Debutantes: In Love (20 page)

‘It’s stupid, I know,’ he gasped when they were sheltered behind the greenery, ‘and I’ve told myself again and again not to rush things, to wait until I had some sort of position, some sort of income to offer you, but I can’t help asking you tonight . . . Daisy, would you, could you ever feel that you could marry me?’

The shock struck Daisy dumb for a moment, but she recovered quickly when she saw how sheepish and embarrassed he looked. It was a huge surprise, but yet, since their walks, their kisses under the trees in Kensington Gardens and their time next to the orange-blossom bush by the river, she had half expected this. After all, how else could his words about working together, about having their own studio, be explained?

She flung her arms around him. ‘Oh, Charles,’ she said, and that was all that was needed because he suddenly covered her hands and then her face with kisses.

‘But no surprise announcements,’ she said breathlessly when she finally extricated herself from his arms. ‘Elaine and Jack will drop dead if that happens again. We’ll keep it to ourselves until we can talk to our relations and make it clear that we are not rushing into anything.’

He laughed then. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I think Poppy has been enough for one evening. In any case, we must talk to my mother before we tell anyone. I couldn’t do anything without her blessing.’

Lady Cynthia, thought Daisy dreamily, had a very high opinion of Sir John and was always trying to flatter him. Surely she would agree. In any case, Charles was over twenty-one and his own master. She looked across at Poppy and saw her own happiness reflected in her sister’s face.

This is the most wonderful evening of my life! The words were in her mind as she whirled around, exchanging smiles and jokes with the many friends that they had made since they came to London. She seemed to be floating in a kind of brightly lit, gaily coloured paradise, and looking across at Poppy she could see the same shining happiness in her face. Although it was three o’clock in the morning before the taxis arrived and they all left the Ritz, it seemed to her as though the evening passed in a flash.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Friday 9 May 1924

‘And may I ask whether your father, or your uncle and
aunt
, know about this extraordinarily sudden engagement?’ Lady Cynthia glared at Daisy, and Daisy glared back. The preliminaries had gone well, but now the gloves were off. Lady Cynthia had not wasted any time on Charles and his tentative explanations but had fixed her eyes on Daisy.

Daisy had been wondering whether she would need to be honest about her illegitimate birth and had steeled herself to talk to Elaine about it, but this antagonistic reception had stiffened her backbone and now she was determined not to yield an inch to this woman. What business was it of hers anyway? Presumably Charles had his own fortune.

It was Charles, however, who answered, and his voice, to Daisy’s bewilderment, sounded conciliatory and a touch apologetic.

‘No, not yet, no, we haven’t told anyone yet. We wanted you to be the first to know, Mama, dear,’ he said.

‘And will your father make a substantial settlement on you, Daisy, may I ask?’ Lady Cynthia ignored her son.

‘No,’ said Daisy, ‘but—’

‘And may I enquire whether Charles has told you that he is utterly and completely dependent on me for every penny? Even his tailor’s bill arrives addressed to me.’ She waved a piece of paper under their noses and Daisy saw Charles flinch. She suppressed a gasp. This was a shock. She had thought that Charles had private means. Elaine had said – what was it exactly that Elaine had said? It was only, thought Daisy, that she had the impression that Charles was rich. And Charles himself had seemed to be a young man of fortune.

‘We’ll earn money,’ said Daisy defiantly. ‘In the last few weeks I’ve earned fifteen pounds. If I can keep that up it will amount to more than the average wage of an English worker.’ Her godfather had told her that and she prayed that he was correct. The silly little film about the hens had sold to almost every cinema in England – had started off with children’s matinee performances and then had moved on to evening showings. Sir Guy was keeping a nice little sum for her. At some stage, she thought, she would tell Charles about Elaine, but she refused to do it while everything was so uncertain. It’s my business, she thought, tightening her lips resolutely.

‘Ten pounds a week is what I should be able to reckon on if I go on having success,’ she repeated firmly.

Lady Cynthia, however, did not query her figures.

‘And Charles?’ she asked with a sarcastic note in her voice. ‘How much has he earned?’

Daisy was silent. As a matter of fact, the film
The Rajah and the Lady
seemed to be doomed to failure. She had hoped that Hollywood might buy it, might be seduced by some of the scenes showing the beauty of the two leads, but that had not happened. In fact, even the thousands of English cinemas, even the ones that had bought her short films, were busily rejecting this particular film. Charles’s future as a star of the big screen was uncertain, to say the least.

‘We’ll have a breakthrough soon,’ she said defensively.

Lady Cynthia looked at her closely. It was a long and a penetrating look and Daisy bore it as bravely as she could. After a few minutes the woman said abruptly, ‘Charles, go and wait in the dining room. I need to talk to Daisy in private.’

He went without a backwards glance and Daisy felt sorry for him but at the same time ashamed of his lack of courage.

Once he had closed the door, Lady Cynthia sat down abruptly and signalled to Daisy to sit by her side on the sofa.

‘I’ll be very honest with you; I don’t want this marriage to take place,’ she said curtly. ‘Charles must marry wealth and that is the end of it. I’m a widow and I need my money for myself. I spent enough on him with this India business and he hadn’t the guts or the brains to make something of it. Marriage is the only answer – he has the looks – but not to you, my dear. Your father has nothing. His property is entailed. I hear that he has managed it badly and that his heir is after his blood. Not only will there be no money for your settlements or dowries but you will, all three of you, be left without a home or means to support yourselves. But that is not all.’ She drew in a deep breath and looked stonily down at Daisy.

