Theatre Shoes

by Noel Streatfeild

  The children had heard about first nights from Alice and from Miriam. Fortunately, Miriam’s theatre-going had been mostly during the war. If they had relied on Alice’s story of what happened, they would have been bitterly disappointed at the real thing.

  Alice, through long years of dressing Grandmother, had seen the splendid sort of first nights that there were in peacetime; when the whole road was blocked with cars driving to the front of the house; when the foyer was full of lovely clothes, and all the smart people who had come to the first night stood packed together talking to each other while the more important of them were photographed.

  A first night in wartime was not a bit like that. Nobody, of course, came in a car; but a few lucky ones, including the children, came in taxis. In the days of first nights that Alice talked about, plays had begun quite late in the evening, eight or half-past; but now, because of the black-out and getting home, no play began later than half-past six. Grandmother’s was to begin at six-fifteen. The children had a high tea; that is to say, they had a piece of cold spam with their ordinary tea. It was not the sort of day when any special cooking went on. Grandmother, and Alice too, if it came to that, were in such a flutter and excitement that the only thing for other people in the house to do was to keep out of the way, not to argue about anything, and to want as few things as possible. Alice had offered Hannah a seat in the upper circle, which she said she could get her. But Hannah said no, she would rather wait and go later on to a matinée, if that was convenient, she could not seem to fancy being out in the black-out. Actually, when it came to the day, the children could see she was rather sorry that she had said that. With everybody else going to a first night, it seemed a bit flat to be at home by herself. And it was clear by about tea-time that she felt this, because even when she was in the kitchen getting tea she did not sing.

  “Not even one line of hymn,” said Holly. “Poor Hannah! I bet she’s wishing she was us.”

  For fear of getting messed up, the children did not change until after tea. Hannah had laid Sorrel’s frock out on her bed. It looked, Sorrel thought, quite lovely against the blue eiderdown; and she stroked it a long time before she began to undress. Aunt Lindsey had made it beautifully, and she had not only made the frock but she had sent some yellow ribbon which matched the flowers for Sorrel to tie on her hair. Hannah, coming in to see how Sorrel was getting on, found her just standing there stroking, and she had to hurry her up.

  “Come along now, I’ve had Holly dressed this last ten minutes.”

  Sorrel looked at her with shining eyes.

  “I shouldn’t think there was ever a prettier dress in this room, would you? I mean, even when my mother lived here.”

  Hannah privately thought the dress rather too grand, but not for worlds would she have told Sorrel. Sorrel had got as far as her knickers and socks and shoes, so Hannah lifted the frock off the bed and put it over her head. Sorrel really did look very nice. Hannah felt a swelling inside she was so proud of her. She did not, of course, say anything as she thought flattery was a sin; but when Sorrel passed her her comb and asked her to plait her hair, Hannah suddenly put the comb down.

  “How about you not having plaits? Supposing you use these bits of ribbon to tie bows on the sides.” Hannah’s great belief in neatness and plainness was such a feature of her that Sorrel gaped. Hannah was embarrassed with herself, but she stuck to her point. “No need to stare at me as if I had said something queer. There’s a right and a wrong about everything; and plaits, which are right and proper at most times, wouldn’t seem to me to fit in with your aunt’s frock. Give me your brush. I’ll just twist these ends round my fingers.”

  Mark and Holly were immensely impressed by Sorrel’s appearance. Holly said that she looked as if she came out of a fairy story.

  “It isn’t a taxi that is going to take us to the theatre; it’s a beautiful coach, sent by Sorrel’s fairy godmother, and I’m a lady-in-waiting and Mark’s a lord-in-waiting.”

  Mark had been staring at Sorrel in silence, for he found it very hard to believe that something odd had not happened to her. He had, of course, seen her in party frocks before, but not for a long time and never in a frock as grand as this. Now Holly’s suggestion that she was a princess made everything fit into place. Sorrel was an ordinary girl who for one night had become a princess. They were going into a magic world and he was to be a lord-in-waiting. He glowed.

