The Way of Ambition. Robert Hichens
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be one? I thought of starting some time next month on The Wanderer for a cruise, to the Mediterranean or somewhere. I don't know yet who'll tuck in, but I shall take Susan Fleet to play chaperon to us and the crew and manage things. Max Elliot may come, and I thought of trying to get your friend, Mr. Heath, though I hardly know him. I think he works too hard, and a breeze might do him good. However, it's all in the air. Tell me what you think about it. Love to the beautiful mother.—In tearing haste, Yours,
Adelaide Shiffney.
"Why has she asked me?" said Charmian to herself, laying this note down after reading it twice.
She had always known Mrs. Shiffney, but she had never before been asked to go on a cruise in the yacht. Mrs. Shiffney had always called her Charmian, as she called Mrs. Mansfield Violet. But there had never been even a hint of genuine intimacy between the girl and the married woman, and they seldom met except in society, and then only spoke a few casual and unmeaning words. They had little in common, Charmian supposed, except their mutual knowledge of quantities of people and of a certain social life.
Claude Heath on The Wanderer!
Charmian took the note to her mother.
"Mrs. Shiffney has suddenly taken a fancy to me, Madretta," she said. "Look at this!"
Mrs. Mansfield read the note and gave it back.
"Do you want to go?" she asked, looking at the girl, not without a still curiosity.
Charmian twisted her lips.
"I don't know. You see, it's all very vague. I should like to be sure who's going. I think it's very reckless to take any chances on a yacht."
"Claude Heath isn't going."
Charmian raised her eyebrows.
"But has she asked him?"
"Yes. And he's refused. He told me so on Monday."
"You're quite sure he won't go?"
"He said he wasn't going."
Charmian looked lightly doubtful.
"Shall I go?" she said. "Would you mind if I did?"
"Do you really want to?"
"I don't think I care much either way. Why has she asked me?"
"Adelaide? I daresay she likes you. And you wouldn't be unpleasant on a yacht, would you?"
"That depends, I expect. You'd allow me to go?"
"If I knew who the rest of the party were to be—definitely."
"I won't answer till to-morrow."
Mrs. Mansfield did not feel sure what was Charmian's desire in the matter. She did not quite understand her child. She wondered, too, why Mrs. Shiffney had asked Charmian to go on the yacht, why she implied that Claude Heath might make one of the party when he had refused to go. It occurred to Mrs. Mansfield that Adelaide might mean to use Charmian as a lure to draw Heath into the expedition. But, if so, surely she quite misunderstood the acquaintanceship between them. Heath was her—Mrs. Mansfield's—friend. How often she had wished that Charmian and he were more at ease together, liked each other better. It was odd that Adelaide should fall into such a mistake. And yet what other meaning could her note have? She wrote as if the question of Heath's going or not were undecided.
Was it undecided? Did Adelaide, with her piercing and clever eyes, see more clearly into Heath's nature than Mrs. Mansfield could?
Mrs. Shiffney had an extraordinary capacity for getting what she wanted. The hidden tragedy of her existence was that she was never satisfied with what she got. She wanted to draw Claude Heath out of his retirement into the big current of life by which she and her friends were buoyantly carried along through changing and brilliant scenes. His refusal had no doubt hardened a mere caprice into a strong desire. Mrs. Mansfield realized that Adelaide would not leave Heath alone now. The note to Charmian showed an intention not abandoned. But why should Adelaide suppose that Heath's acceptance might be dependent on anything done by Charmian?
Mrs. Mansfield knew well, and respected, Mrs. Shiffney's haphazard cleverness, which, in matters connected with the worldly life, sometimes almost amounted to genius. That note to Charmian gave a new direction to her thoughts, set certain subtleties of the past which had vaguely troubled her in a new and stronger light. She awaited, with an interest that was not wholly pleasant, Charmian's decision of the morrow.
Charmian had been very casual in manner when she came to her mother with the surprising invitation. She was almost as casual on the following morning when she entered the dining-room where Mrs. Mansfield was breakfasting by electric light. For a gloom as of night hung over the Square, although it was ten o'clock.
"Have you been thinking it over, Charmian?" said her mother, as the girl sat languidly down.
"Yes, mother—lazily."
She sipped her tea, looking straight before her with a cold and dreamy expression.
"Have you been active enough to arrive at any conclusion?"
"I got up quite undecided, but now I think I'll say 'Yes,' if you don't mind. When I looked out of the window this morning I felt as if the Mediterranean would be nicer than this. There's only one thing—why don't you come, too?"
"I haven't been asked."
"And why not?"
"Adelaide's too modern to ask mothers and daughters together," said Mrs. Mansfield, smiling.
"Would you go if she asked you?"
"No. Well, now the thing is to find out what the party is to be. Write the truth, and say you'll go if I know who's to be there and allow you to go. Adelaide knows quite well she has lots of friends I shouldn't care for you to yacht with. And it's much better to be quite frank about it. If Susan Fleet and Max go, you can go."
"I believe you are really the frankest person in London. And yet people love you—miracle-working mother!"
Charmian turned the conversation to other subjects and seemed to forget all about The Wanderer. But when breakfast was over, and she was alone before her little Chippendale writing-table, she let herself go to her excitement. Although she loved, even adored her mother, she sometimes acted to her. To do so was natural to Charmian. It did not imply any diminution of love or any distrust. It was but an instinctive assertion of a not at all uncommon type of temperament. The coldness and the dreaminess were gone now, but her excitement was mingled with a great uncertainty.
On receiving Mrs. Shiffney's note Charmian had almost instantly understood why she had been asked on the cruise. Her instinct had told her, for she had at that time known nothing of Heath's refusal. She had supposed that he had not yet been invited. Mrs. Shiffney had invited her not for herself, but as a means of getting hold of Heath. Charmian was positive of that. Months ago, in Max Elliot's music-room, the girl had divined the impression made by Heath on Mrs. Shiffney, had seen the restless curiosity awake in the older woman. She had even noticed the tightening of Mrs. Shiffney's lips when she, Charmian, had taken Heath away from the little group by the fire, with that "when you've quite done with my only mother," which had been a tiny slap given to Mrs. Shiffney. And she had been sure that Mrs. Shiffney meant to know Heath. She had a great opinion of Mrs. Shiffney's social cleverness and audacity. Most girls who were much in London society had. She did not really like Mrs. Shiffney, or want to be intimate with her, but she thoroughly believed in her flair, and that was why the note had stirred in Charmian excitement and uncertainty. If Mrs. Shiffney thought she saw something, surely it was there. She would not take shadow for substance.
But might she not fire a shot in the dark on the chance of hitting something?
"Why did she ask me instead of mother?" Charmian said to herself again and again. "If she had got mother to go Claude Heath would surely have gone. Why should he go because I go?"
And then came the thought, "She thinks he may, perhaps thinks he will. Will he? Will