William Somerset Maugham 6 страница

years she had found his prosiness intolerable. He could describe

nothing without circumstantial detail. Nor was he only vain of his bu-

siness acumen; with advancing years he had become outrageously

vain of his person. As a youth he had taken his beauty for granted:

now he began to pay more attention to it and spared no pains to ke-

ep what was left of it. It became an obsession. He devoted anxious

care to his figure. He never ate a fattening thing and never forgot

his exercises. He consulted hair specialists when he thought his hair

was thinning, and Julia was convinced that had it been possible to

get the operation done secretly he would have had his face lifted.

He had got into the way of sitting with his chin slightly thrust out so

that the wrinkles in his neck should not show and he held himself

with an arched back to keep his belly from sagging. He could not

pass a mirror without looking into it. He hankered for compliments

and beamed with delight when he had managed to extract one.

They were food and drink to him. Julia laughed bitterly when she re-

membered that it was she who had accustomed him to them. For

years she had told him how beautiful he was and now he could not

live without flattery. It was the only chink in his armour. An actress

out of a job had only to tell him to his face that he was too handso-

me to be true for him to think that she might do for a part he had in

mind. For years, so far as Julia knew, Michael had not bothered with

women, but when he reached the middle forties he began to have

little flirtations. Julia suspected that nothing much came of them. He

was prudent, and all he wanted was admiration. She had heard that

when women became pressing he used her as a pretext to get rid of

them. Either he couldn't risk doing anything to hurt her, or she was

jealous or suspicious and it seemed better that the friendship should

cease.

" God knows what they see in him, " Julia exclaimed to the empty

room.

She took up half a dozen of his photographs at random and lo-

oked at them carefully one by one. She shrugged her shoulders.

" Well, I suppose I can't blame them. I fell in love with him too. Of

course he was better-looking in those days. "

It made Julia a little sad to think how much she had loved him. Be-

cause her love had died she felt that life had cheated her. She sig-

hed.

" And my back's aching, " she said.

THERE was a knock at the door.

" Come in, " said Julia.

Evie entered.

" Aren't you going to bed today, Miss Lambert? " She saw Julia sit-

ting on the floor surrounded by masses of photographs. " Whatever

are you doing? "

" Dreaming. " She took up two of the photographs. " Look here

upon this picture, and on this. "

One was of Michael as Mercutio in all the radiant beauty of his yo-

uth and the other of Michael in the last part he had played, in a whi-

te topper and a morning coat, with a pair of field-glasses slung over

his shoulder. He looked unbelievably self-satisfied.

Evie sniffed.

" Oh, well, it's no good crying over spilt milk. "

" I've been thinking of the past and I'm as blue as the devil. " *

" I don't wonder. When you start thinking of the past it means you

ain't got no future, don't it? "

" You shut your trap, you old cow, " said Julia, who could be very

vulgar when she chose.

" Come on now, or you'll be fit for nothing tonight. I'll clear up all

this mess. "

Evie was Julia's dresser and maid. She had come to her first at

Middlepool and had accompanied her to London. She was a cock-

ney, a thin, raddled, angular woman, with red hair which was always

untidy and looked as if it much needed washing, two of her front te-

eth were missing but, notwithstanding Julia's offer, repeated for ye-

ars, to provide her with new ones she would not have them repla-

ced.

" For the little I eat I've got all the teeth I want. It'd only fidget me

to 'ave a lot of elephant's tusks in me mouth. "

Michael had long wanted Julia at least to get a maid whose appe-

arance was more suitable to their position, and he had tried to per-

suade Evie that the work was too much for her, but Evie would not

hear of it.

" You can say what you like, Mr. Gosselyn, but no one's going to

maid Miss Lambert as long as I've got me 'ealth and strength. "

" We're all getting on, you know, Evie. We're not so young as we

were. "

Evie drew her forefinger across the base of her nostrils and snif-

fed.

" As long as Miss Lambert's young enough to play women of

twenty-five, I'm young enough to dress 'er. And maid 'er. " Evie gave

him a sharp look. " An' what d'you want to pay two lots of wages for,

when you can get the work done for one? "

Michael chuckled in his good-humoured way.

