When they were left alone Michael, standing with his back to the fire, lit a cigarette.
‘I’m afraid it’s been very quiet down here; I hope you haven’t had an awfully dull time.’
‘It’s been heavenly.’
‘You’ve made a tremendous success with my people.
They’ve taken an enormous fancy to you.’
‘God, I’ve worked for it,’ thought Julia, but aloud said:
‘How d’you know?’
‘Oh, I can see it.
Father told me you were very ladylike, and not a bit like an actress, and mother says you’re so sensible.’
Julia looked down as though the extravagance of these compliments was almost more than she could bear.
Michael came over and stood in front of her.
The thought occurred to her that he looked like a handsome young footman applying for a situation.
He was strangely nervous.
Her heart thumped against her ribs.
‘Julia dear, will you marry me?’
For the last week she had asked herself whether or not he was going to propose to her, and now that he had at last done so, she was strangely confused.
‘Michael!’
‘Not immediately, I don’t mean.
But when we’ve got our feet on the ladder.
I know that you can act me off the stage, but we get on together like a house on fire, and when we do go into management I think we’d make a pretty good team.
And you know I do like you most awfully.
I mean, I’ve never met anyone who’s a patch on you.’ (‘The blasted fool, why does he talk all that rot? Doesn’t he know I’m crazy to marry him? Why doesn’t he kiss me, kiss me, kiss me? I wonder if I dare tell him I’m absolutely sick with love for him.’)
‘Michael, you’re so handsome.
No one could refuse to marry you!’
‘Darling!’ (I’d better get up. He wouldn’t know how to sit down. God, that scene that Jimmie made him do over and over again!’) She got on her feet and put up her face to his.
He took her in his arms and kissed her lips.
‘I must tell mother.’
He broke away from her and went to the door.
‘Mother, mother!’
In a moment the Colonel and Mrs Gosselyn came in.
They bore a look of happy expectancy. (‘By God, it was a put-up job.’)
‘Mother, father, we’re engaged.’
Mrs Gosselyn began to cry.
With her awkward, lumbering gait she came up to Julia, flung her arms round her, and sobbing, kissed her.
The Colonel wrung his son’s hand in a manly way and releasing Julia from his wife’s embrace kissed her too.
He was deeply moved.
All this emotion worked on Julia and, though she smiled happily, the tears coursed down her cheeks.
Michael watched the affecting scene with sympathy.
‘What d’you say to a bottle of pop to celebrate?’ he said.
‘It looks to me as though mother and Julia were thoroughly upset.’
‘The ladies, God bless ’em,’ said the Colonel when their glasses were filled.
5.
JULIA now was looking at the photograph of herself in her wedding-dress.
‘Christ, what a sight I looked.’
They decided to keep their engagement to themselves, and Julia told no one about it but Jimmie Langton, two or three girls in the company and her dresser.
She vowed them to secrecy and could not understand how within forty-eight hours everyone in the theatre seemed to know all about it.
Julia was divinely happy.
She loved Michael more passionately than ever and would gladly have married him there and then, but his good sense prevailed.
They were at present no more than a couple of provincial actors, and to start their conquest of London as a married couple would jeopardize their chances.
Julia showed him as clearly as she knew how, and this was very clearly indeed, that she was quite willing to become his mistress, but this he refused.