by P. G. Glynn
Nor could he bear to think of another man claiming her, for he saw her as wholly his. Marie filled his head, his heart, his dreams and he lived for their meetings at six. He lived for them (and today had been so desperate to see her that he had asked her to arrive at four) more than for OLIVER TWIST, more than for anything. He had even begun to wish that some harm might befall Madeleine, who would never divorce him, being a strict Catholic.
Why, oh why, hadn’t he waited for Marie before marrying? To marry at twenty-one was the act of a simpleton. He had had no idea, then, as to what love meant. He had married Madeleine purely and simply to get her into his bed. He supposed his motivation must have been lust, since it most certainly was not love. Love was something a man felt just once – and Charles suspected that his for Marie had begun when she waltzed through his office door saying that she had come of her own accord to save him the bother of sending for her. She had awakened feelings in him that he would have said he did not possess. How sweet his awakening … how piercing! For, now that he was awake he would have to live, some day, with the pain of seeing her walk away. Charles knew that as surely as if it had been told to him on good authority.
“Why are you looking so sad?” Marie asked him. “Aren’t I making you happy?”
“You are, my darling,” he answered, his arms tightening around her. “You’ve made me the happiest of men.”
“You look like the saddest! Why’s that?”
“Because … this cannot last, my Marie.”
“Why can’t it?”
“You know why.” He sighed. “I’m … not free to make you my wife.”
“You aren’t today … but nobody knows about tomorrow.”
“We mustn’t indulge in wishful-thinking. I would be failing you and myself, if I held out false hope. I’m trapped in a marriage that … ”
Without warning the door was thrown open and a husky, accented voice queried: “Am I interrupting?”
“Madeleine!” Charles swung round to stare at her in disbelief. “What are you doing here?”
She smiled, closing the door behind her. “I’ve come to meet your ‘pupil’. Is she responding well to all your tuition?”
He had been standing with Marie in his arms. Now, frozen in the moment, they stood apart. “Who did this?” Charles asked.
“Did what?” she raised a narrow, painted brow. “As your wife – or do I describe myself as your trap? – I imagine I have the right to know what the entire Company knows.” Seeing his bewildered expression, Madeleine said: “You surely didn’t think you could behave as you’ve been behaving without anyone noticing? If you did, you’re an idiot. As for you,” she turned her attention now to Marie, “I suppose you closed your eyes and thought of England – or, rather, how best to advance into the role that’s rightfully Dolly Martin’s. I can’t imagine why else a young girl like you would give your body to an old man like him. Now leave us, so that I can speak to my husband in private.”
+++++
Speechlessly, Marie fled to her dressing room where like a wild creature she flung herself, sobbing, on to the couch. She felt as if the world had just ended. Her world had ended and she wished she were dead.
Knowing of the existence of Mrs Brodie was one thing, meeting her quite another. She was so sophisticated, so elegant – so incredibly chic! Marie had for some reason expected her to be plump and matronly. She should have known that Charles would never have married a country bumpkin. She should have known that some busybody would bring his wife here to make trouble. Which busybody? Who was trying to destroy Marie’s and Charles’s happiness?
“My, my, Miss Marie – don’t take on so!” clucked her dresser. “Tell old Sarah all about it. I’d bin wonderin’ when we’d get to this.”
“Get to what?” Marie asked between sobs.
“It ain’t no use playin’ the innocent wiv me. She’s come visitin’, hasn’t she?”
“Who?”
“You might be an actress, lovey, and a good one at that – but life ain’t play-actin’ and I’ve bin around too long to be taken in by coachin’ that goes on after all need for it is gone. I’ve seen this comin’ and ’ow I’ve ’eld my tongue I’ll never know. But fr’im bein’ the Guv’nor I couldn’t have done.”
“Oh, Sarah,” Marie gulped, accepting the large handkerchief that the dresser was proffering and blowing her nose, “I love him so!”
“Those two are married. You should ’ave thought of that.”
