The Soul of Countess Adrian/Chapter 5

studio was situated in the artistic colony of Chelsea. He had built himself a low red-brick house after all the approved canons. His fortune was sufficiently large to enable him to gratify a mild passion for bric-à-brac. He had some very good china and a quantity of fine tapestry, and his collection of old prints was famous. The studio itself was a homelike place; he was fond of it, and, in the Jessie Harford days, work had been his passion. He had idealized her in every possible mood and attitude, and studies of her still hung in dim corners and stood on unused easels like mocking ghosts of the past. He put these away with something of an ironic pang on the day before that fixed for Beatrice Brett's first visit—such a pang as a sincere-minded person might feel in taking down the symbol of an outworn faith to make place for the sign visible of conversion to a new and more convincing creed. He took a good deal of pains in beautifying his studio for the reception of his American guests—Beatrice and Mrs. Cubison only; the Professor had been called away on other business. Never before had he fidgeted so over the placing of his chairs, or examined his various properties with so critical an eye as to the effect they might produce on an outside observer, or altered and disposed anew so many times the fold of a piece of drapery or the arrangement of his curious collection of pots and pans; not even on the occasion of a visit from a royal personage, or on that of the annual reception, a few days before Show Sunday, at which he was wont to entertain his especial circle of friends apart from the ordinary herd who trotted round the artists' quarter. The studio had a gallery at one end, hung with his rough sketches, and draped with odd bits of Oriental work. He wondered whether Beatrice would admire his hangings of Moorish tapestry and Persian embroidery, his Turkish tiles let into the fireplace, and his odd pieces of Oriental brass-work; and he wondered whether she would be interested in hearing him tell of how he had come by his different treasures—for to nearly all some reminiscence of adventure or more or less romantic association was attached—and if her eyes would lighten, and her charming smile come into play; and if she would poke about with that air of child-like interest which already he had begun to know and look for; and if she would notice his collection of pipes, and remark his little jewelled liqueur-cups; and if perhaps—audacious thought!—she would accept one of the pretty things in token that she had forgiven that unlucky speech in relation to the objectionable word "morbid," which she was always in a half serious, half laughing way, bringing up against him. And had she ever tasted Russian tea he wondered, and would she like it; and would she try his piano? He knew she was musical, for he had once called and been shown into her sitting-room in the course of a lesson from Miravoglia, and he had known by the way in which the fat little Italian put his finger to his lip with a deep-drawn S-sh, and had struck the chords of the accompaniment with a sign that she was to go on unmindful of the interruption, that the master was proud of his pupil and wished to show her off to the intruder. She had only been singing a sort of recitative exercise, but Miravoglia had patted her shoulder when she had finished, with an air of benevolent commendation.

"Zat is good, but it is not as good as you can do. You are weak. You do not eat." He turned round on his stool and gazed at her. "My gracious! how pale you are! What is ze matter?"

"I didn't sleep very well last night, Signor," said Beatrice, who had in the meantime nodded welcome to Lendon. "I have just finished," she added, motioning him to a seat.

"You not sleep last night," repeated Miravoglia. "What 'as 'e been doing? I kill 'im if 'e worry you."

"There's no 'he' in the question, Signor."

"Then why you worry?" and he made a gesture of sovereign contempt, as if to imply that nothing short of a lover could by any possibility be a legitimate cause for uneasiness to a young woman. "You must eat much. To-morrow you take a good breakfast—not your leetle toast and tea of the fine ladies who lean back in their carriages in the Park—but a ver' good meal. You are a worker. Workers must eat."

"I know that, Signor," said Beatrice meekly. "Tell me, do you take such good care of all your pupils?"

"Not of all, not of all," and he looked at Lendon as he tapped himself knowingly on the chest; "but I have somesing 'ere to take care of—somesing zat will do great sings."

"The reason why Signor Miravoglia is so popular with his pupils is that he pays them all such nice sugary compliments," said Beatrice, teasingly, turning to Lendon.

"Compliments!" cried the Signor; "you shall 'ear. Zere was a young lady who came to me zis morning; she want to go on de stage. 'Mademoiselle,' I say to 'er, 'you have come to know if you can sing: you say you 'ave a lofely voice. Perhaps I may not sink you 'ave a lofely voice. No matter, I will tell you de truth.' So she sing—you shall 'ear if I compliment. 'Mademoiselle,' I say to 'er, 'it is awful! Nevare sing again, nevare sing one note.' And now, Mees Beatrice, we will have a leetle song. Begin."

