Mummery: A Tale of Three Idealists

by Gilbert Cannan

XVI

ARIEL

As the days went by and the production came nearer, the Imperium was charged with a busy excitement. The machinery was tightened up, and there was no sparing any of the persons concerned. Rehearsals began at ten in the morning, and dragged on through the day, sometimes not ending until eleven or twelve at night. Sir Henry had a thousand and one things to do, and was in something of a panic about his own words. He would stop in the middle of a lighting rehearsal to remember his part and would turn to a scene-shifter or a lime-light man, anybody who happened to be by, to ask if that was right, and when they stared at him he would lose his temper and say,—

'Shakespeare! It's Shakespeare! Everybody knows their Shakespeare.'

Clara took the precaution of learning his part in his scenes with her and was able to prompt him when he started fumbling or improvising. He was taut with anxiety, and completely ignored everything not immediately bearing on the production, as to which he was obviously not easy in his mind. He talked to himself a good deal, and Clara heard him more than once damning Charles under his breath. In spite of herself she was a little hurt that he took no notice of her outside her part in the play. His only concern with the world off the stage was through Lady Bracebridge and Lady Butcher, who were vastly busy with the dressing of the front of the house and began introducing their distinguished aristocratic and political friends at rehearsals, where they used to sit in the darkness of the auditorium and say,—

'Too sweet! Divine, divine!'

It was difficult to see what they could possibly make of the chaos on the stage, with actors strolling to and fro mumbling their parts, others going through their scenes, carpenters running hither and thither, the lights going up and down and changing from blue to amber, amber to blue, white, red.... Up to the very last Sir Henry made changes, and the more excited he got the further he drifted away from the play's dramatic context, and strove to break up the aesthetic impression of the whole with innumerable tricks, silences, gestures, exaggerated movements of the actors, touches of grotesque and irrelevant humour, devices by which Prospero could be in the centre of the stage, anything and everything to impose his own tradition and personality on both Shakespeare and Charles.

Clara was thankful that Charles had quarrelled with him and was not there to see. Sir Henry was like a man possessed. He worked in a frenzy to retrieve the situation, and to recover the ground he had lost; and he only seemed sure of himself in his scenes with Ariel, and over them he went again and again, not for a moment sparing Clara or thinking of the physical effort so much repetition entailed for her.

She did not object. It was a great relief to go to her rooms, worn out, and to lie, unable to think, incapable of calculation, lost to everything except her will to play Ariel with all the magic and youthful vitality she possessed. Everything outside the play had disappeared for her, too. That so much of Charles's work should be submerged hurt her terribly and she blamed herself, but for that was only the more determined to retrieve the situation with her own art, to which, as Sir Henry revered it, he clung. She knew that and was determined not to fail. However much Charles's work was mutilated, her success—if she won it—would redeem his plight.

Therefore she surrendered herself absolutely to the whirling chaos of the rehearsals, from which it seemed impossible that order could ever come. She ordered her own thoughts by doing the obvious thing, reading the play until she was soaked with it. No one else apparently had done that and, as she grew more familiar with it and more intimate with its spirit, she began to doubt horribly whether Charles had done so either. His scenery seemed as remote from that spirit as Sir Henry's theatrical devices, and almost equally an imposition. As she realised this she was forced to see how completely she was now detached from Charles, and also, to her suffering, how she had laid herself open to the charge of having used him, though he, in his generous simplicity, would never see it in that light or bring any accusation against her.... She blamed herself far more for what she had done to Rodd. That, she knew, was serious, and the more intimate she became with Shakespeare's genius the more she understood the havoc she must have wrought in Rodd's life.

How strange was this world of Prime Ministers and actor-managers which dominated London and in which London acquiesced; very charming, very delightful, if only one could believe in it, or could accept that it was the best possible that London could throw up. But if it was so, what need was there of so much advertising, paragraphing, interviewing? Which was the pretence, the theatre or the world outside it? Which were the actresses, she and Julia Wainwright and the rest, or Lady Butcher and Lady Bracebridge? And in fine, was it all, like everything else, only a question of money? Verschoyle's money? And if Verschoyle paid, why was he shoved aside so ignominiously?

Clara shivered as she thought of the immense complication of what should be so simple and true and beautiful.... But what alternative was there? This elaboration and corruption of the theatre or the imagination working freely in an empty room.

She could see no other. Rodd's terrible concentration ending in impotence or the dissipation of real powers, as in Butcher and Mann, in fantasy.

Absorbed in her work, intent upon the forthcoming production, she was detached from them all and could at last discover how little any of them needed her. She could not really enter into their work though all three had been disturbed by her and diverted for a time at least from their habitual purposes.... What mattered in each of the three men was the artist, and in each the artist was fettered by life. She had promised them release only to plunge them into greater difficulties.

