William Somerset Maugham 9 страница

there. Julia was to come up for her performances and Michael when

business needed it, but she would have the day in the country and

Sundays. Tom had a fortnight's holiday; he accepted the invitation

with alacrity.

But one day Julia noticed that he was unusually silent. He looked

pale and his buoyant spirits had deserted him. She knew that so-

mething was wrong, but he would not tell her what it was; he would

only say that he was worried to death. At last she forced him to con-

fess that he had got into debt and was being dunned by tradesmen.

The life into which she had led him had made him spend more mo-

ney than he could afford, and ashamed of his cheap clothes at the

grand parties to which she took him, he had gone to an expensive

tailor and ordered himself new suits. He had backed a horse* hoping

to make enough money to get square and the horse was beaten. To

Julia it was a very small sum that he owed, a hundred and twenty-fi-

ve pounds, and she found it absurd that anyone should allow a trifle

like that to upset him. She said at once that she would give it to

him.

" Oh, I couldn't. I couldn't take money from a woman. "

He went scarlet; the mere thought of it made him ashamed. Julia

used all her arts of cajolery. * She reasoned, she pretended to be af-

fronted, she even cried a little, and at last as a great favour he con-

sented to borrow the money from her. Next day she sent him a let-

ter in which were bank notes to the value of two hundred pounds.

He rang her up and told her that she had sent far more than he wan-

ted.

" Oh, I know people always lie about their debts, " she said with a

laugh. " I'm sure you owe more than you said. "

" I promise you I don't. You're the last person I'd lie to. "

" Then keep the rest for anything that turns up. I hate seeing you

pay the bill when we go out to supper. And taxis and all that sort of

thing. "

" No, really. It's so humiliating. "

" What nonsense! You know I've got more money than I know

what to do with. Can you grudge me the happiness it gives me to

get you out of a hole? "

" It's awfully kind of you. You don't know what a relief it is. I don't

know how to thank you. "

But his voice was troubled. Poor lamb, he was so conventional.

But it was true, it gave her a thrill she had never known before to gi-

ve him money; it excited in her a surprising passion. And she had

another scheme in her head which during the fortnight Tom was to

spend at Taplow she thought she could easily work. Tom's bed-sit-

ting room in Tavistock Square had at first seemed to her charming

in its sordidness, and the humble furniture had touched her heart.

But time had robbed it of these moving characteristics. Once or twi-

ce she had met people on the stairs and thought they stared at her

strangely. There was a slatternly housekeeper who made Tom's ro-

om and cooked his breakfast, and Julia had a feeling that she knew

what was going on and was spying on her. Once the locked door had

been tried while Julia was in the room, and when she went out the

housekeeper was dusting the banisters. She gave Julia a sour look.

Julia hated the smell of stale food that hung about the stairs and

with her quick eyes she soon discovered that Tom's room was none

too clean. The dingy curtains, the worn carpet, the shoddy furniture;

it all rather disgusted her. Now it happened that a little while before,

Michael, always on the look out for a good investment, had bought a

block of garages near Stanhope Place. By letting off those he did not

want he found that he could get their own for nothing. There were a

number of rooms over. He divided them into two small flats, one for

their chauffeur and one which he proposed to let. This was still va-

cant and Julia suggested to Tom that he should take it. It would be

wonderful. She could slip along and see him for an hour when he got

back from the office; sometimes she could drop in after the theatre

and no one would be any the wiser. They would be free there. She

talked to him of the fun they would have furnishing it; she was sure

they had lots of things in their house that they did not want, and by

storing them he would be doing them a kindness. The rest they wo-

uld buy together. He was tempted by the idea of having a flat of his

own, but it was out of the question; the rent, though small, was be-

yond his means. Julia knew that. She knew also that if she offered to

pay it herself he would indignantly refuse. But she had a notion that

during that idle, luxurious fortnight by the river she would be able to

overcome his scruples. She saw how much the idea tempted him,

and she had little doubt that she could devise some means to persu-

ade him that by falling in with her proposal he was really doing her a

service.

