Theatre Shoes (20 page)

“You must do Jaques in ‘As You Like It,'” Uncle Mose urged, “only, instead of the apple, I've got a prop for you.”

The children had never seen Uncle Francis act. So it was not half as funny to them as it seemed to be to the others.

Grandmother, with an overcoat on to show she was being a man, stood with an enormous carving knife in one hand and peeled a pumpkin. And while the skin fell on the floor she rolled out very slowly the Seven Ages of Man speech. There were immense pauses when she looked up and did things with her eyes, and this simply convulsed Aunt Lindsey, Uncle Mose and Alice. Alice laughed so much that she had to hold her inside, and she kept murmuring to the butler:

“She'll be the death of me.”

Hannah, sitting beside her, never laughed at all. Alice had told her that this was Shakespeare—and Shakespeare, according to what Hannah had heard, was not a thing to laugh at. After that, Uncle Mose pretending to be Aunt Marguerite and Grandmother pretending to be Uncle Francis, did a scene from “Macbeth.” Sorrel, who had learnt “Macbeth,” knew that neither of them was using the real words, but making it up. Some of the things that Uncle Mose did were really funny, but otherwise the people who enjoyed themselves most were Grandmother and Uncle Mose. Uncle Francis was not amused at all.

Then the charades were over. Grandmother went back to her chair and Aunt Lindsey looked at her watch.

“I think it's time we started the carols.”

They sang “The First Noel” and “Good King Wenceslas.” And then Grandmother held out a hand to Mark.

“Come here, grandson. I hear from Madame Fidolia that you can sing. What carol will you sing for us?”

Mark did not want to sing at all. It was that sort of party which, as nobody was stern with anybody, had got to the point when knocking other people about, especially grown-ups, was fun. Mark felt more in the mood to stand on his head than to sing a carol, but Grandmother was holding him firmly and she obviously meant to have her way.

“If I sing one you won't say ‘sing another,' will you?”

Grandmother looked round at her daughters.

“See how he bullies me; you'd never have dared do that. Very well, Mark, just one carol and I won't ask for another.”

They had learnt at the Academy, “I Saw Three Ships.” It was easy to sing without a piano, and Mark liked it. He leant against Grandmother and sang it all through.

There was complete silence when he had finished. Sorrel did not wonder, for, really, Mark's singing was a very nice noise. She looked at him with pride. It was a good thing that one of them could shine in this clever family. Uncle Francis was the first to speak, and he used his most caramel voice:

“Beautiful, beautiful.”

Aunt Lindsey kissed her mother.

“I think that's the right ending to a lovely evening. We've hired a car, you know, and it ought to be here any minute.”

Grandmother was kissing everybody.

“Good-night, dears. Good-night, Francis. Good-night, Marguerite. God bless you all.”

CHAPTER XIV

FIRST NIGHT

Holly woke very early one morning and thought about the two pounds Posy had sent her. Holly was not exactly vain but she liked nice things, and all through the term she had to look at Miriam, who was given the best of everything by Aunt Marguerite, but the best thing of all in Holly's opinion was her attaché case. Not having an attaché case mattered much more to Holly than it did to Sorrel or to Mark. Holly was forgetful and could easily drop a thing and not notice it, and she was not very good at tying up a parcel. Almost every day she dropped a sandal or a tap shoe, or a sock somewhere in the Academy, and though at first people had been kind and helpful about it, now everybody groaned, “Oh, Holly!” When Holly woke in the mornings she made the most splendid resolutions. “When I go up to my class to-day I won't drop anything. I'll come with all the right things folded neatly inside my towel like Winifred showed me, and then everybody will say, ‘Well done, Holly!'” Unfortunately, these splendid resolutions never went beyond Holly's bed. She generally left something behind in the bathroom as a start to the day, and then Hannah said:

“Your head will never save your feet.”

