Silverbridge

by Joan Wolf

  “You look awfully pale,” Gail said worriedly. “Perhaps you had better get back into the car and sit down.”

  “No,” Tracy said. “I’m all right.”

  “You don’t look all right. Do you have a headache coming on?”

  Tracy moved her head, as if testing it, then said with some surprise, “I feel dizzy.”

  “Sit.” Gail pressed her back toward the car.

  Tracy sat sideways on the front seat, her feet on the ground.

  “Put your head down between your knees,” Gail said.

  Tracy put her head down and closed her eyes. Slowly, as she sat there, the dizziness subsided. She lifted her head and forced a smile. “I’m okay now. I don’t know what hit me there for a minute, but I’m okay.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Tracy did not look toward the house. “Yes.” She stood up, and this time her legs felt steadier. “I’d better go straight to makeup. I don’t want to be late on the set.”

  Gail walked beside her as she made her way along the drive to the camper that housed the makeup department. Jon was just coming out as she reached the door. “You look pale,” he said. “Are you all right?”

  He had grown his sideburns for the role, and his hair was brushed into the casual curls of Regency fashion. His open-neck shirt and tweed jacket looked almost comically out of place.

  Tracy said, “I’m okay. Not to worry.” She turned to look at the house. “When do we begin to film the inside scenes?” To her own ears, her voice sounded faintly breathless.

  Jon did not seem to notice anything amiss. “The schedule calls for us to shoot in the garden while the weather holds. We won’t move inside for at least a week. Unless, of course, it rains.” He cocked an eyebrow. “You must excuse me while I go and get into my very confining costume.”

  Tracy gave a genuine laugh. “I think the Regency must be one of the few periods when men’s clothes were actually more uncomfortable than women’s.”

  Jon moved off, and Tracy stepped up into the camper, where the studio makeup artist was waiting to do her face for the camera.

  3

  The garden where her first scene was to be filmed was at the back of the house and, as Tracy walked through the scattered afternoon sun, the skirts of her muslin dress swinging around her ankles, she experienced once more a strange feeling of déjà vu. The magnificent beech trees on the sweeping front lawn spread their silvery arms to the sky, each feathery branch misted with green, and she could not escape the feeling that she had seen those trees before.

  She stopped for a moment to look up at the house, and her eye was caught by movement in one of the upstairs windows. A woman was standing there, framed in the casement, and she appeared to be wearing one of the film’s Regency costumes. Then the sun reflected off the window, Tracy blinked, and the figure was gone.

  I must be hallucinating. I hope to God I’m not getting a headache.

  But her head wasn’t hurting, and there was no pressure in her neck, so she took a long, deep breath and strode purposefully forward to join Dave and Jon. They were standing on a broad graveled terrace, which led down to a sloping lawn planted with more beautiful beeches. Jon, in his blue morning coat, fawn-colored pantaloons, and boots, looked perfectly at home in the setting, whereas Dave’s khaki pants and casual sweater looked distinctly out of place.

  Tracy went up the two broad steps that led to the terrace and, as she joined the men, she turned to regard the vista that stretched before her. The focal point of the lawn was a large circular basin bordered by a low stone curb. Stone urns on pedestals filled with clematis surrounded the pool and were reflected in its still water. Beyond the pool a gravel path led down the gently sloping lawn to a set of wide stone steps, beyond which were the massive yew hedges that enclosed the garden.

  Tracy shaded her eyes with her hand and gazed at the sight before her. She didn’t say anything, just exhaled long and slow.

  “It’s perfect, isn’t it?” Dave said. “That’s why we chose Silverbridge. It was expensive, but both the grounds and the house are natural settings for us. We’ll save money by not having to travel to several places, or build sets.”

  “It looks like a painting by Watteau,” Jon said.

  A little silence fell as the three of them regarded the loveliness before them. Then Dave said briskly, “All right, we’d better head on down to the garden. Ivan has everything set up, so I hope we can shoot without much delay.”

