It was the end of January in the following year, and Charmian and Claude Heath had been married for three months. The honeymoon was over. The new strangeness of being husband and wife had worn away a little from both of them. Life had been disorganized. Now it had to be rearranged, if possible, be made compact, successful, beautiful.
For three months Claude had done no work. Charmian and he had been to Italy for their honeymoon, and had visited, among other places, Milan, Florence, Siena, Perugia, Rome, and Naples. They had not stayed their feet at the Italian lakes. Charmian had said:
"Every banal couple who want to pump up a feeling of romance go there. Don't let us join the round-eyed, open-mouthed crowd, and be smirked at by German waiters. I couldn't bear it!"
Her horror of being included in the crowd pursued her even to the church door of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge.
Now she was secretly obsessed by one idea, one great desire. She and Claude must emerge from the crowd with all possible rapidity. The old life of obscurity must be left behind, the new life of celebrity, of fame, be entered upon. Both of them must settle down now to work, Claude to his composition, she to her campaign on his behalf. Of this latter she did not breathe a word to anyone. Her instinct told her to keep her ambition as secret as possible for the present. Later on she would emerge into the open as an English Madame Sennier. But the time for laurel crowns was not yet ripe. All the spade work had yet to be done, with discretion, abnegation, a thousand delicate precautions. She must not be a young wife in a hurry. She must be, or try to be, patient.
The little old house near St. Petersburg Place had been got rid of, and Charmian and Claude had just settled in Kensington Square.
Charmian thought of this house in Kensington Square as a compromise. Claude had wished to give up Mullion House on his marriage. Seeing the obligation to enter upon a new way of life before him he had resolved, almost with fierceness, to break away from his austere past, to destroy, so far as was possible, all associations that linked him with it. With an intensity that was honorable, he set out to make a success of his life with Charmian. To do that, he felt that he must create a great change in himself. He had become wedded to habits. Those habits must all be divorced from him. An atmosphere had enfolded him, had become as it were part of him, drowning his life in its peculiar influence. He must emerge from it. But he would never be able to emerge from it in the little old house which he loved. So he got rid of his lease, with Charmian's acquiescence.
She did not really want to live on the north side of the Park. And the neighborhood was "Bayswatery." But she guessed that Claude was not quite happy in deserting his characteristic roof-tree, and she eagerly sought for another. It was found in Kensington Square. Several interesting and even famous persons lived there. The houses were old, not large, compact. They had a "flavor" of culture, which set them apart from the new and mushroom dwellings of London, and from all flats whatsoever. They were suitable to "artistic" people. A great actress, much sought after in the social world, had lived for years in this square. A famous musician was opposite to her. A baronet, who knew how to furnish, and whose wife gave delightful small parties, was next door but three. A noted novelist had just moved there from a flat in Queen Anne's Mansions. In fact, there was a cachet on Kensington Square.
And though it was rather far out, you can go almost anywhere in ten minutes if you can afford to take a taxi-cab. Charmian and Claude had fifteen hundred a year between them. She had no doubt of their being able to take taxi-cabs on such an income. And, later on, of course Claude would make a lot of money. Jacques Sennier's opera was bringing him in thousands of pounds, and he had received great offers for future works from America, whereLe Paradis Terrestrehad justmade a furore at the Metropolitan Opera House. He and Madame Sennier were in New York now, having a more than lovely time. The generous American nation had taken them both to its heart. Charmian had read several accounts of their triumphs, artistic and social, in English newspapers. She had said to herself "Ours presently!" And with renewed and vital energy, she had devoted herself afresh to the task of "getting into" the new house.
Mrs. Mansfield had helped her, with sober love and devotion.
Now at last the house was ready, four servants were engaged, and the ceremony of hanging thecrémaillèrewas being duly accomplished.
The Heaths' house-warming had brought together Charmian's friends. Heath, true to his secret determination to break away from his old life, had wished that it should be so. His few intimates in London were not in the Mansfields' set, and would not "mix in" very well with Kit and Margot Drake, the Elliots, the Burningtons, Paul Lane, and the many other people with whom Charmian was intimate; who went where she had always been accustomed to go, and who spoke her language. So it was Charmian's party and Heath played the part of host to about fifty people, most of whom were almost, or quite, strangers to him.
And he played it well, though perhaps with a certain anxiety which he could not quite conceal. For he was in a new country with people to all of whom it was old.
Late in the evening he at last had a few minutes alone with his mother-in-law. The relief to him was great. As he sat with her on a sofa in the second of the two small drawing-rooms under a replica of the Winged Victory, and a tiny full-length portrait of Charmian as a child in a white frock, standing against a pale blue background, by Burne-Jones, he felt like a man who had been far away from himself, and who was suddenly again with himself. Mrs. Mansfield's quiet tenderness flowed over him, but unostentatiously. She had much to conceal from Claude now; her understanding of the struggle, the fear, the almost desperate determination within him, her deep sympathy with him in his honorable conduct, her anxietyabout his future with her child, her painful comprehension of Charmian, which did not abate her love for the girl, but perhaps strengthened it, giving it wings of pity. She was one of those middle-aged people of great intelligence, who have learned through deep experience, to divine. Her power had not failed her during the period of her daughter's engagement to Heath. If she had not acted strongly it was because she was supremely delicate in mind, and had a great respect for personal liberty. She disliked intensely those elderly people who are constantly trying to interfere with the happiness of youth. Perhaps she was overscrupulous in her reserve. Perhaps she should have acted on the prompting of her quick understanding. She did not. It seemed to her that she could not.
She could not tell her child that Claude Heath was not really in love. Nor could she tell Charmian that an affection threaded through and through with a personal, and rather vulgar, ambition is not the kind of affection likely to form a firm basis for the building of happiness.
So she had to hide her understanding, her regret, her anxiety. She alone knew whether pride helped her, perhaps had helped to prompt her, to reticence, to concealment. She had been Claude Heath's great friend. The jealousies of women are strong. She knew herself free from jealousy. But another woman, even her own daughter, might misunderstand. It was bitter to think so, but she did think so. And her lips were sealed. Beneath the more human fears in her crouched a fear that seemed apart, almost curiously isolated and very definite, the fear for Claude Heath's strange talent.
