Mummery: A Tale of Three Idealists

by Gilbert Cannan

XVII

SUCCESS

The Imperium was at its most brilliant for the first performance. Lady Butcher had done her work well, and the people crowded in the pit had a good show for their money even before the curtain rose. The orchestra hidden away beneath gay greenery discoursed light music as the great men and the lovely women of the hour entered in their fine array, conscious of being themselves, hoping to be recognised as such. Actors who had retired with titles had come to support Sir Henry by encouraging in the audience the habit of applause. Successful politicians entered the stalls as though they were walking out upon the platform at a great meeting. They stood for a moment and surveyed the assembly with a Gladstonian aquiline eye. Their wives blushed with pride in their property if their husbands were recognised and raised a buzz.... Lady Butcher, with her son, occupied one stage-box, and on the opposite side were Lady Bracebridge, her daughter, and, through a nice calculation on his part, Lord Verschoyle.... There were many Jews, some authors, a few painters, critics casting listless eyes upon these preliminary histrionics, women-journalists taking notes of the frocks worn by the eminent actresses and no less eminent wives of Cabinet Ministers ... a buzz of voices, a fluttering of fans, the twittering and hissing of whispered scandal, the cold venom that creeps in the veins of the society of the mummers.... There were magnificence and luxury, but beneath it all was the deadly stillness of which Charles had complained that night on St James's Bridge. Before the curtain rose, Clara could feel it.... Her dreams of a vast enthusiastic audience perished as soon as she set foot on the stage to make sure that Charles's scenery was properly set up.

He walked on to the stage at the same moment, looked round, shook out his mane and snorted.

'The lighting kills it,' he said.

Clara went to him.

'You see, Charles, it has come true.'

'Half-true. Half-true.'

'Do you feel anything wrong with the audience?'

'No. I have had a peep at it. All the swells are there, but none of the brains.'

Clara laughed at him.

'It's good-bye, Charles.'

'What do you mean?'

'It can never be the same again.... I'm not the same.'

'What do you mean?' he asked, in alarm.

'I'll tell you after the performance. Where are you sitting?'

'I'm in the Author's box.'

'With his ghost?'

'No. He has only turned in his grave.'

The stage-hands were pretty alert and busy for the shipwreck, which Charles had contrived very simply: a darkened stage, a mast with a lamp, which was to sway and founder, and low moving clouds.

Clara and he parted. The music ceased. The storm broke and the curtain rose.

After a few moments the novelty of the ship scene wore off, a certain section of the audience, perceiving how it was done laughed at the simplicity of it and another section cried 'Hush.' The play had to proceed to a divided house.

The bold sweep of Charles's design for the island-cell carried in spite of the lighting and was applauded, but, as usual with English actors, the pace was slow and the verse was ponderously spoken. Lady Bracebridge's sense of caricature was almost infallible. Sir Henry as Prospero did look exactly like General Booth and again a section of the audience laughed. They had come to laugh, as the English always do, at novelty, and they went on laughing until Miranda was put to sleep.

Clara, put to the challenge of this audience, summoned up every ounce of her vitality and did coldly and consciously what before she had done almost in an ecstacy. In the full light, before the huge audience she felt that the play was betrayed, that there are some things too holy to be made public.... She loathed that audience, tittering and giggling. Her entrance was almost a contemptuous command to bid them be silent, with her wild hair fiercely flying as she danced, every step taken lightly as though she were dropping from a friendly wind.

'All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come
To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curl'd clouds, to thy strong bidding task
Ariel and all his quality.'

She stood poised as she had stood on the crag in Westmorland. Even in her stillness there was the very ecstacy of movement, for nothing in her was still.... A great sigh of pleasure came from the audience, and, with a movement that was imperceptible and yet made itself felt, she turned into a thing of stone, and uttered in an unearthly voice her description of the storm.

'Damme!' said Prospero, under his breath. 'You've got them.'

She had, but she despised so easy a conquest. This audience was like a still pool. It trembled with pleasure as an impression was thrown into it like a stone. She could only move its stillness, not touch its heart. She despised what she was doing, but went through with it loyally because she was pledged to it.

