Stella, page 17
Surreptitiously, she tried to stare through the blanket of darkness to glimpse the mystery man in the box. The foot-lights were too powerful; she couldn’t see a thing beyond the edge of the stage.
The young lady playing the role of Alice Fitzwarren, the principal girl, made her entrance and they went into their dialogue: ‘Who are you, sir?’
‘My name is Dick Whittington, and this is Tommy, my cat.’
After the thrill of her first entrance and opening lines it soon became a twice-daily job. The following week, the first full week, consisted of twelve performances – and the solitary figure attended every one from the same position in the same box.
On the Monday of the second week she walked into her dressing-room after having a late breakfast. Annie was in the city doing some shopping for their tea, and so she decided to face the inevitable piles of fan-mail that lined her dresser in ever-increasing bundles. As she waded through them there came a knock at her door. A head popped in. It belonged to the doorkeeper. ‘S’cuse me love,’ he said. ‘I’ve some flowers for you.’
‘Oh, you shouldn’t have done,’ she joked, and his empty smile told he’d heard that one a million times before.
He left them on a table and disappeared. She saw that there was no note attached and so, with a shrug, persevered with her mail.
Two minutes later the doorkeeper was back. This time he’d brought with him a dozen red roses. ‘More?’ she gasped, placing them next to the others.
‘Won’t be a minute. I’ll just go and fetch the others.’
‘There’s even more?’
‘Yes, and there’s no note attached to any of them, so I reckon they must be from the same source.’
‘I think you could be right.’
Her delight at receiving such wonderful flowers turned slightly to irritation at not knowing who the kind sender could be. Was it possibly one of Mike’s little gestures? He was the sort of person who would do such a thing and in a such mysterious manner. One thing for sure: it certainly wouldn’t be Henry Charles – not unless he was on ten per cent.
‘Good news,’ announced the doorkeeper, returning. ‘There’s a card wedged deep inside with this lot.’
Eagerly, she put the glorious arrangement of flowers, supported in a wicker basket, to one side and pulled out the small, oblong card. ‘What’s it say?’ She read it out:
‘There may be none of beauty’s daughters,
with a magic like thee,
And like music on the waters,
Is thy sweet voice to me.’
It was handwritten but, disappointingly, it was unsigned. ‘No better off than at the beginning,’ she said.
‘At least we can be sure they came from a man,’ he said, rather dumbly.
‘I hardly thought they’d come from my mother.’
‘I suppose not,’ he said, slipping out the room. Moments later Annie returned. ‘My, aren’t they lovely? Who sent ’em?’
‘ No one seems to know. There was a card, but no name.’
‘Oh, I see. Sent annonymally?’
‘That’s right, Annie.’ Stella smiled inwardly.
‘Must be rich,’ declared Annie. ‘Probably born with a silver fork in his mouth.’
There was no mystery man in the box for that after-noon’s matinee performance. This made one of the cast joke, ‘About time too. Last time anyone was in a box for so long they were buried.’
The box had apparently been paid for but it remained empty; well, almost empty. On the centre seat was placed a single red rose.
In a way this upset her. She thought it a shame that if the box had been paid for, children couldn’t be allowed in to use it. She told Bertie as much.
‘But it’s paid for, my love,’ was his defence. ‘And anyway, I wouldn’t be allowed to do such a thing without his permission.’
‘So you know who he is?’ she pounced. Bertie shrank away. He knew immediately he shouldn’t have opened his mouth, and that now it would be interrogation-time.
‘Well . . .’
‘C’mon, who is he?’ She kept a fixed stare on him.
‘It’s no good,’ he said, bravely. ‘I’m sworn to secrecy.’ Stella was impressed. Whoever this man was, he had more power over Bertie than she had, and until then she’d have said that no one could have more power over Bertie than she had.
Saturday evening, after the second show, Stella and Annie drove back to the Queen’s Hotel by taxi. They went to the reception desk for the keys. The uniformed figure at the desk beamed when seeing who it was. He handed her a key with a rose attached.
