Love and Linda E-Book

Barbara Cartland

• Herausgeber: Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: The Eternal Collection
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 325

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

The rags to riches and romance tale of Linda Snell takes us on a rollercoaster ride of a life – from sleazy beginnings via a Convent school to the glamour of the West End stage and the London fashion scene. Pursued by all the wrong men and eluded by the right ones, Linda scales the dizzy heights where her passion for Harry, a world-famous aviator, is dashed by his sudden death. Marrying in desperation the wrong man for all the wrong reasons, humble is transformed into Lady Blaxly but still happiness is a distant dream… Until one unlikely man holds out the hope that Linda will finally find a true and lasting love.

Leseprobe

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1928

‘Mummy’s first words to me,

“‘Here’s a pretty kettle of fish, Linda’!”

‘And she was right. But there is no need for her to worry, she is in clover. I have to do the worrying about myself.’

‘Not that Mummy is not fussed, I think she is.’

‘But what with all the excitement about her Wedding and her anxiety that Bill Blomfield shall not be troubled by me, one cannot expect her to be upset about the future of a daughter who she has only seen two or three times in the last six years.’

‘Mummy has altered so much since those days I used to think her beautiful when I stood shivering in the wings while she was performing.’

‘How cold it used to be sometimes. But it was the excitement that I really liked.’

‘I suppose that any child would have liked it all, the anxiety and the thrill of the opening performance and the fun and jolliness of everyone on a Saturday night even though a lot of them were a bit tipsy.’

‘The Stage Manager always was, I cannot remember a Saturday at any of the places we went to when the Stage Manager was not what Alfred used to call ‘half-seas over’.

‘Alfred had often had a couple himself too and one evening he forgot to see that the trapeze was properly set up by the stage hands, it toppled over and he hurt his knee.’

‘We had to cancel the whole of next month’s engagements because he could not hang from the bar and swing Mummy by her feet with his knee stiff and bandaged.’

‘Alfred was a nice man, even though he did knock Mummy about sometimes when he was jealous of her.’

‘How I used to hate those rows! They used to haunt me for years after I had been at the Convent. I would wake up shivering with fright.’

‘Yet I liked Alfred a lot. He fascinated me with his long waxed moustache, the muscles bulging on his arms when he squared his shoulders and his conquering air as he marched up and down before the audience in red satin trunks covered with gold stars.’

‘He was kind too in his own way and often gave me a penny to buy sweets when he was in a good humour. All the years I knew him he never hit me, which is more than I could say of Mummy.’

‘I wonder what would have happened to me if I had gone on living with them? I suppose I would have gone into the trapeze business in the end, although Mummy was dead against it.’

‘Alfred used to try and make me exercise to get my limbs supple, but if Mummy caught him at it there were always words,

‘Linda is not going into anything without a future in it,’ she used to say, ‘her father was a gentleman and I am not going to have her mucking about on the boards all her life!’

‘Then Alfred used to strike an attitude and curl his moustache.’

‘Quite a little Vere de Vere! What is good enough for her mother is not good enough for her ladyship, I would suppose. It is a pity her father, being the nob he was, did not leave her something in his will even if it was only his name.’

‘At that Mummy would lose her temper and scream at him and it always ended more or less in the same way with her saying,

‘Bastard or no bastard I will thank you to keep your hands off my child and mind your own business!’

‘As I grew older, I often asked Mummy about this ‘gentleman’ father of mine, but she has always been secretive about him.’

‘It happened when she was quite young and had a good part in the chorus of one of the big London theatres.’

‘But after I had spoilt her career, so to speak, she could not get in again with the right Agents and was glad to take up with some acrobats doing a tour of the Halls.’

‘She has always been double-jointed, her mother was before her and it did not take her long to pick up enough tricks to give a creditable performance, although Alfred told me that she would never be first class, not having started when she was a child.’

‘It was some years later that Alfred and his ‘Scarlet Swallows’ happened along and he fell for Mummy as a woman not as an artist and she joined him and became a ‘Swallow’ too.’

‘Alfred was doing well in those days touring all the Halls, but I can only remember when they had come down a bit and were content to play in very third-rate places.’

‘I have always had a suspicion that this was due to Mummy, she was terribly jealous of Alfred and gradually ousted all the younger girls from the turn.’

