Binding the scripts took me over an hour. Then, having stacked them neatly and tidied up the Throne Room table (a sort of clearing the decks for action) I settled down to think.
First I considered my re-constructed Last Act. It was now out of the question that Rex would ever marry me – because, however unfaithful he was, Lilian would never divorce him; she had made that clear during our first conversation on the roof. So the best I could now hope for was that some of his unfaith fulness would be with me. If so, should I feel guilty to Lilian? I doubted it – and anyway, had she not almost indicated a willingness to share him with me? I felt sure she had not expected to be taken up on that; but if she was prepared to put up with infidelity she could at least include me in the general amnesty.
I then wondered if I was fooling myself by believing he would ever feel more than a kindly affection for me. And I was sure that, even now, there was something more than that. Here in the Throne Room yesterday I had been conscious of it. And that night in the moonlit barn Samson hadn’t argued with Delilah. Anyway, not for long.
No, provided I willed it, he would – now and then – succumb. But could one build a life on that? Undoubtedly one ought not to. And undoubtedly one was – almost – determined to.
I thought how much my aunt would have disapproved of such abjectness. I was sure no Shakespearian heroine (except, perhaps, the spineless Mariana) would have put up with such a life. I felt guilty to George Bernard Shaw, whose works had so much conditioned my upbringing. I ruefully remembered myself, so splendidly independent, when I prepared for the conquest of London. But again and again I came back to the fact that I now wanted what I wanted. And it seemed one could combine abjectness with an iron determination to have one’s own way. (Perhaps Mariana wasn’t so spineless, after all.)
Still, I did try to interest myself in a nobler course of action. Suppose I arose, fearless and free, and left the Crossway? Well, apart from facing the emotional wrench, I wasn’t keen on facing being jobless and incomeless. I had already spent this year’s tiny income from my aunt’s estate. And just as the security of my childhood had left me with a terror of ‘the law’, it had also left me with a terror of being penniless. And I had lost faith in myself as an actress; anyway, lost faith in convincing other people I was one. As for continuing as a secretary, in any job but my present one, the idea appalled me.
It then struck me that if I got what I wanted I might then lose my job. My love would have slung me out had Mrs Crossway wished him to; no doubt he would do the same if Lilian demanded it, as well she might. Tolerance towards him would hardly extend to his partners in crime, even me; I could not really count on that ‘all girls together’ attitude towards sharing her husband. And I was fond of Lilian. I no more wanted to lose her as a friend than I wanted to lose my job; and both losses seemed likely if I borrowed her husband.
Was there no way out I could face? Suddenly I saw a glimmer of one. Suppose I stayed – but renounced any further claim on him? I could still go on loving him – even my aunt would not have disapproved of that. Couldn’t I find happiness in working for him and being his undemanding little friend? I doubt if I then knew the word ‘sublimation’ but it was something near the meaning of that word which I offered to myself as an ideal.
I could – just – imagine building a life round that kind of love. And I had a good model in Eve Lester. She wasn’t in love but her devotion did amount to love, selfless love; and she probably had more lasting value to him than any other woman. Could I, in time, be so valuable? And if so, could I be satisfied?
I then offered myself compensations. There was the part he had mentioned; he would never trust me with much more than a walk-on, but even walking on would be a pleasure. And while typing the play I had just finished binding, it had occurred to me that I might write a play. Suppose I left the Club and took an attic bed-sitting room and wrote in my spare time? Perhaps one day my dear would produce a play of mine and I should sit with him in the stalls as an author, not a secretary. And if his admiration for me got out of hand would I backslide from nobility? No! I would make him see we must not spoil our partnership as playwright and producer.
I had sold myself the idea: I would stay, love undemandingly, perhaps act, certainly write a play. I would build a life my aunt would have been proud of. (As for G.B.S., my play would be very Shavian.) This was the Last Act that would crown the play of my life – and go on crowning it.
