Heath was troubled and was angry with himself for being troubled.
Looking back it seemed to him that he had taken a false step when he
consented to that dinner with Max Elliot. Surely since that evening he
had never been wholly at peace. And yet on that evening he had entered
into his great friendship with Mrs. Mansfield. He could not wish that
annulled. It added value to his life. But Mrs. Shiffney and Charmian in
combination had come into his life with her. And they began to vex his
spirit. He felt as if they represented a great body of opinion which was
set against a deep conviction of his own. Their motto was, "The world
for the artist." And what was his, or what had been his until now? "His
world within the artist." He had fed upon himself, striving rather to
avoid than to seek outside influences. After Charmian's return from
Africa a persistent doubt assailed him. His strong instinct might be a
blind guide. The opinion of the world, represented by the shrewd married
woman and the intelligent girl, might have reason on its side.
Certainly Charmian's resolute assertion of herself on the evening of her
return had been surprisingly effective. In an hour she had made an
impression upon Heath such as she had failed to make in many weeks of
their previous acquaintanceship. Her attack had gone home. "If you were
to give yourself a chance how different you'd be!" And then her outburst
about the island! There had been truth in it. Color and light and
perfume and sound are material given out to the artist. He takes them,
uses them, combines them, makes them his. He helps them! Ah! That was
the word! He, as it were, gives them wings so that they may fly into the
secret places, into the very hearts of men.
Heath looked round upon his hermitage, the little house near St.
Petersburg Place, and he was companioned by fears. His energies
weakened. The lack of self-confidence, which often affected him when he
was divorced from his work, began to distress him when he was working.
He disliked what he was doing. Music, always the most evasive of the
arts, became like a mist in his sight. There were moments when he hated
being a composer, when he longed to be a poet, a painter, a sculptor.
Then he would surely at least know whether what he was doing was good or
bad. Now, though he was inclined to condemn, he did not feel certain
even of ineptitude.
Mrs. Searle noted the change in her master, and administered her
favorite medicine, Fan, with increasing frequency. As the neurasthenic
believes in strange drugs, expensive cures, impressive doctors, she
believed in the healing powers of the exceedingly young. Nor was Fan
doubtful of her own magical properties. She supposed that her intense
interest in herself and the affairs of her life was fully shared by
Heath. Her confidences to him in respect of Masterman and other
important matters were unbridled. She seldom strove to charm by
listening, and never by talking to Heath about himself. Her method of
using herself as a draught of healing was to draw him into the current
of her remarkable life, to set him floating on the tides of her fate.
Heath had a habit of composing after tea, from five or five-thirty
onward. And Fan frequently appeared at the studio door about half-past
four, turned slightly sideways with an expectant glance into the large
room with the book-lined walls, the dim paintings, and the
orange-colored curtains. A faint air of innocent coquetry hung about
her. After a pause and a smile from Heath, she would move forward with
hasty confidence, sometimes reaching the hearthrug with a run. She was
made welcome, petted, apparently attended to with a whole mind. But
while she delivered her soul of its burden, at great length and with
many indrawn breaths and gusts of feeling, Heath was often saying to
himself, "Am I provincial?"
The word rankled now that Charmian had spoken out with such almost
impertinent abruptness. Had he then lost faith in Mrs. Mansfield? She
had never said that she wished him different from what he was. And
indirectly she had praised his music. He knew it had made a powerful
impression upon her. Nevertheless, he could not forget Charmian's
words. Nor could he help linking her with Mrs. Shiffney in his mind.
Fan pulled at his sleeve, raising her voice. He was reminded of a little
dog clawing to attract attention.
"Yes, Fantail! I mean no, of course not! If Masterman refuses to take a
bath, of course you are obliged to punish him. Yes, yes, I know. Wear
something? What? What's that? Like you? But he's a man. Very well, we'll
get him a pair of trousers. No, I won't forget. Yes, like mine, long
ones like mine. It'll be all right. Take care with that cup. I think
mother must be wanting you. Press the bell hard. Well, use your thumb
then. That's it--harder. There, you see, mother does want you. Harriet
says so."
