Stratford Jewel

by Oliver, Marina

  'Darling, it will be wonderful,' Gilbert assured her, gathering her into his arms and kissing her.

  Celia sighed in contentment. He was far more subtle in his love-making than the boys she'd dallied with before. Instead of fumbling, sweaty hands and voracious, hasty kisses Gilbert trailed delightfully tantalising, feathery kisses that started on her eyelids and travelled via her ears and throat to the pale mounds of her breasts, revealed by Gilbert's dexterous fingers as he unbuttoned her dress.

  'It will be wonderful,' Celia repeated, arching her back and breathing in deeply.

  'I won't have to say goodbye when the season's finished. We can be together, away from prying eyes and provincial gossip,' Gilbert promised.

  'There aren't any prying eyes here,' Celia said softly, glancing up at him from under her long lashes, and then sat up in alarm as she heard a stifled giggle.

  'What the hell?'

  Gilbert sprang to his feet, and Celia clutched the sides of the punt as he leaped onto the bank above them. The punt rocked, but she managed to twist round and kneel on the cushions. Through a gap in the branches she saw Gilbert sprinting across a meadow in hot pursuit of two boys. They were, she judged, about ten or eleven years old, but from the back and this distance she couldn't identify them. Fervently she hoped they hadn't known her, wouldn't spread tales amongst their friends of what she was well aware would be considered utterly abandoned conduct. The old biddies of Stratford tattled about her enough, and much as she despised them she didn't want their condemnation. They might boycott her stage appearances when she returned as a star.

  She watched anxiously as Gilbert grabbed the boys. The bigger one wriggled free but Gilbert held on to the other. Celia heard his furious voice but couldn't distinguish the words as he shook the lad, berating him angrily. The child, crying, was nodding frantically, and soon Gilbert let him go. He scampered off to where the older one hovered, and both disappeared.

  'I don't think they'll cause any more bother,' Gilbert said as he returned, smiling.

  Celia was buttoning up her dress. 'I hope not. What was his name?'

  'I didn't ask. Why?'

  'In case I knew them. Gilbert, I'm sorry, but let's go back. I don't feel safe here.'

  *

  'It's going to rain,' Celia exclaimed dolefully at breakfast. 'It will spoil the Birthday Celebrations.'

  'It's only clouds,' Rosa tried to sound cheerful. She wondered whether she would have an opportunity to speak with Max today. Since their outing, and that unexpected embrace, she had been both eager and apprehensive about seeing him again. He'd appeared busy, and she thought he might be avoiding her when Agnes dropped hints about how frequently he'd been for tea at her house, or spent an evening with them and some musical friends, singing round the piano. She could not understand her fluctuating emotions. She was by turns elated and afraid. Thoughts of Max had driven to the back of her mind the setback caused when Celia's behaviour had made their father issue his edict. That was something to consider later. Puzzling about Max's actions was more urgent. It wasn't the first kiss some amorous swain had stolen, but those she had been able to laugh off. Max was different. Was it simply that he was older, inevitably more experienced than the youths who had kissed her before? Or was it more fundamental.

  Briskly she shook off her preoccupation. Jack, who had been extra moody lately, had retreated early to bed saying he felt ill, and risen late complaining of a headache. Rosa had volunteered to send out some of the bills due. She would do this before they went to Bridge Street at midday.

  When she emerged from the office Celia had departed, and Rosa had to hurry. She changed into her new spring outfit, a box-pleated knitted skirt in apple green, shorter at just knee-length than she had ever worn before, with a matching jumper, the long slim line emphasised by the dipping collar. Because of the clouds she had to wear her new coat too, loose and in a darker green, but she defied the threatening storms with a jaunty, wide-brimmed straw hat trimmed with flowers.

  In Bridge Street crowds were already assembled. It was almost midday, too late to look for Celia. She stopped near the Bank at the top, from where she could see down to the bridge. At exactly noon trumpets sounded and flags were unfurled.

  'There are sixty-five flags,' a voice beside her said quietly, and Rosa swung round, an involuntary smile on her face.

  'Max!'

  He smiled down at her. 'The colours brighten up the day, don't they?'

