Chapter Nineteen #2
I only have to prompt once, when Ned Pollock forgets a line – Mrs Crocker will be amused to hear that!
Fortunately, I had the script open on the correct page, and by fluke managed to find the place without delay.
At the end, the audience, such as it is, claps loudly and jumps to its feet.
The actors take their bows with satisfaction.
They know they’ve done a good job. Nessa gets the loudest applause, and she takes Ned’s hand and they bow together.
Her face is alight with pleasure. She’s soaking up the adulation like a dry sponge.
A lump wedges itself in my throat and I feel my eyes sting with tears.
She should be on the West End stage. She should be a celebrated actor.
But she’ll die tomorrow in a fire. It’s so unjust. So much talent, vitality, joy – gone.
Surely, if her father were to see her perform he would understand why she wants to do it so badly.
He would allow her to realise her dream.
Why on earth would he not? She’s brilliant.
Yet, he’ll never get the chance to see her on stage.
He’ll never get the chance to be a better father.
A better man. It makes me so angry, because I imagine he’ll spend the rest of his life regretting this silly feud.
When his daughter is dead, won’t he wish he had been a bigger person?
Why do people wake up to their folly only when it’s too late?
The curtain goes down and Mr Bentley takes centre stage.
He claps and the cast respond with cries of delight.
‘By Jove, you nailed it!’ he exclaims happily.
‘You really nailed it. What a show! What performances. You, Miss Blunt, were simply sublime!’ He turns to Nessa and her face grows red with the warmth of his unexpected attention.
‘I don’t think I have ever seen a more magnificent Lady Macbeth.
Truly, I haven’t. You were tremendous!’ He seems to be looking at her with fresh eyes, as if seeing her for the first time.
She grows taller in the glare of his admiration and for the first time, she looks beautiful.
The transformation is staggering. Water taking the shape of the vessel it fills.
Right now, Nessa is taking the shape of the woman Taran perceives her to be.
Not Nessa Blunt, understudy to the golden Gilda Garrett, but Nessa Blunt, Lady Macbeth. And Lady Macbeth is ravishing.
There are a few things that need tweaking, and Mr Bentley goes through them one by one.
There are various lighting issues, and the thunder clapped at the wrong moment, apparently, although I didn’t notice.
One of the stagehands dropped a goblet and one of the set panels was stiff to turn during one of the scene changes.
Minor things that can be easily resolved.
Everyone is enthusiastic about the first night tomorrow.
Their joy breaks my heart. I have a constant nervous feeling burning just below my ribcage and I have to bite my tongue in order to withhold what I know.
Although, I’m aware that if I told them, they wouldn’t believe me.
Once again, I’m in the horrible position of knowing what is going to happen but being unable to stop it.
An occupational hazard, for sure, but miserable none the less.
When the cast is dismissed, Mr Bentley asks Nessa to wait behind. I pretend I’m distracted fussing over the script in the wing and secretly eavesdrop on their conversation.
‘You’re too good for amateur theatre, Miss Blunt,’ he tells her. ‘You should go to London.’
‘I wouldn’t know where to begin,’ she replies. Her voice is as light as flour.
‘I can help you. I have contacts. I can introduce you to some casting agents, set you up with auditions. I think you have what it takes to be a great actress.’
‘Really?’
She seems to have forgotten what she saw here the other night.
‘I mean it.’ He sighs and shakes his head. ‘I don’t know why I’ve never noticed you before.’
‘Because I’ve been in Gilda’s shadow,’ says Nessa reasonably, and there’s no bitterness in her words. She’s much too cunning to reveal what she really thinks. What she saw.
‘Oh, my poor, hopeless, broken heart’ is repaired with hope.
‘Leave it with me and I’ll see what I can do.’
‘If Gilda is unwell again tomorrow, I will be able to perform again,’ she says keenly. I see in my mind’s eye another cup of tea, and shiver with apprehension.
