She said suddenly: “I love this house. It is the sort of house I always admired. When I was a child, I would dream of living in such a house. The Big House! I used to stand and stare at the Big House in our village. You could only see the walls and the bell tower, I remember. There was a clock up there. You could hear its chimes all over the village. I used to say: ‘When I’m grown up I’ll live in a house like that.’ And here I am … in an even grander one. Who would believe it? And now they all want me to go away. Roderick wants me to go away; Lady Constance always has. She hates me and has from the moment I appeared.” She laughed hysterically. “Her son … to marry an out-of-work actress!”

“You are distressing yourself, Lisa,” I said.

“I’m saying the truth. Why should I leave here so that you can come in my place? You have had everything … a wonderful childhood … Desiree for a mother. Life isn’t fair!”

“It never has been.”

“Why do some have all the luck? Why do some of us have to stand aside and grab what we can get? Catching the crumbs which fall from the rich man’s table!”

“I don’t know, Lisa.”

“Oh, dear. I suppose I should live in the sort of place they want to send me to … with a lot of people like myself … in various stages of decay.”

“Don’t say that, Lisa. I know you have suffered … that you still suffer. But there are times when you feel better.”

“What do you know about it? How would you like to be …unwanted? To have a chance and, just when you happen to be on the way … this has to happen? I could have been another Desiree. I know it. And then this happens.”

“I understand, Lisa. It was cruel.”

“But I was slapped down … cut off … just when I had a chance.” She was staring ahead of her, and I saw the tears on her cheeks. I longed to comfort her.

“Then your mother …” she went on. “Fame and fortune were hers, and then … her life was cut off … without any warning.”

She lay back and closed her eyes.

“Noelle,” she whispered. “Pills.”

There was a small cupboard by her bed, the top of which was used as a table. On this was a glass and a jug of water.

“Pills in cupboard,” she said in a low voice. “Two. They dissolve in water.”

I hastily poured out a tumbler of water and took the bottle of pills from the cupboard. I dropped two of them into the water.

She watched me. “They don’t take long,” she said.

In a few more seconds the pills were invisible. I gave the glass to her and she drank eagerly. Then I took the glass from her and placed it beside the jug.

She smiled at me wanly. “They work … fairly quickly,” she said. “Very effective. I’ll be better soon.”

I took her hand and pressed it.

“Shouldn’t have said that,” she said. “You deserved what you had. She was so wonderful. What a tragedy! I never got over it.”

“Don’t talk,” I said. “Rest.”

“Come again soon. I have to talk to you.”

“Is the pain better?”

“Getting better. Those pills are very strong.”

I saw her features relax a little. She still clung to my hand.

“Sorry, Noelle.”

“I understand. I do … really.”

She smiled.

I stayed with her until she was asleep. Then I crept quietly from the room.

At the end of the week Roderick and Charlie returned.

I shall never forget that Friday. It was the beginning of the nightmare weekend.

They did not come back until the evening, and in the afternoon I went to sit with Lisa.

As soon as I saw her I noticed that there was something different about her. There was a spot of colour in her cheeks and her eyes were unnaturally bright. I wondered if she had a fever.

She said: “I’m glad you’ve come, Noelle. I want to tell you what I have been trying to for a long time. Even now, I am wavering. I don’t know whether it’s right to tell you. Sometimes I think I should … at others that I should be a fool to do so.”

“What is it, Lisa, you want to tell me? I know you have been on the point of doing so many times.”

“It’s your mother. I want to explain something. Take your mind back to that day we met.”

“I remember it well.”

“I contrived it. I arranged for your carriage to knock me down. I knew how to make it look like an accident. I knew how to fall. I was a dancer. I was agile … and I planned it carefully. I wanted to get your mother’s attention. You don’t seem very surprised.”

“Well, I must admit that at times … I wondered. I wasn’t sure. It could have been an accident … or arranged.”

“You don’t know what it is like … never getting a chance … seeing others shooting up ahead of you … not because they have more talent, but because they have the right friends. I had to get a chance. I knew your mother was generous. I knew she would be understanding. I knew she had a reputation for helping unlucky people. She was wonderful. All that I hoped for … and more.”

