The Deserving Mistress

There had been no car visible in the yard a few moments ago to tell her of the other woman’s presence here, no pre-warning of this confrontation. The only positive thing about it that May could see was that she was alone here on the farm, that neither of her sisters were here to witness this.

‘May?’

She stiffened her spine, turning slowly to face the other woman as she continued to step down onto the cobbled yard, at the same time registering the red car parked beside the garage, and so not visible to anyone entering from the lane. As May had done…

She looked up resentfully at the other woman. ‘You knew I didn’t want you to come here.’ It was at once a statement and an accusation.

The actress looked less controlled than she had at lunchtime today, lines of strain beside her eyes, her face pale beneath her impeccable make-up, still dressed in the cashmere sweater and fitted black trousers she had worn earlier.

‘In fact,’ May continued derisively, ‘I’m surprised you could still find your way here!’

April Robine flinched as May’s deliberate taunt obviously hit home. ‘I remember everything about this place, May—’

‘Really?’ she cut in scathingly. ‘Then you’ll remember the way out again, won’t you?’ She turned away, moving to unfasten the trailer from the back of the tractor, her hands shaking as much with rage as shock.

How dared this woman come here? How dared she!

No—she wouldn’t cry. Wouldn’t give this woman the satisfaction of knowing how much her mere presence here, of all places, hurt and upset her.

‘Still here?’ she taunted as she turned to find the actress standing as if frozen.

April Robine looked at her searchingly, her face having lost all colour now. ‘I was sorry to hear about your father last year—’

‘Were you?’ May cut in hardly, her hands clenching at her sides. ‘Were you really?’ she repeated scornfully.

April’s eyes flashed angrily at May’s obvious scepticism. ‘Yes, I was really,’ she snapped. ‘I—he was—James and I may have had our differences, but I never wished him any harm—’

‘Oh, please,’ May muttered disgustedly. ‘Spare me the insincere platitudes!’

‘They aren’t insincere,’ the actress sighed. ‘Far from it. May, you were very young, you can have no idea—’

‘No idea of what?’ May glared at the other woman. ‘Of my father’s unhappiness because his wife had left him?’ She gave a disbelieving shake of her head. ‘I may have been “very young”, as you put it, but I wasn’t too young to see that my father lost the will to live himself after you left, that it was only because of his

three children that he managed to carry on at all!’ Her face was flushed, her eyes feverish, her breasts quickly rising and falling beneath her thick black sweater as she breathed agitatedly.

‘They were my three children, too!’ April cried emotionally, her hands raised appealingly.

May became very still, all anger leaving her as that chill once more settled down her spine.

January. March. May. Yes, they had been this woman’s three children. And she had left them as well as their father, had walked out on all of them to follow a star, to become a star herself.

And two weeks ago David Melton had ironically offered May the film role of Stella, with April Robine playing the title role of Stella’s mother!

May had been so excited when David, a well-established film director both in England and America, had picked her out of a local pantomime as a possible actress in the film he was shooting this summer, claiming that she was perfect for the part of Stella, the heroine’s daughter. But all of that excitement had died the moment David had told her who was to play the part of her mother.

David had claimed May was perfect for the part.

Of course May was perfect for the part!

David couldn’t know how perfect…

Because April Robine really was her mother!

For years she had denied that fact, by tacit agreement with her father had brought January and March up with the impression that their mother had died while they were still very young. Only to have the woman brought vividly back to life in this intrusive way!

May looked coldly at the other woman. ‘Our mother is dead,’ she stated flatly.

April gasped, her face paling even more. ‘Is that what January and March think, too?’ she choked disbelievingly.