by P. G. Glynn
“I’ve tried, too – but one can’t forget to order, can one?”
“One can’t!” Charles agreed, vehemently. “Oh, my Marie, you’ve succeeded in keeping your promise: I bitterly regret suggesting such a thing. I’ve suffered agonies over it and over the whole mess we’re in. If you only knew the extent of my suffering … ”
“Your suffering?” she flung at him, suddenly knowing which way this scene was going. She could not have known better had she seen a script. “How about mine? Being a man, you can have no idea what it’s like to find out there’s a baby on the way – especially when the father of that baby has absented himself from your life. When I first found out, I hated you for a while. There you were, with your body intact, whereas mine had been invaded by something that was growing inside me and threatening to change the whole fabric of my existence. It was our two bodies together that created this baby, yet mine was making me sick each morning while yours was doing nothing different. If that seems fair to you, it doesn’t to me, but as it’s the way of things women just have to get on with it, leaving men to think they’re the ones with the problems. Well, they are not! Carrying a baby one doesn’t want is a bigger problem than any a man might have to face … and I didn’t want this one until it finally came home to me that he, or she, is part of you and part of me and that I can’t kill the baby we made. Killing him, or her, would be murder quite as much as if the murdering were left until after the birth, so I’ve no choice but to let our child grow …and I came to you today rather hoping that you might have some … ideas for us. Clearly I shouldn’t have come.”
“Don’t say such a thing,” he protested, deeply ashamed of his part in proceedings and of having believed that the baby could be anyone’s but his. “Don’t, for pity’s sake, even consider it! Give me a little time to think. I feel as if I’ve been hit by a thunderbolt and that’s no state in which to deal with any of this.”
Thoughts chased each other round his head: an assortment of thoughts, starting with him and Marie living somewhere in sin with a baby and proceeding rapidly to Mrs Ormiston Chant and her Purity Party. The days of Mrs Chant’s opposition to the Music Hall and the Ladies of the Promenade were past, but people had changed hardly at all since her purge of 1894 and humbug still played a huge part in Britain’s so-called democracy. It played almost as large a part today as it did when Irving longed to marry Ellen Terry. Well aware of the hypocrisy governing people’s behaviour and of the dangers, artistically and financially, of a divorce in which Sir Henry would have been the guilty party, Ellen was shrewd enough to count in advance the cost of a scandal such as had ruined Edmund Kean – and to avert similar ruination for her and Irving, who owed much to her intuitive wisdom.
For Charles and Marie, however, divorce was not even an option. Madeleine had made that all too plain and wasn’t a woman likely to change her mind on account of a baby – which brought him back to the beginning and to the thought of living with Marie sordidly, in sin. Or could he, keeping his marriage intact, rent a second property, installing her there and visiting at every opportunity? He could do either of these things, but they would almost certainly be the end of him.
These were austere times and, with work in short supply, people were quick to point accusing fingers at those in favoured positions who overstepped the accepted bounds of taste and respectability in the living of their lives. While pointing they would take pleasure in withdrawing their custom from a theatre run by a man whose morals were seen to be those of a guttersnipe. This was simply how things were when men who had died for their country were almost better off than those who had returned from the Front to swell the ranks of an already lengthy unemployment queue. They had returned not only to find themselves jobless but also at odds with those they had fought for. They were now misfits in the community, which embittered them.
So they, perhaps more even than others, were eager to judge anyone toppling from a lofty height and becoming a mere mortal after being something akin to an icon. Were Charles and Marie to gamble with public judgment, they risked being made into scapegoats for all that was wrong with the moral climate. Could they take such a risk and, if they did, what would happen? At the very least they stood to lose their theatrical standing … and Madeleine would see to it, if his public did not, that he lost the Tavistock.
So his options were to lose his theatre or to lose Marie. Charles would not wish this choice on anyone, yet he must somehow choose between the stage that gave him his identity and the girl he loved.
A knock sounded on the door and then Gerald Atkins was in the room with them, saying: “Shall I come back later?”
“Yes, Gerald,” Charles said, “that would be best.” When the door had closed again he asked Marie: “Can you ever forgive me?”
“That depends,” she answered with a heavy heart, “on what you’re asking me to forgive.”
“Everything!” He wished he could revert to feeling nothing instead of feeling so much. He wished – oh, how he wished! – he could take Marie in his arms again and reassure her that he would right all the wrongs and keep her and their baby safe for the rest of his days. But they were standing apart and she was looking at him as if knowing the gist of what he had to say. Because they were so close, despite the chasm yawning between them, she probably did know. “I should never have done as I did. My sole defence is that I couldn’t help myself doing it. When you walked into this office offering to take over from Dolly Martin, you walked into my heart and there you have stayed: there you will stay, for as long as I live. Since that day I have not in any respect been in control of things. I feel as if I’m controlled by emotion and by feelings that have made me a better man while simultaneously making me a worse one. You brought me to life, my Marie, and showed me that heaven is not necessarily a place we go to after we die. We found it here on earth, you and I.”