It was still dark and it was very cold; but Holly, as soon as she had thought of the attaché case, was so thrilled about it, she simply had to tell Sorrel. She got out of bed very quietly, for the iron beds that she and Hannah slept on creaked horribly if anyone moved quickly. She managed to find her dressing-gown, which was lying over the end of the bed. She could not find her slippers, so, though it was not allowed, she ran up the passage without them.

Sorrel was asleep. Miles and miles down in sleep, dreaming one of those nice dreams where you keep meeting people all together who in actual life could never meet at all. Her father was having a talk with Madame and she pulled forward a little girl and said, “This is my best pupil,” and one moment the little girl was Sorrel and the next it was her mother at the same age. And then Hannah came running in with a huge tray of ice-cream, singing, “Pease porridge, hot!” Sorrel had just taken an enormous strawberry ice-cream with real strawberries in it and whipped cream on the top, the sort of thing even in peacetime that would have been something to remember, when Holly woke her. She tried very hard to be nice; but really, what with missing the ice-cream and just waking up, she did not feel nice. Holly sat on the edge of the bed.

“I simply had to come. Do you think I could buy a real leather attaché case, the grand sort like Miriam has, with the ten shillings Uncle Mose gave me, as well as Posy's two pounds?”

Sorrel thought about it. She remembered the shops they had been to and the attaché cases they had seen.

“I am awfully afraid we couldn't. Those nice ones we saw were five pounds, I think.”

Holly was wriggling her toes to keep them warm.

“Could I get into bed with you, my toes are awfully cold? Well, that's what I thought, so I wondered if we could buy just one and take turns with it, you one week, me one week, and Mark one week. That would be fair to Mark because he hasn't got anything except his ten shillings.”

Sorrel shuddered as Holly's feet touched her.

“Oh, goodness, Holly, your feet are cold! Whatever will Hannah say!” She made room for Holly and pulled the eiderdown round her. “It's a very good idea about the attaché case, but I don't know whether having one just for one week out of every three wouldn't be worse than never having one at all. And then there's who's going to look after it? I mean, it's bound to get scratched and marked—they do—and who's going to be to blame?”

Holly looked up at the felt doll which was on her side of the bed head.

“I wouldn't mind something like that if I can't have an attaché case. Do you think you can buy them now? Or I'd like a white cat to put my pyjamas in just like yours. When we first came here and you let me have that white cat to sleep with me, the nursery was quite different. I've wanted a cat like that ever since.”

Sorrel always laid the white cat on a chair for the night. She leant out of bed and pulled it to her by its tail. It was a nice-looking beast and she had grown fond of it.

“Do you think I'm awfully mean not to give it to you?”

Holly had no idea what she was talking about.

“Why should you give it to me? I wouldn't give it to you if it was mine.”

Sorrel looked round at her blue chintz curtains and her pretty dressing-table with the silver dressing-table fittings, at her white furniture, and her carpet with pink flowers, her bedside lamp and the green frog, the picture of the cornfield, and her books.

“It doesn't seem quite fair, it never has since we've been here, that I should have everything and you and Mark nothing.”

Holly, without knowing it, had been harbouring a grievance; and now you could feel it was a grievance, from the way she spoke.

“I don't see how you can say Mark hasn't anything when you've given him your fourteen bears.”

Sorrel wrestled with herself. It was not for herself that she wanted the things in her room, though she did want them, but it was because of the way they somehow made a picture of her mother. In the months they had been in the house she had felt that she knew her mother better every day, and not only as the girl she had been when she had this room, but as she had been when she had been her mother. She had felt that her mother had told her on the night before the matinée not to be a fool; that, of course, she could do it. She had thought that her mother had told her to worry and fuss less about the ordinary things that went on every day. If she had a bad day at the Academy and got into trouble, or was rude and cross to Hannah, or snapped at Mark or Holly, she had begun to feel that when she got into her bedroom and shut the door, somebody laughed and said, “Who's got a black dog on her shoulder?” And then she felt quite different, and stopped wanting to be angry. Because of all these things that she would not tell anybody, she dreaded seeing anything leave the bedroom. These things were her mother's; these things her mother chose, and if anything left she might stop being so real a person. On the other hand, it did seem pretty sickening for Holly. The one thing she really wanted was an attaché case, and she could not have that, and her next choice was to have things like there were in her mother's room. It really was frightfully unfair if you looked at it that way, that she should have everything and Holly nothing. She gave the cat an affectionate stroke.