  The three of them stepped off the terrace and began to walk along the graveled path that led to the pool and thence to the yew-enclosed garden. “We’ve chosen a perfect spot,” Dave said, as they went down the stone steps and through an arched opening in the great yew hedge. Inside was a wide grassy pathway that followed the hedge. Tracy looked first left then right, and saw that all along its perimeter the hedge had niches cut in it, which contained either statues or stone benches.

  “This way,” Dave said, and started along an azalea-bordered path that led toward the center of the garden. Tracy looked up and down a series of smaller paths as they went by, and at the end of each there was a fountain jet shooting water into the air.

  The movie company had set up in the center of the garden, which featured a wide, shallow pool, in the midst of which was a fountain of lead cherubs with a jet sending a magnificent spray of water high into the air. The cameras, the audio equipment, the electrical wires hooked up to a truck, and a crowd of people dressed in jeans indicated that this was where they were going to shoot.

  Ivan Hunt, the cinematographer, called, “All right, Tracy and Jon. If you’ll take your places and walk through the scene, I’ll check the lighting.”

  Like the professionals that they were, the two leads moved to make the first run-through of the scene.

  Tracy was actually back at the Wiltshire Arms in time for dinner. Food was not on her mind, however, as she and Gail stepped out of the elevator and headed toward her door.

  Gail let her go in first. “Get undressed, Tracy, and into bed,” she said. “Do you want anything to eat or drink? A cup of tea, perhaps?”

  “No,” Tracy replied in what she always thought of as her “headache voice.” “I just want to take some Imitrex and get into bed.”

  “Do that then,” Gail replied. “I’ll turn off the ringer on the phone in your bedroom and man the living room phone for the rest of the evening.”

  “Thank you,” Tracy said, and went straight to her bathroom, where she washed down a pill with water. She then changed into silk pajamas and got into bed.

  The headache was pounding in time with her heartbeat, and she curled up in a fetal position, as if trying to escape the pain.

  What on earth happened to me today? She did not doubt that her headache was connected to the strange sense of déjà vu she had experienced at Silverbridge. She had never had such a feeling before. The shock of recognition when first she beheld the house was something entirely new to her; it was also a little frightening.

  I must have seen a picture of it somewhere before, she told herself again. That’s why it looks so familiar.

  It took a full two hours for the Imitrex to work and for the sledgehammer pounding in her head to begin to subside. By ten o’clock she was asleep.

  She awoke once during the night to go to the bathroom, and the dregs of the headache were still there. She took a couple of Excedrin and went back to bed.

  When she awoke the following morning, it seemed to be gone. She sat up and tested it by moving her head. The headache was indeed gone, she decided, but the all-too-familiar hungover feeling she had the day after a migraine was firmly in place. Her mouth tasted like medicine, her stomach was uneasy, and she felt as if she hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours.

  “Water,” she said out loud, and went into the bathroom to fill a glass. She drank it thirstily, then brushed her teeth and washed her face. She came back into the bedroom and was moving to pull the drapes back from the windows when her attention was caught by the col
lection of silver-framed photographs that traveled with her wherever she went. Gail had set them on the round Regency-style table that was set to one side of the fireplace. Slowly Tracy approached the table and looked at the familiar faces that had been caught by the camera.

  There was a picture of her parents taken at their thirtieth wedding anniversary celebration. Her mother wore a long, smoke gray dress, her father wore a tux, and somehow they managed to look both dignified and exceedingly happy. There was a picture of her sister and brother-in-law with their two little sons, and a picture of Tracy holding their eldest, Matthew, in his long white christening gown.

  She looked for a while at each of these pictures before picking up the last one, a twelve-by-fourteen formal portrait of a bride and groom. She carried the picture with her to one of the Queen-Anne-style chairs in front of the fireplace, sat down, and regarded it gravely.

  We were so young, she thought, looking at her own radiant twenty-year-old face, so bright with happiness, so confident in the continuation of that happiness, so completely unaware that within three months the man who stood so proudly by her side would be dead.

