‘’Ere, ’Ettie, there’s going to be some new auditions for the musical. Seems like a couple o’ the girls they took on ’aven’t turned out to be right. Why don’t you give it a go?’
Hettie heaved a small sigh and shook her head. ‘They won’t take me on now, not after they’ve already turned me down.’
‘’Oo says? By golly, ’Ettie Walker, I never thought you was the kind that was a quitter,’ Babs told her sturdily.
A quitter? Angry colour burned in Hettie’s pale face. ‘I’ll have you know, Babs Cheetham, that I am no such thing.’
‘Good, cos I’ve already said as ’ow you’ll be coming to the audition,’ Babs announced smugly.
Hettie knew that her friends were trying to help her, but Ellie’s rejection of her had left a deep and painful wound that was hurting very badly, and for once her singing was not providing her with any solace for her pain. It hurt so much that the two people dearest to her in the entire world, Ellie and John, should both have turned their backs on her.
She was feeling so low that she could not in all honesty see the point of even attending the audition, but Babs cajoled and bullied her into getting ready for it, insisting optimistically that Hettie had as much chance as anyone else of getting one of the three vacant parts. ‘And more than most if’n you was to ask me to speak out honestly,’ she assured Hettie. ‘For none of ’em could sing as well as you do, ’Ettie.’
Hettie sighed. They had been through all this before. ‘But I’m not tall enough for the chorus,’ she reminded Babs again.
‘You ’aven’t bin listenin’ to me proper, ’ave you? These parts aren’t for the bleedin’ chorus, ’Ettie. There’s a trio of girls who ’ave to come on and sing a coupla songs, and one of them will ’ave to be the understudy for the second female lead, on account of one of the girls who left was the second female lead so her understudy has ’ad to take her place.’
Over thirty girls had been invited to auditions, and as she stood in the wings listening to them Hettie’s heart sank lower and lower. Her voice might be as good if not better than theirs but they were all obviously well-seasoned performers, with most of them having chorus line experience.
At last, when there were only four girls left, Hettie heard her name called out. But instead of walking calmly out on to the stage, she panicked and froze. She had to be pushed by the girl standing next to her, so that she half stumbled on to the bare boards.
They had all been told to hand in their music for their audition piece to the accompanist. But to Hettie’s horror, as she tried to compose herself and ignore the blinding dazzle of the footlights, which were making it impossible for her to see the men she knew would be assessing and judging her, the notes the pianist was playing were not the opening notes for her own piece. Instead, she recognised a popular and cheeky vaudeville song that called for the singer to perform a series of naughty poses as she sang.
Hettie knew the song, but there was no way she could sing it. But the pianist was waiting for her. Tears burned the backs of her eyes. Helplessly, she looked at him and shook her head, explaining, ‘That isn’t my music…’
‘Come along, what’s the hold up?’ a sharp male voice called out from the stalls.
The pianist shrugged his shoulders and looked bored.
Hettie bit her lip.
The safety of the wings was just feet away, but if she gave in and ran to them she would be the quitter she had so proudly told Babs she wasn’t.
She took a deep breath and then announced into the darkness: ‘The accompanist hasn’t got my music, so I shall have to sing without it.’ She could hear the impatient rustle and movement of her unseen audience.
Before she could lose her courage she inhaled sharply and began to sing. Perfect pitch, that was what Miss Brown had always praised her for…Perfect pitch. She sang at home on her own without music, so why should this be any different?
Determinedly, Hettie tried to ignore that she was singing for the unseen judges in the darkness beyond the footlights, and to pretend instead that she was singing at home in Winckley Square.
Her nervousness faded as her delight in singing took over. The pure true sound of her voice rose and fell in a cascade of liquid harmony that had Babs, who had sneaked into the wings to listen, clasping her hands together and marvelling aloud.
Hettie had almost finished when she heard someone calling out from the stalls. ‘That’s enough, that’s enough. Next.’
She had been so engrossed in making herself believe she was at home that for a few seconds Hettie couldn’t register what was happening, and then suddenly and sickeningly she realised that her audition was over and she was being dismissed.
Hettie was vaguely aware of the sound of angry, raised male voices coming from the stalls, but the next girl was already coming out of the wings, giving a loud sniff of contempt as she hurried past her, and the pianist began to play her music.
She should never have allowed Babs to persuade her to come here today, Hettie told herself miserably. She should have known she would be turned down. She had known all along that she wouldn’t be good enough.
Babs was waiting for her in the wings, ready to give her hand a comforting squeeze and to whisper, ‘Gawd, ’Ettie, just listen to ’er.’ Grimacing and nodding her head in the direction of the stage, she added scornfully, ‘What a screech she’s making.’
‘Huh, well it don’t matter where she’s concerned how badly she sings,’ another girl commented overhearing Babs, ‘cos ’er cousin knows someone ’oo knows the director, and I overheard her saying in the dressin’ room as ’ow she’s already been promised a part.’
‘It’s not your fault if you ’aven’t been chosen, ’Ettie love,’ Babs tried to comfort Hettie. ‘That’s the way it is sometimes in this business. It’s a cryin’ shame an all cos you have ever such a pretty voice, and I’m really going to miss you when we tek off for London, like. Oh ’eck, is that the time? I’ve got ter go. We’re supposed to be rehearsing. We’ve got the bloody angel coming, and the director’s acting as nervous as a virgin on her weddin’ night. I suppose he’s worryin’ that this American chap is going to want to know what ’is money is being spent on.’
