The Town in Bloom (13 page)

The gist of the row was that Mr Crossway was angry because I had been allowed to play. Asked if he would have preferred to have the part read by a middle-aged woman in tweeds and spectacles, he said the occasion shouldn’t have arisen. It was a stage manager’s job to have a reliable understudy ready. Brice Marton pointed out that he had asked permission to engage an additional understudy, who would have ‘double-covered’ for the understudy who was away. He had not been allowed to. And by the grace of God there
had
been a reliable understudy ready, who was word perfect and beautifully dressed – and how was he to know the effect I would have on the audience? This conversation took some time, mainly because the bad language held things up so.

At last Brice Marton said: ‘Well, what happens tomorrow?’

‘The understudy plays, of course – you say you’re sure she’ll be back. And you find yourself a safe cover for her. Why consult me about understudies? You know I’ve got a kink about paying them. From now on, engage them on your own. And never again speak to me as you’ve spoken tonight.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t guarantee not to,’ said Brice Marton.
‘So I shall take it that you’ll release me from my contract.’

‘Don’t be a bloody fool,’ said Mr Crossway.

They came out from behind the backing – and saw me. Mr Crossway said, ‘Oh, my God! What am I to say to this child?’

‘You might start by thanking her for keeping your curtain up,’ said Brice Marton. ‘I’m going to.’

‘No, leave it to me,’ said Mr Crossway.

He put his arm round my shoulders and took me off the stage to his dressing-room. Here he pushed me into an armchair and told me to wait while his dresser helped him to change. They went into a part of the room that was curtained off; and in a few minutes came out again, Mr Crossway now in a dressing-gown. He told the dresser that would be all for tonight; and as soon as the door closed behind the man, turned a chair to face me and sat looking at me with a helpless kind of expression. Then he smiled and said:

‘Brice is right, of course. I should start by thanking you and I do. And I can honestly tell you that I admire your courage and your quite astounding confidence. Also, you look very nice; I’d no idea you could look so pretty. But – well, surely with your intelligence, you must know it was a dreadful thing to do?’

‘You mean, to get laughs? I didn’t try to. But once they started it seemed best to … to develop the characterisation that suited my personality.’

‘What a marvellous phrase! The truth is that you’re still dead sure you’re in the right, aren’t you?’

‘Not right for the play. I realise now that I spoilt the end of it. But I was right for
me
. I
felt
right. Though I can see I
made mistakes. I shouldn’t have jumped on that footstool. But if I could have a lower stool—’

‘Good God, do you think I shall ever let you loose in that part again?’

I raised my voice protestingly. ‘But you can’t judge me by tonight. I haven’t had one rehearsal. I’ll do exactly what you tell me.’

He said he doubted that. ‘And even if you did, it would make no difference. You’re incurably comic – it’s partly due to your tinyness; tinyness combined with cock-sureness is always funny. Were you, as a child, taken to many music halls?’

‘Certainly not. I don’t
like
music halls.’

‘All the same, you have a single-turn mentality. You might conceivably make a success in Variety.’

‘Like Little Tich, no doubt,’ I said indignantly.

He laughed. ‘Exactly. I shall call you Tich from now on. No, you’re not a grotesque. You’re more like the first-turn soubrettes who come on swinging their stiff skirts. And in my grandfather’s day you might have done well in melodrama what was called a singing chamber-maid.’

‘Do you mean I’m old-fashioned?’

‘It’s not as simple as that.’ He got up and mopped his forehead where the perspiration was coming through his greasepaint; then sat down facing me again. ‘Now try to under stand that I shouldn’t say this to you if I didn’t like you very much and want to help you. What you did tonight simply wasn’t acting, in a professional sense of the word. It was … charades, a child pretending to “be” someone, at best a kind of reciting. And don’t imagine I’m judging you only by tonight. I could have told you all this
after you crashed into that audition and gave me your
one-woman
performance of
The School for Scandal
. My dear, delightful, highly intelligent child, you cannot act and I don’t believe you’ll ever be able to – not in a way that’s acceptable in a present-day West End production.’

Not one word of this was I going to accept. ‘But the audience liked me,’ I told him doggedly. ‘I could feel they did.’

‘They also like performing seals. Besides, audiences don’t work things out. You were just a gallant little understudy in a pretty dress who was giving everyone a good laugh. And at what a cost! I seriously doubt if my leading lady will play tomorrow.’

