Stardust

by Charlotte Bingham

  Cecil then organized it all. This sort of thing had happened to him on previous tours, although certainly not quite as spectacularly, so he had at least the benefit of experience in the field. He knew there was only one thing which talked at times like this, not reason, but money. Hotel managements, while not exactly eager to encourage scandalous behaviour, were generally reluctant to be seen to condemn them out of hand, lest they deter the rich and the famous from staying in their public houses, since as everyone knew, scandals only ever concerned the rich or the famous. The most the poor or unimportant miscreant was ever capable of making was a disgrace. So Cecil knew of old that as long as sufficient money changed hands, history could as usual be beneficially distorted.

  All in all it cost the management approximately three hundred pounds to make sure that the true story didn’t break, a not inconsiderable sum of money for those days. But the odd thing was, Cecil really needn’t have bothered. He needn’t have troubled to buy all the witnesses’ silences, nor felt himself obliged to force Oscar to provide an alibi for Jerome with the threat that if he didn’t the subsequent scandal would surely mean that Tatty Gray would never see London. Oscar hadn’t been inclined to believe such a thing at first, but Cecil had been adamant, persuading Oscar that a play of such delicacy would be ruined by any such notoriety, and that if a scandal such as this was to break, they might as well put up the notice backstage that night. It was a terrible dilemma for Oscar, loving Pippa as he did, feeling that he had betrayed her as he had, loving Jerome and Elizabeth for what they had done on-stage, while hating them for what they had done off it, hating himself for being the instrument of this tragedy, loathing Cecil for trying to implicate him further, but loving and loving so much what had happened to his play, which after all might be the only great play he might write in his entire life, and knowing that certainly there would never ever be a finer production of it, at least not as far as the leading performances went. He told Cecil all of this, and Cecil laughed in his face, telling him not to be such a damned fool, that he Oscar couldn’t possibly be blamed in any way for what had happened. Of what was he guilty? Writing a play so fine and beautiful that it had turned the heads of two silly, vain and empty-headed young actors? What nonsense. No, no charges could be brought against Oscar, so he must now put aside any personal feelings, any feelings of imagined guilt, and be professional. Like Cecil was. Cecil didn’t like this sort of thing at all, he assured Oscar. In fact he hated it. He hated apparently condoning it, but he had to do it for the sake of the play, as had Oscar. The play was beautiful, at last the play was alive, and wonderful, and they must protect this child of theirs at all costs. So Oscar, knowing that it was wrong, allowed himself to be persuaded otherwise and took Cecil’s pieces of silver, his reason being that even if the play was taken off now, the personal and private damage which Jerome and Elizabeth had done would not and could not by consequence be undone.

  Cecil was deeply relieved, although one part of Oscar’s confessions had troubled him, namely the information that Oscar too was in love with Pippa. But Cecil soon let this pass, as he couldn’t for a moment imagine someone as sweet and beguiling as Pippa falling in love with such a hangdog as Oscar, and now, as a result of the particularly clever predictions made by Elizabeth’s friend Lalla, given the necessary amount of healing time Pippa would ultimately be his. So Cecil went on paying the play out of trouble.

  But he really need not have bothered. Elizabeth was quite right in her belief that the only bad publicity is no publicity. Certainly some newspapers did run the item, but only as a non-story, a no-truth-in-the-rumours-that sort of piece, while the better papers ignored the incident altogether, printing nothing. It didn’t matter, however, how they ran it or whether or not they did, because since the world generally believes there is no smoke without something burning somewhere, versions of the story were soon on everyone’s lips. Everyone talked of it, it was the talk of every town, and as a result you couldn’t buy a seat to see Jerome Didier and Elizabeth Laurence in The Tale of Tatty Gray by Oscar Greene for love, money or at least six months.

  As for Pippa at this time, what of her? What of the tousle-haired, freckle-faced, open-hearted girl who had fallen so wildly and deeply in love with her passionate, dark-haired, dark-eyed actor? What exactly happened to her at this moment? Where did she get to? Where did she go? What did she do? Pippa never wrote anything about it, she never published her version of their life, although she must have read (we know she read) Jerome’s, which can’t have been easy, because when it came to recounting their time together, Jerome bled over every page. Yet she never said a thing in public to anyone, never gave an interview, never expressed an opinion intended for publication. So nobody ever knew how she felt, nobody who didn’t know her or get to know her intimately that is, and for a long time nobody even knew where she had gone.

  What happened in the immediate aftermath was that she returned to London with Bobby, although to this day she cannot remember a detail of the journey, but still she got herself home, and she got herself packed. It was evening, of course, by the time she got back to Park Lane, but Nancy was there, startled and bewildered to see her mistress back so unexpectedly. Pippa gave no explanation for her return, she just asked Nancy to come and help her pack up all her belongings. Of the events in Manchester she said nothing whatsoever, although Nancy had sensed something was afoot, since Miss Toothe had been fielding a constantly ringing telephone from about mid-afternoon, answering every call with the self-same answer, that she was very sorry but she could make no comment.

