Читать книгу The Education of Eric Lane - Stephen McKenna - Страница 8

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"You'll find me thoroughly dull," Barbara announced abruptly, with the candour of one who studies her effects and with a brusqueness which discouraged further advances. "The doctor says—oh, Mrs. O'Rane's trying to attract your attention."

Eric felt himself dismissed and, submitting to her hint, looked over the malachite bowls of white roses to the place where Mrs. O'Rane was leaning forward with one elbow on the table and her other hand repressing Gaymer. The cast of the "Divorce" was being slightly changed, and they had thought it worth while to venture a sovereign on the name of one nonentity who was retiring in favour of another. Eric adjudicated in Gaymer's favour and was turning to give Barbara a last chance, when he found that the flood-gates were open and that every one, taking his time from Lady Poynter, was prepared to discuss dramatic art in general and, in particular, the construction and history of his play. Their enquiries were simple-minded; bombarded from four different quarters at once, he took the questions at the volley; then, as they seemed interested, he became more expansive, losing his stammer and straying unconsciously into an unrehearsed lecture. There were occasional objections and challenges; but Lady Poynter silenced them ruthlessly with a "Now, my dear, you mustn't interrupt when Mr. Lane's explaining the whole basis of his art," and he discovered suddenly that he was talking well.

"I expect you're tired of hearing it, but I loved that play of yours," said his hostess with a beaming glance which confidently asked her other guests whether she was not well justified in summoning them to meet him. "I've been to see it three times."

"I've been twice, and some one's taking me to it again to-morrow," continued Mrs. O'Rane, for whom no subject of conversation was complete until she had decorated it with a personal touch.

"Even I've been once," murmured Barbara, rousing reluctantly from the silence which she had maintained since the beginning of dinner: "George Oakleigh insisted on taking me. It seems to be having a great success, Mr. Lane."

Eric smiled a little self-consciously; but her deliberate avoidance of enthusiasm chilled him after Lady Poynter's extravagant appreciation.

"No one here seems to have escaped it," he said.

"I kept thinking how clever of you it was to write it," she went on, half to herself.

Such criticism led to nothing but a second self-conscious smile; and, knowing her reputation, he had expected something more stimulating.

"Was it a good house?" he asked.

"Very full, if that's what you mean." She looked past him and lowered her voice. "It was full of Lady Poynters," she went on. "Rows and rows of them. They took it conscientiously, they laughed at the jokes, they missed nothing, even the obvious things; and, if I went next week, I should find them all there again—or other people exactly like them. It was a wonderful—" she hesitated and looked at him long enough to see that he was perplexed, if not annoyed—"experience."

"I hope you don't regret going?"

"Very few plays are as amusing as the audience," she answered thoughtfully. "Oh, I wouldn't have missed it for anything. I wondered what you were like. … " She turned to look at him with leisurely and unsmiling interest. "I expected to find you much younger. How old are you? Twenty-six? Thirty-two! You're ten years older than I am! What in the world have you been doing with yourself?"

"That would take rather a long time to tell!" he laughed.

"I don't expect it would. Life is not measured by days, but by sensations. … "

"Those you experience or those you create?" Eric interrupted.

Barbara turned away and nodded to herself.

"It's like that, is it?" she murmured. "Are you declaring war? If so, you're clever enough to fight with your own weapons instead of picking up the rusty swords of men I've already beaten. You knew little Val Arden, of course? And my cousin Jim Loring? They taught you to call me a 'sensationalist.' Labels are an indolent man's device for guessing what's inside a bottle without tasting."

"They sometimes prevent accidental poisoning."

"If the right labels are on the right bottles. That's what I have to find out. And it's worth an occasional risk. … Sensationalist! I collect new emotions, but you must be bourgeois yourself if you want to épater le bourgeois. Now, you can't have had many emotions, or you wouldn't have written that play. And yet—what were you doing before?" she demanded abruptly.

"I followed the despised calling of a journalist."

"Ah!"

She nodded and began eating her quail without explaining herself further. Eric was nettled by her tone, for she was taking pains to let him see that she had not liked his play, perhaps even that she despised him for writing it. He half turned to Lady Poynter, but she was deep in conversation with her nephew. For a time he, too, concentrated his attention on the quail; but every one else was talking, and, though Barbara's challenge was too pert to be taken seriously, he felt that half-praise from her was more valuable than the adulation of women like Mrs. Shelley who were content to worship success for its own sake.

"What was the precise meaning of the 'Ah!'?" he enquired lazily.

"'Meaning'; not 'precise meaning.' You surely don't want me to see that you're rather losing your temper and trying to cover it up by being dignified. You've been so careful with your effects, too! … I said 'Ah,' because you'd given me the clue I was looking for. You were a very clever journalist, I should think."

"Isn't that rash on half an hour's acquaintance?"

"You're forgetting your play—for the first time since it was produced! I felt that, however bad it was as a play, it was first-rate journalism. I've told you that I kept thinking how clever of you it was to write it. You mustn't think I didn't enjoy myself. The construction's quite tolerable, and the dialogue's admirable—not a word too much, not a syllable put in for 'cleverness,' no epigrams for epigrams' sake. And you've got a good sense of the theatre."

"I was a dramatic critic for some years. Hence my good press."

"Ah! Well, I felt that night that, if you weren't too old and set, you might live to write a really good play." He bowed slightly. "Have you a cigarette? I hate people smoking in the middle of meals; but Margaret's begun, and I must have something to drown it. Now that, I suppose, would be called an ironical bow, wouldn't it? I mean, in your stage directions? You must guard against that kind of thing, you know."