  “Every time Sorrel wants anything, you and I, Holly, will have to run and fetch it; and I shall bow and you will curtsey.”

  Sorrel saw in a second what was going to happen to this evening, unless she was careful. She spoke to Mark very severely.

  “I’m not going to have you make a fool of me. I’m not a princess, I’m Sorrel Forbes, going to my Grandmother’s first night in a frock made out of an old evening dress of Aunt Lindsey’s.” She tried to think of something that would pull Mark to his senses. “And I’ll tell you one thing which will show how ordinary I am: if you make even one little bow, or behave like anybody but Mark Forbes, the moment we get back here to-night I’ll take away those fourteen bears I lent you. I always told you they were only a lend.”

  Mark felt the excitement die out of him. He was back in London. It was a dark cold night in January; they were three ordinary children going to the theatre in a taxi. It was a pity. It would have been so easy to have made this night all magic; but when Sorrel spoke like that she meant what she said and he had no intention of losing his fourteen bears.

  There was only a little cloakroom at the theatre, and with the three of them and Hannah in it, there was not room for anybody else, and Sorrel could see that the attendant was as glad as they were when Hannah said, “There, you’ll do. Now come outside and find your aunt.”

  They stood by the fireplace in the foyer. There was very dim lighting for fear of it showing in the street, and they were terribly afraid of missing Aunt Lindsey. They need not have worried, because Miriam had eyes like a cat. She was no sooner inside the door than she shrieked “There they are!” and came burrowing her way through the people and flung herself at Sorrel, who was the first of the Forbes children that she found.

  Miriam could never look pretty. She had not got that sort of face, but she could and did look very smart. She had on a white ermine coat and a blue crêpe de Chine frock and white socks and silver shoes. Holly and Mark began stroking her the moment they saw her.

  “White fur,” said Holly. “Oh, Miriam, how lovely to be dressed all in white fur!”

  Aunt Lindsey, who had forced her way to the children, stooped and kissed Holly.

  “It looks all right in this dim light, Holly; but it’s not so good in the daylight. She’s outgrown it, the fur is getting very yellow looking; but it’s got to last for the war, we’ve no coupons for another.”

  “She’s exactly like I was as a Polar bear,” said Mark, “only, of course, I was fur all over, including my legs.”

  Aunt Lindsey had her arm round Sorrel.

  “Well, let’s come into the box and examine each other. I can’t wait to see how Sorrel looks in my frock.”

  Aunt Lindsey was a very thoughtful person. She had guessed that Hannah would leave the children’s coats in the cloakroom and she knew how badly heated theatres were in wartime; but she knew, too, that however badly heated they were, neither Sorrel nor Holly would want to wear school coats over their best frocks, so under her arm she had brought a white angora rabbit jersey of Miriam’s for Holly to wear, and for Sorrel there was a white jersey of her own. Holly, of course, could not be quick enough to put on the angora rabbit; it looked simply lovely, but Sorrel thought nothing of the plain white cardigan that she was offered. Aunt Lindsey quite understood that.

  “You won’t wear it in the intervals, of course, darling; but you can put it on while the curtain’s up, and I expect you’ll be rather glad of it.”

  The theatre was, of course, a blaze of light and Aunt Lindsey seemed to know dozens of people. First one waved and the
n another, and she was always waving back and getting Miriam to wave too.

  “Look, darling, there’s old Sir Richard smiling at us.” “Look, darling, there’s Aunt Meg and Uncle Sam.” Everybody seemed to be an uncle or an aunt to Miriam.

  Mark and Holly found all this waving entrancing. They leant on the edge of the box and peered at the people, and every time anyone waved they drew their Aunt’s attention to it.

  “There’s two ladies waving.” “Look over there, three ladies and a man.”