" People don't want reasons to do what they'd like to, " she reflec-

ted. " They want excuses. "

Julia looked forward to Tom's visit to Taplow with excitement. It

would be lovely to go on the river with him in the morning and in the

afternoon sit about the garden with him. With Roger in the house

she was determined that there should be no nonsense between her

and Tom; decency forbade. But it would be heaven to spend nearly

all day with him. When she had matinees he could amuse himself

with Roger.

But things did not turn out at all as she expected. It had never oc-

curred to her that Roger and Tom would take a great fancy to one

another. There were five years between them and she thought, or

would have if she had thought about it at all, that Tom would look

upon Roger as a hobbledehoy, * quite nice of course, but whom you

treated as such, who fetched and carried for you and whom you told

to go and play when you did not want to be bothered with him. Ro-

ger was seventeen. He was a nice-looking boy, with reddish hair and

blue eyes, but that was the best you could say of him. He had neit-

her his mother's vivacity and changing expression nor his father's

beauty of feature. Julia was somewhat disappointed in him. As a

child when she had been so constantly photographed with him he

was lovely. He was rather stolid now and he had a serious look. Re-

ally when you came to examine him his only good features were his

teeth and his hair. Julia was very fond of him, but she could not but

find him a trifle dull. When she was alone with him the time hung so-

mewhat heavily on her hands. She exhibited a lively interest in the

things she supposed must interest him, cricket and such like, but he

did not seem to have much to say about them. She was afraid he

was not very intelligent.

" Of course he's young, " she said hopefully. " Perhaps he'll improve

as he grows older. "

From the time that he first went to his preparatory school she had

seen little of him. During the holidays she was always acting at night

and he went out with his father or with a boy friend, and on Sundays

he and his father played golf together. If she happened to be lunc-

hing out it often happened that she did not see him for two or three

days together except for a few minutes in the morning when he ca-

me to her room. It was a pity he could not always have remained a

sweetly pretty little boy who could play in her room without distur-

bing her and be photographed, smiling into the camera, with his

arm round her neck. She went down to see him at Eton occasionally

and had tea with him. It flattered her that there were several pho-

tographs of her in his room. She was conscious that when she went

to Eton it created quite a little excitement, and Mr. Brackenbridge,

in whose house he was, made a point of being very polite to her.

When the half ended Michael and Julia had already moved to Taplow

and Roger came straight there. Julia kissed him emotionally. He was

not so much excited at getting home as she had expected him to

be. He was rather casual. He seemed suddenly to have grown very

sophisticated.

He told Julia at once that he desired to leave Eton at Christmas,

he thought he had got everything out of it that he could, and he

wanted to go to Vienna for a few months and learn German before

going up to Cambridge. Michael had wished him to go into the army,

but this he had set his face against. He did not yet know what he

wanted to be. Both Julia and Michael had from the first been obses-

sed by the fear that he would go on the stage, but for this appa-

rently he had no inclination.

" Anyhow he wouldn't be any good, " said Julia.

He led his own life. He went out on the river and lay about the

garden reading. On his seventeenth birthday Julia had given him a

very smart roadster, and in this he careered about the country at

breakneck speeds.

" There's one comfort, " said Julia. " He's no bother. He seems quite

capable of amusing himself. "

On Sundays they had a good many people down for the day, ac-

tors and actresses, an occasional writer, and a sprinkling of some of

their grander friends. Julia found these parties very amusing and she

knew that people liked to come to them. On the first Sunday after

Roger's arrival there was a great mob. Roger was very polite to the

guests. He did his duty as part host like a man of the world. But it

seemed to Julia that he held himself in some curious way aloof, as

though he were playing a part in which he had not lost himself, and

she had an uneasy feeling that he was not accepting all these peop-

le, but coolly judging them. She had an impression that he took no-

ne of them very seriously.

