by Laura Briggs
Someone had left one of the brochures on the parlor table. I picked it up, seeing glossy pictures of an elaborate collar-style necklace featuring black onyx stones, and a decorative ruby stick that I assumed must have belonged originally to the royal Catherine's trousseau.
Outside, I could see a member of the security team checking the grounds as I changed the light bulb in the Tiffany-style lamp and polished the china shepherd and shepherdess figurines on the mantel, which, I postulated, were probably less valuable than the 'extensive Limoges collection' listed among Mildred Eccleston's possessions.
Fresh towels were delivered to the 'blue room' or the Bay Suite upstairs, which was reserved for the famous actress who was coming, who, according to Katy, named Mildred Eccleston as her inspiration and professional idol during a talk show interview last year. Genevieve Fifer, whom I remembered seeing in a movie about a young woman crusading for education reform just before I left Los Angeles. As I pulled open the blue damask drapes, Katy located the actress's latest runway photo on her phone, revealing the slender, willowy blond with elfin features that I remembered from the film.
"Is the actress whose things are being sold off as pretty as she is?" Molly asked. She glanced at the picture as she straightened the elegant blue bedspread embroidered with gilded threads.
"Nay," said Katy, with a snort of laughter. "She was a plain sort. I can't imagine how she became so famous."
She showed Katy another photo — this one of Mildred Eccleston before she was Lady Von Patterson. A round-faced blond actress with a slightly plumper figure than today's standards allowed for a star, with a heart-shaped mouth, large, dreamy eyes, and a very glitzy twenties-style formal dress.
"Beauty standards were different then," I said. "There's a bio for her in the brochures downstairs. She sounds like she had quite a career. And was maybe a bit of a heartbreaker in her day, when it came to some of her leading men." According to those pamphlets, she had played various glamorous roles in silent films from the time she was sixteen until her early retirement at the beginning of the 'talkie' phase, when she married her titled husband and became a society lady.
"She certainly lived a long time," said Molly, taking Katy's phone and reading the website article attached to the photo. "Look at that. She played a pirate queen ... a lady spy ... her movie Taming the Fury made the British Arts Council's list of influential classic films. Oh, look — there's a picture of her with Winston Churchill!"
"Churchill wasn't in films, was he?" said Katy, who gave the adjoining washroom and bath a quick glance of approval.
"She wasn't an actress then. She was a lady in society by then," said Molly. Katy confiscated her phone back and closed the web app.
"Are the security agents still wandering the halls?" asked Molly, peeking out.
"Not anymore," I said, as Katy and I wrestled the cart over a slightly worn patch of the blue room's antique carpet. "I think they went downstairs again, now that they've seen the whole place up close."
"They have the rooms at the far end," said Katy. "They'll be taking turns sitting up at night, watching the door." She giggled. "They'll be bored and awfully stiff by morning."
"Do you think many people will come to see all of Mildred's things?" said Molly.
"Probably. It sounds like a lot of valuable things will be on display," I said. "A jeweled dragon sculpture, a case of diamonds, a necklace from a famous movie. It might not be the Crown Jewels, but that's a lot of glamour in one place." After ten days, these things would mostly be in private collections, so next week was the last chance to see them, except for the ones destined to be sold to the Hollywood museum.
"Maybe we'll see the young actress while she's here," said Molly, sounding hopeful.
"Blast. I don't have the key to this room," said Katy, pausing outside the suite at the end of the hall. "I don't suppose it matters, since nobody is ever there. Let's leave it for next time."
The room in question was one I was familiar with: it was connected to the reason I had come to Cornwall in the first place, searching for the famous author who held it in constant reserve. Though this was one of the favorite places of the elusive Alistair Davies, it had stood vacant for the many months I had been working at the hotel. Apparently, Davies had other places to spend his time than the suite where I had imagined A Dark and Glorious House being typed on the vintage Royal typewriter on the seaward-facing desk.