On the night of the house-warming, as they sat together hearing the laughter, the buzz of talk, from those near them; as, a moment later, they heard those sounds diminish upon the narrow staircase, when everybody but themselves trooped down gaily to "play with a little food unceremoniously," as Charmian expressed it, Mrs. Mansfield found herself thinking of her first visit to the big studio in Mullion House, and of those Kings of the East whom the man beside her had made to live in her warm imagination.
"What is it?" Claude said, when the human sounds in the house came up from under their feet.
"From to-morrow!" she answered, looking at him with her strong, intense eyes.
"From to-morrow—yes, Madre?"
She put her thin and firm hand on his.
"Life begins again, the life of work put off for a time. To-morrow you take it up once more."
"Yes—yes!"
He glanced about the pretty room, listened to the noise of the gaieties below them. Distinctly he heard Max Elliot's genial laugh.
"Of course," he said. "I must start again on something. The question is, what on?"
"Surely you have something in hand?"
"I had. But—well, I've left it for so long that I don't know whether I could get back into the mood which enabled me to start it. I don't believe I could somehow. I think it would be best to begin on something quite fresh."
"You know that. Do you think you will like the new workroom?"
"Charmian has made it very pretty and cozy," he answered.
His imaginative eyes looked suddenly distressed, almost persecuted, and he raised his eyebrows.
"She is very clever at creating prettiness around her," he continued, after an instant of silence, during which Mrs. Mansfield looked down. "It is quite wonderful. And how energetic she is!"
"Yes, Charmian can be very energetic when she likes. Adelaide Shiffney never turned up to-night."
"She telegraphed this morning that she had to go over unexpectedly to Paris. Something to do with the Senniers probably. You know how devoted she is to him. And now he is the rage in America, Charmian says. Every day I expect to hear that Mrs. Shiffney had sailed for New York."
He laughed, but not quite naturally.
"What a change in his life that evening at Covent Garden made!" he added.
"And what a change in yours!" was Mrs. Mansfield's thought.
"He found himself, as people call it, on that night, I suppose," she said. "He is one of those men with a talent made for the great public. And he knew it, perhaps, for the first time that night. He is launched now on his destined career."
"You believe in destiny?"
She detected the sadness she had surprised in his eyes in his voice now.
"Perhaps in our making of it."
"Rather than in some great Power's imposing of it upon us?"
"Ah, it's so difficult to know! When I was a child we had a game we loved. We went into a large room which was pitch dark. A person was hidden in it who had a shilling. Whichever child found that person had the shilling. There were terror and triumph in that game. It was scarcely like a game, it roused our feelings so strongly."
"It is not everyone's destiny to find the holder of the shilling," said Claude.
For a moment their eyes met. Claude suddenly reddened.
"Have I? Does she suspect? Does she know?" went through his mind. And even Mrs. Mansfield felt embarrassed. For in that moment it was as if they had spoken to each other with a terrible frankness despite the silence of their lips.
"Shan't we go down?" said Claude. "Surely you want something to eat, Madre?"
"No, really. And I like a quiet talk with my new son."
He said nothing, but she saw the strong affection in his face, lighting it, and she knew Claude loved her almost as a son may love a perfect mother. She wished that she dared to trust that love completely. But the instinctive reserve of the highly civilized held her back. And she only said:
"You must not let marriage interfere too much with your work, Claude. I care very much for that. For years your work was everything to you. It can't be that, it oughtn't to be that now. But I want your marriage with Charmian to help, not to hinder you. Be true to your own instinct in your art and surely all must go well."
"Yes, yes. To-morrow I must make a fresh start. I could never be an idler. I must—I must try to use life as food for my art!"
He was speaking out his thought of the night when he wrote his letter to Charmian. But how cold, how doubtful it seemed when clothed in words.
"Some can do that," said Mrs. Mansfield. "But, as I remember saying on the night of Charmian's return from Algiers, Swinburne's food was Putney. There is no rule. Follow your instinct."
She spoke with a sort of strong pressure. And again their eyes met.
"How well she understands me!" he thought. "Does she understand me too well?"
He became hot, then cold, at the thought that perhaps she had divined his lack of love for her daughter.
For marriage with Charmian, and three months of intimate intercourse with her, had not made Claude love her. He admired her appearance. He felt, sometimes strongly, her physical attraction. Her slim charm did not leave him unmoved. Often he felt obliged to respect her energy, her vitality. But anything that is not love is far away from love. In marrying Charmian, Claude had made a secret sacrifice on the altar of honor. He had done "the decent thing." Impulse had driven him into a mistake and he had "paid for it" like a man without a word of complaint to anyone. He had hoped earnestly, almost angrily, that love would be suddenly born out of marriage, that thus his mistake would be cancelled, his right dealing rewarded beautifully.
It had not been so. So he walked in the vast solitude of secrecy. He had become a fine humbug, he who by nature was rather drastically sincere. And he knew not how to face the future with hope, seeing no outlet from the cage into which he had walked. To-night, as Mrs. Mansfield spoke, with that peculiar firm pressure, he thought: "Perhaps I shall find salvation in work." If she had divined the secret he could never tell her perhaps she had seen the only way out. The true worker, the worker who is great, uses the troubles, the sorrows, even the great tragedies of life as material, combines them in a whole that is precious, lays them as balm, or as bitter tonic on the wounds of the world. And so all things in his life work together for good.
"May it be so with me!" was Claude's silent prayer that night.
When their guests were gone, Charmian sat down on a very low chair before the wood fire—she insisted on wood instead of coal—in the first drawing-room.
"Don't let us go to bed for a few minutes yet, Claude," she said. "You aren't sleepy, are you?"
"Not a bit."
He sat down on the chintz-covered sofa near her.
"It went off well, didn't it?"
She was looking into the fire. Her narrow, long-fingered hands were clasped round her knees. She wore a pale yellow dress, and there was a yellow band in her dark hair, which was arranged in such a way that it looked, Claude thought, like a careless cloud, and which gave to her face a sort of picturesquely tragic appearance.
"Yes, I think it did."
"They all liked you."
"I'm glad!"
"You make an excellent host, Claudie; you are so ready, so sympathetic! You listen so well, and look as if you really cared, whether you do or not. It's such a help to a man in his career to have a manner like yours. But I remember noticing it the first time I ever met you in Max Elliot's music-room. What a shame of Adelaide Shiffney not to come!"
Her voice had suddenly changed.
"Did you want Mrs. Shiffney to come so particularly?" Claude asked, not without surprise.
