E-text prepared by David Edwards and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by
Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org)
Note: Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive. See
http://www.archive.org/details/beautifulmissbro00zangiala
[Illustration: Cover]
THE BEAUTIFUL MISS BROOKE
* * * * *
SOME PRESS OPINIONS
Of "Z. Z.'s" Previous Work.
_Daily Chronicle_ (London).--In all modern fiction
there is no novel which contains a more able and
finished analysis of character. It is a serious
contribution to literature.
_Echo_ (London).--His work reveals a grand
dramatic instinct There are indeed possibilities
of fine work in "Z. Z.," and we may anticipate
valuable studies of life in the immediate future.
Mr. Louis Zangwill should cut a pretty figure in
latter-day fiction.
_Academy_ (London).--A few masterful novelists
like "Z. Z." have it in their power to attain to a
complete achievement.
_Daily Telegraph_ (London).--One of the ablest
works of recent fiction.
_Illustrated London News._--One of the cleverest
novels of the day.
_Graphic_ (London).--The new novel by "Z. Z." is a
tragedy of which the power can not possibly be
denied. Never for one moment does the author lose
his grip.
_Weekly Sun_ (London).--He is one of the forces to
be counted with in contemporary literature. Great
qualities have gone to the making of his book, and
with these qualities Mr. Louis Zangwill is bound
to travel far.
* * * * *
THE BEAUTIFUL MISS BROOKE
[Illustration: Decoration]
By "Z. Z."
Author of A Drama in Dutch,
The World and a Man, Etc.
New York
D. Appleton and Company
1897
Copyright, 1897,
D. Appleton and Company.
THE BEAUTIFUL MISS BROOKE.
CHAPTER I.
THE opening bars of a waltz sounded through the house above the
irregular murmur of conversation, bearing their promise and summons
along festal corridors and into garlanded nooks and alcoves. Paul
Middleton drew a breath of relief as the girl to whom he had been
talking was carried off to dance, for she had bored him intolerably. The
refreshment room, crowded a moment ago, was thinning down, and, glad of
the respite, he took another sandwich and slowly sipped the remainder of
his coffee. His humour was of the worst. If his hostess had not been his
mother's oldest friend, he would never have allowed himself to be
persuaded to accept her invitation after he had once decided to decline
it. Why had his mother so persisted, when she knew very well he was
looking forward to playing in an important chess match? Certainly the
evening so far had not compensated him for the pleasure he had thus
missed.
He had been chafing the whole time, and intermittently he had played
with the idea of slipping out and taking a hansom down to the chess
club. But he had ticked off five dances on Celia's programme--Celia was
of course Celia--and he was to take her to supper. Moreover, on his
arrival at the small-and-early, Mrs. Saxon had led him round--he feeling
that his amiable expression made him a hypocrite--and, mechanically
repeating his request for the pleasure of a dance, he had scrawled his
name on several programmes with scarcely a glance at their owners. It
was, however, more particularly his engagements with Celia, and one or
two other girls he knew well, that had made him stay on. Once more he
glanced at his watch. It was getting well on towards midnight now, and
the issue of the chess match must already have been decided. After some
speculation as to the winning side, he resigned himself to finishing the
evening where he was.
At the best of times Paul Middleton's interest in the ballroom was only
lukewarm. He frankly professed not to care about it at all, and, though
he was in the habit of dancing every dance, he looked upon himself more
as a spectator than a participator on such rare occasions as he accepted
cards for. He had no favourite partners. Into the inner and intimate
life of that circle of light made for human pleasure he could never
enter; he had always shrunk from exploring its labyrinth of flirtation,
coquetry, and petty manoeuvring, the very thought of the intricacies
of which affrighted his plain-sailing temperament. To him one girl in a
ballroom was much the same as another--a green, white, or pink gown with
sometimes an eye-glass attached. He knew very well, though--if only from
his mother having instilled it into him--that no such indifference
attached to him, a young man of twenty-three, who was absolute master of
at least eleven thousand pounds a year, and not without claim to other
merits.
Becoming aware that the music was in full swing upstairs, he began to
think it was high time to look for his partner. But the name "Brooke" on
his programme, which he made out with some difficulty, called up no
picture, no living personality. He could not even recollect the moment
when he had written it, and it did not appear he had made any note to
help him identify the girl. His last partner had had to be pointed out
to him by Mrs. Saxon, and he did not care to trouble her again.
