Nigel studied Yseut curiously as, with Donald Fellowes, she came into the bar, and was struck by her total lack of ret semblance to Helen. The brief interchange he had just heard interested him, though for the moment he was inclined to be no more than superciliously amused at the antagonism which the girl seemed to arouse. She looked a compound of negative qualities – conceit, selfishness, coquetry – and little more besides (later he was to appreciate malice as a positive quality). She was dressed very simply, in a blue sweater and blue slacks which set off the red of her hair. Nigel noticed the almost imperceptible traces of disagreeableness in her features, and sighed: but for that, a model whom Rubens, or Renoir, would have delighted to paint. Certainly, Nigel admitted to himself with perhaps a little more than mere scientific interest, she had a magnificent body.
By comparison, Donald Fellowes seemed uninteresting; he moved awkwardly, and with little address. Nigel thought he recognized him; but where on earth had he come across him before? He made a futile, indefinite attempt to summon up the memory of his acquaintance during his years at Oxford, and as always happens on these occasions, could not remember a single one – only a phantom pantomime of blank, indistinguishable masks. Fortunately the problem was solved for him by a gleam of recognition which appeared in Donald’s eye. Nigel smiled feebly, foreseeing a certain amount of gaucherie and embarrassment in the near future; he never had the courage simply to tell people that he didn’t remember them.
There followed the ceremony of mumblings, apologies and recognitions which always occurs when a group of people only partially acquainted are brought together, and a great and complicated manoeuvring of chairs. Nigel, about to go off once again to the bar, was forestalled by Nicholas, who as he ordered pink gins contemplated with unconcealed glee the extremely uncomfortable relationships which were likely to be established within the next few minutes.
Yseut, after a perfunctory and apparently pejorative survey of Nigel, attached herself firmly to Robert; Rachel talked to Donald; and Nigel and Nicholas sat listening in comparative silence.
Yseut began by being solemnly reproachful. ‘I wish you’d allowed me to play the journalist,’ she said to Robert. ‘I know it’s silly to argue about casting, but frankly, I’ve had much more experience of that sort of thing than Helen. And I thought perhaps in view of the fact that we knew each other so well –’
‘Did we know each so well?’
A trace of asperity appeared in Yseut’s voice. ‘I didn’t think you’d have forgotten so quickly.’
‘My dear child, it’s not a question of forgetting.’ Instinctively they both lowered their voices. ‘You know damn well we never got on together. And as for bringing that up over a question of casting –’
‘It’s not just the casting, Robert, and you know that as well as I do.’ She paused. ‘You behaved damned badly to me, and I haven’t had as much as a line from you since. In anyone else, it would have been intolerable.’
‘Are you thinking of suing me for breach of promise? I assure you you’ll have a job.’
‘Oh, don’t be such a bloody fool. No – I shouldn’t have said that.’ She was dramatizing freely with voice and gesture. ‘I suppose in a way it was my fault that I couldn’t keep you, even as your mistress.’
‘I already had a mistress.’ This conversation, thought Robert, is getting damned awkward: much worse than I expected. Aloud he said: ‘And anyway, Yseut, I thought we agreed about all this long ago. It’s had no influence on the casting, if that’s what you mean.’ (A lie, he thought, but if people will be so intolerable …!)
‘I’ve missed you, Robert.’
‘My dear, I’ve missed you too, in a way.’ The conventions of polite behaviour were beginning to sap Robert’s firmness.
Yseut looked at him with wide, innocent eyes in which there was a hint of tears; he half expected her to lisp when she spoke.
‘Couldn’t we take it up again, darling?’
‘No, dear; I’m afraid we couldn’t,’ said Robert, recovering his firmness. ‘Even if it were possible from my point of view, which it isn’t, what about that young man Donald what’s-his-name who’s sitting there making sheep’s eyes at you?’
Yseut flung herself back in her chair. ‘Donald? My dear, surely you credit me with sufficient good taste not to take seriously a youth like that.’
‘He’s of the male gender; I thought that was your only requirement.’
‘Don’t be cynical, darling. It’s very vieux jeu now.’
He marvelled at the lack of dignity which could have prompted her to such an offer. Half in curiosity, he began to probe again.