Harriet, discreet almost to dumbness though she was, was capable of
receiving a hint conveyed by her master's expressive eyebrows. And Fan
passed on, leaving Heath alone with his piano. He played what he had
played to Mrs. Mansfield to reassure himself. But he was not wholly
reassured. And he knew that desire for a big verdict which often
tortures the unknown creator. This was a new and, he thought, ugly phase
in his life. Was he going to be like the others? Was he going to crave
for notoriety? Why had the words of a mere girl, of no unusual
cleverness or perception, had such an effect upon him? How thin she had
looked that day when she emerged from her furs. That was before she
started for Africa. The journey had surely made a great difference in
her. She had come back more of a personage, more resolute. He felt the
will in her as he had not felt it before. Till she came back he had only
felt the strong soul in her mother. That was like an unwavering flame.
How Mrs. Mansfield's husband must have loved her.
And Heath's hands slipped from the piano, and he dreamed over women.
He was conscious of solitude.
Susan Fleet was now in town. After the trip to Algiers she had been to
Folkestone to visit her mother and dear old Mrs. Simpkins. She had also
combined business with pleasure and been fitted for a new coat and
skirt. A long telegram from Adelaide Shiffney called her back to London
to under-take secretarial and other duties. As the season approached
Mrs. Shiffney's life became increasingly agitated. Miss Fleet was an
excellent hand at subduing, or, if that were impossible, at getting
neatness into agitation. She knew well how to help fashionable women to
be absurd with method. She made their silliness almost business-like,
and assisted them to arrange their various fads in apple-pie order. Amid
their often hysterical lives she moved with a coolness that was
refreshing even to them. She never criticized their actions except
sometimes by tacitly declining to join in them. And they seldom really
wanted her to do that. Her value to them would have been diminished, if
not destroyed, had she been quite as they were.
For the moment she was in Grosvenor Square.
Charmian envied Adelaide Shiffney. But she was resolved to see more of
Miss Fleet at whatever cost. Recently she had been conscious of a tiny
something, not much more than a thread, dividing her from her mother.
Since her mother knew that she had made up her face on Claude Heath's
account, she had often felt self-conscious at home. Knowing that, her
mother, of course, knew more. If Charmian had told the truth she would
not have minded the fact that it was known. But she did mind very much
its being known when she had not told it. Sometimes she said to herself
that she was being absurd, that Mrs. Mansfield knew, even suspected,
nothing. But unfortunately she was a woman and, therefore, obliged to be
horribly intelligent in certain directions. Her painted cheeks and
delicately-darkened eyelashes had spoken what her lips had never said.
It was vain to pretend the contrary. And she sedulously pretended it.
Her sense of separation from her mother made Charmian the more desirous
of further intercourse with Susan Fleet. She felt as if only Miss Fleet
could help her, though how she did not know. After repeated attempts on
her part a meeting was at last arranged, and one afternoon the
Theosophist made her appearance in Berkeley Square and was shown
upstairs to Charmian's little sitting-room.
Charmian was playing a Polonaise of Chopin's on a cottage piano. She
played fairly well, but not remarkably. She had been trained by a
competent master and had a good deal of execution. But her playing
lacked that grip and definite intention which are the blood and bone of
a performance. Several people thought nevertheless that it was full of
charm.
"Oh, Susan!"--she stopped abruptly on a diminished seventh. "Come and
sit here! May I?"
She kissed the serene face, clasping the white-gloved hands with both of
hers.
"Another from Folkestone?"
"Yes."
"What a fit! I simply must go there. D'you like my little room?"
Susan looked quietly round, examining the sage-green walls, the
water-colors, the books in Florentine bindings, the chairs and sofas
covered with chintz, which showed a bold design of purple grapes with
green leaves, the cream-colored rough curtains, and Charmian's
dachshund, Caroline, who lay awake before the small fire which burned in
a grate lined with Morris tiles.
"Yes, I like it very much. It looks like your home and as if you were
fond of it."
"I am, so far as one can be fond of a room."
She paused, hesitating, thinking of the little island and her sudden
outburst, longing to return at once to the subject which secretly
obsessed her, yet fearing to seem childish, too egoistic, perhaps
naively indiscreet. Susan looked at her with a friendly gaze.
"How are things going with you? Are you happier than you were at
Mustapha?"
"You mean--about that?"
"I'm afraid you have been worrying."
"Do I look uglier?" cried Charmian, almost with sharpness.
Susan Fleet could not help smiling, but in her smile there was no
sarcasm, only a gentle, tolerant humor.
