Leading Lady (3 page)

Three and a half miles north of the theatre’s stone facade lay another of London’s villages, quaint Hampstead. It was where Bethia Rayborn lived, in a house at 5 Cannonhall Road with her parents and nineteen-year-old brother, Danny, as well as her half-sister, Sarah, Sarah’s husband, William Doyle, and their son, fifteen-year-old John.

Danny had left on Thursday past to begin his second year at the world-renowned medical school of the University of Edinburgh, and on this Tuesday morning of the fifth of October, Bethia was leaving for Girton College. She donned a traveling suit of blue-and-gray plaid cashmere, angled a blue French beret upon her head, and left with her parents for King’s Cross Station.

They arrived an hour early, time enough for tea at one of the tables spilling out from one of the cafés under the arched train shed. Tea
and
watching people pass, at least for Bethia and her mother, Naomi. Her father, Daniel, scanned the brick walls and the myriad of posters touting the quality of such products as Pears Soap and Brook’s Improved Patent Sewing Cotton. Bethia knew the purpose of his search—to find the clever and innovative Rowland’s Macassar Oil advertisements, which featured actual close-up photographs of men with
disheveled hair and panicked expressions, over the caption,
What do you mean, we’re out of Rowland’s?

Presently her father settled back into his chair, crossing his long legs at the knees. “Arnold Fox takes those photographs for Rowland’s,” he said, pointing at the latest poster with a trace of pride, for Arnold Fox was a fellow member of the British Camera Club.

“Does he, now?” Bethia said, exchanging knowing looks with her mother. “You’ve never mentioned that.”

Her father looked at her through narrowed eyes. “Now you’re mocking me, aren’t you?”

“Just a bit, Father. Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” he replied, smiling.

At length they stood on the platform, where the boarding whistle from the locomotive of the Great Northern Railway Express had induced a frenzy of farewells and gathering of luggage. Behind the engine waited six first-class passenger carriages, all smart and clean and yellow, with appropriate names on each door panel—
Queen Victoria, Prince of Wales, Venus, Mercury, Comet,
and
Star.
Father accompanied her to the door of the Mercury, where a woman and two girls, one old enough to be a college fresher, the other much younger, were stashing handbags and umbrellas over seats at the opposite window.

“Pardon me, is there a seat available?” Father said, just in case they were holding places for others.

We’re expecting two more,” the women said pleasantly. “My sister and niece. So there will still be one available.”

All Bethia had with her were her umbrella and satchel, having sent her trunk ahead last week to avoid the commotion at Cambridge Station. Father placed these in the window seat facing forward. That was one of the nicest things about family, Bethia thought as they again joined her mother, out of the way of others. Everyone knew one another’s preferences and needs, such as how riding backward gave her motion sickness.

“It seems all we do lately is put our children on trains,” Father sighed.

At sixty-eight, Daniel Rayborn’s hair and beard were completely gray, his posture still erect but eyes now dependent upon wire-rimmed spectacles. Bethia knew he was thinking of Danny, who had boarded the Flying Scotsman at this same station. She stood on tiptoe to kiss his lined cheek. “We’ll be home again in two months,” she reminded him. “That’s hardly any time at all.”

“You’ll remember to dress warmly when the weather turns, now won’t you?” Mother said.

“I will.”

Bethia smiled as they pressed cheeks together. The habit of nurturing was ingrained too deeply in Naomi Rayborn’s psyche to expect her to lay it aside just because her children were practically adults.

Fifty-nine years had frosted Mother’s strawberry-blonde hair with gray. But the bottle-blue eyes could still flash humor, and the voice that had soothed away Bethia’s nightmares as a child would always endear home to her.

The second whistle sounded, followed by shrieks and giggles from the Mercury. Bethia glanced at the window. Another woman and girl of college age had joined the first three.

“It’s going to be a long trip,” Father said. “Too late to find another coach.”

“I’m sure they’ll settle down,” Bethia said over another burst of giggles. She noticed the guard collecting tickets at the coach behind the locomotive. With two more quick embraces for her parents, she boarded.

“Good morning,” she said to the women and three girls sharing her carriage.

“Good morning,” all five replied in varying degrees of timbre.

