After settling Archie for the night, Kitty returned to her room where she scowled at the pool of lavender blue silk on the floor, only too aware of the reason why her mother had insisted on buying the dress, despite it costing a small fortune she could ill afford. She’d wanted to make absolutely certain that Kitty looked her best for Frank so that the engagement went ahead. Yet there was never any doubt on that score. Frank would do exactly as Clara suggested. Nor did Kitty believe for one minute that the tickets for Hullo Ragtime had been Frank’s idea. Kind as he undoubtedly was, he’d never think of such a thing on his own account, not in a million years. He was far too unimaginative, bless his heart.
Oh, but it had been wonderful! Whatever sacrifices her mother had made in order to procure them, Kitty was truly grateful.
Even now she could feel her heart pounding with the excitement of it all and she did a little tap dance before settling to sip her cocoa. Swinging her long legs up over the arm of her chair, she arranged them in the most comfortable and unladylike position she could find and picked up her book, Arms and the Man, for a quiet read before bed.
But the book remained closed on her lap, the cocoa scarcely touched as it came to her that the thrill of the evening had been generated not by her engagement to Frank but by the show itself. Surely that was the wrong way round?
She sat as if dazed, eyes fixed upon the view of rooftops through the attic window, their chimneys poking like fingers into the darkening sky. The sensation always made her feel slightly claustrophobic. Kitty hated London, wondered desperately if she was destined to live out her entire life in this smoky muddle of bricks and mortar.
She and Raymond had often talked of escaping to a new life, somewhere deep in the country. There seemed no such possibility of that now. They’d often used to giggle about Frank Cussins behind their hands as he pontificated on some worthy subject or other, saying he must have been born middle-aged with that receding hair line and the slightest hint of a double chin. Yet in Clara’s eyes at least he was an excellent catch, and Kitty had to admit that he was steadfast and earnest; she felt safe with him, even if he was rather on the dull side.
She let a flicker of moonlight catch the tiny solitaire stone of her ring. Was it a real diamond? Had Frank chosen it himself, or had her mother had a hand in that too? Why didn’t she feel excited? Why wasn’t she happy? And if she wasn’t, Kitty wondered why she’d allowed the engagement to take place at all.
Dear Lord, had she agreed to marry him out of pity? Or to please her mother?
‘A girl must have a husband, oh dear me, yes. What would the world come to if gels refused to marry? Anarchy, no less,’ Kitty recited, rather dramatically, to the empty room. She lifted her mug of cocoa as if in a toast, then drank it back in one like a shot of whisky. Then she closed her eyes in pained resignation.
Or was it simply because she’d been too filled with grief for her beloved brother to care.
A cold hand gripped her heart, squeezing out all the excitement that the evening had engendered and now, too late, she faced reality. She was engaged to be married to a man she didn’t even love. Tears squeezed from beneath the sensible lashes and dripped on to her clasped hands.
She would have to tell him that it had all been a mistake; that she wasn’t ready for marriage, not while she still grieved. She slapped the tears firmly away with the flat of her hand. Over twelve months since Raymond had died, and still it felt like yesterday. Clara said it was time to think of the future. But was marriage with Frank Cussins the right future for her?
The next morning Kitty pulled on a favourite sweater, somewhat disreputable and with a hole in one elbow; dragged on a well-worn tweed skirt that finished just above the anklebone revealing a darn in one stocking, and crept downstairs. She intended to avoid breakfast: kippers, judging by the smell that was wafting up from the dining room. Casting one anguished glance at the hall table, loaded yet again with social invitations her mother had no doubt procured for her, Kitty snatched up her coat and bolted for the front door, her one thought being to escape the anticipated grilling which always followed one of Clara’s carefully planned outings.
Then caught the first bus which happened along in a desperate effort to escape, quite certain that the gown was destined never to be worn again. She was wrong, for the life of this particular garment had barely begun.
