Rags to Riches

by Nancy Carson

  ‘Shocked, yes…And damned angry. But not too upset. I’m afraid Brent demolished any feelings I had for him ages ago. That’s true, isn’t it, Pansy? Let me order those drinks from room service. What would you like?’

  ‘Tea will be fine, thank you,’ Cassandra said.

  ‘But tell them to put that bottle of champagne on ice ready,’ Stephen added with a gleam in his eye.

  Maxine telephoned for more tea but ignored the suggestion of champagne.

  ‘So, tell me what you’ve been up to,’ Maxine suggested.

  Stephen smiled benignly. ‘Oh, in a minute. Hey, I like that record you made, Maxine – “Destiny Jests with Me”. I bought a gramophone just so I could play it. And that other one – “From Tears to a Kiss”. Great! They’re always on the wireless back home.’

  Maxine beamed with pleasure that her records were so obviously popular with her friends. ‘Has the new one come out in England yet? “It’s Not Your Fault”?’

  ‘Yes. I think I’ve heard that one as well. Strikes me you must be making a fortune, Maxine.’

  ‘For all the good it’s done me…So how are your parents, Stephen? Are they well?’

  ‘They were fine last time I saw them…’ A pause punctuated the conversation, till Stephen added, ‘We arrived today on the Queen Mary, Maxine. We came all the way to America to see you – ’cause I particularly wanted you to meet Cassandra.’

  ‘Well. I’m honoured.’

  He looked into Maxine’s eyes affectionately. ‘We were always close friends, you and I, Maxine. You know I’d never do you a bad turn if I could do you a good one. Well, from what Pansy tells me about your marriage, I reckon you could really do with a good turn.’

  Maxine looked at Pansy. ‘How much have you told him?’

  ‘Just about everything,’ Pansy confessed. ‘How unhappy you are. How you married that pig on the rebound. How you’re still madly in love with Howard…But there’s something I’ve told him that I haven’t even told you, Maxine. And if Brent’s gone, I think I should tell you anyway…Something Toots found out…I thought you should know. I mean, I like to think I’m your best friend and I’d hate you to judge me at some time in the future for holding back on something you reckoned you had the right to know.’

  ‘So what is it?’ Maxine said, intrigued. ‘But I imagine there’s nothing you could tell me about Brent that could surprise me now.’

  Pansy uttered a little laugh of pity. ‘Even so, Maxine, I don’t tell you lightly. I’ve thought about it a lot and I think you should know. I wanted to tell you ages ago but Toots said I shouldn’t interfere.’

  ‘Go on then. You can tell me.’

  Pansy shuffled her bottom on the richly upholstered seat. ‘Well, you remember when we first went to Chicago?’

  ‘I do. Very well.’

  ‘When we arrived, you stayed in bed, didn’t you, while Brent went out?’

  ‘Yes, I was dead beat and he was hungry. He went out to get a bite. I think Kenny went with him.’

  ‘Do you know where they went, Maxine?’

  ‘No. And I don’t really care. But tell me, if you think it matters.’

  ‘They got a taxi driver to drop them at a nightclub. That was when they met James and Hank, the Hollywood film guys. It was them that introduced them to that funny stuff they smoke, Maxine. And that other stuff.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me, Pansy. Is that it?’

  ‘Hell, no, there’s more…These two Hollywood guys took Brent and Kenny Wheeler and a load of chorus girls from the nightclub to a real sleazy dive on the South Side. They’d hired a private room at the back with couches and divans all round the place and they showed blue movies.’

  ‘Blue movies?’ Maxine looked from one to the other with a puzzled look. ‘What are blue movies, Pansy?’

  ‘Movies that…where the actors and actresses do it, you know…have sex in front of the camera…on screen.’

  ‘My God!’ Maxine exclaimed, incredulous. ‘Is anybody so lacking in modesty and morality these days as to actually do that on film?’

  ‘Well, they do it for money, I expect – and attention – girls desperate to get into movies. Anyway, Maxine, while they were all watching these films, they were drinking and smoking that funny stuff, and Kenny and Brent had sex with two of the chorus girls. But in the same room as everybody else, Maxine,’ Pansy elaborated. ‘In full view of everybody…They were all at it! It was a right orgy, so Kenny told Toots.’

