The Ladies In Love Series

by M. C. Beaton

In a dream, Poppy heard the introductory bars of the music. She glanced, just once, at the box where the duke sat, and flinched. The words of the song rushed into her head, and oh, how she sang!—of lost love, of longing, of bitterness, her eyes bright and sparkling with large tears.

  The voice soared from the stage across the pit and up to the gallery, where even Freda’s claque forgot their wounds and sat as if hypnotized.

  The last yearning note died away, and Poppy’s audience sat in stunned silence.

  She gave a helpless, pleading little motion with her hands and fled from the stage.

  There was one enormous roar of applause as the audience leapt to its feet.

  “Get back!” yelled Cyril, swinging Poppy around. “Get back and take your bow!”

  “Leave her alone!” screamed little Mr. Pettifor, galvanized into violence at the sight of Poppy’s distress. He aimed an ineffectual blow at Cyril’s waistcoat, became unbalanced, and fell heavily.

  “Get back, Poppy,” echoed Mr. Lewis quietly. “It’s your night.”

  Blindly, she stumbled back onto the stage, and the great roar of applause washed over her.

  She looked quickly up at the box, but the duke had gone.

  No person in the whole of theaterland is immune to the sight and sound of a rapturously cheering audience. Poppy curtsied low, and raised her tear-stained face in a radiant smile.

  “That’s it, you tart!” crowed Cyril from the wings. “I knew you could do it if you bled a little!”

  “Shut up!” snapped Mr. Lewis. “You make me sick!”

  From then on until the finale, Poppy allowed herself to be carried along by the enthusiasm emanating from the audience. She took curtain call after curtain call, and Cyril at last heard the long-awaited cry of “Author!”

  He took a deep breath and ran forward lightly onto the stage, a handsome and romantic figure in faultless evening dress.

  He bowed deeply to Poppy and kissed her hand. Poppy smiled back nervously, clutching a large bouquet of red roses from the management. “Give me a rose, and smile,” demanded Cyril.

  Too dazed to do other than obey, she plucked a rose from her bouquet and handed it to him, while the audience, scenting a romance, cheered and cheered.

  After the show, faces came and went in the dressing room: Ma Barker and her husband, to represent Cutler’s Fields; Annabelle, crying sentimental tears and swearing eternal friendship; Sniffy and Boodles, leering and winking; Cyril Mundy, standing guard like a dog beside a pet bone; Emily and Josie, radiant with excitement; and little Miss Villiers, trembling with pride.

  At last it was time to leave. Through the white, staring faces of the stage-door johnnies, Cyril clutching her arm, went Poppy. Cyril was triumphant. He felt like Svengali with Trilby. This was his finest hour.

  Then there was the first-night party at the Café Royal, where the cast waited in fear and trembling for the morning’s papers to tell them whether they could live or die.

  Poppy heard herself talking and chattering, and did not know what she said. She drank to dull that ever-present pain, and wondered vaguely if she were following in Father’s footsteps. She welcomed the crowd and the noise, for she was terrified of being left alone with her thoughts.

  Dawn pearled the sky, and Mr. Lewis and Mr. Pettifor set off in a cab for Fleet Street, to collect the newspapers. One by one the members of the cast fell silent. All began remembering shows that the audiences had cheered to the echo and the critics had damned.

  Poppy felt too tired all of a sudden to care. Her mouth felt dry and her head heavy—too much champagne. You’re drunk, he had said, and had walked with her by the river. I mustn’t think of that, she told herself.

  And then they all heard it, the clop-clop of an approaching horse along the silent street. Cyril made a move toward the door, and then stopped. His face had gone very white.

  The party was being held in a private room of the café. The door opened, and Mr. Lewis stood on the threshold, a sheaf of newspapers under his arm. Mr. Pettifor looked old and white.

  “We’ve done it,” whispered Mr. Lewis into the hushed silence. He waved the newspapers with a shaking hand. “All of ’em. Every single, bloody one. We’re a hit!” His voice rose and cracked, and he pointed straight at Poppy. “There she is! You know what the Times called her? The Times, mark you. ‘London Town’s brightest star.’ That’s what they said. ‘Artistic genius.’”