“They aren’t happy, though, and never have been.”
“What’s ’appiness, I’d like to know. Nobody has it all the time. Seems to me them that’s lucky ’as it once in a while. You’ve ’ad your share for a bit and now comes the bill. I’ll tell you this: it’s the woman what ’urts, seldom the man.”
“I’m hurting more than you can imagine.”
“I’ve a better imagination than you seem to think,” Sarah snorted, “and I’ll tell you somethin’ for nothin’: he isn’t worth it. No man is – no, not even ’im. Fact is, Guv’nor or not, he’s an old rooster who ought ter know better while you’re just a spring chicken wivout too much savvy of the ways of this wicked old world. Take Sarah’s advice and give ’im the go-by. Find yourself a nice boy your own age who’s free to make you ’is wife.”
“Charles is not old. I can’t think why people keep saying he is. And I shan’t look at another man as long as I live.”
“That’s bin said before and all!”
“But I mean it,” Marie protested, feeling sick. “Perhaps his … his wife will divorce him.”
“And p’raps the moon will turn blue! Don’t, whatever you do, go down that avenue. There’s ’eartbreak at its end. Best get the ’eartache over wiv and get on wiv things. There’s men out there in their millions – though,” she paused, “there’s less now o’course than before the war – and you’ve your whole future in front of you to pick and choose. So be choosy, Miss Marie, and don’t go ruinin’ your young life dreamin’ dreams as can’t come true. Shall I tell you what I’d be doin’, in your shoes?”
Numbness had set in. Marie felt as if her limbs were lifeless appendages and as if her brain had stopped registering things. She could not think about a world without Charles in it, so she would not think. She had no choice but to exist. She did have a choice about thinking and feeling.
Sarah went on: “I’d be puttin’ a brave face on all this. No sense givin’ ’em the satisfaction of seein’ you crack. That’s what they’re wantin’, Clive and his like, and if you’re half the girl I think you are you’ll show ’em it takes more than their mean little tricks to bring a tear to your eyes. You’ve not set foot inside the Green Room for a long time. That’s standoffish in their book and might be partly why they’re tryin’ to wreck your life. I don’t know for certain, mind, that Mrs Brodie’s visit is their doin’ but I shouldn’t be surprised. Nothin’ surprises me no more ’bout Clive. Marie Howard’s the last person he’ll be expectin’ to see in the Green Room tonight … so why don’t you go and give ’im a big surprise?”
“I couldn’t, Sarah. I … ”
“That’s not your sort of talk. Where’s your pluck … where’s your fight? I always ’ad you down as an actress, not some skulker who’d let others ’ave the upper ’and. Here, we’ll soon see to your face and make it good as new again! After that, if you’ve got what it takes to stay on top, you’ll go off and act.”
+++++
On the Green Room wall facing the door was a historic playbill with a blue background and in the foreground a caricature of Eleanora Duse dressed for her part as Juliet, which she had first played in Verona at the age of fourteen. She was billed as the company’s PRIMA AMOROSA and her name was blazed in brilliant gold letters eclipsing all other names on the bill.
Marie particularly noticed the poster as she opened the Green Room door because the sudden silence that greeted her arrival caused her to focus her attention on Eleanora. Then she drew a deep breath and, wishing lines had
been written for her, said: “I’ve been too neglectful. How are you all?”
“Never in better health!” retorted Clive Swindall from his usual stance by the fireplace where he was holding court. “Well, well, well … to what do we owe this honour? Or should one ask to whom?”
Swivelling her eyes slightly, Marie could see Nell sitting alone over in her customary corner, looking agonised. To reassure her, Marie managed a wide smile and a chirpy: “There need be no ‘shoulds’ nor ‘should nots’ when talking to me, whatever the rules when talking about me! Everything is much as ever in here, I see.”
“Things are a bit different out there, though, we hear.”
“They are?” Marie met Clive’s gaze steadily. “That’s news to me. What’s different, exactly?”
