CHAPTER 9

Terry was looking for a quiet place to have a discussion with Suzanne. He saw Mr Hathaway who winked at him while saying :

"Congratulations Terry. Very well done, you deserve this role. I will see you later, come to my place when you are ready, we will have diner together"

"Thank you Mr Hathaway. I will join you as soon as possible" Terry replied with a smile.

Terry and Suzanne left to one of the dressing rooms of the theatre. They needed some privacy to settle their situation. They kept silent for a moment lost in their thought. Finally Terry started to talk

"I do not know where to start. I will never be grateful enough for you save my life. I owe you so much. I like you very much and you deserve to be happy. You lost your leg for me and I have been unable to bring you happiness. I apologize for this and for my behaviour towards you. I should have put an end to all this before. You know it will never work out between us. When we met, my heart was belonging to somebody else and it is still the case."

"I know Terry. I loved you so much that I thought that my love would be enough for both of us and that sooner or later you will learn to love me. But you did not. On the contrary, you became even more distant and silent than before" admitted Suzanne

"I started regretting the time when we were on tour for Mac Beth and that we were discussing for hours on our roles" she continued

"Suzanne, I never wanted to give you the impression I could fall in love with you. You were my stage partner and I appreciated your friendship but there was nothing else on my side. If I marry you it will only be by duty and this is not what you want don't you ?"

"No I want a love wedding not a duty one"

"If I was to marry you it would only be because I feel guilty. It is my fault if you lost your leg. I should have been the one to get injured not you. But to tell you the truth since that horrible night when I had to break up with Candy, I kept thinking that I 'd rather be dead than separate from her. I am sorry to tell this but you must understand how I feel" He said sincerely

"This is why I left New York and my career. I felt like an empty shell without her and I tried to kill myself with alcohol until she saw me. She brought me back to life again. She tried to send me back to you but I did not let her do so. I know I am hurting you but I want you understand that there is no happiness possible between us". He was murmuring afraid of her reaction.

Suzanne was expecting everything he explained except that he had seen Candy again although she could have guess that just by his behaviour since he had come back. Her pride was a little hurt but she was not surprised at all.

"I understand, Terry, Do not worry. I really loved you. I say "loved" because I am not sure it is still the case. Perhaps my love for you was not as deep as I thought. When you left me to go on that trip I was confident you would come back and we would resolve our problems and got married. But time had passed and you did not come back nor gave any news. I started to wonder if this was really the life I wanted until Mr Hathaway came around and gave me this opportunity to put prosthesis on and go back on stage. Then I realised that I could do a lot of things even with one leg. I am terribly sorry Terry. I have been a spoiled child, overprotected by my mother. I did not have any experience of boys relationships when I met you"

Terry tried to say something but she stopped him

"Let me finish, please! or I do not know if I will find the courage to tell you everything. I saved your life this is true. But thinking back about it, I would have probably done it for anybody. I did not have the right to insist on you spending your whole life with me because of this. My mother was pressuring me, just like she did with you. She kept on telling me that my life was over and that you needed to stay with me to take care of me. To my defence, I was still under the shock of losing my leg and I was dieing of jealousy against Candy so I agreed with my mum. Now I realise we were wrong. I managed to take good care of myself on my own lately. My life is not over at all, on the contrary. You have probably notice that I get on really well with Jason Lambert"

"Yes I did" said Terry unsure

"In fact it is more than friendship and I really start to understand what Candy is feeling for you now. I am very happy you got the Othello's role because we will be able to perform together again. But I am even happier because Jason got Michael Cassio's role. It is funny when you think about it. He will play the lover, you the husband and me the unfaithful wife.

Anyway, all this to say you are free, Terry, go back to Candy and be happy. I will not try to suicide again. I love life more than ever. I found love and I am going to perform on stage soon. I got all I wished for" she finished

Terry felt so relieved that he nearly went to hug her. But hold himself and just say :

"Thank you Suzanne. I hope we will stay good friends and that we will keep the good work relationship we had before all this.

"Yes we will. I am sure and I hope you will forgive me for all the pain I have brought you" she answered anxiously.

"I already forgave you. I need to go now, can I give you a lift" he asked

"No thank you. Jason is taking me out for diner to celebrate our roles. He is waiting for me"

"Ok then, so see you soon" he said leaving the room

"Yes good bye and good luck" she answered smiling. She was relieved everything was over now.

"You do not know how much luck I will need" Terry thought for himself. He ran out of the theatre and left quickly he had something very important to check now.

