In Silk Attire: A Novel

"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 Schönstein 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 soubretteto 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 Schönstein. "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 Schönstein'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 Schönstein 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.