“Paul, perhaps the mistake you made was to try too hard—those other times.”
“I didn’t mean TRY in the sense of MAKE AN EFFORT. I meant TRY like —like SAMPLING something.”
“Oh, I see. To DISCOVER how you felt?”
“Yes. An experiment that wasn’t too successful. But with you I almost know how I feel.”
“In advance? Without the—the sampling?”
“That’s how it seems. Remember the Oscar Wilde remark—about the spire of a cathedral? It’s THAT kind of moment for me now—meeting you like this… here. It’s—it’s superb. In fact the real danger is if I were to develop one of those headstrong passions—I never have before, but—”
“Oh, darling—for ME? If only you would.”
“You—WISH—that?”
“It would be fun. Maybe that’s what you never had before—fun. And I’m quite enough in love with you—I dare say you guessed— “
“You—WHAT? Carey, you’re joking—”
“I’m serious too. Did you never guess how _I_ felt?”
“I—I wondered—sometimes—if—if such a thing were possible.”
She touched his arm across the table. “Oh, Paul… don’t… don’t be so humble.” Her eyes brimmed over. “I expect it’s the first time anyone ever said that to you—and a few minutes ago I was calling you arrogant. But where’s the danger? I don’t see any. Because I’m too young?”
“No, not exactly—though that’s a reason why it would be specially unfair to you if it didn’t work out.”
“But it might. At least it MIGHT.”
“It didn’t between you and that actor.”
“I told you why that was.”
“I know, and an excellent reason, as I said.”
“But I don’t think it could apply to us—to you.”
“Oh, and why not? Why are you so sure I wouldn’t want what he wanted?”
“Paul, don’t pounce on me like that—of course I’m not sure at all —”
“Then why couldn’t it apply to me?”
“Only because of my answer if you did ask. I’m different now—not only a year older… but—well, I told you—I’m in love with you enough.”
He was so touched he felt shocked, as by the revelation of some hitherto unsuspected compound of guilt and innocence inside himself. He muttered: “Carey, what the hell are we talking about? Let’s get the bill.”
* * * * *
They didn’t go to Putney, but to a hotel in South Kensington. On a very few previous occasions when Paul had embarked on an adventure like this, the moment when he first knew there would be no refusal had been one of dismay, even dejection, as if his sufficient pleasure had been in the mere pursuit of an uncertainty. But now there was no dismay, and its absence would alone have made the experience unique. There was, however, between Carey and himself a more positive novelty, and this he discovered gradually and with delight; it was a tenderness that flowed over the raw edges of rapture and gave to all functioning an aspect of inevitability. Till then he had sometimes thought that if all forms of sexual behaviour could only be energized artistically in terms of theatre or ballet, then his problem would be solved, since directorially he could be the spectator or participant in any proportion he chose, and nobody would question or deny his credit. But now, with Carey, the problem was non-existent; and with this perfect outcome the quality that had attracted him first of all in her voice was able to entrance over the whole range of sensibility. It was as if, he told himself at the time and later told her, it was as if her body had BRAINS. Naturally from him this was the supreme tribute, causing him to add another to his short list of ambitions: it was to marry her.
So they were married, after the necessary period of waiting, at a register office in the Strand. A Catholic priest had previously declined to solemnize a mixed marriage except on conditions, but later, on learning that a civil ceremony had already taken place, he complied. The service, at a church in Putney, was attended by Aunt Sylvia and her husband; after which the couple enjoyed a gay wedding breakfast among the wire-haired terriers. Paul was, for the first time in his life, superlatively happy; a cloud that had seemed to overshadow him was lifted, and in the unimagined radiance he realized how dark it had sometimes been. He wrote exultant letters to his mother, to Rowden, to Merryweather, and to half a dozen others. All sent their congratulations except Rowden, and Merryweather was generous besides; he suggested some articles about England and enclosed a cheque on account.
