‘Go on then,’ she said. ‘Tell me what you’ve found out so far.’
He poured his tea and gave it a stir. ‘Obviously Edwardian stage performers don’t have any recorded evidence of their work; there are no Hollywood movies or helpful DVD’s to consult … but what I’m getting from the biography is a hint of a very colourful personal life. After Minnie’s short-lived marriage she was involved with Farrar Fay for around twenty years, while he was actor-manager at the Haymead. It was a successful partnership for a time but he had a habit of spending more money than he could afford. He went in for spectacular stage design: elaborate sets and stupendous costumes. As a result, he struggled almost continuously with his finances, and the theatre almost closed down on several occasions; he made some desperate commercial decisions, had as many flops as hits, and died relatively young. I’m pretty sure he is one of the men I saw with her at the dinner party on stage.’ He paused. ‘I also saw them together at your father’s house – Minnie’s old house.’
‘Go on.’
‘As soon as I arrived I could sense her presence. When she appeared it was in the bedroom. With William. It got a bit steamy,’ he admitted.
She raised a gull wing eyebrow. ‘This is an aspect of your skill hitherto unappreciated. Salacious interludes, amorous liaisons?’
‘Well don’t shout it from the rooftops.’
‘So why did Farrar Fay leave the Haymead?’
‘New management came in during the Twenties. New era, new styles of acting. As far as I can tell, he faded into obscurity; a bit part here and there, nothing high profile.’
‘Professionally broken, physically ruined, Farrar Fay wouldn’t be the first talented man to die a long way removed from his earlier glories,’ she commented. ‘Why didn’t Minnie look after him?’
‘The book doesn’t say. It talks about her career and her tours, her feted reception in New York, that kind of thing, but it doesn’t dish the dirt.’
‘Boring. And yet you say the critic, Baxter, slags her off something chronic.’
‘Most of the time, yes. Not always.’
‘So, he changes his mind a lot. Keeps her on her toes?’
‘He’s her bête noire.’
‘Sounds familiar.’
‘It does, doesn’t it? Like you and your ghastly critic, Angus Malone.’
‘What exactly did Baxter say about her?’
‘Some of his pieces are immensely flattering but others sound like he hates her. He’s charming when she pleases him, abusive, when she upsets him. It’s almost like emotional blackmail.’
‘You think there’s something dark and Machiavellian going on?’ she said.
‘Like he’s got some power over her?’
He wasn’t sure it was as sinister as that.
‘He’s a critic,’ she went on. ‘He can make or break a production. What if he takes it a stage further? What if he makes it personal? What if when she wrongs him he takes his revenge in print?’
He could see where she was coming from. Her critic had treated her appallingly. Had Baxter done the same to Minnie?
‘I’m still not convinced of your abilities,’ she said. ‘Or the likelihood that any of this will help.’
Neither was he. There was no guarantee she would be “cured” of anything. He wasn’t a psychoanalyst or a therapist; when it boiled down to it, all he could provide was slightly enhanced research-based speculation. She suspected as much.
‘You were expecting fireworks, I understand. I’m not naturally gregarious,’ Charlie reasoned. ‘I told you – I prefer to work quietly.’
‘Taciturn to the point of rudeness some might say. But how long will it take, this process?’
‘A few days, a few weeks, a month? I can’t tell you.’
‘Maybe it’s not worth it,’ she said. ‘The read-through, the rehearsals … I’ll tell Edgerton to re-cast. Before it goes any further—’
‘Don’t do that,’ he said. ‘It’s early days yet, we’ve only just begun. And I know that sounds like a cheesy pop song … but as long as you give me time to work at my own pace, I’m sure I can fill in the blanks.’
‘I don’t have time,’ she said. ‘A couple of weeks of rehearsals and then that’s it, we’re on! I could have read through the articles and the biography and reached the same conclusions myself.’
‘Then why didn’t you?’
She looked him straight in the eye. ‘Good question.’
He was attracted to her, and getting close was part of the process. None of this could be done objectively, logically, unemotionally. But psychic ability was not a get-out-of-jail-free card. Did that mean he had to stay single forever?
