At last Barbie came back, and it was at this moment that Anthea should have appeared, a radiant golden-haired vision, but instead a slender figure clad in yellow chiffon drifted out, swaying and bending in a manner that made her body seem boneless, so much so that even members of the cast, whom she had trained, gasped in surprise, because they had never seen her dance properly before, only illustrating some movement for their benefit. There was not a single sound from the audience. They seemed to realize the difference, too, and even Roberta Fransom watched as if compelled, because this was no insignificant little schoolteacher but a creature of fairy and almost unearthly beauty, as delicate as gossamer ... a dryad from the trees behind her, exulting in the freedom of the dance and holding the entire audience spellbound.
For Laurel, quite unaware of the effect she was having on the audience, there was no reality any more. She was lost to the world, enchanted, completely captivated by the magic of movement. And in such a setting it was not difficult to persuade herself that she had undergone some magical metamorphosis, and really was a thing of the woods, a sprite impossible to capture.
The music stopped, and the rest of the first half of the programme continued to charm the audience, and then they were shepherded back into Castelanto for refreshments while the glade was prepared for the final scene.
This was the one item for which somewhat impressive changes were made to the simplicity of the stage-set. In place of the fallen tree trunk quite half of the smooth grass was covered by a high platform that had been pushed into place and covered with imitation turf and small bushes. Below, the remaining space was filled with dancing red shadows by means of hidden lights with little disks revolving in front of them.
When the piece actually commenced the fairy-lights were extinguished again and moonlight took possession of the glade, until a brilliant golden light from a spotlight hidden in the trees created the illusion of sunlight and flooded the newly-erected stage. Laurel, assuming the identity of Persephone, daughter of Demeter, goddess of the earth, danced in the middle of this golden lake with the same happy abandon as before, and when the dark lord of the underworld appeared suddenly and swept her up from among her attendants and carried her down into the red shadows of the underworld she had no need to simulate fear. The expression on the face of Stephen, as Hades, the lord of the underworld, was positively diabolical. She was filled with a delicious frenzy of fear that was more real than anything she had ever felt before.
The golden light was swept away in a flood of cold white light as Demeter threw a mantle of winter across the land and the attendants that had been left behind pleaded for spring to return, while below them Persephone danced in the red shadows and strove vainly to elude her captor and reached the stairway that symbolized the way to the upper world. Slowly the attendants ceased dancing, to fall down exhausted by the cold winter, and Persephone sank down also, helpless and imprisoned, refusing all food save the pomegranate that she raised to her lips almost without realizing what she was doing, only to throw it away from her when she remembered her vow that she would eat nothing while she was held a prisoner.
Then Barbie came slowly down the grass-covered steps, holding in her outstretched hands the scroll that bore the ultimatum of Zeus, who was supreme amongst the gods of ancient Greece, that the prisoner should be allowed to go free ... but on condition that she had eaten some of the food of the underworld. Slowly Persephone picked up the pomegranate, her hope dying as she realized that she was trapped, but kindling into life again when she realized that her sentence had been commuted and that instead of remaining there for ever she would have to spend only half of her life in the dark halls of the underworld.
The music was particularly helpful at this stage, and even Barbie seemed to be caught up in the role she was playing as she moved towards Laurel, and the latter turned to follow her. But then Stephen’s hand reached out and he caught at Laurel’s arm and stopped her, while in his other hand he held the pomegranate, which was exactly as it should be. It was only when he pulled Laurel forcefully into his arms and held her with sheer brute strength and kissed her savagely that the script went haywire, and the rest of the cast looked on and gasped. But Stephen was not even bothering about the text of the dance, and he kissed Laurel again in the deliberate, punishing way that he had kissed on the first night that they met, and to her astonishment she, too, forgot the role she was playing and, despite the sheer brutality of his kiss, kissed him back and gloried in the complete primitiveness of this mutual exchange.
Afterwards, when she thought about it, she marvelled at herself. But not at the time. At the time, wishing he really was Hades and that she was Persephone, doomed to spend one half of her life with him, she could not have been more content.
And then reality supervened, and she gasped and tore herself out of his arms, and knowing what she knew about Roberta she wondered that she had not smacked his face publicly.
What happened during the rest of the dance was never very clear to her, but she knew that she moved as if everything was completely natural, and she succeeded in keeping well out of reach of Stephen’s ruthless arms until the whole scene was over, and the audience was clapping enthusiastically in proof of the pleasure it had received.
Anthea had not yet returned, and as a matter of fact Laurel did not inquire for her, having realized perfectly long before this that her inability to dance the role of Persephone herself that night was all part of a carefully laid plan. She had intended that Laurel should have to dance with Stephen ... and now that it was all over she was keeping well out of the way and no doubt hoping for some improbable result for her barefaced scheming that was unlike the actual aftermath as it could possibly have been.