‘She insisted on doing the most of Alfred’s tricks with him and, as she was never a top-notcher, the show was bound to suffer.’

‘Dimly in the past I remember a pretty dark-haired little ‘Swallow’ packing her trunk and having a few parting words with Mummy before she left the troupe.’

‘Alfred took no part at all in the repartee, which became louder and louder between the two women.’

‘He never did take sides unless the combatants did come to blows and on this occasion he stood back twirling his long moustache and looking the very picture of strong manhood.’

‘There had been many rows like this one before and he was so used to them. The young ‘Swallow’ made her exit with a last shot at Mummy,

‘Call yourself a swallow?’ she said. ‘More like a flying rhinoceros with those hips!’

‘With that she flounced out of the theatre while Mummy screamed some incoherent reply about her ancestry and her looks.’

‘I enjoyed those days, there were always new people to make a fuss of me, to give me sweets or to pay me a penny for the messages I could run for them between the acts.’

‘It was a funny life for a child. Mummy and Alfred used to sleep until eleven or twelve o’clock in the morning unless there was a rehearsal and, although I was awake, I used to have to lie quiet as a mouse for fear of waking them.’

‘I hardly dared to move or even turn over as the wicker property basket would creak like anything if I did.’

‘So I used to tell myself stories until with grunts and groans one of them would stretch and yawn noisily. And I would know that a new day had begun.’

‘Most of the day they slopped about in the bedroom, sending down for a large steak and a couple of bottles of stout if we were in funds. The steak I would help them with, but I hated stout in spite of Alfred’s coaxing.’

“‘Come on, Linda,” he would say. “Drink it up, it’ll give you some roses in your cheeks you look half-starved. I cannot say as how you are an advertisement for the prosperity of the ‘Scarlet Swallows’.”

‘I was not with them when the split came. It was all on account of Mummy breaking her leg. She was getting stiff and never could stand swinging head downwards for long, it always made her giddy and one day she fell.’

‘Of course Alfred had to find someone else for the troupe and it was not likely, in spite of anything that Mummy could say, that he was going to take on anyone old.’

‘Apparently Mummy did not trust her from the first, and rightly, for in a month she had Alfred completely under her thumb and Mummy was a back number.’

‘The poor dear did not have a chance lying there with her broken leg and, as they could not afford to cart her about with them or stop the tour, she had to be left behind.’

‘When she was much better, she came North to visit me at the Convent. One of the few occasions she came to see me all the time I was there.’

‘It seemed odd to watch Mummy, who had always been so active, hobbling along on a couple of sticks. Her leg was mending, but it was stiff and she could not walk without them.’

‘She was all dressed up, but she could not disguise her face and almost as soon as she arrived I knew that something had happened.’

‘What is the matter, Mummy?’ I asked her.

‘She told me then that Alfred had gone off with some ‘fancy’ woman and the next time she wrote she said that he had gone to America and a good riddance too!’

‘But I should not be surprised if Alfred just told her that to keep her from following him. Mummy was quite capable of turning up and making a scene.’

‘I am glad I was not there when Mummy broke her leg. I used to feel physically sick in case she did fall, especially when she waved and giggled at the audience instead of counting as Alfred had told her to.’

‘But, before all this had happened, my life had changed considerably.’

‘There had been an awful fuss after the War about the education of children and in every town we visited we were rounded up by Inspectors to enquire about my education.’

‘I used to keep out of their way as much as possible, but sometimes I had to go to school for two or three days until we moved on again.’

‘I could hardly read, but I could add up pennies quick enough and could sing any amount of comic songs. I had a whole repertoire of them that I had learnt from listening, night after night at the Halls.’

‘Well, we had settled in one of the North country towns for a fortnight and I had avoided school for just three days. It was Friday evening and we were all on the stage dismantling the trapeze, the ‘Scarlet Swallows’ being the last turn on the bill, when in comes the Inspector and starts kicking up a row.’

‘He then tells Mummy that it is disgraceful how little I know and that he is going to get an injunction so that I would be compelled to stay in one place and be taught properly.’

‘Thereupon Mummy turned on him like a wild cat,

‘You cannot take a child away from its mother. Is that the law or isn’t it, I should like to know?’

