Night at the Vulcan (4 page)

Martyn wondered if she ought to give only her Christian name or only her surname. She said: “Tarne. Martyn Tarne.”

“But what a charming name!” The brilliant eyes looked into Martyn’s face and their gaze sharpened. After a fractional pause she repeated: “Really charming,” and turned her back.

It took Martyn a moment or two to realize that this was her cue to remove Miss Hamilton’s coat. She lifted it from her shoulders — it was made of Persian lamb and smelt delicious — and hung it up. When she turned round she found that her employer was looking at her. She smiled reassuringly at Martyn and said: “You’ve got everything arranged very nicely. Roses, too. Lovely.”

“They’re from Mr. Grantley.”

“Sweet of him but I bet he sent you to buy them.”

“Well—” Martyn began and was saved by the entry of the young man in the red sweater with a dressing-case for which she was given the keys. While she was unpacking it the door opened and a middle-aged, handsome man with a raffish face and an air of boldness came in. She remembered the photographs in the foyer. This was Clark Bennington. He addressed himself to Miss Hamilton.

“Hullo,” he said, ‘I’ve been talking to John Rutherford.”

“What about?” she asked and sounded nervous.

“About that kid. Young Gay. He’s been at her again. So’s Adam.”

He glanced at Martyn. “I wanted to talk to you,” he added discontentedly.

“Well, so you shall. But I’ve got to change now, Ben. And look, this is my new dresser, Martyn Tarne.”

He eyed Martyn with more attention. “Quite a change from old Tansley,” he said. “And a very nice change, too.” He turned away. “Is Adam down?” He jerked his head at the wall.

“Yes.”

“I’ll see you later, then.”

“All right, but — yes, all right.”

He went out, leaving a faint rumour of alcohol behind him.

She was quite still for a moment after he had gone. Martyn heard her fetch a sigh, a sound half-impatient, half-anxious. “Oh, well,” she said, “let’s get going, shall we?”

Martyn had been much exercised about the extent of her duties. Did, for instance, a dresser undress her employer? Did she kneel at her feet and roll down her stockings? Did she unhook and unbutton? Or did she stand capably aside while these rites were performed by the principal herself? Miss Hamilton solved the problem by removing her dress, throwing it to Martyn and waiting to be inserted into her dressing-gown. During these operations a rumble of male voices sounded at intervals in the adjoining room. Presently there was a tap at the door. Martyn answered it and found the little dresser with a florist’s box in his hands. “Mr. Poole’s compliments,” he said and winked broadly before retiring.

Miss Hamilton by this time was spreading a yellow film over her face. She asked Martyn to open the box and, on seeing three orchids that lay crisp and fabulous on their mossy bed, sang “Darling!” on two clear notes. The voice beyond the wall responded. “Hullo?”

“They’re quite perfect. Thank you, my sweet.”

“Good,” the voice said. Martyn laid the box on the dressing-table and saw the card:
Until to-morrow. Adam
.

She got through the next half hour pretty successfully, she hoped. There seemed to be no blunders and Miss Hamilton continued charming and apparently delighted. There were constant visitors. A tap on the door would be followed by a head looking round and always by the invitation to come in. First there was Miss Gay Gainsford, a young and rather intense person with a pretty air of deference, who seemed to be in a state of extreme anxiety.

“Well, darling,” Miss Hamilton said, glancing at her in the glass. “Everything under strict control?”

Miss Gainsford said unevenly: “I suppose so. I’m trying to be good and sort of
biddable
, do you know, but underneath I realize that I’m seething like a cauldron. Butterflies the size of
bats
in the stomach.”

“Well, of course. But you mustn’t be terrified, really, because whatever happens we all know John’s written a good play, don’t we?”

“I suppose we do.”

“We do indeed. And Gay — you’re going to make a great personal success in this part. I want you to tell yourself you are. Do you know?
Tell
yourself.”

“I wish I could believe it.” Miss Gainsford clasped her hands and raised them to her lips. “It’s not very easy,” she said, “when he — John — Dr. Rutherford — so obviously thinks I’m a misfit. Everybody keeps telling me it’s a marvellous part, but for me it’s thirteen sides of hopeless hell. Honestly, it is.”

“Gay, what
nonsense
! John may seem hard—”

“
Seem
!”

“Well, he may
be
hard, then. He’s famous for it, after all. But you’ll get your reward, my dear, when the time comes. Remember,” said Miss Hamilton with immense gravity, “we all have faith in you.”

