Gerald and Elizabeth: A poignant and captivating family saga Read online

  ‘Yes, I’ll have a try,’ replied Gerald.

  Cars and taxis had begun to arrive and to deposit their passengers at the lighted portico so Gerald dodged across the street, pushed his way through the crowd and asked at the box office.

  ‘You’re lucky,’ said the girl. ‘There’s a returned ticket just been handed in. It’s a single in the stalls.’

  It was not until he was actually in the theatre, seated in the stalls, that he realised he was in the front row. A seat in a less conspicuous position would have suited him better but he was too shy to make a fuss. Three years in the wilds of Africa had not prepared him for the noise of chatter and the hustle and bustle of a crowded theatre. He felt a bit dazed. Like the girl from Venus he was a fish out of water.

  Gerald had come to see Bess – just to look at her. He had always loved Bess, he had always thought her the most wonderful person in the world.

  His first ‘picture’ of Bess came to mind as he sat in his plush seat in the crowded theatre waiting for the curtain to go up. He was playing under the big table in the sitting-room (it was a favourite place to play for the red cloth came down all round making it into a private tent). When he drew aside the cloth and peeped out he saw Bess sitting on the hearth-rug reading a book with the firelight shining on her copper-coloured hair. She had looked up and said, ‘Want to see pictures, darling?’ – and he had crawled out of his tent and sat himself down beside her.

  He must have been four years old – which meant that Bess was seven – but he remembered it quite clearly. (He had known Bess always, of course. She had been part of his life ever since he was an infant but that was the first time he was conscious of seeing her).

  Gerald’s next childhood ‘picture’ was Bess again. He was older now and it was summer-time. They were playing in the hay-loft at Cannochbrae. He was sitting on a pile of hay – he remembered the sweet smell and the tickly feeling of the clean dry hay on his bare legs – and Bess was telling him a story. Bess was a wonderful story-teller; she acted the stories as she went along which made them real. Gerald could ‘see’ her drifting about the hay-loft in a faded blue overall and acting the parts of the characters: first she was the little boy, straying from his home and getting lost in the woods; then she was the fairy who found him asleep and took him to her home in the round green hill. (Bess and Gerald both believed in fairies – not ‘silly fairies,’ but ‘little people’ who lived in round green hills). Another time Bess was a beautiful lady imprisoned in a tower. She was feeling very sad when a handsome prince on a milk-white charger came to rescue her. Then away they went together, galloping, galloping, galloping round the loft … and the dust flew up in clouds hiding them from their pursuers. This story was so exciting that Gerald asked for it over and over again in spite of the fact that the dust tickled his nose and made him sneeze.

  There had been lots of people at Cannochbrae Farm: Father and Mother and Uncle Gregor and Aunt Maggie and Cousin Matt – and the farm-hands and their families who lived in the cottages. Gerald knew them all but Bess was by far the most important person in his life. They did everything together: they paddled in the burn and caught little fish – as long as your finger! – they fed the pigs; they climbed the trees in the woods; they found a cave amongst the rocks on the hill above the farm. It was a tiny case just big enough to shelter them from a passing shower if they sat very close together. Bess was the leader in all their games: it was Bess who thought of all the interesting things to do! ‘C’m on, Flick!’ she would cry, spreading out her arms and rushing down the hill, her feet scarcely touching the ground, and Gerald would follow as fast as his short fat legs could take him.

  Why had she called him ‘Flick’? He didn’t know. There must have been some reason, he supposed, but it was lost in the hazy memories of his childhood.

  The footlights went on; the lights in the auditorium went off … and Gerald awoke from his trance to see the curtain rising. At first the stage was almost dark (it was early morning) but gradually the dawn came and the scene took shape. There were cottages with summer flowers in their gardens, there were trees and bushes, the only sound was the dawn chorus of birds.

  Then, in the distance, a humming noise became audible and in the sky behind one of the cottages a curious object appeared. It was a shining-steel space-ship which hovered for a few moments and then settled down gently in the middle of the stage. A door in the side of the ship opened and a girl stepped out.

