The Way of Ambition Part 112

"It's strange to think of Madre in Berkeley Square to-night," said Charmian slowly. "I wonder what she is doing."

"I am quite sure she is alone, up in her reading-room thinking of us, in one of her white dresses."

"And wishing us--" she paused.

The first notes of the Prelude sounded in the hidden orchestra.

Claude fixed his mind on the thought of Madre, in a white dress, sitting alone in the well-known quiet room, thinking of him--in that moment he was an egoist--wishing him the best. He could almost see Madre's face rise up before him, as it must have looked when she wrote that cablegram, a face kind, intense, with fire, sorrow, and love in the burning eyes. And the thought of that face helped him very much just then, more than he would have thought it possible that anything could help him, was a firm and a tender friend to him in a difficult crisis of his life.

He sat back in the shadow behind Charmian in a sort of strange loneliness, conscious of the enormous crowd around him. He could not see the members of this crowd. He saw only Charmian in her pale green gown, with a touch of green in her cloud of dark hair, and a long way off the stage. He heard perpetually his own music. But to-night it did not seem to him to be his own. He listened to it with a kind of dreadful and supreme detachment, as if it had nothing to do with him. But he listened with great intensity, with all his critical intelligence at work, and with--so at least it seemed to him--his heart prepared to be touched, moved. It was not a hard heart which was beating that night in the breast of Claude, nor was it the foolish, emotional heart of the partisan, lost to the touch of reason, to the influence of the deepest truth which a man of any genius dare not deny. No critic in the vast theater that night listened to Claude's opera more dispa.s.sionately than did Claude himself. Sometimes he thought of the colored woman in the huge pink hat. He knew she was somewhere in the theater, probably far up in that dim gallery toward which he had looked at rehearsal, when the building had presented itself to his imagination as a monster waiting heavily to be fed. On this one night at least he had fed it full. Was not _she_ stretching her great lips in a smile?

Sometimes Claude heard faint movements, slight coughing, little sounds like minute whispers from the crowd. Now and then there was applause.

Alston Lake was applauded strongly once after a phrase which showed off his magnificent voice, and Charmian looked quickly round at Claude with cheeks flushing, and shining eyes, which said plainly, "It is coming!

Listen! The triumph is on the way!" Then the widespread silence of an attentive crowd fell again, like some vast veil falling, and Claude attended intensely to the music as if it were the music of another.

After the first act there was more applause, which sounded in their box rather strong in patches but scattered. The singers were called three times, but always in this unconcentrated way.

"It's going splendidly. They like it!" said Charmian quickly. "Three calls. That's unusual after a first act, when the audience hasn't warmed up. Isn't it odd, Claudie, that Americans always applaud quite differently from the way the English do? They always applaud like that."

She had turned right round and was almost facing him.

"How do you mean?" he said.

"Didn't you notice? Persistently, but in clumps as it were. It is by their persistence they show how pleased they are, rather than by their--their--I hardly know just how to put it."

"By their unanimity perhaps."

"Oh, no! Not exactly that! Here's Mr. Crayford."

Crayford slipped in, but only stayed for a moment.

"Hear that applause?" he said. "They're mad about it. Alston's got them.

I knew he would. That boy's going to be famous. But wait till the second act. They're in a fine humor, only asking to be pleased. I know the signs. The libretto's. .h.i.t them hard. They're all asking what's to happen next."

"You're satisfied then?" said Charmian.

"Satisfied! I'm so happy I don't know what to do."

He was gone.

"He knows!" Charmian said.

Her eyes were fixed upon Claude. They looked almost defiant.

"If anyone in America knows what he is talking about I suppose it is Mr.

Crayford," she added.

There was a tap at the door. Claude opened it and two of their American friends came in and stayed a few minutes, saying how well the opera was going, how much they liked it, how splendidly it was "put on"--all the proper and usual things which are said by proper and usual persons on such occasions. One of them was an acquaintance of Van Brinen's. Claude asked him if Van Brinen were in the house. He said yes. Claude then inquired whether Van Brinen knew the number of his box, and was told that he did know it. The conversation turned to other topics, but when the two men had gone out Charmian said:

"Why did you ask those questions about Mr. Van Brinen, Claudie?"

