by P. G. Glynn
Later, as they lay entwined in each other’s arms, wrapped in the perfect peace that was theirs, Marie asked Charles: “Is it at all like that for others, or just for us?”
“I doubt anyone else can have experienced such … such exquisiteness,” he said, his hand wonderingly cupping one of her breasts.
“Mam certainly can’t have done!”
“Mam?” he echoed, nonplussed.
“And yet, to have had three babies she and Pa must have … indulged.”
Hell and damnation! He had not thought to take any precautions. Beyond loving her with a hunger born of deep desire he had not thought at all. What kind of man was he, to rob her of her virginity and not protect her from a possible pregnancy? Disgusted with himself he said: “Yes … they must. My love, forgive me! I should not have done as I did.”
“We did it, didn’t we? I was as much a part of the doing as you were.” She put a playful finger to his protesting lips. “So no talk of forgiveness. Love took us to where we were – and we belong even more now than we did before.” Looking around her for the first time, Marie asked him: “Where are we?”
She loved him! She really did, or would never have given herself so unreservedly. But he should not have accepted her gift. “It’s my inner sanctum – where I can find complete privacy while studying scripts. I have even slept here when … ”
“When what?” she prompted.
“When going home to Madeleine was beyond me,” he said sadly. “Oh, my Marie, I wish things were different! How I wish I were free and … and a better man!”
“You’re the best there is, so stop wishing … and start changing things.”
“They can’t be changed. Madeleine is Catholic and, as she has succinctly reminded me, my badge of respectability.”
“Which means?”
“Simply,” he sighed, “that I need her if I am to hold on to my other wife.”
“You have two wives?”
Charles saw her horrified expression and smiled. “Oh, I’m not a bigamist – or not in the accepted sense.”
“You meant the Tavistock!” she said.
“Yes, this theatre is my true marriage partner – or was, until you came along. And convention expects a certain code of conduct, doesn’t it? Our public – yours and mine – would never stand for us toppling from the pedestals they’ve placed us on.”
“They might.”
“We must be realistic, my Marie – and divorce, even were Madeleine willing, which she isn’t, would finish me professionally. There’s no doubt whatsoever of that in my mind. Dear God, is that the time? Unless we look lively as Nancy and Bill Sikes we might find ourselves in any event bidding the Tavistock ‘goodbye’!”
+++++
Minutes before curtain-up Charles sent for his son. Guy arrived looking worried and asked immediately: “Is Marie all right, sir?”
“She is,” Charles found that he could not meet Guy’s penetrating gaze, “now that she has recovered from her … faint. It seemed to me,” he cleared his throat nervously, “that I should … offer some explanation for sending you away. Where did you go from here?”
Bemused, since usually Father just did things without ever seeing a need to explain anything, Guy replied: “To the Green Room, sir. I know I’m not supposed to go there, but … ”
Charles interrupted: “From time to time we all do things we are not supposed to do. I trust, though, that you shut your ears to … to any idle chitchat?”
“I tried to, sir.”
“Am I to conclude that you did not wholly succeed?”
Guy saw his father’s frown and wondered whether to answer truthfully. Since his governess set great store by truth and since he himself preferred it to falsehood, however necessary a white lie sometimes seemed, he said: “Yes. That is, no.”
“If your ears were not entirely shut, I need to know what you heard.”
“What is a whore, sir?”
Charles swallowed hard. “There you are! With that kind of language being bandied about, is it any wonder I try to keep you out of that … that noxiousness? You will not go there in future … and you will not repeat such a word in front of your mother. Is that quite clear?”
“Yes, sir.” Still none the wiser as to what ‘whore’ meant, Guy said: “Is roué not to be repeated, either – even though Nell Sedgwick said she thought it was French?”
Charles swallowed again. “Correct. It is French and it is not to be mentioned. Men have a duty to … to keep such things from their women. Now that you are growing up, Guy, it is important that you should see where your duty lies. Just one last thing before we both go to the wings. Should your mother ever enquire how … friendly Miss Howard and I are, how would you answer her?”
