The Way of Ambition Part 91

"No. There are always delays. The patience one needs in a theater! Talk of self-control! Here, I'll pull away the--or shall we go to that box?"

"Yes. I'll get on this chair. Help me! That's it."

They sat down in a dark box at the back of the stalls. Far off, across a huge s.p.a.ce, they saw the immense stage, lit up now by an amber glow which came not from the footlights but from above. The stage was set with a scene representing an oasis in the desert with yellow sand in the distance. Among some tufted palms stood three or four stage hands, pale, dusty, in shirt sleeves. At the extreme back of the scene, against the horizon, Mr. Mulworth crossed, with a thick-set, lantern-jawed, and very bald man, who was probably Jimber. Claude followed two or three yards behind them, and disappeared. His face looked ghastly under the stream of amber light.

"It's dreadful to see people on the stage not made up!" said Charmian.

"They all look so corpse-like. O Alston, are we going to have a success?"

"What! You beginning to doubt!"

"No, no. But when I see this huge dark theater I can't help thinking, 'Shall we fill it?' What a fight art is! I never realized till now that we are on a battlefield. Alston, I feel I would almost rather die than fail."

"Fail! But--"

"Or quite rather die."

"In any case it couldn't be your failure."

She turned and looked at him in the heavy dimness.

"Couldn't it?"

"You didn't write the libretto. You didn't compose the music."

"And yet," she said, in a low tense voice, "it would be my failure if the opera failed, because but for me it never would have been written, never have been produced out here. Alston, it's a great responsibility.

And I never really understood how great till I saw Claude go across the stage just now. He looked so--he looked--"

She broke off.

"Whatever is it, Mrs. Charmian?"

"He looked like a victim, I thought."

"Everyone does in that light unless--there's Crayford!"

At this moment Mr. Crayford came upon the stage from the side on which Claude had just vanished. He had a soft hat on the back of his head, and a cigar in his mouth.

"He doesn't!" whispered Charmian.

"Now go ahead!" roared Crayford. "Work your motors and let's see!"

There was a sound like a rushing mighty wind.

At two o'clock in the morning Crayford was still smoking, still watching, still shouting. Charmian and Alston were still in the darkness of the box, gazing, listening, sometimes talking. They had not seen Claude again. If he came into the front of the theater they meant to call him. But he did not come. The hours had flown, and now, when Alston looked at his watch and told Charmian the time, she could scarcely believe him.

"Where can Claude be?"

"I'll go behind."

"Jimber!" roared Mr. Crayford. "Where is Jimber?"

Mr. Mulworth, who looked now as if he had lain awake in his clothes for more nights than he cared to remember, rushed upon the stage almost fanatically.

"The locusts are all in one corner!" shouted Crayford. "What's the use of that? They must spread."

"Spread your locusts!" bawled Mr. Mulworth.

He lifted both his arms in a semaph.o.r.e movement, which he continued until it seemed as if his physical mechanism had escaped from the control of his brain.

"Spread your locusts, Jimber!" he wailed. "Spread! Spread! I tell you--spread your locusts!"

He vanished, always moving his arms. His voice died away in the further regions.

Charmian was alone. She had nodded in reply to Alston's remark. To-night she felt rather anxious about Claude. She could not entirely rid her mind of the remembrance of him crossing under the light, looking unnatural, ghastly, like a persecuted man. And now that she was alone she felt as if she were haunted. Eager to be rea.s.sured, she fixed her eyes on the keen figure, the resolute face, of Mr. Crayford. The power of work in Americans was almost astounding, she thought. All the men with whom she and Claude had had anything to do seemed to be working all the time, unresting as waves driven by a determined wind. Keenness! That was the characteristic of this marvellous city, this marvellous land.

And it had acted upon her almost like electricity. She had felt charged with it.

It would be terrible to fail before a nation that worshipped success, that looked for it with resolute piercing eyes.

