a bit of pinchbeck he’d picked up for five bob on a street stall. He bought his presents in an inverse ratio to the monetary situation of the recipients and Miss Bellamy was rich.
As he strode along in the direction of Knightsbridge he thought with increasing enthusiasm about Husbandry in Heaven and of what he would do with it if he could persuade The Management to take it.
‘The actors,’ he promised himself, ‘shall skip like young rams.’
At Hyde Park Corner he began to sing again. At the corner of Wilton Place a chauffeur-driven car pulled up alongside him. The Management in the person of Mr Montague Marchant, exquisitely dressed, with a gardenia in his coat, leaned from the window. His face and his hair were smooth, fair and pale, and his eyes wary.
‘Timmy!’ Mr Marchant shouted. ‘Look at you! So purposeful! Such devouring strides! Come in, do, for God’s sake, and let us support each other on our approach to the shrine.’
Gantry said: ‘I wanted to see you.’ He doubled himself up like a camel and got into the car. It was his custom to plunge directly into whatever matter concerned him at the moment. He presented his ideas with the same ruthless precipitancy that he brought to his work in the theatre. It was a deceptive characteristic, because in Gantry impulse was subordinate to design.
He drew in his breath with an authoritative gasp. ‘Listen!’ he said. ‘I have a proposition.’
All the way along Sloane Street and into the King’s Road he thrust Richard’s play at Marchant. He was still talking, very eloquently, as they turned up Pardoner’s Row. Marchant listened with the undivided though guarded attention that The Management brought to bear only on the utterances of the elect.
‘You will do this,’ Gantry said as the car turned into Pardoner’s Place, ‘not for me and not for Dicky. You will do it because it’s going to be a Thing for The Management. Mark my words. Here we are. Oh, misery, how I abominate grand parties!’
‘I’d have you remember,’ Marchant said as they went in, ‘that I commit myself to nothing, Timmy.’
‘Naturally, my dear man. But naturally. You will commit yourself, however, I promise you. You will.’
‘Mary, darling!’ they both exclaimed and were swallowed up by the party.
Pinky and Bertie had arranged to go together. They came to this decision after a long gloomy post-luncheon talk in which they weighed the dictates of proper pride against those of professional expediency.
‘Face it, sweetie-pie,’ Bertie had said, ‘if we don’t show up she’ll turn plug-ugly again and go straight to The Management. You know what a fuss Monty makes about personal relationships. “A happy theatre is a successful theatre.” Nobody – but nobody can afford to cut up rough. He loathes internal strife.’
Pinky, who was feeling the effects of her morning excesses, sombrely agreed. ‘God knows,’ she said, ‘that at this juncture I can ill-afford to get myself the reputation of being difficult. After all, my contract isn’t signed, Bertie.’
‘It’s as clear as daylight: magnanimity must be our watchword.’
‘I’ll be blowed if I crawl.’
‘We shan’t have to, dear. A pressure of the hand and a long, long gaze into the eyeballs will carry us through.’
‘I resent having to.’
‘Never mind. Rise above. Watch me: I’m a past master at it. Gird up the loins, dear, such as they are, and remember you’re an actress.’ He giggled. ‘Looked at in the right way it’ll be rather fun.’
‘What shall I wear?’
‘Black, and no jewellery. She’ll be clanking.’
‘I hate being at enmity, Bertie. What a beastly profession ours is. In some ways.’
‘It’s a jungle, darling. Face it – it’s a jungle.’
‘You,’ Pinky said rather enviously, ‘don’t seem to be unduly perturbed, I must say.’
‘My poorest girl, little do you know. I’m quaking.’
‘Really? But could she actually do you any damage?’
‘Can the boa-constrictor,’ Bertie said, ‘consume the rabbit?’
Pinky had thought it better not to press this matter any further. They had separated and gone to their several flats, where in due course they made ready for the party.
Anelida and Octavius also made ready. Octavius, having settled for a black coat, striped trousers and the complementary details that he considered appropriate to these garments, had taken up a good deal of his niece’s attention. She had managed to have a bath and was about to dress when, for the fourth time, he tapped at her door and presented himself before her, looking anxious and unnaturally tidy. ‘My hair,’ he said. ‘Having no unguent, I used a little olive oil. Do I smell like a salad?’
She reassured him, gave his coat a brush and begged him to wait for her in the shop. He had old-fashioned ideas about punctuality and had begun to fret. ‘It’s five-and-twenty minutes to seven. We were asked for half-past six, Nelly.’
‘That means seven at the earliest, darling. Just take a furtive leer through the window and you’ll see when people begin to come. And please, Unk, we can’t go while I’m still in my dressing-gown, can we, now?’
‘No, no, of course not. Half-past six for a quarter-to-seven? Or seven? I see. I see. In that case …’
He pottered downstairs.
Anelida thought: ‘It’s a good thing I’ve had some practice in quick changes.’ She did her face and hair, and she put on a white dress that had been her one extravagance of the year, a large white hat with a black velvet crown, and new gloves. She looked in the glass, forcing herself to adopt the examining attitude she used in the theatre. ‘And it might as well be a first night,’ she thought, ‘the way I’m feeling.’ Did Richard like white? she wondered.
Heartened by the certainty of her dress being satisfactory and her hat becoming, Anelida began to daydream along time-honoured lines. She and Octavius arrived at the party. There was a sudden hush. Monty Marchant, The Management in person, would ejaculate to Timon Gantry, the great producer, ‘Who are they?’ and Timon Gantry, with the abrupt grasp which all actors, whether they had heard it or not, liked to imitate, would reply: ‘I don’t know, but by God, I’m going to find out.’ The ranks would part as she and Octavius, escorted by Miss Bellamy, moved down the room to the accompaniment of a discreet murmur. They would be the cynosure of all eyes. What was a cynosure and why was it never mentioned except in reference to eyes? All eyes on Anelida Lee. And there, rapt in admiration, would be Richard.…
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