Flossie had never heard of Margaret Shane, but on principle she disliked women, so it was with no pleasure that she climbed her stairs in Shepherd Market, and rang the bell. Mrs. Hodge showed her into the sitting-room. She thought it queer, so little furniture and so many flowers, and odd to have a blue ceiling. She sat primly on the edge of an armchair, and kept half her attention on the door, so that when Mouse came in, she was ready for her with her most wistful and successful smile.
Mouse paused for the fraction of a second, and in that time took in that L.L. had not exaggerated the beauty, it was real, and breath-catching, just in the way an apple-tree is when it flushes into pink-tipped flowers in the spring. She also took in Flossie’s clothes, the cheap materials, and the parody of the fashion, ‘That’ll all have to come away,’ she thought. She recognised the smile, it had been a stand-by with her at the same age, before she changed it for the subtle and cynical one that she used to-day, and which she now turned on Flossie. Flossies smile quivered under it, but it held, as she said with pinched refinement:
“How do you do? Mr. Low said you were expecting me. Lovely weather, isn’t it?”
“Grand,” said Mouse out loud, while to herself, she thought, ‘My God! That can’t be natural.’ She got up and fetched the cigarette box. She offered one to Flossie, who shook her head.
“I don’t smoke.” She looked at Mouse, fighting her fear of her perfection, hating that, so much older, a woman could, by her mere manner and dress, make her feel so inferior. She noted with pleasure that the face before her was lined. “It seems a pity to start when you’re young, don’t you think? Time enough when you’re older,” she said softly.
Her voice and eyes were the personification of innocence, but not for a second did they deceive Mouse. ‘The little cat,’ she thought, ‘that was a dig for me.’ She lit her own cigarette and dismissed the remark with an amused uplift of her eyebrows.
“Tell me, Flossie—I shall call you Flossie, you are too young to call Miss Elk—has Mr. Low talked to you of plans?”
“He said he thought he might have a part for me in a show later on.”
“You’d like that, of course?”
“Oh, I should, ever so.”
“Did he tell you why he wanted you to see me?” Flossie shook her head. “There are two reasons, the first is that he wants me to see your parents and persuade them to let you have your chance, and the second that while you’re being trained, he wants you to live here.”
Flossie lost her careful poise.
“Oh my!” she gasped.
Mouse saw that she was knocked endways, and her brain working like lightning, arrived at the conclusion that it was most unlikely that so much dismay was due to the thought of living with her, therefore it must be because she did not want her visiting her home.
“Your father dislikes the thought of your going on the stage, doesn’t he?” she probed. “Do you think he will change his mind when he hears what a chance you have?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure.”
“Well, do you think it’s a waste of my time going down?”
“I couldn’t say, I’m sure.”
“What exactly did your father say when he made you send the contract back to Mr. Low?”
Flossie twisted her hands, then she whispered:
“He didn’t know I did.”
“Didn’t know! Then why did you send it back?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I was afraid.”
“Whom of?”
“Dad.”
“Oh.” Mouse knew she was being told a lie, but unable to place what, decided to let the matter drop. She smiled trustingly at Flossie. “I think I’d better tell you what the plans are, for that’s what I’m going to talk over with your parents. Mr. Low thinks that you can dance and sing enough for the part he has in mind, although you’ll have to work at both. Your speaking voice is the trouble.”
“My voice?” Flossie was honestly surprised that anything about her was open to criticism. “He never mentioned it.” Her tone expressed her disbelief.
“Not to you, perhaps, but he thought it, and so did Ferdie Carme who’s going to produce the show, and incidentally, so do I, so you can take it that it won’t do.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“At present, everything. But if you work, it can be put right, and that’s why Mr. Low means you to live here; it’s near Miss Myra Lynd who will take you for voice training and singing, and he thinks,” she looked kindly at Flossie, “that it will be easier for you to get it right quickly if you live away from home.”
Flossie wriggled her shoulders.
“If Mr. Low isn’t satisfied, I don’t know why he’s taking all this trouble.”
“He’s fond of a gamble. Of course sometimes he backs the wrong horse; he may this time, but he’s prepared for a risk.”
