An episode in my life, an episode in a life full of episodes: that’s all it is, in the end. For a long while I tried not to think about it. I was busy supporting Ernest and bringing up Diana, and it didn’t seem a good idea to look back. What a waste of time! What’s the point? Life is for living, as Ernest used to tell me, and if you walk along looking back over your shoulder you never see where you’re going. I suppose that, now I’m older, I’ve come to see things a little differently; I see that if you never look back, you lose track of where you are now. It’s important. The past stays alive even though it’s past; I think that’s what I’m trying to say.
There are three scrapbooks. They contain newspaper cuttings, tickets, programmes and a number of letters, two from Mr. Hardy himself. Although I say I felt nostalgia when I was looking at them, it wasn’t only nostalgia. I also felt regret, and some bitterness if I’m honest. It’s not nearly as sharp as it once was, but it’s always been there, like a scar on the heart. I should have come to terms with it by now – enough time has passed, after all – but I haven’t. I still don’t know why things happened quite as they did. The first two scrapbooks are full. With the third, you turn over five pages and the rest are a blank.
I shouldn’t want to forget it, or for it to be forgotten entirely. ‘Tess’ is part of how I am and always will be, I expect, and some day I should tell Diana – sit down and tell her the whole story, just so that she knows, if only because there’s nothing about me in the official biography, the one written by Mrs. Hardy. Not one word. To judge from the biography, I might never have met him, I might never have visited the house and sat and talked to him, I might never have existed. I don’t think I shall ever forgive her.
The first time I knew that we would be putting on ‘Tess’ was when Mr. Tilley brought me the news. Harry Tilley was the driving force behind the plays; without him I doubt the Hardy Players would have kept going as long as they did. He was a lovely man, full of energy and enthusiasm. He must have been in his early sixties. I had known him since I was a child, when for one year he had been town mayor and had worn the ceremonial fur-trimmed robe and gold chain of office. His profession was that of a monumental mason; chiefly he made a living by carving tombstones, which he did with great skill and precision – the graveyards of the town and the surrounding villages contain hundreds of stones carved by Mr. Tilley, and by his father before him – but sometimes he undertook other church projects, such as making a new font, or a capital. Here he probably found common ground with Mr. Hardy, who as a young man had trained as an architect, and had helped restore churches that were falling into a state of disrepair.
Anyway, one day he turned up in Beaminster, and said that he had been talking to Mr. Hardy, and Mr. Hardy had agreed to us putting on ‘Tess’ that winter, but only on condition that I played the title role. Mr. Tilley was worried that I wouldn’t be able to, because Diana was about three or four months old at the time, but I said yes at once, and he was very relieved. I knew it would put a great deal of weight on Ernest’s shoulders, because I couldn’t drive and so he would have to drive me to Dorchester and kick his heels for hours while we rehearsed, when he was busy enough as it was. Some people felt I shouldn’t have done it when Diana was so tiny. But acting meant such a lot to me, especially the thought of acting Tess. I had been dreaming of being Tess for such a long time and I was very excited. It was flattering that Mr. Hardy wanted me to be Tess, though I dare say I’d have been very upset if he’d wanted someone else.
I do remember Mr. Tilley saying that it might be a good idea to have someone understudy the part, just in case. That was what he said: ‘just in case’. Ernest and I laughed about that. What Mr. Tilley meant was, in case I became pregnant again. Having Tess with a big bump would have looked very odd!
I had known Mr. Hardy for years, of course, from other productions. He and Mrs. Hardy occasionally came to rehearsals, especially when the opening night drew near. He rarely interrupted, but after the rehearsal he would have a quiet word with Mr. Tilley, and then Mr. Tilley would tell one or other of us that he would like such and such a line delivered in a certain fashion, with more or less emotion, or more or less emphasis on a particular word. Whenever he spoke directly to me, he was always very warm and complimentary.
