by Flora Kidd
She's quite small, almost insignificant, thought Helen, as she stared at the well-known Swedish actress whom she had seen a couple of times in rather heavy psychological films. Marta Nielsen stared back, her attention caught and held by Helen's tall, slim figure silhouetted against the sunlit window.
'I hope we are not intruding,' she said politely, still looking at Helen.
'You are,' retorted Magnus with brutal frankness, then held out his right hand and smiled at Marta. 'But welcome to Carroch Castle just the same. I'm pleased to meet you at last.'
'Thank you,' said the actress, her own smile a faint curving of the lips that had tantalised so many of her fans. 'Coming to see you has been quite an adventure. You have a wonderful hideaway here. I am envious.' Her grey eyes glanced at Helen, who had half turned away to look out of the window. 'This is your wife?' she asked, gesturing towards Helen, who hearing the question, swung round to face the actress in alarm.
'Come and be introduced,' said Magnus, turning to smile at Helen. Tall and graceful, seeming completely at ease he stepped towards her and taking hold of her arm above the elbow urged her towards the others. Her hands were still hidden in the wide sleeves of the robe and his socks were still in her right hand. 'This is Eilidh, a friend of mine,' Magnus said. 'And Eilidh, I would like you to meet Marta Nielsen, Leo Rossi and Max Fiedler.'
Relieved that neither of the men nor Marta offered to shake hands with her, Helen smiled shyly and a little uncertainly, her eyes encountering the warm amused brown eyes of the bearded Italian film director.
'Hi, Eili… that's some name you have. Sorry I can't pronounce it,' said the ebullient Max Fiedler, grinning at her, his small black eyes glinting knowledgeably behind his thick-lensed glasses.
'It's a beautiful name,' said Marta, 'I suppose it is Scottish.' Her smile was gentle and the expression in her eyes kind and understanding, as if she knew exactly how embarrassed Helen was feeling.
'It's Gaelic for Helen,' Magnus said coolly.
'I think I prefer Helen,' said Leo Rossi charmingly. 'You will, I hope, excuse me, Helen, for bursting in on you and Magnus like this, but it is important that we discuss with him some business, and coming here to see him seemed to be the only way.' He turned to Magnus. 'Do you know we had to hire a fishing boat with its captain and mate to bring us here from Oban this morning? Making contact with you has proved to be expensive, my friend,' he added, laughing as he clapped Magnus in a friendly way on the shoulder. 'I hope the trip we have made is going to prove to have been worthwhile. The boat will wait for us to take us back later. For my part I'm glad the weather is calm. I am not a good sailor. What about you, Marta?'
Leo sat down beside the actress on the sofa. Max was already lounging in one of the big armchairs.
'I too am glad the weather is fine,' replied Marta serenely. 'All the way coming here we could see for miles and miles and the islands—the mountains, the sea looked so beautiful. I have been much in the Greek Islands, but I do not think the colours there are anything compared to the jewel-like quality of the colours here. It is all so unpolluted.'
'Go and make us some coffee and sandwiches,' Magnus whispered to Helen, letting go of her arm.
'Is this castle very old?' Marta asked.
'This tower was originally built in the fifteenth century, but of course it has been restored many times,' Magnus was replying as Helen, who was glad he had suggested that she should leave the room, excused herself and went to the kitchen.
Once she was in the kitchen she closed the door and collapsed on one of the chairs at the table. She wanted to laugh and cry all at once. She wanted to laugh at the way she and Magnus had hurriedly dressed themselves and had tried to appear unconcerned in front of the three people who had arrived so unexpectedly, but she wanted to cry too, with disappointment, because she and Magnus had been interrupted when they had been dizzy with delight, trapped in a spell of sensual pleasure, when they had been so close to the culmination of passion.
It had all happened so beautifully and naturally, and it had been an experience beyond her wildest dreams. For a few moments Magnus had done something for her that no other man had been able to do. Making love to her tenderly and expertly, he had freed her from the cold stiff shyness that had always imprisoned her warm and generous heart and her longing to love and be loved, and now she was his prisoner for ever, captivated completely by his gentle strength and his generosity as a lover.
