Half Moon Street (32 page)

“It’s not always easy,” she replied frankly. “You can envy them their youth, and be exasperated by it. And you agonize for their mistakes, especially when you can see them even at the time. And of course you never cease to feel guilt for everything they do that turns out badly. Every flaw of character is directly attributable to something you did . . . or failed to do, or did the wrong way, or at the wrong time.”

He put his arm around her. “Come! We’ll go and congratulate Cecily . . . and commiserate with her—or whatever seems best.” But he was smiling as he said it, and the faint lines had eased out from around his mouth.

The dressing room was already crowded when they arrived, but this time Orlando was not there. He was the center now, not peripheral to his mother’s star.

Cecily stood with her back to the dressing table and the looking glass. She was still wearing the gorgeous gown from the last act. Her face was radiant, her fair hair spreading a halo around her. At first glance Caroline thought she was miscast as Hamlet’s mother; she looked too young, too vibrant. Then she remembered with a jolt that Cecily was in life Orlando’s mother, so she could not be wrong, except to the imagination.

Lord Warriner was not there this time. It was as if he had chosen deliberately to distance himself from the theatre for a while, or at least from Cecily. Two other minor players stood at the edge of the center looking tired and happy. A woman in a black gown and a magnificent diamond necklace was enthusiastic, and a middle-aged man with ribbons on his chest was agreeing with her.

Cecily saw Joshua almost immediately.

“Darling!” She came forward, arms wide to embrace him. “I’m so glad you could be here. Did you catch the end?” She allowed him to kiss her on both cheeks before she stepped back and acknowledged Caroline. “And Mrs. Fielding . . . Caroline, isn’t it? How generous of you to come as well.”

“Generosity had nothing to do with it,” Caroline replied with a smile she hoped was warmer than she felt. “I came because I wished to . . . for myself . . . from the beginning. And I am delighted I did. It is by far the best
Hamlet
I have ever seen.”

Cecily’s eyes widened. She hesitated only a moment. “Really? And have you seen so many?”

Caroline kept her smile sparklingly in place. “Certainly. From the schoolroom onward. Almost every actor who is remotely suitable has played him at one time or another, and some who are not. I daresay I have seen twenty or more. Your son brought a new life and truth to it. You must be very proud of him.”

“Of course. How kind of you to say so.” Cecily turned back to Joshua. “He was rather marvelous, wasn’t he? It is the strangest sensation to see your own child begin his first stumbling performance, then progress to minor parts on stage, and ultimately have the whole theatre at his feet.” She gave a slight laugh. “Can you imagine how I feel?”

Caroline saw the shadow in Joshua’s face only for an instant. A week ago she might have felt crushed by it for her own inability to give Joshua children. Tonight she felt only anger that Cecily should have chosen to defend herself by hurting him this way.

Before Joshua could reply she stepped in.

“It is always surprising to find one’s children have grown up,” she said sweetly. “And that quite suddenly they can outshine you in the very area in which you thought yourself always superior . . .”

Cecily’s face froze.

“But of course you are thrilled for them,” Caroline continued blithely. “How could one not be? Apart from Lady Macbeth, all Shakespeare’s tragedies seem to be based around men as the protagonists. But I am sure you could be unsurpassable by anyone in some of the great roles in classical Greek drama. I for one would queue all night for a ticket to see you play Clytemnestra or Medea.”

There was total silence in the room. Everyone was staring at Caroline.

No one had heard the door open and Orlando come in.

“Clytemnestra!” he said distinctly. “What a brilliant idea! How extraordinarily clever of you, Mrs. Fielding. Mama has never done the Greeks. That would be a whole new career, and superb! And there is also Phaedra!” He turned to Cecily. “You are too old for Antigone, but you could always do Jocasta . . . but Mrs. Fielding is right, Clytemnestra would be the sublime vehicle for you. Who would want Gertrude after that?”

Cecily looked at Caroline, her head high, her eyes bright.

“Perhaps I should be obliged to you, Mrs. Fielding. I admit, I am surprised. I should never have thought of you as being so . . . liberal in your views of art. You must tell me, why do you think I might do Clytemnestra well?” She laughed. “I hope it is not merely because she has adult children?”