They spent a week at a seaside hotel by way of honeymoon; then one afternoon Paul took Carey to Hampstead, a part of London he especially liked. Careful search yielded nothing they could afford except a small second-floor flat (first floor, as the English called it), but it was conveniently close to the Tube station as well as to an old-fashioned public-house where, of an evening, writers and artists mingled with artisans and clerks in mutual unawareness of any trick successfully performed. Paul fitted easily into this society, and it was soon known who he was; he made friends and enemies as promptly as always, but fewer enemies than usual, since much was forgiven a stranger and a good talker, and it was also possible that his private happiness surrounded him with a visible aura of fellowship. Anyhow, it was in this pub that he met a man named Henry Foy who owned and subsidized a theatre in the neighbourhood—an old barn of a place, full of dry rot, moth-eaten scenery, and other drawbacks, but not too far from the Tube, and therefore accessible to a London West End theatre audience. Comfortably off, unmarried, and in his fifties, Foy was something of a dilettante; he had produced and directed plays himself, but so poorly that critics had generally ignored him except by attending his parties, which were frequent and colourful. He was a likeably gregarious personality, and there was no doubt that if he ever did anything remotely worth while everyone would jump to praise him. Besides a passion for the theatre which did not quite amount to devotion, he had a certain flair for new ideas and a willingness to try them which a more balanced mind or a more restricted pocket-book might well have checked. He had put on such plays as Brieux’s Les Hannetons, Hauptmann’s Hannele and Ibsen’s Little Eyolf, but none of these had done well, or attracted much comment. Not till he tried Ford’s ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore did fortune smile; certain local groups objected to the title in lights over the theatre entrance, a newspaper controversy was stirred up, and many Londoners thereby discovered the existence (and even more important) the whereabouts of the Nonesuch Theatre. It was just after this succčs de scandale that Foy met Paul and was instantly captured by the idea of an all-Negro Othello except for a white Othello (that random product of good wine and good talk at the Venton League dinner-table). Foy wanted to stage it immediately, for it was the sort of thing he had always been happy to lose money over, like The Duchess of Malfi in modern dress, or Hauton Timorumenos as a musical comedy. They left the pub arm in arm, Carey between the two men; at Foy’s big house in Well Walk they talked till long past midnight, electrically conscious that something important had happened in their lives. Unfortunately, as they found no later than the next morning, there were not enough Negro actors then in London to make the project feasible; but by that time Foy was keen on the play even if it were to be produced normally; or rather, he was hypnotized into a belief that anything with Paul in control would be better than anything else. It was luck indeed for Paul to have met such a man. Within a few hours Foy had engaged him to direct and choose a cast, and what had once been a joke became suddenly and fatefully true—Carey Arundel as Desdemona. A great chance for her, undoubtedly, and in grabbing it she was to learn much about acting and Shakespeare and herself, but even more about the man she had married.
* * * * *
The first thing she discovered was that his work made him a changed person. He was possessed, and by something that could excusably be called a devil, since angelic possession exacts no price in sweat and fury. It had one curious and immediate effect; he was only in his late twenties, yet as soon as he took the sta
ge he seemed old enough for no one to think of him disparagingly as young—at least ten years were added in appearance, plus an indefinable quality that made Foy once remark to Carey: “Is he aiming to be a maestro, or does it come naturally? It’s a continental trick— English and Americans as a rule don’t pick it up.” Carey was more surprised than Foy, because her own limited theatre experience had prepared her so little for the effort that Paul demanded from everyone around him, including herself. It was a demand outrageous enough to stifle the protest that anything more reasonable might have drawn. For he had made it clear from the outset that he must be taken as he was or not at all; that being established, the situation left no opening for lukewarmness or compromise. Very soon she came to know what he had meant by defining a director’s role as the communication of excitement. Hour after hour were spent, not in speaking or memorizing lines (which, in the beginning, he made light of) but in discussing the play from every angle until a law of diminishing returns seemed to operate and arguments became sharper without being more helpful. Up to that point, however, he had incited controversy; one dispute over the precise motivation of Iago’s behaviour grew so heated that the actor taking that part walked off the stage in a huff. Paul dragged him back, exclaiming loudly enough to be heard by all the rest: “D’you realize what you’ve been doing? Here’s a complex academic point in the interpretation of a character in a play written three hundred years ago—yet today on this stage you were almost coming to blows about it!”
Iago began to stammer apologies.
“No, no,” Paul interrupted. “It’s wonderful! Because it shows we’ve taken the first step—we’re beginning to think the characters matter to us —we’re shouting about them as if they were people we know. That’s what I hoped for. But now comes the next step. Understanding is a BASIS for emotion, but no substitute. From now on we must begin to FEEL. The mind has had its feast—now comes the turn of the heart.”
Paul had a store of such gaudy sayings about acting and theatrecraft —“Just as the stage is larger than life, so words about it can afford to be bigger and more extravagant,” was another of them. They did not always probe deeply, but they decorated his instruction and were apt to seem talismanic towards the end of a gruelling rehearsal. He got along well with the cast; he was thoughtful of them as artists, and the excitement he generated helped them to endure his occasional tantrums. As usual, there was no one at the Nonesuch Theatre shrewd enough to find out exactly how little Paul had done in New York, so he could magnify that achievement, not only for personal vainglory but because he knew that the greater they thought he was the luckier they would think themselves. In all this he was sustained by his own passionate belief in himself as a child of destiny in the theatre; he was like a poor man writing post-dated cheques for large sums but with complete assurance that he was honest.
During this time his private happiness with Carey was equally sustaining, though he spent few daytime hours alone with her, and there was no moment of their lives, however intimate, which he was incapable of turning into a lecture or a lesson or some fragment of a rehearsal. In a half-amused way she relished this, for her own ambition had been rejuvenated and she was beginning to realize, not yet how much she was learning, but how little she had ever known before. She found she could help him too by her own greater tact in handling countless small situations—a stage-carpenter he had unwisely yelled at, the landlady of their flat who objected to Mozart on the gramophone at 2 A.M. He was usually inconsiderate about such matters. One thing, however, seemed large enough for her real concern—his attitude towards Henry Foy. Paul had become cool to the man, treating him offhandedly at rehearsals, sometimes omitting to consult him on points that were clearly in a theatre-owner’s and play-backer’s province. Carey rather liked Foy, who was always genial, conciliatory, and generous alike with hospitality and advice. But Paul declined to weigh all this. “Look, Carey, let’s face it —at bottom he’s an amateur, a dabbler—he’s actually a nuisance at rehearsals—if I can make him stop attending them so much the better.”
