Final Curtain

2

Departure

I

Troy wished that Thomas Ancred would say good-bye and leave her to savour the moment of departure. She enjoyed train journeys enormously, and, in these days, not a second of the precious discomfort should be left unrelished. But there stood Thomas on the Euston platform with nothing to say, and filled, no doubt, with the sense of tediousness that is inseparable from these occasions. ‘Why doesn’t he take off his hat and walk away,’ Troy thought fretfully. But when she caught his eye, he gave her such an anxious smile that she instantly felt obliged to reassure him.

‘I have been wondering,’ Thomas said, ‘if, after all, you will merely loathe my family.’

‘In any case I shall be working.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed, looking immensely relieved, ‘there is that. I can’t tell you how much I dislike many actors, and yet, when I begin to work with them, sometimes I quite love them. If they do what I tell them, of course.’

‘Are you working this morning?’ And she thought: how unreal the activities seem of people one leaves behind on railway stations.

‘Yes,’ said Thomas, ‘a first rehearsal.’

‘Please don’t wait,’ she said for the fourth time, and for the fourth time he replied: ‘I’ll just see you off,’ and looked at his watch. Doors were slammed farther down the train. Troy leant out of the window. At last she was off. A man in uniform, peering frenziedly into carriage after carriage, was working his way towards her. ‘Nigel!’ Troy shouted. ‘Nigel!’

‘Oh, God, there you are!’ cried Nigel Bathgate. ‘Hallo, Thomas! Here! Troy! I knew I wouldn’t have time to talk so I’ve written.’ He thrust a fat envelope at her. A whistle blew. The train clunked, and Thomas said: ‘Well, good-bye; they will be pleased;’ raised his hat and slid out of view. Nigel walked rapidly along beside the window. ‘What a go! You will laugh,’ he said. ‘Is this a novel?’ Troy asked, holding up the envelope. ‘Almost! You’ll see.’ Nigel broke into a run. ‘I’ve always wanted to – you’ll see – when’s Roderick –?’ ‘Soon!’ Troy cried. ‘In three weeks!’ ‘Good-bye! I can’t run any more.’ He had gone.

Troy settled down. A young man appeared in the corridor. He peered in at the door and finally entered the already crowded carriage. With a slight twittering noise he settled himself on his upturned suitcase, with his back to the door, and opened an illustrated paper. Troy noticed that he wore a jade ring on his first finger, a particularly bright green hat and suede shoes. The other passengers looked dull and were also preoccupied with their papers. Rows of backyards and occasional heaps of rubble would continue for some time in the world outside the window pane. She sighed luxuriously, thought how much easier it would be to wait for her husband now that she was forced to paint, fell into a brief day-dream, and finally opened Nigel’s letter.

Three sheets of closely typed reporter’s paper fell out, together with a note written in green ink.

‘13 hours, G.M.T.,’ Nigel had written. ‘Troy, my dear, two hours ago Thomas Ancred, back from his visit to you, rang me up in a triumph. You’re in for a party but the G.O.M. will be grand to paint. I’ve always died to write up the Ancreds but can’t afford the inevitable libel action. So I’ve amused myself by dodging up the enclosed jeu d’esprit. It may serve to fill in your journey. N.B.’

The typescript was headed: ‘Note on Sir Henry Ancred, Bart., and his Immediate Circle.’ ‘Do I want to read it?’ Troy wondered. ‘It was charming of Nigel to write it, but I’m in for two weeks of the Ancreds and Thomas’s commentary was exhaustive.’ And she let the pages fall in her lap. At the same time the young man on the suitcase lowered his modish periodical, and stared fixedly at her. He impressed her disagreeably. His eyes suggested a kind of dull impertinence. Under the line of hair on his lip his mouth was too fresh, and projected too far above a small white chin. Everything about him was over-elegant, Troy thought, and dismissed him as an all-too-clearly-defined type. He continued to stare at her. ‘If he was opposite,’ she thought, ‘he would begin to ask questions about the windows. What does he want?’ She lifted the sheets of Nigel’s typescript and began to read.