After all there were no rules, nothing was binding, none of it “written in stone. All opinions are valid.” He’d heard that platitude in a motivational talk once, in one of his short-lived office jobs. “Let’s hear what you have to say.”
‘I’m lonely,’ she announced. ‘Until you kissed me that night, I’d not been touched, or held, for months.’ She put her hand over his. ‘I’d quite like to do it again.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Why not? Was I that bad?’
‘You were great.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘You weren’t my client – officially. And now you are.’
‘Oh!’ she said. ‘You are so serious! So uptight! No wonder your wife left you!’
He wondered at her ability to make such a breathtaking insult without feeling the slightest hint of shame.
‘I make up my mind about someone like that!’ She clicked her fingers. ‘I act instinctively; I don’t waste time on worry and regret. I get on with it. If it doesn’t succeed, I move on. You’d do well to follow my example.’
She was tense about the upcoming performance, he got that, fearful that it wouldn’t work out, but putting him under pressure wouldn’t help. ‘You,’ he said, raising his voice over the general hubbub, ‘are what’s known as high maintenance. You require constant attention and a great deal of “positive stroking” as the phrase is, and you throw a toddler tantrum when you don’t get your own way. There, how did you like that summation? I instantly made up my mind about you, too.’
She wasn’t in the least bit offended. In fact she was highly pleased with herself.
‘Oh, well done! Your real feelings have come to the surface. But the truth is you need only say the word …’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘Is that the word you meant?’
‘Come back to the hotel,’ she cooed, ‘it’s not far on the Tube … we can be discreet. No one knows where I am.’
‘No,’ he said again, almost laughing. ‘I don’t know how else to convince you.’
She gave in – for the time being. She drummed her nails on the table and tutted. ‘Oh, why can’t I ever meet someone ordinary, laid back, straightforward?’
Charlie pointed towards an area of floor near the entrance. ‘Allow me to introduce you to Mr Doormat, over there. Just the man you’re searching for – flat, dull, featureless, and you can wipe your boots on him afterwards.’
She tutted petulantly.
‘Why did Francois change his mind about living in St Remy with you?’ he asked.
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘It wasn’t Francois that had the affair, was it? It was you.’
She was startled. ‘How do you know that? Have you seen it?’
‘Relax,’ he said. ‘I can’t see everything.’
‘No,’ she said witheringly. ‘There surely aren’t enough hours in the day.’ She sighed. ‘Yes it’s true. It was me that had the affair. My fault, not his. See? Minnie and I are horribly similar.’
Was that what she was trying to prove? That history repeats?
‘If I find out what happened to Minnie Devine, where she died and how,’ he said, ‘it won’t necessarily change anything. You do know that, don’t you?’
‘Sadly, yes.’ She glanced down at the table a
nd then up into his eyes. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to come back to the hotel with me?’
Chapter Fifteen
Celia was idly wheeling her chair up and down the issues desk, swinging it back and forth as he approached.
‘Oh there you are,’ she said. ‘I’ve found a copy of Baxter’s memoirs. It was published in the 1930s, round about the same time as Minnie’s biography; it appears there was a brief swell of interest in him, chiefly down to his close relationships with some of the actors and actresses he professed to comment on. He fancied himself as a bit of a George Bernard Shaw figure or something of that stature. Faded reputation these days. Clever man, though. Your Minnie Etherege Devine gets a mention, and an actress called Agnes Partington. He was close to both of them. Minnie was jealous of Agnes. Quelle surprise.’
‘Brilliant. Thank you very much.’
The book was a cold, heavy, slab of literature, its pages thin as a bible’s, crinkly like poppy petals. The mustiness was off-putting, the yellow-edged paper faintly repulsive. The book had been reissued a number of times, but then fallen out of print and lost to the public eye. There must be millions of books like this, he considered, rich with lives now forgotten, waiting for someone to stumble across their ghostly protagonists, and be amazed and inspired all over again. Sometimes it was a burden, this gift, this ability to rediscover long-lost characters and their former essence and vitality, but if everyone could do it, there’d be no need for painstaking historical research: sifting through documents, tomes and tracts; analysing artefacts; excavating earthworks; unearthing pots and utensils, jewellery and coins. Nothing would ever be lost or forgotten, buried or hidden if everyone had the facility to see into the past. How was it fair that some lives were recalled and pored over and reinterpreted time and time again, whilst others fell into obscurity? Who made the decision that one life deserved more attention than another? Why was the celebrity lifestyle more venerated than the obscure yet arguably more accomplished one?