He must have been about eighty years old then. He was quite short, his face was heavily lined, his eyes were a light, watery blue, and the shape of almonds, and he had a pronounced nose and a thin white moustache. At rehearsals, he usually wore a dark blue pin-stripe suit and a waistcoat. Mrs. Hardy had dark brown hair worn up in a bun, and a floury complexion. Some of the members of the cast didn’t like them there. They said that it was like being watched by two ghosts, and that he never looked pleased. I don’t know. It’s true that a sombre expression sometimes seemed to settle on his features, and that looked like displeasure, but I don’t think it was. I didn’t mind him watching; in fact I felt that it was his right to be there, if he wanted to be. I was never put off. Maybe by her, but not by him.
I recall an evening when we were rehearsing “The Return of the Native”. I was playing the part of Eustacia, who is meant to have a London accent, and I wasn’t sure if I had it right. So, at the end, I went up and asked him whether I was speaking as he wanted me to. He assured me that I was doing very well and should continue as I was.
After that rehearsal I was invited up to his house for tea, on a Sunday afternoon, an occasion that I remember very well. The other Players were a little jealous, and Dr. Smerdon said that Mr. Hardy had ‘taken a shine to me’; I think those were his words. ‘Watch out,’ he said, ‘next thing you know he’ll put you in one of his novels.’ Everyone laughed at that. Mr. Tilley warned me to beware of Wessex, Mr. and Mrs. Hardy’s dog, who had a long history of biting strangers.
People did have divided opinions of Mr. Hardy. He was the town’s most famous resident, and most of us were very proud of him, but there was always a bit of gossip. One story, and I remember hearing this long before I came to know him, was that he had been very cruel to his first wife and had even, in some unspecific way, driven her to her death, and that, within a few days of her funeral, if not before the funeral, the Mrs. Hardy I knew had moved into the house as his mistress and he had tried to pass her off as his secretary. I don’t think there was ever any evidence for it. Perhaps it was true that the marriage had not been a success, but the same could be said of many marriages. My view was that no one who had written such novels as he had could possibly have committed the cruelties that he was accused of committing, and I think the problem is people hadn’t bothered to read his novels and were unable to see what he was truly like. There were other stories, too, other bits of tittle-tattle, all based on ignorance. I am afraid that you always have gossip in a small country town. People like to peer and pry into other people’s affairs, and spread stories for which there is not a grain of evidence.
Anyway, that Sunday afternoon, I was quite nervous, and I set off much too early from the town. I dawdled the last part of the walk up the hill and as I did so it began to rain, at first lightly and then more heavily. I had a scarf to cover my hair, but I much regretted that I had not brought an umbrella. When I came to the house, I stopped outside, by the gate, and changed out of my walking shoes, which were muddy, into my best pair, with heels, which I had brought with me in a bag, and I hid the shoes to the side of the wall, in the roots of one of the pine trees. I also got out my compact and checked my lipstick; I did hope to make a good impression. I went up to the porch and pulled the bell, and as soon as it rang a ferocious burst of barking erupted from within, and then the door opened and Wessex tore outside, barking furiously and growling. The maid screamed at him and stamped her foot, but he ignored her entirely. On Mr. Tilley’s advice I stood quite still with my arms folded and let him sniff round my legs and ankles, and once he had completed his inspection he lost interest and I was allowed to go into the house and out of the rain. I was relieved about that! I should say that I came to fi
nd him quite a sweet little dog. The maids hated him with a passion, but in time he and I got on very well.