  Sorrel felt shy. It was as if everybody in the theatre was looking at them, and she wished they would not. Her cheeks burned, and she wished the curtain would go up and the lights would go down. The audience was exactly as Miriam had said it would be, and not a bit as Alice had described it. The women were in uniform or dark overcoats, and most of them had big boots with fur linings. The men were in uniform, or exactly as they had come on from work. Nobody was dressed up. Aunt Lindsey was looking very nice in a black frock and fur coat, but only nice in the way that anybody might look in an afternoon, and not a bit as if they had come to an evening theatre; but one thing that Alice had promised was there, and evidently had nothing to do with clothes. The excitement. From far up in the gallery, down to the upper circle, down through the dress circle, through the pit, up to the front row of the stalls, everybody was keyed up, just chattering to fill in the time until the moment when the curtain would rise. She turned to Aunt Lindsey.

  “I wonder how they’re all feeling behind.”

  Aunt Lindsey laughed.

  “I can easily tell you that. Sick as dogs.” And then she said, “S-ssh” and leant forward, and Sorrel could see she was clutching the front of the box so hard that her knuckles shone white. The lights dimmed, the orchestra’s music faded away. The curtain rose.

  The play was in costume. It was about people in the reign of Queen Victoria. The children had only heard of the play from Alice, Grandmother and Miranda, and from all three they had got the impression that Grandmother never came off the stage at all, and most of the time she was talking to Miranda; so it was a great surprise to them all when the curtain rose and neither Grandmother nor Miranda appeared. The play was about a family of girls and what seemed to be their unkind father, whom they called papa, and their very kind mother, whom they called mama. It seemed to be funny because the audience laughed a great deal, but most of the time the children could not see anything to laugh at. They liked the play very much indeed, but it seemed to them the people were real. It was a proper family, and nothing to laugh at. The eldest girl wanted to marry a nice man, but for some reason all the family knew that papa would never allow it.

  It was about half-way through the act that Miranda appeared. She had been out with her governess, and she came in wearing a funny little hat and holding a muff, and in the play she seemed to be quite a different person from the Miranda they knew every day. She was the youngest and everybody’s pet, including papa’s, her name was Sylvia. Perhaps because she was the youngest, or because she was born that way, she was the family rebel. She could not believe that her sister Letty was going to be weak and stupid, and not marry the man she was fond of just to oblige papa; and, as well, she thought it was very foolish and wrong of Letty because if only she would marry him it would mean that she, Sylvia, and the rest of her sisters could be bridesmaids and wear lovely dresses. Both Sorrel and Holly sympathised with Sylvia entirely about this.

  All through the act it was known that papa’s mother, grandmama, was expected. It seemed that grandmama had never been to stay before, but she had brought papa up and almost every time papa opened his mouth he said something about “My dear Mother,” so the whole family knew what to expect, and the thought of grandmama’s coming caused a cloud, especially it depressed poor Letty, who felt that with grandmama backing papa there would be no chance of persuading papa to let her marry Albert. At the end of the act the sound of horses’ hoofs was heard outside, and all the family held their breath, then the door was flung open and there was grandmama. The grandmama of the play was, of course, Grandmother, and she was just as big a surprise to the family on the stage as Grandmother in real life had been to the children. She was a mass of feathers and bows and colours, and had a manner about her and a twinkle in her eye which made the family on the stage gasp and the audience clap and clap and rock with laughter. She said something that none of the children understood, but the audience found very amusing, and the curtain came down in a storm of applause.

  In the interval all kinds of people came to the box. Some of them were critics and some of them were actors, but to them all Aunt Lindsey said:

  “These are Addie’s children.”

  Everybody in turn looked puzzled and as if they were searching in their memories, and then Aunt Lindsey added:

  “She married a man in the Navy called Forbes.”

  And then each of the people nodded as if they were remembering. The children thought that most of them were thinking of the wedding that their mother ought to have been married at when, instead, she had run away with their father. Several people commented on the children’s looks. Some said they had Warren noses, some said they had Warren eyes, and everyone said they had the Warren hair. Mark, in each case, stood up for the Forbes side of him.

