"Oh, I hope so! I do hope so!"
That was all. There was no mention of the Red Book, of being at home on Thursdays, no "If you"re ever near Berkeley Square," etc. All that was unnecessary. Charmian touched a long-fingered hand and uttered a cold little "Good-night." A minute more and her mother and she were in the motor gliding through damp streets in the murky darkness.
After a short silence Mrs. Mansfield said:
"Well, Charmian, you escaped! Are you very thankful?"
"Escaped!" said a rather plaintive voice from the left-hand corner of the car.
"The dreaded Te Deum."
"Is he a musician at all? I believe Max Elliot has been humbugging us."
"He warned you not to expect too much in the way of hair."
"It isn"t that. How old do you think he is?"
"Certainly not thirty."
"What did you tell him about me?"
"About you? I don"t remember telling him anything."
"Oh, but you did, mother!"
"What makes you think so?"
"I know you did, when I was sitting near the piano with Max Elliot."
"Perhaps I did then. But I can"t remember what it was. It must have been something very trifling."
"Oh, of course I know that!" said Charmian almost petulantly.
Mrs. Mansfield realized that the girl had not enjoyed her evening, but she was too wise to ask her why. Indeed she was not much given to the putting of intimate questions to Charmian. So she changed the subject quietly, and they were soon at home.
Twelve o"clock was striking as they entered the house. The evening, Mrs.
Mansfield thought, had pa.s.sed quickly. She was a bad sleeper, and seldom went to bed before one, but she never kept a maid sitting up for her.
"I"m going to read a book," she said to Charmian, with her hand on the door of the small library on the first floor, where she usually sat when she was alone.
Charmian, taller than she was, bent a little and kissed her.
"Wonderful mother!"
"What nonsense you talk; but only to me, I know!"
"Other people know it without my telling them. You jump into minds and hearts, and poor little I remain outside, squatting like a hungry child."
"And that is greater nonsense still. Come and sit up with me for a little."
"No, not to-night, you darling!"
Almost with violence Charmian kissed her again, released her, and went away up the stairs between white walls to bed.
CHAPTER IV
Charmian had been right when she had said to herself, "This is the beginning of one of mother"s great intimacies."
Claude Heath called almost at once in Berkeley Square; and in a short time he established a claim to be one of Mrs. Mansfield"s close friends.
She had several, but Heath stood out from among them. There was a special bond between the white-haired woman of forty-five and the young man of twenty-eight. Perhaps their freemasonry arose from the fact that each held tenaciously a secret: Mrs. Mansfield her persistent devotion to the memory of her dead husband, Heath his devotion to his art.
Perhaps the two secrecies in some mysterious way recognized each other, perhaps the two reserves clung together.
These two in silence certainly understood each one something in the other that was hidden from the gaze of the world.
A fact in connection with their intimacy, which set it apart from the other friendships of Mrs. Mansfield, was this--Charmian was not included in it.
This exclusion was not owing to any desire of the mother. She was incapable of shutting any door, beyond which she did not stand alone, against her child. The generosity of her nature was large, warm, chivalrous, the link between her and Charmian very strong. The girl was wont to accept her mother"s friends with a pretty eagerness. They spoiled her, because of her charm, and because she was the child of the house in which they spent some of their happiest hours. Never yet had there lain on Charmian"s life a shadow coming from her mother. But now she entered a faintly shadowed way, as it seemed deliberately and of her own will. She tacitly refused to accept the friendship between her mother and Claude Heath as she had accepted the other friendships.
Gently, subtly, almost mysteriously, she excluded herself from it.
Or was she gently, subtly, almost mysteriously excluded from it by Claude Heath?
She chose to think so. And there were moments in which he chose to think that she obstinately declined to accept him as her mother accepted him, because she disliked him, was perhaps jealous of his intimacy with Mrs.
Mansfield.
All this was below the surface. Charmian seemed friendly with Heath, and he, generally, at ease with her. But when he was alone with Mrs.
Mansfield he was a different man. At first she thought little of this.
