BACK IN TOWN
THE PLAY HAD reopened with a gala night in its new theatre. The press notices had been even better than at the first. It was established. It was the thing to see. It became fashionable. The younger members of the company began to gather their courage to ask for a rise in salary. Molly, who had always been free to accept any invitation, now had more than she could cope with even by going to two or three parties each night.
Wakefield seldom rose before noon and often did not come back to Gayfere Street till dawn. Finch and Sarah saw little of him. But they were very proud of him and took some acquaintance to see the play each week. Henriette carried his breakfast to him in almost trembling eagerness for the latest gossip of play or players. She treasured every newspaper cutting connected with them and pasted them in an exercise book. Photographs from scenes in the play were revered almost as sacred pictures in her room.
Wakefield was deeply happy in his engagement. He did not buy a ring for Molly. He wanted her to wear the ring left him by his grandmother for his intended wife. He wrote letters to each separate member of the family to tell of his engagement and in return received their congratulations, advice, and warnings. Piers wrote — “I hope you’ll be happy in your engagement while it lasts.”
Now the visit to Wales seemed like a dream except for that moment when he had told Molly he loved her. It stood out like a torch against a misty background. Even when Molly read him letters from home, the members of her family were blurred in his mind like figures in a dream. But he wanted to see them again. He felt tender toward them. They seemed remote yet curiously vulnerable. After his introduction to Althea she had not once spoken to him. Yet he had seen that she wanted to. He had found her book of sketches on a table in the parlor and he was sure she had left them there for him to see. They were curious, wild and harsh, utterly alien, it seemed to him, to the delicate, elusive girl. He had tried to talk to her of her pictures but she had almost run from the room and the sketchbook had disappeared. One day Molly said to him: —
“You made a great hit with my family. They all like you — especially Althea. I wish you could have heard the things she said about you. I really became jealous.” She laughed and put her arm about his shoulders.
Wakefield did not tell her that he had kissed Gemmel.
One hot July day, at the end of a matinee, Ninian Fox overtook Molly and Wake as they were leaving the theatre. He was very excited.
“There’s a New York manager here,” he said. “He has seen the play and likes it tremendously. He likes you two very much and wants to meet you. Wouldn’t it be splendid if he’d buy it for New York?” He slipped his arm into theirs and walked between them, with a secret air, beaming at them like an old friend.
Molly felt rigid at his touch. It was like him to be decent to her now, when someone else had discovered her value!
He propelled them back to his office. They were introduced to Mr. Elias, who was short and smiling and had fleshy aquiline features.
“I do like this play,” he said, when they were seated. “And I’m going to write to New York about it at once. I like you young people very much. Mr. Fox says he thinks he could replace you if I took you over there. Would you like to come?”
They would like it so much that they were almost speechless but they showed proper caution in considering the suggestion. Mr. Elias also wanted Phyllis Rhys and the leading man. The other parts could be filled by actors in New York. Mr. Elias seemed to love to make plans. He talked as though the play had already made a fortune in New York. He had Ninian Fox completely baffled, for he had been prepared to handle Mr. Elias with great shrewdness. It seemed unnecessary. Mr. Elias was ready to pour himself out and, with his good will, the gold of the New World. But when it came to the contract he was more than a match for them all put together. The salaries were not so large as the actors had expected. Ninian Fox, after struggling violently, had to take a smaller percentage than he considered his due. The author came out worst of all.
But things were settled before long and, early in August, they sailed from Southampton. Wakefield and Molly were gloriously happy. They had not a wish unfulfilled. The very sea was kind to them. The voyage was all too short. The morning came when the skyscrapers of New York towered before them in torrid heat. Their foundations seemed to have dissolved in heat, left them suspended in burning sunlight. The ship, through which the salt wind had raced for a week, was sultry and swarming with people. The four members of the company collected in the lounge where aliens were gathered. They waited perspiring, passports in hand.
Mr. Elias came to meet them. He was in a state of heat that surpassed even their own, but it did not trouble him at all. He was cheery and helpful. He gave each one an oily handshake. After his arrival everything seemed miraculously speeded-up. Their passports were examined: they were on the docks. Their luggage was examined; they were in the taxicabs. Through shabby streets, where newspapers were blown about and dirty children played on the frying-pan pavements, they emerged on to clean streets with soaring skyscrapers to shade them. People in light-coloured clothes thronged the pavements. Wake and Molly looked on each as a potential part of an audience.
Their hotel was cool but breathless, yet, when they opened their windows, the heat and dust poured in.
Phyllis Rhys had a sitting room. She was known in New York and already it was filled with bouquets of flowers from her friends and from Mr. Elias. He also had sent a dozen roses for Molly. Wakefield ordered iced drinks for everyone but when he saw the bill he was chilled without the ice. The leading man had got newspapers. There was one apiece. They stood staring at the huge headlines. War, which had receded in the salt spaces of the ocean, now pressed in on them.
“Is the threat worse,” asked Wake, “or is it just these papers?”
Phyllis Rhys was determined there should not be war. “It’s the papers,” she said. “If they don’t have scarifying headlines no one will read them.”
“It all depends on Poland,” said the leading man.
“I wonder what things will be like here,” said Molly, in a small voice, “if there’s a war.”
“It wouldn’t make any difference,” said Phyllis Rhys. “But there’ll not be one.”
“I’d not be here to know,” said Wake. “I’d be back in England.”
“You couldn’t go off like that.” Phyllis Rhys’s voice was sharp. “You’re under contract.”
“I’m willing to bet,” said her leading man, “that it will come this year.”
“Well,” cried Wake, gaily, “let’s make the most of peace while it lasts! Come on, Molly, we’ll explore.”
They put on their thinnest clothes, which were not nearly thin enough, and went into the streets.
“Gosh,” said Wake, “to think that I’m on the same land as Jalna! If I ran fast enough and far enough I should be there!” He was in wild spirits. Everything was fun. All he saw delighted him — the hard bright finish of the shops, the cosmopolitan crowds in the streets, the “tough” taxi drivers, the Negresses dressed in the latest style. What a contrast to London!
“Oh, I wish we were married and on our honeymoon!” he exclaimed. “It would be even better fun.”
“I couldn’t be happier than I am,” she said. His eyes challenged her. “Wait and see.”
Rehearsals began as soon as the cast could be finally selected. Robert Fielding had followed the others on the next ship and was to produce the play and act the comedy part as he had in London. The weeks flew by. The play was to open in mid-September. Mingled with their excitement over the opening, the strain of preparation, was the mounting apprehension of war. Then one morning Wake tapped on Molly’s door. He said through it:
— “It’s come, Molly! War is declared.”