The Town in Bloom (11 page)

‘And no electric fires,’ said Molly.

‘They won’t need them, with those huge, ugly radiators,’ said Lilian. ‘Well, let’s look at the bedrooms.’

The front room had a massive white and gold bedroom suite.

‘Ah, this will please Madam Lily de Luxe,’ said Molly.

‘Not really; it’s old-fashioned. Still, it
is
luxurious.’ Lilian sat down in front of the triple mirror.

I followed Molly through the large, tiled bathroom which led to the back bedroom – a man’s room, furnished in mahogany.

‘Need we go any further?’ I asked.

But Lilian was determined to. On the next floor were two more bedrooms. The front one obviously belonged to two boys; there were school photographs and adventure books. Even Lilian doubted if the attics were worth exploring; she thought they would be servants’ rooms. But we went up. And as it turned out, the servants’ rooms must have been in the basement for the whole of the top floor was given up to a day nursery, a night nursery and a bathroom. And at last we found an electric fire. It was in
the front room, the day nursery, behind a tall fireguard.

‘Marvellous,’ said Molly. ‘We can drape our dresses over, the fireguard. Now if only the electricity is on!’

It was, and the girls instantly took off their wet dresses and stockings, and practically forced me to take mine off too.

‘You’ll get a chill if you don’t,’ said Molly. ‘And even if anyone
should
come in downstairs, no one will come up here. This nursery hasn’t been used for years.’

She was obviously right about the nursery. The pink wall paper was faded and there was general slight dilapidation, whereas the rest of the house was in glossy repair. Presumably the children were now schoolboys. I relaxed a little. Perhaps we were fairly safe; and I was glad to get out of my wet dress.

Still, I wasn’t happy. And I found it strange that the girls, who had told me they would never have had the courage to force their way into that audition at the Crossway, could now be so bravely unconcerned. I had
needed
no courage at the Crossway; I had just done what came naturally to me – and it hadn’t been
illegal
. Perhaps my terror of the law was provincial? But I think the real truth was that I had a vivid imagination and, from the moment we entered the house, I had been creating mental pictures of our discovery and arrest. The girls simply did not visualise getting caught.

The nursery blinds were pink, and all the furniture was pink. With the electric fire on, the room was cosy. We wandered round looking at old toys and pictures. The girls, having found their
crêpe de chine
cami-knickers as wet as their dresses, had taken them off and were wearing only
the tight silk brassieres that coerced their busts into fashionable flatness, and pink girdles from which
suspenders
dangled and jangled. My underwear was still childish and there was a good deal of it. Had I been as scantily clad as Molly and Lilian were I could not have behaved with the complete unself-consciousness they had probably learned in theatre dressing-rooms. (Once, when I had undressed while they were in my cubicle, I had convulsed them with laughter because I put on my nightgown before removing my last layer of underwear. They called this ‘The Modest Mouse’s Tent Technique’.)

After a while, when Molly had settled in the Nanny’s wicker chair and Lilian and I had managed to wedge ourselves into two tiny painted armchairs, we went back to talking about how we were to find our suitcases and where we were to sleep. Lilian suggested we should stay where we were. Molly said we should get hungry.

‘Well, we might slip out for a meal,’ said Lilian – and then remembered we hadn’t a penny between us. We kept
on
forgetting about our handbags.

It was about then that I heard the telephone ringing below. All my terror rushed back.

‘Now calm down,’ said Molly. ‘The fact that someone’s ringing up doesn’t mean a thing.’

I said it might mean someone was expected back.

‘Anyway, it’s stopped now,’ said Lilian. ‘So it must have been a mistake. It would have gone on ringing if someone was expected to be here.’

All the same, both the girls had been startled. ‘Perhaps we
should
be moving on,’ said Molly. She got up and peered round the blind to see if the rain had stopped, and said it
hadn’t. So we went on talking, getting nowhere. And after a few minutes I froze with horror because I thought I heard footsteps. The others froze too, when I told them, but not for long, because when we listened we couldn’t hear a thing. Still, I now felt I simply must get out of the house so I said that, rain or no rain, we must find our suitcases.

‘But when we do, we don’t know where to go,’ said Lilian.

Molly then suggested we should go to a police station.

‘What, and sleep in the cells?’ said Lilian. ‘I don’t think they’ll let you if you want to.’

