“Yes, it’s swell to be in England for the world premiere of my latest motion picture . . . No, I have no new marriage plans . . . Who? Oh, he and I were just good friends . . . Naturally I shall consider any offers to make a movie here . . . Sure, a role on the London stage would be a challenge and I’d welcome it . . . How should I know if Frenchmen make the best lovers? I’ve never been married to one!”
It was all there. The stock answers and the stemming of anything likely to lead to a harming of the public image of the goddess dedicated solely to her career and her belief in the honourable estate of marriage. The fact that she had been photographed at night-spots and premieres and Hollywood parties with countless different men merely added to her glamorous image. To her less worldly women fans it appeared as if she was worshipped on a pedestal for her beauty and inaccessibility. The more sophisticated usually envied her wide selection of handsome lovers, many of whom were screen heroes themselves.
Blanche Stiller came up to Lisa and muttered in her ear. “Hear how Miss Shaw’s voice is rising in pitch? She’s getting near the end of her tether. I’d like to fetch her away now, but she’s in a mood to do the opposite of anything I suggest. I daren’t risk a scene. You’re her friend. Would you try?”
Lisa pushed her way through the press to Minnie’s side. “Time to go,” she said without ado.
There was no protest from Minnie, only from the press. She gave the newspaper men and women a final smile and wave like departing royalty and left the deck at Lisa’s side. Then preceded by the photographers, who jammed the gangway to get pictures of her coming ashore, she gained the quayside, waved again to cheering fans pressed against the barriers and minutes later was being driven by Lisa away from the docks and through Southampton. Her hat was flung on the back seat and she raked her fingers through her hair.
“Thank God we’re out of that!”
“Do those sessions take place wherever you go?” Lisa asked.
Minnie gave a nod. She was very pale. “Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll scream in their faces. I feel it rising in my throat. It’s as if I were trapped in a cage by pressures draining my true being away and leaving only my outward shell, which goes on walking, and talking, and giving toothpaste smiles that have no reality. Thanks for coming to the rescue. That bitch, Blanche, should have done it. Sometimes I think she gets a sadistic pleasure in watching me suffer these ordeals.”
“You’re misjudging her. I’d say she simply doesn’t understand the extent of the torment they cause you.”
Minnie was staring through the windscreen in astonishment. “I’d forgotten the streets were so narrow over here. Have they shrunk since I was a child?”
Lisa smiled. “No. That’s the way they always were.”
“So different from the States.” Minnie shook her head in continued surprise over it. Then, as they left the city behind, she exclaimed at the beauty of the undulating landscape spreading out all around them. “Do you remember that I’d never seen a cow in a meadow until that day when we were on the train to Liverpool? All I’d ever known had been the slums and gutters of Leeds until the orphanage took me in. How is old Mother Bradlaw these days?”
They talked as they drove along. Lisa thought her companion was becoming more relaxed, but she had put away within herself any thought of sharing with Minnie the burden of Alan’s unfaithfulness, which lay heavily upon her. She must hide away her own confusion and unhappiness. Minnie must never suspect that she was at a loss to know how to handle her own life when her friend was looking wholly to her for aid on what was obviously the brink of a nervous breakdown.
Minnie was charmed with Maple House. The lawns were like velvet and the flower-beds bright with crocuses and early daffodils. Japonica was opening pink buds against its sunny walls and hardy camellias were coming into bloom along the north side of the house. As they went into the entrance hall, she cried out at the sight of a red and gold porcelain plate displayed in a niche.
“I know that plate! I’ve seen it before. It used to be at the orphanage.”
“Mrs. Bradlaw gave it to me when the institutional building was closed down. She remembered I once almost broke my neck trying to get hold of it and she thought it would be a special souvenir to remind me of those days. She didn’t know how special,” Lisa added, more to herself than to Minnie who had discarded her furs and was already on a tour of exploration. Lisa handed her own coat and hat to the maid who had come into the hall and went after her friend, who was full of appreciation of the finely proportioned rooms, and the rich glow of antique rosewood and walnut.