The others all poured back into the house to change out of their costumes, and Stephen, too, vanished as if Hades’ underworld had indeed swallowed him up. Laurel, her lips actually painful after Stephen’s frenzied attack upon them, had no desire to come face to face with anyone until her fury of resentment had abated, and in particular she simply couldn’t understand why she had been so weak in his arms. So she waited until she was reasonably certain the others would all have had time to change, and then entered the house by a side door with which she was fairly familiar by now, and made her way to the changing rooms which were fortunately quite empty when she reached them.
Hurriedly she changed out of her floating golden chiffon and into her own slender white dress, and after renewing her make-up and dealing with the attractive disorder of her tobacco-brown curls she descended the main staircase to look for Ned, whom she meant to implore to take her home.
She could hear a hubbub of laughter and voices coming from the great drawing-room, but there was no one in the hall. It was empty and echoing and deserted, and she was trying to summon up the resolution to face them in the drawing-room when she heard footsteps coming along a corridor behind her ... incidentally, the corridor which led to Stephen’s private room.
‘Can I speak to you for a moment, Miss Shannon?’ Roberta Fransom’s voice asked quietly.
Laurel spun round and stared at her. She was almost breathtakingly beautiful in a mature and elegant way, and her dress was a blaze of iridescent ornamentation.
Her flame of red hair made her white skin look whiter by contrast.
‘Why—er—yes, of course.’
‘It’s cooler on the terrace. Shall we go out there?’
Laurel nodded mutely. She was feeling strangely exhausted after so much purely emotional dancing, and for the life of her just then she couldn’t have found a voice.
She walked at Roberta’s side across the hall and out through the main door on to the terrace. The lights of the house streamed out behind them, but the gardens seemed deserted, and it was very quiet on the stone terrace.
Roberta established herself on the low parapet, leaning against one of the upright pillars for support. She was smoking a cigarette, but she crushed it out and then tossed it over the parapet into the darkness of a flow
er border below them.
‘I think this will do,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to make a regular speech of this, and I see no necessity why I should go into details because of what I’m asking you to do. I think you are fully aware of the details, such as they are. Will you release Stephen from the ridiculous farce of an engagement in which you’ve involved him?’
Laurel put a hand out to support herself against the pillar. She heard Roberta repeating her request.
‘Well? Will you?’
‘Why should I?’ Laurel’s voice was a mere threat of sound, husky with weariness.
‘Because you know very well that it is a farce, and right from the beginning it was never anything else.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Laurel said.
‘I think you do, my dear.’ Roberta opened her gold mesh handbag and extracted a delicate toy of a cigarette-case, from which in turn she extracted a cigarette. ‘It was all caused by Anthea’s meddling, wasn’t it? She doesn’t like me ... I know that perfectly well, but the young often take unreasonable dislikes, and Anthea is very spoiled.’
‘Oh, really?’ Laurel murmured mechanically.
‘We all make mistakes, and I made mine long ago,’ Roberta went on. ‘But I paid for it—you can believe that or not, as you wish!—and now that I’m free I want to put matters right. I’ve come to Ladrana for that purpose, and if you knew me at all well you would realize that once I make up my mind I do not change it—not easily, anyway. And over Stephen I have no intention of changing my mind!’
‘Have you told Stephen this?’ Laurel asked, and she knew that in her heart she had been hoping against hope that she could keep Stephen—that even though they fought like mad, and he did not love her, she would eventually marry him. But now she knew definitely that she had been harbouring a pipe-dream. This really was the end, and she had no need to pack her bags and go all the way home to England in order to make it possible.
‘Supposing I refuse to release him?’ she asked in the same dull voice, before she could elicit from Roberta whether she had taken Stephen into her confidence or not.
‘You wouldn’t be so foolish, would you?’
‘I love him,’ Laurel said, and having said it it was as if she had made the one really important admission of her life.
Roberta’s lips curved mockingly, cruelly.
‘He doesn’t love you.’
‘How do you know?’
Roberta’s eyes gleamed at her insolently.
‘I do know. For one thing you’re young and inexperienced, and Stephen is a very mature man.’
Recollecting his kiss only a short time before Laurel knew that, at least, was true.
‘I shall grow older,’ she answered quietly. ‘And as I grow older I shall acquire experience ... But you—if you forgive me for saying so—have left your youth rather far behind.’
‘You little—bitch!’ Roberta fairly spat at her. ‘For that I’ll tell you something that I intended to spare you. Stephen doesn’t love you, and he told me so. He’s bored by you, secretly afraid that you’ll never let him go, that you’ll cling like a piece of ivy...’
‘Poison ivy?’ Laurel whispered.
Stephen stepped forward out of the shadows behind her—actually it was the deep shade of his own study window—and he spoke one word very forcefully.
‘No!’
Laurel spun round and saw that he was standing almost at her elbow, Hades’ sinister garb replaced by a gleaming white dinner-jacket, while his dark chin was thrown into prominence by the immaculate whiteness of his shirt-front, relieved by the neatness of his dark bow-tie.
