Stardust Read online

  About the Book

  Elizabeth Laurence is astoundingly beautiful. So beautiful she has never known what it is to have even a plain day. Used to the admiration of all, it seems that she will always be in charge of her own destiny. A star from the first minute she appears on celluloid, her future is certain, until she is cast opposite Jerome Didier in a hit play. As staggeringly handsome as she is beautiful, and tipped to become the leading actor of his generation, Jerome would appear to be made for Elizabeth.

  But Jerome has fallen in love with the tousle-haired and carefree Pippa Nicholls, who is neither conventionally beautiful nor an actress and, much to Elizabeth’s fury, he marries her. They are set to live happily ever after until the playwright Oscar Greene creates a part for Elizabeth which she intuitively recognizes is based on the character of Pippa, and Jerome is tragically deceived by the duplicity of his art.

  About the Author

  Charlotte Bingham comes from a literary family - her father sold a story to H.G Wells when he was only seventeen - and Charlotte wrote her autobiography, Coronet among the Weeds, at the age of nineteen. Since then she has written comedy and drama series, films and plays for both England and America with her husband, the actor and playwright Terence Brady.

  Her most recent novels include Goodnight Sweetheart, The Enchanted, The Land of Summer and The Daisy Club.

  Also by Charlotte Bingham:

  CORONET AMONG THE WEEDS

  LUCINDA

  CORONET AMONG THE GRASS

  BELGRAVIA

  COUNTRY LIFE

  AT HOME

  BY INVITATION

  TO HEAR A NIGHTINGALE

  THE BUSINESS

  IN SUNSHINE OR IN SHADOW

  THE BLUE NOTE

  NANNY

  CHANGE OF HEART

  DEBUTANTES

  THE NIGHTINGALE SINGS

  GRAND AFFAIR

  LOVE SONG

  THE KISSING GARDEN

  THE LOVE KNOT

  Novels with Terence Brady:

  VICTORIA

  VICTORIA AND COMPANY

  ROSE’S STORY

  YES HONESTLY

  Television Drama Series with Terence Brady:

  TAKE THREE GIRLS

  UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS

  THOMAS AND SARAH

  NANNY

  FOREVER GREEN

  Television Comedy Series with Terence Brady:

  NO HONESTLY

  YES HONESTLY

  PIG IN THE MIDDLE

  OH MADELINE! (USA)

  FATHER MATTHEW’S DAUGHTER

  Television Plays with Terence Brady:

  MAKING THE PLAY

  SUCH A SMALL WORD

  ONE OF THE FAMILY

  Films with Terence Brady:

  LOVE WITH A PERFECT STRANGER

  MAGIC MOMENTS

  Stage Plays with Terence Brady:

  I WISH I WISH

  THE SHELL SEEKERS

  (adaptation from the novel by Rosamunde Pilcher)

  STARDUST

  Charlotte Bingham

  This ebook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form (including any digital form) other than this in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Epub ISBN: 9781409031444

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  STARDUST

  A BANTAM BOOK 0 553 40171 8

  Originally published in Great Britain by Doubleday,

  a division of Transworld Publishers

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Doubleday hardcover edition published 1992

  Doubleday trade paperback edition published 1992

  Bantam Books edition published 1993

  Bantam Books edition reissued 1998

  3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4

  Copyright © Charlotte Bingham 1992

  The right of Charlotte Bingham to be identified as the author of this

  work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the

  Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All of the characters in this book are fictitious

  and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

  is purely coincidental.

  Bantam Books are published by Transworld Publishers,

  61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA,

  a division of The Random House Group Ltd,

  in Australia by Random House Australia (Pty) Ltd,

  20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney, NSW 2061, Australia,

  in New Zealand by Random House New Zealand Ltd,

  18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland 10, New Zealand

  and in South Africa by Random House (Pty) Ltd,

  Endulini, 5a Jubilee Road, Parktown 2193, South Africa.

  For the Duke who loves the stars

  Contents

  Dedication

  Overture

  Act One: England Some time in the Fifties

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Act Two

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Entr’acte

  Act Three: England Late in the Sixties

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Act Four: Later Some time in the Seventies

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Reprise

  When he shall die,

  Take him and cut him out in little stars,

  And he will make the face of heaven so fine

  That all the world will be in love with night,

  And pay no worship to the garish sun.

  Romeo and Juliet, Act III Sc II

  Overture

  It seems she was always beautiful. There are photographs to prove it, photographs that were taken at the time. Even at three months old, when other babies are rarely even pretty, she was beautiful. And already the camera was in love with her.

  They say that beautiful babies don’t grow into beautiful children. But at three her looks were so arresting, she won first prize in a national competition.

  No doubt you saw her picture then. Everyone did. Whichever magazine you picked up, or whatever hoarding you glanced at, there was that perfect little heart-shaped face, staring out at you, or down at you, with big serious dark-lashed eyes, eyes which already fascinated, eyes like a baby tigress. And no doubt you were captivated even then, everyone was, particularly by those eyes, those strangely vulnerable eyes, with their odd little flecks and strange markings.

