Trial and Error (10 page)

“Well, certainly there's no arguing with them,” said the girl.

The peculiar bitterness in her voice caught Mr Todhunter's attention and he looked at her sharply.

“Ah!” he agreed as meaningly as he could. “Yes. You mean, of course . . . yes. I wondered if you knew.”

“Of course I know,” she replied in a voice between scorn and tears.

“And what are you going to do about that?”

“About Vincent? I don't know
—yet
”

“Do nothing for the time being,” Mr Todhunter advised with earnestness.

She looked at him. “Nothing?”

“Nothing. I—er—it's true that I know very little about these things, but I understand that at this stage intervention on the part of a wife, or open opposition, is often fatal. Things may adjust themselves, Mrs Palmer, or they may not. But please do nothing for a week or so. Does he know that you know?”

“I don't think so.”

“Excellent. Then you will leave matters as they are for the time being?”

The girl thought. “Very well,” she said a little wonderingly.

Soon afterwards Mr Todhunter took his leave. He carried away the impression of a personality much more forceful than that of Mrs Palmer's father. When she had said that she did not know what she was going to do—
yet,
Mr Todhunter had received the idea that when she did make up her mind, it would be to something drastic. Certainly young Mrs Palmer did not appear the kind of person to sit supinely by and let things drift.

Before he left Mr Todhunter asked and obtained the address of Farroway's other daughter.

Reviewing the interview on his way back to London, Mr Todhunter decided that it had been interesting but had added little to his knowledge of the situation.

4

This, however, was not the case with the two interviews which followed.

On that same evening Mr Todhunter sought out the manager of the Sovereign Theatre. His name was Budd, and he was a depressed-looking man of about fifty, with black hair and the kind of jowls which contrive to look always unshaven. It took Mr Todhunter some time and a great deal of tact to gain his confidence; but when that had been done the revelations which ensued would have startled Miss Norwood's worshippers.

“She's a bitch, Mr Todhunter,” pronounced Mr Budd with a kind of gloomy zest. “You get her kind in the theatre often enough, but she's the worst specimen I've ever met. How I manage to stick her, I don't know. Well, a job's a job in these days, and even if she thinks she owns me body and soul in her theatre, I'm my own man at home.” He swallowed quickly what was left of his double whiskey and rapped on the table for another. A very young waiter arrived at a run.

“Indeed?” said Mr Todhunter with interest. “Tell me about the type.”

Mr Budd obliged, with details.

The two were sitting in the Foyer Club, whither Mr Budd had piloted Mr Todhunter “for a couple of quick ones” after the fall of the curtain at the Sovereign. Mr Todhunter, displaying Farroway's card, had pretended that he was collecting information to incorporate in an article which he was writing on the theatre in the
London Review,
and had implored Mr Budd's help. Mr Budd had been perfectly willing, if Mr Todhunter would wait till the curtain was down and everything fixed for the night. Mr Todhunter had waited and now, against all doctors' rules and in some agitation, was sitting well past midnight imbibing barley water in the small and shabby Foyer Club and listening to Mr Budd's growing indiscretions.

“It's genuine in a way. She really believes she's a great actress—the greatest since Bernhardt at least. And I expect in her heart of hearts she believes she could give Bernhardt a few tips. She's all wrong of course. She isn't a great actress. She just has the knack of getting hold of an audience. Not that she's a bad actress. In fact,” conceded Mr Budd handsomely, “she's a pretty good one. But not great, no. . . Boy, get me another of the same. Here, Mr Todhunter, your glass is empty. Have a bit of a stiffener in it this time, for heaven's sake.”

Mr Todhunter refused the stiffener with some difficulty, since Mr Budd seemed inclined to make a personal matter of it, and returned to the subject in hand.

“Yes, but as a woman, what is she like? She appears to have considerable professional charm. Does it extend into her ordinary relations with other people?”

“It does not,” replied Mr Budd with firmness. “Jean's a devastating woman. I can tell you, every producer in London had a couple of quick ones in relief when he heard that she'd gone into management and he wouldn't be bothered with her tantrums any more.”