‘Even if you had means, you would be no suitable wife for my son. I have been making enquiries about you and I’ve found out
everything.
It’s a small world, my dear, and there are enough people around that remember Elaine Carruthers and how she vanished from the London social scene in the middle of her season. My youngest sister was being presented that year and all the girls were talking about it. There were plenty of rumours around that she was pregnant and plenty of talk when her sister Mary came back from India the following spring with two babies looking quite unalike. There is nothing in this that is my business, you will say, but it becomes my business when you propose to marry my son and bring your disgrace into my family. I warn you that if you persist with this ridiculous engagement to Charles I will not hesitate to drag your name and the name of Elaine Carruthers through the mud. Don’t think that you will be presented at court – an illegitimate girl like you! I have plenty of acquaintances who will drop a word into the Lord Chamberlain’s ear. You will be rejected as unsuitable. London will seethe with gossip. And Elaine will be utterly disgraced. I don’t think for a minute that my cousin Sir John will permit this, and if you do not agree to my terms, I shall see him instantly. He will want to protect his wife, such as she is, and he will not stand for any nonsense from a girl not yet eighteen years old.’

Daisy sat rigid. She forced herself to be cool, to speak in an indifferent tone.

‘You must, indeed, be very against my marrying your son to have come up with that silly rumour,’ she said, and watched carefully for a flutter of uncertainty in the woman’s eyes.

But there was none. Lady Cynthia had the facts at her fingertips. She knew all about Clifford Pennington, Justin’s unfortunate uncle; all about his sudden death on the hunting field; all about the relationship between Elaine and Clifford – she had the whole history, dates and all, off pat, and without pity she told it all to Daisy, who had to pretend to listen in indifferent disbelief.

For a long moment Daisy sat very still, wrestling with her feelings, with her conscience. ‘
It’s not fair
’ – everything within her screamed the words.

She steeled herself. ‘I’ve nothing to say to you.’ With more confidence she went on. ‘You might as well call Charles back in and tell him that silly, spiteful story. And make all the threats that you want to. He won’t take any notice of them. He’s over twenty-one; he can do what he wants to do. We love each other. We don’t plan to get married straight away, but after about a year I think that we can afford to rent a house and feed ourselves.’

That’s if I can go on producing the sort of short films that the cinemas want to buy, she thought. And of course Charles will get a job, she tried to tell herself. He is well educated, handsome. Firms will queue up to employ him. But can I expose Elaine to all the old cats of London?

Elaine can go back to India, she told herself, but she was not comfortable. Elaine, she knew, would mind desperately about her reputation. After all, she gave up her own child to preserve her good name.

And what about Great-Aunt Lizzie? A scandal like that might kill the old lady – it was not impossible for gossip columnists to get hold of it; she could just imagine how they would do it with a sly innuendo, could just visualize the paragraphs where Elaine and her parentage would be pilloried and she, Daisy, ruined so far as polite society was concerned.

Still, it should be feasible to keep these sorts of newspapers out of Beech Grove.

But a strange question kept coming into her mind. Did they love each other enough to face all of these terrible problems?

‘I must talk to Charles,’ she said aloud, but she was conscious of a weakness in her voice.

‘Very well.’ Lady Cynthia had agreed almost before Daisy’s thoughts had ceased to stream through her head. She went to the door and called, ‘Come in, Charles.’

When he came in he looked very uncomfortable. It was obvious that he did not expect good news. Daisy’s heart ached a little for him, but she wished that he were more of a fighter. He glanced uneasily at her, but then returned his eyes immediately to the stern face of his mother.

‘Sit down,’ she said coldly, pointing to a low chair beside the table. He sat instantly and obediently – just like a guilty small boy, and Daisy defiantly got up from the sofa and went and stood beside him. Lady Cynthia was standing in front of them; her back was to the window, her face shadowed, but the expression of unyielding severity was unmistakable.

‘I’ve explained to this young lady that it is utterly impossible for any talk of marriage or even an engagement to take place between you both. Daisy understands me perfectly, don’t you, dear? You know your position, Charles. You have nothing except what I bestow upon you, so I want your word that there will be no more talk of marriage and that you will cease to spend time in Daisy’s company. Now give me your word, Charles, and no more will be said. You can enjoy the rest of the season and have fun going to parties and meeting other
suitable
young people.’ And Lady Cynthia picked up the tailor’s bill and fluttered it in her son’s direction.

Charles did not look at Daisy. He almost, she thought, looking at him with dry eyes, shrugged his shoulders. ‘As you wish, Mama,’ he said, and left the room without a glance at Daisy.

A minute later she heard the front door open. The sound of the London traffic rushed in and then the door clicked closed. She sat for a moment. It was like the time she fell out of a tree when she was eleven years old, she thought. Wild panic, incredulity, and then nothing; just a feeling of confusion and a dull ache in her head.

He gave me up without a word of protest – asked for no reasons – just said, ‘Yes, Mama,’ like a small child.

She rose to her feet. ‘I’d better be going,’ she said. And she went out into the hall with no more words spoken.

Did he ever even care about her at all? Or was he indifferent?

Had he only been interested in her because he thought she could offer him the chance to be a film star?

She didn’t know the answer to these questions, but she had her suspicions.

Is that all I am worth? wondered Daisy, humiliation chilling her to the bone as she walked away from the house.

I’ve been such a terrible fool.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Friday 9 May 1924