  “Oh, Mrs. Plummett,” cried Mr. Pettifor, the tears running down his wrinkled face. “It’s so beautiful.”

  Everyone started to laugh and cry at the same time. Two spots of hectic color burned on Cyril’s cheeks. He walked up to Poppy and stood beside her, holding her arm so tightly in a possessive grasp, she could feel his nails biting through the thin cloth of her sleeve.

  I don’t know what Cyril wants from me, thought Poppy suddenly. But whatever it is, he doesn’t plan to let me get away… ever.

  Chapter 11

  Poppy was all the rage. When she drove in the Park with Cyril at the fashionable hour, people stood up in their carriages to see her go by. She had had to hire an agent to cope with her contracts for picture postcards and her fees for lending her face to cold-cream advertisements. Josie and Emily were entered at the local seminary, and Miss Villiers took on the job of secretary, ploughing through sackfuls of fan mail with unflagging enthusiasm.

  And Cyril was always at her side, pulling the strings, and she did almost everything he told her to, for she did not care much about anything. Only in the theater did she come to life, fed by the love and enthusiasm of her audiences. Cyril had urged her to have her father committed, lest the newspapers got hold of his story, but on that issue Poppy remained firm. She would not commit her own father to the madhouse.

  And then one day, when the steely November winds blew across London, Bert Smith was found dead, his head lying on the kitchen table of his home, an empty gin bottle beside him.

  The theater was closed for three days while Poppy attended to the funeral, for no one would want to hear a substitute.

  And so Bert Smith went to his last resting place cleaner, better dressed, and more loved than he had ever been in his life. Poppy wept bitterly for the father who had never existed except in her dreams, and Cyril made sure the newspaper photographers got good pictures. The doctor had sympathetically given out the cause of Mr. Smith’s death as being a heart attack, although it was, in fact, alcohol poisoning.

  Cyril was exultant. He had been sure the drunken Bert would surface at some point to ruin Poppy’s career. It had been very tidy, his death happening like that.

  Although he tried to maintain a mourning air, Poppy sensed Cyril’s relief and firmly got rid of him as soon as the funeral was over, saying she wanted to be alone.

  When Poppy returned to the villa in St. John’s Wood, it was to find the house empty. Emily and Josie were still at school, Poppy having seen no reason to subject them to the funeral, and the servants had the afternoon off. She sat down wearily and stretched her numbed hands out to the fire. It seemed as if she had never been alone until that moment. Always there were people, staring faces, happy faces, adoring faces. Always Cyril, always the possessive hand on her arm. But peace had its penalties. She thought of the duke. She was not in love with him, she told herself firmly. She had been dazzled by his title and his wealth, which was human enough, and therefore she should not feel guilty. She quailed at the thought of his fury upon learning she had returned to the stage. But he had come to the theater even though he had left early.

  Still, was she fooling herself? Could it actually be love? wondered Poppy. Was it love when you felt not quite well, when your body seemed to carry around the perpetual weight of an unlocated pain, when all the silly songs suddenly pierced your heart with an intolerable sweetness, and when the sight of a head of white hair above the London crowd could make your mouth go dry and your whole body become electric with a mixture of anticipation, hope, and fear?

  Was the whole business not
worth a minute of the duke’s time? The whole dreariness of the November day, the whole gray chill, seemed to permeate the room, and Poppy shivered. Did he ever think of her? Probably not.

  There was no doubt that the duke thought intensely about Poppy after he had left the theater. He had walked the streets till dawn in a fury of rage and loss.

  At last he had taken himself to the seclusion of the library in his town house, and sitting down at the writing desk, he had written a list of Poppy’s reactions to him. He then recorded in his neat, crabbed script what he thought of her performance. He balanced the two, and then wrote his conclusions. Poppy Plummett was a consummate actress. She had not cared one rap for Freddie, and she had not cared for him in the slightest. Had she been aware for one moment that his attentions toward her had been honorable, then she would never have gone on the stage.