‘And besides, Helen tells me he’s very much in love with you. Surely you owe him sufficient consideration not to go about asking other men point-blank to go to bed with you.’
‘I can’t help it if people fall in love with me.’ A toss of the hair, conventional mime for ‘It is not my responsibility!’
‘If you don’t love him, make a clean break.’
She sneered. ‘Oh, don’t talk like a twopenny novelette, Robert. He’s hopelessly young and silly and clumsy and inexperienced. And ridiculously jealous, too.’ A hint of complacency came into her voice.
A pause. She went on:
‘God, how I hate Oxford! How I hate the silly, bloody, fools who surround me here! And the theatre, and everything about the filthy place.’
‘There’s nothing to stop you leaving, I suppose. The West End is waiting tensely for you to decide what part you want to play, and opposite whom –’
‘Damn you!’ There was a sudden cold venom in her voice.
‘Pleasant reminiscences?’ inquired Nicholas from the middle distance, who had caught the last few phrases of the conversation.
‘Shut up, Nick,’ she said. ‘As far as success is concerned, you’re no shining light.’
Nigel saw Nicholas’ expression harden. ‘Dear Yseut,’ he said silkily, ‘how fortunate it is that I have no reason in the world to be polite to bitches like you.’
‘You little – !’ She was tense with fury now. ‘Robert, are you going to let him talk to me like that?’
‘Shut up, Yseut,’ said Robert. ‘And you shut up too, Nick. I’ve no wish to be surrounded by squabbling children all evening. Have a cigarette,’ he added, waving his case about.
It was an unpleasant little incident, one of several such, destined to culminate in murder. But what had astonished Nigel had been the sight of Donald Fellowes during those few seconds. Literally, the man had been shaking with rage; his hand had trembled as he took a cigarette from Robert’s case and lit it, throwing away the match without attempting to offer it to anyone else; the blood had drained from his face and the sweat had started out on his brow. Nigel was so alarmed that he half rose from his chair, afraid that Donald was going to smash at Nicholas with the first thing that came to hand. He had controlled himself – fortunately. But Nigel realized then how strong his passion for Yseut was, and marvelled.
It was Rachel who restored the situation. ‘Are you going to be here long?’ she said quietly to Nigel.
Nigel played up nobly. ‘About a week, I think,’ he said as casually as he could. ‘A week of blessed rest from journalism. I’m reviving memories –’ his eye travelled uneasily round the gathering as he spoke, and he was relieved to see that they were all sulking – ‘though of course there are very few people I know up now. It’s funny how little the place has changed, despite the war.’ There was a desperate pause. ‘I wonder,’ he said to Robert, ‘if I might watch some of the rehearsals of your play? If the company doesn’t object, that is. I know so little about the theatre, and I’m sure it would be good for me.’
‘By all means,’ said Robert a little absently. ‘We run through the whole thing tomorrow (reading, of course), then Act 1 will be set on Wednesday, Acts 2 and 3 on Thursday, run-through on Friday and Saturday and dress-rehearsal on Sunday evening. Monday we piece together the fragments of the dress-rehearsal, and there we are. I da
re say one or two of the older members of the company will object to having people hanging about, but they’ll just have to lump it.’
‘Oh, if it’s going to be a nuisance –’ said Nigel hastily.
‘Good heavens, no. Make yourself fairly inconspicuous, that’s all. Donald what’s-his-name is coming whenever he can get away from his choirboys, and so is a don I met yesterday – called Gervase Fen, of all the impossible names –’
Nigel was genuinely surprised. ‘Oh, you’ve met Fen, have you?’ he inquired rather unnecessarily.
‘Yes. Is he a friend of yours?’
‘He used to be my tutor. How did you come across him?’
