‘I don’t know.’ Daisy shrugged. ‘Amy and Julia must be on their way, but I expect they’ve stopped at a corner shop for cigarettes. Where are the other boys?’
‘George was in the bathroom when I left, and Frank was having breakfast.’
‘What about Ewan?’
‘He’s gone for a run,’ said Jesse, shuddering. ‘He’s started running every morning now. Gets up at crack of dawn, puts on his old school plimsolls, off he goes. I see him from my bedroom window. Maybe he’s having so much fun he’s lost all track of time.’
Jesse lit a cigarette and blew a stream of fragrant Russian smoke across the stage. ‘When I look at Fraser,’ he continued, in a husky drawl, ‘I can’t but help remember how wonderful it felt to be so young, so full of energy. I’m such a slug myself. I hate all outdoor exercise, although of course I like to dance.’
Daisy glanced at Jesse, at his narrow waist, broad chest and well-developed shoulders. She thought that if he took no exercise apart from dancing, he was an extremely lucky slug. ‘You can’t be very old,’ she said.
‘Alas, I won’t see twenty-five again.’
Jesse stood up and stretched, and then began to pace around the dimly lit and dusty stage. Daisy was reminded of a panther she had seen in India, a dark and dangerous thing. She stared in fascination, then realised he had noticed she was staring, and that his dark chocolate eyes were bright.
At that moment, Julia and Amy came bustling in, lighting up and giggling. ‘Ooh, are we interrupting something?’ Julia demanded.
‘No,’ said Jesse, and turned to her to smile his lazy smile. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘Our mistake, I’m sure,’ said Amy. ‘Only it looked to us like you were showing off to Daisy here, and we can’t allow it.’
‘You want to watch that fellow, sweetheart,’ murmured Julia, as she brushed past Daisy. ‘Stick with the baby boyfriend, that’s my advice to you.’
‘Come on, Daisy May,’ said Amy, taking Daisy’s arm. ‘Sadly, it’s time to tear yourself away from Mr Gorgeous here. You need to put your frock on and to get made up, or Alfred will be after you.’
Ewan didn’t want to believe that it was happening, that Daisy was becoming more besotted with each passing day.
But he had no choice but to believe. The evidence was there in front of him. What could he do, how could he warn her, and would she listen, anyway?
After the dress rehearsal, which had gone very badly – but everyone said this was a good sign, a dreadful dress rehearsal meant a brilliant opening night – he tried to get her on her own.
But it proved impossible. Although most of the others, including Trent, had gone off to the pub, Julia and Amy seemed to have decided they had to be on permanent sentry duty. On reflection, he supposed he should be grateful – the bastard couldn’t do anything with that pair of painted harpies hovering around.
‘Daisy, I need to talk to you,’ he said, while the two harpies sat doing their nails and nattering in the stalls, and Daisy was going over her own moves for one last time.
‘You mean you want to shout at me,’ she said, and wouldn’t look at him.
‘I don’t want to shout.’ Ewan locked the monster in its cage and threw away the key. ‘What’s gone wrong between us?’
‘You’re behaving like an idiot, that’s what, and well you know it.’
‘I thought you loved me?’ Ewan didn’t know what else to say. ‘I thought we loved each other?’
‘Ewan, I do – we do.’ Daisy stopped her pacing, sighed and shook her head. ‘But you stifle me.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I don’t want you following me around all the time, and always checking up on me.’
‘I told your parents I’d look after you.’
‘But you didn’t offer to be my jailer.’
‘I’ve never tried to be your jailer.’
‘No?’ Daisy moved downstage, turned round and checked the distance to the wings. ‘Ewan, we can go out together sometimes, go to places on our own. But I’m happy for you to go and play football with the boys – and you should be happy for me to go out with the others, go to the talkies, go out dancing, possibly.’
The monster stirred and growled. ‘Go out dancing with that bastard Trent, you mean,’ it muttered.
‘Of course I don’t,’ said Daisy, but she reddened. ‘You’re being very stupid about Jesse. I don’t know why you hate him. But everyone has noticed, and it’s got to stop.’
