It was cold at night in Meerut, and though the days were bright we had to bundle up snugly in our beds. We slept under lovely razais, thick quilts made in Jaipur. It’s funny to think that you can feel more like a princess in a tent than in a hotel.
On our last night in Meerut, as we strolled back through the city of canvas, a great crowd of girls, I looked over my shoulder and saw Lieutenant Madden following us. I shivered. Once he knew I’d seen him, he walked more briskly, catching up with us in a moment. He wore a woollen greatcoat to keep the cold at bay and he looked so dashing I was dizzy with pleasure at the sight of him.
‘Excuse me, Miss Sweetrick,’ he said, his voice deliciously mellow and gentle. The other girls stopped too, their faces alive with curiosity.
He took a step closer to me and I shivered again. ‘I’m sorry to keep you, but I was wondering if you would autograph your portrait for me.’
All the girls had sold dozens of photos at the end of the Meerut performance. There was no shortage of young men keen to own an image of us. George had been dumbstruck when I walked through the audience at the close of the performance that evening. He hadn’t uttered a word. He had simply taken one of my portraits and given me two rupees in exchange. Now it was my turn to be rendered mute.
‘You look cold, Miss Sweetrick.’
He swept off his coat and draped it around my shoulders. The other girls laughed and George smiled at them as he handed me his pen and my portrait. ‘I’m sorry I only have one coat to share, ladies,’ he said to them. Then he lowered his tone so it was warm and husky. ‘Miss Sweetrick,’ he said, ‘I will treasure this image all the more if it bears your signature.’
Finally, I found my voice. ‘To whom should I inscribe it?’
‘To Lieutenant George Madden,’ he said, leaning over me to watch as I signed my name across the bottom of the photograph.
When I handed back his pen, our hands touched briefly and the warmth of his skin sent a charge of heat through me. I reached to take his coat off, to return it to him, but he raised his hands. ‘No, Miss Sweetrick. I’ll send my batman to collect it in the morning.’
That’s when I knew he was a gentleman. Not only had he let me wear his coat, but he was important enough to have his own batman. I think I was walking on air for the rest of the short trip to our quarters. That night, in our tent, I spread his coat across the end of my bed so I could snuggle my toes beneath it, and I said his name over and over. It tasted honey-sweet on my lips.
Eliza was in the bed closest to me, and as I savoured my moment with George, I did something I’ve regretted ever since. I turned to her and asked, ‘What does it feel like to be in love, Liz?’
‘It’s wonderful and it’s terrible and it changes everything,’ she said.
I wanted everything to change. I believed it would once we were in Delhi. In Delhi, I turned sixteen. Sweet sixteen.
As we drove through the wide streets, past heathen buildings with their strange towers and ramshackle bazaars crowded with Indians, on our way to the Rama Theatre, all I could think of was George. That first night he wasn’t in the audience. I thought he would be at our show at Ludlow Castle, because he simply had to be a member of the Delhi Club. But he wasn’t there either. I couldn’t understand it. I knew, in my heart, that he wanted me.
We stayed at the Maidens Hotel in Delhi, and while the others were napping, I wandered the long colonnaded foyer, gazing out into the gardens, trying to will Lieutenant Madden into being, trying to make him appear through the sheer strength of my longing. I still had the note he’d given me, the one his batman had delivered when he’d come to collect his greatcoat. He’d said it wasn’t very far from Meerut to Delhi, closer than Cawnpore had been to Meerut, and that he would be there to see me sing. He hoped I would sing Violet Gray again in The Belle of New York, and he loved it when I sang ‘I Do, So There’. There was nothing improper in the note, but beneath the words I could sense something special.
It was still warm in the late afternoon, before the cool night air began to fall. I was dressed in my best fine white linens but as the heat subsided, I found a cane armchair and arranged myself to appear dainty. I was taut with anticipation, expecting to see George saunter into the foyer at any moment. That’s probably why my hearing was attuned to every passing conversation.
When I heard Eliza and the Butcher chatting as they settled themselves at a table in the tearooms I didn’t alert them to my presence. They were so close to me, just the other side of the potted ferns, and I could hear every word of their conversation. Every poisonous little word.
