The Diamond Waterfall Page 3

  And always Edmund. So much in love. (No sooner leaving me in the evening, than he must write to me.) Suppers, suppers, suppers—Gatti’s, the Savoy, private rooms at Kettner’s, Romano’s with its butter-colored front, and our favorite table, just behind the glass at the entrance.

  Then, every evening—oh, the danger of it—home by hansom. Not any old hansom cab—Edmund’s own private one, with its glittering harness and liveried driver (he is a viscount, after all). Dark green plush velvet of the upholstery into which I sink—and struggle. But not too hard. Oh, but there is nothing quite like a hansom cab—as it shakes from side to side, throwing us against each other, deliriously….

  Edmund, Viscount Tristram. He had held the title for a year now, since just after his twenty-second birthday. His father’s death, of a heart attack, had been very sudden. Edmund spoke of him movingly, as a devoted parent, completely wrapped up in his Suffolk estate and the care of his tenants. “I intend to be like him,” Edmund told her. That meant marrying, settling down, bringing up a family, thought Lily. How fortunate that she, at twenty-seven, was just ready for that. And fortunate too that he should be so much in love.

  Her mouth full of pins, Evie said, “You’re all right with your viscount, ducky. But—I wouldn’t be too much with Monsewer Firth—”

  “Why’s that, Evie?” said casually. “He’s not the marrying kind, for a start.”

  “He’s here often enough, ducky.”

  “Only when there’s no one else. When Viscount Tristram’s away …”

  But then when Evie said nothing further, perversely she felt a flutter of curiosity. She said, “He seems interested enough in women, if that’s what you mean. Why haunt stage doors here, if men are the interest?”

  “It’s … well, ducky … it’s to do with things that aren’t spoken of…”

  Lily, laughing, said, “Oh, go on. Tell me, do—”

  “He’s—the kind as … he buys little ones. What they call unripe fruit … little girls what haven’t been touched. He’s to pay for them, mind you— they don’t come cheap—”

  She felt faintly sick. “I wish you hadn’t told me,” she said, in a light voice to mask the shock. She felt unclean.

  “Time to dress, ducky. I seen to them stockings.”

  A little close to the knuckle, she thought sometimes, this tale of shopgirl turned duchess. (Real life was the highly moral tale of a Yorkshire chain-store owner’s daughter likely, before 1897 was out, to become a viscountess.) Indeed, recently a journalist from The Lady had hinted at some connection between the heroine and Lily.

  INTERVIEWER: Miss Greene, is it true that you know perhaps, a little, about the life of a shopgirl? That your part is not all acting—

  ME (coldly): I have never served in a flower shop if that is your suggestion —my father owns a chain…. His daughter would hardly expect to stand behind the counter….

  INTERVIEWER (hastily collecting notes together): There is, has been, a break with your family—now happily mended, I understand. Perhaps you could tell our readers a little about your early life? You ran away to go on the stage—

  ME: Yes. My father forbade … Since I have done well, he is quite proud …

  INTERVIEWER: Your family? You said a brother, two sisters?

  ME: Yes, one sister lives at home. She is unmarried. My brother works for my father.

  INTERVIEWER: And the other sister?

  ME: Married. With children …

  And I hastily changed the subject. I had expected the cock to crow, that day. It was as if I had denied Daisy and Joszef. Even Harry a little.

  There was a photograph of Daisy on the table in her theater dressing room. Daisy from the Wycliffe Avenue days. She would have been ashamed to have displayed the present-day Daisy. (Yes, I send her what money I can, and whatever I send, feel always that I should send more.) She did not like to admit that she was embarrassed by her sister. Moving upward, how could she not be dragged down by the truth about Daisy? (For that, she thought, I hate myself.) Yet she continued to keep on her table the photograph which told so little. Only that Daisy had once been far prettier than she….

  What she wanted was to send Daisy’s whole family to America. With enough to set themselves up. (I have heard too many tales of immigrants’ early days—their second state worse than their first.) If, when, Edmund and she were married, it would be easy—I shall have only to ask. He will help. For he has a kind heart…. But first, she thought, I have to tell him. And that I do not look forward to. … I have become a snob.