" There's something in that, Evie dear. "

She bustled Julia upstairs. When she had no matinee Julia went to

bed for a couple of hours in the afternoon and then had a light mas-

sage. She undressed now and slipped between the sheets.

" Damn, my hot water bottle's nearly stone cold. "

She looked at the clock on the chimney-piece. It was no wonder.

It must have been there an hour. She had no notion that she had

stayed so long in Michael's room, looking at those photographs and

idly thinking of the past.

" Forty-six. Forty-six. Forty-six. I shall retire when I'm sixty. At fifty-

eight South Africa and Australia. Michael says we can clean up the-

re. Twenty thousand pounds. I can play all my old parts. Of course

even at sixty I could play women of forty-five. But what about parts?

Those bloody dramatists. "

Trying to remember any plays in which there was a first-rate part

for a woman of five-and-forty she fell asleep. She slept soundly till

Evie came to awake her because the masseuse was there. Evie bro-

ught her the evening paper, and Julia, stripped, while the masseuse

rubbed her long slim legs and her belly, putting on her spectacles,

read the same theatrical intelligence she had read that morning, the

gossip column and the woman's page. Presently Michael came in

and sat on her bed. He often came at that hour to have a little chat

with her.

" Well, what was his name? " asked Julia.

" Whose name? "

" The boy who came to lunch? "

" I haven't a notion. I drove him back to the theatre. I never gave

him another thought. "

Miss Phillips, the masseuse, liked Michael. You knew where you

were with him. He always said the same things and you knew

exactly what to answer. No side to him. And terribly good-looking.

My word.

" Well, Miss Phillips, fat coming off nicely? "

" Oh, Mr. Gosselyn, there's not an ounce of fat on Miss Lambert. I

think it's wonderful the way she keeps her figure. "

" Pity I can't have you to massage me, Miss Phillips. You might be

able to do something about mine. "

" How you talk, Mr. Gosselyn. Why, you've got the figure of a boy

of twenty. I dont' know how you do it, upon my word I don't. "

" Plain living and high thinking, Miss Phillips. "

Julia was paying no attention to what they said but Miss Phillips's

reply reached her.

" Of course there's nothing like massage, I always say that, but

you've got to be careful of your diet. That there's no doubt about at

all. "

" Diet! " she thought. " When I'm sixty I shall let myself go. I shall

eat all the bread and butter I like. I'll have hot rolls for breakfast, I'll

have potatoes for lunch and potatoes for dinner. And beer. God, how

I like beer. Pea soup and tomato soup; treacle pudding and cherry

tart. Cream, cream, cream. And so help me God, I'll never eat spi-

nach again as long as I live. "

When the massage was finished Evie brought her a cup of tea, a

slice of ham from which the fat had been cut, and some dry toast.

Julia got up, dressed, and went down with Michael to the theatre.

She liked to be there an hour before the curtain rang up. Michael

went on to dine at his club. Evie had preceded her in a cab and

when she got into her dressing-room everything was ready for her.

She undressed once more and put on a dressing-gown. As she sat

down at her dressing-table to make up she noticed some fresh flo-

wers in a vase.

" Hulloa, who sent them? Mrs. de Vries? " Dolly always sent her a

huge basket on her first nights, and on the hundredth night, and the

two hundredth if there was one, and in between, whenever she or-

dered flowers for her own house, had some sent to Julia.

" No, miss. "

" Lord Charles? "

Lord Charles Tamerley was the oldest and the most constant of

Julia's admirers, and when he passed a florist's he was very apt to

drop in and order some roses for her.

" Here's the card, " said Evie.

Julia looked at it. Mr. Thomas Fennell. Tavistock Square.

" What a place to live. Who the hell d'you suppose he is, Evie? "

" Some feller knocked all of a heap by your fatal beauty, I expect. "

" They must have cost all of a pound. Tavistock Square doesn't lo-

ok very prosperous to me. For all you know he may have gone wit-

hout his dinner for a week to buy them. "

" I don't think. "

Julia plastered her face with grease paint.