Mr Bentley nods. ‘It’s of no consequence, my dear. I’ve seen you act. That’s enough for me.’ He pats her arm, leaving it there a beat too long. ‘You’re London-bound, Vanessa Blunt. The West End awaits you.’
He doesn’t tell her that he’s going to London as well. I wonder, if Nessa had lived, might they have gone together?
Nessa and Lavinia are in high spirits as we walk home through the dusk.
The sun is sinking behind the roofs of Seacombe, leaving a roseate glow in the sky and purple bruises on the clouds.
It’s a sad and beautiful sunset. I’d like to be sitting with Cavill in that secret cove that’s his and Eddie’s usual place, watching this celestial show play out over the sea.
My mind drifts to the gulls, and I see him there with his paints and easel, while Eddie lounges on the blanket beside him, long after I am gone.
My heart sickens with yearning. How can I bear it?
How can I bear to leave?
Nessa and Lavinia chatter away. They’re like a pair of parrots, repeating compliments and squawking with laughter. When we reach the house, Lavinia turns to Nessa and says, ‘I hope Gilda is unwell again tomorrow, then you’ll get the chance to play Lady Macbeth in front of your mamma and papa.’
The door opens and Mrs Crocker stands aside to let us in.
‘That is my intention,’ Nessa replies, and her voice is confident, as if she knows it will be so.
‘Was it a success?’ Mrs Crocker asks as we take off our coats in the hall.
‘A resounding success,’ gushes Nessa, handing her coat to Mrs Crocker without thanking her.
‘The girls did very well,’ I add, and watch them bound up the stairs like a pair of witches to their coven.
If they did indeed put something in Gilda’s tea, how are they going to do the same tomorrow if she doesn’t come to the theatre?
I make a mental note to read Nessa’s journal tomorrow.
If she did indeed poison Gilda, she might admit it in her diary.
‘Ned only forgot one line,’ I add, and Mrs Crocker smiles with pleasure.
I wonder whether she isn’t a little sweet on him.
She takes my coat and hangs it up. I’m about to go upstairs to change before supper, which is what I know I’m expected to do, when I notice a handwritten note on the silver salver on the hall table. It’s the same handwriting as the one on the letter I was reading when I arrived. Cavill.
I take it with me to my bedroom with mounting excitement.
While Mrs Crocker is in the bathroom running me a bath, I sit at the dressing table and open it.
To my surprise it’s not a letter at all, but a beautifully rendered sketch of a teal.
Beneath the drawing are the words, my darling Eddie, my inspiration, my joy, my love.
I stare at the teal in wonder, feeling a mixture of happiness and sorrow, for I will have to leave it here in the past. Unlike his sketchbook that I found in the library at St Sidwell Manor, this lovely drawing will not turn up in 2014.
It will be Eddie’s to treasure, commemorating a time she will not remember.
I press the paper to my breast and stare at Eddie’s face reflected in the mirror in front of me.
None of this is mine. The letter, the sketch, the love.
Every moment lived as Eddie is a moment stolen from her, and Cavill will never know that I even exist. It occurs to me suddenly in a moment of painful lucidity, that I need to tell him the truth, not only for his sake, but for Eddie’s too.
When I leave, Eddie won’t remember the last five days.
She’ll wake up as if she’s had amnesia. The difference this time from when I was Hermione Swift and Constance Fleet is that Cavill and Eddie loved each other before I came onto the scene.
And they will doubtlessly love each other after I’ve slid back.
I have made no impression at all on Cavill.
I haven’t made him love Eddie more – I’ve simply stepped into Eddie’s body and enjoyed living vicariously through her.
I hoped that he would see me when he looked deeply into her eyes, but he did not.
How could he have? It was a delusion. A sad, hopeless delusion of which I am now ashamed.
I owe it to Eddie to tell Cavill what I have done, what I’ve taken, who I am.
And let this charade never happen again.
I slip the teal into the gap in the mirror frame for Eddie to find when she wakes up. I touch it with the tips of my fingers and feel a sharp pain in my chest.
None of this belongs to me.