ELEVEN

Hettie hummed happily to herself as she washed the dishes piled up to one side of the sink.

Thanks to Babs she now not only properly understood the confusing facts Mavis had given her, she also had a job working in the kitchen of the chop house, where Sarah Baker, the wife of its owner, Jack, and mother of her youthful admirer, insisted on Hettie eating with them before the evening rush of customers began. She’d never devoured so much food in her life as these past few days!

‘We’re lucky to be so close to the theatre, otherwise we’d probably be suffering too, what with so many men being out of work,’ Sarah confided to Hettie as they shared the unending task of washing up.

It was true that Liverpool was becoming an increasingly subdued city as the lack of work bit deeper into the soul of its menfolk. Connie and Harry talked worriedly about it whenever Hettie visited, fearing that the situation was going to grow even worse, and Sarah Baker kept a big basket into which she and Hettie put whatever leftovers could be salvaged, to be handed out to those poor souls who could not afford to buy food. It was her way of doing her bit, she explained to Hettie.

Hettie thought back to her enlightening talk with Babs. It was true that at first she had been shocked when Babs had matter of factly explained the mystery of the intimacies of married life to her, and the manner in which babies were conceived; and she had been very apprehensive going to her first practice after Mr Buchanan had tried to touch her. But as soon as he had put his hand on her arm she had done as the girls had told her and warned him that she would tell Mrs Buchanan of his behaviour.

Her threat had worked like a magic charm, and he had not tried to touch her since, much to her relief.

Of all the girls, Babs was her favourite and the one to whom she felt the closest, with Lizzie now a close second. Lizzie tended to mother her these days, and in return Hettie was happy to listen to Lizzie’s anxieties about her own mother and the sister who would never, as Lizzie put it, ‘grow up proper, like’.

‘Ever so loving she is, Hettie, but she’s that big now and she doesn’t know her own strength. When she squeezes your hand it doesn’t half hurt, but she doesn’t mean any harm.’

Whenever she could, Lizzie went home, and when one day Hettie had returned from her singing practice to see Lizzie sitting on her bed, clutching a letter whilst tears rolled down her face, Hettie asked her immediately, ‘Oh Lizzie, what’s wrong? Is it your sister?’

‘Yes, she’s had a fall and she’s been taken to hospital. She’s been crying and asking for me. Mam wants to know if I can go and see her, but I haven’t got any time off due to me. Three of the girls are off sick and we’re that busy with rehearsals I daren’t just go, even though it would only mean me missing the one day.’

‘You could go if I stood in for you,’ Hettie told her. ‘It’s my Saturday off this weekend, but I can’t go home because my Mam and Da are up at the Lakes still, and that’s too far to go.’

‘What? No, you couldn’t do that. You’re not tall enough for one thing,’ Lizzie protested, but Hettie could see that she was tempted by the idea.

Lizzie had been kind to her and, to Hettie, this was an opportunity to repay her kindness. When the others came in, she told them what had happened and what she had offered to do.

‘You? Stand in for Lizzie?’ Mavis laughed. ‘You aren’t tall enough!’

‘That’s what I told her,’ Lizzie agreed.

‘Well, I reckon it’s a good idea and that we could get away with it if one of us came forward and we put her at the back,’ Babs argued. ‘We could always do sommat to make her taller. Give her a headdress, put some blocks on her shoes or sommat.’

‘Oh yes, and how the ’ell is she going to do her high kicks wearing shoes wiv blocks on them?’ Mavis demanded.

‘Course she can,’ one of the twins joined in.

‘Yes, but what about Lizzie’s solo?’

‘What about it? We can learn her the song easy enough, and if she gets it wrong then we’all just have to sing louder to drown her out. She’ll be okay with the dancing, she knows most of the routines already from watching us. ’Ere, Hettie, come over here and watch this,’ Sukey ordered, immediately striking a pose before launching into a song that had Hettie’s toes tapping, even if some of the words seemed a little risqué.

‘Well, it’s easy enough to see why you’ll never make it out of the chorus, Sukey,’ Mavis commented witheringly. ‘Call that singing? Sounds more like two tom cats having a fight.’