For a moment I felt contrite. ‘And I’ve lost you a good stage manager.’

‘Brice? Oh, that will all blow over. I shall apologise.’

‘
You
will?’

‘Of course. I was in the wrong. And I’d grovel to Brice rather than lose him – for quite a number of reasons.’

It astonished me that he should feel like that about a mere stage manager, and such a young one. I said, ‘You’re a very un-grand man, aren’t you – for such a great actor?’

‘How nice of you to pay me such a double compliment, and when I’ve been so cruel to you. But I do sincerely want to save you from bitter disappointment, which I swear will come your way if you don’t give up this idea of acting. Couldn’t you settle down in the office? Eve Lester feels a real affection for you – just as I do. And you were a real help at rehearsals, not to mention a constant source of amusement, which is worth untold gold to me during a
time of strain. I positively long for my next production with you sitting beside me.’

I said I couldn’t think why he found me funny.

‘Neither can I, really, which makes it all the funnier. But I don’t think you’re funny now and I’m desperately sorry if I’ve hurt you. And remember, I could be wrong about your acting.’

‘You
are
wrong,’ I said fiercely.

He threw back his head and laughed. ‘I adore you for saying that. Now come and sit beside me while I take my make-up off and then I’ll drive you home.’

I moved to a chair by his dressing-table and watched him cover his face with thick white grease. I had, of course, been distressed by what he said about my acting but the distress had not lasted. I now felt cheerful; in fact, very much more than cheerful. I genuinely did not believe him; also I was still buoyed up by the exhilaration of facing an audience. But there was more to it than that. Ever since he had mentioned the rehearsals I had become conscious of a great contentment and a most pleasurable feeling of physical well-being. And as I sat watching him, I remembered that I had never felt … somehow
right
since rehearsals ended. I had put this down to the loss of interest, the loss of being connected with the play. Now I knew that, far more, I had felt the loss of being with him.

He towelled his face; then, noticing he had not taken off his toupee, said he ought to have done that first. ‘Now I’ve got grease on it. Well, here goes. You can watch me grow older.’

I said, ‘Did you ever see a play called
Lady Frederick
?’

‘Yes, I saw the original production, the year Maugham
had three plays running together. But I doubt if you were born then. Surely you don’t know the play?’

‘I saw it done by amateurs. Watching you made me think of the scene where Lady Frederick gets her young admirer to watch her put her make-up on, to disillusion him.’

‘And I’m taking my make-up off – that’s the acme of disillusion.’

‘Only it seems to work in reverse. I’ve just discovered how much I love you.’

He gave me a startled look; then laughed, but not quite naturally.

I said, ‘That wasn’t a joke.’

‘I had a hideous suspicion it might not be. How exactly like you! Oh, not to fall in love with me – that’s
un
like your intelligent self – but to break the glad tidings to me without an instant’s reflection.’

‘I gather you don’t find them glad tidings.’

‘How can I, when they’re liable to mean unhappiness for you? And do you think I want my valued little friend turned into a mooning schoolgirl?’

I said, ‘I won’t moon. And I won’t even mention it again if you don’t want me to. And I certainly won’t be unhappy. I’m getting happier and happier every minute.’

‘Good God! Come here.’ He stretched out his hand and pulled me towards him. ‘Now stand behind me and look in the glass. You’re a child – and you look a real child, not a girl of eighteen. And I’m a middle-aged man. You
can’t
be in love with a man who looks like I do at this moment.’

I said seriously, ‘You do look your worst, don’t you?
Your face is still so greasy. But it makes no difference to me, particularly as I’ve never admired your looks.’

‘You haven’t?’ He sounded a trifle surprised.

‘Oh, I did when you played Charles Surface. But I was horribly disillusioned when I met you in the flesh.’

We were still staring not at our real selves but at our reflections in the glass. I saw his lips twitch. Then he said, ‘Don’t make me laugh now. Just listen. I’m a hopelessly susceptible man, also very fond of you. If you persist in this foolishness, no doubt I shall succumb and make love to you – only very limited love, I trust, but even that will be enough to spoil our friendship when I come to my senses, as I quickly shall. Now will you make a real effort to cure yourself? And let’s not see each other alone for at least a month.’