" You're so damned unromantic, Evie. Just because I'm not a cho-

rus girl you can't understand why anyone should send me flowers.

And God knows, I've got better legs than most of them. "

" You and your legs, " said Evie.

" Well, I don't mind telling you I think it's a bit of all right having an

unknown young man sending me flowers at my time of life. I mean it

just shows you. "

" If he saw you now 'e wouldn't, not if I know anything about men. "

" Go to hell, " said Julia.

But when she was made up to her satisfaction, and Evie had put

on her stockings and her shoes, having a few minutes still to spare

she sat down at her desk and in her straggling bold hand wrote to

Mr. Thomas Fennell a gushing note of thanks for his beautiful flo-

wers. She was naturally polite and it was, besides, a principle with

her to answer all fan letters. That was how she kept in touch with

her public. Having addressed the envelope she threw the card in the

wastepaper basket and was ready to slip into her first act dress. The

call-boy came round knocking at the dressing-room doors.

" Beginners, please. "

Those words, though heaven only knew how often she had heard

them, still gave her a thrill. They braced her like a tonic. Life acqu-

ired significance. She was about to step from the world of make-beli-

eve into the world of reality.

NEXT day Julia had luncheon with Charles Tamerley. His father,

the Marquess of Dennorant, had married an heiress and he had in-

herited a considerable fortune. Julia often went to the luncheon par-

ties he was fond of giving at his house in Hill Street. At the bottom

of her heart she had a profound contempt for the great ladies and

the noble lords she met there, because she was a working woman

and an artist, but she knew the connexion was useful. It enabled

them to have first nights at the Siddons which the papers described

as brilliant, and when she was photographed at week-end parties

among a number of aristocratic persons she knew that it was good

publicity. There were one or two leading ladies, younger than she,

who did not like her any better because she called at least two duc-

hesses by their first names. This caused her no regret. Julia was not

a brilliant conversationalist, but her eyes were so bright, her manner

so intelligent, that once she had learnt the language of society she

passed for a very amusing woman. She had a great gift of mimicry,

which ordinarily she kept in check thinking it was bad for her acting,

but in these circles she turned it to good accout and by means of it

acquired the reputation of a wit. She was pleased that they liked

her, these smart, idle women, but she laughed at them up her sle-

eve because they were dazzled by her glamour. She wondered what

they would think if they really knew how unromantic the life of a

successful actress was, the hard work it entailed, the constant care

one had to take of oneself and the regular, monotonous habits

which were essential. But she good-naturedly offered them advice

on make-up and let them copy her clothes. She was always beauti-

fully dressed. Even Michael, fondly thinking she got her clothes for

nothing, did not know how much she really spent on them.

Morally she had the best of both worlds. Everyone knew that her

marriage with Michael was exemplary. She was a pattern of conjugal

fidelity. At the same time many people in that particular set were

convinced that she was Charles Tamerley's mistress. It was an affair

that was supposed to have been going on so long that it had acqu-

ired respectability, and tolerant hostesses when they were asked to

the same house for a week-end gave them adjoining rooms. This be-

lief had been started by Lady Charles, from whom Charles Tamerley

had been long separated, and in point of fact there was not a word

of truth in it. The only foundation for it was that Charles had been

madly in love with her for twenty years, and it was certainly on

Julia's account that the Tamerleys, who had never got on very well,

agreed to separate. It was indeed Lady Charles who had first bro-

ught Julia and Charles together. They happened, all three, to be

lunching at Dolly de Vries's when Julia, a young actress, had made

her first great success in London. It was a large party and she was

being made much of Lady Charles, a woman of over thirty then, who

had the reputation of being a beauty, though except for her eyes

she had not a good feature, but by a sort of brazen audacity mana-

ged to produce an effective appearance, leant across the table with

a gracious smile.

" Oh, Miss Lambert, I think I used to know your father in Jersey. He

was a doctor, wasn't he? He used to come to our house quite often. "

Julia felt a slight sickness in the pit of her stomach; she remembe-

red now who Lady Charles was before she married, and she saw the

trap that was being set for her. She gave a rippling laugh.

