'This isn't going to be Sir Henry's or Mann's show. It is going to be
Clara Day's.'
The good creatures! It was only a show to them, and they were elated
and happy to think of the thousands and thousands of pounds, dollars,
francs, roubles, and marks that would be showered on their friend.
With such a success as they now dreamed the trouble they had dreaded
for her would make no difference. A 'story' would be even valuable.
But what had Ariel to do with pounds and dollars, roubles and marks?
Ariel asked nothing but freedom after ages pining in a cloven pine....
In this world of money and machinery and intrigue to control machinery
with money, to be free was the deep and secret desire of all humanity.
Here in London hearts ached and souls murmured to be free, only to be
free, for one moment at whatever cost of tears and suffering and bloody
agony. All this in her heart Clara knew, she knew it from her meeting
with Rodd, from her solitary brooding in her room, from the drunken
women fighting in the street, from the uncontrolled fantasy in Charles
Mann, from the boredom that ate away poor Verschoyle's heart; and all
the knowledge of her adventurous life she gathered up to distil it into
the delight of freedom, for its own sake and also for the sake of the
hereafter which, if there be no moment of freedom, no flowering of
life, must sink into a deeper and more miserable slavery.
In this mood it was pathetic to see Sir Henry, whose whole power lay in
machinery, pretending as Prospero to rule by magic. So pathetically
out of place was he that he could not even remember the words that so
mightily revealed his authority.... When he broke down, he would
declare that it was quite a simple matter to improvise blank verse....
But Clara would not let him improvise. She was always ready with the
words, the right inevitable words. She would not let him impair her
freedom with his lazy reliance upon the machinery of the theatre to
pull him through, and so, when he opened his mouth and looked vague,
and covered the absence of words with a large gesture, she was ready
for him.
He reproved her.
'I am always like this at a dress rehearsal. Dress rehearsals are
always terrible. The production seems to go altogether to pieces, but
it is always there on the night. A good dress rehearsal means a bad
first night.'
But Clara refused to allow any of her scenes to go to pieces, and they
were applauded by the Butcher-Bracebridge fashionables who sat in the
stalls. Lady Butcher called out,--
'It will be one of the best things you have ever done,' and her son's
voice was heard booming, 'Hear, hear! Good old pater.'
Verschoyle had dropped in, but he was captured by Lady Bracebridge and
her daughter, and had to sit between them while they scandalised Clara.
According to them she had run away from home and had led an
unmentionable life in Paris, actually having been a member of a low
company of French players; and she had married but had run away from
her husband with Charles Mann, etc., etc.
'I beg your pardon,' said Verschoyle, 'but Miss Day is a friend of
mine.'
'One admires her frankness so much,' said Lady Bracebridge.
'Adventures like that make an actress so interesting.'
'But this is her first appearance in any theatre.'
Lady Bracebridge looked incredulous. She put up her lorgnette and
scanned Clara, who had just floated across the stage followed by
Trinculo and Stephano.
'She is born to it.... I know what the French theatre is like. They
are so sensible, don't expect anything else of their actresses.'
Verschoyle saw that it was useless to argue. Women will never
relinquish their jealousy. He shifted uneasily in his seat: Lady
Bracebridge was a great deal too clever for him and he saw himself
being thrust against his will into marriage with her daughter, who had
an affectation of cleverness and maddened him with remarks like,--
'That Ariel costume would make the sweetest dinner-frock. If I have
one made, will you take me to Murray's?'
'Certainly not,' said Verschoyle.
Clara in her pure girlish voice had just sung 'Full fathom five thy
father lies,' when Lady Bracebridge, in her most strident voice, which
went ringing through the theatre, said,--
'I hear Charles Mann has a real wife who is _raging_ with jealousy,
simply raging. The most extraordinary story.'
Clara stopped dead, stood looking helplessly round, pulled herself
together, and went on with the part. Verschoyle deliberately got up
and walked out and round to the stage door, where already he found Lady
Butcher in earnest converse with Sir Henry,--
'We can't have a scandal in the theatre, Henry. Everybody heard
her....'
'The wicked old devil. Why didn't she keep her mouth shut?'
'She hates this girl you are all so crazy about.... Everybody heard
her. You can't keep a thing like that quiet once it has been said
publicly.'
'But she is wonderful, the most delicate Ariel. Mann isn't worrying
us. I cleared him out.'
'Excuse me,' said Verschoyle, intervening. 'I can assure you there
will be no trouble. I have seen to that. You have nothing to fear.'
'How sweet of you! Then I can tell everybody there is not a word of
truth in it.'
Verschoyle turned his back on them, and went in search of Clara, whom
he found trembling with fury on the stairs leading from her
dressing-room to the stage.
'How dare you let that woman insult me publicly?' she cried. 'How dare
you? How dare you? You ought to have killed her.'