Guy gave this some thought. “I would answer,” he then said slowly, “that, as I am her lover, you cannot be!”
+++++
For the very first time Marie was in the wings before Guy. He was not to know that she was there to escape Sarah’s critical eyes. “Hello,” he smiled, his heart lifting as it always did at the sight of her, “fancy you being here first! Are you feeling better than you were?”
“Much better, bless you! I hope you weren’t worried, when I fainted?”
“I was, a little. Father didn’t … didn’t stay cross with you for long, did he?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“He doesn’t seem himself today. He just sent for me to explain sending me away … only he didn’t do any explaining.”
“It wouldn’t be like him, would it, if he did?”
“Not a bit!” Guy’s tone changed. “Marie, I’ve been doing some thinking; will you wait for me and … and marry me when I’m your age?”
She did not say that they would never be the same age – that she would always remain ten years ahead of him. She did not want to see discouragement cloud his sweet face. So she said instead: “I’ll do my best to wait. Bless you, darling, for asking me! There’s nobody I’d sooner be than Mrs Brodie.”
+++++
“My warnin’ did less than no good then,” Sarah said.
“Which warning was that?” Marie asked, knowing the answer full well. Her dresser had been so disapproving since the day Mrs Brodie came visiting that she was becoming boring. “You issue so many.”
“Rubbish! One warnin’s all you’ve ’eard from me … and I haven’t seen you ’eeding it, these past weeks. It’ll all come ter grief. The only wonder is it ’asn’t already.”
“It hasn’t because it isn’t going to,” Marie told her. “I don’t expect the worst, like you do, so the worst doesn’t happen for me.”
“Not yet maybe, but it will. No-one gets away with nothin’ in this world and you and the Guv’nor … you’re pushing your luck too far.”
“We’re better judges of that than you are.”
“Them that’s in love ain’t in no position to judge! It’s madness, it is, to carry on like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re carryin’ on! All this ‘coaching’ nonsense has got to stop.”
“Perhaps you’d better tell that to Mr Brodie,” Marie said coldly. “It’ll interest him to know that you think you’re running his theatre.”
“I’m not runnin’ it, but he’s not either. You’ve bewitched him till neither of you can see what’s ’appenin’.”
“And what is happening?”
“All the talk will be bringin’ Mrs Brodie back – and then you’ll see the size of the scandal! When you do see, don’t go sayin’ old Sarah never said nowt.”
“If I were ever to say that, I’d be lying, wouldn’t I?” Marie retorted irritably before leaving to keep her appointment at six.
She had had enough of warnings, enough of guilt. How could a love that felt so right seem so wrong in other people’s eyes? Just because Charles had signed a piece of paper when he was too young to know any better, he was tied to a woman he didn’t love and vilified for spending time with the woman he did lo
ve. Charles had described his marriage as dead and buried, telling Marie that he was all but dead before she brought him to life again. He had no longer felt like a real man, he said. After years of belittlement and of hearing how superior the French were he had come to feel useless and inexpressibly inept. So where was the sense in having to stay with a wife who had that effect? Marie could see no sense in it, nor in a system that tied people together who would be better apart. It was the system that was wrong, not she and Charles.
Oh, they had tried to deny their need, their hunger for each other! He especially had tried: forever protesting that they must not do as they were doing – and then initiating the doing of it! One look and he was lost, as she was, no matter how hard they might try to be strong. The phrase ‘madly in love’ could have been coined just for them. They were mad – and she had never known, or thought to know, such happiness.
Loving Charles as she did she would not – could not – think in terms of their idyll ever ending. To think of an end would be to think of death because there could be no life for her without him. Which was why she refused to hear Nell’s and Sarah’s dire warnings. They were both pessimists whereas she had been born optimistic.
