What the Heart Keeps (47 page)

“
You weren’t alone in the boat on the lake. He was with you for about thirty-six hours altogether, wasn’t it?” She was on her third glass of champagne and as she took another mouthful of it she wagged a finger to acknowledge that she was recalling how it had all happened. “I remember how you looked when you set off from home that day. Desperate and in love and more than a little scared. Admit it! You were lovers, weren’t you?”

Drawing
in her breath, Lisa released it with a long sigh. “Yes, we were. I thought that secret was mine alone.”

“
Your eyes are giving you away. You still feel about him the way I feel about Risto. We both lost by different paths the one man in our lives who meant most to us.”

Further
reticence was pointless on that subject. “It’s strange how our lives have run parallel, isn’t it?” Lisa spoke in a quiet, ruminative tone, her thoughts turning inward. “Just as if we had been blood sisters. I rarely think of Peter these days. But I haven’t forgotten him or the time we had together in Toronto and Dekova’s Place.”

There
came a knock on the stateroom door and Blanche Stiller entered briskly. “Are you ready, Miss Shaw? The press have been on board for some time now.”

“
Don’t harass me!” Minnie scowled, moving from her chair only to refill her glass again.

“
We’ll miss the train to London if you don’t get finished with the press soon.”

Minnie
eyed her vindictively over the rim. “You’ll miss it. That’s what you mean. You know it was arranged ahead that I should leave Southampton by automobile with Mrs. Fernley for her country house. If the train goes, you can cool your heels on the railway station for the rest of the day for all I care.”

“You’re drinking too much again!” Blanche Stiller retaliated on a spiteful note.

“
Mind your own damn business!”

“
I’ll fetch your coat.” Before she could reach the wardrobe, Minnie halted her with a shrieked order. “You leave it where it is!

“
But Miss Shaw—”

“
Shut up and get out!”

The
woman flounced out in a temper, muttering to herself. Lisa, who had been watching her friend closely, made a request quietly. “May I face the newspapermen with you when you’re ready, Minnie? I’d find it interesting.”

Minnie
shot her a frantic, sideways glance, the muscles of her mouth pulling down convulsively. “You know, don’t you?” she said in a voice harsh with dry sobs.

“
I can see that something is wrong.”

“
I think I’m losing my mind.” Abruptly Minnie sprang to her feet and wrung her hands agitatedly. “I’m terrified of everything these days. Life! Death! People! Every damn thing. Coming to see you has kept me from going over the past few months. I kept telling myself I’d be okay when I was with you again. You’d put things right. Like you used to. I wouldn’t have had the nerve to defy Blanche just now if you hadn’t been with me.”

Lisa
felt as if the ground had been cut from under her. She had been anticipating support in her own troubles from Minnie and instead she was being called upon once more to supply the strength and to be the support of another. “I’ll do whatever I can.”

“
You don’t think me stupid?” It was almost a childish cry of appeal.

“
Have I ever?” To Lisa it was as if the clock had turned back. She saw in Minnie’s face something of the paralysing hysteria that had been there after the attack in the boxcar on the prairies. Minnie was as much in need today of comfort and reassurance as she had been then; the danger of mental breakdown had to be averted. “The sooner we get away from this liner, the sooner we can talk. Let’s get the press over with and then the time is ours.”

Minnie
nodded. Used to being waited on, she stood while Lisa fetched her sumptuous silver fox coat and then slipped her arms into it. She was trembling violently. Almost automatically she put on the large black hat with the upturned brim and dashing sweep of feathers. A further application of scarlet lipstick and then she was ready in appearance, if not in spirit, to meet the press. She hung back as Lisa opened the door for her and clutched the soft fur collar up around her neck protectively and not against the mild spring weather that would await her on deck, but in an unconscious gesture of defence.

“
It will only take a little while,” Lisa said encouragingly, “and then we’ll be away from here.”

Minnie
jerked herself forward as if pulled by a string. At the door she paused and looked almost wildly at Lisa. “Wouldn’t it be grand if my old Ma could ‘ave been on the quayside today?”

Lisa
stared at her. Minnie had lapsed into the rough English accents of her childhood, but whether by chance or design it was impossible to say. “Shall you try to find her when you’re in England?”

Minnie
’s face, which changed expression as constantly of the screen as it did on, grew sad. “She’s dead,” she said, resuming her normal speech. “I was sent a copy of her death certificate by someone engaged in tracing missing relatives. I’ve come to England twenty years too late to see her again.”

Urged
on by Lisa’s gentle but persistent pressure on her arm, she went obediently in the direction of the First Class deck where the press awaited her, only slowing down when the doors to that section of the ship came into view. Her whole body began to stiffen as if preparing for retreat. Quickly Lisa gave her a cheerful push as if she were indeed a child again.

“
Go to it, Minnie! We made mincemeat of Emily Drayton and Mrs. Grant. The press is nothing compared to them!”

Lisa
did not know whether she had done the right thing or not, but her impromptu therapy had results. Minnie burst into slightly too hectic giggles at the absurdity of the comparison, and then walked through the door a steward had rushed to open as if she were going on to a film set, her dazzling smile switched on like an electric light bulb, her chin swept high, and her furs flung open seductively. There came a barrage of camera flashes.

Minnie
performed for the press as she had done countless times before, posing and smiling and turning this way and that. When they found a high seat for her she sat on it obligingly, pulling her skirt a little higher at their shouted request and allowing them to take cheesecake shots of her splendid legs. To Lisa she looked like a beautiful automaton. Blanche Stiller, hovering nearby, watched the film star piercingly for the first warning signs of an indulgement in too much champagne being accelerated by the cold sea-wind blowing across Southampton Water. Fortunately there seemed to be no sign of such a disaster and Minnie was giving the interviewers what was expected of her.