" Not at all, " she answered. " He was a vet. He used to go to your

house to deliver the bitches. The house was full of them. "

Lady Charles for a moment did not quite know what to say.

" My mother was very fond of dogs, " she answered.

Julia was glad that Michael was not there. Poor lamb, he would ha-

ve been terribly mortified. He always referred to her father as Dr.

Lambert, pronouncing it as though it were a French name, and when

soon after the war he died and her mother went to live with her wi-

dowed sister at St. Malo he began to speak of her as Madame de

Lambert. At the beginning of her career Julia had been somewhat

sensitive on the point, but when once she was established as a gre-

at actress she changed her mind. She was inclined, especially

among the great, to insist on the fact that her father had been a vet.

She could not quite have explained why, but she felt that by so do-

ing she put them in their place.

But Charles Tamerley knew that his wife had deliberately tried to

humiliate the young woman, and angered, went out of his way to be

nice to her. He asked her if he might be allowed to call and brought

her some beautiful flowers.

He was then a man of nearly forty, with a small head on an ele-

gant body, not very good-looking but of distinguished appearance.

He looked very well-bred, which indeed he was, and he had exquisi-

te manners. He was an amateur of the arts. He bought modern pic-

tures and collected old furniture. He was a lover of music and exce-

edingly well read. At first it amused him to go to the tiny flat off the

Buckingham Palace Road in which these two young actors lived. He

saw that they were poor and it excited him to get into touch with

what he fondly thought was Bohemia. He came several times and

he thought it quite an adventure when they asked him to have a

luncheon with them which was cooked and served by a scarecrow of

a woman whom they called Evie. This was life. He did not pay much

attention to Michael who seemed to him, notwithstanding his too ob-

vious beauty, a somewhat ordinary young man, but he was taken by

Julia. She had a warmth, a force of character, and a bubbling vitality

which were outside his experience. He went to see her act several

times and compared her performance with his recollections of the

great foreign actresses. It seemed to him that she had in her somet-

hing quite individual. Her magnetism was incontestable. It gave him

quite a thrill to realize on a sudden that she had genius.

" Another Siddons perhaps. A greater Ellen Terry. "

In those days Julia did not think it necessary to go to bed in the

afternoons, she was as strong as a horse and never tired, so he used

often to take her for walks in the Park. She felt that he wanted her

to be a child of nature. That suited her very well. It was no effort for

her to be ingenuous, frank and girlishly delighted with everything.

He took her to the National Gallery, and the Tate, and the British

Museum, and she really enjoyed it almost as much as she said. He

liked to impart information and she was glad to receive it. She had a

retentive memory and learnt a great deal from him. If later she was

able to talk about Proust and Cezanne with the best of them, so that

you were surprised and pleased to find so much culture in an act-

ress, it was to him she owed it. She knew that he had fallen in love

with her some time before he knew it himself. She found it rather

comic. From her standpoint he was a middle-aged man, and she tho-

ught of him as a nice old thing. She was madly in love with Michael.

When Charles realized that he loved her his manner changed a little,

he seemed struck with shyness and when they were together was

often silent.

" Poor lamb, " she said to herself, " he's such a hell of a gentleman

he doesn't know what to do about it. "

But she had already prepared her course of conduct for the decla-

ration which she felt he would sooner or later bring himself to make.

One thing she was going to make quite clear to him. She wasn't go-

ing to let him think that because he was a lord and she was an act-

ress he had only to beckon and she would hop into bed with him. If

he tried that sort of thing she'd play the outraged tieroine on him,

with the outflung arm and the index extended in the same line, as

Jane Taitbout had taught tier to make the gesture, pointed at the do-

or. On the other hand if he was shattered and tongue-tied, she'd be

ill tremulous herself, sobs in the voice and all that, and she'd say it

had never dawned on her that he felt like that about her, and no, no,

it would break Michael's leart. They'd have a good cry together and

then everything would be all right. With his beautiful manners she

could count upon him not making a nuisance of himself when she

had once got it into his head that there was nothing doing. But when

it happened it did not turn out in the least as she had expected.