“Of course,” said Miss Gainsford with an increased quaver in her voice, “it’s too marvellous your feeling like that about it. You’ve been so miraculously kind. And Uncle Ben, of course. Both of you. I can’t get over it.”

“But, my dear, that’s utter nonsense. You’re going to be one of our rising young actresses.”

“You do
really
think so!”

“But yes. We all do.” Her voice lost a little colour and then freshened. “We all do,” she repeated firmly and turned back to her glass.

Miss Gainsford went to the door and hesitated there. “Adam doesn’t,” she said loudly.

Miss Hamilton made a quick expressive gesture toward the next dressing-room and put her finger to her lips. “He’ll be
really
angry if he hears you say that,” she whispered, and added aloud with somewhat forced casualness: “Is John down this morning?”

“He’s on-stage. I think he said he’d like to speak to you.”

“I want to see him particularly. Will you tell him, darling?”

“Of course, Aunty Helena,” Miss Gainsford said rather miserably, and added: “I’m sorry, I forgot. Of course, Helena, darling.” With a wan smile she was gone.

“Oh, dear!” Miss Hamilton sighed and catching Martyn’s eye in the looking-glass made a rueful face. “If only—” she began and stopped unaccountably, her gaze still fixed on Martyn’s image. “Never mind,” she said.

There was a noisy footfall in the passage followed by a bang on the door, and, with scarcely a pause for permission, by the entry of a large, florid and angry-looking man wearing a sweater, a leather waistcoat, a muffler and a very old duffel coat.

“Good morning, John darling,” said Miss Hamilton gaily and extended her hand. The new-comer planted a smacking kiss on it and fixed Martyn with a china-blue and bulging pair of eyes. Martyn turned away from this embarrassing regard.

“What have we here?” he demanded. His voice was loud and rumbling.

“My new dresser. Dr. Rutherford, Martyn.”

“Stay me with flagons!” said Rutherford. He turned on Miss Hamilton. “That fool of a wench Gainsford said you wanted me,” he said. “What’s up?”

“John,
what
have you been saying to that child?”

“I? Nothing. Nothing to what I could, and, mark you, what I ought to say to her. I merely asked her if, for the sake of my sanity, she’d be good enough to play the central scene without a goddam simper on her fat and wholly unsuitable dial.”

“You’re frightening her.”

“She’s terrifying me. She may be your niece, Helena—”

“She’s not my niece. She’s Ben’s niece.”

“If she was the Pope’s niece she’d still be a goddam pain in the neck. I wrote this part for an intelligent actress who could be made to look reasonably like Adam. What do you give me? A moronic amateur who looks like nothing on God’s earth.”

“She’s extremely pretty.”

“Lollypops! Adam’s too damn easy on her. The only hope lies in shaking her up. Or kicking her out and I’d do that myself if I had my way. It ought to have been done a month back. Even now—”

“Oh, my
dear
John! We open in two days, you might remember.”

“An actress worth her salt’d memorize it in an hour. I told her—”

“I do beg you,” she said, “to leave her to Adam. After all he is the producer, John, and he’s very wise.”

Dr. Rutherford pulled out of some submerged pocket a metal box. From this he extracted a pinch of snuff, which he took with loud and uncouth noises.

“In a moment,” he said, “you’ll be telling me the author ought to keep out of the theatre.”

“That’s utter nonsense.”

“Let them try to keep
me
out,” he said and burst into a neighing laugh.

Miss Hamilton slightly opened her mouth, hardened her upper lip, and with the closest attention painted it a purplish red. “Really,” she said briskly, “you’d much better behave prettily, you know. You’ll end by having her on your hands with a nervous breakdown.”

“The sooner the better if it’s a good one.”

“Honestly, John, you are the rock
bottom
when you get like this. If you didn’t write the plays you do write — if you weren’t the greatest dramatist since—”

“Spare me the raptures,” he said, “and give me some actors. And while we’re on the subject, I may as well tell you that I don’t like the way Ben is shaping in the big scene. If Adam doesn’t watch him he’ll be up to some bloody leading-man hocus-pocus, and by God if he tries that on I’ll wring his neck for him.”

She turned and faced him. “John, he
won’t
. I’m sure he won’t.”