For a dreadful moment Stella half-wondered if this receptionist was the mystery man. But then she realised that that was ridiculous. No disrespect to the receptionist, but he would have had to put in a lot of overtime to afford all these flowers – either that or been left a florist’s shop by a relation.
There was a note with the rose. It said: ‘May I ring you at this late hour? If I may, then please hand the rose to your maid, at once.’
Quickly she looked around the foyer. There were three men. One was at least seventy, very tall and very bald. One was drunk and slumped untidily across a chair. The third was an insipid little man, who obediently followed a fat woman who could only be his wife. She glanced back at the note. It intrigued her. She gave it to Annie, who read it very slowly. Annie had to read it very slowly – she couldn’t read quickly. She said, ‘A rose from anybody smells as sweet.’
At eleven forty-five p.m. the phone rang in Stella’s suite. She looked at it as if waiting for it to tell her who was ringing. The operator put the call through. ‘Who is it?’ she asked.
An American voice spoke to her. ‘Miss Raven?’
‘Speaking.’
‘Thank you for allowing me into your room.’
‘Are you phoning from the hotel?’
‘Alas, no.’
Thank God for that, she thought.
‘No, I’m ringing from a private home.’
‘A home?’ she queried. ‘Are you sick?’
He laughed long and loudly at this, making her hold the phone away from her ear for a second. ‘No, nothing like that. I’m at my brother’s house.’
‘So how did you know I would give the rose to my maid, then?’
She sensed the rise and fall of his shoulders. ‘I didn’t. I just took the gamble that you would.’
Cocky little bugger, she thought.
‘You’re not offended, are you?’
‘No, I’m not. And thanks for the flowers – I’ll set up my own florist business when the show’s over.’
‘Can we meet?’ he asked, tentatively. ‘My intentions are strictly honourable.’
Intentions, she wondered. I can’t imagine what he means by that.
‘I’m very busy,’ she said, apologetically.
‘So am I, but who works Sundays?’
She had overlooked that it was Sunday tomorrow. He’d obviously prepared himself very well for her excuses. He could match them one for one. ‘Have you a favourite restaurant?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Whereabouts?’
‘In Paris.’
‘Whereabouts in Paris?’
He was as sharp and persistent as she could be. But it was late, she was tired . . . ‘Look, this is silly,’ she said. ‘I don’t even know your name.’
‘Let’s just say it cost me a fortune getting that grey outfit to the Midland Hotel.’
Her heart accelerated as she recalled the extraordinarily attractive American. What was his name? Something Golding? ‘The name’s Bernard Goldman,’ he reminded, in answer to her thoughts. ‘I’m unmarried; I don’t have a police record, either over here or in the States; I was educated in Washington; I like watching baseball and tennis; and I speak fluent German.’
He stopped talking but it was only to be a pause. ‘Guter tee verdient es, gut gemacht zu werden.’
She didn’t believe this conversation was really happening. ‘And what does that mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ he replied, honestly. ‘I’m reading it off a tin of Earl Grey tea.’
‘Very well, Mr Goldman,’ she sighed. ‘I concede. We’ll meet up. I mean, I owe you a date just for the suit, alone.’
‘You owe me nothing, but I’d love a date.’
‘What time will you come over?’ she asked.
‘Let’s say mid-morning.’
‘Sounds fine to me,’ she said. ‘As long as it’s not before breakfast. I never get up before breakfast – I was twenty before I had a boiled egg, you know.’
‘Well, I’ll make sure it’s after breakfast then,’ he promised.
‘Goodnight then, Mr Goldman.’
‘Goodnight then, Miss Raven.’
They replaced receivers.
At midday on Sunday the phone rang. Annie answered it and the switchboard connected her. ‘Hello,’ said Bernard Goldman.
‘Miss Raven’s suite,’ said Annie, with a forced, southern accent.
‘Yeah, I know she is,’ came the smooth reply.
‘Eh?’ Back to the usual Annie voice.
‘May I speak to her?’
It was as much a command as a request, and to Annie it was delivered by a powerful voice, the sort not refused. ‘Ooh, yes. It’s you, isn’t it?’
