Theatre

by William Somerset Maugham

  ‘I wonder if he’s noticed that he hasn’t kissed me since he came here?’

  They might go out in the punt. It would be heavenly to lie in his arms for a few minutes; it would make up for everything.

  The Dexters’ party was theatrical. Grace Hardwill, Archie’s wife, played in musical comedy, and there was a bevy of pretty girls who danced in the piece in which she was then appearing. Julia acted with great naturalness the part of a leading lady who put on no frills. She was charming to the young ladies, with their waved platinum hair, who earned three pounds a week in the chorus. A good many of the guests had brought kodaks and she submitted with affability to being photographed. She applauded enthusiastically when Grace Hardwill sang her famous song to the accompaniment of the composer. She laughed as heartily as anyone when the comic woman did an imitation of her in one of her best-known parts. It was all very gay, rather rowdy, and agreeably light-hearted. Julia enjoyed herself, but when it was seven o’clock was not sorry to go. She was thanking her hosts effusively for the pleasant party when Roger came up to her.

  ‘I say, mum, there’s a whole crowd going on to Maidenhead to dine and dance, and they want Tom and me to go too. You don’t mind, do you?’

  The blood rushed to her cheeks. She could not help answering rather sharply.

  ‘How are you to get back?’

  ‘Oh, that’ll be all right. We’ll get someone to drop us.’

  She looked at him helplessly. She could not think what to say.

  ‘It’s going to be a tremendous lark. Tom’s crazy to go.’

  Her heart sank. It was with the greatest difficulty that she managed not to make a scene. But she controlled herself.

  ‘All right, darling. But don’t be too late. Remember that Tom’s got to rise with the lark.’

  Tom had come up and heard the last words.

  ‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course not. I hope you’ll have a grand time.’

  She smiled brightly at him, but her eyes were steely with hatred.

  ‘I’m just as glad those two kids have gone off,’ said Michael when they got into the launch. ‘We haven’t had an evening to ourselves for ever so long.’

  She clenched her hands in order to prevent herself from telling him to hold his silly tongue. She was in a black rage. This was the last straw. Tom had neglected her for a fortnight, he had not even treated her with civility, and she had been angelic. There wasn’t a woman in the world who would have shown such patience. Any other woman would have told him that if he couldn’t behave with common decency he’d better get out. Selfish, stupid and common, that’s what he was. She almost wished he wasn’t going tomorrow so that she could have the pleasure of turning him out bag and baggage. And to dare to treat her like that, a twopenny halfpenny little man in the city; poets, cabinet ministers, peers of the realm would be only too glad to break the most important engagements to have the chance of dining with her, and he threw her over to go and dance with a pack of peroxide blondes who couldn’t act for nuts. That showed what a fool he was. You would have thought he’d have some gratitude. Why, the very clothes he had on she’d paid for. That cigarette-case he was so proud of, hadn’t she given him that? And the ring he wore. My God, she’d get even with him. Yes, and she knew how she could do it. She knew where he was most sensitive and how she could most cruelly wound him. That would get him on the raw. She felt a faint sensation of relief as she turned the scheme over in her mind.

  She was impatient to carry but her part of it at once, and they had no sooner got home than she went up to her room. She got four single pounds out of her bag and a ten-shilling note. She wrote a brief letter.

  DEAR TOM,

  I’m enclosing the money for your tips as I shan’t see you in the morning. Give three pounds to the butler, a pound to the maid who’s been valeting you, and ten shillings to the chauffeur.

  JULIA.

  She sent for Evie and gave instructions that the letter should be given to Tom by the maid who awoke him. When she went down to dinner she felt much better. She carried on an animated conversation with Michael while they dined and afterwards they played six pack bezique. If she had racked her brains for a week she couldn’t have thought of anything that would humiliate Tom more bitterly.

