Theatre Shoes (7 page)

None of the children dared look at each other, because they all wanted to giggle, and obviously Madame was not the sort of person that you giggled in front of.

“Now let me see you do it,” said Madame firmly. She looked at Sorrel. “You start.”

Sorrel and Holly had learnt dancing at Ferntree School, but curtseying had not been part of it. Sorrel, crimson in the face, did the best she could. She bowed both knees a little and muttered “Madame” while she did it. Madame Fidolia shook her head. She gave Mark her stick.

“You hold this. I've had a little trouble with rheumatism in my knees but I can still show you.” She moved one foot sideways, put the other leg behind it, held out her skirts and swept the most beautiful curtsey down to the ground, saying politely, “Madame.” Then she stood up took her stick back from Mark and nodded at Sorrel. “Now, child, try again.”

Shorts are the most idiotic things to curtsey in, but Sorrel was quick and did her very best. Madame seemed quite pleased. Then she looked at Holly.

“Now you.”

Holly had been charmed by the way Madame's skirts billowed round her and it was no trouble at all to pretend that she had skirts too, so instead of holding out her shorts as Sorrel had done, she lifted her hands as if she were holding up silk, and swept down to the floor. “Madame,” she said politely, and then added as she got up, “I'm wearing pale blue with little stars all over it.”

Madame laughed.

“I could see you were wearing something very grand. Now, Mark.”

Sorrel prayed inside her, “Oh, please God, don't let Mark argue.” But Mark, oddly enough, did not seem even to mind being made to bow. He swept a really grand bow. “Madame.” The only thing he did not do very well was saying her name. He spoke it in a low deep growl. Madame's eyes twinkled. She took Mark's chin in her hand.

“And what had you got on when you bowed to me?” Mark wriggled, but she smiled down at him, holding him firmly. “Tell me.”

Mark looked cross for a moment and then something in Madame Fidolia's face made him feel friendly.

“I was wearing a bearskin. I was a bear in the Antarctic who's travelled miles to call on the Queen there.”

Hannah was thoroughly ashamed.

“Really, Mark, what a way to talk!”

But Madame did not seem to mind at all. She took Mark's hand in hers.

“And a very nice thing to be,” she said cheerfully. “We'll lead the way, shall we?”

In a long room a lot of small girls and boys were doing dancing exercises. A tall, ugly girl with a clever, interesting face was teaching them. She had on a practice dress, a very short black tunic, worn over black tights. The tights finished at the ankle, and she had on white socks and black ballet shoes. As the door opened this girl and all the children stopped work and bowed or curtseyed, saying “Madame.” Madame beckoned to the girl.

“This is Winifred, children, who teaches dancing. We're very short of teachers now, but we're allowed Winifred because she teaches you lessons as well. Winifred came to me as a pupil when she was younger than you, Holly.” She turned to Winifred. “These are the Warren children.” She smiled at Mark. “Their name is really Forbes, and Mark, at any rate, wants to be called Forbes. This is Sorrel, this is Holly, and this is Mark. You might try them out and see what they know, but I imagine, with their tradition, acting is more in their line.” She turned to the rest of the class. “Sit, children.” The children, without a word, ran to the side of the room and sat cross-legged on the floor.

There was a piano at the far end of the room on which a fat woman in a red blouse had been playing. Winifred went over to her.

“You might play that Baby Polka, Mrs. Blondin.” She came back to the middle of the room. The piano struck up a gay little polka and she began to dance. It was only one, two, three, hop, but she did it so well that it seemed quite important kind of dancing. As she danced she held out her hand. “Come on, children, you do it too.”

Sorrel felt the most awful fool. She could not forget the eyes of all the children sitting cross-legged on the floor watching her. What must they think she looked like! Prancing about in her shorts. She was so conscious of the eyes that she danced worse than she need have done, and twice she fell over her feet.

Mark put on his proudest face and folded his hands behind his back while he danced. He did not pick up his feet very much, but slithered from one step to the other, and Sorrel, watching him out of the corner of her eye, could see that he was not minding dancing because he was not a boy dancing in a room full of children, but a bear skating in the Antarctic.