Tom had arranged to come on the following Saturday and she

drove him down after the theatre. It was a moonlit night and at that

hour the roads were empty. The drive was enchanting. Julia would

have liked it to go on for ever. She nestled against him and every

now and then in the darkness he kissed her.

" Are you happy? " she asked.

" Absolutely. "

Michael and Roger had gone to bed, but supper was waiting for

them in the dining-room. The silent house gave them the feeling of

being there without leave. They might have been a couple of wan-

derers who had strolled out of the night into a strange house and fo-

und a copious repast laid out for them. It was romantic. It had a little

the air of a tale in the Arabian Nights. Julia showed him his room,

which was next door to Roger's, and then went to bed. She did not

wake till late next morning. It was a lovely day. So that she might

have Tom all to herself she had not asked anybody down. When she

was dressed they would go on the river together. She had her break-

fast and her bath. She put on a little white frock that suited the

sunny riverside and her, and a large-brimmed red straw hat whose

colour threw a warm glow on her face. She was very little made-up.

She looked at herself in the glass and smiled with satisfaction. She

really looked very pretty and young. She strolled down into the gar-

den. There was a lawn that stretched down to the river, and here

she saw Michael surrounded by the Sunday papers. He was alone.

" I thought you'd gone to play golf. "

" No, the boys have gone. I thought they'd have more fun if I let

them go alone. " He smiled in his friendly way. " They're a bit too acti-

ve for me. They were bathing at eight o'clock this morning, and as

soon as they'd swallowed their breakfast they bolted off in Roger's

car. "

" I'm glad they've made friends. "

Julia meant it. She was slightly disappointed that she would not

be able to go on the river with Tom, but she was anxious that Roger

should like him, she had a feeling that Roger did not like people in-

discriminately; and after all she had the next fortnight to be with

Tom.

" They make me feel damned middle-aged, I don't mind telling you

that, " Michael remarked.

" What nonsense. You're much more beautiful than either of them,

and well you know it, my pet. "

Michael thrust out his jaw a little and pulled in his belly.

The boys did not come back till luncheon was nearly ready.

" Sorry we're so late, " said Roger. " There was a filthy crowd and

we had to wait on nearly every tee. * We halved the match. "

They were hungry and thirsty, excited and pleased with themsel-

ves.

" It's grand having no one here today, " said Roger. " I was afraid

you'd got a whole gang coming and we'd have to behave like little

gentlemen. "

" I thought a rest would be rather nice, " said Julia.

Roger gave her a glance.

" It'll do you good, mummy. You're looking awfully fagged. "

(" Blast his eyes. No, I mustn't show I mind. Thank God, I can act. " )

She laughed gaily.

" I had a sleepless night wondering what on earth we were going

to do about your spots. "

" I know, aren't they sickening? Tom says he used to have them

too. "

Julia looked at Tom. In his tennis shirt open at the neck, with his

hair ruffled, his face already caught by the sun, he looked incredibly

young. He really looked no older than Roger.

" Anyhow, his nose is going to peel, " Roger went on with a chuck-

le. " He'll look a sight then. "

Julia felt slightly uneasy. It seemed to her that Tom had shed the

years so that he was become not only in age Roger's contemporary.

They talked a great deal of nonsense. They ate enormously and

drank tankards of beer. Michael, eating and drinking as sparingly as

usual, watched them with amusement. He was enjoying their youth

and their high spirits. He reminded Julia of an old dog lying in the

sun and gently beating his tail on the ground as he looked at a pair

of puppies gambolling about him. They had coffee on the lawn. Julia

found it very pleasant to sit there in the shade, looking at the river.

Tom was slim and graceful in his long white trousers. She had never

seen him smoke a pipe before. She found it strangely touching. But

Roger mocked him.

" Do you smoke it because it makes you feel manly or because

you like it? "

" Shut up, " said Tom.

" Finished your coffee? "

" Yes. "

" Come on then, let's go on the river. "

Tom gave her a doubtful look. Roger saw it.

