'Perhaps I'd better go away,' he muttered at last very slowly. 'It's a
pity. Everything was going so well. Lord Verschoyle is deeply
interested. He has two hundred thousand a year.'
Clara laughed at him.
'He is willing to sit on my committee.'
'Does he know?'
'No.'
'But can't you see that these people ought to know.'
'No. What has it got to do with my work?'
'To you nothing. To them everything. They can't support you if they
know----'
'But they don't know.'
'You are in that woman's hands. So am I. You can't expect me to live
upon her sanction.'
This was a new aspect of the matter to Charles, who had never admitted
the right of any other person to interfere in his affairs. It hurt him
terribly as it slowly dawned upon him that the miserable Kitty had
behind her the whole force of the law.
'Oh, good God!' he said. 'I'm a criminal. Oh, good God! This is
serious.'
'I'm glad you realise it at last,' said she.
He broke down and wept, and began to tumble out the whole ridiculous
story of his life; his perpetual disappointment: his terror of being
bound down to anything except the work in which he felt so free, so
wholly master of himself and his destiny; his delight in at last
finding in her a true companion who, unlike all other women, allowed
him to be something more than her possession.
'I'm afraid,' he said in the end, 'that I have never understood women.'
'Leave it to me.' Poor Clara felt that if she tried to explain any
more her head would burst.
He looked up at her gratefully and was at once happy again.
'It was my fault,' said Clara. 'It wouldn't have happened if I'd
thought about life at all. But it was so wonderful being with you and
making your work come to life that I never thought about the rest....
I never looked at it from the woman's point of view, as, being a woman,
I ought to have done.... I think the shock has made me a woman.... I
don't think anything will ever make you a man.'
Charles gaped at her, but was not the least bit hurt. He did not
particularly want to be a man as manhood is generally understood.
'Yes,' he said, 'Lord Verschoyle is deeply interested, and he has two
hundred thousand a year.'
'Wait a moment,' replied Clara, 'I'll go and see if she has left her
address.'
She ran downstairs, but Kitty had left no address. As Clara,
considering the matter, decided that meant either that she intended to
make trouble or that she had good reason for waiting before she made it.
When she returned, Charles was lover-like in his gratitude, but she
repulsed him, told him that he must get on with his designs for _The
Tempest_ and she would see what could be done about his troubles. For
the present, for a little while at all events, she proposed to leave
him and to stay with Julia Wainwright.
'I may have to tell her,' she said, 'but I don't think so.... I won't
let this woman ruin you, Charles.'
'I have hurt you far more than I have hurt her,' he said miserably. 'I
suppose things will never be the same. You'll always feel that I am
keeping things from you....'
'No. No. I know that is all that matters.... It is just the law that
is somehow wrong, giving advantage to any one who is mean enough to
take it.... But women _are_ mean.'
'Not you.'
'No. I do understand you, Charles, but I'm so hurt. I'm so tired I
don't think I can stand much more.'
'I'll do anything you want.'
'Then leave it to me.... The chief thing is your work, Charles. That
is all of you that matters.'
This was entirely Charles's view of himself, and, as he could not see,
yet, the effect of the intrusion of Kitty upon the brave girl who had
so childishly accepted his childishness he was unperturbed and free
from all anxiety.... So far his new career in London had been a
triumphant success, and it seemed to him incredible that it could be
checked by such a trifle as a forgotten wife. He thought of the money
that should come from the Imperium: money meant power, power meant the
removal of all disagreeable obstacles from his path. He licked his
lips.... England understood money and nothing else. He would talk to
England in her own language and when he had caught her attention he
would speak his own.... Things were going so splendidly: a man like
himself was not going to be upset by trifles. He had worked in exile
for so long: surely, surely he would be able to reap his reward.
Clara meanwhile was shocked almost out of her youth. She did not weep.
There were no tears in her eyes in which there slowly gathered a fierce
expression of passionate pain. The bloom of youth was on her cheeks,
upon her lips, in all her still unformed features, but in her eyes
suddenly was the knowledge of years, concentrated, tyrannous, and
between this knowledge and her will there was set up a remorseless
conflict, from which she found relief only in a new gaiety and love of
fun.
