“Yes—yes, of course.” She laughed breathlessly. “I remember you now. You were awfully good. So sinister that I couldn’t possibly connect the character with you in real life.”
“Thank you.” He smiled at her, with knowledgeable but kindly eyes, which had a good many lines round them. “But I’m not so sure that real-life blackmailers are specially sinister, are you?”
“I—hadn’t thought about it. One doesn’t expect to meet them, in the ordinary way.”
“Not the kind who make a living out of it, I suppose.” He stroked back his greying hair reflectively. “But there are quite a lot of people who exercise a spot of social blackmail—even if it’s only the emotional kind. They use the influence of their knowledge or the influence of their affection to force their wishes.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Cecile agreed. But she was glad that Sir Lucas chose that moment to engage her in conversation, in his turn.
“Laurie tells me you are looking for an office job,” he said, coming straight to the point with the good-humoured directness which characterized most of his dealings with people.
“I shall be, in about a month’s time,” Cecile agreed eagerly.
“Any specially high standard of attainments?” he enquired.
“No. I wouldn’t claim that.” Cecile matched his candour with her own. “I expect to be able to take down shorthand pretty rapidly and to type it back accurately, and also to be able to write letters in French and German—and to translate from Italian, though not to be able to reply in it.”
“Quite an impressive array of talent.” Sir Lucas smiled. “I am afraid anything I might be able to offer would not employ all that.”
“It doesn’t matter! I’d simply love to work in your office,” Cecile declared.
“Why?” he enquired. And although the one word was quite kindly spoken, in his tone was the undoubted fact that Sir Lucas Manning was able to deal with all manifestations of hero-worship or stage-struck aspirations which might come his way.
“Because I think you would be a just and kindly employer,” replied Cecile without hesitation. “And I should like to be employed in the same world as Laurie. It would give us something in common.”
“Any stage ambitions yourself?” He gave her a shrewd glance, which would have caused a certain amount of disillusioned fluttering in the Upper Circle, if they could have seen it.
“Oh, no! Truly, I haven’t.” Cecile was very earnest about that. “I’m not even very good at acting off-stage,” she added, with a regretful sigh which seemed to amuse her host.
“Why? Have you been trying it?”
“Not exactly.” But irresistibly her glance went to Gregory, who was sitting beside Laurie and apparently getting on very well with her.
“I see,” said Sir Lucas. And Cecile was left wondering very much what he did see.
But before she could ask, he changed the subject and said, “You know, you are very good for Laurie, Cecile. I hope I may call you Cecile?”
“Oh, yes, please do. And I’m glad you think that.” Cecile smiled. “Would you tell me why you think it?”
“She has changed quite a lot since you came.” Sir Lucas looked reflective. “She was always a good artist and a loyal colleague. But she was not a happy person, and a sort of bitterness restricted her ability to give out, as an actress should.”
“Do you know why?” Cecile asked diffidently. “Do you know the—the story in the background?”
“Not exactly, and please don’t tell me,” replied Sir Lucas, with uncompromising frankness. “It’s always best not to know too much of the private lives of one’s cast. Though lord, how hard some of them try to tell one!” he added in rueful parenthesis. “Not Laurie, however. She was always blessedly reticent.”
“I wasn’t going to tell you,” Cecile assured him gravely. “I just wondered if you knew.”
“Only that whatever it was made her a disillusioned and often difficult person. That was why I was so startled and nonplussed when you popped up in the vestibule of my own theatre, looking like a younger edition of Laurie herself and announcing your relationship, with that air of cool innocence that would be worth five thousand a year to a stage ingénue.”
Cecile laughed.
“I didn’t feel cool.”
“You were terrifyingly determined too,” he told her, half teasingly. “I knew I was beaten, from the word ‘go.’ The Rock of Gibralter would have been easy to move, compared to you.”
“Oh, Sir Lucas, you’re exaggerating!”
