Authors: Unknown
“Grisell,” Evelyn said vigorously, “Lilias wouldn’t give you a second thought if she wanted to go elsewhere to push ahead with her career. I think you realise that, deep in your heart.”
“Supposing I do,” Grisell countered, “she was still kind to me. We had a good friendship.”
“Of course,” Evelyn agreed. “She wanted something out of it.”
Half angrily Grisell swung round to confront her.
"What do you mean by that?” she demanded.
"Lilias thinks mainly of herself, that’s all,” Evelyn said. “I think she will come back, if it’s worth her while.”
A slow colour rose into Grisell’s cheeks.
“You don’t think much of her,” she decided, “but she’s done a lot for Denham’s. She knows Susan doesn’t like her, of course.”
“Susan employs her,” Evelyn said to cut the conversation short. “That’s all there is to it.”
Grisell peeped in at the baby.
“My father says he’s a charmer already, just like his mother!” she observed.
Evelyn smiled.
“Your father was here yesterday and young Adam behaved abominably, as a matter of fact, but he’s seen him in his better moods!” she agreed.
“He comes over here quite a lot, doesn’t he?” Grisell mused, her eyes sharpening a little.
“He finds it peaceful,” Evelyn said.
“He’s coming up now.” Grisell moved to the terrace steps. “Were you expecting him?”
“Not specially.” Evelyn put her hand on the white upholstery of the pram. “But he likes to come and I wouldn’t dream of stopping him.”
“You love everybody,” Grisell said almost gloomily. “I suppose I should envy you!”
Richard Elliott came up the four shallow steps on to the terrace to embrace his daughter.
“She’s up and off to work before I’ve shaved these days!” he remarked proudly. “I hope she isn’t bothering you too much, Evelyn, always being here under your feet.”
“It’s Susan’s feet I’m under most of the time,” Grisell put in. “You must ask her what she thinks.”
Susan came from the library as Richard Elliott was bending over the pram, and when he turned to put his gift of flowers into Evelyn’s hands their eyes met. Something seemed to pass between them that was like a beam of light, or a sword-flash. She could not tell which as Evelyn turned and saw her standing there.
“Take time to have a cup of tea with us, Sue,” she begged. “You’re always in such a hurry to get back to the mill!”
They sat on the terrace, in a semi-circle around the pram, and for the first time in many weeks the peace of the distant fells entered into Susan’s heart. It came ‘dropping slow’ to steep the terrace and the parkland in a quiet which could almost be felt, and into it, at last, came Max. He had walked across from the mill by the bridle path beside the river and he brought them news.
“If any of you are mad keen on a part in this film you’d better report to the mill tomorrow morning,” he advised them. “I’ve let Steenie Armstrong have my office for a couple of hours to fix people up.” He glanced at his niece. “You going?” he asked.
Grisell flushed expectantly, half rising in her chair,
“Do you think it’s any use?” she asked.
“You’ll never know till you try,” said Evelyn, and Max nodded.
“What are you two up to, might I ask?” Richard stretched his legs lazily. “Aiding and abetting, I call it!”
“Daddy, you just couldn’t refuse!” Grisell exclaimed. “I only want a
very
small part.”
“You name it, they’ll provide it!” Richard said a trifle dryly.
“Oh, Daddy! Really, you have no confidence in me,” she pouted.
He turned in his chair to consider her.
“I’ve got confidence in your good sense,” he said slowly.
Max rose to help Nellie with the tea-tray, putting it down beside Evelyn’s chair. When
he
looked
at her he
seemed content, but Susan could only think about the look which had passed between Evelyn and his brother a moment or two ago.
Yet the whole scene presented a picture of contentment. The terrace in the warm sunshine of a July day; the river flowing beneath its hump-backed bridge; the trees in full leaf dappling the grass with light and shade; the old, ivy-covered gables and the mined peel tower standing guard above them on the rim of the fells. It was a scene to recapture in memory many times if the future should prove dark and unfriendly for any of them, Susan thought.
She looked at Evelyn, thinking that many of her days would be spent at Denham, if not as Max’s wife at least as his honoured guest, and when she glanced at Richard, she wondered about the fate of the Carse. He looked suddenly thin and worn and very, very tired.
