Hettie of Hope Street (18 page)

He had spent enough time with toffs and nobs during the war to know how much store such people put on etiquette and doing things right.

He had opened the boot of the car and removed his battered leather case. It had started to snow, soft fat white flakes of it tumbling from a leaden grey sky.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Pride.'

‘Afternoon, Bates,' John had responded, giving the butler a warm smile. He had at one stage attempted to address Bates by his Christian name, feeling that it showed him proper respect, but Alfred had told him that it made the butler feel uncomfortable to be addressed by anything other than his surname.

Automatically John had allowed the butler to remove his coat and hand it to the waiting footman.

‘James will show you to your room, and then when you are ready His Grace will be waiting for you in the library.'

The footman had already taken possession of his case, so John had dutifully followed him up the wide marble staircase and down a long corridor where he'd come to a halt outside one of the doors.

Opening it, he had stood back to allow John to precede him inside the room.

Ellie, whose husband had inherited from his long-lost birth mother a very handsome house in the best part of Preston, would no doubt have
been shocked by the worn turkey carpets and old-fashioned furniture, John had suspected ruefully as James placed his well-worn case on a luggage rack as tenderly and reverently as though it were made of the finest quality materials.

‘Mr Bates said as 'ow I was to tell you that His Grace's valet Peebles will be 'appy to attend to your needs, Sir, seeing as you 'aven't brought your own valet with you. And he said I was to mention to you that there would be no need for you to change your clothes before going down to the library.'

His own valet! John knew he should not have accepted Alfred's invitation. He was going to be utterly out of his depth. Unlocking his case, he had pushed back the lid and frowned over its contents; stiff starched collars, equally stiff shirts, a dinner jacket, and all the other accoutrements Messrs Moss Bros has insisted were essential.

John was not a man who enjoyed wearing formal clothes. He had looked down at the comfortable Harris tweed jacket he was wearing, which he had spotted on a market stall, its fabric well worn in by its previous owner. His brogues, although well polished, were far from new, as were his shirt and trousers. But he liked them, and he felt comfortable in them.

He had tensed as his bedroom door opened suddenly and Polly hurried into the room, closing the door behind her, exclaiming, ‘John, I saw you arrive from my bedroom and…What are you
doing? You don't need to unpack. One of the maids will do that for you.'

‘Lady Polly, I don't really think you should be in here,' John had told her formally.

‘Oh stuff! I just wanted to tell you that I've come clean to Alfie and told him how I tricked you into taking me flying. I do mean to learn to fly, you know, even if I have to buy my own flying machine in order to do so! Do you have a light?' she had asked him as she opened the bag she was carrying and removed a jewelled cigarette case.

John shook his head, and frowned. He didn't smoke. Cigarettes cost money and as a young man he had not been in a position to afford them.

‘What's wrong?' Polly had demanded. ‘Don't you approve of women smoking?'

She wasn't just smoking, she had obviously been drinking as well, John had realised as he caught the scent of gin on her breath. As she stepped closer to him he could see a wild glitter in her eyes that caused his frown to deepen.

‘What is it about you men that makes you so unkind and disapproving?' Polly had asked huffily. ‘You may do as you wish, and behave as you wish, but you deny us the same freedom!'

For some reason, she suddenly reminded John very much of Hettie.

‘That was what I loved so much about my darling Oliver. He understood me so well.' Tears had welled up in her eyes. ‘Alfie thinks I will forget Oliver and marry someone else, but I won't. I
couldn't. His birthday was on Christmas Day. He would have been twenty-six this year.' Tears were running down her face and splashing on to the floor.

John's initial discomfort that she should have come into his room was swept aside by his compassion for her.

‘Death is so final, isn't it, John? It doesn't allow us to go back and say or do those things we wish we had said and done. I cannot bear it that I will never again share the most intimate of all embraces with Oliver. God can be so cruel. Do you believe in God, John? Because I don't think that I do. Not any more.'

‘You shouldn't be here,' he had told her gruffly. ‘It isn't fitting.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘You knows what I mean, right enough, Lady Polly,' John had told her, once again emphasising his accent. ‘You'm a Lady and I'm just a working man.'