She’d gone before Hettie could say anything, leaving Hettie to make her way past the chattering groups of chorus girls hurrying from the dressing room, leaving the smell of chalk, scent and greasepaint hanging on the air. Dispiritedly Hettie watched the other girls. She couldn’t help feeling envious of them and wishing that her own audition had been successful.
She had almost reached the stage door when a good-looking, fair-haired young man hurried up to her, exclaiming, ‘Hey, you, Hettie Walker. You’re to come with me immediately.’
‘What? Why?’ Hettie asked apprehensively. ‘I…’
The young man shook his head and pulled a face. ‘Come along, we’ve got to hurry. It took me ages to find you, and he isn’t exactly in the best of moods, even if you have been lucky enough to catch his eye.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Hettie began uncertainly, ‘but I don’t think…’
‘My dear, of course you don’t think; none of us ever admit to thinking. How could we when we have to dedicate ourselves to the muse?’
His languid manner of speaking bemused Hettie. She wasn’t sure if he was serious or trying to make fun of her. Whilst she was still debating what to do, he took hold of her hand and insisted, ‘Come along. I’ve been told to get you up to his office immediately. Quick,’ he instructed her, ‘let’s take these stairs here. They go right up to the office. Fair taken his nibs’ fancy, you have, Hettie Walker,’ he told her pointedly. ‘And no two ways about it. Here we are.’
He was knocking on a door before opening it and virtually pushing her inside the room before Hettie could even speak.
She could hear the door closing, shutting her inside the room with the man perched on the edge of the heavy mahogany partners desk that dominated the whole room.
‘You,’ she gasped, her eyes widening in recognition as she stared at the man who had sent her the note at the Adelphi and then commented on her singing at the chop house.
‘They say third time lucky, don’t they? I certainly hope they’re right, and that this time you don’t disappear on me.’
‘Who are you? Why have you had me brought here?’ Hettie demanded worriedly as she looked from his face to the closed door and then back again.
‘My name is Jay Dalhousie,’ he told her with a smile, ‘and I can assure you that you have nothing to fear from me, Hettie Walker, and that there is no need for you to look so longingly at the door – you can go any time you please, although I sincerely hope you won’t want to.’
‘I wasn’t…’ Hettie fibbed, and then, feeling bolder despite herself, said, ‘Your name is very unusual. I have never heard one like it before.’ And then she blushed when he laughed.
‘No? Well, it’s the one my Daddy gave me, and what was good enough for him is good enough for me.’
‘You’re an American.’ Hettie blushed again as she realised that her comment sounded almost like an accusation.
‘Creole,’ he corrected her, watching her confused frown before explaining laconically, ‘Way, way back when, my pa’s folks came from France to settle in New Orleans, and we like to think of ourselves as Americans with a dash of something extra – something hot and spicy, a bit like our Cajun cooking.’
Something about the way he was looking at her whilst he talked was making Hettie feel both alarmed and excited. Instinctively, she knew that he was the kind of man who would entice a woman to make dangerous and reckless decisions. Her heart started to beat far too fast, and the colour burning her face now had nothing to do with any embarrassment.
‘And your mother?’ she asked him, trying to make polite conversation.
Instead of answering her immediately, he removed a cigar from the box on the desk, clipping it neatly and then striking and lighting a match against the leather sole of his shoe. ‘These are the best cigars a man can buy. They say in Havana that their special richness comes from the fact that the women who make them roll the tobacco leaves between their thighs.’
The bright red burn across her cheekbones betrayed Hettie’s shock.
‘My mother’s grandmother grew up in one of Mississippi’s big plantation houses,’ he continued, amused and touched by Hettie’s sweet innocence. ‘“Belle Visage” was what they named it. My mother used to tell me about how her mother had told her stories of my great-grandmamma wearing gowns that were made in France, and jewels worth a prince’s ransom.’
‘You mean she was the mistress of a slave plantation?’ Hettie asked him, unable to conceal her disapproval. At school she had learned about William Wilberforce and his determination to put an end to the slave trade.
‘No,’ Jay told her laconically. ‘What I mean is that she was the mistress of the plantation owner. My great-grandmamma was an octoroon; that is to say she had “slave” blood, and was one-eighth black. In New Orleans they have a name for every degree of “black blood” a person can have.’
Hettie looked at him a little uncertainly. His skin was very much the same shade of warm olive as Liverpool’s Italian immigrants, rather than the shiny, almost blue-black of the West Africans she had seen around the docks.
‘My mother was Japanese,’ she heard herself telling him without knowing why.
‘So, already our mixed-blood heritage is something we have in common. In fact, I think that you and I could get along very well with one another, Hettie. Very well.’
He got off the desk and started to walk towards her, causing Hettie to back away from him in panic and anger.
‘I’m not interested in that sort of thing,’ she told him fiercely. She had backed up as far as the door now and had nowhere else to go. ‘I’ll have you know I’m not that sort of person. I’m a decent, respectable girl…’
Jay Dalhousie had folded his arms across his admirably broad chest and now he was actually laughing at her. She could see the white flash of his big strong teeth, his eyes crinkling up in amusement as the sound of his mirth filled the small room.