Her first scene with Prospero was applauded with an astonished enthusiasm. Her youth, her simplicity, her grace, had given these metropolitans a new pleasure, a new sensation. It was no more than that. She knew it was no more. She was angry with the applause which interrupted the play. The insensibility of the audience had turned her into a spectacle. Her very quality had separated her from the rest of the performance, and in her heart she knew that she had failed. There was no play: there were only three personalities on exhibition—Sir Henry Butcher, Charles, and herself. Shakespeare, as Charles had said, had only turned in his grave. Shakespeare, who was the poet of these people, was ignored by them in favour of the personalities of the interpreters. There was no altering that. She had made so vivid an impression that the audience delighted in her and not in her contribution to the whole enchantment of the play. That was broken even for her, and as the evening wore on she ceased even to herself to be Ariel and was forced to be Clara Day, displayed in public.

She loathed it, and yet she had no sense of declension. No enchanted illusion had been established. Charles Mann's scenery remained only—scenery. Sir Henry Butcher and the rest of his company were only actors—acting. A troupe of performing animals would have been more entertaining: indeed, in her bitter disappointment, Clara felt that she was one of such a troupe, the lady in tights who holds the hoops through which the dogs and monkeys jump.... So powerful was this anger in her that after a while she began to burlesque herself, to exaggerate her movement, and to keep her voice down to a childish treble, and the audience adored her. They turned her into a show, a music-hall turn, at the expense of the magical poetry of Shakespeare's farewell to his art.... She could not too wildly caricature herself, and as she often did when she was angry she talked to herself in French:—'Voila ce qu'il vous faut! Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!'—How they gulped down her songs! How they roared and bellowed when she danced—the delicious, wonderful girl!

She would not have done it had she known that Rodd was in front. He had decided to go at the last moment, to see her, as he thought for the last time, before she was delivered up to the public.... He knew its voracity. He knew the use to which the theatre was put, to keep the public drugged, to keep it drowned beneath the leagues and leagues of the stale waters of boredom. He knew perfectly well that nothing could shift them out of it, that any awakening was too painful for them to endure, and that there was no means of avoiding this constant sacrifice of personality after personality, talent after talent, victim after victim. He had hoped against hope that Clara, being what she was, would save herself in time, but he had decided that he had no right to interfere, or to offer his assistance. Against a machine like the Imperium, what could youth do? He credited her with the boundless confidence of youth, but he knew that she would be broken.

He had a seat at the back of the dress circle, and he suffered agonies. Mann's scenery annoyed him. The fellow had dramatic imagination, but what was the good of expressing it in paint and a structure of canvas and wood without reference to the actors? For that was what Charles did. He left nothing to the play. His scenery in its way was as oppressive as the old realism; indeed it was the old realism standing on its head.... It called attention to itself and away from the drama.

Rodd caught his breath when Clara first appeared. He thought for a moment that she must succeed, and that the rest of the company, even the scenery, must be caught up into the beauty she exhaled. But the electricians were too much for her. They followed her with spot-limes and gave her no play of light and shadow.... That, Rodd knew, was Butcher, exploiting his new discovery, thrusting it down the public's greedy maw. The ruthlessness of it! This exquisite creature of innocence, this very Ariel, born at last in life to leap forth from the imagination that had created her, this delicious spirit of freedom, come to beckon the world on to an awakening from its sloth and shame! To be used to feed the appetite for sensation and novelty!

Rodd saw how she suffered, saw how as the entertainment proceeded the wings of her spirit shrivelled and left her with nothing but her talent and her will. Nothing in all his life had hurt him more.... And he, too, felt the deadly stillness of this audience, for all its excitement and uproarious enthusiasm. He was aware of something predatory and vulturine in it, the very hideous quality that in his own work he had portrayed so exactly that no one could endure it, and his own soul had sickened and grown weary until the day when he had met this child of freedom.... It was as though he saw her being done to death before his eyes, and this appalling experience took on a ghastly symbolical significance—richness and lewdness crushing out of existence their enemies youth and joy. Towards that this London was drifting. It had no other purpose.... Ay, this audience was Caliban, coveting Miranda, hating Ariel, lusting to murder Ferdinand—youth, enchantment, love, all were to be done to death. Clara's performance was to him like the last choking song of youth. It should have been, he knew she meant it to be, like all art, a prophecy.