"Yes, I did. Not for myself, of course. I don't pretend to be fond of her, though I don't dislike her! But she ought to have come after accepting. People thought she was coming to-night. I wonder why she rushed off to Paris like that?"
"I should think it was probably something to do with the Senniers. Max Elliot told me just now that she lives and breathes Sennier."
Claude spoke with a quiet humor, and quite without anger.
"Max does exactly the same," said Charmian. "It really becomes rather silly—in a man."
"But Sennier is worth it. Nothing spurious about him."
"I never said there was. But still—Margot is rather tiresome, too, with her rages first for this person and then for the other."
"Who is it now?"
"Oh, she's Sennier-mad like the others."
"Still?"
"Yes, after all these months. She's actually going over to America, I believe, just to hear theParadisonce at the Metropolitan. Five days out, five back, and one night there. Isn't it absurd? She's had it put in theDaily Mail. And then she says she can't think how things about her get into the papers! Margot really is rather a humbug!"
"Still, she admires the right thing when she admires Sennier's talent," said Claude, with a sort of still decision.
Charmian turned her eyes away from the fire and looked at him.
"How odd you are!" she said, after a little pause.
"Why? In what way am I odd?"
"In almost every way, I think. But it's all right. You ought to be odd."
"What do you mean, Charmian?"
"Jacques Sennier's odd, extraordinary. People like that always are. You are."
She was examining him contemplatively, as a woman examines a possession, something that the other women have not. Her look made him feel very restive and intensely reserved.
"I doubt if I am the least like Jacques Sennier," he said.
"Oh, yes, you are. I know."
His rather thin and very mobile lips tightened, as if to keep back a rush of words.
"You don't know yourself," Charmian continued, still looking at him with those contemplative and possessive eyes. "Men don't notice what is part of themselves."
"Do women?"
"What does it matter? I am thinking about you, about my man."
There was a long pause, which Claude filled by getting up and lighting a cigarette. A hideous, undressed sensationpossessed him, the undressed sensation of the reserved nature that is being stared at. He said to himself: "It is natural that she should look at me like this, speak to me like this. It is perfectly natural." But he hated it. He even felt as if he could not endure it much longer, and would be obliged to do something to stop it.
"Don't sit down again," said Charmian, as he turned with the cigarette in his mouth.
She got up with lithe ease, like one uncurling.
"Let's go and look at your room, where you're going to begin work to-morrow."
She put her hand on his arm. And her hand was possessive as her eyes had been.
Claude's workroom was at the back of the house on the floor above the drawing-room. An upright piano replaced the grand piano of Mullion House, now dedicated to the drawing-room. There was a large flat writing-table in front of the window, where curtains of Irish frieze, dark green in color, hung shutting out the night and the ugliness at the back of Kensington Square. The walls were nearly covered with books. At the bottom of the bookcases were large drawers for music. A Canterbury held more music, and was placed beside the writing-table. The carpet was dark green without any pattern. In the fireplace were some curious Morris tiles, representing Æneas carrying Anchises, with Troy burning in the background. There were two armchairs, and a deep sofa covered in dark green. A photograph of Charmian stood on the writing-table. It showed her in evening dress, holding her Conder fan, and looking out with half-shut eyes. There was in it a hint of the assumed dreaminess which very sharp-witted modern maidens think decorative in photographs, the "I follow an ideal" expression, which makes men say, "What a charming girl! Looks as if she'd got something in her, too!"
"It's a dear little room, isn't it, Claude?" said Charmian.
"Yes, very."
"You really like it, don't you? You like its atmosphere?"
"I think you've done it delightfully. I was saying toMadre only this evening how extraordinarily clever you are in creating prettiness around you."
"Were you? How nice of you."
She laid her cheek against his shoulder.
"You'll be able to work here?"
"Why not?"
"Let's shut the door, and justfeelthe room for a minute."
"All right."
He shut the door.
"Don't let us speak for a moment," she whispered.
She was sitting now on the deep sofa just beyond the writing-table. Claude stood quite still. And in the silence which followed her words he strove to realize whether he would be able to work in the little room. Would anything come to him here? His eyes rested on Anchises, crouched on the back of his son, on the burning city of Troy. He felt confused, strange, and thendépaysé. That word alone meant what he felt just then. Ah, the little house with the one big room looking out on to the scrap of garden, yellow-haired Fan, Harriet discreet unto dumbness, Mrs. Searle with her scraps of wisdom—he with his freedom!
The room was a cage, wire bars everywhere. Never could he work in it!
"It is good for work, isn't it, Claudie? Even poor little I can feel that. What wonderful things you are going to do here. As wonderful as—" She checked herself abruptly.
"As what?" he asked, striving to force an interest, to banish his secret desperation.
"I won't tell you now. Some day—in a year, two years—I'll tell you."
Her eyes shone. He thought they looked almost greedy.
"When my man's done something wonderful!"
In Charmian's conception of the perfect helpmate for a great man self-sacrifice shone out as the first of the virtues. She must sacrifice herself to Claude, must regulate her life so that his might glide smoothly, without any friction, to the appointed goal. She must be patient, understanding, and unselfish. But she must also be firm at the right moment, be strong in judgment, be judicious, the perfect critic as well as the ardent admirer. During her life among clever and well-known men she had noticed how the mere fact of marriage often seems to make a man think highly of the intellect of his chosen woman. Again and again she had heard some distinguished writer or politician, wedded to somebody either quite ordinary, or even actually stupid, say: "I'd take my wife's judgment before anyone's," or "My wife sees more clearly for a man than anyone I know." She had known painters and sculptors submit their works to the criticism of women totally ignorant in the arts, simply because those women had had the faultless taste to marry them. If such women exercised so strong an influence over their men, what should hers be over Claude? For she had been well educated, was trained in music, had always moved in intellectual and artistic sets, and was certainly not stupid. Indeed, now that the main stream of her life was divided from her mother's, she often felt as if she were decidedly clever. Susan Fleet, long ago, had roused up her will. Since that day she had never let it sleep. And her success in marrying Claude had made her rely on her will, rely on herself. She was a girl who could "carry things through," a girl who could make of life a success. As a young married woman she showed more of assurance than she had showed as an unmarried girl. There was more of decision in her expression and her way of being. She was resolved to impress the world, of course for her husband's sake.
Life in the house in Kensington had to be arranged forClaude with every elaborate precaution. That must be the first move in the campaign secretly planned out by Charmian, and now about to be carried through.
