by Hazel Gaynor
I’m relieved that it is a new maid who opens the door rather than anyone I know—too many explanations and too much conversation would be needed and I don’t have time for either. The maid tells me Clover has already left for her afternoon off.
“Will you give her this when she gets back?” I hand her my letter. She takes it from me and puts it in her pocket. “You won’t forget. It’s important.”
She assures me she won’t forget and slams the door in my face as her name is shouted down the passageway.
Rushing back to Berkeley Square, I arrive at number 54. The houses in the square are tall, terraced town houses; suites and apartments occupied by the very wealthy. I make my way down a short flight of steps to the deliveries door, ring the bell, and wait. I fidget and glance at the steps behind me. Should I forget all about Miss May and her brother and go dancing with Clover instead? I am here, and yet I am hesitant and unsure. I can’t bear to be made to look a fool again. As I wrestle with myself to stay or leave, the door opens and a pleasant-looking woman invites me inside.
There’s no going back now.
The woman tells me her name is Elsie and that she is the charwoman-cum-housekeeper-cum-secretary for Miss May. I follow her along a narrow passageway and up a short flight of steps into a wide hallway where we climb a sweeping staircase. My eyes are drawn to the many framed photographs and opening-night programs hung on the walls. LORETTA MAY. Her name in heavy typeface, her beautiful face captured by the photographers’ flashbulbs. At the top of the staircase, I hear conversation in a large room to my left. Elsie asks me to wait a moment. I stand at the edge of the doorway, and peer inside.
The room is large and softly lit by the winter sunlight that streams through large sash windows on one side. Large bolts of different-colored fabrics cover a long table in the center of the room. A tailor’s dummy stands in front of the window, a woman kneeling in front of it tugs at pleats on an emerald-green skirt. She grips pins between her teeth, removing one to secure an adjustment before leaning back to inspect her work and adjusting some more. Miss May is bent over a large book of sketches on a side table. There is a pleasant feeling of industriousness to the room, but I can’t see Mr. Clements anywhere. I presume he has had second thoughts. Again.
A maid arrives at the top of the stairs, brushing past me as I stand to one side. I watch as she hesitates, unable to see anywhere to place the silver tea tray she carries, every surface covered with fabric or books. How often I have been that hesitant girl, not wishing to vex Madam or her guests by setting a tray down in the wrong place. A maid can be given notice for such indiscretions.
Miss May waves a distracted hand toward the sideboard without looking up. “Over there will do, Beth. Push the things to one side.”
The maid does as instructed and sets the tray down. “Will that be all, miss?”
“Yes. For now. You may go.”
The girl walks from the room, staring at me as she passes. “Well, are you going in, then,” she whispers, “or are you going to stand there all day gathering dust?”
As the maid disappears down the stairs, Elsie invites me to step into the room. She smiles, pats me on the arm, and wishes me good luck as she closes the door behind her.
I stand awkwardly, just inside the door, until Miss May looks up from the sketch pad, a broad smile on her lips.
“Ah, Miss Lane. You came!” She takes my hands and squeezes them as if we were old friends. “I am very pleased to see you.” She motions toward a chaise. “Please. Take a seat.”
I move a few scraps of material and sit down, placing my purse on my lap. I feel horribly out of place and desperately underdressed. I cross my ankles and push my feet beneath the chaise so that my shabby shoes are out of sight.
Miss May pours tea from a silver pot. “Sadly it’s a little too early for champagne, although all this costume planning is shockingly thirsty work, isn’t it, Hettie?”
The woman kneeling beside the tailor’s dummy looks up. “It is never too early for champagne, Miss May. Isn’t that your golden rule?”
Loretta laughs as she hands me the tea. That same seductive laugh I heard in the Embankment Gardens and have heard so often in the theater. The laugh that has become something of a trademark and attracted so many admirers over the years. The laugh that catches in her throat and triggers a nasty fit of coughing, rendering her momentarily speechless. She sinks down into a chair and bends over, sipping from a glass of water until the coughing subsides and she recovers her breath. It isn’t pleasant to watch.
