by Dodie Smith
But would it, quite? Surely even the most treasured (and legal) bride must feel a bit lost on discovering that belonging to a man does not make one feel closer but rather more noticeably separate? Or am I unusual? I only know that I felt much closer in the car at Hampstead than I did last night – when at one moment I found myself thinking it was a bit like my disappointment when I was confirmed. This may be blasphemous but I think not. For expecting to achieve union with God is similar to expecting to achieve it with man. Only I minded much more as regards man.
I don’t remember doing much soul-searching after confirmation. I just became a cheerful atheist. And I can’t imagine that any number of confirmations would improve matters. Whereas I do feel they will improve if I can be with him again – as, surely, I shall be soon, now there is no point in his having a conscience about me. He did look deadly serious this afternoon but I think that was mainly concern for me. The fact that I am here now is due to that concern. He said to Miss Lester: ‘That child looks very tired. You should send her home early. She worked very hard yesterday.’ He was standing behind Miss Lester when he said that, so she could not see his face. And as the remark could be said to have a double meaning I thought he would give me the nicker of a twinkle, but he merely looked worried.
Miss Lester sent me home at six. I could have gone out to dinner with Lilian and Zelle but I was too tired. Molly is out with Bluff King Hal – already; he drove up to London today. Lilian and I looked down on him from upstairs while he was waiting for Molly, and then rushed to tell her he was carrying flowers. I said, ‘It’s happened at last – “Roses in the hall”!’ Then we sped Molly on her way, very happy for her. And Lilian was happy for herself as she has won her part at the Crossway. I was happy too – in a way; I am finding that out as I write. I am, some how … exorcising the loneliness. It will pass, it will pass.
But with it will pass someone I shall be a little sorry to lose: myself as I was before last night. Aunt Marion had a book of poems by Charles Cotton which she bought for the Lovat Fraser decorations, and in one poem are the lines:
She finds virginity a kind of ware
That’s very, very troublesome to bear,
And being gone she thinks will ne’er be missed.
I think one will miss it, but only for a very little while. Soon one will forget that it ever meant anything. Perhaps it never did; already I can almost accept that. The great plane tree outside my window is as beautiful as it was that May night when I last wrote in my journal, though its summer leaves are a little less green than the leaves of spring.
When I settled here in bed, after the girls went, I planned to write very fully of last night while my memory of it is still vivid. (But surely it will always be vivid?) I meant to set down exactly what happened, without reticence. Why should sex, which is a part of love, be considered indecent when written about? Well, I still feel that. But before starting this paragraph I sat for a long time trying out words in my mind – and they didn’t so much sound indecent as embarrassing, ludicrous and, above all, unlikely. I quite see why novelists fall back on asterisks; also I see why so many people make jokes about sex. It is, no doubt, wise to keep a sense of humour about it. Perhaps it would also be wise to keep one about love, but that is beyond me at present.
Anyway, though I can enjoy remembering what happened (though goodness knows it wasn’t all enjoyable) I find I cannot bear the thought of writing one word about it. What I do want to record has nothing to do with sex.
I want always to remember:
Waking at dawn and hearing birds singing, and gradually seeing the room. I never before woke in a place that was strange to me. There were rafters high above, and all around were many fascinating things, models of stage sets, drawings of theatrical costumes, photographs…. I should have liked to look at everything but I only allowed myself, once I was dressed, to tiptoe to a few of the models. It was so light by then and the birds were so noisy that I was afraid he would wake. I looked back, before I went out of the French window, and thought how young and defenceless he looked. I thought of many other things, too, things I cannot write about.
I want to remember the dew on the grass in the park, and patches of mist, and some mushrooms I saw, and great trees with gnarled boles. It’s strange how conscious of trees I was all yesterday. I don’t remember noticing many flowers – which in London I am always noticing. Yesterday it was trees, trees, and the lofty Suffolk sky.
Once I was out of the park, on the road to the station, I saw a lark rising from the fields.
