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diff --git a/2717-h/2717-h.htm b/2717-h/2717-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..45579cc --- /dev/null +++ b/2717-h/2717-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1775 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Nona Vincent, by Henry James</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Nona Vincent, by Henry James + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Nona Vincent + + +Author: Henry James + + + +Release Date: February 15, 2015 [eBook #2717] +[This file was first posted on July 3, 2000] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NONA VINCENT*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from 1893 Macmillan and Co. edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org. Proofed by Nina Hall, Mohua +Sen, Bridie, Francine Smith and David.</p> +<h1>NONA VINCENT.</h1> +<h2>I.</h2> +<p>“I <span class="smcap">wondered</span> whether you +wouldn’t read it to me,” said Mrs. Alsager, as they +lingered a little near the fire before he took leave. She +looked down at the fire sideways, drawing her dress away from it +and making her proposal with a shy sincerity that added to her +charm. Her charm was always great for Allan Wayworth, and +the whole air of her house, which was simply a sort of +distillation of herself, so soothing, so beguiling that he always +made several false starts before departure. He had spent +some such good hours there, had forgotten, in her warm, golden +drawing-room, so much of the loneliness and so many of the +worries of his life, that it had come to be the immediate answer +to his longings, the cure for his aches, the harbour of refuge +from his storms. His tribulations were not unprecedented, +and some of his advantages, if of a usual kind, were marked in +degree, inasmuch as he was very clever for one so young, and very +independent for one so poor. He was eight-and-twenty, but +he had lived a good deal and was full of ambitions and +curiosities and disappointments. The opportunity to talk of +some of these in Grosvenor Place corrected perceptibly the +immense inconvenience of London. This inconvenience took +for him principally the line of insensibility to Allan +Wayworth’s literary form. He had a literary form, or +he thought he had, and her intelligent recognition of the +circumstance was the sweetest consolation Mrs. Alsager could have +administered. She was even more literary and more artistic +than he, inasmuch as he could often work off his overflow (this +was his occupation, his profession), while the generous woman, +abounding in happy thoughts, but unedited and unpublished, stood +there in the rising tide like the nymph of a fountain in the +plash of the marble basin.</p> +<p>The year before, in a big newspapery house, he had found +himself next her at dinner, and they had converted the intensely +material hour into a feast of reason. There was no motive +for her asking him to come to see her but that she liked him, +which it was the more agreeable to him to perceive as he +perceived at the same time that she was exquisite. She was +enviably free to act upon her likings, and it made Wayworth feel +less unsuccessful to infer that for the moment he happened to be +one of them. He kept the revelation to himself, and indeed +there was nothing to turn his head in the kindness of a kind +woman. Mrs. Alsager occupied so completely the ground of +possession that she would have been condemned to inaction had it +not been for the principle of giving. Her husband, who was +twenty years her senior, a massive personality in the City and a +heavy one at home (wherever he stood, or even sat, he was +monumental), owned half a big newspaper and the whole of a great +many other things. He admired his wife, though she bore no +children, and liked her to have other tastes than his, as that +seemed to give a greater acreage to their life. His own +appetites went so far he could scarcely see the boundary, and his +theory was to trust her to push the limits of hers, so that +between them the pair should astound by their consumption. +His ideas were prodigiously vulgar, but some of them had the good +fortune to be carried out by a person of perfect delicacy. +Her delicacy made her play strange tricks with them, but he never +found this out. She attenuated him without his knowing it, +for what he mainly thought was that he had aggrandised +<i>her</i>. Without her he really would have been bigger +still, and society, breathing more freely, was practically under +an obligation to her which, to do it justice, it acknowledged by +an attitude of mystified respect. She felt a tremulous need +to throw her liberty and her leisure into the things of the +soul—the most beautiful things she knew. She found +them, when she gave time to seeking, in a hundred places, and +particularly in a dim and sacred region—the region of +active pity—over her entrance into which she dropped +curtains so thick that it would have been an impertinence to lift +them. But she cultivated other beneficent passions, and if +she cherished the dream of something fine the moments at which it +most seemed to her to come true were when she saw beauty plucked +flower-like in the garden of art. She loved the perfect +work—she had the artistic chord. This chord could +vibrate only to the touch of another, so that appreciation, in +her spirit, had the added intensity of regret. She could +understand the joy of creation, and she thought it scarcely +enough to be told that she herself created happiness. She +would have liked, at any rate, to choose her way; but it was just +here that her liberty failed her. She had not the +voice—she had only the vision. The only envy she was +capable of was directed to those who, as she said, could do +something.</p> +<p>As everything in her, however, turned to gentleness, she was +admirably hospitable to such people as a class. She +believed Allan Wayworth could do something, and she liked to hear +him talk of the ways in which he meant to show it. He +talked of them almost to no one else—she spoiled him for +other listeners. With her fair bloom and her quiet grace +she was indeed an ideal public, and if she had ever confided to +him that she would have liked to scribble (she had in fact not +mentioned it to a creature), he would have been in a perfect +position for asking her why a woman whose face had so much +expression should not have felt that she achieved. How in +the world could she express better? There was less than +that in Shakespeare and Beethoven. She had never been more +generous than when, in compliance with her invitation, which I +have recorded, he brought his play to read to her. He had +spoken of it to her before, and one dark November afternoon, when +her red fireside was more than ever an escape from the place and +the season, he had broken out as he came +in—“I’ve done it, I’ve done +it!” She made him tell her all about it—she +took an interest really minute and asked questions delightfully +apt. She had spoken from the first as if he were on the +point of being acted, making him jump, with her participation, +all sorts of dreary intervals. She liked the theatre as she +liked all the arts of expression, and he had known her to go all +the way to Paris for a particular performance. Once he had +gone with her—the time she took that stupid Mrs. +Mostyn. She had been struck, when he sketched it, with the +subject of his drama, and had spoken words that helped him to +believe in it. As soon as he had rung down his curtain on +the last act he rushed off to see her, but after that he kept the +thing for repeated last touches. Finally, on Christmas day, +by arrangement, she sat there and listened to it. It was in +three acts and in prose, but rather of the romantic order, though +dealing with contemporary English life, and he fondly believed +that it showed the hand if not of the master, at least of the +prize pupil.</p> +<p>Allan Wayworth had returned to England, at two-and-twenty, +after a miscellaneous continental education; his father, the +correspondent, for years, in several foreign countries +successively, of a conspicuous London journal, had died just +after this, leaving his mother and her two other children, +portionless girls, to subsist on a very small income in a very +dull German town. The young man’s beginnings in +London were difficult, and he had aggravated them by his dislike +of journalism. His father’s connection with it would +have helped him, but he was (insanely, most of his friends +judged—the great exception was always Mrs. Alsager) +<i>intraitable</i> on the question of form. Form—in +his sense—was not demanded by English newspapers, and he +couldn’t give it to them in <i>their</i> sense. The +demand for it was not great anywhere, and Wayworth spent costly +weeks in polishing little compositions for magazines that +didn’t pay for style. The only person who paid for it +was really Mrs. Alsager: she had an infallible instinct for the +perfect. She paid in her own way, and if Allan Wayworth had +been a wage-earning person it would have made him feel that if he +didn’t receive his legal dues his palm was at least +occasionally conscious of a gratuity. He had his +limitations, his perversities, but the finest parts of him were +the most alive, and he was restless and sincere. It is +however the impression he produced on Mrs. Alsager that most +concerns us: she thought him not only remarkably good-looking but +altogether original. There were some usual bad things he +would never do—too many prohibitive puddles for him in the +short cut to success.