Theatre Shoes

by Noel Streatfeild

  Holly was finding it difficult to concentrate on what Madame was saying, because, leaning against her, she found how silky and rustly was the black silk of her dress, and she was imagining herself dressed like that and living, because it seemed the proper place for black silk, in a palace. But she was just sufficiently attending to catch Madame’s question and she knew what every pupil of the Academy knew, that when Madame asked a question it had to be answered. She could not, at the moment, see why Madame should suppose she would mind. It was nice to get a letter, of course, because everybody at the Academy wanted to see it and read it, but it was the presents and pocket-money that were really important. She looked up at Madame.

  “No, I wouldn’t mind.”

  Madame gave her a pleased squeeze.

  “I’m very glad, Holly. You have worked very hard and I shouldn’t like your feelings to be hurt, and your dancing’s coming on very well indeed, but we can’t pretend you’re the same sort of dancer as Miriam, can we?” She gave Holly a kiss. “Run along now, back to your class.”

  That afternoon the school was summoned to the big hall. After they had greeted Madame the pupils were seated in the usual rows across the floor. Madame addressed them from the platform. She told them about the scholarships.

  “All you children know, I think, that last term I was given scholarships from Pauline and Posy Fossil in Hollywood. I expect you children are tired of hearing about the Fossil girls, but we’re all so proud of them. Last term I granted the scholarships temporarily to Sorrel and Holly Forbes. Pauline’s scholarship has to be given to a child with marked acting talent whose career would be helped by financial assistance. After Sorrel’s performance at the matinée at the end of last term I made up my mind that she was exactly the right person for that scholarship and, therefore, she will hold the Pauline Fossil scholarship for the rest of her time here.” She searched the rows of children. “Congratulations, Sorrel.” Everybody clapped. Madame waited for them to finish clapping and then she went on: “Posy’s scholarship was for a dancer and I granted it to Holly because I knew that last term I had no one in my mind entirely suitable for it, and when she came to an audition here she certainly was promising. Well, since then somebody else has come along who is the sort of dancer Posy wants to help. Miriam.” Everybody clapped again. “In your case, Miriam, you will keep the scholarship just as long as you go on showing the sort of talent, together with hard work and application, that Posy meant. Now we come to a third scholarship, which is not for any particular talent, but is presented by the third Fossil pupil, Petrova. Petrova, as you all know, is on our honours list of Academy pupils who are serving. We are, I think, more proud of Petrova than almost any of our girls because she is a ferry pilot. Petrova is giving her scholarship because the Fossil sisters always stuck together and did the same things, and so, because I know that’s what she would like, I’m giving it to Mark.” Everybody clapped again. “The money will be useful to him in his career, and I’m sure he’ll work very hard to deserve it. Posy has made a little arrangement to make up for Holly’s disappointment, and so we have a family of brother and sisters with scholarships from a family of sisters, and that, as everybody who worked here when the Fossils were here will know, is exactly what they would like. Their family feeling ran very high indeed. Thank you, children.”

  It was when Holly was back with her class in the classroom that she realised she had lost something very important. Everybody thumped Miriam on the back and most people said, “Bad luck, Holly.”

  Miss Jones, who was taking the class for arithmetic, said to Holly in what was meant to be a kind way:

  “Well, dancing isn’t everything, is it, Holly?”

  Holly, sitting at her desk, and trying to look as though she was attending to the arithmetic lesson, felt as if all of a sudden she had grown older. All her nine years she seemed to have been drifting along with people making plans for her and she was just a little girl and, of course, nobody would be deliberately unkind to a little girl. Nobody was being deliberately unkind now. They had made her see herself as she was, and that hurt. She suddenly saw how inferior she was to the other children. To begin with, everybody else had a mother and, because of these mothers, they were always a bit better dressed than she was. Hannah and Alice did their best, but they did not take you suddenly to a hair-dresser to see if something more amusing could not be done with your hair, which was what had happened to two of the girls in her class last term. They did not embroider your name inside the hem of your tunic so that it would be easy to pick out from all the others. They did not worry quite so much if your dancing tunic was a little bit too long. Hannah was fond of saying “It’ll do.” Mothers did not seem to do that. Then, of course, there was bees and honey. With the scholarships they were not badly off, but the house still looked awful. It was not a lovely flat like Miriam’s, where you would be proud to ask anyone to tea. Then there were the attaché cases. This term she was the only child in the class who was carrying her things about in a brown-paper parcel. The more she thought about things the worse she felt, and suddenly she knew that she was going to cry. She could not cry, she simply could not, everybody would think she was crying because she was jealous of Miriam. She asked to be excused, and ran downstairs to the cloak-room, and sat behind her locker where nobody would see her, and cried and cried.