She protested that her lesson was over. Miravoglia insisted. Lendon entreated. So she sang a German song after a fashion that called forth a "Brava!" from Miravoglia, and that touched Lendon to the very depths of his heart. It was wonderful that so strong and rich a voice should come from that fragile frame. It was very sweet, too, and had a pathos which he thought he had never heard equalled.

When she had finished, Miravoglia swung himself round on the music-stool and cut short Lendon's thanks. "She will do," he cried; "but she is nervous. No matter!—zere never was an artist who was not nervous. I believe in 'er. Remember, Mees Beatrice, what I tell you. Sing from your big 'eart. Sing as if you was in lofe. Zere is no 'e!" he went on indignantly. "Zere must be one 'e, I tell you. You are in lofe?" he questioned insinuatingly.

A beautiful blush came over Beatrice's face. She laughed with a touch of embarrassment. "No, indeed, Signor," she answered. "I haven't any time for that."

"No time? Ah! Bah! It is good for an artist to be in lofe. Make yourself in lofe, Mees Beatrice."

"But, Signor Miravoglia, I have tried and quite unsuccessfully. I have done my very best to fall in love with each of the heroes at each one of the plays which I have gone to see in London, and all in vain. There is not one among them who gives me an emotion—except, perhaps, Cosway Keele."

"Ah! Cosway Keele!" echoed Miravoglia, contemptuously. "He is not bad, but 'e is too old, and besidesNo, Cosway Keele will not do. Never mind," he added, reflectively; and as he spoke his eyes were on Lendon, and it seemed as if he were appraising Lendon's qualifications for a possible lover. "Wait; 'e will come. Zere never was an artist who did not lofe; and zen," he added, consolingly, "she will sing from the bottom of 'er very big 'eart," And with this prophecy Miravoglia bundled up his music and departed.

Lendon remembered the little scene, and Beatrice's flush, and her shy laugh when Miravoglia had gone and they were atone, and how she had abruptly turned the conversation and had there and then selected her visit to the studio this very day. He went off into a blissful dream, which was interrupted by the entrance of his servant with some flowers he had ordered. And then there were minute directions to be given as to the preparation of the tea and the purchase of an especial cake which was only to be procured in one particular shop in High Street, Kensington, and which he was certain Beatrice would like; and there was a box of Paris bonbons to be unpacked—did not all American girls adore bonbons!—and there were the flowers to be arranged—such glorious masses of Nice violets, and branches of mimosa, and bunches of red and purple and pink anemones, so that the dusky studio was fragrant and beautiful with blossom as the gardens and olive groves of the sunny South.

And how Lendon was rewarded for all his pains by Beatrice's exclamations of delight, and by the brightening of her serious face, and the girlish pleasure with which she bent over the bowls of mimosa and violets and anemones, which last were new to her, and by her frank admiration of all his pretty things, and by her sweet and gracious acceptance of the tiny Moorish cup he shyly offered her! The sun shone out, though it had been dark and foggy enough before, and made her golden hair glisten in its rays, and it seemed to him that she had brought the sunbeams with her. Oh! it was a very pleasant afternoon. The cake and the bonbons were a success, and so was the Russian tea, not the least so because it absorbed Mrs. Cubison's attention for the time, and set her speculating as to how she could procure a samovar to send as a present to a New York lady of culture and taste who appreciated things out of the common. The samovar turned her off on a voyage of discovery among the relics, as she called them, and she begged that she might be allowed to prowl about among the cabinets and in the dark corners, in the hope that she might improve her taste and cultivate her eye to the capacity of discriminating between the genuine articles and the Birmingham imitations on exhibition in Regent Street and Oxford Circus. So Beatrice and Lendon were left more or less to themselves at the piano; and a charming sympathetic talk they had, while she played dreamy little things by Hiller and Brahm, or he played and she listened, conversation rippling on to the measure of the music in an odd, fitful, fanciful fashion.

