Coffin on the Water

‘They’ve got something good coming up. Marvellous publicity. A Masque for the Royal Family when they come to Greenwich later on. That’s why they’ve got you. You’ll be The Virgin.’

‘Good Lord.’

‘Don’t worry. Nothing personal.’ He laughed. ‘But your predecessor as junior female lead – ’ Joan always played the leading lady roles herself- ‘didn’t look too maidenly.’

‘Do I?’

He gave her a crooked smile but did not answer. ‘About Rachel Esthart, I’d better prepare you. The reason she’s doing this Miss Havisham act – which you’ll see for yourself when you get to Angel House – is she had a tragedy in her life. Lost her son.’

‘Dead?’

‘He was drowned. Rather mysterious. You’re too young to remember, I expect. But she has never accepted he was dead. And who knows? She might be right. Perhaps he isn’t dead. People do come back.’ Stella nodded. The war had opened minds to strangeness and wildness in the world. Nothing was quite as ordinary as it had been before 1939. Anything could happen now. She believed him. It was the way things could go. Nothing was too fantastic to be ruled out now. It was part of how the world was, not solid, but transient, movable. Edward went on, ‘She isn’t mad. Or self-deceiving. Nor so much of a recluse as she pretends. She sees me; old friends like the Delaneys; it’s the big world outside she’s frightened of. It chewed her up once and she can’t take any more. I suppose you could call it a depressive illness if you wanted. But she’s a great woman, Stella, never forget that.’ He stopped talking suddenly. ‘Here we are. This is Angel House. Don’t let her know I’ve told you anything. Let it be as if you didn’t know.’

Angel House was a handsome brick building, probably built at the end of the eighteenth century, with a plain, dignified face. During the Blitz the roof had been damaged but the house had suffered no real hurt. Yet, without there being anything wrong with it, the house looked closed, turned in on itself.

Over the front door was the figure of a kneeling angel, an unexpected and baroque touch, but which provided the name. He rang the bell. ‘I won’t wait. Just see you in, then go. You’ll be let in by Florrie. She was Rachel’s dresser in the old days. She’s no angel but you’ll just have to make the best of her and get on with her.’

The door was opened by a small, plump woman wearing a dark apron. Sharp brown eyes were set in a sallow face.

‘You’ve been quick,’ she said unpromisingly. It was at this point (the very moment at which the two young men at Mrs Lorimer’s were talking of her) that Stella felt her spirits dip. This wasn’t going to be easy; she was used to life not being easy, you did not join the theatre expecting a soft ride, but unwelcoming digs she did hate. ‘Madam said you’d be coming and where to put you.’

Inside, Angel House had a certain grandeur with a black and white flagged hall dominated by a curving staircase which rose splendidly, like a prayer, to a balcony above. But it smelt damp, and it was undeniably dusty.

‘Come on, Miss Pinero.’ She had the name off pat, a quick study, obviously. ‘I’ll show you where Madam wants you to go.’ She led the way down the hall with a determined, shrewd little manner that confirmed Stella’s belief that, as with so many dressers, she was an exactress. She threw open a door. ‘It’s where Madam used to sleep when the raids were on.’

The room was square with two small oval windows, decorated in the ’thirties style with heavy leather chairs and a big wooden desk, a kind of library, only instead of books the walls were lined with playbills, theatre programmes and photographs. A divan bed was pushed into a corner. Across it were thrown some sheets and blankets.

‘We’re a bit low on bed linen. You’ll have to make do. We lost a lot when the local laundry got a doodle.’

‘Thank you.’ The sheets were fine linen, apricot-coloured, hemstitched and embroidered. The blankets matched. To Stella, the child of war and shortage, they were luxury.

She looked at the photographs. Rachel Esthart in part after part. What she was seeing was a museum to Rachel Esthart.

‘She was lovely,’ Stella said. ‘Beautiful.’

Florrie’s face seemed to fill out, put on another layer of flesh. So that is what she looks like when she’s pleased, thought Stella.

‘Thank you,’ said a voice from the door, a true actress’s voice getting across every wave of feeling, and what it said to Stella was: I appreciate your compliment but I do not need it. I am above and beyond anything you can give me.

Stella spun round.

Rachel Esthart was as tall as she was and just as slender. Her hair was dressed in soft waves, falling on her cheek in a manner fashionable in the early 1930s. She was wearing a long silk marocain dress of dark blue with a spotted bow. A long jade cigarette-holder rested in her left hand.

She was beautifully made-up, beautifully groomed. About her hung a strong scent of Chanel No. 5. Where did she get it, wondered Stella, to whom French scent was an unobtainable luxury.

Later, she was to learn that the scent and grooming represented a good day, the best, and that there were days when all this elegance became dusty and neglected, and the scent of Chanel was replaced by a sour, sad smell.

She came to know the smell of the bad days. But this was a good day, and it was why she had got in to the house. On a bad no doors would have opened for her.

As she looked at Rachel Esthart she had the sensation of a great many doors opening for her, a vista through which she looked towards success, money and fame. At once she felt tremendously excited. Ambition stirred in her like a live animal. She had always known she was an ambitious actress; now suddenly she saw what she could be. She could learn so much from this woman.

‘Thank you for having me here.’

Rachel Esthart laughed. ‘Well, you’ll pay.’

‘Oh yes … You must tell me how much.’

‘I didn’t mean in money.’

Two pounds a week and your ration book,’ said Florrie swiftly.

Don’t be a slave, Edward had said.

‘I knew you at once. You’re Estella Beaumont’s daughter, aren’t you? Couldn’t be anyone else. She died.’

‘Yes.’

‘What about your father? A lovely man.’

‘Dead, too.’

‘Your mother had marvellous technique but not much heart.’

‘No.’ There seemed nothing else to say. Besides, it was true.

‘Your father was the other way. All emotion but not much technique. Which are you?’

‘I’m nothing much at all at the moment,’ Stella admitted. ‘More my father’s way, I think.’

‘I can do better than that for you. If you’ll learn.’

Stella had a moment of enlightenment. ‘You looked me up.’

‘Yes. In Stage. I always do when the Delaneys get someone new. You got the Ellen Terry medal.’ Stella nodded. It was her first intimation that although Rachel Esthart might be walled up inside Angel House she minded passionately about the theatre still. ‘But it wasn’t until you walked in the door I knew you were your father’s daughter.’

I’ll learn,’ said Stella. My God, she thought. What an offer.

‘I loved your father, you know.’ Well, she was supposed to have loved many men. ‘And I owe him something.’

‘I must pay.’

‘I’ll leave all the financial side to Florrie.’

‘Two pounds a week and your ration book,’ said Florrie at once.

From the door, in her glimmer of pearls and aura of Chanel, Rachel said, her face full of mischief, ‘You’ll eat well here sporadically. Florrie knows all the best black-marketeers. She’s related to most of them – and there’s always the Italian restaurant on the Heath when you’re short here. Florrie’s cousin owns that, too.’ There was malice and amusement in her voice.

She was gone, leaving Stella alone with Florrie.