed the familiar Oxford luncheon-table,
groaning under the time-honoured summer fare, the books, the engravings,
and the sunny, irregular quadrangle outside, with its rich adornings of
green, and threw herself down at last on to the low window-seat with a
sigh of satisfaction.
'How quiet you are! how peaceful! how delightful it must be to live here!
It seems as if one were in another world from London. Tell me what that
building is over there; it's too new, it ought to be old and gray like
the colleges we saw coming up here. Is everybody gone away--"gone down"
you say? I should like to see all the learned people walking about for
once.'
'I could show you a good many if there were time,' said young Sartoris,
hardly knowing however what he was saying, so lost was he in admiration
of that marvellous changing face. 'The vacation is the time they show
themselves; it's like owls coming out at night. You see, Miss Bretherton,
we don't keep many of them; they're in the way in term time. But in
vacation they have the colleges and the parks and the Bodleian to
themselves, and you may study their ways, and their spectacles, and their
umbrellas, under the most favourable conditions.'
'Oh yes,' said Miss Bretherton, with a little scorn, 'people always make
fun of what they are proud of. But I mean to believe that you are _all_
learned, and that everybody here works himself to death, and that Oxford
is quite, quite perfect!'
'Did you hear what Miss Bretherton was saying, Mrs. Stuart?' said Forbes,
when they were seated at luncheon. 'Oxford is perfect, she declares
already; I don't think I quite like it: it's too hot to last.'
'Am I such a changeable creature, then?' said Miss Bretherton, smiling at
him. 'Do you generally find my enthusiasms cool down?'
'You are as constant as you are kind,' said Forbes, bowing to her; 'I am
only like a child who sighs to see a pleasure nearing its highest point,
lest there should be nothing so good afterwards.'
'Nothing so good!' she said, 'and I have only had one little drive
through the streets. Mr. Wallace, are you and Mrs. Stuart really going to
forbid me sight-seeing?'
'Of course!' said Wallace emphatically. 'That's one of the fundamental
rules of the society. Our charter would be a dead letter if we let you
enter a single college on your way to the river to-day.'
'The only art, my dear Isabel,' said Mrs. Stuart, 'that you will be
allowed to study to-day, will be the art of conversation.'
'And a most fatiguing one, too!' exclaimed Forbes; 'it beats sight-seeing
hollow. But, my dear Miss Bretherton, Kendal and I will make it up to
you. We'll give you an illustrated history of Oxford on the way to
Nuneham. I'll do the pictures, and he shall do the letterpress. Oh! the
good times I've had up here--much better than he ever had'--nodding
across at Kendal, who was listening. 'He was too proper behaved to enjoy
himself; he got all the right things, all the proper first-classes and
prizes, poor fellow! But, as for me, I used to scribble over my
note-books all lecture-time, and amuse myself the rest of the day. And
then, you see, I was up twenty years earlier than he was, and the world
was not as virtuous then as it is now, by a long way.'
Kendal was interrupting, when Forbes, who was in one of his maddest
moods, turned round upon his chair to watch a figure passing along the
quadrangle in front of the bay-window.
'I say, Sartoris, isn't that Camden, the tutor who was turned out of
Magdalen a year or two ago for that atheistical book of his, and whom you
took in, as you do all the disreputables? Ah, I knew it!
"By the pricking of my thumbs
Something wicked this way comes."
That's not mine, my dear Miss Bretherton; it's Shakespeare's first,
Charles Lamb's afterwards. But look at him well--he's a heretic, a real,
genuine heretic. Twenty years ago it would have been a thrilling sight;
but now, alas! it's so common that it's not the victim but the
persecutors who are the curiosity.'
'I don't know that,' said young Sartoris. 'We liberals are by no means
the cocks of the walk that we were a few years ago. You see, now we have
got nothing to pull against, as it were. So long as we had two or three
good grievances, we could keep the party together and attract all the
young men. We were Israel going up against the Philistines, who had us in
their grip. But now, things are changed; we've got our own way all round,
and it's the Church party who have the grievances and the cry. It is we
who are the Philistines and the oppressors in our turn, and, of course,
the young men as they grow up are going into opposition.'
'And a very good thing, too!' said Forbes. 'It's the only thing that
prevents Oxford becoming as dull as the rest of the world. All your
picturesqueness, so to speak, has been struck out of the struggle between
the two forces. The Church force is the one that has given you all your
buildings and your beauty, while, as for you liberals, who will know such
a lot of things that you're none the happier for knowing--well, I suppose
you keep the place habitable for the plain man who doesn't want to be
bullied. But it's a very good thing the other side are strong enough to
keep you in order.'