But what now? Where did she go from that point of time in the lounge when she had begun to experience for the first time the joys of sensual pleasure? What would they have done, what would she and Magnus have said to each other if three strangers had not arrived? She drew her hands out of the wide sleeves of the dressing gown and looked at Magnus's socks still clutched in her hands and smiled, a rather trembling smile, as tears filled her eyes. Thank heavens the strangers hadn't arrived a few minutes earlier and found her and Magnus lying in each other's arms on the sealskin hearthrug! Yet none of them had seemed surprised to find her, dressed in what was obviously his dressing gown, branded with his initials… no, that wasn't quite right, she thought, frowning now. None of them had been surprised to find any woman with Magnus.
The thought disturbed her, arousing a new emotion, a feeling of jealousy because she guessed she wasn't the only woman in his life; wasn't the only woman he had made love to. Jumping to her feet, irritated with herself for allowing such a base and violent feeling to take over, she pushed the socks into a drawer in the dresser and finding a kettle filled it with water.
While she lit a burner on the gas cooker she considered the three people who had arrived. They all knew Magnus. Oh, it was true Marta Nielsen and Leo Rossi hadn't met Magnus before, but they knew of him. And Max Fiedler seemed to know him extremely well. A film actress, a film director and a… not knowing much about the film industry, she couldn't even begin to guess what Max Fiedler did for a living. He would be an actor, she supposed.
Then what was Magnus, and why had they come in a fishing boat to see him? Behind her the door to the hallway opened and she turned to look at it. Marta Nielsen was standing there.
'The bathroom?' queried the actress with a lift of her shapely mobile eyebrows.
'Upstairs, on the first landing. Second door on the right,' Helen replied.
'Thank you. I'll be back,' Marta made a grimace and jerked her head back in the direction of the lounge. They are talking money and contracts, and all that stuff bores me.'
Marta backed out and closed the door. Helen found a tray and set it with an embroidered traycloth she found in the drawer of the dresser. She found coffee mugs, a jar of instant coffee, milk and sugar, and she was making sandwiches when the door opened again and Marta returned.
'I do like this place,' said the actress, sitting down at the table. 'And I envy Magnus his possession of it.'
'Oh, but…' Helen broke off, frowning as she turned to the cooker. The kettle was boiling. Had Magnus been lying again, saying the castle belonged to him? Or he lied to her when he had said the castle belonged to a relative of Blair's? No, that wasn't what he had said. He had said the castle belonged to a relative of his and she had assumed he had meant a relative of Blair's because at the time he had been pretending to be Blair.
'It's so exciting for me to meet him, too,' Marta went on, apparently not having noticed Helen's objection. 'Ever since I saw him act the part of Shelley some years ago in that T.V. series about the English Romantic poets I have hoped one day to meet Magnus Scott. Did you see the series, by any chance?'
Standing perfectly still at the cooker, staring at the steam coming out of the spout of the kettle, Helen forced herself to answer as casually as she could.
'Yes, I did.' She cleared her throat, turned off the burner, and lifting the kettle went over to the table to pour boiling water in the coffee mugs. 'Are you going to act with him?'
'It is probable. Leo wants him for his next film. It's a story of romance and intrigue set in Italy at the time of N
apoleon. It will give Leo a chance to include some of the beauties of his native land. I will play the part of an Austrian wife of an Italian count and… if he agrees… Magnus will be the English diplomat and courier who falls in love with me. Are you an actress too, Helen?'
'Me? Oh, no!'
'You have forgiven me, I hope, for the faux pas I made just now when I assumed you were Magnus's wife?' asked Marta.
'Yes, yes, of course I have.'
'I wouldn't have made such an assumption if Max hadn't said when we were coming here that he wouldn't be at all surprised if Magnus had got married secretly and had come to this island for his honeymoon. So naturally I thought, when we found you here with him in such intimate circumstances, that Max was right. But as soon as I heard your name, I knew I had made a mistake. Max had said that Magnus had been seen a lot recently with a singer… a British recording star.' Marta's high white forehead pleated as she made an effort to remember and she pushed a hand at her abundant soft brown hair which was coiled into a rather untidy chignon on top of her head. 'I think he said her name was Wanda. Yes, that is right. Wanda Murray. You have heard of her, perhaps?' Marta smiled at Helen across the table.
