The Soul of Countess Adrian. Rosa Campbell Praed

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       Rosa Campbell Praed

      The Soul of Countess Adrian

      Published by Good Press, 2020

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066424596

Table of Contents

       I. A Meeting on the Sea

       II. The Improvisatrice

       III. A Modern Mystic

       IV. The Actress at Home

       V. Tea in the Studio

       VI. Countess Adrian's Sky-Parlour

       VII. Countess Adrian's Portrait

       VIII. The Great Night

       IX. Mrs. Walcot Valbry's Ball

       X. The Avatar

       XI. The Exorcism

      I. A Meeting on the Sea

      CHAPTER I.

       Table of Contents

      A Meeting on the Sea.

      He, She and Another—the triangle of the human drama! He was a rich, popular, unmarried artist, now on his return from a tour in the Western States. She was a young American actress, for whom her friends prophesied a great future. The "Other" was as yet unknown. He and She were fellow-passengers on board one of the North German Lloyd boats from New York to Southampton. They had been at sea several days, but had not so far made acquaintance. The early part of the voyage was rough; and though he was a good sailor, and ate, and smoked, and paced the deck with as much ease as the motion of the vessel would allow, she had neither his courage nor his hardihood, and did not even put in an appearance in the saloon or the reading-room.

      It was on the sixth evening that he was struck at dinner by the sight of a new face, and saw that the hitherto vacant chair on the left hand of the captain was filled at last. He was glad to find that its occupant was a young woman—hardly more than a girl—and, moreover, that she was very beautiful. There could not be two opinions as to her beauty, though he mentally decided that it was of a kind which would not appeal with equal force to all tastes; certainly, it would not appeal at all to admirers of the fleshly type, who prefer the charm of sense to that of soul.

      It seemed to Lendon—so he was called—that this young lady's soul might he likened, as in Dryden's metaphor, to a rare and well-tempered blade fretting its too delicate scabbard, so frail was her physique, so ethereal her look. Her face was very pale, but its paleness was not that of ill health. It had no lines, and the shadows beneath her eyes and around the curve of her cheek melted into each other, so that there seemed perfect softness and no shadow. Her features were small and regular, the nose delicately curved, and the nostrils slightly distended, thus giving a look of quick sensibility. She had one of those mobile mouths—the shape of a strung bow, in which the under lip goes up to meet the curve of the upper—which are said to be a sign of histrionic genius. Her eyes were blue, very clear and wide open, with an innocent irresponsible expression; and her hair, profuse in quantity, was pale yellow, and had a sort of life of its own, each strand seeming to stand apart and to reflect the light like a filament of spun glass.

      All this Lendon took in by a succession of quick glances; at last he asked his neighbour, "Who is that young lady?" The gentleman he addressed pulled out of his pocket a list of the passengers and proceeded to mark off and identify the row of people opposite, then he appealed to a ship's officer on the other side of him for information, and finally turned to Lendon.

      "Her name is Brett," he said, "Miss Beatrice Brett; she's a singer or a performer of some sort, and she's going to join her relations in England and work the newspaper people over there, so that she can come back and make a boom with what they call a European reputation. As if an American reputation wasn't good enough! But that's the way with all of them. She's travelling by herself, and she's under the captain's charge. Pretty, ain't she?—but too like a ghost to suit my style."

      Lendon continued to glance from time to time at Miss Brett, and, as was natural to him, theories concerning her began to shape themselves in his mind. He was quite certain that she did not want to "make a boom." He could imagine nothing more repugnant to her temperament than the vulgar process of "working the newspaper people." He was sure, too, that she was not a singer—she hadn't the sort of throat, he said to himself; and certainly she was not one of those Western lecturing women who can spout forth Art, Hygiene, or Free Love as commercial opportunities present themselves. Yet she had the expression of one absorbed in a purpose, whose mind was constantly dwelling upon her purpose, and who was determined at all labour to carry it through. He wondered what that purpose could be. The band was playing, as it always does at dinner on the German line of boats. He knew the music; it was a dreamy dance in a popular ballet, which had been new and the rage when he left London. He watched the girl's face as she bent forward a little to listen. It gave him pleasure to see how her sensitive lip trembled, how her eyes gathered intensity, and her nervous lingers clasped and unclasped each other. He admired the way in which her hair grew, and wondered if it would be possible to make a sketch of her, which later he might work up into a fancy picture.

      As soon as dinner was over, Miss Brett got up and went into her cabin. The next day the weather was very fine, and during the band promenade nearly all the sick people found their way up on deck. Among them was Miss Brett. She came up leaning on the arm of the captain, who, having seated her in her long armchair and covered her with her buffalo robe, left her to the company of her books. She had two, Lendon noticed—one, a new novel with the pages uncut, the other a worn-looking volume which, from its sober Russia leather binding and quiet lettering, might have been taken for either the Bible or Shakespeare. Lendon jumped to the conclusion that it was Shakespeare, and, as it proved, was right.

      For a German band, the music that morning was distinctly uninteresting. The noisy march, to which most of the promenaders kept time with a. cheerful effort, seemed no more to Miss Brett's taste than it was to Lendon's. She lay back for a little while and listened impatiently. Then she tried Shakespeare: he had stolen along the bulwarks, and a furtive glance had told him that the play was Macbeth. Presently she closed the volume with a sigh, and began to turn over the leaves of the novel. The paper-cutter slipped from her lap, and was carried along the deck. This was Lendon's opportunity; he picked it up, and handed it back to her. She thanked him with a smile that was very sweet and childlike. She began to cut the leaves, but her muffiings embarrassed her.

      "Allow me," said Lendon, deferentially. He took the book from her, and began to cut it with great deliberation. As he did so, he made some observations on the weather and the aspect of the sea, which broke the ice between them. He ventured to inquire if she had suffered much during the rough