William Somerset Maugham 10 страница

neration. His behaviour had nothing of the chivalrous courtesy a yo-

ung man might show to a fascinating woman; it was the tolerant

kindness he might display to a maiden aunt.

Julia was irritated that Tom should docilely follow the lead of a

boy so much younger than himself. It indicated lack of character.

But she did not blame him; she blamed Roger. Roger's selfishness

revolted her. It was all very well to say he was young. His indifferen-

ce to anyone's pleasure but his own showed a vile disposition. He

was tactless and inconsiderate. He acted as though the house, the

servants, his father and mother were there for his particular conve-

nience. She would often have been rather sharp with him, but that

she did not dare before Tom assume the role of the correcting mot-

her. And when you reproved Roger he had a maddening way of lo-

oking deeply hurt, like a stricken hind, which made you feel that you

had been unkind and unjust. She could look like that too, it was an

expression of the eyes that he had inherited from her; she had used

it over and over again on the stage with moving effect, and she

knew it need not mean very much, but when she saw it in his it

shattered her. The mere thought of it now made her feel tenderly to-

wards him. And that sudden change of feeling showed her the truth;

she was jealous of Roger, madly jealous. The realization gave her

something of a shock; she did not know whether to laugh or to be

ashamed. She reflected a moment.

" Well, I'll cook his goose all right. "

She was not going to let the following Sunday pass like the last.

Thank God, Tom was a snob. " A woman attracts men by her charm

and holds them by their vices, " she murmured and wondered whet-

her she had invented the aphorism or remembered it from some

play she had once acted in.

She gave instructions for some telephoning to be done. She got

the Dennorants to come for the week-end. Charles Tamerley was

staying at Henley and accepted an invitation to come over for Sun-

day and bring his host, Sir Mayhew Bryanston, who was Chancellor

of the Exchequer. To amuse him and the Dennorants, because she

knew that the upper classes do not want to meet one another in

what they think is Bohemia, but artists of one sort or another, she

asked Archie Dexter, her leading man, and his pretty wife who acted

under her maiden name of Grace Hardwill. She felt pretty sure that

with a marquess and marchioness to hover round and a Cabinet Mi-

nister to be impressed by, Tom would not go off to play golf with Ro-

ger or spend the afternoon in a punt. In such a party Roger would

sink into his proper place of a schoolboy that no one took any notice

of, and Tom would see how brilliant she could be when she took the

trouble. In the anticipation of her triumph she managed to bear the

intervening days with fortitude. She saw little of Roger and Tom. On

her matinee days she did not see them at all. If they were not pla-

ying some game they were careering about the country in Roger's

car.

Julia drove the Dennorants down after the play. Roger had gone

to bed, but Michael and Tom were waiting up to have supper with

them. It was a very good supper. The servants had gone to bed too

and they helped themselves. Julia noticed the shy eagerness with

which Tom saw that the Dennorants had everything they wanted,

and his alacrity to jump up if he could be of service. His civility was

somewhat officious. The Dennorants were an unassuming young co-

uple to whom it had never occurred that their rank could impress

anyone, and George Dennorant was a little embarrassed when Tom

took away his dirty plate and handed him a dish to help himself to

the next course.

" No golf for Roger tomorrow, I think, " said Julia to herself.

They stayed up talking and laughing till three in the morning, and

when Tom said good night to her his eyes were shining; but whether

from love or champagne she did not know. He pressed her hand.

" What a lovely party, " he said.

It was late when Julia, dressed in organdie, * looking her best, ca-

me down into the garden. She saw Roger in a long chair with a book.

" Reading? " she said, lifting her really beautiful eyebrows. " Why

aren't you playing golf? "

Roger looked a trifle sulky.

" Tom said it was too hot. "

" Oh? " she smiled charmingly. " I was afraid you thought you ought

to stay and entertain my guests. There are going to be so many pe-

ople, we could easily have managed without you. Where are the ot-

hers? "

" I don't know. Tom's making chichi* with Cecily Dennorant. "

" She's very pretty, you know. "

" It looks to me as though it's going to be a crashing bore today. "

" I hope Tom won't find it so, " she said, as though she were serio-

usly concerned.