“Tantrums?”

“Yes. They say she never let a single play that she was in run smoothly in rehearsal, ever since she got into the top line. Always had to be throwing her weight about: quarrelling with the producer, wanting her lines altered, objecting to this, that and the other person in the cast, making life hell for everyone.”

“Then why,” said Mr Todhunter wonderingly, “did anyone ever engage her?” It was a question that laymen have often asked before concerning the Jean Norwood type of actress, and never has a satisfactory answer been received.

“Oh well,” said Mr Budd vaguely, “she's a pull, you know; she's got a public. They had to have her.” “But surely not at such a cost in time and trouble?”

“I remember,” said Mr Budd, “I was with her once in
The Silver Penny,
in 1925. It was just after she'd made her name, and the public were eating her. She knew dam' well we couldn't do without her. Well, there was a kid playing the part of the maid. (You remember the show? No? It ran nearly a year.) Well, it was this kid's first West End part, and she was a bit nervous at rehearsal. Jean had it in for her for some reason or other. Well, one morning the kid gave Jean the wrong cue. Put in a line out of the second act or something when we were rehearsing the first. Jean swept-down to the front and said to old George Furness (he was producing) : ‘Mr Furness, dismiss this girl and get a competent actress for the part or I'll walk out.' Well, there was no help for it. They argued with her, and the kid cried, but it was no use. The kid had to go.”

“But it's outrageous,” cried Mr Todhunter in great indignation.

“That's Jean though, all over,” replied Mr Budd with gloomy relish. “Now poor old Alfred Gordon, who did manager for her before me . . .” Mr Budd related how Miss Norwood had made Mr Gordon's life unbearable, until the old man, faced with ruin and the prospect of never finding another job, had gassed himself in his little flat in Notting Hill Gate.

“He left a note, I happen to know, saying just what he thought of her, but they suppressed it at the inquest. That give her a jolt for a time. But it didn't last. Pretty soon she was taking hell out of us all again in the same old way.”

“But why does anyone work for her?”

Mr Budd looked at his companion with a faint smile. “It's pretty plain you don't know much about the theatre, Mr Todhunter. Jobs aren't exactly easy to get, you know. Besides,” added Mr Budd cynically, “anyone who can say they were in Jean Norwood's company for a couple of years has a pull. Any producer knows that someone trained by Jean will be pretty easy to handle. Besides, Jean only employs people who really can act. I'll say that for her. She's keen, and she will have the best. Though of course anyone who looks like being as good as she is doesn't last long. Well, after all,” said Mr Budd frankly, “you couldn't expect her to let another girl act her off her own stage, could you? Like your friend Farroway's girl for instance.”

Mr Todhunter sat up. “Felicity Farroway? She could act then?”

“You bet your life she could. Finest little natural actress I've ever seen. Wanted polishing, of course, and had to learn a bit of technique, but the stuff was right there. But Jean finished her, like she's finished dozens of others. Nobody'll dare to give her another chance now.”

“Dare?” Mr Todhunter's indignation was rising again. “But surely other managers aren't
afraid
of Miss Norwood?”

Mr Budd stroked his blue jowls. “Well, I'm not so sure they're not, if you put it like that. But we're sheep in this profession, you know. Once the word gets around that Miss Dash can't really act for toffee and had to be sacked out of Jean Norword's last show for being too downright rotten, Miss Dash can go on calling on the agents for the rest of her natural, but no one's ever going to offer her a part again. And you can bet Jean did put it round, all right. And after all, the kid's got no pull.”

“But why should Miss Norwood want to ruin the girl?” demanded Mr Todhunter.

“Because,” replied Mr Budd succinctly, “she's a bitch, that's why. . .. Here,
boy
!”

5

So on the Sunday morning Mr Todhunter took a bus to the address in Maida Vale that Mrs Palmer had given him and in due course found himself interviewing a charming young woman with fair hair, blue eyes and a peachlike complexion, but none of the lack of character which so often goes with this combination, as if Nature, having worked pretty well skin deep, could not be bothered to go any further into the case. In this respect Felicity Farroway was as like her sister as both were unlike their father.

