The Way of Ambition Part 25

"I suppose they won't be back for a good while," he said.

"Oh, I expect them in a week or two."

"So soon?"

"Adelaide is always in a hurry, and this was only to be quite a short trip."

"Once out there how can they come away so soon? I should want to stay for months. If I once began really to travel there would never be an end to it, unless I were not my own master."

"It's quite extraordinary how you master yourself," Mrs. Mansfield said.

"You are a dragon to yourself, and what a fierce unyielding dragon!

It's a fine thing to have such a strong will."

"Ah! But if I let it go!"

"Do you think you ever will?"

"Yes," he said with a sort of deep sadness. "On one side's the will. But on the other side there's an absurd impulsiveness. But don't let's talk any more of me. Do tell me some more about Algiers and your daughter."

When Heath left her that day Mrs. Mansfield said to herself, "If Charmian really does care for him he doesn't know it."

What were Heath's feelings toward Charmian she could not divine. She was unconscious of any desire to baffle her on Heath's part, and was inclined to think that he was so wrapped up in the rather solitary life he had planned out for himself, and in his art, was so detached from the normal preoccupations of strong and healthy young men, that Charmian meant very little, perhaps nothing at all, to him. She had noted, of course, the slightly self-conscious look which had come into Heath's face when she had mentioned Charmian, but she explained that to herself easily enough. Her mention of Charmian in the sun had recalled to him the persistence of Mrs. Shiffney, which he knew she was aware of. In such matters he was like a sensitive boy. He had the peculiar delicacies of the nervously const.i.tuted artist, which seem very ridiculous to the average man, but not to the discerning woman. Mrs. Mansfield felt almost sure that his self-consciousness arose not from memories of Charmian, but of Adelaide Shiffney. And she supposed that he was probably quite indifferent to Charmian. It was better so. Although she believed that it was wise for most men to marry, and not very late in life, she excepted Heath from her theory. She could not "see" him married. She could not pick out any girl or woman whom she knew, and say: "That would be the wife for him." Evidently he was one of the exceptional men for whom the normal conditions are not intended. She thought again of his music, and found a reason there. But then she remembered yellow-haired Fan. He was at home with a child, why not with a wife and child of his own? She put aside the problem, but did not resign the thought, "In any case Charmian would be the wrong woman for him to marry." And when she said that to herself she was thinking solely of the welfare of Heath. Because he was a man, and had been unreserved with her, Mrs. Mansfield instinctively desired to protect his life. She had the feeling, "I understand him better than others." In a chivalrous nature understanding breeds a strong sense of obligation. Mrs. Mansfield felt as if she had duties toward Heath. During the two weeks which elapsed before Charmian's return from Algiers she thought more about his future than about her child's. But she was a very feminine woman and, to her, a man's future always seemed to matter more than a woman's.

Heath, too, had his great talent. That might need protection in the future. Mrs. Mansfield did not believe in an untroubled life for such a man as Heath. There was something disturbing both in his personality and in his music which seemed to her to preclude the possibility of his dwelling always in peace. But she hoped he would be true to his instinct, to the strange instinct which kept him now in a sort of cloistered seclusion. She knew he had friends, acquaintances, made during his time at the College of Music, through the introductions he had brought to London from Cornwall, through family connections. Human intercourse must be part of every life. But she was glad, very glad, that neither Mrs. Shiffney nor Max Elliot had persuaded him into the world where artists are handed on and on till they "know everybody." His words: "Do you know why some men enter the cloister? It's because they feel that if they are not monks they will be libertines," remained with her. Doubtless Heath knew himself. She thought of those who have pursued their art through wildness--Heath's expression--with an inflexibility quite marvellous, an order in the midst of disorder, which to the onlooker seems no less than a miracle. But they were surely Bohemians born, and full of characteristics that were racial. Such characteristics did not exist in Heath, she thought. She pondered. He was surely not a Bohemian. And yet he did not belong to the other race so noticeable in England, the race of the cultured talented, who live well-ordered lives in the calm light of a mild and un.o.bjectionable publicity, who produce in the midst of comfort, giving birth to nothing on straw, who are sane even to the extent of thinking very much as the man in Sloane Street thinks, who occasionally go to a levee, and have set foot on summer days in the gardens of Buckingham Palace. Heath, perhaps, could not be dubbed with a name. Was he a Bohemian who, for his health's sake, could not live in Bohemia? She remembered the crucifix standing in front of the piano where he pa.s.sed so many hours, the strange and terrible words he had chosen to set to music, the setting he had given them. It was an uncompromising nature, an uncompromising talent. And yet--there was the other side. There was something ready to rush out to satisfy expectation.

She was deeply interested in Heath.

