Author, Author

by David Lodge

  But the first act of Guy Domville made her doubt her own judgement. It was some time since he had read it to her. It had been much improved in the meantime, and it was beautifully acted, especially by Alexander and Marion Terry. The elegance of Henry’s language, which sometimes made his lines seem stilted and artificial, seemed appropriate to the period of the action, and the action itself was intriguing. There was a certain amount of coughing in the gallery at one point, but she could sense the whole house attending closely and appreciatively to the concluding scenes. When Marion Terry, left alone on the stage, with her hopes dashed as suddenly as they had been raised, poignantly laid her face against the pillar of the porch, and the curtain came down at the end of the act, the applause was too loud and spontaneous simply to be attributed to the large number of the author’s friends in the audience.

  ‘Well, wasn’t that wonderful!’ Florence Bell said into her ear, clapping energetically.

  ‘Wonderful,’ Elizabeth agreed. ‘What a pity Henry isn’t here to see it.’

  ‘And to hear the applause!’

  ‘Well done, my dear,’ Alexander murmured to Marion Terry as she came into the wings.

  ‘Was it all right, Alec?’ she asked. ‘The business at the porch?’

  ‘It was perfect,’ he said.

  They, and the other members of the cast, dispersed to their dressing rooms, exchanging pleased smiles, but no more words. All knew the act had gone well, but it was inviting bad luck to crow openly about it. Besides, Alexander reflected, the second act was a much trickier proposition.

  ‘Well, that was delightful, I must say,’ said George Du Maurier to Emma, as the lights in the auditorium were turned up to their full brilliance, and the applause faded to be replaced by a hum of conversation. ‘Did you enjoy it, dear?’

  ‘Very much. Such a pretty set! Do you think the flowers are real?’

  ‘I really didn’t notice them, Pem. I was attending to the play.’

  ‘Yes, the play was very nice too.’

  Du Maurier laughed. ‘I hope you won’t congratulate James on the flowers when we next see him.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Kiki, of course I won’t.’

  ‘Shall we stretch our legs in the entr’acte?’

  Moving up the aisle in a slow-moving stream they ran into Tom Guthrie, known to readers of Punch as the humorist ‘F. Anstey’.

  ‘Hallo, Du Maurier. What d’you make of it?’

  ‘I think it’s a very distinguished piece of dramatic writing.’

  ‘Yes, it’s distinguished, all right. But caviare to the general, I fear – there was a good deal of coughing behind me in the pit. By the way, I hear Trilby is going to be staged in America. Are you writing the play yourself?’

  ‘No, no, a man called Paul Potter. Very experienced, I’m told.’

  ‘So you’ll be raking in even more shekels.’

  ‘Alas, no. I don’t own the dramatic rights.’

  ‘Ah. Still, it will be good publicity for the book, I daresay.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Not that it needs it.’ Guthrie moved off to greet another friend.

  ‘Everybody thinks I’m a millionaire since Trilby came out,’ Du Maurier grumbled.

  Most of the audience in the stalls chose to ‘stretch their legs’ like the Du Mauriers, and filtered out into the bars and the foyer in search of refreshment or their friends. A few men, however, remained in their seats, their heads bowed, writing in notebooks balanced on their knees. These, Herbert realised, must be his fellow critics, recording their impressions of the first act. George Bernard Shaw did not linger long, jumping to his feet after a few minutes and striding up the aisle. Herbert followed suit, hoping to find an opportunity to introduce himself, but in the foyer he was surprised to run into Harry Cust and a colleague, encased in boiled shirts and evening suits. Cust grinned and greeted him a little sheepishly. ‘What do you think of the play?’ Cust asked.

  ‘You must wait and see,’ he replied.

  ‘Don’t forget to use the red envelope when you post your copy,’ Cust said.

  ‘No, I won’t,’ Herbert said, adding: ‘Do you go to many first nights?’

  ‘It depends,’ said Cust, and his companion stared down at his shoes.

  ‘Were you at the Haymarket on Thursday?’ Herbert asked.

  ‘Well, yes, we were as a matter of fact.’

  Herbert realised that the two men had come so that they could cover for him if he failed to produce a usable review.

  ‘A smart evening suit, that, Wells,’ Cust remarked. ‘Is it new?’

  ‘No, I’ve had it for years,’ Herbert said.

  Mrs Alexander and her guest, the actress Lily Hanbury, did not leave their box in the interval. It was Florence Alexander’s special box, one which was always reserved for her on first nights, commanding an excellent view of both stage and auditorium.

  ‘A wonderful set, Florence,’ said Miss Hanbury, ‘and beautiful costumes, as usual. Did you have a hand in the dresses?’

  ‘I did take some period drawings to Savage and Purdue to give them some ideas. And as usual I approved the materials and the colours, to make sure they would go with the scenery.’

  Florence Alexander, who had been an actress herself in youth, took a keen interest in her husband’s business. In his early days as a manager she had helped to economise on production costs by designing the actresses’ costumes, even sewing some of them herself. She also kept a watchful eye on the stage management, and personally checked before first-night performances that all the props were in place. First nights were always a strain – so many things could go wrong – but this one was going very well. How handsome Alec looked in his sober clerical costume!