  But when she went to bed she could not sleep. She was waiting for Roger and Tom to come home. A notion came to her that made her restless. Perhaps Tom would realize that he had behaved rottenly, if he gave it a moment’s thought he must see how unhappy he was making her; it might be that he would be sorry and when he came in, after he had said good night to Roger, he would creep down to her room. If he did that she would forgive everything. The letter was probably in the butler’s pantry; she could easily slip down and get it back. At last a car drove up. She turned on her light to look at the time. It was three. She heard the two young men go upstairs and to their respective rooms. She waited. She put on the light by her bedside so that when he opened the door he should be able to see. She would pretend she was sleeping and then as he crept forward on tiptoe slowly open her eyes and smile at him. She waited. In the silent night she heard him get into bed and switch off the light. She stared straight in front of her for a minute, then with a shrug of the shoulders opened a drawer by her bedside and from a little bottle took a couple of sleeping-tablets.

  ‘If I don’t sleep I shall go mad.’

  15

  JULIA did not wake till after eleven. Among her letters was one that had not come by post. She recognized Tom’s neat, commercial hand and tore it open. It contained nothing but the four pounds and the ten-shilling note. She felt slightly sick. She did not quite know what she had expected him to reply to her condescending letter and the humiliating present. It had not occurred to her that he would return it. She was troubled, she had wanted to hurt his feelings, but she had a fear now that she had gone too far.

  ‘Anyhow I hope he tipped the servants,’ she muttered to reassure herself. She shrugged her shoulders. ‘He’ll come round. It won’t hurt him to discover that I’m not all milk and honey.’

  But she remained thoughtful throughout the day. When she got to the theatre a parcel was waiting for her. As soon as she looked at the address she knew what it contained. Evie asked if she should open it.

  ‘No.’

  But the moment she was alone she opened it herself. There were the cuff-links and the waistcoat buttons, the pearl studs, the wrist-watch and the cigarette-case of which Tom was so proud. All the presents she had ever given him. But no letter. Not a word of explanation. Her heart sank and she noticed that she was trembling.

  ‘What a damned fool I was! Why didn’t I keep my temper?’

  Her heart now beat painfully. She couldn’t go on the stage with that anguish gnawing at her vitals, she would give a frightful performance; at whatever cost she must speak to him. There was a telephone in his house and an extension to his room. She rang him. Fortunately he was in.

  ‘Tom.’

  ‘Yes?’

  He had paused for a moment before answering and his voice was peevish.

  ‘What does this mean? Why have you sent me all those things?’

  ‘Did you get the notes this morning?’

  ‘Yes. I couldn’t make head or tail of it. Have I offended you?’

  ‘Oh no,’ he answered. ‘I like being treated like a kept boy. I like having it thrown in my face that even my tips have to be given me. I thought it rather strange that you didn’t send me the money for a third-class ticket back to London.’

  Although Julia was in a pitiable state of anxiety, so that she could hardly get the words out of her mouth, she almost smiled at his fatuous irony. He was a silly little thing.

  ‘But you can’t imagine that I wanted to hurt your feelings. You surely know me well enough to know that’s the last thing I should do.’

  ‘That only makes it worse.’ (‘Damn and curse,’ thought Julia.) ‘I ought never to have let you make me those present
s. I should never have let you lend me money.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. It’s all some horrible misunderstanding. Come and fetch me after the play and we’ll have it out. I know I can explain.’

  ‘I’m going to dinner with my people and I shall sleep at home.’

  ‘Tomorrow then.’

  ‘I’m engaged tomorrow.’

  ‘I must see you, Tom. We’ve been too much to one another to part like this. You can’t condemn me unheard. It’s so unjust to punish me for no fault of mine.’

  ‘I think it’s much better that we shouldn’t meet again.’

  Julia was growing desperate.

  ‘But I love you, Tom. I love you. Let me see you once more and then, if you’re still angry with me, we’ll call it a day.’

  There was a long pause before he answered.

  ‘All right. I’ll come after the matinée on Wednesday.’

  ‘Don’t think unkindly of me, Tom.’