“A little. That is the privilege of all stage personalities,” he assured her with his famous smile. “But you were right to insist, of course. Whatever you determinedly brought into Laurie’s life was just what she needed. She is a happier woman and a better artist because you came.”
“Oh—thank you.” Cecile smiled, though she was a good deal moved too. And, glancing across at her mother, she thought that it was worth even the anxiety and the heartache she had just experienced to keep Laurie looking happy.
It was Gregory, however, who met her glance. And, as he smiled at her, she felt all her resolution crumbling, and the pendulum of her emotions swung the other way.
Was anything worth the sacrifice of Gregory’s happiness—and her own? And, suppose Felicity actually succeeded eventually in her machinations and drew Gregory back into her orbit—what sort of life was he going to have then?
She sighed impatiently. But then Sir Lucas looked at her so quizzically that she forced herself to remember once more that this was supposed to be her party of pleasure. And, for the rest of the evening, she managed to give at least a very good imitation of enjoying herself immensely.
Later, over coffee, when some of the party changed places, in order to talk to different people, she found young Lady Manning beside her. She was looking very beautiful and serene, and curiously without cares. There was something infinitely soothing about such tranquility, and Cecile found herself asking impulsively, “Is it easy being married to a famous actor? Most people have the idea that it’s difficult to live in the shadow of a great personality. But that isn’t the impression you give at all.”
Sydney Manning laughed.
“It’s easy being married to Lucas, because I love him and he loves me,” she explained, with touching simplicity. “Everything else follows naturally after that. We have our surface troubles and our ups and downs, like other people, of course. But basically—all’s well. Is that what you meant?”
“I suppose so.” Cecile sighed without knowing it. “Then you mean that, if one is married to the right person, almost nothing else matters?”
“Yes. I think I’d say that.” The other girl looked reflective. Then she smiled suddenly and rather mischievously. “But one has to make certain it is the right person first, and sometimes there’s a bad patch until one is sure. I nearly married someone quite different from Lucas.”
“Not really?” Cecile was intrigued, for she could not have imagined these two apart and connected with anyone else.
“Indeed I did. I tore myself to ribbons about it at the time,” declared Lady Manning, looking very happy and secure. “But now I know that I had—not a lucky escape, because the other man was a very nice fellow too, but the good fortune to have time to think again.”
“How very nice.” Cecile could not help smiling at Lucas Manning’s wife. “You somehow make one feel that things do tend to come out all right in the end, when you talk like that.”
“Do you need some reassurance on that point?” enquired Sydney Manning, with an unexpectedly penetrating glance from those lovely grey-blue eyes of hers.
“Why, no—yes— How did you know?”
“Because once or twice during the evening you looked as my small stepson does when he unexpectedly finds that the world is not his own great big beautiful oyster,” Lady Manning said, with a smile.
“Oh—” Cecile laughed doubtfully. “I can’t tell you why, but it’s perfectly true that—tha
t—”
“You don’t have to tell me why,” Sydney Manning said very kindly. “But shall I tell you something?”
“If you like.” Cecile smiled fascinatedly back into those dancing eyes.
“I think Gregory Picton is one of the very nicest people I know. And I’m perfectly sure he has got over Felicity Waring long ago. Does that help?”
“I don’t know,” said Cecile frankly. “But it was very sweet of you to say it.”
“Though it still leaves you in a state of worried indecision?” Lady Manning looked reflective.
“Sometimes one—one simply does not know what to do for the best,” Cecile murmured half to herself.
“No,” the other girl agreed. “But that is the moment when one should be frank with the one person who matters. Why don’t you take him into your confidence about whatever is troubling you?”
“I couldn’t!” Cecile looked aghast. “He’s the one person I couldn’t tell.”
“Why not?” Lady Manning was quite calm about that. “If you love someone, you must trust their reactions, in any circumstances.”
“Why—” Cecile stared at her, as though a light were breaking over her, “perhaps—you’re—right. Perhaps I have been too much afraid of his reaction.”