Her eyes widened and she shook her head. ‘John that is ridiculous, and you know it. You are Alfie's friend and I very much want you to be mine as well. Please say that you will?' she coaxed him, immediately crossing to the bed and sitting on it as she added emphatically, ‘In fact, I am not going to leave until you do.'

John shook his head, but he couldn't help smiling at her. ‘Your brother is expecting me to join him downstairs,' he had told her.

‘Yes, and I should be serving tea in the drawing room to Great-Aunt Beatrice, who smells of cats and complains that she does not approve of modern young gals, and her poor daughter Florence, whom she bullies so dreadfully. And our cousin Thomasina will be there as well. She will want to know why I am not married yet, and she will tell me yet again how she could have married a royal duke had she so wished. It is the same every Christmas and I hate it. I hate everything, and everyone, but most of all I hate myself because I am alive and Oliver is dead…'

John hadn't known either what to say or do. Neither of his sisters ever drank spirits, and certainly neither of them would ever have behaved in the way Polly was doing; but then the aristocracy were a law unto themselves, everyone knew that.

‘Have you ever loved anyone, John? Really loved them so much that you cannot bear the thought of life without them?' Polly demanded passionately.

John stiffened. He had once thought he loved Hettie, but she had changed from the sweet girl he had thought her into a young woman who had made it clear that he meant nothing to her. As to living without her…Well, he had proved well enough that he could do that, hadn't he?

‘I must go, otherwise my aunts will be sending out a search party,' Polly had announced as though John and not she were responsible for her presence in his room.

‘You had best dry your face first,' he'd told her automatically, handing her his handkerchief.

A small smile touched her mouth as she took it from him.

‘Dear John. You are so kind.'

‘And have you heard anything from John, Aunt Connie?' Hettie asked, trying to seem casual although her heart was beating wildy at the mere thought of John.

It was Christmas Day and, whilst the other girls who had not been able to return home to their families were having fun together at Jack and Sarah's chop house, with a party to enjoy afterwards, she was at her aunt's trying to make herself heard above the excited noise of the children.

‘John. Yes, we had a card and a letter. Did I tell you that he has been invited to spend the whole of Christmas with that posh friend of his and his sister?'

‘I can't remember,' Hettie fibbed, feigning indifference and bending down, pretending to examine one of the children's toys to hide the sudden burn of her hot face.

Why should she care who John spent Christmas with? she asked herself crossly. He could be with as many posh friends and their sisters as he chose, she had her own friends now, after all. And tomorrow night she would be joining them for a big farewell party before they all went their separate ways, some of them to London with the new
musical whilst those who were in pantos would be staying here in Liverpool.

Lord, had she wanted to do so, she could have gone out with a different lad every day of the week, Hettie assured herself. Only the other day she had had two boys plead with her to let them take her to a tea dance, and two more had begged her to join them as their mascot when they took part in a car race to Blackpool. No, she had no need to envy John his life, not when she had such a happy, exciting life of her own to enjoy.

‘And you're off to London the day after Boxing Day? Well, we shall all miss you, Hettie,' Connie told her. ‘You must let me know your address as soon as you are settled there. And don't forget to write and let your mother know, will you?'

‘Why should I? She doesn't care for me. She wouldn't even let me see her,' Hettie announced bitterly.

‘Hettie! How can you be so ungrateful? You must not say such things,' Connie objected sharply. ‘Ellie has loved you as dearly as if you were her own.'

White-faced, Hettie dropped her eyelashes to conceal the sudden sharp spurt of her tears. Connie had been cross and not at all like herself all day, and had talked of nothing except how worried she was that the whole of the school would go down with the influenza that was already responsible for several of the boys having to be quarantined in the school sanatorium.

Hettie couldn't help contrasting this Christmas with those she had enjoyed at Winckley Square. How different everything was now. Then she had been so happy, believing that Ellie loved her. Whereas now…

She made her excuses and farewells far earlier than she had originally planned, choosing to walk back rather than wait for a bus. The city was unfamiliarly quiet and empty, and Hettie shivered in the cold. It was hard to imagine that this time next week she would actually be in London.

London! She would have a whole new life there. A life where she would be a proper stage singer. Her spirits started to lift. The other girls would still be partying at the chop house and she was wearing her new dress. She had bought it from a neighbour of one of the chorus girls' cousins, a machinist in a dress factory, who made copies of their posh frocks for special customers who got to know about her by word of mouth.

