CHAPTER IX
Just before Charmian left England Mrs. Mansfield had begun to suspect her secret. Already from time to time she had wondered whether Charmian refused to accept Claude Heath, as she had accepted all the other habitués of the house, because she really liked him much better than she liked them. She had wondered and she had said, "No, it is not so." Had she not been less than frank with herself, and for another reason which made her reluctant to see truth? She scarcely knew. But when Charmian was gone and her mother was quite alone, she felt almost sure that she had to face a fact very unpleasant to her. There had been something in the girl's eyes as she said good-bye, a slight hardness, a lurking defiance, something about her lips, something even in the sound of her voice which had troubled Mrs. Mansfield, which continued to trouble her while Charmian was away.
Charmian in love with Claude Heath!
It seemed to the mother in those first moments of contemplation that, if she were right in her surmise, Charmian could scarcely have set her affections on a man less suited to enter into her life, less likely to make her happy.
Charmian belonged to a certain world not merely because she was born in it, and had always lived in it, but by temperament, by character. Essentially she was of it. She could surely never be happy in the life led by Claude Heath. Could Claude Heath be happy in the sort of life led by her?
Abruptly Mrs. Mansfield felt as if she did not really know Heath very well. A great many things about him she knew. But how much of him was beyond her ken. She was not even sure how he regarded Charmian. Now she wished very much to be more clear about that.
Among her many friends Heath stood apart, and for this reason: all the other men of talent whom she knew intimately were in the same set, or belonged to sets which overlapped and intermingled. They were men who were making, or had made, their names; men who knew, and were known by, her friends and acquaintances, who needed no explanation, who were thoroughly "in it." Only Heath was outside, was unknown, was not taking an active part in the battle of art or of life. And this fact gave him a certain strangeness, not free from romance, gave him a peculiar value in Mrs. Mansfield's eyes. She secretly cherished the thought of his individuality. She could not wish it changed. But she knew very well that though such an individuality might attract her child, indeed, she feared, had attracted Charmian, yet Charmian, if she had any influence over it, would not be satisfied to let it alone, to leave it quietly to its own natural development. Charmian would never let any plant that belonged to her grow in darkness. She understood well enough the many clever men who frequented the house, men with ambitions which they were gratifying, men who were known, or who wished and intended to be known, men, as a rule, who were fighting, or who had fought, hard battles. To several of these men Charmian could have made an excellent wife.
But if she had set her affections on Heath she had made a sad mistake. His peculiarity of temperament was in accord surely with nothing in Charmian. That very fact, perhaps, had grasped her attention, had excited her curiosity, even stirred sentiment within her. Having perceived a gulf she had longed to bridge it, to set her feet on the farther side. Mrs. Mansfield was glad that Charmian was away. Hitherto she had cultivated the friendship with Heath without arrière pensée. Now she was more conscious in it. Her great love of her only child made her wish to study Heath.
The more she studied him the more she hoped that her guess about Charmian had been wrong, and yet the more she studied him the better she liked him. There was an intensity in him that captivated her intense mind, an unworldliness that her soul approved. His lack of social ambition, of all desire to be rich and prosperous, refreshed her. She compared him secretly with other men of great talent. Some of them were not greedy for money, but even they were greedy for fame, were almost fearfully solicitous about their "position," if not their social position then their position in the artistic world. Jealousies accompanied them, and within them were jealousies. They had not only the desire to build, but also the desire to pull down, to obliterate, to make ruins and dust.