Stardust

by Charlotte Bingham

  It arrived with the pudding.

  ‘We’re all of us,’ Cecil said, ‘all of us that is on this side of the footlights as it were, we’re really most concerned about Jerome and Elizabeth, you know, Lalla.’

  ‘But they’re both being wonderful!’ Lalla exclaimed, playing the ingénue. ‘They get better with each performance!’

  Cecil looked at her and smiled. She was a lovely girl, but a really terrible actress, both on-stage and off.

  ‘Let me put it another way, dear,’ he said. ‘We’re rather concerned about Elizabeth in regard to her emotional state.’

  For a moment Lalla’s eyes caught Cecil’s over the top of her wine glass, and when they did Cecil felt suddenly desirous, which was a most unusual state for Cecil. Objects of Cecil’s desire usually came in the shape of contracts, rarely in that of nubile young actresses. Cecil had long ago taken a private vow of chastity as far as nubile young actresses went, since an indulgence in that particular direction had ruined many a good theatrical agent, most notably the man he had first worked for, Edward Goodbody, a notorious Lothario who died under the most embarrassing circumstances. Just to remember the circumstances of his passing made Cecil blush.

  It did, however, help him get his mind off Lalla Henderson and her luscious décolletage and back on to the matter in hand.

  ‘Lalla, dear,’ he said, ‘you’re Elizabeth’s best friend. So you’re probably in a better position than anybody to say what might happen if Jerome Didier were to go through with his intended marriage.’

  Lalla smiled suddenly, and leaned right across the table so that her pretty little face was only inches from Cecil’s, close enough for him to become momentarily intoxicated by her scent.

  ‘You really want to know what I think?’ she breathed, ‘I think if Jerome married the country bumpkin, as Liz calls her, I think it would be the very best thing that could happen.’

  Cecil, expecting it to be the very worst, was now dumb-founded as well as confounded.

  ‘But I was led to believe Elizabeth was madly in love with Jerome,’ he said.

  Lalla laughed.

  ‘So she is, Cecil darling! She would kill to get him!’

  ‘So? How could Jerome marrying—’ he nearly said Pippa’s name, but just stopped himself, lest the way that he said it and the look on his face as he said it might reveal what he felt. ‘How could Jerome marrying this girl—’ he corrected himself, ‘I don’t see how it could be the best thing that could happen.’

  ‘Jerome marries Pippa,’ Lalla sighed, spooning another fresh strawberry carefully into her mouth. ‘Her mother is heartbroken, but not for long. Mothers by and large are pretty tough old things, don’t you agree, Cecil darling? So Mrs Country Bumpkin gets over it, Jerome’s happy because he’s finally got the Bumpkin between the sheets, he’s got someone to cook and bottle wash and mend his socks for him, and at night, before he goes back to his little love nest, he’s got Elizabeth as well, hasn’t he? With none of the imperfections of a wife and all the whatever the silly old opposite of imperfections is of a beautiful actress. And as a result, he’ll start seeing Elizabeth in a different light, won’t he, sweetie?’

  ‘Will he?’ Cecil asked, too fascinated even to light the cigarette he had taken from his case.

  ‘Cecil darling,’ Lalla drawled, ‘Jerome won’t be going around playing the unrequited lover any more, will he? And Jerome does love so to play the part, doesn’t he? No, darling, all that will be left for dashing and handsome Jerome to play will be Good Old Hubbie, which is not, I imagine, a role to which he’s most eminently suited, would you?’

  Finally managing to light his cigarette, Cecil noticed with no little curiosity, that his ever-steady hand was shaking in the excitement of the moment.

  ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘I think I see what you’re driving at.’

  ‘Do you?’ Lalla lit her own cigarette, and elegantly exhaled a thin thread of smoke. ‘Well, just in case you don’t, darling, I’ll spell it out for you. We have Jerome playing Happy Hubbie. Not good casting. We have Bumpkin playing Mrs Newlywed – very happy casting. And we have Elizabeth, described as the best actress of her generation, playing what? Playing Milady-in-Waiting. And believe me, Cecil darling, she won’t have to wait very long.’

  ‘One thing everybody seems to forget,’ Cecil said, frowning deeply, ‘is that Elizabeth is actually married.’

