by Anne Bennett
‘But I can’t be selfish indefinitely,’ Levingstone said. ‘Later, when you are ready and I am agreeable, after you have danced for the men’s entertainment, they will want you to change and join them for drinks. You will need the right clothes for that, and we must get you the proper clothes for dancing too. I have been making enquiries and there is a dressmaker in Wellington Road who makes dancing dresses.’
‘I have never had the right clothes,’ Aggie said. ‘We wore what we had. There was no spare money for anything else.’
‘Well, money is no object to me, so as soon as you are ready we will set off.’
* * *
Aggie could scarcely believe the type of clothes that Levingstone bought her.
He considered her one of the most bewitching girls he had ever met – and he had been involved with a fair few – so it pleased him to see her decently clad. He bought her such beautiful soft undergarments, as well as nightgowns of silk trimmed with lace and satin ribbons, that she was speechless with pleasure. Seeing her open-mouthed amazement amused Levingstone, and he only waited until the shop assistant was wrapping the nightclothes before whispering in her ear, ‘Those are a bit of a waste really, I suppose. I like my women naked in bed. Clothes get in the way of real honest-to-goodness sex, and I don’t like anything to get in the way of sex.’
Aggie felt mortified with shame for Levingstone using such words, and in a public place too. She was glad the assistant was not yet back with the parcels. But when she did return, ‘Aren’t you the lucky girl then?’ she said to Aggie with a knowing, almost sneering look.
Aggie didn’t answer and when they were in the carriage she said to Levingstone, ‘Does that shop assistant know who I am, or is it what I am?’
‘What are you?’
‘Well, I suppose I am a prostitute.’
‘Not yet you’re not,’ Levingstone said. ‘You are my fancy piece, if you like – my kept woman.’
‘And she would know that?’
‘I’d say she would have a fair idea.’
‘How would she know just by looking at me?’ Aggie demanded. ‘I mean, I haven’t got it stamped on my forehead.’
‘My dear,’ Levingstone said, ‘the woman knows me and knows the business I am in.’
‘I am not the first girl you have taken there, am I?’ Aggie asked.
Levingstone laughed. ‘Of course not, my dear. I am not a monk.’
Aggie was unaccountably disturbed about this, although she told herself she had no right to be.
The droop of her mouth irritated Levingstone and he said testily, ‘Why the long face? Be careful, my dear, for I can’t bear a woman who sulks. And when you consider what I have bought you this morning, you have no need to feel hard done by.’
‘I know, I’m sorry,’ Aggie said, truly contrite that she had upset Levingstone, who had been so kind to her.
‘I should think so,’ Levingstone said. ‘I have taken a great many young women to that shop and others like it, and bought them clothes, as I have you today. You don’t need to know this, but I will tell you anyway: I have never bought so many for one person, or taken so much pleasure from it, but that is as far as it goes.’
Aggie knew then Levingstone was saying she was perhaps special to him at the moment, but there would be no permanence there; that she was just one in a long line of many. She could have felt unhappy about this, but she reminded herself that Levingstone didn’t like to see sad faces and so she thought of all the nice clothes and that brought a smile to her face. ‘I do understand,’ she said, ‘and I am so grateful for all you have bought me today.’
Levingstone gave a grunt of satisfaction and then said, ‘And it is not over for now we are off to the dressmaker for dance dresses for you.’
‘I know,’ Aggie said. ‘I can’t tell you how excited I am about that.’
Levingstone’s good humour was fully restored and he said, ‘Your eyes speak for you, my dear. You are incredibly beautiful, you know, and when you blush like that you are lovelier than ever. Get used to compliments, for you will get many as you get older.’
‘I think I might need some time to do that,’ Aggie said, ‘because for fifteen years I was not encouraged to think of my appearance at all. It will probably take me time to adjust so totally. If my mother ever caught me looking in the mirror she said I was vain.’
Levingstone smiled. ‘You have something to be vain about,’ he said. ‘When I do take you down to the club I will have to take great care of you, or they will be at you like devouring wolves and, for the time being, you belong totally to me.’
