Last Act of All by Aline Templeton Page B

thing. That’s special; you don’t need me to tell you that. That’s the well of freshness that gives me my inspiration.’
    Lips parted, she listened, letting him seduce her as much by the sound of his voice as by the words he used, and the remembered excitement flooded through her.
    ‘ Neville, I don’t know what to say…’
    ‘ Just say you’ll meet me — our own special place, three o’clock, Friday?’
    ‘ Three o’clock, Friday,’ she repeated obediently. Did she hear him laughing at her confusion as she put the phone down?
    Three o’clock, Friday. It wasn’t over, after all. He hadn’t ditched her. She was his secret inspiration, he had said so, and of course she understood about his public image. It was like royalty, really; he wasn’t free to do what he truly wanted to do, in his heart, but that was all right with her, whatever happened. He had given her back her dream of herself as special, desirable. The wicked, delicious exhilaration fizzed up in her, like champagne.
    *
    London received Helena back with its characteristic indifference, which was balm to her violated sense of privacy.
    Old friends had been both kind and tactful, and contacts yielded a publicity job in one of the larger theatres. It was menial work, but she was self-supporting and still in contact with her old acting world, and its undemanding nature was, for the moment, ideal. She needed time to get to know Helena Fielding, feme sole .
    On Charles Morley’s recommendation, she had refused to speak to Neville except through Henry Stanton, the solicitor he had found for her for whom she felt no personal warmth, but who, having a criminal as well as a divorce practice, was more than a match for Neville, despite his determination to behave as badly as possible. As a result, Helena was able to move into a pleasant garden flat in Highgate just in time for Stephanie’s summer holiday from school.
    Stephanie, despite an attempt at sophisticated acceptance of the realities of modern family life, took it badly. She had hoped to spend the first fortnight at Radnesfield House, with Angel boarded with the Wagstaffs at the Home Farm, but Neville was unhelpful. He and Lilian opened the house up only at weekends, and agreed to her coming without much enthusiasm.
    When she arrived, afterwards, in London it was clear that her poise had been considerably shaken. Stephanie’s veneer of indifference was not proof against seeing another woman in her mother’s place, and neither Neville nor Lilian had done anything to make the child’s awkward position more bearable.
    Neville, after an initial, extravagant fuss over her arrival, had hardly been there, sometimes out in the village (‘Playing squire,’ observed Stephanie acidly), sometimes further afield. Lilian slept late, exercised in the mini-gym, then prepared herself to be taken out in the evening. Stephanie had spent most of the weekend in the stable, the rest in her bedroom.
    Helena did her best to organize a pleasant holiday, with tickets for shows and excursions every day, but the girl was lonely while she was at work, and though Emily Morley came to stay for a week, she clearly had far too much time for brooding. By the end, she was thin and tense, longing to get back to school and desperate to be reunited with Angel, since, apart from a few days when she was visiting the Morleys, she had not seen her pony at all. She had refused to return to Radnesfield House; Helena did not force the issue, and Neville offered no specific invitation. ‘Daddy’s different,’ was all Stephanie would say.
    It was a relief to them both when she returned to Darnley Hall, and an anxious visit midway through September reassured her; Stephanie had regained weight, and seemed happily absorbed in the familiar world of school. In times of stress, children liked what they knew, and temporarily at least her friends had more influence than her family.
    Helena returned to London feeling lighter of heart than she had