The Way of Ambition Part 10

"Yes, terribly. But I flatly refused to go. But she knew I was tempted.

It's only curiosity on her part," he added, with a sort of hot, angry boyishness. "She can't make me out, and I didn't call. That's why she asked me."

Mrs. Mansfield mentally added a "partly" to the last sentence.

"You're very much afraid of exposing yourself--or is it your talent?--to the influence of what we may as well call the world," she said.

"I suppose one's talent is oneself, one's best self."

"Perhaps so. I have none. You know best about that. I expect you are right in being afraid."

"You don't think I'm merely a rather absurd coward and egoist?"

"Oh, no! But some people--many, I think--would say a talent is meant to be used, to be given to the light."

"I know. But I don't think the modern world wants mine. I"--he reddened--"I always set words from the Bible nearly or from the Prayer-Book."

Smiling a little, as if saving something by humor, he added:

"Not the _Song of Solomon_."

"But don't the English--"

He stopped her.

"Good heavens! I know you are thinking of the Handel Festival and _Elijah_ in the provinces!" he exclaimed. "I know you are!"

She laughed.

"I should like to play you one or two of my things," he said impulsively. "Then you'll see at once."

He went toward the piano. She sat still. She was with the striking unreserve of the reserved man when he has cast his protector or his demon away. With his back to her Heath turned over some music, moved a pile of sheets, set them down on the floor under the piano, searched.

"Oh, here it is!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'THIS IS THE LAST THING I'VE DONE'"--_Page 41_]

He grasped some ma.n.u.script, put it on the music-stand, and sat down.

"This is the last thing I've done. The words are taken from the sixteenth chapter of Revelation--'And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, "Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of G.o.d upon the earth."' And so on."

With a sort of anger his hands descended and struck the keys. Speaking through his music he gave Mrs. Mansfield indications of what it was expressing.

"This is the sea. 'The second angel poured out his vial upon the sea, and it became as the blood of a dead man.... The fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun, and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.... The sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great River Euphrates, and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the Kings of the East might be prepared.'"

The last words which Heath had set were those in the fifteenth verse of the chapter--"Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments lest he walk naked and they see his shame."

When he had finished he got up from the piano with a flushed face and, again speaking in a boyish and almost naive manner, said quickly:

"There, that gives you an idea of the sort of thing I do and care about doing. For, of course, I never will attempt any subject that doesn't thoroughly interest me."

He stood for a moment, not looking toward Mrs. Mansfield; then, as if struggling against an inward reluctance, he again sat down on the settle.

"Have you orchestrated it?" she asked.

"Yes. I've just finished the orchestration."

"Surely you want to hear it given with voices and the orchestra?

Frankly, I won't believe you if you say you don't."

"I do."

The reluctance seemed to fade out of him.

"The fact is I'm torn between the desire to hear my things and a mighty distaste for publicity."

He sprang up.

"If you'll allow me I'll just give you an idea of my Te Deum. And then I'll have done."

He went once more to the piano.

When he was sitting beside her again Mrs. Mansfield felt shy of him.

After a moment she said:

"You are sincere in your music?"

"Yes."

He did not seem specially anxious to get at her exact opinion of his work, and this fact, she scarcely knew why, pleased Mrs. Mansfield.

"I had two or three things done at the College concerts," Heath continued. "I don't think they were much liked. They were considered very clever technically. But what's that? Of course, one must conquer one's means or one can't express oneself at all."

"And now you work quite alone?"

"Yes. I've got just a thousand a year of my own," he said abruptly.

"You are independent, then."

"Yes. It isn't a great deal. Of course, I quite realize that the sort of thing I do could never bring in a penny of money. So I've no money temptation to resist in keeping quiet. There isn't a penny in my compositions. I know that."

Mrs. Mansfield thought, "If he were to get a mystical libretto and write an opera!" But she did not say it. She felt that she would not care to suggest anything to Heath which might indicate a desire on her part to see him "a success." In her ears were perpetually sounding the words, "and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the Kings of the East might be prepared." They took her away from London. They set her in the midst of a great strangeness. They even awoke in her an almost riotous feeling of desire. What she desired she could not have said exactly. Some form of happiness, that was all she knew. But how the thought of happiness stung her soul at that moment! She looked at Heath and said:

"I quite understand about Mrs. Shiffney now."

"Yes?"

"You have the dangerous gift of a very peculiar and very powerful imagination. I think your music might make you enemies."