THE ACTRESS.
It was near midnight when an unusually notable and brilliant little
party sate down to supper in the largest hall of an hotel in the
neighbourhood of Charing Cross. Brilliant the meeting was, for beneath
the strong lights shone the long white table with its gleaming crystal,
and silver, and flowers; and notable it was in that the persons sitting
there were, every one of them, marked by an obvious individualism of
face and dress. They wore no mere company of cultivated nothings, as
like each other in brain, costume, and manner, as the wine-glasses
before them; scarcely a man or woman of them had not his or her own
special character rendered apparent by this or that peculiarity of
facial line or intentional adornment.
But there was one woman there--or girl, rather, for she was clearly not
over twenty--whose character you could not easily catch. You might
watch the expression of her eyes, listen to her bright, rapid, cheerful
talk, and study her bearing towards her associates; and then confess
that there was something elusive about her--she had not exhibited her
real nature to you--you knew nothing of her but those superficial
characteristics which were no index to the spirit underneath.
Slight in figure, and somewhat pale and dark, there was nevertheless a
certain dignity about her features, and a stateliness in her gestures,
which gave an almost massive grandeur to her appearance. Then her
magnificent black hair lay around the clear, calm face, which was
rendered the more intensely spiritual by large eyes of a deep and tender
grey. They were eyes, under these long eyelashes, capable of a great
sadness, and yet they were not sad. There seemed to play around the
beautiful, intellectual face a bright, superficial, unconscious
vivacity; and she herself appeared to take a quite infantine interest in
the cheerful trivialities around her. For the rest, she was dressed in
a gleaming white _moire_, with tight sleeves which came down to her tiny
wrists, and there ended in a faint line of blue; and through the great
braided masses of her black hair there was wound a thick cord of twisted
silver, which also had a thread of blue cunningly interwoven with it.
The artistic possibilities of her fine face and complexion were made the
most of; for she _was_ an artist, one of the few true artists who have
been seen upon our modern stage.
This was Miss Annie Brunel, who in three months from the date of her
arrival in this country had won the heart of London. The young American
actress, with her slight and nervous physique, her beautiful head, and
the dark lustre of her eyes, was photographed, lithographed, and written
about everywhere: people went and wept covertly beneath the spell of her
voice; for once unanimity prevailed among all the critics who were worth
attention, and they said that the new actress was a woman of genius.
Who could doubt it that had witnessed the utter self-abandonment of her
impersonations? She did not come upon the stage with a thought about
her jewellery, a consciousness of her splendid hair, and an eye to the
critical corner of the stalls. On the stage she was no longer mistress
of herself. Her eyes deepened until they were almost black; her face
was stirred with the white light of passion; and her words were instinct
with the tenderness which thrills a theatre to its core. When the
sudden intensity died down, when she resumed her ordinary speech and
dress, she seemed to have come out of a trance. Not a trace remained of
that fire and those intonations, which were the result of unconscious
creation; her eyes resumed their serene, happy indifference, her face
its pleased, childlike expression. Swift, active, dexterous she was,
full of all sorts of genial and merry activities; that kindling of the
eye and tremor of the voice belonged to the dream-life she led
elsewhere.
The supper was rather a nondescript affair, resembling the little
entertainment sometimes given by an author on the production of his new
piece. As the play, however, in which Miss Brunel had just appeared was
"Romeo and Juliet," there was a little difficulty about the author's
being present to perform the ordinary duties; and so the manager's very
good friend, the Graf von Schoenstein, had stepped in and offered to
play the part of host on the occasion.
The Graf, indeed, occupied the chair--a large and corpulent man, with a
broad, fair face, small blue eyes, red hands, a frilled shirt, flowered
waistcoat, and much jewellery. He had made the acquaintance of Miss
Brunel during the previous year in America, and lost no time in renewing
it now that she had so suddenly become famous in England. Of the Graf,
who it may be mentioned was once a respectable tea-broker in Thames
Street, E.C., we shall hear more.
On the left of the chairman sate the manager, a middle-aged man, with
grey hair and a melancholy face; on the right Miss Brunel, and next to
her a young man of the name of Will Anerley, a friend of Count
Schoenstein. Then followed several members of the company, an elderly
little woman who officiated as Miss Brunel's guardian, two or three
critics, and a young man who spoke to nobody, but kept his eyes intently
fixed upon a charming _soubrette_ (with whom he had quarrelled some days
before) who was wickedly flirting with Mercutio. There was no lack of
jest and talk down both sides of the table, for the wine-glasses were
kept well filled; and occasionally there rang out, clear and full, the
mellifluous laughter of the Nurse--a stout, big, red-faced woman, who
had a habit of using her pocket handkerchief where a table-napkin might
have been more appropriate--as she cracked her small jokes with
Benvolio, who sate opposite to her. Then Friar Lawrence, who had thrown
aside his robe and become comic, happened to jolt a little champagne
into Lady Capulet's lap; and the angrier she grew over his carelessness,
the more did the people laugh, until she herself burst out with a big,
good-natured guffaw.