  The truth was that Daisy had absolutely, but absolutely, lost her looks. Her figure, with its dragged-down look, her colorless, drawn skin—once pink and white. And Joszef, the last time seen: receding hairline, dark velvety eyes bloodshot and anxious. She could not have believed ten years could so alter two people.

  Yet in everything that really mattered, their concern was always for each other—and of course the children. Two sons, two daughters, born in less than six years, brought up in simple surroundings with no help. Poor Daisy, disapproved of from both sides (for Joszef’s family had still not come around, though she had adopted their religion).

  The eldest was little Joe, then Anna, Sara, Ruth. Any money Lily gave went straight into their mouths and onto their backs. Or into the small money box that each child had. Harry told her:

  “Daisy says that their time, it’s over…. But the little ones are to have, one day, the best…. And Lily, as soon as I’m rich—they shall—”

  Dear Harry. So carefully dressed when he came to applaud me and, with money given by Dad, to take me out to Simpson’s. Already becoming, just a little, the person Dad wanted him to be.

  All those years ago, Harry had suffered on her account. She only learned the details now:

  “… I didn’t know a lad could be so black and blue. … He hadn’t the truth out of me for going on three days. Til have it, I will —’ he kept saying. … He was that certain I knew something…. But he never made to go after you at all. Every day it was If she’s expecting I’ll rescue her off the streets …’ Ma was worried, though….”

  And how Dad had punished him.

  “The thrashings, Lily—they weren’t much. It was the disgrace—Ethel and Ma not so much as allowed to speak to me. …”

  He spoke of it a lot that evening: not to bring home to her all he’d done but rather because it’d been perhaps the biggest single event in his (now rather dull) life. And of course, because he loved her. Over and over he told her, “I’d do it again tomorrow.”

  “Overture and beginners …”

  This hot June evening, Lily could sense already another excited expensive Jubilee audience.

  “They’ve been turning them away again, Miss Greene—in their droves…. Miss Greene—the Duke of Sedley has the second box on the prompt side. …” (She thought, I mustn’t forget to sing a few notes in that direction.)

  “Overture and beginners …”

  The Carlton Theatre was a little larger than George Edwardes’ Gaiety. Playing the fringes of the metropolis, Lily had used to hope that one day, looking up on the prompt side, she would see one of George Edwardes’ scouts. Better, that one of his scouts would see her….

  The curtain rose on The Duke and the Shopgirl. The chorus sang plaintively of their long hours in the shop, and short nights in the attics above. Waked at five, wash, comb, and downstairs to receive the day’s stock.

  Enter Mr. Malcutt, manager. No real-life shop could support so many assistants for so small a stock, but how the audience loved this bevy of beauties who bowed, and sidestepped, in stately fashion (the great stunning picture hats for Jubilee Year would not appear until Act Two—not reach their apogee until Act Three).

  Roll call. “Where is Miss Dainty?” The girls look at each other, finger on lips. “Three more minutes —and Miss Dainty is dismissed….” Consternation. And then, just in time to save her skin, the bow of her shop dress defiantly askew, here is the tomboyish, the naughty Cynt
hia Dainty, alias Lily Greene.

  An ovation. But Lily is used to it—a quick glance now up to the box where an evening-coated duke sits, double-barrelled opera glass trained on her. (It was from that box, three months ago, that Edmund first saw me.)

  Miss Dainty is safe, for today. Mr. Malcutt leaves. And the Duke of Moberley, Hero, enters.

  “I come to buy flowers and fruit for the most beautiful woman in London … the actress Bathsheba Rebecca.”

  And then since we have a real-life duke in the house, what about an apparent ad lib? Turning, throwing his voice (Miss Dainty: “Why do you stare so?”) and the line with extra meaning: “A duke may look at an actress, may he not?”

  He has a song in praise of Bathsheba, and when he has left, Lily sings it too—in praise of him.

  Thirty minutes to go … soon all the complications (rival for the duke’s affections, villainous uncle-solicitor, duke in disguise as a shop assistant) will be resolved. A Happy Ending beckons.

  As Lily stands center stage, a basket of fruit in her hand, the Duke of Moberley sings:

  “What a skin, what a bloom,

  It’s the very finest peach

  If only I could reach

  (“if only he could reach” sings the chorus)

  Up to her room …

  What a bloom, what a skin

  Would it be such a sin?”

