Theatre Shoes (9 page)

At intervals Winifred came over to Sorrel and tried by pushing to get her into the right position; but even as she pushed she was still being nice.

“Don't worry. I think you'll be in this class, but I'm going to give you special coaching to bring you up to the others; they're only beginners.”

Beginners! thought Sorrel, desperately. What in the world can it be like when you stop being a beginner?

The acting class was no better because it was all taken up with a performance that was going to be given for the soldiers at some hospital. It was not only acting, a lot of it was dancing, some of it was singing. The class was taken by a Miss Jay and she tried very hard to be nice to Sorrel, but Sorrel wished she would leave her alone. The children who were going to perform to the soldiers seemed so terribly efficient, she knew she could never be in the least like them, and all she wanted was to be left quietly in a corner watching; but Miss Jay would not hear of it, she came and sat down beside her.

“I think you're going to work with this class, so we must fit you into the concert if we can. What do you do?”

Sorrel fidgeted with her plaits.

“Well, I was Shylock once; and twice I've been an angel at Christmas in a Nativity play, and we were children in Cranford, in a play in the village.”

Miss Jay looked puzzled.

“But don't you do anything when your Granny gives a party?”

Sorrel turned scared eyes up at her.

“I didn't know she ever did give a party, and I couldn't do anything if she did.”

Miss Jay made a funny sniffing sound.

“Very unlike your cousin Miranda.”

“My what?”

Miss Jay looked more puzzled.

“Surely you knew Miranda was a pupil here?”

“I didn't know I had a cousin Miranda.”

Miss Jay broke off a moment to tidy up a hornpipe, which was being accompanied by a group of children who could whistle. Then she turned back to Sorrel.

“Miranda is the daughter of your Aunt Marguerite.”

“Yes?” said Sorrel politely.

“You must know that you have an Aunt Marguerite?”

“No, I didn't.”

Miss Jay evidently thought it was time that somebody explained her family to Sorrel.

“Your grandmother had five children: Henry Warren, the film star; Lindsey, who married Mose Cohen the comedian, their daughter Miriam is coming here next term; Marguerite, who married Sir Francis Brain, the Shakespearean actor, and they have a remarkably clever child called Miranda; Andrew, who died, and your mother, Adeline.”

Sorrel could not possibly take in all these uncles and aunts at once, so she fixed on the children.

“What's Miranda like?”

Miss Jay used a funny voice; it was as if she was being nice when she did not want to.

“Good-looking and got the Warren voice, speaks blank verse beautifully.”

“And Miriam?”

Miss Jay shrugged her shoulders.

“I only saw the child for a moment or two. She's about eight, I think—a tiny, dark little thing. You'll meet them both on Monday.” She got up and went over to rearrange the whistlers, but she evidently had Sorrel on her mind, for later on she suddenly clapped her hands. “I know. Lambs. Come here, Sorrel.” Sorrel got up unwillingly and came to her, and glared at the floor, conscious that all the other girls were staring at her. “In that spring number we can do with an extra lamb. We'll run through that number now.” She selected two girls. “You two put Sorrel between you, and she can copy what you do.” She turned to Sorrel. “Clothes are always such a difficulty because of the coupons, but last time we did this we had an extra lamb who's left, and you can wear her tunic.”

What followed seemed to Sorrel perfectly idiotic. First of all, one girl played on a pipe as a shepherd boy; and then another sang as a shepherdess—that part was not so bad, it was when the lambs came on things grew unbearable. They played what seemed to her just follow-my-leader of a rather silly kind, hopping and skipping; she could not see that any of it was the least like lambs. Try as she would, she was always late and never getting in a hop at quite the same time as the others. But Miss Jay seemed pleased.

“That'll be splendid,” she said in a satisfied tone. “With your hair undone, and in a black tunic, you'll look very nice indeed.” And then she added, perhaps seeing rather a sullen look on Sorrel's face, “There's nothing like getting used to the feel of a stage. Never mind making a start in a humble position.”