Meanwhile the small clique at the upper end of the table was engaged in
a conversation by itself, Count Schoenstein appealing to the manager
vehemently:
"Was I not right in begging you to give the public Miss Brunel's
'Juliet?' There never was such a triumph, Miss Brunel; I assure you,
you have taken London by storm. And with the public satisfied, will the
critics object? You will not see a dissentient voice in the papers on
Monday morning. What do you say to that, Mr. Helstone?"
The man whom he addressed had forsaken the cluster of his brother
critics, and was busily engaged in amusing the pretty _soubrette_, whom
he had entirely drawn away from poor Mercutio.
"Why," he said, with a faint smile, apparently bent upon puzzling the
gorgeous-looking gentleman who had imprudently interrupted him, "I
should be sorry to see such unanimity, for Miss Brunel's sake.
Conscientious journalism, like every conscientious journalist, knows
that there are two sides to every question, and will do its best to
write on both. The odds will be the truth."
"Do you mean to tell me," asked the Count, somewhat pompously, "that you
have no more conscience than to advocate different things in different
papers?"
"If I write what I know on one side of a subject in one paper, and write
up the other side in another paper, I free myself from a charge of
suppressing truth; and I----"
Whereupon the _soubrette_, with the brown curls and the wicked blue
eyes, pulled his sleeve and made him upset a claret glass.
"What a clumsy creature you are," she whispered. "And what is the use of
talking to that ridiculous old fool? Tell me, do you think Miss Brunel
handsome?"
"I think she has the face of a woman of genius," he said, with a glance
of genuine admiration.
"Bah! that means nothing. Don't you think she shows her teeth on
purpose when she laughs; and then those big, soft eyes make her look
affectedly sentimental. Why do you grin so? I suppose I am not as
handsome as she is; but I wonder if she could put on my gloves and
boots?"
"You have adorable hands and feet, Miss Featherstone; everybody allows
that."
"Thank you. They say that every ugly woman has pretty hands and feet."
"Nature leaves no creature absolutely unprotected, my dear. Let me give
you some vanilla cream."
"You are a brute. I hate you."
"I have generally found that when a young lady says she hates you, she
means she loves you--if you have a good income."
"I have generally found that when a young lady rejects her suitor
because of his want of brain, he instantly says she cast him off because
of his want of money. But I wish you'd keep quiet, and let me hear what
Mr. Melton is saying about next week. If he thinks I'll play the people
in with a farce, as well as play in the burlesque, he is mistaken.
However, since you people have taken to write up Miss Brunel, she will
order everything; and if the poor dear thinks seven too soon for her
nerves after tea, I suppose she will get played whatever she wants."
"Spiteful thing! You're thinking of her handsome face and eyes and
hair: why don't you look in the mirror and calm yourself?"
The little group at the head of the table had now split itself into two
sections; and while Count Schoenstein talked almost exclusively to Mr.
Melton, Miss Brunel was engaged in what was apparently an interesting
conversation with Will Anerley, who sate next her. But a patient
observer would have noticed that the stout and pompous Count kept his
eyes pretty well fixed upon the pair on his right; and that he did not
seem wholly pleased by the amused look which was on Miss Brunel's face
as she spoke, in rather a low tone, to her companion:
"You confess you are disappointed with me. That is quite natural; but
tell me how I differ from what you expected me to be."
She turned her large, lustrous eyes upon him; and there was a faint
smile on her face.
"Well," he said, "on the stage you are so unlike any one I ever saw that
I did not expect to find you in private life like--like any one else, in
fact."
"Do you mean that I am like the young ladies you would expect to find in
your friends' house, if you were asked to go and meet some strangers?"
"Precisely."
"You are too kind," she said, looking down. "I have always been taught,
and I know, that private people and professional people are separated by
the greatest differences of character and habits; and that if I went
amongst those young ladies of whom you speak, I should feel like some
dreadfully wicked person who had got into heaven by mistake and was very
uncomfortable. Have you any sisters?"
"One. Well, she is not my sister, but a distant relation who has been
brought up in my father's house as if she were my sister."
"Am I like her?"
"No. I mean, you are not like her in appearance; but in manner, and in
what you think, and so forth, you would find her as like yourself as
possible. I cannot understand your strange notion that some
unaccountable barrier exists between you and other people."
"That is because you have never lived a professional life," she said.