</p> +<p>For himself, he had never been so happy as since he had seen +his way, as he fondly believed, to some sort of mastery of the +scenic idea, which struck him as a very different matter now that +he looked at it from within. He had had his early days of +contempt for it, when it seemed to him a jewel, dim at the best, +hidden in a dunghill, a taper burning low in an air thick with +vulgarity. It was hedged about with sordid approaches, it +was not worth sacrifice and suffering. The man of letters, +in dealing with it, would have to put off all literature, which +was like asking the bearer of a noble name to forego his +immemorial heritage. Aspects change, however, with the +point of view: Wayworth had waked up one morning in a different +bed altogether. It is needless here to trace this accident +to its source; it would have been much more interesting to a +spectator of the young man’s life to follow some of the +consequences. He had been made (as he felt) the subject of +a special revelation, and he wore his hat like a man in +love. An angel had taken him by the hand and guided him to +the shabby door which opens, it appeared, into an interior both +splendid and austere. The scenic idea was magnificent when +once you had embraced it—the dramatic form had a purity +which made some others look ingloriously rough. It had the +high dignity of the exact sciences, it was mathematical and +architectural. It was full of the refreshment of +calculation and construction, the incorruptibility of line and +law. It was bare, but it was erect, it was poor, but it was +noble; it reminded him of some sovereign famed for justice who +should have lived in a palace despoiled. There was a +fearful amount of concession in it, but what you kept had a rare +intensity. You were perpetually throwing over the cargo to +save the ship, but what a motion you gave her when you made her +ride the waves—a motion as rhythmic as the dance of a +goddess! Wayworth took long London walks and thought of +these things—London poured into his ears the mighty hum of +its suggestion. His imagination glowed and melted down +material, his intentions multiplied and made the air a golden +haze. He saw not only the thing he should do, but the next +and the next and the next; the future opened before him and he +seemed to walk on marble slabs. The more he tried the +dramatic form the more he loved it, the more he looked at it the +more he perceived in it. What he perceived in it indeed he +now perceived everywhere; if he stopped, in the London dusk, +before some flaring shop-window, the place immediately +constituted itself behind footlights, became a framed stage for +his figures. He hammered at these figures in his lonely +lodging, he shaped them and he shaped their tabernacle; he was +like a goldsmith chiselling a casket, bent over with the passion +for perfection. When he was neither roaming the streets +with his vision nor worrying his problem at his table, he was +exchanging ideas on the general question with Mrs. Alsager, to +whom he promised details that would amuse her in later and still +happier hours. Her eyes were full of tears when he read her +the last words of the finished work, and she murmured, +divinely—</p> +<p>“And now—to get it done, to get it +done!”</p> +<p>“Yes, indeed—to get it done!” Wayworth +stared at the fire, slowly rolling up his type-copy. +“But that’s a totally different part of the business, +and altogether secondary.”</p> +<p>“But of course you want to be acted?”</p> +<p>“Of course I do—but it’s a sudden +descent. I want to intensely, but I’m sorry I want +to.”</p> +<p>“It’s there indeed that the difficulties +begin,” said Mrs. Alsager, a little off her guard.</p> +<p>“How can you say that? It’s there that they +end!”</p> +<p>“Ah, wait to see where they end!”</p> +<p>“I mean they’ll now be of a totally different +order,” Wayworth explained. “It seems to me +there can be nothing in the world more difficult than to write a +play that will stand an all-round test, and that in comparison +with them the complications that spring up at this point are of +an altogether smaller kind.”</p> +<p>“Yes, they’re not inspiring,” said Mrs. +Alsager; “they’re discouraging, because they’re +vulgar. The other problem, the working out of the thing +itself, is pure art.”</p> +<p>“How well you understand everything!” The +young man had got up, nervously, and was leaning against the +chimney-piece with his back to the fire and his arms +folded. The roll of his copy, in his fist, was squeezed +into the hollow of one of them. He looked down at Mrs. +Alsager, smiling gratefully, and she answered him with a smile +from eyes still charmed and suffused. “Yes, the +vulgarity will begin now,” he presently added.</p> +<p>“You’ll suffer dreadfully.”</p> +<p>“I shall suffer in a good cause.”</p> +<p>“Yes, giving <i>that</i> to the world! You must +leave it with me, I must read it over and over,” Mrs. +Alsager pleaded, rising to come nearer and draw the copy, in its +cover of greenish-grey paper, which had a generic identity now to +him, out of his grasp. “Who in the world will do +it?—who in the world <i>can</i>?” she went on, close +to him, turning over the leaves. Before he could answer she +had stopped at one of the pages; she turned the book round to +him, pointing out a speech. “That’s the most +beautiful place—those lines are a perfection.” +He glanced at the spot she indicated, and she begged him to read +them again—he had read them admirably before. He knew +them by heart, and, closing the book while she held the other end +of it, he murmured them over to her—they had indeed a +cadence that pleased him—watching, with a facetious +complacency which he hoped was pardonable, the applause in her +face. “Ah, who can utter such lines as +<i>that</i>?” Mrs. Alsager broke out; “whom can you +find to do <i>her</i>?”</p> +<p>“We’ll find people to do them all!”</p> +<p>“But not people who are worthy.”</p> +<p>“They’ll be worthy enough if they’re willing +enough. I’ll work with them—I’ll grind it +into them.” He spoke as if he had produced twenty +plays.</p> +<p>“Oh, it will be interesting!” she echoed.</p> +<p>“But I shall have to find my theatre first. I +shall have to get a manager to believe in me.”</p> +<p>“Yes—they’re so stupid!”</p> +<p>“But fancy the patience I shall want, and how I shall +have to watch and wait,” said Allan Wayworth. +“Do you see me hawking it about London?”</p> +<p>“Indeed I don’t—it would be +sickening.”</p> +<p>“It’s what I shall have to do. I shall be +old before it’s produced.”</p> +<p>“I shall be old very soon if it isn’t!” Mrs. +Alsager cried. “I know one or two of them,” she +mused.</p> +<p>“Do you mean you would speak to them?”</p> +<p>“The thing is to get them to read it. I could do +that.”</p> +<p>“That’s the utmost I ask. But it’s +even for that I shall have to wait.”</p> +<p>She looked at him with kind sisterly eyes. “You +sha’n’t wait.”</p> +<p>“Ah, you dear lady!” Wayworth murmured.</p> +<p>“That is <i>you</i> may, but <i>I</i> won’t! +Will you leave me your copy?” she went on, turning the +pages again.</p> +<p>“Certainly; I have another.” Standing near +him she read to herself a passage here and there; then, in her +sweet voice, she read some of them out. “Oh, if +<i>you</i> were only an actress!” the young man +exclaimed.</p> +<p>“That’s the last thing I am. There’s +no comedy in <i>me</i>!”</p> +<p>She had never appeared to Wayworth so much his good +genius. “Is there any tragedy?” he asked, with +the levity of complete confidence.</p> +<p>She turned away from him, at this, with a strange and charming +laugh and a “Perhaps that will be for you to +determine!” But before he could disclaim such a +responsibility she had faced him again and was talking about Nona +Vincent as if she had been the most interesting of their friends +and her situation at that moment an irresistible appeal to their +sympathy. Nona Vincent was the heroine of the play, and +Mrs. Alsager had taken a tremendous fancy to her. “I +can’t <i>tell</i> you how I like that woman!” she +exclaimed in a pensive rapture of credulity which could only be +balm to the artistic spirit.