Helen, who had just lifted the tray to carry it into the lounge, nearly dropped it. Quickly she set it down.
'Yes, I have heard of her,' she said weakly. 'But Magnus couldn't marry her. She's married already, to a doctor.'
'Then Max must have made a mistake… about the name, I mean,' said Marta, rising to her feet and going over to open the door, 'or he's been listening to gossip. He often does that and gets the story all wrong.'
'Who is he? I mean, what does he do? Is he an actor too?' asked Helen, lifting up the tray again.
'He's a film producer. In fact he produced the last three films Magnus appeared in, and Magnus is under contract to him, I believe.' Marta sighed and rolled her eyes. 'He is not the pleasantest of persons, but he knows how to raise money for films and he knows how to market them. He is very necessary to people like me, and Magnus and Leo. Without him we would not have the opportunity to reach the cinema-going public.'
Trying to appear calm and unconcerned, Helen carried the tray into the lounge and set it down on the coffee table in front of the sofa where both Magnus and Leo were sitting. Max was striding up and down the room, smoking a cigar and apparently giving the other two men a lecture.
'Now the way I see it the only things that matter in this business are: one, a good story, and we've got that.' He swung round to glare down at Magnus. 'You've read it. You should have done by now—you've had the damned script long enough,' Not waiting for an answer, he continued with his pacing and his advice. Two,' he said, striking the second finger of his left hand with the first finger of his right hand. 'You have to have interesting casting, and in Marta and you,' he swung round to glare at Magnus again, 'that's if we can only get you to agree to do it, we have two of the best actors, who also happen to have the same photogenic presence of a Bergman or a Garbo, a Newman or a Redford—you come over good on the big screen and people will pay to go and see you. And three,' he struck the third finger of his left hand as he went on pacing, 'a good director, and Leo has proved time and time again that he's the best. It's the human element that makes a motion picture, not the technology, but unfortunately we can't do without that, and it's expensive, damned expensive.'
'I agree,' said Leo Rossi smoothly, smiling at Helen as she offered him a mug of coffee. It is expensive, but my point is that with new technology we're going to make the cost of a film much lower than it has been. Magnus, tell us, do you like the script?'
'It's all right, but it needs some work on it. Some of the dialogue in the love scenes is a little unnatural.'
'I agree,' said Marta enthusiastically. 'But we can work on that together, you and I.'
Helen didn't stay to hear any more of the conversation, even though she was secretly fascinated, but she wanted to be alone, so after picking up a mug of coffee for herself and taking a couple of biscuits, she excused herself, thinking with some amusement that the others were so engrossed in discussing the art of film making that they hardly noticed her, and leaving the lounge she went upstairs to the bedroom.
Standing at the window, she stared out at the sunlit sea, the red rooks and the ribbed yellow sand of the beach curving about the bay, wishing she could have gone outside, wishing that she had clothes to wear. In this dressing gown of Magnus's she was trapped indoors, his prisoner.
Looking down, she traced the letter embroidered on the breast pocket. M.S. Magnus Scott. Now she knew why he seemed familiar to her. She had seen him on the T.V. screen and she had seen him in a film, but she hadn't remembered his name for some reason. She wasn't much of a filmgoer or a television watcher, but now that she thought about it she had enjoyed the series Marta had referred to, and she had also enjoyed the film she had seen Magnus acting in, and the reason why she had enjoyed both had been him; his presence on the screen, his ability to portray a character, his use of his voice.
He had changed his voice to impersonate Blair and to entice her to this place, and knowing now what his profession was she could understand why he had seemed so changeable yesterday. He had been playing different roles. In turn he had been Blair, then a softly spoken somewhat wild islander, then a cool man of the world who had admitted to deliberately interfering and separating her from Blair to help his friend Wanda Murray.
