Mummery Part 25

You might talk and argue with Sir Henry until you were blue in the face, but give him a piece of real acting and he understood at once, was kindled and became fertile in invention, even courageous in innovation. Give him that, and he would drop all thought of the public and the newspapers, and sacrifice even the prominence of his own personality to the service of this art that he adored. As the rehearsals proceeded, therefore, he became more intent, was less patient with interruptions, and at last stopped them altogether. He became interested in his own part, and tussled with the players who shared his scenes with him.

'Never,' he said to Clara, 'have I enjoyed rehearsals so much as these.

I am only afraid they are going too smoothly. We shall be over-ripe by production....'

He resumed cordial relations with Charles, and threw out a suggestion or two as to scenery and costumes which Charles, who had begun to learn the elements of diplomacy, pretended to note down. Sir Henry was magnanimous. He avoided his wife and his usual cronies, and devoted himself to Charles and Clara, whom his showman's eye had marked down as potentially a very valuable property.

'This should be the beginning of great things for you, my boy,' he said to Charles. 'You will have all the managers at your feet, but the Imperium is the place for big work, the bold attack, the sweeping line....'

Charles was a little suspicious of such whole-hearted conversion. He knew these enthusiasms for the duration of rehearsals, and he was ill-at-ease because his antic.i.p.ation of boundless wealth had not come true. He had spent his advance and could not get another out of Mr Gillies, who detested him and regarded his invasion of the theatre as a ruinous departure from its traditions. Clara Mr Gillies considered to be merely one of his Chief's infatuations. They never lasted very long. He had seen his Chief again and again rush to the very brink of disaster, but always he had withdrawn in the nick of time.... Mr Gillies was like a perpetual east wind blowing upon Charles's happiness. But for Mr Gillies there would have been boundless wealth.... It was monstrous: Verschoyle had backed Charles's talent and Mr Gillies was sitting on the money. Butcher could spend it royally, but Charles had often to go to Clara and ask her for the price of his lunch. At the very height of his fame, with success almost within his grasp, he had to go almost hungry because genius has no credit.

There was nothing to be done about it. He borrowed here and there, but knew it was no real help. It simply sent rumours flying as to his financial position, and he did not want either Butcher or Verschoyle to know that money trickled through his fingers. He wanted their support after this success to advance his schemes. Therefore he borrowed from Clara, and she, entirely indifferent to all but the engrossing development of the play, allowed Sir Henry to pay for her food, to give her meals alone with him in the aquarium, and even to buy her clothes and jewels. She took not the slightest interest in them, but, as it seemed to give him pleasure to shower gifts and attentions upon her, she suffered it, and never for a moment dreamed of the turn his infatuation was taking.

As she progressed in her work she felt that she was achieving what she desired, a pa.s.sion for her art equal to Rodd's. For a time she had thrust all thought of him aside, but as she gained in mastery and power over the whole activity of the stage, he crept back into her mind, and she could face him with a greater sense of equality, with more understanding and without that jealousy the memory of which hurt her.... She had acquired a sense of loyalty to art which was a greater thing than loyalty to Charles. She had saved him, helped him, brought him thus far. Henceforth he must learn to stand on his own feet. She was glad that she had left him.

All these considerations seemed very remote as she worked her way deeper and deeper into the play, which contained for her a reality nowhere to be found in life. She became Ariel, a pure imagination, moving in an enchanted air, singing of freedom and of a beauty beyond all things visible.

'You are three men of sin, whom Destiny That hath to instrument this lower world And what is in't, the never-surfeited sea Hath caused to belch up you; and on this island Where man doth not inhabit...'

Casting spells upon others, she seemed to cast them upon her own life; and it was incredible to her to think that she was the same Clara Day who had come so gaily to London with Charles Mann to help him to conquer his kingdom. The stage of the Imperium was to her, in truth, a magic island where wonders were performed, and she by an inspiration, more powerful than her own will, could with a touch transform all things and persons around her; and when Sir Henry, rehearsing the character of Prospero, said to her.--

'Then to the elements Be free and fare you well.'

the words sounded deep in her heart, and she took them as a real bidding to be free of all that had entangled and cramped her own life.