</p> +<p>“I’m awfully glad she lives a bit. What I +feel about her is that she’s a good deal like +<i>you</i>,” Wayworth observed.</p> +<p>Mrs. Alsager stared an instant and turned faintly red. +This was evidently a view that failed to strike her; she +didn’t, however, treat it as a joke. “I’m +not impressed with the resemblance. I don’t see +myself doing what she does.”</p> +<p>“It isn’t so much what she <i>does</i>,” the +young man argued, drawing out his moustache.</p> +<p>“But what she does is the whole point. She simply +tells her love—I should never do that.”</p> +<p>“If you repudiate such a proceeding with such energy, +why do you like her for it?”</p> +<p>“It isn’t what I like her for.”</p> +<p>“What else, then? That’s intensely +characteristic.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Alsager reflected, looking down at the fire; she had the +air of having half-a-dozen reasons to choose from. But the +one she produced was unexpectedly simple; it might even have been +prompted by despair at not finding others. “I like +her because <i>you</i> made her!” she exclaimed with a +laugh, moving again away from her companion.</p> +<p>Wayworth laughed still louder. “You made her a +little yourself. I’ve thought of her as looking like +you.”</p> +<p>“She ought to look much better,” said Mrs. +Alsager. “No, certainly, I shouldn’t do what +<i>she</i> does.”</p> +<p>“Not even in the same circumstances?”</p> +<p>“I should never find myself in such circumstances. +They’re exactly your play, and have nothing in common with +such a life as mine. However,” Mrs. Alsager went on, +“her behaviour was natural for <i>her</i>, and not only +natural, but, it seems to me, thoroughly beautiful and +noble. I can’t sufficiently admire the talent and +tact with which you make one accept it, and I tell you frankly +that it’s evident to me there must be a brilliant future +before a young man who, at the start, has been capable of such a +stroke as that. Thank heaven I can admire Nona Vincent as +intensely as I feel that I don’t resemble her!”</p> +<p>“Don’t exaggerate that,” said Allan +Wayworth.</p> +<p>“My admiration?”</p> +<p>“Your dissimilarity. She has your face, your air, +your voice, your motion; she has many elements of your +being.”</p> +<p>“Then she’ll damn your play!” Mrs. Alsager +replied. They joked a little over this, though it was not +in the tone of pleasantry that Wayworth’s hostess soon +remarked: “You’ve got your remedy, however: have her +done by the right woman.”</p> +<p>“Oh, have her ‘done’—have her +‘done’!” the young man gently wailed.</p> +<p>“I see what you mean, my poor friend. What a pity, +when it’s such a magnificent part—such a chance for a +clever serious girl! Nona Vincent is practically your +play—it will be open to her to carry it far or to drop it +at the first corner.”</p> +<p>“It’s a charming prospect,” said Allan +Wayworth, with sudden scepticism. They looked at each other +with eyes that, for a lurid moment, saw the worst of the worst; +but before they parted they had exchanged vows and confidences +that were dedicated wholly to the ideal. It is not to be +supposed, however, that the knowledge that Mrs. Alsager would +help him made Wayworth less eager to help himself. He did +what he could and felt that she, on her side, was doing no less; +but at the end of a year he was obliged to recognise that their +united effort had mainly produced the fine flower of +discouragement. At the end of a year the lustre had, to his +own eyes, quite faded from his unappreciated masterpiece, and he +found himself writing for a biographical dictionary little lives +of celebrities he had never heard of. To be printed, +anywhere and anyhow, was a form of glory for a man so unable to +be acted, and to be paid, even at encyclopædic rates, had +the consequence of making one resigned and verbose. He +couldn’t smuggle style into a dictionary, but he could at +least reflect that he had done his best to learn from the drama +that it is a gross impertinence almost anywhere. He had +knocked at the door of every theatre in London, and, at a ruinous +expense, had multiplied type-copies of <i>Nona Vincent</i> to +replace the neat transcripts that had descended into the +managerial abyss. His play was not even declined—no +such flattering intimation was given him that it had been +read. What the managers would do for Mrs. Alsager concerned +him little today; the thing that was relevant was that they would +do nothing for <i>him</i>. That charming woman felt humbled +to the earth, so little response had she had from the powers on +which she counted. The two never talked about the play now, +but he tried to show her a still finer friendship, that she might +not think he felt she had failed him. He still walked about +London with his dreams, but as months succeeded months and he +left the year behind him they were dreams not so much of success +as of revenge. Success seemed a colourless name for the +reward of his patience; something fiercely florid, something +sanguinolent was more to the point. His best consolation +however was still in the scenic idea; it was not till now that he +discovered how incurably he was in love with it. By the +time a vain second year had chafed itself away he cherished his +fruitless faculty the more for the obloquy it seemed to +suffer. He lived, in his best hours, in a world of subjects +and situations; he wrote another play and made it as different +from its predecessor as such a very good thing could be. It +might be a very good thing, but when he had committed it to the +theatrical limbo indiscriminating fate took no account of the +difference. He was at last able to leave England for three +or four months; he went to Germany to pay a visit long deferred +to his mother and sisters.</p> +<p>Shortly before the time he had fixed for his return he +received from Mrs. Alsager a telegram consisting of the words: +“Loder wishes see you—putting <i>Nona</i> instant +rehearsal.” He spent the few hours before his +departure in kissing his mother and sisters, who knew enough +about Mrs. Alsager to judge it lucky this respectable married +lady was not there—a relief, however, accompanied with +speculative glances at London and the morrow. Loder, as our +young man was aware, meant the new “Renaissance,” but +though he reached home in the evening it was not to this +convenient modern theatre that Wayworth first proceeded. He +spent a late hour with Mrs. Alsager, an hour that throbbed with +calculation. She told him that Mr. Loder was charming, he +had simply taken up the play in its turn; he had hopes of it, +moreover, that on the part of a professional pessimist might +almost be qualified as ecstatic. It had been cast, with a +margin for objections, and Violet Grey was to do the +heroine. She had been capable, while he was away, of a good +piece of work at that foggy old playhouse the +“Legitimate;” the piece was a clumsy +<i>réchauffé</i>, but she at least had been +fresh. Wayworth remembered Violet Grey—hadn’t +he, for two years, on a fond policy of “looking out,” +kept dipping into the London theatres to pick up prospective +interpreters? He had not picked up many as yet, and this +young lady at all events had never wriggled in his net. She +was pretty and she was odd, but he had never prefigured her as +Nona Vincent, nor indeed found himself attracted by what he +already felt sufficiently launched in the profession to speak of +as her artistic personality. Mrs. Alsager was +different—she declared that she had been struck not a +little by some of her tones. The girl was interesting in +the thing at the “Legitimate,” and Mr. Loder, who had +his eye on her, described her as ambitious and intelligent. +She wanted awfully to get on—and some of those ladies were +so lazy! Wayworth was sceptical—he had seen Miss +Violet Grey, who was terribly itinerant, in a dozen theatres but +only in one aspect. Nona Vincent had a dozen aspects, but +only one theatre; yet with what a feverish curiosity the young +man promised himself to watch the actress on the morrow! +Talking the matter over with Mrs. Alsager now seemed the very +stuff that rehearsal was made of. The near prospect of +being acted laid a finger even on the lip of inquiry; he wanted +to go on tiptoe till the first night, to make no condition but +that they should speak his lines, and he felt that he +wouldn’t so much as raise an eyebrow at the scene-painter +if he should give him an old oak chamber.