  Gerald had expected this – the policeman had told him – but despite his preparedness his heart gave a wild leap … for it wasn’t ‘Aurelia’ (as it had said in his programme) it was just Bess. It was Bess herself, looking as beautiful as ever. It was his own dear Bess. She was wearing a pale-green filmy garment, which floated round her as she moved, her feet were bare and her lovely copper-coloured hair fell in soft waves to her shoulders.

  There was no sound now: the bird-chorus was stilled. Bess looked about her, wonderingly. She had come to a strange new world. Presently she began to sing softly to herself and to drift across the stage in a graceful dance, picking the flowers in the cottage gardens and crooning over them in delight. She was so entranced that she never noticed that the door in the space-ship had closed, never noticed that the ship was rising from the ground. It was not until it had risen high above her head and was disappearing rapidly in the early morning sky, that she realised her plight; she had been abandoned! She was alone in the strange new world!

  She ran about, calling to her friends to come back; she was in despair … then she realised that it was hopeless! The flowers fell from her hands, her shoulders drooped and she wandered away slowly and disappeared into the woods.

  The sun had risen; the stage scene brightened and the village awoke. It was market-day. Peasants arrived with handcarts and proceeded to erect their stalls and to lay out their produce. An old woman in a donkey-cart with a crate of live hens drove on to the stage. There was talk and laughter and a good deal of squabbling; the stall-holders fought for convenient positions. A lad was discovered stealing a punnet of strawberries, set upon by the owner and soundly thrashed. Two pretty girls strolled on and were surrounded by admiring swains.

  The scene was gay, it was colourful and amusing; the audience was ready to laugh – and rocked with mirth at the somewhat ribald jokes – even Gerald, who was in no mood for laughter, was obliged to smile.

  Gerald decided that the man who had written this play was a clever psychologist: like Shakespeare he was giving his audience light relief, alternating tears and smiles.

  The merriment was at its height when there was a sudden hush and every head was turned, every eye was fixed in astonishment upon the graceful figure of the girl from Venus which had emerged from the woods and was standing upon a little grassy knoll. There was something so strange about the unearthly visitant that some of the villagers fled in alarm, while others, attracted by her beauty, surged forward to greet her. The curtain fell upon a scene of confusion.

  Gerald saw from his programme that there was to be an interval of ten minutes. The lights went up and many people in the audience went out for a drink or a smoke, but Gerald remained seated, lost in dreams. The play was a fairytale – a modern fairytale – but it suited Bess. It gave her plenty of scope for her own particular form of acting. There was a fairytale quality in Bess.

  He was awakened from his trance by a touch on his arm and looked up to find a girl in a white overall standing beside him.

  ‘Mr Gerald Burleigh-Brown?’ she inquired.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Miss Burleigh wants to see you.’

  ‘What?’ he asked incredulously.

  ‘She wants to see you. I’ll fetch you after the show.’ She smiled and gave him a sealed envelope and hurried away.

  It had never occurred to Gerald that a member of the audience could be seen from the stage. How had Bess seen him? He opened the envelope. It contained a pencilled scribble:

  Flick, darling! Why are you in town? What
has happened? Why haven’t you been to see me? I’ve been worried to death about you. Come round after the show. I must see you. It’s assential. Bess.

  He had not intended this, of course, but he would have to obey the summons. Perhaps he might have refused if it had not been for their own private signal which was underlined so fiercely that the pencil had torn the paper. If something was ‘assential’ it was vitally important, it was an S.O.S. which could not be ignored.

  When Bess was twelve years old she had been invited to go and stay with her mother’s sister, Aunt Anna, and had gone away quite happily, but after three days Gerald had received a letter from her saying that she wanted to come home. Father must fetch her immediately: ‘Please make him do it. It is assential.’ Father had been unwilling to offend his first wife’s sister but Gerald gave him no peace and eventually showed him the letter.

  ‘Oh well, I suppose I had better go and fetch her,’ said Father.

  ‘You must, it’s assential,’ Gerald declared.

  ‘That isn’t the way to spell it,’ said Father.