In spite of the early morning loveliness I did not truly enjoy the walk to the station because I was anxious about getting back to the Club, and even more, because it was hardly my morning for a long walk – though in a complicated and unwriteable-about way, I didn’t mind that.
I might have guessed that the little station would still be closed. And there was a timetable, on a board outside, which showed there wouldn’t be a train for hours. I stood there thinking that as I was an atheist I couldn’t pray for help. Then I remembered I am now an agnostic, and I thought that entitled me just to toss a prayer up on the off-chance. And it was fantastic. Within seconds, a lorry loaded with vegetables came along – slowly, because the road was narrow. I was just going to hold up my hand and look beseeching when the driver slowed up on his own and asked if I wanted a lift. I would have accepted a lift to anywhere, so I climbed up beside him. And it turned out he was going to Covent Garden.
He was an elderly man with a kind face. We talked a bit about the morning and the countryside and then he said: ‘What you been up to, little miss?’
I couldn’t think of any convincing story so I said: ‘Will you forgive me if I don’t tell you?’
He said: ‘That’s all right, don’t worry. But I think you’ve run away from school.’
I said gratefully, ‘However did you guess?’
He said: ‘Well, you’re in uniform, aren’t you? Was it an orphanage?’ It must have been my ‘Puritan Maid’ dress and black cloak that gave him that idea. So I said yes, I was an orphan but I had friends in London who would take me in. He asked if I was sure they would, and if I would promise to go straight to them. And I said I was quite sure and I would promise. Then he said why didn’t I have a bit of a nap? And I could lean on him if I liked. It seemed rude not to, though I didn’t think I should sleep – but I did, almost at once, though I woke up a good many times. Each time I woke he said something encouraging. And when he set me down at Covent Garden, he made me promise that if my friends should happen to be away I would go to a police station for advice. If I live to be a hundred I shall remember his kindness.
I caught an early Underground train but still had to do some more walking to reach the Club. The doors were open so I got in easily, and managed to get to bed without waking Molly and Lilian. Anyway, I had a story ready for them that the little train had missed its connection with the London train and Brice and I had been forced to spend the night at a horrid little station hotel. I told this when Charlotte woke us with our breakfast trays. All they said was ‘Poor you!’ and then talked about themselves.
After breakfast I went to sleep in a hot bath and woke in a cold one. Surprisingly, there was enough hot water to warm it up.
This afternoon when I—
Lilian is back already. She has just called to ask if I will come up to Zelle’s room, and I have said I will. I think I would like to be with people. And I could do with some Veda toast.
Everything will be all right. I am really very happy – anyway, I shall be, once I can have a little time alone with him, to talk quietly. Today I only had two minutes, just on the stairs. I will write of that tomorrow.
I find parts of this journal entry astonishing. They seem written by someone older than I remember myself as being, and certainly older than the girl who made the entry on my first night at the Club. The tinge of sophisticated humour about sex surprises me. Probably it resulted from life at the Club, where members (many of t
hem not so unblemished as I at first thought they were) often broke their hearts over their personal sex-lives while treating the general subject of sex as a joke.
I am also surprised that I could tell myself I was happy. Perhaps that was bravado. No, on second thoughts, I believe that last paragraph was sincere; I did think everything would be all right. Now memory is tinged by hindsight. I know, as the writer of the journal did not, what was just round the corner.
I did not write – next day, or ever – of the two minutes on the stairs but I remember them most vividly. Mr Crossway’s ostensible reason for coming up to the office was to tell us that Lilian had read very promisingly and he was going to give her a trial. He talked for quite a while but no opportunity for seeing me alone arose. So when he went, he called to me from the stairs saying he wanted me to give Lilian a message. I hurried to him. He said nothing about Lilian, just looked at me intently and asked if I was all right. I nodded. Then he asked why I had run away without waking him and I said I’d thought it would be less trouble for him if I was gone when he woke. And I told him of my ride back with the cabbages – I thought that would amuse him but he said ‘Good God!’ under his breath and shook his head as if in disapproval. All the time, he was looking at me with an intimacy which I found valuable and exciting but I did wish he would smile. The only other thing he said was, ‘I’ll be in touch with you when I can.’ He said this very kindly but still did not smile.