On the morning after the house-warming, when a late breakfast was finished, but while they were still at the breakfast-table in the long and narrow dining-room, which looked out on the quiet square, Charmian said to her husband:
"I've been speaking to the servants, Claude. I've told them about being very quiet to-day."
He pushed his tea-cup a little away from him.
"Why?" he asked. "I mean why specially to-day?"
"Because of your composing. Alice is a good girl, but she is a little inclined to be noisy sometimes. I've spoken to her seriously about it."
Alice was the parlor-maid. Charmian would have preferred to have a man to answer the door, but she had sacrificed to economy, or thought she had done so, by engaging a woman. As Claude said nothing, Charmian continued:
"And another thing! I've told them all that you're never to be disturbed when you're in your own room, that they're never to come to you with notes, or the post, never to call you to the telephone. I want you to feel that once you are inside your own room you are absolutely safe, that it is sacred ground."
"Thank you, Charmian."
He pushed his cup farther away, with a movement that was rather brusque, and got up.
"What about lunch to-day? Do you eat lunch when you are composing? Do you want something sent up to you?"
"Well, I don't know. I don't think I shall want any lunch to-day. You see we've breakfasted late. Don't bother about me."
"It isn't a bother. You know that, Claudie. But would you like a cup of coffee, tea, anything at one o'clock?"
"Oh, I scarcely know. I'll ring if I do."
He made a movement. Charmian got up.
"I do long to know what you are going to work on," she said, in a changed, almost mysterious, voice, which was not consciously assumed.
She came up to him and put her hands on his shoulders.
"Ever since I first heard your music—you remember, two days after we were engaged—I've longed to be able to do a little something to help you on. You know what I mean. In the woman's way, by acting as a sort of buffer between you and all the small irritations of life. We who can't create can sometimes be of use to those who can. We can keep others from disturbing the mystery. Let me do that. And, in return, let me be in the secret, won't you?"
Claude stood rather stiffly under her hands.
"You are kind, good. But—but don't make any bother about me in the house. I'd rather you didn't. Let everything just go on naturally. I don't want to be a nuisance."
"You couldn't be. And you will let me?"
"Perhaps—when I know it myself."
He made a little rather constrained laugh.
"One's got to think, try. One doesn't always know directly what one wishes to do, can do."
"No, of course not."
She took away her hands gently.
"Now I don't exist till you want me to again."
Claude went up to the little room at the back of the house. At this moment he would gladly, thankfully, have gone anywhere else. But he felt that he was expected to go there. Five women, his wife and the four maids, expected him to go there. So he went. He shut himself in, and remained there, caged.
It was a still and foggy day of frost. In the air, even within the house, there was a feeling of snow, light, thin, and penetrating. London seemed peculiarly silent. And the silence seemed to have something to do with the fog, the frost, and the coming snow. When the door of his room was shut Claude stood by his table, then before the fire, feeling curiously empty headed, almost light headed. He stared at the fire, listened to its faint crackling, and felt as if his life were a hollow shell.
Probably he had stood thus for a considerable time—he did not know whether for five minutes or an hour—when he was made self-conscious by an event in the house. He heardtwo women's voices in conversation, apparently on the staircase.
One of them said:
"The duster, I tell you!"
The other replied:
"Well, I didn't leave it. Ask Fanny, can't you!"
"Fanny doesn't know."
"She ought to know, then!"
"Ought yourself! Fanny's no business with the duster no more than—"
At this point a third voice intervened in the dialogue. It was Charmian's, reduced to a sort of intense whisper. It said:
"Alice! Alice! I specially told you not to make a sound in the house. Your master is at work. The least noise disturbs him. Pray be quiet. If you must speak, go downstairs."
There was silence, then the sound of rustling, of a door shutting, then again silence.
Claude came away from the fire.
"Your master is at work."
He dashed down his hands on the big writing-table, with a gesture almost of despair. Self-consciousness now was like an iron band about him, the devilish thing that constricts a talent. The hideous knowledge that he was surrounded by women, intent on him and what he was supposed to be doing, benumbed his intellect. He imagined the cook in the kitchen discussing his talent with a rolling-pin in her hand, Charmian's maid musing over his oddities, with a mouth full of pins, and patterns on her lap. And he ground his teeth.
"I can't—I can't—I never shall be able to!"
He leaned his elbows on the writing-table and put his head in his hands. When he looked up, after some minutes, he met Charmian's half-closed, photographed eyes.
Between twelve and one o'clock the noise of a piano organ playing vigorously, almost angrily, "You are Queen of my heart to-night," came up to him from the square, softened, yet scarcely ameliorated, by distance and intervening walls. With bold impertinence it began, continued for perhaps three minutes, then abruptly ceased in the middle of a phrase.
Claude knew why. One of the four maids, incited thereto by Charmian, had rushed out to control the swarthy Italian who was earning his living in the land without light.
The master was working.
But the master was not working.
Day followed day, and Claude kept his secret, the secret that he was doing, could do, nothing in the room arranged by Charmian, in the atmosphere created by Charmian.
One thing specially troubled him.
So long as he had lived alone he had never felt as if his art, or perhaps rather his method of giving himself to it, had any trait of effeminacy. It had seemed quite natural to him to be shut up in his own "diggings," isolated, with only a couple of devoted servants, and golden-haired Fan in the distance, being as natural as he was. It had never occurred to him that his life was specially odd.
But now he often did feel as if there were something effeminate in the young composer at home, perpetually in the house, with his wife and a lot of women. The smallness of the house, of his workroom, emphasized this feeling. Although an almost dreadful silence was preserved whenever he was supposed to be working his very soul seemed to hear the perpetual rustle of skirts. The fact that five women were keeping quiet on his account made him feel as if he were an effeminate fool, feel that if his art was a thing unworthy of a man's devotion, that in following it, in sacrificing to it, he was doing himself harm, was undermining his own masculinity.
This sensation grew in him. He envied the men whose work took them from home. He longed, after breakfast, to put on hat and coat and sally out. He thought of the text, "Man goeth forth to his work and to his labor until the evening." If only he could go forth! If only he could forget the existence of his intent wife, of those four hushed and wondering maids every day for six or eight hours. He fell into deep despondencies, sometimes into silent rages which seemed to eat into his heart.