He, preferring the indirect to the direct, was thrown for a moment and then said: “I’d hazard a guess that you’re in a better position to answer that than we are.”
“Then you’d be guessing wrongly. Perhaps you are not as clever as you think – or alternatively perhaps you are reading meanings where there are none to read. That would be a pity, since it can be so misleading for everyone … and so insulting to their intelligence.”
Samuel Sherman, in his guise as Mr Monks, piped up: “You aren’t fooling us! We know what we know and nothing you can say or do will stop us knowing. It was time she knew too.”
Marie’s legs felt weak as if from the aftermath of flu but there was no weakness in her voice as she asked: “Who?”
“His missus,” shouted Pearl Francis.
“Yes, the long-suffering Mrs Brodie,” affirmed Michael Wickenden with a smirk. We heard someone had alerted her to her husband’s little … peccadillo.”
“That’s a new word for it!” giggled Hannah Hamilton, alias Emily Gudgeon. “Fancy him only having a little one!”
Ignoring her, Marie said: “The someone who did the alerting will be in big trouble. I doubt Mrs Brodie will be amused by unfounded rumours, or by having had a wasted journey. Mr Brodie will be taking the culprit to task, mark my words.”
“She’s beyond his reach,” Clive said sweetly. “He can do his darnedest but can’t touch Dolly.”
Marie digested her predecessor’s involvement, then said: “Don’t be too sure he can’t! What hypocrites you all are, hiding behind Dolly Martin when she isn’t here to defend herself – and when, without help, she could not possibly have gone to Mrs Brodie with mindless tittle-tattle! Have none of you anything better to do than make up tales and then spread them like muck to anyone willing to listen to you?”
“You’re the mucky one,” grunted Jonus Marler, sounding just like his alter ego, Fang the Magistrate, “not us.”
“I beg to differ! You’re going by hearsay, not knowledge. You’re a lot of puppets, jumping to the tune Clive plays for you. Perhaps you should ask him why he’s playing it – just why he has it in for Mr Brodie and me! Do he and Dolly by any chance begrudge OLIVER TWIST’s success in her absence, with me as Nancy? Could that be behind their nastiness – their need to slander us? I think it could … and might I remind you that libel is a punishable offence?”
“Tell that to the newspapers then!”
Marie saw that it was Alan Drew, the Artful Dodger, who had spoken. “Should the need arise,” she said, “I’d certainly tell it to them. I doubt it will arise, though, since it must be as obvious to you as it is to me that we all swim – or sink - together. Bring adverse press on us and the whole Company suffers. Who in their right mind would court that sort of disaster?” She looked around her. Some members of the cast were exchanging uncomfortable glances. “You are a snake,” she told Clive. “Were I to cut off your tongue you’d soon grow another – forked – one, so I shan’t dirty my knife. But tonight you and your conjecture have gone too far. Unless you wish to join Dolly in ignominy I suggest that you take appropriate steps immediately.”
When Marie saw that her message had hit home she turned to go. Opening the door she resorted to a line written by Sheridan and once used by Ellen Terry as she swept from the Haymarket’s Green Room in a huff: “Ladies and gentlemen, I leave my character behind me!”
Once outside Marie stood and shook from head to foot, but only momentarily. She now had one overwhelming need and no strength with which to deny it. Without pausing for thought she set off on a trot for Charles’s office.
8
Charles had his son with him when Marie came bursting in. He had sent for Guy after Madeleine left and was not altogether sure why. He was sure of nothing any more, except that he was due to lose Marie sooner than expected. Madeleine had made it very plain that she would not tolerate being so humiliated. If he must make hay, why do it so publicly with his leading lady? Her message had been that when Frenchmen took mistresses they took them with discretion, whereas Englishmen (one in particular) had no idea how to be discreet. They just went blundering in with no thought for the consequences – nor for the fools they were making of themselves when the girl in question was barely weaned.