It was impossible to discuss the matter any further with Charles, and
without a word to him she went away to Miss Wainwright's flat. That
good creature took her in without a word, without even a mute
curiosity. People's troubles were their own affair, and she knew that
they needed to be alone with them. She gave Clara her bedroom and
absented herself as much as possible, and kept Freeland out of the way.
The flat was luxuriously but monstrously furnished. Its frank, opulent
ugliness was a relief to the girl after the rarefied atmosphere of
aesthetics in which for three years she had lived with Charles, upon
whom all her thoughts were still concentrated. Of herself she had no
thought. It did not concern her what she was called: wife or mistress.
She was Clara Day and would remain so whatever happened to her. She
had forced Charles to marry her in order to protect him and to help
him, and she had brought him into danger of imprisonment.... It was
perfectly true; Charles could not protect himself because he could not
learn that others were not as kindly as himself. He had been trapped
into marriage with that vulgar and venomous woman. He could not speak
of it because he loathed it so much.... She found excuses for him, for
herself she sought none, and at the back of all her thoughts was her
firm will that he should succeed. Yes, she thought, it was a good
thing to leave him for a while. She had been with him too much, too
near him.
It was a great comfort to be with Julia and Freeland, that unreal Romeo
and Juliet of middle age. They were very proud of her, and elated to
have her with them, took her everywhere, introduced her to all their
friends, and insisted upon her being photographed for the Press, and in
due course she had the shock of seeing her own features, almost more
than life-size, exhibited to the hurrying crowds on the
station-platforms. She was called Clara Day, Sir Henry Butcher's
youngest and prettiest recruit. From the shy, studious little girl who
sat close and, if possible, hidden during rehearsals, she found that
she had become in the estimation of the company one of themselves. It
was known that she had had lunch alone with Sir Henry, and the
publication of her photograph sealed her young reputation. With the
interest of the Chief, and influence in the Press, it was accepted that
she would go far. That she was Mrs Charles Mann was whispered, for
apparently she only had been ignorant of the impediment.
She apprehended the situation instinctively. Her mind recoiled from
it. She felt trapped. Whichever way she moved she would injure
him.... She ought to have kept quietly in the background, and let him
go his own way. By forcing him into the theatre he and his affairs
were exposed to the glaring light of publicity through her own
impetuous ambition for him.
Soon she was in an intolerable agony. She wrote to Charles every day,
and saw him occasionally, but was tortured every moment with the idea
that her mere presence was injurious to him, and might call down an
attack from the jealous Kitty at any moment. On the other hand, at any
moment some journalist might seize on the story of her arrival in
London with Charles, and publish the fact of their marriage.... She
stayed on with Julia, and let the days go by until at last she felt
that it was unfair to her kind friends. One night, therefore, after
the theatre, she went into Julia's bedroom, and sat perched at the end
of her bed, with her knees tucked under her chin, and said,--
'I'm not Charles's wife, Julia.'
'I know that,' replied the kind creature.
'But I _am_ married to him.'
'Good God!' Julia sat up and clasped her hand to her capacious
bosom.... 'Not a ceremony!'
'Yes. In an office near the Strand.'
'My dear child, my dear, dear child,' Julia began to weep. 'It's ...
it's ... it's ...'
'I know what it is,' said Clara, setting her jaw. 'I don't know what
to do.'
'You must never see him again.'
'But I must. I _am_ married to him inside me. He can't do anything
without me. I've made him come over here....'
'Didn't you know?'
'I knew nothing except that I loved him.'
'But people can't love like that.'
'I do.'
'He ran away from all that--and there were other things.... Oh, my
dear, dear child, have you nobody belonging to you?'
'Only Charles. And I've hurt him.'
'What does he say?'
'He doesn't seem to realise....'
'I'd like to thrash him within an inch of his life.... The only thing
to be thankful for is that you are not married to him. Not realise,
indeed! He walked out of his marriage like a man bilking his rent.'
'He is an artist. His work is more important to him than anybody.'
Julia wept and wailed. 'The scoundrel! The scoundrel! The
blackguard!'
'I won't have you calling him names. I won't have it. I won't have
it,' cried Clara, her feelings finding vent in an outburst of temper.
'And you're not to tell a soul, not even Freeland. I won't have
anybody interfering. I will handle this myself because I know more
about it than anybody else.... It doesn't help me at all to hear you
abusing Charles. It only hurts me.... I've made a mistake, and I am
going through with it.'
