Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

G race sat on the wrought-iron garden bench on the terrace, enjoying a brief interlude of winter sun and marking up her copy of the Dick Whittington script, twirling her pencil between her fingers. Miss Chisholm and Jack were sending postcards and ringing agents to inform the cast of the change of director. If any of them had protested, they had decided not to tell Grace.

Stella sat next to her in her white fur coat and huge dark glasses, smoking and watching Lillian and Nikolai while she showed him the garden.

‘What on earth am I going to say to the policemen?’

Grace made a note on her script. ‘Tell them the truth, of course.’

Stella pulled her coat a little more tightly round her shoulders, and Grace noticed that the fingers holding her cigarette were trembling, and her nail varnish was chipped.

‘After that, you’re going to have a nice stay with us until the newspapers get bored, and then get back to work.’

Chipped nail varnish was not like Stella at all. Neither was the silence that followed Grace’s words.

‘Stella, you haven’t been . . . using too much cocaine, have you?’

Stella flicked the ash off her cigarette. ‘No.’ Then she paused. ‘It’s very hard sometimes to keep being “Stella Stanmore” all the time. Being wild and free-spirited is absolutely exhausting, and I’m getting so old.’

‘But, Stella, you’re only thirty!’

Stella’s shoulders hunched in her wrap and she stared at the butter-coloured flags of the terrace with deep concentration.

‘All the other girls are nineteen! Lord, I used to make fun of the singers and actresses who still wanted to play the ingénue at thirty-five, and I’m going to become one of them. The young ones . . . they’re so eager and shiny, like puppies and kittens. They make me feel like an old cat, and snow does perk me up.’ She shuddered. ‘Though one often feels dreadful the next day, and sometimes it means spending time with people one would usually avoid, just because they have the good stuff.’

‘But you have experience, Stella!’

Grace could see the sharp frown behind the dark glasses. ‘No one wants experience in a showgirl, Grace. Well, not that sort of experience, anyway. No, I think it’s time I left the stage entirely.’

Grace set her script aside.

‘Stella, what on earth are you talking about? You’re at the absolute height of your career. Your name is enough to open a West End show! You have years as the romantic lead ahead of you.’

Stella shook her head and her voice quavered. ‘I’ve lost my stomach for it. I’ll stay here, or find some dull rich man to marry, if you won’t have me. And don’t ask me to help with the panto.’

She ground out her cigarette and immediately lit another one. Grace bit her lip. The idea that Stella’s career was over was ridiculous, but there was obviously no point in telling her that now. She must have cared deeply for this Tasha to react in this way, not matter how she talked in her free and easy way. But why should grief for the girl turn into repudiation of the theatre? And Grace had been hoping for her help.

‘You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like, but we’re all going to be busy with the panto. If you don’t get involved, won’t you be bored?’

Stella’s face was almost invisible behind the fur coat. ‘Perhaps. But I’d rather be bored and alone than out there at the moment.’ Grace sighed. ‘Out there’ seemed to encompass the whole world other than Lassiter Court. ‘I can’t talk about it any more.’

‘But, Stella—’

‘No, Grace,’ she said sharply, then shook herself. ‘Tell me what you think about Nikolai and Lillian. Are they lovers? I mean, I’ve always thought Lillian was rather too refined for anything like sex, but perhaps that’s just because I keep thinking of her as Lady Lassiter.’ She wriggled slightly, and Grace snorted in spite of herself. ‘Have you noticed a spring in her step since Nikolai turned up?’

Stella leant forward, her long legs crossed and her chin in her hand. She sent a smooth column of smoke out into the still air, in the direction of the older couple, like a finger pointing.

‘Absolutely. It’s strange, I’ve always thought of her as a slightly tragic widow. Then as Jack’s birth mother – another tragic story. Being abandoned by the father, then having to give Jack up. Then stoic and noble, with how she rallied everyone after the fire. But Nikolai is glamorous and fun – and a revolutionary, for goodness’s sake.’

Stella tapped her ash off the end of her cigarette. ‘I celebrate Lillian embracing her romantic comedy side. We contain multitudes, after all.’

Grace looked at her sideways. ‘You’re quoting poetry now, Stella? That’s Walt Whitman, isn’t it?’

Stella laughed, alarming a blackbird foraging in the winter shrubbery. ‘I haven’t a clue, but I did have a fling with a rather darling undergraduate this summer who couldn’t get through his champagne supper without reciting something. Some poetry stuck to me.’ She pursed her lips. ‘What if they intend to marry? What would Jack think of that?’

Grace hadn’t thought that far ahead. ‘I’m not sure it would go down very well. He’s been a bit sulky about Nikolai.’

‘Is he worried they’d have brats? Surely Lillian is too old for that nonsense!’ Grace looked back at her script and Stella put out her hand. ‘Oh, Grace, I’m sorry. I’m an absolute twit. I didn’t mean children would be a nonsense for you.’

Grace couldn’t quite look at her. ‘I know you didn’t.’

‘I know it’s the absolute thing for some women. The maternal type. Not that I’m saying you’re the maternal type – you’re an artist. Unless you want to be the maternal type. I’m sure you’d be marvellous with baking and handkerchieves and all that. Oh, I’m such a disgrace of a human.’

Even through the cloud of mink and cigarette smoke, Grace could see Stella’s distress was sincere. ‘I know what you meant, Stella. Stop getting yourself into such a knot.’

She leant back. ‘Getting myself into knots is my thing at the moment. Has it been foul, Grace?’

Grace thought for a second before answering.

‘Yes. It has rather. And I know it’s put Jack off his stride at work. I keep trying to be happy and confident it will work out next time, but it’s as if the ground isn’t solid. I’m walking along feeling quite ordinary, then I take a plunge, like I’ve fallen down a hole. You’ve never wanted children?’

‘Never!’ Stella shuddered. ‘No, darling, I am one of those women who was born to be a disgraceful influence on the younger generation, not wipe its nose. Though if I do have to marry, perhaps I’ll have to be a mother, too. There are nannies, I suppose.’

Grace would have laughed at her, but her talk of giving up the theatre was unsettling.

Nikolai and Lillian were coming up the garden path towards them now, still arm in arm. Nikolai said something and Lillian smiled, looking up at him sideways.

‘I’m sure they’re lovers,’ Grace said. ‘Lillian’s always had a glow, but I swear it’s a . . .’

‘Sexier glow?’ Stella grinned.

‘Exactly.’

Stella laughed.

‘Ladies,’ Nikolai said as they came within speaking distance, ‘Lillian and I would like to invite you to the Metropole this evening. Lillian means to introduce me to Agnes de Montfort, and I believe that the Mabel Mills Jazz Band are playing.’

Grace felt Stella stiffen beside her, but she could not be allowed to spend her entire time at Lassiter Court.

‘We should be delighted, Nikolai. I’ll call Jack.’