“But surely the man has a right to potter about his own theatre.”
“No, not if he gets in the way. When he signed me to direct he delegated his rights—it’s like a ship that carries the president of the line —the captain still gives the orders even though the other man owns the outfit.”
“But I’m sure a tactful captain tries to say a few polite words to the president now and again.”
“I’ve never been impolite. I’m just too busy to go to his parties and sit up half the night listening to pseudo-artistic claptrap.”
“I thought you enjoyed his parties. That first night we went to his house and stayed for hours—you were so enthusiastic.”
“Only because I knew I’d talked him into engaging me. I thought most of his ideas were half-baked, but it was worth while to let him believe I was impressed.”
“You know, Paul, you scare me sometimes—you’re so utterly shameless. Don’t you ever feel that Harry’s giving you a big chance?”
“I’m giving him a chance too. So far he’s done nothing but lose money and fool around, but now he’s due for a huge success and his precious little flea-bitten theatre will become famous all over London.”
“You really are quite sure of that, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Aren’t you?”
“Darling, of course.”
He went on, scrutinizing her: “I think I can read your mind. You’re wondering if I was equally sure in New York. You WERE wondering that, weren’t you?” (It was true, she had been.) “Well, the answer’s yes. And the plays flopped. I don’t admit that to others, but you probably guessed anyhow… And what does it prove? That I can be wrong? Does that NEED proving?… All I can say is, count on me this time. Carey, it’s terribly important that you should feel about it as I do. You HAVE to.”
She smiled and told him she did. She knew by now the rich support he took from her, and her satisfaction in that was almost enough to create the faith he asked for.
With her own performance in the play he was both patient and severe. After the first week she said unhappily: “You don’t seem to like anything I do. I’d hate to spoil the play, and from the way you criticize—”
“I criticize the others just as much, only you don’t hear me. I never criticize anyone in the presence of anyone else.”
She was a little relieved by that, but still troubled. “I can’t help wondering, though, if I’m equal to a part like this. Perhaps some actress with more experience in Shakespeare—”
“Carey, you’re not losing your ambition! You wouldn’t give up NOW?”
“Not if I can satisfy you, but if I can’t—I couldn’t bear not to —and there’ll be some other play later on—something easier maybe—”
“Oh?” He assumed the attitude which she called his ‘pounce’. “And what makes you think you’d be any better in anything easier? I suppose you’re hankering after some frothy little comedy where you have to light cigarettes and mix cocktails all the time! Don’t kid yourself—you’d be just as bad in that if you’re bad at all. But you AREN’T bad, and you’re going to be good—you’re going to be VERY good! Don’t you believe in yourself yet?”
There was no answering this sort of thing. Logical or not, it had rallying power. But she could not help marking the contrast between his first cautious opinion of her in Dublin and his unbounded optimism now; surely the change which that represented was in HIM far more than could possibly have happened in the quality of her acting. Yet she felt also that there was no conscious insincerity in his enthusiasm—that his own mind, under the hypnosis of the task, swung continually between the same poles—never satisfied, always confident. But what really tickled her was the way this attitude extended itself even to the play and the author; in Dublin he had often criticized Shakespeare, but now, as the rehearsals progressed, Shakespeare became faultless and Othello the greatest play ever written in the history of the world.
O
ne afternoon she met Foy in the street near his house. He asked her to come inside and see some designs for scenery that had just arrived. “Oppeler should have sent them to Paul, not to me—try to convince your husband this is no plot against his authority.” His eyes twinkled as he said this, and she liked him for sharing with her an understanding of Paul that the latter would have vehemently denied.
The designs she thought excellent, though she knew she was no judge. They had been suggested in a general way by Paul himself after long sessions with the artist; Foy’s willingness to spend freely and his almost naďve pleasure in giving Paul anything he wanted, touched her as it always did. She stayed for a while, enjoying conversation that was comfortable and, for a change, unexciting. Then, with the designs under her arm, she returned to the flat.
Paul was sitting hunched over the living-room fire. He had taken a chill and had been dosing himself unsatisfactorily since early morning. He was inclined to baby himself over such things, and she thought there were signs in his posture, as if he had assumed it too quickly on hearing her footsteps on the stairs. She was beginning to find out these things about him now, and to love him all the more generously for most of them. He was a bad actor, as he often said; indeed, he said it so often that she wondered if he hoped that some day he would be contradicted. But she was willing enough to humour him, to fit herself into whatever drama could compensate for him for a bad cold. She put her arm affectionately round his shoulder and felt him pretend (she was sure it was that) to be startled. “Hello, darling—still feeling rotten?… Look at these—Harry sent them over.” She gave him the folio of drawings, watching his face for a verdict. To her surprise he glanced at only a few of them, casually, then let them slip to the floor.