Daughter of Deceit (10 page)

My mother was waiting for us. She looked considerably better and wanted to hear all about it. How did the audience react? How had Lisa managed that tricky bit at the end of the first act? Had she got right to the top notes of “I’d love you if you were a shopgirl still”? And how had her steps fitted in with those of the bridegroom?

It had all gone better than she had dared hope, Lisa assured her.

“Now I shall sleep easily,” replied my mother. “My dear child, I am sure you were wonderful. And Dolly … what did he say?”

“He grunted,” said Lisa.

“What sort of grunt was it? We always know his mood by the nature of his grunts.”

“Grunts of relief,” I said.

“Thank goodness for that. He must have been pleased or he would have been stamping round here by now.”

I
said: “We must go to bed. Lisa’s exhausted.” I turned to my mother. “And you are an invalid. Good night, dearest mother.”

“Good night, my angel.”

We kissed while Lisa stood watching us; then Lisa herself went to my mother and put her arms round her.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you. I owe everything to you.”

“You owe tonight to some beastly bad fish, my dear, not to me,” said my mother.

We all laughed and my mother went on: “I’m glad for you, my dear. It was a chance and you were ready to take it. That’s the way to do it.”

Lisa looked remorseful. “I am sorry it was because you were ill.”

“Oh, come. Take your opportunities and be thankful from wherever they come.”

And on that note we went to our respective rooms.

There was not a great deal in the papers next morning—just a report of Desiree’s illness and that a newcomer, Lisa Fennell, had taken her place. There was no comment on how she had performed.

Dolly came round and I was eager to hear what his verdict was.

“She went through all the motions,” he said. “But she’s no Desiree, I can tell you that.”

“The audience applauded,” I said.

“They always do when it’s a newcomer. Even audiences have their sentimental moments.”

“So you think that’s all
it was.”

He nodded and turned to my mother. “As for you, madam, you be careful what you eat in future. Don’t let it happen again. The audience wouldn’t stand for it.
Maud
would be off in a week if we had any more of that.”

So, I thought, this is the end of Lisa’s little triumph.

I was sitting in the park with Roderick. It was a week after Lisa Fennell had taken my mother’s place in
Countess Maud.
I was telling Roderick about it.

He said: “I suppose that sort of thing happens often in the theatre?”

“Oh yes. It’s quite a common occurrence. There is great consternation all the same when the leading player is unable to be there.”

“That girl has courage to face an audience who would obviously have preferred someone else.”

“Lisa was overjoyed. She did her best to show concern about my mother—and of course she
was
concerned—but she couldn’t hide her joy. After all, it was only a bilious attack … uncomfortable at the time, but it soon passed. As you can imagine, there was tremendous drama at the time. Dolly—that’s Donald Dollington—made sure of that. I think at heart he enjoys a crisis. It gives him a chance to display his dramatic talents.”

“How did the play go?”

“Quite well. I think Lisa is clever to have done it. Of course, there is something very special about my mother. It’s more than being able to sing and dance. It’s personality.”

“The girl seems to have a pleasant personality.”

“It’s not the same. It was a pity Lisa had to follow someone like my mother.”

“We were talking the other day … do you remember? … when she joined us.”

“I remember.”

“About this … situation. What are we going to do, Noelle?”

“You’d be very welcome at our house, you know. I mentioned to my mother that we had met and she did not seem to think there was anything extraordinary about it.”

“It’s a ridiculous situation. Just because your mother and my father had a sort of romantic friendship, you and I are uneasy about meeting.”

“But we do meet. Perhaps it is just our feeling and we are imagining something which isn’t there.”

“My father was uneasy when I appeared at your house. He has never mentioned it, actually, which is odd. I sense that he wants to keep his friendship with your mother apart from his home life.”

“That implies, of course, that it was rather a special friendship.”

“What of your father? He must have died a long time ago?”

“I’m not sure. My mother doesn’t talk about him very much. She makes it clear that she doesn’t want to. All that she will say is that he was a very fine man, someone for me to be proud of.”

“She never mentions when he died, or how?”

“No. Desiree can be very firm when she wants to, although mostly she is so easygoing. She’s made it clear that she doesn’t want to talk about him. I sometimes wonder if they parted. You see, she had this burning ambition to succeed on the stage. It might have been something to do with that. I often wonder whether he is still alive and one day I shall see him. But she has certainly made it clear that she does not want to speak of him.”

He nodded. “And then … of course … she just has friends … like my father.”

“There’s a Frenchman, too. He comes and goes just as your father does. Those two have always been coming and going, for as long as I can remember. I have always known that they were her special friends.”

“Of course, she is a very attractive person and she doesn’t live exactly conventionally in any way.”

“Oh yes. She doesn’t conform to the rules of society. I am sure she understands that your mother and Robert’s wife … I presume he has a wife … most men have … I’m sure she understands they would not approve of her friendship with them. She would say, well, it is better they do not know. She would respect their views and wouldn’t want to upset them in any way. She never makes any demands on her friends. She’s fond of them … you see, it is her way of life.”

“I do understand all that, but I am thinking of how it affects us.”

“Well, no one has suggested we should not meet. We shall have to see what happens.”

Roderick was not very satisfied, and I was thinking that this conversation was an indication of the way in which our friendship was progressing. We were no longer merely acquaintances.

We chatted of other things, but I knew that at the back of his mind was the thought that because of the relationship between our parents we were in a situation which he would like to change.