‘That’s cos I’m a bleeding contralto and not a ruddy soprano like Lizzie here,’ Sukey defended herself, clearly miffed.

Hettie could see that Lizzie’s resolve was weakening.

‘I won’t let you down,’ she promised her fervently.

Lizzie shook her head. ‘I shouldn’t be agreeing to this and I wouldn’t be if it weren’t for the fact that Mam says our Rosie’s that desperate to see me.’

‘Don’t worry, Lizzie, we’ll look after her,’ Babs chipped in.

‘Never mind looking after her, we’d best start getting her trained up,’ Mavis warned. ‘Come on, ’Ettie. Let’s see how many of the words you can remember.’

Willingly, Hettie started to sing, prompted by Babs whenever she stumbled over one of the words, whilst the others clapped in tune and cheered her on.

To Hettie’s relief, Connie made no objection when Hettie telephoned her to say she was not having a Saturday off now but would be working instead. It was, after all, the truth, even if was not quite the truth that Connie would assume it to be.

The other girls had rehearsed her rigorously, coaching her both in the chorus line dance steps and the solo song she would have to sing. Doing Lizzie’s solo would be much easier than taking her place in the chorus line, Hettie suspected, as her ‘helpers’ made her stand still in the middle of the attic floor whilst they bustled about fitting her into her costume.

Trying to walk with the headdress, with its towering pink feathers, balanced on her head was difficult enough without having to actually dance with it on, she decided.

‘Gawd, look at ’er,’ one of the twins giggled. ‘’Er headdress is nearly as big as she is.’

‘Come on, Hettie, let’s see yer walk in them shoes. Hold yer head up, mind, and keep yer back straight.’

It was just as well that Lizzie had left early to catch her train, Hettie acknowledged as she struggled to obey the instructions she was being given.

‘Right, you two, Jenny and Jess, you’ll have to stand either side of ’Ettie and support her. Ready? One, two three…’

‘Higher, Hettie, you’ve got to kick higher than that. And don’t bend your head. Gawd, if Mary Jane catches sight of yer we’ll all be out of a job.’

‘Who’s Mary Jane?’ Hettie whispered to Jenny.

‘He’s the one who does the dance routines,’ Jenny explained. ‘We call him Mary Jane because he’s a right old Ethel and no mistake.’

‘’Ere, let’s ’ave a look at yer then, ’Ettie?’

Obediently Hettie stood still whilst the formidable girl who she had been told was the most senior of all the chorus line dancers pursed her lips and warned Jenny, ‘One step out of line for her and there’ll be trouble for all you lot.’ Helen glared at her.

‘’Ere, Babs, put bit more rouge on her, she looks as white as a piece of steamed cod,’ Jenny demanded.

Then Babs told her, ‘Now remember, Hettie. For the first half you’re in the chorus, and then when we come off you change into your solo outfit, and at the beginning of the second half you do your solo.’

If John had thought the dress she wore to sing at the Adelphi was shocking she didn’t want to think what he would have said if he could see her now, Hettie admitted as she tried not to feel self-conscious about her chorus line outfit with its miniscule skirt and spangles.

‘Come on, you lot, curtain’s going up.’

A buzz of anticipation seemed to seethe through the grouped dancers, and then suddenly they were moving and Hettie was moving with them, her anxiety giving way to excitement as they stepped out on to the stage in perfect time, to a roar of applause from the waiting crowd.

To the right, to the left, back kick, forward kick, then double kick. Hettie felt herself being swept along in the exhilaration of actually being able to keep time with the others. But that exhilaration was almost her downfall because suddenly she realised she had missed a step…She faltered and if it hadn’t been for the quick thinking of Jenny and Jess on either side of her, who virtually picked her up and carried her with them, she suspected she would have fallen over her own feet.

‘Kick now, Hettie,’ Jess muttered out of the side of her mouth. ‘Now this way again,’ whispered Jenny at her other side, and somehow she managed to pick up the rhythm again and get back in time. Her earlier panic now over, Hettie could clearly see the allure of the chorus line.

