by Dodie Smith
Then he got up, raising me with him and, looking down on me, said, ‘In all my years both as an actor and a lover I’ve never kissed a woman of your height. Well, I trust my technique will be equal to it. No, don’t stand on tiptoe; you’ll totter. Kindly remember, for once in your dynamic young life, that this is a time when you do not take the initiative. Relax, and leave things to me.’
9
Looking back, I find it astonishing that a girl of eighteen, respectably – if not conventionally – brought up, could so delightedly abandon herself to being in love with a married man. I did not find it astonishing then and I was, from the first, determined to get all the love I could in return. If my partner stuck to his noble intentions of making only ‘very limited love’ it wouldn’t be my fault.
After he had kissed me half-a-dozen times (I proudly counted; quite a feat considering my daze of bliss) he steadied me and said firmly, ‘That will definitely be all for tonight. Now wait here while I finish dressing. You’d better rub that rouge off your cheeks. And try – we must both try – to look less affectionate before we face my stage door keeper and my chauffeur.’
He went into the curtained-off part of the room, and I went to the glass, rubbed my cheeks with one of his towels, and tidied up my mouth; I had forgotten I still had some make-up on. When he came back I ran to him eagerly. He said, ‘No, no, child. I am not going to kiss you again.’ But he did, for some minutes, then remarked: ‘Well, thank God my stage door keeper’s an old, dim-sighted man. Still, we’d better hurry past him.’
But we weren’t able to, as he stopped me to say that three ladies had been waiting for me but had now gone, and Miss Lester had telephoned to know where I was. Mr Crossway told me to go out to the car while he rang her up. When he joined me he said one of the programme girls had let her know I was ‘on’ and she had seen most of my performance. ‘She sent you her proud congratulations for getting through so well.’
‘Did she think I was as bad as you do?’
‘Not quite. She believes you suffer from an excess of individualism – whatever that may mean – and she feels sure something can be done about it. She’ll tell you tomorrow.’
I did not see how one could have too much individualism and, anyway, I was more interested in being beside him in the nice dark car, which seemed to me perfectly private as he had made sure the glass division between us and the chauffeur was closed. I rubbed the top of my head against his face.
He slipped his arm round me but said, ‘I never kiss women in cars. It’s unsubtle – and dangerous; chauffeurs seem to have eyes in the backs of their heads. How nice your hair tastes.’
‘Perhaps I didn’t quite get the soap out.’
‘Good God, you’ll have me frothing at the mouth. Now could we be serious for a moment? Are you planning to tell all your little friends about your latest conquest?’
I said I’d never made a conquest before. ‘Have I really made one now?’
‘Well, enough of one to scare the wits out of me. None of this ought to be happening. Is it any use asking you to be discreet? Few women are, of course – even when their own interest calls for discretion – which has made my life difficult. I don’t think my wife would mind anything as innocuous as this little interlude must remain. Still, if you gossip—’
‘She might get to hear, and think it wasn’t innocuous. Don’t worry. I shan’t gossip. And I’ve no wish to take you away from your wife. That would be against my principles.’
He chuckled. ‘I’m glad your aunt inculcated some standards. How would she have felt about your goings on tonight?’
‘She’d have been sad that you didn’t like my acting.’
‘I was referring to your highly immoral behaviour.’
I considered this, then said, ‘It can’t be immoral to love anyone – as long as one doesn’t hurt anyone by it.’
‘But suppose you hurt yourself?’
I said, ‘Oh, cheer up! Perhaps I’ll tire of you before you tire of me,’ which pleased him so much that he said, ‘To hell with my chauffeur,’ and gave me a quick kiss.
Just before we reached the Club he asked me to be especially discreet with Miss Lester. ‘She’d think it very wrong indeed. Of course she’d blame me far more than she’d blame you.’
‘How can you be to blame when I’ve thrown myself at you? Do you mind that? I’ve read that men don’t like it.’