</p> +<p>He became conscious, the next day, that his danger would be +other than this, and yet he couldn’t have expressed to +himself what it would be. Danger was there, +doubtless—danger was everywhere, in the world of art, and +still more in the world of commerce; but what he really seemed to +catch, for the hour, was the beating of the wings of +victory. Nothing could undermine that, since it was victory +simply to be acted. It would be victory even to be acted +badly; a reflection that didn’t prevent him, however, from +banishing, in his politic optimism, the word “bad” +from his vocabulary. It had no application, in the +compromise of practice; it didn’t apply even to his play, +which he was conscious he had already outlived and as to which he +foresaw that, in the coming weeks, frequent alarm would +alternate, in his spirit, with frequent esteem. When he +went down to the dusky daylit theatre (it arched over him like +the temple of fame) Mr. Loder, who was as charming as Mrs. +Alsager had announced, struck him as the genius of +hospitality. The manager began to explain why, for so long, +he had given no sign; but that was the last thing that interested +Wayworth now, and he could never remember afterwards what reasons +Mr. Loder had enumerated. He liked, in the whole business +of discussion and preparation, even the things he had thought he +should probably dislike, and he revelled in those he had thought +he should like. He watched Miss Violet Grey that evening +with eyes that sought to penetrate her possibilities. She +certainly had a few; they were qualities of voice and face, +qualities perhaps even of intelligence; he sat there at any rate +with a fostering, coaxing attention, repeating over to himself as +convincingly as he could that she was not common—a +circumstance all the more creditable as the part she was playing +seemed to him desperately so. He perceived that this was +why it pleased the audience; he divined that it was the part they +enjoyed rather than the actress. He had a private panic, +wondering how, if they liked <i>that</i> form, they could +possibly like his. His form had now become quite an +ultimate idea to him. By the time the evening was over some +of Miss Violet Grey’s features, several of the turns of her +head, a certain vibration of her voice, had taken their place in +the same category. She <i>was</i> interesting, she was +distinguished; at any rate he had accepted her: it came to the +same thing. But he left the theatre that night without +speaking to her—moved (a little even to his own +mystification) by an odd procrastinating impulse. On the +morrow he was to read his three acts to the company, and then he +should have a good deal to say; what he felt for the moment was a +vague indisposition to commit himself. Moreover he found a +slight confusion of annoyance in the fact that though he had been +trying all the evening to look at Nona Vincent in Violet +Grey’s person, what subsisted in his vision was simply +Violet Grey in Nona’s. He didn’t wish to see +the actress so directly, or even so simply as that; and it had +been very fatiguing, the effort to focus Nona both through the +performer and through the “Legitimate.” Before +he went to bed that night he posted three words to Mrs. +Alsager—“She’s not a bit like it, but I dare +say I can make her do.”</p> +<p>He was pleased with the way the actress listened, the next +day, at the reading; he was pleased indeed with many things, at +the reading, and most of all with the reading itself. The +whole affair loomed large to him and he magnified it and mapped +it out. He enjoyed his occupation of the big, dim, hollow +theatre, full of the echoes of “effect” and of a +queer smell of gas and success—it all seemed such a passive +canvas for his picture. For the first time in his life he +was in command of resources; he was acquainted with the phrase, +but had never thought he should know the feeling. He was +surprised at what Loder appeared ready to do, though he reminded +himself that he must never show it. He foresaw that there +would be two distinct concomitants to the artistic effort of +producing a play, one consisting of a great deal of anguish and +the other of a great deal of amusement. He looked back upon +the reading, afterwards, as the best hour in the business, +because it was then that the piece had most struck him as +represented. What came later was the doing of others; but +this, with its imperfections and failures, was all his own. +The drama lived, at any rate, for that hour, with an intensity +that it was promptly to lose in the poverty and patchiness of +rehearsal; he could see its life reflected, in a way that was +sweet to him, in the stillness of the little semi-circle of +attentive and inscrutable, of water-proofed and muddy-booted, +actors. Miss Violet Grey was the auditor he had most to say +to, and he tried on the spot, across the shabby stage, to let her +have the soul of her part. Her attitude was graceful, but +though she appeared to listen with all her faculties her face +remained perfectly blank; a fact, however, not discouraging to +Wayworth, who liked her better for not being premature. Her +companions gave discernible signs of recognising the passages of +comedy; yet Wayworth forgave her even then for being +inexpressive. She evidently wished before everything else +to be simply sure of what it was all about.</p> +<p>He was more surprised even than at the revelation of the scale +on which Mr. Loder was ready to proceed by the discovery that +some of the actors didn’t like their parts, and his heart +sank as he asked himself what he could possibly do with them if +they were going to be so stupid. This was the first of his +disappointments; somehow he had expected every individual to +become instantly and gratefully conscious of a rare opportunity, +and from the moment such a calculation failed he was at sea, or +mindful at any rate that more disappointments would come. +It was impossible to make out what the manager liked or disliked; +no judgment, no comment escaped him; his acceptance of the play +and his views about the way it should be mounted had apparently +converted him into a veiled and shrouded figure. Wayworth +was able to grasp the idea that they would all move now in a +higher and sharper air than that of compliment and +confidence. When he talked with Violet Grey after the +reading he gathered that she was really rather crude: what better +proof of it could there be than her failure to break out +instantly with an expression of delight about her great +chance? This reserve, however, had evidently nothing to do +with high pretensions; she had no wish to make him feel that a +person of her eminence was superior to easy raptures. He +guessed, after a little, that she was puzzled and even somewhat +frightened—to a certain extent she had not +understood. Nothing could appeal to him more than the +opportunity to clear up her difficulties, in the course of the +examination of which he quickly discovered that, so far as she +<i>had</i> understood, she had understood wrong. If she was +crude it was only a reason the more for talking to her; he kept +saying to her “Ask me—ask me: ask me everything you +can think of.”</p> +<p>She asked him, she was perpetually asking him, and at the +first rehearsals, which were without form and void to a degree +that made them strike him much more as the death of an experiment +than as the dawn of a success, they threshed things out immensely +in a corner of the stage, with the effect of his coming to feel +that at any rate she was in earnest. He felt more and more +that his heroine was the keystone of his arch, for which indeed +the actress was very ready to take her. But when he +reminded this young lady of the way the whole thing practically +depended on her she was alarmed and even slightly scandalised: +she spoke more than once as if that could scarcely be the right +way to construct a play—make it stand or fall by one poor +nervous girl. She was almost morbidly conscientious, and in +theory he liked her for this, though he lost patience three or +four times with the things she couldn’t do and the things +she could. At such times the tears came to her eyes; but +they were produced by her own stupidity, she hastened to assure +him, not by the way he spoke, which was awfully kind under the +circumstances. Her sincerity made her beautiful, and he +wished to heaven (and made a point of telling her so) that she +could sprinkle a little of it over Nona. Once, however, she +was so touched and troubled that the sight of it brought the +tears for an instant to his own eyes; and it so happened that, +turning at this moment, he found himself face to face with Mr. +Loder. The manager stared, glanced at the actress, who +turned in the other direction, and then smiling at Wayworth, +exclaimed, with the humour of a man who heard the gallery laugh +every night:</p> +<p>“I say—I say!”</p> +<p>“What’s the matter?” Wayworth asked.</p> +<p>“I’m glad to see Miss Grey is taking such pains +with you.”</p> +<p>“Oh, yes—she’ll turn me out!” said the +young man, gaily. He was quite aware that it was apparent +he was not superficial about Nona, and abundantly determined, +into the bargain, that the rehearsal of the piece should not +sacrifice a shade of thoroughness to any extrinsic +consideration.