What the Heart Keeps (48 page)

“
Risto and I made love under this quilt many times.”

Lisa
sat down with a sigh on the bed, her hands in her lap. “I never suspected that.”

“
It happened sometimes when you were away from the house. Then there were nights when he’d climb up by that tree outside my window when you were asleep.”

“
We are certainly letting out the secrets since we met today.” Lisa’s lips held a sad little smile.

Minnie
moved forward on her knees to put her head on Lisa’s lap, still clutching the quilt like a child with a comforter. “I wish we could go back to those days. The only true happiness I’ve ever known was with him. After he was killed my life fell to pieces. I went quite crazy for a while. I’ve been a little crazy ever since. Now it’s getting worse and I’m scared.”

Lisa
stroked Minnie’s head maternally. Her friend’s hair was coppery-gold these days with the rigid waves and the curls at the side of the face and nape of the neck that were so stylish. Yet it was as if it were the lank-haired orphan child she had protected who was huddled against her once again. “Have you consulted doctors?”

“
I’m not on drugs, if that’s what you’re thinking. Not that I haven’t tried most things, and I’m not an alcoholic, although sometimes it helps to drink champagne. It gives me a lift and I’m inclined to take more than I should. Otherwise I never touch anything these days. I went through a spate of hard drinking and had the sense to see in time that I was ruining my looks and my work. And don’t mention psychiatrists. I’ve wasted hours on their couches and I’ve often thought they should have been on them instead of me.” She uttered a wry and mirthless laugh.

“
What do you think is the cause of your depression?”

“
I can answer that in a nutshell. I’ve worked and played too hard for a long time, but I can’t find a way out. I feel constantly bruised and wounded. It’s as if the bullets that killed Risto ricocheted and struck me in passing. He died and I’m living. But at times it’s as if I’m more dead than he.”

Lisa
recalled how she had once said to Alan that Risto was Minnie’s anchor. With his going she had lost the one stabilising factor that had been more necessary to her in movie circles than it would have been if she had followed a more conventional path in life. Yet there must have been something out of the ordinary to have triggered off deterioration over the recent weeks. Perhaps another love affair that had gone disastrously, wrong. Lisa was aware of something in Minnie’s behaviour pattern that stirred a chord in her memory and recollection came disturbingly to her. “Are you sure you’re physically well, Minnie?”

“
I’ve had a check-up recently and there’s nothing wrong with my body. I tell you it’s my mind. If it snaps, I’ll be lost forever. Oh, help me, Lisa! For God’s sake, help me.” She began to wail in what was an outflowing from an abyss of despair and it was terrible to witness such primitive distress.

“
I’ll help you,” Lisa vowed vehemently, “but we’ll have to talk much more when you feel up to it. There’s no rush. We have all the time we need.”

When
the sobbing eventually subsided through Minnie’s sheer exhaustion, Lisa helped her on to the bed, removed her shoes and pulled the quilt over her. By the time she had pulled the curtains across the windows, Minnie appeared to be sleeping.

With
slow steps and feeling quite drained, Lisa went downstairs again. In the hall she leaned a hand against the wall and held her brow with the other while she came to terms with the situation that had arisen. Minnie needed rest and quiet. That meant the plan to return to London with Alan after the weekend would have to be shelved. She and Minnie must stay on at Maple House indefinitely. Once more Alan would be left virtually on his own in the apartment. And in all the last-minute hustle before the premiere, Rita Davis would be constantly at his side. Her arms would be waiting to offer respite by night from the tumult of the day. For Harry’s sake she had lost Peter. Was it to be for Minnie’s sake that she was to lose Alan?

He
arrived home at six o’clock that evening. She saw him from the window as he came from leaving his Bentley in the old stables that had been converted into garages. His years suited him; a brindling of grey at his temples and a physique kept sparse and trim by exercise. In his well-cut suit and with his groomed appearance, he looked what he was, a highly successful businessman with an intelligent approach to everything that came his way. Catching sight of her through the glass, he exchanged a smile as he passed the window to enter the house. She went to meet him.

“
Well? How’s the famous film star?” he inquired jovially after giving her a kiss.

