Читать книгу Hettie of Hope Street - Annie Groves, Annie Groves - Страница 14

Having refused Connie’s suggestion that she come to her house to prepare for her debut, and that Connie and Harry escort her to the Adelphi, Hettie was now wishing she had agreed and was longing for the support of those closest to her as she stood in her shift and gazed anxiously at her red gown.

‘’Ee tha looks that pale, ’Ettie. Not getting nervous, are yer?’ one of the girls asked her sympathetically.

‘Only a little,’ Hettie fibbed.

‘Everyone gets stage-fright, Hettie,’ Babs comforted her. ‘But yer family are going to be there, didn’t yer say?’

‘Yes. Mam and Da, and Aunt Connie, and Mam’s cousin Cecily. And John has promised to be there as well,’ Hettie added.

‘John? So ’oo’s this John, then?’ Babs teased.

‘He’s Mam’s younger brother,’ Hettie explained.

‘So ’e’s yer uncle, then?’

Hettie shook her head. ‘No, because Mam is my step-mother – I’m adopted, you see. John and I are the best of friends, thick as thieves – or we used to be anyway,’ Hettie trailed off.

‘Oh ho, I see now, and yer sweet on this ’ere John, are yer?’

‘No,’ Hettie denied, but she still couldn’t help blushing as Babs laughed at her.

‘Oh yes you are, I can tell. Tell us all about him then, ’Ettie. Good-looking, is he?’ Mary demanded.

‘Yes,’ Hettie admitted honestly. ‘But it isn’t like that, Mary.’

‘No, of course it ain’t, and I’m a monkey’s uncle.’ She laughed and winked. ‘I wish we wasn’t doing a matinée and then we could come along and get a look at this ’ere John of yours.’

Hettie bit her lip, uncomfortably aware that she was actually relieved the girls would not be there. She loved them dearly and they were terrific fun, but somehow she suspected Ellie would not see them in the same light as she did.

‘Who are you kidding, Mary?’ Lizzie challenged her. ‘No way would they let the likes of us in the Adelphi for afternoon tea.’

‘Why not? My money’s as good as the next person’s, I’ll thank you to know,’ Mary responded pertly in a mock posh voice, tossing her hair as she did so.

‘Come on, let’s get Hettie into her frock and get a bit of rouge on her face to liven her up a bit,’ Babs broke in.

Hettie held her breath as Babs took control.

‘Ooh. Yer look a real treat,’ Babs breathed approvingly. ‘Doesn’t she, girls?’

‘Aye, a real treat for some masher, who will want ter gobble her up whilst his wife’s sipping her tea,’ one wit chirped up, making the others laugh and Hettie blush nervously. She felt uncomfortable at the constant talk of men leering at women and especially at her. Maybe at the Royal Court but she couldn’t imagine such a thing happening at the Adelphi.

‘You watch out for them posh chaps, Hettie. They’ll only be after one thing, mind, no matter what they tells yer. And then before yer know it you’ve got a swelling belly and no wedding ring.’

‘Leave off, Mavis, that’s enough of that vulgar talk,’ Lizzie scolded. ‘Hettie isn’t like that…’

‘Mebbe she ain’t, but show me a fella who ain’t and I’ll show yer an Ethel,’ Mavis, one of the other girls Hettie hadn’t spoken to much so far, chortled.

‘What’s an Ethel?’ Hettie asked Lizzie in bewilderment.

‘Oh now see what yer’ve done, Mavis,’ Lizzie complained.

‘It ain’t my fault if the kid’s too green to know what’s what.’ Mavis shrugged.

‘Well, I suppose it u’ll have to be me who has to tell her then.’ Lizzie sighed. ‘An Ethel, ’Ettie, is what we calls a man who isn’t a proper man, like.’

‘Not a proper man?’ Hettie was still confused.

‘What Lizzie means is that an Ethel is a chap wot only does it with other men,’ Mavis clarified, adding bluntly in case Hettie still hadn’t grasped what she was trying to say: ‘Instead of shoving it up a woman like other men, he wants to shove it up another chap’s arse.’