So she dreamed.

She had a rude awakening one night when, after a supper in the aquarium alone with Sir Henry, he broke a long moody silence by laying his hand on hers, drawing her out of her chair and clasping her to his heart while he kissed her arms, shoulders, face, hair, and cried,--

'You wonderful, wonderful child. I love you. I love you. I have loved you since I first saw you. I knew then that the love of my life had come.... You wonderful untouched child----'

He tried to make her kiss him, to force her to meet his eyes, but she wrestled with him and thrust him back to relinquish his hold.

'How could you? How could you! How could you?' she asked.

'I have never forgotten that marvellous moonlit night----'

'Please be sensible,' she said. 'Does a man never know when a woman loves him or not?'

'They don't help one much,' replied Sir Henry, with a nervous grin.

'You were so happy.... I thought. Don't be angry with me! I have thought of nothing but you since then....'

'A moonlight night and champagne supper,' said she. 'Are they the same thing to you?'

'Love conquers all,' said Sir Henry, a little sententiously. He was disgusted. She was not playing the right dramatic part; but she never did any of the expected things. The ordinary conventions of women did not exist for her.

She had moved as far away from him as possible and was standing over by the portrait of Teresa Chesney.

'You must never talk like that again,' she said, 'or I shall not stay in the theatre.... It is not only the vulgarity of it that I hate, but that you should have misunderstood.... I was happy to be working with you in the play. Everything outside that is unimportant.'

'Not love.... Not love,' protested Sir Henry.

'Even love,' she said.

'I thought you liked me,' he mumbled. 'I was so happy giving you presents. I thought you liked me.... A man in my position doesn't often find people to like him.'

'So I do,' said Clara. 'You are very like Charles. That is why I understand you.'

Sir Henry winced. In his heart he thoroughly despised Charles Mann.

He drank a gla.s.s of champagne and said nervously,--

'I'm glad we're not going to quarrel.... Forgive me.'

'You have spoiled it all for me,' she said. 'Everything is spoiled.'

She clenched her fists, and her eyes blazed fury at him.

'How dare you treat me as a woman when I had never revealed myself to you? Isn't that where a man should have some honour? ... You must understand me if I am to remain in the theatre. If a woman reveals herself to a man, then she is responsible. She has nothing to say if--I don't think you understand.'

'No.' And indeed she might have been talking Greek to him. The insulted woman he knew, the virtuous woman he knew, the fraudulent coquette he knew, the extravagant self-esteem of women he knew, but never before had he met a woman who was simple and sincere, who could brush aside all save essentials and talk to him as a man might have done, with detachment from the thing that had happened.

'If you think I'm a blackguard, why don't you say so? Why don't you hit me?'

'I don't think you are anything of the kind. I think you have been spoiled and that everything has been too easy for you.... I'm hurt because I thought you wanted Charles and me for the theatre and not for yourself.'

'_L'etat c'est moi_,' smiled Sir Henry. 'I am the theatre.... All the immense machinery is my creation. My brain here is the power that keeps it going. If I were to die to-morrow there would be four walls and Mr Gillies.... Do you think he could do anything with it? Could Charles Mann? Could you?'

'Yes,' said Clara, and he laughed. He had never been in such entrancing company. If she did not want his love-making--well and good. At least she gave him the benefit of her frankness and he needed no pose with her. He was glad she was going to be a sensible girl....

She might alter her mind and every day only made her more adorable.

'Sit down and have some chocolates.' He spoke to her as though she were a child and like a child she obeyed him, for she was alarmed that he should exert his capricious prerogative and throw over _The Tempest_ at the last moment.

'What would you do with the theatre?'

'I should dismiss Mr Gillies.'

'An excellent man of business.'

'For stocks and shares or boots, but not for art.'

'He's a steadying influence.'

'Art is steady enough, if it is art.'

'My _dear_ child!'

'If you don't know that then you are not an artist.'

'Oh! Would you call Charles Mann steady?'

'I should think of the play first and last.'