“I’m sorry he thinks I’m a risk.”
“My dear child, don’t be offended, of course you’re a risk.”
“I’ve played big parts before without all this fuss.”
“Have you?”
“Yes, when I was a kiddy. I was Cupid in the revue at——”
She stopped, for Mouse began to laugh, she laughed so much that the tears rolled down her cheeks.
“The child emetic! Baby Flora! Of course I remember you! To think I should live to meet you in the flesh.”
Flossie had no idea what an emetic was, so she supposed, in spite of Mouse’s laughter, that she was being complimented.
“It is a small world, isn’t it?”
Mouse wiped her eyes.
“What a pity they’re going to change your name. I could exhibit you like something in the Zoo, no one would believe it. Baby Flora! That’s the best laugh I’ve been handed for years.” She pulled herself together. “I’m so sorry, you’ll get used to me in time. Do you think you’ll like living here, supposing that I can persuade your father to let you?”
“It’ll be ever so nice.” Flossie’s voice was full of loathing.
“Do you think about three will be a good time to catch your father and mother in?”
In front of Flossie’s eyes rose the house, and the shop, and the Fordham Road; she would have greatly preferred it if Mouse need never have seen any of them. Sitting in this flat, all queer colours and expensive brocades, she wished that she had known that Mouse meant to call, then her mother could have dusted the parlour, and put real flowers into the vase instead of the artificial ones.
“Yes, they’ll be in.” She looked shyly at Mouse. “You’ll find it very simple after what you’re used to.”
Mouse grinned.
“Don’t be silly. Now you ought to be off. You’re lunching with Mr. Low, aren’t you?”
Flossie got up. ‘Mrs. Nosy Parker,’ she thought, ‘knows everything.’ She went to the door.
“Good-bye.” She looked up with a shy glance at Mouse. “I hope I come to live with you, I’d like it ever so.”
Mouse grinned as the front door shut, she turned to a china dog in her fireplace. “That was the human version of ladies of your genus.” She went into her bedroom calling for Mrs. Hodge, who yelled: “Comin’, dear.” She arrived wiping her hands on a dish-cloth.
“What a lovely young lady.”
“Glad you admired her. She’s probably coming to stay here for a bit.”
“That’ll be nice for you, havin’ a bit of company. Relative, is she?”
“No, she wants somewhere to stay, and I want help with the rent so that I needn’t let the flat.”
“Oh, a boarder.”
“Oh God! I’m hating the thought of having her quite enough without you making things worse by calling her a boarder.”
“Well, if you’re a boarder you’re a boarder, and no good pretending different.”
Mouse unhooked her frock and pulled it over her head. Her voice came muffled from the material.
“Shut up.” Her head reappeared. “Bring me in my black coat and skirt, not the new one, but the one I wear at memorial services.”
Mrs. Hodge went out to the hanging cupboard in the passage; she came back with the coat and skirt, and a hopeful gleam in her eye.
“You had bad news, dear? Going to a burying?”
“No, an abduction. What old black hats have I got?”
“There’s the little velvet. You look a picture in that.”
“You poor cow! I said ‘old hats.’ I’ve not got so many new ones that I need to be reminded of them. Go and get that hat-box from the shelf in the bathroom, there’s a dear.” Mrs. Hodge fetched it, and put it on the floor. Mouse rummaged to the bottom of it, and came out triumphant. “The old felt! I’d quite forgotten I’d kept it.” She pulled it on. “How do I look?”
“Not yourself at all.” Mrs Hodge eyed her reminiscently. “Funny thing, do you know you put me in mind of the Care Committee lady that used to come along of young George’s tonsils. Still, a bit of lip salve and that’ll be a help.”
“I’m hardly using any, only a spot of powder on the nose.”
“You can’t be well! I’ll get you a cocktail. What time was you havin’ lunch?”
“As soon as it’s ready. Don’t spare the gin, I’m going to need that cocktail.”