‘He turned out to be a gentleman when I confronted him,’ said the Butcher. ‘But what cheek, really, thinking because he’s an officer that he’s less of a stagedoor Johnny.’
‘She was thinking very fondly of him.’
‘Which you know leads to nothing but trouble. Why, she’s not sixteen yet, is she?’
‘Oh Arthur, you forget everyone’s birthdays. It was yesterday. Besides, sixteen is quite old enough to know your own heart. I was not sixteen when we began,’ said Eliza, disgustingly coquettish.
‘But you, my dear, are altogether a different character to Tilly Sweetrick, as the child calls herself.’ And then he had the temerity to laugh.
It was like a lead weight dropping through my body, the moment of realisation. Eliza had betrayed me. The past few days, when I’d thought we were almost back to our old friendship, had been an illusion. Even as I sat beside her in railway carriages and we held hands, as we pretended to find our way back to that easy companionship we’d shared in America, she was conspiring against me.
Between them, Eliza and the Butcher had broken my heart.
Eliza said love changes everything. So does betrayal.
39
STRANGERS ON A TRAIN
Poesy Swift
From Allahabad to Delhi, Tilly, Ruby and Lizzie sat side by side in the same compartment. They said they felt sick if they couldn’t face the same direction as the engine and I didn’t mind sitting opposite them. It was simply a relief to see everyone getting along so nicely at last. Ruby was starting to laugh again and it almost looked as though Lizzie and Tilly had begun to like each other. It wasn’t until we left Delhi that I realised those weeks of happiness had been nothing but the calm before the storm.
The train from Delhi to Bombay was going to take two days and two nights. I’d imagined we would all be great chums on the long trip. But Tilly was determined to change everything. When Mr Arthur left our compartment for a moment, she grabbed Ruby’s hand and then mine and dragged us out into the corridor.
‘Where are you going?’ called Lizzie, putting her head out the door.
‘Only to the lavatory,’ replied Tilly, as we hurried along the carriage.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked, trying not to sound too much like Lizzie’s echo.
‘Exploring. We are going exploring because if I have to sit next to Eliza Finton for one more minute I’ll explode.’
Ruby laughed but I felt a little shiver course through me. What had happened to spoil everything?
We sat in a booth in the dining compartment and ordered the cheapest thing on the menu. It was while the three of us were sipping on a single plain soda that we met Mr Barton and his wife. There were lots of Britishers returning from Patiala, in the north, where they’d been for the races. Mr Barton said he’d been a jockey once. He was no taller than I was and his ears stuck out like jug handles, but he had become a trainer and then a horse owner and he’d even run horses that had won a place in the Melbourne Cup. How could we not be impressed? He had been in Patiala racing one of his own horses and giving advice to the Maharajah.
Mr Barton had grand stories about Patiala race week. He told us about beautiful rows of marquees and tents in the park surrounding the Palace, and special performances by a famous magician in the palace theatre. The Maharajah’s zenana had come in ‘purdah’, every inch of their bodies covered with cloth, and watched the magicia
n through veils. But some of the audience had been very alarmed by his tricks and decided he was under the influence of ‘the evil one’.
We all laughed at that.
‘Charlie Byrne, a boy in our troupe, he’s a wonderful magician,’ I told the Bartons.
‘But if you come to see us, you won’t actually get to see him perform his mischief,’ said Tilly. ‘Conjurers play with people’s minds, whereas we girls, we play with their hearts.’
‘We’re musical theatre artistes, actually,’ said Ruby. ‘When we return to Australia, I’ll be eighteen and then I’m going to join the vaudeville circuit or maybe go to London and perform in the West End.’
‘My word,’ said Mrs Barton, ‘we’ll have to see the young ladies perform if they come to London.’
‘You can come and see us in Bombay,’ said Tilly.
The next thing I knew, Tilly and Ruby and the Bartons were as thick as thieves and we were all strolling up to first class to visit them in their private compartment.
