‘Phew, that was near, Morris! But she’s very good-looking, darling. Now I’ve seen her, I wonder if you will ever tell her!’
‘Alexandra, you know I will!’
‘D’you realise, darling, I’ve never really doubted you until now?’ She looked at me with her candid, limpid eyes. ‘You see—seeing her like this—in the flesh for the first time, it makes an imaginary obstacle into a real one—for me. Not for you, I know, but for me. I’m like someone who has heard of the sea and knows it can be stormy and difficult to cross, but has never seen it. Now I’ve seen it.’
‘Look,’ I said. ‘ I can’t stay with you a moment longer. I can only tell you that my promise stands. Nothing has altered. Nothing ever will. In any case it isn’t your problem; it’s mine. And the promise stands.’
I had not seen Marie Paladini since the performance and she had just come in; so I had to go across to her at once—to thank her for her part in the success tonight and also to thank her for her patience under the criticisms of the last five days.
She was gracious, deprecating in that strange way that actors and actresses can be deprecating without renouncing for a second their claim to be the centre of the universe, and we talked for a few minutes. When I got back I saw Harriet’s glass being refilled for the second time.
For the next half hour I stood beside her accepting the compliments as they came, and trying to influence her silently. Even before she touched a drop tonight she had been over-excited, and it seemed almost inevitable that two glasses would go instantly to her head. Yet you could never tell with Harriet. There were times when, contrariwise, it didn’t have any effect on her at all. I prayed that this would be one of the lucky times—and it seemed as if it would be. Twice more she was pressed to take another glass of champagne, but each time she smilingly refused.
In this relief I allowed myself to be beguiled into an amusing conversation with Daniel Deramore and Michele Vallois, whom I had hardly had private talk with since the night of Quatorze Juillet. I thought of all men I had ever met Deramore was the most congenial to me, the best company, the best mannered, the best quality of wit. He also always touched off in me a wit that lay too deep in my nature to surface in normal conversation. I began to reply like one of my own characters.
So it was some time before I caught Michele glancing across my shoulder and turned casually to see Harriet talking to Mme. Charisse and two others. It was Harriet talking and the others listening. I knew then. As I got near them I heard Harriet telling her listeners what a great playwright I was and how underrated I was even with the high praise given to Widow’s Peak. I saw one of the women politely put the back of her hand up to stifle a yawn.
I squeezed Harriet’s arm and smiled at her. ‘Now, now, let’s change the subject; this is embarrassing.’
‘Not at all,’ she said, her voice already slurred. ‘If you don’t want to hear, Morris, go away and talk to your girl friends. What I am saying … Do you understand?’
‘Yes, yes,’ they nodded, but she lapsed into ungrammatical French to make her points clearer. Whenever she stopped I racked my brains for the right words which would change the subject; but whereas with Michele and Daniel I had overflowed with easy amusing talk, now there was utter blockage. Harriet would make some pompous remark—so utterly unworthy of her normal quick intelligence—and would then stand there blinking at her listeners and demanding: ‘D’you see what I mean?’ while I beat my brains out in a complete inability to interpose something which would take the conversation out of her hands.
Perhaps the only consolation to the next half hour was that Alexandra and the Fayardes had already left. Others drifted away as the champagne and the caviar and the foie gras were finished, until only a couple of dozen were left, a few talking among themselves, but the rest being addressed by Harriet.
More than once I had caught at her arm and said: ‘Well, it’s time we were off; it’s after one and I’m dead tired,’ but she took little notice. In these strange intoxicated moods she seemed to be able to talk for ever; and I found it more humiliating even than I had done at the wedding, because there they were unintelligent clods who did not matter; here we were among perhaps the most highly sophisticated people in the world who must already in their hearts be pitying me for being married to this banal, boring Englishwoman.
