Daughter of Deceit (3 page)

There came a day when Dolly called at the house in that certain frame of mind which I now knew meant that he had found what he called an excellent “vehicle” for Desiree. It often happened that what he considered excellent was in her opinion plain rubbish, and then we were prepared for trouble. It came.

I sat on the stairs near the drawing room, listening. Not that that presented any strain. Their raised voices reached most parts of the house.

“The lyrics are awful.” That was my mother. “I’d be ashamed to sing them.”

“They’re delightful and will please your public.” “Then you must have a poor opinion of my public.” “I know all there is to know about your public.” “And in your opinion they are only worth rubbish.” “You must get this notion right out of your little head.” “If your opinion of me is as low as that, then I think we have come to the parting of the ways.”

“My opinion of you is that you are a good musical comedy actress and many like you have come to grief by fancying themselves too good for their public.”

“Dolly, I hate you.”

“Desiree, I love you, but you are an idiot and I can tell you this. You’d still be in the back row of the chorus if you had not had me to look after you. Now, be a good girl and have another look at
Maud.
”

“I hate
Maud,
and those lyrics embarrass me.”

“You, embarrassed! You’ve never been embarrassed in your life! Why,
Maud
is grand opera compared with
Follow Your Leader!”

“I don’t agree.”

“A good title, too.
Countess Maud.
They’ll love it. They’ll all want to see the Countess.”

“I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.”

“Well then, there’s only one thing for me to do. I shall get Lottie Langdon to do it. You’ll be green with envy when you see what she makes of it.”

“Lottie Langdon!”

“Why not? She’d fit the part well.”

“Her top notes are shaky.”

“That has a special appeal to some people. They’ll love the story. The shopgirl who is really the daughter of the Earl of Somewhere. It’s just what they like. Well, I’ll be off … to see Lottie.”

There was silence.

“All right,” said Dolly at length. “I’ll give you till tomorrow morning. Then I want a straight answer. Yes or no.”

He came out of the room. I watched him go and then I went up to my room. I felt certain that soon my mother would be plunging into rehearsals for
Countess Maud.

I was right. Dolly was paying frequent visits to the house. George Garland, the pianist who always worked with my mother, was in constant attendance, and the household was humming tunes from
Countess Maud.

Dolly appeared every day with new ideas which had to be fought out; Martha was dashing round finding patterns and buying what would be needed. It was that period with which we were all familiar, and we should all be relieved when the alarms that flared up during it were over and the first night’s misgivings were proved to have no foundations and we were settled for a long run.

We were getting near opening night and my mother was in a state of nervous tension. She had always been uneasy about
Countess Maud,
she declared; she wasn’t sure of the lyrics and she thought she should be wearing blue, not pink, for the opening scene. She was sure her gown would clash with the costumes of the chorus; she was getting a little husky. What if she should have a sore throat on the opening night?

I said to her: “You are thinking of every calamity which could befall you. You always do and they never have. The audience will love you and
Countess Maud
is going to be one of your greatest successes.”

“Thank you, pet. You are a comfort to me. There’s something I’ve just remembered. I can’t possibly dine with Charlie tonight.”

“Is he in London?”

“He will be. He’s coming up today. I’ve got a rehearsal this afternoon and I’m not satisfied with the dance routine with Sir Garnet in the last scene, when he sings: ‘I’d love you if you were a shopgirl still.’ “

“What’s wrong with it?”

“I think he ought to come on from the other side … and I’ve got to make sure I don’t drop my feather boa when I do that quick twirl at the end. But the point is, I’ve got to let Charlie know. Take a note to him for me, will you, darling?”

“Of course. Where is he?”

It suddenly struck me as odd that, close friends as we were with Charlie, I did not know his London address. When he was in London he was constantly visiting us. In fact, sometimes it seemed. as though he lived with us. My mother might have visited him, but I never had. The same applied to Robert Bouchere … though, of course, his home was really in France.

All the same, there was a vague mystery about these two men.

They came and went. I often wondered what they were doing when they were not with us.

However, this was an opportunity to see where Charlie had his London residence, and I seized upon it.

I found the house. It was close to Hyde Park. It was small but typically eighteenth century in origin, with an Adam doorway and spiderweb fanlight.

I rang the bell and a neatly dressed parlourmaid opened the door. I asked if I might see Mr. Claverham.

“Would that be Mr. Charles Claverham, miss, or Mr. Roderick?”

“Oh, Mr. Charles, please.”

She took me into a drawing room where the furnishings matched the house. The heavy velvet curtains at the window toned with the delicate green of the carpet and I could not help comparing the simple elegance with our more solid contemporary style.

The parlourmaid did not return. Instead, a young man entered the room. He was tall and slim with dark hair and friendly brown eyes.

He said: “You wanted to see my father. I’m afraid he’s not here just now. He won’t be in until the afternoon. I wonder if I can help?”

“I have a letter for him. Perhaps I could leave it with you?”

“But of course.”

“It’s from my mother. Desiree, you know.”

“Desiree. Isn’t that the actress?”

I thought how strange it was that Charlie, who was one of my mother’s greatest friends, should not have mentioned her to his son.

“Yes,” I said, and gave him the letter.

