Theatre Shoes (6 page)

Alice raised her hand and put it on her head.

“I swear by my loaf of bread.”

Your head seemed a funny thing to swear by. Sorrel preferred “see this wet, see this dry,” or “my hand on my Bible,” which was what Hannah always said, but she could see that to Alice it was the most important swear that she could make and that she meant to keep it.

Sorrel waited till Mark was in bed. He was sitting up with his face very clean from the bath and his hair wet and, therefore, unusually neat. The room faced west and the sun was shining in and made the bare boards and the shabby curtain over the clothes and the battered iron bed look worse than ever. It was a warm evening and Mark had thrown back the rug and the blanket and had only the sheet over him. He had stretched this flat across his knees and on it, in a circle, he had stood the bears. As there was nowhere else to sit Sorrel sat on the end of the bed and promptly eight bears fell over. Mark looked up at her reproachfully.

“You have interrupted the christening. These bears have trekked for miles into the Antarctic for the ceremony.”

Sorrel helped stand the bears up again, and while she was doing it she was turning over in her mind the best way to bring up the subject of to-morrow.

“Could you leave the christening for a moment? There's something rather important I've got to explain. Did you know that when people died other people don't get their money at once? I mean, we haven't got Grandfather's yet.”

“Do we get it ever?” Mark asked, moving the bear that was to be christened into the centre of the ring.

“I think so, or at least Daddy does, and then we can have it to educate us. Anyway, at the moment there isn't any except what we get from the Admiralty, and that, I suppose, is just enough for clothes and food and things. Grandmother hasn't any. When they want money Alice sells something. That's why the house is empty. Alice wants us to try very hard when we go to that school tomorrow, because then she thinks they won't charge much to take us. Alice doesn't think we'll ever have to be actresses or an actor really. She thinks Grandfather's money will have come before then and, anyway, I've made her swear that you shall go to a proper school for the Navy by the time you are eleven.”

Mark swept all the bears into a hollow that he had made between his knees.

“If you think I'm going to shout poetry like grandmother so that everybody thinks I'm like that Sir Joshua, you're wrong.”

Sorrel made little pleats in Sir Joshua's rug.

“I absolutely see how you feel about grandmother, but I don't believe that it's grandmother who's going to worry about the school. It seems to me it's Alice, and I like her.”

Mark stared at her.

“But why should Alice? She's not a relation or anything, is she?”

“Why should Hannah? But she does.”

Mark picked up the bears again and once more arranged them in a circle. He took the largest and a medium one and put them in the middle. He made a growling sound.

“That's the christening call ringing across the ice.” He pulled forward the smallest bear and spoke in a squeak. “What names do you give these bears?” He turned to Sorrel. “A sea-lion's taking the christening.” He barked, with his hand on the largest bear. “I name thee Hannah.” Then he touched the other bear. “I name thee Alice.” Then he made a lot more growling noises. “That's the bears growling ‘amen.'”

Sorrel thought Mark christening one of the bears Alice was a good sign.

“If it's to help Alice would you try to-morrow?”

Mark did not answer for a moment because he was collecting the bears to put them on the mantelpiece for the night.

“All right. Just for her I will, though I should think we'd all look the most awful fools.”

Sorrel kissed him good-night.

“I should think that's certain. I wish to-morrow was over.”

CHAPTER VI

THE ACADEMY

The Children's Academy of Dancing and Stage Training was in Bloomsbury. Hannah tried very hard to persuade Alice to take the children.

“The very word ‘stage' turns me over. I was brought up strict and though I daresay some of these actresses live just as nicely as the rest of us, I can't get over the way I was raised!”

Alice would have loved to have taken the children. It would have been a day out for her, but she had to say no.

“I wish I could oblige but we take a terrible lot of getting up in the morning. Our hair alone takes us half an hour, what with the brushing and fixing the combs and that. And we have our ways; you'll get used to us in time, but right away the first morning wouldn't do. And we've got an artistic temperament. We've been known to throw things when we weren't pleased. We don't want any of that.” She gave Hannah a friendly pat. “Cheer up now, there are worse troubles at sea.”

