A Dream of her Own (41 page)
‘Yes.’
Constance wanted to say that it was much more than that. That she hadn’t even got as far as thinking of Nella being pregnant, the truth was she had balked at the very idea of Valentino and Nella in bed together. He was such a giant of a man and she such a twisted little scrap - the marriage act itself would be sufficient to damage or even kill her friend.
‘Well, you needn’t worry about that.’
‘About what?’ Constance knew that she was blushing. Had Nella read her thoughts? She hoped not.
‘You needn’t worry about me getting pregnant. There won’t be any children.’
Constance dropped her eyes and sipped her tea. She sensed that it would be less embarrassing simply to let Nella talk without interruption.
‘Valentino’s a big handsome man.’ Nella was smiling but Constance saw that the smile was tinged with sadness. ‘A giant of a man, in fact, and probably as strong as Samson in the Bible. He looks like the perfect specimen of manhood, doesn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you’ve guessed that he isn’t perfect, hevn’t you? Gan on, admit it, you knew what was wrong only a minute or two after meeting him.’ Nella sighed. ‘He’s what unkind folks would call simple. Valentino has the mind of a child - an innocent child.’ She shot Constance a keen look and then said quickly, ‘And there’s another bit of him that’s like a child too. The important bit. Get me meaning?’
‘I ... I think I do.’
‘Me manager, Harry Bodie, had guessed as much and he had a long talk with Valentino’s brother, remember him? He had coffee and cakes with us that day, although he didn’t say much.’
Constance looked away. Of course she remembered Frank Alvini. In fact he’d crept into her idle thoughts quite often now she had so little to do. She had been disturbed by the way he had stared at her across the table although she had tried to act as if she hadn’t noticed. She hadn’t even spoken to him other than to tell him her name. But when, at last, their eyes had met something had passed between them ... something that didn’t need words ...
‘Constance!’ Nella’s voice rebuked her.
‘What?’
‘You’re woolgathering!’
‘I’m sorry, it’s the—I’m so warm ...’
Nella’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you sure that’s all it is?’
‘What else could it be?’ Constance stared down into her empty teacup.
‘I’m not sure ...’ Nella looked hard at Constance for a moment, then she shrugged and smiled. ‘Well, anyway, I was telling you, Harry had a chat to Frank and then he got Lucy to explain things to me. But to tell you the truth, I think I already knew.’
‘How could you?’
‘The way Valentino looks at me ... it’s not like ... I don’t know how to say this ... it’s not like the way the other stage-door Johnnies look at the chorus girls as if they’re imagining what they’d look like with no clothes on. Oh dear, I’ve shocked you. I keep forgetting that we theatre folk are more free and easy than respectable people!’
Constance managed to smile.
‘That’s better,’ Nella said. ‘And don’t worry about me, I know what I’m getting myself into. I won’t be heving any children - but I’ll hev my career on the stage and I’ll hev a big handsome husband who thinks the sun shines out of me and who wants to be with me every blessed minute of every blessed day. That’s more than I ever hoped for!’
‘Well, then, I’m very pleased for you,’ Constance said. And she was. In many ways Nella’s life would be more satisfactory than her own. Valentino was handsome, that couldn’t be denied, and many women who didn’t know the truth would be envious of Nella. But even more important was the way he loved her, the way he wanted to be with her all the time. Nella would never be left at home wondering where her husband was and whether it was her fault that he spent less and less time with her...
Nella finished her second scone and drained her cup. ‘I must gan. Do you remember Alice? No, of course you wouldn’t. Alice was the little lass who came to the Sowerbys after you left. Well, Alice has written to me saying that she’s coming to see me this afternoon. I’ll hev to hurry home and see what she wants before I get off to the theatre.’
When she stood up Nella walked over to the fireplace and rose on tiptoes to fiddle with her hat and her hair. She turned and smiled her new, confident and infectious smile. ‘I know I’m vain, you don’t hev to say anything! Now, if I give this bell pull a tug, do you think you could get yer hoity-toity little maid to run along and get me a cab?’
‘Of course.’
After Nella had gone Polly came into the room to collect the tea tray. ‘Mrs Edington, you look tired,’ she said accusingly.
Constance admitted that she was and allowed Polly to help her upstairs. Her bedroom was clean and fresh-smelling, and the lace curtains were moving gently in the breeze from the open window.
‘Why don’t you take your clothes off and get into bed and have a proper rest?’ Polly said. ‘Here, I’ll help you.’
Constance submitted herself to the maid’s kindly ministrations and settled back into the mound of freshly laundered pillows.
Polly paused at the door. ‘Mrs Edington, why don’t you just stay there? Mr Edington isn’t coming home until late tonight so I can bring your meal up on a tray.’
‘All right, Polly.’ Constance sighed and after the door had closed she mused,
I might as well be alone in this room as in any other.
I might as well be alone in this room as in any other.
‘What are you thinking of, sitting on the doorstep like that?’
Nella had just paid the cab driver and she turned to stare down at the unhappy girl. As the cab clattered away across the cobbles, Alice shaded her eyes with one hand and squinted up against the dusty city sunlight.
‘Miss Nicholson,’ she said.
‘That’s right, but answer me. Why didn’t you ring the bell?’
‘I did and the woman said you weren’t back yet and I didn’t know what to say so she shut the door.’