Hettie’s face went brick red with embarrassment and shocked disbelief. She knew in a vague sort of way what happened between married couples, although it had never been fully explained to her, but now Mavis’s brutally frank explanation had shocked her on two counts.

‘’Ere, that’s enough, Mavis. The poor kid doesn’t need to know about that,’ Babs told her, adding, ‘Come on, ’Ettie, let’s brush yer hair for yer, and put this flower in it’.

She had to say one thing for her chorus line friends: they were expert ladies’ maids, Hettie admitted, as her hair was brushed and then rolled into sleek elegance and a pretty red silk flower pinned into it.

‘All yer needs now is a touch of carmine on yer lips – yer don’t need no blackin’ on yer eyelashes like blondes do.’

Hettie wasn’t sure she should be wearing the carmine either but she didn’t want to offend kind-hearted Babs by saying so. She could always rub it off before her family saw her, she consoled herself as her helpers finally decided she was ready for her debut.

John stepped out of the tin bath and reached for one of the cans of water he had filled earlier, leaning over the bath to sluice his head and torso with it before repeating the exercise for the lower half of his body whilst standing in the now tepid bath water itself.

The sunlight coming in through the cottage’s small windows gleamed on flesh pulled taut against firm muscles, his arms and chest tanned brown from the hours he spent shirtless, working to ensure that the grass his sheep didn’t crop was kept short enough for the flying machines to land on.

John was not a vain man – he had more important things to worry about than silly lasses – but Ellie was for ever sighing over him and telling him he was the image of their good-looking father, and John had seen the looks young women gave him.

He reached for a towel and started to dry himself. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the thought of spending such a perfect flying day sitting togged up in a straitjacket of a suit, sipping tea, was not one that appealed to him. But Connie had told him how Hettie had begged her to ask him to go.

Luckily there were no flying lessons on today’s schedule, the students instead receiving instruction from Jim on the maintenance of flying machines.

John dressed quickly, smoothing his hair straight, and wondering if he would have time for a bite to eat when he got to the station. He had decided to cycle there rather than walk which meant he would have to fold up his suit jacket instead of wearing it.

He looked at his watch. Jim would have started his lecture, and rather than go and interrupt him John decided he would leave without saying goodbye to him.

He was half a mile from the station when he heard the familiar sound of the flying machine’s engine. Frowning, he stopped pedalling and got off his bike to look up. Suddenly, with an awkward movement, the pilot took the machine into an amateurish and unsafe loop.

‘Christ, you fool, you’re too low; you’re too bloody low, climb. Get back up. Get back up!’

John was screaming the words into the sky as he got back on his bike and started to cycle as fast as he could back to the airfield. The flying machine was floating in the sky belly up, the engine stuttering as the machine lost height while it slowly rolled over.

John prayed as he had never prayed in his life, even though he knew it was futile. The machine was so low that he could see the four helmeted heads in the cockpit.

‘Ease back, ease back, give her a chance to get some air and then take her up, take her up…Oh God, Oh God,’ he heard himself cry.

The engine coughed, and then the machine surged forward, before the engine coughed again and then died, the sounds of its struggle followed by an eerie silence, and then a mighty bang.

John could see the plume of black smoke rising like a pall, but then there was a second horrific explosion, with flames and smoke shooting up into the sky.

Ahead of him lay the airfield. Where the flying machine hangar had been there was now merely flames and smoke.

Leaving his bike he ran towards the inferno. Jim was in there somewhere. Jim, his friend and partner. Jim, who had warned him that he feared their rebellious student would do something reckless. Jim, who he hadn’t listened to, because he had had more important things on his mind. Jim, who was now being burned alive because of him…

John could hear the clang of the fire engine bell, and people were coming running from all directions; farm workers out of the fields; villagers who had seen and heard the explosion. He could feel strong hands dragging him back from the fire, whilst tears ran down his face.

He would bear the burden of the guilt of this day for ever.

Why had she ever thought she wanted to sing at the Adelphi? Hettie wondered nervously as she stood, trembling from head to foot, behind the screen that shielded the doorway to the staff stairs from the guests.