“I’ll see that he gets it as soon as he comes in. Won’t you sit down?”

I have always been of an enquiring nature and, because there seemed to be something mysterious in my own background, I suspected there might be in others’. I had always wanted to discover as much as I could about the people I met and I was especially interested now. So I accepted with alacrity.

I said: “I wonder we have not met before. My mother and your father are such great friends. I remember your father from the days when I was very small.”

“Well, I don’t come to London much, you know. I have just finished at university and now I expect I shall be a great deal in the country.”

“I have heard of the country house—in Kent, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s right. Do you know Kent?”

“I just know it is down in the corner of the map … right on the edge.”

He laughed. “That’s not really knowing Kent. It’s more than a brown blob on a map.”

“Well then, I don’t know Kent.”

“You should. It’s a most interesting county. But then I suppose all places are when you start investigating them.”

“Like people.”

He smiled at me. I could see he wanted to detain me as much as I wanted to stay, and he was trying to think of some subject which would interest me.

I said: “We’re in London all the time. My mother’s profession keeps her there. She’s either getting ready for a play or acting in one. She has to do a lot of rehearsals and that sort of thing. And then she has those times when she’s resting. That’s what they call it when they are waiting for something to turn up.”

“It must be very interesting.”

“It’s fascinating. The house is always full of people. She has so many friends.”

“I suppose she would have.”

“There’s to be a first night soon. At the moment we are at that stage when she is getting anxious as to how it is going to turn out.”

“It must be quite alarming.”

“Oh, it is. She has something to do this afternoon and doesn’t know when she’ll be finished. That is why she has to cancel …”

He nodded.

“Well, I’m having the pleasure of meeting you.”

“Your father must have told you a lot about her. He’s always so interested in the plays. He’s always at first nights.”

He looked a little vague, and I went on: “So you are staying in the country when you leave here?”

“Oh yes. I shall help with the estate.”

“Estate? What does that mean?”

“It’s quite a lot of land … with farms and that sort of thing. We have to manage it. The family has been doing it for centuries. Family tradition and all that.”

“Oh, I see.”

“My grandfather did it … my father did it … and I shall do it.”

“Have you any brothers and sisters?”

“No. I’m the only one. So, you see, it falls on me.”

“I suppose it is what you want.”

“Of course. I love the estate. It’s my home, and now this new discovery … that makes it very exciting.”

“New discovery?”

“Hasn’t my father mentioned it?”

“I don’t remember his ever mentioning anything about the estate. Perhaps he does to my mother.”

“I am sure he must have told her about what has been found there.”

“I haven’t heard. Is it a secret? If it is, I won’t ask about it.”

“It’s no secret. It was in the press. It’s most exciting. They were ploughing up one of the fields near the river. The sea used to come right up to our land a thousand years ago. It has receded over the centuries and we’re now about a mile and a half away. It happens gradually, you know. But what makes it so exciting is that the Romans used the place as a sort of port where they landed supplies, and of course all around was like a settlement. We’ve unearthed one of their villas. It’s a fantastic discovery.”

“Roman remains,” I said.

“Yes, indeed. We’re in Roman country. Naturally we would be. They landed first in Kent, didn’t they? I know the spot in Deal … only a few miles from us. There’s a plaque there which says: ‘Julius Caesar landed here 55 B.C.’ “

“How interesting!”

“You can stand there and imagine all those Romans coming
ashore to the astonishment of the Ancient Britons in their woad. Poor things! But it was good in the end. They did so much for Britain. Just imagine how excited we were to find evidence of their being on our land!”

“You
are
very excited about it, aren’t you?”

“Of course. Particularly as I had studied a little archaeology. Just as a hobby, really. I did feel at one time that I should have liked to make a profession of it, but I knew what I had to do. Noblesse oblige and all that.”

“But you would rather have made archaeology your career?”

“I used to think so. Then I reminded myself that it is fraught with disappointments. One dreams of making miraculous discoveries … but most of it is digging and hoping. For one triumph there are a thousand disappointments. I have been on digs with students. We did not find anything but a few pieces of earthenware which we hoped had come from some Roman or Saxon home of centuries ago, but they turned out to have been thrown out by some housewife a few months before!”

I laughed. “Well, that is typical of life.”

“You are right. And I have been talking about myself all this time, which is an appalling lack of social grace, I believe.”

“Not if the other member of the party is interested, and I have been very much so. Tell me about your own house.”

“It’s ancient.”

“I gathered that … with all those centuries of Claverhams doing their duty to the estate.”

“I sometimes think that houses can dominate families.”

“Presenting a duty to its members who are not sure whether they wouldn’t rather be digging up the past?”

“I see I shall have to be careful what I say to you. You have too good a memory.”

I was rather pleased. There was a suggestion here that he believed this first meeting of ours would not be the only one.

“But it must be wonderful to trace your family back all that time,” I said, remembering that I could not go back farther than my mother.

“Some of the parts of the house are really very old—Saxon in
parts, but of course that has been lost in the necessary restorations which have been going on over the years.”

“Is it haunted?”

“Well, there are always legends attached to houses which have been in existence for so long. So naturally we have gathered a few spectres on the way.”