"I know, myself, that there is the greatest difference between me now
and when I am in one of my parts. Then I am almost unconscious of
myself--I scarcely know what I'm doing; and now I should like to go on
sitting like this, making fun with you or with anybody, or amusing
myself in any way. Do you know, I fancy nothing would give me so much
delight as battledore and shuttlecock if I might have it in my own
house; but I am afraid to propose such a thing to my guardian, Mrs.
Christmas, or she would think I was mad. Did you never wish you were
only ten years old again, that you might get some fun without being
laughed at?"
"I used constantly to go bird's-nesting in Russia, when we were too lazy
to go on a regular shooting-party, and never enjoyed anything half so
much. And you know cricket has been made a manly game in order to let
men think themselves boys for an hour or two."
"I should like you to become acquainted with my dear old Christmas--do
you see her down there?--and then you would know how a professional life
alters one. It was she, not my dear mother, who taught me all the
gestures, positions, and elocution which are the raw material we
actresses use to deceive you. How she scolds me when I do anything that
differs from her prescriptions! And indeed she cannot understand how
one, in the hurry of a part, should abandon one's-self to chance, and
forget the ordinary 'business.' Now the poor old creature has to
content herself with a little delicate compliment or two instead of the
applause of the pit; and I am sometimes put to my wits' end to say
something kind to her, being her only audience. Won't you come and help
me some afternoon?"
The unconscious audacity of the proposal, so quietly and so simply
expressed, staggered the young man; and he could only manage to mention
something about the very great pleasure it would give him to do so.
He was very much charmed with his companion; but he was forced to
confess to himself that she did, after all, differ a good deal from the
gentlewomen whom he was in the habit of meeting. Nor was it wonderful
that she should: the daughter of an actress, brought up from her
childhood among stage-traditions, driven at an early period, by her
mother's death, to earn her own living, and having encountered for
several years all the vicissitudes and experience of a half-vagrant
life, it would have been a miracle had she not caught up some angular
peculiarities from this rough-and-ready education. Anerley was amazed
to find that easy audacity and frankness of speech, her waywardness and
occasional eccentricity of behaviour, conjoined with an almost
ridiculous simplicity. The very attitude her Bohemianism led her to
adopt towards the respectable in life, was in itself the result of a
profound childlike ignorance; and, as he afterwards discovered, was
chiefly the result of the tuition of a tender and anxious mother, who
was afraid of her daughter ever straying from the folds of a profession
which is so generous and kindly to the destitute and unprotected. All
this, and much more, he was afterwards to learn of the young girl who
had so interested him. In the meantime she seemed to him to be a spoilt
child, who had something of the sensitiveness and sagacity of a woman.
"Look how he blushes," said the charming _soubrette_ to her companion.
"Who?"
"The gentleman beside Miss Brunel."
"Are you jealous, that you watch these two so closely?"
"I'm not; but I do consider him handsome--handsomer than any man I know.
He is not smooth, and fat, and polished, like most gentlemen who do
nothing. He looks like an engine-driver cleaned--and then his great
brown moustache and his thick hair--no, I'll tell you what he's like; he
is precisely the Ancient Briton you see in bronzes, with the thin face
and the matted hair----"
"And the scanty dress. I suppose the ancient Britons, like Scotchmen
nowadays, wore an indelicate costume, in order to save cloth."
"I _do_ consider him handsome; but _her_! And as for her being a great
actress, and a genius, and all that, I don't consider her to be a bit
better than any of us."
"If that is the case, I can quite understand and approve your
depreciation of her."
"I will box your ears."
"Don't. They might tell tales; and you know I'm married."
"_Tant pis pour toi._"
The Ancient Briton had meanwhile recovered his equanimity; and both he
and Miss Brunel had joined in an argument Mr. Melton was setting forth
about the deliciousness of being without restraint. The grave manager,
under the influence of a little champagne, invariably rose into the
realm of abstract propositions; and indeed his three companions, all of
them in a merry mood, helped him out with a dozen suggestions and
confirmations.
"And worst of all," said Miss Brunel, "I dislike being bound down by
time. Why must I go home just now, merely because it is late? I should
like at this very moment to go straight out into the country, without
any object, and without any prospect of return."
"And why not do so?" cried Count Schoenstein. "My brougham can be
brought round in a few minutes; let us four get in and drive straight
away out of London--anywhere."
"A capital idea," said Melton. "What do you say, Miss Brunel?"
"I will go with pleasure," she replied, with bright childish fun in her
eyes. "But we must take Mrs. Christmas with us. And that will be
five?"
"Then let me go outside and smoke," said Will Anerley.
The supper party now broke up; and the ladies went off to get their
bonnets, wrappers, and cloaks. In a few minutes Count Schoenstein's
brougham was at the door; and Miss Brunel, having explained to Mrs.