This morning Mr Buchanan had taken her down to the Hypostyle Hall – where she had gazed up in awe to where the four massive Ionic columns supported the ceiling, hardly able to take in the grandeur of her surroundings – so that she could practise her songs there and familiarise herself with the hall. She knew that after he had played a few introductory notes she was to walk in and go to stand in front of the piano, but to one side of it so as not to obstruct anyone’s view of Mr Buchanan, and that he would then play a piece of Bach during which she was to turn and gaze admiringly at him until he had finished.

Then he would play the first of her songs and she was to remember that if there were any gentlemen seated at the tables she was not to look towards them.

This, Mrs Buchanan had already given her to understand, had been the cause of her predecessor’s downfall, and a shameful reflection on the moral laxity of modern young women.

Hettie wished she could see through the screen. Had her family arrived? Would John be with them? Connie had assured her he would but what if he changed his mind? His anger had hurt her and she very much wanted them to be good friends again.

Mr Buchanan came down the stairs, his ‘patented’ strands of hair gleaming in the light of the chandeliers, the tails of his morning coat almost sweeping the floor.

‘My goodness, Hettie, I scarcely recognised you,’ he told her with a smile, adding warmly, ‘You look very pretty, my child.’

The way he was looking at her made Hettie feel slightly self-conscious, but she told herself she was being silly as he strode towards the screen and then walked beyond it.

Hettie could hear the polite applause of the guests. In another moment she would have to follow him past the screen. She couldn’t do it. How on earth could she sing so much as a note feeling like this? She…

She froze as she heard the opening notes to the Bach and then, as though someone else were controlling her movements, she discovered she was walking past the piano, keeping her face towards the guests as Mr Buchanan and, more helpfully, the chorus girls had taught her to do, acknowledging the applause with a demure hint of recognition before taking her place to one side of the piano, her gaze fixed as she had been instructed on Mr Buchanan.

‘Oh look at Hettie, doesn’t she look beautiful?’ Connie whispered emotionally to Ellie as she reached for her handkerchief.

Thanks to Cecily and her mother-in-law’s intervention, they had all been accommodated at two tables right in front of the piano, and now Connie grasped Ellie’s hand as she saw her sister bite her lip to stop it trembling, her gaze focused on Hettie.

‘My goodness, I hadn’t realised she would be wearing such a very modern frock’, Cecily whispered half disapprovingly to Connie. ‘I would never allow either of my two girls to show so much ankle.’

‘Cecily, you get more like your mother every time I see you,’ Connie told her forthrightly, ignoring the mantle of angry colour that stained her cousin’s pretty face.

Cecily’s mother was Connie’s least favourite aunt and she had, until Ellie had moved into Gideon’s mother’s far grander house in Winckley Square, lorded over the rest of her family with her status as a doctor’s wife, plus the fact that she lived in the most exclusive part of Preston.

The Pride siblings’ mother had been one of Preston’s famously beautiful Barclay sisters, but unfortunately Cecily’s daughters, although good-hearted girls, had not inherited those good looks, Connie decided smugly. Unlike her own daughter, Lyddy, whose resemblance to her mother and her Aunt Ellie was always much commented on by people.

‘I thought you said John was going to be here,’ Cecily whispered to Connie.

‘He should have been and in fact I cannot think why he isn’t,’ Connie replied.

‘Hettie will be disappointed.’

‘Ellie, my dear, what a lovely sprite of a child your step-daughter is,’ Cecily’s mother-in-law commented warmly. ‘I am so sorry that Iris could not be here to see her.’

‘She wrote to me the other week to tell me she is very busy helping her friend, Dr Marie Stopes, with her newly opened clinic,’ Ellie responded.

‘Indeed. Iris has always been vigorous in her support of birth control,’ the older woman agreed without any trace of embarrassment.

Ellie sighed. She herself had always followed the advice Iris had given to her as a new young wife, but obviously she had not been vigilant enough lately which was why she now had this new life growing under her heart. Unlike her other babes this one lay still and quiet, but somehow more heavily, causing her far more discomfort than she had with her others. The disquieting symptoms she had experienced earlier on had thankfully now ceased, although she did not feel quite as well as she tried to pretend.