‘Quite by accident, in Blackwell’s. He was reading a book off one of the shelves, and going to the rather extreme length of cutting the pages with a penknife.’ Robert chuckled. ‘When one of the assistants ticked him off, he said solemnly, “Young man, this bookshop was dunning me for enormous bills long before you were born. Go away at once, or I’ll cut out all the pages and scatter them on the floor.” The assistant went, in some dismay, and he turned to me and said, “Do you know, I was afraid I was going to have to.” We chattered for a bit, and he seemed struck dumb on learning who I was and gaped at me and asked a lot of solemn and quite idiotic questions about how I thought of things and whether I enjoyed writing and whether I dictated my plays to a secretary. Is it a pose, by the way? I didn’t think it was, but I was a bit taken aback.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ said Nigel definitely. ‘He’s always had a sort of naïve enthusiasm for the celebrated. It’s refreshing at first, but it becomes a bore, and one gets so ashamed of him at parties.’
‘Anyway, the upshot of it was that I invited him to come along to rehearsals, for which he was quite pathetically grateful. However towards the end of our conversation he began to shuffle his feet and fidget about and look at his watch, so I politely took my leave, and he rushed away with tremendous strides saying “Oh dear, oh dear, I shall be too late!” like the White Rabbit in Alice, knocking over a pile of pamphlets on Russia, and absentmindedly taking with him the book he’d been looking at. Obviously he couldn’t make out where it had come from, because later I saw him take it into Parker’s and exchange it for a detective novel.’
Nigel emitted a sound which can only be described as an explosive snort. When he had recovered he said:
‘I’m going in to see him after dinner tonight. Would you like to come?’
‘Thanks, but it really can’t be managed. I’m going on Friday, when I’ve got this play off my mind a bit.’
At this point there suddenly appeared at the table the young Artillery captain to whom Yseut had spoken in the train. He wore a bashful smile. Nigel had seen him at an adjacent table, his attention torn between the conclusion of No Orchids for Miss Blandish and the charms of Rachel, which had obviously smitten him severely.
‘Excuse my butting in,’ he said, addressing himself chiefly to Yseut, ‘but we met in the train, and I was getting awfully bored sitting there all on me lone-e-o. You see, I don’t know anyone in Oxford yet,’ he added apologetically.
A confused clamour of invitation arose.
‘I say, thanks awfully,’ he said. ‘Do let me get you all another drink.’ And he rushed away and returned with his arms full of glasses, spilling the greater part of their contents on the floor. In the meantime Donald Fellowes rose abruptly and left without a word.
‘All comes from practice,’ said the Captain proudly, depositing the drinks in an unsteady manner on the table and sitting down with a bump. ‘My name’s Peter Graham,’ he added. ‘Captain Peter Graham, His Majesty’s Royal Artillery, at your service.’ He grinned at each of them in turn.
Rachel took charge of the introductions, and the conversation drifted into indifferent channels. Rachel, after a brief wink at Robert, resigned herself to the respectful attentions of Peter Graham, who was inquiring hopefully whether the reputation of actresses for immorality was justified. Robert was thrown back on Yseut again, while Nigel and Nicholas discussed their undergraduate days and found acquaintances in common. Eventually Peter Graham surged to his feet.
‘I say,’ he said, ‘I wonder if you’d all like to come to a party in my rooms here on Wednesday night? After the bars have closed, of course. And bring lots of people. I think the hotel will let me have plenty to drink, so you needn’t bring bottles.
‘In the meantime,’ he added, after they had all murmured expressions of delighted acquiescence, ‘Rachel – I mean Miss West and I are going to have dinner together, so I hope you’ll excuse us.’ (Here Robert shot a desperate glance at Rachel, who mischievously refused to notice it.) ‘So long,’ said Peter Graham cheerfully. ‘I expect I shall see you all about,’ he added, feeling that perhaps some justification was needed for this abrupt departure. ‘I think I’m going to like Oxford.’ And he had whisked Rachel out before anyone could say a word.
Nigel and Nicholas also began to make movements of departure. ‘I must be off now,’ Nicholas said firmly.
‘No, don’t go,’ said Robert hurriedly. ‘Stay and have dinner with us.’ He waved his hand dejectedly in the direction of Yseut, and semaphored distress signals.
‘I’d love to, but I’m afraid I’m dining with a friend in New College. And I’m late already.’
‘What about you?’ Robert addressed Nigel plaintively.
But Nigel had absolutely no wish to dine with Yseut. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said mendaciously, ‘but I’m afraid I’ve got an engagement too.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Robert.