And she recalled her arrival with Claude in the cold light of early morning, her first sensation of enchantment when a pressman, with searching eyes and a firm mouth turned down at the corners, had come up to interview her. At that moment she had felt that she was leaving the dulness of the unknown life behind her for ever. It was no doubt a terribly vulgar feeling. She had been uneasily conscious of that. But, nevertheless, it had grown within her, fostered by events. For Crayford's publicity agent had been masterly in his efforts. Charmian and Claude had been snapshotted on the deck of the ship by a little army of journalists. They had been snapshotted again on the gangplank. In the docks they had been interviewed by more than a dozen people. A little later, in the afternoon of the same day, they had held a reception of pressmen in their sitting-room at the St. Regis Hotel. Charmian thought of these men now as she waited for Alston's return.

They had been introduced by Mr. Cane, Crayford's publicity agent, and had arrived about three o'clock. All of them were, or looked as if they were, young men, smart and alert, men who meant something. And they had all been polite and charming. They had "sat around" attentively, and had put their questions without brutality. They had seemed interested, sympathetic, as if they really cared about Claude's talent and the opera. His song, _Wild Heart of Youth_, had been touched upon, and a tall young man, with a pale face and anxious eyes, had told Charmian that he loved it. Then they had discussed music. Claude at first had seemed uncomfortable, almost too modest, Charmian had thought. But the pressmen had been so agreeable, so unself-conscious, that his discomfort had worn off. His natural inclination to please, to give people what they seemed to expect of him, had come to his rescue. He had been vivacious and even charming. But when the pressmen had gone he had said to Charmian:

"Pleasant fellows, weren't they? But their eyes ask one for success.

Till the opera is out I shall see those eyes, asking, always asking!"

And he had gone out of the room with a gesture suggestive of anxiety, almost of fear.

Charmian saw those eyes now as she sat in the box. What Claude had said was true. Beneath the sympathy, the charm, the frankness, the readiness in welcome of these Americans, there was a silent and strong demand--the demand of a powerful, vital country.

"We are here to make you known over immense distances to thousands of people!" the eyes of the pressmen had seemed to say. "But--produce the goods!" In other words, "Be a success!"

"Be a success! Be a success!" It seemed to Charmian as if all America were saying that in her ears unceasingly. "We will be kind to you. We will shower good-will upon you. We have hospitable hands, keen brains, warm hearts at your service. We only ask to give of our best to you.

But--be a success! Be a success!"

And the voice grew so strong that at last it seemed almost stern, almost fierce in her ears. At last it seemed as if peril would attend upon non-compliance with its demand.

She thought of Claude crossing the stage under the amber light, she looked into the vast dim theater with its thousands of empty seats, and excitement and fear burned in her, mingled together. Then something determined in her, the thing perhaps which had enabled her to take Claude for her husband, and later to play a part in his art life, rose up and drove out the fear. "It is fear which saps the will, fear which disintegrates, fear which calls to failure." She was able to say that to herself and to cast fear away. And her mind repeated the words she had often heard Crayford utter, "It's up to us now to bring the thing off and we've just got to bring it off!"

"No, no, I tell you! They're too much on one side of the scene still!

Who in thunder ever saw locusts swarming in a corner when they've got the whole desert to spread themselves in? It aren't their nature. What?

Well, then, you must alter the position of your motors. Where is Jimber?"

And Mr. Crayford strode behind the scenes.

Half-past two in the morning! What could Claude be doing? Was Alston never coming back? Charmian suddenly began to feel tired and cold. She b.u.t.toned her sealskin coat up to her throat. For a moment there was no one on the stage. From behind the scenes came no longer the clever imitation of a roaring wind. An abrupt inaction, that was like desolation, made the great house seem oddly vacant. She sat staring rather vaguely at the palms and the yellow sands.

After she had sat thus for perhaps some five minutes she saw Claude walk hastily on to the stage. He had a large black note-book and a pencil in his hand, and seemed in search of someone. Crayford came on brusquely from the opposite side of the scene and met him. They began to confer together.