Miss Bretherton | Page 5

Kingston theatre--a poor little place enough--and he and the aunt, that sour-looking creature you saw with her, looked after her like dragons. Naturally, she was soon the talk of Kingston: what with her looks and her grace and the difficulty of coming near her, the whole European society, the garrison, Government House, and all, were at her feet. Then the uncle played his cards for a European engagement. You remember that Governor Rutherford they had a little time ago? the writer of that little set of drawing-room plays--Nineteenth Century Interludes, I think he called them? It was his last year, and he started for home while Isabel Bretherton was acting at Kingston. He came home full of her, and, knowing all the theatrical people here, he was able to place her at once. Robinson decided to speculate in her, telegraphed out for her, and here she is, uncle, aunt, and invalid sister into the bargain.'
'Oh, she has a sister?'
'Yes; a little, white, crippled thing, peevish--cripples generally are--but full of a curious force of some hidden kind. Isabel is very good to her, and rather afraid of her. It seems to me that she is afraid of all her belongings. I believe they put upon her, and she has as much capacity as anybody I ever knew for letting herself be trampled upon.'
'What, that splendid, vivacious creature!' said Kendal incredulously. 'I think I'd back her for holding her own.'
'Ah, well, you see,' said the American, with the quiet superiority of a three weeks' acquaintance, 'I know something of her by now, and she's not quite what you might think her at first sight. However, whether she is afraid of them or not, it's to be hoped they will take care of her. Naturally, she has a splendid physique, but it seems to me that London tries her. The piece they have chosen for her is a heavy one, and then of course society is down upon her, and in a few weeks she'll be the rage.'
'I haven't seen her at all,' said Kendal, beginning perhaps to be a little bored with the subject of Miss Bretherton, and turning, eye-glass in hand, towards the sculpture. 'Come and take me some evening.'
'By all means. But you must come and meet the girl herself at my sister's next Friday. She will be there at afternoon tea. I told Agnes I should ask anybody I liked. I warned her--you know her little weaknesses!--that she had better be first in the field: a month hence, it will be impossible to get hold of Miss Bretherton at all.'
'Then I'll certainly come, and do my worshipping before the crowd collects,' said Kendal, adding, as he half-curiously shifted his eye-glass so as to take in Wallace's bronzed, alert countenance, 'How did you happen to know her?'
'Rutherford introduced me. He's an old friend of mine.'
'Well,' said Kendal, moving off, 'Friday, then. I shall be very glad to see Mrs. Stuart; it's ages since I saw her last.'
The American nodded cordially to him, and walked away. He was one of those pleasant, ubiquitous people who know every one and find time for everything--a well-known journalist, something of an artist, and still more of a man of the world, who went through his London season with some outward grumbling, but with a real inward zest such as few popular diners-out are blessed with. That he should have attached himself to the latest star was natural enough. He was the most discreet and profitable of cicerones, with a real talent for making himself useful to nice people. His friendship for Miss Bretherton gave her a certain stamp in Kendal's eyes, for Wallace had a fastidious taste in personalities and seldom made a mistake.
Kendal himself walked home, busy with very different thoughts, and was soon established at his writing-table in his high chambers overlooking an inner court of the Temple. It was a bright afternoon; the spring sunshine on the red roofs opposite was clear and gay; the old chimney-stacks, towering into the pale blue sky, threw sharp shadows on the rich red and orange surface of the tiles. Below, the court was half in shadow, and utterly quiet and deserted. To the left there was a gleam of green, atoning for its spring thinness and scantiness by a vivid energy of colour; while straight across the court, beyond the rich patchwork of the roofs and the picturesque outlines of the chimneys, a delicate piece of white stone-work rose into air--the spire of one of Wren's churches, as dainty, as perfect, and as fastidiously balanced as the hand of man could leave it.
Inside, the room was such as fitted a studious bachelor of means. The book-cases on the walls held old college classics and law-books underneath, and above a miscellaneous literary library, of which