The suit fitted perfectly, and as Maria stared at herself in the glass all her excitement returned. She was happy, nothing mattered, and she was not Maria any longer, a dull little girl in a stupid party frock. She was a page, and her name was Edouard. She paced up and down the room talking to herself, stabbing the air with her dagger.
In the bathroom Niall was trying to be sick. He heaved and spat, but nothing happened, and still the pain at the pit of his stomach would not go away. He wondered miserably why it always had to happen, this feeling sick on great occasions. His birthday morning, Christmas, first nights, last nights, going to the sea, everything was spoiled by feeling sick.
On an ordinary day, when it would not have mattered, he never felt sick at all. He straightened himself, and sighed, and then coming out of the bathroom he stood in the passage a moment, wondering what to do. He could hear Truda and André talking in the kitchen. He turned, and went into Mama’s bedroom. André had switched off the lights, all except one, which was by the mirror on the dressing table. Niall went and stood before the dressing table. The little bottles and lotions were still there, the maid had not packed them yet, and there was face powder spilt on the tortoise-shell tray. Mama’s shawl was lying on the stool as she had thrown it after dressing. Niall picked it up and smelled it, and then put it round his shoulders. He sat down on the stool and began to finger the things on the tray. Then he noticed that Mama had forgotten to put on one of her earrings. It lay there, a round white pearl, among the powder. He was sure she had worn it when she came into their bedroom to say good-bye. Perhaps it had fallen off when Pappy called, and she had not noticed, and André, or the maid, had seen it lying on the floor and put it back on the dressing table.
Niall decided to take it and give it to her, and surely she would be pleased and say, “How thoughtful of you,” and smile. He took the pearl in his hand, and as he did so he had a strange uncontrollable longing to put the pearl in his mouth. He did so. He rolled his tongue around it, and it was cool and smooth and nice. How peaceful it was in the quiet bedroom. He did not feel sick anymore. And then suddenly he heard Truda calling down the passage, “Niall… Niall… Where’s that boy?” and the sound startled him so that he jumped, and as he jumped his teeth bit into the pearl; it crunched horribly. In a panic he spat out the fragments into his hand, stared at them a moment, then flung them under the protecting valance of the bed. He crouched beside the bed, his heart beating, as Truda came into the room, switching on the light.
“Niall?” she called. “Niall?”
He did not answer. She went out again, calling for the others. He crept out from beside the bed and tiptoed down the passage to the bathroom and went inside, locking the door behind him.
Truda was in a bad mood as she took us to the theater in the car.
“There’s too much to see to, that’s the truth of it,” she said. “I can’t have eyes everywhere in my head. What with packing up, and getting you children dressed, and now this caper on top of everything else—that girl never put the earring on the dressing table, I’ll be bound. She has hidden it somewhere, to sell, knowing your Mama and all of us are off tomorrow—put the window down a bit, Maria, it’s stifling in the car. You’re sitting very still, muffled up in your party cloak. Don’t say you feel sick too. Are you all right now, Niall?”
She went on talking, half to us, half to herself. Maria, her cheeks pink and her hands sweaty, wondered when Truda would discover that under her party cloak she was not wearing the frock at all, but the page’s suit. She did not care, she would not change now, it was too late; even if she were punished, it would not matter. She bounced about on the little seat facing the driver, her mouth stubborn.
Niall felt for the comfort of Truda’s hand under the rug.
“All right, my boy?” she said.
“Yes, thank you,” said Niall.
They would never find the crushed pearl under the bed, and if they did they would think that the maid had trodden on it. Tomorrow they would be gone and everything would be forgotten.
It was only a few minutes now to the theater, along the wide boulevard among the hooting taxis and the glittering lights, where the people jostled one another, chattering. And so into the foyer, where there would be more people, a babble of sound, everyone talking excitedly, greeting their friends because it was the Interval. Then as Truda whispered something to the ouvreuse, pushing us into the loge, and we stared about us, the bell would go outside in the foyer and the people come crowding in to take their seats, with the clamor dying away into a hush, as Sullivan in the orchestra paused and waited, his baton in the air.
The curtains parted, caught up at the sides as if by magic, and we were looking at a deep wood, where the trees were crowded close together; but there was a clearing in the center of the wood, and in the center of the clearing was a pool.
Although she had touched the trees many times and knew them to be painted, and had stared down at the pool and seen it to be cloth, not even shining, Celia was deceived again.
She echoed a little “Ah!” that came from the audience as they watched the figure rise slowly from beside the pool, the hair loose upon her shoulders, the hands folded, and although her reason told her that the figure was Mama—it was only Mama pretending, and of course her real things were lying in the dressing room behind the stage—the fear came to her, not for the first time, that she might be mistaken, that there was no dressing room behind the stage, no comfort of familiar things, no Pappy waiting until it was his time to come and sing; but only this figure, this person who was Mama and not Mama. She glanced at Maria beside her for reassurance; and Maria was moving, even as Mama moved, her head inclined a little on one side, her hands unfolding, and Truda was poking Maria in the back and whispering “Ssh… keep still.”
Maria started; she had not realized she was copying Mama.