  ‘It’s the way to get it done,’ said Gerald earnestly.

  He was right: Bess was fetched home the following day.

  On the way home in the car Mr Burleigh-Brown informed his daughter that the word was wrongly spelt and added that a big girl of twelve years old should know better. She was told the exact meaning of the word ‘essential’ and given its Latin root. Bess listened meekly and promised to remember. Mr Burleigh-Brown was so anxious to instruct his daughter that he forgot to ask why it had been essential for her to come home. Gerald was told in confidence.

  ‘Aunt Anna was queer,’ explained Bess. ‘She sat and cried all the time. I asked her if she had a pain – but she hadn’t. She just felt miserable. I was dreadfully sorry for her but I couldn’t bear it.’

  ‘It must have been awful!’

  ‘I thought of writing to Father but I was so afraid he wouldn’t do it.’

  ‘I made him do it, Bess. You said it was assential so I made him,’ said Gerald proudly.

  Gerald had been wafted far away into the past so the second act of The Girl from Venus did not make much impression upon him. He woke up a bit for the third act but he had lost the thread. However it didn’t matter much; he had come to see Bess—and Bess was on the stage nearly all the time. (Her name in the play was Aurelia – but she was just Bess). She was so beautiful that all the young men fell in love with her; he didn’t blame them. The other girls were jealous of her; he didn’t blame them either. The manners and customs of ‘Earth’ were entirely different from ‘Venus’ so there were all sorts of things that ‘Aurelia’ didn’t understand. She didn’t understand ‘marriage.’ Why did two people shut themselves up in a house together instead of going about with anyone who took their fancy? Apparently there were no animals on Venus so when she saw a cow she could scarcely believe her eyes. As the policeman had said, some of it was very funny indeed.

  Gradually Aurelia learnt about ‘Earth.’ She was happy in ‘The World of Flowers’ and especially happy with Giles, the farmer’s son. They sang a duet:

  ‘Teach me about Love.’

  It was a good tune and their voices harmonised delightfully … and Aurelia learnt about Love very quickly. She promised to marry Giles and agreed that it would be blissful to live alone with him in a little cottage in the woods. They had a cow and a pig and hens. Aurelia had discarded her filmy draperies and appeared looking like a Dresden shepherdess to scatter corn for the chickens.

  Gerald was quite prepared for the play to end with Aurelia and Giles living happily ever after – he had a feeling that ‘musicals’ always ended happily – but this one was an exception to the rule and he was forced to admit that the unhappy ending was the more artistic.

  Two emissaries arrived from Venus with the tidings that the old King was dead. (The wicked old King was Aurelia’s uncle and it was he who had banished her to Earth). Now that he was dead Aurelia was the rightful queen of Venus and she must return and take up the reins of government.

  Aurelia refused to go! She would stay for ever in the World of Flowers with Giles, her beloved husband. There was a fierce argument and a dramatic song – a quartet in which the two emissaries and Giles and Aurelia took part! It ended in a fight. The men from Venus were victorious. While Giles lay unconscious on the ground the men seized Aurelia and told her plainly that unless she changed her mind and came quietly Venus would despatch a secret missile to destroy her ‘World of Flowers’ and everyone in it. So to save Giles and all her friends Aurelia was forced to agree.

  The last scene was the same as the first – but it was late afternoon and the space-ship was to be seen in the background standing upon the grassy knoll——

  Aurelia and Giles took a fond farewell of each other and Aurelia sang her song:

  ‘Good-bye to the World of Summer Flowers.’

  The villagers sang the chorus:

  ‘Farewell, lovely Venus maid!’

  Aurelia walked up the hill slowly and sadly; she was taken into the space-ship and flown away. The villagers left the stage and only Giles remained, the heart-broken Giles, and a single red rose which had fallen from Aurelia’s bouquet.

  When the curtain fell there was a moment’s silence before the audience recovered sufficiently to show its approval. The noise of clapping was deafening; the curtain rose and fell again and again: first there was the whole cast; then the principal actors; then Bess and Giles and the Venus men. Bouquets were handed on to the stage and distributed. Then Aurelia came forward with the conductor of the orchestra; then Aurelia alone, a tall graceful figure … she was smiling happily. She came forward and held out her arms and at once there was silence.