“Think it over,” Sydney Manning said kindly. And then the party began to break up, with goodnights all round.
Cecile found, a little to her surprise and a good deal to her disappointment, that it was Theo Letterton and not Gregory who was to take Laurie and herself home.
True, if she were to find new ways of driving a wedge between herself and Gregory, the less she saw of him the better. But, at Sydney Manning’s considered last words, something like hope had stirred afresh in Cecile’s heart, though she could not, as yet, see just how she could apply them to her own tangled affairs.
As it was, she said a pleasant, non-committal goodnight to Gregory, just as she did to all the others. And, having thanked the Mannings very warmly for their kindness and hospitality, she went out with her mother to Theo Letterton’s car.
Laurie went in front with Theo Letterton, and Cecile, in the seat behind, leaned back and watched the two of them idly while she thought about Gregory.
“If you love someone,” Sydney Manning had said, “you must trust their reactions—in any circumstances.”
Perhaps she had not trusted enough to Gregory’s love and generosity. She had imagined until now that his anger and disillusionment would be inevitable if once she had known him as a stern and ruthless judge. His love was new and his bitterness was old. It had been natural to fear the result if one were weighed against the other.
But now, in the light of what young Lady Manning had said, she began to wonder if she had despaired too soon.
If Gregory truly loved her—and how could she doubt it, trembling, as she did even now, at the remembered pain and joy of the way he had held her and kissed her?—if he loved her and wanted her to share his life with him, surely she owed it to him to be frank.
She looked again at her mother, sitting in front, and noticed, without attaching any significance to the fact, that Laurie’s bright head was very close to the distinguished, greying head of her companion, and she was laughing happily about something, as though she had not a care in the world.
“Dare I risk everything, when I would not myself be the chief loser?” thought Cecile.
And yet—the exquisite relief of telling Gregory herself!—disarming Felicity for good and all. It was almost irresistible. For how much better she could make the story sound if she told it herself.
She would say, “Gregory, I have decided to be frank with you. I do love you, my darling. But I can’t marry you without admitting to you that there exists some evidence that Laurie was nearly as guilty as you supposed. The evidence is contained in some letters which have come into Felicity’s hands by a miserable mischance. She intends to use them if—”
Here Cecile faltered in her mental speech for the defence. She was not sure that, even now, she could betray Felicity’s baseness in all its ugly detail. But there would be some way round that. She would fine some wording in which to describe the cruel pressure on herself without entirely betraying Felicity’s unscrupulous method of trying to force her out of Gregory’s life.
Then, she thought, she would go on. “If Felicity is really angry, she will show those letters to you, in the belief that it will make you hate and despise Laurie afresh and turn away from me. Can you be generous enough—even great enough—to take those letters and burn them unread? If so, I can marry you, Gregory. If not—it may mean the end of all our happiness.”
She was astonished to find to what heights of mental eloquence she had risen. It seemed suddenly that the way lay clear ahead. Sydney Manning had been right! One must trust the reactions of the beloved in any circumstances.
Why should she suppose that Gregory was not equal to the test? And if he were not—that would be the moment to lose him. Not now—without a fight.
Hope and confidence flared up within her. Though they wavered nervously again when she glanced back at the two in front. It would be Laurie’s happiness and peace of mind she would be risking, even more than her own.
Could Laurie possibly sustain the shock and humiliation if Gregory proved unequal to the test? Suppose all the old bitterness returned and he upbraided her and told her that those letters of hers had not only driven his sister to her death, but ruined all chances of Cecile and him being happy together?
For a moment, she trembled at the thought. And then—so persistently did hope raise its battered head again—she told herself that she simply could not imagine Gregory behaving in such a way. Perhaps—
But before she could find yet another alternative, they arrived home, and Theo Letterton was handing Laurie out of the car, and had come round to open the door for Cecile.