  ‘I think I want to be sick, Pansy. How low can people stoop?’

  ‘But that ain’t the end of it, Maxine. When the film finished they had an interval before they showed another dirty film. Everybody swapped partners. Brent and Kenny had two different girls and they had sex with them as well.’

  ‘Doesn’t surprise me, Pansy,’ Maxine said phlegmatically. ‘Nothing surprises me about those two anymore. They’re depraved. Capable of anything. I’m just so pleased that Dulcie saw the light and got out.’

  ‘And you as well, Maxine,’ Pansy added. ‘Apparently Brent’s been seeing that Blanche again – regular. He’s been having an affair with her.’

  ‘And she’s welcome to him,’ Maxine responded resignedly.

  Stephen reached forward from his seat and placed his hand over Maxine’s. ‘Things are not as bad as they seem, Maxine,’ he said softly. ‘Not half as bad.’

  ‘Well at least Brent’s gone. That’s a start.’

  ‘Something else, Maxine. Let me explain…’

  So Stephen began his story. He told her that since he had become involved with Eleanor and she’d seen him become successful in business, she wanted to secure him in marriage, but he had always assumed she was already married.

  ‘But Brent told me he wasn’t married to her, Stephen,’ Maxine interrupted. ‘I knew they weren’t married.’

  ‘Oh, she told me the same thing, Maxine. But, when we were clearing Brent’s house out I found a marriage certificate.’

  ‘A marriage certificate? For Brent and Eleanor?’

  ‘For Brent and a girl called Eleanor Christiana Beckett.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Are you saying they were married after all?’ Maxine queried.

  ‘It’s not quite that simple. You see, the girl you know as Eleanor is not the real Eleanor at all. The girl you know is called Olive.’

  ‘Olive?’

  ‘Yes, Olive. She’s actually Brent’s sister.’

  He allowed a few seconds for this snippet to sink in.

  ‘But…but…’ Maxine stammered. ‘If that girl is his sister, what were they doing in bed together stark naked? How come they were—?’

  ‘They had an incestuous relationship, Maxine.’

  ‘Is that what they call it? Doing it with your own sister? God! It gets worse…The more I get to know about him the lower he sinks. You know he’s a drug addict now as well? And not just marijuana. Did you know that?’

  ‘Pansy said.’

  ‘So who on earth was Eleanor?’

  ‘I’m coming to that, Maxine. When I tackled Olive about it, she told me Eleanor was dead. She didn’t tell me how or why she’d died, so I had to find that out for myself. Anyway, when I asked Olive who she was – because I didn’t know yet that she was Olive, I wasn’t sure who the hell she was – she refused to tell me. That meant I had to do some delving. So I went to the Cotswolds where she and Brent originated from and talked to a few people. Cassandra was one of them. She was tending a grave in a churchyard I went to. We got talking and she told me she knew the real Eleanor – better than anybody.’ He squeezed the girl’s hand affectionately. ‘Tell Maxine what you told me, Cassandra. But tell it in the same way you told me…You know?’

  Cassandra nodded her understanding, and Maxine thought she saw the girl’s colour heighten as all eyes focused on her.

  ‘Well,’ she began, ‘Eleanor was only about seventeen when she met Brent Shackleton in 1930. It was at a fair in Chipping Camden. He was charming and vibrant and very plausibl
e. He told her all about himself, how he loved music, how he wanted to become a professional trombonist in a jazz band. And Eleanor thought that was such a glamorous, exciting thing to be. Jazz mad, he was, but he really impressed her. She fell head over heels and, of course, she told him all about herself.

  ‘She told him that when she left finishing school she was employed as companion to a Lady Hunstanton. Unfortunately, Lady Hunstanton fell ill and became an invalid quite soon after Eleanor went to work for her. Lady Hunstanton was the last in line of an old family and had nobody to leave her money to. So she decided to leave everything to Eleanor, who she said had been so kind to her. But Eleanor made the mistake of letting Brent know she was the sole beneficiary of her will. Anyway, Brent began to show more interest. He told her how madly in love with her he was and how he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. He was very convincing. Very convincing. He made it all sound so romantic. Looking back now, it’s obvious that all he was interested in was the money she was destined to inherit.