I had given up meeting him ages ago when I decided that a mentorship wasn't my only chance for a successful writing career. It's a little silly, but I still felt a twinge of disappointment in my chest as Katy's words reminded me of it again. Not that I would trade my writing experience while here ... and the other experiences this place had given me ... for anything in the world now, with all it had given me artistically and personally.
Nevertheless, a part of me still whispered what if ...? whenever I brushed against the ghost of my past chances. As if imagining the impossible had happened, namely, that Alistair Davies had really and truly been thrilled by the chance to mentor my novel, and taken me under his wing artistically. The stuff fantasies are made of, as I knew full well; and, truthfully, had known even when I came up with the crazy idea of traveling here to find him a year ago.
I put my hand on its knob, knowing it was securely locked. On the other side, his desk was exactly as it was the few times I had entered the suite to tidy it. The only clack its typewriter keys ever uttered was beneath my fingers, for the sheer thrill of typing on the same machine that had produced three bestsellers.
Wishful thinking. I dusted the knob, then followed Katy and Molly into the adjoining room, now that the maid unlocked its door instead. There were more towels to be laid out, and more surfaces to be dusted before the next guest arrived.
***
"She was not meant to die."
"Everyone must die. It hasn't been appointed to any, man or woman, to escape it."
"But she shouldn't die! Is it fair? Is it just? How can anyone say it is, in such a way — in cruel circumstances, with men who deserve a miserable death dealing it to others with such brute coldness?"
"Can you deliver it to them instead?" He spoke quietly. "Words change nothing, William."
William's eyes were hollow, black pits with fire burning deep within; a flame of accusations against the universe and all its dealings which rendered human lives to dust without consequence, sufferers striking or screaming in vain before their existence vanished.
"I will find a better weapon than words, then," he said. "I will give them consequence, a wound they can feel, no matter what it costs me. I swear it by my life."
"Be a mad fool. Die of rage, or when someone spears you like a wild pig when you charge upon them, but what is the use of it? Will it save her? Or will it only satisfy you that you die as well?"
Here, I stopped typing, my tablet's keyboard no longer clicking away with words. At best, it had been doing a low canter, because the words hadn't been coming easily. Only minor changes to a chapter involving my hero William's frustrated vendetta, yet my focus was slipping the longer I tweaked these words. Distractions of the wrong kind abounded.
Maybe I was losing sight of my artistic goal, at least just a little. I had lost my path once before, when blurring the lines between classic melodrama and gothic fantasy; occasionally, I had entangled my story a little too much with the parallels between Annabel and William's quest and my dying, imaginative Annabel in an 1800s Massachusetts gabled bedroom. I couldn't lay the blame on the doorstep of my Misadventures of Maisie Clark manuscript this time, for my attempted journal hadn't been updated in nearly a month. Or, for that matter, on anything except the fact that I had no major changes left to make in this draft of my novel. Not without an editor's criteria for publication, that is.
Maybe some fresh air would help clear the stagnant thoughts clouding my brain and give me a fresh perspective on what I needed to do with it.
I seized my green cardigan from the back of my chair, and my
shoulder bag from which a copy of an unfinished ghost story protruded, which I had been trying in vain to finish reading for weeks. Downstairs, I encountered a full lobby in the hotel Penmarrow, both tourists, villagers, and total strangers who were streaming from a distant bus waiting in the car park. Today was the first day of the open exhibit of Mildred Eccleston's private boudoir prior to auction.
Curious, I entered the crowd milling to the ballroom's open doors, just behind the bus's tour group as they joined the queue. The talkative American buyer from Hollywood was right behind me, still making conversation on his mobile phone as we moved slowly past the two security agents at the door and into the opulent ballroom turned museum gallery. I tried to remember if I had ever visited the museum for which he worked — I had ducked into one or two during my Los Angeles days to savor glitzy costumes and fantastic posters on display.
There were security guards stationed at the ballroom's only other doors; all the rest was hidden security measures, like silent alarms, guarding the cases of rare items and collectibles which were listed in those newly-arrived auction guides. The one Molly had borrowed was in my bag, so I opened it up to peruse as I walked past the display cases.