‘Not poison ivy, my darling ... Never, never poison ivy! The other kind, if you like, and you can cling to me as much as you wish.’ His arm went round her, and he drew her nerveless body to rest against him. ‘I think it was remarkably brave of you to tell this designing woman that you love me, and because she somehow managed to goad you into telling the truth at last I’ll refrain from letting her know precisely what I think of her and merely ask her to leave us alone ... and never come back to Ladrana and Castelanto!’
His voice was stern and cold, and so unlike any voice Laurel had heard from him that she shivered in uncontrollable alarm even while she allowed him to hold her with increasing tightness, as if he more than suspected she would break away at any moment, and that was the very last thing he intended to allow her to do.
‘But, Stephen—’ she began, in a small, uncertain voice.
‘Not now, my precious,’ he returned, while his free hand fondled her brown curls. ‘The important thing at the moment is to deal with my old arch-enemy.’
‘You must be mad, Stephen,’ the woman hissed at him. ‘I was never your enemy!’
‘You came close to wrecking my life, and I don’t intend that to happen again. I suspected when you turned up so unexpectedly that you were bent on some form of trouble, but I must admit it never occurred to me that you wished to renew our old association. If it had I would have taken the appropriate steps to safeguard myself, and to protect someone I love.’
‘You can’t possibly love such a little empty-headed—’
‘Please go!’ he requested icily.
Roberta Fransom had never felt so frustrated, or so furious, in her life.
‘All right,’ she declared venomously, ‘you can have it your own way. But if she isn’t empty-headed she has the mentality of a schoolteacher, and if you think you can live happily with a prim little schoolmarm then you’re not the kind of man I once took you for. What sort of a life do you think you’ll have with her organizing your every waking moment just as she organized the concert tonight?’
‘It’s a pity you hadn’t the ability to take part in the concert,’ he replied briefly. ‘But then you’re all on the surface, aren’t you, Roberta? ... and you always were! And I would remind you that the years are passing, and even the surface will not have as much charm a short while hence as it has at the moment,’ he finished cruelly.
Roberta winced. ‘You’re a beast, Stephen!’ she told him.
‘Maybe,’ he agreed, ‘but I’m telling you the truth. If you don’t like it the seas are wide, and Firebird is an excellent example of an ocean-going yacht. I should prevail upon your friends to put to sea in her at once, and then the atmosphere of Ladrana will be very much sweeter and pleasanter for everybody.’
She hesitated for one moment longer ... then she turned on her heel and walked away from them.
Laurel looked up at the man who had made her his prisoner for the second time that night, and she protested because she felt she ought to do so.
‘You were cruel, Stephen ... and she’s the type who will remain beautiful until she’s quite old.’
‘Will she?’ He sounded completely indifferent.
Her eyes began to glow. They reminded him of over-bright stars peeping up at him from the protection of his arms.
‘And I simply don’t understand how you can prefer me to her,’ she added, aware of sounding a little ungrammatical for a schoolteacher, but not in the least bothered by it in that moment because schoolteachers had been very comprehensively dealt with in the last few minutes, and according to Roberta they lacked something. ‘That’s to say, if you do prefer me to her ... really, I mean,’ she said with sudden agonizing shyness.
‘Little idiot,’ he said softly, and smoothed her hair. It amazed her because his hand was trembling, and she could feel it. ‘And what an absolute little idiot you are!’ he said, cupping her face in his two hands and gazing at her as if he nevertheless had a distinct preference for little idiots. ‘You don’t seem to know when a man has lost his heart to you, and when his heart just tumbles out of his body and lies at your feet you’re much more inclined to tread upon it than pick it up and thank the kind gentleman for being so susceptible.’
His arms fastened about her, and she felt as if every bone in her body would break as he crushed her up against him and addressed her with the utmost urgency.
She felt as if her mouth was literally scorched as his kisses descended upon it thick and fast, and when she could no longer stand because her strength was draining away between her lips and the starry heavens above her were whirling round like a kaleidoscope she depended upon the sheer brute strength of his arms to keep her from sinking in a graceful, overcome heap to the floor of the terrace. But even so, she held him away from her for a moment, and she managed to ask the question:
‘But why—why—did you treat me so badly in the beginning? If it’s true that you loved me as soon as you saw me...’
‘It’s true! You appalling sceptic! How else did you expect me to treat you when you behaved as if you loathed the sight of me?’ he demanded.
At this distance of time she simply couldn’t believe it.
‘But I loved you, too ... I must have done,’ she admitted.
‘Then all I can say is that we behaved like a couple of lunatics!’
There was another delicious interval of silence, and then she had another question to ask.
‘Did you and Anthea arrange her absence tonight? I mean, it was arranged, wasn’t it?’
‘If it was I had no part in it—but I’ll admit it was a jolly good idea.’ He grinned at her through the shadows on the terrace. ‘It provided me with an excellent opportunity to kiss you!’
She shivered in momentary unhappiness in his arms.
Teachers Must Learn Page 19