  Naturally flawless, her skin unnaturally stayed that way. She took great care to make sure that it did, she took care to preserve its almost translucent whiteness, never allowing it to get fashionably tanned, knowing that the real drama of her looks depended on that pearl white skin being shown off against her thick and lustrous dark hair.

  Early studio photographs reveal that without doubt her hair was one of her greatest assets, that and the incredible delicacy of her features. Even more unusually, she had identical profiles, making her every director’s and cameraman’s dream. Because in the theatre wherever the audience sat, or on screen from whichever angle the camera photographed her, her beauty was indefectible. Even her voice, so of
ten the thief of beauty, was light and full of charm.

  So imagine then, if you can, someone so beautiful that in all her life as she grew up into womanhood, she never had a plain day. Not, that is, until she finally won him from her. And it was from that moment, from the moment that she finally won him for herself, that her lustrous beauty began quite inexorably to fade.

  ACT ONE

  England

  Some time in the Fifties

  1

  All she did was walk across the room. As the other woman entered, she simply got up from her desk, smoothed down her dress, smiled at the other woman, walked her across the office and let her through another door, which she held open with one hand and a smile that lit up the sky. That was all she did. And she only did it once.

  There were no other takes. It had been the end of the day’s shoot, it was routine, so the director had shot and printed just the one take. But the image was the stuff of dreams. Even though the print had been hastily processed, and was silent, as was the way with the rushes, the tall, dark-haired man standing by the door of the viewing theatre had seen enough. The way the girl looked, the way she moved, the way her eyes found the lens, and once they did, the way she smiled at you right through the camera, that was all he needed to see, to know that this girl was something quite exceptional.

  ‘Lights!’ he shouted, and at once there were lights.

  Charles Keyes, the film’s director, shot bolt upright in his seat in the second row. He hadn’t even realized Boska was in the room.

  ‘I want to see that last scene again,’ Boska said. ‘So Mike? Wind back if you will, please?’

  ‘Something wrong, Boz?’ Keyes asked as casually as he could. ‘I didn’t spot anything.’

  ‘Obviously not, Charles,’ Boska said. ‘Luckily I did.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘Who was it?’ Boska corrected him, taking a fresh packet of Passing Cloud from his suit pocket and carefully removing an oval cigarette which he tapped at both ends on one manicured thumb-nail. ‘Who was the girl?’

  Keyes stalled. He hadn’t been paying full attention since, to his mind, the scene was of absolutely no importance.

  ‘You obviously don’t mean our Sylvia, Boz,’ Keyes replied, referring to his leading lady. ‘I was watching her, naturally.’

  ‘You were half asleep, Charles,’ Boska replied. ‘I was watching you as well. Mike?’ Boska opened the door through to the projection room. ‘Roll it if you’re ready, please.’

  ‘Yes sir!’ came the reply. ‘Yes, Mr Boska sir!’

  This time everyone in the viewing theatre watched, because as they all knew from experience, when Dmitri Boska said there was something to see, there was something to see. And now that they watched, they saw a dark-haired, slender; angelic-looking girl who moved as if she was dancing, and who smiled as if the sun had come out for the first time after weeks of nothing but rain. The reason they hadn’t seen her before was because they were looking for technical faults or blemishes, noting detail for continuity, or checking that all was right with Sylvia Dean, the leading lady. No-one had paid the secretary any attention because the girl was a walk-on and this was her only scene. Yet now their attention had been drawn to her, everyone in the viewing theatre wondered how they could possibly have missed her.

  ‘Well?’ Boska asked as the lights came on again, momentarily dazzling the assembled company. ‘I hate to think what would have happened if I hadn’t paid you a visit this morning. Because if I hadn’t, I swear the world would have been a poorer place.’

  ‘She’s certainly pretty, Boz,’ Keyes said, stretching his long legs out in front of him. ‘In fact I’d go as far as to say she is very pretty.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool, Charles,’ Boska sighed. ‘That girl is not pretty, or even very pretty. That girl is beautiful. That girl is one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen, anywhere. Her eyes, for instance. You saw how the camera captured their look? The camera loves her, and if the camera loves her, we love her. What you have just seen, what we all have just seen, we have seen a star being born, that’s what. In just that one little scene. OK. So now what you do, Charles, is you build up her part in this film. You give her something to do, because I’m not wrong, believe me. You put her in two or three scenes, with dialogue. I don’t care if it means getting another girl for the secretary, a reshoot, and casting this girl as something else. I don’t mind what it takes. All I want is this girl back here, and under contract. So get moving.’

  Boska dropped his half-smoked cigarette into the fire bucket, looked round the assembled company to make sure he had made his point, and then turned and swept out of the viewing room. When he had gone, Charles Keyes took a small pair of scissors from his top pocket and slowly began to trim his immaculate fingernails.