</p> +<p>Mrs. Alsager, whom, late in the afternoon, he used often to go +and ask for a cup of tea, thanking her in advance for the rest +she gave him and telling her how he found that rehearsal (as +<i>they</i> were doing it—it was a caution!) took it out of +one—Mrs. Alsager, more and more his good genius and, as he +repeatedly assured her, his ministering angel, confirmed him in +this superior policy and urged him on to every form of artistic +devotion. She had, naturally, never been more interested +than now in his work; she wanted to hear everything about +everything. She treated him as heroically fatigued, plied +him with luxurious restoratives, made him stretch himself on +cushions and rose-leaves. They gossipped more than ever, by +her fire, about the artistic life; he confided to her, for +instance, all his hopes and fears, all his experiments and +anxieties, on the subject of the representative of Nona. +She was immensely interested in this young lady and showed it by +taking a box again and again (she had seen her half-a-dozen times +already), to study her capacity through the veil of her present +part. Like Allan Wayworth she found her encouraging only by +fits, for she had fine flashes of badness. She was +intelligent, but she cried aloud for training, and the training +was so absent that the intelligence had only a fraction of its +effect. She was like a knife without an edge—good +steel that had never been sharpened; she hacked away at her hard +dramatic loaf, she couldn’t cut it smooth.</p> +<h2>II.</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Certainly</span> my leading lady +won’t make Nona much like <i>you</i>!” Wayworth one +day gloomily remarked to Mrs. Alsager. There were days when +the prospect seemed to him awful.</p> +<p>“So much the better. There’s no necessity +for that.”</p> +<p>“I wish you’d train her a little—you could +so easily,” the young man went on; in response to which +Mrs. Alsager requested him not to make such cruel fun of +her. But she was curious about the girl, wanted to hear of +her character, her private situation, how she lived and where, +seemed indeed desirous to befriend her. Wayworth might not +have known much about the private situation of Miss Violet Grey, +but, as it happened, he was able, by the time his play had been +three weeks in rehearsal, to supply information on such +points. She was a charming, exemplary person, educated, +cultivated, with highly modern tastes, an excellent +musician. She had lost her parents and was very much alone +in the world, her only two relations being a sister, who was +married to a civil servant (in a highly responsible post) in +India, and a dear little old-fashioned aunt (really a great-aunt) +with whom she lived at Notting Hill, who wrote children’s +books and who, it appeared, had once written a Christmas +pantomime. It was quite an artistic home—not on the +scale of Mrs. Alsager’s (to compare the smallest things +with the greatest!) but intensely refined and honourable. +Wayworth went so far as to hint that it would be rather nice and +human on Mrs. Alsager’s part to go there—they would +take it so kindly if she should call on them. She had acted +so often on his hints that he had formed a pleasant habit of +expecting it: it made him feel so wisely responsible about giving +them. But this one appeared to fall to the ground, so that +he let the subject drop. Mrs. Alsager, however, went yet +once more to the “Legitimate,” as he found by her +saying to him abruptly, on the morrow: “Oh, she’ll be +very good—she’ll be very good.” When they +said “she,” in these days, they always meant Violet +Grey, though they pretended, for the most part, that they meant +Nona Vincent.</p> +<p>“Oh yes,” Wayworth assented, “she wants so +to!”</p> +<p>Mrs. Alsager was silent a moment; then she asked, a little +inconsequently, as if she had come back from a reverie: +“Does she want to <i>very</i> much?”</p> +<p>“Tremendously—and it appears she has been +fascinated by the part from the first.”</p> +<p>“Why then didn’t she say so?”</p> +<p>“Oh, because she’s so funny.”</p> +<p>“She <i>is</i> funny,” said Mrs. Alsager, +musingly; and presently she added: “She’s in love +with you.”</p> +<p>Wayworth stared, blushed very red, then laughed out. +“What is there funny in that?” he demanded; but +before his interlocutress could satisfy him on this point he +inquired, further, how she knew anything about it. After a +little graceful evasion she explained that the night before, at +the “Legitimate,” Mrs. Beaumont, the wife of the +actor-manager, had paid her a visit in her box; which had +happened, in the course of their brief gossip, to lead to her +remarking that she had never been “behind.” +Mrs. Beaumont offered on the spot to take her round, and the +fancy had seized her to accept the invitation. She had been +amused for the moment, and in this way it befell that her +conductress, at her request, had introduced her to Miss Violet +Grey, who was waiting in the wing for one of her scenes. +Mrs. Beaumont had been called away for three minutes, and during +this scrap of time, face to face with the actress, she had +discovered the poor girl’s secret. Wayworth qualified +it as a senseless thing, but wished to know what had led to the +discovery. She characterised this inquiry as superficial +for a painter of the ways of women; and he doubtless didn’t +improve it by remarking profanely that a cat might look at a king +and that such things were convenient to know. Even on this +ground, however, he was threatened by Mrs. Alsager, who contended +that it might not be a joking matter to the poor girl. To +this Wayworth, who now professed to hate talking about the +passions he might have inspired, could only reply that he meant +it couldn’t make a difference to Mrs. Alsager.</p> +<p>“How in the world do you know what makes a difference to +<i>me</i>?” this lady asked, with incongruous coldness, +with a haughtiness indeed remarkable in so gentle a spirit.</p> +<p>He saw Violet Grey that night at the theatre, and it was she +who spoke first of her having lately met a friend of his.</p> +<p>“She’s in love with you,” the actress said, +after he had made a show of ignorance; “doesn’t that +tell you anything?”</p> +<p>He blushed redder still than Mrs. Alsager had made him blush, +but replied, quickly enough and very adequately, that hundreds of +women were naturally dying for him.</p> +<p>“Oh, I don’t care, for you’re not in love +with <i>her</i>!” the girl continued.</p> +<p>“Did she tell you that too?” Wayworth asked; but +she had at that moment to go on.</p> +<p>Standing where he could see her he thought that on this +occasion she threw into her scene, which was the best she had in +the play, a brighter art than ever before, a talent that could +play with its problem. She was perpetually doing things out +of rehearsal (she did two or three to-night, in the other +man’s piece), that he as often wished to heaven Nona +Vincent might have the benefit of. She appeared to be able +to do them for every one but him—that is for every one but +Nona. He was conscious, in these days, of an odd new +feeling, which mixed (this was a part of its oddity) with a very +natural and comparatively old one and which in its most definite +form was a dull ache of regret that this young lady’s +unlucky star should have placed her on the stage. He wished +in his worst uneasiness that, without going further, she would +give it up; and yet it soothed that uneasiness to remind himself +that he saw grounds to hope she would go far enough to make a +marked success of Nona. There were strange and painful +moments when, as the interpretress of Nona, he almost hated her; +after which, however, he always assured himself that he +exaggerated, inasmuch as what made this aversion seem great, when +he was nervous, was simply its contrast with the growing sense +that there <i>were</i> grounds—totally different—on +which she pleased him. She pleased him as a charming +creature—by her sincerities and her perversities, by the +varieties and surprises of her character and by certain happy +facts of her person. In private her eyes were sad to him +and her voice was rare. He detested the idea that she +should have a disappointment or an humiliation, and he wanted to +rescue her altogether, to save and transplant her. One way +to save her was to see to it, to the best of his ability, that +the production of his play should be a triumph; and the other +way—it was really too queer to express—was almost to +wish that it shouldn’t be. Then, for the future, +there would be safety and peace, and not the peace of +death—the peace of a different life. It is to be +added that our young man clung to the former of these ways in +proportion as the latter perversely tempted him. He was +nervous at the best, increasingly and intolerably nervous; but +the immediate remedy was to rehearse harder and harder, and above +all to work it out with Violet Grey. Some of her comrades +reproached him with working it out only with her, as if she were +the whole affair; to which he replied that they could afford to +be neglected, they were all so tremendously good. She was +the only person concerned whom he didn’t flatter.