During this time Charmian was beginning to "put out feelers." Her work for Claude, that is, her work outside the little house in Kensington Square, was to be social. Womencan do very much in the social way. And she knew herself well equipped for the task in hand. Her heart was in it, too. She felt sure of that. Even to herself she never used the words "worldly ambition." The task was a noble one, to make the career of the man she believed in and loved glorious, to bring him to renown. While he was shut up, working in the little room she had made so cozy, so "atmospheric," she would be at work for him in the world they were destined to conquer.
All the "set" had come to call in Kensington Square. Most of them were surprised at the match. They recognized the worldly instinct in Charmian, which many of them shared, and could not quite understand why she had chosen Claude Heath as her husband. They had not heard much of him. He never went anywhere, was personally unknown to them. It seemed rather odd. They had scarcely thought Charmian Mansfield would make that kind of marriage. Of course he was a thorough gentleman, and a man with pleasant, even swiftly attractive manners. But still—! The general verdict was that Charmian must have fallen violently in love with the man.
She felt the feelings of the "set." And she felt that she must justify her choice as soon as possible. To the set Claude Heath was simply a nobody. Charmian meant to turn him into a somebody.
This turning of Claude into a somebody was to be the first really important step in her campaign on his behalf. It must be done subtly, delicately, but it must be done swiftly. She was secretly impatient to justify her choice.
She had at first relied on Max Elliot to help her. He was an enthusiastic man and had influence. Unluckily she soon found that for the moment he was so busy adoring Jacques Sennier that he had no time to beat the big drum for another. Sennier had carried him off his feet, and Madame Sennier had "got hold of him." The last phrase was Charmian's. It was speedily evident to her that, womanlike, the Frenchwoman was not satisfied with the fact of her husband's immense success. She was determined that no rival should spring up to divide adorers into camps. No doubt she arguedthat there is in the musical world only a limited number of discriminating enthusiasts, capable of forming and fostering public opinion, of "giving a lead" to the critics, and through them to the world. She wanted them all for her husband. And their allegiance must be undivided. Although she was in New York, she had Max Elliot "in her pocket" in London. It was a feat which won Charmian's respect, but which irritated her extremely. Max Elliot was charming, of course, when she spoke of her husband's talent. But she saw at once that he was concentrated on Sennier. She felt at once that he did not at the moment want to "go mad" over any other composer. If Claude had been a singer, a pianist, or a fiddler, things would have been different. Max Elliot had taken charge of the Frenchman's financial affairs, solely out of friendship, and was investing the American and other gains in various admirable enterprises. Madame Sennier, who really was, as Paul Lane had said, an extraordinary woman, had a keen eye to the main chance. She acted as a sort of agent to her husband, and was reported on all hands to be capable of driving a very hard bargain. She and Max Elliot were perpetually cabling to each other across the Atlantic, and Max was seriously thinking of imitating Margot Drake and "running over" to New York on theLusitania. Only his business in London detained him. He spoke of Sennier invariably as "Jacques," of Madame Sennier as "Henriette." Living English composers scarcely existed any more in his sight. France was the country of music. Only from France could one expect anything of real value to the truly cultured.
Charmian began to hate this absurd entente cordiale.
Another person on whom she had secretly set high hopes was Adelaide Shiffney. It was for this reason that she had been irritated at Mrs. Shiffney's defection on the night of the house-warming. Now that she was married to a composer Charmian understood the full value of Mrs. Shiffney's influence in the fashionable world. She must get Adelaide on their side. But here again Sennier stood in her path. Mrs. Shiffney was, musically speaking of course, in love with Jacques Sennier. Since Wagner there had been nobody to play upon femininenerves as the little Frenchman played, to take women "out of themselves." As a well-known society woman said, with almost pathetic frankness, "When one hears Sennier's music one wants to hold hands with somebody." Apparently Mrs. Shiffney wanted to hold hands with the composer himself. She had "no use" at the moment for anyone else, and had already arranged to take the Senniers on a yachting cruise after the London season, beginning with Cowes.
The "feelers" which Charmian put out found the atmosphere rather chilly.
But she remembered what battles with the world most of its great men have had to fight, how many wives of great men have had to keep the flame alive in gross darkness. She was not daunted. But she presently began to feel that, without being frank with Claude, she must try to get a certain amount of active help from him. She had intended by judicious talk to create the impression that Claude was an extraordinary man, on the way to accomplish great things. She believed this thoroughly herself. But she now realized that, owing to the absurd Sennier "boom," unless she could get Claude to show publicly something of his talent nobody would pay any attention to what she said.
"What is he doing?" people asked, when she spoke about his long hours of work, about the precautions she had to take lest he should be disturbed. She answered evasively. The truth was that she did not know what Claude was doing. What he had done, or some of it, she did know. She had heard his Te Deum, and some of his strange settings of words from the scriptures. But her clever worldly instinct told her that this was not the time when her set would be likely to appreciate things of that kind. The whole trend of the taste she cared about was setting in the direction of opera. And whenever she tried to find out from Claude what he was composing in Kensington Square she was met with evasive answers.
One afternoon she came home from a party at the Drakes' house in Park Lane determined to enlist Claude's aid at once in her enterprise, without telling him what was in her heart. And first she must find out definitely what sort of compositionhe was working on at the present moment. In Park Lane nothing had been heard of but Sennier and Madame Sennier. Margot had returned from America more enthusiastic, moreengouéethan ever.
She had been as straw to the flame of American enthusiasm. All her individuality seemed to have been burnt out of her. She was at present only a sort of receptacle for Sennier-mania. In dress, hair, manner, and even gesture, she strove to reproduce Madame Sennier. For one of the most curious features of Sennier's vogue was the worship accorded by women as well as by men to his dominating wife. They talked and thought almost as much about her as they did about him. And though his was the might of genius, hers seemed to be the might of personality. The perpetual chanting of the Frenchwoman's praises had "got upon" Charmian's nerves. She felt this afternoon as if she could not bear it much longer, unless some outlet was provided for her secret desires. And she arrived at Kensington Square in a condition of suppressed nervous excitement.
She paid the driver of the taxi-cab and rang the bell. She had forgotten to take her key. Alice answered the door.
"Is Mr. Heath in?" asked Charmian.
"He's been playing golf, ma'am. But he's just come in," answered Alice, a plump, soft-looking girl, with rather sulky blue eyes.
"Oh, of course! It's Saturday."
On Saturday Claude generally took a half-holiday, and went down to Richmond to play golf with a friend of his who lived there, an old Cornish chum called Tregorwan.