The sun went down; the lamps were brought in, and the fire danced up and deepened the tender glow on Beatrice's cheeks. Mrs. Cubison reminded her that they were going to the theatre that evening—Cosway Keele had sent them a box for the now waning attraction at the Dionysion, and though they had seen it once already they were happy to go again—and then, to Lendon's surprise and pleasure, Beatrice herself turned rather timidly to him and asked him if in the Professor's absence he would care to be their escort. Would he not? His fête day was not over yet, for there and then he devised a little plan by which Beatrice should see something more of London life, and he should have still a further taste of her society. What was to prevent them from dining with him at the Orpheus Club? And might he call at their house, say an hour hence, and take them thither? and that would give him just time to dress and to go round by the Orpheus and order a table and see that the champagne was put on ice. For Mrs. Cubison must throw aside her Puritan ways for that one evening; and indeed he was sure that she was not a Puritan at all, but a veritable Bohemian; and since, of course, she would not forego her after-dinner cigarette she would find the Orpheus supply quite reliable. They had a cosy meal, though Mrs. Cubison did not indulge in her usual cigarette, which she declared she only smoked to keep the Professor company, and though the consumption of champagne, as far as the ladies were concerned, was not large; and it was Cosway Keele's own box which he had sent them, so that nothing could have been more agreeable or comfortable. There occurred, however, one curious drawback to the evening's enjoyment, and this was the discovery by Beatrice herself that Countess Adrian was in the house.

Lendon wondered why suddenly she drew back and gave a little shiver, and why she turned so pale.

"Are you cold?" he asked; "I am afraid there is a draught in that corner."

"No," she answered, "it is not that. Look down at the end of the third row, just below us."

He did so, and saw Sir Donald Urquhart's slightly bald head and bored impassive face raised upwards, and beside him Countess Adrian's sleek coils of hair and statuesque neck and shoulders.

"Don't you see that you are giving way to a fancy?" he said. "You were quite happy till they came in."

"Ah!" she answered, "that is just the thing. I seemed all of a sudden to know that she was near me, and then I saw them take their places there."

"Beatrice," he said, leaning towards her and speaking very low. "Do you remember our compact and your own words to me—your promise that I should be an influence to take care of you, a pillar against which you might lean for support?"

"Yes," she answered, "I remember."

"Then try to think that, unworthy as I am, my dearest longing in the whole world is to be your support, your shield against this uncanny fancy which has taken possession of you. Put your hand in mine for a moment and gain strength and courage to fight against it, from the knowledge of my"—he paused for an instant and his voice trembled—"of my sympathy and affection."

She did put her hand in his—her little trembling hand whose touch thrilled him with a peculiar magnetism of its own. At that moment Countess Adrian looked up. Her dark eyes rested on the box for several seconds and she seemed to be taking in all its occupants; then she bowed to Lendon, and turning, whispered something in Sir Donald's ear.

"Are you stronger, Beatrice?" Lendon whispered. "Do you not feel that it is a fancy to ha combated and conquered?"

"It is no fancy," she replied, "but I am stronger when you are with me. You don't know how I feel when she looked at me," the girl went on hurriedly; "I seem to lose all power, and even all sense of individuality. You can imagine nothing more horrible than the sensation of spiritual blankness and desolation and helpless. It is like having the evil eye upon one."

"Then," he said, smiling at her in the effort to reassure her as though she were a little child, "I am going to give you a charm which an Arab woman gave me against the evil eye, and you must always wear it, and it will make you at least remember that there is one person who would give his life to help you." As he spoke he detached from his watch-chain a little gold hand, such as one sees among the Mohammedans in the East, traced with certain mystic lines and a crescent on the palm.

She took it from him and examined it with deep interest and an air of comfort and confidence; then she unloosened from her arm a bangle of plain gold with a ring at the clasp, and asked him to fasten the charm upon it. "It shall be my talisman," she said, "to guard me from evil."

She made no further allusion to Countess Adrian, but sat back silent and thoughtful till the close of the last act but one. Then she rose suddenly. "Marmy," she said, "I must go home. I have a headache. I can't stay here any longer. Mr. Lendon will go behind and explain to Cosway Keele, and thank him for us."

Mrs. Cubison got up obediently, and Lendon took them down and saw them into a cab. The mission entrusted to him obliged him to sit out the performance. As he went back to the theatre he met Sir Donald and Countess Adrian coming out. She stopped and spoke to him.

"So your Improvisatrice, like myself, is bored with Cosway Keele?"

