by Sara Seale
"But my dear child, can't you see - "
"You don't mind whether I'm happy or unhappy with him, do you?"
He began to recover his self-possession.
"In heaven's name! Why should you be unhappy?" he demanded impatiently. "You have money, luxury, everything you could want. Nicholas may not be an easy husband, but he's generous enough to you, and no marriage is perfect."
"No," she said, "I never expected it to be."
He paid the bill in silence, then looked at his watch.
"Well, there doesn't seem much object in prolonging this, does there?" he said with an attempt at recapturing his old easy manner. "I must say, I don't understand your attitude at all. The whole thing would seem to be a storm in a teacup, but I'm really forced to believe that this actor chap must mean something to you, after all. There's no other reasonable explanation."
She put on her coat.
"You must believe what you will, Father," she said, and he missed the tired unhappiness in her voice. "I think, perhaps, all men believe what they want to. Will you be going straight on to Garazion, now?"
"Alight as well," he said, collecting his change. "There's nothing to do in this one-horse place. Is there a garage where I can hire a car?"
"Yes, I'll show you."
Outside the garage, she stood in the wind waiting to say good-bye to him.
"Can I give you a lift anywhere?" he asked absently. "I'll have to stop at the station to pick up my suitcase."
"No, thank you. I shall go back to the theatre."
"Very well. Have you any message for Nicholas?"
The hair whipped across her eyes.
"No," she said. "No message."
"Well, good-bye, my dear. I'm sorry we couldn't have got together on this. I'll write to you when I get back to London."
She looked at him, and, for perhaps the last time, knew an impulse to fling herself into his arms. He was her father; she had the right to demand understanding, to beg for a little tenderness, but she knew he was lost to her. She knew him now for what he was, and she saw that there was no kindliness in Lucius, only that brittle charm which, even now, could tug a little at her heart-strings.
"Good-bye, Father," she said quietly. "And thank you for coming."
She walked back into the town, aware, now, of what a strain the meeting had put upon her. She wanted to be alone for a little, and evade Colin's inquisitive glances, and she turned into the small Catholic church which was close to the theatre. No one was there, and she slipped into one of the pews, and stared at the candles burning in the Lady Chapel. What had they done to her, Lucius and Nicholas, between them? What had Nicholas been thinking of when he made that infamous bargain with her father? Tears stung her eyes, and the candle flames became little starry Catherine wheels of light.
Shelley hid her face in her hands and prayed disjointedly. She prayed to St. Joseph and St. Anthony, those old friends of her childhood, then she threw in St. Mewan for good measure, because he had once killed a dragon.
CHAPTER NINE
Jake was putting on Prunella the following week, and the days were filled with rehearsing and the fitting of costumes. Shelley went to bed tired out each night, and slept dreamlessly. She was grateful to Colin who had not tried to force an issue of any kind between them, but had proved to be as hard a task-master as Jake, taking her through their scenes together at all odd hours of the day, making her eat proper meals, telling her absurd stories to make her laugh.
Only once, he asked her whether she had heard from Nicholas, and when she told him she had not, remarked:
"Don't you think it's odd?"
"No," she said, without surprise. "He's been away. But he must have got Mrs. Medlar to pack me up some clothes. They arrived yesterday."
"He's probably consulting his lawyer before he acts."
"Probably. These things take time, I believe."
He glanced at her a little sharply.
"Are you as indifferent as you sound?" he asked. "Well, it's probably a good thing. You know, my sweet, later on, things will have to change."
"How?"
"Well, I shall make love to you, for one thing. Didn't you expect that?" She laughed.
"I don't know what I expected. But yes, Colin, when I think about it, I suppose you will eventually want to make love to me."
"You've changed," he said, as Lucius had. "You're growing up. I'm glad to see you're at last getting sensible ideas."
"Are they sensible? Colin, you've been very good to me. I'm grateful."
"That's all right. My time will come, I hope. I'm very fond of you, Shelley."
"But not in love with me."
"Of course I'm in love with you. That goes without sayings but I've also been in love before."
"Pierrot," she said softly. "Pierrot is always in and out of love."
"But you, you see, are not Pierrette," he told her seriously, "You're Prunella who left a home and wanted it back again."
"I don't want it back again," she said. "Garazion wasn't a home."
"Well," he said lightly, "home is where the heart is, so they tell us. Let's go and eat tea and shrimps."
The dress-rehearsal was on Sunday, and on Monday they were to open with the new play. Shelley, now that her moment had come, found she was nervous. This was not school theatricals, this was adult and serious; if she forgot her lines it would matter. Even in such an unimportant town as Polzeal, she was suddenly conscious of her amateur status, and the slow conviction that she would never make an actress.
"Just first night nerves," Colin told her soothingly. "And a very good sign, too. It shows you have the makings of a trouper."
"Does it? But I don't feel I'll ever - I mean, sometimes I don't feel I've even got the urge to act."
"Well, time will show," he replied, remembering Jake's observations. "But, whatever other parts you try your hand at, Prunella is yours. Remember that. I promise you you can't go wrong in this."