  He did not know what Lewis was paying her, but it was probably much more than the allowance from MacDonald.

  The only thing to remove this anger and hurt was revenge. How? This idiot Mundy had put an excellent weapon in his hands. All he had to do was to say her performance was degrading to the name of Plummett, and have her removed. But the newspapers would have a field day on that one, and there had been scandal enough.

  The duke had never been in love, but many women had been in love with him. He had confined his liaisons to experienced women like Freda, who knew what they were about. He had never tried to make anyone fall in love with him, although he knew it would be easy enough, not because of his face or figure, but because of his title and fortune. Poppy must have considered his intentions dishonorable, and she had not discouraged him. The fact that Poppy might be deeply in love with him, he never even considered for a moment. Bred into his emotions and attitudes was the irrevocable fact that nice girls did not go on the stage and expose their ankles, much as he had been tricked momentarily into believing the contrary.

  Then the one logical way to exorcise the undoubted fascination that Poppy held for him was to seduce her. He had always prided himself on the fact that a proper use of the brain could cow the most rampant emotions.

  He would retire to the country and pass his leisure time in forming a plan of campaign.

  Eventually, after weeks of serious thought, occasionally distracted by the sight of Poppy’s face advertising face cream, staring at him from every newspaper and magazine, he decided he was ready.

  The sudden rattle of the doorknocker made Poppy jump. She slowly opened the door, and there stood the duke, hatless, looking down at her, that sweet smile lighting up his face. His long, frogged beaver coat made him seem taller and more imposing than ever.

  Taken aback, Poppy did not want to be left alone with him, but she invited him in. Miss Villiers had gone to the theater and was not expected back for another hour, and the servants would not be home until six. Emily and Josie had dancing class for two hours after school, so she could not hope for their immediate return either.

  Outside, a few fine flakes of snow were beginning to drift from the steely sky.

  “It’s snowing,” she said awkwardly.

  “So it is,” the duke agreed.

  There was a long silence, and then he said, “May I stay a little? It is very hot with this coat on.”

  “Yes. Oh, indeed, yes,” blurted out Poppy. “Would you like some tea?”

  “Have you anything stronger?”

  “I—I d-don’t know,” said Poppy. “It’s the servants’ day off. I’ll go to the kitchen and look.”

  She nearly ran from the room, so anxious was she to escape. She had forgotten the strong magnetism of his personality and its effect on her senses. She scrabbled feverishly around the unfamiliar territory of the kitchen, wondering as she did so at the change in her life, as she was not familiar with the geography of her own kitchen.

  Where did one keep drink? In the cellar possibly. She pushed open the door, lit a candle, and went down the stairs. There was a rack of wine bottles, but all the names were unfamiliar to Poppy. However, she managed to recognize the champagne by its tinfoil seal at the top, and seized a bottle. She went up to the kitchen and scrabbled in the cupboard for the glasses. Of course! They were in the sideboard in the drawing room.

  “Champagne!” said the duke upon her return. “How festive!”

  “It was all I could find,” mumbled Poppy, opening the sideboard. She bit her lip. On a shelf below the glasses was a row of bottles: whisky, brandy, sherry. “There’s other things here,” she said over her shoulder.

  “No! Champagne will do very well… if you will join me. You obviously do not drink very much, or you would be more aware of the contents of your sideboard. I see you are wearing black again.”

  “My father,” said Poppy. “He was buried today.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Poppy gave a weary shrug. “I’ve lived with his death for so long. I mean, the way he was drinking, it was bound to happen sooner or later.”

  The duke felt at a loss. Under these sad circumstances he could hardly begin a flirtation, although he felt sure that Poppy must find the death of her father a relief.

  “How are your sisters?” he asked politely, pouring champagne.

  “Very well,” said Poppy, her face lighting up as it always did when she thought of her sisters. She added more coal to the fire, and said in a low voice as she stared into the leaping flames, “I’m sorry about the stage thing. I suppose I seem ungrateful.”

  “Not at all,” he said, studying her curiously. “I am sure you wanted to be independent of the Plummett family.”