  'Yes, yes, they do.' Rosa was finding it difficult to speak naturally. He was so tall, and so attractive. Had he really kissed her in such a fashion or had she imagined the whole thing?

  'Are you going home for lunch?' he asked slowly. 'Perhaps we could walk along Waterside. If, that is, you have no objection to my company?'

  'Why should I?' They began to walk down Bridge Street.

  'Well, you might have objected to my behaviour the other evening,' he said quietly. 'As I recall I was so arrogant I said I wasn't going to apologise. That was unpardonable. I must express my sincere regrets now.'

  He was sorry he'd kissed her. Rosa clenched her hands. It had been the circumstances, the perfumes in the garden, the associations of her name with lovers and spring time, the dusky quiet. He'd been carried away by these influences and now regretted it. It had been no more than a sudden whim, an embrace as casually given as one would pat a dog. A wave of anger engulfed her.

  'For pity's sake, Max, do you imagine I set any store whatever by it? One expects such behaviour amongst theatrical people. It's one of the reasons my father doesn't permit us to go to London. But I quite understand it doesn't mean a thing. And now, I see Celia going into that shop. I must catch her. We'll walk home together. Goodbye. I hope you have a good voyage back home.'

  Rosa couldn't recall what they had for lunch. She'd lingered in the shop until Max resumed walking towards the river, then hastened back the way they'd come. At home she changed back into her everyday clothes, and after their meal they gathered in the parlour to listen to the wireless. Everyone but Jack was there: he was working, saying the business was more important than a dead scribbler, and he needed the fresh air. For the first time ever the speeches at the Festival Luncheon were being broadcast, but Rosa scarcely heard a word. Only when she recognised a voice speaking with an American accent did she start to pay attention.

  'That's James M. Beck,' Celia said excitedly as they listened to the toast to Shakespeare's memory. 'He used to be the American Solicitor-General, Gilbert says. Oh, listen, he's telling us to build the best theatre ever!'

  'We could listen better if you kept quiet,' Mr Greenwood said curtly.

  Celia pouted. Rosa half-listened to Dame Madge Kendal and Henry Ainley. The latter described occasions when he had encountered floodwaters in the old theatre's dressing rooms. Mr Bridges-Adams appealed for a building they could be proud of. Rosa couldn't care. Would Max ever return to Stratford, ever see that building? She never wanted to see him again, but his going made her feel unaccountably bereft.

  They had tickets in the balcony for the performance of Coriolanus that evening. Rosa contemplated pleading a headache, but Celia would suspect something was wrong and tease her unmercifully. She must behave normally. It would be her most demanding role yet.

  'There's Max,' Celia exclaimed as they were settling into their seats. His dark head was visible above the crowd milling about in the auditorium. 'I wonder when he's leaving Stratford?' she added, looking with assumed innocence at Rosa.

  Rosa shrugged. 'Probably tomorrow.' She wasn't sure her voice sounded sufficiently unconcerned. Fortunately it was time for the curtain to rise, and she could sink back in her seat and try to forget him.

  *

  A few days after the Birthday performance Rosa learned Max had left Stratford. Fruitlessly she wondered what had gone wrong, and whether she might have said anything differently not to have driven him away. She went for long, solitary rides, to make up for her neglect of her mare, Moonbeam. She paid little attention to the procl
amation, on May Day, of a state of emergency intended to avert the threat of a general strike. When the strike began on the third of May she shrugged, not caring whether they had an audience or not. By the time the Spring Festival ended twelve days later she could not recall whether she had played to full or empty houses. On the final night she listened without comprehending to Alderman Flower congrataulating the Company, and Mr Bridges-Adams declaring that having survived both the fire and the strike, nothing could destroy the Festival.

  Celia, knowing Gilbert would be returning to London soon, to join a new touring company, set herself to changing her father's mind. When neither cajolery nor tantrums had any effect on him, she retired to her room and emerged only for meals and to go out to meet Gilbert. Rosa became immersed in events to raise money for the rebuilding fund.

  She knew being miserable would achieve nothing. Nor would antagonising her father, but Celia smiled and said she knew what she was doing. Shrugging, Rosa went to ask Winnie if she wanted any shopping doing. She would walk into the town, perhaps buy herself a new hat, visit one of her schoolfriends.

