Authors: Unknown
“I haven’t seen you around much,” she said. “Didn’t you get a part?”
“I didn’t try,” Susan told her as Max came up. “I’m happy enough as one of the crowd.”
They were rehearsing the bridal procession to the little church in the dale where Lucy Ashton was to be married the following day to the Laird of Bucklaw, and the stars were due to arrive at any minute. The ill-fated Bride was played by a young actress who had made her name at Stratford-on-Avon and the crowd had thickened with eager fans waiting for a first glimpse of the celebrities.
Steenie Armstrong, who was playing the part of Caleb Balderstone as well as producing the film, declared that he was almost at his wits’ end.
“You can’t expect people to stay at home at weekends, Steenie,” Max pointed out. “Not when you’re putting on a show like this!” He looked round at the colourful scene, at the gaily caparisoned horses, and the laced cloaks and feathered headgear of their riders, and the extras who would follow on foot in their more humble attire. “It’s a five-star spectacular, and no mistake! I almost wish I had some part in it.”
“I offered you a part,” Steenie reminded him. “You would have made a great Douglas Ashton, although you took umbrage at the idea!”
“The world is full of lost opportunities,” Max smiled. “But I couldn’t act to save my life!”
“What about you, Miss Denham?” Steenie asked. “We need a stand-in for the Bride this afternoon, before Celia Warrington gets here.”
Susan laughed.
“A stand-in, maybe,” she agreed. “What would I have to do?”
“Nothing much,” Steenie assured her, pleased by her response. “You’ll wear the bridal dress and the headgear and save Celia hanging around till we’re ready for the final take.”
“It sounds easy enough,” Susan agreed, “so long as I don’t have to utter!”
“You won’t, unless it’s to complain about the wear and tear on your feet,” Steenie grinned. “You’re just right for size and colouring. Anyway, the Bride has to wear a long hairpiece, so there’s no problem. You don’t have to be able to ride, though I know you can,” he added as he walked off in search of someone or something.
Max, who had remained silent, moved with Susan towards the make-up tent.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.
“Why not?” she challenged him with a smile. “It might be good fun, though it wasn’t exactly funny for the poor Bride.”
“No,” he said slowly, “family feuds are never amusing.”
She looked away from his penetrating gaze, aware of the deliberation with which he had brought their old quarrel into the open yet unable to answer him because all she could think of to say was that she loved him.
“I’ll wait for you,” he said at the tent door. “I might even offer my services to Steenie as an extra in the meantime.”
It took longer than Susan realised to array her in the elaborate, bejewelled wedding dress, and when the long, blonde wig was in place she scarcely recognised herself. Was this what Lucy Ashton had really looked like? Her eyes, sparkling with excitement, met her reflection in the looking-glass, but she knew that the doomed Bride of Lammermoor had never looked like this. Lucy was the unhappy victim of a vicious family feud and the man she was going to marry was not the man she loved. And Susan Denham was gazing back at her transformed reflection with the thought of her own love in her heart.
That was why her eyes shone; that was why the substitute Bride of Lammermoor looked far too radiant to play the part.
When she came out into the open the small group round the tent door gasped in admiration.
“She’s beautiful—really beautiful!” someone said. But she was looking for Max and he wasn’t there. Fergus came instead, vaulting down from his horse to clasp her hand.
“My, my!” he teased. “What a little bit of make-up can do!”
“It works wonders, doesn’t it?” Susan tried to say lightly. “Have you seen—anyone you know?”
“I’ve just seen Max. He was dashing off somewhere with Steenie.”
“Oh?” Her voice sounded flat. “You’re in the procession, I suppose?”
“I hope so, after all this hanging around,” Fergus said. “I must have been mad to fall for this lark,” he added, “but Grisell persuaded me.”
“She’s very keen.”
“I don’t think she really wants to act,” Fergus said. “It’s the horses and the excitement she likes.”
“I expect so.”
Susan was still looking for Max, but he seemed to have disappeared completely. She saw Steenie talking to a group of cameramen and the crowd seemed to have grown larger, but Max was nowhere to be seen. Her dresser urged her along.
“Mr. Armstrong wants to start right away.”