</p> +<p>The author and the actress stuck so to the business in hand +that she had very little time to speak to him again of Mrs. +Alsager, of whom indeed her imagination appeared adequately to +have disposed. Wayworth once remarked to her that Nona +Vincent was supposed to be a good deal like his charming friend; +but she gave a blank “Supposed by whom?” in +consequence of which he never returned to the subject. He +confided his nervousness as freely as usual to Mrs. Alsager, who +easily understood that he had a peculiar complication of +anxieties. His suspense varied in degree from hour to hour, +but any relief there might have been in this was made up for by +its being of several different kinds. One afternoon, as the +first performance drew near, Mrs. Alsager said to him, in giving +him his cup of tea and on his having mentioned that he had not +closed his eyes the night before:</p> +<p>“You must indeed be in a dreadful state. Anxiety +for another is still worse than anxiety for one’s +self.”</p> +<p>“For another?” Wayworth repeated, looking at her +over the rim of his cup.</p> +<p>“My poor friend, you’re nervous about Nona +Vincent, but you’re infinitely more nervous about Violet +Grey.”</p> +<p>“She <i>is</i> Nona Vincent!”</p> +<p>“No, she isn’t—not a bit!” said Mrs. +Alsager, abruptly.</p> +<p>“Do you really think so?” Wayworth cried, spilling +his tea in his alarm.</p> +<p>“What I think doesn’t signify—I mean what I +think about that. What I meant to say was that great as is +your suspense about your play, your suspense about your actress +is greater still.”</p> +<p>“I can only repeat that my actress <i>is</i> my +play.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Alsager looked thoughtfully into the teapot.</p> +<p>“Your actress is your—”</p> +<p>“My what?” the young man asked, with a little +tremor in his voice, as his hostess paused.</p> +<p>“Your very dear friend. You’re in love with +her—at present.” And with a sharp click Mrs. +Alsager dropped the lid on the fragrant receptacle.</p> +<p>“Not yet—not yet!” laughed her visitor.</p> +<p>“You will be if she pulls you through.”</p> +<p>“You declare that she <i>won’t</i> pull me +through.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Alsager was silent a moment, after which she softly +murmured: “I’ll pray for her.”</p> +<p>“You’re the most generous of women!” +Wayworth cried; then coloured as if the words had not been +happy. They would have done indeed little honour to a man +of tact.</p> +<p>The next morning he received five hurried lines from Mrs. +Alsager. She had suddenly been called to Torquay, to see a +relation who was seriously ill; she should be detained there +several days, but she had an earnest hope of being able to return +in time for his first night. In any event he had her +unrestricted good wishes. He missed her extremely, for +these last days were a great strain and there was little comfort +to be derived from Violet Grey. She was even more nervous +than himself, and so pale and altered that he was afraid she +would be too ill to act. It was settled between them that +they made each other worse and that he had now much better leave +her alone. They had pulled Nona so to pieces that nothing +seemed left of her—she must at least have time to grow +together again. He left Violet Grey alone, to the best of +his ability, but she carried out imperfectly her own side of the +bargain. She came to him with new questions—she +waited for him with old doubts, and half an hour before the last +dress-rehearsal, on the eve of production, she proposed to him a +totally fresh rendering of his heroine. This incident gave +him such a sense of insecurity that he turned his back on her +without a word, bolted out of the theatre, dashed along the +Strand and walked as far as the Bank. Then he jumped into a +hansom and came westward, and when he reached the theatre again +the business was nearly over. It appeared, almost to his +disappointment, not bad enough to give him the consolation of the +old playhouse adage that the worst dress-rehearsals make the best +first nights.</p> +<p>The morrow, which was a Wednesday, was the dreadful day; the +theatre had been closed on the Monday and the Tuesday. +Every one, on the Wednesday, did his best to let every one else +alone, and every one signally failed in the attempt. The +day, till seven o’clock, was understood to be consecrated +to rest, but every one except Violet Grey turned up at the +theatre. Wayworth looked at Mr. Loder, and Mr. Loder looked +in another direction, which was as near as they came to +conversation. Wayworth was in a fidget, unable to eat or +sleep or sit still, at times almost in terror. He kept +quiet by keeping, as usual, in motion; he tried to walk away from +his nervousness. He walked in the afternoon toward Notting +Hill, but he succeeded in not breaking the vow he had taken not +to meddle with his actress. She was like an acrobat poised +on a slippery ball—if he should touch her she would topple +over. He passed her door three times and he thought of her +three hundred. This was the hour at which he most regretted +that Mrs. Alsager had not come back—for he had called at +her house only to learn that she was still at Torquay. This +was probably queer, and it was probably queerer still that she +hadn’t written to him; but even of these things he +wasn’t sure, for in losing, as he had now completely lost, +his judgment of his play, he seemed to himself to have lost his +judgment of everything. When he went home, however, he +found a telegram from the lady of Grosvenor +Place—“Shall be able to come—reach town by +seven.” At half-past eight o’clock, through a +little aperture in the curtain of the “Renaissance,” +he saw her in her box with a cluster of friends—completely +beautiful and beneficent. The house was +magnificent—too good for his play, he felt; too good for +any play. Everything now seemed too good—the scenery, +the furniture, the dresses, the very programmes. He seized +upon the idea that this was probably what was the matter with the +representative of Nona—she was only too good. He had +completely arranged with this young lady the plan of their +relations during the evening; and though they had altered +everything else that they had arranged they had promised each +other not to alter this. It was wonderful the number of +things they had promised each other. He would start her, he +would see her off—then he would quit the theatre and stay +away till just before the end. She besought him to stay +away—it would make her infinitely easier. He saw that +she was exquisitely dressed—she had made one or two changes +for the better since the night before, and that seemed something +definite to turn over and over in his mind as he rumbled foggily +home in the four-wheeler in which, a few steps from the +stage-door, he had taken refuge as soon as he knew that the +curtain was up. He lived a couple of miles off, and he had +chosen a four-wheeler to drag out the time.</p> +<p>When he got home his fire was out, his room was cold, and he +lay down on his sofa in his overcoat. He had sent his +landlady to the dress-circle, on purpose; she would overflow with +words and mistakes. The house seemed a black void, just as +the streets had done—every one was, formidably, at his +play. He was quieter at last than he had been for a +fortnight, and he felt too weak even to wonder how the thing was +going. He believed afterwards that he had slept an hour; +but even if he had he felt it to be still too early to return to +the theatre. He sat down by his lamp and tried to +read—to read a little compendious life of a great English +statesman, out of a “series.” It struck him as +brilliantly clever, and he asked himself whether that perhaps +were not rather the sort of thing he ought to have taken up: not +the statesmanship, but the art of brief biography. Suddenly +he became aware that he must hurry if he was to reach the theatre +at all—it was a quarter to eleven o’clock. He +scrambled out and, this time, found a hansom—he had lately +spent enough money in cabs to add to his hope that the profits of +his new profession would be great. His anxiety, his +suspense flamed up again, and as he rattled eastward—he +went fast now—he was almost sick with alternations. +As he passed into the theatre the first man—some +underling—who met him, cried to him, breathlessly:</p> +<p>“You’re wanted, sir—you’re +wanted!” He thought his tone very ominous—he +devoured the man’s eyes with his own, for a betrayal: did +he mean that he was wanted for execution? Some one else +pressed him, almost pushed him, forward; he was already on the +stage. Then he became conscious of a sound more or less +continuous, but seemingly faint and far, which he took at first +for the voice of the actors heard through their canvas walls, the +beautiful built-in room of the last act. But the actors +were in the wing, they surrounded him; the curtain was down and +they were coming off from before it. They had been called, +and <i>he</i> was called—they all greeted him with +“Go on—go on!” He was terrified—he +couldn’t go on—he didn’t believe in the +applause, which seemed to him only audible enough to sound +half-hearted.