‘I am sure you are, Hettie,’ he told her more soberly when he had stopped laughing. ‘But I think you may have misunderstood me. The role I wish you to take on is not that of my mistress, but that of the second lead in Princess Geisha. I thought when I heard you singing at the Adelphi that you would be perfect for the role, as much for your appearance as for your voice. However, when you did not respond to my note, I bowed to the wishes of our director and allowed him to choose his own artistes. I am, after all, merely the financial backer of the show and know very little of the intricacies of putting on a stage show, even if I do know what I like to look at and listen to.
‘When I heard you singing in that restaurant, I thought again how perfect you would be for the part of Princess Mimi, the younger cousin of the female lead, and the go-between who helps her in her secret love affair with Prince Hoi-hand. But by then the part had been cast.
‘However, since our second female lead has changed her mind and abandoned us, it seems almost a divine intervention that you should have attended today’s audition.’
‘But that was only for a very small minor part, and I didn’t even get it,’ Hettie protested. ‘I was told that the understudy would be taking over the vacant role…’
‘Certainly that was what Lucius Carlyle, our director, felt we should do, but having heard you singing again today I have insisted that the part should go to you,’ he informed her.
Was she dreaming? Could this really be happening? Was she really being offered the second female lead in an operetta the other girls had already told her was to be one of the most expensive extravaganzas the London stage had ever seen?
‘Well, Hettie, will you take the part?’
Eagerly, Hettie nodded her head, not daring to trust herself to be able to make any kind of lucid speech.
‘Excellent. Since rehearsals have already started you will need to work especially hard, I’m afraid, to catch up. Your wages will be seven shillings and sixpence per week.’
Hettie’s eyes rounded. ‘Are you sure that isn’t too much?’ she whispered anxiously.
Jay was laughing again. ‘You are certainly a one-off, Hettie. I don’t think I have ever been asked before if I am paying someone too much! Why don’t you go back down to the theatre and watch what’s left of the rehearsal? Eddie Ormond, who brought you up here to me, will be waiting for you. He will take you down to our director who will talk to you about your part and arrange for you to have any extra coaching he may think you need, so that you can catch up with the rest of the cast.’
She felt as though she were literally floating on air, and not walking on a piece of worn drugget, as Jay Dalhousie opened the door for her to leave.
How amusing that Hettie had suspected him of wanting to proposition her, Jay reflected after she had gone. Not that he didn’t find her attractive – he did, and were she a little older and rather a lot more worldly he doubted he would have bothered trying to resist the temptation of taking her to bed and thus mixing business and pleasure.
But she wasn’t and it was, after all, the fact that she was so perfect for the part of Princess Mimi that had first caught his attention, even before Lucius Carlyle – the stubborn and difficult but extremely experienced and highly recommended director they had taken on to bring this production to the stage – had refused to entertain the idea of anyone other than him deciding who would play each role.
There had been a terrible argument earlier when Jay had overruled Lucius and insisted that Hettie be offered not just a minor part, but the role of Princess Mimi. But Jay was a man who listened to and followed his instincts, and he was also a man who liked to take risks and to win.
‘The girl’s a nobody. We don’t even know if she can act,’ Lucius had protested, furious at having his decision questioned and then overruled.
‘But we do know that she can sing,’ Jay had told him firmly, ignoring the temper he could see burning in the other man’s eyes.
Lucius did not approve of theatrical backers involving themselves in the productions they helped to finance, and he had said so very plainly. Equally plainly Jay had told him that his own situation was very different from that of a normal theatrical ‘angel’.
And so it was.
Jay had first met Archie Leonard, the young composer and librettist who had created the operetta, in New York. The young Englishman had been working on Broadway, and he and Jay had attended the same party. They had fallen into conversation and when Archie had learned that Jay’s family had widely extensive interests in New Orleans which included several steamboats, and that Jay, like his father before him, was a well known and very successful gambler, Archie had proposed that Jay might like to gamble on him and provide the backing for the musical he had composed and written.
At first Jay had simply laughed, but he had been growing bored with his relationship with his mistress, and there was no way he had wanted to return to New Orleans and the sickly, complaining but very wealthy wife he had married to please his father – especially not now that he had done his duty and fathered two sons by her.
He had a yen to see Europe and what better place to start than England? And what better excuse than the kind of risky financially venture he most enjoyed? The financial rewards if he won – and he was determined that he would – would even bring a smile to his father’s face. And then, of course, there were the ‘extra benefits’.
Jay’s whole body shook with laughter as he remembered Hettie’s outrage. What a sweet pleasure it would be to teach her to beg him to want her instead of rejecting him! Was she still a virgin? A look of brooding sensuality darkened his eyes and stilled his body. Hettie aroused all those hotblooded desires that the iciness of his wife’s pallid body could only chill.
‘Offered you the part, has he?’
Hettie gasped and put her hand to her chest, protesting, ‘Oh! You scared me half to death,’ as Eddie Ormond, the young man who had escorted her to Jay’s office, suddenly appeared out of the shadows.
‘Oh, poor little girl!’ he mocked her. ‘If I scare you, you aren’t going to last a day once our director gets his teeth into you. He isn’t at all pleased at the way our angel has stepped on his toes,’ he warned Hettie.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked him nervously.
‘Why, only that darling Lucius our director is none too pleased that our angel has insisted on you being offered the ingénue part, when he had already earmarked it for one of his own favourites. And as for the lady herself, she’s spitting teeth and ready to scratch out your eyes. Anyway, Lucius wants to see you, and he hates being kept waiting.’
Hettie tried to ignore the anxiety gripping her tummy as she hurried to catch up with her guide, who had almost run down the stairs before disappearing into the darkness of the corridor.
