‘Oh, you don’t understand. He’s so frightfully handsome, they’ll fall for him like a row of ninepins, and poor lamb, he’s so susceptible to flattery. Anything can happen in two years.’
‘What’s this about two years?’
‘If he’s a success he’s to stay another year.’
‘Well, don’t worry your head about that. He’ll be back at the end of the season and back for good. That manager only saw him in Candida. It’s the only part he’s half-way decent in. Take my word for it, it won’t be long before they find out they’ve been sold a pup. He’s going to be a flop.’
‘What do you know about acting?’
‘Everything.’
‘I’d like to scratch your eyes out.’
‘I warn you that if you attempt to touch me I shan’t give you a little bit of a slap, I shall give you such a biff on the jaw that you won’t be able to eat in comfort for a week.’
‘By God, I believe you’d do it. Do you call yourself a gentleman?’
‘Not even when I’m drunk.’
Julia giggled, and Jimmie felt the worst of the scene was over.
‘Now you know just as well as I do that you can act him off his head. I tell you, you’re going to be the greatest actress since Mrs Kendal. What do you want to go and hamper yourself with a man who’ll always be a millstone round your neck? You want to go into management; he’ll want to play opposite you. He’ll never be good enough, my dear.’
‘He’s got looks. I can carry him.’
‘You’ve got a pretty good opinion of yourself, haven’t you? But you’re wrong. If you want to make a success you can’t afford to have a leading man who’s not up to the mark.’
‘I don’t care. I’d rather marry him and be a failure than be a success and married to somebody else.’
‘Are you a virgin?’
Julia giggled again.
‘I don’t know that it’s any business of yours, but in point of fact I am.’
‘I thought you were. Well, unless it means something to you, why don’t you go over to Paris with him for a fortnight when we close? He won’t be sailing till August. It might get him out of your system.’
‘Oh, he wouldn’t. He’s not that sort of man. You see, he’s by way of being a gentleman.’
‘Even the upper classes propagate their species.’
‘You don’t understand,’ said Julia haughtily.
‘I bet you don’t either.’
Julia did not condescend to reply. She was really very unhappy.
‘I can’t live without him, I tell you. What am I to do with myself when he’s away?’
‘Stay on with me. I’ll give you a contract for another year. I’ve got a lot of new parts I want to give you and I’ve got a juvenile in my eye who’s a find. You’ll be surprised how much easier you’ll find it when you’ve got a chap opposite you who’ll really give you something. You can have twelve pounds a week.’
Julia went up to him and stared into his eyes searchingly.
‘Have you done all this to get me to stay on for another year? Have you broken my heart and ruined my whole life just to keep me in your rotten theatre?’
‘I swear I haven’t. I like you and I admire you. And we’ve done better business the last two years than we’ve ever done before. But damn it, I wouldn’t play you a dirty trick like that.’
‘You liar, you filthy liar.’
‘I swear it’s the truth.’
‘Prove it then,’ she said violently.
‘How can I prove it? You know I’m decent really.’
‘Give me fifteen pounds a week and I’ll believe you.’
‘Fifteen pounds a week? You know what our takings are. How can I? Oh well, all right. But I shall have to pay three pounds out of my own pocket.’
‘A fat lot I care.’
6
AFTER a fortnight of rehearsals, Michael was thrown out of the part for which he had been engaged, and for three or four weeks was left to kick his heels about till something else could be found for him. He opened in due course in a play that ran less than a month in New York. It was sent on the road; but languished and was withdrawn. After another wait he was given a part in a costume play where his good looks shone to such advantage that his indifferent acting was little noticed, and in this he finished the season. There was no talk of renewing his contract. Indeed the manager who had engaged him was caustic in his comments.
‘Gee, I’d give something to get even with that fellow Langton, the son of a bitch,’ he said. ‘He knew what he was doing all right when he landed me with that stick.’
Julia wrote to Michael constantly, pages and pages of love and gossip, while he answered once a week, four pages exactly in a neat, precise hand. He always ended up by sending her his best love and signing himself hers very affectionately, but the rest of his letter was more informative than passionate. Yet she awaited its coming in an agony of impatience and read it over and over again. Though he wrote cheerfully, saying little about the theatre except that the parts they gave him were rotten and the plays in which he was expected to act beneath contempt, news travels in the theatrical world, and Julia knew that he had not made good.
‘I suppose it’s beastly of me,’ she thought, ‘but thank God, thank God.’
When he announced the date of his sailing she could not contain her joy. She got Jimmie so to arrange his programme that she might go and meet him at Liverpool.
‘If the boat comes in late I shall probably stay the night,’ she told Jimmie.
He smiled ironically.
‘I suppose you think that in the excitement of homecoming you may work the trick.’
‘What a beastly little man you are.’
‘Come off it, dear. My advice to you is, get him a bit tight and then lock yourself in a room with him and tell him you won’t let him out till he’s made a dishonest woman of you.’
But when she was starting he came to the station with her. As she was getting into the carriage he took her hand and patted it.
‘Feeling nervous, dear?’
‘Oh, Jimmie dear, wild with happiness and sick with anxiety.’
‘Well, good luck to you. And don’t forget you’re much too good for him. You’re young and pretty and you’re the greatest actress in England.’
When the train steamed out Jimmie went to the station bar and had a whisky and soda. ‘Lord, what fools these mortals be,’ he sighed. But Julia stood up in the empty carriage and looked at herself in the glass.
‘Mouth too large, face too puddingy, nose too fleshy. Thank God, I’ve got good eyes and good legs. Exquisite legs. I wonder if I’ve got too much make-up on. He doesn’t like make-up off the stage. I look bloody without rouge. My eyelashes are all right. Damn it all, I don’t look so bad.’
Uncertain till the last moment whether Jimmie would allow her to go, Julia had not been able to let Michael know that she was meeting him. He was surprised and frankly delighted to see her. His beautiful eyes beamed with pleasure.
‘You’re more lovely than ever,’ she said.
‘Oh, don’t be so silly,’ he laughed, squeezing her arm affectionately. ‘You haven’t got to go back till after dinner, have you?’
‘I haven’t got to go back till tomorrow. I’ve taken a couple of rooms at the Adelphi, so that we can have a real talk.’
‘The Adelphi’s a bit grand, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, well, you don’t come back from America every day. Damn the expense.’
‘Extravagant little thing, aren’t you? I didn’t know when we’d dock, so I told my people I’d wire when I was getting down to Cheltenham. I’ll tell them I’ll be coming along tomorrow.’
When they got to the hotel Michael came to Julia’s room, at her suggestion, so that they could talk in peace and quiet. She sat on his knees, with her arm round his neck, her cheek against his.