About ten days after the "spree" at the Monico she received a telegram from Ma.r.s.eilles--"Starting to-night, home the day after to-morrow; love.--CHARMIAN."

Heath dropped in that day, and Mrs. Mansfield mentioned the telegram.

"Charmian will be back on Thursday. I told you Adelaide Shiffney would be in a hurry."

"Then they are not going on to the Greek Isles," he said.

"Not this time."

She glanced at him and thought he was looking rather sad.

"Will you come and dine on Thursday night just with me and Charmian?"

she said. "If she is tired with the journey from Paris you may be alone with me. If not, she can tell us about her little African experiences."

"Thank you. Yes, I should like to come very much!"

The strangely imaginative expression, which made his rather plain face almost beautiful, shone in his eyes and seemed to shed a flicker of light about his brow and lips, as he added:

"I have travelled so little that to me there is something almost wonderful in the arrival of someone from Africa. Even the name comes to me always like fire and black mystery. Last night, just before I went to bed, I was reading Chateaubriand, and I came across a pa.s.sage that kept me awake for hours."

"What was it?"

She leaned a little forward, ready to be fascinated as evidently he had been.

"He is writing of Napoleon, and says of him something like this."

Heath paused, looked down, seemed to make an effort, and continued, with his eyes turned away from Mrs. Mansfield:

"'His enemies, fascinated, seek him and do not see him. He hides himself in his glory, as the lion of the Sahara hides himself in the rays of the sun to escape from the searching eyes of the dazzled hunters.' Isn't that simply gorgeous? It set my imagination galloping. 'As the lion of the Sahara hides himself in the rays of the sun'--by Jove!" He got up.

"I was out of England last night. And to think that Miss Charmian is actually arriving from Africa!"

When he was gone Mrs. Mansfield said to herself: "He's a child, too!"

And she felt restless and troubled. Navete leads men of genius into such unsuitable regions sometimes. It was rather wonderful that he could feel as he did about Africa and refuse to go to Africa. For Adelaide would have taken him anywhere. Would Charmian bring back with her something of the wonder of the East? Mrs. Mansfield felt for a moment as if she were going to welcome a stranger in her child. The feeling returned to her on the Thursday afternoon, when she was waiting for Charmian's arrival in her writing-room.

Charmian was due at Charing Cross at three-twenty-five. She ought to be in Berkeley Square about four, unless the train was very crowded, and there was a long delay at the Customs. Four o'clock chimed from the Dresden china clock on the mantelpiece, and she had not arrived. Mrs.

Mansfield was conscious of a restlessness almost amounting to nervousness. She got up from her chair, laid down the book she had been reading, and moved slowly about the room.

How would Charmian receive the news that Claude Heath was to dine with them that night? Would she be too tired by the journey to dine? She was a bad sailor. Perhaps the sea in the Channel had been rough. If so, she would arrive not looking her best. Mrs. Mansfield had invited Heath because she wished to be sure at the first possible moment whether Charmian was in love with him or not. And she was positive that now, consciously alert and suspicious, if she saw the two together even for a short time she would know.

And if she knew that it was so, that Charmian had set her affections on Heath--what then?

She resolved not to look beyond the day. But as the moments pa.s.sed, and she waited, her mind, like a thing beyond control, began to occupy itself with that question. The distant hoot of a motor startled her.

Although their motor had a horn exactly the same as a thousand others she knew at once that Charmian was entering the Square. Half a minute later, standing in the doorway of her sitting-room, she heard the door bell and the footsteps of La.s.sell, the butler. Impulsively she went to the staircase.

"Charmian!" she called. "Charmian!"

"My only mother!" came up a voice from below.

She saw Charmian pushing up her veil over her three-cornered travelling-hat with a bright red feather.

"Where are you? Oh, there!"

She came up the stairs.

"Such a crossing! I'm an unlucky girl! Remedies are no use. Dearest!"

She put two light hands on her mother's shoulders and kissed her twice with lips which were rather cold. Her face was pale, and her eyes looked unusually haggard and restless. An atmosphere of excitement seemed to surround her like an aura, Mrs. Mansfield thought. She put her arm through her mother's.

"Tea with you, and then I think I must go to bed. How nice to be in my own dear bed again! I thought of my pillows on board with a yearning that came from the soul, I'm sure. Of course, we left the yacht at Ma.r.s.eilles. The yachting there was such a talk about resolved itself into the two crossings. I wasn't sorry, for we never saw a calm sea except from the sh.o.r.e."

"No? What a shame! Sit here."

Charmian threw herself down with a movement that was very young and began taking off her long gloves. As her thin, pretty hands came out of them, Mrs. Mansfield bent down and kissed her.

"Dear child! How nice to have you safe home!"

"Is it?"

"What a silly question to ask your only mother!"

"This chair makes me feel exactly how tired I am. It tells me."