Roger remained silent.

The day passed exactly as she had hoped. It was true that she

saw little of Tom, but Roger saw less. Tom made a great hit with the

Dennorants; he explained to them how they could get out of paying

as much income-tax as they did. He listened respectfully to the

Chancellor while he discoursed on the stage and to Archie Dexter

while he gave his views on tbe political situation. Julia was at the top

of her form. Archie Dexter had a quick wit, a fund of stage stories

and a wonderful gift for telling them; between the two of them they

kept the table during luncheon laughing uproariously; and after tea,

when the tennis players were tired of playing tennis, Julia was persu-

aded (not much against her will) to do her imitations of Gladys Co-

oper, Constance Collier and Gertie Lawrence. But Julia did not forget

that Charles Tamerley was her devoted, unrewarded lover, and she

took care to have a little stroll alone with him in the gloaming. With

him she sought to be neither gay nor brilliant, she was tender and

wistful. Her heart ached, notwithstanding the scintillating perfor-

mance she had given during the day; and it was with almost comp-

lete sincerity that with sighs, sad looks and broken sentences, she

made him understand that her life was hollow and despite the long

continued success of her career she could not but feel that she had

missed something. Sometimes she thought of the villa at Sorrento

on the bay of Naples. A beautiful dream. Happiness might have be-

en hers for the asking, perhaps, she had been a fool; after all what

were the triumphs of the stage but illusion? Pagliacci. People never

realized how true that was; Vesti la giubba and all that sort of thing.

She was desperately lonely. Of course there was no need to tell

Charles that her heart ached not for lost opportunities, but because

a young man seemed to prefer playing golf with her son to making

love to her.

But then Julia and Archie Dexter got together. After dinner when

they were all sitting in the drawing-room, without warning, starting

with a few words of natural conversation they burst, as though they

were lovers, into a jealous quarrel. For a moment the rest did not re-

alize it was a joke till their mutual accusations became so outrageo-

us and indecent that they were consumed with laughter. Then they

played an extempore scene of an intoxicated gentleman picking up

a French tart in Jermyn Street. After that, with intense seriousness,

while their little audience shook with laughter, they did Mrs. Alving

in Ghosts trying to seduce Pastor Manders. They finished with a per-

formance that they had given often enough before at theatrical par-

ties to enable them to do it with effect. This was a Chekhov play in

English, but in moments of passion breaking into something that so-

unded exactly like Russian. Julia exercised all her great gift for tra-

gedy, but underlined it with a farcical emphasis, so that the effect

was incredibly funny. She put into her performance the real anguish

of her heart, and with her lively sense of the ridiculous made a mock

of it. The audience rolled about in their chairs; they held their sides,

they groaned in an agony of laughter. Perhaps Julia had never acted

better. She was acting for Tom and for him alone.

" I've seen Bernhardt and Rejane, " said the Chancellor; " I've seen

Duse and Ellen Terry and Mrs. Kendal. Nunc dimittis. "

Julia, radiant, sank back into a chair and swallowed at a draught a

glass of champagne.

" If I haven't cooked Roger's goose I'll eat my hat, " she thought.

But for all that the two lads had gone to play golf when she came

downstairs next morning. Michael had taken the Dennorants up to

town. Julia was tired. She found it an effort to be bright and chatty

when Tom and Roger came in to lunch. In the afternoon the three of

them went on the river, but Julia had the feeling that they took her,

not because they much wanted to, but because they could not help

it. She stifled a sigh when she reflected how much she had looked

forward to Tom's holiday. Now she was counting the days that must

pass till it ended. She drew a deep breath of relief when she got into

the car to go to London. She was not angry with Tom, but deeply

hurt; she was exasperated with herself because she had so lost

control over her feelings. But when she got into the theatre she felt

that she shook off the obsession of him like a bad dream from which

one awoke; there, in her dressing-room, she regained possession of

herself and the affairs of the common round of daily life faded to in-

significance. Nothing really mattered when she had within her grasp

this possibility of freedom.

Thus the week went by. Michael, Roger and Tom enjoyed them-

selves. They bathed, they played tennis, they played golf, they loun-

ged about on the river. There were only four days more. There were

only three days more.