Nella could just imagine Mrs Small’s impatience at being confronted with poor Alice. Mrs Small, who was politeness itself to her lodgers, was known to be a tartar with her staff or anyone she deemed further down the social scale than herself and Mr Small. On top of that she had just lost a little maid of all work: the girl had had the temerity to get a better job in a big hotel.
Alice scrambled to her feet and, although she could only have been thirteen by now, she towered above Nella.
Nella put her head on one side and squinted up at her. ‘You should hev told her that Miss Nicholson was expecting you and you could hev waited in me sitting room.’
‘Could I?’
Nella frowned. She had known from the start that Alice was slow, but she wasn’t stupid, and Nella suspected that there was something worrying her that was more serious than the fact that she had got the worse of an encounter with Mrs Small.
‘Oh, hawway, lass,’ Nella said suddenly. ‘I’m as bad as you, just standing here instead of getting inside. Now ring that bell for me, will you?’
Mrs Small was full of apologies. ‘I’m so sorry, Miss Nicholson,’ she said, ‘but the girl didn’t make herself clear. I imagined that she was a member of your devoted public come to pester you for some token.’
‘Did you?’ Nella was surprised. She knew she had admirers - large numbers of them followed her from theatre to theatre - but no one had ever come to her lodgings before.
‘Oh yes,’ Mrs Small shook her head sympathetically, ‘I know what it’s like to be loved by the theatre-going public. Before I retired from the stage I used to have to disguise myself in order to get even from the stage door to the waiting hansom cab.’
‘Fancy that.’ For a moment Nella wondered whether it was permissible to ask this famous actress to bring her up a plate of sandwiches but then she remembered that she was paying good money to live here.
‘Of course, Miss Nicholson,’ Mrs Small said. ‘I’ve got some nice boiled ham. And I’ll bring them up myself. You know that I’m managing with only the cook and one skivvy, don’t you?’
Nella took that as a reproach, but nevertheless she hurried upstairs to her rooms with Alice following on and breathing heavily. When they reached Nella’s landing she turned and looked at the girl critically. Alice’s usually pasty cheeks were flushed and her breast was heaving.
‘You need to lose some weight, girl,’ Nella said. ‘Although how you’ve managed to get like that on the rations old Mortimer doles out, I’ll never know.’
Alice looked as though she was going to cry. ‘I’m not greedy, really I’m not. Mrs Mortimer says that I must be sneaking down into the kitchen at night and pinching anything I can find - but there’s never anything missing when she checks - but she shouts at me all the same and says I’m growing into a fat, ugly lump. But, honestly, Miss Nicholson, I think I’m just made this way.’
‘Of course you are. Come on in, pet, and divven’t fret yerself.’ She raised a finger to her lips. ‘We’ll hev to talk quietly because Lucy, that I share with, will be heving a little nap in her room.’
Nella led the way into the sitting room. She hoped that she hadn’t upset the poor lass too much. She, of all people, should have remembered what it was like to be mocked for her appearance.
‘Now, do you think you could get yerself into that little kitchen through there and make us a nice pot of tea to gan with the sandwiches that Mrs Small will be bringing up?’
Nella wasn’t really hungry. She had indulged herself with Mrs Green’s home-made scones and she never liked to eat too much before a performance. It wouldn’t be too long before Harry called in a cab to take her and Lucy to the station where they would meet up with the others and catch the train to Shields. When she got back here after the show, she and Lucy would have whatever Mrs Small had left out for them. She doubted if she was doing her constitution much good with these midnight feasts but after the show she was usually ravenous.
Alice polished off most of the sandwiches and drank two cups of tea, then she sat and stared at the floor.
‘So what is it, then? Why did you come to see me?’ Nella asked.
‘Oh!’ Alice raised a hand to her open mouth in a startled gesture. ‘Ee, Miss Nicholson, you must think I’m daft!’
‘No, pet, I don’t, but whatever it is you’ve come to see me about, you’ll hev to look sharp. I’ll hev to get ready to gan quite soon.’
Alice thrust a hand into the pocket of her skirt and brought something out. She held her hand out across the table and Nella could see a small coin resting in her palm. ‘I’ve brought this. It’s yours.’
‘Sixpence?’
‘Yes, for your things. You know, you told me to give them to the rag-and-bone man and he said that’s what they were worth.’
‘You sold all me worldly goods for a tanner!’ Nella said theatrically, and the girl looked frightened. ‘Ee, Alice, divvent look like that, pet. I’m not angry with you! In fact I’m surprised he gave you so much for me bit rags. But I wrote that letter months ago.’
‘I know, but ... but ...’
‘And I said you could keep whatever you got for them. So what’s brought you here now? Alice, whatever is the matter?’
Nella watched in consternation as the tears welled up in the younger girl’s eyes and then spilled out and ran down her cheeks. At first she cried quite silently and then she began to sob, louder and louder as she tried to gulp back her grief.
‘There, there, bonny lass.’ Nella got up and went to put an arm round the girl’s shoulder. She noticed how soft and cushiony it was. ‘Now, are you gannin’ to tell me what this is about?’
‘I shouldn’t be surprised if it’s a man that’s the cause of all this commotion - that’s usually the case.’ It was Lucy who had spoken. Alice stopped halfway through a sniff and she and Nella looked towards the open doorway of Lucy’s bedroom.
Nella’s roommate was wearing a silk robe loosely tied around her ample figure and her hair was in curling rags. She never looked her best without her make-up and, at the moment, she looked both sleepy and cross.
‘I’m sorry, Lucy,’ Nella said, ‘but me little friend seems to be in some kind of trouble.’
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