by Joan Wolf
By the time Harry went into the house to watch the filming, his head was pounding. He made a trip upstairs to his bathroom to swallow three more aspirin, but he was feeling pretty ragged when he joined Meg in the staircase hall.
The scene for the day’s shooting was the great salon. The room had been built as a chapel, but in the eighteenth century the residing earl had turned it into a huge state reception room, adding a projection bay to the south with a Venetian window. It was an elegant, stylish, and beautiful room, with pale blue damask walls, matching silk draperies, and priceless Chippendale furniture. The intricate carpet, which mirrored the ceiling’s design, had been taken up, baring the inlaid wood floor, which the film company had cleaned up and buffed till it glowed. Antonio Zucchi had painted the ceiling roundels with the seasons and mythological scenes; Thomas Carter had carved the chimneypiece; and Matthew Boulton had produced the tall candelabra, which stood in the four corners of the salon. Two Van Dyke portraits, two landscapes by Claude, a Gainsborough portrait of Harry’s great-great-grandmother, all of which he had given to the National Trust to help pay off the death duties on his father’s estate, decorated the blue damask walls, along with a large, baroque-style gilt mirror and the room’s piece de resistance, a painting of Silverbridge done in the eighteenth century by Canaletto. Harry had fought to hang on to this last painting, which had been valued at ten million pounds, and he had won.
The paintings on the north wall had been removed, and the wall was completely covered with a drop cloth, with scaffolding erected in front of it. The scaffolding was awash with lights and cameras. The big crystal chandelier in the middle of the ceiling, which had been wired for electricity years before, had been taken down and in its place hung an old-fashioned candlelit chandelier, which Harry didn’t recognize. Blackout curtains had been hung behind all of the windows.
The room was crowded with cameras and sound equipment and, looking at the mass of cables and equipment, Harry understood why the film crew had been so delighted with the enormous Silverbridge salon.
“They’re filming the ball scene,” Meg said into his ear, and he nodded very slightly. The aspirin had not yet begun to work on his headache.
“That’s it, we’re ready,” the man who was in charge of the lights called.
“Great,” Dave Michaels said. “Greg, will you call the cast?”
A tall thin young man with a ponytail passed in front of Harry and walked toward the front drawing room. Very shortly, groups of people clad in period costume began to flow into the salon. To Harry’s complete surprise, he found that he recognized a number of them.
“Come to watch us, eh, my lord?” asked the wife of one of his tenant farmers.
Harry’s jaw dropped as he placed the face under the brown wig. “Good God. Elsie. What are you doing dressed up in that rig?”
The high-colored face of Elsie Morton beamed. “I’m in the movie, my lord. The film company put a notice up in the village asking for extras, and here I am!”
As Elsie moved into the salon, the woman who seemed to be in charge asked loudly, “Have all the dancers been fitted out with microphones?”
“That’s Jill Brown, the choreographer,” Meg told her brother. “Michael Hudson, the sound director, wanted to film the dancing along with the dialogue, so Jill had to fit each of the actors with microphones that will play the music in their ears so they can keep time. Then Michael will record the dialogue and the dance music on separate tracks.”
He looked at her in wonder. “You really have learned a lot about this, Meggie.”
Her smile was brilliant. “I think it’s fascinating.” While they were speaking, an eight-piece orchestra had come in and taken its place in front of the Gainsborough portrait. The choreographer began to arrange the dancers in front of the Canaletto, the men lined up facing the women. Dave Michaels said from his position behind one of the cameras, “Where are Tracy and Jon?”
“Greg went to get them,” someone called. “They should be here in a moment.”
Jon Melbourne’s voice said, “We’re here now,” and he brushed past Harry, followed more sedately by Tracy, who looked surprised to see him.