The only part of this speech that interested me was the bit that told me I could get him to make love to me. I went down on my knees beside his chair and butted my head against his chest. He said quietly, ‘Well, I gather this is your answer. I might have known I was wasting my first effort to resist temptation. What thick soft hair you have! Most women’s hair, nowadays, is as stiffly waved as corrugated iron. And I’m glad you don’t shave your neck. The nape of a woman’s neck is
not
a place one cares to find bristles.’

Then he got up, raising me with him and, looking down on me, said, ‘In all my years both as an actor and a lover I’ve never kissed a woman of your height. Well, I trust my technique will be equal to it. No, don’t stand on tiptoe; you’ll totter. Kindly remember, for once in your dynamic young life, that this is a time when you do
not
take the initiative. Relax, and leave things to me.’

Looking back, I find it astonishing that a girl of eighteen, respectably – if not conventionally – brought up, could so delightedly abandon herself to being in love with a married man. I did not find it astonishing then and I was, from the first, determined to get all the love I could in return. If my partner stuck to his noble intentions of making only ‘very limited love’ it wouldn’t be my fault.

After he had kissed me half-a-dozen times (I proudly counted; quite a feat considering my daze of bliss) he steadied me and said firmly, ‘That will definitely be all for tonight. Now wait here while I finish dressing. You’d better rub that rouge off your cheeks. And try – we must both try – to look less affectionate before we face my stage door keeper and my chauffeur.’

He went into the curtained-off part of the room, and I went to the glass, rubbed my cheeks with one of his towels, and tidied up my mouth; I had forgotten I still had some make-up on. When he came back I ran to him eagerly. He said, ‘No, no, child. I am not going to kiss you again.’ But he did, for some minutes, then remarked: ‘Well, thank God my stage door keeper’s an old, dim-sighted man. Still, we’d better hurry past him.’

But we weren’t able to, as he stopped me to say that three ladies had been waiting for me but had now gone, and Miss Lester had telephoned to know where I was. Mr Crossway told me to go out to the car while he rang her up. When he joined me he said one of the programme girls had let her know I was ‘on’ and she had seen most of my performance. ‘She sent you her proud congratulations for getting through so well.’

‘Did she think I was as bad as you do?’

‘Not quite. She believes you suffer from an excess of individualism – whatever that may mean – and she feels sure something can be done about it. She’ll tell you tomorrow.’

I did not see how one could have too much
individualism
and, anyway, I was more interested in being beside him in the nice dark car, which seemed to me perfectly private as he had made sure the glass division between us and the chauffeur was closed. I rubbed the top of my head against his face.

He slipped his arm round me but said, ‘I never kiss women in cars. It’s unsubtle – and dangerous; chauffeurs seem to have eyes in the backs of their heads. How nice your hair tastes.’

‘Perhaps I didn’t quite get the soap out.’

‘Good God, you’ll have me frothing at the mouth. Now could we be serious for a moment? Are you planning to tell all your little friends about your latest conquest?’

I said I’d never made a conquest before. ‘Have I really made one now?’

‘Well, enough of one to scare the wits out of me. None of this ought to be happening. Is it any use asking you to
be discreet? Few women are, of course – even when their own interest calls for discretion – which has made my life difficult. I don’t think my wife would mind anything as innocuous as this little interlude must remain. Still, if you gossip—’

‘She might get to hear, and think it
wasn’t
innocuous. Don’t worry. I shan’t gossip. And I’ve no wish to take you away from your wife. That would be against my principles.’

He chuckled. ‘I’m glad your aunt inculcated
some
standards. How would she have felt about your goings on tonight?’

‘She’d have been sad that you didn’t like my acting.’

‘I was referring to your highly immoral behaviour.’

I considered this, then said, ‘It can’t be immoral to love anyone – as long as one doesn’t hurt anyone by it.’

‘But suppose you hurt yourself?’

I said, ‘Oh, cheer up! Perhaps I’ll tire of you before you tire of me,’ which pleased him so much that he said, ‘To hell with my chauffeur,’ and gave me a quick kiss.

Just before we reached the Club he asked me to be especially discreet with Miss Lester. ‘She’d think it very wrong indeed. Of course she’d blame me far more than she’d blame you.’

‘How can you be to blame when I’ve thrown myself at you? Do you mind that? I’ve read that men don’t like it.’

He said that, with me, it was part of my fatal attraction; then added hastily, ‘My God, that was a dangerous thing to say! Now behave, and be ready to say a conventional good night to me.’

