by David Lodge
Pressed for time by preparations for her American tour, Ellen Terry was able to grant him only a very brief interview in her box at the Lyceum one evening, but she was encouragingly complimentary about Summersoft in general terms, and, as always, gracious and charming. The following day she sent him a cheque for £100 for the rights in ‘your Gem’, and renewed her promise to produce the play on her return. ‘It will seem a long year,’ he replied, gratefully acknowledging the payment, ‘but art is long, ah me! At all events, if the Americans are not to have the Gem, do excruciate them with a suspicion of what they lose.’ As he sealed the envelope he reflected that he had very little real hope that she would ever perform the play – and was rather pleased to note that he was not in the least depressed by this thought. Perhaps he had at last achieved detachment from theatrical ambitions.
The following weekend he made his promised visit to Folkestone to see the Du Mauriers. Why they had chosen this resort for their summer vacation, when they could afford to go anywhere in the world, was something of a mystery, but they had never been an adventurous couple and it was probably the safe banality of the place that had attracted them. They had based themselves in a modest private hotel on the high cliffs to the west of the town, known as the Leas, which had been extensively developed to attract visitors. There was a broad and immensely long promenade, a zigzag path that led down to the shingly beach hundreds of feet below, a pretty iron bandstand, and a terrace from which you could see the long arm of the harbour wall and watch the cross-Channel steamers, small as toy boats on a pond, going in and out. Gardens and lawns were neatly laid out along the clifftop between the promenade and the rows of dignified white stucco houses and hotels. It was Bayswater-by-the-Sea.
He and Du Maurier spent a good deal of time strolling up and down the promenade and hanging over the balustrade of the terrace as they talked, since walking down the path to the beach entailed an exhausting climb back or an uneasy ascent in the creaking Sandgate Lift. They were usually alone, for Emma found the exposed and shadeless promenade uncomfortable in the exceptionally hot weather. Du Maurier himself was still, as he had described himself in his letter, out of sorts, and seemed to derive little zest from the continuing success and fame of Trilby. Total sales of the novel in England and America, he informed Henry almost gloomily, were approaching a quarter of a million. It was the most requested book in the history of the Chicago public library system. The New York stage version was a hit, and some twenty other productions had been mounted or were in preparation elsewhere in the United States. Advance booking at the Lyceum for Tree’s production was unprecedented. A new town in Florida had been named Trilby.
‘My dear Kiki, this is tremendous,’ Henry said. ‘I congratulate you on your success.’
Du Maurier shrugged. ‘It’s not just success – it’s a “boom”, and there’s something freakish and unnatural about the phenomenon, in my opinion. Why me? Thackeray never had a boom – you never had a boom, Henry—’
‘And never will,’ he interpolated.
‘Well, that may be a blessing in disguise. When I was young I used to dream of being a famous painter – I mean, a really famous painter, like Leighton, say, or Burne-Jones. And I think I could have carried it off if it had happened, because I’ve always thought of myself as an artist. Writing novels was a kind of afterthought when my sight began to fail. Of course I made them as good as I could, but I would rather have been a successful painter than a successful novelist. Painters don’t have booms.’ He added after a pause: ‘Not yet, anyway – who knows what the future holds?’
‘How is the new novel progressing?’
‘Very slowly. It’s another of the drawbacks of a boom – you know all the critics are waiting for you to fall over your feet next time, so you keep rewriting.’
‘What is it to be called?’
‘Soured by Success,’ Du Maurier said with a wry smile. ‘No, it’s called The Martian. Don’t ask me to explain.’
They had reached the eastern end of the promenade, where there was a statue of William Harvey, a native of the town, who had discovered the circulation of the blood. ‘There’s a man who has done more for humanity than any of us,’ said Du Maurier sententiously, ‘and never had a boom.’
