REHEARSALS began and distracted Julia's troubled mind. The revival that Michael put on when she went abroad had done neither very well nor very badly, but rather than close the theatre he was keeping it in the bill tillNowadayswas ready. Because he was acting two matinees a week, and the weather was hot, he determined that they should take rehearsals easy. They had a month before them.
Though Julia had been on the stage so long she had never lost the thrill she got out of rehearsing, and the first rehearsal still made her almost sick with excitement. It was the beginning of a new adventure. She did not feel like a leading lady then, she felt as gay and eager as if she were a girl playing her first small part. But at the same time she had a delicious sense of her own powers. Once more she had the chance to exercise them.
At eleven o'clock she stepped on to the stage. The cast stood about idly. She kissed and shook hands with the artists she knew and Michael with urbanity introduced to her those she did not. She greeted Avice Crich-ton with cordiality. She told her how pretty she was and how much she liked her hat; she told her about the lovely frocks she had chosen for her in Paris.
"Have you seen Tom lately?" she asked.
"No, I haven't. He's away on his holiday."
"Oh, yes. He's a nice little thing, isn't he?"
"Sweet."
The two women smiled into one another's eyes. Julia watched her when she read her part and listened to her intonations. She smiled grimly. It was exactly what she had expected. Avice was one of those actresses who were quite sure of themselves from the first rehearsal. She didn't know what was coming to her. Tom meant nothing to Julia any more, but she had a score to settle with Avice and she wasn't going to forget it. The slut!
The play was a modern version ofThe Second Mrs. Tanqueray,but with the change of manners of this generation it had been treated from the standpoint of comedy. Some of the old characters were introduced, and Aubrey Tanqueray, now a very old man, appeared in the second act. After Paula's death he had married for the third time. Mrs. Cortelyon had undertaken to compensate him for his unfortunate experience with his second wife, and she was now a cantankerous* and insolent old lady. Ellean, his daughter, and Hugh Ardale had agreed to let bygones be bygones, for Paula's tragic death had seemed to wipe out the recollection of his lapse into extra-conjugal relations; and they had married. He was now a retired brigadier-general who played golf and deplored the decline of the British Empire - "Gad, sir, I'd stand those damned socialists against a wall and shoot 'em if I had my way", whereas Ellean, by this time an elderly woman, after a prudish youth had become gay, modern and plain-spoken. The character that Michael played was called Robert Humphreys, and like the Aubrey of Pinero's play he was a widower with an only daughter; he had been a consul in China for many years, and having come into money had retired and was settling on the estate, near where the Tanquerays still lived, which a cousin had left him. His daughter, Honor (this was the part for which Avice Crichton had been engaged), was studying medicine with the intention of practising in India. Alone in London, and friendless after so many years abroad, he had picked up a well-known woman of the town called Mrs. Marten. Mrs. Marten belonged to the same class as Paula, but she was less exclusive; she "did" the summer and the winter season at Cannes and in the intervals lived in a flat in Albemarle Street where she entertained the officers of His Majesty's brigade. She played a good game of bridge and an even better game of golf. The part well suited Julia.
The author followed the lines of the old play closely. Honor announced to her father that she was abandoning her medical studies and until her marriage wished to live with him, for she had just become engaged to Ellean's son, a young guardsman. Somewhat disconcerted, Robert Humphreys broke to her his intention of marrying Mrs. Marten. Honor took the information with composure.
"Of course you know she's a tart, don't you?" she said coolly.
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