It seemed a lifetime before the first half was finally over, and Hettie was all too conscious of the chorus line leader’s grim gaze on her as they danced off into the wings.

‘You were out of time in the first routine,’ she told Hettie sharply.

‘Ah, come on, she only missed one step,’ Jess defended her.

‘What’s going on here?’

The whole troupe froze as a very dapper-looking middle-aged man suddenly appeared.

‘The comedian’s really going to love you lot squawking like parrots and ruining his act.’

Hettie had never seen a man with dyed blond hair before and she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

‘Helen, someone was out in the first routine.’

Horrified, Hettie tensed, waiting for Helen to denounce her but instead, to her astonishment, the other girl simply shrugged and said calmly, ‘You try keeping in step wearing these bloody headdresses.’ At the same time she managed to move so that she was standing between Hettie and the choreographer.

‘Well, it better not happen again otherwise I’ll be looking for new heads to fit them.’

‘She’d better not miss a step tonight,’ Helen warned Jess and Jenny as soon as they were all in the dressing room. ‘Cos if she does, the whole lot of yer will be looking for work.’

‘Come on, ’Ettie, let’s get you into this costume,’ Babs was demanding, pulling a face at Helen’s back.

For Lizzie’s song in the second half Hettie had to go on stage wearing a milk maid’s outfit, complete with a yoke and milk pails. Her song was a cheeky complaint about her work and her envy of the heroine of the piece with her rich father and handsome sweetheart.

Fortunately, the mob cap she had to wear came complete with its own improbably coloured blonde ringlets, and by the time Babs had finished making her up Hettie doubted that her own mother would have recognised her.

‘Remember, we go on, do our routine, and then you come on and go stand in front of Helen and –’

‘– and then I put the pails down and start to sing,’ Hettie concluded.

There wasn’t much room in the wings and Hettie had to stand sideways in order to watch for her cue. But when it eventually came she was ready, and to her own astonishment the moment she stepped out on to the stage, half dancing, half skipping as she had been instructed to do, it was as though somehow she really was Bo the Buxom Beauty who yearned to exchange her milk pails for the arms of a handsome lover.

With an extravagant sigh, Hettie put down her pails, bending from the waist as she did so and flouncing her full skirts so that the audience got a glimpse of her frilled undergarments. When her action earned a roar of male approval, she turned round and put her hands on her hips and shook her head before launching into her saucy solo.

When she had finished, she went to pick up her pails and then almost froze with shock as suddenly the whole theatre seemed to be yelling and cheering.

‘Give ’em a curtsey, Hettie,’ the nearest chorus girl muttered. ‘And smile at them, for gawd’s sake…’

Obediently Hettie sank into a curtsey and then stood up.

‘Now get orf before the leading lady comes out and drags yer orf. Gawd, this is goin’ ter make her as mad as fire.’

‘But what did I do wrong?’ Hettie asked in bewilderment an hour later when she had been advised not to so much as put her nose outside of the dressing room.

‘What yer did wrong, ’Ettie, was ter sing better than Amy, the lead,’ Babs explained patiently. ‘Gawd, I knew yer could sing, but I never realised yer could make such a noise…’

Hettie didn’t understand. She had, of course, made sure her voice could be heard right at the back of the theatre because she had assumed this was what she was supposed to do, but now it seemed that she had been wrong.

‘Watch out, here comes Mary Jane,’ one of the girls warned as the dressing room door was suddenly thrust open to reveal the choreographer.

Hettie could vaguely remember being told what it meant to call a man an ‘Ethel’ but she was too nervous to dwell on it right now as she tucked herself out of sight behind two of the taller girls.

‘Pray enlighten me, ladies. It seems a song thrush has flown into our little nest. A song thrush, moreover, who dances like a cart horse, and who appears to think she is a comedienne.’

Someone tittered nervously.

‘I trust this rare species will not be making a long stay with us, otherwise our own dear sweet lark may not be very happy. Indeed, I insist that our visiting song thrush takes flight herself, and by tomorrow. Do I make myself clear?’

He was gone before anyone could reply, leaving Hettie with a burning red face and anxiously churning stomach.