"I hardly know. People say my ideas about looks are all crazy. I can't
admire many so-called beauties, you see. There's more expression in your
face, I think. But I don't know that I should call it happy expression."
"I wish I were like you. I wish I could feel indifferent to happiness!"
"I don't suppose I am indifferent. Only I don't feel that every small
thing of to-day has power over me, any more than I feel that a grain of
dust which I can flick from my dress makes me unclean. It's a long
journey we are making. And I always think it's a great mistake to fuss
on a journey."
"I don't know anyone who can give me what you do," said Charmian.
"It's a long journey up the Ray," said Susan.
"The Ray?" said Charmian, seized with a sense of mystery.
"The bridge that leads from the personal which perishes to the immortal
which endures."
"I can't help loving the personal. I'm not like you. I do love the
feeling of definite personality, separated from everything, mine, me.
It's no use pretending."
"Pretence is always disgusting."
"Yes, of course. But still--never mind, I was only going to say
something you wouldn't agree with."
Susan did not ask what it was, but quietly turned the conversation, and
soon succeeded in ridding Charmian of her faint self-consciousness.
"I want you to meet--him."
At last Charmian had said it, with a slight flush.
"I have met him," returned Miss Fleet, in her powerful voice.
"What!" cried Charmian, on an almost indignant note.
"I met him last night."
"How could you? Where? He never goes to anything!"
"I went with Adelaide to the Elgar Concert at Queen's Hall. He was there
with a musical critic, and happened to be next to us."
Charmian looked very vexed and almost injured.
"Mrs. Shiffney--and you talked to him?"
"Oh, yes. Adelaide introduced us."
There was a silence. Then Charmian said:
"I don't suppose he was his real self--with Adelaide Shiffney. But did
you like him?"
"I did. I thought him genuine. And one sees the spirit clearly in his
face."
"I'm sure he liked you."
"I really don't know."
"I do. Did he--did you--either of you say anything about me?"
"Certainly we did."
"Did he--did he seem--did you notice whether he was at all--? Caroline,
be quiet!"
The dachshund, who had shown signs of an intention to finish her reverie
on Charmian's knees, blinked, looked guilty, lay down again, turned over
on her left side with her back to her mistress, and heaved a sigh that
nearly degenerated into a whimper.
"I suppose he talked most of the time with Mrs. Shiffney?"
"Well, we had quite five minutes together. I spoke about our time at
Mustapha."
"Did he seem interested?"
"Very much, I thought."
"Very much! Oh, Susan! But he has a manner of seeming interested. It may
not mean anything. But still I do think since I have come back he sees
that I am not quite a nonentity. He has been here several times, for
mother of course. Even now I have never heard his music. But there is a
difference. I believe in such a place as London unless one has
resolution to assert oneself people think one is a sort of shadow. I
have so often thought of what you said about my perhaps having to learn
through Claude Heath and to teach him, too. Sometimes when I look at him
I feel it must be so. But what have I to teach? D'you know
since--since--well, it makes me feel humble often. And yet I know that
the greatest man needs help. Men are a sort of children. I've often been
surprised by the childishness of really big men. Please tell me all he
said to you."
Very calmly Susan told. She had just finished, and Charmian was about to
speak again, when Mrs. Mansfield opened the door. Charmian sprang up so
abruptly that Caroline was startled into a husky bark.
"Oh, Madre! Susan Fleet is here!"
Mrs. Mansfield knew at once that she had broken in upon a confidential
interview, not by Miss Fleet's demeanor, but by Charmian's. But she did
not show her knowledge. She sat down and joined pleasantly in the talk.
She had often seen Miss Fleet in London, but she did not know her well.
At once she realized that Charmian had found an excellent friend. And
she was not jealous because of the confidence given but not given to
her. Youth, she knew, is wilful and must have its way. The nearest, for
some inscrutable reason, are generally told the least.
When Miss Fleet went away, Mrs. Mansfield said:
"That is one of the most thoroughbred human beings I have ever seen. No
wonder the greatest snobs like her. There is nothing a snob hates so
much as snobbery in another. _Viva_ to your new friend, Charmian!"
She wondered a little whether Miss Fleet's perception of character was
as keen as her breeding was definite, when she heard that Claude Heath
had met her.