I said, ‘We’ll sleep in them without wanting to if someone finds us here.
I’m
going, anyway.’

I sprang up – and the child’s little wooden armchair came with me. The girls exploded with laughter. Then Lilian tried to get out of her little armchair and found she, too, was stuck. She and I stood there with the chairs clinging to our behinds and we all laughed quite painfully.

And then the nursery door opened. I turned in horror and saw a figure in a hooded white raincoat pointing what I took to be a revolver.

‘Hands up or I fire!’ said a falsely gruff voice.

That was Zelle’s dramatic entrance into our lives.

We shot up our hands and Lilian cried, ‘Don’t, don’t! We’ve only come in out of the rain.’

Zelle (I can think of her only by that name) said, ‘It’s all right – really!’ and held out the ‘revolver’ to show us. It was a jewelled case to take powder and lipstick, made in the shape of a miniature pistol. As we leaned forward to look at it Lilian and I shed our armchairs. Zelle began to laugh. But she told us later that it wasn’t the armchairs she found so funny; it was Molly’s lorgnette dangling against her bare midriff.

We laughed, too; and through the laughter tried to explain. But we barely needed to, because Zelle had been sitting on the stairs listening to our conversation, which she had found fascinating. She had finally come in because she longed to know what we were laughing at. From the outset she made it plain that she was enchanted to know us.

She told us she had come to the house to meet its owner, her cousin, Bill, who was also her guardian; she said he was some kind of removed cousin, much older than she was. ‘He’d like me to live here but his wife and I can’t get on. They’re away in the country but Bill comes up for a few days every week and stays at his club. I meet him here
on Sundays and we go out to dinner. But he’s rung to say he won’t be coming up this week.’

She had reached the house just in time to answer the telephone; after which, feeling at a loose end, she had come up to the boys’ bedroom to find something to read. ‘Some of their books are quite exciting. And then I heard voices.’

I asked if she hadn’t been frightened.

‘Well, for a minute or two. But I soon thought you all sounded fun.’

By now she had taken her raincoat off and we were sitting around on the floor, each of us on one of the nursery rugs which lay like pink islands on the sea of blue linoleum. She had seemed tall in the long white coat but was really only a few inches taller than I was, and very slight. She was fair and pretty but not with the pink and white prettiness one associates with fair hair and skin. Her hair was a very dim gold and her skin nearer beige than pink and white. She wore scarcely any make-up. I doubt if ‘under-stated’ was then used to describe appearance but it would certainly have described both her prettiness and her always expensive clothes. She was now wearing a printed silk dress, pale fawn dappled with brown.

After she had told us a very little more about herself – we gathered she didn’t
do
anything, just lived in a service flat and found life boring – she started to question us and at last got the complete hang of our difficulties. She then said we mustn’t worry any more. She would ring up for a taxi and we would drive round until we found our cases, and then she would take us to dinner at a hotel where we could stay the night. We pointed out that we could not afford an expensive hotel. She waved this aside and said
we must be her guests – ‘I’ve masses of money with me – I went to the bank yesterday. And I’ll stay at the hotel, too. It’ll be fun. Put your clothes on while I go down and telephone the taxi rank.’

We dressed, switched the fire off, and trooped down to the hall; then Zelle took us down to the back door to wait for the taxi. She said she always came in and out the back way so that the front door could be left bolted. She had put the catch of the Yale lock up the previous Sunday, when going out into the mews to feed a cat.

‘Then
anyone
could have got in,’ said Lilian.

‘Oh, well, they’re insured,’ said Zelle cheerfully. She looked up and down the mews. ‘The cat’s not here tonight – because of the rain, I suppose. So I’ll leave her usual Sunday supper where she usually sits. Such a pathetic little alley cat.’ She fished a paper bag from her raincoat pocket, took out a leg of chicken, and put it on a window sill.

When the taxi came we all made sure that this time the door was really locked. Zelle said thoughtfully, ‘Perhaps I won’t mention to Bill that his house was open for a week.’

Just as everything had gone wrong before, now
everything
went right. We soon found our cases; once we got the right street we recognised the house. The nice landlady offered to make us tea but Zelle said it would spoil our dinner. (I noticed she slipped a ten shilling note into the landlady’s hand as we left.) Then we drove to a small but expensive-looking hotel where Molly, Lilian and I changed out of our spoilt dresses and hats in the Ladies’ Room. After that, as it was still early for dinner, we sat in the lounge and had drinks. That was the first time I had a
cocktail. I had decided that not drinking was dull.

