by P. G. Glynn
He could not do it. He could not give her up: not for his public, his family or for anyone. He loved her too much. And she undoubtedly still loved him. Hadn’t she spoken of coming to him this evening in a spirit of reconciliation? She had wanted him to be the sender of the flowers, not that other man, and had said as much. Yet what had he done? He had pushed her physically from him and had seen an expression on her face of such pain that he must shut his mind to the memory of it. He must make amends. Yes. He would go to her after the performance and tell her how he felt. He would open his heart to her as he had never done before and ask whether she would take the risk with him of losing this theatre. If she would they could then, together, face the future. So went Charles’s thoughts as Bill killed Nancy at the end of the scene.
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One seat in the auditorium had been filled at the last minute by the purchaser of a very expensive ticket. Far from grudging the cost of it, at twice the marked price, he would have paid anything to see this particular production, for it was fascinating to observe the play within the play. There could be no faulting the leading lady, who had been superb as Nancy and whom the audience was now mourning loudly, but was Charles Brodie’s heart wholly in the part of Bill Sikes? It did not seem to be, unless he was a lesser actor than she. It seemed almost as if Charles were slightly – or more than slightly – preoccupied. Why might this be? Could there possibly be a bigger drama unfolding backstage than on-stage … and was there any chance of an addition to the cast?
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Charles made straight for Marie’s dressing room after the last curtain call and did not care who saw. All he cared about was ending their estrangement and holding her in his arms again. Once he was holding her everything could be swiftly resolved. There was no problem without a satisfactory solution. He should have seen this sooner – and, now that he had seen, would go on his knees to Marie if necessary.
“Leave us, Sarah, please,” he said, trembling at his glimpse of Marie as the dresser opened the door to his knock. “I have something to say to Miss Howard in private.”
“So have I,” said a voice from behind him. “Shall we both go in?”
“Otto!” gasped Marie.
14
Marie was still in the dark as to what Charles had wanted to say to her. Having rushed after him when he retreated to his office immediately following Otto’s arrival, she had been greeted with Shakespeare. ‘All the world’s a stage,’ he had quoted coldly, ‘and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances … ’
He had then babbled about knowing precisely when to make his exit, after which trying to talk to him had been futile. So she had stopped trying. He was too obtuse to be worth the effort, she had told herself, proceeding then to tell Otto exactly what she thought of him for turning up when he did. And how had he reacted? Why, with a dinner invitation!
He was the most maddening of men and yet, in the end, she had accepted and dined with him at the Ritz. There had been other invitations since and a variety of arguments. They argued over most things, from Otto’s decision to linger in London to whether King George had been well advised to change the name of the Royal House from Saxe-Coburg to Windsor. They had even had an argy-bargy over the merits or otherwise of dining at Stone’s Chop House. Seeing so much of Otto meant Marie had less time to dwell on what had gone wrong between her and Charles. The fact that Otto was a large part of what had gone wrong latterly just added to Marie’s sense of powerlessness. She felt curiously adrift, almost as if she had somehow lost the power to make decisions.
“What are you thinking?” Otto asked as they sampled sandwiches in the Palm Court at Buszard’s, Oxford Street’s famous cake-shop. “Or should I be asking who you’re thinking of?”
“However you phrase it,” Marie responded, “my answer will be the same.”
“It will?”
“Certainly,” she smiled. “My thoughts, fortunately, are mine.”
“So you don’t wish to share them, even with me?”
“Especially not with you.”
“Why?”
“Because you are a thorn in my side. But for you butting in when you did … ”
“So you are still thinking of him!”
“If I am, it’s none of your business.”
“I suspect there’s also something else,” he said. “For the past few days you haven’t been … yourself.”
“How can you possibly assess whether I’m myself or not?” Marie responded hotly. “You hardly know me.”
“I feel that I’ve come to know you rather better than you seem to think. That is,” he grinned, “I know your appetite and yours is … not what it was. You’ve been picking at your food, instead of consuming it with gay abandon as you did that first time at Claridge’s. Would you by any chance be feeling … sick?”
“Don’t be ridiculous! Why would I be sitting here eating, if … ?”
“That’s my point, precisely. You aren’t eating. You’re nibbling … and seeming to find no enjoyment in these delicious morsels.”
“They’re tasteless!”
“Then how about a large slice of that chocolate gateau – the one on the trolley with all the cream on top?” Otto asked as the orchestra started playing Strauss’s Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka. “You know, I suppose, that the polka originated in Bohemia?”
One glance at the gateau had Marie on her feet en route for the Powder Room, which she reached in the nick of time to be sick in private.
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Charles Brodie was in torment. How was he supposed to deal with the sight of Marie leaving his theatre with Otto Berger each evening? On top of which, backstage gossip had it that they travelled everywhere together by Rolls-Royce and dined at the Ritz and Claridge’s. Why, he had overheard Clive Swindall telling Michael Wickenden that Mr Berger was a millionaire who had sold some land at Windsor bought pre-war and who would spend every last penny of the proceeds if necessary to sweep Marie off her feet – and then cart her off to his castle in Czechoslovakia. Well, the foreigner was certainly spending money like water. The exorbitant prices he was rumoured to be paying for front row tickets and the flowers filling Marie’s dressing room were testament to that – but she could surely not be bought.