She caught up with him just as he was about to knock on one of the several closed doors, her eyes widening questioningly at she looked at him.
‘This is Lucius’s lair,’ he whispered to her. ‘I’ll wait outside for you because you’re to go and see Madame Cecile the choreographer.’
‘Come,’ a sonorously elegant male voice commanded.
Eddie opened the door and Hettie stepped through it with trepidation.
The man frowning intently over what he was reading was as different from Jay Dalhousie as it was possible to be. Small and slight, with polished dark hair, deep set dark eyes, and a large beak of a nose, he exuded an air of authority and hauteur that immediately made Hettie feel even more apprehensive.
Whatever he was reading must be very important, Hettie decided, because so far he hadn’t even looked up at her, never mind acknowledged her presence or asked her to sit down. Instead, he reached for a pen and proceeded to make notes on a piece of paper, whilst Hettie felt compelled to stand so ramrod still that she hardly dared to breathe.
Then he put down his pen, lifted his head and smiled at her.
Hettie exhaled gustily in relief, an answering smile lifting her own mouth.
‘So, my dear, we are to welcome you to our little family. Your name is?’
‘Hettie, Sir, Hettie Walker,’ Hettie almost stammered, half inclined to bob a small curtsey as he stood up.
‘Charmed, I am sure, Hettie. I, as I am sure you will know, am Lucius Carlyle, producer and director of our little show. To be sure, I am rather more familiar with the theatres of dear Shaftesbury Avenue and Drury Lane than those of the provinces, but…’ His voice trailed away.
‘You are to have the part of the second female lead, the Princess Mimi, the young female cousin of the heroine of our little operetta, I understand. At least your looks and lack of height will make you suited to the role, and I am sure we shall be able to persuade our composer to cut some of the songs from the part if you should find it too taxing. Unfortunately, you have missed our early rehearsals, so you will have to work hard to catch up. Tommy Harding our stage manager will provide you with a copy of your part, and everything else you will need, and he will also explain to you what will be required of you.’
Too over-awed to say anything Hettie could only gulp and nod her head, relieved to discover that the director was not the dreadful, fearful person that Eddie Ormond had so meanly implied.
Perhaps this was going to work out all right after all, she reflected. Maybe Jay Dalhousie would prove to be an angel in every sense.
Naturally Hettie could hardly wait to tell her friends, and especially Babs, her good news. She was practically hanging out of the window waiting for their return, shaking her head impatiently when they came upstairs, Babs already starting to commiserate with her.
‘Aw, ’Ettie, I am so sorry you did not get the part,’ she said sympathetically.
‘Don’t be, because I’m not,’ Hettie interrupted her.
‘What?’
‘No! I do not mind at all about not getting that chorus part – because I’m going to be Princess Mimi instead!’
‘What?!’ Babs exclaimed in patent disbelief.
Every one of the girls turned to stare at her.
‘’Ettie, that’s impossible. Faye Wright ‘as got that part now. And we all know why,’ she added darkly. ‘It’s all on account of ’er and Lucius Carlyle having worked together before. First he gets poor Flo Bardesly that upset that she teks up and leaves, and then sweet as apple pie our Faye steps into the part. No, ’Ettie, you won’t be playing the second lead,’ Babs told her shaking her head decisively.
‘Well I am, so there,’ Hettie told her, sticking out her chin crossly, upset that Babs didn’t believe her. ‘Mr Jay Dalhousie, who is backing the operetta, told me so himself.’
Six heads swivelled towards her, six pairs of eyes regarding her with similar expressions of disbelief.
‘You’ve met the angel?’ Mary demanded enviously. ‘And just how in ’eck’s name did you pull that one off, ’Ettie?’
‘Ooh, Hettie, you’ve really put our Mary’s nose out of joint now,’ Jenny giggled. ‘She’s bin fancying her chances wi’ him ever since she first eyes on him, ’aven’t you, Mary?’
Mary tossed her head and flashed a murderous look at Jenny. ‘Certainly not. Wot kind of a girl do you tek me for? Everyone knows as how he is married…’
‘Well, that’s never stopped you afore,’ Hettie heard someone mutter, but fortunately Mary didn’t seem to have heard.
‘You want ter watch it, Hettie,’ she warned sharply. ‘If he has offered you the part it won’t be the pleasure of listening to your voice he’ll be after…’
Hettie’s face had begun to burn with chagrin and anger. She had been so looking forward to telling the girls her good news and now here was Mary spoiling it for her. ‘Well, for your information, it’s nothing of the kind,’ she told Mary fiercely. ‘Jay…Mr Dalhousie, wanted me for the part the very first time he heard me singing at the Adelphi. He says that I’d be perfect for it…’
‘Perfect for his bed, you mean,’ Mary muttered.
But Babs shook her head and told her firmly, ‘Leave off upsetting ’Ettie, will you, Mary? I’m not a bit surprised that Mr Dalhousie wants her for the second female lead, she’s perfect for it,’ she defended Hettie loyally, adding, ‘We all knows how well she can sing and just look at ’er…’
‘Well, yes, I suppose she does ’ave a bit of a chinky look about her,’ Mary agreed sulkily.
‘I am not…’ Hettie began angrily but Babs, who was standing next to her, jabbed her so hard in the ribs with her elbow that she broke off from what she had been about to say to give her an indignant look.
‘But she can’t dance, and we’re halfway through rehearsals already, and if you was to ask me…’ Mary continued, still glowering.