‘I think it’s me,’ he said.
‘Just a tick; I’ll go and get her.’
In her excitement Annie put the receiver back in its cradle, so cutting them off from each other. She looked painfully at the dead phone for nearly half a minute, in the same way Stan Laurel looks at Oliver Hardy when he knows he’s done wrong.
She ran from the lounge and into Stella’s bedroom. Stella was in an easy chair, reading a paper. ‘It’s him, and he’s been cut off,’ she squeaked. Stella pricked up her ears.
‘Could you re-phrase that, Annie?’
‘Yer what, Miss Stella?’ Stella didn’t bother to explain the double entendre.
‘If he’s keen enough, he will ring back within sixty seconds,’ she said. Fifty seconds later the phone went again. She cut across Annie to ensure she reached it first.
‘Hi there,’ said a confused Bernard Goldman. ‘Sorry about the delay; it seems I was cut off.’
‘So I heard,’ said Stella. ‘And you so young too.’
‘Don’t worry, I know a good surgeon.’
‘I hope he works Sundays.’
She could see the survival of a friendship between them being dependent on a continuous supply of one-liners.
He said, ‘I’m downstairs – should I come up?’
She said, ‘I’m upstairs – should I come down?’
‘We could compromise. We can meet up in the lift.’
‘I’ll be down in the lobby –’ she checked her watch ‘– in two minutes and thirty-three seconds.’
‘Could you be a little more precise?’
Incorrigible man, she thought.
Bernard hung up and thanked the receptionist, then he gave a long sigh of relief. He wasn’t used to maintaining this cool, comic approach. But it’s what his brother, Vince, had suggested. ‘Don’t sound dull when you speak with her,’ he had said. ‘She’s a comedienne: she won’t have time for dull people.’
Stella wrapped her ermine across her slender shoulders and put on a pair of long white gloves. Her blonde hair was so short there was little she could do with it except make sure it was tidy.
The lift-gate grated open on the ground floor. A nervous, middle-aged man, who stood no higher than just below her bust, rolled out into the lobby, flushed and cheered. He’d never been so close to such beauty.
As she walked elegantly across the lobby’s marble floor everyone in the vicinity seemed to take a deep breath and hold it.
The handsome American – six feet two inches tall; broad-chested; narrow-waisted; perfectly trimmed Ronald Coleman moustache, which rested beneath a perfect nose and above a mobile mouth which worked around a continuous smile – appeared to glide towards her in slow motion.
His suit was Savile Row and his shoes were handmade. The hat, which he held so easily it could have been an extension of his hand, was made especially for him by the same makers to the Duke of Windsor.
His gloves were the softest of brown leather, and she could believe they’d been measured individually for each finger. The cream-coloured scarf was, not surprisingly, made of cashmere. His narrow dark eyes were attractively wrinkled as though always laughing, and this fractionally unnerved the normally nerveless Stella Raven.
As she took a second to enjoy the mood of the moment she couldn’t help but feel that all that was missing were the one hundred violins. But by his previous record she thought it best not to mention anything. He was just likely to arrange them for the next time – should there be a next time.
He put his arm out for her in a gallant, gentlemanly manner, and unquestioningly she took it. Together they stepped out into the cold, grey afternoon, but it could have been Sunset Boulevard in the middle of a heatwave for all the attention they were paying it.
She swallowed apprehensively as a massive, white Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost pulled up at the front of the hotel. The engine purred like a satisfied cat as the ‘perfect couple’ approached it.
A chauffeur appeared and held open the nearest door. For a second she thought of Woody and Lester and it made her smile.
The car was so spacious they could have been at opposite ends of a room – a big room. ‘Are you having a good time over there?’ she asked, jokingly.
‘The weather could be better,’ he said. ‘How about you?’
‘It could be worse.’
She peered through the window onto the meagre activity of a Sunday afternoon. ‘And where are you taking me, Mr Goldman?’
‘Well, we could visit the Brontës’ place – and the name’s Bernard.’
His eyes flashed like diamonds on black velvet, and she tingled throughout her whole body. ‘But are they expecting us?’