Baxter had been a “celebrity”, of sorts. He’d been well known in certain theatrical circles. And so had Minnie for a time. And Charlie was about to find out how closely entwined the two individuals had become.
Neither chronological nor biographical, the book was complicated in structure with sections divided into letters, diary extracts and published articles. It wasn’t just the flavour of the era that Baxter’s writings revealed. His behaviour was manipulative, craven and obsessive, but he was also witty, clever and powerful; once in his orbit, it would be difficult for anyone to break free. After a few minutes flicking back and forth Charlie at last came across something useful: excerpts from Baxter’s diary making reference to Minnie.
July 1912
I have called on Minnie several times this week, bearing gifts of bouquets and flattery, immense flattery at all times, she cannot even begin to speak to me unless I have performed the necessary hour or so of obsequies beforehand! I pride myself on my inventiveness, all the new words and phrases I conjure up in order to say the same thing over and over. How beautiful and resplendent she is, how her presence dominates the stage, how her radiance affects everyone, off it. How I long to gaze on her wondrous form day and night, in sulphur light and moonlight, candlelight and sunshine. How her mellifluous voice can traverse the scale from harsh and haughty when she is in defiant character, to soothing, supplicating, womanly, when she plays the noble character; strident and bold when she is playing the wronged woman; tender and gentle when she is the hard done by girl, the suffering innocent. How versatile she is, how talented, how multi-faceted her countenance, how lost am I in each and every character, fully forgetting the woman from whence it originates. You are Miss Daylight, you are Juliet, you become Mrs Holloway! I know of no other way to tell you – you are brilliant!
Shallow woman that she is, she laps it up like her confounded dog at the water bowl! Fussing and fretting and snuffling at my hands, waiting for a treat, a chocolate, a titbit, forever troubling me for another and another and another … It is wearisome in the extreme; how I long for it to be over, and yet I find myself counting the minutes before I can approach her and do it all over again! Am I a fool? I fear I am, and she has made me so, she has made me doubt my own wits. I am become disordered and irrational under her malign influence!
September 1912
On hearing that I had finished writing a play of my own Minnie showed it to Geoffrey D’Urvaine. Why she would take it upon herself to do this, I don’t know! Who wants a successful playwright to lecture them when they have produced nothing of note? The humiliation was intense. A lesser man fawning over a greater one. Minnie of course was entirely oblivious to my discomfort, whereas Geoffrey I perceived, revelled in it. It makes my blood boil to recall it! ‘It’s not bad,’ he said. ‘But it’s not good, either.’
August 1913
I am content. The play took me six months to write, and another six to be produced! Not by the Farrar Fay Players, thank God. William wouldn’t read it. She said he had, but I know he tossed it to one side unread and pulled her into his arms instead! I have based my villain on him, anyway. Shall he notice? I think not. Shall she? She will think it, anyway. I might argue the opposite and her vanity will make it so. She begged me for the lead role, begged me. Not in such an overt fashion of course, but she would find out who else was up for the part, who she should poison, stab, run over, first! I jest. She asked me outright. ‘Is Mary Maybelle, for me? Is it the role you have been promising me?’ ‘Of course it is,’ I said, although in truth I feel Agnes Partington, ten years younger, would do it far better.
