As the days went by and the production came nearer, the Imperium was charged with a busy excitement. The machinery was tightened up, and there was no sparing any of the persons concerned. Rehearsals began at ten in the morning, and dragged on through the day, sometimes not ending until eleven or twelve at night. Sir Henry had a thousand and one things to do, and was in something of a panic about his own words. He would stop in the middle of a lighting rehearsal to remember his part and would turn to a scene-shifter or a lime-light man, anybody who happened to be by, to ask if that was right, and when they stared at him he would lose his temper and say,—
'Shakespeare! It's Shakespeare! Everybody knows their Shakespeare.'
Clara took the precaution of learning his part in his scenes with her and was able to prompt him when he started fumbling or improvising. He was taut with anxiety, and completely ignored everything not immediately bearing on the production, as to which he was obviously not easy in his mind. He talked to himself a good deal, and Clara heard him more than once damning Charles under his breath. In spite of herself she was a little hurt that he took no notice of her outside her part in the play. His only concern with the world off the stage was through Lady Bracebridge and Lady Butcher, who were vastly busy with the dressing of the front of the house and began introducing their distinguished aristocratic and political friends at rehearsals, where they used to sit in the darkness of the auditorium and say,—
'Too sweet! Divine, divine!'
It was difficult to see what they could possibly make of the chaos on the stage, with actors strolling to and fro mumbling their parts, others going through their scenes, carpenters running hither and thither, the lights going up and down and changing from blue to amber, amber to blue, white, red.... Up to the very last Sir Henry made changes, and the more excited he got the further he drifted away from the play's dramatic context, and strove to break up the aesthetic impression of the whole with innumerable tricks, silences, gestures, exaggerated movements of the actors, touches of grotesque and irrelevant humour, devices by which Prospero could be in the centre of the stage, anything and everything to impose his own tradition and personality on both Shakespeare and Charles.
Clara was thankful that Charles had quarrelled with him and was not there to see. Sir Henry was like a man possessed. He worked in a frenzy to retrieve the situation, and to recover the ground he had lost; and he only seemed sure of himself in his scenes with Ariel, and over them he went again and again, not for a moment sparing Clara or thinking of the physical effort so much repetition entailed for her.
She did not object. It was a great relief to go to her rooms, worn out, and to lie, unable to think, incapable of calculation, lost to everything except her will to play Ariel with all the magic and youthful vitality she possessed. Everything outside the play had disappeared for her, too. That so much of Charles's work should be submerged hurt her terribly and she blamed herself, but for that was only the more determined to retrieve the situation with her own art, to which, as Sir Henry revered it, he clung. She knew that and was determined not to fail. However much Charles's work was mutilated, her success—if she won it—would redeem his plight.
Therefore she surrendered herself absolutely to the whirling chaos of the rehearsals, from which it seemed impossible that order could ever come. She ordered her own thoughts by doing the obvious thing, reading the play until she was soaked with it. No one else apparently had done that and, as she grew more familiar with it and more intimate with its spirit, she began to doubt horribly whether Charles had done so either. His scenery seemed as remote from that spirit as Sir Henry's theatrical devices, and almost equally an imposition. As she realised this she was forced to see how completely she was now detached from Charles, and also, to her suffering, how she had laid herself open to the charge of having used him, though he, in his generous simplicity, would never see it in that light or bring any accusation against her.... She blamed herself far more for what she had done to Rodd. That, she knew, was serious, and the more intimate she became with Shakespeare's genius the more she understood the havoc she must have wrought in Rodd's life.
How strange was this world of Prime Ministers and actor-managers which dominated London and in which London acquiesced; very charming, very delightful, if only one could believe in it, or could accept that it was the best possible that London could throw up. But if it was so, what need was there of so much advertising, paragraphing, interviewing? Which was the pretence, the theatre or the world outside it? Which were the actresses, she and Julia Wainwright and the rest, or Lady Butcher and Lady Bracebridge? And in fine, was it all, like everything else, only a question of money? Verschoyle's money? And if Verschoyle paid, why was he shoved aside so ignominiously?
Clara shivered as she thought of the immense complication of what should be so simple and true and beautiful.... But what alternative was there? This elaboration and corruption of the theatre or the imagination working freely in an empty room.
She could see no other. Rodd's terrible concentration ending in impotence or the dissipation of real powers, as in Butcher and Mann, in fantasy.