"Besides," he reflected, "this Miss Brooke, whoever she is, will most
likely be hidden away in some nook or other and will be only too glad
not to be hunted up."
He had almost made up his mind to skip the dance when there came into
the room an old schoolfellow, more or less a friend of his. The two
interchanged a word. Thorn, it appeared, wanted a whisky and soda before
going home. He had to turn in early to be in good form for the morrow's
cricket. It was the first match of the season, and he was anxious to do
brilliantly. Paul took the opportunity of asking him if, by any chance,
he knew or had danced with a Miss Brooke.
"The beautiful Miss Brooke you mean, don't you?" asked Thorn.
Paul explained he didn't know which Miss Brooke he meant, but that he
ought to be dancing with _a_ Miss Brooke. Any girl who answered to that
name would satisfy him.
"Well, if the one you mean, or don't mean, is the one I mean, she's just
outside the door talking to a big Yankee chap. I never heard of her
before to-night, but she's a stunning girl. She's the daughter of some
American millionaire, a railway king, or something of that sort--at
least everybody says so. I tried to get a dance with her, but I wasn't
in luck. I envy you. Good-night, old boy!"
"I suppose, then, _I_ must consider myself in luck," thought Paul,
staying yet a moment as he caught sight of his full reflection in a
glass. It was a medium, slightly built figure that met his gaze, easy
and graceful of carriage. The face was fair with a tiny light beard--the
silken hair cut short, the features intelligent, the eyes grey, the
teeth beautiful. A suspicion of a freckle here and there did not seem
unsuited to the type of complexion. The survey seemed to please him, and
he stepped forward with the intention of taking possession of "the
beautiful Miss Brooke."
Thorn's indication proved correct. To his surprise Miss Brooke seemed to
recognise him as he approached, for she welcomed him with a smile, from
which he deduced, moreover, that she must have been waiting for him. He
had a general sense of enchantment and diaphanousness, of a delicate
harmony of colour-tones; an impression as of an idealised figure that
had stepped out of a decorative painting. He wondered how he had escaped
the impression at the time of his introduction to her, and, despite her
smile, he was chilled by a doubt that it might, after all, be some other
Miss Brooke on whose programme he had written. Of the man she had been
talking to he scarcely took any note at all, beyond verifying he was a
"big Yankee." He took her up to the dancing-room, and they began
waltzing. Paul considered himself a pretty good dancer, and there were
even moments when he could conscientiously say he was enjoying himself.
But somehow he found himself going badly with Miss Brooke. Things seemed
to be wrong at the very start. There was an uncomfortable drag. Paul was
compelled to take enormous steps to counteract it, and after a dozen
turns both agreed to give it up.
"You dance the English step, of course, Mr. Middleton," she observed as
they sauntered round. Her American accent was of the slightest, and few
as were the words she had so far spoken, they seemed to Paul subtly to
vibrate with a pleasant friendliness. Her voice was sweet and clear,
with an under-quality of softness and caress. The suggestion that there
were waltz steps other than the one he was wont to dance was new to him.
"I suppose mine is the English step," he replied, "though I never heard
of any other. Is yours very different?"
"Oh, yes. We Americans really waltz, whilst you English just go round
and round and round, with your stiff legs for all the world like a pair
of compasses."
Paul could not agree with her, and patriotically proceeded to defend the
English waltz, surprised to find himself expending oratory on so trivial
a subject. He asserted it was not the mere monotonous turning to which
Miss Brooke would reduce it, but that a spirit went with it; whereupon
Miss Brooke shook her head, declaring she had shown the American step to
a good many English people, and, no matter how sceptical before, they
had vowed, one and all, never to dance the English step again.
They had wandered away from the mass of rotating figures and taken
possession of a couple of seats in a corner outside the dancing-room.
Paul had now an opportunity of observing Miss Brooke more narrowly.
Other partners he had already forgotten. He could hardly have identified
them again. So far as he was concerned, they had got completely lost in
the crowd from which they had temporarily emerged. But of Miss Brooke he
felt sure a perfectly definite picture would remain in his mind. What
struck him most at once was a certain spirit of frank good humour that
seemed to exhale from her, that made him feel, even with her first few
words, as if she were merely resuming an interrupted conversation with
him. Her manner suggested the natural falling-into-step by the side of
an established friend, overtaken _en route_, and it was hard for him to
realise this was really their first talk together.