“
Yes, it’s swell to be in England for the world premiere of my latest motion picture . . . No, I have no new marriage plans . . . Who? Oh, he and I were just good friends . . . Naturally I shall consider any offers to make a movie here . . . Sure, a role on the London stage would be a challenge and I’d welcome it . . . How should I know if Frenchmen make the best lovers? I’ve never been married to one!”

It
was all there. The stock answers and the stemming of anything likely to lead to a harming of the public image of the goddess dedicated solely to her career and her belief in the honourable estate of marriage. The fact that she had been photographed at night-spots and premieres and Hollywood parties with countless different men merely added to her glamorous image. To her less worldly women fans it appeared as if she was worshipped on a pedestal for her beauty and inaccessibility. The more sophisticated usually envied her wide selection of handsome lovers, many of whom were screen heroes themselves.

Blanche
Stiller came up to Lisa and muttered in her ear. “Hear how Miss Shaw’s voice is rising in pitch? She’s getting near the end of her tether. I’d like to fetch her away now, but she’s in a mood to do the opposite of anything I suggest. I daren’t risk a scene. You’re her friend. Would you try?”

Lisa
pushed her way through the press to Minnie’s side. “Time to go,” she said without ado.

There
was no protest from Minnie, only from the press. She gave the newspaper men and women a final smile and wave like departing royalty and left the deck at Lisa’s side. Then preceded by the photographers, who jammed the gangway to get pictures of her coming ashore, she gained the quayside, waved again to cheering fans pressed against the barriers and minutes later was being driven by Lisa away from the docks and through Southampton. Her hat was flung on the back seat and she raked her fingers through her hair.

“
Thank God we’re out of that!”

“
Do those sessions take place wherever you go?” Lisa asked.

Minnie
gave a nod. She was very pale. “Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll scream in their faces. I feel it rising in my throat. It’s as if I were trapped in a cage by pressures draining my true being away and leaving only my outward shell, which goes on walking, and talking, and giving toothpaste smiles that have no reality. Thanks for coming to the rescue. That bitch, Blanche, should have done it. Sometimes I think she gets a sadistic pleasure in watching me suffer these ordeals.”

“
You’re misjudging her. I’d say she simply doesn’t understand the extent of the torment they cause you.”

Minnie
was staring through the windscreen in astonishment. “I’d forgotten the streets were so narrow over here. Have they shrunk since I was a child?”

Lisa
smiled. “No. That’s the way they always were.”

“
So different from the States.” Minnie shook her head in continued surprise over it. Then, as they left the city behind, she exclaimed at the beauty of the undulating landscape spreading out all around them. “Do you remember that I’d never seen a cow in a meadow until that day when we were on the train to Liverpool? All I’d ever known had been the slums and gutters of Leeds until the orphanage took me in. How is old Mother Bradlaw these days?”

They
talked as they drove along. Lisa thought her companion was becoming more relaxed, but she had put away within herself any thought of sharing with Minnie the burden of Alan’s unfaithfulness, which lay heavily upon her. She must hide away her own confusion and unhappiness. Minnie must never suspect that she was at a loss to know how to handle her own life when her friend was looking wholly to her for aid on what was obviously the brink of a nervous breakdown.

Minnie
was charmed with Maple House. The lawns were like velvet and the flower-beds bright with crocuses and early daffodils. Japonica was opening pink buds against its sunny walls and hardy camellias were coming into bloom along the north side of the house. As they went into the entrance hall, she cried out at the sight of a red and gold porcelain plate displayed in a niche.

“
I know that plate! I’ve seen it before. It used to be at the orphanage.”

“
Mrs. Bradlaw gave it to me when the institutional building was closed down. She remembered I once almost broke my neck trying to get hold of it and she thought it would be a special souvenir to remind me of those days. She didn’t know how special,” Lisa added, more to herself than to Minnie who had discarded her furs and was already on a tour of exploration. Lisa handed her own coat and hat to the maid who had come into the hall and went after her friend, who was full of appreciation of the finely proportioned rooms, and the rich glow of antique rosewood and walnut.

“
What a perfect house! And such a peaceful one. The world seems far away.”

“
I’m glad you like it. I felt at home here from the first moment. Let me take you to your room now. The cabin trunks that you sent ahead arrived about three weeks ago, and they have been unpacked for you.”

Minnie
linked arms with Lisa as they went towards the curved staircase. “I have a breath-taking gown for the premiere. Adrian designed it. He designs all my movie clothes now. I wouldn’t let anyone else do them.” They were halfway up the stairs and she paused, listening intently. “How quiet it is. No police sirens. No traffic. No screaming fans. Only the birds singing. I always wanted to see Maple House after you first wrote about it.”

“
That’s why I thought you’d prefer to come here instead of to our London apartment. Alan will be joining us this evening and tomorrow Harry and Catherine will arrive to complete the family gathering with you.”

When
they reached the guest-room that was to be hers for her sojourn, Minnie cried out at the sight of the patchwork quilt covering the bed. It was the Blazing Star quilt that Lisa had sewn some years ago in another land. As if in a trance, Minnie went to spread the flat of her hands caressingly over the unfaded colours.

“
This was in my room at Dekova’s Place!”

“
That’s right. Oh, whatever is the matter?” Lisa hurried for-ward anxiously as Minnie dropped down to her knees at the side of the bed and pulled the coverlet into folds against her suddenly crumpled face, her eyes closed tight on some inner shaft of pain.