Harry had never yet seen her in costume, and as he looked back at her, it was as if the bottom dropped out of his stomach. She wore an empire-style ice-blue satin ball gown, cut low enough to show the swell of her breasts. Her hair was her own, drawn into a topknot of golden auburn ringlets, with two wispy ringlets allowed to fall over her ears. Around her slender neck she wore a simple strand of pearls, and in her ears a pair of plain pearl earrings. A single white rose was tucked into her hair.
Meg said enthusiastically, “You look gorgeous, Tracy.”
“Thank you.” Her surprised look died, her eyes narrowed, and she said to Harry, “You should be in bed.”
And you should be there with me. He said those words to her in his mind. Out loud, he replied, “I’m fine.” Even to his own ears his voice sounded hoarse—and not because of the headache. I could be on my deathbed, and she would stir me, he thought with wonder.
She had colored up, an odd response to his spoken words. Then Dave impatiently called her name, and she had to go and take her place beside Jon in the midst of the dancers.
“Jill,” Dave said, and the choreographer stepped forward to talk to her troops.
“All right, everyone. As you know, this is a very complicated scene. We are doing a progressive dance in which each couple has to go right from one end of this huge room to the other, which takes a long time. We’ll cut to Martin and Julia for the dialogue when they are halfway down the line.” She looked up and down the lines of men and women. “Is everyone’s microphone working?”
“Yes,” the dancers chorused back.
“All right. Let’s rehearse it, please.”
The musicians picked up their instruments, which they pretended to play, the line of women curtsied to the line of men, who bowed back, and the dance began in eerie silence.
They rehearsed it three times, and while the rehearsal was going on, Meg told Harry that this ballroom scene came at the beginning of the film. “Tracy’s character, Julia, is supposedly visiting in the neighborhood and has come as a guest to the ball,” she explained. “The moment he lays eyes upon her, Jon’s character, Martin, is bewitched. He asks her to dance, and sexual sparks fly.”
Harry watched the rehearsal and was surprised and a little disturbed by the potent sexual attraction that Jon was able to generate just by looking at Tracy’s pearl-encircled throat. Tracy herself looked very young and vulnerable as she went up the line holding hands with Jon, and the dazzled expression on her face as she returned his smile portrayed perfectly the young, inexperienced, susceptible girl that Julia was at this early point in the movie.
An interruption occurred just as the mikes were to be turned on and the film to roll. One of the crew members rushed out of the room, and a moment later, Greg was at Meg’s side.
“Nancy is sick, and Dave wants to know if you could handle her job for this shoot,” he said.
Meg’s face looked illuminated. “Of course.” She turned to her brother, and said authoritatively, “You can sit in that chair, Harry, and you’ll be out of everyone’s way.”
As Meg hustled off, Harry took the seat she had indicated. Shortly after that, the director called, “Action,” and the actual filming began.
The aspirin had reduced Harry’s headache to a dull pounding, but he was feeling dizzy and clammy, and the heat from the lights was making him sweat. This was his condition when he experienced what had to be the most bizarre moment of his entire life.
It occurred at a point in the dance when each pair of partners had clasped their hands, raised their arms high, and were moving around each other rather the way carousel horses go around on a carousel. Harry had watched Tracy perform this movement during rehearsals, and as he focused his eyes in her direction, he expected to see her innocently wondering face gazing at Jon as they circled their mutually cla
sped hands.
But the man he saw dancing with Tracy now was taller than Jon, and his hair was blond, not brown. Harry looked at him, and for the second time that afternoon felt his stomach drop. The man was himself.
He shook his head to clear it, further aggravating the pounding in his head, but when he looked again he still saw himself holding Tracy’s hand. Fighting down a feeling of rising nausea, he looked at the other people on the dance floor, and it was then that he realized that the lights and sound equipment had vanished.
Dots danced in front of his eyes, and he blinked hard. He blinked again, the scene cleared, and once again he was able to see the blond man and auburn-haired woman who were holding hands and looking at each other as if no one else existed in the world. He recognized that the girl wasn’t Tracy first. She wore a blue dress, but her nose was straight, not tilted, and her hair was purely auburn, with none of the gold threads that made Tracy’s so extraordinary. Nor was she as tall as Tracy.