  Lalla just stared at him as if he was barking mad, and then suddenly laughed.

  ‘Oh, Cecil!’ she cried. ‘You’re so wonderfully old-fashioned! When Jerome gets bored with playing Lovely Happy Hubbie, what’s the next role he’ll have his eyes on? The Lover. And what do Lovers have to have? Mistresses. And who ever said Mistresses can’t be married? After all, I always heard it was the married girls who were the best bet. Because they won’t be nagging Loverboy to marry them all the time.’

  Cecil pushed his cigarette out in the ashtray, ashamed of his part in what was turning into a conspiracy, and ashamed of himself for being unable – or worse unwilling – to withdraw from it.

  ‘I can’t imagine it, Lalla dear,’ he said finally. ‘Jerome is totally mad about – about this girl.’

  ‘Yes. Until she becomes just the wife, Cecil, and is no longer the Great Unattainable. Until she’s always at home, cooking. And one night when he comes home, he notices her hair smells of onions—’

  ‘Oh no,’ Cecil said, far too hastily. ‘No, I don’t think Pip – I don’t think this girl’s hair would ever smell of onions.’

  This earned him a long and curious stare from Lalla, which Cecil pretended not to notice, instead taking a long drink from his glass of iced water.

  ‘Do you play bridge, Cecil?’ Lalla asked, and then continued without waiting for his reply. ‘Well, of course you do. What a silly question. So let’s put it in bridge terms. Mrs Bumpkin, once wed, is vulnerable. Because as Mrs Wife, she has it all to lose. The potential mistress doesn’t. Give me the secondary role any day. Men are much less likely to cheat on their mistresses than their wives. Don’t you think, Cecil darling?’

  Cecil smiled, but only grimly, as he tried to recapitulate on the theory so far. If Lalla was right, and Jerome married Pippa, then everything would be all right because everything would go all wrong. That’s really what she was saying, he decided. Jerome wouldn’t be able to stay married, or at least stay faithful, Elizabeth would see to that, and then Pippa, being Pippa, would have to divorce him which, although a shocking thought, and not a path Cecil would willingly wish her to take, would finally leave Pippa free to marry him, which Cecil knew was the only way he could get her to be his wife, on the rebound.

  ‘What about Jerome and Elizabeth?’ he asked, as if from now on, having got the cast, it was simply a matter of rehearsing until they’d got it right.

  ‘Darling,’ Lalla said, as if he was missing the point. ‘Jerome and Elizabeth are made for each other. They are fated, darling. Nothing, and no-one can stand in their way. It’s there, in the stars. That’s where their names are written. Everyone knows it, everyone who sees them act. And the papers are full of them. People can’t read enough about them.’

  ‘True,’ Cecil nodded. ‘And Dmitri Boska is already lining up their first film together. They certainly are news.’

  ‘Darling,’ Lalla sighed, ‘they are unstoppable. Because they are that unique thing, darling. They are a partnership. And like all great theatrical partnerships they will fill everywhere. That – is a cast-iron certainty.’

  Cecil was impressed, Cecil was convinced. It all seemed to make perfect sense. The fact that Elizabeth’s husband hadn’t even rated a specific mention seemed immaterial, because Lalla’s argument was absolutely watertight. Everyone who had seen the two of them agreed. Didier and Laurence were a marriage.

  ‘Good,’ Cecil said, as if finishing the negotiations on a deal. ‘So we all know where we stand.’

  ‘Yes, poppet,’ Lalla smiled, and put her hand on his. And once again, Cecil felt the stirrings of
desire. ‘And what would help simply enormously would be for someone in the know to go and talk to the Bumpkin’s mother, don’t you think? And if you don’t mind me saying, soonest done, yes?’

  Cecil put his hand on top of Lalla’s and held it. To his delight, which he did his best not to show, Lalla ran her thumb up and down the side of his index finger and looked him straight in the eyes.

  ‘You’re a very bright young lady, Lalla,’ he said. ‘If there’s anything I can do in return.’

  ‘Yes, darling,’ Lalla returned promptly. ‘Since you ask, I want another ten pounds a week, because what I’m on’s a rotten wage, and I want you to guarantee me a part in Liz’s next play. Or picture.’

