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——"