He said that, with me, it was part of my fatal attraction; then added hastily, ‘My God, that was a dangerous thing to say! Now behave, and be ready to say a conventional good night to me.’
The car drew up. I whispered urgently, ‘Shall I see you tomorrow? Please!’
‘Yes, I’ll manage something.’
The chauffeur opened the door and helped me out. I called back, ‘Good night, Mr Crossway,’ and wondered, as I ran up the Club steps, when I should first call him ‘Rex’. But perhaps it would never be safe to, even in private, in case I slipped up in public. I would not let myself even think of him as ‘Rex’. I would be absolutely discreet.
The girls were waiting up to congratulate me. I told them I had been praised for keeping the curtain up but that Mr Crossway had thought I was all wrong for the part. (This, if not his complete verdict, was at least true.) They admitted that they saw his point but loyally went on saying I was marvellous. And Zelle had sent a message that he ought to have divorced the leading lady and married me. We did not talk for long as I said I was tired. The truth was that I had a sudden longing to tell them everything that had happened, so felt I had better remove myself from temptation.
I lay awake for hours, remembering – and finding pleasure in the knowledge that I had a secret from the five girls sleeping so close to me. That made me wonder if being discreet might not actually be fun, apart from my dear’s wishes in the matter. And it would not only mean not talking; I should need to do a lot of off-stage acting. I looked forward to that.
It began when I went into the office the next afternoon and felt I must pretend to be more unhappy than I now was about Mr Crossway’s opinion of my performance. Miss Lester determinedly cheered me up and told me of her plan for getting rid of my ‘excess of individualism’. She wanted me to go to a drama school. I told her I couldn’t afford the fees, nor had I money to live on while I studied. She said that could all be arranged and Mr Crossway approved of her scheme and would coach me for the audition I should have to give at the school. And he would come up and talk to me about it during the afternoon.
I was on my own in the Throne Room when he arrived. He shut the door and said, ‘Talk first. Affection, if any, afterwards.’ He then told me he had agreed to Miss Lester’s idea because coaching would give him the chance to see me without arousing her suspicions. Also he was anxious to be proved wrong about my acting. ‘Besides, if you go to the school it will help you to get over this nonsense about me – as you must, you really must, my darling lunatic’
By then, his lunatic was sitting on his knee, but not for long. After one not very lingering kiss he said, ‘I will not make love to you when Miss Lester may come in any moment – or under the accusing eyes of my forefathers. Not that my father would have any right to cast a stone. He was far more disreputable than I’ve ever been.’
‘You mean with women?’
‘How worldly wise you sound! I did indeed mean with women. I fear they’re an occupational disease with actor managers. Now I mustn’t see you alone again until I start coaching you. Miss Lester’s finding out what you’ll have to do for your entrance examination.’
‘Couldn’t you drive me home tonight?’
‘I shan’t do that again for some time; people so quickly notice that kind of thing.’ Then he said he must go and have a last run-through with the official understudy of ‘my’ part. He had already rehearsed with her, in the morning. I asked what she was like.
‘Dull, but safe – she won’t climb on any footstools. Anyway, she’ll have to play for several weeks.’
The poor girl who had been t
aken ill was having an operation for her appendicitis.
That night I watched my successor through the spy-hole. Her last scene did not get one laugh – nor did the scene that followed. Well, that was the way Mr Crossway and his leading lady wanted it, not to mention the author of the play. But I still thought it was a pity.
In a couple of days Miss Lester received particulars from the drama school. I should have to do two speeches from Shakespeare (there was a list to choose from) and one speech of my own choice from a modern play. I decided on Juliet’s potion scene, a speech of Portia’s, and a long speech of Darling Dora’s from Shaw’s Fanny’s First Play. I already knew all these so I was ready for coaching. Miss Lester went round to see Mr Crossway during the matinée and he said he would start the next day. The job would have to be done quickly as the school was shortly to close for the summer holidays. Normally I should not have been heard until the examinations before the autumn term, and it was only as a favour to Mr Crossway that the Principal agreed to hear me in a week.
