William Maugham: Theatre

Luncheon was announced and they went downstairs.

‘I hope you’ll have enough to eat,’ said Julia. ‘Michael and I have very small appetites.’

In point of fact there was grilled sole, grilled cutlets and spinach, and stewed fruit. It was a meal designed to satisfy legitimate hunger, but not to produce fat. The cook, warned by Margery that there was a guest to luncheon had hurriedly made some fried potatoes. They looked crisp and smelt appetizing. Only the young man took them. Julia gave them a wistful look before she shook her head in refusal. Michael stared at them gravely for a moment as though he could not quite tell what they were, and then with a little start, breaking out of a brown study, said No thank you. They sat at a refectory table, Julia and Michael at either end in very grand Italian chairs, and the young man in the middle on a chair that was not at all comfortable, but perfectly in character. Julia noticed that he seemed to be looking at the sideboard and with her engaging smile, leaned forward.

‘What is it?’

He blushed scarlet.

‘I was wondering if I might have a piece of bread.’

‘Of course.’

She gave the butler a significant glance; he was at that moment helping Michael to a glass of dry white wine, and he left the room.

‘Michael and I never eat bread. It was stupid of Jevons not to realize that you might want some.’

‘Of course bread is only a habit,’ said Michael. ‘It’s wonderful how soon you can break yourself of it if you set your mind to it.’

‘The poor lamb’s as thin as a rail, Michael.’

‘I don’t not eat bread because I’m afraid of getting fat. I don’t eat it because I see no point in it. After all, with the exercise I take I can eat anything I like.’

He still had at fifty-two a very good figure. As a young man, with a great mass of curling chestnut hair, with a wonderful skin and large deep blue eyes, a straight nose and small ears, he had been the best-looking actor on the English stage. The only thing that slightly spoiled him was the thinness of his mouth. He was just six foot tall and he had a gallant bearing. It was his obvious beauty that had engaged him to go on the stage rather than to become a soldier like his father. Now his chestnut hair was very grey, and he wore it much shorter; his face had broadened and was a good deal lined; his skin no longer had the soft bloom of a peach and his colour was high. But with his splendid eyes and his fine figure he was still a very handsome man. Since his five years at the war he had adopted a military bearing, so that if you had not known who he was (which was scarcely possible, for in one way and another his photograph was always appearing in the illustrated papers) you might have taken him for an officer of high rank. He boasted that his weight had not changed since he was twenty, and for years, wet or fine, he had got up every morning at eight to put on shorts and a sweater and have a run round Regent’s Park.

‘The secretary told me you were rehearsing this morning, Miss Lambert,’ the young man remarked. ‘Does that mean you’re putting on a new play?’

‘Not a bit of it,’ answered Michael. ‘We’re playing to capacity.’

‘Michael thought we were getting a bit ragged, so he called a rehearsal.’

‘I’m very glad I did. I found little bits of business had crept in that I hadn’t given them and a good many liberties were being taken with the text. I’m a great stickler for saying the author’s exact words, though, God knows, the words authors write nowadays aren’t much.’

‘If you’d like to come and see our play,’ Julia said graciously, ‘I’m sure Michael will be delighted to give you some seats.’

‘I’d love to come again,’ the young man answered eagerly. ‘I’ve seen it three times already.’

‘You haven’t?’ cried Julia, with surprise, though she remembered perfectly that Michael had already told her so. ‘Of course it’s not a bad little play, it’s served our purpose very well, but I can’t imagine anyone wanting to see it three times.’

‘It’s not so much the play I went to see, it was your performance.’

‘I dragged that out of him all right,’ thought Julia, and then aloud: ‘When we read the play Michael was rather doubtful about it. He didn’t think my part was very good. You know, it’s not really a star part. But I thought I could make something out of it. Of course we had to cut the other woman a lot in rehearsals.’

‘I don’t say we rewrote the play,’ said Michael, ‘but I can tell you it was a very different play we produced from the one the author submitted to us.’

‘You’re simply wonderful in it,’ the young man said.

(‘He has a certain charm.’) ‘I’m glad you liked me,’ she answered.

‘If you’re very nice to Julia I dare say she’ll give you a photograph of herself when you go.’

‘Would you?’

He blushed again and his blue eyes shone. (‘He’s really rather sweet.’) He was not particularly good-looking, but he had a frank, open face and his shyness was attractive. He had curly light brown hair, but it was plastered down and Julia thought how much better he would look if, instead of trying to smooth out the wave with brilliantine, he made the most of it. He had a fresh colour, a good skin and small well-shaped teeth. She noticed with approval that his clothes fitted and that he wore them well. He looked nice and clean.

‘I suppose you’ve never had anything to do with the theatre from the inside before?’ she said.

‘Never. That’s why I was so crazy to get this job. You can’t think how it thrills me.’

Michael and Julia smiled on him kindly. His admiration made them feel a little larger than life-size.

‘I never allow outsiders to come to rehearsals, but as you’re our accountant you almost belong to the theatre, and I wouldn’t mind making an exception in your favour if it would amuse you to come.’

‘That would be terribly kind of you. I’ve never been to a rehearsal in my life. Are you going to act in the next play?’

‘Oh, I don’t think so. I’m not very keen about acting any more. I find it almost impossible to find a part to suit me. You see, at my time of life I can’t very well play young lovers, and authors don’t seem to write the parts they used to write when I was a young fellow. What the French call a raisonneur. You know the sort of thing I mean, a duke, or a cabinet minister, or an eminent K.C. who says clever, witty things and turns people round his little finger. I don’t know what’s happened to authors. They don’t seem able to write good lines any more. Bricks without straw; that’s what we actors are expected to make nowadays. And are they grateful to us? The authors, I mean. You’d be surprised if I told you the terms some of them have, the nerve to ask.’

‘The fact remains, we can’t do without them,’ smiled Julia. ‘If the play’s wrong no acting in the world will save it.’

‘That’s because the public isn’t really interested in the theatre. In the great days of the English stage people didn’t go to see the plays, they went to see the players. It didn’t matter what Kemble and Mrs Siddons acted. The public went to see them. And even now, though I don’t deny that if the play’s wrong you’re dished, I do contend that if the play’s right, it’s the actors the public go to see, not the play.’

‘I don’t think anyone can deny that,’ said Julia.

‘All an actress like Julia wants is a vehicle. Give her that and she’ll do the rest.’

Julia gave the young man a delightful, but slightly deprecating smile.

‘You mustn’t take my husband too seriously. I’m afraid we must admit that he’s partial where I’m concerned.’