Hettie's was the very latest style with a short skirt and a dropped waist. It was perfect for all those exciting modern dances she and the other girls practised in their attic bedroom and then taught the boys amidst much joking and laughter.

She had reached Jack and Sarah's chop house and, as she pushed open the door, she was enveloped in warm goose-scented air, and above the noise of the party goers she heard Babs yelling her name.

She could feel the tightness of misery and anger
loosening its grip on her heart to be replaced by warmth and relief. She was home, because home was here now, with her friends, and not Winckley Square and the Pride family.

‘It seems so funny, Lizzie not being here.'

‘Well, like she said, 'Ettie, it 'ud tek too long for her to get back to her mum and 'er sister from London, and that's why she auditioned for the panto instead of trying for the musical like us,' Babs pointed out cheerfully before adding, ‘Isn't it time we 'ad our sandwiches? I'm fair famished. Sukey, go and find the lads and tell 'em that if they want anything to eat they'd better be quick.'

The chorus girls and the new friends they had made amongst the young men from the orchestra were all travelling down to London on the same train, and it had been in a mood of light-hearted excitement that they had boarded the train earlier in the day – even Babs, who had had to part from Stan as he was booked to appear in a pantomime.

‘Did you see the look that old man at the ticket office gave us when we said we was all wanting to travel together?' Sukey laughed.

‘He's so old he probably thinks women should
still travel in separate carriages, and not be allowed to do anything unless some fella says that we can,' she added, tossing her head. ‘Catch me ever letting any fella tell me what to do.'

A new mood was sweeping the country and its young women; a desire and a determination to escape the dark shadows of the war and all its lost young men, and to be independent and have fun.

Young women now went out to work; they smoked and talked openly about subjects that would have shocked previous generations. Shop girls and factory girls, as well as debs, made it plain that they wanted to have fun in return for their hard work. They laughed and danced and stayed out until the early hours of the morning. They filled the picture houses, and went to afternoon tea dances on their days off. They enjoyed the company of a variety of young men in a way that shocked their own mothers. But nothing seemed to deter these strong-willed, determined daughters they and the war had raised.

‘They had Mary Pickford on a news-reel film at the cinema the other night, and her dress was so short you could nearly see her knees,' Jenny announced.

‘So what? Everyone will be seeing ours once the show opens,' Mary told her. ‘And I heard Jay Dalhousie telling that Archie that he wants our skirts to be even shorter, just like they have 'em on Broadway.'

‘I'll bet old fuddy-duddy Harris had something to say about that. Just because she once stood in as wardrobe mistress for a show with Mr Cochran's young ladies in it, she thinks she knows everything there is to know about what's right and proper. How about you, 'Ettie? I heard as 'ow Jay Dalhousie is so pleased with your singing that he's asked that Archie to put in another song for you.'

Hettie felt herself blushing as they all turned to look at her.

‘You never said owt about that to me, 'Ettie,' Babs reproached her.

‘Well, it isn't definite yet,' Hettie defended herself.

‘Seems to me our Mr Dalhousie has a right old soft spot for you, 'Ettie,' one of the other girls called out meaningfully.

‘You can stop that right now, Sally-Anne.' Babs leaped to Hettie's defence. ‘'Ettie isn't like that, especially not with a married man…'

‘Are you all right, Babs?' Hettie asked her friend anxiously an hour later, noticing her unfamiliar silence.

‘I've never been in a London play before,' Babs answered her. ‘I just hopes it isn't true as some folk have been saying that we won't run for so much as a week.'

‘Huh. Them as says that are just jealous cats, that's all,' Sukey declared, joining in the conversation. But Hettie knew that her normally optimistic
friend's uncertainty was shared by them all, and her admission turned the earlier laughter and high spirits into a much more sombre mood.

‘We don't even know who this new director we're going to be getting is yet,' Eddie compained moodily.

‘Jay told me that he's someone really good but that he doesn't want to say too much until he's definitely agreed to take us on.'

‘Seems like
you
know a good deal more about what's happening than we do, Hettie,' Sukey said to her semi-accusingly.