‘But nobody is,’ Babs interjected, and the matter, for the time being, was left to rest.
It wasn’t until later when she and Babs were on their own that Hettie was able to tell her friend how disappointed and upset she had been by Mary’s response to her news.
‘Well, it’s just a bit of jealousy, that’s all, ’Ettie, and you mustn’t tek it to heart. Mary’s been trying to break out of the chorus for bloody years, but they keep telling ’er that her voice isn’t strong enough, so you see for you to walk in and get the second lead just like that is bound to make her feel a bit sour. Don’t worry about it, though, she’s good-hearted enough and she’ll soon come round.’
When Babs saw how upset Hettie still looked, she gave her a swift hug and coaxed her, ‘Come on, cheer up. If you think that Mary ’aving a bit of a go at you is sommat to get upset about, how the ’ell you’re going to manage when old Lucy starts on you, I don’t know.’
‘Lucy?’ Hettie queried uncertainly.
‘Lucius Carlyle, the director, remember? And then there’s Madame Cecile, a right Tartar she is and no mistake. Gawd, but she makes you work until you thinks your bloody legs will drop orf and then all she can say is as how we ain’t anything like as good as “Mr Cochran’s young ladies.”
‘That’s the trouble when a backer knows nowt about the theatre and goes and hires London management and provincial artistes. Them in London think they knows it all and o’ course they all ’ave their own favourites. If you ask me, it will be a bloody miracle if we even get to open here never mind get a full house and then move on to Drury Lane,’ Babs opined with a world-weary air.
‘I thought you’d all be pleased I’d got the part,’ Hettie told her miserably.
Babs sighed heavily. ‘There’s a lot you’re going to have to learn about the theatre, Hettie. And I don’t just mean Madame Cecile’s bloody dance routines. You see, no matter ’ow much another girl likes you, when you get a plum part and she doesn’t it’s bound to leave ’er feeling a bit sore, like. Any of us ’ud feel the same. Now come on, cheer up,’ Babs commanded giving her another swift hug. ‘Mary ’ull soon come round. Have you told your family yet? Your ma and pa are bound to be pleased for you.’
‘No, not yet,’ Hettie answered her. She was unwilling to discuss Ellie’s condition, even with a friend as close as Babs. ‘Babs, do you really think I am good enough for the part?’ she asked anxiously.
Babs pursed her lips and tilted her head to one side as she studied her. ‘Well, let’s see. We all know as how you’ve got the voice; loud enough to drown out the whole bloody orchestra it is.’ She chuckled. ‘And you’ve certainly got the looks. But it isn’t just about being good enough, ’Ettie,’ she added seriously. ‘Sometimes it’s more about ’oo yer knows. Faye will kick up a right stink about you getting the part she wanted, yer can be sure of that. But don’t you worry.’ She gave Hettie’s arm a comforting little squeeze. ‘We’ll all be watching out for your back. Now, come on, I ’ope you haven’t forgotten that we’re all going to the picture house tonight to see Rudolph Valentino?’
Immediately Hettie shook her head. Of course she hadn’t. Every woman in the country was in a fever of excitement about the risqué film which had just come to Britain and its handsome male lead.
‘Thank ’eavens we’re only rehearsing, otherwise we’d never have got to see the film,’ Babs added.
Valentino’s effect was such that some women were reported to be swooning just at the sight of his photograph, never mind his actual presence on the screen. The newspapers had reported disapprovingly on the frenzied behaviour of his female admirers, and it was said that no woman could remain immune to a look from his dark eyes.
And so it proved to be. In a cinema packed with women, every member of the audience gave an involuntary gasp of delicious shocked excitement when Rudolph turned to Agnes Ayres, his Arab robes lending an even more dangerous mystery to his already handsome features as he commanded, ‘Fly with me – into another dawn.’
And one of the few male voices from the audience was heard to exclaim furiously, ‘Maud, I demand that you cover your ears and your eyes immediately.’ Much to the giggling delight of the girls, who nudged one another, their eyes shining with the heady pleasure of forbidden intimacy being offered to the film’s swooning heroine.
‘’Ere, Aggie, what he just said, that means that…’
‘Oh, put a sock in it will yer, Mavis,’ Aggie advised her impatiently. ‘We all know what it means. Cor, what I wouldn’t give ter have ’im say that ter me!’ she added, returning her attention to the screen. ‘I’ve never been so shocked in all me life.’
‘Me neither,’ Jenny agreed dreamily.
‘No, nor me,’ someone else agreed.
But Hettie didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. She was too caught up in the film to even move, never mind speak, and had to be nudged by Babs who hissed at her as the credits came up, ‘Come on, we’re going…’
Those thrilling words that Rudolph Valentino spoke had meant that he was going to make love to the heroine of the film. And they weren’t even married. A funny little twisting sensation of excitement and something else was aching through Hettie’s whole body. It made her feel rather like she had felt when John had kissed her.
John! Her heart gave a fierce jump and banged against her chest wall. What was he doing now? Did he ever think of her? Did any of them? Emotional tears started to sting her eyes.
It had been such as very exciting day and yet, somehow, deep down inside her there was a sharp ache of sadness, Hettie acknowledged, that would never go away.
‘You aren’t still reading them blessed lines, are you?’ Babs demanded good-naturedly as she leaned over Hettie’s shoulder to see what she was doing. ‘I thought you said as how you was going to your aunt’s for your Sunday dinner?’