The conversation flowed on vigorously--Forbes guiding it, now here, now
there, while Kendal presently turned away to talk in an undertone to Mrs.
Stuart, who sat next him, at the farther corner of the table from Miss
Bretherton.
'Edward has told you of my escapade,' said Mrs. Stuart. 'Yes, I have put
my foot in it dreadfully. I don't know how it will turn out, I am sure.
She's so set upon it, and Edward is so worried. I don't know how I came
to tell her. You see, I've seen so much of her lately, it slipped out
when we were talking.'
'It was very natural,' said Kendal, glad to notice from Mrs. Stuart's way
of attacking the subject that she knew nothing of his own share in the
matter. It would have embarrassed him to be conscious of another
observer. 'Oh, a hundred things may turn up; there are ways out of these
things if one is determined to find them.'
Mrs. Stuart shook her head. 'She is so curiously bent upon it. She is
possessed with the idea that the play will suit her better than any she
has had yet. Don't you think her looking very tired? I have come to know
her much better these last few weeks, and it seems absurd; but I get
anxious about her. Of course, she is an enormous success, but I fancy the
theatrical part of it has not been quite so great as it was at first.'
'So I hear, too,' said Kendal; 'the theatre is quite as full, but the
temper of the audience a good deal flatter.'
'Yes,' said Mrs. Stuart; 'and then there is that curious little sister of
hers, whom you haven't seen, and who counts for a good deal. I believe
that in reality she is very fond of Isabel, and very proud of her, but
she's very jealous of her too, and she takes her revenge upon her sister
for her beauty and her celebrity by collecting the hostile things people
say about her acting, and pricking them into her every now and then, like
so many pins. At first Isabel was so sure of herself and the public that
she took no notice--it seemed to her only what every actress must expect.
But now it is different. She is not so strong as she was when she came
over, nor so happy, I think, and the criticisms tell more. She is
heartily sick of the _White Lady_, and is bent upon a change, and I
believe she thinks this play of Edward's is just what she wants to enable
her to strengthen her hold upon the public.'
'There never was a greater delusion,' said Kendal; 'it's the last part in
the world she ought to attempt. Properly speaking, unless she puts it in,
there's no posing in it, none of that graceful attitudinising she does so
well. It's a long tragic part--a tremendous strain, and would take all
the powers of the most accomplished art to give it variety and charm.'
'Oh, I know,' sighed Mrs. Stuart, 'I know. But what is to be done?'
Kendal shrugged his shoulders with a smile, feeling as hopeless as she
did. The paleness of the beautiful face opposite indeed had touched his
sympathies very keenly, and he was beginning to think the safety of
Wallace's play not such a desperately important matter after all.
However, there was his promise, and he must go on with it. 'But I'll be
hanged,' he said to himself, 'if I come within a thousand miles of
hurting her feelings. Wallace must do that for himself if he wants to.'
It had been arranged that Miss Bretherton should be allowed two breaches,
and two only, of the law against sight-seeing--a walk through the
schools'-quadrangle, and a drive down High Street. Mr. Sartoris, who had
been an examiner during the summer term, and had so crept into the good
graces of the Clerk of the Schools, was sent off to suborn that
functionary for the keys of the iron gates which on Sunday shut out the
Oxford world from the sleepy precincts of the Bodleian. The old clerk was
in a lax vacation mood, and the envoy returned key in hand. Mrs. Stuart
and Forbes undertook the guidance of Miss Bretherton, while the others
started to prepare the boats. It was a hot June day, and the gray
buildings, with their cool shadows, stood out delicately against a pale
blue sky dappled with white cloud. Her two guides led Miss Bretherton
through the quadrangle of the schools, which, fresh as it was from the
hands of the restorer, rose into the air like some dainty white piece of
old-world confectionery. For the windows are set so lightly in the
stone-work, and are so nearly level with the wall, that the whole great
building has an unsubstantial card-board air, as if a touch might dint
it.
'The doctrinaires call it a fault,' said Forbes indignantly, pointing out
the feature to his companions. 'I'd like to see them build anything
nowadays with half so much imagination and charm.'
They looked enviously at the closed door of the Bodleian, they read the
Latin names of the schools just freshly painted at intervals round the
quadrangle, and then Forbes led them out upon the steps in front of the
Radcliffe and S. Mary's, and let them take their time a little.