She was thinking of the chalk lines on the stage, the ones on the bare boards before they laid the cloth. When Mama rehearsed she had chalk lines drawn in squares across the stage, and she would practice her steps from one square to another, over and over again. Maria had watched her many times.
It was the second square where she was moving now, and in a moment she would glide down to the third, and fourth, and fifth, and then the turn would come, and the backward glance and the movement of her hands following the glance. Maria knew all the steps. She wished she were a shadow, on the stage, beside Mama.
There was once a leaf blowing before the wind, thought Niall. The first leaf falling from a tree in autumn. And then it was caught, and tossed, and blown with the dust, and you never saw it again, it vanished and was lost. There were ripples on the sea, and they went, and they never came back. There was a water lily in a pool, closed and green, and then it unfolded, waxen and white, and the water lily was Mama’s hands, opening, and it was the music rising and falling and losing itself, to echo in the woods. If only it would never stop, the music never die away into silence, but go on like this forever, the fluttering leaf, the ripple across the water. Presently she was back again beside the pool, and she was sinking down to it, her hands were folding, were closing, the trees were crowding in upon her, it was dark—and suddenly it was finished, it was over. The curtains came ripping across the stage tearing the silence, and all the peace was gone with the senseless fury of applause.
Hand upon hand, like silly waving fans, all clapping together, and heads nodding, and mouths smiling. Truda and Celia and Maria clapping with the rest, flushed and happy.
“Go on, then, clap your Mama,” said Truda, but he shook his head, frowning, and looked down at the floor, at his black laced shoes beneath his white sailor trousers. An old man with a pointed beard leaned over from the next loge, laughing, and said, “Qu’est-ce qu’il a, le petit?” and for once Truda did not help. She laughed back at the old man.
“He’s shy, that’s what it is,” she said.
It was hot and stuffy in the loge, our throats were parched with thirst and with ex
citement. We wanted to buy sucettes on a stick and suck them, but Truda would not let us.
“You don’t know what they’re made of,” she said.
And still Maria clung to her party cloak, pretending she was cold, and deliberately, when Truda’s back was turned, she put out her tongue at a fat woman covered with jewels, who was surveying her through a lorgnette.
“Oui, les petits Delaneys,” the woman said to her companion, who turned to look at us, and we stared straight through them, pretending we had not heard.
It was funny, thought Niall, that he never minded clapping Pappy; he had a different feeling entirely when Pappy came on the stage to sing. He looked so tall and confident, and somehow powerful; he reminded Niall of the lions in the Jardin d’Acclimatation. He had such a tawny look about him.
Pappy started with the serious songs, of course, and just as Maria had remembered the chalk lines on the stage when Mama danced, so Niall thought back to rehearsal, and to Pappy going over the notes of music, phrase by phrase.
He wished sometimes that Pappy would sing certain songs a little faster, or perhaps it was the fault of the music, the music was too slow. Hurry on there, he thought impatiently, hurry on…
Pappy always kept the well-known songs, the favorites, for the end of his program, for the encores.
Celia dreaded these because too often they were sad.
“In summer time on Bredon
The bells they sound so clear”
It began so hopefully, and with such confidence, and then that terrible last verse, the churchyard, she could feel the snow under her feet, and hear the bell tolling. She knew she would cry. It was such a relief to her when he did not sing it, but chose instead “O, Mary, at thy window be.”
She saw herself at the window, looking out, and Pappy riding by, waving his hand and smiling.
All the songs were personal, she could never disassociate herself from any of them.
“See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven,
If it disdained its brother.”
That was herself and Niall. If she disdained Niall she would never be forgiven. She did not know what disdain meant, but something terrible.
“Ah, moon of my delight that know’st no wane.”
Celia felt the corners of her lips quiver. Why must Pappy do it? What did he do to his voice to make it so unhappy?
“How oft hereafter rising shall she look
Through this same garden after me—in vain!”
And it was Celia, looking everywhere for Pappy, and never finding him. She could see the garden, full of dead leaves, like the Bois in autumn.
Now it was all over, all finished, the applause went on and on, and people were shouting, and Pappy and Mama were standing before the parted curtain, bowing to the audience, and bowing to each other, and Pappy was coming forward to make a speech, just as Truda hurried us through the pass-door to the stage, before the crush, before the people started filing out into the street.
As we stood in the wings, Pappy had just finished speaking, and Mama was burying her face in the bouquet that had been handed up to her by Sullivan from the orchestra—there were several bouquets, one a great basket of ribbons, so silly when we were leaving Paris in the morning. Mama would never be able to pack them.
Now the curtains came together for the last time, the clapping and the cheering died away. Pappy and Mama stopped smiling and bowing to each other, and Pappy turned with a roar of anger to the stage manager at his elbow.
“The lights—the lights—God in heaven, what had happened to the lights?” he shouted, and Mama brushed past us, white, unsmiling, shrugging her shoulders in exasperation.
We were too well-trained to question her. We recognized crisis when we saw it… We slipped away to the back of the stage and Truda let us go without a word.
Soon we forgot everything in the bustle and turmoil about us.
