Twopence Coloured (33 page)

T
HE uncanny but immediate galvanization of the
theatrical
profession on Jackie’s running up the little flag of her £700 legacy, had a slightly depressing effect upon her.

Indeed the comparison of herself to one who, in a
beleaguered
garrison several degrees beyond the boot stage,
miraculously
produces, and is observed to be blandly consuming, a handsome supply of roast beef and Christmas pudding (hot) — was the kind of comparison in which Jackie could have indulged more than once. Though it would have been, of course, an exaggerated kind of comparison. Actually, the eyes of the various gentlemen whom she visited with the news that she knew for certain Where (as it was put) she could Place her hands upon the Money, did not even light up. But the aforesaid gentlemen invariably said “Oh ——,” and paused in a curious manner by the mantelpiece, and rubbed their left ears contemplatively with their right forefingers and thumbs…. Also there was an immediate decline in
hand-holding
(though not a complete deletion thereof), and
premature
production became a thing unknown. Also her daily post became much less type-written, but much more cordial and illegible, and she had to be very clever at pretending that the author’s name on various manuscripts sent her, was
not
the pseudonym either of the gentleman who had sent it, or of the wife of that gentleman…. But it was, so often, that it became rather tedious to keep up the pretence….

It was an engaging game, for the time — this game of manuscripts — and Jackie had never realized before how many there were playing it. Jackie, of course (quite
uncorrectably
perverse and obtuse creature that she was) did not play it according to the best traditions. If she had done that,
she would have leant back in wicker chairs at the Rockingham Hard Court Tennis Club, said “My dear, I’ve got
Three
Plays
to read before to-morrow morning!” and lifted her eyes jadedly to the skies. And she would have pronounced “Three Plays” as a perfect spondee — (like “God’s Worst” or “Don’t Ask!” or “I Mean!” or other prevalent theatrical spondees — the profession, when emphatic, being very much addicted to this foot) — and she would have gone on to say that of course one |Can Not| Simply| Find a decent play these days, and that it was very dreadful altogether. But Jackie was no use at this sort of thing, and few would have guessed how many manuscripts she got through, with her chin in her hands over her gas-fire at West Kensington of a night, in the month or so that followed her decision to speculate.

Nearly every day she received another. And they were all bound in red, or brown, or (in extreme cases) yellow: and they were most perfectly typed, with the name of a superior typist in an addressed circle on the title-page verso, and they were rather cleaner than new pins. And their titles were imposing though vague — “Temptation”—“Error”— “Aggression” — “Vindication” — “Retribution” — “
Abdication
.” Though sometimes you came across a very stern title, such as “The Rupture.” Or even “The Thrashing”— which was sterner still.

Of course, what Jackie was looking for, and what Jackie had stipulated upon when asking for these plays, was a Part for herself. She found quite enough parts, and as many thwarted and articulate heroines to interpret as she might wish. Unhappily, though, she also found that the greater part of these heroines, while possibly preserving a quite natural and sober demeanour during the drama as a whole, at moments of crisis were the type of persons who “
go
off
into
a
high
hysterical
laugh,
lasting
some
moments,
and
then,
suddenly
reeling,
fall
upon
the
settee
and
commence
a
slow
,
regular
sobbing
,
steadily
increasing
in
power
”
Now from observations made, and information received, on the subject of life and manners, Jackie had little (or no) faith in the
prevalence, or even existence, of this mode of self-expression. She had had some experience of affliction herself, yet she had difficulty in conceiving any set of circumstances which could compel her
either
to go off into a high hysterical laugh lasting some moments,
or
(suddenly reeling) to fall upon a settee and commence a slow, regular sobbing (steadily increasing in power). Or at least singly these two manifestations might have been credible, but both together they were
inconceivable
. She kept an open mind upon the matter: she knew it was only her point of view: but there it was.

And if this was her feeling, then if she undertook such parts, she would be giving an insincere, and therefore
inartistic
, performance. And Jackie did not want to give that….