  Of course, the awful thing about crying is that even when it is over it leaves you swollen up and looking like it. Holly, after one horrified glance at the looking-glass, knew she simply could not go back to her class looking like that, so she decided to fill up the time until dancing class began and then go and apologise to Miss Jones. It was while she was filling up the time that she saw Miranda’s locker was ajar and, idly opening the door, saw the attaché case lying in the locker looking very abandoned because there was nothing else in the locker at all.

  Holly looked at the attaché case. What a difference it would make if it were hers! How little it would matter to Miranda! Quite likely it would lie there all the term, and Miranda would never notice it. How lovely if Miranda would just lend it! Quite likely Miranda would lend it if she were asked. If a person was asked to lend an attaché case and would have said yes, could there be any harm in borrowing it without asking? When Holly reached this point in her reasoning the attaché case was in her hands.

  Holly’s eyes were still a little swollen, but her face was flushed with pride when she walked back to her arithmetic class.

  “You’ve been a long time, dear,” said Miss Jones. “I was just sending someone to look for you.”

  Holly looked round the class to be certain that everybody was listening. This was a lovely moment when they would all envy her instead of thinking her inferior.

  “I was talking to my cousin Miranda. She’s come round to see me specially. ‘Dear Holly,’ she said, ‘I don’t like to see you carrying about a nasty paper parcel while other children have attaché cases; do let me lend you this one of mine.’”

  That evening Holly put the attaché case in her locker. Though by now she had almost persuaded herself that Miranda had lent her the case, she had not persuaded herself sufficiently to make herself think that Sorrel and Mark would believe that Miranda had lent it to her. It was sad to think of that lovely attaché case put away in a locker all night, but there was no doubt it was safer there.

  The case was not missed for a week. Then Miss Smith asked for it and Sorrel went to fetch it and found it was gone. Anything missing in the Academy had to be reported, and the loss was reported to Winifred who, having examined the locker and found it empty, reported what had happened to Madame.

  Madame was puzzled.

  “Attaché case? Empty, you say? I expect one of the children borrowed it. Have you asked all Miranda’s class?”

  “Everybody,” said Winifred. “The whole class saw Sorrel receive it and two or three of them saw it put back in the locker the next morning, and Miranda now remembers seeing it there for one day. She says that now she comes
to think of it she hasn’t seen it since; she didn’t happen to want it, so she never noticed it was not there.”

  “Oh, well,” said Madame, “I’ll keep the whole school back after lunch and enquire about it. I don’t suppose it will be far off.”

  The children had finished lunch and were pushing back their chairs when Madame came in. When she had been greeted she walked to the top of one of the tables where everybody could hear her.

  “One moment, children; I’m sorry to keep you from your recreation time, but there is a little muddle that wants clearing up. Last week Miranda’s governess, Miss Smith, brought an attaché case to the Academy with things in it for Sorrel, and asked Sorrel to put the case, when she had done with it, in Miranda’s locker. This Sorrel did and Miranda saw it there the next day, since when it seems to have disappeared. Has anyone seen it, moved it or borrowed it?”

  All the children, except those in Holly’s class, shook their heads and looked as uninterested as they felt. Holly’s class was sitting round the junior dining-table with Miss Sykes in charge. The children were bobbing about like corks in a rough sea, and a storm of whispers ran round the table, and one name predominated—“Holly.” And the more the children thought about Holly the more full of expression this whisper became. “Hol-lee. Ooh! Hol-lee.”

  Madame’s attention was caught by this bobbing and whispering. She came over to the junior table.

  “You all seem very excited; do you know anything about the attaché case?” There was a pause. The children sat still, but their eyes swivelled round to Holly. Madame looked smilingly at Holly. “Everybody seems to think that you know something, Holly. Have you seen Miranda’s attaché case?”