When I arrived home I was met by consternation.

My mother was laid low with another attack similar to that which she had had before.

Dolly was already there. He was in my mother’s bedroom. She was prostrate and looked very pale.

She said: “Oh, here’s Noelle. Thank God you’re here, darling. I feel better when you’re around. It’s another of those silly attacks. Something I’ve eaten again.”

I looked at her in dismay. It could not be. It must be something else … something serious. I felt a terrible anxiety creeping over me. She had always seemed so young … so full of vitality.

“I think we should get a doctor,” said Martha.

“No, no,” cried my mother. “It’s my stupid digestion. I ate too much at lunch. Well, I’ve learned my lesson.”

Lisa was there … anxious, on tenterhooks. She seemed as though she was trying to calm herself.

“If I’m no better tomorrow, I’ll
see the doctor,” said my mother. “The important thing is the show tonight.”

Dolly gave a repeat of his previous performance, reproaching the Almighty, demanding to know what he had done to deserve this.
Countess Maud
was set for a record run. Why should the powers that be want to ruin that? Desiree
was
Countess Maud, and here he was, in such a short time, having to use the understudy again. What was Heaven thinking of? It hadn’t even been a decent interval, and here it was again.

Martha said: “Let’s get down to what’s what, eh? Let’s see what we’ve got to
do.
“

It was the same as before. Lisa went on. I was not there, but I heard she had improved her performance. It was not such a blatant replica of Desiree’s. But the audience was lukewarm. What could one expect? They had come to see Desiree and had been fobbed off with Lisa Fennell.

I saw her after the show. She was exhausted and less elated than on the previous occasion.

“I
could do it,” she said almost angrily. “But one needs practice. If I had a week’s run I’d be all right.”

“You’re fine and you took it on at such short notice, and you haven’t really had a lot of practice on the professional stage. It was really remarkable. They realize that. They don’t tell you so, but they do. You know what Dolly is. He scoffs at my mother sometimes.”

I was sorry for Lisa. She had tried so hard and she had done very well. It was merely that she could not compare with Desiree.

I doubted there was an actress in London who could have done that.

The next morning, in spite of my mother’s protests, we called in the doctor.

Martha said it was too much of a coincidence that she should have eaten tainted food on two occasions so close together. No one else had suffered. It was better for the doctor to come.

My mother was completely restored and apologized to Dr. Green when he arrived.

“Your visit is not really necessary,” she said. “It’s these people who insisted on your coming. The trouble was that I had eaten something which didn’t agree with me and I was a little bilious and dizzy with it, so that I could not get to the theatre last night.”

“And,” said Martha, “it happened just a few weeks ago.”

I thought the doctor looked a little grave then. I was hustled out of the room, but Martha remained.

It was not long before the doctor came out. I heard Martha talking to him as he left.

I rushed into my mother’s room. She looked at me triumphantly.

“I told you so,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with me. It was something I ate.”

“What … twice?”

“Yes, twice. It can happen, you know. It’s not so difficult to understand.”

“But … are you sure?”

“Absolutely. I am sound in every limb.”

“Well, it wasn’t your limbs which were in question.”

“No … really, there’s nothing. It’s natural to feel a bit dizzy with a bilious attack. I think I had better have one of those food tasters … the sort kings and queens used to have in the old days. Don’t mention it to Dolly or he’ll make one of the chorus girls taster-in-chief. The fact is that there is nothing wrong with me. But I must always watch what I eat in future.”

Martha came into the room. She looked immensely relieved.

“I was right,” said my mother. “You wouldn’t believe me, would you?”

“Well, let’s thank our lucky stars that it is all right. Dolly will be here soon.”

“Yes. He’ll be furious with me for upsetting his show twice for nothing much.”

“He’ll be jolly grateful that it was nothing much. My goodness, you had me scared.”

“You scare too easily, Martha.”

“It did seem as though there was something to be scared about. If anything went wrong with you …”

“It would be the end of
Countess Maud,
it seems.”

“It would be the end of more than that. I don’t know where we’d be without you.”

Lisa joined us in the park. She just happened to come across us, she said. I wondered if she had followed me. She had been very interested in Roderick.

I was sorry for Lisa. I could understand her need for company. She was hovering between euphoria and despair.

It was the day after her appearance as Maud. The papers had mentioned it. “Another disappointment for all those who had gathered together to see the incomparable Desiree to find that once again she was unable to appear. We are told it was a bilious attack which had forced Desiree to take to her bed instead of the boards. In her place was her understudy, Miss Lisa Fennell, a young dancer usually seen in the chorus. Miss Fennell tried hard. She fought her way through, faltering on some of the intricate dances, but on the whole was adequate. A talented amateur. She needs
more practise in the role. Poor
Maud
can only totter along at this rate. It’s a thin show and needs a personality like Desiree’s to hold it up. If she is going to make a practice of taking nights off,
Countess Maud
will not last another month.”

It was a wretched review, damning poor Lisa with faint praise.

Desiree said: “It’s not bad, dear, not bad at all. You should see some of the stuff that came my way in the early days! You’d have thought the best thing I could have done was pack up and go home. They’re like that, dear, all these critics. They couldn’t do it themselves and they don’t like anyone else to. You just don’t take any notice of them. Most of them would give their ears to be on the stage. They can’t do it, so they take it out on those who can. That’s what I’ve always said, and if anyone ought to know, I did.”