‘And that,’ said Aggie, ‘is how I like it.’
She did mean that. If she had to live this kind of life, she would rather live with Levingstone and let him have sex with her whenever he wanted than be forced to lie with any Tom, Dick or Harry at the club.
‘Good,’ Levingstone said with a broad smile as the cab drew to a halt in front of a house in a tree-lined road. ‘Now let’s see about the making of these dresses…’
The woman who answered the door was dumpy, with a heavily lined face and grey hair scraped back in a bun. However, her blue eyes were as bright as buttons and her smile was so welcoming it nearly split her face in two. She introduced herself as Eileen Flaherty, originally from County Mayo. Aggie felt herself relax and let the familiar accent wash over her. Levingstone introduced her as his ward, Agnes, who had just come over from Ireland, and Aggie let out her breath in a silent sigh of relief.
‘The dresses are all made to measure,’ Eileen said, ‘and I have the bolts of cloth in the other room, if you would like to follow me.’
They did, and Aggie looked around the sewing room with interest. Rolls of cloth stood against one wall and a treadle sewing machine against another, and on the shelf under the window there were boxes full of pins, buttons, brooches, ribbon strips, needles and sewing cottons and silks, while a tailor’s dummy stood in the middle of the room.
‘We do three colours for Irish dance dresses,’ Eileen said, ‘and that is the saffron here, or the green or the white.’ She crossed the room and pointed to the rolls.
‘What do you think, Agnes?’ Levingstone asked.
His use of her full name made Aggie feel uneasy, as it was the name McAllister had used. She didn’t know what to say. Her opinion had seldom been asked, and certainly not concerning clothes. Even the new things Levingstone had bought earlier that day he had selected, and so she said, ‘Um, I don’t know really.’
‘Well, the white is very nice, don’t you think?’ Levingstone asked Mrs Flaherty. ‘Don’t you think it will go nicely with Agnes’s colouring?’
‘I do indeed,’ Mrs Flaherty agreed. Then, turning to Aggie, she added, ‘Suit you a treat, dear. White is very popular amongst the young ladies.’
‘On the other hand, white can be a bit wishy-washy,’ Levingstone went on. ‘Saffron, now, is a vibrant colour.’
‘Yes, and just as suitable with the young lady’s dark hair.’
‘Tell you what,’ Levingstone said suddenly. ‘Make up two, one in yellow and one white.’
Eileen Flaherty had never heard of such a thing before and she stared at him. ‘Two, sir? Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure,’ Levingstone said. ‘Now is there any decoration on these dresses?’
‘Oh, yes, sir,’ Mrs Flaherty said. ‘The dresses are made up with a shawl fastened with a brooch on the shoulder. I have a selection of brooches here and each one is decorated with designs from the Book of Kells, which is a very old Bible, illustrated beautifully by the monks. When the young miss has chosen what design she wants I will embroider the dresses to match either around the neckline, or the hem, or both if she wishes it.’
‘That sounds very satisfactory.’
‘Now while Agnes is choosing her designs and she is being measured, can I interest you in a glass of wine in the other room?’ Mrs Flaherty said. Levingstone agreed, and Aggie busied herself searching through the brooches.
Eileen Flaherty had a healthy interest in people, and was terribly curious about Levingstone and Aggie. As she was laying out the brooches she asked the girl, ‘Is he very rich, your guardian?’
Aggie knew she had to be careful what she said, but she couldn’t not answer. ‘Think so,’ she replied. I think he owns clubs and things like that. I don’t know that much about him. As he said, I have only recently come over from Ireland.’
‘Did you lose your parents, dear?’
Aggie remembered what Lily had told her about her own parents. ‘Yes, they had typhoid,’ she said.
‘I am so sorry, dear,’ Mrs Flaherty said sympathetically. ‘Such a tragedy for you. What good fortune you have such a well-to-do guardian.’
