The Way of Ambition Part 44

As she said the last words she felt deeply conscious of her feminine intelligence, of that delicate ingenuity peculiar to women, unattainable by man.

"No, Charmian, of course not. So you think I've been pouring into a very short channel?"

"Don't you?"

"I'm afraid I've never thought about it."

"I know. It wants another to do that, I think."

"Very likely."

"You care for strange things. One can see that by your choice of words.

But there are strange and wonderful words not in the Bible. The other day I was looking into Rossetti's poems. I read _Staff and Scrip_ again and _Sister Helen_. There are marvellous pa.s.sages in both of those. I wish sometimes you'd let me come in here, when you're done working, and make tea for you, and just read aloud to you anything interesting I come across."

That was the beginning of a new connection between husband and wife, the beginning also of a new epoch in Claude's life as a composer.

When they left the studio that night he had agreed to Charmian's proposal that she should spend some of her spare time in looking out words that might be suitable for a musical setting, "in your peculiar vein," as she said. By doing this he had abandoned his complete liberty as a creator. So at least he felt. Yet he also felt unable to refuse his wife's request. To do so, after all her beneficent energies employed on his behalf, would be churlish. He might have tried to explain that the something within him which was really valuable could not brook bridle or spur, that unless it were left to range where it would in untrammelled liberty, it was worth very little to the world. He knew this. But a man may deny his knowledge even to himself, deny it persistently through long periods of time. And there was the weakness in Claude which instinctively wished to give to others what they expected of him, or strongly desired from him. On that evening in the studio Charmian's definiteness gained a point for her. She was encouraged by this fact to become more definite.

They were in Kensington by ten o'clock that night. Charmian was in high spirits. A strong hope was dawning in her. Already she felt almost like a collaborator with Claude.

"Don't let us go to bed!" she exclaimed. "Let us dress and go to Adelaide Shiffney's."

"Very well," replied Claude. "By the way, what were you going to tell me about her?"

"Oh, nothing!" she said.

And they went up to dress.

There was a crowd in Grosvenor Square. A good many people were still abroad, but there were enough in London to fill Mrs. Shiffney's drawing-rooms. And notorieties, beauties, and those mysterious n.o.bodies who "go everywhere" until they almost succeed in becoming somebodies, were to be seen on every side. Charmian perceived at once that this was one of Adelaide's non-exclusive parties. Mrs. Shiffney seldom entertained on a very large scale.

"One bore, or one frump, can ruin a party," was a favorite saying of hers. But even she, now and then, condescended to "clear people off."

Charmian realized that Adelaide was making a clearance to-night.

Since her marriage with Claude she had not been invited to No. 14 B--Mrs. Shiffney's number in the Square--before.

As she came in to the first drawing-room and looked quickly round she thought:

"She is clearing off me and Claude."

And for a moment she wished they had not come. Her old horror of being numbered with the great crowd of the undistinguished came upon her once more. Then she thought of the conversation in the studio, and she hardened herself in resolve.

"He shall be famous. I will make him famous, whether he wishes it, cares for it, or not."

Mrs. Shiffney was not standing close to the first door to "receive"

solemnly. She could not "be bothered" to do that. The Heaths presently came upon her, looking very large and Roman, in the middle of the second drawing-room.

In the room just beyond a small orchestra was playing. This was a sure sign of a "clearance" party. Mrs. Shiffney never had an orchestra playing alone, and steadily, through an evening unless bores and frumps were present. "Hungarians in distress" she called these uniformed musicians, "trying to help bores in distress and failing inevitably."

She held out her hand to Charmian with a faintly ironic smile.

"I'm so glad to see you. Ah, Mr. Heath--Bened.i.c.k as the married man. I expect you are doing something wonderful as one hears nothing about you.

The deep silence fills me with expectation."

She smiled again, and turned to speak to an old lady with fuzzy white hair.

"One of the fuzzywuzzies who go to private views, and who insist on knowing me once a year for my sins."

Charmian's lips tightened as she walked slowly on.

She met many people whom she knew, too many; and that evening she felt peculiarly aware of the insignificance of Claude and herself, combined as a "married couple," in the eyes of this society. What were they? Just two people with fifteen hundred a year and a little house near Kensington High Street. As an unmarried girl in Berkeley Square, with a popular mother, possibilities had floated about her. Clever, rising men came to that house. She had charm. She was "in" everything. Now she felt that a sort of fiat had been p.r.o.nounced, perhaps by Adelaide Shiffney, and her following, "Charmian's dropping out."

No doubt she exaggerated. She was half conscious that she was exaggerating. But there was surely a change in the att.i.tude people adopted toward her. She attributed it to Mrs. Shiffney. "Adelaide hates Claude," she said to herself, adding a moment later the woman's reason, "because she was in love with him before he married me, and he wouldn't look at her." Such a hatred of Adelaide's would almost have pleased her, had not Adelaide unfortunately been so very influential.

Claude caught sight of Mrs. Mansfield and went to join her, while Charmian spoke to Lady Mildred Burnington, and then to Max Elliot.

Lady Mildred, whose eyes looked more feverish even than usual, and whose face was ravaged, as if by some pa.s.sion or sorrow for ever burning within her, had a perfunctory manner which fought with her expression.

Her face was too much alive. Her manner was half dead. Only when she played the violin was the whole woman in accord, harmonious. Then truth, vigor, intention emerged from her, and she conquered. To-night she spoke of the prospects for the opera season, looking about her as if seeking fresh causes for dissatisfaction.

"It's going to be dull," she said. "Covent Garden has things all its own way, and therefore it goes to sleep. But in June we shall have Sennier.

That is something. Without him it would really not be worth while to take a box. I told Mr. Brett so."

"What did he say?" asked Charmian.

"One Sennier makes a summer."

It was at this moment that Max Elliot came up, looking as he nearly always did, cheerful and ready to be kind.

"I know," he said to Lady Mildred, "you're complaining about the opera.

I've just been with the Admiral."

"Hilary knows less about music than even the average Englishman."

"Well, he's been swearing, and even--saving your presence--cursing by Strauss."

"He thinks that places him with the connoisseurs. It's his ambition to prove to the world that one may be an Admiral and yet be quite intelligent, even have what is called taste. He declines to be a sea-dog."

"I think it's only living up to you. But have you really no hope of the opera?"

"Very little--unless Sennier saves the situation."

"Has he anything new?" asked Charmian.

Max Elliot looked happily evasive.

"Madame Sennier says he hasn't."

"We ought to have a rival enterprise here as they have in New York at present," said Lady Mildred.