Lord Verschoyle had imagined that by making for Art he would be able to
shake free of predatory designs. It was not long before he discovered
his mistake and that he had plunged into the very heart of the Society
which he desired to avoid, for the Imperium, as used by Lady Butcher
and Lady Bracebridge, was a powerful engine in the politico-financial
world which dominated London. Verschoyle in his simplicity had seen
the metropolis as consisting of purposeful mammas and missish daughters
bearing down upon him from all sides. Now he discovered that there was
more in it than that and that marriage was only one of many moves in a
complicated game.... Lady Bracebridge had a daughter. Lady Butcher
had a son whom she designed for a political career, upon which he had
entered as assistant secretary to an under-secretary. Perceiving that
Verschoyle easily lost his head, as in his apparent relations with
Clara Day, they designed to draw him into political society where heads
are finally and irrevocably lost.... He loathed politics and could not
understand them, but young Butcher haunted him, and Lady Bracebridge
cast about him a net of invitations which he could find no way of
evading. They justified themselves by saying that it was necessary to
save him from Clara, and he found himself drawn further and further
away, and more and more submitted to an increasing pressure, the aim of
which seemed to be to commit him to supporting the Imperium and the
Fleischmann group which had some mysterious share in its control....
He knew enough about finance to realise that there was more in all this
than met the eye, and upon investigation he found that the Fleischmann
group were unloading Argentines all over monied London, and in due
course he was offered a block of shares which, after an admirable
dinner at the Bracebridges, he amiably accepted.
The network was too complicated for him to unravel, but, as the result
of putting two and two together, he surmised that the Imperium must
have been losing rather more than it was worth to the Fleischmann
group, and that therefore sacrifice must be offered up. He was the
sacrifice. He did not mind that. It would infuriate his trustees when
at last he had to give them an account of this adventure, but he did
object to Charles and Clara being used to make a desperate bid to
revive the languishing support of the public.
Charles and Clara were so entirely innocent of all intrigue. They gave
simply what was in them without calculation of future profit, and with
the most guileless trust in others, never suspecting that they were not
as simple as themselves. Therefore Verschoyle cursed his own indolence
which had committed him both to the Imperium and the Fleischmann group.
As he pondered the problem, he saw that Charles and Clara could be
dropped, and probably would be as soon as it was convenient. The real
controller of the Imperium was Lady Bracebridge, whose skill in
intrigue was said to be worth ten thousand a year to Sir Julius
Fleischmann. She played upon Lady Butcher, Lady Butcher played upon
Sir Henry, who, with Mr Gillies crying 'Give, give,' was between the
upper and the nether millstone, and could only put up a sham fight....
Verschoyle understood, too late, that _The Tempest_ was to be produced
not to present Clara and Charles to the British public, but to capture
himself. Like a fool, in his eagerness to help Clara, he had let
himself be captured, and now he thought he owed her amends.... He did
not know how difficult the situation had become. The danger point, as
he saw the problem, was her position with regard to Charles, who,
fortunately, respected her wishes and made no attempt to force her
hand. All the same there the awkward fact was and at any moment might
trip her up.
Verschoyle did not mind a scandal, and he did not care a hang whether
Charles went to prison or not. It might give him the instruction in
the elementary facts of existence which he needed to make him learn to
begin at the beginning instead of the middle or the end.... What
Verschoyle dreaded was a sudden shock which might blast the delicate
bud of Clara's youth, which to him was far more precious than any other
quality, and the only thing which in all his life had moved him out of
his timid dilettantism. To him it was a more valuable thing than the
whole of London, and compared with its vivid reality the Imperium, with
its firm hold on the affections of the public, and its generation of
advertising behind it, was a blown bubble.
He had tea with her on the day after her supper with Sir Henry, and
found her disastrously altered, hurt, and puzzled.
'What is the matter?' he asked. 'Rehearsals not going well?'
'Oh, yes. They are going very well.... But I am worried about
Charles. He has been borrowing money again.'
'Will you be happy again if I promise to look after Charles?'
'He ought not to expect to be looked after. He is very famous now, and
should be able to make money.'
'Surely, like everything else, it is a matter of practice. You don't
expect him to beat Sir Henry at his own game.'
'No-o,' she said. 'But I think I did expect Charles's game to beat Sir
Henry's.'