Absorbed in her work, intent upon the forthcoming production, she was detached from them all and could at last discover how little any of them needed her. She could not really enter into their work though all three had been disturbed by her and diverted for a time at least from their habitual purposes.... What mattered in each of the three men was the artist, and in each the artist was fettered by life. She had promised them release only to plunge them into greater difficulties.
She brooded over herself, wondering what she was, and how she came to be so unconcerned with things that to other women seemed paramount. It was nothing to her that Charles had a wife. It had all happened long before he met her, and was no affair of hers.... That Sir Henry should make love to her was merely comic. She could not even take advantage of it, for in that direction she could not move at all. Instinctively she knew that her sex was given her for one purpose only, and that the highest, and she could not turn it to any base or material use. While she adhered to this she could be Ariel, pure spirit to dominate her life and direct her will, which no power on earth could break.... How came she to be so free, and so foreign to the world of women? Her upbringing! Her early independence! Or some new spirit stirring in humanity?
Already she had caught from Rodd his habit of generalising from his own experience, and in her heart she knew it, knew that she had begun what might prove to be her real life with him, but, caught up as she had been in Mann's schemes and dreams and visions, she would not accept this until all the threads were snapped. Being frank with herself, she knew that she desired and intended to snap them, but in her own time and with as little hurt as possible to those concerned.... Meanwhile it was wonderful, it was almost intoxicatingly comic to carry all the confused facts of her own life into the ordered world where she was Ariel and to imagine Mann, for instance, discoursing of birds and fishes to Trinculo and Stephano, or Rodd, with his passionate dreams of a sudden jet of loveliness in a desert of misery comparing notes with good Gonzalo, while she, both as Clara Day and as Ariel, danced among them and played freakish tricks upon them, and lured them on to believe that all kinds of marvels would come to pass and then bring them back to their senses to discover that she was after all only a woman, and that the marvels they looked for from her were really in themselves.
So she dallied with her power, not quite knowing what she wished to do with it, and, as she dallied, she became more conscious of her force, and she grew impatient with her youth which had been her undoing, so easily given, so greedily accepted. No one but Rodd had seen beyond it and, for a while, she detested him for having done so.... Nothing had gone smoothly since her meeting with him. The pace of events had quickened until it was too fast even for her, and she could do nothing but wait, nothing but fall back upon Ariel.
The dress rehearsal dragged through a whole day and most of a night. It hobbled along. Nothing was right. Sir Henry could hardly remember a word of his part. Ferdinand's wig was a monstrosity. Miranda looked like the fairy-queen in a provincial pantomime. There was hardly a dress to which Lady Butcher did not take exception, though she passed Clara's sky-blue and silver net as 'terribly attractive.' ... Clara delighted in the freedom of her fairy costume. Her lovely slim figure showed to perfection. She moved like the wind, like a breeze in long silvery grass. She gave the impression of movement utterly free of her body, which melted into movement, and was lost in it. The stage-island was then to her really an island, the power of Prospero was true magic, the air was drenched with sea-salt, heavy, rich, pregnant with invisible life urging into form and issuing sometimes in strange music, mysterious voices prophesying in song, and plaints of woe from life that could find no other utterance.... Ah! How free she felt as all this power of fancy seized her and bore her aloft and laid her open to all the new spirit, all the promise of the new life that out of the world came thrilling into this magical universe. How free she felt and how oblivious of her surroundings! There was that in her that nothing could destroy, something more than youth, deeper than joy which is no more than the lark's song showering down through the golden air of April.... Here in her freedom she knew herself, a soul, a living soul, with loving laughter accepting the life ordained for it by Providence, but dominating it, shaping it, moulding it, filling it with love until it brimmed over and spilled its delight upon surrounding life to make it also free and fruitful.
Julia Wainwright caught her in the wings, and pressed her to her bosom, and exclaimed,—
'Oh, my dear, you will be famous—famous. They'll be on their knees to you in New York.'
And Freeland Moore, dressed for the part of Caliban, said,—
'This isn't going to be Sir Henry's or Mann's show. It is going to be Clara Day's.'
The good creatures! It was only a show to them, and they were elated and happy to think of the thousands and thousands of pounds, dollars, francs, roubles, and marks that would be showered on their friend. With such a success as they now dreamed the trouble they had dreaded for her would make no difference. A 'story' would be even valuable.