'How strange that there should be anything in the world,' cried Miss
Bretherton, 'so beautiful all through, so all of a piece as this! I had
no idea it would be half so good. Don't, don't laugh at me, Mr. Forbes. I
have not seen all the beautiful things you other people have seen. Just
let me rave.'
'_I_ laugh at you!' said Forbes, standing back in the shadow of the
archway, his fine lined face, aglow with pleasure, turned towards her.
'_I_, who have got Oxford in my bones and marrow, so to speak! Why, every
stone in the place is sacred to me! Poetry lives here, if she has fled
from all the world besides. No, no; say what you like, it cannot be too
strong for me.'
Mrs. Stuart, meanwhile, kept her head cool, admired all that she was
expected to admire, and did it well, and never forgot that the carriage
was waiting for them, and that Miss Bretherton was not to be tired. It
was she who took charge of the other two, piloted them safely into the
fly, carried them down the High Street, sternly refused to make a stop at
Magdalen, and finally landed them in triumph to the minute at the great
gate of Christchurch. Then they strolled into the quiet cathedral,
delighted themselves with its irregular bizarre beauty, its unexpected
turns and corners, which gave it a capricious fanciful air for all the
solidity and business-like strength of its Norman framework, and as they
rambled out again, Forbes made them pause over a window in the northern
aisle--a window by some Flemish artist of the fifteenth century, who
seems to have embodied in it at once all his knowledge and all his
dreams. In front sat Jonah under his golden-tinted gourd--an ill-tempered
Flemish peasant--while behind him the indented roofs of the Flemish town
climbed the whole height of the background. It was probably the artist's
native town; some roof among those carefully-outlined gables sheltered
his own household Lares. But the hill on which the town stood, and the
mountainous background and the purple sea, were the hills and the sea not
of Belgium, but of a dream country--of Italy, perhaps, the medieval
artist's paradise.
'Happy man!' said Forbes, turning to Miss Bretherton; 'look, he put it
together four centuries ago, all he knew and all he dreamt of. And there
it is to this day, and beyond the spirit of that window there is no
getting. For all our work, if we do it honestly, is a compound of what we
know and what we dream.'
Miss Bretherton looked at him curiously. It was as though for the first
time she connected the man himself with his reputation and his pictures,
that the great artist in him was more than a name to her. She listened to
him sympathetically, and looked at the window closely, as though trying
to follow all he had been saying. But it struck Mrs. Stuart that there
was often a bewilderment in her manner which had been strange to it on
her first entrance into London. Those strong emphatic ways Kendal had
first noticed in her were less frequent. Sometimes she struck Mrs. Stuart
as having the air of a half-blindfold person trying to find her way along
strange roads.
They passed out into the cool and darkness of the cloisters, and through
the new buildings, and soon they were in the Broad Walk, trees as old as
the Commonwealth bending overhead, and in front the dazzling green of the
June meadows, the shining river in the distance, and the sweep of
cloud-flecked blue arching in the whole.
The gentlemen were waiting for them, metamorphosed in boating-clothes,
and the two boats were ready. A knot of idlers and lookers-on watched the
embarkation, for on Sunday the river is forsaken, and they were the only
adventurers on its blue expanse. Off they pushed, Miss Bretherton,
Kendal, Mr. Stuart, and Forbes in one boat, the remaining members of the
party in the other. Isabel Bretherton had thrown off the wrap which she
always carried with her, and which she had gathered round her in the
cathedral, and it lay about her in green fur-edged folds, bringing her
white dress into relief, the shapely fall of the shoulders and all the
round slimness of her form. As Kendal took the stroke oar, after he had
arranged everything for her comfort, he asked her if Oxford was what she
had expected.
'A thousand times better!' she said eagerly.
'You have a wonderful power of enjoyment. One would think your London
life would have spoilt it a little.'
'I don't think anything ever could. I was always laughed at for it as a
child, I enjoy everything.'
'Including such a day as you had yesterday? How _can_ you play the _White
Lady_ twice in one day? It's enough to wear you out.'
'Oh, everybody does it. I was bound to give a _matinée_ to the profession
some time, and yesterday had been fixed for it for ages. But I have only
given three _matinées_ altogether, and I shan't give another before my
time is up.'
'That's a good hearing,' said Kendal. 'Do you get tired of the _White
Lady_?'