“
Not well, I’m afraid.”

“
I’m sorry to hear that. Was she seasick?”

“
It’s more serious than that.”

In
the drawing-room over a drink, she told him of the state that Minnie was in. He was concerned and shook his head over what he had heard. “Poor kid,” he said sympathetically, picturing Minnie for the moment as the gauche young girl she had been when he had last seen her and not by her screen image. “What are you going to do? Call in Sarah Baker? She’s your doctor and your personal friend. I think she would be particularly understanding.”

“
I’ll consult her to make sure I’ll be doing whatever is right for Minnie, and arrange that they meet. But at the present time Minnie is set against seeing any more doctors professionally. She seems to think I’m the only one to see her through this emotional crisis. In some ways she reminds me of Harriet when I first came to Quadra Island.”

It
was a long time since either of them had mentioned Harriet to each other. She saw a raw look come into his eyes as doubtless it came into her own, both of them aware that, as once Harriet had unwittingly stood between him and his love for her, now there was somebody else taken through his own free choice. “Why do you think that?” He drained his whisky glass to break his gaze with hers.

“
I’m not sure. There’s the same tension and the same restlessness.” She had almost said remorse and had amended her words in time. Alan had never known of Harriet’s second miscarriage, brought on through foolhardiness, and the fact that she was gone did not release the sharing of a confidence not for his ears, even though it had lost its significance long ago.

“
What about the premiere? Will she be fit to attend it?”

“
I hope so, and I know she has every intention of making an appearance, but in the meantime she must relax completely. At least here at Maple House I can keep people away. So far only Blanche Stiller knows her whereabouts and I want it to stay that way.”

“
Then you and Minnie won’t be coming back to London with me on Monday morning?”

“
No. I don’t suppose I’ll see you again until the evening of the West End opening. Unless you can manage to get home next weekend?”

“
There won’t be a chance. I’ll be far too busy.”

To
Lisa it was as if Rita Davis was there in the shadows of the room, smiling her cool smile, poised and confident and ruthless, patiently biding her time. Yet her name had never been raised in any conversation that Lisa had had with Alan. Not even in reference to his work, when it would have been normal for either of them to have mentioned her, particularly since she was training Catherine in the specialised work at the head office from whence Alan ruled his cinema empire.

They
shared a silence which on Alan’s part was tantamount to an admission of his infidelity, and on Lisa’s revealed that she instinctively knew the truth, for she had always been interested in their closest employees and could have been expected to ask about Rita Davis whose appointment he had never spoken of to her. Neither was able to bring the subject into the open. Although danger to their marriage had appeared to recede while she had been with him in London, she sensed a resurgence of it in his adamant insistence that he would be unable to come home to Maple House the following weekend.

Upstairs,
Minnie had been disturbed from her rest by the sound of Alan’s Bentley being driven past on the gravelled drive. She felt refreshed by her sleep and it was good to wake up to the knowledge of Lisa’s maternal protection under which she had sheltered so often in the past. An hour later, bathed and changed into a midnight blue gown with barbaric gold embroidery on its epaulets, she came out of her room to meet Alan on the landing similarly changed for the evening into his dinner jacket and on his way downstairs. They greeted each other warmly, she kissing him on the lips.

“
Isn’t it exciting that we should all be together again,” she exclaimed, linking her arm in his as they went downstairs to the drawing-room. “I’ve been looking forward to it for months. Ever since Harry wrote on your behalf to ask me if I’d come to England for the West End premiere. You are looking as handsome as ever. I remember how you used to come home from the forests in a passion-rousing aroma of timber and sweat and saddle-leather.” She leaned against him on tiptoe to sniff appreciatively at his newly shaven chin. “Now it’s expensive shaving lotion and Havana cigars. Equally male and basic. Mmm! Delicious!”

He
laughed and she with him. She might have been the same brash girl flirting with him when she came from Quadra Island, instead of a woman whose signature and handprints were immortalised in the cement of the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. When Lisa, in a rose silk Cocteau print, joined them soon afterwards, Minnie was still talking non-stop and as effusively as she had done earlier in the day. She continued in the same vein throughout the whole evening.