But what had Ariel to do with pounds and dollars, roubles and marks? Ariel asked nothing but freedom after ages pining in a cloven pine.... In this world of money and machinery and intrigue to control machinery with money, to be free was the deep and secret desire of all humanity. Here in London hearts ached and souls murmured to be free, only to be free, for one moment at whatever cost of tears and suffering and bloody agony. All this in her heart Clara knew, she knew it from her meeting with Rodd, from her solitary brooding in her room, from the drunken women fighting in the street, from the uncontrolled fantasy in Charles Mann, from the boredom that ate away poor Verschoyle's heart; and all the knowledge of her adventurous life she gathered up to distil it into the delight of freedom, for its own sake and also for the sake of the hereafter which, if there be no moment of freedom, no flowering of life, must sink into a deeper and more miserable slavery.
In this mood it was pathetic to see Sir Henry, whose whole power lay in machinery, pretending as Prospero to rule by magic. So pathetically out of place was he that he could not even remember the words that so mightily revealed his authority.... When he broke down, he would declare that it was quite a simple matter to improvise blank verse.... But Clara would not let him improvise. She was always ready with the words, the right inevitable words. She would not let him impair her freedom with his lazy reliance upon the machinery of the theatre to pull him through, and so, when he opened his mouth and looked vague, and covered the absence of words with a large gesture, she was ready for him.
He reproved her.
'I am always like this at a dress rehearsal. Dress rehearsals are always terrible. The production seems to go altogether to pieces, but it is always there on the night. A good dress rehearsal means a bad first night.'
But Clara refused to allow any of her scenes to go to pieces, and they were applauded by the Butcher-Bracebridge fashionables who sat in the stalls. Lady Butcher called out,—
'It will be one of the best things you have ever done,' and her son's voice was heard booming, 'Hear, hear! Good old pater.'
Verschoyle had dropped in, but he was captured by Lady Bracebridge and her daughter, and had to sit between them while they scandalised Clara. According to them she had run away from home and had led an unmentionable life in Paris, actually having been a member of a low company of French players; and she had married but had run away from her husband with Charles Mann, etc., etc.
'I beg your pardon,' said Verschoyle, 'but Miss Day is a friend of mine.'
'One admires her frankness so much,' said Lady Bracebridge. 'Adventures like that make an actress so interesting.'
'But this is her first appearance in any theatre.'
Lady Bracebridge looked incredulous. She put up her lorgnette and scanned Clara, who had just floated across the stage followed by Trinculo and Stephano.
'She is born to it.... I know what the French theatre is like. They are so sensible, don't expect anything else of their actresses.'
Verschoyle saw that it was useless to argue. Women will never relinquish their jealousy. He shifted uneasily in his seat: Lady Bracebridge was a great deal too clever for him and he saw himself being thrust against his will into marriage with her daughter, who had an affectation of cleverness and maddened him with remarks like,—
'That Ariel costume would make the sweetest dinner-frock. If I have one made, will you take me to Murray's?'
'Certainly not,' said Verschoyle.
Clara in her pure girlish voice had just sung 'Full fathom five thy father lies,' when Lady Bracebridge, in her most strident voice, which went ringing through the theatre, said,—
'I hear Charles Mann has a real wife who isragingwith jealousy, simply raging. The most extraordinary story.'
Clara stopped dead, stood looking helplessly round, pulled herself together, and went on with the part. Verschoyle deliberately got up and walked out and round to the stage door, where already he found Lady Butcher in earnest converse with Sir Henry,—
'We can't have a scandal in the theatre, Henry. Everybody heard her....'
'The wicked old devil. Why didn't she keep her mouth shut?'
'She hates this girl you are all so crazy about.... Everybody heard her. You can't keep a thing like that quiet once it has been said publicly.'
'But she is wonderful, the most delicate Ariel. Mann isn't worrying us. I cleared him out.'
'Excuse me,' said Verschoyle, intervening. 'I can assure you there will be no trouble. I have seen to that. You have nothing to fear.'
'How sweet of you! Then I can tell everybody there is not a word of truth in it.'
Verschoyle turned his back on them, and went in search of Clara, whom he found trembling with fury on the stairs leading from her dressing-room to the stage.
'How dare you let that woman insult me publicly?' she cried. 'How dare you? How dare you? You ought to have killed her.'
Verschoyle stammered,—
'One can't kill people in the stalls of a London theatre.'
'She ought not to be allowed to live. Publicly! In the middle of the play! ... Either she or I will leave the theatre.'
