Toby didn’t come home that night. This was not an uncommon occurrence. Sophy had long since insisted on separate bedrooms so he did not wake her in the early hours. But it wasn’t her husband’s absence which had her pacing the floor. She felt sick about Cat. At one point she sat on her bed holding Maisie, who normally reposed on her dressing-table, staring at the doll Bridget had given her so long ago and praying that another dear friend hadn’t been taken from her. And as Bridget had been more mother than friend, so was Cat more the sister she had never had. She loved her dearly. How dearly, she hadn’t realised till now.
As soon as it was light Sophy bathed and dressed, refusing the breakfast Sadie – her maid-cum-cook – tried to press upon her before she left the house. With Sophy’s success had come a move to a large terraced establishment overlooking Berkeley Square, and when she’d come across Sadie, an ageing ex-actress who’d spent the last decade living in abject poverty, it had seemed right to offer her the job even though some of the other applicants had been more suitable. It had proved a happy arrangement. Sadie was endlessly grateful for her changed circumstances, and Sophy was glad of the other woman’s company, especially with Toby being the way he was. It was good to have another woman living in the house.
Sadie now fussed over her as she hailed Sophy a cab. ‘You ought to eat something, ma’am,’ she scolded gently. ‘Even if it’s just a slice of toast.’
‘I’ll have something later, when I’ve spoken to Kane.’
‘Mr Gregory’ had become ‘Kane’ some years ago. The entertainment world was a small one, and after meeting several times at various functions on a social level, he had requested she address him less formally.
‘We’re friends, aren’t we?’ he’d asked one day at a dinner for a respected actor who was retiring from the profession and going abroad to end his days in the sun. ‘And I always think of you as Sophy. It’s silly to stand on ceremony.’
Toby hadn’t liked it, of course, but by then Sophy had ceased to worry about annoying her husband. If Toby had had his way, she would have had no friends of her own and would have sat at home twiddling her thumbs when she wasn’t at the theatre. She had become used to attending the numerous receptions and social occasions alone, when Toby was either off goodness knows where or in a state of drugged senselessness, and it was nice when Kane invited her to be his partner for some event or other. He was always very proper, and most meticulous about her reputation, making sure that no one misconstrued their friendship for anything else. And he’d proved himself to be a good and faithful friend over the years, although Sophy sometimes felt she knew as little about him now as when she’d first met him. She never spoke about Toby and Kane never asked, although she suspected the state of their marriage was common knowledge in the incestuous theatre world.
She had never visited Kane’s home before, although she knew where he lived, and during the cab ride to Russell Square at the back of the British Museum she found she was a little nervous, although she was sure he wouldn’t mind her calling unannounced in the circumstances. When the cab deposited her outside a large, three-storeyed terrace with black painted iron railings separating the snowy-white front steps from the pavement, she stood for a moment, composing herself before she mounted the steps and used the shiny brass knocker on the front door.
The door was opened almost immediately by an individual who gave Sophy something of a shock. The man was big; in fact, to use northern terminology he was ‘built like a brick outhouse’ with a squashed, well-lived-in face to match. Taken aback, Sophy hesitated for a moment before she said, ‘I – I’ve come to see Mr Gregory. Is he at home?’
The man’s eyes narrowed but otherwise his face was impassive when he said, ‘An’ what’s your name, miss?’
Sophy blinked. ‘Sophy Shawe.’ And then in case he got the wrong idea: ‘Mrs Sophy Shawe.’
It was clear he recognised the name, if not her. His manner undergoing a change, he smiled, standing aside as he said, ‘Come in, Mrs Shawe, and I’ll tell Mr Gregory you’re here.’
He showed her into a beautifully decorated and furnished drawing room which was quite devoid of the dark colours and heavy curtains and aspidistras favoured in the previous few decades. Instead the space was light and unburdened and free from clutter, the furniture of a pale wood and the curtains and cushions on the sofas and chairs the room contained pastel shades of green and blue and lemon. Japanese vases and oriental-looking ornaments were dotted here and there, and the light, dove-grey walls held several fine paintings, but again these were different from the normal landscapes or stiffly posed portraits. One picture showed a young woman with coffee-coloured skin washing her long black hair under a waterfall; another, a solitary fishing boat in a sea turned brilliant scarlet from the setting sun, and yet another, a group of raggedly clothed black children playing on the edge of a cotton-field where their mothers were working under a burning sun.