by P. G. Glynn
“More than you’ve got in the world, Sarah.”
“I can come up with fifty quid, at a pinch.”
“That wouldn’t get me very far.”
“P’raps not, but it’d get you somewhere. I was savin’ it as a nest-egg to leave for my grandkids, but it might make ’em shiftless so you’d be doin’ ’em a favour. That is, if you promise not to spend it on drink.”
Dolly’s eyes brimmed. “You’re a good woman, Sarah. I never realised just how good you were.”
“Tommyrot! Tell you what – meet me in the Charing Cross post office on Friday at nine o’clock and I’ll ’and it over.”
“I’ll pay you back. I pay all my debts, good and bad.”
“That’s as may be. Now get up off that floor, dust yourself down a bit and come wiv me. No sense addin’ to the trouble you’re in already.”
Miraculously, Dolly did as she was told and they met nobody on their way to the stage door. Ben Stock’s jaw dropped as he spotted Dolly, who laughed, asking: “Who was the naughty boy that let me in?”
“I didn’t,” the old stage door keeper protested, staring at her as if at a ghost before looking anxiously at Sarah, “honest to God, I swear I didn’t!”
“Well, if you didn’t,” Sarah told him, “I’d like to know who did.”
“She must’ve slipped in when I was doing my delivering, that’s all I can think.”
“And now I’m slipping out,” said Dolly, “with no harm done, though that’s more thanks to Sarah than it is to you. I’ll see you again, Ben, when I take the Tavistock over and turn it into a stylish theatre. How’s that for acting on your advice, Sarah?”
“It’ll do for starters,” the dresser replied, delighted to see more than a hint of the old Dolly Martin. “See you at nine sharp, Friday.”
“What a hard taskmaster you are!” Dolly smiled, walking off and waving them both ‘goodbye’.
“Where’d she spring from,” Ben said, scratching his head, “and what’s going on?”
“Nothin’ you need bother your ’ead wiv – nor speak of, to anyone. Let’s ’ope the Guv’nor never gets to know you deserted your post. I wouldn’t change places wiv you if he did, not for all the porter in the Fox & Crow.”
“Lawks, I didn’t desert it. It’s them baskets of flowers that’s to blame. I took another one through to you while you was gone from Miss Marie’s dressing room. Who’s sending them, d’you think?”
“I don’t know who is, but sure as breathing I know who isn’t.”
Ben decided to try another tack. “Did I hear singing?”
“I’ll skin you alive if you let on that you did.”
This aggrieved him. “No need for no skinning. I won’t be talking. You should know I won’t.”
“Oh, I should, should I?”
He saw that Sarah was smiling. Seeing this and knowing her bark was worse than her bite, he tried: “I thought I heard Three Blind Mice. That’s bad, that is … if I heard it.”
“I never ’ad you down as being superstitious.”
“We all are, aren’t we, in this business?”
“I never knew you was in it. I always thought you was on the fringe. As for the singin’ bein’ bad: if the Guv’nor don’t know he’s due for a mishap, then p’raps it won’t ’appen.”
“S’right Sarah! What he don’t know he can’t fret over. Look, I likes a nice jar of porter and if you do too we could go to the Fox & Crow later so’s I could buy you one. How does that strike you?”
“As bribery,” she sighed, “but I’ve ’ad worse offers so you’re on.”
Another delivery-boy arrived then, almost completely masked by the basket of cream roses he was carrying. When Sarah had accepted these on behalf of Marie Howard Ben said: “Whoever he is, he’s rich.”
“And badly smitten!” Sarah finished. “I wonder if he’ll get a look-in.”
+++++
Marie just wished she didn’t feel so sick. She must have eaten something at Claridge’s causing her to feel like this, unless it was the drink. Unused to champagne, she had drunk somewhat too much of it. She wondered whether Otto Berger was suffering similarly, somewhere at sea.
