Movie Shoes (8 page)

“It’s all fixed. Wait a minute.

She danced again the steps she had done at the telephone. “I never can remember anything in my head. I have to remember it with my feet. The audition is at three, at the studio, but you are to be there at two so that Madame Donna can test you herself. You’re to wear a tutu, which you probably don’t have, so pack your shoes and tights and I’ll take you with me and fit you into one of mine. Nana, our old nurse who lives with us, will alter it and take you to the audition. She’s used to them.”

“An audition for what?”

Posy looked surprised that Rachel didn’t know.

“That film they’re making.
Pirouette.
It’s got scenes in a theater where a ballet’s dancing. They ‘ll want the girls they select on and off for three months. If they pick you, and I don’t know why they shouldn’t, you ‘ll earn enough to pay for taxis to your lessons, and you’ll be working at the studios under the man who’s arranging the dances, as well as Madame Donna.”

Rachel felt as if everything were going around. She in a film! It was too gorgeous to be true. She clasped her hands, her eyes shining.

“Oh, Miss Fossil!”

Posy laughed. “Don’t call me Miss Fossil; nobody does. Now do go and get your tights, and take off the shoes. We haven’t much time.”

Rachel was just going to dash upstairs when she remembered Peaseblossom and lessons. She raced to the porch. She was so excited that she couldn’t speak clearly. It took Peaseblossom a moment or two to grasp what the excitement was about. When she did, she got up.

“A film, dear? No wonder you’re excited. Run up, and pack your tights and shoes. I put the tights on that that shelf. I’ll have a word with Miss Fossil. “

Peaseblossom found Posy by the front door. She was dancing.

“This is very exciting news for Rachel,” Peaseblossom said. “I don’t suppose her parents will object to her being in a film if she gets the opportunity; but her mother’s out, and I can’t speak for her. I could ask her father; but he’s been ill and has only just started working again, and it will be a mistake to interrupt him. I suppose attending the audition doesn’t mean she has to take part in the film if her parents don’t want her to.”

Posy stopped dancing and said, “I wouldn’t blame her mother for not wanting her to take part; I hate dancing in films myself; it hardly ever comes off, and the director usually wants the most ghastly things done which never could happen in a ballet. But I don’t think she need worry about this one. I believe it’s real stuff, barre practice and that sort of thing. I’ve only suggested it as a way around the money difficulty. She’d have enough for taxis and things.”

Peaseblossom saw that Posy was not the sort of person to understand it was necessary to get permission to do things. It would be easier to trust to Rachel’s sense. She took down Posy’s address and telephone number, saying, “We knew we were going to hear from you, of course. Rachel’s talked of little else since Madame Fidolia promised to write to you. But I should like just to know where she is so that her mother could telephone to you if she wanted to.”

Posy was looking at Peaseblossom in a very interested way. Rachel would have guessed her feet were twitching to dance her.

“You’ll have to meet my guardian and Nana,” Posy said. “You three will agree about everything. It’ll be especially lovely for Nana, as she doesn’t often find people in America who think the same way as she does.”

Rachel changed into her blue cotton frock and put on clean socks; she came flying down the stairs with her tights in one hand and her ballet shoes in the other. Peaseblossom felt disgraced.

“Rachel! No paper! No string! You’re letting the side down.”

Posy took the tights. “Nana will pack them properly with a tutu of mine. So don’t worry. Good-bye.”

Jane and Tim were listening to the excitement in the hall. This was a most extraordinary country they were in, a country where anything might happen. At one moment there was Rachel doing housework and lessons, with nothing but a rest and walk to follow, and the next somebody rushed up in a car and took her to an audition for a film. Tim’s annoyance about the piano disappeared. In his mind Rachel was already a film star.

“She’ll be able to rent me a music teacher as well as a piano,” Tim told Jane.

Jane was stabbing angrily with her pencil at the sum she was supposed to be doing. She did not begrudge Rachel her luck, but she wished that just once luck would come to her. If only just once everybody-Mom, Dad, Rachel, Tim, and Peaseblossom- could look at her with proud faces and say, “It’s Jane we have to think of. She’s the one who’s important.” She frowned at Tim severely.