Young Adam stirred in his pram, one pink fist thrust belligerently into the air before he bellowed a hungry challenge to the world at large.
“He heard the rattle of the tea-cups!” Evelyn declared, lifting her son into her arms.
Max followed Susan to the library window.
“Have you made up your mind about the new dyes?” he asked.
She nodded, unable to speak because it seemed that all the peace of the afternoon had suddenly evaporated.
“They’re what you wanted and they’re our own effort,” he added. “It will save Denham’s a great deal of money, in the end.
“Is that all you ever think about?” she asked before she could stop herself.
“No, curiously enough, it isn’t.” His mouth clamped into a firmer line. “I’m thinking about the future, when we may have to expand.” He glanced back to the far end of the terrace where Evelyn was nursing her son. “We’re a growing concern!”
Susan turned to face him.
“You mean young Adam, of course.” Her voice all but faltered. “But you have no responsibility for him, unless—”
“‘Unless—’?” he prompted.
“Unless Evelyn has appealed to you.”
He walked into the library ahead of her.
“There was no need for that,” he said brusquely. “Adam’s future was already assured. You’ve forgotten about your stepmother’s shares in the business and her close interest in the mill. She’s genuine in that respect,” he added. “She really does believe in the future.”
Susan felt curiously ashamed, but the impulse to tell him so was smothered by his next remark.
“Whatever you think about this merger, Susan, I still have Evelyn’s loyalty. She needs the future for young Adam, I admit, but she doesn’t ram my unsuitability down my throat at every opportunity, as you do. That’s why I shall always be grateful to her. There comes a time when a man isn’t sure of himself and Evelyn has helped me through that time. We’ve built up a mutual confidence and that means a lot. Anything she might ask for young Adam is as good as done from my point of view.”
Oh, mercenary Evelyn! Susan bit her lip, hating herself for the thought, but Evelyn was shrewd and it seemed that she had all Max’s love and trust into the bargain.
“I know she trusts you,” she began.
“Which you do not,” he said. “A pity, Susan, since, as I pointed out once before, we have to work together. But not all the time, thank goodness! We can keep a fair division between our interests. You at Denham’s and me at the Fetterburn mill. Elliott’s has its own form of pride, I dare say, though I haven’t discovered what it is, so far. Are you interested in the film-making, by the way?” he asked, changing the subject abruptly and with a deliberation which dismissed any intimacy there might have been between them.
“No,” she answered. "I'm not a very good actress.”
He smiled at that.
“But you will go, to look on, even if you couldn’t act a part to save your life?” he suggested.
“I suppose so. I’m probably as curious as the next person.” She hesitated. “I thought you said they might be doing some interior scenes over here.”
“Not if you object.”
She flushed.
“It doesn’t depend on me. Have you asked Evelyn?”
He shook his head.
“No.”
She felt exasperated.
“Why not?”
“This is your home, too.”
“You’re making me feel dog-in-the-mangerish!”
“It wasn’t my intention.”
“But you still consider me pig-headed and—horribly biased about Denham’s!”
“You have every right to be. I’m proud of Elliott’s, in my own humble way.”
“I’ve no real objection to them using the house, if Evelyn agrees,” she began cautiously. “It was because of the baby, at first.”
“I understand that. But maybe we should leave it, anyway, with all your tweeds and the new designs lying around.”
“The designs are always locked away when they’re not in use,” she told him.
“How is Grisell shaping?” he asked, thumbing through an old catalogue which presented Ellias and last year’s tweeds from every conceivable angle. “Do you think she’ll do?”
"Yes, I’m sure she’s interested now, and, Max, I don’t think this film unit coming here is entirely a bad thing,” she added quickly. “Apart from work, Grisell needs some other interest, something to take up her attention during the settling-in period.”
“Thanks,” he said briefly. “I’ll remember.”
He went back along the terrace to join the others, while she collected her sketches and the catalogues into a portfolio which she locked into her desk. It was so easy to see Max here now, as the owner of Denham, yet she knew that he would never ask Evelyn to vacate her old home until she wanted to go.
