Kitty Little (30 page)

‘I suppose there’s order somewhere in all of this,’ Jacob grumbled, struggling to fasten his helmet on and bringing forth a burst of giggles from Kitty when he finally succeeded, for it was several sizes too small. Her own was no more comfortable, coming half way down her cheeks. Swapping them produced a slight improvement but it still felt so awkward and clumsy, Kitty abandoned all hope of wearing it.

‘Don’t start developing Charlotte’s airs and graces,’ Suzy warned.

Felicity said, ‘Perhaps she wants to look her best for Tommy Atkins.’

‘To hell with Tommy Atkins,’ Kitty warned. ‘It just makes my head ache, that’s all. Anyway, if a bullet has got your number on it, a tin hat isn’t going to save you is it?’ She shrugged, in a what-the-hell gesture, holding up a warning finger when Frank looked as if he might be about to start on his usual fussing.

After almost an hour of sitting packed like sardines in the vehicle with mayhem continuing unabated around them, they all got out again to stretch their legs.

‘Oiled wheels of punctuality my foot. Where is he, this Captain Dafydd- whatever-he’s-called? Can’t we set off without him and meet him on the road?’

‘I have my orders to wait here,’ said the young corporal, appalled at the very idea of taking such an initiative.

Another hour or more went by and only Reg, with his more pragmatic approach to life, seemed able to withstand the pressure of the enforced delay. Felicity was in a lather of impatience, Suzy had smoked a whole packet of cigarettes, Jacob was mopping his brow every five minutes and threatening to go in search of the nearest pub. Tessa had vomited ferociously and was now laid out among all their worldly goods and chattels, moaning that she would take the next ship home if someone didn’t get her some fresh air soon. Kitty herself felt as if her head were bursting. Finally, she’d had enough of kicking her heels and doing nothing.
 

‘Nearly three hours we’ve been stuck here. If we’re to arrive before dark we should get going.’

‘He’d have my guts for garters for breaking an order.’

‘He can have my guts if he likes, or even my garters, but if you know where this dratted theatre is, lets go. My head is splitting from all this noise. I need a bed, a bath and some food.’

‘Not necessarily in that order,’ Felicity grumbled, and with one accord they all piled back into the truck.

The young corporal climbed reluctantly behind the wheel and with a jolt and a lurch they were off.
 

They rattled along at a cracking speed, despite the rutted roads. But progress was frustratingly slow. At every crossroad military police directing operations seemed to be fighting a losing battle against traffic rushing about in every direction. The LTP’s truck frequently got held up behind ranks of new recruits marching to replace the depleted ranks of those already lost at the Front. Or their passage would be blocked by the abandoned wreck of a vehicle, empty trucks returning to Boulogne, as well as those loaded with guns, army boots and other flotsam and jetsam of war travelling in the opposite direction. Often their truck would be forced to pull over to make room for a speeding ambulance or a shrieking dispatch rider which always had right of way.

Kitty, together with Tessa, who was in an even worse state than herself, sat up front with the corporal and from their vantage point could clearly see the pitted ground where shells had landed. They passed through several villages and small towns which had been ruthlessly shelled, with many buildings reduced to rubble, signs everywhere warning about the dangers of falling masonry.

‘What have we come to?’ Kitty murmured, half under her breath as the truck rumbled on.

‘Hell,’ came Suzy’s voice from behind, and as the cack-cack of guns sounded, the corporal casually suggested they might care to put on their helmets. As one shell hit the ground no more than fifty feet away, sending a cloud of dust into the air, they did exactly that, all earlier resistance forgotten.

Kitty closed her eyes in the hope that forty winks might make her feel halfway human again and calm her stubbornly churning stomach. It came to her that the Theatre of War was nothing like as much fun as their more accustomed venue. And the thought that perhaps Esme might have been right to refuse to accompany them, crept into her mind.

These last months following Archie and Charlotte’s return from honeymoon, everything had changed for the LTP’s. Repstone Manor was no longer available as a base for the company to rehearse in or even for rest periods. Within days of settling into her new home, Charlotte had embarked upon a programme of refurbishment, as if to firmly establish herself as Lady of the Manor. There was no room at Repstone now for a “second-rate group of travelling players”. Charlotte’s description. Nor for those who were once close to Archie, and perhaps still nurtured a lingering fondness for him.