In first class, the seats were three feet wide and the padding was so thick and comfortable you could bounce on your bottom on the smooth leather and not even feel the springs beneath. There were lovely blue glass shutters, and a small window slid open so that the passengers could give instructions to the ‘boy’ on the other side, who sat in the small servant’s compartment. He wasn’t really a boy at all but a very old man who smiled at us with rheumy eyes when Mr Barton ordered him to fetch sweet lime sodas for all the young ladies.
The seats were long enough for the Bartons to take one each and recline full length, and they told us that at night their nowker made up the bed with a razai quilt and sheets. I thought of how we all fell asleep across each other’s laps, a tangle of limbs and skirts, and felt a pinch of shame.
I knew we shouldn’t have stayed so long, but first class was so deliciously cool. They had an air-cooling gadget in the wall, a kind of fan made of rushes and a wheel with the bottom half set in water. Tilly and Ruby stood in front of the machine while I turned the wheel and they squealed as cool air made their hair ripple out behind them.
Mr Barton laughed. ‘Here, we’ll get our nowker to do that for ye,’ he said. He went to slide the little window that looked into the servant’s room, but before he could speak there was a knock at the door of the compartment. It was Lionel.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, polite as you please. ‘Mr Arthur Percival, our manager, wants the young ladies to return to their seats.’
I saw a cloud pass across Tilly’s face but then she was all charm and smiles again.
‘Thank you so much for your hospitality, dear Mr and Mrs Barton,’ she said. ‘We’ve had a lovely time.’
‘Well, we hope to see you again, Miss Sweetrick, and your little friends. We must come along to that show of yours in Bombay.’
It was only when we were out in the corridor that Tilly turned on Lionel. ‘You really have turned into the Butcher’s lackey, haven’t you? The Butcher’s boy, running all his odious little errands.’
Lionel blushed and I did feel sorry for him.
‘You can tell him from me that we’re not going back to his compartment.’
‘You can’t do that!’ said Lionel.
‘Yes we can. We’re going to sit in the littlies’ compartment. I’m not putting up with Eliza Finton for a minute longer.’
‘I don’t want to change,’ I said, alarmed.
Ruby turned on me, her eyes flashing. ‘You’re such a turncoat, Poesy. First you were Tilly’s friend, then Eliza’s, then you made all that fuss about me, and now you want to climb back into Eliza’s pocket.’
‘I didn’t . . . ’ I sputtered.
‘Oh, that’s right,’ said Tilly slyly. She could be so cruelly sly. ‘You want everyone to believe we’re just one big happy family. You want everyone to like you, don’t you, Poesy? But when you’ve pried out all our secrets, you’ll scuttle back to Eliza, won’t you? Maybe you and Lionel are two peas in a pod. Maybe we should call you Lizzie’s lackey.’
I stood with my mouth open, staring at Tilly and Ruby in mute disbelief. I could barely recognise the laughing girls that I’d sat with in the dining compartment. They were like strangers. How could they both turn on me so quickly! Then I felt a lurching stab of guilt. Had I said something to Lizzie that I shouldn’t? We’d talked about Tilly and George but all the girls knew about their romance and I’d not breathed a word to Mr Arthur. And Ruby knew I’d never told anyone about her running away the second time. I looked at Ruby pleadingly but she simply flicked her hair and said, ‘Make up your mind. Whose side are you on?’
‘Why do there have to be sides? Why can’t we all be friends?’
‘Because sometimes you have to choose,’ said Tilly.
I bit my lip and thought of how Tilly twisted everything I’d said, how Ruby was turning back to her old, troublesome self. ‘Then I choose the truth.’ I turned to Lionel and said, ‘Let them sit with the babies. Why should anyone care? I’ll sit next to Lizzie.’
I didn’t look back as I followed Lionel through the rattling carriages, back to Lizzie and Mr Arthur.
40
NAKED TRUTHS
Poesy Swift
I tried to keep my distance from Tilly and Ruby as we sat on our trunks in the cool dawn, waiting for Mr Arthur and the men to organise bullock carts for the sets and costumes and carriages for us. Bombay Railway Station was the grandest we’d seen yet, more a palace than a place where trains came and went, but I was so miserable it might just as well have been a slum.