His eyes went to the girl’s partner, and it was then that Harry realized that he was looking at the man who had posed for the portrait of Charles Oliver that hung in his office.
Dots obscured his vision once again and he had to lower his head to keep from passing out. His head had began to pound in rhythm with the beat of his heart. Jesus, he thought. What’s wrong with me? Now I’m hallucinating.
He looked once more at the dance floor and still the couple remained, misty now as his eyesight deteriorated, but oddly full of life. He didn’t break contact with them until he realized that unless he left instantly, he would be sick all over the restored wood floor of the salon.
20
When Meg discovered that Harry was missing, she went looking for him, annoyed that he had not stayed for the entire filming session. She found him in his room, lying on his bed, which immediately dissipated her annoyance and sent a chill of fear through her.
“Harry?” She walked to the bedside and looked down at him. “Are you all right?”
He was still dressed, lying on his back on top of the bedspread with his eyes closed. When she spoke, he opened them so they formed two dark slits. “I have a really rotten headache,” he said. “I think I need a better pain medication than aspirin. Do you think you could call Webster, Meggie, and see if you could get him to prescribe something?”
“Of course,” she replied immediately. “I’ll do it right now.”
He looks terrible, she thought worriedly as she ran to the phone in the morning room. I shouldn’t have asked him to go to the filming. He should have been in bed.
She dialed the London number of their private doctor, only to learn that he was at his Wiltshire home for the week. This was usually good news, as Dr. Webster lived only ten miles from Silverbridge. Meg called the Wiltshire number and Dr. Webster himself answered the phone.
“Lady Margaret,” he said warmly when she had identified herself. “How are you going along?”
Harry had originally taken her to Dr. Webster for treatment of her problem, but the doctor had referred her to a specialist. “I’m doing very well, thank you. But Harry has a terrible headache, Dr. Webster, and he needs some pain medication.”
“Harry doesn’t get headaches,” Dr. Webster replied instantly.
Meg explained about the accident and the concussion. “I think he probably overdid it today,” she ended. “He should have stayed in bed.”
“What was the name of the doctor who saw him in hospital?”
Meg didn’t know.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll call over there and find out. I’ll ring you back after I’ve spoken to him.”
Clearly, Dr. Webster wasn’t going to prescribe anything for Harry until he had more information about his injury. Meg said good-bye and reluctantly went back to tell Harry that he was going to have to wait for his pain medication.
His tawny hair looked darker than usual against the white pillow, and there were dark shadows, like bruises, under his eyes. Once more Meg felt a shiver of fear. She never remembered Harry being sick. “Harry,” she said softly, “Dr. Webster is going to ring back within the hour with a prescription.”
The eyes he turned on her looked black not brown. “Thanks, Meggie.”
Ebony’s small, square face lifted from her own pillow next to Harry’s, and she growled. Clearly she sensed there was something wrong with Harry and was protecting him.
Dr. Webster called back within twenty minutes to say that Harry had a very severe concussion and should not have been released from hospital. “What was he doing to bring this headache on, Lady Margaret?” he demanded. When Meg explained that he had been to the stables and had spent the afternoon watching the filming, Dr. Webster hit the roof.
“I wish that man would take half as good care of himself as he does of those precious horses of his! Concussions are a serious matter, Lady Margaret. If they are not treated seriously they can lead to permanent brain damage—even death.”
Icy cold fingers gripped Meg’s heart. If something should happen to Harry…
“I want him back in hospital, where he can’t hurt himself,” Dr. Webster said.
“I don’t think he’ll go,” Meg said faintly.
“I’ll come myself to collect him,” the doctor snapped. “Tell him I’ll put him on a drip for the pain when I get him to hospital, but if he refuses to go then I wash my hands of him.”
“A… all right,” Meg said.
“I’ll be at Silverbridge in a half an hour.”