'I'll see what I can do,' he mumbled, 'only for God's sake don't make it worse than it is.... Your only answer can be to ignore her. She'll be crawling to you in a few months, for you are marvellous.'
Clara saw that he was right. To match herself against the scandal-monger would be to step down to her level. To reassure her, Verschoyle told her how he had been to Bloomsbury to settle matters.
'Where?' she asked.
He described the square and the house, and at once she had a foreboding of disaster.
'Did you see any one else?'
'A queer fish I met at the door, with eyes that looked clean through me, and that little squirt Clott. He is at the bottom of it all.'
Clara gave a little moan.
'O-oh! Why does everybody hate Charles so? Everybody betrays him....'
'Oh, come,' said Verschoyle, 'he isn't exactly thoughtful for other people, is he?'
'That doesn't matter. Charles is Charles, and he must and shall succeed.'
'Not if it smashes you.'
'Even if it smashes me.'
He took her hands and implored her to be sensible.
'You lovely, lovely child,' he said, 'if Charles can't succeed off his own bat, surely, surely it means that there is something wrong with him. Why should you suffer? Why should you be exposed all your life to taunts and success and insults like that just now? It is all so unnecessary.... I'll go and see Charles. I'll tell him what has happened and that he may be given away at any moment now.'
'But why should they hate Charles?'
'It isn't Charles, darling. It is you they hate. You are too young, too beautiful. These women who have lied and intrigued all their lives can't forgive your frankness.'
'They can't forgive my being friends with you.... Oh! don't talk to me about it any more. I hate it all. So disgusting it is.'
'I want Charles to clear out. He can go to Paris and come back if this blows over.'
'I want him to be here to-morrow night. I want everybody to acknowledge that all this is his work. There's to be a supper to-morrow night after the performance. I want him to be there.'
Verschoyle shrugged his shoulders. He knew that opposition only made her more obstinate.
'Very well,' he said, and he returned to the stalls where he made himself exceedingly agreeable to Lady Bracebridge and her daughter, hoping to prevent any further outburst of jealousy. Lady Bracebridge was mollified and said presently,—
'After all, these things are nobody's affair but their own. I do think the scenery is perfectly delightful, though I can't say it is my idea of Caliban. But Henry is delightful. He reminds me so much of General Booth.'
Clara stood free of all this foolish world of scandal and jealousy. She had the answer to it all in herself. Whatever Clara Day had done, Ariel was free and unattainable. She could achieve utter forgetfulness of self, she could be born again in this miraculous experience for which she had striven. As Ariel she could lead these mortals a dance.
'So I charmed their ears,That, calf-like, they my lowing follow'd throughTooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss and thorns,Which enter'd their frail shins: at last I left themI' the filthy-mantled pool....'
The pool of scandal: drowned in their own foul words.
She plied her art, and even in the confusion of the dress rehearsal was the most delicate Ariel, so lithe, so lissom, that it seemed she must vanish into the air like the floating feathered seeds of full summer.... Abandoned to the sweet sea-breezes of the play she felt that the hard crust upon the world must surely break to let this spilling beauty pour into its heart. Surely, surely, she and Charles could have no enemies.
They meant nothing but what Charles had proposed at his absurd dinner—love: an airy magical love.... If only people would not interfere. She had proposed to herself to give Charles his triumph and then to settle his foolish mundane affairs. She knew she could do it, if only Verschoyle and these others would not complicate them still further. As for Charles being sent away to Paris, that was nonsense, sheer nonsense, that he should be ruined because he had a worthless woman who could, if she chose, use his name....
She was still being carried along by her set will to force London to acknowledge Charles as its king, and, being so near success, she was possessed by her own determination, and did not know to what an extent she had denied her own emotions, and how near she was to that obliteration of personal life which reduces an artist to a painted mummer. She was terribly tired after the dress rehearsal. Her head ached and her blood drummed behind her eyes. Sir Henry came to see her in her room, and kissed her hands, went on his knees, and paid his homage to her.
She said,—
'You owe everything to Charles Mann. He found me in a studio in Paris when I was very miserable and let me live in his art. I don't want you to quarrel with him. We've got to keep him safe, because there aren't many Charleses and I want you to ask him to supper to-morrow night.... I won't come if he doesn't.'
'I can feel success in the air,' said Sir Henry. 'It is like the old days. But suppose—er—something happened to him.'
