Miss Bretherton

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

Kendal was in that condition which is proper to men possessed of the true literary temperament, when the first fervour of youth for mere living is gone, when the first crude difficulties of accumulation are over, and when the mind, admitted to regions of an ampler ether and diviner air than any she has inhabited before, feels the full charm and spell of man's vast birthright of knowledge, and is seized with subtler curiosities and further-reaching desires than anything she has yet been conscious of. The world of fact and of idea is open, and the explorer's instruments are as perfect as they can be made. The intoxication of entrance is full upon him, and the lassitude which is the inevitable Nemesis of an unending task, and the chill which sooner or later descends upon every human hope, are as yet mere names and shadows, counting for nothing in the tranquil vista of his life, which seems to lie spread out before him. It is a rare state, for not many men are capable of the apprenticeship which leads to it, and a breath of hostile circumstance may put an end to it; but in its own manner and degree, and while it lasts, it is one of the golden states of consciousness, and a man enjoying it feels this mysterious gift of existence to have been a kindly boon from some beneficent power.

Arrived at Mrs. Stuart's, Kendal found a large gathering already filling the pleasant low rooms looking out upon trees at either end, upon which Mrs. Stuart had impressed throughout the stamp of her own keen little personality. She was competent in all things—competent in her criticism of a book, and more than competent in all that pertained to the niceties of house management. Her dinner-parties, of which each was built up from foundation to climax with the most delicate skill and unity of plan; her pretty dresses, in which she trailed about her soft-coloured rooms; her energy, her kindliness, and even the evident but quite innocent pursuit of social perfection in which she delighted—all made her popular; and it was not difficult for her to gather together whom she would when she wished to launch a social novelty. On the present occasion she was very much in her element. All around her were people more or less distinguished in the London world; here was an editor, there an artist; a junior member of the Government chatted over his tea with a foreign Minister, and a flow of the usual London chatter of a superior kind was rippling through the room when Kendal entered.

Mrs. Stuart put him in the way of a chair and of abundant chances of conversation, and then left him with a shrug of her shoulders and a whisper, 'The beauty is shockingly late! Tell me what I shall do if all these people are disappointed.' In reality, Mrs. Stuart was beginning to be restless. Kendal had himself arrived very late, and, as the talk flowed faster, and the room filled fuller of guests eager for the new sensation which had been promised them, the spirits of the little hostess began to sink. The Minister had surreptitiously looked at his watch, and a tiresome lady friend had said good-bye in a voice which might have been lower, and with a lament which might have been spared. Mrs. Stuart set great store upon the success of her social undertakings, and to gather a crowd of people to meet the rising star of the season, and then to have to send them home with only tea and talk to remember, was one of those failures which no one with any self-respect should allow themselves to risk.

However, fortune was once more kind to one of her chief favourites. Mrs. Stuart was just listening with a tired face to the well-meant, but depressing condolences of the barrister standing by her, who was describing to her the 'absurd failure' of a party to meet the leading actress of the Comédie Française, to which he had been invited in the previous season, when the sound of wheels was heard outside. Mrs. Stuart made a quick step forward, leaving her Job's comforter planted in the middle of his story; the hum of talk dropped in an instant, and the crowd about the door fell hastily back as it was thrown open and Miss Bretherton entered.

What a glow and radiance of beauty entered the room with her! She came in rapidly, her graceful head thrown eagerly back, her face kindling and her hands outstretched as she caught sight of Mrs. Stuart. There was a vigour and splendour of life about her that made all her movements large and emphatic, and yet, at the same time, nothing could exceed the delicate finish of the physical structure itself. What was indeed characteristic in her was this combination of extraordinary perfectness of detail, with a flash, a warmth, a force of impression, such as often raises the lower kinds of beauty into excellence and picturesqueness, but is seldom found in connection with those types where the beauty is, as it were, sufficient in and by itself, and does not need anything but its own inherent harmonies of line and hue to impress itself on the beholders.

There were some, indeed, who maintained that the smallness and delicacy of her features was out of keeping with her stature and her ample gliding motions. But here, again, the impression of delicacy was transformed half way into one of brilliancy by the large hazel eyes and the vivid whiteness of the skin. Kendal watched her from his corner, where his conversation with two musical young ladies had been suddenly suspended by the arrival of the actress, and thought that his impression of the week before had been, if anything, below the truth.

'She comes into the room well, too,' he said to himself critically; 'she is not a mere milkmaid; she has some manner, some individuality. Ah, now Fernandez'—naming the Minister—'has got hold of her. Then, I suppose, Rushbrook (the member of the Government) will come next, and we commoner mortals in our turn. What absurdities these things are!'

His reflections, however, were stopped by the exclamations of the girls beside him, who were already warm admirers of Miss Bretherton, and wild with enthusiasm at finding themselves in the same room with her. They discovered that he was going to see her in the evening; they envied him, they described the play to him, they dwelt in superlatives on the crowded state of the theatre and on the plaudits which greeted Miss Bretherton's first appearance in the ballroom scene in the first act, and they allowed themselves—being aesthetic damsels robed in sober greenish-grays—a gentle lament over the somewhat violent colouring of one of the actress's costumes, while all the time keeping their eyes furtively fixed on the gleaming animated profile and graceful shoulders over which, in the entrance of the second drawing-room, the Minister's gray head was bending.

Mrs. Stuart did her duty bravely. Miss Bretherton had announced to her, with a thousand regrets, that she had only half an hour to give. 'We poor professionals, you know, must dine at four. That made me late, and now I find I am such a long way from home that six is the latest moment I can stay.' So that Mrs. Stuart was put to it to get through all the introductions she had promised. But she performed her task without flinching, killing remorselessly each nascent conversation in the bud, giving artist, author, or member of Parliament his proper little sentence of introduction, and at last beckoning to Eustace Kendal, who left his corner feeling society to be a foolish business, and wishing the ordeal were over.

Miss Bretherton smiled at him as she had smiled at all the others, and he sat down for his three minutes on the chair beside her.