Golden Pavements

by Pamela Brown

  Lynette fled from the noisy scene that followed. As she ran up the stairs the tears began to fall, and she collapsed in a chair, her head down on the dressing-table among the make-up and grease-paints.

  “Don’t,” said Timothy, who had sat in her room throughout the last act. “Don’t, dear. It’s not your fault. We’re just—unlucky.”

  “Well, what a scandal!” said Mrs. White. “Come along, deary. It wasn’t as bad as all that.” But Lynette could only weep. “Here, deary, lie down on the couch for a bit.” For a few minutes Lynette seemed to lose all consciousness and they fetched sal volatile to revive her. At last she was able to remove her make-up, slowly, with rending sobs. De Whit came in and sank down on the couch.

  “That woman—that woman!” was all he could say. “What are we going to do?”

  “I can’t possibly go on tomorrow night,” said Lynette, a sorry sight with swollen eyes.

  “You’ll have to, dear. Your understudy isn’t ready at all. But I don’t even know that there’ll be another night. I’ve not seen Cathcart or anyone belonging to the management yet.”

  “What has Miss Meredith to say?” Timothy asked dully.

  “She won’t admit that there’s anything wrong. She just says, ‘But they loved it,’ and is giving a cocktail party in her dressing-room.”

  “Incredible—incredible,” gasped Timothy. “Doesn’t she realize what she’s done to me—to Lynette—to you?”

  “I don’t think she does,” said De Whit weakly. “She is just a silly, vain, selfish old woman.”

  “Thank heaven no-one has come round to see me,” sighed Lynette. “That means it must have been bad. Mrs. Seymore and Mr. Whitfield haven’t come round.”

  “Duncan, can’t you tell her that she’s got to play it properly tomorrow night?”

  “It won’t matter if she does. The Press were here in full force tonight, and they’re just going to slaughter it.”

  “Of course,” said Timothy dully.

  One by one the company came to find De Whit to ask in a bewildered fashion what was happening.

  “I don’t know. I only know we’re done for,” was all he could say.

  They condoled with Lynette and made a fuss of her, but she knew that kind words could not mend the ruin of her first West End first night.

  “It was all so unnecessary,” was all she could think. “It could have been a success for us both, if Marcia had only kept her head.”

  “Come out and have something to eat,” suggested De Whit. “We’ll go somewhere quiet. We’ll all feel better when we’ve had something to eat.”

  They went into the snack bar of the little pub opposite and ordered steak and chips. Lyn could not touch hers; to her it tasted like sawdust.

  “Our lovely play!” groaned De Whit. “Last night it was—it was brilliant. Wasn’t it? You all knew it was.”

  Timothy was sitting white and silent, looking strangely like a disappointed small boy. And then from over the partition that divided them from the smoking-room came the loud voice of a playgoer who had just come out of the St. Christopher’s, and a friend who had not seen the show.

  “Well, what was it like?”

  “Pretty bad. Pretty bad. Marcia was all right. Same as usual, of course. But it was a very weak play. Can’t think why Tiller and Webb ever bothered to put it on. Their stuff is usually so good.”

  “What was this new girl like?”

  “Which girl?”

  “Derwent—or some such name.”

  “The daughter? Oh, pretty bad. The worst Academy type. Obviously inexperienced. The Meredith wiped the floor with her.”

  Lyn rose unsteadily to her feet.

  “I must go,” she said in a little voice.

  “I’ll come with you,” said Timothy quickly.

  “No. No, I don’t want anyone.”

  “But it’s raining,” said Timothy stupidly.

  “I know.” Lynette pushed her way out of the crowded snack bar and out into the cool evening air and the steadily falling rain.

  “The worst Academy type—obviously inexperienced.” And that was what the papers would say next day. She walked blindly through puddles, across roads, regardless of the traffic. It was a grey evening, turning into a black night. The passers-by looked despairing and down-trodden in macintoshes, galoshes, and hoods. Lyn longed to be able to go home to her mother, to tell her all about it and to be put to bed with a hot drink. She was suddenly so tired that she had to lean against a lamp-post and gasp. She stood and watched the cars and people, trying to find some meaning in it all.