Clara laughed, a thin, tired laugh. She was so weary of them harping on the silly story.
'I should go and tell them the truth, that I made him marry me and they'd let him go,' she said.
'It's such a waste of you,' said Sir Henry, sighing. 'You're not in love with him.'
She stared at him in astonishment.
'No,' she said, shocked into speaking the truth of her heart.
He crushed her in his arms, kissed her, gave a fat sigh, and staggered dramatically from the room. He had kissed her neck, her arms, her hands. She rushed to her basin and washed them clean.... Shaking with disgust and anger, she gazed at herself in her mirror, and was startled at the reflection. It was not Ariel that she saw, but Clara Day, a new Clara, a girl who stared in wonder at herself, gazed into her own eyes and through them, deep into her heart, and knew that she was in love. Her hand went to her throat to caress its whiteness. She shivered and shook herself free at last of all the obsessions that had crowded in her mind for so long, and she lost all knowledge of her surroundings and she could hear Rodd's beautiful deep voice saying,—
'Ay, that's it, to learn the tricks and keep decent. That's what one stands out for.'
The Imperium was at its most brilliant for the first performance. Lady Butcher had done her work well, and the people crowded in the pit had a good show for their money even before the curtain rose. The orchestra hidden away beneath gay greenery discoursed light music as the great men and the lovely women of the hour entered in their fine array, conscious of being themselves, hoping to be recognised as such. Actors who had retired with titles had come to support Sir Henry by encouraging in the audience the habit of applause. Successful politicians entered the stalls as though they were walking out upon the platform at a great meeting. They stood for a moment and surveyed the assembly with a Gladstonian aquiline eye. Their wives blushed with pride in their property if their husbands were recognised and raised a buzz.... Lady Butcher, with her son, occupied one stage-box, and on the opposite side were Lady Bracebridge, her daughter, and, through a nice calculation on his part, Lord Verschoyle.... There were many Jews, some authors, a few painters, critics casting listless eyes upon these preliminary histrionics, women-journalists taking notes of the frocks worn by the eminent actresses and no less eminent wives of Cabinet Ministers ... a buzz of voices, a fluttering of fans, the twittering and hissing of whispered scandal, the cold venom that creeps in the veins of the society of the mummers.... There were magnificence and luxury, but beneath it all was the deadly stillness of which Charles had complained that night on St James's Bridge. Before the curtain rose, Clara could feel it.... Her dreams of a vast enthusiastic audience perished as soon as she set foot on the stage to make sure that Charles's scenery was properly set up.
He walked on to the stage at the same moment, looked round, shook out his mane and snorted.
'The lighting kills it,' he said.
Clara went to him.
'You see, Charles, it has come true.'
'Half-true. Half-true.'
'Do you feel anything wrong with the audience?'
'No. I have had a peep at it. All the swells are there, but none of the brains.'
Clara laughed at him.
'It's good-bye, Charles.'
'What do you mean?'
'It can never be the same again.... I'm not the same.'
'What do you mean?' he asked, in alarm.
'I'll tell you after the performance. Where are you sitting?'
'I'm in the Author's box.'
'With his ghost?'
'No. He has only turned in his grave.'
The stage-hands were pretty alert and busy for the shipwreck, which Charles had contrived very simply: a darkened stage, a mast with a lamp, which was to sway and founder, and low moving clouds.
Clara and he parted. The music ceased. The storm broke and the curtain rose.
After a few moments the novelty of the ship scene wore off, a certain section of the audience, perceiving how it was done laughed at the simplicity of it and another section cried 'Hush.' The play had to proceed to a divided house.
The bold sweep of Charles's design for the island-cell carried in spite of the lighting and was applauded, but, as usual with English actors, the pace was slow and the verse was ponderously spoken. Lady Bracebridge's sense of caricature was almost infallible. Sir Henry as Prospero did look exactly like General Booth and again a section of the audience laughed. They had come to laugh, as the English always do, at novelty, and they went on laughing until Miranda was put to sleep.
Clara, put to the challenge of this audience, summoned up every ounce of her vitality and did coldly and consciously what before she had done almost in an ecstacy. In the full light, before the huge audience she felt that the play was betrayed, that there are some things too holy to be made public.... She loathed that audience, tittering and giggling. Her entrance was almost a contemptuous command to bid them be silent, with her wild hair fiercely flying as she danced, every step taken lightly as though she were dropping from a friendly wind.