Fanny was ironing Flossie’s underclothes when she heard a car stop at the gate. ‘Whatever’s that?’ she thought. ‘Can’t be the baker yet, and the milkman’s been.’ She put down her iron and went to the window. Mouse got out of the car, and opened the gate, and knocked on the front door. Fanny took off her apron, and smoothed her hair in front of the glass. ‘Must be someone about Floss,’ she thought; ‘she won’t half be wild at them catching me at her ironing.’
“Mrs. Elk?” Fanny fumbled between ‘Miss’ and ‘Madam’ as a form of address, so Mouse helped her. “My name s Shane, Miss Shane. I’ve come from Mr. Leon Low to see you and your husband about Flossie. Can I come in?” Fanny held open the door and then led the way across the kitchen to the passage at the other side, at the end of which was the prim, Victorian, never-used parlour. Mouse suspected where she was going; the kitchen looked snug; the parlour, she was sure, would smell of beeswax and ancient Bibles. “Can’t we sit in the kitchen? You’re in the middle of ironing, you could get on with it while we talk.”
Fanny thankfully took her hand off the parlour door-handle. Whenever she did have to sit in there, times like when the minister called, the accumulation of unlived-with objects around her made her tongue-tied; she admired the room, but she thought it very unhomely.
“Well, if you don’t mind.” She ushered Mouse into the kitchen, and pulled forward the armchair. She went back to her ironing. ‘Floss won’t half be wild if she hears,’ she thought, ‘but you feel less awkward with having something to do.’
Mouse fumbled for an opening remark.
“Fiddling work, ironing.”
“These little things of Flossie’s are; take such a time they do, she’s that particular is Floss.”
“Can’t she do them herself?”
“Floss!” Fanny looked at Mouse and decided she could be trusted. “Her dad thinks she can, thinks she sews, too; makes it awkward sometimes with all these little scrappy silk and lace things she wears, they take such a time to make, and not being able to get on with them in front of Mr. Elk, it hangs things up.”
“Can’t she sew at all?”
“She can, but she never does. You couldn’t expect it, could you?” There was a world of pride in Fanny’s voice.
“Is Mr. Elk in?”
“In the shop he is. Do you want to see him?”
“I think it might be easier to explain things to you first. I’ve come, as I told you, about Flossie. She is a pretty girl.”
“She is that. It’s queer, for I’ve no looks, no more ’as Mr. Elk, and Floss ’as been lovely since the day she was born.”
Mouse looking at Fanny’s sagged, lined, blemished skin, and flopping figure saw no point in denying her remarks about her appearance. It’s not so much queer,’ she thought, ‘it’s a bloody miracle.’ She came abruptly to the point.
“How do you feel about her going on the stage?”
Fanny was surprised.
“Me! Didn’t Floss tell Mr. Low? It was me that put her to it in the first place.” She rested on her iron, and haltingly at first, and then, helped by Mouse’s sympathetic interest, with growing ease, she told of the beauty competition, and the four years while George had been away, of how hard it had been, and yet how worth while.
“It set her the right way, you see, Miss Shane. What with the pieces in the papers, and the attention she had, she got to feel she was different from others, and though her dad made her give up workin’ she’s never altered, never puts her hand to a bit of house-work, like a princess she is.”
“Then she hasn’t worked since?”
Fanny looked round anxiously at the door into the shop, and saw it was closed.
“Well, I’ll tell you something, but you mustn’t mention it to Mr. Elk, no good rubbin’ at an old sore. She didn’t give up the dancin’: her dad thought she did, but she never. Floss was too clever for him, she got round him to let her stay on at Madame’s, never letting on it was the dancin’ place. He thought it was just an ordinary school, you see, same as she’d been to before. Then when she came fourteen he wanted her to leave and come home and help me—you see I’ve always suffered with my inside since she was born—dropped, it has—so he meant well thinkin’ to spare me. But Floss was ready for ’im—made you laugh to have ’eard ’er—she says she’s workin’ for a cookin’ diploma so’s she’ll be a really good cook time she’s married, and could she stay another two years?”
Mouse was impressed.
“A lady of resource, anyway. She ought to get on.”
“Oh, she will, she’s a lovely performer. Mr. Low will live to bless the day he saw her. I’ve got all the pieces saved they wrote about her in the paper, I’ll show you after.”