"I will endeavour to do so, Lady Barbara."

"'Try,' not 'endeavour.' And you mustn't talk like your own characters; you've no idea how debilitating that is. It's bad enough when you try to drag us into the world of your plays, but it's intolerable if you try to drag your plays into our world. Did you ever read a story about a boy who lost all sense of reality by going to the theatre too much? He became dramatic. He slapped his forehead and groaned—— Well, we don't slap our foreheads or groan, however great the provocation. And in moments of stress he would shake hands with people and turn away to hide his emotion. And it wasn't only in gestures, he became dramatic in conduct. When compromising letters came into his hands, he used to burn them unread and without any one looking on, which is manifestly absurd. I forget what happened to him in the end, but I expect he was charged with something he hadn't done to save the husband of the woman he wanted to marry—and whom he'd have made perfectly miserable, if she hadn't taken him in hand very firmly at the outset. And he'd have insisted on having all their quarrels in her bedroom."

Barbara seemed to have talked away her listlessness. The champagne had brought colour into her cheeks and eyes. Eric looked at her with new interest, waiting for the next abrupt change.

"I'm not finding you as thoroughly dull as you warned me to expect," he observed, borrowing her candour of speech.

"I should think not! I'm never dull when it's worth while taking any trouble. I didn't think you were worth while, till you began talking. Then I saw that in spite of the play——"

"I didn't think I should be spared that," he murmured.

"And the poses——"

"Poses?"

"Oh, my dear child, you've postured and advertised yourself till every one's sick of you! A good press—I should think you had! You're never out of it! An announcement that you've left London—and the intolerable effrontery of telling us all about it! The only way you could escape from your mob of adorers."

"I don't think I used the word 'adorers'; and I've got to find time somehow to rehearse my new play."

His voice had grown a little stiff. Barbara smiled to herself and discovered suddenly that the desire to hurt him was dead.

"When's the new play coming out?" she asked.

"In the middle of next month."

"You can't make it later?"

"Are you afraid you won't be able to attend the first night?" he laughed.

"God forbid! But I shan't have time to complete your education in a month. Now, I'm talking seriously. Put that play off! You're only a child, you've made a mint of money out of this present abomination. If you'll wait till I've educated you——"

Her pupils had dilated until the irises were swamped in black. The early warm flush had shrunk and intensified into two vivid splashes of colour over her cheek-bones. Neurotic, Eric decided; but arresting and magnetic.

"And what do you propose to teach me?" he enquired.

As he spoke, he was conscious of a lull in the conversation. Without looking round, he knew that every one was watching them and that both their voices had risen a tone.

"Life!" she cried. "You've never met men and women. I told George Oakleigh so that night. That's why the public loves your play."

Eric turned to Lady Poynter.

"I have a new play coming out next month," he explained, "and Lady Barbara wants me to hang it up till she's taught me—did you say 'life'?"

"Yes! Margaret, darling, any young man may write one successful bad play——"

There was a gasp of orotund protest from Lady Poynter.

"My dear Babs!"

"Of course it's a bad play! What I don't know about bad plays isn't worth knowing, I've seen so many of them! Have you ever met a woman, Mr. Lane? Have you ever even fancied that you were in love?"

Eric took a cigarette and lighted one for Barbara.

"I thought I knew a lot about life when I was twenty-two," he said, studiedly reflective. "I'd just come down from Oxford."

Her attention seemed to have wandered to her cigarette, for she drew hard at it and then asked for another match.

"Which was your college?" she enquired with neurotic suddenness of transition.

"Trinity."

"Did you know my brother? He must have been up about your time. He was at the House."

"I knew him by sight. Tall, fair-haired man; he was on the Bullingdon. I never met him, though. I didn't know many men at the House."

Barbara thought for a moment.

"I don't believe I know any one who was at Trinity in your time. Did you ever meet a man called Waring?"

"Jack Waring of New College? I've known him all my life. They're neighbours of ours in Hampshire. You know he's missing?"

Barbara nodded quickly.

"So I heard. … I suppose nothing definite's known?"

"I haven't met any of the family since the news was published, but I shall see his sister this week-end."

"Well, if you can find out anything without too much bother——"

"Oh, she's a great friend of mine," Eric explained. "It's no trouble."

Barbara turned to him with a rapid backward cast to her earlier quest.

"Are you in love with her? Oh, but why not?" she demanded querulously. "It would do you so much good—as a man and as a writer. You'll never get rid of your self-satisfaction till then; and you'll never write a good play. It's such a pity, when you've everything except the psychology. Why don't you fall in love with me? I could teach you such a lot, and you'd never regret it." Barbara caught her hostess' eye and picked up her gloves. "You'd write a tolerable play in the middle of it, a work of genius at the end——"

Eric's laugh interrupted her eager outpour.

"I'm quite satisfied to be an observer of life."

"Dear child, you're quite satisfied with everything. You're sunk in soulless contentment; you shirk emotion because it would force you to see below the pink-and-white surface; that's why you write such bad plays. Margaret!" She approached Lady Poynter with outstretched arms. "I've argued myself hoarse trying to persuade Mr. Lane to fall in love with me. Do see what you can do! He shews all the obstinacy of a young, weak man; he won't see how much I should improve him. When he'd learnt life at my hands——"

Lady Poynter threw a crushing arm round the girl's waist.

"Come on, Babs. You're looking better than you did," she said. "I told you you'd fall in love with him," she added, as they walked upstairs.

"There's nothing much the matter with Babs," commented Gaymer meaningly, as he shut the door and settled into a chair beside Lord Poynter.