  “Our father has dark hair, too. It isn’t only Warrens that are dark.”

  In the next act grandmama was ruling the household. There were all sorts of changes, but the biggest change of all was in papa, who had ceased to be unkind and had become almost humble, so much so that the children felt sorry for him. But not only the children felt sorry, because, oddly enough, now that papa was down, all the family except Sylvia rose up to protect him. This led to all sorts of muddles, and the worst muddle of all was that Letty did not seem to be going to marry Albert. Grandmama did not approve of him, but not for the reason that papa did not, but simply because she said he was dull. This gave Miranda her big scene, for either because she was a born meddler, or just for fun, she stirred Albert and Letty up and planned an elopement for them. It was this elopement which finished the act, for just as it was taking place grandmama discovered it.

  This act did not get quite so much applause as the first act, which made Aunt Lindsey worried and restless, and she said she was going out into the foyer to have a cigarette. There they met one of the critics who had come to the box in the first act. He talked about Miranda.

  “Quite a part for your little niece,” he said. “It’s very difficult at that age to distinguish precocity from talent.”

  Aunt Lindsey got a cigarette out of her case.

  “It was mother’s doing. Francis was against it.”

  The critic lit her cigarette.

  “Of course, there’s plenty of precedent for it. Ellen Terry was a very small child when she started, but the theatre was a different place in those days. I don’t fancy that much spoiling went on.”

  Aunt Lindsey laughed.

  “You don’t know Miranda. She’s a very mature young lady. I don’t fancy that anything that any of you say will affect her opinion of herself; and don’t think by that I mean conceit. I think she’s just got it in her and she’s got confidence.”

  He was moving off to speak to somebody else, but he changed his mind.

  “You tell Marguerite from me, if she must stick the child’s press cuttings into a book, not to let her know that she does it. How old is she?”

  “Thirteen.”

  He turned to Sorrel.

  “What about you? Are we going to see you soon?”

  Sorrel nodded.

  “Yes, if I can get a part. I’ll be old enough for a licence in April.”

  The critic was looking at Mark.

  “What about you? Are you going to follow in your Uncle Henry’s steps?”

  Sorrel answered for Mark.

  “No, Mark isn’t going to be an actor. He’s going to be a sailor. He goes to the Academy with us now, but he isn’t going when he’s eleven; his birthday’
s in September.”

  Ever since Holly’s birthday party, Mark had felt dimly aggrieved about his birthday. It had come in the early days of term, and except for a special supper when they got home and some presents, it had not, in his opinion, been properly spent at all.

  “I shall be glad to go to a different school. At the one I was at before, people paid attention to birthdays, which they don’t at the Academy.”

  Aunt Lindsey was looking amused. She shook her head at the critic.

  “I don’t know what all this sailor talk’s about. He’s following in the usual family footsteps, as far as I know.”

  The critic moved away and as he went Sorrel suddenly stopped enjoying the evening and felt worried and depressed. Alice had promised that Mark should be properly educated in the autumn, but could Alice? Could anybody? What happened if your uncles and your aunts and your grandmother were all against you? How was she, all by herself, going to get things done? It was not even as though she could absolutely rely on Mark. In theory Mark wanted to be an admiral, but quite little things could change his mind. It was quite certain that if he was given a part which meant dressing up as a dragon, or something like that, he would forget all about the Navy.

  Aunt Lindsey was leading the way back to the box. She drew Sorrel’s hand through her arm.

  “Tired, darling?”

  “No. I was thinking about what you were saying about Mark.”

  Aunt Lindsey was not quite herself that evening. Her mind was wrapped up in the play, she so badly wanted her mother to have a success. If she had not been thinking so much about the play she would probably have probed further into what Sorrel was saying. Instead, she just squeezed her hand.

  “I don’t think we need worry about Mark yet, darling. He’s only a little boy; plenty of time to worry when the time comes.”