When I got back to the office Miss Lester asked what the message for Lilian was and I said it was to do with not learning her part until she’d had a rehearsal. Undoubtedly I had a talent for improvisation, even when hardly in the mood for it.
That was on the Monday. On the Tuesday I managed to be in the Throne Room on my own while Lilian was rehearsing. I looked through the spy-hole and saw that she was on the stage alone with Mr Crossway. He was taking her through the part line by line, making her copy his inflections. They were working on her long speech in the last act; and when they came to the end she said, ‘Please give me time to make some notes.’ He said, ‘Can you make notes on inflections?’ She said yes, they would mean something to her. After she’d made the notes, they tried the speech again and she’d remembered every inflection. He praised her but added, ‘They’re a bit parrot-like.’ She said, quite sharply, ‘Well, give me a chance! I’ve got to work on them, make them my own.’ He looked at her quickly, as if astonished by her tone, and then said, ‘Good girl. That’s exactly the right attitude.’
I closed the spy-hole feeling a new respect for Lilian, but also despising her a bit for copying, not creating.
The only other thing I remember about that afternoon was that Brice Marton came up after the rehearsal; he had been there, though I had not seen him. He told us Lilian was doing well, then he talked to Miss Lester, ignoring me. I was surprised, as we had got on so well only two days before. Just before he went he asked me if I had enjoyed my drive back with my friends. When I said yes, he said ‘Good’ – but so off-handedly that I wondered if he had really been annoyed because I didn’t return with him.
When I got back to the Club that night Molly was out with Bluff King Hal again and Lilian was in a practice room, working on her part. I sat with Zelle in her bedroom – I think it was the first time we had been alone together since we had shared a room at the hotel. Being at the theatre so much, I saw far less of her than Molly and Lilian did.
She was eager to talk about the vicarage garden party and the evening service – ‘And the folk singers with their lanterns, winding their way through the village. Somehow they made me long to be good.’ It seemed strange that she and I had listened with such different feelings. Not that I thought of myself as being bad; still, I felt Zelle in her present mood would have been shocked at me. She had quite a holy look, perched on her window-seat in a madonna-blue dressing-gown, with her fair hair suggesting an aureole.
She kept saying what a wonderful man Adrian Crossway was, so I teased her by asking if she could fancy being a vicar’s wife.
‘It’s not a thing you ought to joke about,’ she said, almost angrily. ‘The man’s a saint. I wouldn’t marry him even if he asked me to, which he never would.’
I said I agreed it wouldn’t be a good idea to marry a saint.
‘Oh, I didn’t mean that. I meant I’m not good enough. But I do hope I shall see him again. I’m going to write and ask if he knows of any work I can do, to help people, especially children. I adored all those fat babies sitting on the mound with us. I’ve never done anything worth while in my whole life.’
‘It sounds as if you’ve been converted,’ I said, laughing.
‘Yes, I have and it isn’t funny. And I don’t want to talk about it. Promise not to say anything to Molly and Lilian.’
I promised, and said I hadn’t meant to jeer. But I didn’t take her conversion seriously, any more than I had taken her fears of being bitten by Dracula. I had never come near to knowing her well and accepted her as being irrational and sometimes a bit silly, but always charming and almost unbelievably generous.
Lilian came in then and asked if I would give her the cues for her part. She was word perfect, but not at all good in the first two acts, in which she had very little to do; I gathered Mr Crossway hadn’t taught her these yet. In her important last act she seemed to me to have remembered all the inflections and also ‘made them her own’. (I didn’t, of course, tell her I had heard her intention of doing so.) A parrot she might be but she was a very clever parrot. I told her she was going to be excellent.