Suddenly she turned to Charisse and said, did they not sit up until the first editions of the newspapers came out? In England it was the custom to stay up until four-thirty and read the notices. Before Charisse could reply I said, tonight we were not going to do anything of the kind: everybody was desperately tired after a pretty tense evening, and it was time now for bed. Just in time I saw Daniel Deramore was going to suggest something and I caught his eye and shook my head.
So gradually Harriet was edged out to the stage door and a taxi was found and we were helped in and seen off. She sat in injured silence and I was as usual fuming, the success of the night in ashes. One was put in an impossible position; unless one got drunk oneself and wallowed in it, there was no answer. Any sort of reasonable reaction to her made one seem like a kill joy.
As we got to the hotel she said: ‘ There’s one thing wrong with you, Morris, you can never relax. You can never really enjoy yourself, can you? You spend life in a—in a straight jacket. Maybe you get out of it in your plays, but never in life. And so—and so you expect those who live with you to be the same. Tonight you had been a—a success—’
‘Leave it,’ I said wearily. ‘For God’s sake leave it. We’ve been over it all before, endlessly before.…’
We got to the door of the hotel and I gave the driver a ten-franc note and held out my hand to Harriet. But she got out without help and walked ahead of me into the hotel. When I reached the desk she was already in full, animated conversation with the night clerk, telling him in her worst French what a tremendous success the play had been, ordering a copy of all the Paris daily papers to be brought up with morning tea at eight. I stood beside her, grimly determined not to interrupt this conversation if we stayed there all night. The clerk, with no better way to spend the time, was quite content to listen, though it was clear that he had at once summed up Mrs. Scott’s condition.
Not that it mattered of course. If one couldn’t celebrate on the opening night of a successful play, when could one celebrate? Perhaps Harriet was right about it all and I was wrong, wrong, wrong.
In the lift she dropped the key, and the white-gloved attendant almost banged heads with her as they stooped together. She smiled brilliantly but vacantly at him, pushed back her hair and began to tell him about the success of the night. We stopped at the lift gates on the third floor for solid minutes while she completed the story, then we made our way at last to our suite.
She switched on all the lights in the bedroom and opened the french windows on to the balcony. ‘Oh, what a lovely night! Look at those stars! Paris in the autumn—that’s what they should sing about. Did you know Charisse admired my frock? And also Jules Leblanc. What—what eyes that man has!’
Gripping my discomfort and irritation, feeling for a moment my own fault in all this, I went to the window and put my arm round her shoulder and looked out. We faced on to the courtyard which the hotel surrounded on all sides. Above us the stars glittered: Andromeda and the Square of Pegasus; Vega in the Lyre.
‘It’s lovely but it’s late. I’m dog-tired. Let’s go to bed.’
‘You go. I’ll stay a bit. I’m too wide-awake to sleep.’
‘You know you always go off to sleep like a log when you’re…’ I paused.
‘When I’m drunk? But I’m not drunk! I never am really! It’s not that that causes it.’
I nearly said, not even when you drive our car into the river? but held my tongue. What was the use? Because in a sense, a truly pitiable sense, what she said was entirely true. I went into the room, undressed, washed, cleaned my teeth. She was still standing there. I got into my bed, stretched my legs in pleasure. I was tired; it wa
s not just an excuse. The first night of the play had followed four days of intensive work and argument—apart from loving Alexandra.
When she heard me moving in the room again she called in through the open windows. ‘Jules Leblanc was very fl-flattering to me. It made me feel not such, such an old hag as you usually make me feel.’
Patiently I said: ‘Harriet, I’m sorry but you’re making that up. I can’t help it if you’re ill, can I?’
‘What?’ she said. ‘What d’you say?’
‘I said I can’t help it if you’re ill.’
‘Oh, no, but it’s nice to have a man look at you again as if you’re not quite finished.’
‘Come inside,’ I said. ‘ You’ll wake somebody talking out there!’
‘No, I shan’t. It’s l-lovely out here.’