Charles looked different this evening. “What is it?” Marie asked him upon entering his office. “What’s wrong?”
“This must stop. Somehow – I don’t know how – we must find the means to be strong.”
His words were bad enough but his demeanour was worse. As he rose from behind his desk to hold her there was such an air of defeat about him that Marie shivered. “Has something happened?” she asked from within his encircling arms.
“Madeleine has made it plain that she will tolerate my behaviour no longer. And she really means it. We can’t go on as we are. If we do, she’ll finish me professionally. We’ve been living on borrowed time, my Marie.”
“But we’ve been discreet, haven’t we? So how does she … ?”
“As discreet as two caterwaulers, apparently! Madeleine sincerely believes I’m certifiably mad. She says I’m behaving like someone without a brain in his head – like someone possessed. At home, according to her, I ape a caged tiger just waiting to be freed to run to my tigress. And she isn’t far from the mark, Marie. I am possessed. You have possessed me. I can’t think, I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. I can’t even act the part of a husband and father. All I ever do is long to be with you.”
His arms tightened around her and his mouth found hers. They clung together too tight to be prised apart. “There must be some solution,” she said eventually. “There’s always a means of resolving something.”
“Not this,” he responded huskily, “or if there is, I can’t think of it. Madeleine says I’m a hypocrite and I can’t argue with that. I’m practising hypocrisy – married on one hand and … ”
“ … loving me on the other. How much do you love me, Charles?”
“To the ‘n’th degree … more than life … more than I ever dreamed I could love anybody.”
“Then the solution is simple.”
“It is?”
“Certainly!” She gazed up at him, her feelings plain in her face. “We stand together, facing everyone as a couple. Madeleine can’t ruin you unless you let her … and we won’t let her ruin us.”
He sighed, his breath catching as he felt the power of her love. Oh, to have her courage! Oh, to be the man she believed him to be! “We couldn’t stop her,” he said heavily. “My marriage and this theatre go hand-in-hand. It isn’t just a question of scandal and of the public taking their custom elsewhere if we are seen to be behaving dishonourably. It is also a fact that Madeleine has a financial stake in the Tavistock. She has money of her own, you see – and invested a substantial sum in me. She has told me most emphatically that unless I come to my senses she won’t hesitate to pull the rug from under my feet.”
“She’s bluffing … isn’t she? Loss of the Tavistock would surely reflect badly on her – and on family finances.”
“Madeleine wouldn’t see it that way. And no, she is not bluffing. She’s very volatile, seeing everything as black or white, and is adamant that she won’t stand for any more hanky-panky. That,” he added swiftly upon seeing Marie’s expression, “is her term. We two alone know the truth of our situation.”
“Which is?”
“That we are one. Nothing anyone does can alter our oneness, but … ”
“Go on,” Marie prompted when his prolonged silence had begun to unnerve her. “But what?”
He whispered: “These sessions must stop.” Then, in a stronger voice: “My Marie, are you – I mean, have you been, happy with me?”
“How can you ask that? You know I have!”
Charles could barely bring himself to say it but knew that for her sake it must be said: “Some day, I believe, you’ll be even happier with … with some other man.”
There was ice in her veins as she pulled away from him: “Then I agree with Madeleine that you are certifiably mad! The man I thought I knew could never have said that.” Tears and terror were threatening and Marie had somehow to remove herself from the room before indulging them. She ran to the door, adding as she wrenched it open: “And … and I’ll make you regret saying it if it’s the last thing I do. So stew, why don’t you, in your own juice? I just wish I could think of a worse fate for you!”
9
It was Sunday and Nell had suggested a picnic. Something needed to be done to cheer her friend up and the weather was wonderful. But Marie had come with the utmost reluctance. She had been reluctant to do anything or go anywhere since the coaching sessions had ended so abruptly and had flown into a rage when Nell said that it was perhaps all for the best. Well, Marie would eventually come to her senses. People did, once enough time had elapsed for them to see things in proper perspective. In Nell’s view Marie had had a lucky escape from a very dangerous situation.