It was while we were there that Zelle acquired her nickname. A man came in who was extremely like a pig and this started Molly, Lilian and me on our game of picking the animals people resembled. After we had done some of the people in the lounge, Zelle said: ‘Now do me. Bill says I put my feet down like a pony.’

Her face could not have been less like any kind of horse but she did use her feet in a pony-like way, stepping both briskly and delicately; I had noticed it as she walked into the lounge. Thinking of this, and her colouring, and the way her eyes were set – and perhaps because of her dappled dress – I said: ‘Could she be a gazelle?’

Molly and Lilian thought that was exactly right. It turned out that none of us quite knew what a gazelle was like but that didn’t worry us. One of us then said that ‘Zelle’ would make a nice name for her. She had told us her name but I doubt if any of us had yet used it or if we ever did. From that moment, she was always Zelle.

We had a marvellous dinner with a vast number of courses. Zelle apologised for not ordering it
à la carte
– ‘Bill says one always should but I’m not good at choosing.’ We drank champagne and perhaps that reminded Molly of the morning she had learned she was illegitimate. Suddenly she told Zelle about it, finishing by saying, ‘I thought you ought to know in case you mind.’

‘Heavens, how could anyone?’ said Zelle.

Molly said
she
did and would never get over it. Then Lilian called her poor old Moll Byblow, which Zelle thought a lovely name, and soon we were all laughing again.

After dinner Zelle went to her flat to get clothes for the night. Lilian asked if we could come with her and see the flat but Zelle said she wanted just to dash in and out and the flat wasn’t worth seeing – ‘Bill rented it for me, furnished, before I came to London, and I’ve never let him know how dreary I think it is. But I shall furnish a flat for myself when the lease is up next year. By then I shall have control of my money.’

It seemed to me she was already in control of a good deal of money but we gathered that, until she was
twenty-one
, her guardian doled it out to her.

After she had gone, of course we discussed her, saying how miraculously kind and generous she was. We found that, in spite of having talked with her for hours, we knew hardly anything about her background. I said this probably meant we had talked too much about ourselves and there were three of us to one of her.

‘It isn’t only that,’ said Lilian. ‘Don’t you find her a bit mysterious?’

I agreed. ‘She has a
princesse lointaine
quality.’

‘Now our gifted Mouse has swallowed a French dictionary,’ said Molly. But when I managed to explain
lointaine
she saw what I meant. Lilian didn’t – or rather, it wasn’t what she meant by ‘mysterious’. She said, ‘I just mean puzzling. But anyway, I couldn’t like her better.’

When Zelle came back we went on talking till midnight; the clock struck just as Lilian was asking where she had lived before coming to London.

‘We’ll postpone that dreary story,’ said Zelle, getting up. ‘Now we really should go to bed. I’m rather tired.’

She had taken two double rooms and asked me to share
hers. I thought this part of the particular kindness she had shown me since I had mentioned how frightened I had been while trespassing in her cousin’s house. Once we were on our own she showed no sign of tiredness and talked all the time we were undressing. (I noted that she practised my tent technique.) Her nightgown was heavy white silk, plain except for an embroidered monogram. I admired it much more than the rather fancy nightgowns worn by Molly and Lilian, usually pink or blue trimmed with
café au lait
lace.

Even after we put the light out she kept the conversation going, questioning me and seeming especially interested in my childhood. At last I pulled up and said, ‘I’ve talked and talked and given you no chance to. And yet I long to hear about you.’

She said, ‘Truly? Well, if you’re sure it won’t bore you.’ Then she began speaking hurriedly leaving out details, as if she wanted just to state the bare facts. She told me our lives had been rather similar as she, like me, could barely remember her parents. But she had been brought up by a grandfather, not an aunt. They had lived in a remote Welsh mountain village, in an old house where everything was falling to pieces. She was supposed to go to the village school, but it was a long walk so she often stayed away and nobody bothered – ‘You’ll find me terribly uneducated.’ She had always imagined they were poor – and then, when her grandfather died, it turned out he’d been a miser and there was plenty of money – ‘Only it takes time to clear things up. Bill’s doing that. Imagine the poor man’s position, having it all wished on him, plus a girl of nineteen.’

