Mrs. Mansfield had been the friend, was the friend, of many successful men. They came to her for sympathy, advice. She followed their upward careers with interest, rejoiced in their triumphs. But she cared for the talent in a man rather than for what it brought him. Charmian knew that.
And long ago Mrs. Mansfield had spoken of the plant that must grow in darkness. At this time Charmian began almost to dread her mother"s influence upon her husband.
She was cheered by a little success.
Claude set Watson"s poem rapidly. He played the song to Charmian, and she was delighted with it.
"I know people would love that!" she cried.
"If it was properly sung by someone with temperament," he replied. "And now I can go on with _The Hound of Heaven_."
Her heart sank.
"I"m only a little afraid they may think you are imitating Elgar," she murmured after a moment.
"Imitating Elgar!"
"Not that you are, or ever would do such a thing. It isn"t your music, it"s the subject, that makes me a little afraid. It seems to me to be an Elgar subject."
"Really!"
The conversation dropped, and was not resumed. But a fortnight later, when Charmian came to make tea in the studio, and asked as to the progress of the new work, Claude said rather coldly:
"I"m not going on with it at present."
She saw that he was feeling depressed, and realized why. But she was secretly triumphant at the success of her influence, secretly delighted with her own cleverness. How deftly, with scarcely more than a word, she had turned him from his task. Surely thus had Madame Sennier influenced, guided her husband.
"I believe I could do anything with Claude," she said to herself that day.
"Play me your Watson song again, Claudie," she said. "I do love it so."
"It"s only a trifle."
"I love it!" she repeated.
He sat down at the piano and played it to her once more. When he had finished she said:
"I"ve found someone who could sing that gloriously."
"Who?" he asked.
Playing the song had excited him. He turned eagerly toward her.
"A young American who has been studying in Paris. I met him at the Drakes" two or three days ago. Mr. Jacob Crayford, the opera man, thinks a great deal of him, I"m told. Let me ask him to come here one day and try the _Wild Heart_. May I?"
"Yes, do," said Claude.
"And meanwhile what are you working on instead of _The Hound of Heaven_?"
Claude"s expression changed. He seemed to stiffen with reserve. But he replied, with a kind of elaborate carelessness:
"I think of trying a violin concerto. That would be quite a new departure for me. But you know the violin was my second study at the Royal College."
"That won"t do," thought Charmian.
"If only Kreisler would take it up when it is finished as he took up--"
she began.
Claude interrupted her.
"It may take me months, so it"s no use thinking about who is to play it.
Probably it will never be played at all."
"Then why compose it?" she nearly said.
But she did not say it. What was the use, when she had resolved that the concerto should be abandoned as _The Hound of Heaven_ had been?
She brought the young American, whose name was Alston Lake, to the studio. Claude took a fancy to him at once. Lake sang the _Wild Heart_, tried it a second time, became enthusiastic about it. His voice was a baritone, and exactly suited the song. He begged Claude to let him sing the song during the season at the parties for which he was engaged. They studied it together seriously. During these rehearsals Charmian sat in an armchair a little way from the piano listening, and feeling the intensity of an almost feverish antic.i.p.ation within her.
This was the first step on the way of ambition. And she had caused Claude to take it. Never would he have taken it without her. As she listened to the two men talking, discussing together, trying pa.s.sages again and again, forgetful for the moment of her, she thrilled with a sense of achieved triumph. Glory seemed already within her grasp. She ran forward in hope, like a child almost. She saw the goal like a thing quite near, almost close to her.
"People will love that song! They will love it!" she said to herself.
And their love, what might it not do for Claude, and to Claude? Surely it would infect him with the desire for more of that curious heat-giving love of the world for a great talent. Surely it would carry him on, away from the old reserves, from the secrecies which had held him too long, from the darkness in which he had labored. For whom? For himself perhaps, or no one. Surely it would carry him on along the great way to the light that illumined the goal.
CHAPTER XVIII
At the end of November in that same year the house in Kensington Square was let, the studio in Renwick Place was shut up, and Claude and Charmian were staying in Berkeley Square with Mrs. Mansfield for a couple of nights before their departure for Algiers, where they intended to stay for an indefinite time. They had decided first to go to the Hotel St. George at Mustapha Superieur, and from there to prosecute their search for a small and quiet villa in which Claude could settle down to work. Most of their luggage was already packed. A case of music, containing a large number of full scores, stood in Mrs. Mansfield"s hall. And Charmian was out at the dressmaker"s with Susan Fleet, trying on the new gowns she was taking with her to a warmer climate than England"s.
This vital change in two lives had come about through a song.
The young American singer, Alston Lake, had been true to his word.
During the past London season he had sung Claude"s _Wild Heart of Youth_ everywhere. And people, the right people, had liked it. Swiftly composed in an hour of enthusiasm it was really a beautiful and original song. It was a small thing, but it was a good thing. And it was presented to the public by a new and enthusiastic man who at once made his mark both as a singer and as a personality. Although one song cannot make anybody a composer of mark in the esteem of a great public, yet Claude"s drew some attention to him. But it did more than this. It awoke in Claude a sort of spurious desire for greater popularity, which was a.s.siduously fostered by Charmian. The real man, deep down, had a still and inexorable contempt for laurels easily won, for the swift applause of drawing-rooms. But the weakness in Claude, a thing of the surface, weed floating on a pool that had depths, responded to the applause, to the congratulations, with an almost anxious quickness. His mind began to concern itself too often with the feeble question, "What do people want of me? What do they want me to do?" Often he played the accompaniment to his song at parties that season when Alston Lake sang it, and he enjoyed too much--that is his surface enjoyed too much--the pleasure it gave, the demonstrations it evoked. He received with too much eagerness the congratulations of easily touched women.
Mrs. Mansfield noticed all this, and it diminished her natural pleasure in her son-in-law"s little success. But Charmian was delighted to see that Claude was "becoming human at last." The weakness in her husband made her trust more fully her own power. She realized that events were working with her, were helping her to increase her influence. She blossomed with expectation.
Alston Lake had his part in the circ.u.mstances which were now about to lead the Heaths away from England, were to place them in new surroundings, submit them to fresh influences.
His voice had been "discovered" in America by Jacob Crayford, who had sent him to Europe to be trained, and intended, if things went well and he proved to have the value expected of him, to bring him out at the opera house in New York, which was trying to put a fight against the Metropolitan.
"I shouldn"t wonder if I"ve got another Battistini in that boy!"
Crayford sometimes said to people. "He"s got a wonderful voice, but I wouldn"t have paid for his training if he hadn"t something that"s bullier."
"What"s that?"