  ‘Imagine that,’ he said finally and to no-one in particular. ‘A star. And there was I going to cut that whole silly sequence.’

  While the studio was doing their best to track her down, Elizabeth Laurence was out shopping with Lalla Henderson, her best friend from her drama school days. They window shopped in Bond Street, and Knightsbridge, but they bought nothing, because neither of them could really afford to do so, Lalla because she was a struggling actress, and Elizabeth because she was newly married and dependent on her husband for her clothes allowance.

  ‘You’d look sensational in those,’ Lalla stopped to point at a pair of yellow velvet trousers with a high waist and tapered, zippered ankles. ‘With your figure they’re just made for you.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I absolutely promised Sebastian.’

  ‘What about the money you earned from your day on the film?’ Lalla said. ‘Surely that’s yours to do what you like with?’

  Elizabeth sighed and gazed longingly at the velvet trousers in the shop window.

  ‘I suppose there wouldn’t be any harm in trying them on,’ she said.

  Unfortunately Lalla was right, and Elizabeth, with her twenty-inch waist, slender hips and perfectly proportioned legs looked wonderful in the dull yellow trousers, particularly when the shop assistant suggested teaming them up with a close-fitting black jersey blouse.

  ‘It’s no good,’ Elizabeth sighed as she turned and looked at herself from all angles in the mirror. ‘I simply can’t afford them.’

  ‘If you did some more filming you could.’

  Elizabeth looked up at Lalla and smiled radiantly.

  ‘Get behind me, Satan,’ she said.

  They left the shop empty handed and caught a bus in Oxford Street to take them to Kensington where they planned to have lunch on the roof garden of Derry and Toms.

  ‘When I get my big break,’ Lalla said, after they had settled in the empty front seat on the top deck, ‘the first thing I shall do is go to Bond Street and buy a dress by Balenciaga. And another by Givenchy. And another by Dior.’

  ‘Perhaps this will be your big break,’ Elizabeth said, holding on to the rail in front of them as the bus swung into Park Lane. ‘Perhaps someone will see you in it, and put you under contract. Isn’t that what happens?’

  ‘That’s what’s meant to happen,’ Lalla laughed, ‘in fairy stories. No, I don’t think Made In Heaven is going to turn yours truly into a star. I think it’s going to take more than one scene and my one line – “Dr Hargreaves will see you now, madam.” Still, it was fun, wasn’t it?’

  Elizabeth agreed. It had been fun. Loath though she was to admit it, she regretted having had to give up acting once she had got formally engaged. Even though she hadn’t really taken drama school that seriously, and had been much more interested in making a good marriage, she had secretly enjoyed performing, and although her young husband, Sebastian Ferrers, was extremely handsome, comfortably off and deemed the catch of the season, the newly married Mrs Ferrers adjudged her life dull, especially when compared to the life her friend Lalla was leading.

  That was why she had allowed Lalla to persuade her to attend a casting session for the comedy bei
ng shot at Richmond Studios, a film in which Lalla had what she described as a cough-and-a-spit as a doctor’s receptionist. Sebastian was away on business, and Elizabeth was even more bored than usual, so there really seemed to be no good reason to say no.

  The casting director obviously felt the same about Elizabeth as soon as he saw her, hiring her at once, although her appearance among a crowd of extras somewhat disconcerted him.

  ‘But you’re a trained actress,’ he said. ‘Weren’t you at RADA with Lalla Henderson?’

  ‘Yes I was, why?’

  ‘It just seems odd, if I may say so,’ the casting director said, ‘for a girl with your rather exceptional looks—’

  ‘I’m – married,’ Elizabeth interrupted with a sweet smile. ‘I was married within months of leaving drama school.’

  ‘Ah,’ the director said. ‘I see.’

  ‘This is just for pin money,’ Elizabeth explained. ‘Nothing more.’

  Which is probably how it would have remained, had Elizabeth not given in to temptation and decided to upstage the leading lady, a habit she had fallen into at drama school whenever she considered she hadn’t been given a part worthy of her talents. It didn’t take much effort, at least not when the upstager was as strikingly beautiful as Elizabeth was. All it required was a sudden smile in an unexpected place, a slight widening of the eyes, a small but eye-catching gesture (in this case, a simple straightening of her dress), or just a special way of walking. Elizabeth had a special way of walking. Elizabeth walked as if on air. And, of course, she had learned how to look into the camera when she was a baby, with the consequence that whatever trick she might employ, Elizabeth discovered very quickly that there was no difficulty whatsoever in making audiences believe that it was she not the principal player at whom they should all be looking. As for Sylvia Dean, the leading lady, she never stood a chance from the moment Elizabeth came into shot.

  ‘You could perfectly easily get some more work on the film,’ Lalla persisted over lunch in the gardens high on the roof of Kensington’s most fashionable department store. ‘They’re shooting the big party scene next week, and all of us cough-and-spitters are doubling up for the crowd. I know that Gerry, the casting director you saw, remember? Gerry’d have you back like a shot.’