'Yes,' she said emphatically; 'I am sick of her. But,' she added, bending
forward with her hands clasped on her knee, so that what she said could
be heard by Kendal only; 'have you heard, I wonder, what I have in my
head for the autumn? Oh well, we must not talk of it now; I have no right
to make it public yet. But I should like to tell you when we get to
Nuneham, if there's an opportunity.'
'We will make one,' said Kendal, with an inward qualm. And she fell back
again with a nod and a smile.
On they passed, in the blazing sunshine, through Iffley lock and under
the green hill crowned with Iffley village and its Norman church. The hay
was out in the fields, and the air was full of it. Children, in tidy
Sunday frocks, ran along the towing-path to look at them; a reflected
heaven smiled upon them from the river depths; wild rose-bushes overhung
the water, and here and there stray poplars rose like land-marks into
the sky. The heat, after a time, deadened conversation. Forbes every now
and then would break out with some comment on the moving landscape, which
showed the delicacy and truth of his painter's sense, or set the boat
alive with laughter by some story of the unregenerate Oxford of his own
undergraduate days; but there were long stretches of silence when, except
to the rowers, the world seemed asleep, and the regular fall of the oars
like the pulsing of a hot dream.
It was past five before they steered into the shadow of Nuneham woods.
The meadows just ahead were a golden blaze of light, but here the shade
lay deep and green on the still water, spanned by a rustic bridge, and
broken every now and then by the stately whiteness of the swans. Rich
steeply-rising woods shut in the left-hand bank, and foliage, grass, and
wild flowers seemed suddenly to have sprung into a fuller luxuriance than
elsewhere.
'It's too early for tea,' said Mrs. Stuart's clear little voice on the
bank; 'at least, if we have it directly it will leave such a long time
before the train starts. Wouldn't a stroll be pleasant first?'
Isabel Bretherton and Kendal only waited for the general assent before
they wandered off ahead of the others. 'I should like very much to have a
word with you,' she had said to him as he handed her out of the boat. And
now, here they were, and, as Kendal felt, the critical moment was come.
'I only wanted to tell you,' she said, as they paused in the heart of the
wood, a little out of breath after a bit of steep ascent, 'that I have
got hold of a play for next October that I think you are rather specially
interested in--at least, Mr. Wallace told me you had heard it all, and
given him advice about it while he was writing it. I want so much to hear
your ideas about it. It always seems to me that you have thought more
about the stage and seen more acting than any one else I know, and I care
for your opinion very much indeed--do tell me, if you will, what you
thought of _Elvira!_'
'Well,' said Kendal quietly, as he made her give up her wrap to him to
carry, 'there is a great deal that's fine in it. The original sketch, as
the Italian author left it, was good, and Wallace has enormously improved
upon it. Only--'
'Isn't it most dramatic?' she exclaimed, interrupting him; 'there are so
many strong situations in it, and though one might think the subject a
little unpleasant if one only heard it described, yet there is nothing in
the treatment but what is noble and tragic. I have very seldom felt so
stirred by anything. I find myself planning the scenes, thinking over
them this way and that incessantly.'
'It is very good and friendly of you,' said Kendal warmly, 'to wish me to
give you advice about it. Do you really want me to speak my full mind?'
'Of course I do,' she said eagerly; 'of course I do. I think there are
one or two points in it that might be changed. I shall press Mr. Wallace
to make a few alterations. I wonder what were the changes that occurred
to you?'
'I wasn't thinking of changes,' said Kendal, not venturing to look at her
as she walked beside him, her white dress trailing over the moss-grown
path, and her large hat falling back from the brilliant flushed cheeks
and queenly throat. 'I was thinking of the play itself, of how the part
would really suit you.'
'Oh, I have no doubts at all about that,' she said, but with a quick look
at him; 'I always feel at once when a part will suit me, and I have
fallen in love with this one. It is tragic and passionate, like the
_White Lady_, but it is quite a different phase of passion. I am tired of
scolding and declaiming. _Elvira_ will give me an opportunity of showing
what I can do with something soft and pathetic. I have had such
difficulties in deciding upon a play to begin my October season with,
and now this seems to me exactly what I want. People prefer me always in
something poetical and romantic, and this is new, and the mounting of it
might be quite original.'
'And yet I doubt,' said Kendal; 'I think the part of Elvira wants
variety, and would it not be well for you to have more of a change?
Something with more relief in it, something which would give your lighter
vein, which comes in so well in the _White Lady_, more chance?'