And lastly, much more recently, he had played the part of a lover. Helen's hand shook suddenly as she raised the coffee mug to her lips and coffee slopped down the front of the dressing gown. Tears starting in her eyes, she rubbed at the brown stain ineffectually, wondering miserably if Magnus had been acting a part when he had made love to her that morning.
Putting the coffee mug down on the bedside table, she sat down on the edge of the unmade bed, tears streaming down her face. Nothing in her hitherto smooth, unemotional life had prepared her for what had happened downstairs in the lounge, for that emotionally and physically devastating eruption of passion and the need she had felt to be as close as possible to Magnus, to be a part of him. But while it had been happening she had really been convinced that she loved him and that he loved her.
Now the madness of those moments was over and she was able to look back at what had happened more, coolly and dispassionately, and to realise how close to performing the act of love they had been. The word act pounded through her head, mocking her. Magnus was an actor, skilled in dissembling, in appearing to be what he wasn't and in pretending to be in love. Had he been pretending he had fallen in love with her when he had kissed and fondled her and had deliberately aroused her until she hadn't cared what else he had done to her?
Covering her face with her hands, she keeled over on to her side and wept as she had never wept before, crying for her lost innocence, crying because never again would she be cool collected Helen Melrose in command of her emotions, in control of her life and knowing exactly where she was going; crying because she had fallen in love— at last—but with a man she wasn't sure existed.
Gradually she grew quieter and lay in a sort of stupor induced by the purging of her emotions, her mind numb, her limbs lethargic. Warmed by the mid-morning sun, the room was quiet save for the sound of waves tumbling on the shore. The steady murmur of the sea had a soporific effect on Helen. Her swollen reddened eyelids drooped and she slipped into the healing oblivion of sleep.
CHAPTER FOUR
Emotionally and physically drained by the events of the morning, Helen slept for nearly four hours, and when she woke up the room was no longer full of sunlight but was dim, the sun having moved round to the west and away from the sea-facing window. Her head still buried in the pillow, she lay for a few moments in silence, listening. Someone was in the room. She could hear someone breathing. Slowly she turned her head. Magnus was sitting on the side of the bed looking at her, his face devoid of all expression, his blue eyes blank.
A puppet man waiting for the strings to be pul
led, she thought rather hysterically, as she remembered she had found out he was an actor. As she sat up she was shaken by a long sobbing shudder. Curling her legs beneath her, she shifted away from him, hunching up against the headboard, staring at him with wide troubled eyes.
'What's wrong, Eilidh?' he demanded roughly. 'Ah, don't look at me like that! I'm not going to hurt you. It was never my intention to hurt you.'
She pushed a long swathe of her hair behind one ear and taking a deep breath tried to control the feeling of revulsion which was shivering through her. Licking her dry lips, she whispered.
'I know your last name now. It… it's Scott.'
'How? How do you know?' he demanded, frowning at her.
'Marta Nielsen told me.'
'I see.' His lips twisted wryly. 'So? Does knowing my name make a difference?'
'I know also that you're an actor… and where I've seen you before. I saw you acting in a series on television and once in a film. It was a spy story… about the last war.'
'That's where I guessed you'd seen me,' he muttered, then added rather viciously, 'Well, I wish they hadn't come. I wish they hadn't seen you here with me.'
'Why didn't you tell me your name and where I might have seen you?' she asked.
'I don't know.' He glanced away from her and then rising to his feet walked away from her, over to the window. Against the bright panes of glass through which the sky, still blue, still bright with sunlight, could be seen, his figure was a dark shape, the shoulders set straight, the head with its ruffled hair held high. After a while he said in a low voice.
'No, that's a lie. I do know why I didn't tell you.' He swung round to face her, but because his back was to the light it was difficult for her to see his face. 'I didn't want you to know my name or what I did for a living because I didn't want you blabbing to everyone that you'd spent the weekend with the film actor Magnus Scott on the island of Carroch when you returned to your work on Tuesday morning,' he said, bitterness grating in his voice. 'I've had that happen to me before… not here, but when I was filming in Hollywood, and it caused me nothing but trouble.'