Clara, supposedly supervising Myrtle frying kippers while she scraped margarine onto wafer thin slices of bread, kept the kitchen door half open and one ear cocked. She was determined to take her errant daughter to task for leaving poor Frank standing in the hall with not even a goodnight kiss after that expensive night at the theatre. She heard the front door slam and ran to snatch it open again to stand dancing with frustration on the front doorstep. She might well have yelled at Kitty to return this instant, were it not for the fact that such an action would make lace curtains twitch all along the street. Foiled in her plan, Clara snatched up a plate of bread and butter, yelled at Myrtle to start on the washing up the minute she’d brewed the tea, and flounced off to the dining room in search of a more sympathetic ear.
Dear Frank was surely the best one to deal with Kitty when she was in one of her moods. He was also the ideal man to bring her grieving daughter back to life and offer her the future she deserved. Didn’t she herself know from personal experience what it was like to live alone, without the comforts a man could offer? The mere thought of the girl’s ingratitude made her blood boil.
Clara kicked open the dining room door, smiling beneficially upon the guests waiting hopefully for their kippers as she slammed down plates of bread and marg. ‘Mr Cussins, may I have a word?’ she purred sweetly.
He glanced up from his seat at the window table and quietly removed the spectacles from where they perched on the end of his nose so he could read the morning paper.
‘Certainly Mrs Terry.’ It was a delightful little game they played, that they were always so punctiliously formal in front of the other guests. He carefully folded the paper and laid it neatly by his plate before weaving his way between the tables towards her.
Clara felt her heart give a little flutter for he was indeed a fine figure of a man. Heaven help us, the girl didn’t appreciate how fortunate she was. Twenty-one years old and still turning her nose up at every suitor who came along. She gave a simpering little giggle as he approached. If that little madam didn’t make an effort to treat this one with more respect she’d be left on the shelf, sure as eggs is eggs, and remain forever an old maid. The very idea made Clara shudder. She was determined that Kitty must be saved from herself no matter what the cost; dragged to the altar if necessary. Whatever had possessed her to run off this morning. She’d wring her bleeding neck when she got her hands on her.
Though if her daughter did cry off in the end, Clara might well grab him herself.
Kitty alighted from the bus when her fare ran out to find herself back by the theatre. It was then that the idea came to her. If she dreamed of being an actress, why not try? What did she have to lose? Once the notion had taken hold, there seemed to be no shifting it.
She didn’t even get beyond the porter who sat puffing a malodorous pipe, jealously guarding the back stage entrance, warding off all-comers with a long arm and a short temper. ‘No auditions today girl,’ he growled, wafting her away through a haze of smoke.
Kitty mustered every ounce of charm she possessed but it was clear that he wasn’t about to let her cross the threshold, not to see the producer, the stage manager, nor anyone. Not without a letter of introduction from her agent, which of course she didn’t possess, or unless there were auditions on, which there certainly weren’t as she could see by the fact there was no queue outside.
‘Where would I find an agent, exactly?’
He peered at this tall, rather ordinary looking girl through dusty spectacles, then removing the pipe from his mouth, knocked out the bowl and began to plug it with fresh tobacco. Carefully tamping this down he pondered on whether she
was worthy of further consideration. ‘You’re new to this line of business then?’
‘Is it so obvious?’
He lit the pipe, producing a small bonfire before it settled to a slow burn. Having got it drawing to his satisfaction, he grunted and turned his back on her. Then just as Kitty prepared to turn away, despair having finally demolished her resolve, he pushed a grubby sheet of paper across the narrow counter. ‘There’s a list of agents. Give them a try. Though I don’t hold out much hope.’
She caught up the list with surprise, and beamed at him with excited pleasure. ‘Thanks ever so.’
His jaw fell slack, the pipe forgotten as his surprised gaze followed her as she strode away. She was neither plain nor in the least bit ordinary.
Kitty walked the lengths of street after street till she decided she must have visited every address listed, and many she’d discovered on the way that were not, but had failed utterly to interest anyone into taking her on as a client.
