In Silk Attire: A Novel

"And you were watching me, I think?"

"Yes."

"And the house?"

"A little," said Mrs. Christmas, rather nervously.

"Then you know," she said, calmly, "that I have made a total failure, that the people think so, and that to-morrow every one, including the papers, will say so."

"My dear! – "

"Why should we not speak frankly, mother? I felt it within myself, and I saw it in their faces. And I knew it before I went on the stage."

"That is it! That has done it all!" exclaimed the old woman, inclined to wring her hands in despair and grief. "You convinced yourself that you were going to fail, and then, when you went on the stage, you lost command over yourself."

"Had I not command over myself?" the young girl asked, with a smile. "I had so great command of myself that I knew and was conscious of everything I did – the tiniest thing – and kept continually asking myself how it would impress the people. I was never in the least excited; had I been – but there is no use talking, Lady Jane. Help me to change my dress; I suppose I must go through with it."

So Mrs. Christmas officiated in place of Sarah, whom she always ordered out of the way on grand occasions; and, as she did so, she still administered counsel and reproof, not having quite given up hope.

Two of the most distinguished of the critics met in the lobby leading to the stalls.

"A pity, is it not?" said one.

The other merely shrugged his shoulders.

The general run of the critics fancied that Annie Brunel had added another to her list of brilliant successes, and were already shaping in their brain elaborate sentences overflowing with adjectives.

Lord Weyminster, whom people considered to have a share in the proprietary of the theatre, went behind the scenes and met Mr. Melton.

"This won't do, my boy," he said.

"Do you think not?" said the manager, anxiously. "They received her very warmly."

"They received Miss Brunel warmly, but not her 'Rosalind.'"

"What's to be done?"

"Change the piece."

"I can't. Perhaps it was only a temporary indisposition."

"Perhaps," said his lordship, carelessly. "I never saw such a difference in the acting of any woman. Formerly she was full of fire; to-night she was wooden – pretty enough, and proper enough, but wooden."

Further consolation or advice Mr. Melton could not get out of his patron. In despair, he said that his lordship was exaggerating a temporary constraint on the part of the young actress, and that the succeeding scenes would bring her out in full force.

The wood scene was of course charming. Miss Featherstone's young gentleman, sitting in the stalls, surrendered himself to the delicious intoxication of the moment ('Celia,' it will be remembered, wears long petticoats), and wondered whether he could write a poem on the forest of Ardennes. He was in that fond period of existence when the odour of escaped gas, anywhere, at once awoke for him visions of greenwood scenery and romantic love-affairs; and when the perfume of cold cream conjured up the warm touch of a certain tender cheek – for Miss Featherstone, when in a hurry to get home from the theatre, occasionally left her face unwashed.

The people never lost interest in the play. Indeed, being Londoners, they were sufficiently glad to see any character played with careful artistic propriety, and it was only as an afterthought that they missed the old thrill of Annie Brunel's acting. It could always be said of the part that it was gracefully and tenderly done, void of coarse comedy and of clap-trap effects. It struck a certain low and chastened key of sweetness and harmony that partially atoned for the absence of more daring and thrilling chords.

And yet Annie Brunel went home sick at heart. The loss of popular favour did not trouble her; for had not the people been remarkably kind, and even enthusiastic, in their final call? It was the certain consciousness that the old power had passed away from her for ever – or rather, that the intensity and emotional abandonment of her artistic nature had been sucked into her own personal nature, and was never more to be separately exhibited as a beautiful and wonderful human product.

"Mother, I am tired of acting," she said. "It has been weighing upon me ever so long; but I thought I ought to give myself one more chance, and see if the presence of a big audience would not remove my sickness. No; it has not. Everything I had anticipated occurred. I was not frightened: but I knew that all the people were there, and that I could not command them. I was not 'Rosalind' either to them or to myself; and it was not 'Rosalind' whom they applauded. The noise they made seemed to me to have a tone of pity in it, as if they were trying to deceive me into thinking well of the part."

All this she said quietly and frankly; and Mrs. Christmas sate stunned and silent. It seemed to the old woman that some terrible calamity had occurred. She could not follow the subtle sympathies and distinctions of which the young actress spoke: she knew only that something had happened to destroy the old familiar compact between them, and that the future was full of a gloomy uncertainty.