I looked up at the paintings of the Crossway family. I had come to take them for granted but now – was I not going to serve their theatre as well as Rex Crossway? I gazed at his portrait, trying to see warm approval in the painted eyes. I couldn’t; they were too badly painted to do anything but stare blankly. The eyes of the barnstormer, King Crossway, were even worse painted and suggested that his interpretation of Hamlet had included a squint. But the Sargent portrait of Sir Roy was a very different matter. Here the eyes were alive; the whole face was. I had always thought Sir Roy handsome, if satanic – or did ‘sardonic’ describe him better? I felt he took a cynical view of my resolutions. I said aloud: ‘You wait and see!’ Then exaltation made me feel hungry and I decided to go out to an early lunch. Would the pub be open for meals on Sunday?
As I went into the hall of the office I faced a narrow door which led to the roof. I had seen it dozens of times without taking any interest in it. Today, perhaps because I had recently liked the roof of the Club, I felt inclined to explore the roof of the theatre. I unbolted the door and stepped out.
This roof, unlike the used roof of the Club, gave me the sensation of being in a place where it was abnormal to be. At the front, the solid stone balustrade was too high for me to see over. At both sides, the balustrade was pillared and raised up on a plinth. By standing on the plinth I could see over and down to one of the narrow old streets below which was quite deserted.
I then decided to walk to the far end of the roof, which was very long – covering, as it did, the front of the house, the auditorium, the deep stage and the dressing-rooms. I strolled as far as I could go and then climbed up on the plinth and sat on the balustrade. There was not, as at the Club, any jutting-out floor below but I was unworried by the sheer drop to the street and proud of being so. I sat there in the grey, windy morning deliberately exulting in the mood I had worked myself up into.
Perhaps the wind chilled me. Perhaps the Sunday emptiness all around was depressing. Perhaps my high mood was a fake. I only know that it was succeeded, with shattering suddenness, by intense dejection. I saw myself as an undersized, talentless little oddity who had made a fool of herself over a middle-aged philanderer who found her nothing but an embarrassment. The fact that I thought of him as a philanderer (I considered ‘rake’, which I thought a more attractive word, but I wouldn’t let him have it) did not prevent my believing I should love him for ever; but it made my plan to serve him selflessly far less worth while. Nothing was worth while. I quite simply wished I were dead.
I then told myself I wished no such thing. ‘If you did, you would jump off the roof.’ But I still went on hankering for death. Suppose one did jump, how long would it be before one was dead? I took a penny out of my handbag and dropped it, counting while it fell. It reached the pavement at the count of six. I then imagined myself jumping, counted, imagined hitting the pavement, looked down and imagined seeing my dead body. Of course, I might not die instantly: an uncomfortable thought. Still, I probably should; it was a long way down. Just six seconds and everything would be over.
I have never known if I seriously thought of jumping. All I am sure of is that I became both giddy and utterly horrified of falling. I longed to make the small jump necessary to get from the balustrade to the roof, but I felt incapable of it. All I could do was to close my eyes and grip the balustrade. And once my eyes were closed I felt even giddier.
It was then that I heard someone calling me from below. Surprise vanquished giddiness and I was able to get down onto the roof. The voice called again. I stepped o
nto the plinth and looked over the balustrade. At an open window of the top floor of one of the little houses on the opposite side of the street, Brice Marton was standing. (I knew he had rooms close to the theatre but I had never known exactly where.) He called loudly: ‘I want to see you – it’s some thing important. Come down to the foyer and let me in.’
I called back, ‘All right,’ and went down, wondering what he could have to tell me. When I opened the door to him I saw he was very pale. I said, ‘Did you think I was going to jump?’
He looked at me searchingly. ‘Were you?’
‘I was considering it – but only considering what it would be like. And then I thought I was going to fall.’
‘I know. You swayed. It was terrifying.’
‘I’m so sorry. It was really quite a useful experience because I’m now sure I never shall kill myself. I knew in that awful giddy moment how furious I should be afterwards. What did you want to tell me?’
‘It can wait a bit. Just at present I want a drink.’