" Oh, it's all right, you needn't bother about my respected parents,

they've got the Sunday papers. Mummy's just given me a racing

punt. " *

(" I must keep my temper. I must keep my temper. Why was I such

a fool as to give him a racing punt? " )

" All right, " she said, with an indulgent smile, " go on the river, but

don't fall in. "

" It won't hurt us if we do. We'll be back for tea. Is the court mar-

ked out, daddy? We're going to play tennis after tea. "

" I dare say your father can get hold of somebody and you can ha-

ve a four. "

" Oh, don't bother. Singles are better fun really and one gets more

exercise. " Then to Tom. " I'll race you to the boathouse. "

Tom leapt to his feet and dashed off with Roger in quick pursuit.

Michael took up one of the papers and looked for his spectacles.

" They've clicked all right, haven't they? "

" Apparently. "

" I was afraid Roger would be rather bored alone here with us. It'll

be fine for him to have someone to play around with. "

" Don't you think Roger's rather inconsiderate? "

" You mean about the tennis? Oh, my dear, I don't really care if I

play or not. It's only natural that those two boys should want to play

together. From their point of view I'm an old man, and they think I'll

spoil their game. After all the great thing is that they should have a

good time. "

Julia had a pang of remorse. Michael was prosy, near with his mo-

ney, self-complacent, but how extraordinarily kind he was and how

unselfish! He was devoid of envy. It gave him a real satisfaction, so

long as it did not cost money, to make other people happy. She read

his mind like an open book. It was true that he never had any but a

commonplace thought; on the other hand he never had a shameful

one. It was exasperating that with so much to make him worthy of

her affection, she should be so excruciatingly bored by him.

" I think you're a much better man than I am a woman, my sweet, "

she said.

He gave her his good, friendly smile and slightly shook his head.

" No, dear, I had a wonderful profile, but you've got genius. "

Julia giggled. There was a certain fun to be got out of a man who

never knew what you were talking about. But what did they mean

when they said an actress had genius? Julia had often asked herself

what it was that had placed her at last head and shoulders above

her contemporaries. She had had detractors. At one time people had

compared her unfavourably with some actress or other who at the

moment enjoyed the public favour, but now no one disputed her

supremacy. It was true that she had not the world-wide notoriety of

the film-stars; she had tried her luck on the pictures, but had achi-

eved no success; her face on the stage so mobile and expressive for

some reason lost on the screen, and after one trial she had with Mic-

hael's approval refused to accept any of the offers that were from ti-

me to time made her. She had got a good deal of useful publicity

out of her dignified attitude. But Julia did not envy the film-stars;

they came and went; she stayed. When it was possible she went to

see the performance of actresses who played leading parts on the

London stage. She was generous in her praise of them and her pra-

ise was sincere. Sometimes she honestly thought them so very good

that she could not understand why people made so much fuss over

her. She was much too intelligent not to know in what estimation

the public held her, but she was modest about herself. It always

surprised her when people raved over something she had done that

came to her so naturally that she had never thought it possible to do

anything else. The critics admired her variety. They praised especi-

ally her capacity for insinuating herself into a part. She was not awa-

re that she deliberately observed people, but when she came to

study a new part vague recollections surged up in her from she

knew not where, and she found that she knew things about the cha-

racter she was to represent that she had had no inkling of. It helped

her to think of someone she knew or even someone she had seen in

the street or at a party; she combined with this recollection her own

personality, and thus built up a character founded on fact but enric-

hed with her experience, her knowledge of technique and her ama-

zing magnetism. People thought that she only acted during the two

or three hours she was on the stage; they did not know that the cha-

racter she was playing dwelt in the back of her mind all day long,

when she was talking to others with all the appearance of attention,

or in whatever business she was engaged. It often seemed to her

that she was two persons, the actress, the popular favourite, the

best-dressed woman in London, and that was a shadow; and the wo-

man she was playing at night, and that was the substance.