Paul had never danced with an American girl before, else he would have
been aware of the incompatibility of their steps. His notions of the
American girl--or at least the American girl that comes to Europe--were
of the vaguest. He had in the course of his existence met perhaps two or
three of the class, but he had never really talked to them. He had heard
the American girl spoken of--praised, damned, or tolerated; he had read
about her push and businesslike qualities; and a short time since he had
seen the type portrayed on the stage--a dashing, masterful creature, a
piece of egotism incarnate, with a twang as pronounced as her
self-assertiveness, a terrible determination, and an equally terrible
assurance of carrying it through. But he had never thought about her
coherently; never consciously crystallized these more or less
contradictory notions of her that had come to him in so scattered and
chaotic a fashion. It was quite certain, however, that Miss Brooke had
nothing in common with the monstrosity that had given so much delight to
that English audience, and raised in it a due consciousness of its own
virtue of modest moderation. Nor could he associate her with the
dreadfully improper and unabashable person he had heard more than one
British matron declare the American girl to be.
Miss Brooke did not address her words to the floor, but sitting with her
chair at an angle to his, looking straight at him as she spoke. Paul
found the ordeal a fascinating but sufficiently trying one. He had no
chance against this wonderful girlish face, with its sparkling blue eyes
and its subtle quality of sincerity and spirituality; tantalising by the
charm of its smile, which suggested moments of wickedness and kissing,
and provoking by its air of unawareness of its calm-destroying powers.
He was conscious, too, of a long, white neck rising above a pair of
well-knit shoulders, out of a mass of white fluffy trimmings, in which
were set with careless art a few deep-red velvet flowers. On her
forehead lay two roguish curls that moved freely, and each temple was
covered by a bewitching lock, whose end curled inwards toward the ear.
At the back her hair was drawn right up into curls, leaving the whole
neck free, and showing the contour of the gracefully-poised head. Her
white gown seemed woven of some fairy substance, embroidered with myriad
gold spots, and encircled round the waist with three golden bands. The
pink, round flesh of the upper arm showed firm and cool through the web
of the sleeve that met the long white glove at the elbow. The bodice
followed closely the modelling of the bust, and the skirt swept
downwards, ending in a mass of foam-like fluff amid which nestled the
tips of two neat shoes. Altogether a superb girl, dainty and supple,
without any suggestion of fragility.
The comparative merits of the English and American waltzes were still
occupying their attention.
"Now, tell me, Mr. Middleton," she asked, after enthusiastically
descanting on the pleasure and grace of the "long glide," "haven't I
really converted you?"
"I want very much to be converted, but your waltz seems formidable. I am
afraid of it."
"I'm sure it would not take you long to learn. Cannot I really coax you
into a promise to try it? I enjoy making converts--I have missionary
tendencies in the blood."
"That's interesting. Because there are tendencies in my blood, too.
Anti-missionary ones, however. To be true to the family tradition, I'm
not sure whether I ought not resist your coaxings."
"Which I'm sure you're not going to do." Her face took on an expression
of mock imploration. "But, tell me, how far back does your tradition
go, and how did it arise?"
"It began with my grandfather, whose pet idea was that the energy and
money spent on missions should be employed at home for the raising of
the lower classes. My father went a step further by deciding the
particular form in which the lower classes should reap the benefit, and
he died with the hope that the dream of two generations should be
realised by me."
"There is quite a touch of poetry in what you tell me," said Miss
Brooke. "My family history is more prosaic, but it has a dash of
adventure in it. The missionary hobby began with my great-grandfather,
who was devoted, body and soul, to it--certainly body, for he was eaten
by cannibals. Poor savages!"
"Poor savages!" echoed Paul, for the moment supposing Miss Brooke meant
to throw doubts on her ancestor's digestibility.
"Yes, for grandfather went out to preach to them! A very mean revenge, I
call that."
"How do you reconcile that statement with your own missionary leanings?"
asked Paul, thinking it strange a railway king should be the son of an
earnest missionary, and vaguely speculating whether the millionaire was
in the habit of giving large sums to "revenge" his grandfather.
"Oh, as a woman I have the right to make contradictory statements. 'Tis
a valuable right, and I find it very convenient not to yield it up,
though I _did_ learn logic at college."
"But surely it must be ever so much nicer to triumph by logic."