She attributed it to the fact that Heath had a reserved nature and that she happened to hold a key which could unlock it, or unlock a room or two of it, leaving, perhaps, many rooms closed. But, being not only a very intelligent but a delicately sensitive woman, she presently began to think that there was some secret antagonism between her child and Heath.
This pained her. She even considered whether she ought not to put an end to her intimacy with Heath. She had grown to value it. She was incapable of entering into a sentimental relation with any man. She had loved deeply, had had her beautiful summer. It had died. The autumn was upon her. She regretted. Often her heart was by a grave, often it was beyond, seeking, like a bird with spread wings above dark seas seeking the golden clime it needs and instinctively knows of. But she did not repine. And she was able to fill her life, to be strongly interested in people and in events. She mellowed with her great sorrow instead of becoming blunted by it or withering under it. And so she drew people to her, and was drawn, in her turn, to them.
Claude Heath had brought into her life something her other friends had not given her. She realized this clearly when she first considered Charmian in connection with herself and him. If he ceased from her life, sank away into the crowd of unseen men, he would leave a gap which another could not fill. She had a feeling that she was valuable to him.
She did not know exactly how or why. And he was valuable to her.
But of course Charmian was the first interest in her life, had the first claim upon her consideration. She sat wondering what it was in Heath which the girl disliked, what it was in Charmian which, perhaps, troubled or irritated Heath.
Charmian was out that day at an afternoon concert, and Mrs. Mansfield had made an engagement to go to tea with Heath in his little old house near St. Petersburg Place. She had never yet visited him, although she had known him for nearly three months. And she had never heard a note of his music. The latter fact did not strike her as strange. She had never mentioned her dead husband to him.
Max Elliot had at first been perturbed by this reticence of the musician. He had specially wished Mrs. Mansfield to hear what he had heard. After that evening in Cadogan Square he had several times asked: "Well, have you heard the Te Deum?" or "Has Heath played any of his compositions to you yet?" To Mrs. Mansfield"s invariable unembarra.s.sed "No!" he gave a shrug of the shoulders, a "He"s an extraordinary fellow!" or a "Well, I"ve made a failure of it this time!" Once he added: "Don"t you want to hear his music?" "Not unless he wants me to hear it," Mrs. Mansfield replied. Elliot looked at her for a minute with his large, prominent and kind eyes, and said: "No wonder you"re adored by your friends!" Several times since the evening in Cadogan Square he had heard Heath play his compositions, and he now began to feel as if he owed this pleasure to his busy and almost vulgar curiosity about musical development and the progress of artists, as if Heath"s reserve were his greatest proof of regard and friendship. He had not succeeded in persuading Heath to come to one of his Sunday musical evenings, at which crowds of people in society and many artists a.s.sembled. Mrs. Mansfield taught him not to attempt any more persuasion. He realized that his first instinct had been right. The plant must grow in darkness. But he was always being carried away by artistic enthusiasms, and had an altruistic desire to share good things. And he dearly loved "a musical find." He had a certain name as a discoverer of talent, and there"s so much in a name. The lives that have been changed, moulded, governed by a hastily conferred name!
Mrs. Mansfield was inclined to believe that Heath had invited her to tea with the intention of at last submitting his talent to her opinion.
They had sometimes talked together of music, but much oftener of books, character, people, national movements, topics of the day. As she went to her bedroom to dress for her expedition, she felt a certain hesitation, almost a disinclination to go. To go was to draw a step or two nearer to Heath, and so, perhaps, to retreat a step or two from her child. To-day the fact that Charmian and Heath did not quite "hit it off together"
vexed her spirit, and the slight mystery of their relation troubled her.
As she went down to get into the motor she was half inclined to speak to Heath on the subject. She was quite certain that she would not speak to Charmian.
The month was February, and by the time Mrs. Mansfield reached Mullion House evening was falling. A large motor was drawn up in front of the house, and as Mrs. Mansfield"s chauffeur sounded a melodious chord the figure of a smartly dressed woman walked across the pavement and stepped into it. After an instant of delay, caused by this woman"s footman, who spoke to her at the window, the car moved off and disappeared rapidly in the gathering darkness.