In Paris the stage hands were a law unto themselves, like the porters at Calais. Agile as monkeys, skilful as jugglers, they shifted the props out of the way, backstage, screaming to one another as they did so, “Hop-la,” while one little man with a beret, his face streaming with perspiration, directed them, cursing at the top of his voice, flooding the air with garlic.
The waiters from the Meurice pushed past them with trays of glasses and plates of creamed chicken; André had appeared from nowhere, and was pulling bottle after bottle of champagne from a busted crate, and too early, too soon, came the first guest through the pass-door, but it did not matter. It was only Mrs. Sullivan, wife of the conductor, in a hideous purple cape. She advanced towards us, smiling, trying to seem at ease. We ran away from her, leaving her alone on the stage among the waiters, the three of us hysterical at the sight of the purple cape, and we went to find Pappy in his dressing room. He waved his hand, laughing at the sight of us, his rage about the lights forgotten; and in a moment he had lifted Celia on high, right above his head, so that by holding up her hands she could touch the ceiling. He carried her like this down the stairs, and down the passage, with Maria and Niall clinging to his coattails; it was exciting, it was gay and we were happy. We came to the door of Mama’s dressing room, and we heard her say to Truda, “But if she put it on the tray of my dressing table it must be there now,” and Truda answered, “It is not there, madam. I looked myself, I looked everywhere.”
Mama was standing before the long mirror, dressed once more in the new dress she had worn earlier in the evening. The collar of pearls clasped her neck, but she wore no earrings.
“What is wrong, my darling? What is all the fuss? Aren’t you ready? People are arriving,” said Pappy.
“One of my earrings is missing,” said Mama. “Truda thinks that girl must have stolen it. I dropped it back in the apartment. You must do something. You must ring up the police.”
She had the cold, angry face that spelled trouble, the face that sent servants flying, stage managers running for their lives, and ourselves to whatever distant room we might possess.
Pappy alone showed not the smallest sign of discomposure.
“That’s all right,” he said easily. “You look better without earrings. They were too large, anyway. They spoiled the effect of the collar.” He smiled across the room at her, and we could see her smile in answer, wavering an instant. Then she caught sight of Niall, standing white and dumb, behind Pappy in the doorway.
“Did you take it?” she said suddenly, with sure and fearful instinct. There was a moment’s pause, a pause that to the three of us lasted half a lifetime.
“No, Mama,” said Niall.
Celia felt her heart begin to thump under her frock. Let something happen, she prayed, let everything be all right. Let no one be angry anymore, let everybody love everybody else.
“Are you telling the truth, Niall?” asked Mama.
“Yes, Mama,” said Niall.
Maria flashed a look at him. He was lying, of course. It was Niall who had taken the earring, and lost it probably, or thrown it away. As he stood there, forlorn and lonely in his sailor-suit, his face expressionless, giving nothing away, Maria felt a wild and desperate longing rise within her to scream, to push all the grownup people away. What did it matter if the earring was lost? No one must hurt Niall, no one must touch Niall. No one but herself, ever.
She stepped in front of him, throwing off her party cloak.
“Look at me,” she said. “Look what I’m wearing.” And she stood there dressed as a page. She began to laugh and clap her hands, pirouetting round the dressing room, and still laughing she ran out of the door and through the wings onto the stage where all the people were arriving.
“Well, God bless my soul,” said Pappy, “what a monkey,” and he started to laugh and his laugh was infectious. When Pappy laughed, no one could go on being angry.
He put out his hand to Mama.
“Come on, my darling, you look lovely,” he said. “Co
me on, and help me control these brats of children.” And still laughing, he drew her after him onto the stage, and we were all of us engulfed among a crowd of people.
We ate creamed chicken, we ate meringues, we ate chocolate éclairs and we drank champagne. Everyone pointed to Maria and said how lovely she was, how talented; they praised her to her face as she swaggered in her cape. And Celia was lovely too, was sweet, was ravissante, and Niall was a knowing one, a deep one, a numéro.
We were all lovely, we were all clever, there had never been such children. Pappy smiled down at us, approving, a glass of champagne in one hand, and Mama, more beautiful than she had ever been, caressed our heads as we ran past her, laughing.
There was no yesterday and no tomorrow; fear had been slung aside, and shame forgotten. We were all together—Pappy and Mama; Maria and Niall and Celia—we were all happy, with so many people looking at us, we were all enjoying ourselves. It was a game that we played, a game that we understood.
We were the Delaneys. And we were giving a party.
5
“I wonder if their marriage was really a success,” said Maria.
“Whose marriage?”
“Pappy and Mama’s.”
Niall got up and started to draw the curtains. The mystery had gone now from the garden, there was nothing strange about the darkness anymore. Evening had settled in, and it was raining fast.
“They are both dead and gone. Let’s forget them,” he said.
He crossed the room, and switched on the lamp beside the piano.
“How can you, of all people, say that?” said Celia, pushing her glasses back on her forehead. “You think more about the past than either Maria or me.”
“All the more reason for forgetting,” said Niall, and he began to drone upon the piano, no melody, no song with a beginning or an end. It went on without interruption, like the sound of someone humming in a room upstairs.