It was a slightly curious house, and it surprised me at first. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it looked like a big suburban villa, rather than a house in the countryside. What I mean is that it wasn’t at all grand, not like a mansion; it felt very ordinary and domestic and old-fashioned. It could be dark, because there was no electricity, and the hall was especially dark. There was a grandfather clock in it, and a barometer on the wall, and it smelt of polish. Tea was always taken in the drawing room, which was much lighter. It had a lovely bow window, and a wooden floor covered in rugs, and near the fire was a tapestry screen depicting three Oriental storks. It was full of things that interested me – pictures, drawings, ornaments. Above the fireplace there were pictures of the poets Keats and Shelley, whom Mr. Hardy admired very much. He once said that if there was a single man in history whom he would most have liked to meet, it would have been Shelley, and when I asked him what he would have said to Shelley he said that he would probably have asked Shelley to tea, but that Shelley would have refused. I asked why and he said that he didn’t think tea was Shelley’s favourite meal, but he said it with a certain smile, and I remember that he also said that if I were there Shelley would have been certain to come. He was good at that kind of flattery.
When you went to tea, there was always a big plate of cucumber sandwiches, cut very small and without crusts, and since neither Mr. nor Mrs. Hardy touched them they would end up being eaten by Wessex. He was persistent and quite relentless when it came to sandwiches. He would sit under the table and whine and whimper, and both Mr. and Mrs. Hardy always gave way to him. Wessex was really the master of the house, and I don’t remember him ever being told off for anything except jumping on the sofa, and even then he wasn’t really told off. He did what he liked. Mrs. Hardy used to cuddle him on her lap and kiss him on the top of his head and when he barked she would try to stop him by stroking his throat and telling him not to be so wicked, which made not a blind bit of difference.
On that first occasion, Mr. Hardy asked me about my surname, Bugler, which is a common surname in Dorset, and whether one of my forebears had been a bugler in the army. I didn’t know, of course. He then said – he must have found this out from Mr. Tilley – that my mother’s maiden name was Way, and that he remembered her from years ago, when she had worked as a dairymaid on a farm in Stinsford. As you can imagine, my mother was astonished when she heard that. ‘Thirty years ago. Why should he remember me? How could he possibly know it was me? There were lots of us dairymaids! He never spoke to me, or not to my knowledge!’
I remember two other things from that first visit. One is that it was the first time I had ever drunk Chinese tea, and the other is that Mr. Hardy said something about the weather being ‘inclement’. As I say, it was raining, and he made some remark to the effect that the weather was very inclement. ‘Inclement’ wasn’t a word ever used by ordinary people, and it has stayed in my mind for that reason.
I went to tea on several other occasions over the next year, and usually I was the only guest. We talked about books, and about acting, of course, and things generally, especially things relating to the past. Mr. Hardy lived a great deal in the past, imaginatively, and he liked to talk about the changes that had taken place in rural life. Once he mentioned walking across the heath at night when he was quite young, and how he had frightened himself silly with the thought of ghosts. Sometimes he came up with old sayings that he remembered from his childhood but that were dying out. One was ‘A green Christmas makes for a fat churchyard.’
He never put on any airs. He was very famous but you wouldn’t have thought it from his manner, and he always did his best to put me at my ease. Mrs. Hardy seemed friendly too, at least at first.
At tea he always wore a tweed suit and a tie; men were never seen open-necked in those days, unless they were workmen. Mrs. Hardy wore dark, heavy dresses with high necklines, and I often thought how mournful they made her look. After she had cuddled Wessex his white hairs would be left all over her lap and she would pick them off, one by one.
There was such a big gap in their ages that it felt surprising that they should have been man and wife. She must have been half his age, while he was old enough to be her father. But what people don’t realise is that he had a quite youthful manner, whereas the reverse was true of her. She seemed much older than she was. Even so, the gap in age did make you wonder. Mr. Tilley, who had known them before they were married, said that the two of them would have been lost without each other; in his view it must have been a privilege for Florence to be married to him, to have been privy to his closest thoughts. I am sure that is true, but my experience of them was different to that of Mr. Tilley and at times I did sense a certain friction. To give an example: one Christmastime I was up there for tea and there were mince pies instead of cucumber sandwiches, and Mr. Hardy kept on feeding Wessex mince pies, and Mrs. Hardy told him off. ‘You will make him sick,’ she said. In fact if I remember rightly what she said was ‘You will make him sick again,’ so obviously this had happened before. Mr. Hardy calmly replied that it was Christmas: ‘Christmas is Christmas,’ he said, and she then said, in a very reproving tone, ‘You spoil him, Thomas. It is very naughty of you.’ It sounded as if Mr. Hardy, far from being a world-famous writer, was a small boy being chided by his mother. As I recall it, he was completely unperturbed. He said, ‘The old deserve their pleasures,’ and immediately gave Wessex another mince pie. Mrs. Hardy tried to laugh, but I felt she was quite upset.