Caroline looked back at her with just as much bright candor.

“Of course not, although that does make a difference to one’s life. But I was thinking of the fact that she is central to the play, not secondary. She is the character whose passions drive the plot. And she has been profoundly wronged in the sacrifice of her daughter. Her murder of her husband is not a sympathetic action, yet it is one most mothers would identify with. It needs an actress of extraordinary power to carry the audience with her and neither play to their pity and lose her own dignity, nor yet become unattractive because of her power and her willingness to take the ultimate step.” She took a deep breath. No one had interrupted her by so much as a movement.

She plunged on. “It should leave one emotionally wrung out and yet deepened in experience, and perhaps with more compassion and understanding than before.” Unwittingly the old lady came to her thoughts again. Horror for endless pain could change one’s own life immeasurably, cast so much in a different view.

For the first time Cecily looked at her directly and without any mask of emotion. “You are most surprising,” she said at length. “I could have sworn you had not a revolutionary idea in your head, much less your heart. And here you are recommending that we stir up the complacent society out there by making them feel Clytemnestra’s passions!” She smiled. “You will provoke letters to the
Times
and thunder from the Archbishop, not to mention disfavor from the Queen, if you suggest that to murder your husband can even be acceptable!” The edge of mockery was back in her voice again.

She swiveled around. “Joshua darling, you had better be careful how you treat your wife’s daughters!” She gestured to Caroline. “You do have daughters, don’t you? Yes, of course you do—one of them is married to that policeman with all the hair. I remember him. For heaven’s sake, darling, don’t sacrifice them to the gods, or you may end your life abruptly with a knife in your heart. There sleeps a tiger inside that calm and dignified-looking wife of yours.”

“Yes, I know,” Joshua said smugly. He placed his hand very lightly on Caroline’s arm just for a second, but it was a gesture of possession, and Caroline felt the warmth ripple through her. The door opened and Bellmaine came in, still dressed in his Polonius robes, the smudges of greasepaint on his face lending him greater gravity rather than detracting from it.

“Wonderful!” he said radiantly. He spoke to all of them, but it was Orlando his eyes rested on. “Wonderful, my dears. You surpassed yourselves. Cecily, you had Gertrude to perfection! I had never seen her in such a sympathetic light before. You made me believe in her unaware-ness of what she had done—until it was too late—a woman caught in the mesh of her own passions. I wept for her.”

“Thank you,” she accepted graciously, smiling at him, but there was a curious brittleness in her stare. “If I can move you to tears for Gertrude, I feel as if I can do anything.”

Bellmaine turned to Orlando. His expression softened to one of pure joy.

“And you, my dear boy, were sublime. I hardly know what to say. I feel as if I have never really seen
Hamlet
before tonight. You have taken me along a new path, shown me a madness and a sense of betrayal that transcend the magic of Shakespeare’s words and take me into a reality of feeling that has left me exhausted. I am a different man.” He spread his hands as if he could say no more.

Caroline knew exactly what he meant. She too had been shown a new and wider experience. She found herself nodding her agreement. It was born of honesty; she could do no less.

Cecily turned to her, an edge to her voice. “So you are happy to be harrowed up in such a way, Mrs. Fielding? I thought from your previous visit that you were in favor of at least some censorship. Excluding the irresponsibility of shouting ‘Fire’ where there is none, and causing a panic, or of advocating crime or falsely speaking of someone else, would you agree that the limiting of ideas is an unmitigated evil? Art must be free if man is to be free. Not to grow is the beginning of death, albeit slow death, perhaps taking a generation or more.” She looked very directly at Caroline. It was a challenge no one in the crowded room mistook. Perhaps it was made because of Orlando’s success, a need to assert herself. One did not give up center stage easily.

Everyone was waiting for Caroline.

She glanced at Joshua. He was smiling. He would not step in and take away her chance to answer. She must speak honestly. She hoped he would not be disappointed in her, or embarrassed, but to say other than what she believed would lay a foundation for misery later. She thought of her daughters, of Jemima, of the old lady sitting hunched up in bed at home.