‘The Inspector began to get annoyed and then the troupe all came round, saying what they thought and so I started to cry, which I had always found effective when my schooling was in question.’

‘The Inspector became more and more annoyed and then Alfred offered to fight him.’

‘Alfred was still in his scarlet trunks, but he had put on a short coat when he had finished his act and he started to take it off while the two girls and Mummy egged him on.’

‘One of the men called out,

“‘Don’t be a fool, Alfred, you’ll get into trouble, he’s got the law on his side’.”

‘And just at that moment along comes the Manager of the theatre accompanied by a lady and naturally they stopped and asked what all the hullabaloo was about.’

‘Everyone in the company tried to explain and I began to enjoy all this excitement over me. With my arms round Mummy’s waist I sobbed,

‘I don’t want to leave my mother and go to school, I don’t want to leave my mother!

‘The lady with the Manager was quite old, about fifty or sixty I should say. She was well dressed in a quiet way with a dark sable fur and magnificent pearls round her neck.’

‘I was to learn later that her name was Mrs. Fisher-Simmonds, that she was well known for her charitable works and was always arranging matinées for this or that cause, inveigling Managers to lend their theatres and artists to give their services.’

‘Having grasped the meaning of what was going on, she held out a hand to me and said,

“‘Come here, little girl.”

‘I went towards her wide-eyed and rather curious as to what was going to happen next.’

‘I was over eleven at the time, but I looked younger and so I suppose I was a very pretty child with masses of fair curly hair, wide grey eyes and a small tip-tilted nose that has never got much bigger and I was not only small for my age, I was also very thin and pale for lack of proper food and fresh air.’

‘Mrs. Fisher-Simmonds touched my cheek and commented,

‘“The child looks to me undernourished’,” which annoyed Mummy and she retorted,

“‘Linda has the best that we can afford, if you expect her to have oysters and champagne every day, you had better speak to the Manager’.”

‘The lady took no notice of Mummy’s rudeness, but then talked to me for a few more minutes, asking questions that seemed to me to have little bearing on the matter in hand.’

‘I was on my guard, terrified of showing my ignorance and not particularly affable.’

‘I was astonished as we walked back towards the group, standing almost in silence by this time as if awaiting a verdict and to hear Mrs. Fisher-Simmonds announce,

‘I have now decided that I will see to this child’s education, she shall go to a Convent in which I am most interested where she will be properly looked after. Bring her to my house tomorrow afternoon at three o’clock and I will make all arrangements.’

‘For a moment everyone was too astounded to speak and then the Inspector murmured that in that case, everything was settled as far as he was concerned, while I burst into genuine tears.’

‘I had no desire to be properly taught, least of all in a Convent. I did not know what it was, but it sounded like another sort of prison.’

‘Visions of myself in long black garments rushed to my mind.’

‘I started to protest, only to be seized by Mummy and shaken into silence.’

“‘Thank you, ma’am,” she said to Mrs. Fisher-Simmonds, “I will bring Linda tomorrow as you say’.”

‘She took the card that the lady held out and the Manager and Mrs. Fisher-Simmonds disappeared from the stage.’

‘There was a long moment’s silence, punctuated by my sobs, and then everyone started talking at once,

‘What an opportunity!’ ‘What luck!’ ‘Wasn’t I fortunate!’

‘But I would not listen and, stuffing my fingers in my ears, I screamed at them,

‘I don’t want to go to a Convent.’

‘But I was only given a sharp slap from Mummy, followed by another until I subsided on the stage at her feet.’

“‘You little fool,” she said, “you don’t know what is good for you, most girls would give their eyes for a chance like this’.”

“‘And now,” she said, turning to Alfred in triumph, “perhaps you will believe that Linda has good blood in her’.”

‘She dragged me off to the lodgings talking away nineteen to the dozen,’

‘The Lord knows what you will wear, you have grown out of your red crêpe de Chine perhaps I have time to cut down my green velvet for you with a lace collar that would be sweet. You don’t want to be too flashy, just ladylike, after all, if you are going to live among the ladies, you want to look like one of them.’

‘But I could take no interest in my appearance and that night I sobbed myself to sleep, curled up in the old prop basket for the last time.’

‘The property basket had for a long time been too small for me and when we were lucky enough to have a room that had a couch in it, I slept on that.

