A woman knows in a moment whether a man is susceptible to woman's charm,
to sex charm, or not. There are men who love, who have loved, or who
will love, a woman. And there are men who love women. Charmian had not
been with Mr. Jacob Crayford for more than two minutes before she knew
that he belonged to the latter class. She only spent some five minutes
in his company, after Max Elliot had introduced them to each other. But
she came away from Grosvenor Square with a very definite conception of
his personality.
Mr. Crayford was small, thin, and wiry-looking, with large keen brown
eyes, brown and gray hair, growing over a well-formed and artistic head
which was slightly protuberant at the back, and rather large, determined
features. At a first glance he looked "Napoleonic." Perhaps this was
intentional on his part. His skin was brown, and appeared to be
unusually dry. He wore the tiny beard noticed by Charmian, and a
carefully trained and sweeping moustache. His ears slightly suggested a
faun. His hands were nervous, and showed energy, and the tendency to
grasp and to hold. His voice was a thin tenor, with occasional, rather
surprisingly deep chest notes, when he wished to be specially emphatic.
His smart, well-cut clothes, and big emerald shirt stud, and sleeve
links, suggested the successful impresario. His manner was, on a first
introduction, decidedly business-like, cool, and watchful. But in his
eyes there were sometimes intense flashes which betokened a strong
imagination, a temperament capable of emotion and excitement. His
eyelids were large and rounded. And on the left one there was a little
brown wart. When he was introduced to Charmian he sent her a glance
which she interpreted as meaning, "What does this woman want of me?" It
showed her how this man was bombarded, how instinctively ready he was to
be alertly on the defensive if he judged defense to be necessary.
"I've heard so much of your battles, Mr. Crayford," she said, "that I
wanted to know the great fighter."
She had assumed her very self-possessed manner, the minx-manner as some
people called it. Claude had known it well in the "early days." It gave
her a certain very modern charm in the eyes of some men. And it
suggested a woman who lived in and for the world, who had nothing to do
with any work. There was daintiness in it, and a hint of impertinence.
Mr. Crayford smiled faintly. He had a slight tic, moving his eyebrows
sometimes suddenly upward.
"A good set-to now and then does no one any harm that I know of," he
said, speaking rapidly.
"They say over here you've got the worst of it this season."
"Do they indeed? Very kind and obliging of them, I'm sure."
"I hope it isn't true."
"Are you an enemy of the great and only Jacques then?" said Mr.
Crayford.
"Monsieur Sennier? Oh, no! I was at the first performance of his
_Paradis Terrestre_, and it altered my whole life."
"Well, they like it over in New York. And I've got to find another
Paradise to put up against it just as quick as I know how."
"I do hope you'll be successful."
"I'll put Europe through my sieve anyway," said Mr. Crayford. "No man
can do more. And very few men know the way to do as much. Are you
interested in music?"
"Intensely."
She paused, looking at the little man before her. She was hesitating
whether to tell him that she had married a musician or to refrain.
Something told her to refrain, and she added:
"I've always lived among musical people and heard the best of
everything."
"Well, opera's the only thing nowadays, the only really big proposition.
And it's going to be a bigger proposition than most people dream of."
His eyes flashed.
"Wait till I build an opera house in London, something better than that
old barn of yours over against the Police Station."
"Are you going to build an opera house here?"
"Why not? But I've got to find some composers. They're somewhere about.
Bound to be. The thing is to find them. It was a mere chance Sennier
coming up. If he hadn't married his wife he'd be starving at this
minute, and I'd be licking the Metropolitan into a cocked hat."
Charmian longed to put her hand on the little man's arm and to say:
"I've married a musician, I've married a genius. Take him up. Give him
his chance."
But she looked at those big brown eyes which confronted her under the
twitching eyebrows. And now that the flash was gone she saw in them the
soul of the business man. Claude was not a "business proposition." It
was useless to speak of him yet.
"I hope you'll find your composer," she said quietly, almost with a
dainty indifference.
Then someone came up and claimed Crayford with determination.
"That's a pretty girl," he remarked. "Is she married? I didn't catch her
name."
"Oh, yes, she's married to an unknown man who composes."
"The devil she is!"