  “Why? Why?” she cried inside her. And the roaring traffic and the drip, drip of the rain gave no reply. Detail by detail the whole panorama of the awful evening spread out again in her mind, from the first line on which she had noticed something wrong with Marcia, to the last overheard remark, “The worst Academy type… Meredith wiped the floor with her.” Her feet were soaked with rain and she felt she could walk no farther. A policeman spoke to her. “Everything all right, miss?”

  For a ridiculous moment she wanted to say, “Well, you see, it’s like this,” and tell him all about it, but then she realized that the failure of another show could mean nothing to him. “After all—it’s only acting,” she knew he would think, and she laughed rather hysterically up at him. “No, thank you. I mean, yes, thanks,” she stammered, and got on a bus. The top deck was deserted, and she fell into a front seat and watched the lights with a reeling head and a heavy heart, seeing London through a mist of rain and tears.

  17

  PRODIGAL’S RETURN

  The show ran for just over a week. Without a doubt they were the most unhappy days of Lynette’s life. She hardly dared to go out for fear that she would bump into someone she knew who had not happened to read the notices and would ask cheerily, “How’s the show going?” Or was it worse to meet someone who had read the notices and would carefully make no mention of the show? The newspapers had really been quite kind. They slated the play for its apparent lack of point and balance. Praised Marcia, and most of them were polite enough to ignore Lynette. One of them called her a “bread-and-butter miss”, which rankled for a long time. And the elderly critic who had awarded Lyn the prize for grace and charm of movement merely said, “I prefer to draw a veil over Thursday night’s performance of Beloved Viper.”

  At the theatre the atmosphere was unbearable. Marcia spoke to no-one and no-one spoke to her. She was playing the part more or less as it should have been played, but the houses were so thin that she soon hardly bothered to give a performance at all. Lynette gave a good performance every night but it was too late to save the show. De Whit and Timothy stayed well away from the theatre. Mr. Cathcart buzzed around the dressing-rooms trying to pacify everyone by telling them that if only they would hang on for a few weeks after this show was closed, the management would soon be casting something else in which there might be parts for them. But Lynette’s mind was made up.

  Over supper with Timothy after the second night’s show she said, “No, I shan’t stay in town. We finish on Saturday week, and the next day I shall go back to Fenchester. For at least two years. Next time I get a part in the West End I intend to be experienced enough to hold it down, come weal, come woe!”

  “Come Meredith,” added Timothy, who had cheered up somewhat now the ordeal was over and it was definite that his play was a flop. “Yes, I think you’re wise. And please may I try out my next play down at Fenchester, to see if it’s foolproof? I must never write another that can be ruined so easily.”

  “But of course,” cried Lynette. “That’s a wonderful idea. Have you got any others that haven’t been performed yet?”

  “Yes, but I’m a bit doubtful about them.”

  “Well, once we see that we’ve got a regular sort of audience it will be fun to try out new plays.”

  “I’ll be back,” vowed Timothy, eating chips with great determination. “Just you mark my words. Within five years I’ll have written a
play with a star part for you, and we’ll be back at the St. Christopher’s going strong. What do you bet?”

  “I don’t bet,” said Lynette stoutly. “I intend it to happen.”

  “That’s the spirit. They can’t keep us down, can they?”

  But most of the time it was difficult to be cheery. To realize that she had had her chance—and lost it, and with it the dreams of having a little flat somewhere and going each night to the theatre, and entertaining friends to matinee teas—it was all very bitter. Especially as it was not her fault at all.

  “Marcia can afford to have a flop. She’ll soon have another success and be as popular as ever…”

  Mrs. Bosham was heart-broken at losing Lyn.

  “Well, Miss Maddy will soon be back to keep me company for a while.”

  “But, Mrs. Bosham, you’ll have lots more Academy students soon, won’t you?”

  “Oh, yes. They come and they go…”

  “They come and they go,” thought Lynette. “How true.”