He paused to wipe his eyes. “But I was in no position to find it, being already tied to a woman the world sees as my wife. I am more married to you, in truth, than I ever was or ever could be to Madeleine but, convention being as it is, the piece of paper I so misguidedly signed ties me to her until one of us dies. I could, of course, flout convention and risk the consequences and can think of little else – but in certain respects I know myself. I am no gambler, my love. I’ve had to take risks. They are necessary in our profession. I’ve never taken one, though, without the odds in my favour. Were I openly to commit myself to you, as I want more than anything to do, and consequently lose my theatre, I’m not at all sure I could survive, either personally or financially. The pressures would be such that I could well go under … and where would that leave us?”
“Still in love.”
He smiled ruefully. “I would still love you. That’s beyond question because there can be no end to my love …but as for you continuing to love a man who had failed in his responsibilities, well, I would not feel worthy and I believe that my unworthiness would sooner or later come between us. I think … it would kill me if it did. I must be seen by you, beloved Marie, in the light you saw me originally. I would sooner … lose you now than lose you through becoming a lesser man in your eyes.”
Chill had been seeping through her as he spoke and she could now hardly think for coldness. “So, rather than trust in my love and take the future on trust, you are saying ‘goodbye’ to us?”
“Not ‘goodbye’,” Charles protested, “never ‘goodbye’. I am not abandoning you, or our child. For as long as I have the Tavistock I can help out financially, and in time … ”
“ … pigs might learn to fly?”
“Don’t be bitter, Marie. You’ve every reason for bitterness, but when you think over the things I’ve said I believe they’ll begin to make sense. And I’ll tell you something else: I held you in my arms last night as I do most nights. You come to me when I sleep and we’re together until morning dawns, taking you from me. Nothing and nobody can ever separate us spiritually … and perhaps when God sees the extent of our need, He
will smile on our plight and bring you physically back to me.”
He was crying and now she cried. What right had she to be bitter, when she had known all along from his lips that he was a man with nothing to offer but his love? In accepting his love she had accepted everything that went with it, including this overwhelming sense of emptiness at the prospect of life without him. Putting her arms round Charles and holding him tenderly, as one might hold a bewildered child, she whispered: “No ‘perhaps’ – God must bring us back together.” She was weeping uncontrollably now. “Even if He’s the harsh judge Mam says he is, He’ll decide that our sacrifice will put everything right.” When eventually she could speak again, Marie said: “There’s something I’d better tell you. It’s about … Otto.”
As if on cue, the door opened and Otto strolled in. “Did someone mention me?” he asked.
“How dare you walk into my office without knocking?” Charles demanded, feeling at a distinct disadvantage as he disentangled himself from Marie.
“Did I not knock?” In a theatrical gesture Otto put one hand to his forehead. “In my eagerness to see my fiancée I must have forgotten.”
“To see your what?”
“Lieber Gott – Marie must have been feeling forgetful, too! And, unless my eyes are deceiving me, she isn’t wearing the ring I gave her yesterday when we became engaged. Well, who are we, as mere men, to question a woman’s reasoning? So I won’t question Marie’s reason for not wearing my ring … but I’d better mention our wedding, which I’m sure you’ll understand has to be treated with a degree of urgency. I’ve been able to arrange it for next Saturday – and obviously we wish to start honeymooning straightaway. So you’ll be needing to know that you have until Friday, Mr Brodie, to find yourself a new leading lady.”
21
Marie had at first been mad with Otto and had then gone along with his plans. Why not go along with them and marry him quickly, if this was what he wanted? She must give his needs and wishes some consideration if she was to be his wife. That was only right and, besides, there was nothing to be gained by delaying things. Staying on at the Tavistock longer than necessary only prolonged the agony … and she had had enough pain. There were merits in becoming Mrs Otto Berger and starting a new life, even if it meant stopping acting for a while. She would have had to stop some day for the birth of her baby … and Charles’s reaction to the news of her engagement had helped her decide that sooner was in many ways preferable to later.
He had reacted badly but Otto had engineered that, hadn’t he, seeming to delight in his cavalier handling of things? So Marie had made up her mind to forget Charles’s harsh words to her, when he accused her of deceit and such, and to remember only the earlier words he had uttered. Those were the ones that counted, not the others, for they had been spoken with love. Marie now did not doubt that he loved her. Nor did she doubt his anguish at having to let her go and it was comforting to know that, whatever happened, their love would always exist. She could draw strength from her knowledge … and somehow suspected that she would need all her strength for the marriage she was entering. Marrying for the wrong reasons, she could not expect life with Otto to be easy and she was fairly sure it wouldn’t be. But she must make the best of things, refusing to think negatively.
It was useless dwelling on the fact that from Saturday onwards Charles would have a new leading lady. Nor was it appropriate hoping that at such short notice he wouldn’t find another actress of the right calibre available to take over from her. Like it or not, and despite all that had gone wrong, Marie’s heart as well as belonging to Charles belonged to the Tavistock. So she could wish neither of them harm. She must simply wish them both well. And fortunately it was Charles’s problem, not hers, to find her successor.