The car drew up. I whispered urgently, ‘Shall I see you tomorrow? Please!’

‘Yes, I’ll manage something.’

The chauffeur opened the door and helped me out. I called back, ‘Good night, Mr Crossway,’ and wondered, as I ran up the Club steps, when I should first call him ‘Rex’. But perhaps it would never be safe to, even in private, in case I slipped up in public. I would not let myself even
think
of him as ‘Rex’. I would be
absolutely
discreet.

The girls were waiting up to congratulate me. I told them I had been praised for keeping the curtain up but that Mr Crossway had thought I was all wrong for the part. (This, if not his complete verdict, was at least true.) They admitted that they saw his point but loyally went on saying I was marvellous. And Zelle had sent a message that he ought to have divorced the leading lady and married me. We did not talk for long as I said I was tired. The truth was that I had a sudden longing to tell them everything that had happened, so felt I had better remove myself from temptation.

I lay awake for hours, remembering – and finding pleasure in the knowledge that I had a secret from the five girls sleeping so close to me. That made me wonder if being discreet might not actually be fun, apart from my dear’s wishes in the matter. And it would not only mean not talking; I should need to do a lot of off-stage acting. I looked forward to that.

It began when I went into the office the next afternoon and felt I must pretend to be more unhappy than I now was about Mr Crossway’s opinion of my performance. Miss Lester determinedly cheered me up and told me of
her plan for getting rid of my ‘excess of individualism’. She wanted me to go to a drama school. I told her I couldn’t afford the fees, nor had I money to live on while I studied. She said that could all be arranged and Mr Crossway approved of her scheme and would coach me for the audition I should have to give at the school. And he would come up and talk to me about it during the afternoon.

I was on my own in the Throne Room when he arrived. He shut the door and said, ‘Talk first. Affection, if any, afterwards.’ He then told me he had agreed to Miss Lester’s idea because coaching would give him the chance to see me without arousing her suspicions. Also he was anxious to be proved wrong about my acting. ‘Besides, if you go to the school it will help you to get over this nonsense about me – as you must, you really must, my darling lunatic’

By then, his lunatic was sitting on his knee, but not for long. After one not very lingering kiss he said, ‘I will not make love to you when Miss Lester may come in any moment – or under the accusing eyes of my forefathers. Not that my father would have any right to cast a stone. He was far more disreputable than I’ve ever been.’

‘You mean with women?’

‘How worldly wise you sound! I did indeed mean with women. I fear they’re an occupational disease with actor managers. Now I mustn’t see you alone again until I start coaching you. Miss Lester’s finding out what you’ll have to do for your entrance examination.’

‘Couldn’t you drive me home tonight?’

‘I shan’t do that again for some time; people so quickly
notice that kind of thing.’ Then he said he must go and have a last run-through with the official understudy of ‘my’ part. He had already rehearsed with her, in the morning. I asked what she was like.

‘Dull, but safe – she won’t climb on any footstools. Anyway, she’ll have to play for several weeks.’

The poor girl who had been taken ill was having an operation for her appendicitis.

That night I watched my successor through the
spy-hole
. Her last scene did not get one laugh – nor did the scene that followed. Well, that was the way Mr Crossway and his leading lady wanted it, not to mention the author of the play. But I still thought it was a pity.

In a couple of days Miss Lester received particulars from the drama school. I should have to do two speeches from Shakespeare (there was a list to choose from) and one speech of my own choice from a modern play. I decided on Juliet’s potion scene, a speech of Portia’s, and a long speech of Darling Dora’s from Shaw’s
Fanny’s First Play
. I already knew all these so I was ready for coaching. Miss Lester went round to see Mr Crossway during the matinée and he said he would start the next day. The job would have to be done quickly as the school was shortly to close for the summer holidays. Normally I should not have been heard until the examinations before the autumn term, and it was only as a favour to Mr Crossway that the Principal agreed to hear me in a week.

My coaching took place in the stalls bar, not on the stage (the stage being a very un-private place). I began with Juliet’s potion speech and was instantly absorbed in it. I thought of the bar as a tomb, all Juliet’s horrors were real
for me as I lived through them, line by line, until I drank my potion and fell senseless to the floor. During the entire speech I was oblivious of Mr Crossway, so it was something of a shock to sit up and find him groaning, with his head in his hands.

