The Strangling on the Stage Read Online Free PDF

fig-coloured linen, which disguised her considerable bulk. Her dyed black hair was swept back from her face and fixed by a comb with a large red artificial flower on it, suggesting the image of a flamenco dancer. Her make-up was skilfully done, though it could not cover the lines on her face – bright red lips and lashes far too luxuriant to have grown out of any human eyelid.
    The manner in which she had spoken her line suggested that she had spent rather too much time watching Maggie Smith.
    Storm took the natural break given by the laugh as an opportunity to introduce Jude.
    â€˜Ah, I didn’t notice you at the read-through.’ Elizaveta Dalrymple gave the impression that there were a lot of people she didn’t regard as worth noticing. ‘Presumably you’re doing something backstage, are you?’
    â€˜No, I’m not involved in the production at all. Just lending my chaise longue for the set.’
    â€˜Ah, chaises longues,’ said Elizaveta in a voice intended to be thrilling. ‘How much fun one has had on chaises longues. A long time ago, of course.’ She chuckled fondly. ‘And a lot of it actually with Freddie.’ She allowed a moment for murmurs of appreciation for SADOS’s late founder. ‘Who was it who said: “Marriage is the longing for the deep, deep peace of the double-bed after the hurly-burly of the chaise longue?”’
    Jude said, ‘Mrs Patrick Campbell’, because it was something she happened to know, but the pique in Elizaveta Dalrymple’s face suggested her question had been rhetorical and not one to be answered by mere chaise longue owners.
    To reinforce her disapproval, she turned away from Jude to Storm. ‘I thought you did a lovely little reading this afternoon as Judith. And the American accent will come with practice.’
    Rather than bridling at being so patronized, Storm smiled meekly, saying, ‘Thank you very much, Elizaveta. And your Mrs Dudgeon was wonderful.’
    â€˜Yes, it’s something when an actor like me ends up playing a grumpy old woman who dies offstage during Act Two.’ The grande dame smiled. ‘I’m thinking of it as a character part.’ That got a laugh from her coterie of admirers. ‘I really wasn’t going to do it. I really do keep intending to give up “the business”.’ You’re just an amateur, Jude wanted to scream, acting is not your profession. ‘But Davina twisted my arm
once again
.’
    Elizaveta Dalrymple turned an expression of mock ruefulness to a dumpy woman with a long blond pigtail, who was dressed in black leggings and a high-collared gold lamé top. This, Jude remembered from the flurry of introductions when she’d joined the group, was Davina Vere Smith.
    â€˜Oh, you were dying to do it, Elizaveta,’ protested the director of
The Devil’s Disciple
. ‘There was nothing going to keep you away from this production, away from anything that SADOS does.’
    â€˜Don’t you believe it, Davina. I really do think there has to come a time when one has to retire gracefully. And I think I’ve reached that time.’ The coterie protested violently at this suggestion. ‘I’d rather go at a time of my own choosing than get to the point where I can no longer remember the lines and the old acting skills start to dwindle.’
    â€˜That day’ll never come,’ insisted the most toadyish of the coterie, a young man who had been introduced as Olly Pinto. He was nearly very good-looking, but the size of his shield-like jaw gave him a cartoonish quality. ‘Your reading this afternoon showed that you’re still at the height of your powers.’
    â€˜Oh …’ Elizaveta Dalrymple simpered at the compliment. ‘And yours was lovely too, Olly. Your Christy’s going to be great.’
    The young man grimaced. ‘It’s not much of a part,’ he said.
    â€˜There are no