I switched off a couple of lights and lay quiet for a time. I have always found that to compose itself for sleep my mind needs some warm or comforting thought to fasten on to. I realised that at the moment, in spite of everything, there was none. The cottage? No. Alexandra? Not yet. The success tonight? But it was soured. The sale of the film rights? That was not yet a certainty. My new play? It stagnated—
‘Who was that girl?’ Harriet called. ‘What was behind it? Was her name Wilshere? I’d like to know more.’
‘There’s nothing more to know.’
‘What?’
‘There’s nothing more to know.’
‘I don’t believe it. Tell me about it. That terrible countess woman interrupted me, otherwise—’
‘For God’s sake!’ I said, getting out of bed. ‘You’ll wake half the hotel. Come and undress and lie down and—’ I went quickly to the balcony. She was sitting on the rail smoking. ‘ Look, darling, it’s not all that warm. For God’s sake come in and let’s have some rest before the morning—’
‘No, Morris.’ The night air had sobered her, and she looked at me with a cool and quizzical gaze. ‘Tell me. This Wilshere girl. Is there something between you and her?’
‘Come inside. I’m not going to discuss anything with you out here at two o’clock in the morning.’
She said quietly: ‘ I wondered. Once or twice I wondered. And yet it seemed unlike you. I still think it is, so I’ll believe you if you deny it. Does that remind you of a naughty boy being caught stealing sweets? Perhaps it should. If so, it means you’ve been deprived of sugar—or so the sociologists would have us believe.… Oh, blast!’ She had tapped her cigarette and, her fingers fumbling a little, had dropped it. She leaned over to see where it had fallen. I think it’s safe—’
I pushed her. The muscular movement of deltoid, triceps, biceps and the rest was galvanised into action by some nervous but meditated impulse originating I know not where. I pushed her and she fell. Slowly at first, for the centre of balance was only just tipped. I saw her head half turn as if to look at me; she cried out but not loudly: it was a muffled protest; and she fell. Somewhere between earth and hell my soul suspended while she dropped. Then there was a tremendous crash and splintering of glass and metal as she went through the glass roof protecting the covered way to the reception desk of the hotel. It was like a bomb exploding in the quiet night. It exploded not only in the night but in my head.
And thereafter there was silence.
BOOK TWO
Chapter One
The Under Manager said: ‘Monsieur, do you feel well enough to answer a few questions?’
I suppose he had been there some time, but I did not remember having seen him before.
He said: ‘ The Commissaire Adjoint is here and wishes to see you. We have called also our own doctor, Dr. Dupree. He is not the police surgeon, who has gone with the—who has gone. Do you wish to see Dr. Dupree?’
I shook my head.
‘Then I will ask M. le Commissaire to come in.’
There was presently a man, tall and ascetic and bloodless with a big nose. He asked me questions and I did not answer. He asked me them again, courteously but firmly, not wishing to intrude upon my grief but with a job to do.
After a while I began to focus him better and to see his questions as something that could be understood. I tried a word or two, haltingly, like a man trying out an injured leg, and then discovered the habit of speech again. Consecutive sentences issued from my mouth.
When we got back from the theatre, I heard myself saying, I was very tired and went immediately to bed, but my wife did not wish to do so at once, and went out on the balcony to smoke a cigarette. We conversed for a few minutes through the open french windows. She was very elated about the success of the play, but calling from my bed, I asked her to come in, as I could see her sitting on the iron balcony rail and was afraid she would catch cold. She said she would, and then suddenly exclaimed: ‘Damn!’ I asked her what was the matter, and she said: ‘I have dropped my cigarette.’ I said to her, all the more reason to come in, but she replied: ‘ Wait a minute. I think I can reach it.’ And then I heard this terrible crash.
‘And that is all, monsieur?’
I nodded, my mouth dried up with the effort.
‘The play was over at what time, monsieur: eleven-thirty? This was twenty minutes after two.’
‘There was a party.’
‘You had both been—celebrating?’
‘Yes.’
‘Naturally. Champagne? Whisky soda?’
‘My wife was not drunk.’