'Surely it has done so.'
'No.'
They were in her rooms, which were now most charmingly furnished;
bright, gay, and delicate in colouring, tranquil and cosy with books.
'Has anything happened?'
She told him.
'I thought it was going to be so simple. I felt that Charles and I
were irresistible, and that we should conquer the theatre and make
people admit that he is--what he is. Nothing can alter that. But it
isn't simple at all. Other people want other things. They go on
wanting the horrible things they have always wanted, and they expect us
to help them to procure them. They don't understand. They think we
want the same things.... I never thought I should be so unhappy. When
it comes to the point they won't let the real things in people be put
before the public.'
'Oh, come. He is just a vain old man who gets through his position
what he could never have got for himself.'
'No, no, no,' she protested. 'It does mean what I say. It has made me
hate the theatre and understand why Charles ran away from it.... Only,
having forced him so far, what can I do? I have hurt him far more than
he has hurt me. He was quite happy drifting from town to town abroad,
and it was the life I had been brought up to, because my grandfather
ran away from England, too. It wouldn't have mattered there how many
wives Charles had in England.... But I wanted to see for myself, and I
didn't want him to be wasted.... I can see perfectly well that Sir
Henry wants if possible to discredit him and to prove that his ideas
won't work.... We've all been very silly. These people are too clever
for us. He's got your money and Charles's genius, and neither of you
can raise a finger.'
Verschoyle looked rueful. He could not deny it.
'It's that damned old Bracebridge,' he said. 'She doesn't care a
twopenny curse for art or for the public. She and her lot want any
money that is floating loose and the whole social game in London has
become a three-card trick in their hands. The theatre and newspapers
are just the sharper's patter.'
Clara writhed.
'You can't do anything but go on,' he said. 'You are bound to get your
success and they can't deny that. The old man knows that. Hence the
trick to get you away from Charles.... If you succeed you'll pull
Charles through, and--we can buy off anybody who wants to make trouble.
I'll buy the Bracebridges, if necessary. I'm not particularly proud of
my money. It comes from land for which I do absolutely nothing, but
it's better than Fleischmann money which is got by the trickery of a
lottery.'
'She's a horrible old woman,' said Clara.
'She intends that I shall marry her hen-brain of a daughter.... If the
worst came to the worst, my dear, you could marry me.'
Clara was enraged. It infuriated her that he, of all people, whom she
had so entirely trusted, should so far forget himself as to propose so
trite and sentimental a solution. He could not help teasing her.
'It would save me, too,' he said. 'And as Lady Verschoyle you could
give these people a Roland for their Oliver every time.'
'But I want to ignore them,' she said. 'Why won't you see that I don't
want to win with my personality but with my art. That should be the
irresistible thing.'
'It would be if they resisted it, but they don't. They ignore it....
I can't think of anything else, my dear. They've got my money: ten
thousand in the Imperium and twenty in Argentinos, and they are using
my name for all they are worth.'
'And if I hadn't asked you to stay after the birds and fishes it
wouldn't have happened.'
'After all, it hasn't come to disaster yet.'
'But it will. It is all coming to a head, and Charles will have to be
the one to suffer for it.'
'I promise you he shan't. He shall have a dozen committees and all the
birds and fishes he requires.'
She could not help laughing. Perhaps, after all, her fears were
exaggerated, but she dreaded Charles's helpless acquiescence in the
plight to which he had been reduced by Mr Gillies's refusal to advance
him a penny outside the terms mentioned in the contract.
'It certainly looks to me,' said Verschoyle, 'as if they wanted to
break him. It wouldn't be any good my saying anything. They would
simply point to their contract and shrug their shoulders at Charles's
improvidence. How much did Mr Clott get away with?'
'A great deal. He had several hundreds in blackmail before he went.
That is why we can't prosecute.'
Verschoyle whistled.
'It is a tangled skein,' he said. 'You'd much better marry me. I
won't expect you to care for me.'
'Don't be ridiculous----'
There came a heavy thudding at the door, and Clara jumped nervously to
her feet. Verschoyle opened the door, and Charles swept in like a
whirlwind. His long hair hung in wisps about his face, his hat was
awry, his cuffs hung down over his hands, his full tie was out over his
waistcoat, and in both hands he held outstretched his walking stick and
a crumpled piece of paper. He dropped the stick and smoothed the paper
out on the table, and, in an almost sobbing voice, he said,--
'This has come. It is a wicked plot to ruin me. She demands a part in
_The Tempest_ or she will inform the police.... O God, chicken, that
was a bad day when you made me marry you.'