  “Scotty,” she said out loud. “I still miss you.”

  He’ll remain this way forever, she thought: twenty-one years of age, just married to the girl he had known since third grade, poised on the brink of what everyone said would be a fabulous career in professional basketball.

  And then with the crash of metal on the highway and the screaming of ambulances in the night, it had been over. Scott Collins, recently married number-two pick in the NBA draft, was dead. A tractor trailer truck had gone out of control and smashed into his new sports car, and not even the seat belt he had been wearing, not the deploying airbag, had been able to save him from the explosion of fire that had engulfed his car.

  Seven years had passed since that dreadful night, and instead of being a wife, a mother and a teacher, as Tracy had planned, she was an actress. A movie star.

  It had all happened so quickly. She had not been able to face going back to the University of Connecticut, where she would have been a senior and where Scotty had played college ball. There were too many memories. Then Scotty’s agent had suggested she might like a small part in a movie shooting in New York, and she had thought something so alien would be a good distraction. She would spend a few months doing something totally different, then she would go back and finish her degree.

  What am I doing here?

  Scotty’s light gray eyes smiled at her from the picture she held in her lap. He had been dead for seven years, and she no longer mourned for him, but there had never been anyone to fill his place.

  “I like Jon Melbourne,” she told her dead husband. “He has a great voice.”

  You’ve always been a sucker for an English accent. She could almost hear the amusement in Scotty’s voice as she imagined his reply.

  She smiled. “I have been.” She lifted the picture to her lips and kissed the young man’s face. “But I’ll bet he has a lousy jump shot.”

  A flash of pain shot through her head, from the left side of her neck to her left eye, and Tracy stiffened. Oh God. It can’t be coming back. Please don’t let it come back. I have to work this afternoon. She closed her eyes and began to do yoga breathing. In and out. In and out. Just concentrate on the breath. In and out. You 're going to be fine. Relax. In and out.

  After ten minutes she cautiously opened her eyes once more. The pain in her head was gone. I think it’s going to be all right. She stood up carefully, as if she were balancing a water jug on her head, and went to return Scotty’s picture to the Regency table.

  4

  The shoot was scheduled to go for as long as the light stayed good, but Tracy was finished by five- thirty. Dave called her name as she was walking off, and she changed direction and went to join him by the fountain. “I’d like you to meet Lady Margaret Oliver,” he said. “She’s Lord Silverbridge’s sister and is a great fan of yours.”

  “How do you do, Lady Margaret. What a nuisance this must be, having all these people tramping around your lovely garden.”

  Lady Margaret’s hair was so blond it was almost white, and her elegant, straight nose was dusted with freckles. She wore jeans, a red sweater, lace-up suede boots, and looked about sixteen. The most noticeable thing about her, however, was that she was painfully thin.

  “Not at all,” she replied to Tracy’s remark. “I think it’s great fun.”

  Dave said, “Tracy, if you are going to get something to eat at the catering truck, will you take Lady Margaret with you and introduce her around?”

  The look on his face said clearly that he knew he was asking a lot, but that he badly needed to ditch this young sister of the owner. Tracy opened her mouth to say that she wasn’t going to dinner, but then she saw the hopeful look in Lady Margaret’s eyes. There was something vulnerable about the girl, and Tracy, who had once wanted to be a high school teacher, changed her mind.

  “Of course.” She turned to Lady Margaret, and said kindly, “Are you hungry? Would you like to have dinner with some of the cast and crew?”

  The girl replied shyly, “I’m not hungry, but I’d like to meet them.”

  Thank you, Dave mouthed to her, as she prepared to remove Lady Margaret from the area of the shoot. Tracy shot him a look that said clearly You owe me one, before she shepherded Lady Margaret away.

  “Have you been watching for long?” Tracy asked, as they made their way through the yew-enclosed garden.

