It was not only men who found a place in her affections. She liked the girls with whom she acted, the wardrobe mistress, the dressers, the chars who cleaned out the theatre, and the smart, fluffy little programme sellers who would sometimes bring messages back stage. Stella like them all, in fact, as Chrissie used to say with exasperation, she would like the Devil himself if he turned up at the theatre.
Long ago Chrissie had really learned that it was useless to lecture Stella, but she really could not help doing it continually and unceasingly. From the moment the sisters got up in the morning to the moment they went to bed at night Chrissie’s high, sharp, bitter voice would be nattering at Stella like the yapping of a toy terrier. But nothing she said seemed to have the slightest effect.
Stella would give away her week’s wages without a second thought as to how she and Chrissie would manage the following week. Stella would lend her best evening gown, her slippers, her gloves or her mantle to any chorus girl who told her a hard luck story about an invitation from a Duke and nothing to wear if she accepted it. Stella found it impossible to pass a beggar in the street or a child looking into a sweet shop without opening her purse. And so Chrissie had to be ceaselessly protecting not only Stella’s interests but her own, for they rose and fell together.
Few people believed they were sisters, indeed, whenever Stella had a gentleman friend with a proprietary interest in her affairs, Chrissie was invariably introduced as ‘my dresser’, a pretence which never lasted long because Stella was too lazy to keep it up and inevitably gave the game away.
Chrissie was well aware that in appearance she was no asset to Stella. Men were inclined to look slightly disgusted or uncomfortable when they learned that this small, wizened creature was Stella’s sister, and it made them even more embarrassed when they learned that there were only two years difference in age between the girls.
‘You’re not to tell him who I am,’ Chrissie would say to Stella time and time again.
‘Why not?’ Stella would reply. I’m not ashamed of you, Chrissie. You’re worth fifty of me.’
In her heart of hearts Chrissie agreed with her, but men were not interested in brains, not the type of men they met anyway, and so they went on year after year, Chrissie making plans for Stella and Stella destroying them or making them unworkable from the very beginning by her sheer good humoured laziness.
The appearance of the Rajah of Jehangar was an unprecedented piece of good fortune. Bad luck had seemed to haunt Stella for months.
A show at the Gaiety Theatre, in which she had had a real chance to show her physical attractions, closed down after a month. There had been some delay before she was re-engaged at Daly’s, and then, three weeks after they had opened, she went down with such a bad cold and a high temperature that Chrissie was forced to keep her at home.
This was a double tragedy, for just before Stella fell ill she had attracted the attention of a South African millionaire who was visiting London. His affections were not seriously engaged, and when she failed to appear at a supper party he was giving for her, he speedily transferred his attention to one of the other girls in her act.
There were Doctors’ bills, medicines and special food to be paid for, and the rent was overdue by several weeks before Stella went back to the theatre again. The only good effect of her illness was that it seemed to make her prettier than she had been before. At times she was almost too buxom. As Chrissie said when she was angry, she looked and behaved like ‘a fat cow’. With her face a little thinner and her waist several inches smaller from enforced starvation Stella appeared more than usually dazzling.
The Rajah thought so, anyway.
To Chrissie it was a miracle that, from having been in dirty, smoky London, hard up and in debt six weeks ago, they should now find themselves in the sunshine at Monte Carlo, living in luxurious surroundings which even exceeded her wildest dreams.
Many people would have found the Villa Mimosa rather vulgar, but to Chrissie it was a veritable fairyland. The softness of the beds, the curtains of silk and brocade, the thick pile of the carpets, the ornate, gaudy decorations were to Chrissie all objects of unparalleled beauty.
Stella liked them too, but then Chrissie had known her like their lodgings in a back room in Manchester or a dingy attic overlooking the docks at Liverpool. She had long ago ceased to pay much attention to Stella’s opinion about anything.
‘He’s crazy about you, that’s certain sure,’ she said now, standing in the window of their sitting room at the Villa Mimosa, her hunched back sharply silhouetted against the blue sky outside.