The Chinese dragon was there, a magnificent, twisting silver shape nearly two foot long, with perfectly-formed scales, and tiny jewels studding its surface — glittery diamonds, emeralds, and rubies, including two for its eyes. Originally displayed on the actress's mantelpiece at her husband's townhouse, it was now destined for a museum in Hong Kong by special bequest. A miniature version of it, made from precious stones and metals, had been commissioned by the actress as a 'good luck charm' she carried whenever she traveled. It was on display in the neighboring case, along with the much-touted Russian empress's ruby hairpin and the jade combs.
Some of the items weren't jewels, as I knew from helping unload the auction house's vans, but personal possessions belonging to the actress. Her journal, a leather one of threadbare spine and a color-tinted floral design impressed along the bottom corner of its cover, was displayed at an open page. Hand-written, and dated October 1947, the topmost entry read: 'Of course, we dined with Sully and dear old Charlie at Chasen's for old time's sake. Phillip darling does so love a good cocktail' — but those were the only words I could make out on the paper.
The Chinese headdress's pearls were real, and some were a 'ghost gray' considered rare among pearl collectors — it belonged with the silk dress, both from an early version of Lost Horizon in which Mildred played a beautiful Chinese Empress and love interest to the handsome lead explorer in a vast departure from the original novel.
Black-and-white still shots from old cinema footage featured Mildred in her Chinese costume and also posed sultry style in the famous black onyx choker necklace from Taming the Fury.
"I'm looking at it right now." The Hollywood representative was right behind me as I admired the heavy necklace of black stones and seed pearls fastened together by gold chains, fitted just below the mannequin head's chin and descending to drape gracefully across its clavicle. "It's gorgeous. Absolutely. Hold on, and I'll send you a picture. Would you mind —?" he said to me, motioning to one side. "My boss needs to see this for himself."
"Sure." I stepped out of his way, abandoning the necklace entirely to his attentions. Next up, the actress's Limoges collection — a large case filled with tiny ornamental French porcelain boxes, which made up in number for the impressive nature of the ivory jewelry box Molly had been admiring in the catalog.
The biggest crowd was gathered around the actress's diamonds, which were on display at the heart of the exhibit, just below her portrait. Mildred Eccleston was Lady Von Patterson by the time a painter was commissioned to put her likeness on canvas. A solemn, dignified woman in a posh blue floral gown gazed slightly to the left of the artist from her seat on a Victorian fainting sofa, far different from the 'come-hither' pose of the black and white version of her sixteen years earlier.
"She's a bit prim-looking, isn't she?" I recognized the two visitors ahead of me from the reception desk two days ago. The one was still dressed in white, but her friend in tweeds wore a gray sweater and herringbone trousers today. The sensible friend gazed at the portrait showcased on an easel.
"It puts me in mind of Grace Kelly — after she was Princess of Monaco," mused the companion in white. "Imagine having those diamonds around one's neck. Sheer magnifique." A dramatic turn of the wrist with this declaration as she gazed at the contents of the case below, where the personal jewels of Lady Von Patterson were on display.
The aforementioned diamonds were multifaceted cuts which glittered like stars against the black velvet background. Two large ear studs, one large necklace, and a bracelet of smaller ones in chains braided together. I had never seen anything like them that wasn't mere costume jewelry, although the auction guide priced them at a cool half million pounds.
"Isn't the crush in this room dreadful?" the sensible friend was complaining. "I'm positively stifled."
"It is a smidge stuffy with so many people pushing to see the diamonds."
The two guests moved on, and so did I, feeling the push of the crowd more insistently myself. My interest in seeing the rest of Millicent Eccleston's possessions had waned to the point that I drifted to the safety of the hallway again as a fresh wave of tourists arrived. Most were interested in seeing the famed necklace and hairpin, so displays like the case sporting the actress's dinner dress were islands in a sea of human bodies, and a lone young woman stood gazing at the case containing the actress's personal papers.