‘How did Phoebe find us after all this time?’ asked Rose. She’d put the letter away, more than a week had passed, but she knew that sooner or later she was going to have to answer it.
‘She must have kept a note of our address,’ said Alex. ‘She sent the letter to Melbury House, and so of course the postman brought it here. She stayed there once when Henry was alive, don’t you remember, during that hot summer? Daisy was living with Mrs Hobson then.’
‘Yes, of course, you’re right. We were about to go to India. Phoebe said she couldn’t take Daisy to the USA, so you suggested we adopt her, and we did.’
‘May I see her letter?’ asked Alex, who had waited patiently for Rose to let him read it, but was now tired of waiting.
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ Rose took it from the dresser drawer, handed it to him and watched him read.
My dear Rose
I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write to you again. I’m not too smart at putting things in writing, like you know. So please forgive mistakes, and also sorry for the blots. My pen don’t work too good.
I thought you’d like to know that me and Nathan have settled down very well in New York City. He’s got some cousins here, and when we come they made us very welcome straight away.
Now we got a swell (that’s an American word, it means it’s good) apartment. It’s got a bathroom and a sitting room and a lovely kitchen with hot water and a little balcony. We got spare bedrooms, too. We’re in the Lower East Side, that’s where all the garment factories are, and Nathan’s cousin took him into wholesale, and now he’s gotten his own business.
Me, I got a hat shop, and it’s doing fine.
But we don’t got us any kids. Nathan and me’s been trying for years, and nothing’s ever happened. So, Rose, I need to see my little girl. You been her mother, and I’m sure you been a good one, but I want to see her, get to know her, and surely that’s not much to ask?
I hope this finds you, Rose, and finds you well. I hope whoever is living in your house (if it’s not you) will send my letter on. Rose, I haven’t forgot about all what you did when I had Daisy. You was a friend in need.
I’ll wait for you to answer this before I book my ticket on Cunard.
Give my best to Alex, and hope to hear from you.
Phoebe (Rosenheim)
‘What shall we do?’ asked Rose.
‘You must write back inviting her to visit us, of course,’ said Alex. ‘Daisy is Phoebe’s daughter, and Phoebe has a right to know what’s happened since she saw Daisy last.’
‘Alex, Phoebe didn’t care tuppence about what happened to her daughter! If it hadn’t been for us, Daisy would have ended up with foster parents – baby farmers, probably, people who take children in for money – or in some awful orphanage, where it’s very likely she’d have been neglected, beaten, starved. What earthly right has Phoebe – ’
‘She is Daisy’s mother. Rose, we have to welcome Phoebe. What else can we do?’
‘I could pretend I didn’t get the letter, couldn’t I?’
‘I seem to remember telling Daisy that if she ever wanted to find her mother, we would help her look.’
‘Alex, you’ve forgotten Daisy said she hated Phoebe, and didn’t want us to mention her again.’
‘She was angry and upset.’
‘I don’t know what to do.’ Rose’s own emotions were in turmoil. ‘I know it must be your decision, too. But let me think about it for a while? Phoebe wouldn’t want to cross the Atlantic in the winter, anyway. She’d do much better to wait until the spring.’
Daisy was getting better and better. Everybody said so. She was getting flattering notices in all the local papers, and even the most curmudgeonly of the provincial critics – a bunch of ignorant old drunks who couldn’t find the way to their own arseholes, as Mr Curtis eloquently put it when they trashed a show – were complimentary to Daisy.
‘Although the play itself was somewhat plodding, and the end predictable, the entire production was enlivened by the presence of a charming juvenile,’ announced the Stafford Echo.
‘The casting of the beautiful Miss Denham in a tiny part gave life and spirit to a tired evening,’ said the Hanley Chronicle.
‘They mean they liked your legs,’ said Amy sourly, one afternoon before a matinee that looked like playing to an almost empty house. ‘So don’t get too big-headed and think you’re going to be a star.’
‘Give the girl a break, she’s doing fine,’ said Jesse Trent, and Ewan scowled at him.
‘Daisy, darling, come over here a minute.’ Julia motioned Daisy to the wings, then handed her a package nicely wrapped in clean brown paper. ‘I got you this. It’s a little thank you for helping out that time, know what I mean?’