'All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I comeTo answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly,To swim, to dive into the fire, to rideOn the curl'd clouds, to thy strong bidding taskAriel and all his quality.'
She stood poised as she had stood on the crag in Westmorland. Even in her stillness there was the very ecstacy of movement, for nothing in her was still.... A great sigh of pleasure came from the audience, and, with a movement that was imperceptible and yet made itself felt, she turned into a thing of stone, and uttered in an unearthly voice her description of the storm.
'Damme!' said Prospero, under his breath. 'You've got them.'
She had, but she despised so easy a conquest. This audience was like a still pool. It trembled with pleasure as an impression was thrown into it like a stone. She could only move its stillness, not touch its heart. She despised what she was doing, but went through with it loyally because she was pledged to it.
Her first scene with Prospero was applauded with an astonished enthusiasm. Her youth, her simplicity, her grace, had given these metropolitans a new pleasure, a new sensation. It was no more than that. She knew it was no more. She was angry with the applause which interrupted the play. The insensibility of the audience had turned her into a spectacle. Her very quality had separated her from the rest of the performance, and in her heart she knew that she had failed. There was no play: there were only three personalities on exhibition—Sir Henry Butcher, Charles, and herself. Shakespeare, as Charles had said, had only turned in his grave. Shakespeare, who was the poet of these people, was ignored by them in favour of the personalities of the interpreters. There was no altering that. She had made so vivid an impression that the audience delighted in her and not in her contribution to the whole enchantment of the play. That was broken even for her, and as the evening wore on she ceased even to herself to be Ariel and was forced to be Clara Day, displayed in public.
She loathed it, and yet she had no sense of declension. No enchanted illusion had been established. Charles Mann's scenery remained only—scenery. Sir Henry Butcher and the rest of his company were only actors—acting. A troupe of performing animals would have been more entertaining: indeed, in her bitter disappointment, Clara felt that she was one of such a troupe, the lady in tights who holds the hoops through which the dogs and monkeys jump.... So powerful was this anger in her that after a while she began to burlesque herself, to exaggerate her movement, and to keep her voice down to a childish treble, and the audience adored her. They turned her into a show, a music-hall turn, at the expense of the magical poetry of Shakespeare's farewell to his art.... She could not too wildly caricature herself, and as she often did when she was angry she talked to herself in French:—'Voila ce qu'il vous faut! Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!'—How they gulped down her songs! How they roared and bellowed when she danced—the delicious, wonderful girl!
She would not have done it had she known that Rodd was in front. He had decided to go at the last moment, to see her, as he thought for the last time, before she was delivered up to the public.... He knew its voracity. He knew the use to which the theatre was put, to keep the public drugged, to keep it drowned beneath the leagues and leagues of the stale waters of boredom. He knew perfectly well that nothing could shift them out of it, that any awakening was too painful for them to endure, and that there was no means of avoiding this constant sacrifice of personality after personality, talent after talent, victim after victim. He had hoped against hope that Clara, being what she was, would save herself in time, but he had decided that he had no right to interfere, or to offer his assistance. Against a machine like the Imperium, what could youth do? He credited her with the boundless confidence of youth, but he knew that she would be broken.
He had a seat at the back of the dress circle, and he suffered agonies. Mann's scenery annoyed him. The fellow had dramatic imagination, but what was the good of expressing it in paint and a structure of canvas and wood without reference to the actors? For that was what Charles did. He left nothing to the play. His scenery in its way was as oppressive as the old realism; indeed it was the old realism standing on its head.... It called attention to itself and away from the drama.
Rodd caught his breath when Clara first appeared. He thought for a moment that she must succeed, and that the rest of the company, even the scenery, must be caught up into the beauty she exhaled. But the electricians were too much for her. They followed her with spot-limes and gave her no play of light and shadow.... That, Rodd knew, was Butcher, exploiting his new discovery, thrusting it down the public's greedy maw. The ruthlessness of it! This exquisite creature of innocence, this very Ariel, born at last in life to leap forth from the imagination that had created her, this delicious spirit of freedom, come to beckon the world on to an awakening from its sloth and shame! To be used to feed the appetite for sensation and novelty!