" Damned if I know what genius is, " she said to herself. " But I

know this, I'd give all I have to be eighteen. "

But she knew that wasn't true. If she were given the chance to go

back again would she take it? No. Not really. It was not the popula-

rity, the celebrity if you like, that she cared for, nor the hold she had

over audiences, the real love they bore her, it was certainly not the

money this had brought her; it was the power she felt in herself, her

mastery over the medium, that thrilled her. She could step into a

part, not a very good one perhaps, with silly words to say, and by

her personality, by the dexterity which she had at her finger-tips, in-

fuse it with life. There was no one who could do what she could with

a part. Sometimes she felt like God.

" And besides, " she chuckled, " Tom wouldn't be born. "

After all it was very natural that he should like to play about with

Roger. They belonged to the same generation. It was the first day of

his holiday, she must let him enjoy himself; there was a whole fort-

night more. He would soon get sick of being all the time with a boy

of seventeen. Roger was sweet, but he was dull; she wasn't going to

let maternal affection blind her to that. She must be very careful not

to show that she was in the least put out. From the beginning she

had made up her mind that she would never make any claim on

Tom; it would be fatal if he felt that he owed something to her.

" Michael, why don't you let that flat in the mews to Tom? Now

that he's passed his exam and is a chartered accountant he can't go

on living in a bed-sitting room. "

" That's not a bad idea. I'll suggest it to him. "

" It would save an agent's fees. We could help him to furnish it.

We've got a lot of stuff stored away. We might just as well let him

use it moulder away in the attics. "

Tom and Roger came back to eat an enormous tea and then pla-

yed tennis till the light failed. After dinner they played dominoes.

Julia gave a beautiful performance of a still young mother fondly

watching her son and his boy friend. She went to bed early. Pre-

sently they too went upstairs. Their rooms were just over hers. She

heard Roger go into Tom's room. They began talking, her windows

and theirs were open, and she heard their voices in animated con-

versation. She wondered with exasperation what they found to say

to one another. She had never found either of them very talkative.

After a while Michael's voice interrupted them.

" Now then, you kids, you go to bed. You can go on talking tomor-

row. "

She heard them laugh.

" All right, daddy, " cried Roger.

" A pair of damned chatterboxes, that's what you are. "

She heard Roger's voice again.

" Well, good night, old boy. "

And Tom's hearty answer: " So long, old man. "

" Idiots! " she said to herself crossly.

Next morning while she was having her breakfast Michael came

into Julia's room.

" The boys have gone off to play golf at Huntercombe. They want

to play a couple of rounds and they asked if they need come back to

lunch. I told them that was quite all right. "

" I don't know that I particularly like the idea of Tom treating the

house as if it was a hotel. "

" Oh, my dear, they're only a couple of kids. Let them have all the

fun they can get, I say. "

She would not see Tom at all that day, for she had to start for

London between five and six in order to get to the theatre in good ti-

me. It was all very well for Michael to be so damned good-natured

about it. She was hurt. She felt a little inclined to cry. He must be

entirely indifferent to her, it was Tom she was thinking of now; and

she had made up her mind that today was going to be quite diffe-

rent from the day before. She had awakened determined to be tole-

rant and to take things as they came, but she hadn't been prepared

for a smack in the face like this.

" Have the papers come yet? " she asked sulkily.

She drove up to town with rage in her heart.

The following day was not much better. The boys did not go off to

play golf, but they played tennis. Their incessant activity profoundly

irritated Julia. Tom in shorts, with his bare legs, and a cricket shirt,

really did not look more than sixteen. Bathing as they did three or

four times a day he could not get his hair to stay down, and the mo-

ment it was dry it spread over his head in unruly curls. It made him

look younger than ever, but oh, so charming. Julia's heart was

wrung. And it seemed to her that his demeanour had strangely

changed; in the constant companionship of Roger he had shed the

young man about town who was so careful of his dress, so particular

about wearing the right thing, and was become again a sloppy little

schoolboy. He never gave a hint, no glance even betrayed, that he

was her lover; he treated her as if she were no more than Roger's

mother. In every remark he made, in his mischievousness, in his

polite little ways, he made her feel that she belonged to an older ge-