The tap-dancing class was just dull. Sorrel had not got the right shoes and, in any case, the class were being taken through what the teacher called “a routine.” The routine was part of the concert for the soldiers and it did not need the teacher's cheerful, “I think this is too much for you to pick up, Sorrel dear,” for Sorrel to be certain that she could not even pretend to copy in this class. The steps went very fast, with taps from toes and heels in time to the music. There was one place, which the class practised over and over again, where the music stopped and was carried on only by the rhythm of the tapping of the girls' feet. Sorrel, sprawling on a bench, was filled with admiration but also with horror. Surely these could not just be ordinary girls like they had had at Ferntree School. They must be exceptionally talented. She could not believe, however many special classes she attended, she would be able to use her feet like that.

There was no class going on that morning suitable for Mark and Holly, and so they were tacked on to a children's special holiday class. The children were all quite small and mostly came in from outside London, and were brought to their classes by very proud mothers who were sure that their children were remarkable. Most of the pupils were not dressed in practice clothes like the regular pupils of the Academy, but had proper little ballet dresses on or party frocks of muslin, and the boys wore what Mark thought very girlish-looking party suits, knickers of satin or velvet, and lots of frills about the cuffs and collars of their shirts.

The first class was with Miss Jay, and it was dancing and miming of nursery rhymes. The mothers of the pupils sat down one side of the room as audience, and Miss Jay stood with her back to the piano and the class sat in a half-hoop on the floor in front of her. There was a small man in a warden's uniform at the piano.

“Now,” said Miss Jay, “we're going to start with ‘Mary, Mary, quite Contrary.' I'm going to choose one little girl for Mary and the little boys will be silver bells and six little girls will be cockle shells, and all the rest of the little girls will be pretty maids all in a row.” She looked round the class and selected a child with black curls and a very short white muslin frock. “You shall be Mistress Mary, Shirley.”

Mark was not so much disgusted at finding himself supposed to take part in such a childish entertainment as refusing to believe that he was going to be so insulted. To keep his mind off Miss Jay's instructions he looked at the parents. He saw at once which was Shirley's mother, for the moment she heard that her child was to be Mistress Mary she looked round at the other mothers with an expression which clearly said, “Talent will tell.” The other mothers looked resigned, as if they were just going to endure Mistress Mary while waiting for something much more important to happen. Gosh, thought Mark, fancy caring whether you were Mistress Mary or not. He came back to the class with a start to hear Miss Jay saying, “Come along, Mark, don't dream; you're the tallest, you must be the leading silver bell.”

Mark flushed.

“If it makes no difference to you, I'd rather watch.”

Miss Jay's eyes twinkled.

“Oddly enough, it does make a difference to me and I'd rather you were a silver bell.” She came over to him and slipped a hand through his arm. “It's all part of learning to walk to music,” she explained. “You won't do it this way when the term proper starts.” And then quite suddenly she added in a whisper, “Pretend it's a children's party and you're helping to amuse the little ones.”

Miss Jay could not have said anything better. There had been lots of children's parties in the village at home, but the only sort where Mark himself was not one of the little ones was the parish Sunday school treat, and at that he had helped, giving assistance to the head Sunday school teacher. She was tall and grey-haired and thin and wore pince-nez, and at a Sunday school treat had tried so hard to make it a success that she never stood still for a minute, but kept saying things like “Splendid! Splendid” or “Isn't it fun?” The moment Miss Jay said “helping to amuse the little ones,” this woman came back into Mark's mind and in a moment he was being her and not minding the class any more.

The pianist played a gay little polka and Shirley, holding an imaginary watering can, danced round the room. Her mother was so pleased with her that she snorted down her nose with excitement. The silver bells led by Mark then had to polka into their places in the garden and stand in a row while Shirley watered them. Mark found this easy to do, peering eagerly at Shirley through his imaginary pince-nez and whispering under his breath “Splendid! Splendid!”

Holly was a cockle shell. They had to do rather more polka-ing than the silver bells. Holly, who had never seen a cockle shell to her knowledge, had by now dressed herself in her imagination in rose pink satin, such as she knew was being cut up for their tunics, and she did not mind how much polka-ing she did.