All her talk of age differences and of Marie’s motivation had made him feel ancient and uneasy. Not that he doubted Marie’s sincerity when she said she loved him, though it had seemed incredible to him at first that such a vital, lovely girl should find him desirable. But she was very young – too young, in truth, to understand much about love.
For that matter, how much did he understand about it? Charles felt he understood nothing except that he had been foolish. In his euphoria he had put the play at risk – and, as Madeleine had rightly said, shown irresponsibility as a father. She had also let it slip that this drama had originated from Dolly Martin. Damn that woman – both women - damn and blast!
So went his thinking when Marie burst in saying: “Charles, darling … we can’t let her part us. We simply can’t!”
“Miss Howard,” he said coldly, “please knock before entering. Your informality is most inappropriate. As you can see, I have my son with me and we … are in discussion.”
She had not seen Guy sitting in the chair opposite his father’s. Now she saw his soulful eyes turned towards her and wondered why he was there. She doubted much discussion was going on. She also doubted she could take much more. The coldness in Charles’s tone seemed like the last straw.
“So I’m Miss Howard now, am I?” Marie asked, feeling as if she’d been kicked in the pit of her stomach. “If that’s for Guy’s benefit, then you don’t know him. He isn’t stupid. Nor am I. We can both see through what you’re trying to do. So you won’t succeed in pretending we … ” The room was turning. As it turned, Marie clutched Charles’s desk for support. Sure she was going to vomit, she vowed somehow to avert being sick on the floor that was rising towards her …
Charles had never moved faster. He was out of his chair in an instant and his arms were round her before she could fall. Lifting her tenderly he told Guy to leave them. Then he carried Marie through to an inner room, where he laid her on the bed. At least she was breathing! For one terrible moment he had thought she might be dead. She was deathly pale, with beads of moisture on her face, but this must just be a faint. And it was his fault, for talking to her so formally … for letting Madeleine send her away. Yes, he was to blame! He cursed himself for his insensitivity.
“My Marie,” he whispered, stroking her face, “my sweet love, please talk to me!”
She heard him as if from a vast distance. Where was he? Where was she? At least she was still his Marie. It might be dark where she was, but if she was his she could bear the darkness. “Charles?”
“I love you. Never doubt that I do. It’s because I love you so much that I’ve never brought you in here before. It was too big a risk … far too big, my darling. But she thinks … they all seem to think … that you are my mistress. There’s no justice – none – for two who truly love.”
He truly loved her. She needed nothing more. And she could feel his fingers gently brushing her skin. “Risk?” she queried.
She had not o
pened her eyes yet. Could she not open them? “The risk,” he answered, “of our going too far.”
Marie was opening her arms. Charles was drawn into the warmth of her and held there, feeling her soft breasts beneath him … feeling his body respond to all she was offering. “I must not defile you,” he protested weakly into the sweetness of her neck. “I’ve vowed to keep you chaste.”
“Then I release you from your vow,” she whispered, instinctively guiding one of his hands to her bodice and helping him unbutton it. “I need to be yours completely. I need … this.”
His needs were overpowering. He had teased himself with her for so long that now he was beyond teasing. He was a man with a man’s hunger for the woman he loved … but must not frighten her by rushing things.
She smelled like the springtime she was to him. He breathed her lily-of-the-valley scent in and felt as if her youth were in his breathing, entering his limbs. How sweet the feeling, how energising!
Marvelling, Marie felt him within her. As he came in, there was a sense of completion – a sense of utter belonging. If there was pain she was not conscious of it, for hadn’t she been waiting all her life for him … for this? Feeling incomplete, she had known him awhile as the half of her that had been missing but there had still been a need left unquenched … still a hunger in her for something more than cuddles and kisses. So this was the act that had held such mystery! Two people becoming one … finding each other and in the discovery attuning to a new dimension of love. Oh, the sensations as Charles played her with tongue and fingertips like a precious instrument! Marie surrendered to them … surrendered to bliss.