‘The hotel is very grand, isn’t it?’ she whispered to Gideon without taking her gaze off Hettie, who was standing perfectly still with her face turned towards the pianist.

‘Aye, and very expensive, far too expensive for the ordinary folk of Liverpool.’

‘You are still thinking of this dreadful Depression,’ Ellie guessed. ‘Do you think it will end soon, Gideon, and things will get better?’

‘I wish that they might, Ellie, but I don’t think we’ve seen the worst of it yet.’ He patted her hand and told her firmly, ‘But we won’t talk of such things today, eh, my love? Let’s enjoy listening to our Hettie singing her heart out instead. After all, that’s why you’ve forced me into wearing these damnably uncomfortable clothes.’

Ellie laughed softly ‘Uncomfortable, are they? You looked as proud as a turkey cock when you wore them to the Lord Mayor’s dinner,’ she reminded him affectionately.

‘Aye, well. That was in January, when it was cold.’

‘Shush. I think Hettie is about to sing,’ Ellie warned him as the pianist finished his piece and stood up to sweep a bow to the applauding audience.

Oh, but she was so nervous and she felt so sick. Hettie had seen her family and felt a momentary surge of pride in them, especially Ellie who looked so pretty. But then she had noticed that John wasn’t there and immediately she had felt upset. Where was he? He had promised he would come and now he wasn’t here, and she had so much wanted him to see her and hear her sing.

But Mr Buchanan was playing her introductory notes. Hettie turned away from him to face her audience, tentatively took a deep breath, and began.

‘Oh, but when those ladies at the next table said that Hettie had the prettiest voice they had ever heard, I was so proud I wanted to burst,’ Ellie exclaimed, dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief.

‘And then to give you an encore, Hettie. The waiter serving us told us he had never ever seen that happen before,’ remarked Connie.

‘Aye, lass, you’ve got a lovely voice,’ Gideon said proudly.

‘Well, Hettie, I must say I was concerned when Ellie first told me what you were to do and certainly I would never allow one of my daughters to sing in public, but having said that the Adelphi is a first class hotel and not some common playhouse,’ even Cecily grudgingly admitted.

Her face flushed with happiness and excitement, Hettie listened to the praise of her family as she stood close to Ellie, her step-mother’s arm around her waist as she held her close.

She had not, of course, been able to go to them afterwards in the Hall, but they had been waiting for her in the hotel lobby and now they were all on their way to Cecily’s mother-in-law’s for a special dinner.

‘Mam, where is John?’ Hettie demanded. ‘He promised he would come to hear me sing.’

The first person she had looked for after Ellie had been John and she had been bitterly disappointed not to see his face amongst the others.

‘Well, Hettie…’ Ellie began gently, unsure of what to say.

‘Hettie, you are too selfish. John is a very busy man,’ Cecily interrupted Ellie. ‘He cannot be expected to leave his business on the whim of a mere girl. Goodness me, imagine the state the country would be in if our men folk all behaved so foolishly.’

Anger flashed in Hettie’s eyes as she listened to Cecily’s disapproving words. ‘It is John who is the selfish one and not me. He promised he would be here.’

Suddenly she was close to tears. Why hadn’t John come as he had promised he would? He may not have approved of her dress, but surely he would have had to add his praise and applause to those of everyone else if he had been here to hear her sing?

‘Hettie, you are becoming overwrought. This is your special day, don’t upset yourself,’ Ellie told her gently, looking anxiously at Gideon as she did so. He gave her a small negative shake of his head that Hettie was too distressed to notice.

‘I wanted John to be here. I shall hate him for ever now that he has not come,’ she announced pettishly, oblivious to Ellie’s sigh and the despairing look she exchanged with Gideon.

Correctly interpreting his wife’s glance, Gideon put his arm around Hettie and turned her to face him. ‘There is obviously a very good reason why John could not be here, Hettie,’ he told her sombrely.

He and Ellie had discussed at some length the shocking telephone call they had received from John telling them of the accident and insisting that they were not to say a word to Hettie about it so as to avoid spoiling her special day. Ellie typically had been torn between her love for Hettie and her anxiety for her young brother, but in the end she had agreed to abide by John’s wishes.