  *

  'If you want to expand buy more horses,' Jack said one morning. His father was too stubborn, too cautious.

  Mr Greenwood sighed. 'This isn't the time to buy more Shires, Jack.'

  'It's the right time. They're cheap. We could buy a champion for under twenty pounds. When the army horses came back, and the foals that had been bred for the war were old enough to work, prices hit rock bottom. We need to buy before the effects of dropping the Heavy Horse scheme are felt.'

  'Motor transport is taking over from horses.'

  'Not everywhere. Yes, I grant that for heavy loads which don't go by rail motor vans are better, but for our sort of business, calling at dozens of different places every day, horses are best.'

  'It's no good, Jack. If we expand the carrier business we need motors, and different kinds of work. There isn't enough business to have even one more waggon doing the same as now. I intend to look at different businesses, those with futures, as I explained before.'

  Jack fumed. 'Pleasure boats! All because of that damned theatre!'

  Mr Greenwood explained. 'Stratford is attracting more visitors. They came for the theatre, and will come to see the new one being built, even more once it opens. They stay to see the Birthplace and other houses. They want something else to do and there is the Avon, wide and smooth, alongside the theatre, ideal for gentle exercise in punts or rowing boats.'

  'We'd be better to stick with what we know, and that's horses.'

  'No, Jack, and that's the end of it.'

  An hour later Jack was in a stableyard a couple of miles outside Stratford. He stared at the horse being paraded in front of him.

  'He's a bargain, he is. Won't see another with his strength for a long while,' the horse-dealer said.

  'Yes, but the old man's too wrapped up in other schemes. We'd have to buy another waggon and hire another driver. He wouldn't agree, so all I'd have would be a seventeen hand Shire eating his head off in the stables.'

  'Why don't you set up on your own?'

  'In competition with my father? I couldn't do that, and anyway I haven't enough capital.'

  'If he's interested in other businesses, maybe he'd pass over some of the routes to you. Split the carrier business. You wouldn't be competing then, and you could do as you chose.'

  'It's an idea.' Jack pondered, and began to smile.

  When he got home Winnie and Sid were in the yard talking to Harry, who had just finished stabling Ceres. Rosa, Celia and Gilbert were turning in through the gateway. Jack began unhitching a black horse from the back of the waggon. The horse's ears were laid back and his eyes were wild.

  'Where did you get that miserable looking beast?' Rosa demanded.

  Jack looked at her, exasperated. 'I bought him, of course. He's a bargain. Four pounds.'

  'Four shillings would have been too much. Surely Father didn't ask you to get him.'

  'I certainly didn't,' Mr Greenwood, who had emerged from the house and was frowning at Jack, put in. 'He's far too small, no more than fifteen hands, and skinny. Is he a Shire or a cross?'

  Ribs stuck out of a painfully thin body, too long and narrow for a true Shire. The legs, though with the distinctive white feathering, were short and the loins meagre.

  'I'm sick of being told what I can do! He's pure Shire, and only needs feeding up,' Jack insisted. 'Harry, put him in the end stall,' he went on, tossing the reins to the other man.

  'Feeding won't make him taller or correct a poor bone structure, and he doesn't look as docile as Mustard,' Rosa said tartly. As if to prove her point the horse suddenly made a snatch at Harry's shoulder. Harry winced, hit the horse on the nose, and the animal threw up his great head. It was all Harry could do to hang on to him.

  'Damn fool!' Jack shouted as he moved to help. Sid threw down the broom and ran to cling to the rein on the other side. Between them they got the horse under control and led him into a box, tying him to a ring in the wall.

  'See to him,' Jack ordered, but Harry shook his head.

  'Not likely. You bought 'im.'

  'I'm giving you orders!' Jack suddenly sprang forwards and swung his fist, catching Harry unawares. He staggered backwards, tripped on the broom Sid had dropped, and fell into a heap of manure.

  Mr Greenwood, brusquely ordering Jack back, stepped forward to help him up, but Harry angrily shook off his hand.

  'That does it! I've 'ad enough of the lot of you.' He glared at Jack. 'You're loony, and as for you,' he went on, swinging round to confront Celia, 'you're a jade! You'd pull yer skirts up fer anyone, in a boat or an 'ayloft, it don't matter so long as you're not disturbed!'