  ‘Thank you, dear people,’ said Elizabeth Burleigh. ‘Thank you for being such a wonderful audience. Good night, everyone!’

  There was more clapping, and more bouquets.

  Then it was over.

  What an ovation! Gerald had never seen anything like it – and all the excitement was for Bess! It was for his own dear Bess who he had always loved better than anyone else in the world! His eyes were dim with unshed tears as he groped under the seat for the green hat with the unfashionably wide brim which had sheltered him from the South African sun.

  When he stood up the girl who had brought him the note was waiting for him and signed to him to come. He followed her through a door and up some stone steps and along a draughty passage.

  ‘This is her dressing-room,’ said the girl ‘She isn’t seeing anyone else to-night. It’ll be a whole-time job keeping them away.’

  Then she pushed Gerald into the room and shut the door behind him.

  Immediately he was enveloped in a close embrace. Her arms were round his neck, her face was hidden against his shoulder. She had changed the diaphanous garments which she had worn on the stage for a thin white silk kimono and as Gerald put his arms round her he discovered that there was nothing much beneath it. It was an amazing thing to have her in his arms like this: her soft warm body, the scent of violets, her copper hair tickling his nose.

  ‘Flick!’ she murmured. ‘Oh Flick, darling! Oh, naughty, wicked boy! Why did you frighten me?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You didn’t write … you disappeared … I thought you were ill! I thought something dreadful had happened … I thought you were dead! Oh, Flick! I cabled to Koolbokie and they said you had gone away. I cabled again but they didn’t know your address. Oh, naughty wicked Flick! Why did you frighten me like that?’

  ‘I’m sorry, darling. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I was – I was ill for a time. I was a bit – upset.’

  ‘You could have cabled!’

  ‘I never thought,’ said Gerald remorsefully. ‘I was – upset – and – and miserable. I never thought——’

  ‘And why – oh, why didn’t you come to me the moment you arrived?’

  He kissed her.

  ‘How long have you been in London?’ she deman
ded.

  ‘Just a few days.’

  She sighed. ‘Oh well, you’re here. That’s all that matters. You must come and stay with me, of course. You can come home with me, can’t you?’

  ‘Not to-night, Bess.’

  ‘Why not? There’s plenty of room in my flat.’

  ‘Not to-night,’ repeated Gerald, disengaging himself gently.

  ‘Is it a girl, Flick?’

  ‘A girl?’

  ‘You’re different,’ she explained. ‘Something has happened to you, darling. You’re in some sort of trouble. Is it a girl?’

  ‘No, it isn’t a girl,’ he replied, smiling a little at the idea.

  ‘Well, what is it?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘I’ll come and tell you about it.’

  ‘To-morrow morning,’ agreed Bess. ‘Promise, Flick! Promise faithfully that you’ll come to-morrow morning. You can get a taxi and bring your luggage.’

  He promised faithfully to go and see her to-morrow morning; she wasn’t satisfied until he had written down her address in his notebook. Then he kissed her and came away.

  They let him out at the stage-door where there was a group of people waiting in the rain. They were waiting in the pouring rain for a glimpse of Elizabeth Burleigh as she crossed the pavement and got into her car.

  4. GERALD’S STORY

  Bess had said, ‘Come to-morrow morning. You can get a taxi and bring your luggage.’ Gerald had not replied to that. He had very little luggage, just a suitcase and the garments he had bought in London … and he didn’t intend to stay with Bess. Perhaps when she had heard his story she wouldn’t want him to stay. Besides it was better to be free. He couldn’t stay with Bess and be out all day searching for a job and he had a feeling that if he were staying with Bess she would drag him out to parties. Bess was popular so naturally she would lead a gay life! There would be luncheons, cocktails, dinners … no, not dinners, of course, because of ‘Venus.’ It would be supper-parties and dances which would continue late into the night Gerald certainly didn’t want that kind of life; it would be intolerable.