“Goodnight, my dear.” He clasped her hand warmly and smiled down at her in such a friendly way that Cecile felt sincerely glad he had been added to her circle of friends. “It has been a great pleasure to meet Laurie’s daughter.”
“It was a very happy occasion for me too,” Cecile assured him. “I hope we shall meet often.”
“Do you?” He held her hand for a second longer. “It’s rather important to me to hear you say that, you know. Perhaps you have guessed why.”
She had done nothing of the sort, of course. And, immersed as she was in her own affairs, she looked completely nonplussed for a moment. Then suddenly she caught sight of Laurie, standing there smiling and looking incredibly young and eager in the light from the nearby street lamp.
And, with a shock of mingled pleasure and apprehension, the truth burst upon her all at once. This pleasant man, with the kindly eyes and the distinguished air, loved her mother. Perhaps had known and loved her for a very long time.
And because, for the first time in years and years, Laurie was slowly emerging from the shadows of her own folly and despair, he was daring to hope—she was daring to hope—that perhaps, after all, happiness lay waiting for them just round the corner.
“Why, how lovely!” Courageously, Cecile turned a deaf ear to what sounded like her own new-found hopes crashing to the ground. “I—hadn’t guessed anything yet—”
“And it’s too early to start doing so now,” Laurie put in. “Equally, it’s too late for us to stand talking here in the street. Goodnight, Theo dear. It was a wonderful evening. Let go of Cecile’s hand, and don’t practise being fatherly until I give you the word.”
But she laughed as she spoke, and Cecile saw her exchange a smile of complete understanding with Theo Letterton before she turned and went into the house.
“Goodnight—and good luck,” Cecile whispered, before she pulled away her hand and ran after her mother. But she felt a hundred years old, and indescribably weary, as she followed Laurie up the stairs.
Once in the flat, however, she forced a smile of eager and affectionate interest to her lips and exclaimed:
“He’s so nice, Laurie! And he does mean that he wants to marry you, doesn’t he?”
“He has wanted to for years.” Laurie spoke with elaborate casualness, but the colour came and went in her cheeks.
“Oh, darling! And you kept him dangling all that time?”
“No. At least—not because I wanted to.” Laurie pushed back her hair with an agitated hand. “But I couldn’t involve him in—all that. He is a very decent, upright sort of man, you know.”
“Yes. I see that. But you exaggerate, Laurie. You have done so for years. Does he know about the past?”
“Only a general idea of what happened. But it’s never the general ideas that make one wince,” Laurie asserted with bitter knowledge. “It’s the sordid details.”
Cecile thought of those letters—and the thin, thin ice on which they all stood. But she said resolutely:
“The details are forgotten long ago.”
“Yes—” Laurie drew a long sigh, almost as though she threw off a burden—“I’m beginning to believe that now. That’s what you have done for me, Cecile.”
“I’m glad,” Cecile said huskily.
“You don’t know how afraid I used to be. I was so wretched, so ashamed about the past—and always I thought it must rise some day to confound me. That was why I was shocked, but not entirely surprised, when you first turned up. I thought you were a menace in those early days. It was only later that I knew you were a blessing—and the basis of a new confidence.”
“Oh, Mother—” Cecile blinked her lashes, to keep back the tears.
“You are such a hopeful child—and you have a sort of inner strength there is no explaining.” Her mother touched her cheek suddenly with unexpectedly gentle fingers. “When you are there, I forget to be afraid.”
“But of what—exactly—have you been afraid?” Cecile took her hand and held it tightly.
“I don’t know,” Laurie confessed. “I don’t know in quite what form I expected the danger to come. Hugh might have returned, I suppose. Or someone who knew the story might have broadcast it afresh, out of spite or a love of gossip. I don’t know what I feared. But the fear was always there, until quite lately. But now—” she smiled suddenly, “with even Gregory Picton friendly, I tell myself it’s absurd to fear. And, for the first time, I am letting Theo hope.”
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