Verschoyle picked up his stick and, beside himself with exasperated
fury, laid about the unhappy Charles's shoulders and loins crying,--
'You hound, you cur, you filthy coward! You should have told her! You
should have told her! You knew she was only a child!'
Charles roared lustily, but made no attempt to defend himself, although
he was half a head taller than Verschoyle and twice as heavy. He
merely said,--
'Oo-oh!' when a blow got home, and waited until the onslaught was over.
Then he rubbed himself down and wriggled inside his clothes.
Clara stood aghast. It was horrible to her that this should have
happened. Blows were as useless as argument with Charles.... He had
done what he had done out of kindliness and childish obedience and,
looking to motives rather than to results, could see no wrong in it.
Verschoyle was at once ashamed of himself.
'I lost my temper,' he said, and Charles, assured that the storm was
over, smiled happily, ran his hands through his hair and said,--
'Do you think Sir Henry would give her a part?'
Verschoyle flung back his head and shouted with laughter. Such
innocence was a supreme joke, especially coming after the serious
conversation in which he and Clara had aired their fears as to the
result of their incursion into theatrical politics.
'She used to be quite pretty,' added Charles. 'What delightful rooms
you have, my dear. They're not so warm as my ham and beef shop.'
'Listen to me, Charles,' said Verschoyle. 'This is serious. I don't
care about you. Nothing could hurt you. I don't believe you know half
the time what is going on under your nose, but it is vitally serious
for Clara. This business must be stopped.... If we can't buy these
people off then I'll give you two hundred to clear out.'
'Clear out?' faltered Charles, 'but--my _Tempest_ is just coming on.
I'm----'
Verschoyle took up the letter and noted the address, one of the musical
comedy theatres.
'Have you heard from Mr Clott lately?'
'No. His name is Cumberland now, you know. He came into money. He
said he would come back to me when I had my own theatre.'
'Theatre be damned. I wanted to know if he's still blackmailing you.'
'Blackmail? Oh, no.'
'Don't you mind people blackmailing you?'
'If people are made like that.'
'Ah!' Verschoyle gave an indescribable gurgle of impatience. 'Look
here, Mann, do try to realise the position. You can't get rid of this
woman whatever she does because you have treated marriage as though you
could take a wife as if it were no more than buying a packet of
cigarettes.'
'I have never thought of Clara as my wife.'
'How then?'
'As Clara,' said Charles simply. 'She is a very great artist.'
Verschoyle was baffled, but Clara forgave Charles all his folly for the
sake of his simplicity. It was true. The mistake was hers. What he
said was unalterably true. She was Clara Day, an artist, and he had
loved her as such. As woman he had not loved her or any other....
What in the ordinary world passed for love simply did not exist for him
at all.
She turned to Verschoyle.
'Please do what you can for us,' she said. 'And Charles, please don't
try to think of it in anybody else's way but your own. I won't let
them send you to prison. They don't want to do that. They would much
rather have you great and powerful so as to bleed you....'
'It has been very wonderful since you came, chicken,' he said. 'I'm
ten times the man I was. It seems so stupid that because we went into
a dingy office and gabbled a few words we shouldn't be able to be
together.... I sometimes wish we were back in France or Italy in a
studio, with a bird in a cage, and you dancing about, making me laugh
with happiness....'
'I'll see my lawyer,' said Verschoyle.
'For Heaven's sake, don't!' cried Clara. 'Once the lawyers get hold of
it, they'll heap the fire up and throw the fat on it.'
'I'm sorry I forgot myself.... You're a good fellow, Charles, but so
damned silly that you don't deserve your luck.'
They shook hands on it and Verschoyle withdrew, leaving Charles and
Clara to make what they could of the confusion in which they were
plunged.... Charles's way out of it was simply to ignore it. If
people would not or could not live in his fancy world, so much the
worse for them. He did not believe that anything terrible could happen
to him simply because, though calamities of the most serious nature had
befallen him, he had hardly noticed them. He could forget so easily.
He could withdraw and live completely within himself.