‘Naturally not. But you will appreciate monsieur, that these balcony railings are constructed to a height which is generally considered safe. Even to sit on the rail is a little difficult.’
‘Not for a tall woman.’
‘No … But the centre of balance, you understand,’ he put his hands on his hip pockets, ‘ is about here. Was your wife given to fits of dizziness?’
I saw that another man was in the room writing. ‘She was not well.’
‘How was she not well?’
‘Arthritis.’
‘Did she get depressed about it?’
‘Yes. But never suicidally.’
The Commissaire Adjoint gave a brief deprecating shrug. ‘When a thing like this occurs, monsieur, we have to consider all possibilities.’
‘I cannot tell you how it happened,’ I said, and buried my face in my hands. ‘She overbalanced, I suppose. I know nothing more than you.’
‘Which is your bed, monsieur?’
‘This.’
‘Were you angry with your wife at not coming to bed when it was so late?’
‘I was—impatient. Why?’
‘The lift boy said he heard voices raised.’
‘Yes, but that was not in anger. One cannot converse through open windows unless one raises one’s voice.… God, I feel so sick!’
‘Then we will not trouble you more now. There is a doctor, I think, waiting. He will give you a sedative until the morning.’
‘When can I see her again?’
‘In the morning if you wish. She has been taken to hospital, as you know, but at the time, I am told, you were suffering too much from shock to accompany her. Now you will do well to rest. There is little more anyone can do until the morning.’
I struggled to my feet and put a hand over my eyes. Another man had come in. ‘This is Dr. Dupree.’
‘I’m all right,’ I said. ‘I just feel terrible—so sick.… Where have you taken her?’
‘To the Hôtel-Dieu … The body will be treated with all respect. She had no relatives in France?’
‘No.’
Then they were gone and I was sick in the bath, and the second man gave me a fizzing glass. At first I would not take it but he said it would settle my stomach. So I drank it and lay on the bed, and you could see the hotel windows opposite through the open window where Harriet had been; you could see them now because dawn was breaking.
Perhaps after all we should have stayed up to see what the press said about the play.
‘How say you?’ asked the clerk of the court. ‘Do you find the prisoner guilt
y or not guilty?’
‘Guilty of murder in the first degree,’ said the foreman, who was my father.
Harriet’s body had been brought into court, the black hair twisted like a net of snakes, blood oozing from the cuts on her face; the court was crowded, and the judge put on his black cap to pronounce sentence.
‘Morris Scott, you have rightly been found guilty of a most dastardly crime, and there is nothing more I can say, except to pronounce sentence: that you be taken from this place and in due course justice will be done, and may God have mercy on your soul!’
As he said this many people cried ‘Amen!’ and then the curtain came down. Clapping began and broke into wave after wave of applause. The curtain rose again and the players were smiling and bowing: the judge, the counsel, my father, Harriet, mopping her face to wipe away the blood.
Relief, great relief to find that it was all a play. They were crying ‘Author! Author!’ so I left the dock and climbed on the stage, took Harriet’s hand and bowed with her. But within the triumph existed fear, and the fear spread from the hand which was holding Harriet’s, which was cold and sticky and now would not unclasp. I began to fear that if I woke I would find it all not dream but truth: that I, in fact, had killed my wife and was now condemned for it; not dream, not drama.
To pull my hand away was like tearing flesh, to unclasp it from that cold clasp; then it was bright day and there was all the reassurance of a conventional bedroom, a coat on a chair, a dressing gown, a towel, some magazines and a theatre programme. Newspapers. My play was a success once again: further prosperity, a widening of fame; this would influence the American deal. Harriet would … Merciful Christ …
I sat up.… There was a man sitting in a chair, smoking a cigarette. He was a dark man with a dark chin and a pale foulard tie. I said: ‘ Who are you? What do you want?’
‘Inspector Millot instructed me to stay, monsieur. You have slept well.’
He had a notebook open. Had I talked in my sleep? ‘What time is it?’
After the Act Page 11
