The Town in Bloom (9 page)

‘Well, you mustered plenty for rehearsals,’ I told him. ‘And you never lost your temper once.’

He said, ‘Thank you for noticing that,’ then relapsed into silence.

After a few minutes I felt him leaning on me heavily. I instantly remembered hearing, on my first night at the Club, ‘My God, Frobisher, how that man kissed me in the taxi!’ and it flashed into my mind that Brice Marton might have been attracted to me on sight and been fighting not me but himself. I found this idea exciting. I also found that Brice Marton had merely gone to sleep.

When we got to the Club I woke him and warned him he would soon be at Mr Crossway’s. He thanked me and said good night, but without the nicker of a smile. In spite of the conversation we’d had I did not feel we were on fully friendly terms; just civil terms.

The elderly night porter let me in and said: ‘What hours
you young ladies do keep,’ then reminded me to write my name in the breakfast-in-bed book. I thankfully
remembered
Miss Lester had said I need not come into the theatre in the morning. When I tiptoed into the sleeping village the dawn was breaking. I undressed without putting the light on. 

When I got to the Crossway the next afternoon the whole theatre radiated success. Bill-posters were pasting up extracts from the favourable notices, there were rows of camp stools outside the pit and gallery doors, and a queue in the foyer waiting to book seats. Up in the office Miss Lester was typing ‘thank you’ letters for Mr Crossway’s first-night telegrams. She used a formula for most of these (though he often added a personal postscript) so I was able to help with the typing.

‘It’s such bliss to feel we’ve a real hit,’ she said. ‘You can’t imagine how the atmosphere would be today if we’d had a flop or even a very tentative success. Everyone would be so hypo critically cheerful. Now we’re all genuinely glowing – except, of course, the men in the box-office.’

‘Why, what’s wrong with them?’

‘Oh, nothing, inwardly. But outwardly they preserve the utmost grimness – I mean, to the public. They think that if they’re even civil, people won’t believe the play’s a real success. Happy box-offices always behave as if they’re repelling invaders.’

In the middle of the afternoon Mr Crossway breezed in with the champagne he had promised us. He dictated
some of the more important ‘thank you’ letters, then said he must go and see Brice Marton about various small changes. He paused beside my desk to say, ‘Well, you won’t have to work such long hours now. But I shall miss my little co-director,’ then went on his way while I was saying I should miss him, too. I stared after him.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Miss Lester.

‘It’s just dawned on me that I
shall
miss him – that is, miss rehearsals and being in on the production.’

She said she’d thought I’d feel that. ‘But you’ll soon get over it. And Mr Crossway says I can send you to a theatre every week or so – which reminds me, I’ve looked out an evening dress in the wardrobe; I’m almost sure you’ll like it. The wardrobe mistress will alter it as soon as she’s finished the dresses for the understudies.’

I thanked her and tried to settle down to typing. But I must have looked gloomy, because before long she said, ‘Would you like to cheer yourself with the champagne?’

‘What, in the middle of the afternoon?’

‘Some people drink it at any time of day. Personally I rather dislike it; so unless you do want to tackle it now, why not take it to the Club and share it with Molly and Lilian?’

I said I’d be glad to, as they were in need of cheering, having recently heard that their show would soon be coming off.

When I displayed the champagne in the village that night Lilian said she was more and more sure Mr Crossway was in love with me. This had been a favourite joke of hers for weeks. She and Molly were already full of tea so they did not fancy champagne just then. ‘We’ll keep it until we’ve something to celebrate,’ said Lilian. ‘And that
bottle looks good for a wish.’ There was a vogue in the Club for wishing on almost anything. She patted the bottle and said: ‘Champagne, champagne, bring us something to celebrate with you soon.’ As things turned out we felt the need of it soon but not on an occasion of celebration.

The very next morning, just after Charlotte had brought my breakfast tray, I heard a loud moan from Molly’s cubicle followed by a wail of, ‘Oh, no! Oh, God, how awful!’

Both Lilian and I yelled, ‘What is it?’ We got no answer; Molly just went on wailing, ‘Oh, no!’ I hastily moved my breakfast tray and dashed in to her, colliding with Lilian at the cubicle door. Molly was sitting up in bed holding a letter. She looked at us and said in a tone of the utmost tragedy:

‘Girls, I’m a bastard.’

Afterwards I thought it was funny but I didn’t then. And I guessed what Molly meant even before Lilian had snatched the letter from her and begun to read it aloud. It was from a firm of solicitors who wrote on behalf of Molly’s father’s parents: her grandparents, but they were never referred to as that. They wished her to know that when she became twenty-one, in a few weeks, they proposed to stop the small allowance they had made her since her mother’s death and, instead, pay her a lump sum of a thousand pounds. And buried in the legal phraseology of the letter was the fact – which the solicitors obviously thought Molly was aware of – that her father had never married her mother. The words ‘natural daughter of’ were used several times.