“So it worked,” I said. “You got your chance.”

“I knew I could do it … if only I had the opportunity.”

I looked at her steadily and said: “Caper spurge?”

“I … I knew something about herbs. You do, in the country … if you are interested in that sort of thing. Laburnum, Christmas rose, hellebore … there are lots of them. Caper spurge wouldn’t cause much harm. There is a milky juice in the fruit … well, in all parts. It irritates your skin if it touches you, and it is a drastic purge. People recover quickly from it.”

She must have seen the horror in my face, for she turned away and said quickly: “I was sitting in the garden one day … on that wicker seat, and I was thinking that I should never get a chance to lift myself out of the chorus. And I saw it there, near me. I remembered it. And I thought: I want my chance now … while I’m young and able to take advantage of it. I thought: It will be now or never.”

“You made her ill, so that you could go on in her place and have your chance! She had given you your chance … and you used her like that!”

“I know. I’m so worried. If only I had known what would happen. The opportunity was there. I thought I’d have it and there would be no harm done. It wouldn’t make any difference to her to be off for a night or two. I didn’t mean to harm her. I would never have touched it if I had known. It was so easy. I knew how to deal with the juice. When we came in after the show, either Martha or I would get her a drink. I got it that night. It was hot milk. She was always lively after a show. She wouldn’t stop talking. She did not notice what she was drinking. She wasn’t there. She was on the stage. She and Martha would go on and on about it. Noelle, it was only to make her indisposed … just for a night … so that I could go on in her place.”

“It killed her,” I said.

“I didn’t kill her. I wouldn’t have hurt her for anything. I loved her. I did, really. Nobody had ever been so good to me as she was. It was only just to give me a chance …”

“She died!”

“How did I know she was going to get out of bed and feel dizzy? It was the fall that killed her … not what I had given her.”

“It was because of what you had given her that she fell.”

“I thought you would help to comfort me. I’ve suffered terribly. I dream about her. I never meant to hurt her.”

“I heartily wish you had never come near us,” I said.

“You are blaming me for her death.”

“Of course I’m blaming you! If she had not brought you into the house, if she had not put you into the chorus, if she had not let you be her understudy … she would be alive today.”

“I’m sorry I told you. I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer. It’s a great weight on my mind. I hoped that you would understand and help me.”

“I understand you and your wretched ambition.” “She was ambitious, too. She lied about Charlie.”

I wanted to get away from her. I stood up.

She said: “Wait. I have been through so much. You don’t know how I blame myself. She was good to me … no one had been so good before … no one ever did for me what she did. I didn’t kill her. It has been on my conscience. I dream about it. It’s horrible. I thought you’d help me. I thought you would understand.”

I could not speak. I could only think of Desiree, and my longing to be with her was so intense that I hated this woman whose action—if indirectly—had taken my mother from me.

I should have tried to understand. I should have realized how desperately she wanted to succeed, and she thought that by merely causing a little discomfort to my mother, she could do so. My mother might have done the same, she would reason with herself. She would understand, and perhaps think it rather a joke. I could see Lisa’s anguish, and I knew she was telling me the truth when she said how much she had suffered at the tragic turn of events.

Her face hardened. She was trying to suppress her feelings. She said: “I have been through a great deal, and I will no longer. I’ve paid for what I did to your mother. I was given my chance and I was unable to take advantage of it. It is dangerous to meddle with fate, to try to make life go the way you want it to to succeed. I meddled. It might seem that I had my chance … and now, look at me. Your mother did the same … and because of that, you lost Roderick. Life is laughing at us. You can understand that, Noelle. I have suffered too much, and I will no more. I shall not leave this house. I shall stay here. I will never, as long as I live, step aside for you. Roderick married me. He chose to do so. He was not forced into it. I shall not give him up. I shall not go and live in some nursing home like poor Mrs. Carling … just because I am in the way. This is my home, and I shall stay here.”