Seconds later the guard appeared at the open window. “Tickets, please?”

“Thank you,” said the women, passing their five tickets to Bethia in her window seat.

“You’re welcome,” Bethia said. After the guard closed the window and was gone, she smiled at her mother and father through the glass. She did not turn away again until the train panted out of the station and the two were out of sight.

“Those were your grandparents?” the dark-haired woman seated beside her asked as the wheels beneath them gathered speed.

“My parents.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon.”

“It’s a natural assumption,” Bethia said, and smiled to show she took no offense. Years ago she had ceased bristling when people made such assumptions. Life was filled with good people who simply voiced their thoughts without pausing to consider if they were appropriate. And of truth, her parents
were
old enough to be grandparents. “I’m very proud of them.”

“And well you should be,” the woman said hastily. “Please allow us to introduce ourselves. I’m Mrs. Jordan.” She nodded at the girl in the center of the trio of girls. “And this is my daughter, Florence.”

The other woman, two seats over from Bethia, had brown hair and spectacles just like Father’s. She was leaning a bit to see past her sister. “And I’m Mrs. Linsell with my daughters Ursula and Margaret.”

Ursula, at the window, was of college age like Florence. Margaret sat facing Bethia and appeared to be about nine.

“I’m Bethia Rayborn. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“And we’re pleased to make yours,” Mrs. Jordan said. “May we be so bold as to ask if you’re a Cambridge student?”

“I’m beginning my fourth year at Girton College.”

“Girton!” Mrs. Linsell clasped her hands at her ample bosom. “Isn’t that wonderful, girls?”

All three nodded. Florence said, “That’s where we’re enrolled.”

Bethia smiled. “You made a wise choice. It’s a fine school.”

“We were impressed with our tour,” Mrs. Linsell said. Concern dented the skin between her eyebrows. “But we’re not quite certain of the arrival procedure. Will we be met at Cambridge Station?”

“Yes. Some of the assistant lecturers will be there, and usually Miss Jones, the vice-mistress. I’ll be happy to lead you to them. And porters will be available to load your trunks onto the school wagon.”

“Very kind of you, Miss Rayborn,” Mrs. Jordan said. “What of transportation to the college?”

“I’m afraid there is none arranged,” Bethia replied, “what with students arriving at scattered times. But you’ll have no difficulty procuring a carriage. And don’t worry about stopping for lunch. There will be sandwiches set out in the dining hall.”

“Very good.” Mrs. Jordan turned away to confer with her sister. While Bethia was not purposely eavesdropping, her ears caught the word
carriage
and her eyes caught the stricken looks the older girls were giving each other.

“Mother . . . we’ll be fine,” the one named Florence said.

Ursula bobbed her head. “
Please.
”

Mrs. Jordan gave the girls a doubtful look and turned again to Bethia. “We had assumed Girton would provide chaperones from the station on. You see, Miss Rayborn, the girls have asked us not to accompany them to school.”

Mrs. Linsell, leaning forward again, said, “They wish to be independent young women. Having their mothers tagging along will make them feel less grown-up.”

Bethia understood. She and most of her classmates would admit to having felt the same way when they were freshers.

“But they’ve never taken a cab without an escort. . . .”

“Mother, it’s only three miles,” Ursula whined.

“The cabbies have always been very helpful to the women
students,” Bethia assured the group. “But if it would put your minds at ease, your daughters and I could share one.”

The older girls let out breaths in unison and gave their mothers hopeful looks.

“Why, that’s most kind of you, Miss Rayborn,” Mrs. Linsell said.

“Most kind,” Mrs. Jordan echoed. “We’ll not worry, with them in your capable hands. How can we ever thank you?”

“Really, it’s nothing.” Which wasn’t quite so, for Bethia would now have to wait until the girls’ trunks were secured on the school wagon. “I’m going the same way.”

“Still, it’s terribly good of you,” Mrs. Linsell insisted. “What are you studying, Miss Rayborn?”

“History.” Bethia looked at the older girls. “And you?”

Florence replied that she was interested in Natural Science, Ursula in Classics. “But I may switch to Mathematics next term, if I find I don’t care for Classics,” Ursula added, and shrugged. “Or I may just study both.”