When we walked into the foyer of Watson’s Hotel I wandered away from everyone, into the hotel’s grand atrium. Guests were seated at little tables, enjoying tea and tiffin, and gazing up at the Indian sky. When I was called back to the group, I realised I should have stayed with Lizzie. Mr Arthur had lumped me back in with Ruby and Tilly, along with Iris, Daisy and Flora. I dragged my feet as we trudged upstairs to our room. The others flung themselves on their beds but I went straight to the big French doors that opened onto lacy cast-iron balconies. I stood outside, feeling the morning breeze drift up from the water.
Even though I was cross with her, I know what happened next wasn’t Tilly’s fault. Mr Arthur was very pale when he came and ordered Tilly, Ruby and me to come to his room. For a moment I thought it was because of what had happened between us on the train but then Mr Arthur pulled up a seat in front of us and his face grew very serious.
‘Now, my dear girls,’ he began, ‘I know this has not been the easiest of tours. I know there have been moments where some of you’, and here he looked pointedly at Ruby, ‘have wished to go home. But I also believe you are serious young actresses who are committed to your craft.’
We looked at each other, mystified. What on earth had happened?
‘Downstairs, in the dining room, the Police Commissioner is waiting to interview you. He asked specifically for you three girls. Apparently, someone in Melbourne wrote to the Police Commissioner saying that he should investigate the troupe and that “acts of cruelty” have been perpetrated against you and mentioned each of your names.
‘I know there have been times when you have deemed me harsh, but I have always acted in your best interests. And I expect you to act with the best interests of the troupe at heart and defend our integrity. If the Police Commissioner feels there are grounds for it, he will end our season. And here we are in the best hotel in Bombay with heavy bookings for all of this week’s performances. You simply cannot let the other children down and deny them this, and you cannot let yourselves down either, especially you, Ruby.’
Tilly and I both looked at Ruby.
‘If it comes out what you did in Penang, running away with a sailor, it is not the Lilliputians who will be judged, it is you, your decency and your moral integrity.’
Ruby looked down at her skirt and picked at a loose thread.
‘Is that understood?’ asked Mr Arthur. ‘By each one of you?’
We nodded mutely a
nd followed him down the wide staircase. I could feel my heart racing, pounding against my chest like a frightened bird, as if at any moment my ribs would break and the bird would fly out into the hot Bombay street.
Mr Arthur left us standing in the foyer while he went to speak with the Police Commissioner.
‘What am I going to do?’ said Ruby. ‘If my father finds out about what happened in Georgetown, he’ll kill me! Tilly, you mustn’t breathe a word. We have to put a good face on it. Even if it means covering up for that sneaking ass of a Butcher.’
‘I hope this isn’t because of the letter I wrote to Ma,’ said Tilly. ‘I told her how badly the Butcher was treating you and asked her to send for me, but I never heard from her. She was probably so sozzled when she read the letter that she simply forgot she’d received it. You know what she’s like.’
‘You didn’t tell her about Penang?’ asked Ruby, distraught.
‘No, of course I didn’t. Maybe Max and Freddie’s ma wrote. She’s got a fine temper and she’d be furious that she hasn’t been getting her sixty shillings.’
‘Then why aren’t Max and Freddie here? Why does the Commissioner want to speak to me?’ I asked.
They both looked at me as if they had forgotten I was there.
Tilly grabbed my hands. ‘It doesn’t matter why they’ve asked you along. You’ve simply got to help. For Ruby’s sake. I’m sorry if you think we were beastly to you on the train,’ she added, more as an afterthought than because she meant it. ‘But it’s time to stick together.’
I drew a deep breath and looked from one to the other. ‘All right, for Ruby’s sake,’ I said.
By the time we were all sitting before the Police Commissioner and his secretary, I had to fold my hands, one over the other, to stop them from trembling. Mr Arthur stood behind us, listening to every word we spoke. I didn’t want to tell a lie but I didn’t want to betray Mr Arthur and the troupe either or get Ruby into trouble. I didn’t know then that lying is easier than truth-telling.
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