“Mary, Mary” was followed by “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” and “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” by “Where are you going to?” and “Where are you going to?” by “Jack and Jill.” Then they acted, “Oh, What have you got for dinner, Mrs. Bond?” and, finally, “A Frog he would a-wooing go,” with Mark as the frog. In the ordinary way Mark would have enjoyed being a frog, but by the time that they got to this nursery rhyme, he was so full of being the Sunday school teacher that he could not quite get rid of her, and though he saw himself clearly in a bright-green frog suit he also saw a grey bun of hair on the top of his head, pince-nez on his nose and he still had the anxious smile of somebody who is going to fight very hard to make a party a success. Somehow the mixture of these two characters came out and it was funny. The parents laughed, the children laughed, and Miss Jay, who had a cheerful laugh, gave a hearty roar. When the class was over and they were going to Winifred for ballet, Miss Jay caught hold of Mark.

“What made you do the frog like that?”

Mark felt easy with Miss Jay so he did not mind telling her. She listened quite seriously but obviously amused.

“And then,” Mark explained, “though I'd stopped being her she wouldn't go away, so I had to make her part of the frog.”

Miss Jay nodded.

“I can see one of the things we shall have to teach you is not to get your parts mixed up. What are you going to do if this term you are given Puck to play in the acting class, and then Madame Moulin gives you an Archduke, or something like that, in a French play? You'll be in a terrible muddle, won't you?”

Mark thought the question over.

“I don't know. I've always been things. Sometimes for two or three days at a time. I've never had to stop being things before. Once I was William the Conqueror for three weeks; but none of it matters very much, you know, because I'm not going to be an actor, I'm going to be a sailor like my father. Really, I hope to be an admiral, so all this dancing and stuff isn't any use to me.”

Miss Jay said nothing for a moment. She was nice to talk to because she obviously did not think that just because you were not grown-up you could not talk as much sense as she could. Before she spoke again she had slowed up her walk and she and Mark were quite a long way behind the rest of the class.

“I would not be so certain if I were you that none of it's going to be any good to you. Dancing is a wonderful training for muscles, you know, and balance. It teaches control and I shouldn't think any sailor, especially one who was going to be an admiral, could do without learning control. It may be an unusual way of learning it, but it's a very good way. As for the acting and singing, all ships must need talent on them, I should think; even sailors must want concerts occasionally, and there's one part of the training which might be very useful indeed and that's voice training. You might be a broadcaster when they want a naval officer to broadcast about things to do with the navy. Run along now, and for goodness' sake don't be a frog in poor Winifred's class. She won't like it.”

Winifred, though of course she had to take an interest in all the children, was giving her especial attention to Holly. She had known about the Posy Fossil scholarship and had wondered if Madame would grant it to anybody because, in her opinion, there was nobody in the school at the moment with talent which Posy would recognise as such. It had astonished her that Madame should grant the scholarship to Holly, who obviously had scarcely learnt dancing and, therefore, showed no ability at all, let alone talent. Had Madame sensed some quality in Holly which she had missed? Winifred had suffered from the Fossil sisters. Pauline had always taken parts that she would have loved to have had. But then Pauline had not only talent but looks, and Winifred had known that she herself was plain. In a way she had envied Posy more than she did Pauline. Winifred really could dance. Had she not grown too tall she might have made a success, but just because she could dance she could recognise that something in Posy Fossil which set her apart from all other children in the Academy. It was not Posy's looks or Posy's success that Winifred envied, but that something which no training can teach. The Forbes children quite certainly had looks. Neither Sorrel nor Holly had beauty like Pauline, her face had always been outstanding, but all the same they were interesting and attractive. Sorrel's shiny dark head with its two plaits and her really lovely blue-grey eyes. Mark, with his thatch of dark hair, his big brown eyes and high colour, giving him somehow a look of a very expensive peach, or perhaps a nectarine. Holly, with her short brown curls which turned up so prettily at the back, and her eyes with a touch of green in the brown, and her dimple. To Winifred all new pupils at the Academy were interesting. You never knew but what you had found something marvellous. These Forbes children, or rather Warren, for that was how Winifred thought of them, really were exciting. What a history! There must be talent. There absolutely must. What fun if one of the three proved even better than their cousin Miranda. Winifred also thought, for she could be very human at times, and what sucks for Miranda if they were!