No, of course he wouldn’t be. He habitually ate and drank as they had last evening. Where for her there had been novelty in the proceedings, there had been none for him. Well, meeting him had been an interesting experience but now he was gone, thank heaven. There was a profound sense of relief in looking at the clock at half-past-eleven and knowing that his train was leaving Liverpool Street. Marie was unsure why she was so relieved. Otto, after all, was just a man much like any other and she was more than a match for him. So why that precognition when shown the photograph of his home … why the chill within when he sang of his mountains? Finding no answers, Marie kept trying to banish Otto from her mind. Neither Aunt Gwen nor Nell, however, was helping in this.
Since Marie’s visit to Claridge’s Aunt Gwen had had a metamorphosis. Over breakfast – fresh toast with a boiled egg – she asked after Otto’s health and queried when Marie (not Mary!) would be seeing ‘that fine gentleman’ again. Her brow had furrowed at the reminder that Otto was heading for home today, but she had then said knowingly: “He’ll be back. He struck me as someone who knew he was on to a good thing. Yes, he’ll be back – don’t bother your head about that.”
Nell was little better. She had been cross-questioning Marie all afternoon in the den. Her stance had been different, though, from Aunt Gwen’s. There was such a wistful timbre to her questions that Marie eventually asked her whether she had wanted Otto for herself.
They were lying on their stomachs on Nell’s bed, propped up on their elbows and with a chamber pot close by in case Marie needed to vomit. “Did I want him?” Nell echoed, frowning. “Oh no, dear, I didn’t! Even he couldn’t begin to compare with my Billy … on top of which Mr Berger inhabits a different world from me.”
“He doesn’t, Nell. You only think he does.”
“Marie … he lives in a castle … and stays in places like Claridge’s!”
“Yes – but only because he’s rich.”
“That might not be a big ‘only’ for you, but it’s huge for me. I could never live in his world, Marie, whereas you … ”
“ … wouldn’t want to.”
“You said that too quickly. Is it strictly true?”
“Strictly and absolutely! How many times have I told you that I’m glad Otto has gone – glad to have seen the back of him?”
“Too many! You know what they say about people who protest too much.”
“Well that stupid old saying doesn’t apply to me, so stop thinking it does. It’s very irritating to have one’s word disbelieved, especially when feeling as nauseous as I feel. I wish I’d never eaten that meal … and know exactly what I’d like to do to that bee.”
“I’m sorry you’re feeling poorly,” Nell said sympathetically, “but I can’t pretend to share your bee-sentiment. I feel as if I’ll live on the memory of yesterday forever.”
“I’ve no intention of living on any memories, especially not of Otto Berger. All I hope is that my evening with him wasn’t wasted.”
“Wasted? How do you mean, dear?”
“I’m pinning everything on word of it having reached Charles and forced him to re-consider.”
“You are?” Nell could hardly believe that Marie still preferred Charles to Mr Berger. “But he can’t – can he? – re-consider, I mean. His hands as a married man are tied for him.”
“He could untie them.”
“How could he, Marie – realistically?”
“I don’t care about realism. I just care about him,” Marie said, tears threatening. “I try not to. I keep trying to harden my heart and hate him for ending everything, but I can’t. Added to that is the fact that it hasn’t ended. How can it, when we both feel the same as we always did? We’re living a lie at present, pretending it’s all over when nothing has changed fundamentally. Why should we lie for the sake
of propriety when, by denying our feelings, we’re dying inside?”
“Mr Brodie has a wife – that’s why. Believe me, dear, if you ignore her existence and refuse to face reality, there’ll be far-reaching consequences with the name Marie Howard perhaps dragged through the dirt instead of staying up there in lights. He isn’t worth such a risk. No man is.”
“I’m a better judge of that than you are,” Marie said with a glower.
“You’re no judge of anything when it comes to him, which is why I’m having to give you some straight-thinking.”
Marie managed a watery smile. “I’m a trial to you, aren’t I?”
