Return to Night (12 page)

“I’ll have to go,” he said presently, “after wasting another of your evenings. Sling me out, you know, any time. Shall I put ‘Skull of mutineer kindly lent by Dr. Hilary Mansell’ on the program?”

“Not unless you want to get me struck off for advertising. Shall I want a ticket, by the way, or do they collect inside?”

“They do, but I’ve reserved you a seat, of course. Oh, Lord, that reminds me. Mother says she hopes you can come round to tea first, then you and she can go together. Is that okay?”

“Why, yes, I think so. Yes, please thank her from me and say that unless something urgent turns up I’d be delighted.” There was no possible way of evading it this time; and, in any case, the desire to do so seemed increasingly silly. “About five?”

“Well, if you
could
make it earlier. Just so that I’ll see you before I have to leave.” He had become a little constrained; and would have borne off the skull naked under his arm if she had not pointed out to him in time the paper she had prepared.

T
HE HOUSE WAS A
smallish, but very pleasant combination of the Georgian style with the Cotswold tradition. It had a shell portico, broad windows, and the stone-tiled roof which, being pegged together, molds itself ever so slightly with age, like an integument, over the supporting beams, letting their bony structure appear. Patches of gold lichen, their color warm in the last light, patterned it here and there, and on the ledge above the porch stonecrop had taken root. She rang, and was taken by a well-trained maid into a room whose proportions were as perfect as the period of the house had made her expect. The contents had taste, good spacing, and the air of having accumulated effortlessly over some generations. From the pool of light under a lamp, Mrs. Fleming came forward to meet her; behind, in the shadows, Julian was already on his feet.

“How splendid that you were able to get here in good time.” The outstretched hand felt fragile and its faint pressure made Hilary’s naturally firm grip seem a little overhearty. “I hear you’ve been having a busy time. We were so sorry about New Year’s Eve, but of course we
quite
understood.” Hilary made suitable responses.

“Things are easing off a little,” she said; “they often do, just before the spring rush begins. I’ve been looking forward to my evening off.”

Mrs. Fleming said, “It’s very good of you to give it up to us. I’m afraid it isn’t going to be a very exciting evening for you; in fact, I was just saying to Julian that I felt sure you would prefer a quiet dinner and a little music, to rest you, instead of being dragged off to see amateur theatricals in a drafty hall. He expects everyone to share his enthusiasms.” She smiled at him with affectionate indulgence.

“I couldn’t possibly let her off.” Julian was still standing a little in the background, with the shy deprecating smile which, lately, she had less often seen. He was wearing a dark suit and, because she had generally met him fresh from the road, looked by contrast very well-brushed and combed down. “After all, a vital member of the cast is appearing by her permission.”

“What do you mean, dear? Is one of them a patient of yours, Dr. Mansell?”

“He means the skull, I expect,” said Hilary.

Mrs. Fleming gave a delicate shudder. “That horrible thing. I made him take it straight down to the hall. It made me feel quite uncanny to see it about his room. Of course, it was
very
kind of you to lend it. I do hope it won’t get damaged.”

“It won’t matter a bit if it does; I never use it.”

Tea arrived, and was dispensed by Mrs. Fleming behind faultlessly polished silver; Julian kept the little scones and wafer sandwiches in motion with unobtrusive assiduity. It was, Hilary reflected, like a scene typifying the English Home; Hollywood, with the help of technical advisers, could hardly have made it prettier. There was small talk about the London plays of the moment which developed into rather tricky going because Hilary and Mrs. Fleming had, it turned out, each visited those which the other had carefully avoided.

There was a slight pause, into which Julian rushed headlong, apologizing for the fact that he would have to be getting along, that he had some props to check up on, and that he had promised to make one or two people up. While he was speaking, a silvery insistent bell somewhere in the house began to ring.

“Yes, dear, run along,” said his mother. “I’m sure Dr. Mansell will excuse you. But just answer the telephone before you go. Clara does so muddle the messages sometimes.” The conversation turned to maids, a topic on which Mrs. Fleming’s views were highly representative. They were still on the subject when Julian came back into the room. He looked so reluctant to say anything that Hilary was sure an urgent call had come for her.