Charles Tamerley and Julia had been for a walk in St. James's Park,

they had looked at the pelicans, and the scene suggesting it, they

had discussed the possibility of her playing Millamant on a Sunday

evening. They went back to Julia's flat to have a cup of tea. They

shared a crumpet. * Then Charles got up to go. He took a miniature

out of his pocket and gave it to her.

" It's a portrait of Clairon. She was an eighteenth-century actress

and she had many of your gifts. "

Julia looked at the pretty, clever face, with the powdered hair, and

wondered whether the stones that framed the little picture were di-

amonds or only paste.

" Oh, Charles, how can you! You are sweet. "

" I thought you might like it. It's by way of being a parting pre-

sent. "

" Are you going away? "

She was surprised, for he had said nothing about it. He looked at

her with a faint smile.

" No. But I'm not going to see you any more. "

" Why? "

" I think you know just as well as I do. "

Then Julia did a disgraceful thing. She sat down and for a minute

looked silently at the miniature. Timing it perfectly, she raised her

eyes till they met Charles's. She could cry almost at will, it was one

of her most telling accomplishments, and now without a sound, wit-

hout a sob, the tears poured down her cheeks. With her mouth

slightly open, with the look in her eyes of a child that has been de-

eply hurt and does not know why, the effect was unbearably pathe-

tic. His face was crossed by a twinge of agony. When he spoke his

voice was hoarse with emotion.

" You're in love with Michael, aren't you? "

She gave a little nod. She tightened her lips as though she were

trying to control herself, but the tears rolled down her cheeks.

" There's no chance for me at all? " He waited for some answer

from her, but she gave none, she raised her hand to her mouth and

seemed to bite a nail, and still she stared at him with those stre-

aming eyes. " Don't you know what torture it is to go on seeing you?

D'you want me to go on seeing you? "

Again she gave a little nod.

" Clara's making me scenes about you. She's found out I'm in love

with you. It's only common sense that we shouldn't see one another

any more. "

This time Julia slightly shook her head. She gave a sob. She leant

back in the chair and turned her head aside. Her whole body se-

emed to express the hopelessness of her grief. Flesh and blood co-

uldn't stand it. Charles stepped forward and sinking to his knees to-

ok that broken woebegone body in his arms.

" For God's sake don't look so unhappy. I can't bear it. Oh, Julia,

Julia, I love you so much, I can't make you so miserable. I'll accept

anything. I'll make no demands on you. "

She turned her tear-stained face to him (" God, what a sight I must

look now" ) and gave him her lips. He kissed her tenderly. It was the

first time he had ever kissed her.

" I don't want to lose you, " she muttered huskily.

" Darling, darling! "

" It'll be just as it was before? "

" Just. "

She gave a deep sigh of contentment and for a minute or two res-

ted in his arms. When he went away she got up and looked in the

glass.

" You rotten bitch, " she said to herself.

But she giggled as though she were not in the least ashamed and

then went into the bathroom to wash her face and eyes. She felt

wonderfully exhilarated. She heard Michael come in and called out

to him.

" Michael, look at that miniature Charles has just given me. It's on

the chimney-piece. Are those diamonds or paste? "

Julia was somewhat nervous when Lady Charles left her husband.

She threatened to bring proceedings for divorce, and Julia did not at

all like the idea of appearing as intervener. For two or three weeks

she was very jittery. She decided to say nothing to Michael till it was

necessary, and she was glad she had not, for in due course it appe-

ared that the threats had been made only to extract more substanti-

al alimony from the innocent husband. Julia managed Charles with

wonderful skill. It was understood between them that her great love

for Michael made any close relation between them out of the questi-

on, but so far as the rest was concerned he was everything to her,

her friend, her adviser, her confidant, the man she could rely on in

any emergency or go to for comfort in any disappointment. It was a

little more difficult when Charles, with his fine sensitiveness, saw

that she was no longer in love with Michael. Then Julia had to exerci-

se a great deal of tact. It was not that she had any scruples about

being his mistress; if he had been an actor who loved her so much

and had loved her so long she would not have minded popping into