“He was right, wasn’t he?” Nell ventured as they stood on Westminster Bridge watching for their boat’s arrival.
“Who was?” asked Marie impatiently.
“Wordsworth. Earth can’t have anything to show that is fairer than this, even allowing for the fact that he wrote his poem after standing on the old Labelye bridge. How sad for him that he was born too soon to see the Houses of Parliament as they are now! He would have seen the old Royal Palace which no doubt was picturesque in its way but which surely can’t have compared with our Palace of Westminster.” Big Ben chimed noon just then from high above them in its Clock Tower at the near end of the main Parliament building that, with its turrets and spires culminating in the soaring splendour of the Victoria Tower, dominated the skyline. “His bridge,” Nell said, warming to her theme, “needed twelve night-watchmen to protect those crossing it from robbers and rogues – that is, till the establishment of Sir Robert Peel’s police. But Wordsworth could still see how dull a soul would need to be, to pass by a sight so touching in its majesty.”
“You needn’t do this,” Marie told her.
“Do what, dear?”
“Keep up a constant flow of chatter. I don’t need humouring or … or anything. I just need … him.”
“Oh look,” said Nell, pointing to the Kew-bound boat as it rounded the bend from Waterloo and chugged up-river towards them, “there it is! We’d best hurry if we’re to catch it.”
They weren’t wearing clothes for hurrying in. Their hats had big brims to protect their complexions and the pointed toes and narrow heels of their shoes were more suited to an elegant stroll than to trotting across bridges and boarding boats. Marie’s lilac silk dress from Selfridge’s was daringly cut in the new mode, so that not only her arms but also her ankles were exposed. As a salve for her conscience she still wore the black stockings that Mam insisted on but beneath the dress, instead of a vest and woven bloomers, she was wearing a dainty lawn chemise and matching knickers, hand-made and tucked with Valenciennes trim. Nell’s less fashionable rose-pink frock with long sleeves kept her covered up but the
progress of both girls, carrying their picnic-hamper between them, was slowed by the restrictive width of their skirts as well as by their footwear and the need to hold on to their hats whenever these fell prey to the breeze from the river.
They reached Westminster pier in time to board the NELL GWYN, however, and their arrival interested one passenger in particular.
Otto Berger was not especially surprised by the good fortune which brought two such lovely young ladies to sit right in front of him on the upper deck aboard his boat to Richmond. Why be surprised when good fortune was his by divine right? It must be, because his wishes were almost invariably granted. Often the wish had barely been formed before it was met. His brother Ludwig said that he had the luck of the very devil.
Perhaps he had. Perhaps his luck was devilish rather than divine. Its source was of little concern to him. Otto didn’t believe in questioning, or in worrying. He had better things to do with his time. Life was, after all, for living and few could dispute that he lived his with vim. He also lived without regret over the girls he had loved and left, just accepting that they came and went. Otto hoped, though, that they did not forget him quite as quickly as he forgot them. It struck him now that there was one girl he had not altogether forgotten. She was not dissimilar from the girl whose dark hair cascaded from beneath the straw hat with that big rose on its brim.
He found himself thinking of Lenka with slight nostalgia: but why be nostalgic when the girl he had almost married was in far off Bohemia, whereas this girl was here? There was the added fact that he had been lucky to escape marriage to a nymphomaniac. If there was one thing Otto objected to, it was sharing his woman with his whole regiment! And Lenka must also have been unstable in other ways, as evidenced by the fact that she was now hitched to Ludwig. What an extraordinary image they must present, with her beauty and his hideousness - an image that Otto would soon be seeing for himself. After seven years’ absence he was due to go home tomorrow and had been resigned to spending his last day in London alone. Now a far more attractive plan was forming. The two in front of him were talking. He decided to listen in.