‘Yes I am, but I just wanted to read through my part again before I go,’ Hettie told her importantly.
She had read through her lines so many times she almost knew them by heart already; and as for her songs, she loved them and couldn’t wait to sing them for Lucius Carlyle. Already she was visualising the look of impressed delight in his eyes as he praised her singing voice and told her how pleased he was with her. The part could have been written just for her, Hettie admitted. It was perfect, even if Princess Mimi wasn’t the female lead part, and there was no romantic interest for her. Her role was that of a mischievous and sometimes forgetful but always well-meaning young cousin who genuinely wanted to bring the two lovers together.
Her favourite song was her main solo when she had to sing about her frustration at the two lovers’ inability to cut through the tangled knots of misunderstanding and protocol and tell one another how they felt. She especially loved the fact that there was a touch of comedy about her character.
‘Oh Babs, it’s so exciting,’ Hettie told her, pink-cheeked with delight. ‘Just imagine, I’m going to be singing the second female lead, on a London stage!’
‘Well, I wouldn’t start getting your hopes up too high yet, if I was you,’ Babs warned her.
‘We’re still rehearsing and if the money runs out, as has been known to ’appen, we may not even get to open, and even if we do, if the critics don’t like us we won’t be going anywhere. It doesn’t do to take anything for granted in this business, ’Ettie. Aw, come on, don’t look so glum. You never know, this time next year it could be you wot is acting opposite Rudolph Valentino,’ she teased. ‘Oh, and watch out for that Faye as well,’ Babs added. ‘She’ll be as mad as fire that you’ve got the part, and think on, ’Ettie, as how she’s already got rid of one Princess Mimi. And there’s no getting away from the fact that old Lucy favours her. Gawd knows why, she’s as clumsy as an elephant and she can’t sing.’
‘I don’t know why you’re so unkind about poor Mr Carlyle,’ Hettie defended the director primly. ‘Eddie was really horrid about him, but Mr Carlyle was very kind when he spoke to me.’
‘Eddie?’ Babs queried. ‘You mean Eddie Ormond, the set designer?’
‘Is that what he does? He didn’t say.’
‘A youngish chap, tall and la de da with wavy hair and…’
‘Yes, that’s him’, Hettie agreed. ‘Mr Dalhousie sent him to find me, and then he waited with me before taking me to meet Mr Carlyle.’
‘Well, ’e seems a nice enough young chap,’ Babs admitted, ‘although he’s a bit too posh for my tastes. Oh ’eck, is that the time?’ she exclaimed looking at her watch. ‘I’ve got to go, I’m meeting someone at eleven.’
‘Someone? You mean a man?’ Hettie challenged her immediately.
Babs tossed her head, her face bright pink. ‘So what if he is?’ she said nonchalantly. ‘It isn’t against the law, is it?’
‘Oh Babs, who is he, and why haven’t you said anything about him?’
Babs gave her a coy look. ‘There isn’t anything too say. At least not yet. I met him last year when we were both working in the same panto. Stan Fisher his name is. He does a comedy turn with another chap. They’ve bin working in Blackpool all through the summer but now he’s booked to do a panto here again this winter. Bumped into ’im the other day, I did, and ’e told me that ’e and some other lads are all boarding just round the corner from us. He asked me out straight off, like. Cheek! I wouldn’t have accepted if he hadn’t caught me in a weak moment, and I told him so an’ all.’
‘Where’s he taking you?’ Hettie asked her, both curious and slightly envious. She had heard the other girls talking about their various beaux and giggling over the kisses they tried to steal, but this was the first time she had known Babs go out with anyone.
‘Oh, we’re only going to ’ave a bit o’ dinner somewhere and then go for a walk. He’s rehearsing at four, and I told him there was no way I was risking meself staying out wi’ the likes of him once it gets dark,’ Babs announced meaningfully, causing Hettie to giggle.
The November day was cold and damp and had that kind of greyness that seemed to seep into everything. Hettie huddled deeper into her coat and started to walk a bit faster. Only another few minutes and she would be standing in Connie’s warm parlour toasting her cold hands and feet, she promised herself. Her stomach was already grumbling hungrily at the thought of Connie’s Sunday dinner. This would be the first time she had seen her since Connie had told her about Ellie, and Hettie was apprehensive, especially after what John had told her Connie had said to him. Would Connie be the same as Ellie, Gideon and John, and snub her?
The children saw her first, throwing themselves at her with shrieks of enthusiastic welcome that brought Connie out of the kitchen to exclaim, ‘My, Hettie, but it seems an age since we last saw you. How are you, love?’
‘I’m fine,’ Hettie told her. She was dying to give Connie her wonderful good news but there was something more important she had to do first.
‘How is Mam,’ she asked urgently. ‘Only whenever I telephone Da, he doesn’t say very much except that she’s resting and mustn’t be disturbed.’
‘Well, she’s really taken the loss of this baby very hard, Hettie, and that’s a fact. She still doesn’t even want to see me and I’m her blood family – her sister,’ Connie announced, oblivious that her throwaway comment cut through Hettie like a knife.
‘According to Iris, Ellie is making some progress,’ Connie continued. ‘And now that Gideon has taken her to the Lakes for the winter, to try to raise her spirits, we must just hope that she continues to do so and that we shall soon have our old Ellie back with us.
‘By coincidence I had a letter from John only yesterday morning asking very much the same question as you have just done.’