‘He don’t miss much, our Mary Jane. Sharp as a box of knives, he is,’ Mavis muttered.

‘And now we’ve got ter keep yer out of her ladyship’s way otherwise she’ll have yer guts for garters,’ she warned Hettie. ‘We should have warned yer not to let her see that yer can sing better than wot she can. She’s a jealous cat and no mistake. Course, she was only the understudy, but then the lead got sick – some say because Amy slipped her sommat – and Amy had to take over. ’Ere, when you bent down like that and showed the audience yer bum, I nearly bust out laughing meself. What made yer do it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Hettie admitted. ‘It just felt right.’

A serious look crossed Jenny’s face. ‘Did it an’ all. Well, that’s what we call having greasepaint in yer blood, ’Ettie, when yer just know how to play to an audience…’

Greasepaint in her blood. Hettie exhaled happily as she sat on the banquette almost half asleep. The sound of the applause she had received for her evening’s and final performance was still ringing blissfully in her ears.

‘Mary Jane’ had made another visit to the dressing room after the second show, his pale blue gaze raking down the line of undressing girls until, or so it seemed to Hettie, it came to rest on the girl behind whom she had concealed herself. He hadn’t said a word, simply standing there before turning on his heel and going back to the door where he had paused to turn round and say coldly, ‘I meant what I said earlier.’

‘Thank ’eavens Lizzie’s coming back tomorrow,’ Jess had muttered as she wiped off her stage make-up, ‘otherwise he’d sack the bloody lot of us.’

‘Well, I don’t see why he should, just because Hettie sings better than lardy face Amy.’

‘Much you know, then, because she’s our Mary Jane’s cousin, that’s wot!’

‘Come on, sleepy head, let’s get you back and into yer bed,’ Hettie heard Babs saying affectionately.

Of course, when Lizzie returned she had to be told the whole story, including Hettie’s triumph and Mary Jane’s dictat.

‘Oh, Hettie, I am so grateful to you,’ she exclaimed as she laughed and hugged Hettie and told them all how her sister was.

‘Well, ’Ettie does have a lovely voice, Lizzie, and no mistake, but she’s never going to make a proper hoofer,’ Jenny opined.

‘Mebbe not, but it’s a shame with a voice like that, Hettie, that you aren’t on the stage yourself instead of just singing at the Adelphi,’ Lizzie, who was now far more kind and friendly towards Hettie, announced.

The same thought had crossed Hettie’s own mind. She had got such a buzz from performing on stage, which was nothing like how she felt singing at the Adelphi. The thought of returning to sing in front of the genteel ladies there filled her with an unexpected gloom.

She craved the attention, the excitement of the stage again. But she knew that she had had a hard enough time convincing Ellie and Gideon to let her sing at the hotel and they would never give their approval for her to join the chorus line. Aunt Amelia would never let them live it down!

‘The fancy pants at the third table on the right just asked me to give you this.’

Hettie blushed as the waiter handed her the small, carefully folded note. It was a month now since she had first started to sing at the Adelphi and in that time she had already received several notes from gentlemen who had heard her sing and then requested the pleasure of being allowed to offer her some refreshment.

Hettie had, of course, always refused these approaches, having been warned by the other girls that her admirers had a more devious purpose in mind than sharing a mere cup of china tea. But this particular gentleman had sat at the same table every afternoon for the past week, his gaze fixed on her and never moving from her whilst she sang.

Naturally, she had pretended not to be aware of his attention on her, and also naturally she had been. Who would not? For one thing he was exceptionally handsome, with his slightly olive-toned skin, thick black hair, and oddly piercing dark eyes. And rich, too, by all accounts. Certainly the head waiter seemed to think so.

‘An American gentleman he is, and he’s got the best suite in the hotel. Says he’s here on business but he ain’t said what manner of business he’s in.’

All in all there seemed to be an exciting air of mystery surrounding Mr Jay Dalhousie.

Hettie read his note as she hurried upstairs to change out of her dress and into her street clothes, wondering what on earth he could mean by the words, ‘There is a business proposition I would like to put before you.’

Whatever it was, she could not possibly accept his invitation to have dinner with him.