When
Alan and Lisa were in their room getting ready for bed, he was thoughtful as he pulled off his black bow tie and re-moved the gold links from his cuffs. “I can’t see Minnie being well enough for the premiere. She’s on the borderline of a breakdown, as you say. Sometimes she spoke as if the three of us were back in the house at Dekova’s Place. It became more marked as the evening wore on.” He sighed. “Wore on, indeed. She never used to prattle away at that speed, did she?”

“
No. She’s a sick woman.”

He
looked across to where Lisa sat in her coffee satin camiknickers on the dressing table stool, rolling down her silk stockings in turn. “You eased Harriet out of her moods of depression. You’d probably do better on your own with Minnie without calling in medical advice.”

She
straightened up to meet his eyes. One ribbon shoulder strap had slipped down over her arm revealing the swell of her breast. “I’m not as confident about handling problems as I used to be. I feel a little lost myself at the present time.”

“
Oh?” He did not take up the opportunity she had given him to broach the subject uppermost in her mind as it surely was in his.

In
the guest-room, Minnie lay on top of the bedclothes and naked under the quilt that she had drawn up to her chin. She trembled under its patchwork warmth. It was as if she waited for Risto to take her with him down into the rainbow-hued depths of love.

F
ourteen

When the day of the premiere of
Love’s
Glory
arrived, Minnie was much improved by her two weeks at Maple House. She was calmer and quieter and more content. She and Lisa had taken long walks in the countryside, spent hours talking together, and been undisturbed by visitors with the exception of Blanche Stiller who, in London, was bearing the brunt of the telephone calls, frantic transatlantic cables from the studio, and the general hubbub of the press that preceded such an event as a new cinema opening with a motion picture rumoured to be Minnie’s best yet.

The
week before, Blanche had driven to Maple House. “When the hell is she going to make an appearance?” she had demanded of Lisa, who had kept her from Minnie in person and on the phone. “Everybody thinks she is putting on a Garbo act and it won’t do. That’s never been her image. Hers is friendly, gamine, pert, beautiful — a combination of innocence and worldliness. Never, never a glamorous recluse wanting to be alone.”

“
She’s still not well.”

“
Don’t say that!” Blanche held her head and paced up and down. “I don’t want to hear it! She is not sick in bed and she’s walking about and breathing. That makes her fully able to show herself at the opening ceremony of the new Fernley. Her producer will murder me if I don’t get her there! The studios employ me, you know. I’ll be kicked out for incompetence and black-listed!”

“
We’ll see how Minnie is when it comes to the time.”

“
Let me talk to her!”

“
That’s out of the question.”

“
You’re holding her against her will!” Blanche shouted wildly. “I’ll secure a writ of habeas corpus!”

“
Don’t talk nonsense. Good morning, Miss Stiller.”

Blanche
Stiller had returned several times and each time the woman departed in a fury. Lisa always stood at the door to watch her drive off after once finding that she had gone prowling around the house to look in at the windows in the hope of finding Minnie on her own. And she was the last person Minnie wished to see at the present time.

“
Keep her away, Lisa,” she had implored. “She can pressure me into doing whatever the studios demand in the way of publicity and I don’t want to face strangers yet.”

During
their talks together Minnie had admitted that it was as Lisa, remembering Harriet, had suspected. She had suffered a miscarriage. Sarah Baker, Lisa’s doctor and friend, with whom Minnie had struck up a friendship, corroborated that many, women went through such periods of depression after a miscarriage, and she was keeping an eye on her. Lisa still felt that Minnie had not revealed everything. Perhaps whatever she was still keeping to herself was the very key that would bring her back to normality.

After
a final discussion with Alan over the telephone, Lisa put it to Minnie that she was not expected to attend the premiere on their behalf. Minnie showed intense relief. It had obviously been hanging over her like a dark cloud.

“
Are you sure Alan doesn’t mind?” she queried anxiously.

“
He wants to see you well again as we all do. You’ve made such good progress that Sarah Baker agrees with me that it might undo all the good that has been done for your nerves if you return too soon to motion picture circles.”