What malign Fate had dogged her to trip her feet, so soon, to lead her by such strange ways to the success that kills, the success worshipped in London, the success won at the cost of every living quality.

He watched her very closely, and began to understand her contempt. Her touch of burlesque made him roar with laughter, so that he was scowled at by his neighbours in the dress circle, and he began to feel more hopeful. He felt certain that this was the beginning and the end for her, and he supposed that she would marry her Lord and retire into an easy, cultured life. He had liked Verschoyle on his one meeting with him, and knew that he was to be trusted.

Truly the words of the play were marvellously apt, when Clara sang,—

'Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.'

Rodd looked down at Verschoyle leaning out of his box, and felt sure that this was to be her way out. More of this painted mummery she could not endure. She could mould a good, simple creature like Verschoyle to her ways and become a great personage. So comforted, he heard the closing scenes of the play in all its truthful dignity, and he looked round at the sated audience wondering how many of them attached any meaning to the words hurled at them with such amazing power.

'The charm dissolves apace,
And as the morning steals upon the night,
Melting the darkness, so their rising senses
Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle
Their clearer reason.

Their understanding
Begins to swell, and the approaching tide
Will shortly fill the reasonable shores,
That now lie foul and muddy.'

The tenderness of this profound rebuke moved Rodd from his hatred of the audience, and on an impulse he ran down and stood waiting outside Verschoyle's box. He wanted to see him without precisely knowing why, perhaps, he thought, only to make sure that Clara was safe.

The applause as the curtain descended was tumultuous. Sir Henry bowed—to the right, to the left, to the centre. He made a little speech.

'I am deeply gratified at the great welcome you have given our efforts in the service of our poet. I am proud to have had the collaboration of Mr Charles Mann, and to have had the good fortune to discover in Miss Clara Day Ariel's very self. I thank you.'

The audience clamoured for Ariel, but she did not appear. She had moved away to her dressing-room, and had torn off her sky blue and silver net. She rent them into shreds, and her dresser, who had caught the elated excitement that was running through the theatre, burst into tears.

Rodd nearly swooned with anxiety when she did not appear, and he was almost knocked over when Verschoyle, white to the lips, darted out of the box.

'Sorry, sir,' he said, and was moving on when Rodd caught him by the arm.

'Let me go, damn you,' said Verschoyle.

'I want to speak to you.'

Verschoyle recognised his man and said,—

'In God's name has anything happened?'

(Something had happened but they did not know it. In her dressing-room, half way through the performance, she had found a note:—

'DEAR MADAM,—Either you grant me a profitable interview after the performance or the police will be informed to-morrow morning.
'CLAUDE CUMBERLAND.')

'I only wanted,' said Rodd, 'to ask you to convey my very best wishes to Miss Day. Just that. Nothing more.'

Verschoyle stared at him, and Rodd laughed.

'No. I am not what you think. I have been and am always at your service. To-night has been one of the most wretched of her life. I have been watching the performance. Butcher and his audience have been too much for them.'

'But the success was hers.'

'You do not know her well, if you imagine that such a success is what she desires.'

An attendant came up to them with a note from Clara enclosing Cumberland's. Verschoyle handed it to Rodd, who crumpled it up and said,—

'I knew that was the danger-point. Will you take me to see her? I know these people. I have done what I could. I kicked that fellow out just after you had gone.'

'There is a supper in Sir Henry's room,' said Verschoyle, with an uneasy glance at Rodd's shabby evening clothes. 'I will take you there. Are you an actor?'

'No. I write. I remember you at the Hall when I was at Pembroke.'

That reassured Verschoyle. He liked this deep, quiet man, and felt that he knew more than he allowed to appear, half-guessed indeed that he had played some great and secret part in Clara's life. He introduced him to Lady Bracebridge and her daughter, who had stayed to watch the huge audience melt away and to hold a little reception with congratulations on the success of 'their' play. Lady Bracebridge noticed Rodd's boots at once, an old pair of cracked patent leathers, but her daughter chattered to him,—

'Wasn't it all too sweet? I adore The Tempest. Caliban is such a dear, isn't he?'