The lips above the tiny beard stretched in a smile that was rather
sardonic.
Before going away Charmian wanted to have a little talk with Susan
Fleet, who was helping Mrs. Shiffney with the "fuzzywuzzies." She found
her at length standing before a buffet, and entertaining a very thin and
angular woman, dressed in black, with scarlet flowers growing out of her
toilet in various unexpected places. Miss Fleet welcomed Charmian with
her usual unimpassioned directness, and introduced her quietly to Miss
Gretch, as her companion was called, surprisingly.
Miss Gretch, who was drinking claret cup, and eating little rolls which
contained hidden treasure of pate de foie gras, bowed and smiled with
anxious intensity, then abruptly became unnaturally grave, and gazed
with a sort of piercing attention at Charmian's hair, jewels, gown, fan,
and shoes.
"She seems to be memorizing me," thought Charmian, wondering who Miss
Gretch was, and how she came to be there.
"Stay here just a minute, will you?" said Susan Fleet. "Adelaide wants
me, I see. I'll be back directly."
"Please be sure to come. I want to talk to you," said Charmian.
As Susan Fleet was going she murmured:
"Miss Gretch writes for papers."
Charmian turned to the angular guest with a certain alacrity. They
talked together with animation till Susan Fleet came back.
A week later, on coming down to breakfast before starting for the
studio, Claude found among his letters a thin missive, open at the ends,
and surrounded with yellow paper. He tore the paper, and three newspaper
cuttings dropped on to his plate.
"What's this?" he said to Charmian, who was sitting opposite to him.
"Romeike and Curtice! Why should they send me anything?"
He picked up one of the cuttings.
"It's from a paper called _My Lady_."
"What is it about?"
"It seems to be an account of Mrs. Shiffney's party, with something
marked in blue pencil, 'Mrs. Claude Heath came in late with her
brilliant husband, whose remarkable musical compositions have not yet
attained to the celebrity which will undoubtedly be theirs within no
long time. The few who have heard Mr. Heath's music place him with
Elgar, Max Reger, and Delius.' Then a description of what you were
wearing. How very ridiculous and objectionable!"
Claude looked furious and almost ashamed.
"Here's something else! 'A Composer's Studio,' from _The World and His
Wife_. It really is insufferable."
"Why? What can it say?"
"'Mr. Claude Heath, the rising young composer, who recently married the
beautiful Miss Charmian Mansfield, of Berkeley Square, has just rented
and furnished elaborately a magnificent studio in Renwick Place,
Chelsea. Exquisite Persian rugs strew the floor----'"
Claude stopped, and with an abrupt movement tore the cuttings to pieces
and threw them on the carpet.
"What can it mean? Who on earth----? Charmian, do you know anything of
this?"
"Oh," she said, with a sort of earnest disgust, mingled with surprise,
"it must be that dreadful Miss Gretch!"
"Dreadful Miss Gretch! I never heard of her. Who is she?"
"At Adelaide Shiffney's the other night Susan Fleet introduced me to a
Miss Gretch. I believe she sometimes writes, for papers or something. I
had a little talk with her while I was waiting for Susan to come back."
"Did you tell her about the studio?"
"Let me see! Did I? Yes, I believe I did say something. You see, Claude,
it was the night of----"
"I know it was. But how could you----?"
"How could I suppose things said in a private conversation would ever
appear in print? I only said that you had a studio because you composed
and wanted quiet, and that I had been picking up a few old things to
make it look homey. How extraordinary of Miss Gretch!"
"It has made me look very ridiculous. I am quite unknown, and therefore
it is impossible for the public to be interested in me. Miss Gretch is
certainly a very inefficient journalist. Elgar! Delius too! I wonder she
didn't compare me with Scriabine while she was about it. How hateful it
is being made a laughing-stock like this."
"Oh, nobody reads those papers, I expect. Still, Miss Gretch----"
"Gretch! What a name!" said Claude.
His anger vanished in an abrupt fit of laughter, but he started for the
studio in half an hour looking decidedly grim. When he had gone Charmian
picked up the torn cuttings which were lying on the carpet. She had been
very slow in finishing breakfast that day.
