Miss Bretherton

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

'MY DEAR KENDAL—This has been a day of events which, I believe, will interest you as much as they did me. I told Madame de Châteauvieux that I should write to you to-night, and my letter, she says, must do in place of one from her for a day or two. We have been to Torcello to-day—your sister, M. de Châteauvieux, Miss Bretherton, and I. The expedition itself was delightful, but that I have no time to describe. I only want to tell you what happened when we got to Torcello.

'But first, you will, of course, know from your sister's letters—she tells me she writes to you twice a week—how absorbed we have all been in the artistic progress of Miss Bretherton. I myself never saw such a change, such an extraordinary development in any one. How was it that you and I did not see farther into her? I see now, as I look back upon her old self, that the new self was there in germ. But I think perhaps it may have been the vast disproportion of her celebrity to her performance that blinded us to the promise in her; it was irritation with the public that made us deliver an over-hasty verdict on her.

'However that may be, I have been making up my mind for some days past that the embassy on behalf of Elvira, which I thrust upon you, and which you so generously undertook, was a blunder on my part which it would be delightful to repair, and which no artistic considerations whatever need prevent me from repairing. You cannot think how divine she was in Juliet the other night. Imperfect and harsh, of course, here and there, but still a creature to build many and great hopes upon, if ever there was one. She is shaking off trick after trick; your brother-in-law is merciless to them whenever they appear, and she is for ever working with a view to his approval, and also, I think, from two or three things she has said, with a memory of that distant standard of criticism which she believes to be embodied in you!

'M. de Châteauvieux has devoted himself to her; it is a pretty sight to see them together. Your sister and she, too, are inseparable, and Madame de Châteauvieux's quiet, equable refinement makes a good contrast to Miss Bretherton's mobility. She will never lose the imprint of her friendship with these two people; it was a happy thought which led you to bring them together.

'Well, we went to Torcello, and I watched for an opportunity of getting her alone. At last Madame de Châteauvieux gave me one; she carried off her husband, Ruskin in hand, to study the mosaics, and Miss Bretherton and I were left sitting under the outer wall of San Fosca till they should come back. We had been talking of a hundred things—not of acting at all; of the pomegranates, of which she had a scarlet mass in her lap, of the gray slumberous warmth of the day, or the ragged children who pestered us for coppers—and then suddenly, I asked her whether she would answer me a personal question: Was there any grudge in her mind towards me for anything I had said and done in London, or caused others to say and do for me?

'She was much startled, and coloured a good deal, but she said very steadily: "I feel no sort of grudge; I never had any cause." "Well, then," I went on, throwing myself down on the grass before her that I might really see her expression, "if you bear me no grudge, if you feel kindly towards me, will you help me to undo a great mistake of mine?"

'She looked at me with parted lips and eyes which seemed to be trying to find out from my face what I meant. "Will you," I said, hurrying on; "will you take from me Elvira, and do what you like with it?" And then, do you know what happened? Her lips quivered, and I thought she was on the point of tears, but suddenly the nervousness of each of us seemed to strike the other, and we both laughed—she long and helplessly, as if she could not help herself.

'Presently she looked up, with her great eyes swimming in tears, and tried to impress on me that I was speaking hastily, that I had an ideal for that play she could never promise to reach, that it was my friendship for her that made me change my mind, that there might be practical difficulties now that so many arrangements had been made, and so on. But I would not listen to her. I had it all ready; I had an actor to propose to her for Macias, and even the costumes in my mind, ready to sketch for her, if need were. Forbes, I suggested, might and would direct the setting of the piece; no one could do it with more perfect knowledge or a more exquisite taste; and for her, as we both knew, he would turn scene-painter, if necessary. And so I rambled on, soothing her shaken feeling and my own until she had let me beguile her out of her attitude of reluctance and shrinking into one at least of common interest.

'But by the time the others came back I had not got a direct consent out of her, and all the way home she was very silent. I, of course, got anxious, and began to think that my blunder had been irreparable; but, at any rate, I was determined not to let the thing linger on. So that, when the Châteauvieux asked me to stay and sup with them and her, I supped, and afterwards in the garden boldly brought it out before them all, and appealed to your sister for help. I knew that both she and her husband were acquainted with what had happened at Oxford, and I supposed that Miss Bretherton would know that they were, so that it was awkward enough. Only that women, when they please, have such tact, such an art of smoothing over and ignoring the rough places of life, that one often with them gets through a difficult thing without realising how difficult it is. M. de Châteauvieux smoked a long time and said nothing, then he asked me a great many questions about the play, and finally gave no opinion. I was almost in despair—she said so little—until, just as I was going away with Elvira's fate still quite unsettled, she said to me with a smile and a warm pressure of the hand, "To-morrow come and see me, and I will tell you yes or no!"

'And to-day I have been to see her, and the night has brought good luck! For Elvira, my dear Kendal, will be produced on or about the 20th November, in this year of grace, and Isabel Bretherton will play the heroine, and your friend is already plunged in business, and aglow with hope and expectation. How I wish—how we all wish—that you were here! I feel more and more penitent towards you. It was you who gave the impulse of which the results are ripening, and you ought to be here with us now, playing in the body that friend's part which we all yield you so readily in spirit. "Tell Mr. Kendal," were almost her last words to me, "that I cannot say how much I owe to his influence and his friendship. He first opened my eyes to so many things. He was so kind to me, even when he thought least of me. I hope I shall win a word of praise from him yet!" There! I trust that will rouse a little pleasant conceit in you. She meant it, and it is true. I must go off and work at many things. To-morrow or next day, after some further talk with her, I shall set off homewards, look up Forbes and begin operations. She will be in town in about three weeks from now—as you know she is going to stay first with your sister in Paris—and then we shall have hard work till about the middle of November, when I suppose the play will be produced. This will be more than a fortnight later than she intended to open, and Mr. Worrall will probably be furious over the delay, but she has developed a will of her own lately.