Not surprising, in the circumstances, that the whole troupe had been behind Kitty when she’d put it to them that instead of touring England they entertain the soldiers in France. Taking the show on the road for another season had somehow lost its flavour and Kitty had longed for a new challenge, perhaps even personal danger which might drive the devils of self-pity from her soul.

A few enquiries at the War Office ascertained that this was feasible, so long as the Players confined themselves to base hospitals and rest billets. The whole company had readily volunteered to go with her, except for Sam and Rob who had joined a Pals regiment together, and Archie and Charlotte, of course. And Esme.

Kitty had sat on the bed watching her friend pack, begging her to change her mind. ‘What will you do? Where can you go?’

‘You think I can’t survive without you? I did before. Why not now?’

‘I thought you and I were friends. Friends should stick together.’

Esme had put her arms about Kitty and wept silent anguished tears. ‘This has nothing to do with our friendship. You know it hasn’t. If Archie were coming too, then it would be different but while he remains here, so must I.’

‘He’s
married
for God’s sake.’

‘It doesn’t matter. It can’t last. Not with Charlotte. How could it? I must be here in case he should ever need me, at least as a friend.’

‘How long are you going to wait for him?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe forever.’ A faraway look had come into her eyes. ‘It doesn’t matter. If I can’t have Archie, I don’t want anyone.’

Kitty gritted her teeth in frustration, but however much she sighed and argued, ranted, railed or reasoned, it did no good. Esme had made up her mind. Her decision was unshakeable. The most Kitty could get out of her was that as soon as she’d found another theatrical troupe to join, and got even half settled in some digs, she’d write.

‘Every day.’

Esme hugged Kitty close, chuckling softly. ‘How will I have time to write every day if the new director works me even half as hard as you did. I’ll write regularly, I promise.’

‘Where will you go?’ Kitty asked again, devastated to be losing her friend.

‘Wherever there’s work. Perhaps the pier at Blackpool or Morecambe. And Manchester’s full of theatres. I don’t know but I’ll find one that’ll take me up, don’t worry.’

When Kitty woke the next morning, Esme had gone. There’d been only one letter before they embarked for France, postmarked Accrington. It gave a cheerful account of a week’s work she’d found at the local Hippodrome. After that, Esme said, she intended to take the bus to Preston where she’d heard of a new repertory theatre starting up. That was months ago and, worryingly, Kitty had heard nothing since.

She was jolted out of her thoughts by her head banging against the metal door frame as the truck lurched into a pot hole. Loud curses from the corporal soon made it clear that they’d suffered a puncture. Almost with sighs of relief they all scrambled out, eager to ease their aches and bruises while the driver set about the task of replacing the wheel and repairing it.

‘Where’s the jack and the chocks?’ Reg said, rolling up his sleeves.

‘At least he’s happy,’ Suzy drily remarked. ‘Otherwise I’d say war was no fun at all.’

It was then that Kitty heard the tramp of tired feet and around the corner of the dusty track that passed for a road came a company of soldiers, each weary man weighed down by his pack complete with entrenching tools and rifle.

‘Well, well,’ she said, brightening upon the instant. ‘Here comes our first audience.’

Charlotte swept her critical gaze about the shabby sitting room, at the threadbare carpets and peeling wallpaper, creeping mould on the ceiling and woodwork that hadn’t been repainted for a hundred years at least. This wasn’t what she’d bargained for when she’d abandoned Magnus and risked bigamy. Yet given proper care and attention, not to mention a dash of those funds Archie kept squirreled away, it could all be so different. She picked sulkily at a tapestry cushion, threadbare and grubby.

‘You can be vexingly mean, don’t you know?’ she complained. ‘All I want is to do out this dreary room so we can entertain properly. What is so wrong with that?’