‘By the way,’ said Nigel as they turned to go, ‘what time is the rehearsal tomorrow?’
‘Ten o’clock,’ answered Robert dismally. They left him sunk in gloom, and Yseut smiling like an overfed cat.
In the doorway a somewhat drunk R.A.F. officer cannoned into Nicholas, and recovering himself, stared at him blearily for a few seconds.
‘Bloody type!’ he announced technically. ‘Why the hell aren’t you in uniform – bloody type!’
‘I’m part of the culture you’re fighting to defend,’ said Nicholas looking at him coolly; he had been invalided out of the army after Dunkirk.
‘Bloody pongo!’ said the R.A.F. officer, and feeling his vocabulary exhausted, went his way.
Nigel looked curiously at his companion as they left the hotel. ‘I should imagine Coriolanus is one of your favourite plays,’ he said.
Nicholas smiled. ‘In a way you’re right; “the common cry of curs”, you mean. But it’s not snobbishness; it’s just a congenital inability to suffer fools gladly. I think that’s the chief reason, not any moral scruples, why I so loathe that bitch Yseut. Someone is going to kill or mutilate that girl one day – and I for one shan’t be sorry.’
Outside, Nigel left him. And as he strolled back to dine at his college, he was more than usually thoughtful.
3. Trying Tender Voices
An ancient fabric raised t’ inform the sight
There stood of yore, and Barbican it night …
Where infant punks their tender voices try,
And little Maximins the gods defy.
Dryden
It was well after midnight when Nigel left Fen’s room in St Christopher’s to return to the ‘Mace and Sceptre’. Their talk had been of old acquaintances, old days, of the present state of the college, and of the effects of the war on the university as a whole. ‘Morons!’ Fen had said of the present set of undergraduates, ‘Sophomores!’ And from the glimpses Nigel had had of them he was greatly inclined to agree. The average age of the college had been much reduced, and a sort of standard public-school prefect’s common-room type had superseded the more adult eccentricities and individualities which had existed before the war. Then, again, there were more people reading science, and fewer reading arts, and this Nigel, with the instinctive snobbery of the arts man, deplored.
But throughout the evening he had been distrait. Something of the tangled implications of the Yseut situation
had been conveyed to him by that brief conversation before dinner, and he was now less inclined to be amused than he had been at first. He remembered Donald Fellowes trembling with rage in his chair, Nicholas’ cold sneer, Robert’s instinctive, almost physical repugnance for the girl; and there were other threads which as yet he had not seen. A little vaguely, he wondered how the situation would resolve itself. Probably, like most of these impasses, it would melt away with the removal of one or more of its elements. Nigel, who was naturally lazy, deplored hasty decisions and decisive steps and always waited until the situation had been altered and the decision no longer had to be made. Doubtless it would all smooth itself out somehow.
He slept soundly and woke late, so that it was already 10.30 by the time he set out for the theatre, and he cursed himself for allowing himself to be so late.
The theatre was ten minutes’ brisk walking from the hotel. It stood near the outskirts of the city, a little drawn back from a long, residential street which also served as the main road to a neighbouring town. Contemplating it in the fresh, clear autumn sunlight, Nigel wondered if we didn’t sometimes do the Victorians an injustice by invariably condemning their architecture as graceless. Certainly in the present case the unknown architect had succeeded in conveying an impression of mellow, if slightly effeminate, charm to the building. It was a big place, built in soft yellow stone, and fronted by a wide lawn where on summer evenings the audience would stroll with drinks and cigarettes, during the intervals. The greater part of the building had been simply restored; only the proscenium, stage, dressing-rooms and bar had been completely modernized, the latter – which was on the first floor behind the circle, and to which two flights of steps led up from either side of the foyer – in a witty pastiche of the original style which blended charmingly with it. The two box-offices, too, had been provided with broad sheets of glass in place of the tiny roman arches through which transactions have to be carried on in the majority of old theatres.
Nigel slipped quietly into the darkened stalls, still feeling annoyed with himself for being so late. He had wanted to watch all the rehearsals and get some idea of how a play was actually built up to the first performance.
The Case of the Gilded Fly Page 3