“What a perfect house! And such a peaceful one. The world seems far away.”
“I’m glad you like it. I felt at home here from the first moment. Let me take you to your room now. The cabin trunks that you sent ahead arrived about three weeks ago, and they have been unpacked for you.”
Minnie linked arms with Lisa as they went towards the curved staircase. “I have a breath-taking gown for the premiere. Adrian designed it. He designs all my movie clothes now. I wouldn’t let anyone else do them.” They were halfway up the stairs and she paused, listening intently. “How quiet it is. No police sirens. No traffic. No screaming fans. Only the birds singing. I always wanted to see Maple House after you first wrote about it.”
“That’s why I thought you’d prefer to come here instead of to our London apartment. Alan will be joining us this evening and tomorrow Harry and Catherine will arrive to complete the family gathering with you.”
When they reached the guest-room that was to be hers for her sojourn, Minnie cried out at the sight of the patchwork quilt covering the bed. It was the Blazing Star quilt that Lisa had sewn some years ago in another land. As if in a trance, Minnie went to spread the flat of her hands caressingly over the unfaded colours.
“This was in my room at Dekova’s Place!”
“That’s right. Oh, whatever is the matter?” Lisa hurried for-ward anxiously as Minnie dropped down to her knees at the side of the bed and pulled the coverlet into folds against her suddenly crumpled face, her eyes closed tight on some inner shaft of pain.
“Risto and I made love under this quilt many times.”
Lisa sat down with a sigh on the bed, her hands in her lap. “I never suspected that.”
“It happened sometimes when you were away from the house. Then there were nights when he’d climb up by that tree outside my window when you were asleep.”
“We are certainly letting out the secrets since we met today.” Lisa’s lips held a sad little smile.
Minnie moved forward on her knees to put her head on Lisa’s lap, still clutching the quilt like a child with a comforter. “I wish we could go back to those days. The only true happiness I’ve ever known was with him. After he was killed my life fell to pieces. I went quite crazy for a while. I’ve been a little crazy ever since. Now it’s getting worse and I’m scared.”
Lisa stroked Minnie’s head maternally. Her friend’s hair was coppery-gold these days with the rigid waves and the curls at the side of the face and nape of the neck that were so stylish. Yet it was as if it were the lank-haired orphan child she had protected who was huddled against her once again. “Have you consulted doctors?”
“I’m not on drugs, if that’s what you’re thinking. Not that I haven’t tried most things, and I’m not an alcoholic, although sometimes it helps to drink champagne. It gives me a lift and I’m inclined to take more than I should. Otherwise I never touch anything these days. I went through a spate of hard drinking and had the sense to see in time that I was ruining my looks and my work. And don’t mention psychiatrists. I’ve wasted hours on their couches and I’ve often thought they should have been on them instead of me.” She uttered a wry and mirthless laugh.
“What do you think is the cause of your depression?”
“I can answer that in a nutshell. I’ve worked and played too hard for a long time, but I can’t find a way out. I feel constantly bruised and wounded. It’s as if the bulle
ts that killed Risto ricocheted and struck me in passing. He died and I’m living. But at times it’s as if I’m more dead than he.”
Lisa recalled how she had once said to Alan that Risto was Minnie’s anchor. With his going she had lost the one stabilising factor that had been more necessary to her in movie circles than it would have been if she had followed a more conventional path in life. Yet there must have been something out of the ordinary to have triggered off deterioration over the recent weeks. Perhaps another love affair that had gone disastrously, wrong. Lisa was aware of something in Minnie’s behaviour pattern that stirred a chord in her memory and recollection came disturbingly to her. “Are you sure you’re physically well, Minnie?”
“I’ve had a check-up recently and there’s nothing wrong with my body. I tell you it’s my mind. If it snaps, I’ll be lost forever. Oh, help me, Lisa! For God’s sake, help me.” She began to wail in what was an outflowing from an abyss of despair and it was terrible to witness such primitive distress.
