William Maugham - Theatre

She said good-bye to her mother and to Aunt Carrie. They had been very kind to her, but she had an inkling that they would not be sorry when her departure allowed them to return to the life she had interrupted. They were a little relieved besides to know that now there was no more danger of some eccentricity, such as you must always run the risk of with an actress, which might arouse the unfavourable comment of the ladies of St Malo.

She arrived in Paris in the afternoon, and when she was shown into her suite at the Ritz, she gave a sigh of satisfaction. It was a treat to get back to luxury. Three or four people had sent her flowers. She had a bath and changed. Charley Deverill, who always made her clothes for her, an old friend, called to take her to dinner in the Bois.

‘I had a wonderful time,’ she told him, ‘and of course it was a grand treat for those old girls to have me there, but I have a feeling that if I’d stayed a day longer I should have been bored.’

To drive up the Champs Elysees on that lovely evening filled her with exhilaration. It was good to smell once more the smell of petrol. The cars, the taxis, the hooting of horns, the chestnut trees, the street lights, the crowd on the pavement and the crowd sitting outside the cafés; it was an enchantment. And when they got to the Château de Madrid, so gay, so civilized and so expensive, it was grand to see once more well-dressed women, decently made-up, and tanned men in dinner-jackets.

‘I feel like a queen returning from exile.’

Julia spent several happy days choosing her clothes and having the first fittings. She enjoyed every moment of them. But she was a woman of character, and when she had come to a decision she adhered to it; before leaving for London she wrote a note to Charles. He had been to Goodwood and Cowes and was spending twenty-four hours in London on his way to Salzburg.

CHARLES DEAR,

How wonderful that I shall see you so soon. Of course I am free on Wednesday. Shall we dine together and do you love me still?

As she stuck down the envelope she murmured: Bis dat qui cito dat. It was a Latin tag that Michael always quoted when, asked to subscribe to a charity, he sent by return of post exactly half what was expected of him.

ON Wednesday morning Julia had her face massaged and her hair waved. She could not make up her mind whether to wear for dinner a dress of flowered organdie, very pretty and springlike with its suggestion of Botticelli’s Primavera, or one of white satin beautifully cut to show off her slim young figure, and virginal; but while she was having her bath she decided on the white satin: it indicated rather delicately that the sacrifice she intended was in the nature of an expiation for her long ingratitude to Michael. She wore no jewels but a string of pearls and a diamond bracelet; besides her wedding-ring only one square-cut diamond. She would have liked to put on a slight brown tan, it looked open-air-girl and suited her, but reflecting on what lay before her she refrained. She could not very well, like the actor who painted himself black all over to play Othello, tan her whole body. Always a punctual woman, she came downstairs as the front door was being opened for Charles. She greeted him with a look into which she put tenderness, a roguish charm and intimacy. Charles now wore his thinning grey hair rather long, and with advancing years his intellectual, distinguished features had sagged a little; he was slightly bowed and his clothes looked as though they needed pressing.

‘Strange world we live in,’ thought Julia. ‘Actors do their damnedest to look like gentlemen and gentlemen do all they can to look like actors.’

There was no doubt that she was making a proper effect on him. He gave her the perfect opening.

‘Why are you looking so lovely tonight?’ he asked.

‘Because I’m looking forward to dining with you.’

With her beautiful, expressive eyes she looked deep into his. She parted her lips in the manner that she found so seductive in Romney’s portraits of Lady Hamilton.

They dined at the Savoy. The head waiter gave them a table on the gangway so that they were admirably in view. Though everyone was supposed to be out of town the grill-room was well filled. Julia bowed and smiled to various friends of whom she caught sight. Charles had much to tell her; she listened to him with flattering interest.

‘You are the best company in the world, Charles,’ she told him.

They had come late, they dined well, and by the time Charles had finished his brandy people were already beginning to come in for supper.

‘Good gracious, are the theatres out already?’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘How quickly the time flies when I’m with you. D’you imagine they want to get rid of us?’

‘I don’t feel a bit like going to bed.’

‘I suppose Michael will be getting home presently?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Why don’t you come back to my house and have a talk?’

That was what she called taking a cue.

‘I’d love it,’ she answered, putting into her tone the slight blush which she felt would have well become her cheek.

They got into his car and drove to Hill Street. He took her into his study. It was on the ground floor and looked on a tiny garden. The french windows were wide open. They sat down on a sofa.

‘Put out some of the lights and let the night into the room,’ said Julia. She quoted from The Merchant of Venice. ‘“ In such a night as this, when the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees…”’

Charles switched off everything but one shaded lamp, and when he sat down again she nestled up to him. He put his arm rould her waist and she rested her head on his shoulder.

‘This is heaven,’ she murmured.

‘I’ve missed you terribly all these months.’

‘Did you get into mischief?’

‘Well, I bought an Ingres drawing and paid a lot of money for it. I must show it you before you go.’

‘Don’t forget. Where have you put it?’

She had wondered from the moment she got into the house whether the seduction would take place in the study or upstairs.

‘In my bedroom,’ he answered.

‘That’s much more comfortable really,’ she reflected.

She laughed in her sleeve as she thought of poor old Charles devising a simple little trick like that to get her into his bedroom. What mugs men were! Shy, that was what was the matter with them. A sudden pang shot through her heart as she thought of Tom. Damn Tom. Charles really was very sweet and she was determined to reward him at last for his long devotion.

‘You’ve been a wonderful friend to me, Charles,’ she said in her low, rather husky voice. She turned a little so that her face was very near his, her lips, again like Lady Hamilton’s, slightly open. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t always been very kind to you.’

She looked so deliciously yielding, a ripe peach waiting to be picked, that it seemed inevitable that he should kiss her. Then she would twine her soft white arms round his neck. But he only smiled.

‘You mustn’t say that. You’ve been always divine.’

(‘He’s afraid, poor lamb.’) ‘I don’t think anyone has ever been so much in love with me as you were.’

He gave her a little squeeze.

‘I am still. You know that. There’s never been any woman but you in my life.’

Since, however, he did not take the proffered lips she slightly turned. She looked reflectively at the electric fire. Pity it was unlit. The scene wanted a fire.

‘How different everything would have been if we’d bolted that time. Heigh-ho.’

She never quite knew what heigh-ho meant, but they used it a lot on the stage, and said with a sigh it always sounded very sad.