A sharp pain bit into Hettie’s heart. John had written to his sister, but he had not written to her. And yet at one time, or so it seemed to Hettie now when she looked back, he had for ever been sending her silly jokey notes.
‘He is happy, then, working for his friend?’ Hettie forced herself to ask.
‘It certainly seems so, although like everyone else in the family he is concerned about Ellie. I had written to him asking if he had made any plans for Christmas and if he would like to come and stay here with us, but he has written back that he has already accepted an invitation for a house party, if you please, from this posh friend of his. If you ask me, it sounds as though our John is going up in the world now he’s mixing with all these posh folk,’ Connie announced proudly.
‘Anyway, what about you, Hettie?’ she asked. ‘Are you still enjoying singing at the Adelphi?’
‘No, not any more. As it happens, Aunt Connie, I’m doing a bit of going up in the world of my own,’ Hettie told her proudly.
‘Oh?’
‘Yes.’ She wasn’t going to let on to her aunt just how upset she was that she’d had to learn about John’s new life from someone else. And she was also cruelly aware of the irony that John was putting his new friends above his family, just as he had falsely accused her of doing.
‘I’ve been taken on to play the second female lead in a new musical…’
‘A musical? You mean you are to go on the stage, like a music hall turn? Oh Hettie, I don’t think…’
‘It’s all perfectly respectable,’ Hettie stopped her quickly. ‘And it’s not music hall. It’s an operetta…’
‘An opera?’ Connie breathed, obviously impressed.
Hettie knew that she should correct her aunt’s misinterpretation of what she had said, but suddenly, before she could do so, a mental image of John all dressed up to the nines at his house party, dancing with pretty girls in their flapper dresses, slid into her head, and her pride stopped her. If John could attend a house party with his posh new friends then she could be in an ‘opera’, she decided fiercely.
‘What a shame that Mr Caruso has just died,’ Connie mourned. ‘Otherwise you could perhaps have sung with him.’
Hettie had to bite the inside of her mouth to silence her guilty laughter. It was sweet of Connie to rate her ability so highly. ‘I start rehearsals on Monday and then in the spring, if we take well here, the whole production could be moving to London.’
‘London! Oh, Hettie!’
Hettie was so pleased with the effect her words were having on her aunt that, over lunch, encouraged by Connie’s eager questions, she started to tell her how impressed Jay Dalhousie had been with her voice.
‘Oh Hettie,’ Connie began, starting to look uncertain and anxious. ‘This Mr Dalhousie, I don’t know that…’
‘There’s nothing to worry about, Aunt Connie,’ Hettie assured her. ‘Mr Dalhousie is a gentleman and he is married. He told he that when he heard me singing at the Adelphi he knew right then that I would be a perfect Princess Mimi,’ she added, mentally persuading herself that she was only slightly exaggerating what Jay Dalhousie had said to her.
She had no idea why it had suddenly become so important that when Connie wrote to John she was able to tell him how well she, Hettie, was doing and what a success she was becoming, any more than she had about why just thinking this could cause such a sharp angry pain so deep inside her heart.
The grey afternoon was just beginning to give way to an early dusk when Hettie finally got up to leave. ‘You will tell Mam that I keep asking after her, won’t you, Aunt Connie?’ she begged.
‘Of course I will, Hettie love,’ Connie assured her.
Hettie had the dormitory to herself when she got back as the other girls were either at work or still out, and after having her regular weekly bath she curled up in her bed with her script, and tried not to think about John and the new life he was enjoying.
She wasn’t left in peace for very long, though.
Within half an hour of her getting into bed, the attic door burst open and the twins came hurrying in followed by Mary and Babs, all four of them laughing and chattering.
‘Well I never, what a piece of luck that was, Babs, us bumping into you and and Stan like that. I’all say one thing for them lads, they certainly know how to ’ave a bit of fun.’
‘Ooh, me and Jenny were scared to death when that Billy Wainwright was driving. He went ever so fast. You missed out on a real treat, Hettie,’ Jenny added. ‘Didn’t she, girls?’
‘Huh, if you can call it a treat having your toes trod on by a clumsy great dolt of a chap who couldn’t dance properly to save ’is life,’ Mary complained.
‘Oh ho, you didn’t seem to be too concerned about his dancin’ when you was all cuddled up with him in the back of the motor on the way back,’ Babs pointed out pithily.
Amidst renewed giggles, Hettie learned that a chance meeting between Babs and her new beau and the other three girls had led to Stan suggesting they call back at his boarding house to meet some of his friends, and that from there the whole party had set off for Blackpool in the two cars the boys had managed to borrow.
‘And then when we hid from Billy and Ian…Oh, the look on their faces when they couldn’t find us and then we jumped out at them…’
‘It sounds as though you had fun,’ Hettie said a little wistfully.
‘Oh my, but we did. That Stan of yours is a real card, Babs.’ Jenny laughed.
‘Mebbe, but he could well be a real card without any lodgings tomorrow if his landlady finds out about him smuggling the lot of us into their digs, and all on account of you saying you fancied a cup of cocoa,’ Babs retorted.
‘It were Mary wot said that not me,’ Jenny protested indignantly.
‘Yes, but it was you who spilled the cocoa powder and then decided to paint the boys’ faces with it,’ Mary pointed out.
‘Ooh but when Stan started crackin’ them jokes, and doing them tricks, I laughed so hard I got a stitch,’ Jess broke in.
The girls’ day did sound as though it had been fun, Hettie decided, feeling even more envious. Well, hopefully once the musical started there would be time for some of that for her, too.
