‘All right. I’ll come after the matinée 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 undressed, 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 humiliate herself by begging him to come and see her. Till then it had always 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 matinée on Wednesday. The heat wave had affected business and the house was apathetic. Julia was indifferent. With that sickness of apprehension gnawing 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 anyway?’) 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 I care what she thinks!’)
He ought to have been there by now. It was after five. He was bound to come; after all, he’d promised, hadn’t he? She put on a dressing-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 various 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 Bohème. 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. Presently there was a knock on the door and Evie announced Mr Fennell. Julia held out a white, thin hand.
‘I’m 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 believe 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 pounds I owe you right away. I simply haven’t got it, but I’ll pay you by degrees. I hate having to ask you to give me time, but I can’t help myself.’
She sat up on the sofa and put both her hands to her breaking heart.
‘I don’t understand. I’ve lain awake for two whole nights turning it all over in my mind. I thought I should go mad. I’ve oeen trying to understand. I can’t. I can’t.’
(‘What play did I say that in?’)
‘Oh yes, you can, you understand perfectly. You were angry with me and you wanted to get back on me. And you did. You got back on me all right. You couldn’t have shown your contempt for me more clearly.’
‘But why should I want to get back on you? Why should I be angry with you?’
‘Because I went to Maidenhead with Roger to that party and you wanted me to come home.’
‘But I told you to go. I said I hoped you’d have a good time.’
‘I know you did, but your eyes were blazing with passion. I didn’t want to go, but Roger was keen on it. I told him I thought we ought to come back and dine with you and Michael, but he said you’d be glad to have us off your hands, and I didn’t like to make a song and dance about it. And when I saw you were in a rage it was too late to get out of it.’
‘I wasn’t in a rage. I can’t think how you got such an idea in your head. It was so natural that you should want to go to the party. You can’t think I’m such a beast as to grudge you a little fun in your fortnight’s holiday. My poor lamb, my only fear was that you would be bored. I so wanted you to have a good time.’
‘Then why did you send me that money and write me that letter? It was so insulting.’
Julia’s voice faltered. Her jaw began to tremble and the loss of control over her muscles was strangely moving. Tom looked away uneasily.
‘I couldn’t bear to think of your having to throw away your good money on tips. I know that you’re not terribly rich and I knew you’d spent a lot on green fees. I hate women who go about with young men and let them pay for everything. It’s so inconsiderate. I treated you just as I’d have treated Roger. I never thought it would hurt your feelings.’
‘Will you swear that?’
‘Of course I will. My God, is it possible that after all these months you don’t know me better than that? If what you think were true, what a mean, cruel, despicable woman I should be, what a cad, what a heartless, vulgar beast! Is that what you think I am?’
A poser.
‘Anyhow it doesn’t matter. I ought never to have accepted valuable presents from you and allowed you to lend me money. It’s put me in a rotten position. Why I thought you despised me is that I can’t help feeling that you’ve got a right to. The fact is I can’t afford to run around with people who are so much richer than I am. I was a fool to think I could. It’s been fun and I’ve had a grand time, but now I’m through. I’m not going to see you any more.’
She gave a deep sigh.
‘You don’t care two hoots for me. That’s what that means.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘You’re everything in the world to me. You know that. I’m so lonely and your friendship meant a great deal to me. I’m surrounded by hangers-on and parasites and I knew you were disinterested. I felt I could rely on you. I so loved being with you. You were the only person in the world with whom I could be entirely myself. Don’t you know what a pleasure it was to me to help you a little? It wasn’t for your sake I made you little presents, it was for my own; it made me so happy to see you using the things I’d given you. If you’d cared for me at all they wouldn’t have humiliated you, you’d have been touched to owe me something.’
She turned her eyes on him once more. She could always cry easily, and she was really so miserable now that she did not have to make even a small effort. He had never seen her cry before. She could cry, without sobbing, her wonderful dark eyes wide open, with a face that was almost rigid. Great heavy tears ran down it. And her quietness, the immobility of the tragic body, were terribly moving. She hadn’t cried like that since she cried in The Stricken Heart. Christ, how that play had shattered her. She was not looking at Tom, she was looking straight in front of her; she was really distracted with grief, but, what was it? another self within her knew what she was doing, a self that shared in her unhappiness and yet watched its expression. She felt him go white. She felt a sudden anguish wring his heartstrings, she felt that his flesh and blood could not support the intolerable pain of hers.