‘Huh?’ He was uncertain what to say. Maybe she was the one person in the world who hadn’t heard of the Yorkshire Brontës. Then he saw, to his relief, humour at the corners of her lambent lips.
He pushed a hand through his short, sandy-brown hair and gave her his broadest smile, almost causing oncoming cars to flash their lights in response. ‘Why don’t we just go back to my brother’s place? He’d love to meet you, I know. He has a cottage in the Dales.’
He studied her pale skin. ‘We can get some colour back into those cheeks,’ he said. He tried to reach across and casually pinch one of them, but the distance between them was too great, and he had to abandon the idea half-way and meekly return his arm to his side. ‘To Bramble Cottage, please, James,’ he instructed the driver. The driver somehow nodded without seeming to move his head.
‘James?’ she questioned, with some disbelief.
‘No kidding; that’s his name.’
They discarded the towns for the panoramic scenes of the undulating openness known as the Dales. Stella was now relaxing and enjoying herself. She had needed to get out. It reminded her of a school trip into the Pennines she’d once gone on.
The car slowed to no more than five miles per hour as a herd of cows were driven from one field to another and wobbled as they disrespectfully brushed against it. In the aftermath Bernard discovered that the gleaming Rolls-Royce was now two-tone.
He shouted to the farmer through his window. ‘Hey, will you take a look at my car. It’s covered in –’ he remembered Stella’s presence ‘– in mess. What are you going to do about it?’
‘Don’t rightly know,’ grunted back the farmer. ‘But leave it wit’ me, and if it sez moo, I’ll ’ave it.’
Stella started laughing, and Bernard felt a little crestfallen. ‘Move on,’ he told James, dejectedly. The farmer touched his cap as they accelerated away. Three or four cows gave what sounded like a splattering of applause. Stella laughed even more as she thought of the one hundred violins accompanying them at the hotel. Bernard folded his arms like a spoilt child and gritted his teeth.
An hour later, maybe a little less, they swung off to the right to follow an even narrower lane. Trees of varying shades of green lined the road, like soldiers in shabby uniform. It was dusk and they crossed a narrow bridge through a pretty hamlet, and the tyres grumbled on a gravel drive. ‘This is it,’ he told her, with the excitement of a schoolboy reaching home after enduring a long term away boarding.
She thought it a rather unusual set-up. Two brothers, Americans, living in England. One was apparently rolling in money but had no fixed address, the other lived a reclusive, very rural existence. Why was his brother so keen to meet her? she wondered. She imagined all would be explained to her quite shortly.
Chapter Thirteen
In spite of their many differences – both physical and characteristic – the Goldman brothers shared the ready smile and easy vitality. ‘So this is Miss Raven,’ said Vince Goldman, in what Stella thought to be a voice tinged with disappointment. She took an immediate dislike to him. It was one of those chemical reactions, where a person can dislike another without having one specific reason.
Everything about Vince Goldman annoyed her: his plumpness, his shortness, his scruffiness, and his smugness. He had an active face that rested on several quavering chins, and even that annoyed her. The fat around his stomach rolled with every tiny movement he made, like a tidal wave threatening to crash down on a beach but never quite carrying it out. ‘And you must be Vince,’ she finally responded. He gave a dramatic bow – not dissimilar to a Milton Keens bow – and released an explosive, husky belly-laugh, as if he’d been saving it up all day, just for that moment.
‘And I’m older than Bernie,’ he told her, ‘but don’t let him kid you that I’m that much older.’
She gave a courteous laugh while thinking, I wouldn’t trust you if you were the last person left walking the planet.
‘Okay, you guys,’ he said, a sudden blur of activity. ‘Follow me, now.’
He was off down a dark, low-ceilinged corridor, with the two of them in hot pursuit.
She busily took in everything around her. She had never before seen so many paintings on so few walls. It sparked off a childhood memory. It was of her mother returning from Lancaster one day with an oil painting she’d picked up in a sale. It was entitled Ship in Distress, and appropriately it depicted a ship fighting for survival on rough waters. It was by a French artist with an unpronounceable name.
