The Way of Ambition Part 97

"How did she take it?" asked Charmian, glancing at Susan, and feeling uncomfortable.

"She was furious, I think. I hope so. I meant her to be. But she didn't say much, except that the papers were full of lies, and n.o.body believed them except fools. When she was going I gave her a piece of news to comfort her."

"What was that?"

"That my opera will be produced the night before her husband's."

Susan got up.

"Well, I must go," she said. "I've been here a long time, and daresay you both want to rest."

"Rest!" exclaimed Claude. "That's the last thing we want, isn't it, Charmian?"

He helped Susan to put on her fur.

"There's another rehearsal to-night after the performance of _Ada_. You see it's a race, and we mean to be in first. I wish you could have seen Madame Sennier's face when I told her we should produce on the twenty-eighth."

He laughed. But neither Charmian nor Susan laughed with him. As Susan was leaving he said:

"You come from the enemy's camp, but you do wish us success, don't you?"

"I have just been telling Charmian what I wish you," answered Susan gently, with her straight and quiet look.

"Have you?" He wheeled round to Charmian. "What was it?"

Charmian looked taken aback.

"Oh--what was it?"

"Yes?" said Claude.

"The--the very best! Wasn't it, Susan?"

"Yes. I wished you the very best."

"Capital! Too bad, you are going!"

He went with Susan to the door.

When he came back he said to Charmian:

"Susan Fleet is very quiet, the least obtrusive person I ever met. But she's strange. I believe she sees far."

His face and manner had changed. He threw himself down in a chair and leaned his head against the back of it.

"I'm going to relax for a minute, Charmian. It's the only way to rest.

And I shall be up most of the night."

He shut his eyes. His whole body seemed to become loose.

"She sees far, I think," he murmured, scarcely moving his sensitive lips.

Charmian sat watching his pale forehead, his white eyelids.

And New York roared outside.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

The respective publicity agents of the two opera houses had been so energetic in their efforts on behalf of their managements, that, to the Senniers, the Heaths, and all those specially interested in the rival enterprises, it began to seem as if the whole world hung upon the two operas, as if nothing mattered but their success or failure. Charmian received all the "cuttings" which dealt with the works and their composers, with herself and Madame Sennier, from a newspaper clipping bureau. And during these days of furious preparation she read no other literature. Whenever she was in the hotel, and not with people, she was poring over these articles, or tabulating and arranging them in books.

The Heaths, Claude Heath, Charmian Heath, Claude Heath's opera, Armand Gillier and Claude Heath, Madame Sennier's quarrel with Claude Heath, Mrs. Heath's brilliant efforts for her talented husband, Joseph Crayford's opinion of Mrs. Charmian Heath, how a clever woman can help her husband--was there really anything of importance in this world except Charmian and Claude Heath's energy, enterprise, and ultimate success?

From the hotel she went to the Opera House. And there she was in the midst of a world apart, which seemed to her the whole of the world.

Everybody whom she met there was concentrated on the opera. She talked to orchestral players about the musical effects; to the conductor about detail, color, ensemble; to scene-painters about the various "sets,"

their arrangement, lighting, the gauzes used in them, the properties, the back cloths; to machinists about the locusts and other sensations; to the singers about their roles; to dancers about their strange Eastern poses; to Fakirs about their serpents and their miracles. She lived in the opera, as the opera lived in the vast theater. She was, as it were, enclosed in a sh.e.l.l within a sh.e.l.l. New York was the great sea murmuring outside. And always it was murmuring of the opera. In consequence of Jacob Crayford's great opinion of Charmian she was the spoilt child in his theater. Her situation there was delightful. Everybody took his cue from Crayford. And Crayford's verdict on Charmian was, "She's a wonderful little lady. I know her, and I say she's a peach. Heath did the cleverest thing he ever did in his life when he married her."

Charmian really had influence with Crayford, and she used it, revelling in a sense of her power and importance. He consulted her about many points in the performance. And she spoke her mind with decision, growing day by day in self-reliance. In the theater she was generally surrounded, and she grew to love it as she had never loved any place before. The romance and beauty of Djenan-el-Maqui were as nothing in comparison with the fascination of the Monster with the Maw, vast, dark, and patient, waiting for its evening provender. To Charmian it seemed like a great personality. Often she found herself thinking of it as sentient, brooding over the opera, secretly attentive to all that was going on in connection with it. She loved its darkness, the ghostly lightness of the covers spread over it, the ranges of its gaping boxes, the far-off mystery of its galleries receding into a heaven of ebon blackness. She wandered about it, sitting first here, then there, becoming intimate with the monster on whom she sometimes felt as if her life and fortunes depended.