“Yes, dear?” said Mrs. Fleming. “What was it? I hope it’s nothing unpleasant; you look quite upset.”

“Well,” said Julian slowly, “something rather upsetting’s happened. It seems Tom Phelps had engine trouble with a plane he took up this afternoon. He managed to make a landing, but he was the other side of Bristol when it happened, and had to come down at Filton. He’s just rung up the works to say he’s not been able to get the plane fixed, and he can’t be back before tomorrow.”

Hilary looked at him curiously. It was, no doubt, a moment for exasperation, for dismay, even, possibly, for despair; but he was betraying none of these comprehensible emotions. He looked, in fact, anxious, wary, and apologetic.

“Oh,
dear
,” his mother was saying, “how very vexing for you all. I suppose, with that possibility, he wasn’t really a very good person to have. But you said he was so much the best, didn’t you? It’s so late now to put it off, isn’t it? What a
pity
.”

“Yes,” said Julian, looking at the middle distance. “It is a bit of a nuisance. We can’t call off the show and I’m afraid the only person who knows the lines is me.”

There was a little silence. Hilary was about to fill it with some encouraging commonplace, when something stayed her.

Mrs. Fleming looked up from her lap. “But, surely, dear, that will be a very difficult arrangement. You’ve made yourself responsible for so much of the organization, I should think it will cause a great deal of confusion if you take an important part on the stage as well.”

“Well, I hope not. Most of the organization’s more or less coped with by now. We’ll have to risk a few trifles coming unstuck. I mean, it’s just one of those things. The show must go on, and all that, you know.” He gave a shadow of his deprecating laugh.

“Of course, you know best, dear, if you feel you can manage it. It would be a pity to disappoint the village. But I really can’t imagine why you didn’t arrange for a proper understudy, knowing what an uncertain quantity this man Phelps was. I thought it was
always
done.”

“In a sense,” said Julian, “I am his understudy. In a way. It’s Tom I mind most about, really. He was so keen, and he’ll be so sick about it.”

Mrs. Fleming was looking again at her ringed hands folded in her lap. Hilary sensed the approach of another silence, and said quickly, “Never mind, he’ll feel better than if someone incompetent was going to make a mess of his part.” Julian flicked at her, sideways, a look which was a curious mixture of appeal and apprehension.

“One has to allow, don’t you think, for the rather different mentality of these village people? They’re so touchy, you know, Dr. Mansell, and so suspicious of anything that’s done for them. They’re quite willing to accept a certain amount of help with organization; but if people like ourselves seem to be trying to take advantage of it to come into the limelight, they resent it at once. They think of it as ostentation. Julian’s become so used to the free and easy life at Oxford, where a little egoism is considered rather amusing, that I’m afraid he sometimes forgets to allow for their point of view.”

“Oh, but surely not.” Hilary was so angry that her own careful voice made her feel quite sick. “It will be announced, won’t it? I should have thought it would rather add to the excitement of the thing for them. Particularly when they get a much better—” Julian had not even looked at her this time, but she did not complete the sentence. “If they get value for their money, they won’t worry about who it is, do you think?” She felt, rather than saw, his tension relax.

“Yes,” he said quickly. “It’s just a question of getting on with the job.”

Mrs. Fleming had risen in her chair. “Well, dear, Dr. Mansell is quite right; we shall just have to look at it in that way and make the best of it. Don’t be late back, will you? I shan’t wait in the hall, now that you’ll have your costume to change.”

“All right,” said Julian. “I’ll get out the car for you.”

“And please remember, dear, that you have to be careful of yourself, and don’t get carried away with any rough horseplay on the stage. It will make me very anxious if you do.”

“We don’t really. It’s just effect, you know.”

“Will you excuse me for a few minutes, Dr. Mansell? There are one or two things I must see about before I go. You had better be hurrying, hadn’t you, Julian, now you have all these extra preparations to make. I hope it will be a success, in spite of everything.”

She went out of the room, quietly and erectly. Hilary said, “I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you. The best of luck.”

“Thanks,” said Julian. He went over to one of the windows, closed the curtains, and proceeded methodically to the next. “I suppose I’d better be getting along.”

“What sort of a part is it? The dashing hero, or what?”

