The public is so kind, so very kind.
You’re a pretty little thing.
And young.
Youth is so beautiful.
Our policy has always been to give the younger people a chance.
After all we can’t go on for ever, and we look upon it as a duty we owe the public to train up actors and actresses to take our place when the time comes.’
Julia said these words so simply, in her beautifully modulated voice, that Joan Denver’s heart was warmed.
She’d got round the old girl and the understudy was as good as hers.
Tom Fennell had said that if she played her cards well with Roger it might easily lead to something.
‘Oh, that won’t be a for a long while yet, Miss Lambert,’ she said, her eyes, her pretty dark eyes glowing. (‘You’re right there, my girl, dead right. I bet I could play you off the stage when I was seventy.’)
‘I must think it over.
I hardly know yet what understudies we shall want in our next play.’
‘I hear there’s some talk of Avice Crichton for the girl’s part.
I thought perhaps I could understudy her.’
Avice Crichton.
No flicker of the eyes showed that the name meant anything to Julia.
‘My husband has mentioned her, but nothing is settled yet.
I don’t know her at all.
Is she clever?’
‘I think so.
I was at the Academy with her.’
‘And pretty as a picture, they tell me.’
Rising to her feet to show that the audience was at an end, Julia put off her royalty.
She changed her tone and became on a sudden the jolly, good-natured actress who would do a good turn to anyone if she could.
‘Well, dear, leave me your name and address and if there’s anything doing I’ll let you know.’
‘You won’t forget me, Miss Lambert?’
‘No, dear, I promise you I won’t.
It’s been so nice to see you.
You have a very sweet personality.
You’ll find your way out, won’t you?
Good-bye.’
‘A fat chance she’s got of ever setting foot in this theatre,’ said Julia to herself when she was gone.
‘Dirty little bitch to seduce my son.
Poor lamb.
It’s a shame, that’s what it is; women like that oughtn’t to be allowed.’
She looked at herself in the glass as she slipped out of her beautiful gown.
Her eyes were hard and her lips had a sardonic curl.
She addressed her reflection.
‘And I may tell you this, old girl: there’s one person who isn’t going to play in Nowadays and that’s Miss Avice Crichton.’
21.
BUT a week or so later Michael mentioned her.
‘I say, have you ever heard of a girl called Avice Crichton?’
‘Never.’
‘I’m told she’s rather good.
A lady and all that sort of thing.
Her father’s in the army.
I was wondering if she’d do for Honor.’
‘How did you hear about her?’
‘Through Tom.
He knows her, he says she’s clever.