The room the housekeeper had allocated to Hettie to change in was up several flights of stairs and next to the maids’ quarters. She hurried into it, closing the door which did not possess a lock behind her.

She had just removed her dress when she heard the door opening. Clutching her dress to her body, she turned round expecting the intruder to be one of the maids, but to her horror instead it was Mr Buchanan, his face red and shiny, and his breathing laboured.

‘Getting ready to meet your lover, are you, you little jade. Well, he shall not have you until I have had my fill of you. Did you think I couldn’t see what was going on? How he looked at you…’ As he spoke he was coming toward her, launching himself at her, Hettie recognised, as she made a panic-stricken attempt to evade him and get to the door.

For a short, overweight man he was surprisingly light on his feet and as he guessed what Hettie was trying to do he hurried to place himself between her and the door.

‘You have enflamed me beyond all endurance with your mock modest looks and your wanton body. I must have you. I shall have you…’

He was mad, Hettie decided, terrified as he lunged towards her and his fingers clawed into the silk of her dress as she held it in front of her. She screamed as she heard the fabric rip, but her terror only seemed to increase his ardour. Words she had never heard before but whose meaning was shockingly plain fell from his lips along with his spittle. His face was so red and shinily tight that Hettie thought his skin might actually split.

‘See what you have done to me,’ he told her thickly, his hand going to his own body as he tore at his trouser buttons.

Panic filled Hettie. Instinctively she turned her head so that she wouldn’t have to see what he was doing.

‘Look at it. Look at it, you little whore. Look! You will look at it, and you will feel it mastering you and teaching you a well-deserved lesson.’

If only she could get to the door. Hettie started to inch towards it, shaking with relief as her fingers found the edge of it. If she could just pull it open and then slip through it…

‘Whore. Whore…Why do you give yourself to him and not to me?’

Hettie screamed as he saw what she was doing and tried to slam the door shut on her hand with the weight of his body whilst his other hand tore at the fragile strap of her petticoat, his nails leaving raised marks on the white skin of her breast.

‘Please, Mr Buchanan, you must not do this,’ she begged him in terror. ‘I have not given myself to anyone.’

‘Liar! I saw the way he looked at you today. I saw the note he passed to you. A note that no doubt contained all manner of lewd thoughts and suggestions…’

‘No. No, you are wrong.’

Hettie could feel his hot sour breath on her face and then on her throat. Something that looked like a fat white grub was dangling from the opening in his trousers.

Hettie’s stomach heaved.

‘You must go away and let me get dressed,’ she told him. ‘Otherwise I shall tell Mrs Buchanan.’

‘Tell her, then, for I have to have you, Hettie. I cannot sleep for my need of you.’

He was gabbling now, a wild look in his eyes. Hettie panicked. She had thought the mention of his wife would stop him in his tracks but he was evidently beyond that. Hettie could hear footsteps on the stairs outside the door, and two girls talking. She could see Mr Buchanan looking warily towards the door, and she took advantage of his momentary lapse in concentration to pull it open and slip through it.

The housemaids on their way down the stairs stared open-mouthed at her dishevelment, but Hettie didn’t care. There was no way she would risk going back for her day clothes, Hettie decided shakily as she pulled on her dress and hurried down the steps, far too terrified to look back in case she should see Mr Buchanan coming after her.

‘It has been the loveliest time here, Gideon dearest.’

‘Aye, I own I shall be sorry to leave and go back to Winckley Square.’

Ellie and Gideon were seated in the garden of their Lake District house, enjoying the view out over the lake itself.

‘By, Ellie, I never thought when I used to work as a drover for your uncle that one day I would have me own place up here.’

Ellie smiled lovingly as he took her hand in his.

‘We have been so blessed, my love,’ she told him gently. ‘Connie and I have been lucky enough to find happiness and love. I wish that John might do the same. He has taken this tragedy very hard, Gideon.’

‘Aye, he blames himself for what happened.’

‘But why should he blame himself? It was not his fault.’

Gideon sighed. ‘It’s part of what comes with being a man, Ellie my love. The responsibility, the duty. And John is now a man.’

