The Soul of Countess Adrian/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
The Actress at Home.
The transcendent love-illumination went out; but homelier lights shed themselves upon the Viall household, and made a little more clear to Lendon various things which had puzzled him. With an unconventional friendliness, which seemed to him very un-English, they insisted upon his staying for their evening meal—a sort of high tea of smoking cakes and scolloped oysters, and innocent beverages which reminded him of repasts in certain Puritan households in the smaller Massachusetts towns. Both the Professor and Mrs. Cubison drank many cups of tea; and when the meal was over, as if to make up for their abstinence from alcoholic stimulant, they both smoked many cigarettes. It was over the cigarettes that their hearts expanded, and that they took Lendon freely into their confidence as to their plans, hopes, prospects, and family history. Beatrice did not smoke cigarettes, nor was she equally communicative. She went away for a little while, on the plea of preparing her morning's lesson for Miravoglia, and when she came back sat thoughtfully apart with a book which she did not read. The result of the Professor's and Mrs. Cubison's confidences was that Lendon mentally decided they were "a queer lot." Perhaps a wholly unprejudiced observer might not have hesitated to include Miss Beatrice Brett herself in the sweeping summing up. Lendon, however, confined his criticism to the Professor, Mrs. Cubison, and the race of Transatlantic occultists in general, of whose peculiarities he quickly gleaned something in the conversation of his new friends. For one thing he learned that "Occultist," as opposed to "Spiritualist," was the proper term to apply to enlightened beings possessed of ideas of a supramundane order, and relating, broadly, to will-force, magnetic healing, inspirational gifts, and communion with beings from what Professor Viall and Mrs. Cubison called "the other side." The Professor was careful to impress upon his auditors that the commonplace wonders of professional mediums were not to be named in a breath with that higher spiritual science which had evolved the Viall-Motor, and that the vulgar sprites of the planchette and the tilted table were utterly beneath the contempt of one who had been admitted among the cultured aristocracy of the world of shades.
All this might have seemed less strange and absurd to Lendon, had he known anything of the mystical backwaters of London society; but when "Mr. Isaacs" and "The Occult World" had heralded in the new religion of Theosophy, he had been absorbed in the tragedy of Jessie Harford; and before the advent of Madame Blavatsky he had taken ship to South America, and was shooting condors and making sketches on the lower slopes of the Andes. Thus he was somewhat behind his time as regards this latest development of modern thought.
He had read "The Undiscovered Country," however, and soon became of opinion that it would require the genius of Mr. Howells to do justice to the complexities of Professor Viall's personality, Perhaps it was a certain superficial similarity between Miss Brett and the innocent clairvoyant of that novel that made him at first look upon the Professor as a crack-brained charlatan exploiting a beautiful young victim, whose mental characteristics lent themselves readily to his fraudulent purposes. But before many days were past he had changed his views; for he discovered that, not only was the Professor's main and absorbing object the exploitation of his Viall-Motor, but that he was a rich man—rich enough, at any rate, to be an enthusiast without suspicion of base intentions. He discovered, too, that Miss Brett herself had an independent fortune, and that she, on her part, was absorbed by one dream and determination—that of succeeding in the dramatic profession, for which she had been carefully trained, and that she was merely taking advantage of her uncle and aunt's chaperonage for the furthering of her own particular scheme of life. No, if they were queer, they were certainly genuine; and if they were adventurers, it was not with any notion of gulling the British public.
As in this evening's talk he learned more of the Professor's immediate plans and interests, Lendon began to resent in an odd way the very indifference he seemed to show for Miss Brett's lonely position, and the easy manner in which he appeared to take it for granted that Fate would steer her safely through the troubled waters of a theatrical career. He could not help saying, when the Professor spoke of his return to the States as imminent—
"But surely you will not leave Miss Brett here alone?"
"Why not?" said the Professor calmly. "She has been alone all her life. She studied by herself in New York and Paris, and I presume London is no worse a place for a young woman than they are. Oh, Beaty is very well able to get along, though she looks so fragile."
"Suppose she should be ill?" said Lendon; "if she should have another fainting fit, like that of the other night, for instance?"
"That's true," said the Professor. "I guess she must keep as clear as she can of mixed magnetism; and if she does get upset, why there's Mrs. Cubison to look after her. She says it was that Countess Adrian that affected her. I've given her a good talking to. I've shown her how she ought to train herself to resist cross-magnetism: not that I ever knew Beaty affected like that before," he added thoughtfully.
Lendon glanced at Beatrice, who, while the others were talking, sat in front of the fire—for the evenings were very cold—her eyes fixed on the flames. By intuition, it seemed, they turned, as his sought hers, and she smiled a smile of frank, childlike confidence. His heart thrilled at the thought of this unspoken understanding. She counted on him to guard her against real and fancied evil—against the actual dangers of London, against the imaginary danger of Countess Adrian. This was what her look said; and then she turned bank again to the contemplation of the fire.
"Yes, there's Mrs. Cubison," repeated the Professor; "she'll nurse her if she is ill, and do the housekeeping, and keep off the sharks. Marmy is not good for much social business, but she is good for that."
Mrs. Cubison gave a fat laugh. "I'll do my best," she said, nodding at Beatrice, who took no notice; "but Beaty is kinder wilful, and hard to drive."
"Yet, if Miss Brett intends seriously to go on the stage, there should be some one, should there not, to take care of her professional interests?" said Lendon.