</p> +<p>“Has it gone?—<i>has</i> it gone?” he gasped +to the people round him; and he heard them say +“Rather—rather!” perfunctorily, mendaciously +too, as it struck him, and even with mocking laughter, the +laughter of defeat and despair. Suddenly, though all this +must have taken but a moment, Loder burst upon him from somewhere +with a “For God’s sake don’t keep them, or +they’ll <i>stop</i>!” “But I can’t +go on for <i>that</i>!” Wayworth cried, in anguish; +the sound seemed to him already to have ceased. Loder had +hold of him and was shoving him; he resisted and looked round +frantically for Violet Grey, who perhaps would tell him the +truth. There was by this time a crowd in the wing, all with +strange grimacing painted faces, but Violet was not among them +and her very absence frightened him. He uttered her name +with an accent that he afterwards regretted—it gave them, +as he thought, both away; and while Loder hustled him before the +curtain he heard some one say “She took her call and +disappeared.” She had had a call, then—this was +what was most present to the young man as he stood for an instant +in the glare of the footlights, looking blindly at the great +vaguely-peopled horseshoe and greeted with plaudits which now +seemed to him at once louder than he deserved and feebler than he +desired. They sank to rest quickly, but he felt it to be +long before he could back away, before he could, in his turn, +seize the manager by the arm and cry huskily—“Has it +really gone—<i>really</i>?”</p> +<p>Mr. Loder looked at him hard and replied after an instant: +“The play’s all right!”</p> +<p>Wayworth hung upon his lips. “Then what’s +all wrong?”</p> +<p>“We must do something to Miss Grey.”</p> +<p>“What’s the matter with her?”</p> +<p>“She isn’t <i>in</i> it!”</p> +<p>“Do you mean she has failed?”</p> +<p>“Yes, damn it—she has failed.”</p> +<p>Wayworth stared. “Then how can the play be all +right?”</p> +<p>“Oh, we’ll save it—we’ll save +it.”</p> +<p>“Where’s Miss Grey—where <i>is</i> +she?” the young man asked.</p> +<p>Loder caught his arm as he was turning away again to look for +his heroine. “Never mind her now—she knows +it!”</p> +<p>Wayworth was approached at the same moment by a gentleman he +knew as one of Mrs. Alsager’s friends—he had +perceived him in that lady’s box. Mrs. Alsager was +waiting there for the successful author; she desired very +earnestly that he would come round and speak to her. +Wayworth assured himself first that Violet had left the +theatre—one of the actresses could tell him that she had +seen her throw on a cloak, without changing her dress, and had +learnt afterwards that she had, the next moment, flung herself, +after flinging her aunt, into a cab. He had wished to +invite half a dozen persons, of whom Miss Grey and her elderly +relative were two, to come home to supper with him; but she had +refused to make any engagement beforehand (it would be so +dreadful to have to keep it if she shouldn’t have made a +hit), and this attitude had blighted the pleasant plan, which +fell to the ground. He had called her morbid, but she was +immovable. Mrs. Alsager’s messenger let him know that +he was expected to supper in Grosvenor Place, and half an hour +afterwards he was seated there among complimentary people and +flowers and popping corks, eating the first orderly meal he had +partaken of for a week. Mrs. Alsager had carried him off in +her brougham—the other people who were coming got into +things of their own. He stopped her short as soon as she +began to tell him how tremendously every one had been struck by +the piece; he nailed her down to the question of Violet +Grey. Had she spoilt the play, had she jeopardised or +compromised it—had she been utterly bad, had she been good +in any degree?</p> +<p>“Certainly the performance would have seemed better if +<i>she</i> had been better,” Mrs. Alsager confessed.</p> +<p>“And the play would have seemed better if the +performance had been better,” Wayworth said, gloomily, from +the corner of the brougham.</p> +<p>“She does what she can, and she has talent, and she +looked lovely. But she doesn’t <i>see</i> Nona +Vincent. She doesn’t see the type—she +doesn’t see the individual—she doesn’t see the +woman you meant. She’s out of it—she gives you +a different person.”</p> +<p>“Oh, the woman I meant!” the young man exclaimed, +looking at the London lamps as he rolled by them. “I +wish to God she had known <i>you</i>!” he added, as the +carriage stopped. After they had passed into the house he +said to his companion:</p> +<p>“You see she <i>won’t</i> pull me +through.”</p> +<p>“Forgive her—be kind to her!” Mrs. Alsager +pleaded.</p> +<p>“I shall only thank her. The play may go to the +dogs.”</p> +<p>“If it does—if it does,” Mrs. Alsager began, +with her pure eyes on him.</p> +<p>“Well, what if it does?”</p> +<p>She couldn’t tell him, for the rest of her guests came +in together; she only had time to say: “It +<i>sha’n’t</i> go to the dogs!”</p> +<p>He came away before the others, restless with the desire to go +to Notting Hill even that night, late as it was, haunted with the +sense that Violet Grey had measured her fall. When he got +into the street, however, he allowed second thoughts to counsel +another course; the effect of knocking her up at two +o’clock in the morning would hardly be to soothe her. +He looked at six newspapers the next day and found in them never +a good word for her. They were well enough about the piece, +but they were unanimous as to the disappointment caused by the +young actress whose former efforts had excited such hopes and on +whom, on this occasion, such pressing responsibilities +rested. They asked in chorus what was the matter with her, +and they declared in chorus that the play, which was not without +promise, was handicapped (they all used the same word) by the odd +want of correspondence between the heroine and her +interpreter. Wayworth drove early to Notting Hill, but he +didn’t take the newspapers with him; Violet Grey could be +trusted to have sent out for them by the peep of dawn and to have +fed her anguish full. She declined to see him—she +only sent down word by her aunt that she was extremely unwell and +should be unable to act that night unless she were suffered to +spend the day unmolested and in bed. Wayworth sat for an +hour with the old lady, who understood everything and to whom he +could speak frankly. She gave him a touching picture of her +niece’s condition, which was all the more vivid for the +simple words in which it was expressed: “She feels she +isn’t right, you know—she feels she isn’t +right!”</p> +<p>“Tell her it doesn’t matter—it doesn’t +matter a straw!” said Wayworth.</p> +<p>“And she’s so proud—you know how proud she +is!” the old lady went on.</p> +<p>“Tell her I’m more than satisfied, that I accept +her gratefully as she is.”</p> +<p>“She says she injures your play, that she ruins +it,” said his interlocutress.</p> +<p>“She’ll improve, immensely—she’ll grow +into the part,” the young man continued.</p> +<p>“She’d improve if she knew how—but she says +she doesn’t. She has given all she has got, and she +doesn’t know what’s wanted.”</p> +<p>“What’s wanted is simply that she should go +straight on and trust me.”</p> +<p>“How can she trust you when she feels she’s losing +you?”</p> +<p>“Losing me?” Wayworth cried.</p> +<p>“You’ll never forgive her if your play is taken +off!”</p> +<p>“It will run six months,” said the author of the +piece.</p> +<p>The old lady laid her hand on his arm. “What will +you do for her if it does?”</p> +<p>He looked at Violet Grey’s aunt a moment. +“Do you say your niece is very proud?”</p> +<p>“Too proud for her dreadful profession.”</p> +<p>“Then she wouldn’t wish you to ask me that,” +Wayworth answered, getting up.