  Any moment now, applause. Encores. Calls for Miss Greene. Lily Greene née Lily Greenwood. I am a success.

  The duke back again behind his opera glass. In the interval, she had been presented to him. It would do for excitement, since Edmund could not be there…. Then next, supper at the Savoy with Lionel Firth. Since Edmund …

  “My dear Miss Greene, may I introduce a new, but very fervent admirer … my brother, Robert.”

  Although she had dined with Lionel alone twice, she was happier with him in the company of others. His dark good looks had about them something raffish, sinister almost, which at once attracted and frightened her. Cynical and astringent too, which she found satisfying after too much flattery. (No need to take him seriously, though—even less so after Evie’s disgusting revelations.)

  “A new admirer,” said Robert in a deep voice, “and already your devoted slave.” Older, stockier than Lionel, but equally dark-haired.

  Lionel explained, “My brother has left the family seat for two weeks of the fleshpots.”

  Of course. The brother, the older Firth—so often thrown casually into Lionel’s conversation. (“… As my dear brother said only last week, evenings spent with actresses …”)

  Sir Robert Firth. Sir Robert. I think, she remembered, as he walked a little behind them, it was a title received for some public work or other…. A widower too. Always a pitiful sight. Rich, too. Money enough for Lionel to idle away his days, to be all the Season in London, to be up in Yorkshire when it pleased him….

  A firm, almost too firm, handshake. A deliberate, slightly monotonous voice. But in many ways—another Lionel. Although not, she suspected, an amusing one.

  Gilt, plush, chandeliers, cigar smoke. It was cigar smoke she noticed first always—every time a slight, pleasurable stinging of the eyes. As she came into the restaurant, the Hungarian band was playing Leslie Stuart’s “Soldiers of the Queen,” revived for the Jubilee. At once they broke off, and in her honor played “What a Skin, What a Bloom …” Heads turned.

  They were a party of six. She and Lionel, a Mrs. Kingswood (a widow— hoping perhaps for Sir Robert?), Robert, Captain McArthur—a friend of Lionel’s whom she knew a little—and a Miss Bateman, young and pretty.

  Captain McArthur was a musical comedy aficionado, and not pleased when Mrs. Kingswood spoke critically of the form. For him, Lily’s show was quite simply the best…. Lionel said, “Anything to do with rags to riches is sure of a welcome if it’s brightly done—as happens of course at the Carlton…. Although,” he added, “I’m surprised we have not had yet The Duke and the Typewriter”

  “Ah yes,” Sir Robert said, “typewriters. Those ladies who use the new machines …”

  Captain McArthur said, “Typewriters haven’t the romance of shopgirls. There’s something too worthy about them—an odor of the New Woman. But it would do for a comic sketch—”

  “It has been done, I rather think,” Lily said, spooning her crayfish bisque. Lionel agreed. Mrs. Kingswood shuddered at the mention of New Woman.

  The band played “Dear Little Jappy Jap Jappy” and “The Amorous Goldfish” from last year’s hit, The Geisha. Conversation turned to Yankee heiresses. Always a fruitful subject, Captain McArthur said. He would not refuse one, if offered. Lionel, who had been catching up on news from Yorkshire, said, “My brother tells me Hawksworth at the Hall has netted an enormous catch. A Philadelphia—or is it Chicago?—heiress. And very oofy, very oofy indeed. That family won’t want—”

  “How was it done?”

  “A visit here. Earlier this year. He did not even need to cross the pond. They marry at Christmas, I believe.”

  Mrs. Kingswood turned to Sir Robert. “How is young Miss Alice? Any improvement?”

  “A little. Her governess finds her difficult still.”

  “Your daughter?” Lily said to him. “Lionel told me you have one—”

  “Yes. Alice. She is twelve. She took her mother’s death very hard.”

  Farther down the table, the subject was the Jubilee again. Captain McArthur said, “I was here a few evenings ago, when the band played the anthem. God save Her if the whole restaurant didn’t stand up, cheering and waving napkins. Food grew cold on the plates…. Really, one may have too much of a good thing.”