"If one were only sure of triumphing! But I am really in no difficulty,
so you will not get an exhibition of logic to-night. My missionary
tendencies are purely a matter of instinct, my anti-missionary ones a
matter of sentiment. Do not instinct and sentiment pull different ways
in human beings? Confess, Mr. Middleton, don't you often _want_ to do
things you _feel_ you ought not?"
"More often I don't want to do things I feel I ought to."
"That is a piece of new humour."
"I meant the inversion seriously. But I'm glad to find that we are
agreed at least in sentiment."
"And I do try and turn the instinct into useful channels. Americans, you
know, never let force run to waste. Now, you _will_ learn that waltz,
won't you, Mr. Middleton? Promise me quickly, as some one is coming to
take me to dance. There comes the top of his head."
"Dear me, has the next dance come round already!" ejaculated Paul. "You
may consider me a sincere convert," he added quickly, "if--if you will
spare me another dance."
"If you can find one," she replied; and, slipping her programme into his
hand, she rose in response to the smile of the newcomer. To Paul's
surprise, the man was the same from whom he had carried off Miss Brooke
only a minute or two ago, as it appeared to him. Which fact caused him
now to take keen notice of him. "The fellow" was quite six feet high,
and of slim, supple build. His face was dark, and, to Paul,
distinctively American. He wore a short pointed beard and a
carefully-trimmed moustache. His black hair somewhat eccentrically hung
down in lines cut to the same length. His eyes gleamed with an almost
unnatural brightness, and his teeth showed themselves polished and
white.
"Write thick over somebody else's name." Paul was conscious of Miss
Brooke speaking to him in almost a whisper; then in a moment she had
bowed and moved off. He could not help feeling angry with the man for
taking her away, and his displeasure showed itself in his face. There
seemed, too, something proprietorial in the way "the confounded fellow"
walked off with her, and a thousand foolish conjectures hustled in his
brain. However, he remembered he had Miss Brooke's programme, which,
together with her last injunction, formed a comforting assurance she
had taken him into special favour. It had been decidedly nice to
talk to this girl, who seemed just the sort of person--simple and
straightforward despite her wonderful charm--he felt he could get on
with, and it gave him pleasure to picture her again sitting by his side,
fresh, cool, sweet, and surpassingly beautiful.
After lingering a little he went into the ballroom again. Miss Brooke's
figure alone drew his eye--the rest of the world was a mere dancing
medley. She was obviously enjoying her dance, and Paul found himself
envying her partner his easy mastery of the American waltz step. He
could not help observing now what a superb note she struck in that
crowd. He could see, too, she was being noticed, and divined talk about
her by many moving lips.
He found an opportunity of returning her programme, which she received
with a marked look of surprise that changed into a smile of thanks. Paul
was much puzzled. Her manner seemed to make it appear that she had
dropped the programme and he had picked it up. He rather resented this,
till it occurred to him she had slipped it into his hand so as not to be
seen by her present cavalier, and probably she had played this little
comedy because she did not want to rouse his suspicion. Paul's fears
that the man might be something to her were reawakened, but they were
palliated by a sense of triumph over him. Had not Miss Brooke played a
part--for his sake?
Mrs. Saxon passed near him and stopped to talk to him a moment. He made
absent-minded replies--indeed, five minutes later he recalled that he
had said something particularly foolish and hated himself. In this mood
he sought cousin Celia and took her to supper. He examined her more
critically now, finding her handsome, solid, and only passably
interesting. He noted, too, that her manner lacked sprightliness and
enthusiasm, and that the things she talked about didn't interest him in
the least. He found himself apologising again and again for not having
heard what she said. That was whenever there were questions for him to
answer. He had, however, enough wit left to feel it was fortunate she
did not ask questions more frequently. Meanwhile his eye wandered
constantly towards a little table some distance off, which Miss Brooke
and her American friend had all to themselves, the other two covers
being as yet unappropriated. Once or twice he became aware that Celia's
eye was following his. He saw a gleam of understanding flash across her
face, followed by a flush whose meaning was obvious. But somehow he felt
reckless.
An hour later he was with Miss Brooke again. At her laughing suggestion
they had found a hiding-place, more "towards the upper regions," in
order to keep out of the way of the man whose name had been written
over, and who, indeed, never appeared. Miss Brooke was admiring an
exquisite little painting of a picturesque boy looking over a rude
wooden bridge on to a small stream. The work, which hung just opposite
them, bore a well-known French signature, and had attracted her
attention at once. The enthusiasm with which she spoke of the artist
led Paul to inquire if she herself painted.