“One I wouldn’t be without,” Nell told her stoutly.
They travelled to the theatre together, parting at Marie’s dressing room door. When she opened it and walked in she thought she must be hallucinating.
She had never seen so many flowers, not all in one place, exquisitely arranged. There seemed to be baskets of them everywhere – on the floor, on her dressing table, on chairs – and they were mostly red, although some were pink and a few were cream. Red roses: their message was clear! Charles had heard about her evening out with Otto and was now telling her that he no longer cared about society’s or Madeleine’s expectations of him. He only cared about Marie … and just wanted her forgiveness.
Her spirits soaring, she breathed the perfume in saying: “I must go to him.”
“Is he here in the theatre, then?” Sarah said.
“Of course he is! Where else would he be at this hour? Oh, Sarah, didn’t he know there was no need to go to all this expense? I’d have forgiven him if he’d just said he was sorry and promised not to be so destructive again. But the flowers are the best apology there could possibly be. I’ll try not to be gone too long.”
“She’ll be given short shrift and be back in a jiffy,” the dresser said to herself as Marie left like a whirlwind, “if she’s gone to see Mr Brodie.”
+++++
He had encountered Clive Swindall in the corridor, so knew about the flower-baskets. Clive had delighted in telling him that Marie Howard’s dressing room was by all accounts overflowing with flowers and that her new beau must be extremely rich. So could it be that Marie had already forgotten him? While knowing that it could not, Charles kept torturing himself with the thought that her memory might be very short. He had assumed – wrongly, it now seemed – that she was suffering much as he and that for her too their time apart was agony. He could neither eat nor sleep and cursed his weakness in yielding to Madeleine. For being so weak he deserved to lose Marie but, if he had lost her – what then? There could be no peace for him ever again. He could never look in a mirror for fear of seeing the man who had had everything and who now had nothing. He could never hear a love-song without wishing he had kept her for himself instead of sending her into the arms of someone whose love for her could not possibly match his. Oh, the ‘nevers’ were endless, as were the nights spent agonising and the days spent in feverish anticipation of going on-stage and being with her again, even if he was being Bill to her Nancy rather than Charles to his beloved Marie. He could not exist like this, but what was his alternative?
Madeleine said that if he left he would destroy their family … and she would destroy him. She would not hesitate, she said, to go to the press and tell them of his infidelity. Nor would she stop there. Being of independent means, she would not suffer too much financially if he lost his theatre …and she had vowed to see that he lost it by demanding instant repayment of the sum she had put in. She did not do things the way they were done in England but then she wouldn’t, being French. And Charles did not think she was bluffing, although he could not be sure of course. Keeping him on a string was one of Madeleine’s many strengths. She revelled in it and in his unhappiness. He must have hurt her very badly for her to hate him as she did.
He had hurt Madeleine and was now hurting Marie. What was wrong with him? Why had he made such a terrible mess of everything?
Or maybe Marie was not hurting. Maybe she had, in fact, gone and found herself another man. If she had, who was he? Charles felt faint with jealousy.
There was a knock on his office door, which opened before he could gather his wits. Marie burst in saying: “Charles, darling … they are amazing!”
Clutching his desk for support, he queried: “They?”
She saw his forbidding expression, heard the coldness in his tone, but these did not register. “The flowers,” she said, rushing over and throwing her arms rapturously round him though he was quite unresponsive. “Stop pretending you didn’t send them when I know you did.”
He pushed her from him, saying: “I didn’t. Is this some cruel trick?”
She felt winded, as if he had kicked her. She also felt totally bewildered. “It isn’t me playing tricks,” she said, trying to comprehend. “If you didn’t send them, then who on earth did?”
“A good question – but one that I can’t answer. You can, presumably. Who is he, Marie? Who is your new boyfriend with money to burn?”