“I’ll help you,” Lisa vowed vehemently, “but we’ll have to talk much more when you feel up to it. There’s no rush. We have all the time we need.”
When the sobbing eventually subsided through Minnie’s sheer exhaustion, Lisa helped her on to the bed, removed her shoes and pulled the quilt over her. By the time she had pulled the curtains across the windows, Minnie appeared to be sleeping.
With slow steps and feeling quite drained, Lisa went downstairs again. In the hall she leaned a hand against the wall and held her brow with the other while she came to terms with the situation that had arisen. Minnie needed rest and quiet. That meant the plan to return to London with Alan after the weekend would have to be shelved. She and Minnie must stay on at Maple House indefinitely. Once more Alan would be left virtually on his own in the apartment. And in all the last-minute hustle before the premiere, Rita Davis would be constantly at his side. Her arms would be waiting to offer respite by night from the tumult of the day. For Harry’s sake she had lost Peter. Was it to be for Minnie’s sake that she was to lose Alan?
He arrived home at six o’clock that evening. She saw him from the window as he came from leaving his Bentley in the old stables that had been converted into garages. His years suited him; a brindling of grey at his temples and a physique kept sparse and trim by exercise. In his well-cut suit and with his groomed appearance, he looked what he was, a highly successful businessman with an intelligent approach to everything that came his way. Catching sight of her through the glass, he exchanged a smile as he passed the window to enter the house. She went to meet him.
“Well? How’s the famous film star?” he inquired jovially after giving her a kiss.
“Not well, I’m afraid.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Was she seasick?”
“It’s more serious than that.”
In the drawing-room over a drink, she told him of the state that Minnie was in. He was concerned and shook his head over what he had heard. “Poor kid,” he said sympathetically, picturing Minnie for the moment as the gauche young girl she had been when he had last seen her and not by her screen image. “What are you going to do? Call in Sarah Baker? She’s your doctor and your personal friend. I think she would be particularly understanding.”
“I’ll consult her to make sure I’ll be doing whatever is right for Minnie, and arrange that they meet. But at the present time Minnie is set against seeing any more doctors professionally. She seems to think I’m the only one to see her through this emotional crisis. In some ways she reminds me of Harriet when I first came to Quadra Island.”
It was a long time since either of them had mentioned Harriet to each other. She saw a raw look come into his eyes as doubtless it came into her own, both of them aware that, as once Harriet had unwittingly stood between him and his love for her, now there was somebody else taken through his own free choice. “Why do you think that?” He drained his whisky glass to break his gaze with hers.
“I’m not sure. There’s the same tension and the same restlessness.” She had almost said remorse and had amended her words in time. Alan had never known of Harriet’s second miscarriage, brought on through foolhardiness, and the fact that she was gone did not release the sharing of a confidence not for his ears, even though it had lost its significance long ago.
“What about the premiere? Will she be fit to attend it?”
“I hope so, and I know she has every intention of making an appearance, but in the meantime she must relax completely. At least here at Maple House I can keep people away. So far only Blanche Stiller knows her whereabouts and I want it to stay that way.”
“Then you and Minnie won’t be coming back to London with me on Monday morning?”
“No. I don’t suppose I’ll see you again until the evening of the West End opening. Unless you can manage to get home next weekend?”
“There won’t be a chance. I’ll be far too busy.”
To Lisa it was as if Rita Davis was there in the shadows of the room, smiling her cool smile, poised and confident and ruthless, patiently biding her time. Yet her name had never been raised in any conversation that Lisa had had with Alan. Not even in reference to his work, when it would have been normal for either of them to have mentioned her, particularly since she was training Catherine in the specialised work at the head office from whence Alan ruled his cinema empire.