  'How did you know?' Celia gasped, then went red with mortification.

  Harry grinned. 'You were willin' enough to take a tumble in the 'ay with me when there weren't no one better to play yer games, but you weren't interested enough to take any notice of me young brothers. They knew you though, and this pimp.'

  Gilbert, emerging from his stupefaction, started forward, fists clenched, but Celia clung to him, weeping and sobbing. Rosa caught hold of Jack and Mr Greenwood jerked his head at Harry.

  'Go home now, Stubbs. I'll see you in the office first thing tomorrow.'

  *

  Max tore the postcard into a dozen pieces and tossed them over the bridge. Within seconds they vanished into the swirling waters of the Hudson River. He sighed and turned to walk home. He'd lost count of the postcards and letters he'd written to Rosa and then torn up during the past few weeks. When he'd left Stratford he'd determined he wouldn't make any attempt to contact her. He'd concentrate on work. But he'd left without saying goodbye. He had to forget her, but knowing she might have been hurt, misunderstood his silence, bothered him. Almost every day he'd begun to write, then had to argue himself out of the process yet again. About to visit his parents and Jenny, he must put the image of Rosa's dark beauty out of his mind. He must forget her.

  *

  'Your behaviour is utterly depraved,' Mr Greenwood said sternly. 'I blame myself, permitting you ever to become involved with theatre people. I thought I could trust you. You will not go to the Temporary Theatre again, or take part in any more Festivals, and you must not see that actor.'

  Celia sniffed. She was past tears, and none of her protestations had helped. 'Harry was lying,' she repeated wearily. 'He was angry because he tried to kiss me once, and I slapped his face. I wish I'd told you, but I didn't want him to lose his job.'

  Mr Greenwood looked at her sadly. 'Celia, I questioned his brothers. They didn't make up what they told me. I'm prepared to accept you did not encourage Harry, demean yourself by letting him maul you about in the hayloft as he claims, and he made that up out of pique. Gilbert Meadows is different. He's a cultured man, if depraved, and you are in great danger associating with him. Actors have lower standards that we do.'

  'Gilbert goes back to London today,' Celia said with a sob. 'If I
can't act I'll die, I really will.'

  'I'm losing patience with your foolishness. I have enough problems trying to dispose of that wretched animal Jack bought, and looking for another driver, without your disobedience.'

  Celia ran from the room and poured out all her anger to Rosa. 'It wasn't my fault,' she wept. 'Just because Harry fancied himself in love with me, then felt rejected and told his nasty little brothers what to say, I'm blamed. Rosa, ask Father to let us join in the Summer Festival. He'll listen to you. It would be too shaming if everyone asked questions about why he'd suddenly made us stop.'

  'Us?' Rosa asked. 'You mean he's forbidden me to act as well? That's monstrous! I've done nothing.'

  'Well, he said both of us,' Celia admitted. 'Rosa, tell him how unfair it is on you, and perhaps he'll relent.'

  She forced herself to maintain a hurt silence at dinner time, and watched with inward glee as Rosa cajoled Mr Greenwood into retracting his ban on acting in the Stratford Festivals.

  The mood of harmony was shattered, however, when Jack appeared, having come home later than usual, and began to argue about the new horse.

  'We don't need another horse, and we can't afford to have one eating his head off and not earning,' Mr Greenwood snapped.

  'I'll get him into good condition, we can buy a smaller waggon and use him locally. If we don't go to the nearer villages so often we can go further and expand the business.'

  'Who'll drive him? I've already lost Harry, I need another man and it will take him time to learn. If we hire someone else that's extra wages too. The horse goes.'

  'Sid can drive him,' Jack said dismissively.

  'Sid works in the yard, he can't spare the time even if he could control that apology for a horse. No more, Jack. That's the end of it.'

  'Thank goodness you asked him before Jack made him angry again,' Celia said after Jack and her father had stalked from the room.

  'He'll never let us go to London now. You were a fool, Celia.'

  'Was I? You've never kissed a man, Rosa. You're as pure and innocent as the day you were born. Well, I'm not submitting to outdated notions of propriety. Somehow I'll get to London, and when I'm famous he'll regret trying to stop me.'