Stella, lying on the sofa, reading a yellow-backed novel and with a huge box of chocolates at her side, did not answer. Chrissie waited for a moment, then turned towards her.
‘Did you hear what I said?’ she asked.
Stella looked up from her novel reluctantly. As she did so, she reached out her hand for another chocolate – a large one, ornamented with a crystallised violet on the top. She was extremely pretty as she lay there, dressed in a pink satin gown which the Rajah had brought her in Paris. It threw a delicate flush over her white skin and brought into prominence the blue of her eyes. It also accentuated very noticeably the curves of her figure, which seemed to Chrissie to have grown even more pronounced during the last few days at the Villa.
‘Stop eating chocolates and listen to me, Stella. You’ll be getting as fat as a porker if you go on like that. The food here is too rich.’
‘It’s jolly good,’ Stella replied, ‘and I like François.’
‘He talks too much,’ Chrissie snapped more from habit than conviction, for like Stella she had discovered that François, who was Chef at the Villa, was an unfailing source of information about everything and everybody at Monte Carlo.
‘He’s promised to buy me some truffles when he goes into the town today,’ Stella remarked dreamily. ‘I adore truffles.’
‘Instead of thinking about food, listen to me,’ Chrissie said. ‘The Rajah is crazy about you.’
‘You said that before.’
‘You didn’t reply.’
‘It didn’t seem to need a reply,’ Stella smiled. ‘We shouldn’t be here if he wasn’t fond of me.’
‘I know that,’ Chrissie said. ‘People get crazy about you,
Stella, but they don’t stay crazy. If you lose the Rajah, I think I’ll murder you with my own hands.’
Stella laughed.
‘Then you’d better start eating more and getting your strength up,’ she said. ‘Do you know how many women have stayed in this Villa before us?’
‘I don’t know and I don’t care,’ Chrissie answered.
‘Well, François will tell you.’ Stella said. ‘He says the Rajah gets bored with women quicker than anyone he’s ever met, and he’s worked for several Rajahs and Maharajahs. He was telling me what they have to eat. Goodness, Chrissie, you wouldn’t believe that people could eat so much and yet be able to walk about on two legs.’
Stella, will you pay attention to what I’m saying to you?’ Chrissie asked, her voice almost ominously quiet.
‘Go ahead, I’m all ears,’ Stella replied, selecting another chocolate with care, this time one decorated with crystallised rose leaves.
‘This is our one chance,’ Chrissie said, ‘and maybe our last – who knows?’
‘Chance of what?' Stella asked, her mouth full.
‘Of security, of being unafraid in the future, of knowing that whatever happens we shan’t starve,’ Chrissie said. ‘The Rajah is generous, Stella, there’s never been a man like him, not in your life at any rate. Do you know how much that diamond necklace is worth, the one he bought you in Paris?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
Stella’s voice was quite indifferent.
‘Nearly a thousand pounds,’ Chrissie said. ‘Think of it, Stella. A thousand pounds! Then there’s the bracelet he sent you the first night and that brooch he gave you last week. I haven’t had them valued yet, but the cash I’ve got sa
fe. There’s the bit left over from the dressmaker’s bill, the discount I got at the hat shop and what you’ve brought back from the Casino – altogether four thousand and twenty francs.’
‘That reminds me,’ Stella remarked, ‘I want some money this afternoon. I’ve got to buy myself some perfume.’
‘Buy yourself!’ Chrissie ejaculated. ‘Are you mad? Ask the Rajah for what you want. He’ll give it to you. If you think you’re going to touch one penny of the money I’ve got safe, you’ve got another think coming. Ask him for your perfume and for a lot more things besides.’
‘He may say no!’
‘Oh, do be sensible, Stella, for once. He likes you to ask for things. You’re so stupid when a man’s mad about you. He’d give you the moon if it was in his power to do so. And what do you do? You just sit there saying nothing, a silly smile on your face, when if you frowned he might bring you rubies or emeralds to make you look happy again.’
‘It seems so awful to take so much,’ Stella said simply.