The woman at the tailor’s dummy fusses around her. “You really should see a doctor about that cough. It’s definitely getting worse.”
Miss May brushes her concerns aside. “I must introduce you to my dressmaker, Miss Lane. Hettie Bennett. She worries terribly.”
I smile at the dressmaker. She smiles back. “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Lane. And if I don’t worry, I don’t know who will.”
“Have you tried J. Collis Browne’s?” I ask. “Or a dose of charcoal? My mam swears by it.”
Miss May stands up and stretches her long arms high toward the ceiling. She reminds me of a willow tree; strong and yet so fragile. “Ghastly stuff. All of it. It’s just the fog irritating my chest. Winters bother me. I’ll be perfectly fine by the spring.”
Hettie shakes her head and resumes her work as Miss May walks over to me. “It is very good of you to come, Miss Lane. My brother should be here shortly, although he is notoriously late for everything, so I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.”
“Does he know I’m here?”
“Absolutely not! You shall gain the upper hand with the element of surprise.”
I smile and take a sip of tea. Earl Grey. It is like drinking a bottle of perfume.
“You must excuse the chaos,” she continues, standing with her hands on her narrow hips and surveying the room. “We are costume planning for next season and for costume planning one must have chaos, it seems. Here, take a look.”
She passes me the sketchbook she was consulting a moment ago. I place my teacup on a side table and flick through the pages, admiring the dress designs. “These are wonderful. Whose designs are they?”
“Mostly Lucile. Some Chanel. A few Poiret.” She settles beside me to take a closer look. “This one is described as woven sunshine. It will be ever so light to wear, gold and silver embroidery over oyster-white satin. The material will shimmer beautifully under the stage lights. And look at this one. Lucile is known for her floral embellishments. Garlands of pink silk rosebuds. Aren’t they darling?” She turns to another page. “And this one is so elegant. Mademoiselle Chanel. Look at the bias cut of the skirt. She has the fashion world quite in a frenzy trying to work out how she makes her lines so clean and fluid. So feminine. How anyone can say this makes a woman look like a boy has clearly taken too much absinthe.”
“They’re very beautiful,” I say. “I can’t imagine how lovely they must be to wear.”
She stands up and walks toward the window. “They are extraordinary to wear. The transformative power of a couture dress cannot be understated. I remember the very first time I met Lucy Duff Gordon. Cockie arranged the appointment.”
“Cockie?”
“Sorry. Charles. Cochran. I knew Lucile had dressed Lily Elsie and other actresses. I was so excited I couldn’t eat a thing for breakfast and was positively light-headed by the time I arrived at the shop in Hanover Square. She studied me so carefully as she made her sketches. Said I had beautiful lines and a talent for standing still. Cockie said I was better at standing still than I was at dancing! Awful old man! I was never the best dancer, but I had charisma. That’s why Cockie encouraged me to the stage. ‘What you lack in rhythm, you make up for in charm,’ he said. Cockie firmly believes that you can teach any girl to dance, but you cannot teach charisma.”
I can’t take my eyes off her as she talks. She’s like an angel standing in the sunlight. She certainly has charisma.
She turns
and rests her hands on the windowsill behind her. “Everyone needs a little luck, Miss Lane, somebody to see that certain something within us. I was fortunate. I had access to the best of the best. Lucile taught me how to move across the stage, how to style my hair to show off my face, how to hold my neck at the correct angle so that the stage lights would catch the best of me. She said I had ‘lilies and roses’ skin. I was a real beauty, you know!” She picks absentmindedly at a spray of roses in a vase on a pedestal beside her.
“You still are a beauty.”
She smiles. “You are very kind to say so. I suppose everyone is beautiful to someone. But we all wrinkle and fade in time, Miss Lane. Even the most beautiful bloom must eventually wither and die.” She sighs and sits back down beside me. “Do you dance, Miss Lane?”
“Yes. I love to dance. I go to the Palais in Hammersmith.”
“Have you ever had lessons?”
“No. I’ve learned from watching the likes of yourself and the instructors at the Palais.”