  ‘So, after Lady Hunstanton passed away on January 22nd 1931, Brent asked Eleanor to marry him. She was crazy about him so she agreed. Her mother was reticent, though. I think she saw it all as girlish infatuation, but she said if that’s what Eleanor wanted, then it was up to her. She was quite liberal you see, her mother. Eleanor lost her father in the war, by the way. So, in the May they got married and went to live with his parents and Olive in Chipping Camden. Almost as soon as Lady Hunstanton’s money came her way – and it was not really a vast amount, I can tell you – Brent began frittering it away. He bought a very expensive motor car, to impress his friends, and gambled and squandered and drank away the rest of it. Anyway, when Eleanor suggested they buy a house and set up their own home, he was forced to admit that there was precious little money left.

  ‘Then one day, Brent took the day off work. He was working as a clerk then. He said he didn’t feel well. Eleanor had gone to Evesham for the day with her mother to do some Christmas shopping. Olive had also taken the day off work. Anyway, his mother and father came home together, quite unexpectedly, and witnessed their wonderful son and lovely daughter on the hearth. They were both stark naked and you can imagine what they were doing. The shock was too great for Arthur, the father. He suffered a heart attack and died on Christmas Day. His heart must have been weak in the first place, of course, but nobody really suspected that was the case before. He was such a good man – a strong churchgoer, a God-fearing man, utterly respectable – and it was just too much for him. He tried to tell Eleanor there were some dark deeds going on in that house but he never spelt it out and she was too naïve to catch on to what he meant. Anyway, Emma, their mother took ill after the funeral and I can only presume that she died of shame and a broken heart, because she lasted no more than two months. Her health started to decline at once, poor woman. In that time she never spoke another word to either Brent or Olive.’

  ‘And Eleanor had no idea what had gone on during this time?’ Maxine asked.

  ‘In her heart of hearts, she knew. Brent’s mother more or less spelt it out to her while she was so distressed afterwards – rather more graphically than his father did, but Eleanor was inclined to believe they were the ramblings of somebody demented. In any case, her naivety inhibited her from truly believing it.’

  ‘So when did she finally accept what was going on? I presume she did?’

  ‘You bet, Maxine. In fact, she had a similar experience to his mother and father – a similar experience to yourself. She returned home from work early one day – she had a job in one of the local shops by this time trying to make ends meet – and there they were – at it again. They didn’t see her at first and she watched them, mesmerised. She just couldn’t believe her eyes. I mean, just try and imagine being in that position. Imagine finding your own husband doing that with his own sister – and with such ardour…both of them…Well yes, of course, you know, don’t you Maxine?’

  ‘And like I said, it was a shock. But poor Eleanor must have been heartbroken.’

  ‘Not by this time,’ Cassandra said. ‘Only resentful. You see, Brent had a way of making you feel very unwanted when you were of no further use to him. He’d had her money, he’d got Olive for sexual gratification and, by this time, Eleanor was already feeling like an outsider…and very resentful of the fact. And it all confirmed what their mother had warned her about. She left him there and then.’

  ‘Good for her.’

  ‘Next day, when she went back for her things, he and Olive had already done a moonlight flit, as everybody called it. Nobody had seen or heard of either of them till Stephen came along asking questions.’

  ‘Did they ever have a child, Brent and Eleanor?’ Maxine asked.

  ‘Brent didn’t want children.’

  ‘There’s a surprise. And she never divorced him?’

  ‘How would she know where to have papers served on him? He’d gone, disappeared, and she really wasn’t bothered where. He was a part of her life that was eminently forgettable. A mistake, yes, but a mistake she put behind her.’

  Maxine was spellbound by this story. Her eyes never left Cassandra’s lovely face. And it was time to ask the same question that had intrigued Stephen.

  ‘So when did Eleanor die, Cassandra? How did she die?’

  Somebody knocked again on the door and Maxine, annoyed at the interruption, took a dollar bill from her purse and got up to answer it. It was a waiter with the trolley containing the huge pot of tea and a selection of cakes and sandwiches.