“You know what you have to do?” Steenie asked. “Just sit on the horse and look blank. You don’t have to act. You can leave it all to Celia in the final take
\
Have you ever rode pillion before?”
“Not since I was at school.” Susan had forgotten the details of the Bride’s procession. “Who’s on the horse?”
“Max,” Steenie said without blinking an eyelid.
Max bent down from his ‘bonnie white steed’.
“Don’t panic,” he advised. “I’m supposed to be your brother!”
She tried to laugh, although her heart-beats were like hammer-blows.
“That ridiculous sword!” she said.
He moved the long scabbard hanging by his side.
“It might have belonged to William Wallace!” he agreed as he swung her up into the saddle behind him.
They had never been so near and she was forced to put an arm about his waist to steady herself as the horse moved off with his double load.
“I hardly recognised you,” Max said with a hint of the old mockery in his voice. “I’m not sure whether or not I like you as the docile Lucy.”
“She wasn’t completely spineless,” Susan reflected. “In the beginning she did fight for what she wanted.”
“Her true love?”
“If you like.” She could feel the warmth of his body through the thin silk of her dress and knew that she had never been so stirred in all her life before. “Poor Lucy!” she sighed.
Max took his place at the head of the procession.
“It’s all so very disjointed,” she mused, trying to maintain some sort of conversation while they waited. “The wedding is almost the end of Lucy's story.”
“They’re filming the castle scenes over on the coast,” he told her. “They’ve a long way to go yet, apparently, and Steenie must get the outdoor shots finished while the weather holds good.”
“What were they doing at the Carse?” she asked.
“Interiors, mostly, but there was a scene or two in the garden.”
“Do you think they’re going to need Denham, after all?”
“Sure to. Evelyn’s looking forward to it.”
His voice was drowned in the shouts of the extras as they filled in behind the horses. ‘Ashton and Bucklaw for ever!’ they intoned under Steenie’s direction, again and again and again. The bridal shots were fired, a discharge of musketoons, pistols and guns which sent the horses plunging right and left so that the scene had to be rehearsed all over again. Their white charger, less prone to nerves than some of the others, reared a little but stood his ground. Susan clung to Max.
“How long does this go on?” she asked huskily.
“Till Steenie is satisfied, I gather.” He half-turned to look at her and the strands of the long, blonde wig blew across his cheek. She drew them back, her fingers brushing his flesh for an instant, feeling it cold and rough until his lips came down against her skin. He had kissed her hand deliberately. “Fair lady!” he murmured in open mockery.
They rode to the church, followed by the long train of bridal attendants and guests, with the menials and house servants bringing up the rear on foot. It was a slow business as Steenie arrested their progress from time to time to get every detail just right before the stars took over.
“Wishing you hadn’t volunteered?” Max asked as Steenie and the camera crew went past for the third or fourth time.
“I’m hoping Evelyn won’t be anxious, wondering why I’ve stayed so long,” Susan answered.
“She’s got company,” Max said. “Richard.”
“Oh—”
“He finds it very pleasant at Denham House.” Max’s voice was suddenly grim. “We can hardly grudge him the next few years.”
She stiffened in the seat behind him.
“You can’t mean—?”
“He’s seriously ill. He came over here, in the first place, to consult a heart specialist in Edinburgh. He meant to stay, I think, but he thought he might have had longer to enjoy his enforced retirement. He had great plans for Elliott’s and the Carse.”
“And now?” Her lips would scarcely frame the question. “What will happen now, Max?”
“We’ll carry on together as if everything was going the way we planned.”
She moistened her dry lips.
“That’s why you were so anxious about Grisell,” she said.
“I’m still worried about her.” When he turned his head she could see how grim his mouth looked. “She mustn’t be allowed to do anything to upset him.”
“No.”
The procession had reached the churchyard gate and Steenie decided to call it a day.
“Thanks, boys and girls!” he called gaily from his grand stand view on the Land-Rover. “You’ve been fine. Just fine!”