‘He just mentioned it when he told me that he had asked the composer to put in another song for me,' Hettie defended herself. ‘Mervyn was there as well.'

Mervyn Rodgers was the male lead singer, and he and the female lead were making their own way to London.

‘What else did he say?' Eddie asked her.

‘Nothing much, just that the new director was also a choreographer.'

‘Well, I hope whoever he is he doesn't want to make any more bleedin' changes to the chorus line routines,' Sukey complained. ‘I don't know about the rest of you but I'm beginning to think I'd have bin better off sticking with panto. What with new routines and then having to open a week earlier on account of having to change theatres at the last minute.'

The train had started to slow down.

‘It's London.' Jenny shrieked excitedly, pulling her twin to her feet. ‘Look, everyone, we're here!'

‘I thought the old battleaxe's house was bad enough, but this place…Cor, but it stinks of cabbage. And have you seen the bathroom?' Aggie grumbled.

‘Couldn't we find somewhere else to lodge?' Hettie asked unhappily as she and Babs looked round the cramped room to which they had just been shown by their new landlady.

‘I doubt as we'd be able to get anything much better,' Sukey told them. ‘Sharp as knives these London landladies are. They all want as much as they can get out of yer, that's wot I've been told at any rate, and at least 'ere we can all be together.'

‘But it's so dirty,' Hettie objected.

‘It's noffink that a bit o' scrubbin' and some bleach won't put right,' Aggie chimed in hardily, adding, ‘I don't know about the rest of you but I'm fair famished and I noticed there's a chop house right on the corner.'

‘Well, we'll have to go to the laundry first, cos no way am I sleeping on sheets I haven't seen washed with me own eyes,' Babs insisted firmly.

Hettie hadn't imagined that her first night in London would be spent washing sheets, she had to admit. The glamour and excitement she had expected seemed to be a million miles away from the grubby place which would be home for she didn't know how long.

‘I say, Polly, shouldn't you be in the drawing room?' Alfred objected as the doors to the billiards room were flung open and his sister came in.

‘Doing what? Letting Great-Aunt Beatrice criticise everything I do?' Polly retorted, pulling a face. ‘I'd much rather be in here with you boys. It's so much more fun. Why on earth did you invite such dreadful bores, Alfie?'

‘Family. Had to…Hey, that was my shot,' he protested indignantly as Polly picked up a cue and skilfully potted a ball.

‘You would never have potted it, you are useless at billiards, you know that. Come on, John,' she called across the table. ‘I challenge you to beat me. Loser has to perform a forfeit of the winner's choosing…'

John hid a small smile as he saw the look of helpless acceptance on his friend's face.

‘Alfie, why don't you ring for Bates and organise some drinks? Tell him I want a martini – a strong one, too. And don't look at me like that. Our horrid government may have only given the vote to women who are over thirty and married, but just because I can't vote that doesn't mean that I can't drink or smoke. Look at you both,' she burst out passionately, throwing aside her cue. ‘Why should you be able to vote because you are men? Why should men tell women what they can and can't do? You don't understand, do you, either of you?' Tears filled her eyes. ‘Oh, why, why did my darling Oliver have to die? He would have understood…'

As she ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her, Alfred gave John an apologetic look. ‘Sorry about that. Difficult time for Polly right now. Thought that this dance tonight might help cheer her up, but it seems not.'

‘Don't be cross with me, John. I know I shouldn't be here, but I had to apologise to you.'

After his conversation with Alfred, John had excused himself and returned to his room closing the door, desperate for some time to himself. To his shock, Polly was lying on his bed.

‘What are you doing here?' John demanded.

Tears filled her eyes. ‘I can't bear to think that I will never see Oliver again. It hurts so much, John.' She gave a small hiccup, and sat up. ‘I'm a disgrace, aren't I? Aren't you glad I'm not your sister? It's so horrid being a woman, John. A woman is so dependent on a man for everything and I hate that.'

She stood up and started to pace the floor. ‘Will you dance with me tonight? Please do? And then tomorrow I shall take you for a drive in my new roadster. We can go to Brighton, and I shall drive as fast as the wind.'

Her eyes were starting to glitter as her tears dried. There was a half full martini glass on John's bedside table, which she had obviously brought to his room, and she picked it up, quickly draining the contents. ‘Have you ever done something that changed your whole life, John? Something that you
wish more than anything else you had not done?' she asked him morosely.