She said she was to have an Eton crop as Mr Crossway thought it would suit the part. ‘We went to his dressing-room and I scragged my hair back and he studied me from all angles. He says a crop will suit me, as well as being right for the part.’
I felt a pang, thinking of her in his dressing-room, and to hide my feelings I asked, jokingly, if she’d fallen in love with him yet.
She said, ‘I haven’t dared to spare the time. But once I feel I’m safe in the part, oh boy!’
I was glad to remember he hadn’t very much liked her, as a person.
I hoped to see him on the Wednesday but I didn’t; nor on the Thursday or the Friday. I hardly blamed him; he spent so much time rehearsing with Lilian and there was a full company rehearsal for her on the Friday. She was to go on at the Saturday matinée.
On the Friday evening, when Miss Lester and I were on our way to dinner at the pub, I happened to look in at the window of a dingy little print shop and I saw some small framed engravings of Regent’s Park terraces. There was one of the terrace where Mr Crossway lived and, remembering how Lilian had admired his house, I thought the little picture would make a ‘good luck’ present for her. I had already arranged to send flowers with Molly’s and Zelle’s but I fancied sending something on my own, especially as I was feeling envious of her and did not like myself for it. The shop was closed but I went in on Saturday morning, bought the engraving and put a card with it saying: ‘Little did we think when we walked round the park! All the good luck in the world to you.’
I left the parcel at the stage door and then went to lunch at the pub, expecting Miss Lester would be there, but she wasn’t. It was barely half-past one when I finished eating and I was not due at the theatre for an hour; but I decided to get there early and put in some work, so that I could watch Lilian’s last act from the dress circle. I knew that, anyway, Miss Lester would let me; but we were fairly busy so I felt I ought to play fair about taking time off.
As soon as I entered the hall of the office I saw, through the open door, that Mr Crossway was standing beside Miss Lester’s desk with his back to me. I was on my way to them when I heard her say: ‘How could you? She’s eighteen and young for her age.’
I stopped dead, astounded more by her bitter tone than by her words – for a second, I didn’t take in what they meant.
Mr Crossway said: ‘You can’t feel worse about it than I do. But if you knew the circumstances you might not blame me quite so
much. There are times when it’s kinder to do the wrong thing than the right one.’
‘Kinder?’ She still spoke with the utmost bitterness. ‘Ah, yes, I ought to have remembered. You’re a specialist in being kind to be cruel. Well, what happens now?’
Before he could answer, she looked past him and saw me. Instantly, she got up, came out of the office and through the hall without looking at or speaking to me, and went downstairs.
I dashed to him, asking what had happened – ‘It was me you were talking about, wasn’t it?’
‘I’m afraid so. I was hoping to keep it from you – anyway, for the moment. But now you’d better know what there is to know. Don’t worry too much. I’ll keep you out of it somehow.’
He then explained that a letter from his wife, still away on a visit to her father, had that morning been delivered at the theatre and opened by Miss Lester – who always opened his theatre letters and winnowed out those there was no need for him to bother with. Mrs Crossway stated that she had received information from their lodge keeper that I had spent the night with him. The woman – I remembered seeing her when I drove past the lodge with Brice – had managed to find out my name. And she was prepared to swear I had gone into the barn and stayed there. Mrs Crossway now proposed to start divorce proceedings.
‘She’s threatened to divorce me for years,’ he said, ‘but I didn’t think she’d set a servant to spy on me. Actually, I didn’t think she wanted a divorce. I thought her threats were only meant to keep me at heel – she’s always tried to do that, though I can’t believe she still feels strongly about it. She used to, I’m afraid; but for some time it’s been more a question of pride.’
He had seldom spoken to me about his wife but I had gathered they were very good friends. Now I felt I must have been wrong. Surely no friendly wife could spring such a thing on him just by means of a letter?
I said, ‘Then you’re not fond of each other any more?’