  ‘The flowers look quite real,’ said Miss Hanbury.

  ‘They are real!’ Florence laughed. ‘They’re all growing in little pots and have to be watered daily.’

  ‘Goodness! What perfectionism.’

  ‘What do you think of the play?’

  ‘I think it’s quite wonderful, so far.’

  The patrons in the gallery and the pit were somewhat less enthusiastic about the first act than those in the stalls and lower boxes. They would have liked more action and less talk, and some of the talk had been obscure to them. There was however general satisfaction that Guy Domville had decided against becoming a priest – ‘if only,’ someone remarked, ‘so that Alick can get out of that dreary black suit’ – but there was much debate among the female spectators about whether he didn’t realise that the good-looking young widow was in love with him, or was prevented from reciprocating by knowing his friend was in love with her. Obviously they would marry in the end, so there was speculation about how the rather nice friend would be compensated for the loss of the widow. ‘My money’s on the heiress, what was mentioned at the end,’ somebody said. Another thought the maid, Fanny, would turn out to be another heiress and so eligible to marry the gentleman. The women ate oranges and cakes that they had brought with them in brown paper bags, and passed bottles of ginger beer to each other. Most of the men went out in search of stronger refreshment, and returned in a merrier mood, hoping for more robust entertainment in the second act.]

  ‘Some tea, Lady Markby?’

  ‘No thanks, dear. The fact is, I have promised to go round for ten minutes to see poor Lady Brancaster, who is in very great trouble. Her daughter, quite a well-brought-up girl, too, has actually become engaged to be married to a curate in Shropshire. It is very sad, very sad indeed. I can’t understand this modern mania for curates. In my time we girls saw them, of course, running about the place like rabbits. But we never took any notice of them, I need hardly say. But I am told that nowadays country society is quite honeycombed with them. I think it most irreligious . . .’

  The speech went on for several minutes longer. The speaker, Lady Somebody-or-Other, had no apparent function in the play except from time to time to deliver such speeches, which were entirely irrelevant to the action. The audie
nce didn’t seem to mind this in the least, for they tittered or chuckled or laughed uproariously at the end of every sentence. The play was well into its second act, which meant that the second act of Guy Domville would be just beginning. ‘MRS DOMVILLE’S villa at Richmond. Mrs DOMVILLE and GEORGE ROUND discovered.’

  [‘The reason of my “wicked return”, ma’am, is simply the respect I owe you, and the respect I owe to my cousin, your too amiable daughter.’

  ‘Have you forgotten that I informed you six months ago how you could best express that respect?’

  ‘By keeping out of your sight – by permitting you to forget my existence and encouraging you to hope I had forgotten yours? I obeyed your command, ma’am; I immediately joined my ship. But my ship came back last week.’

  How quickly the mood of an audience could change . . . how swiftly their hard-won interest and attention could be dissipated. Elizabeth Robins’s nervous system was finely attuned to recognise the signs, and she felt her spirits rapidly sinking, like a barometer at the approach of a storm, within a few minutes of the curtain rising. It was a fatally misconceived way to begin the second act, with two characters unfamiliar to the audience, and only briefly referred to in the first, having to remind each other of things that had happened in the past which they both knew very well but the audience didn’t. There was an epidemic of coughing throughout the theatre, much more noticeable than before, which was a sure sign of impatience and inattention. The actors heard it of course, and were unsettled by it. Mrs Edward Saker in particular showed signs of nerves in the part of Mrs Domville. She was wearing an elaborate crinoline dress, combining rich materials of variegated pattern, ornamented with numerous frills, flounces and furbelows, and a very extraordinary hat. Elizabeth presumed that the hat must have been modelled on some old illustration, but she had never seen anything quite like it before. It looked more like a gigantic muff, or a small pouffe such as one might rest a gouty foot on, than a hat. It was made of black fur and roughly cylindrical in shape, but wider in diameter at the top than at the bottom. It appeared to be at least two feet high, and the flat top was decorated with a bunch of long black plumes which waved and nodded at every movement of the actress’s head. It was a hat that required a great deal of assurance in the wearer, an attribute which was visibly deserting Mrs Saker as the scene proceeded. There was more suspense in the audience about the next movement of the hat than about the development of the plot. How was it secured? Would it tip forward? Would it fall off? Elizabeth could see people in the stalls and circle turning their heads to whisper comments which made the recipients smile, and when a voice from the gallery sang out the well-known refrain, ‘Where did yer get that ’at?’ there was a good deal of laughter in every part of the house. Whatever dramatic illusion was left in the scene was shattered. Elizabeth had a dreadful presentiment that Mrs Saker’s hat was going to have the same unfortunate effect on Guy Domville as Edward Compton’s coat had had on The American.