  In the last days Holly had thought the attaché case was almost hers. She had persuaded herself that if Miranda knew how badly she wanted it she would give it to her. When Madame first mentioned the case, so convinced was she that it had been a real loan she did not even feel uncomfortable, but then the whispers had started and they began to penetrate the wall of imagination which she had built, and suddenly the wall fell down, and there was nothing left but the awful fact that she had taken something that did not belong to her, and told everybody it was a loan. The horror of the situation was beyond tears, it just made her feel as if she was full of hot coal. She shut her lips tightly together and stared with a very red face at Madame.

  Madame, who had come to make a simple query, saw that something had happened which was not going to be so simple after all. She looked round at the children.

  “Holly doesn’t seem to be going to answer me. Who else knows about this case?”

  Once more all the class began bobbing about like corks and whispering, and this time the name that came to the top was Miss Jones.

  Madame hated whisperings and nudges; she felt convinced that a lot of fuss was being made about nothing. She looked round the room with some impatience and caught Miss Jones’ eye.

  “Would you come here a moment, Miss Jones?”

  Poor Miss Jones was feeling miserable. She hated telling tales and had hoped most passionately she would be spared all trouble by Holly explaining what had happened herself. However, where Madame beckoned the staff went. She came over to the table. Madame still had a slightly impatient note in her voice.

  “Do you know anything about Miranda’s attaché case?”

  Trained for mathematics, Miss Jones had an accurate mind. She said, of course, she did not know if the attaché case Holly had brought in was the one that was missing, but she reported how Holly had appeared with an attaché case and had held it up and said, “I was talking to my cousin Miranda. She’s come to see me specially, and she said, Dear Holly, I don’t like to see you carrying about a nasty paper parcel while the other children have attaché cases; do let me lend you one of mine.”

  Miss Jones’ words fell on a breathless hush. Every face looked shocked except Sorrel’s and Mark’s. Sorrel and Mark were looking at the floor, not knowing where else so shamed a family could look. Madame faced Holly.

  “Was this attaché case the one that’s missing, Holly?” Holly nodded. Madame held out her hand. “Come along, dear, I think this is a matter that you and I should talk over alone.”

  In her study Madame sat down in an armchair by the fire. Holly, as the door shut, felt trapped and frightened and all her self-control gave way. She lay down on the floor and sobbed so that her whole body shook. Madame let her cry for a little while, and then she patted her shoulder.

  “Be quiet, Holly, that’s quite enough crying. Suppose, instead of lying on the floor there, you came and sat on my knee and told me all about it.”

  Even after Holly was on Madame’s knee it took her a long time to stop crying, but when she did the whole story came out.

  “I never have as nice clothes as the others, and I wouldn’t mind that, but I do mind a brown-paper parcel, and when I saw Miranda’s attaché case wasn’t doing anything I absolutely knew Miranda would lend it to me, and so I took it.”

  “I see,” said Madame gravely. “That must have been a lovely moment when you came into the class and told the children you’d been lent it.”

  Holly nodded.

  “It was the most beautiful moment because, you see, everybody’d been sorry for me because Miriam had been given the scholarship instead of me, and for my cousin Miranda, who’s awfully grand, to come all the way to the Academy specially for me, made everyone say ‘Isn’t Holly lucky?’”

  Madame was stroking Holly’s curls and looking into the fire. She took a long time before she answered.

  “I do see, Holly. I think it’s very difficult to distinguish what’s really happened and what one thinks has happened, even when one’s grown-up, and it’s certainly very difficult at your age. I can quite see how all this happened, and I can see how your mind was working, but all the same it mustn’t go on working like that, must it? It’s most important that you should know clearly what you make up and what you don’t. Do Sorrel and Mark want attaché cases, too?”

  “Dreadfully.”

  Madame rang a bell.

  It was the duty in wartime when staff was scarce for one of the children to answer Madame’s bell. The senior class took turns and were known as the messengers. When the day’s messenger appeared Madame sent her to fetch Sorrel and Mark.