Christmas the position of affairs, introduced her to Will Anerley. She
had come forward to the door of the brougham, and Anerley saw a very
small bright-eyed woman, with remarkably white hair, who was in an
extreme nervous flutter. He was about to go outside, as he had
promised, when Count Schoenstein made the offer, which his position
demanded, to go instead.
"Yes, do," said Miss Brunel, putting her hand lightly on Will Anerley's
arm.
The Count was, therefore, taken at his word; Anerley remained by the
young actress's side; and Mrs. Christmas being dragged in, away rolled
the brougham.
"And wherever are you going at this time of night, Miss Annie?" said the
old woman in amazement.
"For a drive into the country, mother. Look how bright it is!"
And bright it was. There was no moon as yet, but there was clear
starlight; and as they drove past the Green Park, the long rows of ruddy
lamps hung in the far darkness like strings of golden points, the
counterpart of the gleaming silver points above. And there, away in the
north, glimmered the pale jewels of Cassiopeia; the white star on
Andromeda's forehead stood out from the dark sea; Orion coldly burned in
the south, and the red eye of Aldebaran throbbed in the strange
twilight. The dark grey streets, and the orange lamps, and the tall
houses, and the solitary figures of men and women hurried past and
disappeared; but the great blue vault, with its twinkling eyes,
accompanied the carriage-windows, rolled onward with them, and always
glimmered in.
This mad frolic was probably pleasant enough for every one of the merry
little party inside the vehicle; but it could scarcely be very
fascinating to the victimized Count, who found himself driving through
the chill night-air in company with his own coachman. Perhaps, however,
he wished to earn the gratitude of Miss Brunel by this dumb obedience to
her whim; for he did not seek to arrest or alter the course of the
brougham as it was driven blindly out into the country. He could hear
the laughter from within the carriage; for they were all in the hest of
moods--except, perhaps, Miss Brunel, whom the sight of the stars rather
saddened.
At length they came to a toll-bar. Melton put his head out and asked
the Count where they were.
"Hounslow."
"Is that the Bell Inn?"
"Yes."
"Then suppose we get out, wake the people up, and give the horses a
rest, while we have a little trip on foot to Hounslow Heath?"
"Is not that where all the murders and robberies used to be committed?"
Miss Brunel was heard to say.
"This is the very inn," said Will Anerley, "which the gentlemen of the
road used to frequent; but unfortunately, the Heath has been all
enclosed. There is no more Heath."
"We shall find something that will do for it," said Melton, as the party
left the brougham, and passed down the opposite road.
Once out of the glare of the lamp at the toll-bar, they had nothing to
guide them but the cold, clear starlight. Black lay the hedges on
either side; black stood the tall trees against the sky; blacker still
the deep ditch which ran along the side of the path, or disappeared
under the gravelled pathway leading up to some roadside cottage. How
singularly the light laughter of the little party smote upon the deep,
intense silence of the place; and what a strange contrast there was
between their gay abandonment and the sombre gloom around them! There
was something weird and striking running through the absurdity of this
incomprehensible excursion.
"There," said Melton, going up to a gate, and peering over into a vague,
dark meadow, "is a bit of the old Heath, I know. Was it here, I wonder,
that Claude Duval danced his celebrated dance with the lady?"
"Let us suppose it was," said the Count. "And why should we not have a
dance now on the Heath? Mr. Melton, will you give us some music?"
"With pleasure," said the manager, opening the gate, and allowing his
merry companions to pass into the meadow.
They went along until they were within a short distance of a clump of
trees; and then, the Count having been ingeniously compelled to take
Mrs. Christmas as his partner, Miss Brunel being Anerley's _vis-a-vis_,
the manager proceeded to sing a set of quadrilles in rather an
unmelodious manner, varying _la, la, la_, with _tow, row, row_. The
great, pompous Count puffed, and blew, and guffawed; the little Mrs.
Christmas danced with a prim and grave precision; while all did their
best to help out the figures, and stumbled, and set each other right
again, and laughed right heartily over the mad performance.
Then there was a sudden shriek, clear and sharp, that rang through the
darkness; the dancing suddenly ceased; and Anerley sprang forward just
in time to prevent Miss Brunel from sinking to the ground, her face pale
as death.
"Did you not see it?" she gasped, still trembling. "Something white
flashed past through the trees there--in a moment--and it seemed to have
no shape."
"By Jove, I saw it too!" said Melton, who had abruptly ceased his
singing; "and for the life of me I can't imagine what it was."
"A white cow," suggested Anerley.
"I tell you it flew past like a streak of lightning," said Melton.
"More likely a white doe belonging to the park over there," said the
Count, who was inwardly the most terrified person present.
"Let us get away from here," said Miss Brunel, who had recovered her
self-composure, but was very grave. "Whatever it was, the grass is too
wet for us to remain."
So they left the meadow, and walked rather silently back to the
toll-bar, got into the brougham, and were driven to their respective
homes.