She frowned a little and shook her head. 'My turn is not that way. I can
play a comedy part, of course--every actor ought to be able to--but I
don't feel at home in it, and it never gives me pleasure to act.'
'I don't mean a pure light-comedy part, naturally, but something which
would be less of a continuous tragic strain than this. Why, almost all
the modern tragic plays have their passages of relief, but the texture
of _Elvira_ is so much the same throughout,--I cannot conceive a greater
demand on any one. And then you must consider your company. Frankly, I
cannot imagine a part less suited to Mr. Hawes than Macias; and his
difficulties would react on you.'
'I can choose whom I like,' she said abruptly; 'I am not bound to Mr.
Hawes.'
'Besides,' he said cautiously, changing his ground a little, 'I should
have said--only, of course, you must know much better--that it is a
little risky to give the British public such very serious fare as this,
and immediately after the _White Lady_. The English theatre-goer never
seems to me to take kindly to medievalism--kings and knights and nobles
and the fifteenth century are very likely to bore him. Not that I mean to
imply for a moment that the play would be a failure in point of
popularity. You have got such a hold that you could carry anything
through; but I am inclined to think that in _Elvira_ you would be rather
fighting against wind and tide, and that, as I said before, it would be a
great strain upon you.'
'The public makes no objection to Madame Desforêts in Victor Hugo,' she
answered quickly, even sharply. 'Her parts, so far as I know anything
about them, are just these romantic parts, and she has made her enormous
reputation out of them.'
Kendal hesitated. 'The French have a great tradition of them,' he said.
'Racine, after all, was a preparation for Victor Hugo.'
'No, no!' she exclaimed, with sudden bitterness and a change of voice
which startled him; 'it is not that. It is that I am I, and Madame
Desforêts is Madame Desforêts. Oh, I see! I see very well that your mind
is against it. And Mr. Wallace--there were two or three things in his
manner which have puzzled me. He has never said yes to my proposal
formally. I understand perfectly what it means; you think that I shall do
the play an injury by acting it; that it is too good for me!'
Kendal felt as if a thunderbolt had fallen; the sombre passion of her
manner affected him indescribably.
'Miss Bretherton!' he cried.
'Yes, yes!' she said, almost fiercely, stopping in the path. 'It's that,
I know. I have felt it almost since your first word. What power have I,
if not tragic power? If a part like Elvira does not suit me, what does
suit me? Of course, that is what you mean. If I cannot act Elvira, I am
good for nothing--I am worse than good for nothing--I am an impostor, a
sham!'
She sat down on the raised edge of the bank, for she was trembling, and
clasped her quivering hands on her knees. Kendal was beside himself with
distress. How had he blundered so, and what had brought this about? It
was so unexpected, it was incredible.
'Do--do believe me!' he exclaimed, bending over her. 'I never meant
anything the least disrespectful to you; I never dreamt of it. You asked
me to give you my true opinion, and my criticism applied much more to the
play than to yourself. Think nothing of it, if you yourself are
persuaded. You must know much better than I can what will suit you. And
as for Wallace--Wallace will be proud to let you do what you will with
his play.'
It seemed to him that he would have said anything in the world to soothe
her. It was so piteous, so intolerable to him to watch that quivering
lip.
'Ah, yes,' she said, looking up, a dreary smile flitting over her face,
'I know you didn't mean to wound me; but it was there, your feeling; I
saw it at once. I might have seen it, if I hadn't been a fool, in Mr.
Wallace's manner. I did see it. It's only what every one whose opinion is
worth having is beginning to say. My acting has been a nightmare to me
lately. I believe it has all been a great, great mistake.'
Kendal never felt a keener hatred of the conventions which rule the
relations between men and women. Could he only simply have expressed his
own feeling, he would have knelt beside her on the path, have taken the
trembling hands in his own, and comforted her as a woman would have done.
But as it was, he could only stand stiff and awkward before her, and yet
it seemed to him as if the whole world had resolved itself into his own
individuality and hers, and as if the gay river party and the bright
friendly relations of an hour before were separated from the present by
an impassable gulf. And, worst of all, there seemed to be a strange
perversity in his speech--a fate which drove him into betraying every
here and there his own real standpoint whether he would or no.
