Debutantes (20 page)

‘Why is three-quarters of it bare?’ asked Daisy, and then answered her own question as she realized that the cameraman and the actors and actresses would have to have their own space. She gazed around and then focused on the throne and a marble bust on a plinth. She went over and touched it. Though pure white it was warm to the touch and a flake of whitewash came off on her finger.

‘Made from clay, of course; and the throne was built by one of my lads and then covered with a few yards of material from Petticoat Lane. The illusion is the thing in filming – what do you think of the portraits, by the way?’

‘Are they real?’ asked Daisy.

Sir Guy chuckled. ‘Done by my latest recruit. Anyway, come and meet my lads. You can see the rest of the site later on.’

Sir Guy’s studio reminded Daisy of the activity of the hen house at home. Some of the workers were rummaging in untidy piles of film, some were chopping pieces of film with decisive snaps of the scissors, one young man was striding up and down completely lost in thought, another was chatting brightly on the phone with ‘darlings’ sprinkled into every sentence, and in one corner a very pale young man gilded some swirling scrolls embossed on a clay plaque.

‘More decorations for Buckingham Palace,’ said Sir Guy. ‘How are you today, Fred? Shivers and aches gone?’

The young man called Fred looked up, saw Daisy, and then jumped to his feet. He was staring at her so intently that she was slightly embarrassed. However, a long look in the glass in the Buckingham Palace set had convinced her that she was looking her best so she smiled at him – he was rather handsome.

‘Fred is just back from India,’ explained Sir Guy after he had introduced them. ‘He picked up malaria there and so he keeps running temperatures. He was working in the Corps of Royal Engineers as a draughtsman in the Indian Army, but he had to resign. Their loss: our gain!’

‘Did you do those portraits?’ asked Daisy eagerly, and when he nodded she said impulsively, ‘They’re wonderful!’

‘Does all our title cards too,’ said Sir Guy. ‘A great man for borders and lettering. Really distinctive. He can find a font for every mood in the picture. Look at these! Don’t think any other studio could beat them.’

As Sir Guy ushered Daisy around the room, introducing her to the cameramen, the film technician, the story writer, the pianist and the set builder, she was conscious that Fred’s eyes followed her all the time.

Sir Guy had introduced her as Daisy and after a while she began to feel part of the team, lending a hand here and there, pegging up film, giving her opinions on a choice of cushions to the set builder, suggesting a word to the story writer – and then she sat on the bench and had a go at splicing film, a job that she flattered herself she did neatly. She smiled modestly when Harry, the technician, expressed the opinion that she was a natural.

‘It’s those dainty little fingers that do it,’ he said gallantly, taking care to lower his voice so that Sir Guy did not hear him.

Daisy giggled at the remarks and compliments that were being paid to her. She thought they were all a lot nicer and more fun than the young men she had met at the Duchess’s house. By the time they all sat down to a lunch of cold baked beans on toast with cold German sausage chopped into it, she felt as though she had known them all her life. The admiring looks were a nice change, she thought, for a girl who was used to being overshadowed by two spectacularly beautiful sisters.

But while she was scraping out the last of the tin, Fred joined her, cutting off a tiny portion of German sausage. Just an excuse, she felt. He had a slice of toast, heaped with beans and slices of sausage, still untouched on his plate.

‘Sorry if I’ve been staring at you a bit,’ he said, clearly embarrassed. ‘The thing is that when I was on board the ship coming back from India, I met someone who was the image of you.’

‘Of me?’ Daisy turned to look at him with her eyebrows raised.

‘She was older than you, of course. But as like you as a twin.’

‘Funny,’ said Daisy. ‘I am a twin, but we’re not a bit alike.’

‘It’s just,’ said Fred apologetically, ‘that this lady was very nice to me. I had run out of quinine and she saw me shivering and gave me some. She told me that her husband had malaria for years and she automatically packed it everywhere she went in case he suddenly became unconscious. In fact, she insisted on giving me all she had. Her husband was dead, she said. She never got malaria herself so she didn’t need it.’

‘And she looked like me, did she?’ Suddenly an idea had come to Daisy. ‘What was her name?’ she asked. India, she thought. And looking like me . . .

‘It was Mrs Coxhead,’ said Fred.

‘No, I mean her first name.’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Fred hesitantly. ‘I can’t really remember. I just wondered whether she was a sister or a cousin of yours.’ He seemed a bit embarrassed by her question and began to move away.

‘I want my baked beans!’ shouted Sir Guy, banging the table with his fork like an overweight toddler.

After lunch they all went into one of the other sheds which was set up like a mini cinema and watched a short film. Instead of the usual hushed silence of a cinema this movie was punctuated with shouts, praise and criticism as the film jerked its way through the story.

‘Man’s asking fifty pounds for this,’ said Sir Guy laconically. ‘Now, remember what I told you – I can get four pounds a copy from cinemas. Can we make a profit on this? Don’t forget, I have to pay your salaries and buy the baked beans.’

Then there was a heated discussion. Fred did not like it because of the poor and hard-to-read card titles, Tom was for it because of the good camera work, James didn’t like the storyline and Daisy found herself saying tentatively, ‘The leading lady is not very attractive. I’m not sure that audiences will be that interested in whether she escapes from the villain or not. She’s overacting too.’

To her surprise, they all agreed with this immediately and she blushed with the excitement of feeling that her views were been taken seriously.

‘Let’s have a look at the next one,’ said Sir Guy casually as he strolled over to the projector and inserted the film.