(" I can stick it out now. It'll be different when we're back in Lon-

don again. I mustn't show how miserable I am. I must pretend it's all

right. " )

" A snip having this spell of fine weather, " said Michael. " Tom's be-

en a success, hasn't he? Pity he can't stay another week. "

" Yes, a terrible pity. "

" I think he's a nice friend for Roger to have. A thoroughly normal,

clean-minded English boy. "

" Oh, thoroughly. " (" Bloody fool, bloody fool" )

" To see the way they eat is a fair treat. "

" Yes, they seem to have enjoyed their food. " (" My God, I wish it

could have choked them. " )

Tom was to go up to town by an early train on Monday morning.

The Dexters, who had a house at Bourne End, had asked them all to

lunch on Sunday. They were to go down, in the launch. Now that

Tom's holiday was nearly over Julia was glad that she had never by

so much as a lifted eyebrow betrayed her irritation. She was certain

that he had no notion how deeply he had wounded her. After all she

must be tolerant, he was only a boy, and if you must cross your t's, *

she was old enough to be his mother. It was a bore that she had a

thing about him, but there it was, she couldn't help it; she had told

herself from the beginning that she must never let him feel that she

had any claims on him. No one was coming to dinner on Sunday.

She would have liked to have Tom to herself on his last evening;

that was impossible, but at all events they could go for a stroll by

themselves in the garden.

" I wonder if he's noticed that he hasn't kissed me since he came

here? "

They might go out in the punt. It would be heavenly to lie in his

arms for a few minutes; it would make up for everything.

The Dexters' party was theatrical. Grace Hardwill, Archie's wife,

played in musical comedy, and there was a bevy of pretty girls who

danced in the piece in which she was then appearing. Julia acted

with great naturalness the part of a leading lady who put on no frills.

She was charming to the young ladies, with their waved platinum

hair, who earned three pounds a week in the chorus. A good many

of the guests had brought kodaks and she submitted with affability

to being photographed. She applauded enthusiastically when Grace

Hardwill sang her famous song to the accompaniment of the compo-

ser. She laughed as heartily as anyone when the comic woman did

an imitation of her in one of her best-known parts. It was all very

gay, rather rowdy, and agreeably light-hearted. Julia enjoyed her-

self, but when it was seven o'clock was not sorry to go. She was

thanking her hosts effusively for the pleasant party when Roger ca-

me up to her.

" I say, mum, there's a whole crowd going on to Maidenhead to di-

ne and dance, and they want Tom and me to go too. You don't mind,

do you? "

The blood rushed to her cheeks. She could not help answering

rather sharply.

" How are you to get back? "

" Oh, that'll be all right. We'll get someone to drop us. "

She looked at him helplessly. She could not think what to say.

" It's going to be a tremendous lark. Tom's crazy to go. "

Her heart sank. It was with the greatest difficulty that she mana-

ged not to make a scene. But she controlled herself.

" All right, darling. But don't be too late. Remember that Tom's got

to rise with the lark. "

Tom had come up and heard the last words.

" You're sure you don't mind? " he asked.

" Of course not. I hope you'll have a grand time. "

She smiled brightly at him, but her eyes were steely with hatred.

" I'm just as glad those two kids have gone off, " said Michael when

they got into the launch. " We haven't had an evening to ourselves

for ever so long. "

She clenched her hands in order to prevent herself from telling

him to hold his silly tongue. She was in a black rage. This was the

last straw. Tom had neglected her for a fortnight, he had not even

treated her with civility, and she had been angelic. There wasn't a

woman in the world who would have shown such patience. Any ot-

her woman would have told him that if he couldn't behave with com-

mon decency he'd better get out. Selfish, stupid and common, that's

what he was. She almost wished he wasn't going tomorrow so that

she could have the pleasure of turning him out bag and baggage.