“Oh, but you needn’t, I saw her as Cupid, I was on the stage then myself. I saw her by accident one day, and after that I took a party to the Thursday matinée every week. I thought she was unbelievable.”
Fanny sighed reminiscently as she went on with her ironing.
“She did look a duck.”
“What happened after the two years for the cooking diploma?”
“Well, of course, in the end she had to pretend she’d got that—Christmas it was, just after her sixteenth birthday. I remember it well, because we had a lot of snow that year and I went up to Madame’s to ask what I should do about her, and I remember how cold I got in the tram. She said to let her come to a class whenever she could slip out, and then next year, that’s the one we’re in now, she’d try and get her a job, seein’ she’d be old enough to stand up for herself with her dad. And that’s how we carried on.” Her body sagged with exhaustion at the memory. “My, it was a year! She always out, and her dad always on at her because she wasn’t helpin’ in the house. Then, just previous to her seventeenth birthday, they had a proper flare up. It came along of me not bein’ so well, and Mr. Elk, he says sudden, I’m to lay up for a week and Floss could do the work. I’ll never forget it to me dyin’ day.”
“What happened?”
“Floss forgot herself completely, and said things I knew she’d be sorry for, and finished by tellin’ her dad everythin’. Well, of course, she couldn’t ’ave done worse. Made her look deceitful, and me too, and Mr. Elk being a very religious-minded man, it was that upset him more’n anything. Very quiet he was, but you could see how he felt. ‘Floss is not to go outside this house,’ he says to me. ‘Not without I say she may.’ But Floss she was equal to him. ‘All right,’ she says, ‘if you want me to stay in, I will.’ And on that she goes to bed and stops there.”
Mouse’s face was alight with interest.
“What did Mr. Elk do about that?”
“‘Let her stop,’ he says, ‘she’ll come down when she gets tired of ’er own company,’ but she never did, she just lay there. She stayed in bed over three weeks, and the last two weeks of that she hardly ate a thing. ‘I’ll teach him, Mum,’ she says. In the end she looked so bad we had to bring the doctor to ’er.”
“What did he say?”
“Well, to begin with he can’t find much wrong, says she must get up, and get out in the sun, and told me to feed her up. Then Floss says in front of her dad, could she please see the doctor alone. Course her dad couldn’t refuse, and what Floss said I don’t know, but the next thing was, the doctor going into the shop and telling Mr. Elk that the girl was sufferin’ from bein’ kept from her art, the door through was open, so I heard him, beautiful it was what he said. Then he asks Mr. Elk to walk along with him a bit, and when he comes in, down he sits, puts ’is ’ead in ’is ’ands, and is like that close on half an hour. I fancy he asked for guidance, for in the end he says to me, ‘Tell ’er she can ’ave ’er way,’ and then sudden like, ‘‘Is ways aren’t our ways, Fan, we must just trust.’”
“Did Madame Elise send her to Mr. Low’s audition?”
“That’s right, said the experience would do her good, and maybe she’d get an understudy.”
“Then why did she turn the job down?”
A mixture of feelings, pride in her daughter’s daring, and fear that she might say the wrong thing, flickered across Fanny’s face. Mouse smiled at her.
“Don’t mind telling me; I won’t give her away.”
Fanny gave a boastful laugh.
“May as well tell you, you’ll appreciate it. She comes home from the audition and says she has the job, and then she says, ‘But when the contract comes, I’m sending it back.’ ‘Whatever for?’ I said. ‘I don’t want any dirty old chorus job,’ she says, ‘I been a star and I mean to go on being one.’ So I said, ‘But Madame said you’d ’ave to make a fresh start.’ ‘Madame’s wrong,’ she says, ‘I saw the way Mr. Low looked at me. If I send that contract back I’ll get another, and it won’t be for the chorus.”
Mouse was surprised, she had no idea that the Flossie she had met had such skilled guile in her. A bitch, and a foolish bitch, was how she had placed her. How wrong she had been. Foolish!
“That girl’ll go far. She’s perfectly right, Mrs. Elk, that’s what happened. Mr. Low saw her, and naturally spotted that she was amazingly pretty, and when she sent the contract back, he sent for her as you know, and the result is there is a chance, a marvellous chance for her in about six months’ time.”