"She is tired and not very well," replied Lendon, "and like yourself, probably, she has seen the play before."

"Oh! one has seen it half-a-dozen times; but like everything at the Dionysion, it is a perfect picture, at which one can look in a dreamy way and fancy oneself taken back to the times it represents. Has she quite recovered from her fainting fit of the other night?—your Improvisatrice, I mean."

"I believe so," Lendon answered guardedly; though had not Sir Donald been present he would have tried to ascertain if Countess Adrian were aware of the curious influence she exercised. At that moment the footman appeared and her carriage was called. She turned back to him with a smile as Sir Donald offered her his arm.

"Mr. Lendon," she said, "I think you are almost the only person I have ever asked twice to come and see me. I assure you that many people find me interesting."

He was taken aback by her frankness, but recovered himself sufficiently to frame an apology which might be accepted as a compliment.

"Well," she said, "you shall prove your sincerity, but not just yet. I am going to Paris for a few weeks; when I come back again you shall hear from me."

He was glad to be able to tell Beatrice that she need not, for the present at least, dread the evil eye of Countess Adrian. It seemed to him that for the first few days after the encounter at the theatre the girl drooped a little, and was less enthusiastic about her work, less sanguine about the future. Miravoglia mournfully reiterated his enquiry. "What 'as 'e been doing?" and would not be satisfied with Beatrice's repeated statement that there was no "he" in the case. Probably Miravoglia would not have believed her had she told him the truth, and would have scouted the idea that a woman whom she had seen only twice, and to whom she had never spoken, was the cause of the disturbance. But simultaneously with Countess Adrian's departure Beatrice revived, and shortly afterwards a great event occurred—one of those fateful accidents which turn the current of an existence, and present the opportunity which makes or mars a career.

For Beatrice's opportunity has come. Now, at last, she is very happy. The manager has been found and, better still, the great part. She is to play Webster's "Duchess of Malfi."

Lendon had from the first felt inspired by the conviction that this was the predestined part, and he rejoiced now to think that she had studied it in the first instance at his instigation. The piece had not been played in London for a generation, and at the time it was played had not ever had a fitting Duchess. Now the Duchess had come.

It had been partly Lendon's doing. This especial actor-manager under whom Beatrice was to make her great appearance—a man of genius with the untiring perseverance, the power of organizing, and the capacity for detail and stage arrangement which ensured success for any production he might put on the boards of the Dionysion—was an old friend of the painter's.

Cosway Keele—for he was this actor-manager—had, as has been told, seen Beatrice Brett's performance at Mrs. Walcot Valbry's, and had been much struck by its extraordinary power and originality. He had long contemplated the revival of Webster's tragedy, he himself playing the part of Bosola, but had declared over and over again to his intimates that he knew no living actress capable of personating the ill-fated Duchess. Beatrice had impressed him strangely. "I think I see my Duchess at last," he said to Lendon that very night at Mrs. Walcot Valbry's; and it was this remark which had caused Lendon to turn Beatrice's attention to the Elizabethan dramatists. "But," added the manager, "it is out of the question now; and though I am not sure that I would not risk such an actress, untried though she is in England, I must wait. We shall see, at any rate, how she proves herself."

Strange things came about, however. Just as the new Dionysion production had been decided upon—a Shakespearean comedy—and the scenic artists and the authorities on historic costume and furniture, whose services the theatre retained, were torturing their brains to produce an effect that should beat even the Dionysion record, the leading lady fell suddenly and dangerously ill and threw all the Dionysion arrangements into chaos. She was forbidden to act again for a year. In the meantime what was to be done? Who would take her place, and what play could be put on that would satisfy an exacting public which had been trained to demand much from Cosway Keele? It was at this juncture that Lendon put in a word. "Why not try 'The Duchess of Malfi,’" he said, "and give the American Improvisatrice the part?"

Cosway Keele took a day to think over the scheme. He had already met Beatrice socially, now in a business capacity was introduced to her in her little study, and was delighted with her interpretation of the part. Before many hours all was settled. Beatrice was to play in the great tragedy. To Bernard Lendon was entrusted the task of some revisions and alterations in the text, and as soon as this was done "The Duchess of Malfi" was to be put into rehearsal.