Her own dilemma had been thrust into the background of her thoughts for the past two weeks since the baby’s birth, but soon—all too soon—she would have to take it out and examine it again in the light of the future.
Disconsolately she worked through the remainder of the afternoon, listing and checking tweeds and deciding about the new dyes, but the following morning found her in Fetterburn ‘to look on' at the filming, as Max had suggested.
It was Saturday and the mill was closed, but a crowd had gathered in the forecourt of the office block as they had been instructed to do in the
Yairborough Advertiser,
most of them hoping for a small character part but all of them willing to settle for the less ambitious crowd work if a ‘bit’ should be denied them.
Susan was well enough known to be allowed to go forward out of turn, though she laughingly assured everybody that she had no desire to be an actress, even for a day or two.
Out of the comer of her eye she thought that she saw Lilias, but the crowd had closed in again and she could not be sure. It would be the sort of thing Lilias would do, of course, once she had heard about the film.
Max was standing at the head of the staircase with a man in a blue duffle-coat, and she thought that they looked as if they were standing on the bridge of a destroyer. They both looked outdoor types. Steenie Armstrong came from the office to join them, recognising Susan from their brief meeting in Hawick.
"Now then, Miss Denham,” he said, “have you changed your mind about these interiors we want to do at your home? Max tells me you might be persuaded if I went about it very carefully.”
Susan flushed.
“I must be about the most awkward person Max has ever met,” she answered. “But if my stepmother has no objection to you working at Denham neither have I.”
“Good! Good!” he declared. “You won’t even know we’re there. We’ll do it to suit you, any time. When it’s indoor shooting we’re not dependent on natural light. We’ve got something here, Miss Denham. The answer to
Camelot!
” He turned to the tall man by Max’s side. “This is our director, Jimmy Hannah,” he introduced them. “You’ll be seeing quite a lot of Jimmy in the next few weeks. There’s a lot of him to see! ” he quipped as the big man in the duffle-coat shook Susan by the hand.
“You sure will!” Hannah agreed. “But we’ll try not to make a nuisance of ourselves, Miss Denham.” He turned back to Max. “By the way, Max, we’ve tried your niece out in the riding scenes and she’s an absolute natural, so we’ve given her the job.”
Whatever the job was, Susan felt glad for Grisell’s sake, but Max merely thanked Hannah with a nod. Perhaps he had made that a condition of renting out the Carse! On second thought, she didn’t think he would do such a thing. Grisell would have to win on her own merit.
There was almost too much excitement during the next few days. Susan had not been mistaken when she had thought she had seen Lilias in the crowd at the mill, and she noticed her tall figure again, several times, in the vicinity of Yairborough, although she didn’t put in an appearance at Denham’s. There was no modelling work for her to do now that the collection was almost ready and she was probably far more interested in the film-makers than she was in cashmeres.
During the week Susan was too busy at the mill to think about the filming going on at the Carse, but at week-ends, when most of the crowd scenes were shot, she gravitated to the open moorland with everyone else. Jimmy Hannah fascinated her, simply because he handled people so skilfully. His manner was in no way ostentatious; he walked around with a battered copy of the script under his arm and a bland smile on his face, but his shrewd blue eyes missed nothing. No detail was too small, no prop too insignificant to escape his attention, and when he did raise his voice his minions came running because they knew that something really serious had gone wrong.
Every available horse in the neighbourhood had been pressed into service for these crowd scenes and the splash of colour they made as they stood, plumed and caparisoned, waiting for the cameras to roll, was truly magnificent.
Grisell, who had plunged into the excitement of it all from the beginning, rode out on Hope’s Star, and Susan was pleased to see how easily she controlled the mare. If Hope’s Star appeared restless at times or irked by the heavy saddlecloths and elaborate bridles of the period, Grisell apparently had her well in hand, soothing her with a gentle touch or a soft word, as Susan would have done.
Lilias had managed a small ‘bit’ part not entirely to her liking, but she persevered with it with an eye to greater things. In her elaborate headgear and long, flowing skirts she looked more arresting than ever, and she gave Susan a slightly condescending smile as she passed.