Max walked the white horse back to the moor with Susan perched, side-saddle, above him. The light had faded a little, but the milling extras were still a gay kaleidoscope of colour against the heather. The narrow roadway was thronged with vehicles and their progress was necessarily slow, but they made the long row of dressing-tents, at last. Few people recognised them in their borrowed plumes and Max seemed to be enjoying the masquerade. They came upon Lilias, standing at the door of one of the tents. She had taken off her elaborate costume and looked ordinary again in her green tweeds, and she seemed to have been waiting there for a very long time.
Encumbered by her flowing skirts, Susan had to allow Max to help her down from the saddle, and he held her strongly for a moment before he released her and led the horse away.
“What are you trying to do?” Lilias asked fiercely. “Chiselling in like this!”
For the first time Susan noticed how closely the hazel eyes were set in the pale oval of Lilias’s face. Without their elaborate make-up and false lashes, Lilias’s eyes were mean.
“I haven’t taken any part that you might have had,” she tried to explain. “Max and I are only stand-ins.”
“I know that. You’re doing this for a lark, but it isn’t such fun for the rest of us,” Lilias protested. “You could have any part, if Max said so!”
“Max has nothing to do with the casting,” Susan reminded her. “It’s all worked out, Lilias, and if you haven’t got the part you would like it’s neither Max’s fault nor mine. You must speak to Steenie.”
“As if that would do any good!” Lilias gazed at her jealously. “Some people have everything!”
She turned on her heel, marching off into the crowd. “What was all that about?” Fergus asked at Susan’s elbow.
“It was just Lilias in one of her disgruntled moods. Take no notice,” Susan advised.
Grisell came to join them, leading Hope’s Star. “When did Lilias take off?” she asked, caressing the mare’s velvet nose.
“A few minutes ago,” Fergus said. “You can’t possibly want to speak to her. She was in a filthy temper.”
“What about?”
He shrugged.
“Who knows? Lilias is an imponderable. Do you want a lift back to the Carse?”
She shook her head.
“Max is towing Hope’s box for me,” she explained, “and Lilias was supposed to be coming back with us. She’s staying at the Carse.”
They gazed at her in astonishment.
“She wished herself on us,” Grisell said awkwardly. “She said she had nowhere else to go and I told Max we simply had to invite her. After all,” she added somewhat belligerently, “we’re working in the same film!”
IT was almost a week later before Susan saw Max again, but she knew that he had been working hard at the mill in the interval. Neither of them had much time to spare, she supposed, with the autumn collection coming up and the alterations which were taking place at Fetterburn.
When the sample batch of new catalogues arrived from the printers early in the week she ran through them with a mounting sense of pride in achievement. Her designs were more than good, they were inspired, and added to the Elliott range of new tweeds they would be irresistible to the trade.
Taking them back to Denham House for Evelyn’s inspection, she was aware of a new satisfaction in her work, a sense of fulfilment which lifted her spirits and put a bright glow in her eyes as she garaged her car in the stables and turned towards the house.
Almost immediately she was aware that Evelyn had company. Two cars were parked on the gravel in front of the main door and one of them belonged to Max.
As she went up the terrace steps a babble of conversation drifted out to her from the drawing-room, where Evelyn was evidently dispensing afternoon tea.
The small group round the table parted at her approach to reveal her stepmother busy with the teacups, while Nellie hovered with hot water and freshly-buttered scones. Richard Elliott was seated in a chair near his hostess, a contented smile playing about his mouth, and Lilias sat primly on the tapestry-covered stool before the fireplace. It was warm enough today to do without a fire, and Max stood leaning on the tall mantelpiece, his gaze detached, as if his thoughts were far removed from the flow of idle conversation going on around him. There was a slight frown between his brows and a firmness about his lips which she had learned to associate with anger. He did not look at her when she came in.
Susan was surprised to see Lilias and even more surprised that Grisell wasn’t with her. Grisell seemed essential to the family atmosphere at Denham House these days.
“I suppose Grisell is still filming,” she remarked as Evelyn handed her a cup of tea. “I saw them shooting a scene up at the peel as I came along.”
“She’s as keen as mustard about it,” Richard declared, “and I guess the horses are the main attraction for her.” He glanced in Evelyn’s direction. “All the same, I’d rather she stuck to her job here. How d’you think she’s shaping, Sue?”