Since her meeting with Jacob Crayford her mind had run perpetually on
opera. She could not forget his words, spoken with the authority of the
man who knew, "Opera's the only thing nowadays, the only really big
proposition." She could not forget that he had left England to "put
Europe through his sieve" for a composer who could stand up against
Jacques Sennier. What a chance there was now for a new man. He was being
actively searched for. If only Claude had written an opera! If only he
would write an opera now!
Charmian never doubted her husband's ability to do something big. Her
instinct told her that he had greatness of some kind in him. His music
had deeply impressed her. But she was sure it was not the sort of thing
to reach a wide public. It seemed to her against the trend of taste of
the day. There was an almost terrible austerity in it, combined, she
believed, with great power and originality. She longed to hear some of
it given in public with the orchestra and voices. She had thought of
trying to "get hold of" one of the big conductors, Harold Dane, or
Vernon Randall, of trying to persuade him to give Claude a hearing at
Queen's Hall. Then a certain keen prudence had held her back. A voice
had whispered, "Be patient!" She realized the importance of the first
step taken in public. Jacques Sennier had been utterly unknown in
England. He appeared as the composer of the _Paradis Terrestre_. If he
had been known already as the composer of a number of things which had
left the public indifferent, would he have made the enormous success he
had made? She remembered Mascagni and his _Cavalleria_, Leoncavallo and
his _Pagliacci_. And she was almost glad that Claude was unknown. At any
rate, he had never made a mistake. That was something to be thankful
for. He must never make a mistake. But there would be no harm in
arousing a certain interest in his personality, in his work. A man like
Jacob Crayford kept a sharp look-out for fresh talent. He read all that
appeared about new composers of course. Or someone read for him. Even
"that dreadful Miss Gretch's" lucubrations might come under his notice.
For a week now Claude had gone every day after breakfast to the studio.
Charmian had not yet disturbed him there. She felt that she must handle
her husband gently. Although he was so kind, so disposed to be
sympathetic, to meet people half way, she knew well that there was
something in him to which as yet she had never probed, which she did not
understand. She was sufficiently intelligent not to deceive herself
about this, not to think that because Claude was a man of course she, a
woman, could see all of him clearly. The hidden something in her husband
might be a thing resistent. She believed she must go to work gently,
subtly, even though she meant to be very firm. So she had let Claude
have a week to himself. This gave him time to feel that the studio was a
sanctum, perhaps also that it was a rather lonely one. Meanwhile, she
had been searching for "words."
That task was a difficult one, because her mind was obsessed by the
thought of opera. Oratorio had always been a hateful form of art to her.
She had grown up thinking it old-fashioned, out-moded, absurdly
"plum-puddingy," and British. In the realm of orchestral music she was
more at home. She honestly loved orchestral music divorced from words.
But the music of Claude's which she knew was joined with words. And he
must do something with words. For that, as it were, would lead the way
toward opera. Orchestral music was more remote from opera. If Claude set
some wonderful poem, and a man like Jacob Crayford heard the setting, he
might see a talent for opera in it. But he could scarcely see that in a
violin concerto, a quartet for strings, or a symphony. So she argued.
And she searched anxiously for words which might be set dramatically,
descriptively. She dared not assail Claude yet with a libretto for
opera. She felt sure he would say he had no talent for such work, that
he was not drawn toward the theater. But if she could lead him gradually
toward things essentially dramatic, she might wake up in him forces the
tendency of which he had never suspected.
She re-read Rossetti, Keats, Shelley, dipped into William
Morris,--Wordsworth no--into Fiona Macleod, William Watson, John
Davidson, Alfred Noyes. Now and then she was strongly attracted by
something, she thought, "Will it do?" And always at such moments a
vision of Jacob Crayford seemed to rise up before her, with large brown
eyes, ears like a faun, nervous hands, and the tiny beard. "Is it a
business proposition?" The moving lips said that. And she gazed again at
the poem which had arrested her attention, she thought, "Is it a
business proposition?" Keats's terribly famous _Belle Dame Sans Merci_
really attracted her more than anything else. She knew it had been set
by Cyril Scott, and other ultra-modern composers, but she felt that
Claude could do something wonderful with it. Yet perhaps it was too well
known.