“Hmm.” I wonder what she’s thinking behind those piercing green eyes, but a door closes somewhere beneath us and distracts her. “Aha. That will be Perry. Come along, Hettie. We must make ourselves scarce.”
“You’re going?” I’m suddenly flustered and not sure I want to see Perry at all.
“Of course we’re going! Think of this as a dress rehearsal. Best done behind closed doors, without an audience, so to speak. Do your best, Miss Lane. We’ll be cheering you on from the wings.”
And with that, they leave the room and I am alone.
I hear voices downstairs, a door closing, footsteps coming up the stairs. What will I say to him?
He opens the door as I stand up. “I know, I know, I’m late again . . .” He falters as he sees me. “Miss Lane! But . . . how on earth?”
“Your sister. She came to see me.”
And there we are. Standing in an apartment in Mayfair, looking at each other, neither of us knowing what to say. I want to be angry with him. I am angry with him, but I’m also pleased to see him. I think of the times my sisters and I would squabble, determined to hate each other and yet forgetting our fight as soon as the sun came out and someone suggested a game of hopscotch.
He stands in the doorway, clutching his trilby across his chest. “I don’t quite know what to say.”
He looks like a lost little boy and I feel confident beside his unease. “Have you ever considered a job as a magician?” I ask.
“A magician?”
“Yes. You do a very good disappearing act.” I drop my teaspoon purposefully against my saucer, wishing the clattering of metal against china was the clattering of my toe against his shins. He walks to the sideboard and pours tea.
“Ah. Yes. I see. Very good.” He runs his hands through his hair, pacing up and down the Oriental rug like a bobbin on a loom. “I owe you an apology, Miss Lane. A proper explanation. I didn’t get a chance when we met outside the theater. Leaving you in the tearooms was a terrible thing to do and I’m dreadfully sorry.” He pauses and walks toward the dying fire. He throws several lumps of coal onto it, smothering the weak embers. I resist the urge to tell him he’s doing it all wrong. “It was rude and ungentlemanly. I regretted it the moment I left, although I suppose that doesn’t help much now.” He turns to me. “I am truly sorry. What else can I say?”
I try to look indifferent as I sip my tea. “I’ve known market porters show more respect.” He blushes and puts his hands in his trouser pockets. His hair sticks up at such peculiar angles that I would laugh in any other circumstances. “I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here at all.”
He nods. “I know I certainly don’t deserve you to be here. I really didn’t think you would agree to come.”
“Everyone deserves a second chance, Mr. Clements; a chance to put right their mistakes. And if I am meant to be your muse or whatever you call it, it seems a shame to send me away.” I take a long sip of my tea. “Also, your sister is Loretta May, and she was very nice to me. She’s the real reason I’m sitting here.”
He sits in the chair beside the fire and looks at me. That smile. Those eyes. In an instant, I’m back in the pouring rain on the day we bumped into each other, suspended in a moment I can’t understand.
I walk over to the fire, take the poker from the companion set, and prod the lumps of coal to give the flames some air. They start to flicker immediately.
“Why didn’t it do that for me?” he asks.
“They need air to breathe, Mr. Clements. Same as people.”
He leans back, crossing one leg over the other. I can feel him studying me intently. “Still, I can’t help wondering why.”
“Why what?”
“Why you’re giving me a second chance? Why you’re here at all. Even if Loretta May is my sister.”
I turn my face to his. I feel the warmth of the fire against my cheek, a flutter in my heart. The hesitant beat of a fledgling’s wing. “The question isn’t always why, Mr. Clements. The question is sometimes why not?” I put the poker down and sit back down on the chaise hoping that he hasn’t noticed the tremble in my hands. “So, what is it you want your muse to do exactly? We didn’t get round to discussing the details in the tearooms.”
He takes a moment to light a cigarette as he considers my question. “Quite simply I want to write music again. I want to entertain people, make them laugh. My sister thought it might be helpful for me to meet someone who inspires me.”
“And you were hoping for more than a maid.”