No. She might well be flattered by all the attention lavished on her and by being – once again – the talk of the Tavistock, but the money in itself would mean nothing. This was little consolation to Charles when he saw her arriving and leaving on Otto’s arm. Was she happy with her new man? Hard to tell, except that Marie didn’t seem unhappy with him … and Charles had heard her laughter last evening as she left the theatre.
He couldn’t imagine laughing. His heart was so heavy that he wondered at his ability to keep going night after night, either as himself or as Bill Sikes. He was tortured, too, with imaginings. Did she kiss Otto Berger as she had once kissed him? Did they ever do more than kiss? What went on altogether at the plush hotels they visited? Dear God, the thoughts did not bear the thinking!
He must do something – anything – to stop his torture. The question was: what?
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It was all very curious. With OLIVER TWIST still sold out months in advance, the Guv’nor was putting a new production into rehearsal. Was he doing so for professional reasons … or for personal ones? Word had it that, smarting over Marie Howard’s defection from his bed to Otto Berger’s, Charles wanted her where he could keep an eye on her.
The Company had been called for ten o’clock in the morning and told to assemble in the Green Room where, following Irving’s tradition, Charles began with a reading. His actors seated in a circle round him, he personally read DOMBEY & SON through from beginning to end for their benefit. Until he had done this, with tips on how each part should be handled, he did not distribute scripts. These, in a pile beside him, were handwritten rather than typed and contained only cues and individual lines. With Charles’s script the sole complete one, he kept control over the produ
ction. After a reading that lasted all day he would tell his cast which parts they were playing.
Waiting to hear her name, Marie wondered why he had chosen this particular play. It had been scripted from one of Dickens’s lesser-known works and gave her little scope as leading lady. She and Charles were not to play father and daughter, were they?
It began to seem that they were, since Dombey’s daughter was the only possible part for her. Why was he doing this? Did he want to feel fatherly instead of how he actually felt? If he did, did he honestly think lines from Dickens would make any difference? Feelings could not be changed so easily. Perhaps, though, she should take heart from the fact that he was trying to change his. If his feelings needed changing, then they still existed.
Charles Brodie, his voice slightly hoarse from his marathon reading, began to deal with the cast list. He himself would play Dombey of course and, starting from the top, Marie Howard would take the part of Dombey’s daughter Florence.
There were some surreptitious nudges and winks. What were they to think of this casting? Now that she had ditched him for a younger man, had old Charles come to his senses and seen that he and Marie Howard had been a prime example of summer and spring? Or, in making her his daughter, was he trying to show her that she was subservient to him? Oh, there were numerous ways to think! But one thing was certain: further dramas were on the cards, the juiciest of which had not been written by Dickens.
Guy Brodie had just one worry as a result of today’s reading. Standing with Marie in the wings as the curtain rose on OLIVER TWIST he asked her anxiously: “As I am Father’s son and you are now going to be his daughter … does that mean you can never marry me?”
“Bless your heart, darling – no, it doesn’t!” Marie assured him warmly. “We mustn’t confuse make-believe with reality, must we?”
The following morning – Friday – there was another seated reading, this time on-stage, when the players checked the accuracy of their scripts and rehearsals had begun in earnest by Monday. Assisted in marshalling and positioning by Gerald Atkins and his staff prompter, Charles Brodie dealt first with one act per day. He dealt with it thoroughly, taking each line and analysing it until Marie felt she could scream. She was tired, as was the entire Company, and there was surely no need for such lengthy analysis. Was he doing this deliberately, to keep her here in the theatre and out of Otto’s reach?
Charles himself was utterly fatigued. He had achieved his purpose but Marie, although seeing less of him, was still Otto Berger’s … and he could still see himself and her as they once were. Exhaustion did not blot out mind-pictures. It did not ease torture. As for Marie now being his daughter, by day, try though he might he could not feel fatherly and she remained Nancy by night … while in his dreams she returned to him as his sweet Marie. So where was he going with DOMBEY & SON? It seemed to Charles that he was going nowhere, except round in circles, for he had been a fool to believe that a new play was the answer. There was no answer, no respite from his suffering. Florence she might be, and he Dombey, but beneath these personae they were still as they had been.
The stage was dressed with a substitute set and she was standing by his chair. “‘He is the darling of my heart, Papa,’” Florence said. “‘I would die for him. He will love and honour you, as I will. We will teach our little child to love and honour you; and we will tell him, when he can understand, that you had a son of that name once, and that he died, and you were very sorry; but that he is gone to Heaven, where we all hope to see him when our time for resting comes. Kiss me, Papa, as a promise that you will be reconciled to Walter – to my dearest husband – to the father of the little child who taught me to come back, Papa. Who taught me to come back!’”