Later, over tea in the hotel lounge, Henry asked about the forthcoming stage production of Trilby, in which Kiki took a proprietary interest, but in a curiously arm’s-length fashion, as if he hoped it would succeed but was slightly ashamed of it. ‘It’s an awfully simplified version of the story, I’m afraid – but I suppose it has to be,’ he said defensively. Tree was obviously anxious to have his approval of the production: he had shown him Potter’s script and invited him to collaborate on improving it, and had involved him in the crucial casting of Trilby. Du Maurier had championed a little-known actress called Dorothea Baird, whose family were friends of Charles Millar, and after offering some resistance, Tree had agreed. Miss Baird was apparently physically perfect for the part, even down to her large but shapely feet, and had auditioned extremely well, but now Du Maurier was feeling the burden of responsibility for the choice and awaiting the verdict of the public with apprehension.
‘Exactly as I felt when we cast Elizabeth Robins for Claire Cintré in The American!’ Henry exclaimed. ‘Have you seen her in rehearsals?’
‘No, no, I don’t go,’ said Du Maurier. ‘But Gerald says she’s very good. He’s playing Dodor, the dragoon, you know – a character based on his uncle, so he shouldn’t have any difficulty with the role. He’s being paid four pounds a week, which he spends in a day. But I make him an allowance, because he keeps me informed of what’s going on. And he’s made some improvements in the play.’
‘Gerald has?’ Henry was surprised.
‘Yes, though he makes it seem as if Tree thought of them himself.’
‘I think your son will go far in the theatre, Kiki.’
‘I think so too,’ said Du Maurier, smiling.
Trilby was due to open in Manchester in a week’s time, and would have a short provincial tour before going to London. Du Maurier said he wouldn’t be going to the Manchester first night, but was sending Charles to see it and report back. ‘I’m surprised you can keep away,’ said Henry. ‘I know I couldn’t.’
‘I can’t face the botheration. I shall have to go to the London opening, I suppose – that will be quite enough to cope with. I hope we’ll see you there – shall I reserve seats for you? It’s the 30th of October.’
‘It’s very kind of you, Kiki, but I’m not sure that I’ll be back in London by then,’ he said quickly. ‘I’m going to stay on in Torquay while De Vere Gardens is being electrified.’ This was true: he had decided to have the flat redecorated while he was away – it was long overdue – and had taken up an advantageous offer from the landlord to share the cost of installing electric light at the same time. In no circumstances, however, would he have contemplated attending the London premiere of Trilby. It was likely to be a huge success, with Du Maurier no doubt being induced to share the rapturous applause at the end, and the contrast with the first night of Guy Domville, and his own ignominious role in it, would be too bitter to bear. It was hard enough to conceal his envy at the amount of money Du Maurier must be earning from his book. A quarter of a million copies! He wrote to Gosse on his return to Torquay that Du Maurier was in low spirits ‘in spite of the chink – what say I, the “chink” – the deafening roar – of sordid gold flowing in to him. I came back feeling an even worse failure than usual.’
In due course he received word from Du Maurier that, according to his son-in-law’s report, the Manchester premiere had been a triumph. Tree had mesmerised the audience and Dorothea Baird had charmed them, and the auguries for London were most propitious. It was easier to respond enthusiastically in writing than in person. ‘I most heartily and ecstatically rejoice, my dear Kiki,’ he wrote back, sitting soberly at his desk in the Osborne, ‘and clap my hands, I perform fandangos, je me livre à toutes les extravagances de l
a joie la plus folle. Allons, it’s all exactly as it should be.’ But, to ensure that he would not be able to attend the London first night, he invited Jonathan Sturges to come down to Torquay and stay at the Osborne for a week at the end of October.
With Summersoft in cold storage he returned to work on ‘The House Beautiful’, now retitled ‘The Old Things’, but with some anxiety. It was not that he lacked faith in the potential of its subject or the elegance of its form. The problem was that the tale kept growing longer and longer without getting any nearer its conclusion. Originally he had proposed it to Scudder, editor of the Atlantic, as one of three short stories the magazine had gratifyingly offered to commission, each to be of approximately ten thousand words. But the ‘scenario’ itself had soon exceeded this limit, and by the time Scudder had agreed an additional 5,000 words, the manuscript stood at 25,000. It was obviously threatening to turn into a short, or even medium-length, novel. He put it aside and began another story, called ‘The Awkward Age’, about young girls ‘coming out’ in a decadent London society setting, but that too soon developed the rhythm and scope of a full-length novel. He put that aside too, and in desperation dashed off a lightweight story called ‘Glasses’ to keep Scudder happy, then went back to ‘The Old Things’, which the editor had shown some disposition to take as a serial.