II

‘Collectively and severally,’ Nigel had written, ‘the Ancreds, all but one, are over-emotionalised. Any one attempting to describe or explain their behaviour must keep this characteristic firmly in mind, for without it they would scarcely exist. Sir Henry Ancred is perhaps the worst of the lot, but, because he is an actor, his friends accept his behaviour as part of his stock-in-trade, and apart from an occasional feeling of shyness in his presence, seldom make the mistake of worrying about him. Whether he was drawn to his wife (now deceased) by the discovery of a similar trait in her character, or whether, by the phenomenon of marital acclimatisation, Lady Ancred learnt to exhibit emotion with a virtuosity equal to that of her husband, cannot be discovered. It can only be recorded that she did so; and died.

‘Their elder daughters, Pauline (Ancred played in The Lady of Lyons in ’96) and Desdemona (Othello, 1909), and their sons, Henry Irving (Ancred played a bit-part in The Bells) and Claude (Pauline’s twin) in their several modes, have inherited or acquired the emotional habit. Only Thomas (Ancred was resting in 1904 when Thomas was born) is free of it. Thomas, indeed, is uncommonly placid. Perhaps for this reason his parent, sisters, and brothers appeal to him when they hurt each other’s feelings, which they do punctually, two or three times a week, and always with an air of tragic astonishment.

‘Pauline, Claude, and Desdemona, in turn, followed their father’s profession. Pauline joined a northern repertory company, married John Kentish, a local man of property, retired upon provincial glories more enduring than those she was likely to enjoy as an actress, and gave birth to Paul and, twelve years later, Patricia (born 1936 and known as Panty). Like all Ancred’s children, except Thomas, Pauline was extremely handsome, and has retained her looks.

‘Claude, her twin, drifted from Oriel into the O.U.D.S., and thence, on his father’s back, into romantic juveniles. He married the Hon. Miss Jenetta Cairnes, who had a fortune, but never, he is fond of saying, has understood him. She is an intelligent woman. They have one daughter, Fenella.

‘Desdemona, Sir Henry’s fourth child (aged thirty-six at the time of this narrative), has become a good emotional actress, difficult to place, as she has a knack of cracking the seams of the brittle slickly drawn rôles for which West-End managements, addled by her beauty, occasionally cast her. She has become attached to a Group, and appears in pieces written by two surrealists, uttering her lines in such a heartrending manner that they seem, even to Desdemona herself, to be fraught with significance. She is unmarried and has suffered a great deal from two unhappy love affairs.

‘The eldest son, Henry Irving Ancred, became a small-part actor and married Mildred Cooper, whom his father promptly re-christened Millamant, as at that time he was engaged upon a revival of The Way of the World. Millamant she has remained, and, before her husband died, gave birth to a son, Cedric, about whom the less said the better.

‘Your friend, Thomas, is unmarried. Having discovered, after two or three colourless ventures, that he was a bad actor, he set about teaching himself to become a good producer. In this, after a struggle, he succeeded, and is now established as director for Incorporated Playhouses, Limited, Unicorn Theatre. He has never been known to lose his temper at rehearsals, but may sometimes be observed, alone in the stalls, rocking to and fro with his head in his hands. He lives in a bachelor’s flat in Westminster.

‘All these offspring, Pauline, Claude, Desdemona and Thomas, their sister-in-law, Millamant, and their children, are like details in a design, the central motive of which is Sir Henry himself. Sir Henry, known to his associates as the G.O.M. of the Stage, is believed to be deeply attached to his family. That is part of his legend, and the belief may be founded in fact. He sees a great deal of his family, and perhaps it would be accurate to say that he loves best those particular members of it of whom, at any given moment, he sees least. His wife he presumably loved. They never quarrelled and always sided together against whichever of their young had wounded the feelings of one or the other of them. Thomas was the exception to this, as he is to most other generalities one might apply to the Ancreds.