Holly had learnt the Baby Polka at school and she liked dancing, so she held out imaginary skirts and pranced round the room, only stopping in front of Madame for a moment to say, “I've changed now and I'm in white satin with blue bows.”

Winifred suddenly called out “Stop.” She came over to the children and one by one lifted first their right legs and then their left legs. Then she went to Madame and curtseyed.

“Elementary.”

Madame nodded.

“But watch Holly, Winifred, you never know. I thought there might be something.”

Winifred gave Madame a respectful but affectionate smile.

“Another Posy?”

Madame shook her head.

“One can't expect to find two Posys in a lifetime, but I shall always go on looking. Come along, children.”

She stood in the door and Winifred and all the children curtseyed and said “Madame.” The fat woman at the piano just sat and stared. “I suppose she either doesn't quite belong,” Sorrel thought, “or else she's too bad a shape for curtseying. Lucky her!”

Madame took the children into her own sitting-room. It was a charming room, but so full of photographs hung on the walls that the quite lovely blue-grey of the walls scarcely showed. Madame sat in an armchair. Hannah sat on a small upright chair behind the door, looking respectful. It was quite a little chair and she bulged over both sides.

“Now,” said Madame, as if she were in for a treat, “let us see if there is any of the Warren talent, or Margaret Shaw's charm, or your own mother's genius about you children. I don't want you to recite; I'm not fond of children reciting. Instead you will go outside the door and think out a little story, a fairy story, anything you like, and come back and act it.”

In the passage outside the children leant against the wall and tried to think what they could act. Sorrel knew right away that Mark would have to be a bear, as he was in that sort of mood, and Holly would have to pretend that she was well dressed, but for the life of her she could not think at first of a story that would fit these characters. Neither Mark nor Holly were any help, for Mark kept suggesting, “Let's act the animals going into the Ark,” or “Let's act the children being eaten by bears in the Bible,” and Holly would only say, “I'd like to be a butterfly; no I wouldn't, I'll be a queen.” Then suddenly Sorrel thought of something.

“Let's do a kind of Red Riding Hood. Let's have a little girl sent out to look for strawberries in the woods because they're hungry at home, and there's nothing to eat; and in the wood the little girl meets a bear and she's terrified and runs home, and the bear follows her and he turns out to be a prince and he marries the little girl's mother and they live happily ever after.”

“Where was the little girl's father?” asked Mark.

“He died of smallpox,” Sorrel invented, “and that's why they're hungry, because there's no one to work for them.”

“Pretty rotten for the bear having to turn into a prince,” Mark argued.

Sorrel lost her temper.

“All right then, think of a better story yourself. I've made you a bear and Holly can be as dressed up as she likes to think she is, and all I am is just an old mother cleaning the house. I think you're jolly selfish.”

“Keep your hair on,” said Mark. “We'll do your story. Only I shouldn't think you're as old as all that, otherwise why does the prince marry you? Princes don't.”

Sorrel was so thankful to have got a story settled that she did not bother to argue with him.

“Come on,” she said nervously. “Let's do it just once before we go in.”

As soon as the door had shut on the children Madame Fidolia went to her desk and picked up a printed list and gave it to Hannah. Hannah was carrying a large brown bag with a zip fastener. She undid it and took out her spectacles. She put them on and read the list. It said across the top: “Children's Academy of Dancing and Stage Training. Rompers, two (pattern to be obtained from the Academy). Tarlatan dresses, white, two. Knickers, frilled, two. Sandal shoes, white satin. Black patent-leather ankle-strap shoes. White socks, six pairs. Face towels, rough, two. Overalls, two (to be obtained from the Academy).” And at the bottom, in large letters, “Everything must be clearly marked with the child's name.” Hannah knew just what state the children's coupon books were in, so she just stared at the list, looking hopeless. Madame did not give her time to worry long.