‘What is it?’ Daisy asked, remembering the last time Julia had given her a parcel, and not especially keen to open this one.
‘It’s for your notices. You’re the only one who’s getting any, after all. Go on, open it.’
So Daisy did, and she was pleasantly surprised.
‘It’s lovely, Julia – thank you!’ she exclaimed, leafing through the leather-covered album, delighted with its pastel-coloured pages and pockets tied with ribbon, all waiting to make a record of her professional life. ‘I’ll paste the first ones in tonight.’
‘Come along, Miss Twinkletoes, you’re on,’ hissed Amy Nightingale. She yanked the album out of Daisy’s hands, plonked it down among the props, then almost dragged her on. ‘You mustn’t disappoint your fans,’ she added, acknowledging the applause that greeted Daisy through clenched and gritted teeth.
Ewan knew he wasn’t doing well. His heart was just not in it, and it showed. He hated the new plays, the vacuous, stupid comedy Down the Drain and the idiotic Blighted Blossoms. He wanted to play Romeo, Mercutio, Benedick, not a succession of idle bounders, tennis-playing chumps, disgusted brothers and hero’s friends.
‘I’d like you two to stay behind for a moment, dearest boys,’ Mr Curtis said to George and Ewan, after a bad rehearsal for the comedy Down the Drain. ‘Mr Fraser, you’ve got the voice at last, the gods of drama all be praised. But this is supposed to be a farce, and quite frankly you’re not going to get a single laugh.’
Ewan was almost certain he heard the bastard Trent begin to snigger.
‘You must work on your moves, as well,’ continued Mrs Curtis. ‘You clump around the stage like some old carthorse, and you get in everybody’s way. You masked poor Mr Reed through one whole scene. Darlings, we can’t afford a bad review. We’re going to have our work cut out making any money at all in this godforsaken little town. So let’s run through Act 2, Scene 3 once more.’
Ewan started to protest, but Mr Curtis jammed his monocle in his eye and fixed him beadily. ‘Position please, dear boy.’
‘Daisy, if you could wait ten minutes,’ Ewan called, as the rest of the company started heading for the doors.
‘It’s all right, I’ll walk Daisy to the pub,’ Jesse called back to him, as he helped Daisy with her coat.
‘Or we could wait for Ewan,’ suggested Daisy.
‘I don’t want Mr Fraser being distracted by Miss Denham, he needs to get this right.’ Mr Curtis waved them off. ‘He’ll see you later, girls and boys.’
Daisy and Jesse left the rehearsal room, walked down the stairs and out into the street.
Julia and Amy weren’t hanging around and waiting, as they usually did. Daisy assumed they must have gone ahead – Julia had mentioned having a navvy’s thirst on her today – but this meant she had Jesse to herself.
It made her nervous, but excited, too.
He had a new trilby, Daisy noticed, with a very up-to-date soft brim. It shaded half his handsome face and made him look impossibly romantic, she decided. Like Clark Gable, or maybe Ronald Colman, somebody like that.
‘It seems so strange to come out of rehearsals or a performance when it’s light,’ she said. ‘Somehow, I always think it will be dark.’
‘Yes, and for most actors daylight’s far too much like real life, with all its boredom, pain and irritation.’ Jesse smiled. ‘You and I, we’re creatures of a brighter, sharper, more exciting world. We only come alive when we’re on stage, in the glare of artificial light.’
‘Yes, you’re right, we do.’
‘But we probably shouldn’t be in darkness all the time. So let’s go through that little park and get a bit of air.’ Jesse took Daisy’s hand and held it as they crossed the road, but then forgot to let it go again, and she didn’t like to pull away. ‘How long have you been with Mr and Mrs Curtis?’ he enquired.
‘I joined the company last September.’ Daisy blushed and stared down at the gravel path, aware of Jesse’s fingers stroking hers, his pressure on her hand. ‘I’ve done a lot of amateur work, of course – singing, dancing, one act plays – but this is my first professional engagement.’
‘I never would have guessed.’ Jesse laughed, but warmly, not unkindly. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh,’ he added. ‘You do very well, Miss Denham.’