My coaching took place in the stalls bar, not on the stage (the stage being a very un-private place). I began with Juliet’s potion speech and was instantly absorbed in it. I thought of the bar as a tomb, all Juliet’s horrors were real for me as I lived through them, line by line, until I drank my potion and fell senseless to the floor. During the entire speech I was oblivious of Mr Crossway, so it was something of a shock to sit up and find him groaning, with his head in his hands.
All he said was: ‘Let’s have a little light relief. Try Darling Dora. Perhaps God meant you to be funny.’
But he thought me even worse as Darling Dora – ‘When you try to be funny, you aren’t. Well, let’s have a go at Portia. And take it calmly, quietly.’
This suited my conception of Portia – except that I thought her declaration of love for Bassanio should also be radiant. I made it serenely radiant. Mr Crossway told me I was both patronising and affected.
‘I simply can’t understand it,’ he said despairingly. ‘As yourself you haven’t an ounce of affectation in you; it’s your extreme naturalness that makes people take to you. And yet the minute you assume a character you’re artificial. Are you imitating anyone? Your aunt, perhaps?’
But I had to tell him that Aunt Marion had been considered a very natural actress. (I didn’t mention that she had sometimes told me my acting was exaggerated. I had never for a moment believed her.) He then wondered if I had picked up bad habits from second-rate touring companies. But I had only been taken to see first-rate ones. He finally came to the conclusion that my bad acting was inborn, like original sin.
He did, then and later, try hard to coach me, taking me through speeches, sometimes quietly talking to me about them, sometimes making me repeat lines after him. But we got nowhere. When I stopped being what I called natural and he called affected, I became what both of us called wooden. The coaching sessions always ended by his telling me to come and be comforted; and as far as I was concerned, the comforting made up for everything.
On the day before I was due to go to the drama school he said I must forget everything he had told me and just be myself. ‘I could be wrong about you – God knows, I hope I am. They may think you’re a born actress. And so you are, in a way. But I’m afraid you’re a born bad actress, my darling little Tich.’ The rest of that session was entirely given over to comforting.
When I started for the drama school next day, I still was not sure whether or not I wanted to be accepted, as it would mean being away from the Crossway. But while I was waiting in the hall, reading the announcements of plays recently performed (the term had just ended) I suddenly knew that I did, very much, want to be a student here. It would give me my longed-for chance to act, lots and lots of parts. And surely I could show my dear he was wrong. He had accused me of so many things – affectation, over-acting, reciting, being a kind of single turn – and still never convinced me. I would go back to him in triumph, perhaps with a scholarship.
Soon I was conducted to a large room with a small stage at one end, where the Principal of the school and one woman teacher were waiting for me. They talked most charmingly, trying to set me at ease. This was not the school’s real theatre, just a rehearsal room, said the Principal. ‘We thought you’d find it more informal. And we wanted to know you as well as hear you.’ I liked them greatly and felt they liked me. I went up on the little stage feeling happy and hopeful.
Portia, Juliet, Darling Dora: I did them all, in that order, and got only a quiet ‘Thank you’ after each of them. The final thank you was followed by a request that I should come and talk.
The Principal was still charming. He found things to praise: my vitality and ease of movement. The woman teacher spoke of my excellent enunciation. But I knew, almost at once, that they liked my acting no more than Mr Crossway did. And they soon began stressing how overcrowded the stage was and how few parts there were for anyone as small as I was. And the school was so full—
I said: ‘You don’t want me.’
The Principal said he did want me, would indeed love to have me – ‘But we’re so afraid it wouldn’t be fair – to you. Still, let me think it over. I’ll telephone Mr Crossway.’
He must have done so at once, because when I got back to the theatre Mr Crossway had already rung up Miss Lester.
‘They liked you so much – as a person,’ she told me. ‘And the school really is very full. Mr Crossway’s so very sorry. He says he’ll drive you home tonight and try to comfort you.’