She said he’d only known about it a few weeks before her grandfather died – ‘He sent for Bill because he was our one relation. They hadn’t met for thirty years and Bill didn’t even know I existed, but he was wonderfully kind to me. At first he had me to live with him and his wife in their country house, but it was hopeless. So he took this dull flat. I’ve been there for a year – and never made any friends.’

‘Well, you’ve made some now,’ I assured her.

‘Really? And you won’t mind my horrid Welsh accent?’

I had noticed she spoke with a slight lilt but had not realised it was Welsh. Anyway, it was pretty. I told her so.

‘Perhaps it’s not as bad as it used to be. I’ve had elocution lessons. By the way, would you tell Molly and Lilian all I’ve told you, and ask them not to question me? I have a horror of talking about my life in Wales, but you’re easy to talk to. Let’s go to sleep now and then tomorrow will come quicker. It’s so lovely to have something to look forward to.’

It was just what, as a child, I had often thought when I knew I was going to a theatre the next day.

I lay awake for a while, thinking. Welsh mountains were a perfect background for a
princesse lointaine
. I tried to imagine the old house and the miserly grandfather and then Bill coming to the rescue. It seemed a pity he was elderly and married.

The next morning, while we were having breakfast in bed, I asked what had happened to the house. She said it had been sold – ‘Sad, in a way, as the family had lived there for over two hundred years, but I couldn’t stay on alone.’ Then she talked about the house and gardens, speaking eagerly, not in the stilted way she had told me her
history the night before. She described the panelling and wide staircase, and a rose garden, and lawns leading down to a lake. She made it all sound wonderful, though I thought that if her grandfather had been a miser the gardens must have been overgrown. I asked about this and she said, ‘Oh, yes, of course they were. Let’s not talk about it any more. And you
will
ask the others not to question me, won’t you?’

I got the chance to, while Zelle was settling up with the hotel. I only had time, then, to give the girls a brief outline of what I’d been told, but they said they quite understood.

After that, Zelle came back to the Club with us; she wanted to join it. We made sure we now had our cubicles, and then showed her round and introduced her to various members. She was charming to them all, and one old lady notorious for snobbishness told her she was just the type of member the Club needed.

We were ashamed of the anaemic lunch we gave her but she said she enjoyed it and would often come to lunch once she was a member, which would be in only a few days as there was a board meeting that week; Lilian and Molly would propose and second her. When I left for the Crossway she was planning to take them to a theatre that night. I was sorry to be out of it.

‘Still, be thankful you’ve a job to go to,’ Lilian called after me. She and Molly were gloomy about being out of work.

I got to the office full of our meeting with Zelle; Miss Lester was always interested in what happened to me. She knew I found life dull after my work at rehearsals and she had done what she could to cheer me up, sending me to
matinées at several theatres. And as Mr Crossway still had not given me any introductions to managers, she had given me one herself, saying he was interested in my work. The manager had been charming but I did wonder if he might not be a little drunk. Everything I said made him laugh and I certainly wasn’t trying to. At last he remarked blurrily, ‘Yes, I see why Rex is interested. You’re quite a little dear. But I do have some little dears of my own who need jobs. Rex must find you something himself.’ When I told Miss Lester she laughed but said she mustn’t expose me to anything like that again. I hadn’t minded being exposed.

I had barely finished talking to her about Zelle when Lilian rang up to say they all wanted to come to the Crossway that night and could I help them to get seats? I hoped there might be some returned, also I knew some were withheld from sale until the late afternoon in case Mr Crossway needed them. So I asked Miss Lester and she coped with the box-office. There were four seats and she said she would give me one for myself and I could wear my new evening dress. I told Lilian I would meet them in the foyer.

From then onwards, much of the afternoon was devoted to getting me ready – luckily we weren’t busy. My dress was still with the wardrobe mistress, the alterations only recently finished. It had been imported from Paris, a year or so earlier, for a temperamental leading lady who had refused to wear it. Miss Lester said it was a
robe de style
, independent of any prevailing fashion. At first I thought it was quite like my own tight-bodiced, full-skirted dresses, but I soon saw that the cut was very different and there
were details which gave it the authority to defy fashion. The material was a corded silk in a deep shade of coral, and its little jacket was embroidered with white, gold and turquoise beads. It was not merely the most beautiful dress I had ever worn. It was the most beautiful dress I was ever fated to wear; a dress to be remembered for a lifetime.