Dombey, like Charles Brodie, was a proud man but pride had no place in his present state of mind. “‘Oh my God, forgive me,’” he replied, “‘for I need it very much!’”
They had been resorting to subterfuge, hiding the truth. The truth was that Charles needed Marie’s forgiveness even more than Dombey needed Florence’s. As Dombey looked at his daughter he saw in her eyes the love she had been trying to hide … and Charles knew then that Marie was still his for the asking. Having nothing to offer her, he should not ask but did he have a choice? He had not chosen to love, but was in the grip of something all-consuming. It was too much to ask of a man, that he should turn his back on such a love, that he should resist … this.
In his best attempt at a managerial voice, he said at the end of the scene: “We shall break now for one hour … and Miss Howard will come to my office, please.”
Clive Swindall had seen the look passing between the two leads and did not need genius to work out which way the land lay. Charles had obviously wearied of watching from the wings as Marie made hay with her rich admirer and wanted her in his arms again. Odd that she was willing, considering the high life she was living with the urbane Otto Berger, but there was no accounting for human behaviour … or for taste. Clive was well aware of which man he would prefer. Why bother with a married actor when one could have a wealthy – and fancy-free – aristocrat? The foreigner was so smooth, too, that one could learn from him how to mix in society as well as how to adapt to aristocratic habits. Clive had heard that the aristocracy liked to keep abreast of all sexual practices and that they were not fussy as to whether they went to bed with the opposite sex or their own. In the belief that he might have certain attractions for Marie’s beau he had been trying for some time to bring himself to Otto Berger’s notice.
Could there ever be a better opportunity than that currently on offer? Clive rather doubted it. As the Company started to disperse, with Marie and Charles ahead of the rest, he said: “We have a duty, haven’t we, to our guest?”
Clive’s voice carried well. It reached Charles Brodie who, for all his eagerness to be with Marie, could hardly ignore such a query. “Guest?” he said, turning on his heel and peering toward the rear of the theatre. “I trust nobody has entered.”
There was a rule, strictly enforced, that rehearsals were conducted in private, with outsiders barred from the auditorium. It was one of Seymour Carlysle’s duties to see that there were no intrusions while work was in progress and he himself was discouraged from intruding. But money had bought entry even into this holy of holies and now the spotlight was on Otto who, revelling in his role, emerged from the shadows and said: “Somebody has – and after so many hours immobilised in my seat I’d be glad to accept your offer of hospitality!”
“I have made no such offer,” Charles told him from the front of the stage, “and I must insist on an explanation. Who allowed you in?”
“Nobody did. I gave myself permission.” Otto started down the aisle while speaking, relishing the rapt attention he was receiving from his on-stage audience. “How else, now that you are working her so hard, am I to see anything of the girl I love or to stand the strain of our being apart?”
Charles’s voice sounded constricted as he said: “I am not the least bit interested in your private … affairs. All that interests me is the efficacy of my theatre - which you, sir, are interfering with. I won’t have such interference … and I won’t have rules flouted as if they are inconsequential. Have I made myself clear?”
“I think so,” Otto told him, “although things could possibly be made clearer over a cup of tea. If that’s what you were about to offer Marie in your office, might a third cup be found for me?”
15
John Jones had made up his mind that it was time to talk to Marie – or, rather, persuade her to talk to him. This was the sixth consecutive morning that he had heard her being sick and her explanations were beginning to wear thin. First she had blamed her sickness on a stomach upset and then on all the dramas at the theatre when Otto had somehow wangled his way into the auditorium – subsequently being banished by Charles Brodie who had, it seemed, accused Marie afterwards of putting her private life ahead of her acting career. Now she was blaming overwork and too little sleep. Otto Ber
ger had not put her in the family way, had he?
If he had, John would murder him and feel no guilt. Nothing would be too bad for a man who could take advantage of Marie and ruin her. John did not know quite what to make of the foreigner. Despite everything he still tended to think of him as an honourable man, which did not tie in with his suspicions about the sickness. It had also been odd that he had said his farewells and then stayed on in London, buzzing around Marie like the bee he had once saved her from. There was nothing odd about his having fallen for her. Who would not fall for such a tender hearted, sparkling girl? If Otto had postponed his trip home with marriage in mind John would not be surprised. But it would surprise him if Marie were thinking of becoming Mrs Otto Berger, for he was fairly sure she was not in love with the foreigner.
Therefore she would not have gone to bed with him, would she? Marie had too much integrity to give herself to a man she was not in love with. So what on earth was going on?
With Gwen snoring beside him, he listened to Marie being sick. She would not thank him for going to her now. He would wait a bit and then go, hoping that Gwen’s snores would drown the sound of talking. The last thing he and Marie needed was her interference. Knowing her and how she worshipped Otto Berger, she’d very likely be flattered for ‘her’ niece to have been compromised by him. Cripes, Marie hadn’t been … had she?