Like the porter, some refused to even admit her beyond the outer office. Those who did lectured her on the fierce competition, pointing out that half the country seemed to imagine they could act, or make their fortune in the music hall. They fired questions at her to which she could give no suitable answers, the main one being that of experience. Some asked her to do a little step dance or sing a little ditty. The moment she confessed she could do neither, they lost interest. Others offered to do what they could if she agreed to pay them a large sum up front for their services, which sounded a shady deal even to Kitty’s innocent ears. Such savings as she did possess were far too precious to be squandered without careful consideration. One even indicated he could most certainly find her work, in return for payment of a particular nature. Kitty had fled from that seedy office with all speed.
It took five hours foot-slogging before she admitted defeat. The dream of being an actress, of treading the boards as these case-hardened agents called it, was just that: a dream. The idea, so sparkling and brilliant when she’d first conceived it, lighting a path to a marvellous new future, now lay tarnished and rusting in her mind. There seemed no way out of the rut into which Clara was resolutely funnelling her.
Feet aching, feeling dejected and low, not to mention cold and wet, with even the weather turning to a drizzly rain as if to echo her mood, Kitty caught the next bus home and prepared herself for a lecture.
Chapter Two
Sundays were Esme Bield’s busiest day of the week. Even now as the second hymn bellowed out from Miss Agnes’s steadfast fingering and heavy footwork on the organ pedals, she was mustering the children ready to troop them next door to the Sunday school while her mind was counting the slices of cold ham she might manage to cut from the woefully small bit of hock left in the larder at home. Following this cold and unappetising repast, (no cooking allowed on this holy day) there would be barely time to wash the dishes before Esme must return for the afternoon Sunday School which began promptly at two-thirty. After that there would be tea. Plain bread and jam followed by the smallest slice of Madeira cake. Only then, while her father, the Reverend Andrew Bield, snored in his wing-backed chair, would Esme be free to snatch a few minutes of complete bliss in the privacy of her room to devour the latest romance she had procured from the penny library. A Sunday as predictable as any other.
The organ let out its customary squeak, rather like a sigh of regret as it relinquished the final notes. As if primed by a starting pistol the children rose as one and crept down the aisle in a silent crocodile, too fearful of being struck down by the Almighty Himself to risk a whisper, or even a backward glance as they shuffled out through the side door, thankful only to be free of the heavy formality of the church service. Esme too breathed a sigh of relief as she came out into the sunshine of the church yard.
The heavy scents of yew trees and damp grass tickled her nostrils enticingly as she hurried her little band along overgrown paths. Here in this tiny hamlet of Repstone, one of many that clustered around the silvered surface of Carreckwater, primroses, violets and bluebells filled the verges with thick clots of colour; blossom hung in lacy white sprays from the hawthorn trees, brightened here and there by a blush of pink, their heady scent intoxicating as always in spring. The sweet sound of young lambs calling to their mothers carried on a soft breeze and somewhere a skylark sang. It was as if the mountains had shaken out their skirts of green and lavender to bask in the golden May sunshine.
Esme smiled at the thought. The Lake District was surely meant for romantics and although she was happy to be counted among that number, without doubt loving this land in which she’d been raised; there were times when she wanted to run from it, and from her life here, just as fast as she could go. Even as the surrounding mountains hemmed her in, yet they represented the promise of a world beyond, of escape from the restrictions of a life bound by duty and dull routine; almost as if they were the gateway to an unknown world.
Esme pulled open the heavy schoolroom door and ushered her charges inside. May was traditionally a festive month. Some of the children, from the more prosperous families sported new straw bonnets, others had decked out a hand-me-down with fresh ribbon. They’d enjoyed the maypole dance on the first of the month, for all her father insisted it had pagan origins, and now sat in an obedient line on stout wooden benches, striving not to shuffle their small bottoms while she read them the story of Noah and his ark. It was a story that Esme loved for it signified a new beginning, an adventure for Noah, his three sons and all the animals fortunate enough to be chosen to accompany them on the expedition. How she longed to do likewise.
Later, over thin sliced brown bread and an even thinner coating of raspberry jam, her father reprimanded her on her choice.
‘The New Testament would have been more appropriate, my dear. The Loaves and the Fishes perhaps, or the Prodigal Son.’
‘Yes, father. But the children do so love the Noah story. And they all drew wonderful animals. Little Amy Rigg drew a delightful family of baby rabbits.’ Esme laughed but Andrew only grimaced.