Fanny had finished ironing, and was folding the clothes, she stopped and looked out of the window.
“Seems silly, Miss Shane, but I knew this day was comin’. Years ago it was I first knew it, Floss was swingin’ on that gate. I can see her as if it was to-day. The teacher from the school had been worrying Mr. Elk, it was on account of Flossie’s looks—jealous, I reckon, her being like the back of a cab. After she’d gone, I looked out of that window; Floss was swingin’ on the gate, she had on a little red coat I’d made her, and a red cap, she looked a picture, and I knew then as sure as I stand here how things would be for her.”
Mouse looked at Fanny. This interview was not a bit as she had imagined it, she felt a growing inclination not to grab Flossie for L.L. but to protect this silly little mother.
“There’s one hitch,” she said sharply, calling Fanny back from castle-building, “her speaking voice is wrong.”
“Her voice!” Fanny’s amazement was even greater than Flossie’s had been. “She’s always spoke so nice, the neighbours often mention it, and she’s always been to her elocution at Madame’s of a Saturday.”
“It is wrong, though. But Mr. Low has thought of a way to get it right. He’s sending her to Miss Lynd for voice production and singing, and she’s wonderful, but that won’t be enough.” How she detested her mission, she had not realised how difficult this part of it would be. Her voice was apologetic. “He wants her to come and stay with me.”
“Leave home! Whatever for?”
Mouse got up and came to the table, and embarrassed Fanny by patting her hand.
“Only just while she’s training; when she’s got the job, she can live where she likes. You see it’s important that she should be corrected all the time, not only while she’s at her classes.”
There was a pause. Then Fanny pulled herself together.
“Of course, that’s quite right. Me and Mr. Elk, we couldn’t help her. Just for a moment I felt upset; you see, she’s never been away from me not for a day, and she’s such a mother’s girl.”
“She’ll come home for the week-ends. I’m usually away, so she’d have to, anyhow.”
“And when she’s workin’ she can come back home, or maybe she’ll want us to move up West End a bit.” She looked at the door through to the shop. “Listen to me running on, but I’ve got all excited. I was forgettin’ her dad doesn’t know. I don’t know what he’ll say. Course he said she might go on the stage, but live away from home!—He’s in there,” she jerked her head to indicate George, “you go in and have a talk with him, and I’ll put on the kettle and get you a cup of tea.”
There were no customers in the shop, so George was reading The Smallholder. He got up when Mouse came in.
“Good afternoon.” He did not add anything about ‘What can I do for you?’ because customers never came through the house door, and Mouse did not look like his sort of customer anyway. Mouse saw there was not a chair, but there was an up-ended wooden box, so she sat on it.
“Mr. Elk, I’m here on behalf of a theatre manager about Flossie.”
“Ah!” He folded The Smallholder and put it away behind the till, and faced Mouse, leaning himself against some boxes of oranges.
“I hear you have given your consent to her going on the stage.”
“In a manner of speaking I have.” He picked up an orange and weighed it thoughtfully in his hand. “The stage, Miss, may be all right for some, but for those who know different it’s a sin. Mind you, theatrical performances are all right, I used to take Mrs. Elk when we was first married, but that don’t mean that I want a daughter of mine makin’ a show of ’erself. Maybe, born to it as some are, it’s what God intended, but it’s not what was meant for Floss.”
“She started young. I suppose it’s become a habit with her.”
“That’s just it. Mrs. Elk put her to it when I was away, and it was a showin’ it was wrong the way it made them both act deceitful.”
“But you’re going to let her do it?”
George jerked his head back towards the kitchen.
“You been talkin’ to Mrs. Elk?” Mouse nodded. “Then she’ll ’ave told you all about the doctor and that. I’ve ’ad to give my consent, but it goes against me.”
“Now that you have given it, I suppose you’d like her to do well, wouldn’t you?”
George considered.
“Yes. If a thing’s goin’ to be done, may as well be done well.”
“There’s a chance for Flossie to step right to the top straight away.”