Neither Hannah nor Sorrel thought that shorts were at all suitable wear for London. London was a place for best clothes and even for gloves. But Alice was firm, and so it was in their school cotton blouses and grey flannel shorts that Sorrel and Holly dressed. Mark had on his school grey flannel suit and his school tie and turn-over stockings with the school colours.

They went to the Academy by tube, getting in at Knightsbridge and getting out at Russell Square. It made a good beginning to the day because of the escalator at Knightsbridge. None of them had ever been on a moving staircase before and they thought it too thrilling for words. Hannah loathed the escalator. She stood at the top putting out a foot and pulling it back, afraid to get on, and she was only got on to it by Sorrel dragging her on one side and Mark on the other. Even when she reached the bottom she was still what she called “all of a shake” and she sat in the tube in a kind of heap, taking up more room even than usual, saying in an angry whisper at intervals, “It's not a Christian way to get about. It was never meant.”

The Academy was three large houses joined inside by passages. Across the front had been written in large gold letters “Children's Academy of Dancing and Stage Training.” The words were divided between the three houses, but a bomb across the square had blown some of the letters away altogether, and others upside down. On the first house was written Ch and then a space, and then e upside down, and then s, and then another space and cad. On the second house was emy and then a space, and then D upside down. On the third house there was a d and then Stag, and then a space and then ing. Sorrel, Holly and Mark stood in the road puzzling what it all meant. It was Mark who worked it out and Sorrel who noticed the static water tank in the corner and guessed it had once been a house and that was how the letters had got blown away.

Grandmother had made an appointment for the children to see Madame Fidolia at eleven o'clock. Hannah had been so afraid they would be late that it was only a quarter to eleven when they arrived, so they were shown into a waiting-room. It was a large, rather bare room with green walls. All round the walls were benches. Hannah sat down in the corner farthest from the door. The children walked round looking at the photographs, which were interesting. They were of children dressed in ballet skirts and each child was standing on its points, but best of all, each child had signed its name. There were some funny old ones which were getting faded, with names like Little Doris, and Babsy, and Baby Cora to Dear Madame, written on them. But the newer ones, and much the best photographs, had quite sensible names, like Janet and Ann. As well there were large groups of pantomimes and these the children liked much the best, because it was fun trying to work out which pantomime they were meant to be. Mark amused himself by giving imaginary prizes for handwriting to the different children. The somebody called “Little Doris” was winning. It was a very old photograph but it had got almost first prize when Sorrel called the others over to look at a picture of the prettiest girl they had ever seen. She was dressed as Alice in Wonderland, except that instead of Alice's shoes she wore black ballet shoes and was standing on her points. Across this picture was written, “With much love to dear Madame. Pauline.”

“I call that a lovely little handwriting,” said Sorrel.

Holly climbed on to the bench to see better.

“There's a picture of that girl over here.” She dragged at Sorrel to make her come and look, “only she's dressed as a boy.”

Holly, when she wanted you to look at something, kept on bothering till you did, so Sorrel and Mark came and looked. It was an enormous group, almost all of children. In the middle was the same girl who was Alice in Wonderland, only her hair was turned underneath to look like a boy's. She was dressed in knickers and a coat that seemed to be made of satin, and holding her hand was a little dark girl dressed as Red Riding Hood.

“Now I wonder what pantomime that is,” said Mark. “Look, there's a cat! Do you think it's ‘Puss in Boots'?”

“It couldn't be,” Holly objected. “That cat hasn't got no boots on.”

“And anyway there's a dog too,” Sorrel pointed out. “You couldn't have a dog in ‘Puss in Boots.'”

Mark dashed across to Hannah. He was so excited his words fell over each other.

“Do you suppose you could earn money as an actor, being a cat or a dog?”

Hannah was still breathless from the escalator. She spoke in a puffy sort of voice.

“I should hope not indeed. Making fun of poor dumb creatures! They know it isn't right to be made a show of even if we don't.”

Mark bounced back to Sorrel.