‘“Old Tommy!” Sir Henry will say. “Funny chap! Never quite know where you are with him. T’uh!” This scarcely articulated noise, “T’uh,” is used by all the Ancreds (except, of course, Thomas) to express a kind of disillusioned resignation. It’s uttered on a high note and is particularly characteristic.

‘Sir Henry is not a theatrical knight but a baronet, having inherited his title, late in life, from an enormously wealthy second cousin. It’s a completely obscure baronetcy, and, although perfectly genuine, difficult to believe in. Perhaps this is because he himself is so obviously impressed by it and likes to talk about Norman ancestors with names that sound as if they’d been chosen from the dramatis personæ in a Lyceum programme, the Sieur D’Ancred, and so on. His crest is on everything. He looks, as his dresser is fond of saying, every inch the aristocrat – silver hair, hook nose, blue eyes. Up to a few years ago he still appeared in drawing-room comedies, giving exquisite performances of charming or irascible buffers. Sometimes he forgot his lines, but, by the use of a number of famous mannerisms, diddled his audiences into believing it was a lesser actor who had slipped. His last Shakespearian appearance was as Macbeth on the Bard’s birthday, at the age of sixty-eight. He then developed a chronic gastric disorder and retired from the stage to his family seat, Ancreton, which in its architectural extravagances may possibly remind him of Dunsinane.

‘There he remains, guarded by Millamant, who, since the death of her husband, has house-kept for her father-in-law, and who is supposed by the rest of her family to be feathering a nest for her son, the egregious Cedric, who is delicate. The family (excepting Thomas) is inclined to laugh with bitter emphasis when Cedric is mentioned, and to criticise poor Milly’s treatment of the G.O.M. Milly is a jolly woman and laughs at them. She once told Thomas that if either of his sisters cared to take on her job she’d be delighted to relinquish it. She had them there, for though they all visit Ancreton a great deal, they invariably leave after a few days in a tempest of wounded feelings.

‘Occasionally they close their ranks. They have done so at the moment, being at war, as a family, with Miss Sonia Orrincourt, an indifferent actress, with whom, at the age of seventy-five, their father is having a fling. This astounding old man has brought the lady to Ancreton, and there, it appears, she intends to remain. She is an erstwhile member of the chorus and was selected as a type to understudy a small part in a piece at the Unicorn. This was a shattering innovation. The Unicorn, in the theatre world, is as Boodles in clubland. No musical comedy artist, before Miss Orrincourt, had enlivened its stage-door. Sir Henry watched a rehearsal. In three weeks Miss Orrincourt, having proved a complete washout as an understudy, was given the sack by Thomas. She then sought out his father, wept on his waistcoat, and reappeared in her present unmistakable rôle at Ancreton. She is a blonde. Pauline and Desdemona say that she is holding out on the Old Man with a view to matrimony. Thomas believes her to have taken the more complaisant attitude. Claude, in the Middle East, has sent a cable so guarded in its phrases that the only thing it makes clear is his rage. Claude’s wife, Jenetta, a shrewd and amusing woman, who maintains a detached attitude to her relations-by-marriage, has been summoned, in Claude’s absence, to a conclave. It is possible that her only child, Fenella, hitherto a second favourite with Sir Henry after Pauline’s child Panty, might lose ground if he married. Even jolly Millamant is shaken. Her appalling Cedric is the senior grandson, and Sir Henry has of late begun to drop disconcerting hints that there is life in the old dog yet.

‘This, then, is the set-up at Ancreton. My information has come by way of occasional visits and Thomas, who, as you will have discovered, is a talkative chap and doesn’t know the meaning of the word reticence.

‘In some such fashion as this, dear Troy, would I begin the novel that I dare not attempt. One word more. I understand you are to paint Sir Henry in the character of Macbeth. May I assure you that with Pauline’s child Panty on the premises you will find yourself also furnished with a Bloody Child.’