He was right. The first performance went smoothly enough, although, the house, as usual, was only partly filled, and the audience apathetic. Shelley, after her first entrance, lost her fear of forgetting her lines. She was quite charming as the young girl who is enticed away from her sheltered home by Pierrot and the mummers, and her return to the deserted garden in the last act had a moving quality which had nothing to do with her slender gifts as an actress.
She looked a little bewildered as she took the last curtain call alone and listened to the desultory applause, and Jake patted her on the back and said she was doing all right.
"Not that you were really acting, darling," he said. "And not that we'll be able to keep the piece on. I told you, Colin, fantasy was no good, here. The audience are more dead than usual. They don't understand a word."
"Who cares," retorted Colin. "It's a nice play, anyway."
Shelley was almost the last to leave the theatre after the performance. She had told Colin that she was tired and would go straight home, and she idled over the process of changing and removing her make-up. It seemed very dark as she emerged from the stage door, and she was surprised to see the glow of a cigarette. Colin must have waited for her, after all.
"Colin! I thought you'd gone," she said. "I think I'm the last."
"I've been waiting for you, Shelley," a voice replied, and she remained where she was, frozen into silence, aware as soon as he touched her that it was Nicholas.
"I'll take you home," he said.
"Home?"
She moved away involuntarily, and his fingers closed instantly on her wrist.
"To wherever it is you're staying," he said quietly. His car was outside, and she said like an automaton: "It's quite close. I like to walk." "Very well."
His hand under her elbow, they began to walk. "Were you in front?" she asked, feeling she must say something.
"Yes," he replied briefly, and did not speak again until they had reached her lodgings.
"Is there anywhere we can talk?" he asked, and she answered,
feeling it sounded absurd:
"We're not allowed to have men in our bedrooms."
She thought he smiled a little grimly in the darkness.
"Very right and proper," he observed, "but all the same I have to talk to you. Where would you suggest?"
She sighed, and felt a faint stirring of alarm. It had never been any good trying to evade Nicholas.
"Everything shuts down here so early," she said a little helplessly. "We - we could walk on the front."
He took her arm again.
"By all means let's walk on the front," he said. "It's a fine night."
The front was deserted. It was not yet warm enough for courting couples, and only a dog stirred on the beach, scavenging among the refuse. Their feet rang on the asphalt, and Shelley walked in silence beside Nicholas and waited for him to speak. But he only enquired if she was cold, and presently he stopped by one of the glass enclosed shelters.
"We'd better go in here and sit down," he said.
He sat for a moment in silence looking at her with the old piercing regard. The light from a street lamp fell fully on his dark, scarred face, and she saw that he looked ill and very tired.
"Well?" he said, and she knew that, for once, he was waiting for her to take the initiative.
She thrust her hands nervously into the pockets of her coat. This was a very different interview from the one she had had with her father. With Lucius she had found it quite easy to be cool and mature, but with Nicholas she was again the inexperienced child he had always thought her.
"How long does a divorce take?" she asked baldly.
He said quite calmly:
"I'm not thinking of divorcing you, Shelley. Or were you, by any chance, proposing to divorce me?"
She thought there was a faint twinkle in his eyes, and replied quickly:
"Of course not. But I've left you, haven't I? I thought - " "You thought running away from me justified a final separation?"
She looked at him a little helplessly.
"Then what do you want me to do?" she asked.
"Well, naturally, I want you to come home," he replied unemotionally. "But I realize that perhaps it isn't quite as easy as that. Do you want me to apologize for my behaviour that night, or do you know in your heart that I couldn't think ill of you for long?"
She thrust her chin lower into the collar of her coat, and knew then with bitter clarity how much she had missed him. Colin, Jake, all the members of the kindly, casual little company had befriended her and she was grateful to them, but Nicholas, with his meticulous care for her, and the dark
compelling quality of his personality, had touched something hidden and unsuspected in her heart. Even if she left him, she would still be bound to him in some strange fashion.
"I suppose it was Father who made you see you were wrong," she said wearily.
"No. I knew I was wrong long before your father came to see me. I've been wrong in so many things, haven't I, Shelley?"
"I don't know. I've never understood you very well."
The sea lapped gently on the beach. It was high tide, and she could hear the soft drag of the pebbles as each wave washed them.
"Tell me," he said, "if you were free, would you marry this young actor?"
She met his eyes with her old grave look.
"No, I don't think so. No, I'm sure I wouldn't."
"I just wanted to know."
"Colin has been - still is - my good friend," she said. "I'm sure he is," he replied gently. "Tell him I'm grateful to him, will you?" Her eyes filled with tears.
"Do you understand now how it was?" she said. "I didn't tell you about Colin because -I find it difficult to explain, even to myself, but - anyhow, not because we were deceiving you."
He did not move.
"I understand. It was a secret, wasn't it? Just as you and Martin used to have secrets from me in the early days." She smiled at him then. "It was silly, wasn't it?"
"It was my own fault," he said a little harshly. "Shelley -I want you to know that - whatever happens, your father won't be the sufferer. I'm not contemplating cutting off his allowance."
Her eyes were hard.