  Cecil nodded, unable to speak as Lalla started to run the tips of her fingers across the palm of his hand. But he knew there would be no difficulty on that score. If he could help manipulate events the way they all wanted, and keep Jerome and Elizabeth intact as a partnership, both Boska and Locke would be only too willing to find the necessary small part for Miss Lalla Henderson.

  ‘Now I must dash, sweetie,’ Lalla said, rising and leaning over to kiss Cecil on his forehead. ‘Don’t think me rude, but I have an appointment.’

  Just before she left, Lalla put her arms on Cecil’s shoulders from behind and kissed him once more on the top of his head. It amused her no end to see a bright red lipstick mark in the middle of Cecil’s little bald patch.

  It amused her no end as well as she sat in the taxi on her way to meet Elizabeth at how easy it had been to steer Cecil round to Elizabeth’s way of thinking. He had been the proverbial putty in her hand, the silly old softy.

  Then she sat back and thought also about how positively brilliant Elizabeth was. Only Elizabeth could have worked out that her best chance of getting Jerome would be to see him safely and finally boringly married to the Bumpkin. Only Elizabeth could have seen that as long as the Bumpkin remained unmarried, Jerome would be in her thrall.

  ‘Once in bed, dead,’ she had repeated often enough to Lalla, sometimes accompanied by a wicked laugh, sometimes by just a dangerous glint in those bright green eyes.

  ‘Once in bed, dead.’

  Poor Bumpkin, Lalla thought as the taxi turned down Piccadilly, poor funny old Bumpkin. With the cards Elizabeth held against her, she didn’t stand a chance. For a moment, Lalla felt sorry for her. But it was only for a moment.

  7

  On the return drive to London, Cecil gave himself an excellent notice for the performance he had just given. It had not been the best of circumstances, a tea-time matinée with a hostile audience, but he had worked hard and well, and by the end he had won his audience over completely to his side. Admittedly he had been at a slight advantage, because his audience was not antagonistic to him personally, but rather to what he had to voice. In fact, had he just been allowed to be himself, he would have found himself warmly received from the moment he first appeared in the drawing room, because Mrs Nicholls had always liked Cecil and had regularly and openly made it quite plain that she would welcome him as a son-in-law. In fact when he first telephoned to ask if he might visit, saying that he wished to talk to her about Pippa, Mrs Nicholls had responded most affectionately and invited him down immediately. But unfortunately the moment Cecil ceased small-talking and began to perform what he had so carefully rehearsed, he lost his audience’s sympathy.

  Mrs Nicholls waited until Cecil had finished before she spoke, although such was her astonishment, she had tried to interrupt him and call him back to his senses on several occasions. But Cecil was in full cry, and like all amateur actors so totally enthralled by his own performance, that he was unstoppable. So Mrs Nicholls saved her breath until he had finished presenting his preposterous argument.

  Then, after Cecil had poured them both a sherry, Mrs Nicholls told him what she thought. She said she found his reasoning difficult to accept, since she had always been under the impression that Cecil was keen on her daughter himself, and yet here he was making out an impassioned case as to why she should be allowed to marry someone else, and not only that but an actor of all people, a member of a profession for which Cecil avowedly had very little time, even though he earned his living from them. So often, she reminded him, she had sat in this very room and heard Cecil belittling actors, declaring himself to have no time for their introspection and self-indulgence. So why was this young man any different? Why should the lowly born Jerome Didier, who came from a broken home and had spent his formative years living in a disused railway carriage, brought up by a crowd of social misfits, why should he deserve such serious consideration as a possible husband for someone such as Pippa?

  This was where Cecil had been most proud of himself, he reflected as he headed through Haselmere. For if there had been a moment where he might have weakened and revealed the truth of his feelings, this had been it. But he had triumphed. He had stayed, as it was known in the profession, in character, and argued most convincingly with Pippa’s mother as to the worth of someone he privately considered worthless. Jerome Didier was an exception, he had assured her, not only as a talent, but as a human being. He was honest, dedicated to his craft, diligent, and possessed an integrity Cecil had never previously encountered before in an actor. But most importantly, he promised her, Jerome Didier loved Pippa with a passion and a truth which was far and away out of the ordinary.