"All this we are doing for you!" something within her seemed to whisper.

"Will you be satisfied with our efforts? Will you reward us?"

And then, in imagination, she saw the monster changed. No longer it brooded, watched, considered, waited. It had sprung into ardent life, put off its darkness, wrapped itself in a garment of light.

"You have given me what I needed!" she heard it saying. "Look!"

And she saw the crowd!

Then sometimes she shut her eyes. She wanted to feel the crowd, those ma.s.ses of souls in ma.s.ses of bodies for which she had done so much.

Always surely they had been keeping the ring for Claude and for her. And it seemed to her that, unseen, they had circled the Isle in the far-off Algerian garden where she first spoke of her love and desire for Claude, that they had ever since been attending upon her life. Had they not muttered about the white house that held the worker? Had they not stared at the one who sat waiting by the fountain? Had they not seen the arrival of Jacob Crayford? Had they not a.s.sisted at those long colloquies when the opera which was for them was changed? Absurdly, she felt as if they had. And now, very soon, it would be for them to speak.

And striving to shut her eyes more firmly, or pressing her fingers upon them, Charmian saw moving hands, a forest of them below, circles above circles of them, and in the distance of the G.o.ds a mist of them. And she saw the shining of thousands of eyes, in which were mirrored strangely, almost mystically, souls that Claude's music, conceived in patience and labor, had moved and that wished to tell him so.

She saw the crowd! And she saw it returning to listen again. And she remembered, with the extraordinary vitality of an ardent woman, who was still little more than a girl, how she had sat opposite to the white-faced, red-haired heroine on the first night of Jacques Sennier's _Paradis Terrestre_; how she had watched her, imaginatively entered into her mind, become one with her. That night Claude had written his letter to her, Charmian. The force in her, had entered into him, had inspired him to do what he did that night, had inspired him to do what he had since done always near to her. And soon, very soon, the white-faced, red-haired woman would be watching her.

Then something that was almost like an intoxication of the senses, something that, though it was born in the mind, seemed intimately physical, came upon, rushed over Charmian. It was the intoxication of an acute ambition which believed itself close to fulfilment. Life seemed very wonderful to her. Scarcely could she imagine anything more wonderful than life holding the gift she asked for, the gift something in her demanded. And she connected love with ambition, even with notoriety. She conceived of a satisfied ambition drawing two human beings together, cementing their hearts together, merging their souls in one.

"How I shall love Claude triumphant!" she thought exultantly, even pa.s.sionately, as if she were thinking of a man new made, more lovable by a big measure than he had been before. And she saw love triumphant with wings of flame mounting into the regions of desire, drawing her soul up.

"Claude's triumph will develop me," she thought. "Through it I shall become the utmost of which I am capable. I am one of those women who can only thrive in the atmosphere of glory."

Claude triumphant, and made triumphant by her! She cherished that imagination. She became possessed by it.

Everything conspired to keep that imagination alive and powerful within her. Crayford was an enthusiast for the opera, and infected all those who belonged to him, who were connected with his magnificent theater, with his own enthusiasm. The scene-painter, who had, almost with genius, prepared exquisite Eastern pictures, was an enthusiast foreseeing that he would gain in the opera the triumph of his career. The machinist was "fairly wild" about the opera. Had he not invented the marvellous locust effect, which was to be a new sensation? Mr. Mulworth, by dint of working with fury and sitting up all night, had become fanatical about the opera. He existed only for it. No thought of any other thing could find a resting-place in his mind. His "production" was going to be a masterpiece such as had never before been known in the history of the stage. Nothing had been forgotten. He had brought the East to New York.

It was inconceivable by him that New York could reject it. He spoke about the music, but he meant his "production." The man was a marvel in his own line, and such a worker as can rarely be found anywhere. He believed the opera was going to mark an epoch in the history of the lyric stage. And he said so, almost wildly, in late hours of the night to Charmian.

Then there was Alston, who was to have his first great chance in the opera, and who grew more fervently believing with each rehearsal.