now we have no choice but to think. .”
She pulled back, her arms still around his neck. Her smile was radiant. “Really? You mean that? You think we may succeed?”
“Of course,” he responded. “When have I ever lied to you? If it had been merely good I should have said it was good. . ” He pulled a slight face. “I should have been exquisitely vague. As to whether it will succeed or not. . that is in the lap of the gods.”
She laughed. “I’m sorry, darling. I shouldn’t have doubted you. But I do care so much. If we can only make people see the woman’s side.” She waved a hand in a wide gesture. “Freddie may be able to get his bill passed in the House. Change the climate, then the law. Ibsen has already achieved miracles. We are going to build on it. People will see there must be rights in divorce for women also. Isn’t it marvelous to live in an age when there is such work to be done-new battles- chances?”
“Indeed it is,” he agreed, still staring at her. Then suddenly he seemed to remember the others present. “Cecily, you haven’t met my wife, Caroline, and her son-in-law, Thomas Pitt.”
Cecily smiled charmingly and acknowledged the introductions. There was no question she looked just a moment longer at Pitt than at Caroline. Then she turned back to Joshua.
Caroline looked at the other people in the tiny room. Just behind Cecily there was the man she had indicated as Freddie. He had a powerful face, broad-bridged nose and sensuous mouth. He seemed very relaxed, even slightly amused.
Lounging in the other chair was the young man whom Caroline had noticed in the play. Closer to, he bore more of a resemblance to Cecily, and Caroline was not surprised when a few moments later he was introduced as Orlando Antrim; she gathered from the reference that he was Cecily’s son.
There was a couple named Harris and Lydia, and the man so close to Cecily was Lord Frederick Warriner. His presence was partially explained by the reference to a private member’s bill before Parliament, apparently to liberalize the divorce proceedings for women.
Joshua and Cecily were still talking, with only the occasional glance at anyone else. Perhaps they did not mean to exclude others, but their exuberance carried them along, and their professional appreciation was on a different level of understanding from that of those who were merely watchers.
“I tried the scene in rehearsal at least three different ways,” Cecily was saying earnestly. “You see, we might have played it as near hysteria, emotions crowding to break through, high tones in the voice, knife-edge, sharp, jerking movements.” She demonstrated with gestures which somehow excluded Caroline and Pitt, simply because they extended too close to them, as if to a screen on a wall. “Or with tragedy,” she went on. “As if in her heart she already knew what was inevitable. Do you think she did, Joshua? What would you have done?”
“Unaware of it,” he said immediately. “She was beyond such consideration of thought. I am sure if you asked the playwright he’d have said she was far too driven, too honest in emotion to have been aware of what would happen eventually.”
“You’re right,” she agreed, swinging around to Orlando.
He grinned. “Wouldn’t dream of arguing, Mother. More than my role is worth!”
She glared at him in mock anger, then threw her hands up and laughed. She turned to Caroline. “Did you enjoy the play. . Caroline? Yes-Caroline. What did you think of it?” Her wide eyes were unwavering, gray-blue, dark- lashed, impossible to lie to.
Caroline felt cornered. She would far rather not have answered, but now everyone was looking at her, including Joshua. What should she say? Something polite and flattering? Should she try to be perceptive, explain some of the impressions the play had created? She was not even sure if she knew what they wanted to hear.
Or should she tell the truth, that it was disturbing, intrusive, that it raised questions she thought were perhaps better not asked? That it would hurt, maybe waken unhappiness best left sleeping because there was no cure for it? The play had ended in tragedy. Was it good for life to follow the same path? No one could bring the curtain down on it and go home to something else.
What would Joshua expect her to say? What would he want? She must not look at him as if she were expecting a cue. She did not want to hurt or embarrass him. She was suddenly overwhelmed by how much she cared and how inadequate she was to match up to these people. Cecily Antrim was radiant, so absolutely certain of what she thought and felt. The power of her feeling lent an incandescence to her beauty. It was at least half the reason the entire audience had watched her.
Cecily laughed. “My dear, are you afraid to speak, in case you hurt my feelings? I assure you, I can bear it!”
Caroline found her tongue at last, and smiled back. “I’m sure you can, Miss Antrim. But it is not an easy play to sum up in a few words and be even remotely honest, and I don’t believe you are looking for an easy reply. Even if you are, the work does not deserve one-”
“Bravo!” Orlando said from the background, holding his hands up in silent applause. “Please tell us what you really think, Mrs. Fielding. Perhaps we need to hear an honest opinion from outside the profession.”
There was complete silence.
Caroline felt her throat tighten. She swallowed. They were all staring at her. She had to speak.
“I think it asks a great many questions,” she said through dry lips. “Some of the answers we may need to know, but there are others I think perhaps we don’t. There are griefs one has to live with, and the thought that they were borne in private is all that makes them endurable.”
Cecily looked startled. “Oh dear. A cry from the heart, Joshua?” Her meaning was plain, even as it was also plain she was only teasing.
Joshua blushed slightly. “By heaven, I hope not!”
Everyone else laughed, except Pitt.
Caroline felt her face flame. She should have been able to laugh too, but she could not. She felt clumsy, unsophisticated, conscious of her hands and feet as if she were a schoolgirl again. And yet she was older than anyone else here. Was that what was wrong? Another three or four years older and she could have been Cecily Antrim’s mother. For that matter, she was seventeen years older than Joshua. Standing as he was beside Cecily, he must be aware of that.
How could she retain a shred of dignity and not look ridiculous and make him ashamed of her? They must wonder why on earth he had chosen to marry a woman like her anyway, so staid by comparison with them, so unimaginative, a stranger in their world, unable even to pass a clever or witty comment, let alone behave with an air of glamour and a magic as they did.
They were waiting for her to say something. She must not let them down. She had no wit to invent. There was nothing for it but to say what she thought.
She looked straight at Cecily, as if there were no one else in the crowded room.
“I am sure as an actress you are used to speaking for many people and feeling the emotions of women quite unlike yourself.” She phrased it as a certainty, but left it half a question by her intonation.
“Ah!” Orlando said instantly. “How perceptive, Mrs. Fielding. She has you there, Mama. How often do you think of the vulnerable as well as the passionate, those afflicted with doubts or wounds that are better hidden? Perhaps they have a right to privacy?”
The man named Harris looked shocked. “What are you suggesting, Orlando? Censorship?” He said the word in the tone of voice he would have used if he had said “treason.”
“Of course not!” Cecily retorted sharply. “That’s absurd! Orlando has no more love of censorship than I have. We’ll both fight to the last breath for the freedom to speak the truth, to ask questions, to suggest new ideas or restate old ones nobody wants to hear.” She shook her head. “For God’s sake, Harris, you know better than that. One man’s blasphemy is another man’s religion. Take that far enough and we’ll end up back burning people at the stake because they worship different gods from us-or even the same God-but in different words.” She lifted her shoulders exaggeratedly. “We’ll be back to the dark ages and the Inquisition.”
“There has to be some censorship, darling,” Warriner said, speaking for the first time. “Shouldn’t shout ‘Fire’ in a crowded theatre- especially if there isn’t one. And even if there is, panic doesn’t help. Gets more people crushed in the stampede than burned by the flames.” He looked slightly amused as he said it, but the smile did not go as far as his eyes.
Cecily’s mood changed abruptly. “Of course!” she said with a laugh. “Shout ‘Fire’ in church if you must, but never, never in the theatre-at least not while there’s a performance on.”