Chrissie gripped her chair until the knuckles showed white.
‘So much!’ she exclaimed. ‘When he’s got millions! When in his Palace in India he has vaults filled with diamonds and pearls, gold and ivory! You’re a fool, Stella! So much from a man like that! Why, if he draped you in diamonds from head to foot, he wouldn’t notice the difference in his bank balance. Lord, but you make me sick!’
‘All right, Chrissie, I’ll do my best,’ Stella said soothingly, but her voice was not very convincing.
Tense with emotion, Chrissie got up from the chair and walked across to the window again. Suddenly she gave an exclamation.
‘Listen, Stella I’ve thought of something.’
But Stella had already returned to her novel, and with an exclamation of anger Chrissie walked across the room and snatched the book from her hands.
‘Listen, I said!’
‘Oh, Chrissie, don’t be so cross! I’ve said I will do my best, haven’t I?
‘Your best is not good enough,’ Chrissie replied angrily. ‘I tell you I’ve thought of something! You know that girl they’re all taking about, the girl in grey with the wonderful pearls?’
‘Do you mean “the Ghost”?’
‘Yes, that’s the one! François told me that all Monte Carlo is gossiping about her.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ Stella said. ‘She’s awfully pretty and she looks sort of different from other women. Of course, wearing grey like that makes her stand out, but it isn’t only that, there’s something in her face – I can’t explain.’
‘And are her pearls as wonderful as François says?’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Stella replied. ‘They’re sort of grey and dull compared with diamonds, but the Rajah says he’s never seen anything like them. I told him I thought his were much finer.’
‘You would,’ Chrissie remarked scornfully.
‘Now what’s wrong with that?’ Stella enquired. ‘He was as pleased as Punch that I admired something of his.’
Those he wears are his State ones,’ Chrissie said. ‘You know as well as I do that he can’t give them away. But why shouldn’t he buy some for you, why shouldn’t he buy those belonging to the ghost girl?’
Buy her pearls for me?’ Stella asked. ‘But I don’t like pearls. Besides, I don’t expect she wants to sell them.’
Stella! Stella! Do you want to drive me insane?’ Chrissie cried, the expression on her face so wild that Stella stared at her all alarmed. ‘Don’t you understand? If you ask the Rajah for something really valuable and he gives it to you, we’re safe. Francois says those pearls are worth a king’s ransom.’
‘François knows everything!’
‘Ask the Rajah to give the pearls to you as a present. It doesn’t matter, you poor numbskull, if you like pearls or you don’t like them. You won’t wear them, not after we leave here at any rate, but when they’re sold we will be rich, both of us forever.’
‘But supposing he says no?’ Stella suggested.
Is he likely to?’ Chrissie asked scornfully. ‘He’s in love with you and he’ll want to show off. Put him on his mettle, bet him that he won’t have enough money to buy them and if he has, that he won’t be able to get them. That’s the way to make him interested. Once you have got them, it won’t matter to you how quickly he finds someone else.’
Stella gave a little sigh.
‘I see what you mean, Chrissie,’ she said, ‘but it’s awfully difficult – I mean, asking for something as expensive as that. You couldn’t do it for me, could you? Tell him it’s for my birthday or something?’
‘And I suppose, looking into my lovely blue eyes, that he would promise me them at once!’ Chrissie retorted sarcastically. ‘Don’t be a half wit, Stella, you know you’ve got to choose the right moment for a thing like that. Use your brains for once, though Heaven knows you haven’t any, and pick the right moment. It means everything to us. Promise me you will do your best.’
‘I’ll try, Chrissie,’ Stella said meekly. ‘What else did Françoise say about that girl?’
‘He said everyone was talking about her and trying to find out who she was. But the other woman who calls herself her aunt was too clever, and so far they have no idea who they are or where they have come from. Even Alfonse of the Hôtel de Paris knows nothing – and that, François says, has never happened before.’
She looks nice,’ Stella said.
Chrissie glanced at her quickly.