‘He is also my brother and I wish he was not going to live and work in Oxfordshire. It’s so very far away.’

‘Always the little mother, eh Ellie.’

She laughed. ‘I cannot forget that they suffered so cruelly when our mother died. Oh…’ She gasped as suddenly a spasm of pain seized her.

Gideon demanded sharply, ‘Ellie, what is it?’

Her face had gone pale and beads of sweat were forming on her forehead. ‘I – I don’t know.’

Another pain seized her and she cried out and tried to stand up. As Gideon rushed to help her, she gasped, ‘Gideon, I think it’s the baby, but it is much too soon.’

Beneath her loose thin summer dress Gideon could see the gentle swelling of her belly suddenly contort and fear filled him. Ellie was gasping and moaning, leaning heavily on him as the pain seized her.

‘Ellie. We must get you back to the house…’

The pain came in black waves edged with jagged red teeth that tore into her body, savaging it in surge after surge of red-hot agony. She cried out against it and tried to escape from it, but there was no escape. She could smell blood and the visceral scent stirred memories that knifed her with fear. She cried out for Iris and then for her mother as nature tore the life from within her womb and destroyed it.

‘Oh Hettie, you poor little love. Don’t worry about your frock, Cissy in wardrobe will be able to mend it for you so as you’d never know it had been torn. But from now on you’ll have to go to the hotel wearing your singing dress.’

Hettie gulped and sniffed, the near hysterical state of distress in which she had arrived back at the lodging house calmed by the practical concern of the other girls as she sobbed out her story to them.

‘But what about when I have to go to practice, and it’s just the two of us in the room?’ Hettie whispered shakily as she kept the cotton pad soaked in witchhazel one of the girls had made for her pressed to her scratches.

‘If I was you I’d go and have a quiet word with the housekeeper. Tell her that yer can’t abide closed doors and that yer come over all faint because of them. Ask her if yer can have one of them pieces of wood wot yer slide under ’em to keep the door open – if she’s got anything about ’er she’ll know well enough why you want the door open.’

‘’Ere,’ one of the girls suddenly called out urgently, ‘looks like there’s going to be a new lodger.’

All the girls including Hettie crowded round the small window to look down into the street at the woman who was about to mount the steps to the front door.

‘That’s Mrs Buchanan,’ Hettie gasped.

‘You mean that’s his wife?’

Hettie nodded her head.

‘Well, you said as how old Misery Guts is her sister, didn’t you, Hettie, so like as not she’s just come on a visit,’ Babs said comfortingly. But Hettie couldn’t help feeling apprehensive.

‘’E’s the one who’s done wrong, Hettie, not you,’ Lizzie pointed out robustly.

They could all see how anxious Hettie looked.

Five minutes later, the door to their room opened and the grubby tweeny maid, whose adenoids gave her problems, snuffled thickly, ‘Hettie Walker, you’re to go downstairs this instant, on account of Mrs Buchanan is here to see you.’

Hettie gave her friends an anguished, imploring look and whispered shakily, ‘I don’t want to go.’

‘You’d best go down and see what she wants, Hettie love,’ Babs told her gruffly, adding more firmly, ‘And mind you tell her what he did to you.’

Hettie was shaking from head to foot by the time she had followed the tweeny back down the stairs and along the hallway.

There was no need for her to knock on the parlour door because it was already open. Mrs Buchanan was standing there waiting for her, her face set in an expression of cold fury.

‘So what have you to say for yourself about your disgraceful behaviour then, Miss Walker?’ Mrs Buchanan demanded as she dragged Hettie into the room and closed the door behind her.

‘I…’

‘I could scarcely believe my ears when my dear husband informed me of his shocking discovery that you have been encouraging the attentions of a hotel guest. Indeed, more than encouraging them. Your mother assured me that you were a respectable young woman and now I find that you are anything but. How dare you behave in such a fashion and bring disrepute on respectable professional people? My husband could scarcely bring himself to tell me of the lewdness of the embrace in which he caught you – alone in an hotel room with a gentleman to whom, not a hour before, he had witnessed you secretly passing a note, no doubt to make the disgusting assignation.’