III

Troy folded the typescript, and replaced it in its envelope across which Nigel had written her name in bold characters. The young man on the suitcase stared fixedly at the envelope. She turned it face downwards on her lap. His illustrated paper hung open across his knee. She saw, with annoyance, her own photograph.

So that was what he was up to. He’d recognized her. Probably, she thought, he potters about doing fancy little drawings. He looks like it. If the other people get out before we reach Ancreton Halt, he’ll introduce himself and my lovely train journey will be ruined. Damn!

The country outside the window changed to a hurrying tapestry of hedgerows, curving downs and naked trees. Troy watched it contentedly. Having allowed herself to be bamboozled into taking this commission, she had entered into a state of emotional suspension. It was deeply satisfactory to know that her husband would soon return. She no longer experienced moments of something like terror lest his three years absence should drop like a curtain between their understanding of each other. The Commissioner had promised she should know two days beforehand of Alleyn’s arrival, and in the meantime the train carried her to a job among strangers who at least would not be commonplace. But I hope, Troy thought, that their family upheaval won’t interfere with the old boy’s sittings. That would be a bore.

The train drew into a junction, and the other passengers, with the exception of the young man on the suitcase, began to collect themselves. Just what she’d feared, thought Troy. She opened her lunch-basket and a book. If I eat and read at him, she thought, that may keep him off; and she remembered Guy de Maupassant’s strictures upon people who eat in the train.

Now they were off again. Troy munched her sandwiches and read the opening scene of Macbeth. She had decided to revisit that terrible country whose only counterpart, she thought, was to be found in Emily Brontë. This fancy pleased her, and she paused to transport the wraiths of Heathcliff and Cathy to the blasted heath or to follow Fleance over the moors to Wuthering Heights. But, if I am to paint Macbeth, she thought, I must read. And as the first inflexions in the voice of a friend who is re-met after a long absence instantly prepare us for tones that we are yet to hear, so with its opening phrases, the play, which she thought she had forgotten, returned wholly to her memory.

‘Do forgive me for interrupting,’ said a high-pitched voice, ‘but I’ve been madly anxious to talk to you, and this is such a magical opportunity.’

The young man had slid along the seat and was now opposite. His head was tilted ingratiatingly to one side and he smiled at Troy. ‘Please don’t think I’m seething with sinister intentions,’ he said. ‘Honestly, there’s no need to pull the communication cord.’

‘I didn’t for a moment suppose there was,’ said Troy.

‘You are Agatha Troy, aren’t you?’ he continued anxiously. ‘I couldn’t be mistaken. I mean, it’s too shatteringly coincidental, isn’t it? Here I am, reading my little journal, and what should I see but a perfectly blissful photograph of you. So exciting and so miraculously you. And if I’d had the weeniest doubt left, that alarming affair you’re reading would have settled it.’

Troy looked from her book to the young man. ‘Macbeth?’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’

‘Oh, but it was too conclusive,’ he said. ‘But, of course, I haven’t introduced myself, have I? I’m Cedric Ancred.’

‘Oh,’ said Troy after a pause. ‘Oh, yes. I see.’

‘And then to clinch it, there was your name on that envelope. I’m afraid I peered shamelessly. But it’s too exciting that you’re actually going to make a picture of the Old Person in all his tatts and bobs. You can’t imagine what that costume is like! And the toque! Some terrifically powerful man beat it out of solid steel for him. He’s my Grandpa, you know. My mother is Millamant Ancred. My father, only promise you won’t tell anyone, was Henry Irving Ancred. Imagine!’

Troy could think of nothing to say in reply to this recital and took another bite out of her sandwich.

‘So, you see, I had to make myself known,’ he continued with an air that Troy thought of as ‘winsome’. ‘I’m so burnt up always about your work, and the prospect of meeting you was absolutely tonic.’

‘But how did you know,’ Troy asked, ‘that I was going to paint Sir Henry?’

‘I rang up Uncle Thomas last night and he told me. I’d been commanded to the presence, and had decided that I couldn’t face it, but immediately changed my plans. You see,’ said Cedric with a boyish frankness which Troy found intolerable, ‘you see, I actually try to paint. I’m with Pont et Cie. and I do the designs. Of course everything’s too austerity and grim nowadays, but we keep toddling.’