Aggie hid her smile as she agreed and wondered what this respectable woman would do if she were to blurt the truth out to her.
She didn’t, of course, and with the brooches chosen she removed her dress and the shift beneath it so that Mrs Flaherty could measure her. She was surprised to be measured only to the knee.
‘That’s where the hem is,’ Mrs Flaherty said when Aggie queried this.
Aggie was surprised. She trusted that Mrs Flaherty knew what she was talking about and yet she had never worn anything so short. Her own skirts reached the top of the ugly boots she had arrived in from Ireland. Thinking about that, though, as she dressed herself again, put her in mind of the beautiful boots Levingstone had bought her a little earlier. They were black, of the softest leather and fastened with little buttons – quite the nicest footwear she had ever owned.
As if she knew she was thinking of footwear, Mrs Flaherty said, ‘If you are ready, we will talk about dancing shoes.’
‘I never owned dancing shoes of any description,’ Aggie was saying as Mrs Flaherty showed her into the other room.
‘So what did you dance in?’
‘Bare feet mainly.’
‘So what about the dances that need hard shoes?’
‘Well, that was mainly hornpipes,’ Aggie said, ‘and we tended not to do many of them because we used our ordinary shoes or boots and it just wasn’t the same without the tap. For most of the jigs and reels, soft shoes are needed anyway and bare feet sufficed there.’
‘So there is a whole area of Irish dance that you haven’t explored?’ Levingstone said.
Aggie shrugged. ‘Well, yes, but all the girls in my home town were in the same boat.’
‘Well, it isn’t the case now,’ Levingstone said. ‘I want Aggie to have the works, hard shoes and soft shoes and anything else she needs.’
‘Well, I have a collection of shoes here, and going by the size of her boots I am certain that I can get her fitted up with all she requires,’ Mrs Flaherty said. ‘Then at least she can keep practising while she is waiting for the dresses to be made up.’ She turned to Aggie. ‘Are you thinking of entering for competitions, my dear?’
Aggie didn’t know how to answer this and was glad Levingstone jumped in before her slight hesitation could be noticed. ‘That’s the sort of thing we had in mind,’ he said. ‘And she has to look the part.’
‘Oh, yes, indeed she does.’
It was as they were going home in the cab, Aggie clutching the bag containing the shoes and the regulation black stockings, that Levingstone struck terror into her heart when he said, ‘I am going to arrange a dancing teacher for you.’
Unbidden, there came into Aggie’s mind McAllister’s lust-filled face that night the previous December as he thrust himself inside her time after time. She felt suddenly sick and so, without thinking, she looked Levingstone full in the face and said, ‘Oh no you’re not.’
Levingstone was amazed, and he said with a grim and humourless laugh, ‘You, my dear, are in no position to tell me what to do.’
Aggie was flustered. ‘Oh, I know, and I am sorry but I really don’t want a dancing teacher.’
‘Aggie, by your own admission you have done virtually no work on the dances requiring hard shoes. People are going to pay good money to see you dance and your repertoire has to be as extensive as possible.’
‘But I really can’t have a dancing teacher,’ Aggie said. ‘Please don’t ask it of me. I will teach myself, dance my feet off, do anything else you want…’
Aggie had been unaware that she was wringing her hands until Levingstone enfolded them with his and said quite gently, ‘What’s this all about, Aggie?’
She turned to look at him and even Levingstone was moved by the depth of sadness there as she whispered, ‘It was the dancing teacher in Ireland that raped me and made me pregnant. He forced me to flee here, to leave my home and family behind for ever. I want no truck with any dancing teacher.’
Levingstone gave Aggie’s hands a little shake. ‘I can’t fix what happened to you,’ he said, ‘but any impropriety will not be tolerated in any dancing teacher I engage.’
‘How do you know? How can you be sure?’
‘Aggie, you are under my protection,’ Levingstone said. ‘No one will touch you, never fear.’
Aggie had dropped her head and he lifted it and looked into her eyes.