Given her head, she would refurbish the entire house in a more
avant-garde
style, as the smart set were doing in Belgravia. Charlotte longed for white sofas and deep pile carpets, Chinese porcelain and drifts of ice cool lilies in every room which she would brighten with marvellous little pictures in sea-washed colours reflecting the new Futurist mode. She would hold smart little dinner parties to which everyone would simply
ache
to be invited. Now that would be real
stardom. Instead, she’d been confined to the redecoration of their own bedroom suite and a small parlour. It was really too bad of Archie to be so parsimonious.

It had come to be a familiar scene: Charlotte railing while Archie buried his head behind his newspaper, sometimes making no response at all. Today, his dry, quiet tones broke into her dreaming fantasies. ‘Utter tosh.’

Charlotte pouted. ‘I want us to take our proper place in Society as your mother must have done, and no doubt her mother before her.’

‘Ma? Lord, she didn’t give a fig for Society, only her own little clutch of friends. Cackling hens, Pater called them, affectionately of course, don’t you know.’ A sadness came into his eyes as he gazed across the room, almost as if he could see his darling mama seated behind the huge silver teapot with whiskery Aunt Grace and scrawny Mrs Pilling gossiping away twenty to the dozen as they consumed scones and fancies to their heart’s content.

Charlotte stamped her foot and a cloud of dust burst forth from the faded Persian rug, which raised her temper another notch. Even finding staff to keep the place up to her immaculate standards was proving vexingly difficult, since all the young men were joining up with a fervour and young women taking over their jobs on the farm and in factories, scorning poorly paid domestic service. There were even days when she’d come close to regretting having disposed of the irritating Mrs Pips since the woman had her uses.

‘Well I do care a fig, so don’t compare me to your stupid, unfashionable mother.’

The look on his face was dreadful to behold, warning Charlotte that she’d gone too far. She mellowed her tone upon the instant. ‘Darling Archie,’ she wheedled, kneeling beside him as was her wont. ‘I didn’t quite mean that as it sounded.’ The nearest Charlotte could ever come to an apology was to deny what she had said. ‘I know you do your best. It’s just that you give so little credence to the importance of Society because you’ve always had a secure place in it. You take it all for granted. But don’t you see what it would mean to me? I need to make my mark in this new world I have entered, as your wife.’ She dabbed at a manufactured tear.

‘You have already, judging by the bills for frocks and furbelows I’ve received,’ Archie coolly reminded her.

‘Drat you Archie Emerson, you’re being deliberately difficult. ‘Anyway, who are you to talk? Aren’t you quite the man-about-town yourself?’

It was one of the things she admired most about him. He always insisted on the very finest worsted suits, even a matching cap for his knickerbockers when he went bicycling. Charlotte simply adored his crimson silk dressing gowns and velvet smoking jackets, his Moroccan leather travelling case which held his cut-throat razor, stick of shaving soap, toothbrush and tin of Calvert’s Carbolic toothpowder. Archie was fastidious to the point of obsession, which fascinated and infuriated her all at the same time; particularly if she was waiting for him to come to bed and he was still fussing in his dressing room. ‘You’re ashamed of me, that’s what it is,’ she shouted, patience exhausted.

‘Perhaps I’m sick of being used as a walking bank account.’

‘How
dare
you!’ Charlotte was on her feet, small face scarlet with fury. Her own attire that morning was, as always, the height of fashion, being a beige silk suit with an ankle length narrow skirt over which she wore a modish over-tunic that reached almost to her knees. As she yelled and screamed, throwing herself into a fine paddy, she took great care not to crease it. And as she did so, her Yorkshire accent thickened, deliberately so. ‘You think I’ll let thee down. Well ‘appen I will.’

‘Calm down, Charlotte. You’ll hurt yourself. You don’t normally speak so broad, so why adopt that dreadful accent just to make a point which is completely fallacious.’

‘Fallacious? What’s that when it’s at home?’ She put her hands on her hips and rocked back on her heels, laughing at him, the raucous sound of her voice frighteningly close to hysteria. ‘A girl from t’gutter wouldn’t know the meaning of such fancy words. I only know the kind of words that would’ve made your precious Ma faint clean away. Words like bugger and whore. That’s what I am tha knows. A bleedin’ ...’