December 1913
In the past, when I coached her – and yes, she will pretend that it was nothing of the kind – we were able to translate our professional relationship into one of friendly intimacy, and her acting was much the better for it. Alas there is now a hesitant note to her acting which undermines any veracity or verisimilitude. One ceases to believe in the character, and sees only the actress fumbling for the line. It saddens me to see it. And yet, she is the only woman I can countenance now. It must be her part, she will be a sensation, of course she will. And even if she changes my lines, which she does, often, before changing them back, I bite my tongue. I and the director allow her to experiment with the lines, before he – much more daring than I – guides her back to the original. Some half an hour to an hour later, the exasperated cast tut and hang their heads. We are back to square one, are we? Which version are we doing? Hers or yours?
January 1914
The first week was a success, and my name was on everyone’s lips. Minnie, a triumph, of sorts. Her presence is as vast as ever, helped by her steadily increasing waistline. I am being mean; she carries her excess carriage with grace and ease of movement. Only I notice her huffing and puffing in the wings. Again! I jest. She is ill, in fact. The understudy finishes the final scenes for her on Friday! Huge groans from the audience, catcalls, hisses. She couldn’t get to the end of the play? What was wrong with her? No sympathy, I note, only self interest. What if the poor darling was seriously ill? Did none of them pause to consider? Alas and alack, her doctor has told her to rest. Miss Browning steps into the role. Makes a hash of the first night, much better the next. Too late, the damage is done. Whispers around town. Avoid Baxter’s new play. Not worth a farthing now that Miss Devine is laid low and Miss Browning not up to it. The manager is optimistic. A full house every night, he promises. For a week or two, then nothing. The play comes off. The glittering career, anything but. ‘Baxter,’ says D’Urvaine. ‘Bad luck. You win some, you lose some. Unless you’re me, in which case you win every time.’
Summer 1914
Minnie is gone to the seaside, a place in Bournemouth. She writes that she longs to see me. When I arrive, she will not receive me; she says she is too unwell. Capricious woman! I wait around all morning for some message, some acknowledgement that I mean something to her, that I afford a smidgen of respect, and what happens? I call on her again, only to be told that she
has left, she has taken flight! She is on the next stage of her journey! What am I to make of this? She deliberately lures me to her cage, and then flies away when my back is turned. No! Not even when my back is turned. In front of me. She may as well have snubbed me in the hotel lobby in plain view of everyone. The effect is much the same. Confounded humiliation! I know why she treats me this way. She wants her revenge. It is my fault she was ill, my fault the play came off, my fault the part didn’t suit her. Why had I not written something more appropriate to her style?Slighted she was, in front of her London audience, and she wants me to have a taste of my own foul medicine. But I have abandoned my work to make this assignation, I have cancelled meetings, I have curtailed visits, heavens! I have avoided my own wife, in order to rush about the country in pursuit of Her Ladyship. Well, we shall see. The story does not end here.
September 1914
I have a new favourite! Marvellous fate! How one woman exits my life and another one enters. Agnes Partington is the lead in a new production of Her Master Calls. Charming, absolutely delightful woman! She accosts me at the end of the street, bearing a basket of ‘goodies’ and tells me she has been waiting there over an hour in hopes of seeing me that day! ‘Are you some fiend?’ I enquire, ‘do you mean me harm?’ Oh no, she cries in deep mortification, please do not fear me. I only wish to demonstrate my servitude. ‘Forgive me,’ I chuckle. ‘I was in jest. I can see you mean me no harm. On the contrary, a figure as pretty as yours surely does not harbour any miscreant thoughts. Do come inside my dear. Have some tea. We will examine these treats you have been so kind to furnish us with, and we will become acquainted.’ She giggles delightedly and accompanies me back indoors – my errand quite forgot – and we spend an entrancing morning deep in conversation and merriment. She tells me all about her acting career thus far, and her hopes for the future and indeed I assure her that I will do all I can to forward it. As many positive reviews as I can bear. She laughs, such a beautiful laugh, and tells me I must do no such thing. I must be honest and truthful. We both know what a joke that is! She is so very sharp, so very perceptive, I see she has done her homework. She knows all about me, knows my reputation, knows how to handle me as if she had known me all her life, was in fact married to me. I would go so far as to declare she knows me better than anyone, Jess included, and this is after a mere morning’s acquaintance. Tell me the world has been turned upside down, topsy-turvy!
The Dragonfly Brooch Page 11