  She put down the receiver. At all events he was coming. She wrapped up again the things he had returned to her, and hid them away where she was pretty sure Evie would not see them. She undressed, put on her old pink dressing-gown and began to make-up. She was out of humour: this was the first time she had ever told him that she loved him. It vexed her that she had been forced to humiliate herself by begging him to come and see her. Till then it had always been he who sought her company. She was not pleased to think that the situation between them now was openly reversed.

  Julia gave a very poor performance at the matinée on Wednesday. The heat wave had affected business and the house was apathetic. Julia was indifferent. With that sickness of apprehension gnawing at her heart she could not care how the play went. (‘What the hell do they want to come to the theatre for on a day like this anyway?’) She was glad when it was over.

  ‘I’m expecting Mr Fennell,’ she told Evie. ‘While he’s here I don’t want to be disturbed.’

  Evie did not answer. Julia gave her a glance and saw that she was looking grim.

  (To hell with her. What do I care what she thinks!’)

  He ought to have been there by now. It was after five. He was bound to come; after all, he’d promised, hadn’t he? She put on a dressing-gown, not the one she made up in, but a man’s dressing-gown, in plum-coloured silk. Evie took an interminable time to put things straight.

  ‘For God’s sake don’t fuss, Evie. Leave me alone.’

  Evie did not speak. She went on methodically arranging the various objects on the dressing-table exactly as Julia always wanted them.

  ‘Why the devil don’t you answer when I speak to you?’

  Evie turned round and looked at her. She thoughtfully rubbed her finger along her nostrils.

  ‘Great actress you may be…’

  ‘Get the hell out of here.’

  After taking off her stage make-up Julia had done nothing to her face except put the very faintest shading of blue under her eyes. She had a smooth, pale skin and without rouge on her cheeks or red on her lips she looked wan. The man’s dressing-gown gave an effect at once helpless, fragile and gallant. Her heart was beating painfully and she was very anxious, but looking at herself in the glass she murmured: Mimi in the last act of Bohème. Almost without meaning to she coughed once or twice consumptively. She turned off the bright lights on her dressing-table and lay down on the sofa. Presently there was a knock on the door and Evie announced Mr Fennell. Julia held out a white, thin hand.

  ‘I’m lying down. I’m afraid I’m not very well. Find yourself a chair. It’s nice of you to come.’

  ‘I’m sorry. What’s the matter?’

  ‘Oh, nothing.’ She forced a smile to her ashy lips. ‘I haven’t been sleeping very well the last two or three nights.’

  She turned her beautiful eyes on him and for a while gazed at him in silence. His expression was sullen, but she had a notion that he was frightened.

  ‘I’m waiting for you to tell me what you’ve got against me,’ she said at last in a low voice.

  It trembled a little, she noticed, but quite naturally. (‘Christ, I believe I’m frightened too.’)

  ‘There’s no object in going back to that. The only thing I wanted to say to you was this: I’m afraid I can’t pay you the two hundred pounds I owe you right away. I simply haven’t got it, but I’ll pay you by degrees. I hate having to ask you to give me time, but I can’t help myself.’

  She sat up on the sofa and put both her hands to her breaking heart.

  ‘I don’t understand. I’ve lain awake for two whole nights turning it all over in my mind. I thought I should go mad. I’ve oeen trying to understand. I can’t. I can’t.’

  (‘What play did I say that in?’)

  ‘Oh yes, you can, you understand perfectly. You were angry with me and you wanted to get back on me. And you did. You got back on me all right. You couldn’t have shown your contempt for me more clearly.’

  ‘But why should I want to get back on you? Why should I be angry with you?’

  ‘Because I went to Maidenhead with Roger to that party and you wanted me to come home.’

  ‘But I told you to go. I said I hoped you’d have a good time.’

  ‘I know you did, but your eyes were blazing with passion. I didn’t want to go, but Roger was keen on it. I told him I thought we ought to come back and dine with you and Michael, but he said you’d be glad to have us off your hands, and I didn’t like to make a song and dance about it. And when I saw you were in a rage it was too late to get out of it.’