  Florence Alexander, sitting in the next box to Elizabeth Robins, was both angry and mortified. How could people be so cruel, and how could they be so philistine? She felt like standing up and shouting to the barracker that high, elaborate headdresses for ladies were extremely fashionable in the late eighteenth century. But of course she didn’t. Perhaps, a little inner voice whispered to her, the costume was over-ambitious. It certainly took some wearing, and she had had her doubts at the dress rehearsal about whether Rose Saker was equal to it, but had suppressed them. Now the actress’s confidence was quite gone, and she goggled at Alec with panic-stricken eyes when he made his entrance. This affected his performance in turn, and he began to overact the part of the eager bridegroom in a desperate attempt to draw the audience’s attention back to the play. Florence could hardly bear to watch. In fact she closed her eyes and listened, waiting with fingers clenched for Mrs Saker’s exit. But the scene that followed went just as badly.

  ‘Why does Alexander open his mouth on one side like that? It makes his face all crooked,’ John Singer Sargent whispered to his companion Graham Robertson.

  ‘Because he’s rattled,’ Robertson whispered back, ‘and I don’t blame him. Do you understand what this scene is about?’

  ‘No, I was hoping you would tell me in the next entr’acte,’ Sargent muttered.

  The scene brought together Guy Domville, ostensibly eager for his imminent wedding to Mrs Domville’s daughter, Mary, with Lieutenant George Round, Mary’s true lover, who had been sent packing months before by her mother and Lord Devenish, but had returned in the forlorn hope of reclaiming his sweetheart. The point of the encounter was that Guy should discover this attachment, of which he had been completely ignorant, give up his claim to Mary, and assist the lovers to elope. The playwright had decided that the hero, puzzled by Round’s presence, should endeavour to ascertain his intentions by getting him drunk, while Round for his part was trying to allay Guy’s suspicions by the same method, so both men were toasting each other and pretending to get drunk while in fact surreptitiously disposing of their liquor by pouring it into flower-pots, vases and other handy receptacles. Since the play was evidently not intended as a farce, the audience – at least those members of it occupying the dearer seats – hesitated to laugh at this improbable business. But since both characters were evidently honest and honourable gentlemen, and a few straight questions and answers would have cleared up all misunderstanding between them, there seemed to be no dramatic point in their contrived attempts to deceive each other. The drinking scene, in short, was completely redundant. It was George Alexander’s misfortune to apprehend this flaw in the play only at the moment of performing the scene in public for the first time, as he sensed the tide of bafflement and incredulity flowing across the footlights from the auditorium and surging round his feet. He came off the stage (to permit George Round to try and persuade Mary to elope) to find Mrs Saker having barely suppressed hysterics in the wings. ‘Give her smelling salts, somebody,’ he snarled. ‘She’s got to go on again in a minute.’ He closed his eyes and took deep breaths, trying to calm himself for his next entrance. ‘Hearty wishes for a complete failure tonight.’ There was a serious danger of the curse being fulfilled.

  The author’s friends applauded loyally at the end of the act, but the note of real enthusiasm that had marked the reception of the previous one was missing. They exchanged uncomfortable smiles and glances as they rose from their seats and shuffled out of the auditorium into the foyers.

  In the gentlemen’s lavatory Edmund Gosse found himself standing at the urinal beside William Norris. ‘Not such a good act as the first,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Norris. ‘But there seems to be a rowdy element in the gallery. They’re not giving the play a fair chance. Is James here?’

  ‘No,’ said Gosse. ‘He’s coming along at the end.’

  ‘Just as well, perhaps.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gosse. He was thinking to himself how fortunate it was that James had cancelled their original plan. He wouldn’t have relished going out to that pub to tell him how the second act had gone. Recalling the wag who had called out, ‘Where did you get that hat?’ he couldn’t suppress a disloyal smile. ‘I didn’t know you were in town, Norris,’ he said, buttoning his fly.

  ‘I came up specially. I believe we’re both lunching with James tomorrow, by the way.’

  ‘Oh, will you be there? Good,’ said Gosse. He had introduced Norris to James and was rather surprised at how well they seemed to get on – James had stayed with him in Torquay the previous summer and had written enthusiastically about the visit. Norris was a dull decent man who turned out dull decent novels in a sub-Trollopian style that James could not possibly admire. When questioned on this topic James had simply answered: ‘I find his company soothing.’ Which, on reflection, might be just what was required at lunch tomorrow.]

  A good many people beside himself stayed in their seats at the third interval. He glanced at his watch. Ten past ten. The third and last act of Guy Domville
would soon be starting. ‘The White parlour at Porches. Door from the hall left; door to the bookroom right. MRS PEVEREL is seated by the fire. Enter FANNY from the hall with a letter on a tray.’ Suppose he were to get up and leave now, hurry over to the St James’s and slip into the back of the stalls to watch it? He certainly had no interest whatsoever in staying here to find out whether Sir Robert Chiltern would escape the disgrace he so richly deserved. But he would be late for the beginning of the act at the St James’s, and might disturb the performance of that pretty first scene. He had better stick to his original plan. Guy Domville would end at about eleven. He would leave An Ideal Husband at a quarter to the hour, whether it was over or not, and tant pis if he caused a disturbance in the process.