He sat at the table and began to draw, and was immediately entirely
absorbed.
'Don't you feel it any more than that, Charles?' she asked.
'If people like to make a fuss, let them,' he said. 'It is their way
of persuading themselves that they are important.... If they put me in
prison, I should just draw on the walls with a nail, and the time would
soon go by. The difference between us and them is that they are in a
hurry and we are not. There won't be much left of my _Tempest_ by the
time they've done with it.... The electricians have secret
instructions from Butcher. There was nothing about lighting in my
contract, so it is to be his and not mine, as if a design could stand
without the lighting planned for it.... There are to be spot-lines on
Sir Henry and Miranda and you, if he is still pleased with you....'
Charles was talking in a cold, unmoved voice, but she knew that there
must have been a furious tussle. She was up in arms at once,--
'It is disgraceful!' she cried. 'What is the good of his pretending to
let you work in his theatre if you can have nothing as you wish it?'
'He believes in actors,' said Charles, 'People with painted faces and
painted souls, people whose minds are daubed with paint, whose eyes are
sealed with it, whose ears are stopped with it....'
'Am I one of them?' she asked plaintively.
'No! Never! Never!' he said, looking up from his drawing. 'They'll
turn us into a success, chicken, but they won't let us do what we want
to do.... I shan't go near the place again. But you are Ariel, and
without you there can be no _Tempest_.'
'I'll go through with it,' she said, her will setting. 'I'll go
through with it, and I'll make nonsense of everything but you....
You've done all you can, Charles. Just go on working. That's the only
thing, the only thing....'
As she said these words, she thought of Rodd with an acute hostility
that amounted almost to hatred. It was the meeting with him that had
so confounded all her aims, that sudden plunge into humanity with him
that had so exposed her to love that even Verschoyle's tone had changed
towards her.... With Charles, love was as impersonal as a bird's song.
It was only a call to her swift joy and claimed nothing for himself,
though, perhaps, everything for his art. That was where he was so
baffling. He expected the whole world to accept service under his
banner, and was so confident that in time it would do so that no rebuff
ruffled him.
Clara was tempted to accept his point of view, and to run all risks to
serve him; but she realised now, as he did not, the forces arrayed
against him. There was no blinking the fact that what the
Butcher-Bracebridge combination detested was being forced to take him
seriously: him or anything else under the sun. Even the public upon
which they fawned was only one of several factors in their calculations.
'It will all come right, Charles,' she said. 'I am sure it will all
come right. We won't give in. They have diluted you----'
'Diluted?' he exclaimed. 'Butchered!'
She admired him for accepting even that, but, in spite of herself, it
hurt her that he still had no thought for her, but to him only artistic
problems were important. The problems of life must be left to solve
themselves. She could not help saying,--
'You ought not to leave everything to me, Charles.'
'You can handle people. I can't. I thought I was going to be rich,
but there's no money. And even if this affair is a success I shall be
ashamed of it.... I think I shall write to the papers and repudiate
it. But it is the same everywhere. People take my ideas and vulgarise
them. Actors are the same everywhere. They will leave nothing to the
audience. They want to be adored for the very qualities they have
lost.'
'You don't blame me, then?'
'Blame? What's the good of blaming any one. It doesn't help. It
makes one angry. There is a certain pleasure in that, but it doesn't
help.'
It was brought home to her, then, that all her care for his
helplessness was in vain. He neither needed nor looked for help. It
was all one to him whether he lived in magnificence in a furnished
house or in apartments over a cook-shop.
'I've a good mind to disown the whole production now,' he said.
'No. No. They will do all they can to hurt you then.... I think they
know.'
'Know what?'
'That you have a wife.'
He brought his fist down with such a crash on the frail table that it
cracked right across, and Clara was sickeningly alarmed when she saw
his huge hands grip the table on either side and rend it asunder.
There was something terrible and almost miraculous in his enormous
physical vitality, and his waste of it now in such a petty act of rage
forced her to admit that which she had been attempting to suppress, the
thought of Rodd, and she was compelled now to compare the two men. So
she saw Charles more clearly, and had to acknowledge to herself how
fatally he lacked moral force. She trembled as it was made plain to
her that the old happy days could never come again, and that the child
who had believed in him so implicitly was gone for ever. She had the
frame, the mind, the instinct of a woman, and these things could no
longer be denied.