  Sorrel and Mark were appalled at that summons. To both of them came the idea that because they were the sister and brother of a child who was almost a thief, they were going to be expelled. Outside Madame’s door they met and looked at each other with scared eyes. Sorrel gave Mark’s tie a nervous twitch and pulled up her socks. Then she knocked.

  Madame greeted Sorrel and Mark with a radiant smile.

  “Come in, children. Mark, open that top left-hand drawer. I’ve got a new box of candy sent me by Pauline from America. I remember how you loved those American candies the first time you came to see me.” When the children had all chosen a sweet she told Sorrel and Mark to sit on the floor. “Well, Holly and I have come to the bottom of this attaché-case business. It seems that she and Mark suffer from the same complaint of letting their imaginations run away with them, but, even though it’s not a very bad fault, it is a fault and it’s got to be got rid of. Now, what I suggest is this. I’m going to buy three attaché cases. They’ll cost a lot, as you know, and they’ll take more money than you’ve probably got, but we can add to that because presently the Fossils will send you money for your birthdays. On each attaché case I shall have your names stamped so that there’ll be no chance of your losing them. Sorrel and Mark will have their attaché cases right away, but Holly will only be shown hers once, and then it will be locked up in a cupboard until the beginning of the summer term.” She turned Holly’s face towards her. “You can then see how vivid your imagination is, Holly. You can see then whether you can imagine you are carrying your new attaché case when you are not, and whether you can turn your brown-paper parcel into an attaché case. That’ll be a very good way of learning where imagi
nation ends and real things begin. Now, take one more sweet each and then, Sorrel, I want you to take the family home. I think an afternoon off will do you all good. You have had enough excitement for one day.”

  When the door had shut on the children Madame got up and fetched her book of telephone numbers. She opened the book at “C” and laid her finger on the name Cohen.

  In spite of Madame being so nice, the children felt pretty wormy inside when they arrived at the Academy next morning, and they felt no better when they got a message to say Winifred wanted to see Sorrel at once.

  Holly clutched at Mark.

  “Do you think it’s something awful?”

  Mark looked anxiously at Sorrel.

  “It might be, mightn’t it?”

  Sorrel was feeling extremely doubtful herself, but she managed to smile.

  “Well, the best thing is for me to go and find out.”

  Winifred was working at the bar. She was in the middle of some frappés when Sorrel came in. She stopped with one foot against the calf of the other leg.

  “Oh, Sorrel, your Aunt Lindsey has rung up to say that she wants to take you three and Miriam to lunch in a restaurant, and Madame says that’s all right and it won’t matter if you are half an hour late coming back.”

  The school were just finishing lunch in the Academy dining-room when Madame came in. This time a kind of shudder ran round. Madame making a speech two days running! Something pretty awful must be going to happen. Probably the Forbes hadn’t really gone out to lunch with their aunt, they’d probably been expelled. Madame waited until the children had greeted her, and then she beckoned to them all to come and stand round her.

  “I’m going to take you into my confidence, and I trust, without asking for a promise, that you will not repeat to the three Forbes children a word I have said. The attaché case that was missing has, as you know, been found. Holly had it. I need hardly tell you that, of course, it was no great crime she committed. She’s a child with a vivid imagination and she persuaded herself that it had been lent. However, that is a fault and it has been dealt with. How, concerns none of you. Why I wanted to talk to you is that I discovered from talking to Holly something in which I think you can all help. The Forbes children have, as you know, no mother and their father is missing; they live with their grandmother, but, of course, even the best grandmother isn’t the same as a mother. The result is that Holly, certainly, and probably the other two as well feel that you children look down on them.” There was a gasp from the school. “I know you’ll all say to me, ‘Of course we don’t,’ but are you sure? If your mothers make you new frocks out of old clothes and see that your hair-ribbons match and that you’ve always got clean socks and, incidentally, an attaché case to carry the socks in, have you never, even with a glance, suggested that a child with grubby socks or an unmatching hair-ribbon was rather an inferior being?” Madame smiled. “Now, I don’t want anything silly. I don’t want anyone racing out to buy Holly an attaché case or all of you children making a pet of her, but I think it would be nice if you kept it firmly in your minds that the Forbes children, in some ways, are less lucky than you are, and see that any special piece of luck, like being allowed to give a party, or having a few sweets to hand round, you share with them.”