‘Now don’t you start thinking she’s too nice for you to want anything that she has,’ she said. ‘I know the way your mind works. Before we know where we are, we will all feel sorry for her and say that she must keep her pearl necklace because it is the only one she has.’
Stella laughed.
‘You’ve got a poor opinion of me, Chrissie.’
‘That’s about the only sensible thing you have said for some time,’ Chrissie replied, and marching out of the room, she slammed the door behind her.
Stella stretched her arms above her head and wished Chrissie would not get so worked up about things. She had always been the same. Perhaps it was because she had had an unhappy childhood.
Stella could remember how unkind her father and mother had been to their elder daughter. They had been acrobats, well spoken of in their profession and both good looking in their own way.
Chrissie had been born after her mother had had a fall. She said the rope was faulty, but her father always said that it was her timing which was wrong, owing, perhaps, to her own unnatural heaviness.
But whatever it was, Chrissie had been born three months early, weakly and malformed, and it was only the appearance of Stella two years later which had healed the wound to their parents’ self esteem at having produced anything so abnormal as their first child.
Stella had been a large, good-tempered baby. She smiled and chuckled her way through babyhood and from the moment she could toddle had been spoilt by everyone in the theatre. It seemed inevitable that Chrissie should be jealous of her young sister, but instead she had taken up a proprietary attitude. Stella was hers, to bully and protect, to tease and defend. If Stella did anything wrong, it was Chrissie who took the blame. If Stella was scolded, Chrissie would defend her pugnaciously. Stella accepted Chrissie’s championship, as she accepted other tributes, with smiling good humour and an equanimity which made no complaint one way or another.
Stella, having finished stretching herself, was just about to start another chapter of her novel when the door opened.
Thinking it was Chrissie returning, she turned her head and saw that instead of her sister it was the Rajah.
‘Hullo!’
Both her voice and her smile were pleasant and flattering, and he crossed the room quickly to the sofa, taking her hand in his and covering it with kisses.
‘I have been riding,’ he said, ‘or I should have come to see you earlier.’
‘You look very smart dressed like that,’ Stella said, and the Rajah’s dark eyes ligh
tened at the compliment.
He was a short, thin little man, and when they stood close to each other, his head barely reached to Stella’s shoulder. Yet he was strong and wiry despite his over-luxurious way of living and the dissipations in which he indulged. But no one could live such a life for long, and in a few years he would be taking to drink and drugs to flog a depreciated vitality and a fading virility.
At the moment, however, the Rajah was young enough to gratify his sensual hedonism without thought of the future. There was a glint in his eyes as he looked down at Stella.
‘Would you like to come and watch the pigeon shooting this afternoon?’ he asked.
‘If you like,’ Stella replied. ‘Though I am not all that keen on guns, they make my head ache.’
‘Then we can go for a drive or – we can stay here.’
There was a sudden fire in the Rajah’s tone as he made the last suggestion.
‘I don’t mind what we do,’ Stella replied lazily.
But I want you to mind,’ he answered quickly. ‘I want to do what pleases you. For my own part I am content when we are together. You look very beautiful today.’
‘That’s because of the dress you gave me,’ Stella said. ‘It came from Paris this morning. Do you like it? I’d better get up so that you can see it properly.’
She made a movement as if to rise, but the Rajah stopped her, his hand against her shoulder.
‘No, lie there,’ he said softly. ‘You look entrancing, a goddess reclining on a cloud.’
‘I’m so glad the cloud is a pretty substantial one,’ Stella laughed.
‘No, no, do not laugh,’ the Rajah interrupted. ‘You are very beautiful. I am very much in love with you! More in love than I have been for a very long time – perhaps ever before.’
Stella smiled sleepily at him, glad that she should be able to give so much pleasure. Then she remembered Chrissie. With difficulty she found the right words.
‘If you love me so much,’ she said at length, ‘would you like to prove it?’
For a moment the warmth seemed to vanish from the Rajah’s eyes, then as he looked down into her eyes and at the fullness of her red lips, he seemed to surrender himself to a sudden impulse.
An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition Page 63