“Of course not to grow is death.” She felt for the right words. “But we grow at different speeds, and sometimes in different ways. Don’t try to make the argument in general as justification for doing it your way in particular.”

“You have been preparing this!” Cecily said quickly. “You will give me a game for my money after all. So what are you going to censor . . . in general and in particular? You have already said you will allow husband murder in Clytemnestra, a child murder in Medea, and a man to marry his mother and beget children upon her in Oedipus. Great heavens, my dear, what can it be you disapprove of ?”

Caroline felt her face flush hot.

“These are all tragedies, and depicted as such. One feels a terrible pity for the protagonist, an insight into how such things could have come about, and perhaps an admiration for the courage or the honesty with which in the end they meet their fate—good or bad.”

“So it is all right, so long as the values are kept?” Cecily said with wide eyes.

Caroline saw the trap. “Whose values?” she asked. “Is that not what you are going to say?”

Cecily relaxed in a smile. “Exactly. If you are going to answer me that it is society, civilization, or even God, then I will ask you whose God? Which part of society? Mine? Yours? The beggar’s in the street? The old Queen, God bless her? Or Mr. Wilde . . . whose society is certainly different from most people’s!”

“That is your own judgment,” Caroline replied. “But the values we adopt will be the ones the next generation will live by. I am not sure if anyone can decide for you. But no one can relieve you of the responsibility for what you say, in whatever form. And the better you are at it, the more beautiful or powerful your voice, the greater the burden upon you to use it with wisdom and a great deal of care.”

“Oh my God!” Cecily said, a trifle too loudly.

“Bravo!” Orlando gave a little salute of praise.

Caroline turned to look at him. His face startled her, it was so full of emotion, his eyes wide, his lips slightly parted, a kind of rigidity in his body.

Joshua was staring at her.

Bellmaine stood motionless, but his face was filled with amazement and a kind of painful relief it was impossible to interpret. Caroline was startled to see his eyes filled with tears.

“The greatest power sometimes lies in not doing a thing,” she finished; her voice suddenly dropped, but she would not leave the rest unsaid. “It is so easy to use a skill simply because you have it, and not look two . . . three steps ahead to see what it will cause. People listen to you, Miss Antrim. You can move our emotions and make us reconsider all kinds of beliefs. That is very clever. It is not always wise . . .”

Cecily drew in her breath to say something in rebuttal, then looked at Joshua’s face and changed her mind. She turned to Caroline with a dazzling smile.

“I apologize for having thought too little of you.” She said it with utmost sincerity. There was no doubting that she meant it. “I think I should have listened to you rather better. I promise I shall in future.” She turned to the others filling the room. “Now, shall we send for the champagne and toast Orlando? He has deserved all the praise we can give . . . and all the rejoicing. Tomorrow all the world will be congratulating him. Let us be the first, and do it tonight!”

“More than all,” Bellmaine agreed fervently. He raised his hand. “Orlando!”

“Here, here, Orlando!” everyone responded eagerly. Only Orlando himself seemed still bemused. Caroline looked across at him and wondered how exhausted he was. His young face was pale, and his eyes still held the look of Hamlet’s haunted madness. It was not a role one could assume so wholly, live its passions and be destroyed by them, and then cast it off as if it had been a garment and not a skin.

She would have liked to comfort him, but she had no idea how. This was his world, not hers. Perhaps all great actors felt like this? Could one give such a performance merely on technique and skill, rather than by also pouring oneself into it until it became, for a time, one’s own reality?

She looked to Joshua, but he was speaking to one of the other actors and she could not interrupt.

There was a knock on the door, and someone came in with champagne and a tray of glasses.

On the way home through the quiet streets, sitting beside Joshua in the hansom, Caroline was tired, but there was a degree of peace inside her that she had not felt in a long time. She realized now, with surprise, how long it had been. She had spent far too much time looking in the mirror and seeing what she disliked, being frightened of it, and projecting onto Joshua emotions born of that fear.