Rodd saw how she suffered, saw how as the entertainment proceeded the wings of her spirit shrivelled and left her with nothing but her talent and her will. Nothing in all his life had hurt him more.... And he, too, felt the deadly stillness of this audience, for all its excitement and uproarious enthusiasm. He was aware of something predatory and vulturine in it, the very hideous quality that in his own work he had portrayed so exactly that no one could endure it, and his own soul had sickened and grown weary until the day when he had met this child of freedom.... It was as though he saw her being done to death before his eyes, and this appalling experience took on a ghastly symbolical significance—richness and lewdness crushing out of existence their enemies youth and joy. Towards that this London was drifting. It had no other purpose.... Ay, this audience was Caliban, coveting Miranda, hating Ariel, lusting to murder Ferdinand—youth, enchantment, love, all were to be done to death. Clara's performance was to him like the last choking song of youth. It should have been, he knew she meant it to be, like all art, a prophecy.
What malign Fate had dogged her to trip her feet, so soon, to lead her by such strange ways to the success that kills, the success worshipped in London, the success won at the cost of every living quality.
He watched her very closely, and began to understand her contempt. Her touch of burlesque made him roar with laughter, so that he was scowled at by his neighbours in the dress circle, and he began to feel more hopeful. He felt certain that this was the beginning and the end for her, and he supposed that she would marry her Lord and retire into an easy, cultured life. He had liked Verschoyle on his one meeting with him, and knew that he was to be trusted.
Truly the words of the play were marvellously apt, when Clara sang,—
'Merrily, merrily shall I live nowUnder the blossom that hangs on the bough.'
Rodd looked down at Verschoyle leaning out of his box, and felt sure that this was to be her way out. More of this painted mummery she could not endure. She could mould a good, simple creature like Verschoyle to her ways and become a great personage. So comforted, he heard the closing scenes of the play in all its truthful dignity, and he looked round at the sated audience wondering how many of them attached any meaning to the words hurled at them with such amazing power.
'The charm dissolves apace,And as the morning steals upon the night,Melting the darkness, so their rising sensesBegin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantleTheir clearer reason.
Their understandingBegins to swell, and the approaching tideWill shortly fill the reasonable shores,That now lie foul and muddy.'
The tenderness of this profound rebuke moved Rodd from his hatred of the audience, and on an impulse he ran down and stood waiting outside Verschoyle's box. He wanted to see him without precisely knowing why, perhaps, he thought, only to make sure that Clara was safe.
The applause as the curtain descended was tumultuous. Sir Henry bowed—to the right, to the left, to the centre. He made a little speech.
'I am deeply gratified at the great welcome you have given our efforts in the service of our poet. I am proud to have had the collaboration of Mr Charles Mann, and to have had the good fortune to discover in Miss Clara Day Ariel's very self. I thank you.'
The audience clamoured for Ariel, but she did not appear. She had moved away to her dressing-room, and had torn off her sky blue and silver net. She rent them into shreds, and her dresser, who had caught the elated excitement that was running through the theatre, burst into tears.
Rodd nearly swooned with anxiety when she did not appear, and he was almost knocked over when Verschoyle, white to the lips, darted out of the box.
'Sorry, sir,' he said, and was moving on when Rodd caught him by the arm.
'Let me go, damn you,' said Verschoyle.
'I want to speak to you.'
Verschoyle recognised his man and said,—
'In God's name has anything happened?'
(Something had happened but they did not know it. In her dressing-room, half way through the performance, she had found a note:—
'DEAR MADAM,—Either you grant me a profitable interview after the performance or the police will be informed to-morrow morning.'CLAUDE CUMBERLAND.')
'I only wanted,' said Rodd, 'to ask you to convey my very best wishes to Miss Day. Just that. Nothing more.'
Verschoyle stared at him, and Rodd laughed.
'No. I am not what you think. I have been and am always at your service. To-night has been one of the most wretched of her life. I have been watching the performance. Butcher and his audience have been too much for them.'
'But the success was hers.'
'You do not know her well, if you imagine that such a success is what she desires.'
An attendant came up to them with a note from Clara enclosing Cumberland's. Verschoyle handed it to Rodd, who crumpled it up and said,—
'I knew that was the danger-point. Will you take me to see her? I know these people. I have done what I could. I kicked that fellow out just after you had gone.'
'There is a supper in Sir Henry's room,' said Verschoyle, with an uneasy glance at Rodd's shabby evening clothes. 'I will take you there. Are you an actor?'
'No. I write. I remember you at the Hall when I was at Pembroke.'