“That's an old list, of course, from before the war. As you probably noticed at the elementary class we've just been in to, all the children's things are made of different colours, and quite a lot of them were wearing shorts. I don't like shorts myself as they don't wash so easily as the rompers. Have the children got bathing dresses?”

“The little girls have, but Mark's are only a pair of drawers.”

“Well, with their shorts and shirts and their bathing things, I expect they can manage. The other clothes are more difficult. They must have tunics of some sort for ballet. I find that necessary even to-day. It's hard for a child to be graceful in a bathing dress. I may be old-fashioned. I was myself a pupil from the age of seven in the Russian Imperial Ballet School, and when I gave up dancing after the first world war, and founded my school over here, I had hoped to run it on the old Imperial Ballet School lines; but it was, of course, impossible, and so I have become the director of a school for general stage training. But dancing, classical dancing, is my life, and it is to turn out dancers that is my great ambition. Any child that shows unusual promise I teach myself; and I still insist, or try to insist, on some dress that will make the children feel in a dancing mood. White tarlatan is not on coupons, but with everybody so busy, Winifred has told me it is impossible for the mothers to keep these dresses laundered; and, instead, we have designed a short tunic with plain knickers underneath, it could be made out of anything. I think that the children's grandmother must have some old dresses put away that would alter.”

Hannah was perfectly certain that she was not going to approach grandmother. She did not mean to sound grumpy, but she did rather.

“I couldn't say, I'm sure. There wasn't nothing in the vicarage suitable, I do know.”

Madame smiled.

“Never mind, I'll write to Miss Shaw.”

The night before Alice had explained to Hannah that actresses were usually known by their stage names; and so, though to Hannah grandmother was Mrs. Warren, she accepted that Madame would call her Miss Shaw.

“What about these overalls?” she asked, tapping the list. “They've got the cotton frocks they had for school.”

Madame smiled.

“There we are fortunate. The overalls have always been made of black sateen from a Russian design, and have wide black leather belts. Black-out material is not rationed and these overalls are still made. The belts and the buttons we get from our old pupils. The real difficulty is shoes. The law allows that children at a recognised dancing school may have one pair of ballet shoes a month. Those have block toes, you know, but the children will not want them for a long time yet; it's the shoes for character dancing and the sandal shoes that are our trouble.”

“Both the girls have sandal shoes. They had them for their school dancing. And Mark's got a pair of plimsolls, if that'll do.”

Madame shook her head.

“No, they will not. But I expect we shall manage. Old pupils send us shoes second-hand; and if the girls have sandals, that's something.” She looked at Hannah with a sweet smile. “You think it all a lot of nonsense, don't you?”

Hannah squeezed her bag tightly in her hands.

“It's none of what I'm used to. I give respect where respect is due, and I'm sure you mean well, Madame; but all this dancing and that isn't what was meant. The Reverend took a lot of looking after, what with being busy with his Bible animals and that, and his clothes were a perfect disgrace, with all my trying; but I could see what we were at. He was never a minute late for his services and he never missed a call from the village. Where we're living now isn't what I'm used to. No good pretending it is.”

Madame nodded.

“I know, but you have to look at their grandmother's point of view. Nobody knows if the children's father will ever come back.”

Hannah's hand shot up to her mouth.

“Oh, don't say that, Madame! Such a nice gentleman! And the gentlemen in the Navy only said missing, and they've never said worse.”

“I certainly shall not say it to the children, and I'm full of hope that we shall hear from him; but meanwhile there are these children to think of. They come from an immensely famous theatrical family, and blood tells. It would be a curious thing indeed if none of these children had any talent. Of course, they will probably never need to earn their living; their uncles and aunts are doing well, and their grandmother has money and …”

Hannah had to interrupt.

“I don't know about uncles and aunts, Madame; we haven't seen them. But the old lady hasn't any money. Alice, it's her that looks after the old lady, she hasn't known where to turn.”

Madame leant forward, her voice startled.

“Really! I had no idea! Well, in that case …,” she broke off and held up a finger, for at that moment the children came in.