When it came to Wessex, there was a degree of competition between them, if only because they both doted on him so much. When Mr. Hardy was giving him the mince pies, Mrs. Hardy felt jealous. Whether the dog should have been fed the mince pies wasn’t the issue, the issue was whether the dog liked him more than her. The fact that I was there was what made it awkward; if I hadn’t been there the conversation would have been different. At least that is how I saw things, but I may have been mistaken.
I did feel honoured to be invited. Some of the other Players used to say that when he came to rehearsals it was chiefly to watch me, and that he was under my spell, and it’s true that I often felt his eyes following me around, but as I was playing the part of the heroine that was only to be expected. I think that maybe it would be truer to say that I was under his spell, as were we all.
As I say, Mrs. Hardy could be very friendly, and one afternoon in summer when she and I seemed to be getting on well together we went for a stroll round the garden, and she talked to me about teaching in a school. As a young woman she had been a school-mistress in London, and she said how rewarding it had been. She told me about one of her pupils, an orphaned boy. She had taken him under her wing and befriended him, and she said it was one of the best things she had done in her life. ‘I would love to have adopted him, if I could have done,’ she said. I asked what had happened to him, and she said he had gone to Birmingham to live with his uncle, and she often wondered if he now remembered her at all. ‘I am sure he does,’ I said, ‘how could he not remember you?’ because I could see that he mattered a great deal to her.
I hadn’t been sure why she was telling me about all this, but after we had strolled on a little further we stopped by one of the flower-beds, and she said: ‘You would make an excellent school-mistress, you know, Gertrude.’ Since I had never been very good at school-work, I said something to the effect that my spelling would let me down, whereupon she exclaimed: ‘Oh, but there is nothing more worthwhile than teaching. But what am I thinking of? You are an actress. You should go on the stage.’
There was nothing I should have liked more than to go on the stage as a professional actress, but I felt embarrassed to say so, and I replied that I felt very lucky to be able to act in Dorchester. ‘Oh, but acting there is not in the least like acting on the professional stage in London,’ she said, ‘the difference is so great it is hardly possible to describe. I love
our little productions as much as anyone, but the general standard of acting is not very good, as you know. You are head and shoulders above everyone else. Are you very nervous when you go on stage?’ I answered that I was often nervous before I went on stage, but that once I was actually there, in front of an audience, I felt completely at home, and Mrs. Hardy said that was a sure sign of a born actress. She said: ‘You are so talented, I am sure it is your destiny to be on the stage.’
Can you imagine? That it was my destiny! I had already had some very favourable notices from London reviewers for my performances in ‘The Return of the Native’, but Mrs. Hardy’s remarks that afternoon did set me thinking. I didn’t talk to anyone else about it, if only because it seemed an impossible idea – you know, my parents ran a little hotel, and we didn’t have any connections in London who could have helped me, but I knew that was what I wanted to do more than anything else in the world. I used to think about it at night when trains were coming into the station. I’d hear the screech of brakes, an occasional hoot, the clanking of a long procession of goods vans, and if I stood up and went to the window I’d often be able to make out a faint flurry of red sparks as a train went over the points. What I mean is that the sound of the trains made me think how easy it would be to get to London, and then in a jump I’d be on stage, acting, in some beautiful theatre with huge red curtains. I am sure all this sounds as if I was very naïve, which I was.
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