The title came up instantly: MURDER IN THE DARK.

The first shot was of the shadow of Morgan seen against the white wall. Heavy, menacing, burly shoulders, strong profile – an ideal silhouette.

‘Great!’ said Harry with a rising note of enthusiasm. ‘That’s a really great opening!’

‘Can you imagine how that would grab an audience?’ said Tom.

‘I can just see them coming in, sitting down, getting out their packets of sweets. The credits roll and then that shot appears. It will grab them – I’d lay my life on that.’ James was breathless after speaking in a rush.

Daisy glowed. Once they saw Sir Guy as the victim they might guess that the film was made by a friend of his, but nothing could take away from that initial spontaneous reaction.

The appearance of Sir Guy was greeted with less surprise than she had expected. It appeared from the remarks that they often took small roles in films themselves.

‘He’s different, that young fellow – good face. Not overacting either. You’d imagine they were having a real argument,’ said James, and Daisy smothered a giggle, glad that in the darkness no one could see her face.

‘I like the leading lady – same one as in the film about the horse, isn’t she? That gal’s sure got something.’

Most of the comments were favourable and showed how they appreciated the artistic decisions that had been made. However, Fred criticized the amateur quality of the script on the card titles and thought that some of the borders looked childish. Daisy winced a little. Earlier she had been half sorry that she had not brought Rose, but now she was glad. She herself found it hard enough to swallow some of the criticisms, but she tried to be glad for them. After all, these young men had worked on hundreds of films and, from their conversation over lunch, it was clear that they spent most of their free time at the cinema.

‘Poor ending though,’ said James when the film finished and Harry had switched on the lights.

‘Music was good,’ said Harry.

‘That policeman looked stupid.’

‘And that chauffeur was twice his fighting weight. He could have knocked the policeman flying and gone off – would have made a better ending.’

‘Looked a bit silly, all that handcuff business.’

‘That’s right; anyone could see at a glance that he wasn’t a real policeman, just some kid dressed up and acting in his first film.’

‘Well, he
was
a real policeman,’ said Daisy hotly. ‘Anyway, I don’t agree with you about the ending. You see, what I was trying to do was to show the sacrifice . . .’ And then she stopped. Jaws had dropped.

‘You mean to say you made that film?’

And then they all rushed to tell her how good it was and picked out all of the best things about it. Her godfather smiled good-naturedly and said nothing. She wanted to ask him his opinion of the ending, but stopped herself. Anything he said now would be suspect as they all knew that she was their employer’s goddaughter.

‘You’re probably right,’ she said when she could get a word in. ‘But it was a real policeman. He’s our village bobby.’

‘But he didn’t look real,’ said Harry.

‘And that’s what counts in films.’

‘But it wasn’t just that,’ said Fred slowly. ‘It just didn’t seem a satisfactory ending.’

‘You see,’ said James earnestly, ‘if you think about watching a film . . . You sit there and you live the story if it’s a good film. And then the last scene comes up and the lights go on. You stand up, put your coat on, go out in the street. You want to feel satisfied. You want questions to have been answered. You don’t want to go away feeling . . .’

‘Get the chauffeur to commit suicide,’ suggested Harry.

‘Hmm,’ said James doubtfully.

‘Can we put a value on this film?’ asked Sir Guy.

‘No, no, don’t do that,’ said Daisy hurriedly. ‘I want to work on it and I want to make it as perfect as possible. Let me take it away now and when I go back down to Kent I’ll have another go at it.’

‘Kent? Do you live in Kent, then?’ asked Fred as they went back out of the makeshift cinema and over to the workshop. Without waiting for an answer he went on, ‘Yes, I bet that lady on the boat back from India, the one I was telling you about – I bet that she was related to you. I remember her telling me that she was brought up in the depths of rural Kent – that’s what she said. She said that she hated the place, so she was going to stay at the Savoy until she could find a house to rent, and live in civilization. She had some business to do with a lawyer – something about the death of her late husband.’ He stopped for a minute and stood looking thoughtfully into the middle distance. ‘I remember her name now. I heard one of the women call her Elaine.’

When Daisy arrived back at the Mayfair house, it was already four o’clock in the afternoon. A large furniture van stood outside and men in green baize aprons, supervised by Robert, the footman, were carrying dainty gilded chairs into the house. As she looked out of the cab’s back window a caterer’s van drew up and a kitchen maid, her cap askew, ran up the basement steps to meet it.

‘Of course – it’s the ball,’ she said. She had almost forgotten about the ball with the interest of the last few hours, but now excitement fizzed in her veins. ‘Shame you’re not coming,’ she said to her godfather affectionately.

‘Couldn’t imagine anything I would hate more than sitting on those highly uncomfortable chairs for four hours watching all the bright young things cavorting around the dance floor and making conversation with elderly ladies,’ he grunted. ‘Look at the legs on those chairs! They’d collapse under my weight and I know what you’d do – you’d come up and film the whole thing and then show it to my lads afterwards. How did you like them all, Daisy?’ he asked affectionately. ‘Had a good time, did you?’

‘I had a wonderful time. I can never thank you enough. And I will work on the ending to that film. They were quite right.’ Daisy knew that her voice rang with sincerity and he kissed her cheek as Robert came to the door and handed her out of the cab with a polite bow.

‘Her Grace said she would like a word with you in the morning room, Lady Daisy, when you come in,’ he said, and added, ‘Your ladyship’s maid has just returned. I sent her straight up to the suite of rooms.’