“
But you’ll go to the premiere, won’t you?” Minnie was insistent. “It’s the greatest moment in Alan’s career and you must be with him.”

“
I hoped you’d say that. Sarah has offered to come and stay the night here, because with the party afterwards we won’t get back to Maple House until the following day.”

“
I don’t need a doctor in attendance. The servants will look after me.”

“
Sarah won’t be here in her capacity as a doctor, only as a friend, and she’ll be company for you.”

Minnie
smiled appreciatively. “It’s kind of her. I’ll be glad for her to be with me.”

Lisa
left for London in the afternoon of the great day, travelling by train. She would be driven back by Alan. Catherine awaited her at the apartment in a state of high excitement. She had laid Lisa’s new Fortuny evening gown on the bed in readiness. She herself would be wearing white satin with a halter neckline and completely bare back.

“
Daddy wants us to get to the cinema early to avoid the crush,” she explained.

Lisa
went to the hairdresser and returned in good time. Her gown was of finely pleated lilac silk with an attached waist-length overblouse that wafted against her figure as only a Fortuny garment could, feather-light and gleaming over breasts and hips by the skill of marvellous cutting and construction. With diamond earrings and a corsage of orchids Alan had ordered for her, she swung on her cape of creamy fox fur and looked, according to her daughter, more fabulous than any film star. Smiling, she held out her hand to Catherine.

“
Let’s go then! Tonight’s the night!”

As
they set off in a taxi for the West End, a fast car was speeding towards London from Maple House. When Sarah Baker left her own car in the drive and was admitted by a maid, she was astonished to hear that Minnie had gone to the premiere after all.

“
But I thought it had been decided that she wouldn’t go!”

“
I think the plans were changed at the last minute,” the maid replied. “An American lady came to collect Miss Shaw and take her straight to the cinema.”

“
How very odd. Was no message left for me?”

“
No, Doctor.”

Sarah
Baker returned to her car with the overnight case she would no longer need. She was puzzled but unperturbed except as to how Minnie would react to the sudden excitement after the peaceful days at Maple House. That worried her. It was not the first time Minnie had put her career before her health. As a doctor, Sarah had heard a little more in confidence than had `been divulged to Lisa. Still concerned, she made a snap decision when she reached the gates of the house and, instead of turning the car into a homewards direction, she swung southwards to reach the London road.

Coloured
searchlights fanned the London sky from the roof of the new Fernley cinema. The frontage blazed with Minnie’s name and the title of the film. Enormous crowds had gathered outside to see the stars arrive and in the hope that Minnie Shaw might appear. The press had played up the
will
she
? —
won’t
she
? angle at Blanche Stiller’s instigation. The polished limousines drew up one after another outside the red-carpeted entrance to allow the famous and other less well-known personages of the film world to alight. The foyer thronged with men in white tie and tails, the women in exquisite clothes and jewels, Schiaparelli’s shocking pink much in evidence with those who followed closely the dictates of Paris. Lisa stood out in her Fortuny gown at Alan’s side. Rita Davis was stunning in black velvet.

It
took a long time to get everybody out of the foyer and into the auditorium. There were always the publicity-seekers lingering to have a few more photographs taken by the press cameras there. Harry, at his most charming, managed at last to usher the last of these up the gilded staircase to the Grand Circle when the attendants’ attempts had been repeatedly ignored.

Lisa
and Catherine sat with the British film stars and other important people in the flower-bedecked front row of the Grand Circle. The organ descended with its last melodious chords, vanishing from sight as the lights lowered throughout the auditorium. The buzz of chatter subsided as the looped silk curtains parted and the screen music announced spectacularly that
Love’s
Glory
had begun.

It
had been tipped as a smash hit, and before the movie of love, loyalty, and desertion was half-way through, the whole audience realised that Minnie was destined to be nominated for every award available for her performance. It was in the last few minutes before its close when an attendant delivered a verbal message from Alan to Lisa who was sitting on an aisle seat, for he had wanted her to join him quickly at the movie’s end.