"I don't know what to say, Miss Annie. You know best what your feelings are. I know there's something wrong somewhere – "

"Don't talk so mournfully," said she. "If I don't act any more we shall find something else to keep us out of starvation."

"If you don't act any more!" said the old woman, in a bewildered way. "If you don't act any more! Tell me, Miss Annie, what you mean. You're not serious? You don't mean that because your 'Rosalind' mayn't have gone off pretty well, you intend to give up the stage altogether – at your time of life – with your prospects – my darling, tell me what you mean?"

She went over and took her companion's two hands in her own.

"Why, mother, you tremble as if you expected some terrible misfortune to happen to us. You will make me as nervous as yourself if you don't collect yourself. You have not been prepared for it as I have been. I have known for some time that I should not be able to act when I returned to London – "

With a slight scream, she started up and caught her friend, who was tottering and like to fall in her arms. The old woman had been unable to receive this intelligence all at once. It was too appalling and too sudden; and when at last some intimation of it came home to her mind, she reeled under the shock. She uttered some incoherent words – "my charge of you," "your mother," "the future" – and then she sank quite insensible upon the sofa to which Annie Brunel had half-carried her.

CHAPTER XXIII.

HOME AGAIN

Count Schönstein was in love. His ponderous hilarity had quite gone out of him. After Miss Brunel's departure, he moved about the house alone and disconsolate; he was querulous about his meals; he forgot to tell lies about the price of his wines. He ceased to joke about marriage; he became wonderfully polite to the people about him, and above all to Will Anerley; and every evening after dinner he was accustomed to sit and smoke silently in his chair, going over in his mind all the incidents of Annie Brunel's visit, and hoping that nothing had occurred to offend her.

Sometimes, in a fit of passionate longing, he wished he was again a tea-dealer and she the daughter of one of his clerks. He grew sick of his ambitious schemes; inwardly cursed the aristocracy of this and every other country; and prayed for some humble cottage, with Annie Brunel for his wife, and with nothing for himself to do but sit and smoke, and watch the grape-clusters over the verandah.

Twenty years before he had been afflicted by the same visions. They did not alter much his course of life then; nor did he permit them to move him much now – except after dinner, when most people become generously impulsive and talkative. In one of these moods he confessed to Will the passion which disturbed his repose.

Will stared at him, for the mere thought of such a thing seemed to him a sort of sacrilege; but the next moment he asked himself what right he had to resent the Count's affection for Annie Brunel as an insult, and then he was silent.

"Tell me, have I a chance?" said the Count.

"How can I tell you?" he replied.

"You were very friendly with her. You do not imagine there is anybody else in the young lady's graces?"

"I don't know of any one whom Miss Brunel is likely to marry; but, as I say, how can I tell?"

"You imagine I have a fair field?" asked the Count, rather timidly.

"Oh, yes!" said Will, with a laugh, in which there was just a touch of bitterness. "But that is not the way you used to talk about women, and marriage, and so forth. Do you remember how you gloated over the saying of that newspaper man who was at the 'Juliet' supper – about being 'sewn up in a theological sack with a partner for life?' I suppose you were only whistling in the dark, to scare the ghosts away, and now – "

There was no need to complete the sentence. The doleful look on the Count's rubicund face told its own tale. He shook his head, rather sadly, and contemplatively stirred his Moselle with a bit of biscuit.

"It's time a man like me was married. I have plenty of money to give my wife her own way: we shan't quarrel. There's that big house standing empty; you can't expect people to come and visit you, if you've nobody to receive them. Look how perfectly Miss Brunel could do that. Look at the grace of her demeanour, and her courtesy, and all that: why, though she's ever so little a thing, she looks like an empress when she comes into a room. I never could get elsewhere such a wife as she would make."

"Doubtless not; but the point is to get her," said Will, almost defiantly – he did not know whether to laugh at or be indignant with the Count's cool assumption.

"I tell you I would marry her if she was nothing but what she is – " the Count said, vehemently, and then he suddenly paused, with a look of frightened embarrassment on his face.