</p> +<p>When he reached home he was very tired, and for a person to +whom it was open to consider that he had scored a success he +spent a remarkably dismal day. All his restlessness had +gone, and fatigue and depression possessed him. He sank +into his old chair by the fire and sat there for hours with his +eyes closed. His landlady came in to bring his luncheon and +mend the fire, but he feigned to be asleep, so as not to be +spoken to. It is to be supposed that sleep at last overtook +him, for about the hour that dusk began to gather he had an +extraordinary impression, a visit that, it would seem, could have +belonged to no waking consciousness. Nona Vincent, in face +and form, the living heroine of his play, rose before him in his +little silent room, sat down with him at his dingy +fireside. She was not Violet Grey, she was not Mrs. +Alsager, she was not any woman he had seen upon earth, nor was it +any masquerade of friendship or of penitence. Yet she was +more familiar to him than the women he had known best, and she +was ineffably beautiful and consoling. She filled the poor +room with her presence, the effect of which was as soothing as +some odour of incense. She was as quiet as an affectionate +sister, and there was no surprise in her being there. +Nothing more real had ever befallen him, and nothing, somehow, +more reassuring. He felt her hand rest upon his own, and +all his senses seemed to open to her message. She struck +him, in the strangest way, both as his creation and as his +inspirer, and she gave him the happiest consciousness of +success. If she was so charming, in the red firelight, in +her vague, clear-coloured garments, it was because he had made +her so, and yet if the weight seemed lifted from his spirit it +was because she drew it away. When she bent her deep eyes +upon him they seemed to speak of safety and freedom and to make a +green garden of the future. From time to time she smiled +and said: “I live—I live—I live.” +How long she stayed he couldn’t have told, but when his +landlady blundered in with the lamp Nona Vincent was no longer +there. He rubbed his eyes, but no dream had ever been so +intense; and as he slowly got out of his chair it was with a deep +still joy—the joy of the artist—in the thought of how +right he had been, how exactly like herself he had made +her. She had come to show him that. At the end of +five minutes, however, he felt sufficiently mystified to call his +landlady back—he wanted to ask her a question. When +the good woman reappeared the question hung fire an instant; then +it shaped itself as the inquiry:</p> +<p>“Has any lady been here?”</p> +<p>“No, sir—no lady at all.”</p> +<p>The woman seemed slightly scandalised. “Not Miss +Vincent?”</p> +<p>“Miss Vincent, sir?”</p> +<p>“The young lady of my play, don’t you +know?”</p> +<p>“Oh, sir, you mean Miss Violet Grey!”</p> +<p>“No I don’t, at all. I think I mean Mrs. +Alsager.”</p> +<p>“There has been no Mrs. Alsager, sir.”</p> +<p>“Nor anybody at all like her?”</p> +<p>The woman looked at him as if she wondered what had suddenly +taken him. Then she asked in an injured tone: “Why +shouldn’t I have told you if you’d ’ad callers, +sir?”</p> +<p>“I thought you might have thought I was +asleep.”</p> +<p>“Indeed you were, sir, when I came in with the +lamp—and well you’d earned it, Mr. +Wayworth!”</p> +<p>The landlady came back an hour later to bring him a telegram; +it was just as he had begun to dress to dine at his club and go +down to the theatre.</p> +<p>“See me to-night in front, and don’t come near me +till it’s over.”</p> +<p>It was in these words that Violet communicated her wishes for +the evening. He obeyed them to the letter; he watched her +from the depths of a box. He was in no position to say how +she might have struck him the night before, but what he saw +during these charmed hours filled him with admiration and +gratitude. She <i>was</i> in it, this time; she had pulled +herself together, she had taken possession, she was felicitous at +every turn. Fresh from his revelation of Nona he was in a +position to judge, and as he judged he exulted. He was +thrilled and carried away, and he was moreover intensely curious +to know what had happened to her, by what unfathomable art she +had managed in a few hours to effect such a change of base. +It was as if <i>she</i> had had a revelation of Nona, so +convincing a clearness had been breathed upon the picture. +He kept himself quiet in the <i>entr’actes</i>—he +would speak to her only at the end; but before the play was half +over the manager burst into his box.</p> +<p>“It’s prodigious, what she’s up to!” +cried Mr. Loder, almost more bewildered than gratified. +“She has gone in for a new reading—a blessed +somersault in the air!”</p> +<p>“Is it quite different?” Wayworth asked, sharing +his mystification.</p> +<p>“Different? Hyperion to a satyr! It’s +devilish good, my boy!”</p> +<p>“It’s devilish good,” said Wayworth, +“and it’s in a different key altogether from the key +of her rehearsal.”</p> +<p>“I’ll run you six months!” the manager +declared; and he rushed round again to the actress, leaving +Wayworth with a sense that she had already pulled him +through. She had with the audience an immense personal +success.</p> +<p>When he went behind, at the end, he had to wait for her; she +only showed herself when she was ready to leave the +theatre. Her aunt had been in her dressing-room with her, +and the two ladies appeared together. The girl passed him +quickly, motioning him to say nothing till they should have got +out of the place. He saw that she was immensely excited, +lifted altogether above her common artistic level. The old +lady said to him: “You must come home to supper with us: it +has been all arranged.” They had a brougham, with a +little third seat, and he got into it with them. It was a +long time before the actress would speak. She leaned back +in her corner, giving no sign but still heaving a little, like a +subsiding sea, and with all her triumph in the eyes that shone +through the darkness. The old lady was hushed to awe, or at +least to discretion, and Wayworth was happy enough to wait. +He had really to wait till they had alighted at Notting Hill, +where the elder of his companions went to see that supper had +been attended to.</p> +<p>“I was better—I was better,” said Violet +Grey, throwing off her cloak in the little drawing-room.</p> +<p>“You were perfection. You’ll be like that +every night, won’t you?”</p> +<p>She smiled at him. “Every night? There can +scarcely be a miracle every day.”</p> +<p>“What do you mean by a miracle?”</p> +<p>“I’ve had a revelation.”</p> +<p>Wayward stared. “At what hour?”</p> +<p>“The right hour—this afternoon. Just in time +to save me—and to save <i>you</i>.”</p> +<p>“At five o’clock? Do you mean you had a +visit?”</p> +<p>“She came to me—she stayed two hours.”</p> +<p>“Two hours? Nona Vincent?”</p> +<p>“Mrs. Alsager.” Violet Grey smiled more +deeply. “It’s the same thing.”</p> +<p>“And how did Mrs. Alsager save you?”</p> +<p>“By letting me look at her. By letting me hear her +speak. By letting me know her.”</p> +<p>“And what did she say to you?”</p> +<p>“Kind things—encouraging, intelligent +things.”</p> +<p>“Ah, the dear woman!” Wayworth cried.</p> +<p>“You ought to like her—she likes <i>you</i>. +She was just what I wanted,” the actress added.</p> +<p>“Do you mean she talked to you about Nona?”</p> +<p>“She said you thought she was like her. She +<i>is</i>—she’s exquisite.”</p> +<p>“She’s exquisite,” Wayworth repeated. +“Do you mean she tried to coach you?”</p> +<p>“Oh, no—she only said she would be so glad if it +would help me to see her. And I felt it did help me. +I don’t know what took place—she only sat there, and +she held my hand and smiled at me, and she had tact and grace, +and she had goodness and beauty, and she soothed my nerves and +lighted up my imagination. Somehow she seemed to +<i>give</i> it all to me. I took it—I took it. +I kept her before me, I drank her in. For the first time, +in the whole study of the part, I had my model—I could make +my copy. All my courage came back to me, and other things +came that I hadn’t felt before. She was +different—she was delightful; as I’ve said, she was a +revelation. She kissed me when she went away—and you +may guess if I kissed <i>her</i>. We were awfully +affectionate, but it’s <i>you</i> she likes!” said +Violet Grey.</p> +<p>Wayworth had never been more interested in his life, and he +had rarely been more mystified. “Did she wear vague, +clear-coloured garments?” he asked, after a moment.</p> +<p>Violet Grey stared, laughed, then bade him go in to +supper. “<i>You</i> know how she dresses!”</p> +<p>He was very well pleased at supper, but he was silent and a +little solemn. He said he would go to see Mrs. Alsager the +next day. He did so, but he was told at her door that she +had returned to Torquay. She remained there all winter, all +spring, and the next time he saw her his play had run two hundred +nights and he had married Violet Grey. His plays sometimes +succeed, but his wife is not in them now, nor in any +others. At these representations Mrs. Alsager continues +frequently to be present.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NONA VINCENT***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 2717-h.htm or 2717-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/1/2717 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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