“Good Lord, no.” He spoke with an instant, spontaneous revulsion. “Captain Morgan. An extremely dirty villain.”

“I dare say we shall find Tom isn’t indispensable.” He would not turn to meet her smile.

“We’ll rub through, I expect. I hope to God I can get into those boots of his. If I split the coat it can’t be helped. Oh, God.”

“Whatever is it?”

“The beard. That fixes everything.” He turned round to face her like someone confronted with irretrievable catastrophe. He looked almost desperate. “I might have known. Something like this had to happen. I
told
the damned idiot not to take it home.”

“Is that so awful?” His sense of disaster had infected her in spite of herself. “Is there a lot of talk about it in the play?”

“Oh, probably. No, perhaps there isn’t. But it’s—oh, well, it’s just an essentially bearded sort of part. He was called Black-beard, even.”

“Well, that will be quite simple to cut.”

He said half to himself, as if he had not heard, “What on earth can I have instead?”

“But does it really matter so much? I don’t suppose anyone in the audience will know he was bearded—I didn’t. And if they do they won’t care.”

“Well, I do. It’s—it’s completely off-putting. Don’t you see it will mean making up practically straight?”

“But why not? You’d have a few lines, or something.”

“
That’s
not enough!” He almost snapped it at her, then said, awkwardly, “Actually, I never feel myself on the stage unless I look different. I really don’t know why.”

If he did know, she thought, it was no time to be asking. She said, matter-of-factly, “You know a good deal about make-up. You’ll think of something.”

“I shall have to,” he said. He walked to a glass that hung on the wall. She saw him put up his hand to his face, but his back was to her and she could not tell what he was doing. Presently, with a look of one who has solved something, he turned round. “I wonder—have you got your bag here with you, by any chance? Your doctor’s bag, I mean?”

“No. But I’ve got my car. What is it you want?”

“Oh, no, but what a frightful sweat for you.” His face had lightened, however, with relief. “No, I couldn’t possibly. Dragging you about at this time of night.”

“I had to pick something up from the surgery, in any case, on my way back. What shall I bring?”

“I oughtn’t to let you. But if you really mean that—It’s just a roll of strapping, the narrow sort.”

“That’s simple. I’ll give you a lift to the hall—it will be on my way—and bring it straight back to you there.”

“It would make all the difference. You always seem to be on the spot when one’s in a jam.” He had almost recovered his normal smile.

“I’d better make my apologies to Mrs. Fleming, hadn’t I, before I go?”

“Oh, yes, of course. I don’t know exactly where she is at the moment. Don’t worry, I’ll run up and tell her.”

He was gone scarcely more than two minutes; long enough, however, to give Hilary time for reflection. If she had not put her patched-up relations with Mrs. Fleming finally beyond repair, there seemed very little she had left undone toward it. She shrugged her shoulders; the milk had been spilled in a decent cause.

He was back again, with a face of determined unconcern, and a large japanned make-up box under one arm.

“She says,” he remarked with very plausible ease, “that you shouldn’t let me make such a nuisance of myself, but that it’s I cry good of you and she’ll see you in the hall.”

She turned her own car while he got out Mrs. Fleming’s and drove it to the door; after which, directions for negotiating the drive and the gates filled in, for a few minutes, the encroaching pause. When they reached the road, and the pause engulfed them, she tried to look like the careful kind of driver who would expect silence in any case. Obliquely, in the windscreen, she saw Julian trying to look like a careful driver’s considerate passenger. It was no use. The silence was becoming corrosive. It was evident that he was not going to break it with anything to the purpose. “Have you got many people to make up?” She could almost hear him sigh with relief.

“Well, the principals completely, I expect, and some general touching-up. I’ve dared anyone to lay hands on a liner till I get there. You’ve no idea what they get up to. The women are self-supporting, thank goodness.
They
soon pick it up.”

“Are there many?”

“Only two. A dusky maiden and a distracted heroine. The Creole is one of the secretaries at the factory. She’s made an intensive study of Dorothy Lamour and does it ever so sweetly, particularly in the places where she’s supposed to behave like a hellcat. And the younger of the schoolmistresses is the heroine.” He smiled to himself.