“
Mr. Fernley wants you to go to the foyer now. It’s urgent.”

Lisa
slipped from her seat and went out of the auditorium. Hurrying down the stairway she was astonished and concerned to see Sarah talking anxiously with Alan and Harry. All three turned as she approached.

“
Have you seen Minnie?” Alan asked at once. “Sarah says she’s here. It sounds as if Blanche fetched her away after you had left.”

“
Then there is only one place she’ll be at this moment,” Lisa exclaimed. “Blanche will push her onto the stage when the movie ends!”

As
they ran along the maze of barren concrete passageways leading to the rear of the auditorium, they met Rita Davis running towards them, her expression jubilant. “Minnie Shaw is here, Alan!” she cried, any pretence at formality forgotten in her excitement. “I was coming to tell you. I’ve just guided her and her studio representative to the stage steps!”

Nobody
answered her. She drew back against the wall in bewilderment as, with grim expressions, they rushed past, and then followed after them. From the auditorium a thunderclap of applause greeted the film’s end, and it swelled into a standing ovation. Alan, in the lead, burst through the door into the anteroom from which wooden steps rose to the stage. Blanche was half-way up the flight and she swung around in triumph.

“
Too late! She’s on!”

Her
voice was almost drowned by a roar of approbation within the auditorium. Lisa darted up the steps to reach the side of the stage where she was hidden from the view of the audience by velvet curtains hanging from the proscenium arch. Alan and Harry joined her. Minnie had gone a third of the distance across the wide stage and had come to a standstill. She was a vision in a silver lame gown that hugged her slender body and burst into spangled tulle from her hips, her only jewellery a pair of sparkling pendant earrings. Her back being towards those in the wings and her head too slightly turned for them to see more than the curve of her cheek, her expression was hidden from them, but the rigidity with which she stood filled Lisa with alarm.

“
I must get to the steps on the other side where she can see me.” Lisa grabbed up her skirt to facilitate her swift descent of the steps. She charged through another door into a passage that was parallel with the back of the screen. When she reached the far side and was again at stage level, she could see that Minnie was scanning the audience with an extraordinary searching look that was blended of shock and disbelief. To the audience it merely emphasised a modest incredulity that her movie should have been such a success. The ovation increased in volume as she gave them an almost childish wave. Her lips moved. By a trick of acoustics against the screen, Lisa could hear what those in the auditorium could not. It came on the high trembling note that presages hysteria.

“
Where are you, Ma? The ship’s goin’, Ma! Don’t let ‘em take me away!”

“
Minnie! I’m here!” Lisa’s voice reached the stage by the same echoing vibration.

Minnie
’s head jerked about like that of a puppet. At the sight of Lisa standing with her arms outstretched to her, her expression broke after a few suspenseful seconds into joyful recognition and tears. The audience, imagining she was welcoming the arrival of some esteemed representative from her studios, which would have been customary, brought forth a renewed wave of applause. Lisa swept forward to embrace Minnie and hold her violently shaking frame in support.

“
It’s all right now, Minnie,” she said through a wide smile to sustain the audience’s belief that this was all arranged. “We’re together as we always were.-

Alan,
coming swiftly from the opposite side at a signal glance from Lisa, took up Minnie’s trembling hand and kissed it as if solely in gallant homage for her remarkable performance on the screen. Comparatively few in the auditorium had known Lisa’s identity, but everybody recognised Alan Fernley as the entrepreneur whose magnificent cinema had opened with what was undoubtedly the motion picture of the year, and the clapping continued unabated. Minnie stood there between her two friends, each of them holding one of her hands hard and reassuringly, and she dipped her head at last into a stage bow to acknowledge the applause.

It
was enough. Harry released the silken curtains by an emergency switch and brought them rippling down to hide her from the audience’s sight. He was just in time. Alan caught Minnie as she collapsed and Sarah came running to give whatever medical aid was necessary.

In
the ensuing minutes after Minnie had been carried down the steps to the anteroom, Rita seized the first chance she could to have a word with Alan. “What did I do wrong?” she asked anxiously.

He
smiled at her. “Nothing, as it happened.”