Mrs Buchanan’s bosom heaved as she shuddered and then impaled Hettie with furious glare.

‘That is not true!’ Hettie burst out indignantly.

‘What, you impudent hussy? You dare to deny my husband’s accusation? When you were caught in the very act, en déshabillé, with a man holding you in his embrace? Mr Buchanan says that he had questioned one of the waiters who had confirmed that notes were passed between you.’

‘No. I only received one note, and I…’

‘That is enough! I will not tolerate any more lies from you. Mr Buchanan could hardly bring himself to sully my ears by describing to me the nature of your indelicate behaviour. Furthermore, for the sake of other vulnerable gentlemen and in order to protect our own good name Mr Buchanan wishes me to terminate your employment as of now. Indeed, he has confided to me that you have actually had the temerity to flaunt yourself before him and to suggest that your wages should be increased in return for certain unmentionable familiarities.’

Hettie gasped. ‘No! That is not true.’ She could feel her eyes filling with shocked, humiliated tears.

‘Silence! You will not speak until I give you permission to do so. Your behaviour is an affront to all decent people. Were I to follow the inclinations of my own feelings you would, as Mr Buchanan has requested, be dismissed forthwith, and a letter sent to your family revealing exactly why your presence can no longer be tolerated in a respectable household.’

Hettie couldn’t believe what was happening to her. How could she ever convince her Mam and Da it was a pack of lies?

‘However,’ Mrs Buchanan continued grimly, ‘as I have explained to my dear husband, we have a responsibility to the Adelphi hotel which means that until we can find someone to replace you we shall have to endure your unwholesome presence. As a punishment for your appalling behaviour, you will not receive any money from now on.’

‘I have done nothing wrong,’ Hettie blurted out passionately. ‘It is Mr Buchanan who has lied. He is the one who…Oh!’

Hettie cried out in pain and lifted her hand to nurse her smarting cheek after Mrs Buchanan slapped her face with such force that Hettie staggered a little.

‘Do you dare to impugn the reputation of my husband, you little harlot! Who would believe you? No one! Mr Buchanan is a respectable married man, an Englishman,’ she emphasised, ‘whilst you are nothing but the filthy product of fornication, the issue of a suicide, and a foreign whore, from what I’ve heard. Mrs Fazackerly, as is a personal friend of mine from when we was at school together, told me all about you.’

‘Mrs Fazackerly?’ Hettie protested. ‘But I don’t know any Mrs Fazackerly.’

‘No, because she’s far too respectable to have anything to do with the likes of you. Her husband was cousin to your father, he who brought disgrace on his family by what he did. By rights you should be living in a whorehouse by the docks like the rest of your kind,’ she added malevolently.

Hettie cowered away from the flood of verbal venom being directed at her. Thanks to Ellie’s protection and the sheltered life she had led, Hettie had never previously been exposed to hostility because of her parentage, or been told that she should be ashamed because of it.

Now suddenly she was filled with bewilderment and shocked confusion, with a small cold kernel of unwanted knowledge. She was different. She had always known that. She had, of course, heard her mother explaining her circumstances to Mrs Buchanan during her initial interview in answer to the music teacher’s request to know more about Hettie’s background. But she also knew that all Ellie had said was that she was her step-daughter, and the child of her first husband.

Did other people secretly think the same as Mrs Buchanan? Was she an outcast, a misfit? Doubts and uncertainties swarmed over her, and misery gripped her stomach.

‘You will never, never repeat the vile insinuations you have just attempted to make,’ Mrs Buchanan told her coldly. ‘Otherwise it will be the worse for you!’

Hettie stared back at her numbly. She knew the story of how her Japanese mother had come to England with her looking for the man she loved, and how out of unhappiness and despair her father had taken his own life before they got there. But when Ellie had related this story to her she had done so with kindness and respect for Hettie’s mother, and had said that Hettie should always remember that her parents had loved one another and that she, Hettie, was the child of that love. But the circumstances surrounding her birth lay in the past now, Ellie had said firmly, and it was best that they were left there and not spoken of in public.