Carole Seddon’s eyes glazed over.
THREE
‘So I said to the director: “Do you want me to do it your way, or do you want me to do it right?”’
This was a cue for sycophantic laughter from the group around Elizaveta Dalrymple. Jude had heard the line before – it had been attributed to various Hollywood stars – but clearly the grand dame of the SADOS was presenting it as her own coining.
Elizaveta Dalrymple must have been a very beautiful young woman and in her seventies she was still striking. She wore a kaftan-style long dress in fig-coloured linen, which disguised her considerable bulk. Her dyed black hair was swept back from her face and fixed by a comb with a large red artificial flower on it, suggesting the image of a flamenco dancer. Her make-up was skilfully done, though it could not cover the lines on her face – bright red lips and lashes far too luxuriant to have grown out of any human eyelid.
The manner in which she had spoken her line suggested that she had spent rather too much time watching Maggie Smith.
Storm took the natural break given by the laugh as an opportunity to introduce Jude.
‘Ah, I didn’t notice you at the read-through.’ Elizaveta Dalrymple gave the impression that there were a lot of people she didn’t regard as worth noticing. ‘Presumably you’re doing something backstage, are you?’
‘No, I’m not involved in the production at all. Just lending my chaise longue for the set.’
‘Ah, chaises longues,’ said Elizaveta in a voice intended to be thrilling. ‘How much fun one has had on chaises longues. A long time ago, of course.’ She chuckled fondly. ‘And a lot of it actually with Freddie.’ She allowed a moment for murmurs of appreciation for SADOS’s late founder. ‘Who was it who said: “Marriage is the longing for the deep, deep peace of the double-bed after the hurly-burly of the chaise longue?”’
Jude said, ‘Mrs Patrick Campbell’, because it was something she happened to know, but the pique in Elizaveta Dalrymple’s face suggested her question had been rhetorical and not one to be answered by mere chaise longue owners.
To reinforce her disapproval, she turned away from Jude to Storm. ‘I thought you did a lovely little reading this afternoon as Judith. And the American accent will come with practice.’
Rather than bridling at being so patronized, Storm smiled meekly, saying, ‘Thank you very much, Elizaveta. And your Mrs Dudgeon was wonderful.’
‘Yes, it’s something when an actor like me ends up playing a grumpy old woman who dies offstage during Act Two.’ The grande dame smiled. ‘I’m thinking of it as a character part.’ That got a laugh from her coterie of admirers. ‘I really wasn’t going to do it. I really do keep intending to give up “the business”.’ You’re just an amateur, Jude wanted to scream, acting is not your profession. ‘But Davina twisted my arm once again.’
Elizaveta Dalrymple turned an expression of mock ruefulness to a dumpy woman with a long blond pigtail, who was dressed in black leggings and a high-collared gold lamé top. This, Jude remembered from the flurry of introductions when she’d joined the group, was Davina Vere Smith.
‘Oh, you were dying to do it, Elizaveta,’ protested the director of The Devil’s Disciple. ‘There was nothing going to keep you away from this production, away from anything that SADOS does.’
‘Don’t you believe it, Davina. I really do think there has to come a time when one has to retire gracefully. And I think I’ve reached that time.’ The coterie protested violently at this suggestion. ‘I’d rather go at a time of my own choosing than get to the point where I can no longer remember the lines and the old acting skills start to dwindle.’
‘That day’ll never come,’ insisted the most toadyish of the coterie, a young man who had been introduced as Olly Pinto. He was nearly very good-looking, but the size of his shield-like jaw gave him a cartoonish quality. ‘Your reading this afternoon showed that you’re still at the height of your powers.’
‘Oh …’ Elizaveta Dalrymple simpered at the compliment. ‘And yours was lovely too, Olly. Your Christy’s going to be great.’
The young man grimaced. ‘It’s not much of a part,’ he said.
‘There are no small parts,’ said Elizaveta magisterially, ‘only small actors.’
Again she made it sound as if the line was her own, though Jude knew it had been around for years, usually attributed to Stanislavsky. Again Elizaveta Dalrymple received a laugh of approbation from her coterie.
‘Well, I think you’re going to show that Mrs Dudgeon is far from a small part,’ said Olly Pinto, still sucking up.
‘I suppose if I can still do something to help out SADOS … it’s what Freddie would have wanted me to do.’ Elizaveta Dalrymple left a silence for a few more respectful grunts. Then she turned to the director. ‘Were you pleased with the way the read-through went this afternoon, Davina?’
‘Yes, pretty good, really. Obviously a few absentees. Three of my soldiers have got flu and my Major Swindon is still off skiing. I suppose, like most amateur productions, I’ll be lucky if I get the full company on the first night.’
Elizaveta Dalrymple clearly thought she had been silent for too long. ‘I’m determined to have fun playing Mrs Dudgeon. And it’ll be nice to give my old American accent a little run for its money.’
‘It’s very good,’ said her toady. ‘Did you ever live in the States?’
‘Good heavens, no,’ said Elizaveta on a self-deprecating laugh. ‘But I always have had a very good ear. I’m just one of those lucky people who can pick up accents … like that.’ Her eye lingered pityingly on Storm Lavelle. ‘Of course, there was a time when I’d have been natural casting for Judith Anderson, but those days are gone …’
Jude couldn’t understand why her friend didn’t knock the malevolent old woman’s block off, but Storm was still listening intently, as though at the feet of a guru. And when Elizaveta said she would invite Storm to one of her ‘drinkies things’, Jude’s friend looked as if she’d just been made a Dame.
‘Of course,’ Elizaveta Dalrymple went on, ‘my American accent was really given a workout when Freddie and I did On Golden Pond. I remember there was someone from Boston in the audience, and he couldn’t believe that I hadn’t been brought up in the States. He said he’d never heard—’
But her reminiscences were interrupted by the appearance of Len, the Cricketers’ landlord, at the edge of their group. ‘Department of Lost Property,’ he said, and he held out a star-shaped silver pendant on a silver chain. ‘I think it got left here during the pantomime. Someone must’ve dropped it. So I thought I’d wait till you all came back and see if anyone claims it. Somebody said it might be yours, Elizaveta.’
‘Well, yes, I do have one that looks very like that. May I have a look?’ The barman handed the necklace across. Elizaveta Dalrymple turned it over to look at the back. ‘Yes, this must be mine. It’s funny, I hadn’t noticed …’ She reached up to her neck to find a silver chain around it. She pulled at it and out of the top of her kaftan dress came a silver star, similar in size to the other one. ‘Oh no, I’ve got mine.’
She offered Len’s pendant round to her group. ‘Anyone claim this? It’s not yours, is it, Davina?’
‘No,’ said the director. ‘I don’t wear jewellery like that.’
Elizaveta Dalrymple made an elaborate shrug and handed the unclaimed pendant back to Len. ‘Be worth asking round the other SADOS members.’
‘Yes. And could you mention it at rehearsal?’