  And now her mistress was leaving, taking all her own things, her clothes and her books, her records and photographs, her letters, her diaries, everything which was a part of her, however small, she was packing up and taking. Nancy, knowing now she must be leaving for good, carefully enquired if she might ask where her mistress was going, in the hope that she might go with her, and when Pippa told her that she didn’t yet know, and that she couldn’t possibly take her because it wouldn’t be fair, Nancy asked why not? That there was nothing to keep her here, only her job, and she was dashed if she was going to stay on as housemaid in a house with no mistress (Nancy was Irish). She’d far rather go with Mrs Didier and look after her.

  Pippa said if Nancy was quite sure that she would take her, realizing somewhere in the back of her mind that she would need her, that she would need someone to take care of her, particularly now because she thought she might be pregnant. She was very grateful to her shy young maid, and told her so, before ordering her to bed because they had a great deal to do in the morning, and because they had, they needed to be up with the dawn.

  The phone had been off the hook since Pippa’s return, which was how she left it. It had been the very first thing she had done when she walked through the door. She had done it before she had even let Bobby off his leash. She had walked straight in and disarmed the instrument, knowing that if it rang she would finally answer it, and if she did, she would be lost. She had worked all that out on the train. She knew she must neither hear nor see Jerome because if she did, he would persuade her to stay, because he would be able to talk her round, because he would have had every reason for doing what he had done. Pippa knew that if he reached her, by phone or worse, in person, she wouldn’t go, because although she wouldn’t believe his every reason, she would stay because she loved him. And if she stayed, he would do the same thing to her again, and again, and again, and again and again and again she would be expected to forgive him, since she had done so in the first instance. If she forgave him now when it really mattered, it would be as good as giving him carte blanche for the rest of their days.

  She had, however, opened and read the two telegrams which had arrived together, because telegrams were inanimate and by necessity cryptic. Not even Jerome could inflect a telegram, not even he with all his vocal magic and physical tricks could make the potency of his presence felt by wire. The telegrams weren’t both from Jerome, only one was, the first one she opene
d which said she was to call him either immediately before the performance at the hotel or immediately afterwards at the theatre when he would explain everything, just as she thought he would. The second one was from Cecil which said she was to do or say absolutely nothing until he had spoken to her personally, which he would do by telephone that evening when he would explain everything. Pippa tore them both up into small pieces, burned them in an ashtray and left the telephone off the hook.

  Now she slept. No-one knows how well or how badly, or if she did at all, because she recorded nothing about that evening in her diary, nothing about the events of the day, nor of her feelings. Later, years later she was to confess how she had surprised herself with the way she had managed, and managed so ably, withdrawing all her money from the bank the following morning, funds which included her half of her late mother’s small estate, half of the proceeds from Bay Tree Cottage, half of the proceeds from the furnishings, the few stocks and shares, her mother’s jewellery (all which she kept, none of which she sold) and her half of her mother’s small savings, before selecting at random, without anyone’s advice, the place that Nancy, Bobby and she were to go, getting them all on the boat train, and then on the ferry across to France. In hindsight she was to admit to being amazed not so much at how she had actually done it, but more at the fact that she had, that she had been able to organize her departure from England as if she was simply going away on holiday, rather than walking out of the life of the man whom she knew she still loved with all her heart.

  These things you might not know. You would certainly not have been aware of them from reading the books on The Dazzling Didiers, The Daring Didiers, The Darling Didiers, because there were no such details in any of the books about things like these, even in the books written by them, because The Dazzling, The Daring and The Darling Didiers were not, of course, Pippa and Jerome. By then the Didiers were Jerome and Elizabeth.

  ACT THREE

  England

  Late in the Sixties

  Jerome had found Sainthill by chance, while driving round the countryside beyond Bath one afternoon when not required on the shoot of The Heart’s A Secret. As soon as he had seen the place he had known he must have it, and so he had instructed Dingo, his private chauffeur-cum-valet, to drive at once into Malmesbury and find the posted estate agency.

  He had already had a good look at the outside of the place, which although practically a ruin, was nonetheless the sort of place about which Jerome had endlessly dreamed. To judge from the architecture it had most probably been built as a monastery, or a priory, for it had its own integral chapel, the traditional carp pond, a trout stream and lush pastures for grazing livestock, lands designed to provide a self-sufficient living for whatever order had once occupied the wonderful buildings, and which with recultivation and reshaping Jerome knew would afford the sort of grounds and setting fit for the world famous stars which he and Elizabeth had now become.

