William Maugham - Theatre

‘I’m not going to wear the dress I wore in the second act. Charley Deverill has made me another.’

He did not see the slightly humorous glance she gave him, and if he had would not have guessed what it meant. Michael, having taken Julia’s advice, had gone to a good deal of trouble with Avice. He had rehearsed her by herself upstairs in his private room and had given her every intonation and every gesture. He had also, Julia had good reason to believe, lunched with her several times and taken her out to supper. The result of all this was that she was playing the part uncommonly well. Michael rubbed his hands.

‘I’m very pleased with her. I think she’ll make quite a hit. I’ve half a mind to give her a contract.’

‘I wouldn’t,’ said Julia. ‘Not till after the first night. You can never really tell how a performance is going to pan out till you’ve got an audience.’

‘She’s a nice girl and a perfect lady.’

‘A nice girl, I suppose, because she’s madly in love with you, and a perfect lady because she’s resisting your advances till she’s got a contract.’

‘Oh, my dear, don’t be so silly. Why, I’m old enough to be her father.’

But he smiled complacently. She knew very well that his love-making went no farther than holding hands and a kiss or two in a taxi, but she knew also that it nattered him to imagine that she suspected him capable of infidelity.

But now Julia, having satisfied her appetite with proper regard for her figure, attacked the subject which was on her mind.

‘Charles dear, I want to talk to you about Roger.’

‘Oh yes, he came back the other day, didn’t he? How is he?’

‘My dear, a most terrible thing has happened. He’s come back a fearful prig and I don’t know what to do about it.’

She gave him her version of the conversation. She left out one or two things that it seemed inconvenient to mention, but what she told was on the whole accurate.

‘The tragic thing is that he has absolutely no sense of humour,’ she finished.

‘After all he’s only eighteen.’

‘You could have knocked me down with a feather when he said all those things to me. I felt just like Balaam when his ass broke into light conversation.’

She gave him a gay look, but he did not even smile. He did not seem to think her remark as funny as she did.

‘I can’t imagine where he got his ideas. It’s absurd to think that he could have thought out all that nonsense for himself.’

‘Are you sure that boys of that age don’t think more than we older people imagine? It’s a sort of puberty of the spirit and its results are often strange.’

‘It seems so deceitful of Roger to have harboured thoughts like those all these years and never breathed a word about them. He might have been accusing me.’ She gave a chuckle. ‘To tell you the truth, when Roger was talking to me I felt just like Hamlet’s mother.’ Then with hardly a break: ‘I wonder if I’m too old to play Hamlet?’

‘Gertrude isn’t a very good part, is it?’

Julia broke into a laugh of frank amusement.

‘Don’t be idiotic, Charles. I wouldn’t play the Queen. I’d play Hamlet.’

‘D’you think it’s suited to a woman?’

‘Mrs Siddons played it and so did Sarah Bernhardt. It would set a seal on my career, if you know what I mean. Of course there’s the difficulty of the blank verse.’

‘I have heard actors speak it so that it was indistinguishable from prose,’ he answered.

‘Yes, but that’s not quite the same, is it?’

‘Were you nice to Roger?’

She was surprised at his going back to that subject so suddenly, but she returned to it with a smile.

‘Oh, charming.’

‘It’s hard not to be impatient with the absurdity of the young; they tell us that two and two make four as though it had never occurred to us, and they’re disappointed if we can’t share their surprise when they have just discovered that a hen lays an egg. There’s a lot of nonsense in their ranting and raving, but it’s not all nonsense. One ought to sympathize with them; one ought to do one’s best to understand. One has to remember how much has to be forgotten and how much has to be learnt when for the first time one faces life. It’s not very easy to give up one’s ideals, and the brute facts of every day are bitter pills to swallow. The spiritual conflicts of adolescence can be very severe and one can do so little to resolve them. It may be that in a year or two he’ll lose sight of the clouds of glory and accept the chain. It may be that he’ll find what he’s looking for, if not in God, then in art.’

‘I should hate him to be an actor if that’s what you mean.’

‘No, I don’t think he’ll fancy that.’

‘And of course he can’t be a playwright, he hasn’t a sense of humour.’

‘I dare say he’ll be quite content to go into the Foreign Office. It would be an asset to him there.’

‘What would you advise me to do?’

‘Nothing. Let him be. That’s probably the greatest kindness you can do him.’

‘But I can’t help being worried about him.’

‘You needn’t be. Be hopeful. You thought you’d only given birth to an ugly duckling; perhaps he’s going to turn into a white-winged swan.’

Charles was not giving Julia what she wanted. She had expected him to be more sympathetic.

‘I suppose he’s getting old, poor dear,’ she reflected. ‘He’s losing his grip of things. He must have been impotent for years; I wonder it never struck me before.’

She asked what the time was.

‘I think I ought to go. I must get a long night’s rest.’

Julia slept well and when she awoke had at once a feeling of exultation. Tonight was the first night. It gave her a little thrill of pleasure to recollect that people had already been assembling at the pit and gallery doors when she left the theatre after the dress-rehearsal, and now at ten in the morning there was probably already a long queue.

‘Lucky it’s a fine day for them, poor brutes.’

In bygone years she had been intolerably nervous before a first night. She had felt slightly sick all day and as the hours passed got into such a state that she almost thought she would have to leave the stage. But by now, after having passed through the ordeal so many times, she had acquired a certain nonchalance. Throughout the early part of the day she felt only happy and mildly excited; it was not till late in the afternoon that she began to feel ill at ease. She grew silent and wanted to be left alone. She also grew irritable, and Michael, having learnt from experience, took care to keep out of her way. Her hands and feet got cold and by the time she reached the theatre they were like lumps of ice. But still the apprehension that filled her was not unpleasant.

Julia had nothing to do that morning but go down to the Siddons for a word-rehearsal at noon, so she lay in bed till late. Michael did not come back to luncheon, having last things to do to the sets, and she ate alone. Then she went to bed and for an hour slept soundly. Her intention was to rest all the afternoon; Miss Phillips was coming at six to give her a light massage, and by seven she wanted to be at the theatre. But when she awoke she felt so much refreshed that it irked her to stay in bed, so she made up her mind to get up and go for a walk. It was a fine, sunny day. Liking the town better than the country and streets more than trees, she did not go into the Park, but sauntered round the neighbouring squares, deserted at that time of year, idly looking at the houses, and thought how much she preferred her own to any of them. She felt at ease and light-hearted. Then she thought it time to go home. She had just reached the corner of Stanhope Place when she heard her name called in a voice that she could not but recognize.