She brooded over herself, wondering what she was, and how she came to be so unconcerned with things that to other women seemed paramount. It was nothing to her that Charles had a wife. It had all happened long before he met her, and was no affair of hers.... That Sir Henry should make love to her was merely comic. She could not even take advantage of it, for in that direction she could not move at all. Instinctively she knew that her sex was given her for one purpose only, and that the highest, and she could not turn it to any base or material use. While she adhered to this she could be Ariel, pure spirit to dominate her life and direct her will, which no power on earth could break.... How came she to be so free, and so foreign to the world of women? Her upbringing! Her early independence! Or some new spirit stirring in humanity?

Already she had caught from Rodd his habit of generalising from his own experience, and in her heart she knew it, knew that she had begun what might prove to be her real life with him, but, caught up as she had been in Mann's schemes and dreams and visions, she would not accept this until all the threads were snapped. Being frank with herself, she knew that she desired and intended to snap them, but in her own time and with as little hurt as possible to those concerned.... Meanwhile it was wonderful, it was almost intoxicatingly comic to carry all the confused facts of her own life into the ordered world where she was Ariel and to imagine Mann, for instance, discoursing of birds and fishes to Trinculo and Stephano, or Rodd, with his passionate dreams of a sudden jet of loveliness in a desert of misery comparing notes with good Gonzalo, while she, both as Clara Day and as Ariel, danced among them and played freakish tricks upon them, and lured them on to believe that all kinds of marvels would come to pass and then bring them back to their senses to discover that she was after all only a woman, and that the marvels they looked for from her were really in themselves.

So she dallied with her power, not quite knowing what she wished to do with it, and, as she dallied, she became more conscious of her force, and she grew impatient with her youth which had been her undoing, so easily given, so greedily accepted. No one but Rodd had seen beyond it and, for a while, she detested him for having done so.... Nothing had gone smoothly since her meeting with him. The pace of events had quickened until it was too fast even for her, and she could do nothing but wait, nothing but fall back upon Ariel.

The dress rehearsal dragged through a whole day and most of a night. It hobbled along. Nothing was right. Sir Henry could hardly remember a word of his part. Ferdinand's wig was a monstrosity. Miranda looked like the fairy-queen in a provincial pantomime. There was hardly a dress to which Lady Butcher did not take exception, though she passed Clara's sky-blue and silver net as 'terribly attractive.' ... Clara delighted in the freedom of her fairy costume. Her lovely slim figure showed to perfection. She moved like the wind, like a breeze in long silvery grass. She gave the impression of movement utterly free of her body, which melted into movement, and was lost in it. The stage-island was then to her really an island, the power of Prospero was true magic, the air was drenched with sea-salt, heavy, rich, pregnant with invisible life urging into form and issuing sometimes in strange music, mysterious voices prophesying in song, and plaints of woe from life that could find no other utterance.... Ah! How free she felt as all this power of fancy seized her and bore her aloft and laid her open to all the new spirit, all the promise of the new life that out of the world came thrilling into this magical universe. How free she felt and how oblivious of her surroundings! There was that in her that nothing could destroy, something more than youth, deeper than joy which is no more than the lark's song showering down through the golden air of April.... Here in her freedom she knew herself, a soul, a living soul, with loving laughter accepting the life ordained for it by Providence, but dominating it, shaping it, moulding it, filling it with love until it brimmed over and spilled its delight upon surrounding life to make it also free and fruitful.

Julia Wainwright caught her in the wings, and pressed her to her bosom, and exclaimed,—

'Oh, my dear, you will be famous—famous. They'll be on their knees to you in New York.'

And Freeland Moore, dressed for the part of Caliban, said,—

'This isn't going to be Sir Henry's or Mann's show. It is going to be Clara Day's.'

The good creatures! It was only a show to them, and they were elated and happy to think of the thousands and thousands of pounds, dollars, francs, roubles, and marks that would be showered on their friend. With such a success as they now dreamed the trouble they had dreaded for her would make no difference. A 'story' would be even valuable.

But what had Ariel to do with pounds and dollars, roubles and marks? Ariel asked nothing but freedom after ages pining in a cloven pine.... In this world of money and machinery and intrigue to control machinery with money, to be free was the deep and secret desire of all humanity. Here in London hearts ached and souls murmured to be free, only to be free, for one moment at whatever cost of tears and suffering and bloody agony. All this in her heart Clara knew, she knew it from her meeting with Rodd, from her solitary brooding in her room, from the drunken women fighting in the street, from the uncontrolled fantasy in Charles Mann, from the boredom that ate away poor Verschoyle's heart; and all the knowledge of her adventurous life she gathered up to distil it into the delight of freedom, for its own sake and also for the sake of the hereafter which, if there be no moment of freedom, no flowering of life, must sink into a deeper and more miserable slavery.