“Do you think I could be a cat or a dog, or, best of all, a bear? If I could be a bear I wouldn't mind a bit about going on the stage.”

“But you've got to mind,” said Sorrel anxiously. “You know what I told you last night. It's only till you're eleven. Oh, Mark, you won't get liking it, will you? It will be simply frightful for Daddy when he comes back if he finds you aren't going into the Navy.”

Holly was still examining the picture.

“You said that I couldn't be an actress like grandmother until I was twelve. But these little girls aren't twelve. Lots of them are only about six.”

Sorrel and Mark knelt on the bench and had another look at the picture.

“It's absolutely true,” Sorrel agreed. She laid a finger first on one child's portrait and then on another's. “This one is tiny and so is this one and so's this.”

They were startled to feel hands on their shoulders. They turned round and found themselves looking at an oldish lady.

Madame Fidolia was, the children thought, a queer-looking lady. She had hair that had once been black but was now mostly grey, parted in the middle and dragged very smoothly into a bun on the nape of her neck. She was wearing a black silk dress that looked as though it came out of a history book, for it had a tight stiff bodice and full skirts. Round her shoulders was a cerise shawl. She leant on a tall black stick. But the oddest thing about her was the way she was finished off, as it were, for on her feet were pink ballet shoes, which are the last things you expect to see on the feet of an oldish lady. She gave a gesture with one hand, which, without words, said clearly, “Stand up.” The children slid off the bench and stood in front of her. Her voice was deep with a slightly foreign accent.

“How do you do? So you are the Warren children.”

Mark's head shot up.

“No, we're not. Our name is Forbes.”

Madame Fidolia looked at Mark with interest.

“You don't wish to be a Warren. Most children would envy you.”

Sorrel was afraid Mark might be rude, so she answered for him.

“Our father is a sailor. Our great-grandfather was an admiral, and Mark's going to be an admiral too. At least, we hope he is, but, of course, it's not easy to be an admiral.”

Madame Fidolia was looking at the picture behind them.

“You three remind me of three little pupils that came to me many years ago. This picture you were looking at was the first play in which they appeared. It was a special matinée of ‘The Blue Bird.' You've read ‘The Blue Bird,' I suppose?”

Sorrel could tell from Madame Fidolia's voice that they ought to have read it, so she answered apologetically:

“I'm afraid we haven't. It wasn't in our grandfather's house.”

Madame Fidolia laid a finger over the picture of the boy in the satin suit.

“This is Pauline.” She touched the portrait of the child dressed as Red Riding Hood. “And this Petrova.”

Her fingers searched amongst the small children and came to a stop against a tiny girl with her head all over curls. Her voice warmed. “And this is Posy.”

The children knelt up on the bench to look again at the picture.

“Are they sisters?” Sorrel asked.

Madame smiled.

“Not exactly. Adopted sisters, brought up by a guardian. You've seen Pauline, I expect, lots of times. Pauline Fossil.”

She said Pauline Fossil in exactly the same voice as Alice had said “Didn't you know Henry Warren was your uncle?” so Sorrel hurried to explain their ignorance.

“I'm afraid we haven't. We've spent our holidays in the vicarage, and in a vicarage you don't see stage people much.”

Hannah gave a snort.

“Brought up very decently, they've been.”

Madame Fidolia gave her a lovely smile and came across to her, holding out her hand.

“I'm sure they have. Mrs.…?”

“Miss Fothergill,” said Hannah firmly. “Looked after the children's grandfather, I did, and there's nothing about vicarages anyone can teach me.”

“But nobody calls her Miss Fothergill,” said Holly. “Everybody calls her Hannah.”

Madame Fidolia was shaking Hannah's hand.

“And may I call you Hannah too? Now, if you'll come with me, I'm going to take the children to a classroom; we must see what they can do.” She was leading the way out of the room when she thought of something. “You children will call me Madame, and when you first meet me in the morning and last thing at night, and before and after a class, or any time when we meet, you make a deep curtsey and say ‘Madame.' And you, Mark, lay one hand on your heart and bow.”