“If you’re going to use American words, you should use them right. You rent pianos but not music teachers.” Then, because she was not at all sure that her statement was true, she hurried on. “And if Rachel does get into a film, she’ll have to spend all she earns on furs and diamonds, like the rest of them.”

Tim could not be crushed. “It won’t matter. I can do without her help. As a matter of fact, I’m already making arrangements.”

Peaseblossom came back. Inside, she was feeling a little anxious. She did hope it was all right letting Rachel go off that little Miss Fossil like that, but nothing showed in her face. She smiled at Jane and Tim.

“Our side’s doing splendidly. Fancy, only here one day and Rachel at an audition! It’ll be you next Tim, and then we must arrange something special for you Jane. Now, how are those sums going?”

Jane bit her pencil and scowled worse than usual.

“Arrange something for Jane.” That was how they all thought. But wait. Someday she’d show them.

A Piano and a Dog

Lunch was over. The children were supposed to read for half an hour on their beds. Tim was reading
Treasure Island
for the third time. He had just got to the place where blind Pew’s stick is heard tapping outside the inn when the door softly opened and Bella walked in; in view of where Tim’s mind was, she made him jump. Bella put her finger to her lips and nodded at the other door, which led to John and Bee’s bedroom, from behind which came the sound of John’s typewriter. She creaked down on the bed, which made it sag over to one side. She spoke in a whisper.

“I have a friend who works in a drugstore...”

It was a long story as Bella told it. Her friend from the drugstore had been around that morning, delivering bottles. He had told Bella that she was right in thinking there was a piano in the drugstore. He also said his boss was a kind man, and he guessed if Tim asked him, he would let him practice on the piano at a time when customers weren’t eating; then Bella held up a warning finger.

“Miss Cora mustn’t ever know. She’ll figure a drugstore is a trashy, no-account place.”

Tim thanked Bella and watched her leave the room and closed the door. He shut his book and sat up. He did not want a fuss, and there would be a fuss if he went out alone when he was supposed to be taken for a nature walk. Tim did not want anybody with him; this was a matter between himself and the drugstore boss. There was only one person who could help, as Rachel was away at her audition. He slipped out of his room and moved along the passage to the girls’ room. He listened outside the door. There was no talking, so it sounded as if Jane were alone. He opened the door a crack and peered in.

Jane was alone. She was lying face downward on her bed, drawing. She was drawing an exceedingly fancy picture of herself in a circus ring, with Chewing-gum and six other dogs doing amazing feats around her. She hated being interrupted, so she gave Tim one of her most disobliging frowns and said, “You’re supposed to be resting, my boy.”

Tim came in and closed the door and in a whisper told what Bella had said, adding, “Aunt Cora’s not to know because she’ll think drugstores trashy, no-account places.”

Jane got off her bed; she thought better of walking about. She had never heard the expressions trashy or no-account before, but she liked both.

“Which is just what I think of Aunt Cora. You go. I’ll do delaying action. I’ll probably have to tell Peaseblossom in the end, but with any luck not till you’ve finished arranging about the piano with the drugstore man.

Peaseblossom and Bee were lying on a blanket on the sand. It was so lovely and hot that at first Bee was too contented to speak. Then she murmured, “I feel too lucky to be real. In my wildest dreams I never thought of John starting to write the moment we got here.”

Peaseblossom would have liked to go on lying in the sun and doing nothing, but she had gone to the beach not to enjoy herself but to talk about Rachel.

“I couldn’t tell you before, as Cora was there but Rachel has not only has gone to lunch with Miss Fossil but is having an audition for a film.”

Bee sat up. “Good gracious! For a film! But she can’t act!”

“It’s a dancing film; I gather.”

“Bless the child! Is she excited?”

Of course. Who wouldn’t be? But I wasn’t sure what, Cora would think.”

Bee thought about Cora. “I think she’ll approve. Oh, dear, I wish something like that would happen. The only thing that’s wrong with this lovely place is our being poor relations. I don’t believe even a saint could be a
poor relation nicely.”

Peaseblossom glanced at her watch. “I ought to go in and get Jane and Tim ready for their walk, but it’s so lovely here I’ll give myself another five minutes.”

