She was a hard, mercenary little thing, Julia was sure of that, she wouldn’t be much inclined to bother about him when his money flowed less freely.
The fool to be taken in by her pretence of virtue!
Julia knew the type.
It was quite obvious, she was only using Tom to get a part at the Siddons and the moment she got it she would give him the air.
Julia started when this notion crossed her mind.
She had promised Tom that Avice should have the part in Nowadays because it fell into the scene she was playing, but she had attached no importance to her promise.
Michael was always there to put his foot down.
‘By God, she shall have the part,’ she said out loud.
She chuckled maliciously.
‘Heaven knows, I’m a good-natured woman, but there are limits to everything.’
It would be a satisfaction to turn the tables on Tom and Avice Crichton.
She sat on, in the darkness, grimly thinking how she would do it.
But every now and then she started to cry again, for from the depths of her subconscious surged up recollections that were horribly painful.
Recollections of Tom’s slim, youthful body against hers, his warm nakedness and the peculiar feel of his lips, his smile, at once shy and roguish, and the smell of his curly hair.
‘If I hadn’t been a fool I’d have said nothing.
I ought to know him by now.
It’s only an infatuation.
He’d have got over it and then he’d have come hungrily back to me.’
Now she was nearly dead with fatigue.
She got up and went to bed.
She took a sleeping-draught.
22. BUT she woke early next morning, at six, and began to think of Tom.
She repeated to herself all she had said to him and all he had said to her.
She was harassed and unhappy.
Her only consolation was that she had carried the rupture through with so careless a gaiety that he could not guess how miserable he had made her.
She spent a wretched day, unable to think of anything else, and angry with herself because she could not put Tom out of her mind.
It would not have been so bad if she could have confided her grief to a friend.
She wanted someone to console her, someone to tell her that Tom was not worth troubling about and to assure her that he had treated her shamefully.
As a rule she took her troubles to Charles or to Dolly.
Of course Charles would give her all the sympathy she needed, but it would be a terrible blow to him, after all he had loved her to distraction for twenty years, and it would be cruel to tell him that she had given to a very ordinary young man what he would gladly have sacrificed ten years of his life for.
She was his ideal and it would be heartless on her part to shatter it.
It certainly did her good at that moment to be assured that Charles Tamerley, so distinguished, so cultured, so elegant, loved her with an imperishable devotion.
Of course Dolly would be delighted if she confided in her.
They had not seen much of one another lately, but Julia knew that she had only to call up and Dolly would come running.
Even though she more than suspected the truth already she’d be shocked and jealous when Julia made a clean breast of it, but she’d be so thankful that everything was over, she’d forgive.
It would be a comfort to both of them to tear Tom limb from limb.
Of course it wouldn’t be very nice to admit that Tom had chucked her, and Dolly was so shrewd, she would never get away with the lie that she had chucked him.
She wanted to have a good cry with somebody, and there didn’t seem to be any reason for it if she had made the break herself.
It would be a score for Dolly, and however sympathetic she was it was asking too much of human nature to expect that she would be altogether sorry that Julia had been taken down a peg or two.
Dolly had always worshipped her.
She wasn’t going to give her a peep at her feet of clay.
‘It almost looks as if the only person I can go to is Michael,’ she giggled.
‘But I suppose it wouldn’t do.’
She knew exactly what he would say.
‘My dear girl, I’m really not the sort of feller you ought to come to with a story like that.
Damn it all, you put me in a very awkward position.
I flatter myself I’m pretty broad-minded, I may be an actor, but when all’s said and done I am a gentleman, and well, I mean, I mean it’s such damned bad form.’
Michael did not get home till the afternoon, and when he came into her room she was resting.
He told her about his week-end and the result of his matches.
He had played very well, some of his recoveries had been marvellous, and he described them in detail.