‘Thank you, Mr Trent,’ said Daisy, primly.
‘Jesse, please.’ Jesse sat down on a bench and, since his hand still held hers prisoner, Daisy had no option but to sit down beside him.
‘Where do you come from?’ Daisy asked him, staring straight ahead. ‘I mean, where were you born?’
‘In Yorkshire.’ Jesse stroked her fingers gently, slowly, thoughtfully. ‘My father is a minister, so you could say acting’s in my blood.’
‘You’re a son of the vicarage, then?’
‘Good heavens, no!’ Jesse sighed and shook his handsome head. ‘Nothing as respectable, I’m afraid. My parents are members of a strict and frankly outlandish non-conformist sect. They disowned me when I started acting in return for money.’
‘Really?’ Daisy warmed to Jesse as a kindred spirit. ‘My mother isn’t a member of a sect,’ she told him, confidentially. ‘But she feels acting and getting paid for it is vulgar, too.’
‘You didn’t have a happy childhood, then?’
‘I had a lovely childhood, but – ’
‘Mine was horrible. I’ve had the devil beaten out of me so many times that – well, see for yourself.’ Jesse turned back a cuff to show a pattern of angry purple welts encircling his wrist. ‘My father used to tie me up and thrash me.’
‘But that’s awful, surely there are laws?’ Daisy had never been so much as slapped, and suddenly her heart contracted as she imagined Jesse as a frightened, lonely child, loomed over by a monster of a father. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Oh, don’t be sorry, at least I got away.’ Jesse pushed his cuff back down, stood up. ‘Let’s get going, shall we? The others will be wondering where we’ve gone, and we don’t want to get them talking.’
‘Why would they talk?’ asked Daisy. ‘All we’re doing is sitting chatting in a public park, and where’s the harm in that?’
But, as she said it, she felt her heart beat faster, and she knew that in a public park with Jesse was the only place she wished to be.
Ewan came out of the rehearsal room to find Amy hanging around outside it, but the other harpy Jul
ia was nowhere to be seen.
‘How did it go?’ she asked.
‘I suppose I’m getting there,’ said Ewan. ‘Mr and Mrs Curtis seem to think so, anyway.’
‘But you’re not in the mood for comedy, are you, Mr Fraser?’ Amy looked at him with mournful, deeply-shadowed eyes. ‘Hamlet, yes – I think you’d make a perfect gloomy Dane. You’d be in your element playing melancholy mad. Any London manager would sign you up for Hamlet straight away.’
‘I doubt it,’ muttered Ewan, who at that very moment didn’t believe he had enough acting talent to play the back end of a horse. So, as for Hamlet, that was just a joke.
‘Darling, I’d put money on it,’ Amy told him, ‘and I’m not a betting girl. I don’t believe in paying taxes on stupidity. But anyway, enough chit-chat, have you got a light?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Ewan took out his matches and lit Amy’s cigarette, carefully so as not to singe her eyebrows or set her blonde spun-sugar hair on fire.
‘Thanks,’ she said and smiled, but then she sniffed. ‘I’m sorry, but I think I’m going to blub.’
‘Why, what’s the matter?’ Since he was so miserable himself, Ewan was more than ready to sympathise, even if it meant he’d have to watch a woman cry.
‘I’ve had some rotten news. My mother’s dying, but she doesn’t want to see me.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Ewan thought, I’d better write to mine, it’s been a while.
‘It can’t be helped.’ Amy slipped her arm through Ewan’s. ‘So come on then, walk me to the boozer, and I’ll drown my sorrows. You’re not very happy these days, are you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, come on, my darling, don’t play the innocent with Auntie Amy, you know very well.’ Amy moulded herself against him, glancing up at him occasionally and puffing cigarette smoke in his eyes.
‘Listen to me, sweetheart,’ she continued. ‘I’ve been watching you since you and Daisy May first joined this company. I can tell you now you’re worth a dozen Jesse Trents. You’re ten years younger, you’re much nicer-looking, and you’re a better actor – or you could be, if you took the trouble.’
The Golden Chain Page 11