Eve D’Aubray?’
‘I expect I am, if anybody does.’
‘If anybody does?’
‘Well, my husband says that if there’s a war it will be very bad for the film business. He says that Hitler has just made an alliance with the Russians, and that’s very bad, too. And don’t mind Howard: just between ourselves, there is something very queer going on here.’
‘That acid, you mean?’
‘That. And other things.’
‘But weren’t you at all nervous when the acid tipped over?’
‘My dear,’ said Miss Fleur, ‘when I was on the stage they shot me out of a cannon once. That is the sort of thing men expect you to do, and they get extremely annoyed if you don’t, so it’s best to do it. And in one of the Blenkinsop shows they made me dive thirty feet into a glass tank without any clothes on. I did have a headache by the end of the run. But vitriol – ugh! No!’
‘You do like the part, don’t you? Eve D’Aubray, I mean?’
‘It’s terribly good. May I have a mirror, Eleanor, please?’
‘You see, I wrote it for you.’
Frances Fleur paused in the act of holding up the mirror, and tilted her head back to study the dark-red make-up of her mouth.
‘You see, I thought it would suit you.’
Miss Fleur handed the mirror back to her maid. Her eyes, of a dark amber colour under waxy-looking lids and brows on which the eyebrows made thin lines, now had a curious expression.
‘It is a bit like me,’ she conceded, after reflexion. ‘Fancy your knowing that! And fancy your knowing … how old are you? Nineteen?’
‘I’m twenty-two!’
The other woman lowered her voice. ‘Well, I’ll tell you something. I –’
It was not to be heard. Frances Fleur, bending forward, happened to glance over Monica’s shoulder towards the other end of the sound-stage. Her look hardly altered, nor did her voice; it slipped so smoothly into another sentence that it was as though she had been saying this all the time.
‘Please don’t think me rude, but I must go. There’s something I must see to at once. You do understand, don’t you? I have so enjoyed our talk. We must go on with it another time, and soon. There are several things I’m dying to ask you, if you know what I mean. But now – well, you do understand. Of course, Eleanor! Follow me, please.’
She swept to her feet, magnificent in the gold gown, stirring the air with faint perfume as she rose. Leaving Monica with a stricken sense of having said the wrong thing somehow, Frances Fleur smiled with ineffable sweetness as though to an audience, beckoned to her maid, and swept away.
2
So she only looked nineteen years old, did she?
Grr.
Pulling another chair closer with the toe of her slipper, Monica Stanton hooked her heels over the rung of the chair, planted her elbows on her knees and her chin on her fists; and brooded.
Above all things she had wanted to impress Frances Fleur as a woman of the world: a subtle, world-weary person who might have graced the marble benches of ancient Rome. She had geared herself to do this, to such an extent that she barely heard a word of what was being said around her; and instead she got nineteen years old when she was actually twenty-two and thought she looked a good twenty-eight.
All noises in the dim, echoing barn went unheeded. A property man passed in front of her, carrying a big mirror. Monica was confronted with her own image: her heels cocked up on the chair-run, her chin in her fists, and her mouth darkly mutinous. She saw the fair hair, worn in a long bob; the wide-spaced eyes, of a shade between grey and blue; the short nose and full under-lip; the plain grey tailored suit, with white blouse: all in contrast to the broad charms of Lady Thunder. As a result of this inspection, Monica made such a hideous, bitter face at the mirror – not unmixed with the suggestion of a raspberry in pantomime – that the property man, who was looking straight into her unseeing eyes and had worked hard all day, was not
‘I expect I am, if anybody does.’
‘If anybody does?’
‘Well, my husband says that if there’s a war it will be very bad for the film business. He says that Hitler has just made an alliance with the Russians, and that’s very bad, too. And don’t mind Howard: just between ourselves, there is something very queer going on here.’
‘That acid, you mean?’
‘That. And other things.’
‘But weren’t you at all nervous when the acid tipped over?’
‘My dear,’ said Miss Fleur, ‘when I was on the stage they shot me out of a cannon once. That is the sort of thing men expect you to do, and they get extremely annoyed if you don’t, so it’s best to do it. And in one of the Blenkinsop shows they made me dive thirty feet into a glass tank without any clothes on. I did have a headache by the end of the run. But vitriol – ugh! No!’
‘You do like the part, don’t you? Eve D’Aubray, I mean?’
‘It’s terribly good. May I have a mirror, Eleanor, please?’
‘You see, I wrote it for you.’
Frances Fleur paused in the act of holding up the mirror, and tilted her head back to study the dark-red make-up of her mouth.
‘You see, I thought it would suit you.’
Miss Fleur handed the mirror back to her maid. Her eyes, of a dark amber colour under waxy-looking lids and brows on which the eyebrows made thin lines, now had a curious expression.
‘It is a bit like me,’ she conceded, after reflexion. ‘Fancy your knowing that! And fancy your knowing … how old are you? Nineteen?’
‘I’m twenty-two!’
The other woman lowered her voice. ‘Well, I’ll tell you something. I –’
It was not to be heard. Frances Fleur, bending forward, happened to glance over Monica’s shoulder towards the other end of the sound-stage. Her look hardly altered, nor did her voice; it slipped so smoothly into another sentence that it was as though she had been saying this all the time.
‘Please don’t think me rude, but I must go. There’s something I must see to at once. You do understand, don’t you? I have so enjoyed our talk. We must go on with it another time, and soon. There are several things I’m dying to ask you, if you know what I mean. But now – well, you do understand. Of course, Eleanor! Follow me, please.’
She swept to her feet, magnificent in the gold gown, stirring the air with faint perfume as she rose. Leaving Monica with a stricken sense of having said the wrong thing somehow, Frances Fleur smiled with ineffable sweetness as though to an audience, beckoned to her maid, and swept away.
2
So she only looked nineteen years old, did she?
Grr.
Pulling another chair closer with the toe of her slipper, Monica Stanton hooked her heels over the rung of the chair, planted her elbows on her knees and her chin on her fists; and brooded.
Above all things she had wanted to impress Frances Fleur as a woman of the world: a subtle, world-weary person who might have graced the marble benches of ancient Rome. She had geared herself to do this, to such an extent that she barely heard a word of what was being said around her; and instead she got nineteen years old when she was actually twenty-two and thought she looked a good twenty-eight.
All noises in the dim, echoing barn went unheeded. A property man passed in front of her, carrying a big mirror. Monica was confronted with her own image: her heels cocked up on the chair-run, her chin in her fists, and her mouth darkly mutinous. She saw the fair hair, worn in a long bob; the wide-spaced eyes, of a shade between grey and blue; the short nose and full under-lip; the plain grey tailored suit, with white blouse: all in contrast to the broad charms of Lady Thunder. As a result of this inspection, Monica made such a hideous, bitter face at the mirror – not unmixed with the suggestion of a raspberry in pantomime – that the property man, who was looking straight into her unseeing eyes and had worked hard all day, was not
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