His suit was silver grey. His shirt was pale green, his pullover was dark green, and his tie was orange. He had rather small eyes, and in the middle of his soft round chin there was a dimple.

‘If I may talk about your work,’ he was saying, ‘there’s a quality in it that appeals to me enormously. It – how can I describe it? – its design is always consistent with its subject matter. I mean, the actual pattern is not something arbitrarily imposed on the subject but an inevitable consequence of it. Such integrity, always. Or am I talking nonsense?’

He was not talking complete nonsense and Troy grudgingly admitted it. There were few people with whom she cared to discuss her work. Cedric Ancred watched her for a few seconds. She had the unpleasant feeling that he sensed her distaste for him. His next move was unexpected. He ran his fingers through his hair, which was damply blond and wavy. ‘God!’ he said. ‘People! The things they say! If only one could break through, as you have. God! Why is life so perpetually bloody?’

‘Oh, dear!’ Troy thought and shut her luncheon basket. Cedric was gazing at her fixedly. Evidently she was expected to reply.

‘I’m not much good,’ she said, ‘at generalities about life.’

‘No!’ he muttered and nodded his head profoundly. ‘Of course not. I so agree. You are perfectly right, of course.’

Troy looked furtively at her watch. A full half-hour, she thought, before we get to Ancreton Halt and then, he’s coming too.

‘I’m boring you,’ Cedric said loudly. ‘No, don’t deny it. God! I’m boring you. T’uh!’

‘I just don’t know how to carry on this sort of conversation, that’s all.’

Cedric began to nod again.

‘You were reading,’ he said. ‘I stopped you. One should never do that. It’s an offence against the Holy Ghost.’

‘I never heard such nonsense,’ said Troy with spirit.

Cedric laughed gloomily. ‘Go on!’ he said. ‘Please go on. Return to your “Blasted Heath”. It’s an atrociously bad play, in my opinion, but go on reading it.’

But it was not easy to read, knowing that a few inches away he was glaring at her over his folded arms. She turned a page. In a minute or two he began to sigh. ‘He sighs,’ thought Troy, ‘like the Mock Turtle, and I think he must be mad.’ Presently he laughed shortly, and, in spite of herself, Troy looked up. He was still glaring at her. He had a jade cigarette case open in his hand.

‘You smoke?’ he asked.

She felt certain that if she refused he would make some further peculiar scene, so she took one of his cigarettes. He lit it in silence and flung himself back in his corner.

After all, Troy thought, I’ve got to get on with him, somehow, and she said: ‘Don’t you find it extraordinarily tricky hitting on exactly the right note in fashion drawings? When one thinks of what they used to be like! There’s no doubt that commercial art –’

‘Prostitution!’ Cedric interrupted. ‘Just that. If you don’t mind the initial sin it’s quite amusing.’

‘Do you work at all for the theatre?’

‘So sweet of you to take an interest,’ Cedric answered rather acidly. ‘Oh, yes. My Uncle Thomas occasionally uses me. Actually I’m madly keen on it. One would have thought that with the Old Person behind one there would have been an opening. Unfortunately he is not behind me, which is so sickening. I’ve been cut out by the Infant Monstrosity.’ He brightened a little. ‘It’s some comfort to know I’m the eldest grandson, of course. In my more optimistic moments I tell myself he can’t leave me completely out of his will. My worst nightmare is the one when I dream I’ve inherited Ancreton. I always wake screaming. Of course, with Sonia on the tapis, almost anything may happen. You’ve heard about Sonia?’

Troy hesitated and he went on: ‘She’s the Old Person’s little bit of nonsense. Immensely decorative. I can’t make up my mind whether she’s incredibly stupid or not, but I fear not. The others are all for fighting her, tooth and claw, but I rather think of ingratiating myself in case he does marry her. What do you think?’