  “Yes.”

  “I have, however, instructed MacDonald to renew your allowance.”

  Poppy swung around, the brass tongs in her hand, her face the picture of dismay. “Oh, no! You mustn’t,” she said. “I can take care of myself.”

  He rose and came forward, took the tongs from her nerveless fingers, set them down on the hearth, and took both her hands in his. “You must allow me to take care of you, Poppy,” he said in a low voice. “You are a great success, but it may not always be so, and you may weary of the strain of theater life. And think of your sisters’ futures.”

  “You are—too good,” said Poppy in a small, broken voice. “How can I ever thank you?”

  She looked up trustingly into his eyes and surprised a flicker of something unpleasant on his face—cynicism?—but it disappeared immediately, and he was smiling at her in that bewitching manner.

  “I have missed you, Poppy,” he said softly. “Did you think of me at all?”

  Poppy nodded dumbly, staring down at her boots.

  Her acting really is superb, thought the duke in amazement. But play her carefully. Friendship. Now, that is a good idea.

  “I think we are friends, Poppy,” he said accordingly, while his mind hoped she would not see through all this mush.

  “Yes,” said Poppy softly. “And you do forgive me for going back to the theater? You really do?”

  “Yes,” he lied, noting with pleasure the firm note of sincerity in his voice. “I really do. I know it is not a conventional thing to suggest, but perhaps you might care to have dinner with me tonight. I will not take you anywhere where you will be recognized. What about that place on the river?”

  “In this weather?” asked Poppy, suddenly happy, but trying to remember her father’s death and feel appropriately sad.

  “Oh, I don’t think it will be too bad,” he said, looking out at the gently falling flakes in the whitening garden. “The theater is closed, is it not?”

  “All right,” said Poppy suddenly.

  “Then I shall take my leave and call for you at eight.”

  He shrugged himself into his coat, and she walked him to the door, standing on the step and looking up into his face as the snowflakes swirled gently around them.

  “Till tonight,” he said softly, and she smiled shyly up at him, intensely aware of the happiness in her heart; intensely aware of the moment, of the whispering, dancing snow spar
kling in his white hair, of the still-cold air, of the new feeling of comfort and trust she had in his very presence.

  I must remember she is an actress, he told himself savagely as he strode down the path. But, God, she’s beautiful. Beautiful but heartless. I must remember that!

  The snow stopped falling before eight o’clock, yet there was enough snow for it to be pretty without being uncomfortable or dramatic. A small moon was riding high above a transformed London, the edges of the sooty buildings picked out in white.

  Because of the weather, they were the only guests in the little dining room by the river. The duke set himself to draw her out, asking her questions about the theater, about her sisters, about her old neighbors in Cutler’s Fields. Lulled by wine and good food, and the intimacy engendered by the empty dining room and the snow outside, Poppy relaxed and talked and talked, more than she could remember having talked to anyone before. He studied her face. She looked so guileless and innocent that he felt a momentary qualm.

  “What about Cyril Mundy?” he asked. “The newspapers seem to be making much of your relationship.”

  “Oh, Cyril.” Poppy sighed. “I had forgotten about him. He’s—well—very possessive.”

  “Have you given him reason?”

  “No, of course not,” said Poppy in surprise. “I mean Cyril. Don’t be silly.”

  So she knows Cyril’s problem, he thought, not realizing that she did not know a thing at all.

  “He’s much more beautiful than Oscar Wilde anyway,” said the duke, smiling.

  “Oscar…?” Poppy frowned, and then her face cleared. “Oh, the playwright chap,” said Poppy vaguely.

  He leaned forward. “Tomorrow is Sunday, Poppy—May I call you Poppy? You may call me Hugo. There, now, we are really friends. You are not expected at the theater, are you? Or is the Watch Committee less vigilant than it was?”

  “No, I’m not expected until Monday night,” said Poppy slowly.

  “Come with me to Everton,” he said. “It will look pretty in the snow.”

  “Well…” Poppy hesitated. “Perhaps Emily and Josie would enjoy—”