'But you can't live with him.'
'You live with Freeland.'
'Yes. But we're not married, so nobody worries; at least I am married,
so is Freeland. That makes it all right. If people are married it is
different.'
The complications of the position were beyond Julia's intelligence, and
she began to laugh hysterically. Clara laughed, too, but from genuine
amusement. The world certainly did look very funny from the detachment
now forced upon her: deliciously funny, and Charles appeared in her
thoughts as a kind of Harlequin dancing through the world, peering into
the houses where people were captive, tapping the doors with his wand
so that they opened, but no one never came out.
'I'll take you to my lawyer,' said Julia, at last, with a fat sob.
'I want no lawyers,' snapped Clara defiantly. 'Charles hates that
woman and she knows it. She won't try to get him back.'
'Yes. But she won't stand you're being with him.'
'Then I'll live alone, and help Charles in my own way.'
'Help yourself first, lovey; then you can help other people.'
'I don't believe it. If you help yourself, you are kept so busy doing
it that you don't know the other people are there.'
Of course Julia told Freeland, and in the morning he came tapping at
Clara's door. She admitted him. His rather faded, handsome face wore
a very serious expression, more serious indeed than was warranted
either by the feeling in his heart or the thought in his head. It was
a very serious situation, and he had assumed the appropriate manner....
Clara had slept soundly, and her fund of healthy good spirits made it
possible for her to regard the whole complication as, in itself, rather
superficial. The sun was shining in upon the mirror of her
dressing-table, upon her silver brushes, upon the portrait of Julia in
a silver frame, and upon the new frock which had come only the day
before from the dressmaker. With the sun shining, and the eager
thought of Charles in her heart, Clara could have no anxiety. No
problem was insoluble, no obstacle, she believed, could be
irresistible. Therefore she smiled as Freeland came in treading more
heavily than his wont. He stood and looked down at her.
'It's a bad business, kid,' he said, 'a bad, bad business.'
'Is it?'
'He has ruined your life. I feel like shooting him.'
'That wouldn't help me.'
'Can't you see how serious it is? You're neither married nor
unmarried.'
'Can't I be just Clara Day?'
Freeland was rather taken aback. He was used to Julia's taking her cue
from him. If a woman does not take the line proposed by the man in a
situation, a scene, where is he? And, in fact, Freeland did not know
where he was. His life had proceeded fairly smoothly from scene to
scene and he was not used to being pulled up.
'No, no, kid,' he protested. 'It is too ghastly. Your position is
impossible. Charles, damn him, can't protect you. The world is hard
and cruel.... A man can play the lone hand, but I never heard of its
being done by a woman: never.'
'I'm going to see Charles through,' said Clara, 'and you'll see how we
shall make this old London of yours wake up.'
'But if there's a scandal....?'
'There shan't be.... And if there is: well ... well...'
Freeland in his turn began to weep. Clara seemed to him so pathetic,
so innocent, so oblivious of all the hard facts of the world. She was
like a wild bird, flying in ecstasy, flying higher and higher in the
pain of her song. Indeed she was a most touching sight lying there in
her innocence, full of faith, conscious of danger, busy with wary
thoughts, but so eager, vital, and confident that all her belief in
Charles and her love for him were based in the deeper and stronger
forces of life.... She was roused to battle, and she was profoundly
aware that the law and the other devices of society were contrived
wholly to frustrate those deeper, stronger forces.... Freeland's
sentimental sympathy seemed to her in her happy morning mood weak and
irrelevant, yet charming and pathetic. He regarded her as a little
girl and was entirely unconscious of all the passionate knowledge in
her which moved so far and so swiftly beyond his capacity.
'Anything either of us can do,' he said, 'we shall do, always.' He
stooped and took her in his arms and kissed her, and large tears fell
upon her cheek. Tears came easily to these people: to Clara they came
not. Indeed she rather exulted in her peril, which destroyed for her
once and for all the superficiality of the life into which she had
plunged in order to help Charles to conquer his kingdom, which was
worlds away from this world of law and pretence, of spurious emotions
and easy tears.
'I can't think how Charles could have done it,' said Freeland, drying
his eyes.
'I made him,' said Clara, her eyes dancing with fun and mischief.