"Where is Mr. Heath?" continued Charmian, standing in the little hall.
"Having his tea in the drawing-room, ma'am."
"Oh!"
She took off her fur coat and went quickly upstairs. She did not care about golf, and to-day the mere sound of the name irritated her. Englishmen were always playing golf, she said to herself. Jacques Sennier did not waste his time on such things, she was sure. Then she remembered for how many hours every day Claude was shut up in his little room,how he always went there immediately after breakfast. And she realized the injustice of her dawning anger, and also her nervous state, and resolved to be very gentle and calm with Claude.
It was a cold day at the end of March. She found him sitting near the wood fire in knickerbockers and a Norfolk jacket, with thick, heavily nailed boots, covered with dried mud, on his feet, and thick brown and red stockings on his legs. It was almost impossible to believe he was a musician. His hair had been freshly cut, but he had not "watered" it. Since his marriage Charmian had never allowed him to do that. He jumped up when he saw his wife. Intimacy never made Claude relax in courtesy.
"I'm having tea very late," he said. "But I've only just got in."
"I know. Sit down and go on, dear old boy. I'll come and sit with you. Don't you want more light?"
"I like the firelight."
He sat down again and lifted the teapot.
"I shall spoil my dinner. But never mind."
"You remember we're dining with Madre!"
"Oh—to be sure!"
"But not till half-past eight."
She sat down with her back to the drawn window curtains at right angles to Claude. Alice had "shut up" early to make the drawing-room look cozy for Claude. The firelight played about the room, illuminating now one thing, now another, making Claude's face and head, sometimes his musical hands look Rembrandtesque, powerful, imaginative, even mysterious. Now that Charmian had sat down she lost her impression of the eternal golfer, received another impression which spurred her imagination.
"I've been at the Drakes," she began. "Only a very few to welcome Margot back from New York."
"Did she enjoy her visit?"
"Immensely. She's—as she calls it—tickled to death with the Americans in their own country. She meant to stay only one night, but she was there three weeks. It seems all New York has gone mad over Jacques Sennier."
"I'm glad they see how really fine his opera is," Claude said, seriously, even earnestly.
"Margot says when the Americans like anything they are the most enthusiastic nation in the world."
"If it is so it's a fine trait in the national character, I think."
How impersonal he sounded. She longed for the creeping music of jealousy in his voice. If only Claude would be jealous of Sennier!
She spoke lightly of other things, and presently said:
"How is the work getting on?"
There was a slight pause. Then Claude said:
"The work?"
"Yes, yours."
She hesitated. There was something in her husband's personality that sometimes lay upon her like an embargo. She was conscious of this embargo now. But her nervous irritation made her determined to defy it.
"Claudie," she went on, "you don't know, you can't know, how much I care for your work. It's part of you. It is you. You promised me once you would let me be in the secret. Don't you remember?"
"Did I? When?"
"The day after our party when you were going to begin work again. And now it's nearly two months."
She stopped. He was silent. A flame burst out of a log in the grate and lit up strongly one half of his face. She thought it looked stern, almost fierce, and very foreign. Many Cornish people have Spanish blood in them, she remembered. That foreign look made her feel for a moment almost as if she were sitting with a stranger.
"Nearly two months," she repeated in a more tentative voice.
"Is it?"
"Yes. Don't you think I've been very patient?"
"But, surely—surely—why should you want to know?"
"I do want. Your work is your life. I want it to be mine, too."
"Oh, it could never be that—the work of another."
"I want to identify myself with you."
There was another silence. And this time it was a long one. At last Claude moved, turned round to face Charmian fully, and said, with the voice of one making a strong, almost a desperate effort:
"You wish to know what I've been working on during these weeks when I've been in my room?"
"Yes."
"I haven't been working on anything."
"What?"
"I haven't been working at all."
"Not working!"
"No."
"But—you must—but we were all so quiet! I told Alice—"
"I never asked you to."
"No, but of course—but what have you been doing up there?"
"Reading Carlyle'sFrench Revolutionmost of the time."
"Carlyle! You've been reading Carlyle!"
In her voice there was a sound of outrage. Claude got up and stood by the fire.
"It isn't my fault," he said. "The truth is I can't work in that room. I can't work in this house."
"But it's our home."
"I know, but I can't work in it. Perhaps it's because of the maids, knowing they're creeping about, wondering—I don't know what it is. I've tried, but I can't do anything."
"But—how dreadful! Nearly two months wasted!"
He felt that she was condemning him, and a secret anger surged through him. His reserve, too, was suffering torment.
"I'm sorry, Charmian. But I couldn't help it."
"But then, why did you go up and shut yourself in day after day?"
"I hoped to be able to do something."
"But——"
"And I saw you expected me to go."
The truth was out. Claude felt, as he spoke it, as if he were tearing off clothes. How he loathed that weakness ofhis, which manifested itself in the sometimes almost uncontrollable instinct to give, or to try to give, others what they expected of him.
"Expected you! But naturally—"
"Yes, I know. Well, that's how it is! I can't work in this house."
He spoke almost roughly now.
"I don't want to assume any absurd artistic pose," he continued. "I hate the affectations sometimes supposed to belong to my profession. But it's no use pretending about a thing of this kind. There are some places, some atmospheres, if you like to use the word generally used, that help anyone who tries to create, and some that hinder. It's not only a matter of place, I suppose, but of people. This house is too small, or something. There are too many people in it. I feel that they are all bothering and wondering about me, treading softly for me." He threw out his hands. "I don't know what it is exactly, but I'm paralyzed here. I suppose you think I'm half mad."
To his great surprise, she answered, in quite a different voice from the voice which had suggested outrage:
"No, no; great artists are always like that. They are always extraordinary."
There was a mysterious pleasure, almost gratification, in her voice.
"You would be like that. I should have known."
"Oh, as to that—"
"I understand, Claudie. You needn't say any more."
Claude turned rather brusquely round to face the fire. As he said nothing, Charmian continued:
"What is to be done now? We have taken this house—"
He wheeled round.
"Of course we shall stay in this house. It suits us admirably. Besides, to move simply because—"
"Your work comes before all."
He compressed his lips. He began to hate his own talent.
"I think the best thing to do," he said, "would be for me to look for a studio somewhere. I could easily find one, put a piano and a few chairs in, and go there every day to work.Lots of men do that sort of thing. It's like going to an office."