‘But, Molly darling, why do you mind so much?’ I asked when Lilian had finished reading aloud.

Molly glared through her tears. ‘Can’t you understand? I’m a
bastard
.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Lilian. ‘You’re just illegitimate.’

‘They’re the same thing,’ said Molly.

‘They’re not,’ said Lilian. ‘Bastards are only in history or Shakespeare. And they’re always men.’

I said I thought there could be female bastards. ‘But that’s a nicer name in the letter: “a natural daughter”.’

‘Let me read the letter again,’ said Molly.

We waited while she read it. I felt it must be an unusual letter to be read through a lorgnette.

‘It serves me right for being a snob,’ said Molly. ‘I was proud because my father came of a good family, and proud of his D.S.O. Wouldn’t you two mind if you were in my position?’

‘Of course not,’ said Lilian heartily; then added, ‘Well, a bit, perhaps – but not the way you do.’

I said, quite truthfully, that I’d find it romantic. ‘And it’s more exciting to have an unmarried D.S.O. for a father than a married chartered accountant, as I had.’

‘Chartered accountants can make a lot of money,’ said Lilian, with interest.

‘Well, my father doesn’t seem to have. Did you never suspect, Molly?’

‘Never. Of course he spent very little time with us – he was so often away with his regiment. We just stayed in our little house near Ranelagh. Now I see why Mother asked me to use her maiden name when I went on the stage. I thought it was because she’d acted under it herself and wanted it carried on. But it’s really the only name I’m entitled to.’ Again the tears flowed.

Charlotte came in. She had been doing Frobisher’s cubicle and made no bones about having heard everything. Kneeling by the bed, she took Molly in her arms and assured her there was nothing to be ashamed of. ‘You’re just a love-child, Miss Molly. We ought to have guessed it from your looks. All the most beautiful babies are love-children.’ Molly wept more and more.

‘Oh, stop it, Charlotte, you’re making her worse,’ said Lilian; then threw me a harassed look. ‘I must pull her together some how. We’ve a matinée this afternoon.’

‘How about the champagne?’ I suggested.

‘Wonderful! And it’s terribly smart to drink it in the morning. But it ought to be iced.’

‘I could get bits of ice from the kitchen,’ said Charlotte.

‘One’s supposed to put the champagne in the ice, not the ice in the champagne,’ said Lilian. ‘Still – yes, see what you can do. And borrow some wire cutters in case we need them and some champagne glasses; tooth mugs aren’t quite the thing.’

‘And bring a glass for yourself,’ Molly called after Charlotte, showing signs of recovery.

Charlotte came back with glasses and wire cutters but only a meagre supply of ice; still, it tinkled cheerfully and helped to make what I thought a very pleasant drink. Lilian praised the champagne knowledgeably, adding that of course it would be good, coming from Rex Crossway. She let us all have a glass and a half, then took a firm hand with Molly, refusing to give her any more. ‘Enough’s enough. You’re looking positively blowsy.’

It was the right word. Molly’s red hair was in disorder, her baby face was flushed with crying and champagne, and
her shawl and nightgown had slipped off one shoulder. I suddenly thought of Moll Flanders and Moll Davis. Slightly flushed by champagne myself, I said: ‘Here’s to Moll Byblow,’ then wondered if she would mind; but she didn’t. A few minutes later, Lilian said, ‘Now up you get, Moll Byblow,’ and Molly had her nickname, as firmly as Lilian had Lily de Luxe and I had Mouse – though only rarely were Molly and Lilian addressed by their nicknames; these were mainly used when speaking
of
the girls, as: ‘See if you can hurry Moll Byblow,’ or ‘Madam Lily de Luxe won’t like that.’

Molly showed no signs of lasting distress about her illegitimacy but it had an effect on her manner. She discarded her half-playful and never offensive superiority and, though she still used her lorgnette – she had to – she no longer tilted her head back when she looked at people through it. I feel sure she was not conscious of any of this; it simply emanated from some inner loss of confidence. And from then onwards Lilian’s behaviour to her was more dominating – Lilian got into her stride that very morning by taking her to the writing-room and making sure the thousand pounds was accepted. ‘Just in case your illegitimate grandparents change their minds.’

Yes, Lilian was certainly in for a period of ascendancy. When I got back from the theatre that night she informed me that the three of us were going to leave the Club for a month and share a flat in a mews. A friend had called on her after the matinée to offer it.