In this mood it was pathetic to see Sir Henry, whose whole power lay in machinery, pretending as Prospero to rule by magic. So pathetically out of place was he that he could not even remember the words that so mightily revealed his authority.... When he broke down, he would declare that it was quite a simple matter to improvise blank verse.... But Clara would not let him improvise. She was always ready with the words, the right inevitable words. She would not let him impair her freedom with his lazy reliance upon the machinery of the theatre to pull him through, and so, when he opened his mouth and looked vague, and covered the absence of words with a large gesture, she was ready for him.

He reproved her.

'I am always like this at a dress rehearsal. Dress rehearsals are always terrible. The production seems to go altogether to pieces, but it is always there on the night. A good dress rehearsal means a bad first night.'

But Clara refused to allow any of her scenes to go to pieces, and they were applauded by the Butcher-Bracebridge fashionables who sat in the stalls. Lady Butcher called out,—

'It will be one of the best things you have ever done,' and her son's voice was heard booming, 'Hear, hear! Good old pater.'

Verschoyle had dropped in, but he was captured by Lady Bracebridge and her daughter, and had to sit between them while they scandalised Clara. According to them she had run away from home and had led an unmentionable life in Paris, actually having been a member of a low company of French players; and she had married but had run away from her husband with Charles Mann, etc., etc.

'I beg your pardon,' said Verschoyle, 'but Miss Day is a friend of mine.'

'One admires her frankness so much,' said Lady Bracebridge. 'Adventures like that make an actress so interesting.'

'But this is her first appearance in any theatre.'

Lady Bracebridge looked incredulous. She put up her lorgnette and scanned Clara, who had just floated across the stage followed by Trinculo and Stephano.

'She is born to it.... I know what the French theatre is like. They are so sensible, don't expect anything else of their actresses.'

Verschoyle saw that it was useless to argue. Women will never relinquish their jealousy. He shifted uneasily in his seat: Lady Bracebridge was a great deal too clever for him and he saw himself being thrust against his will into marriage with her daughter, who had an affectation of cleverness and maddened him with remarks like,—

'That Ariel costume would make the sweetest dinner-frock. If I have one made, will you take me to Murray's?'

'Certainly not,' said Verschoyle.

Clara in her pure girlish voice had just sung 'Full fathom five thy father lies,' when Lady Bracebridge, in her most strident voice, which went ringing through the theatre, said,—

'I hear Charles Mann has a real wife who is raging with jealousy, simply raging. The most extraordinary story.'

Clara stopped dead, stood looking helplessly round, pulled herself together, and went on with the part. Verschoyle deliberately got up and walked out and round to the stage door, where already he found Lady Butcher in earnest converse with Sir Henry,—

'We can't have a scandal in the theatre, Henry. Everybody heard her....'

'The wicked old devil. Why didn't she keep her mouth shut?'

'She hates this girl you are all so crazy about.... Everybody heard her. You can't keep a thing like that quiet once it has been said publicly.'

'But she is wonderful, the most delicate Ariel. Mann isn't worrying us. I cleared him out.'

'Excuse me,' said Verschoyle, intervening. 'I can assure you there will be no trouble. I have seen to that. You have nothing to fear.'

'How sweet of you! Then I can tell everybody there is not a word of truth in it.'

Verschoyle turned his back on them, and went in search of Clara, whom he found trembling with fury on the stairs leading from her dressing-room to the stage.

'How dare you let that woman insult me publicly?' she cried. 'How dare you? How dare you? You ought to have killed her.'

Verschoyle stammered,—

'One can't kill people in the stalls of a London theatre.'

'She ought not to be allowed to live. Publicly! In the middle of the play! ... Either she or I will leave the theatre.'

'I'll see what I can do,' he mumbled, 'only for God's sake don't make it worse than it is.... Your only answer can be to ignore her. She'll be crawling to you in a few months, for you are marvellous.'

Clara saw that he was right. To match herself against the scandal-monger would be to step down to her level. To reassure her, Verschoyle told her how he had been to Bloomsbury to settle matters.

'Where?' she asked.

He described the square and the house, and at once she had a foreboding of disaster.

'Did you see any one else?'

'A queer fish I met at the door, with eyes that looked clean through me, and that little squirt Clott. He is at the bottom of it all.'

Clara gave a little moan.

'O-oh! Why does everybody hate Charles so? Everybody betrays him....'

'Oh, come,' said Verschoyle, 'he isn't exactly thoughtful for other people, is he?'