"Capital!" she said. "Then you'll be quite isolated, and you'll get on ever so fast. Won't you?"
"I think probably I could work."
"And you will. Before we married you worked so hard. I want"—she got up, came to him, and put her hand in his—"I want to feel that marriage has helped you, not hindered you, in your career. I want to feel that I urge you on, don't hold you back."
Claude longed to tell her to leave him alone. But he thought of coming isolation in the studio, and refrained. Bending down, he kissed her.
"It will be all right," he said, "when I've got a place where I can be quite alone for some hours each day."
With an energy that was almost feverish, Charmian threw herself into the search for a studio. The little room had been a failure, through no fault of hers. She must make a success of the studio. She and Claude set forth together, and soon bent their steps toward Chelsea. There were studios to be had in Kensington, of course. But Claude happened to mention Chelsea, and at once Charmian took up the idea. The right atmosphere—that was the object of this new quest, the end and aim of their wanderings. If it were to be found in Chelsea, then in Chelsea Claude must make his daily habitation. Charmian seconded the Chelsea proposition with an enthusiasm that was almost a little anxious. Chelsea was so picturesque, so near the river, that somber and wonderful heart of London. Such interesting and famous people lived in Chelsea now, and had lived there in the past. She wondered they had not decided to live in Chelsea instead of in Kensington. But Claude was right, unerring in his judgment. Of course the studio must be in Chelsea.
One was found not far from Glebe Place, in a large red building with an arched entrance, handsome steps, and several artistic-looking windows, with leaded panes and soda-water bottle grass. It was on the ground floor, but it was quiet, large but not enormous, and well-planned. It contained however, one unnecessary, though not unattractive, feature. At one end, on the left of the door, there was a platform reached by a flight of steps, and screened off with wood from the rest of the room. The caretaker, who had the key and showed them round, explained that this had been planned and put up by an Austrian painter, who used the chamber formed by the platform and the upper part of the screen as a bedroom, and the space below, roofed by the platform as a kitchen.
The rent was one hundred pounds a year.
This seemed too much to Claude. He felt ashamed to spend such a large sum on what must seem an unnecessary caprice to the average person, even probably to people who were above the average. If he were known as a composer, if he were popular or famous, the matter, he felt, would be quite different. Everyone understands the artistic needs of the famous man, or pretends to understand them. But Claude and his work were entirely unknown to fame. And now, as he hesitated about the payment of this hundred pounds, he regretted this, as he had never before regretted it.
But Charmian was strong in her insistence upon his having this particular studio. She saw he had taken a fancy to it.
"I know you feel there's the right atmosphere here," she said. "I can see you do. It would be fatal not to take this studio if you have that feeling. Never mind the expense. We shall get it all back in the future."
"Back in the future!" he said, as if startled. "How?"
She saw she had been imprudent, had made a sort of slip.
"Oh, I don't know. Some day when your father—But don't let's talk of that. A hundred a year is not very much. It will only mean not quite so many new hats and dresses for me."
Claude flushed, suddenly and violently.
"Charmian! You can't suppose—"
"Surely a wife has the right to do something to help her husband?"
"But I don't need—I mean, I could never consent—"
She made a face at him, drawing down her brows, and turning her eyes to the left where the caretaker stood, with a bunch of keys in his large, gouty, red hands. Claude said no more. As they went out Charmian smiled at the caretaker.
"We are going to take it. My husband likes it."
"Yes, ma'am. It's a mighty fine studio. The Baron was sorry to leave it, but he had to go back to Vi-henner."
"I see."
"Now the next thing is to furnish it," said Charmian, as they walked away.
"I shall only want my piano, a chair, and a table," said Claude.
It was only by making a very great effort that he was able to speak naturally, with any simplicity.
"Besides," he added quickly, "it's really too expensive. A hundred a year is absurd."
"If it were two hundred a year it wouldn't be a penny too much if you really like it, if you will feel happy and at home in it. I'm going to furnish it for you, quite simply, of course. Just rugs and a divan or two, and a screen to shut out the door, two or three pretty comfortable chairs, some draperies—only thin ones, nothing heavy to spoil the acoustics—a few cushions, a table or two. Oh, and you must have a spirit-lamp, a littlebatterie de cuisine, and perhaps a tea-basket."
"But, my dear Charmian—"
"Hush, old boy! You have genius, but you don't understand these things. These are the woman's things. I shall love getting together everything. Surely you don't want to spoil my little fun. I've made a failure of your workroom in Kensington. Do let me try to make a success of the studio."
What could Claude do but thank her, but let her have her way?
The studio was taken for three years and furnished. For days Charmian talked and thought of little else. She was prompted, carried on, by two desires—one, that Claude should be able to work hard as soon as possible; the other, that people should realize what an energetic, capable, and enthusiastic woman she was. The Madame Sennier spirit attended her in her goings out and her comings in, armed her with energy, with gaiety, with patience.
When at length all was ready, she said:
"Claude, to-morrow I want you to do something for me."
"What is it? Of course I will do it. You've been so good, giving up everything for the studio."
Charmian had really given up several parties, and explained why she could not go to them to inquiring hostesses of the "set."
"I want you to let uspendre la crémaillèreto-morrow evening all alone, just you and I together."
"In the studio?"
"Of course."
"Well, but"—he smiled, then laughed rather awkwardly—"but what could we do there all alone? What is there to do? And, besides, there's that party at Mrs. Shiffney's to-morrow night. We were both going to that."
"We could go there afterward if we felt inclined. But—I don't know that I want to go to Adelaide Shiffney just now."
"But why not?"
"Perhaps—only perhaps, remember—I'll tell you to-morrow night in the studio."
She assumed in the last words that the matter was settled, and Claude raised no further objection. He saw she was set upon the carrying out of her plan. There was will in her long eyes. He could not help fancying that either she had some surprise in store for him, or that she meant to do, or say, something extremely definite, which she had already decided upon in her mind, to-morrow in the studio.
He felt slightly uneasy.
On the following morning Charmian looked distinctly mysterious, and rather as if she wished Claude to notice her mystery. He ignored it, however, though he realized that some plan must be maturing in her head. His suspicion of the day before was certainly well founded.
"What about this evening, Charmian?" he asked.
"Oh, we are going topendre la crémaillère. You remember we decided yesterday."
"Before or after dinner? And what about Mrs. Shiffney?"