“Ursula has a wide range of interests,” Mrs. Linsell said proudly, as her older daughter nodded. “She plays four musical instruments.”

“And Florence enjoys tennis as much as science,” said Mrs. Jordan. “She was awarded four trophies at Holland Park Academy.”

“I won a medal for spelling last term,” the young girl, Margaret, said timidly.

Her sister, Ursula, obviously embarrassed, gave Bethia an apologetic look. “It was only third place.”

Bethia smiled at the younger girl, whose expression had crumpled. “I was never even good enough for third place. What’s your secret?”

Margaret brightened. “As I write words for practice, I divide them into syllables. They’re much easier to learn if you break them down.”

“I’ll be sure to try that.”

“This is your sister’s special day,” Mrs. Linsell reminded
her younger daughter. “Miss Rayborn, what are the library hours? Ursula is a voracious reader and will wish to spend a lot of time there.”

“As will Florence,” Mrs. Jordan chimed.

Bethia answered that question and several more. When there was enough of a pause to where she would not be acting rudely, she took Horatio Pater’s
Studies in the History of the Renaissance
from her satchel. The women’s boasting over their eldest daughters was becoming fatiguing. Thankfully they took the hint and began conversing among themselves again.

When the clicks of the rails beneath her became farther apart—signaling the approach of her destination—she closed her book to take in the familiar landmarks of Cambridgeshire. Fields and hedgerows, a half-timbered farmhouse with a grazing flock of gray sheep, the brown brick grammar school with red shutters, the white-haired man rising from the bench in front of his stone cottage to wave at the train, pipe in his other hand and Irish Setter at his feet. Bethia returned his wave, as she had done for the past three years.

Presently, movement ceased with a great hissing of steam. A hush fell over the fivesome as the coach rocked back upon its tracks. Bethia packed her book into her satchel and took hold of the umbrella wedged between her seat and the wall. The door opened, a smiling guard touched the beak of his cap and moved on.

“Well, this is it,” Bethia said to Ursula and Florence.

“This is it,” Margaret echoed wistfully.

Bethia gave the younger girl another smile and stepped out onto the busy platform, standing aside for the others to exit. As the group moved several feet from the train, the mothers reminded their daughters to shake Miss Jones’s hand.

“But only after she offers hers,” Mrs. Linsell said.

Mrs. Jordan nodded. “Give a firm grip, mind you, but not like a man’s.”

“Miss Rayborn?”

Bethia turned, unwittingly, and met Douglas Pearce’s sheepish smile. Her umbrella clattered to the platform.

No!
This could not be happening! She accepted the umbrella from Margaret’s hand with face burning, too rattled to thank the girl.

“For a minute I wasn’t certain it was you.” Mr. Pearce’s hazel eyes gave her an appraising look. “The hat suits you. You look like a French girl.”

“You shouldn’t have followed me, Mr. Pearce,” Bethia said, as softly as the chatter of the crowd would allow, but with enough force in her tone to press her point. She was finished being nice, because that just did not seem to work. “Do you not have a job?”

“You left me no choice, don’t you see? Jewel wouldn’t allow me to see you yesterday, and your brother-in-law refused to fetch you to the telephone this morning.”

“At my request,” Bethia informed him.

“Who is he, Mother?” Margaret asked.

“Sh-h-h.”

Bethia glanced at the faces beside her. Self-consciously the women and two older girls looked down at the platform. But they did not move away. The air was heavy with expectation—Mr. Pearce expecting her to say something to justify his appearance, the women perhaps hoping for some gossip to go along with their tea this afternoon.

“Miss Rayborn?” he said.

The voice grated upon Bethia’s nerves like fingernails upon blackboard. How could she have ever found that voice pleasant, even warm, the day they had shared tea at Covent Garden? Had he no other interests besides
her?
Whatever in the world had he done with his life before that chance meeting?

“ . . . could speak somewhere privately?” he was saying.

Reluctantly Bethia moved closer, in order to be heard over the chatter of the crowd. “Good day, Mr. Pearce. Please go back to London. We have to leave now.”

She was turning to usher the mothers and daughters toward
the school authorities, when her upper arm was caught in a firm grip.

“Does it please you to torment me? I can neither sleep nor work for thinking of you!”