  ‘Thank you, I’ll see to it,’ she said, anxious to get the waiter out so she could hear the rest of the story. She handed him his tip and wheeled the trolley into the sitting room herself.

  ‘Shall I pour, Maxine?’ Pansy said.

  ‘Oh, please…So go on, Cassandra…How and when did Eleanor die?’

  Stephen answered. ‘She didn’t die, Maxine.’

  Maxine looked from one to the other in bewilderment. The implications had not yet registered. It seemed more important to discover what had happened to Eleanor.

  ‘This is Eleanor,’ Stephen said proudly and put his arm around the girl he’d been calling Cassandra.

  ‘But I thought…’

  ‘I know…You thought this was Cassandra. Same as I did at first. She told me at first that her name was Cassandra.’

  ‘Yes, because you suddenly appearing from nowhere asking all sorts of questions about me put me on my guard. I didn’t know you from Adam, although you seemed nice enough. So, Maxine, I told him my name was Cassandra – the original Greek word means “unknown” and I thought it rather appropriate. I merely told him I was a friend of Eleanor.’

  ‘So what should we call you after all?’

  ‘Oh, Eleanor. Please. Stephen calls me Cassandra most of the time but he’ll get used to calling me Eleanor soon. And it suited our purpose to hide behind the name Cassandra here, till you knew the full story. No, my name is Eleanor and I’d prefer you to use it.’ She smiled amiably.

  Suddenly things were falling into place. ‘But if Brent married you first and you never divorced him, surely that means you’re still married to him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So his marriage to me must be null and void?…Oh, please tell me it’s null and void…’ Maxine’s eyes were wide with eager anticipation.

  ‘That’s exactly the point, Maxine,’ Stephen said, grinning again. ‘Your marriage to Brent is illegal, actually. Cassandra – I mean Eleanor – and I came to America just to tell you. It means you’re free, Maxine. You’re not tied to him any longer. Your marriage means nothing. It doesn’t exist. Except that he could face prison for bigamy.’

  Maxine did order the bottle of champagne. She asked for reassurance that it was indeed the whole truth and was reassured. Feeling as if a ten-ton weight had been lifted off her, she laughed and joked as they enjoyed the impromptu celebration. She invited them to dinner in the hotel’s Oak Room, so they met up again at seven in all their finery, re
ady to make a night of it. Toots accompanied Pansy by this time and Maxine felt it appropriate to invite Dulcie and Charlie as well. They began the evening with two more bottles of champagne and gossiped about home and mutual friends. They elaborated on the band’s activities and generally got up to date on the world they had left behind. During the main course, conversation became serious again.

  ‘So what do you intend to do now, Maxine?’ Dulcie asked.

  Maxine swallowed the piece of steak she’d been chewing. ‘I’ve been thinking of re-forming the band. Everybody finds it hard to work with Kenny and even Ginger these days. And there’s no way I’m ever going to work with Brent again. It means getting hold of some decent new musicians.’

  ‘But are you sure that’s what you want to do, Maxine?’

  Maxine dabbed her lips with her napkin. ‘I have responsibilities to the band, Dulcie. There’s Pansy and Toots and Charlie. We have to go on.’

  ‘Not on our account,’ Pansy said. ‘Toots and I are not really sure what we want to do, are we, Toots?’

  Toots shook his head.

  ‘We have enough money put away now to bide our time. We might look for alternative work but, on the other hand, we’re inclined to go back to England. We’re inclined to go back to Brum and get married – lead a normal life.’

  Maxine looked from one to the other and joy registered on her face at the news. ‘Really? Honestly? Is that what you want to do?’

  ‘We’ve talked about it, Maxine,’ Toots affirmed. ‘We’ve seen what’s been happening to the band – to you and Brent. Despite the success we’ve had, we’ve sort of been expecting the band to break up. Pansy and I feel we’d like to get married.’ He put his arm around her shoulder proprietorially. ‘Anyway, it’s time I made an honest woman of her. Besides, I love her to bits…’

  ‘Then do it,’ Maxine said, overflowing with sentimentality, ‘and don’t think twice. At least you haven’t been put off by what’s happened to me.’

  ‘It puts us off being married and trying to sustain marriage living this life. We both reckon it would be best to give up the band to make marriage successful.’