The hotel's dining hall was quiet, with a window view of a stream of tourists climbing aboard their bus again. To avoid the traffic in the hotel's foyer and terrace, I cut through the private entrance and exit to the hotel, entering the closed yard where the hotel's car was customarily parked.
Riley was there, lounging on a stack of potting soil bags and reading a paperback novel while his fellow porter Gomez smoked a cigarette near the door. "Listen to this," said Riley, sitting forward. "'Her sensual lips were attuned to his every tremor; his need strengthened and grew insistent as he crushed her against him with two steel bands of muscle. 'Never leave.' His voice, a low growl of passion and forcefulness, played softly against her ear, yet held her prisoner like an unbending leash of iron.'"
A snort of laughter from Gomez. "Blimey," he added, without using his customary fake Latin accent. "Are you making this up?"
"Oh, there's more, mate. 'How can I live without you? You, who give me every desire, every strength. Here is the proof.' His lips pressed their need more insistently than any ache of tortured human words could do, and Katerina Louisa's body weakened like a castle of sand beneath a storm as the core of her being hearkened to his confession.'" Riley slapped the cover closed after these lines.
"Shut up with that blasted drivel, or take it elsewhere to read it aloud." Norm the gardener's voice came from the other side of the parked car, where I heard the offending clink of a spanner striking the graveled ground.
"Is this rot really what women read?" Riley asked me. He held up the book so I could see it — I recognized the book cover as that of the Lady Marverly novel from the hotel's lost and found box.
"Some people love it," I answered. I was no literary purist myself, reading a little of everything from escapist romance to Russian fiction in my time, even while taking literature classes ... but the 'ache of tortured human words' line made me hope I'd never written a similar humiliating phrase in my various writing endeavors.
"This bloke tosses her around like a rag doll one moment, then drools at her feet like a spaniel in the next chapter — he's all over the place. Every other page is this shirtless savage tearing at her clothes before blubbering about sunsets and pulsing infernos inside him or some other rot."
"Is this what women want from men? That is the question," said Gomez — with his accent in place again — as he ground out his cigarette in the potted plant beside the door.
"What did I say
about that filthy habit o' yours?" demanded Norm, viciously.
"Be careful with that book," I said to Riley. "It's not Molly's, it belongs to a hotel guest who lost it between some cushions in the parlor."
"Probably buried it so they wouldn't die of laughter first," said Riley, flipping through the pages, which were beginning to look slightly thumbed-over by multiple hands. "'Her need was an insatiable, quivering skein of silk, desperate to be spun by him alone.'"
"Read on. I'm in suspense," said Gomez. I rolled my eyes.
"Here's a good bit: 'like rolling thunder, his crushing —"
"You lot deserve to be sacked for loafing about while decent folk work!" With an expression of fury, Norm slammed the car's bonnet, then stalked off through the yard's private gate, leaving the two porters and me alone. We gazed after him as the wooden gate slammed behind the gardener's surly figure.
"Was it something I said?" Riley asked, innocently.
"Read the bit about the crushing what's-it again," said Gomez, sitting down on the doorstep. A beep beep came from the hotel's drive as the departing tour bus and Sidney's battered jeep met at the pavement's narrow curve.
"Speaking of shirtless savages," said Riley, with an exaggeratedly-prudish tsk tsk. I ignored this remark regarding Sidney, which I suspected was a competitive jab on the part of the flirtatious porter. I left him reading another selection aloud to Gomez, and walked from the courtyard's enclosure to the car park, where two hotel guests unloaded an oversized floating toy from the car's top, half deflated, and lugged it and a stuffed beach tote bag across the lawn. Sidney didn't drive away, but remained parked, engine idling as he leaned out of the driver's window.
"Still playing taxi?" I asked.
"Only being friendly to visitors to our lovely shore," he answered. "Are you free?"
"Until three," I answered.