Lendon set to his work with ardour. It gave him opportunities for consulting Beatrice, for studying her and for identifying himself with her aims and hopes, which were sweeter to him than any other pleasure that could at this time have been offered him. And the more her nature revealed itself to him, the more tender, true and womanly did it appear, the more did she seem to him not only an ideal to be worshipped, but a woman to be wholly loved. She had her little moods of despondency—nay, even of despair, when she declared herself incapable of realizing the creation, and prophesied for herself dire failure and for Cosway Keele disappointment and disaster. Then how he delighted to soothe and to encourage her and to buoy up the elastic artist spirit till she was hopeful and sell-confident once more. But she had, too, her times of artistic exaltation when the fire of genius burned, and, as Mrs. Cubison would have put it, the "influences" were propitious, when she astonished them at rehearsal and sent Cosway Keele away from the Dionysion under the conviction that he was about to introduce to the world a new Rachel. On the whole things went merrily at the Dionysion, and some doubts which had been felt as to the suitability of such a piece for the modern stage subsided. Lendon had cut out all the rough phraseology of a play which, but for the out-spoken language of the time, not then thought harm by woman or man, is pure as newly-congealed ice. He had shortened the play and made it end with the death of the sweet, sad, wronged heroic Duchess, the doomed victim of a brother's hate and treachery. Never was woman more truly moulded for happiness and joy and love, more sweetly, purely passionate in her love. Yes, and she finds a lover worthy—at least not unworthy—of her, though of lowlier rank than hers; and she stoops to him and lifts him to her heart, and they are married; and then her brother's hate, rapacity, and cruelty sends her to her death. And what a death, and how she meets it: prayerful, gentle, sublimely serene, absolutely undismayed by the coming death itself and by all its accompanying and artificial horrors.

"These," said Beatrice to Lendon, "are the very words that first taught me the part. See, I have scored and underscored them."

"Her waiting-woman's words?" Leaden said.

"Yes—she has so great a soul that she has lifted the very waiting-woman into a comprehension of it! Shall I ever be able to put all my full sense of her love and her nobleness and her courage into words? Oh, tell me!"

"You can, and you will, and all London will fall down before you," Lendon exclaimed in the full rapture of the sincerest conviction, already proud of the anticipated triumph.

"I don't think about that now—oh, hardly at all! I only think about her. I feel as if she would be looking down on me from that heaven to which she has gone. I think of her as a real woman. I feel her reality. Do you know, Mr. Lendon, I sometimes fancy in a half-dreamy sort of way that I shall feel her soul possessing me; so that I shall make her live again in me? Do you think me extravagant, absurd?"

"I think you have the very soul of an artist," he said. "And see how the artist's ambition triumphs over everything lower! You don't care about the crowded houses and the applause any more?"

"They don't come into my thoughts. I dare say if I succeed I shall enjoy the success to the full by-and-by. I am ambitious. Oh, yes! I want to succeed. But, Mr. Lendon, if I can only play that part as I see it—as I see it of nights when I lie awake—well, then, it couldn't be prevented—I must succeed!"

"Come," Lendon said cheerily, "you have spoken those words with a brave conviction worthy of the Duchess herself. Only make her speak like that, and you must succeed."

"But she has such wonderful lines to speak; there is such variety in her, such high spirit, such gaiety, such chaff, even—yes, such downright merry womanish chaff; and then the pathos, the passion, the fervid love, the agony, the anger, the pity, the forgiveness. Oh! shall I ever be able to do it all?"

"You have done it all—you are doing it all," Lendon said, delighted and satisfied.

"Well, it will be your doing," she answered, dropping her voice—"yours and hers! We can think of the crowd and the applause some other time, if they come. Now, I cannot feel myself playing for them. I am playing for her, and, and," she blushed a little and half turned her head away, "and for you."

"Beatrice," he exclaimed passionately; "Is that really true? Do you feel that you care more to please me than to please the crowds who will throng to see you, and who will admire you, and call you great—yes, you know they will—and you will smile serenely; and you will turn to me? At last, at last, you will learn to love me?"

"Hush," she said, blushing very red; "we are talking of the Duchess. We must only think of the Duchess now."

"I have been very patient," he urged. "Have I not thought of the Duchess? Have I not respected the Duchess' claims all these weeks? How can I help sometimes thinking of the woman, not of the artist? Do not ask me to be more than man."

"I ask you only to be yourself," she answered. "Come, hear me my lesson and tell me if I say it well."