And to dare to treat her like that, a twopenny halfpenny little man in

the city; poets, cabinet ministers, peers of the realm would be only

too glad to break the most important engagements to have the

chance of dining with her, and he threw her over to go and dance

with a pack of peroxide blondes who couldn't act for nuts. That sho-

wed what a fool he was. You would have thought he'd have some

gratitude. Why, the very clothes he had on she'd paid for. That ciga-

rette-case he was so proud of, hadn't she given him that? And the

ring he wore. My God, she'd get even with him. Yes, and she knew

how she could do it. She knew where he was most sensitive and how

she could most cruelly wound him. That would get him on the raw.

She felt a faint sensation of relief as she turned the scheme over in

her mind.

She was impatient to carry out her part of it at once, and they

had no sooner got home than she went up to her room. She got four

single pounds out of her bag and a ten-shilling note. She wrote a bri-

ef letter.

DEAR TOM,

I'm enclosing the money for your tips as I shan't see you in the

morning. Give three pounds to the butler, a pound to the maid who's

been valeting you, and ten shillings to the chauffeur.

JULIA.

She sent for Evie and gave instructions that the letter should be

given to Tom by the maid who awoke him. When she went down to

dinner she felt much better. She carried on an animated conversati-

on with Michael while they dined and afterwards they played six

pack bezique. * If she had racked her brains for a week she couldn't

have thought of anything that would humiliate Tom more bitterly.

But when she went to bed she could not sleep. She was waiting

for Roger and Tom to come home. A notion came to her that made

her restless. Perhaps Tom would realize that he had behaved rot-

tenly, if he gave it a moment's thought he must see how unhappy

he was making her; it might be that he would be sorry and when he

came in, after he had said good night to Roger, he would creep

down to her room. If he did that she would forgive everything. The

letter was probably in the butler's pantry; she could easily slip down

and get it back. At last a car drove up. She turned on her light to lo-

okat the time. It was three. She heard the two young men go upsta-

irs and to their respective rooms. She waited. She put on the light

by her bedside so that when he opened the door he should be able

to see. She would pretend she was sleeping and then as he crept

forward on tiptoe slowly open her eyes and smile at him. She wa-

ited. In the silent night she heard him get into bed and switch off the

light. She stared straight in front of her for a minute, then with a

shrug of the shoulders opened a drawer by her bedside and from a

little bottle took a couple of sleeping-tablets. " If I don't sleep I shall

go mad. "

JULIA did not wake till after eleven. Among her letters was one

that had not come by post. She recognized Tom's neat, commercial

hand and tore it open. It contained nothing but the four pounds and

the ten-shilling note. She felt slightly sick. She did not quite know

what she had expected him to reply to her condescending letter and

the humiliating present. It had not occurred to her that he would re-

turn it. She was troubled, she had wanted to hurt his feelings, but

she had a fear now that she had gone too far.

" Anyhow I hope he tipped the servants, " she muttered to reassure

herself. She shrugged her shoulders. " He'll come round. It won't hurt

him to discover that I'm not all milk and honey. "

But she remained thoughtful throughout the day. When she got to

the theatre a parcel was waiting for her. As soon as she looked at

the address she knew what it contained. Evie asked if she should

open it.

" No. "

But the moment she was alone she opened it herself. There were

the cuff-links and the waistcoat buttons, the pearl studs, the wrist-

watch and the cigarette-case of which Tom was so proud. All the

presents she had ever given him. But no letter. Not a word of expla-

nation. Her heart sank and she noticed that she was trembling.

" What a damned fool I was! Why didn't I keep my temper? "

Her heart now beat painfully. She couldn't go on the stage with

that anguish gnawing at her vitals, she would give a frightful perfor-

mance; at whatever cost she must speak to him. There was a telep-

hone in his house and an extension to his room. She rang him. For-

tunately he was in.

" Tom. "

" Yes? "

He had paused for a moment before answering and his voice was

peevish.

" What does this mean? Why have you sent me all those things? "

" Did you get the notes this morning? "

" Yes. I couldn't make head or tail of it. Have I offended you? "

" Oh no, " he answered. " I like being treated like a kept boy. I like

having it thrown in my face that even my tips have to be given me. I

thought it rather strange that you didn't send me the money for a

third-class ticket back to London. "

Although Julia was in a pitiable state of anxiety, so that she could

hardly get the words out of her mouth, she almost smiled at his fa-

tuous irony. He was a silly little thing.