She received Mr Todhunter in a minute sitting room which tried hard to be modern by containing as little furniture as possible, but which was so small as to appear crowded by the minimum required for practical purposes. Having examined Mr Todhunter's invaluable card and dismissed to some retreat unspecified the rather stumpy stable companion who shared the flat with her, Miss Farroway settled Mr Todhunter and herself in the only two armchairs and prepared to be interviewed.

Mr Todhunter used the same opening which he had found so successful before, but this time he added an unfortunate tail to it.

“Miss Farroway, I am exceedingly worried about your father, and I feel sure that you must be too.”

On this second occasion the result of his cunning made Mr Todhunter feel very uncomfortable; for Felicity Farroway first stared at him, then looked wildly round the room, then stared again and then burst straight into tears.

“Oh, dear me,” observed Mr Todhunter, much distressed. “I didn't mean to upset you. Really, I apologise. . . I . . .”

“But don't you see?” sobbed Miss Farroway. “It's me who's responsible for the whole thing.”

Mr Todhunter was so startled that he did not even notice this remarkable grammar. “You?” he said owlishly. “Responsible?”

“Yes! I introduced them.”

“Oh, I see. Dear me, yes. How very unfortunate. But surely . . .”

“Yes!” repeated the girl vigorously. “I knew what she was like, and I knew Father. I ought to have been drowned for not foreseeing what would happen. Drowned!” She blew her nose unhappily into a piece of chiffon about the size of a rather small postcard.

“Oh, come,” protested Mr Todhunter, feeling thoroughly guilty. “I don't think you need blame yourself, you know. I'm sure you . . .”

“You're a friend of Father's?”

“Well, yes, I—”

“You know everything of course?”

“I think so, but . . . Ah!” said Mr Todhunter cunningly. “Yes, suppose you tell me everything from
your
point of view, Miss Farroway.”

“I don't know that the point of view matters much. It's the facts. And goodness knows, they're damnable enough. Well, Father came to see me at the theatre one day. Jean came into the dressing room I shared with another girl. I introduced Father. She was all over him of course; you know her smarmy way. She'd read all his books and thought they were just
too
marvellous; her favourite author; genius; when would he do her the honour of lunching with her? You know, all the usual gush. And Father simply lapped it up. He's very simple, you know. He really believes what people say to him.

“And the next thing was that I heard from Mother, very worried because Father was coming up to London from Yorkshire more and more often and she had an idea that he was seeing a good deal too much of Jean; did I know anything about it? Well, I thought that was a bit funny, because I hadn't seen Father at all. I was sure he hadn't been to the theatre, at any rate; so I said that what he had told her about the visits being on business was probably true. And the week after that he came up and never went back—nearly a year ago. And he hasn't been back since.”

“But I understand he hasn't formally left your mother?”

“Formally, no. But practically, he has. I simply can't make it out. Jean's got her hooks into him, of course, but I should never have thought Father could have fallen with quite such a thud. The rest of us simply don't exist for him any more.”

“Your sister—Mrs Palmer—thinks he is hardly responsible for his actions over the affair.”

“Oh, you know Viola? Yes, temporary insanity, I suppose. But it's pretty beastly to watch. I mean, when it's your own father.”

“Indeed yes.” Mr Todhunter wondered whether his companion knew anything about recent developments. He put out a feeler. “But I understand the lady is showing signs now of other intentions?”

“You mean she's chucking him? Well, thank goodness for that. I only wonder she hasn't before. She must have sucked him pretty well dry by now. Who's the new victim?”

“Oh well,” hedged Mr Todhunter, regretting his rashness. “I don't know, really. . . .”

Mr Todhunter was not a good dissembler. Within two minutes the information had been dragged out of him.

The girl was really shocked. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed quickly and shallowly; her eyes sparkled, more with anger than tears.

“Mr Todhunter, something—something must be done!”

“I agree,” said Mr Todhunter earnestly. “I do indeed.”