It was at the end of about her fourth month of flirtation with manuscripts that Jackie discovered an old play of Richard’s (which he had never mentioned to her) entitled “World’s End.” This title, being comparatively flippant,
immediately
attracted her attention, and she sat down and read it all the morning. She arose with the intention to speculate upon “World’s End.”

This was an early play of Richard’s, and the part for herself was not very good. But she felt she could touch the manuscript up, and the play on the whole was far ahead of anything else she had yet read. Also the idea of putting her heart and soul into anything that Richard had done, however long ago, was an attractive and healing idea.

She did not play the part, however, in the long run. Her fellow-backer, Mr. Dyman Bryant (a gentleman of some wealth who spent the greater part of the year in a drunken state at Antibes, and who had been introduced to her by the Mulligan agency), was understood to be secretly demanding a Name in the part. A meeting was held (at Mr. Mulligan’s office) and Cards were lain upon the table. Jackie held out for a long while, and all at once gave in. There were two males against her, and there was no male to protect her.

And she was like that, these days. She had lost, for the most part, interest in life, and was continually being
overtaken
by a pernicious desire to slide….

Besides, a few sleepless and agonized nights, shortly after her bluff had been called and she had blundered into active commitments with respect to the money, soon reduced her to a more or less contented frame of mind in which she realized she had lost her little legacy for ever and for no conceivable purpose. And she might as well lose it one way as another.

The play went into rehearsal in the Autumn, and was produced by Mr. Gerald Gandon (a young man, who had lately produced a success) at the Empress Theatre, Charing Cross.

By the time the first night in London arrived, she had
become
quite excited again. At times she felt quite ill with excitement.

She was getting ill these days. Headaches, and giddiness, and a malaise after lunch. And one night the right side of her face was all swollen, and the right eye contracted. (It was better in the morning.)

I
T is half-past five on a winter’s afternoon. Jackie is standing in the stalls of the Empress Theatre, and
looking
at the stage. To-night will be the first night of “World’s End,” and the four black hours have commenced.

The four black, uncanny hours, when the stage has been left for the last time, and the last actor has gone mumbling away from the last call….

A door upstairs in the gallery bangs in the draught…. The whole auditorium is in glowing darkness, and the set itself, with the curtain up, stands alert, silent, uncritical, in the grey drear illumination of the one dazzling pilot above….

Half-past five. And outside, dimly, she can hear the roar and explosion of London. London at tea. A brawling London at tea….

An unearthly interim — and no one in the theatre but herself to witness it…. The actors and actresses…. They, too, are having tea, and keeping up their spirits. Here is their stage. What do actors and actresses know about their stage? …

But she has an inkling now…. The door in the gallery bangs again: the flimsy flats give a sudden creak: she stands very still in the glowing darkness, and the Genius of the theatre creeps out, and whispers in her ear….

Then she goes and has some tea herself.

When Jackie, stepping out of a taxi from West
Kensington
, arrived at the foyer of the Empress, ten minutes or so
before the show commenced, she did not know whether to be gratified by the courtesy, or angered by the insolence of those who had come to witness the spectacle she had brought into being. In either case she wanted to enlighten them.

It was their assumption of reality that startled her. “But really, you shouldn’t have bothered to dress, you know,” Jackie wanted to say, on the one hand. “Believe me, this is only one of Richard’s old plays, and it’s all my doing. This festive air, this smooth automobility, this shingledness, this dazzling green-cloakedness, this identifiable and traditional air of an occasion — I never dreamed you would take it as seriously as all that. You’re assuming that this is a genuine production, aren’t you? Well, it’s very good of you, and I suppose it is, if you say so. But why have you come here? Surely you can’t think you’re going to enjoy yourselves. Surely you can’t think that that senseless welter of repetitions and mechanicalities which we have been grinding out for the last three weeks — is a thing to afford you pleasure. I’m afraid you’re being rather done.”

But there was the other feeling as well. She did not quite like the carriage of the heads, and the affronted shudder in the cloaks of the various ladies present. And there was a subtle air of tittering amusedness which she did not like. After all, thought Jackie, this was poor dead Richard’s play, wasn’t it?