‘No! Stop!’
Hettie’s stomach cramped sickly as she heard the anger in Madame Cecile’s voice. She had spent all morning with the choreographer trying to learn the complicated steps for the solo dance. She hadn’t realised the movements she would have to perform were more ballet than mere dance – there was no mention of it in her own script – but when she had tried to say so, Madame Cecile had flown into a furious rage and called Hettie an imbecile.
Hettie’s whole body ached, especially her poor toes, and she felt like bursting into tears of misery and despair. She had no idea what most of the frightening-sounding ballet terms Madame Cecile was shouting at her even meant. What she was being asked to do was completely outside her experience.
Madame’s sharp voice called out coldly, ‘Arabesque, avec attitude,’ followed by the even colder and more contemptuous, ‘Non, non, you do eet like zees…en pointe,’ as she rose up on her toes and demonstrated an impossibly swift and complicated twirl.
Hettie had done her best to copy her, but she was not a ballet dancer and everything she did seemed to add to Madame’s fury.
And then, to Hettie’s humiliation, as she wobbled uncomfortably on her toes the choreographer gave a hiss of disgust that caused Hettie to completely lose her balance.
‘Oh, Babs, don’t laugh,’ Hettie begged miserably now as she told her friend what had happened.
‘I’m sorry, ’Ettie,’ Babs apologised, giving her a comforting hug. ‘Madame Cecile has a real nasty temper on her and we’ve all ’ad a taste of it, I can tell you. I did hear as how it’s on account of her wanting to be a ballet dancer, and then not being able to ’cos of having a fall and hurting her hip. That’s why she ’as that limp, see.’
‘But Babs, it doesn’t say anything in the script about me having to do a solo ballet,’ Hettie protested.
‘Well, sometimes they change things, and o’ course Faye does a bit o’ ballet, like, and I suppose they was thinking that with Marilyn Miller doing so well on Broadway with Sally, and that ’aving a ballet solo, they would put one in. That’s what ’appens sometimes. Maybe they’ll take it out again now that you’ve got the part,’ Babs added, but Hettie could hear the doubt in her friend’s voice.
‘Where are you going now?’ Babs asked her. ‘Only a few of us are going to meet up with the boys and go for a bit o’ sommat to eat, and you’d be welcome to come with us.’
Hettie shook her head. ‘I can’t. I’ve got to go and see Mr Carlyle. He wants to hear me sing Princess Mimi’s solo songs.’
‘Well, at least you won’t have any trouble with those,’ Babs tried to comfort her.
‘Oh dear…’
Hettie could hear the patient sympathy and commiseration in Lucius Carlyle’s voice as he shook his head and got up from the piano stool to cross the stage and place a comforting hand on her shoulder.
‘You have a very pretty voice, Hettie, and I am sure that, given the right setting, it will certainly show to its advantage. But I’m afraid that a stage and a theatre audience require something rather more. However, since our backer has insisted that you are to be our Princess Mimi, and we cannot afford to offend him, we must work together to find a way round the problems, mustn’t we? Now, my dear. Let’s try again. And perhaps this time if we try a different key? You are, we must remember, a young girl, with a young girl’s trilling sweet voice.’
Hettie heard him exhaling tiredly and the weight of her burden of humiliation and despair grew even heavier. It had been bad enough that Madame Cecile had been so contemptuous of her inability to do ballet, but this was even worse. She had thought that she had sung well, but it seemed she was wrong.
‘Of course, it does not help that our composer has written these songs for a soprano soubrette.’
‘But it says in my script that the composer’s preferred voice for Princess Mimi is like mine, a soprano lyric,’ Hettie told him in confusion.
‘Let me see!’ Almost snatching the script from her, he studied it frowningly before tearing it in half and saying dismissively, ‘There has obviously been some error. Anyone who knows anything about opera can see that the part is designed for a soubrette.’
Hettie sighed. Her dreams of success seemed to be evaporating with every passing minute.
‘Madame Cecile says that she can’t dance a single step and Lucy says she can’t even sing properly, so if you ask me if won’t be two minutes before she’s out on her ear, and good riddance, I say.’
‘Well, I had heard as how she’s never really done any stage work before, and that she only got the part on account of the backer tekkin’ a fancy to her voice.’
‘Are you sure it were just her voice he took a fancy to?’
Standing outside the half-open dressing room door, Hettie felt her face burn as she overheard what was being said about her. Should she simply walk away and pretend she had not heard? She took a deep breath and pushed open the door. The immediate silence which descended on the room was more unnerving than the girls’ criticism of her, Hettie decided shakily as she hurried to collect her coat.
A pair of shabby ballet shoes suddenly sailed past Hettie’s ear to land on the floor a few feet away. Hettie ignored them, the tips of her ears burning as someone gave a muffled giggle.
‘Oh, sorree…’ a mocking voice announced as a sharp-featured young woman came to retrieve them. ‘You aren’t a dancer, are you?’
‘And she ain’t much of a singer, either,’ another voice joined in unkindly.
Hettie’s hands shook as she pulled on her coat, but she wasn’t going to give her tormentors the satisfaction of seeing how much they had upset her.
‘Seems to me like it won’t be long before you’ve got your part back, Faye,’ Hettie heard someone saying pointedly as she walked back to the door.
‘And I should think so as well. We don’t want upstarts like ’er pushing their way in where they aren’t wanted. Blinking cheek of it.’