  “I’ve been watching the whole time,” the girl replied enthusiastically. “It’s so super having a movie made here at Silverbridge.”

  “I hope you still feel that way in a few weeks, Lady Margaret. It can get to be awfully old, having strangers in your home all the time.”

  “Please call me Meg.” The girl’s sky-blue eyes regarded Tracy worshipfully. “And it may sound idiotic, but I don’t feel as if you are a stranger at all. I’ve seen all your pictures, Miss Collins, most of them more than once.”

  “Thank you,” Tracy replied. Normally a comment about knowing her through her movies would annoy her, but there was something about this girl that called forth her protective instincts. So she said, “As such a devoted fan, you have earned the right to call me Tracy.” Greg, the assistant director, was hurrying along the path in their direction clutching his clipboard. He gave Tracy a grin as he went by, and she flapped a friendly hand in his direction. Then she turned to Meg. “How does the rest of your family feel about this invasion?”

  “My brother Tony thinks it’s super too. I’m sure we’ll see him sometime during the course of the shooting.” Meg shot Tracy an impish look. “You might even want to put him in the picture. Tony’s gorgeous.”

  “If he looks at all like you, then he must be.”

  Meg became flustered. “Oh, I’m nothing compared to Tony.”

  This unsure girl was nothing at all like Tracy’s image of an aristocrat, and she replied gently, “I think you are extremely pretty.”

  Meg shot her a doubtful glance. “I’m not, really.”

  Tracy, who rarely touched people who were not family, found herself patting Meg on the shoulder. She barely refrained from wincing at the sharpness of the bone under her fingers. “I’m afraid you’re just going to have to accept my word for it, Meg. I have seen and worked with some of the most beautiful women in the world, and, in my judgment, you are a very pretty girl.”

  “Well…” Meg said. “Thank you.”

  “You’re quite welcome.”

  They went up the stone steps together, and the lawn, the fountain, the terrace, and the house stretched out before them, golden in the hazy late-afternoon sun. “What does your brother, Lord Silverbridge I mean, think about having the movie here?” Tracy asked.

  Meg said offhandedly, “Oh, Harry was happy to have the money. And he was very pleased with what the film company did with the gardens.”

  Two small birds arose from among the shrubs that bordered the walk to
their left, and Tracy watched them fly off over the lawn. “What did the film company do to the gardens?”

  “Cleaned them up. The yews needed cutting, the paths needed a lot of work, and half of the fountain jets didn’t work. You also planted all of those marvelous tulips in the front of the house.”

  Tracy looked around the lovely property. “I guess the upkeep on a place like this is enormous.”

  “It’s ridiculous,” Meg replied. “It’s a listed house, of course, which means that it’s under the jurisdiction of English Heritage. So all repairs have to be done with their approval, which sends the cost rocketing.”

  “Why is that?” Tracy asked.

  Meg shrugged her blade-thin shoulders. “Because Harry can’t substitute less expensive, modern materials in the publicly visible portions of the house. For example, we need a new roof, but Harry can’t use modern tiles. Instead he has to replace the old slate roof as well as the layer of lead and boards underneath. And the gutters have to be iron, not plastic. The whole job will cost poor Harry five times more than it would cost to reroof with modern materials.”

  Tracy looked at the expanse of the present roof. “Whew. That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Between the rules for upkeep and the death taxes, Harry says the government is out to destroy the whole upper class,” Meg said darkly.

  Tracy considered this statement, added it to the information she had received from Jon about Lord Silverbridge’s callous treatment of the model he had broken up with, and came to the conclusion that the owner of Silverbridge was not a very nice man.

  When they arrived at the camper that served as Tracy’s dressing room, she invited Meg in to wait for her while she changed out of her costume. Inside, the camper was furnished with a dressing table and mirror, a green corduroy sofa where Tracy could take a nap, and two chairs. It was a utilitarian room, nothing like the luxurious surroundings that Tracy was accustomed to, but then she did not usually work on films with such a tight budget.