Albert got out of the station after a trip that seemed to him like an eternity. He was so scared to lose Candy that he had envisaged all the scenarios possible to find out Candy. He took a cab and went straight to the Stratford Theatre.

It was late already but there were still some lights at the theatre. He saw some people leaving the theatre and went to them.

"Good evening, I am looking for Terrence Grandchester, do you know by any chance where I could find him?" he asked

"And you are?" asked a nice blond girl accompanied by a young man.

"I am William Albert Andrew, one of his old friend and I need to see him urgently"

"Oh I am afraid you just missed him. He left ten minutes ago. Let me introduce myself, I am Suzanne Marlowe and this is Jason Lambert"

"Nice to meet you. Suzanne Marlowe? My apologies for not recognising you but you look much nicer in real than on the posters. You are engaged to Terry aren't you" He asked looking at Jason's hand holding hers.

"Well I was. We have just decided to follow our path separately" she answered

"Really, I 'm sorry" said Albert without sincerity at all.

"Oh don't. This is better for both of us" she said giving a glance to Jason

"I heard about your accident and I am glad to see that you have recovered very well"

"Yes, I had chance after all" she replied

Albert did not ask for more details, he did not want to look too curious.

"Would you be so kind as to give me Terry's address?"

"Sure, but you will not find him home. I think he went to have diner at Mr Hathaway's house. Here is the address" she said while writing something on a piece of paper.

"Thank you so much miss Marlowe"

"You are very welcome. Good bye"

"Good bye Miss Marlowe, Mr Lambert. It was a pleasure to meet you" and he left quickly to catch another cab that would take him to Mr Hathaway's place.

He was happy to learn that Terry was now free to be with Candy. His main concern for the moment was still to find Candy.

Candy was looking around her. The house was very nice and remarkably well kept. The furniture and the various objects were attesting of the owner's good taste. The maid had left her in the living room where a log was burning in the fireplace. It was giving a cosy atmosphere.

The maid came back.

"Do you want to eat something now or do you prefer to wait for the Master?" she asked

"Who is the master? What am I doing here?" was Candy response

"I am sorry, I can not tell you anything. I have only been told that two gentlemen would arrive late tonight with you and that I should take good care of you until he comes back." The maid replied nicely.

"These guys were not exactly gentlemen. Do you know they kidnapped me this morning, tied me up and put me at the back of their car to come all the way here" cried Candy.

"I am sorry. There is surely a good explanation for all this. Come with me. You will have a bath and change clothes, you must be horribly tired and you will feel much better afterwards"

Candy was so tired that she did not even argue. This brave woman had probably nothing to do with all this. She'd better cooperate until the "Master" comes back.

She followed the maid upstairs to a very nice room. A nice velvet dress was waiting for her on the bed. The maid took her to the adjacent bathroom. The bath was standing right in the middle of the room full of hot water. She thanked the maid and explained that she didn't need any help to have a bath. She went in the hot water with delight. It was so nice after this horrible day. She nearly fell asleep in the water.

"Miss Candy, you should get out of the bath, the water must be cold now" said the maid

"Oops, I am sorry, I was falling asleep" said Candy with a smile

She got out of the bath, dried herself and put on the nice dress.

"It suits you very well. It is as if it was done for you. Come here I will do your hair"

Candy let her do. Usually she did not really like people to take too much care of her but today was different. She had now a positive feeling that all the sadness and tears were behind her and that everything would be fine now.

Finally she was ready. She looked at herself in the mirror and wondered why she had put such a nice dress on and taken a bath for a person she didn't even know unless…

"Could you at least tell me where I am, in which city" she asked softly

"But you are I New York. I thought you knew it" said the maid surprised

"New York! Oh! Tell me what's the name of your master" she asked hopeful

They heard the door slammed.

"You will be able to ask him yourself, he just came back. Come on my child, let's go"

Candy went downstairs to meet with the man who had organised her kidnapping. She was more or less expecting Terry to be downstairs since she knew she was in New York but she stopped in the middle of the stairs and got worried. The man standing in the hall wasn't Terry. He had something familiar but she could not remember where she had seen him before.

He was tall, about forty-five years old, with brown hair and a beard.

"Good evening Candy. Welcome to my house. I am happy to finally meet you" he said with a baritone voice.

"Well, I will not say I am happy to be here. How dare you kidnapped me from my family? Who are you and what are you expecting from me? I want to live this place immediately" she said running to him like a fury and hitting him."

Oh, oh, Calm down. Terry told me you had a bad temper and he did not exaggerated. I am Robert Hathaway, his boss and consider me as a friend" he said laughing.