And then, “I
Beg
your pardon,” said one extremely frilled gentleman, as he nearly bumped into her, going down to the stalls. Jackie had not expended seven hundred pounds to be rather facetiously bumped into by an extremely frilled gentleman….

It altered everything so much when you were responsible for the show yourself — when you were dependent upon the crowd. She experienced all the delights and fears, and inner thwarted ironies, of an unrecognized hostess…. Or an eavesdropper….

It wasn’t, however, until the first interval, when she came down from her box in the circle (which she was sharing
with Mr. Bryant and his wife and friends), that she reacted fully to these things. Then she went home.

She went home because she was unhappy and puzzled and chilled, and had remembered Richard at the wrong time.

She stood alone in the unrelenting electric glare of the foyer, underneath a large portrait of the leading lady, and amid the sheen and sparkle and chattering, gossipy air of release on the groups about her. And over the great general ripple of chatter, at once blurred and distinct, and as ebullient as that of a class deserted by its master, there was a
pervasion
of bars and refreshments, and cloak-room doors
closing
and opening. And the sound of the orchestra came through from the auditorium. And near her stood Mr. Gerald Bassett (the famous author) in a thoughtful attitude against the wall, and nearer still stood a large blond American
discoursing
to his friends. (He had Jus set down An made up his mind [had this American] that he wasn’t going back this time without having met John Gauls
Worthy.
)
And a young woman, of undoubted means, but no talent for dressing
herself
, came rushing upstairs with another young woman, and brushed past Jackie with “My Dear! I was
Hooting!
” This young woman meant that, at the time she was alluding to, she had been unable to contain herself with laughter. Jackie did not know whether this was at the play, and she did not really care. But she resented this young woman brushing away her legacy with a missish Hoot, and criticized her dress roughly in her mind. Then she began to listen to the various remarks around her….

“Oh, but, my dear, I
am
responsible. I
brought
you here….”

“… not wisely, I’m afraid, but too well….”

“I say, Ronald, old boy, is that man I just met a Famous Surgeon?” “Famous
Surgeon
, old boy — what’s the matter? …”

“No — but as a first act pure and simple, I mean….”

“Ah, but, my dear, I’m getting a violent Higher Thought complex myself these days!”

“… Famous Surgeons on the brain….”

“Oh, but you must be careful now we’ve got a novelist in the family! …”

“That’s nothing, my dear. I go to
Palmists!
”

“… though only in strictly heavy parts.”

“My dear! CRYSTAL-gazers!”

“… and
when
sober, the most enchanting creature imaginable.”

And as Jackie stood there, in the crush, wondering what it was all about, and what Richard would have thought of it all, and whether they were liking this very second-rate play — a tune she was very fond of, all at once, came through from the auditorium….

And it caused her suddenly to recall, in a sad mist, the very great beauty of their little time together. And it struck her that her spirit had been alive and poignant then, and that it was dead and beautiless now, and that this ornate chattering and idle gossiping around her, this foolish
orchestra
and foolish play, this tawdry, stuffy, smoke-ridden foyer — were irrelevant and very paltry phenomena to one whose spirit had once been alive.

And then the young lady who had Hooted returned with her friend. “A Succession of Violent Snorts, my dear!” said this young lady, as she passed.

Jackie went straight upstairs, made her apologies to her friends — who had not been Hunting Madly about the Place for her (as they said they had), but who were extremely concerned and puzzled by her decision to leave — and came down and left the theatre just as the first lines of the second act were reverberating hollowly upon a newly awed,
breathless
, shirt-creaking, slightly coughing, and romantically darkened house.

She refused a taxi, and walked in her evening cloak to Charing Cross. It was a curious thing to have done: but she was without feeling.

In fact, she had entirely lost interest in the matter by the
time she had reached the station, and on seeing a newspaper placard:

she bought one to see whether they had got out.

She looked at it in the train. They had.