We went up to the office. Eve kept quite a lot of drink to offer people. Brice helped himself to whisky and suggested I should have some. As a near suicide, I felt entitled to; but it tasted filthy so I never finished it. After Brice had gulped down some of his, he said:
‘I’m not going to beat about the bush. I know why you’re unhappy. And I know where you spent the night after Adrian Crossway’s blasted garden party.’
I thought of saying I didn’t know what he was talking about but I felt sure it would be useless; so I just asked how he knew.
‘Lilian let it out at her first rehearsal. Oh, she didn’t know. But she chaffed me about being stranded with you and having to go to a hotel – you’d told her that. I guessed in time so I didn’t give you away.’
‘That was kind. Well, I suppose you were suitably shocked?’
‘Not morally shocked. But so appalled for you. And I could have prevented it if I’d asked you to come back with me.’
‘Only for the moment, Brice. Sooner or later I should have got what I wanted.’
‘No, you wouldn’t,’ said Brice. ‘Not once Lilian was around. You happened to catch Rex between affairs.’
That infuriated me. I said angrily, ‘How about minding your own business?’
‘Anyone I like as much as you is my business,’ said Brice. ‘Particularly when they’ve considered jumping off a roof. I’d be interested to know your plans. You won’t, presumably, stay on here just hoping for crumbs from the rich Lilian’s table?’
I told him I intended to stay, but without hoping for anything that was Lilian’s. Indignation had helped to banish my roof-top dejection and I was determined to recreate the high mood that had preceded it. Grandiloquently, I described it to Brice, trying to make it valid for myself as much as for him. He listened so patiently that I felt he was impressed. But when I finished – by saying, ‘After all, Eve’s made a life worth copying,’ – he said:
‘You poor deluded infant, don’t you know you’d drop all this high thinking if Rex gave you a quarter of a chance? As for Eve, it’s true her devotion’s selfless but she does get something in return. She’s been his mistress, on and off, for twenty years.’
I didn’t believe him. ‘Then why couldn’t Mrs Crossway name her in a divorce?’
‘Mrs C. condoned the affair many years ago, and probably doesn’t know it still goes on – as I assure you it does, if only occasionally. I should have thought you’d have guessed Eve wasn’t just a patient drudge.’
‘I never thought of her as that but – Oh, poor Eve!’
‘She’s happy enough. I doubt if she minds any more about the other women. All that matters to her is Rex’s happiness.’
I said determinedly, ‘Well, I can live for that, too.’
‘At eighteen? She’s over twice your age and she’s had twenty years of – well, it is a kind of devotion he gives her; and she knows she can count on it. What can you count on? And do you fancy joining her as the nucleus of a small harem, patiently waiting for a night? I should even have thought you’d hate the idea of robbing her, however you may feel about robbing your friend Lilian.’
‘But I’ve told you. I’m not hoping to rob anyone. Why can’t you believe me?’
His tone, which had been harsh, became kind. ‘I do believe you. I’m sure you’re sincere. But I’m equally sure that you’re fooling yourself. Now listen. When I shouted across the street that I wanted to tell you something, it was to get you down from the roof. But there is something I’ve been planning to talk to you about. For a long time I’ve been thinking of leaving the Crossway and now I’ve got the chance of running a repertory company. It’s at Whitesea, a one-horse seaside place but the theatre’s charming and I could manage, direct and pretty well do what I please. I’ll take the job if you’ll come with me as a secretary. And you could help with the stage management. You might even act sometimes, which you never will here.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ I said with dignity. ‘I may get a small part in the very next play.’
‘There won’t be any next play for at least a year. You come with me.’
He said it very nicely, and it was pleasant to feel he wanted me with him, so I thanked him politely before explaining that I couldn’t face the wrench of leaving – ‘At least I can see Rex here – if only through the spy-hole. Why do you want to leave?’
‘Because it isn’t right for me to stay, feeling as I do about Rex. After I found out you’d spent the night with him I was positively murderous; and you may remember I have a disastrous temper. Eve says I’ve inherited it from my father – presumably I got Rex’s share as well as my own. He flares up sometimes but no one could call him bad tempered. As you’re a bad guesser I suppose you’ve never realised he and I are half-brothers?’