That prospect cheered me more than she could know.
After the performance she sent me down to wait in the car. No chauffeur was to be seen and I was pleased soon to discover that he was away on holiday and Mr Crossway was driving himself. However, the pleasure of being alone with him was offset by the fact that, while driving, he could only offer verbal comfort. When I pointed this out he laughed and said he’d try to do better – ‘But only a little better. Making love in the back of cars is not one of my habits. Still, we’ll get out of the traffic.’
He drove me up to Hampstead, where we stopped, looking down on the twinkling lights of London. But we still stayed in the front of the car and the only improvement as regards comforting was that he put his arm round my shoulders. This wasn’t, in the circumstances, enough. He had relayed his talk with the Principal most tactfully, stressing every little compli ment; but there was no getting away from the fact that I had been refused admission. And it now struck me that the coaching sessions would be at an end. Without a moment of pre-thought I said:
‘Couldn’t we go somewhere – perhaps back to your dressing-room? Couldn’t we be together?’
He turned his head quickly. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean … everything. Couldn’t we, please?’
‘We could not.’ Perhaps he only spoke firmly but, to me, he sounded brutal. ‘Good God, child, what am I going to do about you?’ He started the car.
I asked if he was angry.
‘Yes, very. But with myself, not with you. I never ought to have let this thing begin. And it’s got to stop, my dear. It really has.’
For once I was past arguing. I just sat there, with tears rolling down my cheeks. He obviously didn’t care for me, nobody liked my acting, there was nothing left. It was the first time in my life I had experienced misery.
After a few minutes he drove the car into a deserted, dimly lit street and said: ‘Out you get.’ For a bewildered moment I thought he was going to leave me there. Then I realised I was being invited into the back of the car. Once there, he said: ‘I simply cannot bear to see mice cry. They’re too small and their tears are too large for them.’
‘And you didn’t mean what you said? It won’t have to stop?’
‘Well, not just yet, anyway – unless you make any more immoral suggestions. I was deeply shocked. All you’re going to get now is one chaste kiss on the forehead.’
What followed was the most comprehensive comforting I had come by, and comple
tely restored me to happiness; though we returned to the front of the car sooner than I could have wished and then drove straight back to the Club. When we got there, he advised me to tone down my expression before joining my little friends – ‘You don’t look at all like a girl who’s come home by herself on a bus.’ I went to the cloakroom to tidy up generally. Discretion had become something of a mania with me; so much so that I nowadays told the girls very little about my life at the theatre. I had never even mentioned that I was trying to get into a drama school.
Up in my cubicle I found a note from Lilian saying: ‘Great news! Zelle got bored with being alone in her flat and is staying here for a while. We’re all in room 44 – it’s on the top floor. Come on up.’
I got into my dressing-gown and set out to find room 44. It turned out to be an attic, a very attractive one, with a deep window-seat let into its sloping outer wall. Zelle was sitting there with the window open behind her. Lilian was in the armchair, manicuring her nails. Molly knelt in front of the gas fire, toasting Veda bread which smelt marvellous.
I sat on the bed and listened rather than talked; and soon, thought rather than listened. It seemed to me extraordinary that two girls as strikingly pretty as Molly and Lilian should have only three uninteresting men between them and that Zelle, quite as attractive in her delicate, elusive way, should apparently have no men friends at all except an elderly, married cousin – while I had so recently been kissed by one of the most famous actors in London. I ate my Veda toast with much pleasure and gazed at the summer night sky through the open window, until I heard Molly say: ‘Our Mouse is a hundred miles away.’ But I wasn’t as far away as that; I was in a dimly lit street somewhere in Hampstead.
10
As I spent so much time at the theatre I saw far less of Zelle than Molly and Lilian did, but even a few mornings and our late evening reunions were enough to convince me that Lilian had been right in thinking her puzzling; though I thought the word ‘odd’ was more applicable. I never felt there was any puzzle to be solved, simply that Zelle had an unusual character which was full of contradictions.