"Why shouldn't you? You owe us nothing - either of us. I told him that." He smiled faintly.
"I think you told him several things that ruffled him," he remarked dryly. "But don't be bitter, my dear. Bitterness can
sour so much, as I know to my cost. I'm so very sorry that, in a moment of anger, I told you the truth."
"I would have found out," she said, and he replied thoughtfully:
"Yes, I think you would. There's an honesty in you that will break through dreams in the end. But it's worried me all the same. I'm not sure that one has the right to destroy all illusions."
"Isn't the truth always best?"
"I don't know. But I'm sorry - sorry to have taken the first illusion from you." He saw her shiver. "I ought to take you back. It's getting late."
Even as he spoke, the lamp outside the shelter went out, leaving only the starlight. He took something from his pocket and reached for her hand.
"Haven't you missed your wedding-ring?" he said.
"Yes - no - does it matter?"
"I think so." She tried to draw her hand away, but he held it firmly and slipped the ring over her finger. "You're still my wife, Shelley. I'd like you to wear your ring."
He stood up and she rose, too.
"What next?" she asked forlornly, and the strain of the long evening culminated in a sense of great exhaustion.
He stood looking down at her, and thought for a moment. He could have made an emotional appeal, allowing her a glimpse of his own unhappiness, or even taken her in his arms and told her harshly not to be so foolish. But he only said, with a faint smile:
"Well, you could come back with me tonight, you know."
Immediately he knew he had been right to forbear with her a little longer. Her whole body stifflened under his hands and she cried vehemently:
"No, no! I can't come back and live in a glass case. I won't be just another exhibit."
He let her go at once.
"What makes you think you are?" he said, and realized that she was worn out with the double strain of the evening. "Come, I'll take you back."
As they walked back along the sea-front, he said quite quietly:
"I'm selling my collection, Shelley. I thought you'd like to know."
She stood stock still and looked up at him. "Selling your collection!" she exclaimed incredulously. "You can't be serious!" "I'm perfectly serious. Some of the stuff has gone already." "But why?"
"It failed to please me any longer. You always said, didn't you, that you didn't care for inanimate beauty?"
"But, Nicholas - all those lovely things - they were your life."
"They were substitutes. That's not the same thing."
"I don't understand," she said, and he put a hand under her elbow and made her walk on.
"Don't you? Think it out when you're not so tired."
They walked on in silence, and he was aware of her feet dragging with weariness as she tried to keep step with him. When they reached her lodgings he put a roll of banknotes into her hand.
"In case your salary isn't sufficient, and I don't suppose it is," he said.
"Oh, no, Nick, no . . ." she said quickly.
He closed her fingers over the money.
"It's still my right," he said a little brusquely. "I shall send you a cheque each week."
She thrust the notes into her pocket, then touched his cheek uncertainly.
"You - you look tired," she said. "I hope Baines looks after you properly."
"Tired?" His eyes held an odd expression. "Yes, well, perhaps I am. We've been having a little trouble at the works. I've had to sack one of the men."
"I'm sorry," she said politely.
"You're very tired, yourself, aren't you? Go in to bed. I enjoyed your play, Shelley." "Did you?"
He would not tell her how much she had touched him
, how
much she had unconsciously explained to him.
"Very much. You were charming, but you'll never make an actress."
"Oh, why?"
"You haven't been in the least interested to know what I thought of your performance," he said, with a twinkle, and was gone, walking quickly down the road.
She said nothing to Colin of Nicholas' visit, and during the next day or so there was little time in which to reflect on all that Nicholas had said. Jake had decided to keep Prunella on for another couple of performances, but after that, he said, it must go. They were rehearsing a new piece in which Shelley only had a very minor part, but even so, she was not at her ease. She was not a quick study, and the ways of repertory appalled her. How could one ever remember so many different parts, she thought, dismayed, as she looked at the bunch of dog-eared scripts which Jake had trust upon her. But Colin's eyes were sharp.
"You're wearing your wedding-ring again, I see," he said.
"Yes." She hid her hand out of sight. "Colin, I can't think of myself as a bright young thing with a taste for gin."
"Neither can I," he said, grinning. "But you'll have to forget Prunella. She's a young lady who came naturally to you, but you must learn other disguises. What made you put on your ring?"
" Well, I'm married - why not?" she answered a little lamely.
"No reason, I suppose. Look, my sweet, are you sure this is the right life for you?"
She looked at him a little doubtfully.
"I don't know," she said. "But it's the life I've chosen."
"Is it? I should have said it was the life you were pitchforked into, which isn't the same thing at all. Darling, let's get married."
She pushed the hair back from her forehead. "Oh, Colin!" she said, half-laughing. "I have a husband already."
"So you have," he replied cheerfully. "But he'll have to take some action soon, won't he? I mean, if you don't hear anything
from him, presumably you will from his lawyer."
She was silent for a moment. It was hardly fair, she thought, to keep Colin in ignorance of Nicholas' visit.
"He was in front last night," she said, quietly. "Afterwards we - sat in a shelter on the front and talked."
Colin's eyes were very bright and enquiring.