  Mrs Nicholls had fallen silent here, Cecil remembered, as he drove on for Guildford, because, and this hurt Cecil even to think of it, she knew it to be true. She would have seen it for herself, every time Jerome visited Bay Tree Cottage, she would have seen it in those dark expressive eyes of his, and heard it in that mellifluous voice. She knew both Jerome and Jerome’s passion were distinctive and dangerously so. Cecil knew that from the tenor of her next question, which she had already answered in her mind before she even asked it, before she carefully enquired of him what would happen to Pippa and Jerome if she went on forbidding their union.

  Two things, Cecil had answered, gravely and only after apparently careful consideration. Jerome would take Pippa to live with him in London, and marry her when she was twenty-one, or they would elope now, as Jerome had once suggested to Cecil that he might, and marry in Scotland. Those were the two eventualities. The one thing that was a certainty was that Jerome would never let her daughter go.

  They drank a second sherry, mostly in silence, while Mrs Nicholls sat looking out into her beautiful garden and at the view of the Downs beyond, deliberating the situation. Cecil said no more, being careful not to try and prompt a response, lest he overplay his hand. He had said all he had rehearsed himself to say, and said it convincingly. That was perfectly apparent from the time Mrs Nicholls was giving to her considerations. Had he been less than convincing, she would have summarily dismissed his arguments out of hand.

  ‘I know this is not for you to say, Cecil,’ she had said finally, ‘but I need to say it to somebody besides Pippa. Because – well, I do have to consider my own situation, and not just hers. I do have to think about what will happen when Pippa does finally leave here, however and with whoever. I have to consider carefully and properly and quite precisely what will happen to me.’

  Happily Cecil had included this problem in his scenario, because his own mother was constantly reminding him of Mrs Nicholls’s concern, although usually adding the rider that in her opinion her neighbour used her affliction quite cynically as a way of keeping her daughter at home as an unpaid servant. So having been well prepared for it, he had a ready answer, which was that since Mrs Nicholls would have to face this eventuality sooner or later, it might be more salutary to face it now, so that a decision could be made, as the law would have it, without prejudice. A companion was really all that was needed since Mrs Nicholls was under the constant supervision of the local doctor, and provided she had some basic help was still well able to cope with her daily routine, Cecil had gathered from his mother, so a companion was what he suggested. Since Mrs Nicholls was so fond of her daughter, Ce
cil argued, the least she could do was to allow her the full freedom of choice. If she wished to marry Jerome, she would do so anyway. That was the nature of Pippa and that was the nature of her relationship with Jerome. However, on the other hand, if she wished to stay at home and look after her mother more, then she would be able to make that choice unencumbered by feelings of guilt, if Mrs Nicholls found and employed a companion for herself.

  There was no further argument. Cecil had won the day. Mrs Nicholls even offered him her forehead to kiss before he left, and thanked him most sincerely for the help and the guidance he had given her at this difficult time. Cecil rejoiced. For now if everything else fell into place, as he felt sure that it would, one day, and it didn’t matter when, but one day, some day, Pippa Nicholls would most definitely be his.

  To celebrate the fact, as he left Guildford behind him, Cecil sounded the horn on his Bentley dah-di-di-dah-dah, dah-dah, and doffed his hat at the driver of the solitary Riley passing by the other way. He had made the sacrifice, and he knew it would pay off. For – as someone had once written so sagely in his childhood autograph book – nothing real was ever gained without a sacrifice of some kind.

  As soon as Pippa returned on her bike from the shops, her mother called her into the drawing room.

  ‘Cecil Manners was just here,’ she said. ‘For tea.’

  ‘In the middle of the week?’ Pippa asked. ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘He wanted to discuss you,’ her mother replied.

  Pippa laughed, as she poured herself some orange squash.

  ‘Oh lord,’ she said, ‘don’t tell me he’s got serious.’

  ‘Don’t talk in that way,’ her mother sighed. ‘You’re beginning to sound like your actor.’

  ‘Well has he?’ Pippa continued, ignoring the jibe. ‘Has poor old Cecil got “serious”?’

  ‘No,’ her mother replied sharply. ‘On the contrary, he was here to discuss you and that young man.’