“All right.”
“Good-bye, Lady Margaret.”
“Just a moment!” Meg said hurriedly. “I’ll leave the door open for you, Dr. Webster. Would you mind letting yourself in?”
“Not at all.”
Meg hung up the phone, turned, and saw Tony standing in the doorway.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Where won’t Harry go?”
“Oh, Tony.” Meg was enormously grateful to have someone to share her burden. “Dr. Webster is coming out here to take Harry back to hospital, and I know Harry isn’t going to want to go. But he got up today and was all over the place and now he has a terrible headache and Dr. Webster said he could die if he doesn’t give his concussion time to heal!”
Tony held up one elegant hand. “Whoa, Meggie. Calm down. I’m quite sure that Harry isn’t going to die.”
“It’s all my fault,” Meg said tragically as she approached her brother. “I was the one who persuaded him to come to the filming this afternoon when he should have been in bed.”
“If he hadn’t been at the filming, you can be sure he would have been somewhere else,” Tony said. “Harry isn’t the type to stay quietly in bed.”
Meg stopped in front of Tony. “That’s why the doctor wants him back in hospital. Will you come with me to talk to him?” Her blue eyes pleaded. “He’s not going to listen to me, I know he isn’t.”
“What makes you think he’ll listen to me?” Tony said with a trace of bitterness. “He never has yet.” However, he accompanied Meg to Harry’s bedroom and went in with her to break the news to their elder brother.
Harry regarded them from under the shadow of the arm he had flung across his forehead, and said flatly, “I’m not going back to hospital.”
“But Dr. Webster is coming out here to get you,” Meg wailed.
“Then he will have made a trip for nothing. All I need are some painkillers and rest, and I can get both of those things right here at home.”
Tony said, “I know hospital is a bore, old man, but you really do look wretched. You’re as white as your sheets, you know.”
Harry shut his eyes. “I feel much too wretched to get into a car and make a half hour trip to the hospital.”
Meg said, “Harry, Dr. Webster said you could have permanent brain damage if you don’t rest. You could even die!”
Harry spoke with his eyes still closed. “He was trying to scare you, Meggie. People don’t die from concussions.”
“I think you’re being egotistica
l and stubborn,” Tony said brutally, “but then again, what’s new about that?”
“Harry is not egotistical and stubborn!” Meg shot back in defense of her eldest brother.
“He isn’t?” Tony elevated a single perfectly groomed eyebrow. “Then why won’t he sell Mauley the land he wants?”
Harry’s eyes opened to narrow slits. “Because I’d rather the land be used for cattle than for golfers.”
Tony moved closer to the bed. “No, it’s because you have this idée fixe about not going down in history as the earl who sold off Silverbridge’s farms. It’s all about ego, Harry, and nothing else.”
Harry moved his protective arm to cover his eyes. “Go away, both of you, and when Webster shows up, make him give you some painkillers for me. I don’t want to see him.”
“You’re the earl,” Tony said sarcastically. “We bow to your command. As always.”
Meg thought Tony was giving up much too easily and shot him a furious look. “Please see Dr. Webster, Harry,” she said pleadingly. “I’m worried about you.”
“I’ll be fine.” His eyes were still hidden under his arm. “Just get the painkillers.”
Meg looked at his white face on the pillow, then turned to look at Tony. He jerked his head in the direction of the door, and reluctantly she followed him out.
“As always, Harry refuses to do the sensible thing,” he said bitterly after they had closed the bedroom door behind them. “I don’t know why we keep thinking that he will.”
“How can I tell Dr. Webster, after he’s come all this way, that he can’t see Harry?” Meg fretted.
“Let Harry deal with him,” Tony recommended. “He’s the one who’s giving all the commands.”
“You mean I should take him to Harry’s bedroom after Harry said not to?” Meg sounded aghast at the very thought.
Tony rolled his eyes and said impatiently, “Do what you want to do. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to dress. I have a dinner date in Warkfield.”