Theatre

by William Somerset Maugham

  People kept on telling Julia that she was looking ten years younger and that she had never acted better. She knew it was true and she knew the reason. But it behoved her to walk warily. She must keep her head. Charles Tamerley always said that what an actress needed was not intelligence, but sensibility, and he might be right; perhaps she wasn’t clever, but her feelings were alert and she trusted them. They told her now that she must never tell Tom that she loved him. She was careful to make it plain to him that she laid no claims on him and that he was free to do whatever he liked. She took up the attitude that the whole thing was a bit of nonsense to which neither of them must attach importance. But she left nothing undone to bind him to her. He liked parties and she took him to parties. She got Dolly and Charles Tamerley to ask him to luncheon. He was fond of dancing and she got him cards for balls. For his sake she would go to them herself for an hour, and she was conscious of the satisfaction he got out of seeing how much fuss people made of her. She knew that he was dazzled by the great, and she introduced him to eminent persons. Fortunately Michael took a fancy to him. Michael liked to talk, and Tom was a good listener. He was clever at his business. One day Michael said to her:

  ‘Smart fellow, Tom. He knows a lot about income-tax. I believe he’s shown me a way of saving two or three hundred pounds on my next return.’

  Michael, looking for new talent, often took him to the play in the evenings, either in London or the suburbs; they would fetch Julia after the performance, and the three of them supped together. Now and then Michael asked Tom to play golf with him on Sundays and then if there was no party would bring him home to dinner.

  ‘Nice to have a young fellow like that around,’ he said. ‘It keeps one from growing rusty.’

  Tom was very pleasant about the house. He would play backgammon with Michael, or patience with Julia, and when they turned on the gramophone he was always there to change the records.

  ‘He’ll be a nice friend for Roger,’ said Michael. ‘Tom’s got his head screwed on his shoulders the right way, and he’s a lot older than Roger. He ought to have a good influence on him. Why don’t you ask him to come and spend his holiday with us?’

  (‘Lucky I’m a good actress.’) But it wanted an effort to keep the joy out of her voice and to prevent her face from showing the exultation that made her heart beat so violently. ‘That’s not a bad idea,’ she answered. ‘I’ll ask him if you like.’

  Their play was running through August, and Michael had taken a house at Taplow so that they could spend the height of the summer there. Julia was to come up for her performances and Michael when business needed it, but she would have the day in the country and Sundays. Tom had a fortnight’s holiday; he accepted the invitation with alacrity.

  But one day Julia noticed that he was unusually silent. He looked pale and his buoyant spirits had deserted him. She knew that something was wrong, but he would not tell her what it was; he would only say that he was worried to death. At last she forced him to confess that he had got into debt and was being dunned by tradesmen. The life into which she had led him had made him spend more money than he could afford, and ashamed of his cheap clothes at the grand parties to which she took him, he had gone to an expensive tailor and ordered himself new suits. He had backed a horse hoping to make enough money to get square and the horse was beaten. To Julia it was a very small sum that he owed, a hundred and twenty-five pounds, and she found it absurd that anyone should allow a trifle like that to upset him. She said at once that she would give it to him.

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t. I couldn’t take money from a woman.’

  He went scarlet; the mere thought of it made him ashamed. Julia used all her arts of cajolery. She reasoned, she pretended to be affronted, she even cried a little, and at last as a great favour he consented to borrow the money from her. Next day she sent him a letter in which were bank notes to the value of two hundred pounds. He rang her up and told her that she had sent far more than he wanted.

  ‘Oh, I know people always lie about their debts,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I’m sure you owe more than you said.’

  ‘I promise you I don’t. You’re the last person I’d lie to.’

  ‘Then keep the rest for anything that turns up. I hate seeing you pay the bill when we go out to supper. And taxis and all that sort of thing.’

  ‘No, really. It’s so humiliating.’

  ‘What nonsense! You know I’ve got more money than I know what to do with. Can you grudge me the happiness it gives me to get you out of a hole?’

  ‘It’s awfully kind of you. You don’t know what a relief it is. I don’t know how to thank you.’

  But his voice was troubled. Poor lamb, he was so conventional. But it was true, it gave her a thrill she had never known before to give him money; it excited in her a surprising passion. And she had another scheme in her head which during the fortnight Tom was to spend at Taplow she thought she could easily work. Tom’s bed-sitting room in Tavistock Square had at first seemed to her charming in its sordidness, and the humble furniture had touched her heart. But time had robbed it of these moving characteristics. Once or twice she had met people on the stairs and thought they stared at her strangely. There was a slatternly housekeeper who made Tom’s room and cooked his breakfast, and Julia had a feeling that she knew what was going on and was spying on her. Once the locked door had been tried while Julia was in the room, and when she went out the housekeeper was dusting the banisters. She gave Julia a sour look. Julia hated the smell of stale food that hung about the stairs and with her quick eyes she soon discovered that Tom’s room was none too clean. The dingy curtains, the worn carpet, the shoddy furniture; it all rather disgusted her. Now it happened that a little while before, Michael, always on the look out for a good investment, had bought a block of garages near Stanhope Place. By letting off those he did not want he found that he could get their own for nothing. There were a number of rooms over. He divided them into two small flats, one for their chauffeur and one which he proposed to let. This was still vacant and Julia suggested to Tom that he should take it. It would be wonderful. She could slip along and see him for an hour when he got back from the office; sometimes she could drop in after the theatre and no one would be any the wiser. They would be free there. She talked to him of the fun they would have furnishing it; she was sure they had lots of things in their house that they did not want, and by storing them he would be doing them a kindness. The rest they would buy together. He was tempted by the idea of having a flat of his own, but it was out of the question; the rent, though small, was beyond his means. Julia knew that. She knew also that if she offered to pay it herself he would indignantly refuse. But she had a notion that during that idle, luxurious fortnight by the river she would be able to overcome his scruples. She saw how much the idea tempted him, and she had little doubt that she could devise some means to persuade him that by falling in with her proposal he was really doing her a service.