'You must not say such things,' he said, as calmly as he could. 'You have
charmed the English public as no one else has ever charmed it. Is not
that a great thing to have done? And if I, who am very fastidious and
very captious, and over-critical in a hundred ways--if I am inclined to
think that a part is rather more than you, with your short dramatic
experience, can compass quite successfully, why, what does it matter? I
may be quite wrong. Don't take any notice of my opinion: forget it, and
let me help you, if I can, by talking over the play.'
She shook her head with a bitter little smile. 'No, no; I shall never
forget it. Your attitude only brought home to me, almost more strongly
than I could bear, what I have suspected a long, long time--the
_contempt_ which people like you and Mr. Wallace feel for me!'
'Contempt!' cried Kendal, beside himself, and feeling as if all the
criticisms he had allowed himself to make of her were recoiling in one
avenging mass upon his head. 'I never felt anything but the warmest
admiration for your courage, your work, your womanly goodness and
sweetness.'
'Yes,' she said, rising and holding out her hand half-unconsciously for
her cloak, which she put round her as though the wood had suddenly grown
cold; 'admiration for me as a woman, contempt for me as an artist!
There's the whole bare truth. Does it hold my future in it, I wonder? Is
there nothing in me but this beauty that people talk of, and which I
sometimes _hate_?'
She swept her hair back from her forehead with a fierce dramatic gesture.
It was as though the self in her was rising up and asserting itself
against the judgment which had been passed upon it, as if some hidden
force hardly suspected even by herself were beating against its bars.
Kendal watched her in helpless silence. 'Tell me,' she said, fixing her
deep hazel eyes upon him, 'you owe it me--you have given me so much pain.
No, no; you did not mean it. But tell me, and tell me from the bottom of
your heart--that is, if you are interested enough in me--what is it I
want? What is it that seems to be threatening me with failure as an
artist? I work all day long, my work is never out of my head; it seems to
pursue me all night. But the more I struggle with it the less successful
I seem even to myself.'
Her look was haunting: there was despair and there was hope in it. It
implied that she had set him up in her impulsive way as a sort of oracle
who alone could help her out of her difficulty. In presence of that look
his own conventionality fell away from him, and he spoke the plain,
direct truth to her.
'What you want,' he said slowly, as if the words were forced from him,
'is _knowledge!_ London has taught you much, and that is why you are
dissatisfied with your work--it is the beginning of all real success. But
you want positive knowledge--the knowledge you could get from books, and
the knowledge other people could teach you. You want a true sense of what
has been done and what can be done with your art, and you want an insight
into the world of ideas lying round it and about it. You are very young,
and you have had to train yourself. But every human art nowadays is so
complicated that none of us can get on without using the great stores of
experience others have laid up for us.'
It was all out now. He had spoken his inmost mind. They had stopped
again, and she was looking at him intently; it struck him that he could
not possibly have said what he had been saying unless he had been led on
by an instinctive dependence upon a great magnanimity of nature in her.
And then the next moment the strange opposites the matter held in it
flashed across him. He saw the crowded theatre, the white figure on the
stage, his ear seemed to be full of the clamour of praise with which
London had been overwhelming its favourite. It was to this spoilt child
of fortune that he had been playing the schoolmaster--he, one captious
man of letters, against the world.
But she had not a thought of the kind, or rather, the situation presented
itself to her in exactly the contrary light. To her Kendal's words,
instead of being those of a single critic, were the voice and the
embodiment of a hundred converging impressions and sensations, and she
felt a relief in having analysed to the full the vague trouble which had
been settling upon her by this unraveling of her own feelings and his.
'I am very grateful to you,' she said steadily; 'very. It is strange, but
almost when I first saw you I felt that there was something ominous in
you to me. My dream, in which I have been living, has never been so
perfect since, and now I think it has gone. Don't look so grieved,' she
cried, inexpressibly touched by his face, 'I am glad you told me all you
thought. It will be a help to me. And as for poor Elvira,' she added,
trying to smile for all her extreme paleness, 'tell Mr. Wallace I give
her up. I am not vexed, I am not angry. Don't you think now we had better
go back to Mrs. Stuart? I should like a rest with her before we all meet
again.'
She moved forward as she spoke, and it seemed to Kendal that her step was
unsteady and that she was deadly white. He planted himself before her in
the descending path, and held out a hand to her to help her. She gave him
her own, and he carried it impetuously to his lips.
'You are nobleness itself!' he cried, from the depths of his heart. 'I
feel as if I had been the merest pedant and blunderer--the most
incapable, clumsy idiot.'
She smiled, but she could not answer. And in a few more moments voices
and steps could be heard approaching, and the scene was over.