All he said was: ‘Let’s have a little light relief. Try Darling Dora. Perhaps God
meant
you to be funny.’

But he thought me even worse as Darling Dora – ‘When you try to be funny, you aren’t. Well, let’s have a go at Portia. And take it calmly, quietly.’

This suited my conception of Portia – except that I thought her declaration of love for Bassanio should also be radiant. I made it
serenely
radiant. Mr Crossway told me I was both patronising and affected.

‘I simply can’t understand it,’ he said despairingly. ‘As yourself you haven’t an ounce of affectation in you; it’s your extreme naturalness that makes people take to you. And yet the minute you assume a character you’re artificial. Are you imitating anyone? Your aunt, perhaps?’

But I had to tell him that Aunt Marion had been considered a very natural actress. (I didn’t mention that she had sometimes told me my acting was exaggerated. I had never for a moment believed her.) He then wondered if I had picked up bad habits from second-rate touring companies. But I had only been taken to see first-rate ones. He finally came to the conclusion that my bad acting was inborn, like original sin.

He did, then and later, try hard to coach me, taking me through speeches, sometimes quietly talking to me about them, sometimes making me repeat lines after him. But we
got nowhere. When I stopped being what I called natural and he called affected, I became what both of us called wooden. The coaching sessions always ended by his telling me to come and be comforted; and as far as I was concerned, the comforting made up for everything.

On the day before I was due to go to the drama school he said I must forget everything he had told me and just be myself. ‘I could be wrong about you – God knows, I hope I am. They may think you’re a born actress. And so you are, in a way. But I’m afraid you’re a born
bad
actress, my darling little Tich.’ The rest of that session was entirely given over to comforting.

When I started for the drama school next day, I still was not sure whether or not I wanted to be accepted, as it would mean being away from the Crossway. But while I was waiting in the hall, reading the announcements of plays recently performed (the term had just ended) I suddenly knew that I did, very much, want to be a student here. It would give me my longed-for chance to act, lots and lots of parts. And surely I could show my dear he was wrong. He had accused me of so many things – affectation, over-acting, reciting, being a kind of single turn – and still never convinced me. I would go back to him in triumph, perhaps with a scholarship.

Soon I was conducted to a large room with a small stage at one end, where the Principal of the school and one woman teacher were waiting for me. They talked most charmingly, trying to set me at ease. This was not the school’s real theatre, just a rehearsal room, said the Principal. ‘We thought you’d find it more informal. And we wanted to know you as well as hear you.’ I liked them
greatly and felt they liked me. I went up on the little stage feeling happy and hopeful.

Portia, Juliet, Darling Dora: I did them all, in that order, and got only a quiet ‘Thank you’ after each of them. The final thank you was followed by a request that I should come and talk.

The Principal was still charming. He found things to praise: my vitality and ease of movement. The woman teacher spoke of my excellent enunciation. But I knew, almost at once, that they liked my acting no more than Mr Crossway did. And they soon began stressing how overcrowded the stage was and how few parts there were for anyone as small as I was. And the school was so full—

I said: ‘You don’t want me.’

The Principal said he did want me, would indeed love to have me – ‘But we’re so afraid it wouldn’t be fair – to you. Still, let me think it over. I’ll telephone Mr Crossway.’

He must have done so at once, because when I got back to the theatre Mr Crossway had already rung up Miss Lester.

‘They liked you so much – as a person,’ she told me. ‘And the school really is very full. Mr Crossway’s so very sorry. He says he’ll drive you home tonight and try to comfort you.’

That prospect cheered me more than she could know.

After the performance she sent me down to wait in the car. No chauffeur was to be seen and I was pleased soon to discover that he was away on holiday and Mr Crossway was driving himself. However, the pleasure of being alone with him was offset by the fact that, while driving, he could only offer verbal comfort. When I pointed this out he
laughed and said he’d try to do better – ‘But only a little better. Making love in the back of cars is not one of my habits. Still, we’ll get out of the traffic.’

He drove me up to Hampstead, where we stopped, looking down on the twinkling lights of London. But we still stayed in the front of the car and the only improvement as regards comforting was that he put his arm round my shoulders. This wasn’t, in the circumstances, enough. He had relayed his talk with the Principal most tactfully, stressing every little compli ment; but there was no getting away from the fact that I had been refused admission. And it now struck me that the coaching sessions would be at an end. Without a moment of pre-thought I said: