The Way of Ambition Part 46

And it's going to be a bigger proposition than most people dream of."

His eyes flashed.

"Wait till I build an opera house in London, something better than that old barn of yours over against the Police Station."

"Are you going to build an opera house here?"

"Why not? But I've got to find some composers. They're somewhere about.

Bound to be. The thing is to find them. It was a mere chance Sennier coming up. If he hadn't married his wife he'd be starving at this minute, and I'd be licking the Metropolitan into a c.o.c.ked hat."

Charmian longed to put her hand on the little man's arm and to say:

"I've married a musician, I've married a genius. Take him up. Give him his chance."

But she looked at those big brown eyes which confronted her under the twitching eyebrows. And now that the flash was gone she saw in them the soul of the business man. Claude was not a "business proposition." It was useless to speak of him yet.

"I hope you'll find your composer," she said quietly, almost with a dainty indifference.

Then someone came up and claimed Crayford with determination.

"That's a pretty girl," he remarked. "Is she married? I didn't catch her name."

"Oh, yes, she's married to an unknown man who composes."

"The devil she is!"

The lips above the tiny beard stretched in a smile that was rather sardonic.

Before going away Charmian wanted to have a little talk with Susan Fleet, who was helping Mrs. Shiffney with the "fuzzywuzzies." She found her at length standing before a buffet, and entertaining a very thin and angular woman, dressed in black, with scarlet flowers growing out of her toilet in various unexpected places. Miss Fleet welcomed Charmian with her usual unimpa.s.sioned directness, and introduced her quietly to Miss Gretch, as her companion was called, surprisingly.

Miss Gretch, who was drinking claret cup, and eating little rolls which contained hidden treasure of pate de foie gras, bowed and smiled with anxious intensity, then abruptly became unnaturally grave, and gazed with a sort of piercing attention at Charmian's hair, jewels, gown, fan, and shoes.

"She seems to be memorizing me," thought Charmian, wondering who Miss Gretch was, and how she came to be there.

"Stay here just a minute, will you?" said Susan Fleet. "Adelaide wants me, I see. I'll be back directly."

"Please be sure to come. I want to talk to you," said Charmian.

As Susan Fleet was going she murmured:

"Miss Gretch writes for papers."

Charmian turned to the angular guest with a certain alacrity. They talked together with animation till Susan Fleet came back.

A week later, on coming down to breakfast before starting for the studio, Claude found among his letters a thin missive, open at the ends, and surrounded with yellow paper. He tore the paper, and three newspaper cuttings dropped on to his plate.

"What's this?" he said to Charmian, who was sitting opposite to him.

"Romeike and Curtice! Why should they send me anything?"

He picked up one of the cuttings.

"It's from a paper called _My Lady_."

"What is it about?"

"It seems to be an account of Mrs. Shiffney's party, with something marked in blue pencil, 'Mrs. Claude Heath came in late with her brilliant husband, whose remarkable musical compositions have not yet attained to the celebrity which will undoubtedly be theirs within no long time. The few who have heard Mr. Heath's music place him with Elgar, Max Reger, and Delius.' Then a description of what you were wearing. How very ridiculous and objectionable!"

Claude looked furious and almost ashamed.

"Here's something else! 'A Composer's Studio,' from _The World and His Wife_. It really is insufferable."

"Why? What can it say?"

"'Mr. Claude Heath, the rising young composer, who recently married the beautiful Miss Charmian Mansfield, of Berkeley Square, has just rented and furnished elaborately a magnificent studio in Renwick Place, Chelsea. Exquisite Persian rugs strew the floor----'"

Claude stopped, and with an abrupt movement tore the cuttings to pieces and threw them on the carpet.

"What can it mean? Who on earth----? Charmian, do you know anything of this?"

"Oh," she said, with a sort of earnest disgust, mingled with surprise, "it must be that dreadful Miss Gretch!"

"Dreadful Miss Gretch! I never heard of her. Who is she?"

"At Adelaide Shiffney's the other night Susan Fleet introduced me to a Miss Gretch. I believe she sometimes writes, for papers or something. I had a little talk with her while I was waiting for Susan to come back."

"Did you tell her about the studio?"

"Let me see! Did I? Yes, I believe I did say something. You see, Claude, it was the night of----"

"I know it was. But how could you----?"

"How could I suppose things said in a private conversation would ever appear in print? I only said that you had a studio because you composed and wanted quiet, and that I had been picking up a few old things to make it look homey. How extraordinary of Miss Gretch!"

"It has made me look very ridiculous. I am quite unknown, and therefore it is impossible for the public to be interested in me. Miss Gretch is certainly a very inefficient journalist. Elgar! Delius too! I wonder she didn't compare me with Scriabine while she was about it. How hateful it is being made a laughing-stock like this."

"Oh, n.o.body reads those papers, I expect. Still, Miss Gretch----"

"Gretch! What a name!" said Claude.

His anger vanished in an abrupt fit of laughter, but he started for the studio in half an hour looking decidedly grim. When he had gone Charmian picked up the torn cuttings which were lying on the carpet. She had been very slow in finishing breakfast that day.

Since her meeting with Jacob Crayford her mind had run perpetually on opera. She could not forget his words, spoken with the authority of the man who knew, "Opera's the only thing nowadays, the only really big proposition." She could not forget that he had left England to "put Europe through his sieve" for a composer who could stand up against Jacques Sennier. What a chance there was now for a new man. He was being actively searched for. If only Claude had written an opera! If only he would write an opera now!

Charmian never doubted her husband's ability to do something big. Her instinct told her that he had greatness of some kind in him. His music had deeply impressed her. But she was sure it was not the sort of thing to reach a wide public. It seemed to her against the trend of taste of the day. There was an almost terrible austerity in it, combined, she believed, with great power and originality. She longed to hear some of it given in public with the orchestra and voices. She had thought of trying to "get hold of" one of the big conductors, Harold Dane, or Vernon Randall, of trying to persuade him to give Claude a hearing at Queen's Hall. Then a certain keen prudence had held her back. A voice had whispered, "Be patient!" She realized the importance of the first step taken in public. Jacques Sennier had been utterly unknown in England. He appeared as the composer of the _Paradis Terrestre_. If he had been known already as the composer of a number of things which had left the public indifferent, would he have made the enormous success he had made? She remembered Mascagni and his _Cavalleria_, Leoncavallo and his _Pagliacci_. And she was almost glad that Claude was unknown. At any rate, he had never made a mistake. That was something to be thankful for. He must never make a mistake. But there would be no harm in arousing a certain interest in his personality, in his work. A man like Jacob Crayford kept a sharp look-out for fresh talent. He read all that appeared about new composers of course. Or someone read for him. Even "that dreadful Miss Gretch's" lucubrations might come under his notice.

For a week now Claude had gone every day after breakfast to the studio.

Charmian had not yet disturbed him there. She felt that she must handle her husband gently. Although he was so kind, so disposed to be sympathetic, to meet people half way, she knew well that there was something in him to which as yet she had never probed, which she did not understand. She was sufficiently intelligent not to deceive herself about this, not to think that because Claude was a man of course she, a woman, could see all of him clearly. The hidden something in her husband might be a thing resistent. She believed she must go to work gently, subtly, even though she meant to be very firm. So she had let Claude have a week to himself. This gave him time to feel that the studio was a sanctum, perhaps also that it was a rather lonely one. Meanwhile, she had been searching for "words."

That task was a difficult one, because her mind was obsessed by the thought of opera. Oratorio had always been a hateful form of art to her.