The Indian summer continued into October. A delicate pearly mist enveloped the hills in the early morning, but burned away by midday to leave a clear blue sky, and at night the reflected moon made a silver pathway on the calm sea. With some regret he gave up biking: the hills in the neighbourhood were too steep for him and he was bored with riding up and down the Meadfoot Road. He walked for exercise, and one day encountered little Agatha again, accompanied by her nursemaid, and trailing a puppy on a lead which she had just been given for her fifth birthday. He stopped and chatted for a while about the care of dogs, to show he bore no ill feeling for the accident. He missed Tosca, who was being looked after by the Smiths, and felt a little guilty at having left her to endure the noise and disturbance that would be caused by the electrification of the flat.
The weather was still holding when Jonathan Sturges came down. As always the brave and resourceful style with which he bore his crippled state, hopping nimbly about on his sticks, was an example and a reproof to one’s own selfish discontents, but he was unusually melancholy. It seemed that he had fallen in love with a woman in France, and had, in the gentlest possible way – but no less wounding for that – been rebuffed. There was absolutely nothing to be done about it, or said. All one could do was to offer general kindness and comfort, like a silent handclasp. Only once did a note of something like bitterness escape Sturges’s lips, and then in the most allusive and oblique way. He was talking one evening before dinner, as they sat in Norris’s garden, smoking cigarettes and watching the changing colours of the sunset in the sky, of meeting William Howells a year and a half ago, at a party in Whistler’s garden in Paris. Howells had been much taken with the glamour and elegance of the company and the setting, all the more because he was about to leave Paris prematurely and return to America on account of the death of his father. In the course of their conversation he seemed to be suddenly seized by a prophetic insight and, putting his hand on Sturges’s shoulder, had said something like: ‘You are young, you are young – be glad of it and live. Live all you can – it’s a mistake not to. It doesn’t matter so much what you do – but live. This place makes it all come over me. I see it now. I haven’t done so – and now I’m old. It’s too late. It has gone past me. You have time. Live!’ After quoting this speech Sturges crushed his cigarette under his heel and added wryly: ‘All very well to tell me to “live!” It’s not so easy when you can’t move a yard without these.’ He grasped the two sticks that were leaning against his seat and raised them languidly in the air like clipped and useless wings.
It certainly seemed a tactless remark by Howells, but clearly his old friend had been so consumed by the sense of having let life slip through his fingers that he hadn’t reflected on the plight of the young man whom he was addressing. Henry was deeply struck by the poignancy of the anecdote, and perhaps because he was closer to Howells’s age identified with him rather than with the younger participant in the scene. For a scene was what it very rapidly composed itself into in his mind: an old high-walled Paris garden, the swish of ladies’ skirts over the lawn, the tinkle of fine china and glassware, the fragrance of cigars, the brilliant, witty, civilised talk . . . and looking on, taking it all in with a hungry late-awakened appetite, the grizzled, middle-aged American. It was surely a sujet de roman. What had brought him there – not Howells of course, but the fictional hero who began at once dimly to stir in his imagination – and what had precipitated this soul-searching utterance? He recorded the anecdote in his notebook the next morning, with a tentative sketch of the fictional story that might grow from this seed.
The date of this entry was the 31st October. His long sojourn in Devon was coming to an end – the next day he would accompany Sturges, who was far from well and needed to see a specialist, back to London. He had enjoyed his time at the Osborne enormously, but he had not made any effort to look for a house of his own in the locality. Charming as the place was, it was just too far from London to be convenient, and too hilly to be explored by bicycle. He must seek his ideal country retreat elsewhere, next summer.