George shook his head.
“That’s all wrong. Whatever you do you ought to work up to it. Makin’ things too easy won’t help her.”
“You’re wrong there, Mr, Elk. I know the theatre. It’s a help to get a chance right away, but it’s not all jam. Having started at the top you’ve got to stop there, and that means work, and work, and work, and never let up for a minute. It isn’t the getting there that’s difficult, it’s the stopping there.”
There was a pause, and then George said in surprise:
“That’s right, that is. I know with my onions. I got a piece of land I rent, Cheshunt way it is, and three years back I took a first for ’em at the show; these last two years I only got a second, this year I’ve tried a new way and I reckon I’ll take the first again.”
Mouse laughed.
“Taking Flossie as an onion, that’s exactly what I mean. But what I’ve come about is her training.” She looked anxiously at George, he did not look a touchy man. “Her accent’s bad.”
“Very like,” he agreed mildly. “We’re common people.”
She saw he had spoken quite simply, as one who preferred facts. Her heart warmed to him.
“They think if she was away from this part of the world for a bit, she’d get it right. I’ve asked her to come and stay with me. It isn’t only the accent, I can help her in lots of ways. She’d be home for week-ends, of course, and you could come up first and see where I live. I’ll look after her, you needn’t worry.”
“You told ’er mother what you come about?”
“Yes.”
“What she say?”
“That it’s up to you.”
He went to the corner behind the door and brought out another box, he put it down facing Mouse and tapped her knee.
“Look here, miss, you look to me one I can talk to. I’m not thinkin’ so much of Floss, it’s Mrs. Elk. Floss wants to do this dancin’ and that and I can’t stop ’er. But the day she leaves this ’ouse she’s gone for good. Mrs. Elk doesn’t see that.”
“I don’t see that—” Mouse began.
George stopped her politely.
“If you’ll excuse me, miss, you do. Do you think when she’s been living in your flat along of you that she’s comin’ back to ’er mother? No.”
“I live very simply.”
“Your simple isn’t our simple. What’s right for you isn’t right for us. It’s going against what’s intended. We was put down where we was meant to stay.”
“Good gracious! That would kill all ambition.”
“No, it wouldn’t. It’s open to all to make a success of their lives, but ’avin’ made it there’s no reason to go changin’ all your ‘abits to live like your betters. Take me, what would I do if I made a fortune?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop right here in the Fordham Road, and carry on same as I always done.”
“Mrs. Elk would have something to say about that.”
“No. She talks silly at times, very silly, but she wouldn’t want things different, except maybe some help in the ’ouse on account of ’er sufferin’ with her stomach.”
“I wonder. I quite hope you won’t make the fortune, then you won’t be disappointed. But Flossie, you mean, is bound to move into another world.”
“That’s right, and I wrestled in prayer a lot about it. I took my time before I said ‘Yes’ even after the doctor said she should be given her own way. I said to Mrs. Elk, ‘That’s what Doctor wants, but what does God want?’ and I prayed, and while I was prayin’ I got my answer. All of us is meant to bear burdens, and Floss was given to Mrs. Elk and me as the burden we got to bear. Mrs. Elk she don’t see it, Floss is all she’s got, and she don’t see that encouragin’ ’er with this dancin’ she’ll lose ’er. I don’t mind ’er going to live with you, miss, it’s good of you to offer. But it’s for Mrs. Elk to say. I’ll call ’er.” He opened the door. “Fan.” Fanny came in, looking anxiously at George. He nodded at Mouse. “You heard what this lady come about. Are you willin’ for Floss to live away?”
Fanny nodded.
“It’s only middle weeks, she’ll be home weekends.”
“At first she will, but you mark my words, it’s the beginnin’ of the end; the day she leaves here, she leaves for good.”
“You old silly.” Fanny smiling, turned to Mouse. “Listen to him, he doesn’t know much about girls. Floss’ll always want her mum.”
George shrugged his shoulders hopelessly.
“You’re willin’ then she shall go and stay with this lady?”
“If it’s for the best I am.” She turned to Mouse. “If you’ll come in, miss, I’ve a cup of tea ready for you.”