"I try to," she answered self-deprecatingly. "I am appallingly
interested in my work. I always lose myself when talking about it."
She was evidently serious, and Paul was glad to have struck such a mood,
which promised possibilities of intimate conversation.
"You have taken up art seriously?" he asked.
"One must do something to fill one's life," she replied, with
unmistakable earnestness; and set Paul musing about the inability of
fortune to compensate for a want of purpose in life, as he had, indeed,
felt long ago. That a woman, however, should give expression to the
sentiment surprised him. Her next words astonished him still more.
"I have always been ambitious, and I might have achieved something in
art if I hadn't wasted so many years trying other things."
"But, surely you must find the knowledge you have acquired worth
having."
"I would willingly exchange it all for two years' progress in my work.
The mistakes began by poppa discovering I was a musical genius, and as I
was just mad to do something big in the world, I believed him. The next
discovery was mine--that I was a great writer, and when, two years after
that, an artist friend declared some sketches of mine were full of
inspiration, my enthusiasm for writing fizzed out immediately, and I
rushed into painting, and over to Paris to study. Of course, I'm only in
the student stage, but my professor has given me distinct encouragement.
In my heart I really believe I should succeed if only----" She broke off
with a curious laugh, but went on almost immediately: "If only I don't
transfer my enthusiasm to sculpture before long. You see I know my
little ways. Besides, the temptation to change is as strong as it
possibly can be. It would be such a distinction to have completed the
round of the arts."
"Poetry would still be left untouched."
"Oh, I've written poetry as well. That was part and parcel of my
literary mania."
"And naturally expired with it."
"No. Let me confess. Poetry is the one thing I keep up in order to be
able to feel I am made of fine stuff. It's the one unsaleable thing I
devote my time to, and without it I should feel utterly ignoble. With
all my ambition to achieve greatness, I am quite unable to say how much
of my enthusiasm is due to the hope of accompanying dollars."
Paul was startled for a moment, then laughed in high amusement at the
idea of a railway king's daughter eking out her income by Art.
"I mean it. I'm not as noble as I look, but thank you for the compliment
all the same. If I have allowed myself any illusions on the point, they
were all dissipated when I heard of the price a Salon picture sold for
last year. My feeling of envy was too naked to be mistaken--naked and
unashamed. I don't know if you've ever experienced the sort of
thing--whether you've ever written poetry to keep your self-respect."
"I fear writing poetry would be no test for me. I don't mean to imply
that the result would _not_ be unsaleable," he added, smiling, "but that
I am not so avaricious as you profess to be. I am quite satisfied that
my work in life shall bring me no return."
"I wish I were as fine as that," said Miss Brooke.
"I am afraid I am far from being fine," said Paul, modestly. "I am
simply content with my fortune. As you said before, one must do
something to fill one's life. I am only too grateful for the prospect of
being able to employ my energies. So you see I am really selfish at
bottom."
"We each appear to have a due sense of the clay in us, so let us agree
we are neither of us precisely the saints we appear. But you've not yet
told me in what particular way you purpose satisfying that selfishness
of yours."
"Thereby hangs a long tale," said Paul, laughing again. "It is connected
with the family tradition I mentioned to you before."
"I remember. Your father laid some injunction on you about converting
missionary energies and subscriptions for home use."
"That is a quaint way of putting it. It is true his injunction first set
me thinking, and it led to my developing certain Utopian ideas of my
own. As the result, I am now studying architecture. No doubt you will
think it a strange choice. There begins another dance, and we've both
partners."
"How vexatious!" said Miss Brooke. "Just when I am so interested. I am
really longing to hear all about your Utopia."
"I should so much have liked to tell you," murmured Paul, thinking he
might even have sat out another dance if it were not for his foolish
exclamation.
"Oh, but you're going to call, Mr. Middleton."
"I shall be very happy," said Paul, repressing a start.
She wrote her address for him on the back of his programme, adding, "I
shall be in on Wednesday afternoon."
He thanked her and took her down to the dancing-room where she was
pounced upon immediately, and he then discovered, to his surprise, that
he and Miss Brooke _had_ sat out two dances! Moreover, the frown which
Celia gave him over her partner's shoulder as she waltzed by made him
refer to his programme, when he found he had overlooked the little tick
at the side of dance number fourteen.