" But you can't imagine that I wanted to hurt your feelings. You su-

rely know me well enough to know that's the last thing I should do. "

" That only makes it worse. " (" Damn and curse, " thought Julia. ) " I

ought never to have let you make me those presents. I should never

have let you lend me money. "

" I don't know what you mean. It's all some horrible misunderstan-

ding. Come and fetch me after the play and we'll have it out. I know

I can explain. "

" I'm going to dinner with my people and I shall sleep at home. "

" Tomorrow then. "

" I'm engaged tomorrow. "

" I must see you, Tom. We've been too much to one another to

part like this. You can't condemn me unheard. It's so unjust to pu-

nish me for no fault of mine. "

" I think it's much better that we shouldn't meet again. "

Julia was growing desperate.

" But I love you, Tom. I love you. Let me see you once more and

then, if you're still angry with me, we'll call it a day. "

There was a long pause before he answered.

" All right. I'll come after the matinee on Wednesday. "

" Don't think unkindly of me, Tom. "

She put down the receiver. At all events he was coming. She

wrapped up again the things he had returned to her, and hid them

away where she was pretty sure Evie would not see them. She und-

ressed, put on her old pink dressing-gown and began to make-up.

She was out of humour: this was the first time she had ever told him

that she loved him. It vexed her that she had been forced to humili-

ate herself by begging him to come and see her. Till then it had al-

ways been he who sought her company. She was not pleased to

think that the situation between them now was openly reversed.

Julia gave a very poor performance at the matinee on Wednes-

day. The heat wave had affected business and the house was apat-

hetic. Julia was indifferent. With that sickness of apprehension gna-

wing at her heart she could not care how the play went. (" What the

hell do they want to come to the theatre for on a day like this any-

way? " ) She was glad when it was over.

" I'm expecting Mr. Fennell, " she told Evie. " While he's here I don't

want to be disturbed. "

Evie did not answer. Julia gave her a glance and saw that she was

looking grim.

(" To hell with her. What do Icare what she thinks! " )

He ought to have been there by now. It was after five. He was bo-

und to come; after all, he'd promised, hadn't he? She put on a dres-

sing-gown, not the one she made up in, but a man's dressing-gown,

in plum-coloured silk. Evie took an interminable time to put things

straight.

" For God's sake don't fuss, Evie. Leave me alone. "

Evie did not speak. She went on methodically arranging the vario-

us objects on the dressing-table exactly as Julia always wanted

them.

" Why the devil don't you answer when 'I speak to you? "

Evie turned round and looked at her. She thoughtfully rubbed her

finger along her nostrils.

" Great actress you may be... "

" Get the hell out of here. "

After taking off her stage make-up Julia had done nothing to her

face except put the very faintest shading of blue under her eyes.

She had a smooth, pale skin and without rouge on her cheeks or red

on her lips she looked wan. The man's dressing-gown gave an effect

at once helpless, fragile and gallant. Her heart was beating painfully

and she was very anxious, but looking at herself in the glass she

murmured: Mimi in the last act of Boheme. Almost without meaning

to she coughed once or twice consumptively. She turned off the

bright lights on her dressing-table and lay down on the sofa. Pre-

sently there was a knock on the door and Evie announced Mr. Fen-

nell. Julia held out a white, thin hand.

" Fm lying down. I'm afraid I'm not very well. Find yourself a chair.

It's nice of you to come. "

" I'm sorry. What's the matter? "

" Oh, nothing. " She forced a smile to her ashy lips. " I haven't been

sleeping very well the last two or three nights. "

She turned her beautiful eyes on him and for a while gazed at him

in silence. His expression was sullen, but she had a notion that he

was frightened.

" I'm waiting for you to tell me what you've got against me, " she

said at last in a low voice.

It trembled a little, she noticed, but quite naturally. (" Christ, I beli-

eve I'm frightened too. " )

" There's no object in going back to that. The only thing I wanted

to say to you was this: I'm afraid I can't pay you the two hundred po-

unds I owe you right away. I simply haven't got it, but I'll pay you by