“No, you’re not. You can’t be sure. Nor can I. But if there’s any sign of it to-night, and Adam doesn’t tackle him, I will. I’ll tickle his catastrophe, by God I will. As for that Mongolian monstrosity, that discard from the waxworks, Mr. Parry Percival, what devil — will you answer me — what inverted sadist foisted it on my play?”

“Now, look here, John—” Miss Hamilton began with some warmth, and was shouted down.

“Have I not stipulated from the beginning of my disastrous association with this ill-fated playhouse that I would have none of these abortions in my works? These Things. These foetid Growths. These Queers.”

“Parry isn’t one.”

“Yah! He shrieks it. I have an instinct, my girl. I nose them as I go into the lobby.”

She made a gesture of despair. “I give up,” she said.

He helped himself to another pinch of snuff. “Hooey!” he snorted. “You don’t do anything of the sort, my sweetie-pie. You’re going to rock ’em, you and Adam. Think of that and preen yourself. And leave all the rest — to
me
.”

“Don’t quote from
Macbeth
. If Gay Gainsford heard you doing that she really would go off at the deep end.”

“Which is precisely where I’d like to push her.”

“Oh, go away,” she cried out impatiently but with an air of good nature. “I’ve had enough of you. You’re wonderful and you’re hopeless. Go away.”

“The audience is concluded?” He scraped the parody of a Regency bow.

“The audience is concluded. The door, Martyn.”

Martyn opened the door. Until then, feeling wretchedly in the way, she had busied herself with the stack of suitcases in the corner of the room and now, for the first time, came absolutely face to face with the visitor. He eyed her with an extraordinary air of astonishment.

“Here!” he said. “Hi!”

“No, John,” Miss Hamilton said with great determination. “No!”

“
Eureka
!”

“Nothing of the sort. Good morning.”

He gave a shrill whistle and swaggered out. Martyn turned back to find her employer staring into the glass. Her hands trembled and she clasped them together. “Martyn,” she said, “I’m going to call you Martyn because it’s such a nice name. You know, a dresser is rather a particular sort of person. She has to be as deaf as a post and as blind as a bat to almost everything that goes on under her very nose. Dr. Rutherford is, as I expect you know, a most distinguished and brilliant person. Our Greatest English Playwright. But like many brilliant people,” Miss Hamilton continued, in what Martyn couldnt help thinking a rather too special voice, “he is
eccentric
. We all understand and we expect you to do so too. Do you know?”

Martyn said she did.

“Good. Now, put me into that pink thing and let us know the worst about it, shall we?”

When she was dressed she stood before the cheval-glass and looked with cold intensity at her image. “My God,” she said, “the lighting had better be good.”

Martyn said: “Isn’t it right? It looks lovely to me.”

“My poor girl!” she muttered. “You run to my husband and ask him for cigarettes. He’s got my case. I need a stimulant.”

Martyn hurried into the passage and tapped at the next door. “So they are married,” she thought. “He must be ten years younger than she is but they’re married and he still sends her orchids in the morning.”

The deep voice shouted impatiently: “Come!” and she opened the door and went in.

The little dresser was putting Poole into a dinner jacket. Their backs were turned to Martyn. “Yes?” Poole said,

“Miss Hamilton would like her cigarette case, if you please.”

“I haven’t got it,” he said and shouted: “Helena!”

“Hullo, darling?”

“I haven’t got your case.”

There was a considerable pause. The voice beyond the wall called: “No, no. Ben’s got it. Mr. Bennington, Martyn.”

“I’m so sorry,” Martyn said, and made for the door, conscious of the little dresser’s embarrassment and of Poole’s annoyance.

Mr. Clark Bennington’s room was on the opposite side of the passage and next the Greenroom. On her entrance Martyn was abruptly and most unpleasantly transported into the immediate past — into yesterday with its exhaustion, muddle and panic, to the moment of extreme humiliation when Fred Badger had smelt brandy on her breath. Mr. Bennington’s flask was open on his dressing-shelf and he was in the act of entertaining a thick-set gentleman with beautifully groomed white hair, wearing a monocle in a strikingly handsome face. This person set down his tumbler and gazed in a startled fashion at Martyn.

“It’s not,” he said, evidently picking up with some difficulty the conversation she had interrupted, “it’s not that I would for the world interfere, Ben, dear boy. Nor do I enjoy raising what is no doubt a delicate subject in these particular circumstances. But I feel for the child damnably, you know. Damnably. Moreover, it does rather appear that the Doctor never loses an opportunity to upset her.”