They shared a silence which on Alan’s part was tantamount to an admission of his infidelity, and on Lisa’s revealed that she instinctively knew the truth, for she had always been interested in their closest employees and could have been expected to ask about Rita Davis whose appointment he had never spoken of to her. Neither was able to bring the subject into the open. Although danger to their marriage had appeared to recede while she had been with him in London, she sensed a resurgence of it in his adamant insistence that he would be unable to come home to Maple House the following weekend.
Upstairs, Minnie had been disturbed from her rest by the sound of Alan’s Bentley being driven past on the gravelled drive. She felt refreshed by her sleep and it was good to wake up to the knowledge of Lisa’s maternal protection under which she had sheltered so often in the past. An hour later, bathed and changed into a midnight blue gown with barbaric gold embroidery on its epaulets, she came out of her room to meet Alan on the landing similarly changed for the evening into his dinner jacket and on his way downstairs. They greeted each other warmly, she kissing him on the lips.
“Isn’t it exciting that we should all be together again,” she exclaimed, linking her arm in his as they went downstairs to the drawing-room. “I’ve been looking forward to it for months. Ever since Harry wrote on your behalf to ask me if I’d come to England for the West End premiere. You are looking as handsome as ever. I remember how you used to come home from the forests in a passion-rousing aroma of timber and sweat and saddle-leather.” She leaned against him on tiptoe to sniff appreciatively at his newly shaven chin. “Now it’s expensive shaving lotion and Havana cigars. Equally male and basic. Mmm! Delicious!”
He laughed and she with him. She might have been the same brash girl flirting with him when she came from Quadra Island, instead of a woman whose signature and handprints were immortalised in the cement of the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. When Lisa, in a rose silk Cocteau print, joined them soon afterwards, Minnie was still talking non-stop and as effusively as she had done earlier in the day. She continued in the same vein throughout the whole evening.
When Alan and Lisa were in their room getting ready for bed, he was thoughtful as he pulled off his black bow tie and re-moved the gold links from his cuffs. “I can’t see Minnie being well enough for the premiere. She’s on the borderline of a breakdown, as you say. Sometimes she spoke as if the three of us were back in the house at Dekova’s Place. It became more marked as the evening wore on.” He sighed. “Wore on, indeed. She never used to prattle away at that speed, did she?”
“No. She’s a si
ck woman.”
He looked across to where Lisa sat in her coffee satin camiknickers on the dressing table stool, rolling down her silk stockings in turn. “You eased Harriet out of her moods of depression. You’d probably do better on your own with Minnie without calling in medical advice.”
She straightened up to meet his eyes. One ribbon shoulder strap had slipped down over her arm revealing the swell of her breast. “I’m not as confident about handling problems as I used to be. I feel a little lost myself at the present time.”
“Oh?” He did not take up the opportunity she had given him to broach the subject uppermost in her mind as it surely was in his.
In the guest-room, Minnie lay on top of the bedclothes and naked under the quilt that she had drawn up to her chin. She trembled under its patchwork warmth. It was as if she waited for Risto to take her with him down into the rainbow-hued depths of love.
Fourteen
When the day of the premiere of Love’s Glory arrived, Minnie was much improved by her two weeks at Maple House. She was calmer and quieter and more content. She and Lisa had taken long walks in the countryside, spent hours talking together, and been undisturbed by visitors with the exception of Blanche Stiller who, in London, was bearing the brunt of the telephone calls, frantic transatlantic cables from the studio, and the general hubbub of the press that preceded such an event as a new cinema opening with a motion picture rumoured to be Minnie’s best yet.
The week before, Blanche had driven to Maple House. “When the hell is she going to make an appearance?” she had demanded of Lisa, who had kept her from Minnie in person and on the phone. “Everybody thinks she is putting on a Garbo act and it won’t do. That’s never been her image. Hers is friendly, gamine, pert, beautiful — a combination of innocence and worldliness. Never, never a glamorous recluse wanting to be alone.”
What the Heart Keeps Page 38