One lyric of William Watson's laid a spell upon her:
"Pass, thou wild heart,
Wild heart of youth that still
Hast half a will
To stay.
I grow too old a comrade, let us part.
Pass thou away."
She read that and the preceding verse again and again, in the grip of a
strange and melancholy fascination, dreaming. She woke, and remembered
that she was young, that Claude was young. But she had reached out and
touched old age. She had realized, newly, the shortness of the time. And
a sort of fever assailed her. Claude must begin, must waste no more
precious hours; she would take him the poem of William Watson, would
read it to him. He might make of it a song, and in the making he would
learn something perhaps--to hasten on the path.
She started for the studio one day, taking the _Belle Dame_, William
Watson's poems, and two or three books of French poetry, Verlaine,
Montesquiou, Moreas.
She arrived in Renwick Place just after four o'clock. She meant to make
tea for Claude and herself, and had brought with her some little cakes
and a bottle of milk. Quite a load she was carrying. The gouty hands of
the caretaker went up when he saw her.
"My, ma'am, what a heavy lot for you to be carrying!"
"I'm strong. Mr. Heath's in the studio?"
Before the man could reply she heard the sound of a piano.
"Oh, yes, he is. Is there water there? Yes. That's right. I'm going to
boil the kettle and make tea."
She went on quickly, opened the door softly, and slipped in.
Claude, who sat with his back to her playing, did not hear her. She
crept behind the screen into what she called "the kitchen." What fun!
She could make the tea without his knowing that she was there, and bring
it in to him when he stopped playing.
As she softly prepared things she listened attentively, with a sort of
burning attention, to the music. She had not heard it before. She knew
that when her husband was composing he did not go to the piano. This
must be something which he had just composed and was trying over. It
sounded to her mystic, remote, very strange, almost like a soul
communing with itself; then more violent, more sonorous, but always very
strange.
The kettle began to boil. She got ready the cups. In turning she knocked
two spoons down from a shelf. They fell on the uncarpeted floor.
"What's that? Who's there?"
Claude had stopped playing abruptly. His voice was the voice of a man
startled and angry.
"Who's there?" he repeated loudly.
She heard him get up and come toward the screen.
"Claudie, do forgive me! I slipped in. I thought I would make tea for
you. It's all ready. But I didn't mean to interrupt you. I was waiting
till you had finished. I'm so sorry."
"You, Charmian!"
There was an odd remote expression in his eyes, and his whole face
looked excited.
"Do--do forgive me, Claudie! Those dreadful spoons!"
She picked them up.
"Of course. What are all these books doing here?"
"I brought them. I thought after tea we might talk over words. You
remember?"
"Oh, yes. Well--but I've begun on something."
"Were you playing it just now?"
"Some of it."
"What is it?"
"Francis Thompson's _The Hound of Heaven_."
Jacob Crayford--what would he think of that sort of thing?
"You know it, don't you?" Claude said, as she was silent.
"I've read it, but quite a while ago. I don't remember it well. Of
course I know it's very wonderful. Madre loves it."
"She was speaking of it at the Shiffney's the other night. That's why it
occurred to me to study it."
"Oh. Well, now you have stopped shall we have tea?"
"Yes. I've done enough for to-day."
After tea Charmian said:
"I'll study _The Hound of Heaven_ again. But now do you mind if I read
you two or three of the things I have here?"
"No," he said kindly, but not at all eagerly. "Do read anything you
like."
It was six o'clock when Charmian read Watson's poem "to finish up with."
Claude who, absorbed secretly by the thought of his new composition, had
listened so far without any keen interest, at moments had not listened
at all, though preserving a decent attitude and manner of attention,
suddenly woke up into genuine enthusiasm.
"Give me that, Charmian!" he exclaimed. "I scarcely ever write a song.
But I'll set that."
She gave him the book eagerly.
That evening they were at home. After dinner Claude went to his little
room to write some letters, and Charmian read _The Hound of Heaven_. She
decided against it. Beautiful though it was, she considered it too
mystic, too religious. She was sure many people could not understand it.
"I wish Madre hadn't talked to Claude about it," she thought. "He thinks
so much of her opinion. And she doesn't care in the least whether Claude
makes a hit with the public or not."