I literally gasped. ‘Brice! Is that true?’
He said he’d never been sure of it himself and could just as well be the son of a conjurer or a trapeze artist as his mother had been friendly with so many of her lodgers. ‘All that’s certain is that I’m not the son of her husband as he hadn’t been around for years. But Sir Roy believed I was his son. And Rex believes it. That’s why he puts up with so much from me.’
Now I could see a resemblance to the Sargent portrait. I said so to Brice, who said he could not see it himself.
‘It’ll be more obvious when you’re older,’ I told him. ‘Anyway, it will if you fill out a bit. Sir Roy’s face is so much heavier. But there’s something in the eyes – that is, when you smile; which isn’t very often.’ What I really meant was that his expression was usually grim. ‘Anyway, I’m sure you’re his son. Fascinating! Why do you mind so much? You do, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Brice.
I nodded sympathetically. ‘I have a girl friend who’s illegitimate, and she minds.’
‘Oh, it’s not the illegitimacy that worries me. But I’ve never been acknowledged. And my mother warned me that if I ever claimed relationship the old man would not only chuck me out but also stop her allowance – which he paid her until she died; he was pretty generous. And I suppose he was kind to me. But he treated me – well, as the call boy I was. Rex never did, though. If I didn’t loathe Rex I’d love him.’
I said, ‘Surely, now Sir Roy’s dead you and Rex could admit the truth to each other?’
‘Only if he opened the subject,’ said Brice. ‘And he never will. Eve says it’s partly out of respect for his father and partly because Adrian’s so bitterly against it. And I can see that openly accepting their bastard half-brother might be embarrassing. But they could do it privately. Well, now you know why I loathe all Crossways.’
‘All the same, you must be proud to be a Crossway. I know I would be.’
‘I hope I’m acquiring some of the family glamour for you,’ said Brice, actually achieving a smile.
I considered this. ‘Well, I do find it exciting.’
‘How exciting?’ said Brice.
And the
n, to my utter astonishment, he grabbed hold of me and kissed me. I resisted, but only for a few seconds; then I kissed him in return. When he released me at last, he was looking very much surprised.
I said: ‘That was involuntary. Doesn’t mean a thing – except, probably, that I’m a bad lot.’
‘Rubbish,’ said Brice. ‘What you really are is a schoolgirl whose crush on a matinée idol got out of hand. At least, that’s what you were. Now – well, you’ve been left in mid air. Oh, I don’t flatter myself you’ve suddenly discovered I’m the real man in your life. But you’d better let me have a shot at being him, or you’ll tumble into a worse man’s arms.’
‘I won’t tumble into anyone’s arms,’ I said indignantly – and again found myself in Brice’s. This time he didn’t stop at kissing me and we ended up on the sofa, dislodging a pile of scripts. I can’t recall offering any opposition and it was Brice who eventually got up and said: ‘Well, I’m dead keen on getting my bloody half-brother out of your system but not here. We need a bit more style.’
I rose and smoothed down my dress. ‘If you think I was going to let you— And anyway, it means nothing, nothing, I tell you. I still love Rex.’
‘I’ll overlook that,’ said Brice. ‘Now let’s have lunch and then go down to Whitesea. I’ll show you the theatre. And we can spend the night at a hotel.’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Oh, separate rooms. And you can lock your door if you, er, change your mind. We’ll spend tomorrow morning in the theatre and come back in the afternoon. Eve won’t mind your being away, in the circumstances. I’ll write her a note. Do you need a little more persuading?’
I backed away from him. ‘No. You write your note.’
He sat down at Eve’s desk and I went to get the copies of the play I had typed; I wanted them to be in the office for Eve to find next morning. While I was in the Throne Room I had a long look at the Sargent portrait. Sir Roy was certainly Brice’s father and he was looking more sardonic than ever – or did I detect a gleam of understanding in his eyes? If anyone understood bad lots, he ought to.