'One can't kill people in the stalls of a London theatre.'
'She ought not to be allowed to live. Publicly! In the middle of the
play! ... Either she or I will leave the theatre.'
'I'll see what I can do,' he mumbled, 'only for God's sake don't make
it worse than it is.... Your only answer can be to ignore her. She'll
be crawling to you in a few months, for you are marvellous.'
Clara saw that he was right. To match herself against the
scandal-monger would be to step down to her level. To reassure her,
Verschoyle told her how he had been to Bloomsbury to settle matters.
'Where?' she asked.
He described the square and the house, and at once she had a foreboding
of disaster.
'Did you see any one else?'
'A queer fish I met at the door, with eyes that looked clean through
me, and that little squirt Clott. He is at the bottom of it all.'
Clara gave a little moan.
'O-oh! Why does everybody hate Charles so? Everybody betrays him....'
'Oh, come,' said Verschoyle, 'he isn't exactly thoughtful for other
people, is he?'
'That doesn't matter. Charles is Charles, and he must and shall
succeed.'
'Not if it smashes you.'
'Even if it smashes me.'
He took her hands and implored her to be sensible.
'You lovely, lovely child,' he said, 'if Charles can't succeed off his
own bat, surely, surely it means that there is something wrong with
him. Why should you suffer? Why should you be exposed all your life
to taunts and success and insults like that just now? It is all so
unnecessary.... I'll go and see Charles. I'll tell him what has
happened and that he may be given away at any moment now.'
'But why should they hate Charles?'
'It isn't Charles, darling. It is you they hate. You are too young,
too beautiful. These women who have lied and intrigued all their lives
can't forgive your frankness.'
'They can't forgive my being friends with you.... Oh! don't talk to me
about it any more. I hate it all. So disgusting it is.'
'I want Charles to clear out. He can go to Paris and come back if this
blows over.'
'I want him to be here to-morrow night. I want everybody to
acknowledge that all this is his work. There's to be a supper
to-morrow night after the performance. I want him to be there.'
Verschoyle shrugged his shoulders. He knew that opposition only made
her more obstinate.
'Very well,' he said, and he returned to the stalls where he made
himself exceedingly agreeable to Lady Bracebridge and her daughter,
hoping to prevent any further outburst of jealousy. Lady Bracebridge
was mollified and said presently,--
'After all, these things are nobody's affair but their own. I do think
the scenery is perfectly delightful, though I can't say it is my idea
of Caliban. But Henry is delightful. He reminds me so much of General
Booth.'
Clara stood free of all this foolish world of scandal and jealousy.
She had the answer to it all in herself. Whatever Clara Day had done,
Ariel was free and unattainable. She could achieve utter forgetfulness
of self, she could be born again in this miraculous experience for
which she had striven. As Ariel she could lead these mortals a dance.
'So I charmed their ears,
That, calf-like, they my lowing follow'd through
Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss and thorns,
Which enter'd their frail shins: at last I left them
I' the filthy-mantled pool....'
The pool of scandal: drowned in their own foul words.
She plied her art, and even in the confusion of the dress rehearsal was
the most delicate Ariel, so lithe, so lissom, that it seemed she must
vanish into the air like the floating feathered seeds of full
summer.... Abandoned to the sweet sea-breezes of the play she felt
that the hard crust upon the world must surely break to let this
spilling beauty pour into its heart. Surely, surely, she and Charles
could have no enemies.
They meant nothing but what Charles had proposed at his absurd
dinner--love: an airy magical love.... If only people would not
interfere. She had proposed to herself to give Charles his triumph and
then to settle his foolish mundane affairs. She knew she could do it,
if only Verschoyle and these others would not complicate them still
further. As for Charles being sent away to Paris, that was nonsense,
sheer nonsense, that he should be ruined because he had a worthless
woman who could, if she chose, use his name....
She was still being carried along by her set will to force London to
acknowledge Charles as its king, and, being so near success, she was
possessed by her own determination, and did not know to what an extent
she had denied her own emotions, and how near she was to that
obliteration of personal life which reduces an artist to a painted
mummer. She was terribly tired after the dress rehearsal. Her head
ached and her blood drummed behind her eyes. Sir Henry came to see her
in her room, and kissed her hands, went on his knees, and paid his
homage to her.