Rodd smiled grimly but politely.

They made their way on to the stage where they found Charles Mann tipping the stage-hands. The stairs up from the stage were thronged with brilliant personages, all happy, excited, drinking in the atmosphere of success.... In Sir Henry's room Lady Butcher stood to receive her guests. 'Too delightful! ... The most charming production! ... Exquisite! ... Quite too awfully Ballet Russe!'

The players in their costumes, their eyes dilated with nervous excitement, their lips trembling with their hunger for praise, moved among the Jews, politicians, journalists, major and minor celebrities.... Sir Henry moved from group to group. He was at his most brilliantly witty.

But there was no Ariel. Several ladies who desired to ask her to lunch in their anxiety to invest capital in the new star, clamoured to see her.

'She is tired, poor child,' said Sir Henry, with an amorously proprietary air.

'But she must come,' said Lady Butcher, eager to exploit the interest Clara had aroused, and she bustled away.

Charles Mann came in at that moment and he was at once surrounded with twittering women.

'You must tell him,' said Rodd to Verschoyle, 'he must get out.... Will you let her go with him?'

'Never,' said Verschoyle, and awaiting his chance, he plucked Charles by the sleeve, took him into a corner and gave him Cumberland's note.

Charles's face went a greeny gray.

'What does he mean?'

'Blackmail,' replied Verschoyle. 'You can't ask her to go on living with that hanging over her head.'

'I can pay,' said Charles.

'She'll pay on for ever.'

'What else can I do?'

'Clear out, give her a chance. Let her make her own life so that it can't touch her—whatever happens to you.'

'But I ...'

'Can you only think of yourself?'

'My work.'

'Look here, Mann. I've paid six hundred to keep this quiet. It hasn't done it. I suppose they've squabbled over the spoils.'

'Six hundred.'

'Yes. What can you do? These people ask more and more and more.'

'It's ruin.'

'Yes. If you don't clear out.'

Charles began to look elderly and flabby.

'All right,' he said. 'When?'

'To-morrow morning. I'll see that you have money and you'll get as much work as you like now—thanks to her.'

'You don't know what she's been to me, Verschoyle.'

'No. But I know what any other man would have been to her. You ought to have told her.'

'To-morrow morning,' said Charles. 'I'll go.'

He turned away and basked in the smiles and congratulations of the Bracebridge-Butcher set.

Verschoyle returned to Rodd,—

'That's all right,' he said. 'I was afraid that with this success he'd want to stick it out. These idealists are so infernally self-righteous.'

Lady Butcher returned with Clara, looking very pale and slender in a little black silk frock. Sir Henry came up to her at once and took possession of her. He whispered in her ear,—

'Did you get my flowers?'

'Yes.'

'And my note?'

'Yes.'

'Will you stay?'

'No.'

Her hand went to her heart as she saw Rodd. How came he here in this oppressive company? She was sorry and hated his being there.

She received her congratulations listlessly and accepted, without the smallest intention of acting upon her acceptance, all her invitations. Rodd was there. That was all she knew, he was there among those empty, voracious people.

He moved towards her and caught her as she was passed from one group to another.

'Forgive me,' he said. 'I had to come and see you. I thought it was for the last time.... I know all your story, even down to to-night. He is going away.'

'Charles?'

'Yes.'

'I can't stay here. I can't stand it.... You are not going to stay.'

'How do you know?'

'I was with you all through to-night....'

Their eyes met. Again there was nothing but they two. All pretence, all mummery had vanished. Life had become pure and strong, more rich and wonderful even than the play in which, baffled by the chances of life, she had striven to live.

'To-morrow,' she said, 'I am going to the bookshop at half-past twelve.'

He bowed and left her, and meeting Mr Clott or Cumberland on the stairs of his house he had the satisfaction of shaking him until his teeth rattled, and of telling him that Mr Charles Mann had gone abroad for an indefinite period.