“You needn't buy a cat, you can have this one.”

Holly gazed at her speechless for a moment, and then she flung her arms round Sorrel's neck.

“Darling Sorrel! I think this is the most beautiful thing that has happened to me ever.” She examined the cat with her head on one side. “What shall I call him?” Sorrel did not answer. So Holly answered herself. “When he's got one's pyjamas in him he's fat, and when they're out he's thin. He really wants a sort of in-and-out name. I know, I shall call him Hannah-Alice. Hannah for the fat all-day part, and Alice for the thin all-night.”

Sorrel was not really attending, but she managed to sound as though she was.

“That'll be very nice.” She pleated the eiderdown. “As a matter of fact, I've got ideas about my money. I want to buy a frock. You know what mine looked like on Christmas Day.”

Holly stroked Hannah-Alice.

“Pretty awful. It doesn't look as though it could possibly button; it's a surprise it does. And where it buttons it kind of pleats, and that makes your vest show, and the velvet looks as if it had been left outside all night, and it had rained; otherwise, it's all right.”

“What I'm afraid of is this first night of Grandmother's. Did you notice when we were down last night seeing her, that she said something about our coming to the first night?”

Holly bounced with pleasure.

“Oh, goodness, I hope she meant it!”

“It's all very well for you, Holly, you've got all my party frocks passed down to you; and it's all right for Mark if they don't try and dress him up, and they can't because they haven't anything to dress him up in; but it's absolutely awful for me. I know what's going to happen. Grandmother will go pushing us about and saying we're her grandchildren and there'll be me looking a disgrace to any family, especially the Warrens.”

“If you can't get a frock for your money, you can have mine; and I expect Mark would give you most of his ten shillings if we had the coupons.”

“If we had the coupons I don't think I should need any extra money. I could buy a utility frock. That dress that Mary had for her audition was utility, and I thought it looked awfully nice.”

Holly recalled Mary standing in the hall in something green and tailored.

“It did. Much nicer than I thought Mary ever could look. How much was it?”

“Less than two pounds.”

Holly was giving her whole attention to Sorrel's clothes.

“I don't think you wear things like that for first nights. When Alice told me about them she said all the ladies wore satin and velvet and diamonds and foxes, and all the gentlemen had top-hats and black tails. What do you think men wear tails for at a first night?”

“Not the sort of tail you mean. It's some black bits hung down at the back of their coats. Men wore them at parties before the war. Daddy had them, I remember quite well. What you said about satins and velvets is what's worrying me. I don't believe we've got many coupons left, and I don't think Hannah will let me spend them on a real party frock.”

“Couldn't you get another velvet?” Holly suggested. “Only one that fits.”

“I thought of that, and I could if they're cheap enough; but I think Hannah will think it ought to be in a serviceable colour—a dark red or navy blue, or something like that. And what I think I need is a party frock; something really party that rustles and sticks out.”

The door opened and Hannah's face, with her nose red with cold, appeared.

“I'll rustle and stick out you, Holly. What are you doing along here without your slippers?”

Sorrel held out a hand to her.

“Hannah, darling, come and sit here a minute. Holly and I will do without my eiderdown, so it can all go over you and keep you warm. I wanted to ask you something.”

Hannah sat down on the bed. It was a well-made, well-sprung bed, but sagged under Hannah. She could not really have been any heavier when she had not got her stays on; but in her red dressing-gown, with no stays, she looked twice as big as usual, but rather less like a loaf because there was nothing to tie her in.

“Well, what is it?”

Sorrel explained about her money and the first night.

“You see, Hannah, I'd have to have a new dress anyway, wouldn't I? I mean—that velvet's finished, even if it would let out, which it wouldn't.”