She had enough problems, what with Uncle John going on about her uncharacteristic passivity and with finding a wedding dress. It would not have been her choice to marry in a registry office, but then it was not her choice to marry Otto. In a curious way she was grateful to him for arranging things so that she hardly had time to think. She was being passive. Marie knew it, but why fight circumstances when these were clearly conspiring in favour of this marriage? She didn’t feel like fighting. Look what had happened when she fought for the part of Nancy and won! Maybe it was best just to go with events rather than against them. Had she gone with them from the beginning Dolly would probably still be playing Nancy and Marie would still be a soubrette. At least she wouldn’t be pregnant. At least she would be part of the cast when the curtain rose next week …
+++++
Charles had begun to wonder whether the curtain would rise after Marie’s departure. He also wondered whether he cared. He was going through the motions of caring and of trying to locate an actress who was not only available but also capable of playing Nancy by Saturday, but such was his despondency that he could not seem to inject the necessary initiative into the project.
Whatever kind of man was he, to stand by and watch as the girl he loved so deeply committed herself in marriage to a man as arrogant as Otto Berger? He now knew that Marie was committing herself through necessity and that she wouldn’t be marrying the foreigner but for the fact she was expecting Charles’s baby and the knowledge weighed heavily. It made him feel angry … and sad … and appalled at his actions. Why, he had even shouted at Marie, accusing her among other things of deceiving him in coming to his office without her engagement ring!
Yet she had come, he well knew, in the hope that he would rush to her rescue. Why couldn’t he fulfil her hope, abandoning his customary caution and being the man he dreamed of being? That man would stand by his girl and face the world, cocking a snook at convention and somehow winning through the ensuing bedlam. He would not shrink back and pretend that nothing had happened … that his heart wasn’t breaking as his beloved slipped away from him. Was Charles an actor to the extent that he was a man merely as an afterthought? If so, he wasn’t even a good actor for he surely was not concealing his agony.
Dear old Ellen Terry had told him as much when he turned to her last night for advice on finding a new leading lady. In her seventies now, she still had all her wits about her and had asked whether his heart was in the theatre or elsewhere. The elderly could ask such things without seeming offensive and Charles had answered that he was doing as Irving, with her assistance, had done before him. He had seen a knowing light in her eyes before she patted his hand, telling him that pain passed in time and that he would survive.
Her professional advice had been to try a talented young actress she considered to be heading for the heights. So he had made enquiries about Edith Evans’s availability, only to find that she was currently rehearsing a new play. Lynn Fontanne and Gladys Cooper were also both booked far into the future and the redoubtable Lilian Baylis – who, with the war on and bombs dropping nearby, had told her underpaid actors she was ashamed of them all for diving for cover during a rehearsal – had contracted Sybil Thorndike and Winifred Oughton to the Old Vic. Did an actress of any standing exist who could step in as his leading lady at such short notice?
When by Wednesday Charles began to panic, he received an unsolicited visit …
+++++
“So despite everything you still intend going ahead with this wedding?” It was Thursday evening, after Otto had left. Gwen had just gone to bed and, sitting with Marie in the kitchen, John knew it was down to him to make her finally see sense. “Believe me, if you do, you’ll live to regret it.”
“I do believe you,” Marie told him, cupping her mug of cocoa between her hands, “but, having exhausted every avenue, what else can I do?”
“There’s something we haven’t discussed yet,” he said.
“There is?” she smiled indulgently at him. “Then let’s hear it.”
“You could lie low for a bit, have the baby … and have it adopted.”
After considering for a moment, Marie told him: “I couldn’t possibly give my baby away to strangers.”
&n
bsp; “I don’t have strangers in mind. Your aunt and I … we could adopt it and to all intents and purposes you could be its cousin. I’d be a good father. I swear I would … and you’d be off the hook!”
“That’s true,” Marie agreed, taking a deep breath and trusting that the right words would come into her head. “It needs saying that I don’t doubt for one second what a good father you’d be. Haven’t you been one to me? But … as for Aunt Gwen being a mother to my baby … that’s in an altogether different category. I’m sadder than you can imagine that you haven’t become a father in the usual way because I believe fatherhood might have proved the making of you … but I’m afraid I must be mother to the baby Charles and I made.”
John saw that she patted her stomach as she spoke and was moved to say: “He didn’t deserve you … and nor does Otto.”
“Spoken with true impartiality!” she exclaimed.
“Marie, darling, I’m serious and so should you be. Don’t rush headlong into this marriage. It isn’t a bit like you to do the expected thing. The unexpected has always been far more your forte and I’m certain something better will turn up for you, if you give Otto the elbow. I’ve nothing against him personally. He’ll make a fine husband for somebody – but not for you, Marie, and especially not while you’re still in love with Charles. Why, the present Mrs Brodie might drop dead next week and then where will you be? Take your old uncle’s advice and wait awhile before deciding something that will affect the rest of your life.”
“It’s decided,” Marie told him wearily, “and everything’s arranged. It’s too late to change my mind and, besides, Madeleine would never be so obliging. We should stick to facts, not pie in the sky.”
“Very well,” John said, “let’s turn our attention, then, to how Otto will feel about bringing up another man’s child. Have you considered his feelings in that respect … or the question of where you and your foreign husband will live? Take it from me that he’s most unlikely to want to settle in London.”
