“And to mine,” said Hambledon. “I want to know what you think of the piece. So long.”
“Thank you so much. Good-bye,” said Alleyn.
“Nice man,” said Carolyn when they had gone a little way.
“Very nice indeed. Carol, you’ve got to listen to me, please. I’ve loved you with shameless constancy for — how long? Five years?”
“Surely a little longer than that, darling. I fancy it’s six. It was during the run of Scissors to Grind at the Criterion. Don’t you remember—”
“Very well — six. You say you’re fond of me — love me—”
“Oughtn’t we to cross over here?” interrupted Carolyn. “Pooh said the theatre was down that street, surely. Oh, do be careful!” She gave a little scream. Hambledon, exasperated, had grasped her by the elbow and was hurrying her across a busy intersection.
“I’m coming to your dressing-room as soon as we get there,” he said angrily, “and I’m going to have it out with you.”
“It would certainly be a better spot than the footpath,” agreed Carolyn. “As my poor Pooh would say, there is a right and a wrong kind of publicity.”
“For God’s sake,” said Hambledon, between clenched teeth, “stop talking to me about your husband.”
Before going to the theatre young Courtney Broadhead called in at the Middleton and asked for Mr. Gordon Palmer. He was sent up to Mr. Palmer’s rooms where he found that young man still in bed and rather white about the gills. His cousin and mentor, Geoffrey Weston, sat in an arm-chair by the window, and Mr. Francis Liversidge lolled across the end of the bed smoking a cigarette. He, too, had dropped in to see Gordon on his way to rehearsal, it seemed.
The cub, as Hambledon had called Gordon Palmer, was seventeen years old, dreadfully sophisticated, and entirely ignorant of everything outside the sphere of his sophistication. He had none of the awkwardness of youth and very little of its vitality, being restless rather than energetic, acquisitive rather than ambitious. He was good-looking in a raffish, tarnished sort of fashion. It was entirely in keeping with his character that he should have attached himself to the Dacres Comedy Company and, more particularly, to Carolyn Dacres herself. That Carolyn paid not the smallest attention to him made little difference. With Liversidge and Valerie he was a great success.
“Hullo, Court, my boy,” said Gordon. “Treat me gently. I’m a wreck this morning. Met some ghastly people on that train last night. What a night! We played poker till — when was it, Geoffrey?”
“Until far too late,” said Weston calmly. “You were a young fool.”
“He thinks he has to talk like that to me,” explained Gordon. “He does it rather well, really. What’s your news, Court?”
“I’ve come to pay my poker debts,” said Courtney. He drew out his wallet and took some notes from it.
“Yours is here, too, Frankie.” He laughed unhappily. “Take it while you can.”
“That’s all fine and handy,” said Gordon carelessly. “I’d forgotten all about it.”
Mr. Liversidge poked his head in at the open office door. He did not come on until the second act, and had grown tired of hanging round the wings while Gascoigne thrashed out a scene between Valerie Gaynes, Ackroyd, and Hambledon. Mr. Meyer was alone in the office.
“Good morning, sir,” said Liversidge.
“ ’Morning, Mr. Liversidge,” said Meyer, swinging round in his chair and staring owlishly at his first juvenile. “Want to see me?”
“I’ve just heard of your experience on the train last night,” began Liversidge, “and looked in to ask how you were. It’s an outrageous business. I mean to say—!”
“Quite,” said Meyer shortly. “Thanks very much.”
Liversidge airily advanced a little farther into the room.
“And poor Val, losing all her money. Quite a chapter of calamities.”
“It was,” said Mr. Meyer.
“Quite a decent pub, the Middleton, isn’t it, sir??
“Quite,” said Mr. Meyer again.
There was an uncomfortable pause.
“You seem to be in funds,” remarked Mr. Meyer suddenly.
Liversidge laughed melodiously. “I’ve been saving a bit lately. We had a long run in Town with the show, didn’t we? A windfall this morning, too.” He gave Meyer a quick sidelong glance. “Courtney paid up his poker debts. I didn’t expect to see that again, I must say. Last night he was all down-stage and tragic.”
“Shut that door,” said Mr. Meyer. “I want to talk to you.”
Carolyn and Hambledon faced each other across the murky half-light of the star dressing-room. Already, most of the wicker baskets had been unpacked, and the grease-paints laid out on their trays. The room had a grey, cellar-like look about it and smelt of cosmetics. Hambledon switched on the light and it instantly became warm and intimate.
“Now, listen to me,” he said.
Carolyn sat on one of the wicker crates and gazed at him. He took a deep breath.
“You’re as much in love with me as you ever will be with anyone. You don’t love Alfred. Why you married him I don’t believe even God knows, and I’m damn’ certain you don’t. I don’t ask you to live with me on the quiet, with everyone knowing perfectly well what’s happening. That sort of arrangement would be intolerable to both of us. I do ask you to come away with me at the end of this tour and let Alfred divorce you. Either that, or tell him how things are between us and give him the chance of arranging it the other way.”
“Darling, we’ve had this out so often before.”
“I know we have but I’m at the end of my tether. I can’t go on seeing you every day, working with you, being treated as though I was — what? A cross between a tame cat and a schoolboy. I’m forty-nine, Carol, and I–I’m starved. Why won’t you do this for both of us?”
“Because I’m a Catholic.”
“You’re not a good Catholic. I sometimes think you don’t care tuppence about your religion. How long is it since you’ve been to church or confession or whatever it is? Ages. Then why stick at this?”
“It’s my church sticking to me. Bits of it always stick. I’d feel I was wallowing in sin, darling, truthfully I would.”
“Well, wallow. You’d get used to it.”
“Oh, Hailey!” She broke out into soft laughter, that warm soft laughter that ran like gold through every part she played.
“Don’t!” said Hambledon. “Don’t!”
“I’m so sorry, Hailey. I am a pig. I do adore you, but darling I can’t — I simply can’t live in sin with you. Living in sin. Living in sin,” chanted Carolyn dreamily.
“You’re hopeless,” said Hambledon. “Hopeless!”
“Miss Dacres, please,” called a voice in the passage.
“Here!”
“We’re just coming to your entrance, please, Mr. Gascoigne says.”
“I’ll be there,” said Carolyn. “Thank you.”
She got up at once.
“You’re on in a minute, darling,” she said to Hambledon.
“I suppose,” said Hambledon with a violence that in spite of himself was half whimsically-rueful, “I suppose I’ll have to wait for Alf to die of a fatty heart. Would you marry me then, Carol?”
“What is it they all say in this country? ‘Too right.’ Too right I would, darling. But, poor Pooh! A fatty heart! Too unkind.” She slipped through the door.
A moment or two later he heard her voice, pitched and telling, as she spoke her opening line.
“ ‘Darling, what do you think! He’s asked me to marry him!’ ” And then those peals of soft warm laughter.
Chapter IV
FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE TIKI
The curtain rose for the fourth time. Carolyn Dacres, standing in the centre of the players, bowed to the stalls, to the circle and, with that friendly special smile, to the gallery. One thousand pairs of hands were struck together over and over again, making a sound like hail on an iron roof. New Zealand audiences are not given to cheering. If they are pleased they sit still and clap exhaustively. They did so now, on the third and final performance of Ladies of Leisure. Carolyn bowed and bowed with an air of enchanted deprecation. She turned to Hailey Hambledon, smiling. He stepped out of the arc and came down to the footlights. He assumed the solemnly earnest expression of all leading actors who are about to make a speech. The thousand pairs of hands redoubled their activities. Hambledon smiled warningly. The clapping died away.