At this a different picture floated into focus. Now she saw that Charles was not responsible and that Otto was and the knowledge hit home like a sledgehammer. No wonder Charles was standing there like some distant stranger. No wonder he had pushed her away. It was all a mistake. Ice replacing the blood in her veins, Marie told him: “I owe you no explanation as to who he is. But I’ll tell you this: he has asked me to marry him, which is a sight more than you ever did. You’re a taker, Charles, not a giver, so it’s a wonder I ever suspected you of being the flower-sender. I must have been off my head to suspect such a thing and come here in a spirit of reconciliation. Kindly forget that I ever did!”
+++++
“They wasn’t from ’im?” Sarah queried on sighting Marie’s white face and grim expression. “Fancy you ever thinking they was!”
“Yes … just fancy!”
“I’d have stopped you goin’ in, but there’s no stoppin’ a wild thing.”
“No,” Marie agreed wearily, starting to shed the clothes she was wearing, “there isn’t. Why don’t I ever learn to think first? Giddy godfathers, there’s nowhere to move in here and I can hardly breathe for all the perfume! One basket would have been enough for any normal person, but not for him – oh no, not even with a train to catch and a boat! It’s just as well for Otto that he’s out there on the ocean. If he were any closer I’d hit him for doing this.”
“Hit ’im for sendin’ such lovely roses? That seems a bit tough on ’im. Otto, did you say ’is name is?”
Marie sighed. “I did, though I can think of other names for him. I’m finished with men forever.”
“That’s bin said afore and will be again. I’ve said it meself, truth to tell – and felt I meant it. Who is he when he’s at ’ome, this Otto?”
“Just someone Nell and I met on a boat.”
“He was on a boat when you met ’im and now he’s on another one?” Sarah sniffed suspiciously. “Sounds very odd to me. Foreign, is he?” When Marie didn’t answer immediately she stated flatly: “I ’ope you ’aven’t bin befriendin’ the enemy.”
“Otto wasn’t the enemy then, even if he is now,” Marie said with heavy irony. “He didn’t fight us in the war, you see.”
“A conchie, was he?”
“Not exactly. It’s a long story.”
“That’s the way of your stories, often as not. Well, are we gettin’ down to work or what?”
+++++
Charles knew he was not giving of his best, but it was nigh impossible to perform with questions going round and round in his head. Where and when had Marie met the man who had proposed marriage and filled her dressing room with flowers – and who the devil was he? The fellow, whoever he was, must presumably be free to marry. Charles cursed yet again the fact that he himself was not free, having married Madeleine instead of waiting for Marie.
Not that he had known of her existence but he should have known that someone, somewhere, existed who was
the missing half of him. Knowing that he was incomplete, he should have bided his time until he found completion, certain in the knowledge that he would find it. But, utterly foolish, he had settled instead for sex, finding love too late.
Until it happened to him he had not comprehended how all-consuming love could be, nor the power it could wield. Comprehension had come to him solely since he had been held in love’s grip and he was frightened by it. There had been a time, long ago, when he was in control of his emotions. In the pre-Marie era, they had never controlled him. Now, though, all that had changed and he could not seem to think straight or behave in the way actor/managers were supposed to behave. With Marie pulsing in his blood and filling his every daydream while remaining out of reach, he frequently felt that he was teetering on the very brink of sanity. It would take alarmingly little to tilt him over the brink into the murky waters of the no-man’s-land that the mad inhabited. How was he to avoid it? Did he want to avoid it?
There would be a kind of comfort in slipping from an ostensibly rational existence into one where nothing was defined and nobody was making demands on him. He could do bizarre things without attracting undue attention and could vent his anger if he felt like venting it, as he currently often did at life’s injustices. Why had he been born too soon for Marie, or she too late for him? Why was Madeleine Catholic? Why was it so easy to get into marriage and so hard to get out of it? Why was he still so anxious to please his public that he was prepared to sacrifice Marie for the sake of the Tavistock?