Returning to London was less disagreeable than he had anticipated. Tosca’s ecstasy at seeing him again was gratifying, and the bright appearance of the redecorated rooms at De Vere Gardens under the new electric lights was a considerable compensation for the shortening of the days and the pollution of the air. One of his first social calls was at the Du Mauriers’ newly acquired house at 17 Oxford Square, which also enjoyed electric lighting but seemed quite gloomy in comparison. He gathered from Emma that Kiki had been delighted with the electricity at first, all the more because of his poor sight, and kept the house in an almost dazzling blaze of light until the first bill came, after which, in spite of all the money pouring in from Trilby, he had several of the sconces turned off. It was a substantial and well-appointed town house, and in comfort an undoubted improvement on New Grove House (which had never even had a proper bathroom), but it lacked character. Neither Kiki nor Emma seemed quite at ease in it, and the familiar furniture they had brought with them from Hampstead looked shabby and out of place. In Hampstead the studio had been the centre of the house – a room for music-making and reading and entertaining as well as a place to work. In Oxford Square there were more rooms, each dedicated to a different function in the bourgeois way, and Kiki and Emma circulated dutifully from one to another according to the time of day without looking really at ease in any of them.
But Beerbohm Tree’s production of Trilby was the talk of the town. Dorothea Baird had become a star overnight, and all the critics had acclaimed Tree’s performance as Svengali, with the exception (especially interesting to Henry in the light of his conversation with Du Maurier earlier that year) of George Bernard Shaw, who condemned it as crudely melodramatic. His dissenting opinion, however, had no effect on the demand for tickets at the Lyceum. ‘I may solicit your help in that connection, Kiki,’ said Henry.
‘Just say the word. But you needn’t rush – Tree predicts it will run for a year,’ Du Maurier said, with the air of bemused fatigue that was now becoming habitual with him. There was obviously no end in sight to the Trilby boom. Royalty itself had succumbed: the first night had been graced with the presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and Du Maurier had been invited to the Royal Box and presented.
‘Did they enjoy the play?’ Henry asked.
‘The Princess said she didn’t like Dorothea Baird having bare feet, which suggests that she hasn’t read the book.’
‘She must be the only person in England who hasn’t, then,’ said Henry. ‘What else did they say?’
‘I can’t remember anything else,’ said Du Maurier. ‘I wasn’t quite the ticket th
at evening.’
‘You were ill, Kiki,’ said Emma, ‘and should have been tucked up in bed by rights. But he made the effort,’ she said, turning to Henry, ‘because people would have been so disappointed.’
‘And did you make a curtain speech?’ he asked.
‘I did, but I can’t remember that either.’
‘He made a very nice speech,’ said Emma loyally, ‘complimenting Dorothea Baird and thanking Mr Tree and making a joke about Gerald, and everybody laughed and clapped.’
‘And how is Gerald?’ Henry asked.
‘Having the time of his life,’ said Du Maurier, smiling, ‘and praying that Tree will fall ill one day so that he can step into the breach. But I told him that that kind of luck only happens once.’ He was referring to an already legendary feat of Gerald’s during his first professional engagement, as a waiter in The Old Jew at the Garrick, in which John Hare played the title role. Gerald had observed his performance so closely and was so familiar with his lines that when Hare suddenly became ill he was able to take over the role the very same night. His son’s involvement in Trilby was the only thing about it that seemed to give Du Maurier any real pleasure. He was still grinding away at The Martian, and in spite of being now nearly blind continued to contribute to Punch, drawing on a very large scale so that he could see what he was doing. As it happened, shortly after this meeting he produced one of his best cartoons for a long time. The cross-hatching was rather coarse, and the drawing of the figures lacked subtlety, but the composition was strong and the joke a good one. Entitled ‘True Humility’, it depicted a smooth, eager-to-please young curate taking breakfast with his bishop and family. The caption was: Right Reverend Host. ‘I’m afraid you’ve got a bad egg, Mr Jones!’ The Curate. ‘Oh no, my lord, I assure you! Parts of it are excellent!’