  She spent the days mooching around London, seeing all the things that she had meant to see during her two years in town. There was something soothing about visiting the Tower of London, the British Museum, and Kew Gardens.

  “Makes me feel like a tourist, and that will make it less bad having to leave.”

  But her heart ached for all her shattered dreams. She realized that it was the first real failure of her life. Always previously she had been lucky and successful, so that this setback had come as an extra shock. Timothy came to tea after the Wednesday matinee, and brought her a book about Chekhov, illustrated with fascinating old photographs. He said shyly, “I’ve marked a bit that I think might be cheering.” She flipped through the pages until she found a paragraph marked with red pencil, and beside it the word “Us” and an exclamation mark. It read:

  Art, especially the stage, is a region in which it is impossible to walk without stumbling. There are before you yet a good many unsuccessful days, and even whole unsuccessful seasons; there will be great doubts and immense disenchantments; but you must be prepared for all that, you must expect it, and without looking aside must stubbornly go on, fanatically bending it all to your will.

  “That’s what Chekhov wrote to his wife, Olga Knipper,” Timothy explained.

  “It’s terrific!” cried Lynette, with shining eyes. “It will be a great comfort.”

  They made tea on the gas ring, and ate crumpets dripping with butter which Mrs. White had popped out into Soho to buy. Lyn looked round the cosy little dressing-room and wished that it were to be hers for longer.

  “They come and they go.” She remembered Mrs. Bosham’s words, and sighed heavily. Timothy seemed to read her thoughts.

  “Of course,” he said, “you could have gone into an office in Fenchester. Two or three pounds coming in regularly each week, knowing you’d have Saturday afternoons off and Sunday, and a fortnight in the summer. And think of that nice bank clerk you could have settled down with.”

  “Shut up!” laughed Lynette. “I’m not regretting anything—only that such a woman as Marcia Meredith was ever born.”

  The days slipped by, and everyone was impatient for the show to come off. Already another company of artistes were rehearsing for the next show, lounging over the set of Beloved Viper as if it belonged to them.

  “It’s awful—it’s awful,” a little voice inside Lynette kept saying, while she put on a brave face to the rest of the company.

  “You’re lucky to have something to go to,” Joan told her, “even if it’s only rep. I shall have to start parking myself on the agents’ doorsteps again. What a life.”

  From the Blue Doors Lyn had condolatory letters, all of which ended up by saying that they couldn’t help feeling glad that she would be coming to them after all. And Nigel put at the end of his, “We have finally decided on opening with Little Women, so as to give Maddy a nice part before she has to go back to the Academy. Will you play Jo and produce it? I feel that it is more of a woman’s play from a production angle.”

  “How sweet of them,” thought Lynette. “They know that’s a part I’ve been wanting to play. And they think that a new part and producing as well will take my mind off it all. It will, of course.” And already her mind raced ahead towards the casting and the costumes and the scenery for Little Women. “Yes, it’s a good show to open with. It will draw in the family audiences.”

  “I envy you,” said Timothy. “Some work to start on right away.”

  “Yes, I’m lucky. But you can come down and see us whenever you like and discuss which of your plays we can try out.”

  “Thanks. Writing is an awfully lonely occupation, you know.”

  “It must be. But rather restful,” observed Lyn.

  “Restful! Gosh, after what I’ve been through these last few weeks—”

  “But that was unusual.”

  “Most unusual, thank goodness.”

  The last night approached. The show was to come off very quietly, no party, for there was nothing to celebrate. The Saturday matinee audience was poor, but at the Saturday night performance it was the fullest house they had had since the first night.

  “Of course,” Marcia Meredith remarked to nobody in particular, “I think the management are crazy to take it off now. We’re just about beginning to pick up.”

  But no-one trusted himself to reply. As they took the curtain with Marcia extending a modest hand towards the company to acknowledge the applause, Lyn felt hot tears rushing into her eyes.