  So too the house, or priory, or whatever it had been, Jerome had mused as his Rolls-Royce had sped back from Malmesbury, taking back with them to Sainthill a faintly supercilious young estate agent who was doing his level best not to be too impressed by his famous fellow passenger. Jerome in turn had paid him little heed, preferring instead to try and imagine how the splendid property would look when restored. It would be ideal, he had decided as Dingo had headed the Rolls off the road and up the long and potholed drive towards the distant building, it would be absolutely perfect, because without a doubt it was beautiful, and without another doubt far and away the most entirely suitable place he had seen since their recent return from America, which was when they had both started searching in earnest for a house appropriate to their international status.

  ‘It is – sublime,’ he had announced, his voice echoing round the vast empty rooms. ‘Quite and utterly sublime.’

  ‘The wonderful thing,’ the estate agent had told him, ‘is that it is utterly unspoilt. In the wrong hands it could so easily have been ruined. Central heating, this new craze for adjoining bathrooms. Knocking out the chapel. You can imagine.’

  ‘I can!’ Jerome had laughed, not at anything amusing but rather to try out again the extraordinary acoustics of the place. ‘I can! I can!’

  His voice had echoed back from where he had thrown it, up the spiralling stone staircase, out of sight round the vast central pillar, and back again down the deeply worn steps.

  ‘Of course,’ the estate agent had continued, now warming both to his task and to Jerome, having sensed his client was seriously considering buying this appalling ruin, ‘someone like you, sir, like you both, the two of you, this could have been made for you. It’s perfect. It’s a very dramatic place, it needs people like you. With your artistry, and your theatrical skills, you will make Sainthill famous.’

  ‘Baloney!’ Jerome had laughed again, this time into the stone flagged dining room. ‘Stuff and nonsense!’

  But the following day he had brought Elizabeth down to see it.

  She had hated it. She had remained totally unimpressed by the whole place, from the thirteenth-century chapel set to one side of the arched hall, and the great stone vaulted roof, to the intricately mullioned windows, and vast open fireplaces.

  ‘It’s a monster,’ she had declared. ‘This isn’t a home, J. This is a film set. This is something straight out of the English version of Citizen Kane.’

  ‘No Bethy, my darling!’ Jerome had countered, stretching his arms out wide and turning round where he stood, in the middle of the room he had chosen as the drawing room, and which Elizabeth had denounced as a barn. ‘You’re not stretching that famous imagination of yours! Think of the parties! Just imagine the parties!’

  ‘I can’t,’ she had replied, pulling her fur coat around her to protect her from the winds which were howling through the broken window panes. ‘All I can think of is going home.’

  Elizabeth hated the cold. Sometimes she thought she hated the cold more than anything else. Being cold made her feel physically sick. She also hated huge rooms with high ceilings. Elizabeth was a small house person, a chintz person, a person who liked delicate and decorative things, such as beautifully hand-crafted shelves back lit to show off her collection of antique china figurines. Everything would be lost in a place this size, most of all her.

  But Jerome had been determined on it. He had dragged her up the patently dangerous stairs, at the same time proclaiming the merits of the place at the top of his voice, and had paced through the succession of bedrooms pointing out every architectural detail, exhorting her to take notice of them all, while all Elizabeth could think of was the cold, the eternal and the universal cold. She had clutched the neck of her fur coat tightly round her throat, thankful for her cashmere gloves and her elegant, handmade, furlined, high heel boots, as Jerome had explained with mounting enthusiasm where the library would be, which would be his study, and which hers, where would be their bedroom, their bathrooms (individual), their dressing rooms, the guest rooms, the guest bathrooms, the music rooms, the billiards room, before Elizabeth had finally interrupted him to point at the ceiling directly above.

  ‘And what about up there, J darling?’ she had asked, mock sweetly. ‘More guest rooms? Studies? Music rooms? And what-have-you? According to this –’ (here she had shaken the house details at him) ‘– there are another ten rooms up there!’

  ‘They’re for trunks and things, Bethy!’ he had shouted back, irritated, as if she should have known better. ‘Attics! Junk rooms! You know! Nurseries! Nurseries for the children!’

  ‘What children?’

  ‘When we have children, Bethy! You’d be surprised how quickly you fill a place like this up! And just think of the parties!’

  Elizabeth had turned away and gone back downstairs, down those lethal, worn, stone steps, picking her way carefully, holding on to the rusting iron rail. There might well be parties, she had thought, but no, no children. Jerome seemed quite incapable of realizing that she never intended having children. And e
ven if she did, Elizabeth had thought, nearly falling over on the last two steps, even if she went mad and gave birth to fifty blasted squawling brats, even that wouldn’t be enough to fill a God-forsaken mausoleum like this.

  She had sat in the car, tucked in under her travel rug, smoking a Sobranie while she waited for Jerome whom she could see inside the ruin walking around room after room with his arms up in the air reciting something to himself. Finally he had emerged just as Elizabeth had been lighting her second cigarette from the dying butt of her first, and with a look of disapproval, had settled in the back of the Rolls beside her.

  ‘Well?’ he had said, looking back at the house as Dingo drove away down the drive.

  ‘You’re mad,’ she had replied. ‘Stark, staring mad.’