“The audience applauded,” I said.
“They always do when it’s a newcomer. Even audiences have their sentimental moments.”
“So you think that’s all it was.”
He nodded and turned to my mother. “As for you, madam, you be careful what you eat in future. Don’t let it happen again. The audience wouldn’t stand for it. Maud would be off in a week if we had any more of that.”
So, I thought, this is the end of Lisa’s little triumph.
I was sitting in the park with Roderick. It was a week after Lisa Fennell had taken my mother’s place in Countess Maud. I was telling Roderick about it.
He said: “I suppose that sort of thing happens often in the theatre?”
“Oh yes. It’s quite a common occurrence. There is great consternation all the same when the leading player is unable to be there.”
“That girl has courage to face an audience who would obviously have preferred someone else.”
“Lisa was overjoyed. She did her best to show concern about my mother—and of course she was concerned—but she couldn’t hide her joy. After all, it was only a bilious attack … uncomfortable at the time, but it soon passed. As you can imagine, there was tremendous drama at the time. Dolly—that’s Donald Dollington—made sure of that. I think at heart he enjoys a crisis. It gives him a chance to display his dramatic talents.”
“How did the play go?”
“Quite well. I think Lisa is clever to have done it. Of course, there is something very special about my mother. It’s more than being able to sing and dance. It’s personality.”
“The girl seems to have a pleasant personality.”
“It’s not the same. It was a pity Lisa had to follow someone like my mother.”
“We were talking the other day … do you remember? … when she joined us.”
“I remember.”
“About this … situation. What are we going to do, Noelle?”
“You’d be very welcome at our house, you know. I mentioned to my mother that we had met and she did not seem to think there was anything extraordinary about it.”
“It’s a ridiculous situation. Just because your mother and my father had a sort of romantic friendship, you and I are uneasy about meeting.”
“But we do meet. Perhaps it is just our feeling and we are imagining something which isn’t there.”
“My father was uneasy when I appeared at your house. He has never mentioned it, actually, which is odd. I sense that he wants to keep his friendship with your mother apart from his home life.”
“That implies, of course, that it was rather a special friendship.”
“What of your father? He must have died a long time ago?”
“I’m not sure. My mother doesn’t talk about him very much. She makes it clear that she doesn’t want to. All that she will say is that he was a very fine man, someone for me to be proud of.”
“She never mentions when he died, or how?”
“No. Desiree can be very firm when she wants to, although mostly she is so easygoing. She’s made it clear that she doesn’t want to talk about him. I sometimes wonder if they parted. You see, she had this burning ambition to succeed on the stage. It might have been something to do with that. I often wonder whether he is still alive and one day I shall see him. But she has certainly made it clear that she does not want to speak of him.”
He nodded. “And then … of course … she just has friends … like my father.”
“There’s a Frenchman, too. He comes and goes just as your father does. Those two have always been coming and going, for as long as I can remember. I have always known that they were her special friends.”
“Of course, she is a very attractive person and she doesn’t live exactly conventionally in any way.”
“Oh yes. She doesn’t conform to the rules of society. I am sure she understands that your mother and Robert’s wife … I presume he has a wife … most men have … I’m sure she understands they would not approve of her friendship with them. She would say, well, it is better they do not know. She would respect their views and wouldn’t want to upset them in any way. She never makes any demands on her friends. She’s fond of them … you see, it is her way of life.”
“I do understand all that, but I am thinking of how it affects us.”
“Well, no one has suggested we should not meet. We shall have to see what happens.”
Roderick was not very satisfied, and I was thinking that this conversation was an indication of the way in which our friendship was progressing. We were no longer merely acquaintances.
We chatted of other things, but I knew that at the back of his mind was the thought that because of the relationship between our parents we were in a situation which he would like to change.
When I arrived home I was met by consternation.
My mother was laid low with another attack similar to that which she had had before.
Dolly was already there. He was in my mother’s bedroom. She was prostrate and looked very pale.
She said: “Oh, here’s Noelle. Thank God you’re here, darling. I feel better when you’re around. It’s another of those silly attacks. Something I’ve eaten again.”
I looked at her in dismay. It could not be. It must be something else … something serious. I felt a terrible anxiety creeping over me. She had always seemed so young … so full of vitality.
“I think we should get a doctor,” said Martha.
“No, no,” cried my mother. “It’s my stupid digestion. I ate too much at lunch. Well, I’ve learned my lesson.”
Lisa was there … anxious, on tenterhooks. She seemed as though she was trying to calm herself.
“If I’m no better tomorrow, I’ll see the doctor,” said my mother. “The important thing is the show tonight.”
Dolly gave a repeat of his previous performance, reproaching the Almighty, demanding to know what he had done to deserve this. Countess Maud was set for a record run. Why should the powers that be want to ruin that? Desiree was Countess Maud, and here he was, in such a short time, having to use the understudy again. What was Heaven thinking of? It hadn’t even been a decent interval, and here it was again.
Martha said: “Let’s get down to what’s what, eh? Let’s see what we’ve got to do. “
It was the same as before. Lisa went on. I was not there, but I heard she had improved her performance. It was not such a blatant replica of Desiree’s. But the audience was lukewarm. What could one expect? They had come to see Desiree and had been fobbed off with Lisa Fennell.
I saw her after the show. She was exhausted and less elated than on the previous occasion.
“I could do it,” she said almost angrily. “But one needs practice. If I had a week’s run I’d be all right.”
“You’re fine and you took it on at such short notice, and you haven’t really had a lot of practice on the professional stage. It was really remarkable. They realize that. They don’t tell you so, but they do. You know what Dolly is. He scoffs at my mother sometimes.”
I was sorry for Lisa. She had tried so hard and she had done very well. It was merely that she could not compare with Desiree.
I doubted there was an actress in London who could have done that.
The next morning, in spite of my mother’s protests, we called in the doctor.
Martha said it was too much of a coincidence that she should have eaten tainted food on two occasions so close together. No one else had suffered. It was better for the doctor to come.
My mother was completely restored and apologized to Dr. Green when he arrived.
“Your visit is not really necessary,” she said. “It’s these people who insisted on your coming. The trouble was that I had eaten something which didn’t agree with me and I was a little bilious and dizzy with it, so that I could not get to the theatre last night.”