  ‘People don’t want reasons to do what they’d like to,’ she reflected. ‘They want excuses.’

  Julia looked forward to Tom’s visit to Taplow with excitement. It would be lovely to go on the river with him in the morning and in the afternoon sit about the garden with him. With Roger in the house she was determined that there should be no nonsense between her and Tom; decency forbade. But it would be heaven to spend nearly all day with him. When she had matinées he could amuse himself with Roger.

  But things did not turn out at all as she expected. It had never occurred to her that Roger and Tom would take a great fancy to one another. There were five years between them and she thought, or would have if she had thought about it at all, that Tom would look upon Roger as a hobbledehoy, quite nice of course, but whom you treated as such, who fetched and carried for you and whom you told to go and play when you did not want to be bothered with him. Roger was seventeen. He was a nice-looking boy, with reddish hair and blue eyes, but that was the best you could say of him. He had neither his mother’s vivacity
and changing expression nor his father’s beauty of feature. Julia was somewhat disappointed in him. As a child when she had been so constantly photographed with him he was lovely. He was rather stolid now and he had a serious look. Really when you came to examine him his only good features were his teeth and his hair. Julia was very fond of him, but she could not but find him a trifle dull. When she was alone with him the time hung somewhat heavily on her hands. She exhibited a lively interest in the things she supposed must interest him, cricket and such like, but he did not seem to have much to say about them. She was afraid he was not very intelligent.

  ‘Of course he’s young,’ she said hopefully. ‘Perhaps he’ll improve as he grows older.’

  From the time that he first went to his preparatory school she had seen little of him. During the holidays she was always acting at night and he went out with his father or with a boy friend, and on Sundays he and his father played golf together. If she happened to be lunching out it often happened that she did not see him for two or three days together except for a few minutes in the morning when he came to her room. It was a pity he could not always have remained a sweetly pretty little boy who could play in her room without disturbing her and be photographed, smiling into the camera, with his arm round her neck. She went down to see him at Eton occasionally and had tea with him. It flattered her that there were several photographs of her in his room. She was conscious that when she went to Eton it created quite a little excitement, and Mr Brackenbridge, in whose house he was, made a point of being very polite to her. When the half ended Michael and Julia had already moved to Taplow and Roger came straight there. Julia kissed him emotionally. He was not so much excited at getting home as she had expected him to be. He was rather casual. He seemed suddenly to have grown very sophisticated.

  He told Julia at once that he desired to leave Eton at Christmas, he thought he had got everything out of it that he could, and he wanted to go to Vienna for a few months and learn German before going up to Cambridge.

  Michael had wished him to go into the army, but this he had set his face against. He did not yet know what he wanted to be. Both Julia and Michael had from the first been obsessed by the fear that he would go on the stage, but for this apparently he had no inclination.

  ‘Anyhow he wouldn’t be any good,’ said Julia.

  He led his own life. He went out on the river and lay about the garden reading. On his seventeenth birthday Julia had given him a very smart roadster, and in this he careered about the country at breakneck speeds.

  ‘There’s one comfort,’ said Julia. ‘He’s no bother. He seems quite capable of amusing himself.’

  On Sundays they had a good many people down for the day, actors and actresses, an occasional writer, and a sprinkling of some of their grander friends. Julia found these parties very amusing and she knew that people liked to come to them. On the first Sunday after Roger’s arrival there was a great mob. Roger was very polite to the guests. He did his duty as part host like a man of the world. But it seemed to Julia that he held himself in some curious way aloof, as though he were playing a part in which he had not lost himself, and she had an uneasy feeling that he was not accepting all these people, but coolly judging them. She had an impression that he took none of them very seriously.

  Tom had arranged to come on the following Saturday and she drove him down after the theatre. It was a moonlit night and at that hour the roads were empty. The drive was enchanting. Julia would have liked it to go on for ever. She nestled against him and every now and then in the darkness he kissed her.

  ‘Are you happy?’ she asked.