"Well, I thought we might go to the studio about half-past seven or eight. Could you meet me there—say at half-past seven?"
"Meet you?"
"Yes; I've got to go out in that direction and could take it on the way home."
"All right. But dinner? That's just at dinner-time—not that I care."
"We could have something when we get home. I can tellAlice to put something in the dining-room for us. There's that pie, and we can have a bottle of champagne to drink success to the studio, if we want it."
"And Mrs. Shiffney's given up?"
"We can see how we feel. She only asked us for eleven. We can easily dress and go, it we want to."
So it was settled.
As Claude had not yet begun to work he took a long and solitary walk in the afternoon. He made his way to Battersea Park, and spent nearly two hours there. That day he felt as if a crisis, perhaps small but very definite, had arisen in his life. For some five months now he had been inactive. He had lost the long habit of work. He had allowed his life to be disorganized. No longer had he a grip on himself and on life. From to-morrow he must get that grip again. In the isolation of the studio he would surely be able to get it. Yet he felt very doubtful. He did not know what he wanted to do. He seemed to have drifted very far away from the days when his talent, or his genius, spoke with no uncertain voice, dictated to him what he must do. In those days he was seldom in doubt. He did not have to search. There was no vagueness in his life. The Bible, that inexhaustible mine of great literature, prompted him to music. But, then, he was living in comparative solitude. Quiet days stretched before him, empty evenings. He could give himself up to what was within him. Even now he could have quiet days. He had recently passed not a few with theFrench Revolution. But the evenings of course were not, could not be, empty. He often went out with Charmian. He was beginning to know something of the society in which she had always lived. There were many pleasant, some charming, people in it. He found a certain enjoyment in the little dinners, the theater parties, even in the few receptions he had been to. But he was obliged to acknowledge to himself that, when in this society, he disliked the fact that he was an unknown man. This society did not give him the incentive to do anything great. On the other hand it made him dislike being—or was it only seeming?—small. Charmian's attitude, too, had often rendered him secretly uneasy when they were among people together. He had been conscious of a lurkingdissatisfaction in her, a scarcely repressed impatience. He did not know exactly what was the matter. But he felt the alert tension of the woman who is not satisfied with her position in a society. It had reacted upon him. He had felt as if he were closely connected with it, though he had not quite understood how.
All this now rose up, seemed to spread out before his mind as he walked in Battersea Park. And he said to himself, "It can't go on. I simply must get to work on something. I must get a grip on myself and my life again." He remembered the heat of his soul after he had heard Jacques Sennier's opera, the passion almost to do something great that had glowed in him, the longing for fame. Then he had said to himself: "My life shall feed my art. I'll live, and by living I'll achieve." Out of that heat no rare flower had arisen. He had come out into the world. He had married Charmian, had travelled in Italy. And that was all.
That day he was angry with himself, was sick of his idle life. But he did not feel within him the strong certainty that he would be able to take his life in hand and transform it, which drives doubt and sorrow out of a man. He kept on saying, "I must!" But he did not say, "I shall!"
The fact was that the mainspring was missing from the watch. Claude was living as if he loved, but he was not loving.
At half-past seven he passed up the handsome steps and under the arch which led to his studio.
The caretaker with gouty hands met him. This man had been a soldier, and still had a soldier's eyes, and a way of presenting himself, rather sternly and watchfully, to those arriving in "my building," as he called the house full of studios, which was military. But gout, and it is to be feared drink, had long ago made him physically flaccid, and mentally rather sulky and vague. He looked a wreck, and as if he guessed that he was a wreck. An artist on the first floor had labelled him, "The derelict looking for tips to the offing."
"The lady's here, sir," he observed, on seeing Claude.
"Is she?"
"Been 'ere"—he sometimes dropped an aitch and sometimes did not—"this half hour."
The fact apparently surprised him, almost indeed upset him.
"This 'alf hour," he repeated, this time dropping the aitch to make a change.
"Oh," said Claude, disdaining the explanation which seemed to be expected.
He walked on, leaving the guardian to his gout.
The studio was lit up, and directly Claude opened the door he smelt coffee and something else—sausages, he fancied. At once he guessed why Charmian had arranged to meet him at the studio, instead of going there with him. He shut the door slowly. Yes, certainly, sausages.
"Charmian!" he called.
She came out from behind the screen, dressed in a very plain, workmanlike black gown, over which she was wearing a large butcher blue apron. Her sleeves were turned up and her face was flushed. Claude thought she looked younger than she usually did.
"What are you doing?"
"Cooking the dinner," she replied, in a practical voice. "It will be ready in a minute. Take off your coat and sit down."
She turned round and disappeared. Something behind the screen was hissing like a snake.
Claude now saw a table laid in the middle of the studio. On a rough white cloth were plates, knives, and forks, large coffee cups with flowers coarsely painted on a gray ground with a faint tinge of blue in it, rolls of bread, butter, a cake richly brown in color. A vase of coarse, but effective pottery, full of scented wild geranium, stood in the midst. Claude took off hat and coat, hung them up on a hook, and glanced around.
Certainly Charmian had arranged the furniture well, chosen it well, too. The place looked cosy, and everything was in excellent taste. There was comfort without luxury. Claude felt that he ought to be very grateful.
"Coming!"
Her voice cried out from behind the screen, and she appeared bearing a large dish full of smoking sausages, which she set down on the table.
"Now for the eggs and the coffee!" she said.
Another moment and they were on the table, too, with a plateful of buttered toast.
"Studio fare!" she said, taking off the blue apron, pulling down her sleeves, and looking at Claude. "Are you surprised?"
"I was for the first moment."
"And then?"
"Well, I had felt sure you were up to something, that you had some scheme in your head, some plan for to-day. But I didn't connect it with sausages."
Her expression changed slightly.
"Perhaps it isn't only sausages. But it begins with them. Are you hungry?"
"Yes, very. I've been walking in Battersea Park."
"Claudie, how awful!"
They sat down and fell to—Charmian's expression. She was playing at the Vie de Bohème, but she thought she was being rather serious, that she was helping to launch Claude in a new and suitable life. And behind the light absurdity of this quite unnecessary meal there was intention, grave and intense. The wasted two months must be made up for, the hours given to theFrench Revolutionbe redeemed. This meal was only the prelude to something else.
"Is it good?" she asked, as Claude ate and drank.
"Excellent! Where have you been to-day?"
"I've seen Madre and Susan Fleet."