Heath told Mrs. Mansfield this. Miss Fleet had made a strong impression
upon him. At the moment when he had met her he had felt specially
downcast. The musical critic, with whom he had gone to the concert, had
been a fellow student with him at the Royal College. Being young the
critic was very critical, very sure of himself, very decisive in his
worship of the new idols and in his scathing contempt for the old. He
spoke of Mendelssohn as if the composer of _Elijah_ had earned undying
shame, of Gounod as if he ought to have been hanged for creating his
_Faust_. His glorification of certain modern impressionists in music
depressed Heath, almost as much as his abuse of the dead who had been
popular, and who were still appreciated by some thousands, perhaps
millions, of nobodies. He made Heath, in his discontented condition,
feel as if all art were futile.
"Why give up everything," he thought, "merely to earn in the end the
active contempt of men who have given up nothing? What is it that drives
me on? A sort of madness, perhaps, something to be rooted out."
He almost shivered as the conviction came to him that he must have been
composing for posterity, since he did not desire present publicity. No
doubt he had tried to trick himself into the belief that he had toiled
for himself alone, paid the tribute of ardent work to his own soul. Now
he asked himself, with bitter scepticism: "Does any man really ever do
that?" And his world seemed to fall about him like shadows dropping down
into a void.
Then came his five minutes of talk with Susan Fleet.
When Heath spoke of it to Mrs. Mansfield he said:
"I was a cripple when we began. When we stopped I felt as if I could
climb to a peak. And she said nothing memorable. But I had been in her
atmosphere."
"And you are very susceptible to atmosphere."
"Too susceptible. That's why I keep so much to myself."
"I know--the cloister."
She looked at him earnestly, even searchingly. He slightly reddened,
looked down, said slowly:
"It's not a natural life, the life of the cloister."
"Perhaps you mean to come out."
"I don't know what I mean. I am all at a loose end lately."
"Since when?"
Her eyes were still on him.
"I hardly know. Perhaps hearing about Africa, of that voyage I might
have made, unsettled me. I'm a weakling, I'm afraid."
"Very strong in one way."
"Very weak in another, perhaps. It would have been better to go and have
done with it, than to brood over not having gone."
"You are envying Charmian?"
"Some days I envy everyone who isn't Claude Heath," he answered
evasively, with a little covering laugh. "Of one thing I am quite sure,
that I wish I were a male Miss Fleet. She knows what few people know."
"What is that?"
"What is small and what is great."
"And you found that out in five minutes at a concert?"
"Elgar's is music that helps the perceptions."
Mrs. Mansfield's perceptions were very keen. Yet she was puzzled by
Heath. She realized that he was disturbed and attributed that
disturbance to Charmian. Had he suspected, or found out, that Charmian
imagined herself to be in love with him? He came as usual to the house.
His friendship with Mrs. Mansfield did not seem to her to have changed.
But his relation to Charmian was not what it had been. Indeed, it was
scarcely possible that it should be so. For Charmian had continued to be
definite ever since her drastic remarks at dinner on the evening of her
return. She bantered Heath, laughed at him, patronized him in the pretty
way of a pretty London girl who takes the world for her own with the
hands of youth. When she found him with her mother she did not glide
away, or remain as a mere listener while they talked. She stayed to hold
her own, sometimes even--so her mother thought, not without pathos--a
little aggressively.
Heath's curious and deep reserve, which underlay his apparent quick and
sensitive readiness to be sympathetic with those about him, to give them
what they wanted of him, was not abated by Charmian's banter, her
delicate impertinences, her laughing attacks. Mrs. Mansfield noticed
that. He turned to her still when he wished to speak for a moment out of
his heart.
But he was becoming much more at home in Charmian's company. She stirred
him at moments into unexpected bursts of almost boyish gaiety. She knew
how to involve him in eager arguments.
One day, as he was about to leave the house in Berkeley Square he said
to Mrs. Mansfield:
"Miss Charmian ought to have some big object in life on which she could
concentrate. She has powers, you know."
When he was gone Mrs. Mansfield smiled and sighed.
"And when will he find out that he is Charmian's big object in life?"
she thought.
She knew men well. Nevertheless, their stupidities sometimes surprised
her. It was as if something in them obstinately refused to see.
"It's their blindness that spoils us," she said to herself. "If they
could see, we should have ten commandments to obey--perhaps twenty."