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Michael and Roger had gone to bed, but supper was waiting for them in the dining-room. The silent house gave them the feeling of being there without leave. They might have been a couple of wanderers who had strolled out of the night into a strange house and found a copious repast laid out for them. It was romantic. It had a little the air of a tale in the Arabian Nights. Julia showed him his room, which was next door to Roger’s, and then went to bed. She did not wake till late next morning. It was a lovely day. So that she might have Tom all to herself she had not asked anybody down. When she was dressed they would go on the river together. She had her breakfast and her bath. She put on a little white frock that suited the sunny riverside and her, and a large-brimmed red straw hat whose colour threw a warm glow on her face. She was very little made-up. She looked at herself in the glass and smiled with satisfaction. She really looked very pretty and young. She strolled down into the garden. There was a lawn that stretched down to the river, and here she saw Michael surrounded by the Sunday papers. He was alone.

  ‘I thought you’d gone to play golf.’

  ‘No, the boys have gone. I thought they’d have more fun if I let them go alone.’ He smiled in his friendly way. ‘They’re a bit too active for me. They were bathing at eight o’clock this morning, and as soon as they’d swallowed their breakfast they bolted off in Roger’s car.’

  ‘I’m glad they’ve made friends.’

  Julia meant it. She was slightly disappointed that she would not be able to go on the river with Tom, but she was anxious that Roger should like him, she had a feeling that Roger did not like people indiscriminately; and after all she had the next fortnight to be with Tom.

  ‘They make me feel damned middle-aged, I don’t mind telling you that,’ Michael remarked.

  ‘What nonsense. You’re much more beautiful than either of them, and well you know it, my pet.’

  Michael thrust out his jaw a little and pulled in his belly.

  The boys did not come back till luncheon was nearly ready.

  ‘Sorry we’re so late,’ said Roger. ‘There was a filthy crowd and we had to wait on nearly every tee. We halved the match.’

  They were hungry and thirsty, excited and pleased with themselves.

  ‘It’s grand having no one here today,’ said Roger. ‘I was afraid you’d got a whole gang coming and we’d have to behave like little gentlemen.’

  ‘I thought a rest would be rather nice,’ said Julia.

  Roger gave her a glance.

  ‘It’ll do you good, mummy. You’re looking awfully fagged.’

  (‘Blast his eyes. No, I mustn’t show I mind. Thank God, I can act.’)

  She laughed gaily.

  ‘I had a sleepless night wondering what on earth we were going to do about your spots.’

  ‘I know, aren’t they sickening? Tom says he used to have them too.’

  Julia looked at Tom. In his tennis shirt open at the neck, with his hair ruffled, his face already caught by the sun, he looked incredibly young. He really looked no older than Roger.

  ‘Anyhow, his nose is going to peel,’ Roger went on with a chuckle. ‘He’ll look a sight then.’

  Julia felt slightly uneasy. It seemed to her that Tom had shed the years so that he was become not only in age Roger’s contemporary. They talked a great deal of nonsense. They ate enormously and drank tankards of beer. Michael, eating and drinking as sparingly as usual, watched them with amusement. He was enjoying their youth and their high spirits. He reminded Julia of an old dog lying in the sun and gently beating his tail on the ground as he looked at a pair of puppies gambolling about him. They had coffee on the lawn. Julia found it very pleasant to sit there in the shade, looking at the river. Tom was slim and graceful in his long white trousers. She had never seen him smoke a pipe before. She found it strangely touching. But Roger mocked him.

  ‘Do you smoke it because it makes you feel manly or because you like it?’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Tom.

  ‘Finished your coffee?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come on then, let’s go on the river.’

  Tom gave her a doubtful look. Roger saw it.

  ‘Oh, it’s all right, you needn’t bother about my respected parents, they’ve got the Sunday papers. Mummy’s just given me a racing punt.’

  (‘I must keep my temper. I must keep
my temper. Why was I such a fool as to give him a racing punt?’)

  ‘All right,’ she said, with an indulgent smile, ‘go on the river, but don’t fall in.’

  ‘It won’t hurt us if we do. We’ll be back for tea. Is the court marked out, daddy? We’re going to play tennis after tea.’

  ‘I dare say your father can get hold of somebody and you can have a four.’

  ‘Oh, don’t bother. Singles are better fun really and one gets more exercise.’ Then to Tom. ‘I’ll race you to the boathouse.’

  Tom leapt to his feet and dashed off with Roger in quick pursuit. Michael took up one of the papers and looked for his spectacles.

  ‘They’ve clicked all right, haven’t they?’

  ‘Apparently.’

  ‘I was afraid Roger would be rather bored alone here with us. It’ll be fine for him to have someone to play around with.’

  ‘Don’t you think Roger’s rather inconsiderate?’

  ‘You mean about the tennis? Oh, my dear, I don’t really care if I play or not. It’s only natural that those two boys should want to play together. From their point of view I’m an old man, and they think I’ll spoil their game. After all the great thing is that they should have a good time.’

  Julia had a pang of remorse. Michael was prosy, near with his money, self-complacent, but how extraordinarily kind he was and how unselfish! He was devoid of envy. It gave him a real satisfaction, so long as it did not cost money, to make other people happy. She read his mind like an open book. It was true that he never had any but a commonplace thought; on the other hand he never had a shameful one. It was exasperating that with so much to make him worthy of her affection, she should be so excruciatingly bored by him.