That reassured Verschoyle. He liked this deep, quiet man, and felt that he knew more than he allowed to appear, half-guessed indeed that he had played some great and secret part in Clara's life. He introduced him to Lady Bracebridge and her daughter, who had stayed to watch the huge audience melt away and to hold a little reception with congratulations on the success of 'their' play. Lady Bracebridge noticed Rodd's boots at once, an old pair of cracked patent leathers, but her daughter chattered to him,—
'Wasn't it all too sweet? I adoreThe Tempest. Caliban is such a dear, isn't he?'
Rodd smiled grimly but politely.
They made their way on to the stage where they found Charles Mann tipping the stage-hands. The stairs up from the stage were thronged with brilliant personages, all happy, excited, drinking in the atmosphere of success.... In Sir Henry's room Lady Butcher stood to receive her guests. 'Too delightful! ... The most charming production! ... Exquisite! ... Quite too awfully Ballet Russe!'
The players in their costumes, their eyes dilated with nervous excitement, their lips trembling with their hunger for praise, moved among the Jews, politicians, journalists, major and minor celebrities.... Sir Henry moved from group to group. He was at his most brilliantly witty.
But there was no Ariel. Several ladies who desired to ask her to lunch in their anxiety to invest capital in the new star, clamoured to see her.
'She is tired, poor child,' said Sir Henry, with an amorously proprietary air.
'But shemustcome,' said Lady Butcher, eager to exploit the interest Clara had aroused, and she bustled away.
Charles Mann came in at that moment and he was at once surrounded with twittering women.
'You must tell him,' said Rodd to Verschoyle, 'he must get out.... Will you let her go with him?'
'Never,' said Verschoyle, and awaiting his chance, he plucked Charles by the sleeve, took him into a corner and gave him Cumberland's note.
Charles's face went a greeny gray.
'What does he mean?'
'Blackmail,' replied Verschoyle. 'You can't ask her to go on living with that hanging over her head.'
'I can pay,' said Charles.
'She'll pay on for ever.'
'What else can I do?'
'Clear out, give her a chance. Let her make her own life so that it can't touch her—whatever happens to you.'
'But I ...'
'Can you only think of yourself?'
'My work.'
'Look here, Mann. I've paid six hundred to keep this quiet. It hasn't done it. I suppose they've squabbled over the spoils.'
'Six hundred.'
'Yes. What can you do? These people ask more and more and more.'
'It's ruin.'
'Yes. If you don't clear out.'
Charles began to look elderly and flabby.
'All right,' he said. 'When?'
'To-morrow morning. I'll see that you have money and you'll get as much work as you like now—thanks to her.'
'You don't know what she's been to me, Verschoyle.'
'No. But I know what any other man would have been to her. You ought to have told her.'
'To-morrow morning,' said Charles. 'I'll go.'
He turned away and basked in the smiles and congratulations of the Bracebridge-Butcher set.
Verschoyle returned to Rodd,—
'That's all right,' he said. 'I was afraid that with this success he'd want to stick it out. These idealists are so infernally self-righteous.'
Lady Butcher returned with Clara, looking very pale and slender in a little black silk frock. Sir Henry came up to her at once and took possession of her. He whispered in her ear,—
'Did you get my flowers?'
'Yes.'
'And my note?'
'Yes.'
'Will you stay?'
'No.'
Her hand went to her heart as she saw Rodd. How came he here in this oppressive company? She was sorry and hated his being there.
She received her congratulations listlessly and accepted, without the smallest intention of acting upon her acceptance, all her invitations. Rodd was there. That was all she knew, he was there among those empty, voracious people.
He moved towards her and caught her as she was passed from one group to another.
'Forgive me,' he said. 'I had to come and see you. I thought it was for the last time.... I know all your story, even down to to-night. He is going away.'
'Charles?'
'Yes.'
'I can't stay here. I can't stand it.... You are not going to stay.'
'How do you know?'
'I was with you all through to-night....'
Their eyes met. Again there was nothing but they two. All pretence, all mummery had vanished. Life had become pure and strong, more rich and wonderful even than the play in which, baffled by the chances of life, she had striven to live.
'To-morrow,' she said, 'I am going to the bookshop at half-past twelve.'
He bowed and left her, and meeting Mr Clott or Cumberland on the stairs of his house he had the satisfaction of shaking him until his teeth rattled, and of telling him that Mr Charles Mann had gone abroad for an indefinite period.