"Only because I thought if he knew where our box was he might pay us a visit. No one has been more friendly with us than he has."

"I see. He's certain to come after the next act. Ah! the lights are going down."

She had been standing for a few minutes. Now she moved to sit down.

Before doing so she drew her chair a little way back in the box.

"I don't want to be distracted from the stage--my attention, I mean--by seeing too many people," she whispered, in explanation of her action.

"You are quite right to keep at the back. One can listen much better if one doesn't see too much of the audience."

Claude said nothing. The curtains were parting.

The second act was listened to by the vast audience in a silence that was almost complete.

Now and then Charmian whispered a word or two to Claude. Once she said:

"Isn't it wonderful, the silence of a crowd? Doesn't it show how absorbed they are?"

And again:

"I think it's such a mercy that modern methods of composition give no opportunity to the audience to break in with applause. Any interruption would ruin the effect of the act as a whole."

Claude just moved his head in reply.

Everything was satisfactory. Jacob Crayford had been right. The opera was ready for production and was "going" without a hitch. The elaborate scenic effects were working perfectly. Miss Mardon had never been more admirable, more completely mistress of her art. Nor had she ever looked more wonderful. Alston Lake's success was a.s.sured. His voice filled the great house without difficulty. Even Charmian and Claude were surprised by its volume and beauty.

"Isn't Alston splendid?" whispered Charmian once.

"Yes," Claude replied.

He added, after a pause:

"Dear old Alston is safe."

Charmian turned her face toward the stage. Now and then she moved rather restlessly in her chair. She had a fan with her and began to use it.

Then she laid it down on the ledge of the box, then took it up again, opened it, closed it, and kept it in her hand. She felt the audience almost like a weight laid upon her. Their silent attention began to frighten her. She knew that was ridiculous, that if this production did not intimately concern her the audience's silence would not strike her as strange. People listening attentively are always silent. She blamed herself for her absurdity. Leaning a little forward she could just see the outline of Madame Sennier, sitting very upright in the front of her box, with one arm and hand on the ledge. Crayford, who was determined to be "in the front artistically," kept the theater very dark when the curtain was up, in order to focus the attention of the audience on the stage. To Charmian, Madame Sennier looked like a shade, erect, almost strangely motionless, implacable. This shade drew Charmian's eyes as the act went on. She did not move her seat forward again, but she often leaned forward a little. A shade with a brain, a heart and a soul! What were they doing to-night? Charmian remembered the attempt to get the libretto away from Claude, Madame Sennier's remarks about Claude after the return from Constantine. The shade had done her utmost to ensure that this first night should never be. She had failed. And now she was sitting over there tasting her own failure. Charmian stared at her trying to triumph. All the time she was listening to the music, was saying to herself how splendid it was. They had made great sacrifices for it. And it was splendid. That was their reward.

The music sounded strangely new to her in this environment. She had heard it all at Djenan-el-Maqui, on the piano, sung by Alston and hummed by Claude. She had felt it, sometimes deeply on nights of excitement, when Claude had played till the stars were fading. She had had her favorite pa.s.sages, which had always come to her out of the midst of the opera like friends, smiling, or pa.s.sionate, or perhaps weeping, tugging at her heart-strings, stirring longings that were romantic. At the rehearsals she had heard the opera with the singers, the orchestra.

Yet now it seemed to her new and strange. The great audience had taken it, had changed it, was showing it to her now, was saying to her: "This is the opera of the composer, Claude Heath, a man hitherto unknown." And presently it seemed to be saying to her with insistence:

"It is useless for you to pretend to be apart from me, separate from me.

For you belong to me. You are part of me. Your thought is part of my thought, your feeling is part of mine. You are nothing but a drop in me and I am the ocean."

Charmian felt as if she were struggling against this attempt of the audience to take possession of her, were fighting to preserve intact her independence, her individuality. But it became almost the business of a nightmare, this strange and unequal struggle in the artistic darkness devised by Crayford. And the audience seemed to be gaining in strength, like an adversary braced up by conflict.

Conflict! The word had appeared like a criminal in Charmian's mind. She strove vehemently to banish it. There was, there could be no conflict in such a matter as was now in hand. But, oh! this portentous silence!