‘My point exactly, my dear. Encouraging the imagination is not wise, for it results in complete inaccuracy.’
Esme would like to have protested that imagination was a gift that should be nurtured in any child and did no harm at all to the value of the bible story, but managed to bite back her words in time. She knew from past experience how useless such arguments were.
Satisfied that he’d made his point, her father patted her arm as she began gathering up plates and cups. ‘You’re a good worker, Mary.’ He often called her by her mother’s name when his mind was occupied with church business. Esme was used to it, so did not trouble to correct him as he put his arms about her, holding her close, one hand cupping her cheek, the other resting lightly upon her buttocks while he dropped a kiss upon her forehead and then upon her lips.
Not an unkind man, yet since the untimely death of his beloved wife and helpmeet the Reverend Bield had assumed that Esme must take her place beside him. He would have been aghast had anyone pointed out the unfairness of this; that perhaps playing the role of parson’s wife was not a task which his daughter relished. It was, in his opinion, her bounden duty.
As Esme watched him turn and walk away to his study, ostensibly to the pruning and tidying of his sermon while in reality he would take a short nap, Esme wiped the kiss from her lips without even realising she was doing it.
Much as she dreamed of escape one day, soaking her pleasure-starved soul in an endless stream of cheap romances, Esme too viewed her role in much the same light. A labour of love that she was duty-bound to fulfil. Yet for some reason, perhaps the coming of yet another spring, she’d begun to question her fate more of late, hearing her life tick away by minute by minute, hour by doleful hour on the vicarage clock.
The moment her father had gone, she pulled the latest escapist delight from out of her knitting bag, opened it at the marker, and began to read. The door of the study opened, causing her to drop the book hastily back
into the bag as she turned to face her father with a willing smile on a face flushed with guilt. Andrew Bield did not approve of any other reading matter than the Good Book on a Sunday, or on other days too, for that matter.
‘Esme, don’t forget to remind Mrs Phillips about the Sisterhood meeting on Tuesday evening. She is to lead the prayers.’
‘Very good father. I expect she’ll be at evensong, if not I’ll call on my way home.’
‘And you are to attend the Sewing Circle tomorrow afternoon, don’t forget.’
Esme‘s heart sank. In addition to caring for her father, and minding the children at Sunday School, there were church meetings of one form or another on most evenings of the week, plus several afternoons. What with the Ladies’ Guild, choir practice and various Sunday School teacher meetings, Monday had been her one free day. She clung to it now in frantic desperation.
‘Oh, but I always go for a long walk on a Monday afternoon, once I’ve finished with the washing. The fresh air does me good, and you know I can’t sew for toffee, Father.’
‘Then it’s time you learned.’ The door of the study closed upon her protests and the rosy cheeks of guilt now turned white with a pinched anger. He’d no right to take her for granted in this way. She really couldn’t go on like this, with no say in her own life. Esme was sure that she’d go mad if she didn’t get away soon. She’d no time at all to herself.
Almost as swiftly as it had come, the flicker of rebellion died, superseded by the familiar gnawing guilt. Surely her father had every right to dictate her duties. He had a difficult and taxing occupation. Her mother was dead and it behoved her to at least do what she could to lighten his burden.
Oh, but there were days when Esme wished someone would lighten hers.
In the weeks following as she went about her usual business, duly attending the sewing circle as instructed, Esme could feel the pitying eyes of the parish ladies upon her, their united gaze watching her every move, presumably because she was inept and rather plain. Esme would not for a moment have considered her plump, country rosiness as pretty, or imagine that her neighbours might see her as such. She kept her fair hair painstakingly tidy in one long plait; wound about her head it gave her a rather Scandinavian look. Rimless spectacles hung upon her small nose, no matter how many times she adjusted them, and despite the radiance of pale grey eyes, a rosebud mouth and silky bloom to her skin, she saw their stares as censorious rather than kindly, their silence as a criticism rather than a sign of ineptitude on their part, not for a moment thinking they might have some other reason to pity her.
Kitty Little Page 2