“Not just a maid. A maid with ambition, if I recall.”
I blush. So he has thought about me.
“Mr. Clements, I . . .”
“Miss Lane, I wanted to ask if you . . .”
We speak over each other, both stopping to allow the other to continue. Neither of us does.
I smile. He apologizes.
“Please,” he says. “Continue.”
“I was going to say that you must know a dozen beautiful ladies who could inspire you. Why would someone like you go looking for a girl like me?”
“Because they don’t inspire me. They bore me, and besides, everybody knows everybody else’s business in our circles. A chap can’t leave a restaurant without everyone whispering about the woman on his arm, or the woman who isn’t on his arm. I wanted to find someone new. Someone real. Someone honest.” He hesitates before adding, “Someone like you.”
“Well, nobody ever notices me. I could walk into the Savoy Grill and tip all the tables on end and nobody would bat an eyelid. I’m invisible, Mr. Clements. Unimportant.” I remember Cutler’s words. “Back-of-house staff must not be seen. As far as our guests are concerned, they are invisible. You, Dorothy Lane, do not exist.” I feel suddenly weary and lean back on the chaise like a discarded coat as I drain the last of my tea. “I’d give anything to be whispered about as I left a restaurant.”
Mr. Clements sits up in his chair. “Then perhaps Loretta is right. Perhaps we can help each other after all.”
“What do you mean?”
“She can teach you to become visible.”
I almost trip over myself as I try not to fall into those gray puddles. “Can you teach someone to become visible?”
“Of course! What do you think finishing schools are all about? What do you think ladies spend their days doing? Thinking about what to wear. How to style their hair. It is all to attract attention, all to stand out from the crowd. It isn’t difficult. You just need to know what you’re doing.”
“And that’s the problem. I don’t know what I’m doing. I own three dresses and two pairs of shoes and all of them wouldn’t look out of place at a jumble sale.”
“But there’s something about you, Miss Lane. I see it, and I know my sister sees it too. You could be so much more than a maid doing out rooms at The Savoy. You could be someone special. Someone everyone notices.”
I laugh. “I think you’ve seen too many romantic plays, Mr. Clements. This isn’t Act Three of
The Shop Girl. We can’t start again in tomorrow’s matinee if we get it wrong today.”
He leaps up and grasps my hands, pulling me to my feet. “You see! That’s it! That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” He rushes to the writing desk and grabs a pen from the ink pot. I hear the scratch of the nib across the page.
“What are you doing?”
“Writing your words. Your wonderful honesty. Listen. ‘I think you’ve seen too many romantic plays, Mr. Clements. This isn’t Act Three of The Shop Girl. We can’t start again in tomorrow’s matinee if we get it wrong today.’ And cue the music for a wonderful duet.”
His eyes sparkle. His hair sticks up like the top of a pineapple.
I start to laugh.
“What?” he asks. “What’s so amusing?”
“You, Mr. Clements. You look ridiculous!”
He picks up a teaspoon and peers into the back of it. “Yes. Yes, I do. Who cares?” He rushes over to me and for a moment I think he’s going to kiss me, but he just stares at me as if he’s hypnotized. “What do you say, Miss Lane? Am I forgiven? Shall we do this, together, or would you rather walk away and forget we ever met?”
I glance at the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, the second hand sweeping time away. I think about The Adventure Book for Girls perched on top of the clock at home. I think about Teddy and how far away I am from him. If I agree to this arrangement I’ll step even farther from the path I used to imagine for me, for us. The thought of it fills me with sadness and yet my heart dances with hope. The life I know in one hand. The life I dream of in the other.
“Very well, Mr. Clements. I’ll help you write your music and you’ll help me to become someone other than a maid.” He claps his hands together so loud that I jump. “But you’re going to have to stop being so unpredictable or I’ll die of heart failure before you’ve written a single note.”
I pick up my purse and hat from the chaise.
“You’re going already?”
“Yes. Before you change your mind again. It would be nice to be the first to leave this time.”
He joins me at the door and we stand for a moment, neither of us sure what to say next. I hold out my hand.
