Part 33 (2/2)

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 s.h.i.+ft 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 a.s.sistance. 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 appet.i.te 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 crus.h.i.+ng 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, l.u.s.ting 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 wors.h.i.+pped 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 sh.o.r.es, 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, d.a.m.n you,' said Verschoyle.

'I want to speak to you.'

Verschoyle recognised his man and said,--

'In G.o.d'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:--

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