'That doesn't matter. Charles is Charles, and he must and shall succeed.'

'Not if it smashes you.'

'Even if it smashes me.'

He took her hands and implored her to be sensible.

'You lovely, lovely child,' he said, 'if Charles can't succeed off his own bat, surely, surely it means that there is something wrong with him. Why should you suffer? Why should you be exposed all your life to taunts and success and insults like that just now? It is all so unnecessary.... I'll go and see Charles. I'll tell him what has happened and that he may be given away at any moment now.'

'But why should they hate Charles?'

'It isn't Charles, darling. It is you they hate. You are too young, too beautiful. These women who have lied and intrigued all their lives can't forgive your frankness.'

'They can't forgive my being friends with you.... Oh! don't talk to me about it any more. I hate it all. So disgusting it is.'

'I want Charles to clear out. He can go to Paris and come back if this blows over.'

'I want him to be here to-morrow night. I want everybody to acknowledge that all this is his work. There's to be a supper to-morrow night after the performance. I want him to be there.'

Verschoyle shrugged his shoulders. He knew that opposition only made her more obstinate.

'Very well,' he said, and he returned to the stalls where he made himself exceedingly agreeable to Lady Bracebridge and her daughter, hoping to prevent any further outburst of jealousy. Lady Bracebridge was mollified and said presently,—

'After all, these things are nobody's affair but their own. I do think the scenery is perfectly delightful, though I can't say it is my idea of Caliban. But Henry is delightful. He reminds me so much of General Booth.'

Clara stood free of all this foolish world of scandal and jealousy. She had the answer to it all in herself. Whatever Clara Day had done, Ariel was free and unattainable. She could achieve utter forgetfulness of self, she could be born again in this miraculous experience for which she had striven. As Ariel she could lead these mortals a dance.

'So I charmed their ears,
That, calf-like, they my lowing follow'd through
Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss and thorns,
Which enter'd their frail shins: at last I left them
I' the filthy-mantled pool....'

The pool of scandal: drowned in their own foul words.

She plied her art, and even in the confusion of the dress rehearsal was the most delicate Ariel, so lithe, so lissom, that it seemed she must vanish into the air like the floating feathered seeds of full summer.... Abandoned to the sweet sea-breezes of the play she felt that the hard crust upon the world must surely break to let this spilling beauty pour into its heart. Surely, surely, she and Charles could have no enemies.

They meant nothing but what Charles had proposed at his absurd dinner—love: an airy magical love.... If only people would not interfere. She had proposed to herself to give Charles his triumph and then to settle his foolish mundane affairs. She knew she could do it, if only Verschoyle and these others would not complicate them still further. As for Charles being sent away to Paris, that was nonsense, sheer nonsense, that he should be ruined because he had a worthless woman who could, if she chose, use his name....

She was still being carried along by her set will to force London to acknowledge Charles as its king, and, being so near success, she was possessed by her own determination, and did not know to what an extent she had denied her own emotions, and how near she was to that obliteration of personal life which reduces an artist to a painted mummer. She was terribly tired after the dress rehearsal. Her head ached and her blood drummed behind her eyes. Sir Henry came to see her in her room, and kissed her hands, went on his knees, and paid his homage to her.

She said,—

'You owe everything to Charles Mann. He found me in a studio in Paris when I was very miserable and let me live in his art. I don't want you to quarrel with him. We've got to keep him safe, because there aren't many Charleses and I want you to ask him to supper to-morrow night.... I won't come if he doesn't.'

'I can feel success in the air,' said Sir Henry. 'It is like the old days. But suppose—er—something happened to him.'

Clara laughed, a thin, tired laugh. She was so weary of them harping on the silly story.

'I should go and tell them the truth, that I made him marry me and they'd let him go,' she said.

'It's such a waste of you,' said Sir Henry, sighing. 'You're not in love with him.'

She stared at him in astonishment.

'No,' she said, shocked into speaking the truth of her heart.

He crushed her in his arms, kissed her, gave a fat sigh, and staggered dramatically from the room. He had kissed her neck, her arms, her hands. She rushed to her basin and washed them clean.... Shaking with disgust and anger, she gazed at herself in her mirror, and was startled at the reflection. It was not Ariel that she saw, but Clara Day, a new Clara, a girl who stared in wonder at herself, gazed into her own eyes and through them, deep into her heart, and knew that she was in love. Her hand went to her throat to caress its whiteness. She shivered and shook herself free at last of all the obsessions that had crowded in her mind for so long, and she lost all knowledge of her surroundings and she could hear Rodd's beautiful deep voice saying,—

'Ay, that's it, to learn the tricks and keep decent. That's what one stands out for.'