Bee lay down again and gazed through her half-closed eyes for a while at the blue, blue sky. Then it suddenly struck her that Peaseblossom was very quiet. She
sat up. Peaseblossom was asleep. “Dear Peaseblossom. How good for her.” she thought “I’ll go up and call the children; they can play on the sand instead of going for a walk.”

It was so easy. Jane had nothing to do. Bee came to her first and told her she was going to fetch Tim, so all Jane had to say was “Don’t bother, I’ll fetch him.” Bee saw nothing queer in that and went back again to the beach and lay down on the blanket beside Peaseblossom. When Jane came down the steps to the beach, Bee was half asleep. She did mutter, “Where’s Tim?” but all Jane had to do was to jerk her thumb at the house and Bee asked no more questions. “And not even a lie,” thought Jane, “for my thumb might just as well have been pointing at the drugstore as anywhere.”

Jane ran up the beach to see how the poor tied-up spaniel was doing. This time the people who belonged
to the
house, or at least what seemed to be the people belonging to the house, were at home. Two men were sitting smoking on the porch. Even before she got to the gate, Jane heard the rumble of their voices. Evidently, when the people were home, their dog sat with them, for though his kennel was there, the dog was not. Jane was glad for the dog that he was having a nice time, but she was disappointed not to see him. Besides, she had plans about that spaniel. If Aunt Cora was right and it was usual for children in America to earn their pocket money, why couldn’t she earn some taking that dog for a walk? She wondered what was the first step to becoming a professional dog walker. Did you go to the back door and ask to be hired, or did you write a letter to the dog’s owner?

Jane was thinking so hard she was not noticing anything a bout her. From being engaged to take that spaniel for a daily walk it was no step to being engaged to take fifty dogs for walks. She had an imaginary conversation with Peaseblossom.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve no time to help with the house or do lessons, I’ve my profession to think of. I’ve fifty dogs to take for walks. After all, I’m paying for Rachel’s dancing and Tim’s piano lessons.” It was as she thought of these satisfying words that she saw a black shape down by the water, a black shape which, as she moved toward it, became a spaniel eating a fish. As she got closer, her nose told her it was a very dead fish.

Jane spoke to the spaniel severely.

“Bad, dirty boy! You’ll be terribly sick, but it’s not your fault, poor angel.” In spite of the dog’s furious growls, she kicked what was left of the rotten fish into the water. It was clear how the dog had got out. His collar must have slipped off, for he had none on. Jane took her handkerchief out of her pocket and tied it around the dog’s neck. Then she took her belt off and put it through the handkerchief. She spoke to the dog persuadingly. “Come on, old boy. You’ll soon be so sick it’ll be nicer for you at home. Come on. Come along, old man.” It was a slow start, but presently the spaniel began to like Jane’s voice and to trust her, and in the end he was trotting along as if he had known her since he was a puppy.

The two men were still on the porch talking and smoking. Jane looked up at them and sniffed to herself. Selfish beasts, lying up there, not caring a bit about their dog! She was going to shout to them when she saw the gate was ajar. So that was how the spaniel had got loose. Lazy brutes, they couldn’t even shut their gate! She stalked in and, looking
very cross indeed, climbed the steps to the porch.

The two men sat up, looking surprised. Jane did not care how they looked.

“Some people don’t deserve to have dogs. They fasten them up to”-she hesitated for the right words-“doghouses. Then they leave their gates open so their dogs will eat bad fish and be sick, and “-she hesitated again-“cops will get them because of hydrophobia.”

The dog made queer noises. One of the men got up. He was nice-looking, tall and thin with dark hair and amused gray eyes.

“I guess you’re right about his being sick. Come on, Hyde
Park.” He picked the spaniel up and carried him down the
stairs and out of sight.

Jane looked at the other man. He was older and fatter, with gray hair.

“Why’s an American dog called Hyde Park?” Jane asked him.

The man had evidently not been told as a child it was rude to stare. He stared so hard at Jane that she almost reminded him about manners.

“I believe he came from London as a pup. Bryan served there during the war. You’re British, aren’t you?”

Jane nodded and said, “I should think he’ll need medicine.”

“Bryan’ll see after him. He’s crazy about that dog. How old are you?”

“Ten. He’s got a funny way of showing he’s crazy about him.”

Do you always frown? Can you smile?”