‘Do you trust me, Aggie?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Aggie said without hesitation.
‘Then we will have no more silliness about the dancing teacher.’
Behind the gentleness in Levingstone’s tone, Aggie heard the steel and she knew in all things this man would have his way. She also knew she couldn’t make any more fuss because then he might be really angry with her.
NINE
‘I have found you a dancing teacher,’ Levingstone announced to Aggie. It was just over a week since she had been measured for the clothes and so Aggie was surprised. She had thought and hoped it would take him longer to find someone who knew much about Irish dancing in Birmingham.
Levingstone smiled at her surprised look. ‘That gave you a shock, I see,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe in letting the grass grow under my feet when I have decided something. Anyway, this man goes by the name of Colm Donahue. In fact, I didn’t have to go that far to look for he is the cook, Bessie’s, nephew and he works with a fiddler called Tim Furey. Bessie said Colm was in competitions all over Ireland and set to win all before him,’ Levingstone went on, ‘but he crocked his ankle up, and that was that as far as competition-level dancing went. So now he teaches it instead and he vouches for the fiddler. According to Bessie, he says it is better to have live music than a gramophone record. Then if you are teaching something new you can go over the same movement again and again to get it right.’ He gave Aggie a rueful glance. ‘I should say he is a hard taskmaster, but that shouldn’t bother you too much, should it?’
‘I have never been afraid of hard work,’ Aggie said. ‘I have been about it since I was a child.’ She stopped as her words brought a flash of memory of her home in Ireland, dancing to the music of Tom’s fiddle, and she felt pangs of homesickness stab at her heart.
Levingstone watched her with narrowed eyes and knew, from the wistful look on her face, she was remembering her earlier life. He knew a little of her background, but as far as he was concerned, the girls’ lives started when they came to work for him and what went before was irrelevant.
So he said to Aggie, ‘It does no good looking back, you know?’
‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ Aggie said sharply. ‘The memories come unbidden and they sadden me, for my life here is so different.’
But then she was changed too. Every night she welcomed a man who wasn’t her husband into her bed. And that was the word too: welcomed. He had said he would not force her to have sex, that he had never had to force a woman, and he was right. She had been on fire for him and still was. Surely that made her a disgusting and depraved creature?
‘Is it a bad life?’ Levingstone asked. ‘Are you happy, Aggie?’
She considered the question and answered honestly, ‘I don’t mind my life at all. I have never had such an easy time of it. In fact, when I first came here, I was overawed with
the opulence of this apartment and you having servants and all. It still feels odd to have people doing things for me as if I was some big important person. Mary and Bessie are very patient with me, though, and so kind, and I am getting better at treating them as they expect, but I would be very hard to please if I didn’t like living with you, and I know my life would have been vastly different if I’d had to trawl the streets looking for perfect strangers to have sex with.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Levingstone said. ‘That sort of life is years away from you at the moment.’
Levingstone hadn’t said she’d never have that sort of life. She remembered Lily saying something similar and warning her that Levingstone liked young, pretty girls around him – Susie had been disregarded because of her wonky eye – and she suddenly went cold inside.
She knew it was no good badgering Levingstone about it and so instead of going down that road she said, ‘If you are determined to engage this dancing teacher for me, I suppose I had better know something about him.’
‘Don’t know that I can tell you that much,’ Levingstone said. ‘I have only met him the once myself.’
‘Well, how old is he?’
‘Youngish, I believe,’ Levingstone said. ‘Well, that is, he’s not a boy or anything. Early thirties, I’d say.’ He glanced at Aggie. ‘At your age I suppose you think that old?’
‘Not old exactly,’ Aggie said. ‘But not young either.’
‘Oh, very nice,’ Levingstone said sarcastically. ‘What does that make me then?’
‘You, Alan, are timeless,’ Aggie told him. ‘It’s just with the dancing teacher… oh, I don’t know.’
‘Now what’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Come on, Aggie, I know you better than that,’ Levingstone said. ‘Out with it.’