The mere thought of the word "hit" in connection with Mrs. Mansfield
almost made Charmian smile.
"I suppose there's something dreadfully vulgar about me," she said to
herself. "But I belong to the young generation. I can't help loving
success."
Mrs. Mansfield had been the friend, was the friend, of many successful
men. They came to her for sympathy, advice. She followed their upward
careers with interest, rejoiced in their triumphs. But she cared for the
talent in a man rather than for what it brought him. Charmian knew that.
And long ago Mrs. Mansfield had spoken of the plant that must grow in
darkness. At this time Charmian began almost to dread her mother's
influence upon her husband.
She was cheered by a little success.
Claude set Watson's poem rapidly. He played the song to Charmian, and
she was delighted with it.
"I know people would love that!" she cried.
"If it was properly sung by someone with temperament," he replied. "And
now I can go on with _The Hound of Heaven_."
Her heart sank.
"I'm only a little afraid they may think you are imitating Elgar," she
murmured after a moment.
"Imitating Elgar!"
"Not that you are, or ever would do such a thing. It isn't your music,
it's the subject, that makes me a little afraid. It seems to me to be an
Elgar subject."
"Really!"
The conversation dropped, and was not resumed. But a fortnight later,
when Charmian came to make tea in the studio, and asked as to the
progress of the new work, Claude said rather coldly:
"I'm not going on with it at present."
She saw that he was feeling depressed, and realized why. But she was
secretly triumphant at the success of her influence, secretly delighted
with her own cleverness. How deftly, with scarcely more than a word, she
had turned him from his task. Surely thus had Madame Sennier influenced,
guided her husband.
"I believe I could do anything with Claude," she said to herself that
day.
"Play me your Watson song again, Claudie," she said. "I do love it so."
"It's only a trifle."
"I love it!" she repeated.
He sat down at the piano and played it to her once more. When he had
finished she said:
"I've found someone who could sing that gloriously."
"Who?" he asked.
Playing the song had excited him. He turned eagerly toward her.
"A young American who has been studying in Paris. I met him at the
Drakes' two or three days ago. Mr. Jacob Crayford, the opera man, thinks
a great deal of him, I'm told. Let me ask him to come here one day and
try the _Wild Heart_. May I?"
"Yes, do," said Claude.
"And meanwhile what are you working on instead of _The Hound of
Heaven_?"
Claude's expression changed. He seemed to stiffen with reserve. But he
replied, with a kind of elaborate carelessness:
"I think of trying a violin concerto. That would be quite a new
departure for me. But you know the violin was my second study at the
Royal College."
"That won't do," thought Charmian.
"If only Kreisler would take it up when it is finished as he took up--"
she began.
Claude interrupted her.
"It may take me months, so it's no use thinking about who is to play it.
Probably it will never be played at all."
"Then why compose it?" she nearly said.
But she did not say it. What was the use, when she had resolved that the
concerto should be abandoned as _The Hound of Heaven_ had been?
She brought the young American, whose name was Alston Lake, to the
studio. Claude took a fancy to him at once. Lake sang the _Wild Heart_,
tried it a second time, became enthusiastic about it. His voice was a
baritone, and exactly suited the song. He begged Claude to let him sing
the song during the season at the parties for which he was engaged. They
studied it together seriously. During these rehearsals Charmian sat in
an armchair a little way from the piano listening, and feeling the
intensity of an almost feverish anticipation within her.
This was the first step on the way of ambition. And she had caused
Claude to take it. Never would he have taken it without her. As she
listened to the two men talking, discussing together, trying passages
again and again, forgetful for the moment of her, she thrilled with a
sense of achieved triumph. Glory seemed already within her grasp. She
ran forward in hope, like a child almost. She saw the goal like a thing
quite near, almost close to her.
"People will love that song! They will love it!" she said to herself.
And their love, what might it not do for Claude, and to Claude? Surely
it would infect him with the desire for more of that curious heat-giving
love of the world for a great talent. Surely it would carry him on, away
from the old reserves, from the secrecies which had held him too long,
from the darkness in which he had labored. For whom? For himself
perhaps, or no one. Surely it would carry him on along the great way to
the light that illumined the goal.