  “I didn’t think I could cry any more,” she thought as the footlights, the applauding audience, the sweeping line of the circle, the upper circle, and the gallery swam before her eyes in confusion as she bowed. And suddenly the injustice of the whole thing swept over her again. On her way upstairs she paused outside the dressing-room that had a gold star painted on it, and Marcia’s name in large letters. Then she walked in without knocking. Marcia was putting on a glamorous white house coat.

  “I just came to tell you that if you think you’ve ruined my career you’re quite wrong. You’ve merely given me a wonderful example of how not to behave when one is successful. Goodbye. I hope I never have to set eyes on you again.”

  Marcia’s face was almost laughable in its amazed horror. Lynette went out and shut the door, then ran all the way up to her dressing-room with trembling knees. “It was undignified—but worth it,” she thought.

  In the dressing-room Mrs. White was bustling around packing up her things. Regretfully Lyn took off the little grey dress. The management had offered to sell them all their clothes at very reduced rates, but Lynette had refused hers.

  “I could never bear to look at them again.” So Joan was to have Lyn’s.

  “Terribly useful for rep.,” she had remarked. But Lyn was too much of a sentimentalist to take this into consideration.

  “Now, don’t you fret, miss,” said Mrs. White, kissing her goodbye on the cheek in a motherly fashion. “You’ll be back.”

  “Yes,” sniffed Lyn, “I’ll be back.” Her belongings filled one large suitcase and a hatbox. It was awful to have to take down the picture of Ellen, the Blue Doors’ photo, and the Van Gogh. And then in came De Whit carrying her photos that had hung outside the theatre.

  “You’d better have these. You’ll be wanting them soon, won’t you?”

  Lyn packed them in her case and did up the fastenings, not quite knowing what to say.

  “Now, you’re sure you’re doing right?” he persisted, “in going back to—er—wherever it is? If only you’d hang on a bit longer I’m sure we’d find something for you.”

  “It’s very kind of you,” Lynette said firmly. “But I really can’t. You see, I sort of—broke a promise by playing in this at all, so perhaps that’s why I’ve been so unlucky.”

  “I see. You’re a very sensible girl, I think. But I know that we shall work together again soon. In this business when you’ve worked with a person once you’re bound to again.”

/>   “I hope so,” said Lynette. “I really did enjoy rehearsals tremendously. And learnt a lot.”

  “By the way,” said De Whit, grinning broadly, “I’ve heard what you said to Marcia, and I couldn’t be more pleased.”

  “How did you hear?” gasped Lynette, flushing.

  “Her dresser was outside the door.”

  “Oh, dear, it’ll be all over the theatre.”

  “And a good thing, too. She’s got off far too lightly, to my mind. Well, goodbye, dear.” He kissed her affectionately on both cheeks, and turned at the door to say, as on their first meeting, “But let’s hope it’s au revoir.”

  The rest of the company drifted in to say goodbye, and try to hear the details of her scene with Marcia, but Lynette was not talking. Then the faithful Timothy appeared to carry her cases to the stage door, and look for a taxi. Lyn chatted to the stage door-keeper while she waited.

  “I’m right sorry to see this show come off,” he said sympathetically. “Saw some of the dress rehearsal, I did. And cried like a baby. Usually I don’t fancy a play much. Prefer the pictures, myself—”

  Lynette giggled at the thought of a stage door-keeper not caring for plays. She tipped him and said goodnight as Timothy appeared with a taxi. She dreaded saying goodbye to Timothy, for that would be the last link with the show and everything, but as he helped her into the taxi he said, “I’ll see you off tomorrow. What time are you going?”

  “Eleven-five.”

  “O.K. I’ll be there.”

  “Thanks a lot. Cheerio.” As she sank back on the leather seat she caught a last glimpse of the illuminated lettering on the theatre. “Marcia Meredith in Beloved Viper”, and underneath in little letters “Lynette Darwin”. And even as she looked at them the lights went out.

  Mrs. Bosham comforted her with a somewhat odd-tasting steak and kidney pie down in the basement, and they listened to a music-hall programme on the wireless. Lyn huddled by the fire, looking into the flames.

  “Evenings drawing in a bit, aren’t they?” observed Mrs. Bosham.