"Pull the wires, you mean, butter up the critics, tackle the managers, and supply the newspapers with paragraphs. But we are independent of wire-pulling, Mr. Lendon. Beaty is a born genius, and genius don't need bolstering up. She ain't going to bind herself down body and soul to any manager. She has gone through the drudgery, and now she means to produce herself. The London managers will be glad enough to take her on her own terms when they see what she can do. Her business man will do the dirty work for her; and as for other things, why I dare say you'll look in sometimes, Mr. Lendon, and give her and Marmy a bit of advice."
Lendon profited by the invitation, and during the next week or two made his way very often to the little house in Regent's Park. His visits were usually timed in the evening or late afternoon, and on most occasions he found Beatrice alone. Mrs. Cubison was a lady who evidently enjoyed and made the most of such society as was within her reach. She had a weakness for matinées at the theatres, and frequented drawing-room recitals and entertainments, for the most part got up by enterprising Americans who wanted to air their special views or to exhibit their special accomplishments. She had also an immense amount of shopping to do for herself and her friends, and accounted for her apparent extravagance on the plea that everything was so dear "on the other side." It must be owned that Lendon got sometimes a little bewildered among Mrs. Cubison's figures of speech, and was not always certain whether she meant the other side of the Atlantic or across the border? of Infinity. Mrs. Cubison occupied herself a good deal, as well, in visiting her English or American-English acquaintances. She had quite a large circle of friends, none of whom did Miss Beatrice appear to know, and who seemed for the greater number to live in the remoter parts of West Kensington and Notting Hill, or in Camden Town, or other distant regions. Thus it happened that, when she came home late and found Lendon talking to Beatrice, she seemed glad of the excuse to absent herself, declaring that Beaty couldn't be dull while he was there, and that she really must rest her poor head and legs, which were quite worn out. As for the Professor, he lived principally in his study when he was at home, and that was seldom: he seemed to be always flying over the country, to attend some mysterious meeting, or to consult some scientist, unknown to fame, on matters relating to the Viall-Motor. Lendon had a very imperfect comprehension of the properties of the Viall-Motor, shirking explanations with the Professor as one shirks discussing with its subject the details of harmless monomania, and amiably accepting it on the authority of Mrs. Walcot Valbry as something in the way of psychical electricity—so she called it—altogether wonderful and altogether indefinite, which, when it was completed, would supersede every other motive force in the world, but about which it would be time enough to think seriously when it was completed. His dominant feeling in regard to it at present was one of gratitude for the opportunities of unrestricted companionship with Beatrice which it afforded him.
Since the establishment of the compact between them, she seemed to take it for granted that he was to go and see her when he pleased; and many times he did so please. She always received him in her own little sitting-room, where her piano lay open, with its odd-looking score of vocal exercises on the desk, and which was strewn with her own particular books—her Shakespeare (of course, she held the Baconian theory, and studied the plays by the light of Mr. Donnelly's Cryptogram, and many a long argument had she on the subject with Lendon, who fought stoutly for the Bard of Avon), her dramatic critics, her Lessing, her Diderot, her Coleridge, her Charles Lamb, her Hazlitt, her George Henry Lewes. Sometimes they sat in the tiny walled garden, and sometimes they strolled into the Regent's Park, or even, when she was in a particularly frivolous mood, found their way to the Zoo.
He was careful not to speak to her of love; he saw that the time was not yet ripe; and then, too, her attitude towards him seemed as if intended to convey the impression that they met on a kind of neutral and shadowy ground, and that she did not belong to his world, nor he to hers. So far, indeed, he had not even been able to persuade her to visit his studio; she always made an excuse for putting off a serious proposition that he ventured to put forward; nor would she let him do guide-book for her, and show her the sights of London. She seemed to have an odd shrinking from glare and society. She lived in her books and her work, and, though shut out from her in one sense, it was sweet to him to feel that she allowed him to identify himself with these interests, and that in the quiet region of Art their spirits might come together. It pleased her sometimes to play the pupil, and to appeal to him to direct her reading; and, in truth, he found that, well educated, even cultured as she was, she had roved in very desultory and discursive fashion through the field of dramatic literature. He discovered that she was but poorly acquainted with the Elizabethan dramatists, and it was he who introduced her to Massinger's sweet and tender Camiola, the Maid of Honour; to Dekker's wild, impulsive and altogether womanly Roaring Girl; to Webster's beautiful and tragic Duchess of Malfi—a play of which he was particularly fond, and of the revival of which before a London audience he cherished wild dreams: he had talked about it more than once to Cosway Keele, and had even attempted a somewhat modernised version of the great work, but so far nothing had come of it; and Cosway Keele had always shaken his head, and declared that there was not a living actress who could play the part of the Duchess. Lendon gave the play now to Beatrice to study, and was delighted to find that she shared his admiration, and took the same noble and sympathetic view of the character as he himself, for to him the Duchess of Malfi was one of the ideal women. So the weeks wore on in the little house in Regent's Park. Never did actress lead simpler or more innocent life. She worked all the morning, practising elocution with Miravoglia, or gesture with an eminent lady-professor from the Paris Conservatoire, and then when she came home she studied her parts, and when Lendon was announced he often found her stretched in sheer fatigue on the sofa beneath the bulging casement-window and ready to yield herself, as a child might do, to a little deferential petting and sympathy.