  “Oh,” cried Miss Bateman, the first time she’d spoken. “How too too TwoTwo, don’t you think?”

  “… and such jams with the traffic,” Lionel was saying. “I saw a fellow walk along the tops of the cabs in Berkeley Street. Quite a circus turn…. And then the day of the procession itself—”

  “Ah those Indian princes,” said Mrs. Kingswood. “Their coats … the diamonds …”

  Lionel turned to Lily. “Diamonds indeed. Diamonds galore. My brother here is the owner of a remarkable piece of jewelry. A family possession since the sixties….” He bent nearer. “You’ve heard of a rain of diamonds? Well, this is a waterfall of them. A style favored by Empress Eugénie and very fashionable at the time. The diamonds are articulated, you see, and move with the wearer…. It’s a necklace so lavish it is almost a corsage. We call it simply The Diamond Waterfall.’ … It is very spectacular.”

  Lily made no comment. He went on:

  “Naturally these past few years it hasn’t been worn. My late sister-in-law, of course. … It is a piece too that wears the woman, not the other way about.” He spoke in a confidential tone, his voice low.

  Miss Bateman, who had nevertheless been listening, said, “I should adore to see—”

  Sir Robert, who had heard too, leaning forward, said gallantly, “You shall, my dear, you shall.” He turned to Lily:

  “And you, Miss Greene—would it interest you?”

  She had hardly been listening. “Oh, I scarcely think so,” she said carelessly. “I am not much set on jewelry, you know….” (Although I have, have I not, a sapphire bracelet from Edmund? I broke all the rules for that. Never to accept …)

  “Oh come now,” Lionel said. “That doesn’t sound like our Miss Greene …” He persisted, saying to all the table, “It is a beautiful sight. On or off. No mere rain of diamonds. A waterfall—”

  “Yes, indeed, yes.” She caught his brother’s eye. Sir Robert stared at her. To show she had meant nothing by her remarks, she smiled.

  At that moment the Hungarian band launched into a selection from Dorothy. First a light, prancing number. Then a quieter, more romantic one. Sir Robert—she saw that he watched her still—said:

  “You know it—what show this is from?”

  “Yes, yes, I know it.” She thought again, He is a widower and that is pitiful. “Dorothy. Frank C
ellier. Always popular. It wasn’t new, even ten years ago.”

  Pity. I don’t care for pity. Once, it was nearly my undoing…. She felt that she could not bear it—this rush of memory, emotion.

  Sir Robert was insisting, though, “This song—what is it called?”

  “ ‘Queen of My Heart,’ ” she said promptly. “It is called ‘Queen of My Heart.’”

  2

  I had to be hard in those days, she thought. Yet hearing the song now, she was reminded only of pity, and the irony of that pity. I concerned myself with the wrong person, she thought. A foolish heart (mine) betrayed me, blinding me to what I should have seen.

  Two memories, the song brings back, one shameful, the other of a sadness I can hardly bear now to remember.

  Escaped! That first terrifying, wonderful day, ten years ago now yet seeming so much more. I was both afraid and happy—afraid they would come after me, that Harry would be punished on my account; that worse might befall Daisy and I not there to help.

  Sitting there in the London-bound train (I had thought it would never come into the station, that the whistle would never blow), I saw myself in a play, a melodrama perhaps—I felt I had Runaway Daughter written all over me.

  At Kings Cross station it was raining, summer rain. I hailed a porter and then a cab, assuming a confidence I did not feel. (I knew nothing of London. Might not my pocket be picked, my person assaulted?) Deep in my hamper was the little notebook with its precious list of theatrical lodgings. I said miserably, throwing myself on the cab driver’s mercy:

  “If you know where I might lodge, where a young woman alone—”

  “Does your mother know you’re out?” He scratched his head, laughing at me. Catch phrase or not it was too near the truth. In those few seconds I saw myself returned to Leeds like a misrouted parcel. Then:

  “Berridges,” he said. “Gray’s Inn Road, just off. There in a jiffy, miss.”

  Oh blessed relief. It was a good hotel, but more expensive than I had intended. And too, I did not feel completely safe—for I had signed the register with my new name. Proudly: Lily Greene. But now I thought, It is too like, if anyone is searching for a Greenwood, of a certain age and description.