  ‘I wasn’t in a rage. I can’t think how you got such an idea in your head. It was so natural that you should want to go to the party. You can’t think I’m such a beast as to grudge you a little fun in your fortnight’s holiday. My poor lamb, my only fear was that you would be bored. I so wanted you to have a good time.’

  ‘Then why did you send me that money and write me that letter? It was so insulting.’

  Julia’s voice faltered. Her jaw began to tremble and the loss of control over her muscles was strangely moving. Tom looked away uneasily.

  ‘I couldn’t bear to think of your having to throw away your good money on tips. I know that you’re not terribly rich and I knew you’d spent a lot on green fees. I hate women who go about with young men and let them pay for everything. It’s so inconsiderate. I treated you just as I’d have treated Roger. I never thought it would hurt your feelings.’

  ‘Will you swear that?’

  ‘Of course I will. My God, is it possible that after all these months you don’t know me better than that? If what you think were true, what a mean, cruel, despicable woman I should be, what a cad, what a heartless, vulgar beast! Is that what you think I am?’

  A poser.

  ‘Anyhow it doesn’t matter. I ought never to have accepted valuable presents from you and allowed you to lend me money. It’s put me in a rotten position. Why I thought you despised me is that I can’t help feeling that you’ve got a right to. The fact is I can’t afford to run around with people who are so much richer than I am. I was a fool to think I could. It’s been fun and I’ve had a grand time, but now I’m through. I’m not going to see you any more.’

  She gave a deep sigh.

  ‘You don’t care two hoots for me. That’s what that means.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘You’re everything in the world to me. You know that. I’m so lonely and your friendship meant a great deal to me. I’m surrounded by hangers-on and parasites and I knew you were disinterested. I felt I could rely on you. I so loved being with you. You were the only person in the world with whom I could be entirely myself. Don’t you know what a pleasure it was to me to help you a little? It wasn’t for your sake I made you little presents, it was for my own; it made me so happy to see you using the things I’d given you. If you’d cared for me at all they wouldn’t have humiliated you, you’d have been touched to owe me something.’

  She turned her eyes on him once more. She could always cry
easily, and she was really so miserable now that she did not have to make even a small effort. He had never seen her cry before. She could cry, without sobbing, her wonderful dark eyes wide open, with a face that was almost rigid. Great heavy tears ran down it. And her quietness, the immobility of the tragic body, were terribly moving. She hadn’t cried like that since she cried in The Stricken Heart. Christ, how that play had shattered her. She was not looking at Tom, she was looking straight in front of her; she was really distracted with grief, but, what was it? another self within her knew what she was doing, a self that shared in her unhappiness and yet watched its expression. She felt him go white. She felt a sudden anguish wring his heartstrings, she felt that his flesh and blood could not support the intolerable pain of hers.

  ‘Julia.’

  His voice was broken. She slowly turned her liquid eyes on him. It was not a woman crying that he saw, it was all the woe of humankind, it was the immeasurable, the inconsolable grief that is the lot of man. He threw himself down on his knees and took her in his arms. He was shattered.

  ‘Dearest, dearest.’

  For a minute she did not move. It was as if she did not know that he was there. He kissed her streaming eyes and with his mouth sought hers. She gave it to him as though she were powerless, as though, scarcely conscious of what was befalling her, she had no will left. With a scarcely perceptible movement she pressed her body to his and gradually her arms found their way round his neck. She lay in his arms, not exactly inert, but as though all the strength, all the vitality, had gone out of her. In his mouth he tasted the saltness of her tears. At last, exhausted, clinging to him with soft arms she sank back on the sofa. His lips clung to hers.

  You would never have thought had you seen her a quarter of an hour later, so quietly gay, flushed a little, that so short a while before she had passed through such a tempest of weeping. They each had a whisky and soda and a cigarette and looked at one another with fond eyes.