‘She’s going to be away with a concert party and she says we can have the flat rent free if we’ll water her window-boxes and forward letters and let her know if
anyone important rings up. And it’s a darling place – I went there to a party once – small, but terribly amusing. It’s a
converted
mews flat, of course – in Belgravia, couldn’t be smarter.’

There would be room for us all as there were two beds in the bedroom and a divan in the sitting-room. ‘It’ll be fun cooking our meals,’ Lilian went on. ‘And think how we’ll save with no rent to pay. That’s important as our show will so soon be off.’

‘I wonder when my thousand pounds will come,’ said Molly.

‘When it does you’re going to invest it,’ said Lilian. She then turned to me a trifle huffily. ‘Of course you don’t have to come, Mouse, but I thought you’d want to. It’s bound to be terrifically exciting.’

I felt I could do with excitement. Life at the Crossway was now very flat, with a lot of work to be done and no time, even, to look at the play through the spy-hole. So I accepted Lilian’s invitation enthusiastically.

Molly had already agreed, though she was troubled at the thought of losing our cubicles in this particular village and the services of Charlotte the Harlot. However, we didn’t have to, as the Club secretary promised we could have them back in a month. We were, it seemed, in her good books because we paid our bills every week instead of waiting to be nagged.

So we had our trunks from the box-room and packed away everything but a suitcase of summer clothes each, as Lilian thought there might not be too much cupboard space. She said she wished she could remember the flat better – ‘Though in a way it’s more fun not to.’

We moved on the following Sunday afternoon, Lilian’s friend having gone off that morning, after telephoning to say where we should find the key. As our taxi entered the mews Lilian cried: ‘There! You can tell the flat by the window-boxes. Aren’t they sweet?’

There were no other window-boxes and no other gaily painted front door. Probably all the other flats were occupied by chauffeurs or servants from the huge houses backing onto the mews.

We paid the taxi off and then Lilian got the key from the highly original hiding place of under the mat. When the door was opened we faced steep, narrow stairs so close that we could not shut the door until two of us were on our way up.

‘Quaint, isn’t it?’ said Lilian.

‘Smells of kippers,’ said Molly as she mounted the stairs.

I followed her, with my suitcase bumping into the wall. It was almost dark, once Lilian got the door closed. She called up, ‘I think the kitchen’s ahead of you.’

‘I’m in it,’ called Molly. ‘It’s just a landing – not even that, really; just the top of the stairs. I’ll move out so that Mouse can move in.’

She went through a door and I stepped up into the kitchen. It seemed that anyone using the gas-stove or sink would be in danger of falling downstairs backwards. I followed Molly into the sitting-room. It was quite pretty, with framed Underground posters on the walls. The afternoon sun was pouring in and the whole effect was cheerful, except for the remains of a kippery breakfast on the table. There was a note propped against the tea-pot saying: ‘Sorry couldn’t wash up or make the beds.
Overslept and had to dash for train. I’ve left milk and bread and you can use any of my provisions if you’ll replace them. Please pay laundryman tomorrow and I’ll settle later.’

We went on into the bedroom, where there were two unmade beds. ‘She must have had some girl friend here,’ said Lilian.

‘Not unless the girl friend used shaving soap,’ said Molly.

‘Nice to have a fitted washbasin,’ said Lilian, ignoring the shaving soap. She opened a narrow door. ‘This’ll be the bathroom.’

But it was merely the smallest lavatory I ever saw. In order to close the door from the inside one had to edge past the seat, in danger of banging one’s head against the cistern.

‘Then where
is
the bathroom?’ said Lilian.

‘There isn’t anywhere
for
it to be,’ said Molly.

‘But I’m sure she said there was a bath – and plenty of hot water.’

Just then I found the bath, under a bed. It was a round shallow rubber bath with a coil of piping curled up inside it.

‘Oh,
I
see,’ said Lilian brightly. ‘One pipes the hot water from that dear little geyser over the washbasin. What bliss it’ll be, not having to put pennies in the bathroom door. Which reminds me, there’s a gas-meter somewhere that takes shillings.’

There was a fairly large cupboard only half full of its owner’s clothes, and a half-emptied chest of drawers. We should have to keep most of our things in our cases.

‘Before we unpack anything, we’ll get the flat straight,’ said Lilian. ‘You do the washing up, Mouse, while we make the beds. I saw a pile of sheets on the divan.’

The washing up was not my idea of fun as the sink only had a cold tap; and when I put the kettle on, the gas ran out. But I found the meter, daintily be-frilled, put in a shilling and finished my job. Then I got tea ready. When I carried the tray into the sitting-room the windows were open and the smell of kippers had gone out. But a very peculiar smell was coming
in
.