He thought instantly of the accident, his muscles compressing. And then of Hettie, his heart filling with despair.

‘I have, and I hate myself for it,' Polly was continuing. ‘At first I blamed Oliver, but it wasn't his fault. I blamed him because I couldn't bear to blame myself…'

John couldn't speak. What she was saying reflected exactly how he felt about Hettie. He had blamed her for changing and pursuing a new life because he had not been man enough to accept the blame himself for not telling her how he truly felt about her – that his concerns for her were born out of love and tenderness not authority and harshness.

He had lost her for ever now. He was filled with an aching sense of loss and emptiness. Had he been guilty of treating her as though he had the right to dictate to her what she did?

‘'Ere, Sukey, where 'ave you been?'

‘Mind your own business, Mary,' Sukey replied sharply as she hurried into the dressing room, pushing a small package into her coat pocket before starting to get changed into her practice clothes.

‘This is the third time you've been late for rehearsals,' Mary persisted.

‘So what's that to you?' Sukey snapped.

Hettie and Babs exchanged wary looks and Babs grimaced silently. Sukey had become increasingly on edge and secretive since they had come to London.

‘It's on account of the new director telling her she has to lose some weight,' Jenny guessed. ‘Got herself into a right state about it, she has. Hardly touches her food any more. Of course, them sort allus want to see women looking like lads,' she added knowingly.

The new director-choreographer was a fiery-tempered Russian who had worked with the Ballet Russe, and had escaped from his own country to live in France during the revolution.

With his slicked-back black hair and flashing eyes he looked like Valentino, but he was, as they had all quickly realised, far more interested in the chorus boys than the chorus girls.

Hettie gave Jay Dalhousie a grateful smile as she heard him clapping her from the wings. He had been so kind to her and she was extremely grateful to him.

‘That was good, Hettie,' Jay praised her, giving her arm a small squeeze. ‘I want you to have dinner with me soon,' he told her abruptly.

Hettie looked at him uncertainly. ‘To talk about the operetta? I thought you were pleased that…'

‘No, not to talk about the operetta,' he stopped her softly. ‘I want to take you to dinner so that I can talk to you, Hettie…'

How could she feel so excited and elated but so scared at the same time, Hettie wondered. ‘I…'

‘What is it? Don't you trust me to behave like a gentleman?' he teased her.

‘Of course I do.' Her voice was indignant and her face pink.

She was so naive, Jay reflected, and so innocent. His pulse leaped and he had trouble stopping himself from taking hold of her right there and then. She was the reason he had ended his relationship with his now ex-mistress, and he was in danger of becoming obsessed with her.

‘So it's a date, then?' he demanded, reaching for her hand and keeping hold of it. ‘Opening night, after the show, you and I are having dinner together?'

Speechlessly, Hettie nodded.

Fortunately she had the dressing room to herself since the others were still rehearsing their final number. Sinking down on to a stool she stared at her reflection in the mirror, a delicious shiver of excitement racing down her spine. Her hand still felt warm from Jay holding it. And
she
felt warm from the way he had looked at her.

Hettie might be inexperienced so far as men were concerned, but she knew right from wrong and she knew too that her feelings of excitement and anticipation were not the ones she should be feeling for a married man. Only if no one else but she knew about them, that was all right, surely,
wasn't it? And Jay had probably not even been serious about taking her to dinner, anyway.

The dressing room door opened and Sukey peered anxiously round it, and then hurried towards the hooks where they hung their coats, coming to an abrupt halt when she saw Hettie.

‘Oh, you made me jump.'

Sukey might be thinner now but she did not look very well, Hettie decided. Her face was too flushed and too thin, and its thinness made her eyes look somehow as though they were bulging out of their sockets.

‘I thought you were still rehearsing,' Hettie commented as Sukey grabbed hold of her coat and put her hand into one of the pockets.

‘We are, but I wasn't feeling too good, so I had to come and get one of me tablets,' Sukey explained, her body tensing as she began to tug feverishly at her pocket, exclaiming, ‘Me tablets. Where are they…I need them.' She looked almost panic-stricken and started tearing frantically at her coat, her face burning hotly.