‘But such luxuries were few and far between, for our digs grew cheaper and cheaper as time went on and even the bottles of stout had been cut down as engagements were fewer and less well paid.’

‘It was by a lucky chance as it happens, although I did not realise it at the time, that the ‘Scarlet Swallows’ had been booked for that particular week at the theatre where we had met Mrs. Fisher-Simmonds.’

‘Some well-known acrobats who were to have figured on the top of the bill had cancelled the engagement at the last moment.

‘The Manager had wired to his London Agents to send another turn of the same kind.’

‘That was how the ‘Scarlet Swallows’ had fallen in on a job that was right out of their class, a job which, as it happens, was to alter the entire course of my life.’

*

‘Mrs. Fisher-Simmonds had a house in the best residential part of the town and she was one of the life Governors of the Roman Catholic Convent that was built some two miles out in the countryside.’

‘The Convent of the Sacred Hands itself had been very well endowed for the daughters of poor Clergymen, Doctors and Solicitors. But each Governor could nominate one free pupil every five years.’

‘Mrs. Fisher-Simmonds was a big noise in the neighbourhood and any decision of hers was unlikely to be queried or frustrated by anyone.’

‘Otherwise there would surely have been an outcry at my entering the Convent for the day girls were all daughters of well-to-do tradespeople and local professional men, while the boarders were one and all of a far better Social position than me.’

‘In the years to come I was to realise that Mrs. Fisher-Simmonds rather enjoyed showing her powers by doing small things that would arouse antagonism and argument from everyone else.’

‘She liked to see people gulp back their protests because it was her decision, whatever it might be. While as far as the Convent was concerned, I was to learn that she was considered a holy terror and that everyone in the place was afraid of her.’

‘I shall never forget the awful terrifying loneliness when I was first left in the Greystone building that seemed to me a prison that I should never be able to escape from.’

‘I clung onto Mummy in floods of tears and she was crying herself as she walked away down the drive, turning back to wave to me as I stood holding a tear-sodden handkerchief in one hand, the other clasped firmly by a Nun.’

‘After I had settled down, which was not for some months, I really quite enjoyed the life.

‘I began to grow as the good food and exercise altered my constitution, but I suffered at first through being so backward.’

‘I had to start in the baby class among all children of six and seven for I was hopelessly ignorant, except where taking care of myself was concerned. At that I was adept and I soon stopped any form of teasing.’

‘Of course I was punished for scratching, kicking and for using language that horrified the Nuns, but in some curious way the girls respected me for my savageness.’

‘Of course I was hideously homesick and Mummy’s letters, which were few and very far between, badly spelt and often unintelligible made things worse because they never told me the things I really wanted to know.’

‘Then she and Alfred came to visit me when they were in a nearby town and it seemed to me that the old relationship had been completely broken between us.’

‘I had been so very excited at their coming, almost hysterical, when I heard that there was even a possibility of seeing them, that the actual meeting was an anti-climax.’

‘They came dressed in their best, slightly awkward and nervous not only of the Nuns and the peeping girls at every window but also of me.’

‘My cleanness, neatness and altered appearance did upset them, they missed the ragged noisy uncouth Linda who had slept at the bottom of their bed night after night.’

‘Alfred never came again and that was the last time I saw him – and I hate to think of him sitting on the edge of a chair in an ill-fitting suit, twiddling his bowler hat.’

‘I like to remember him in red and spangles, with waxed moustache and his sleek hair oiled into a quiff and his muscles bulging as he raised himself on the trapeze.’

‘Mrs. Fisher-Simmonds was delighted with me as the years passed by. She used to come over once a month to patronise the whole place and always asked especially for me.’

‘Perhaps she will leave you something in her will,’ one of the girls suggested.

‘From that moment I used to tell myself stories in which I was left thousands of pounds by my kind benefactor and went back to the troupe rich and important.’

‘I dreamt of the parties I would give with unlimited bottles of stout and outsize steaks!’

‘The girls at the Convent were all trained for different professions, many of them were to be Governesses, some were to go on to schools of music or needlework while others wished to be gardeners or secretaries.’

‘As I was not proficient at any of these things, there seemed some difficulty as to my future, but, when I asked the Mother Superior, she said,

“‘I think Mrs. Fisher-Simmonds has definite plans for you, Linda’.”

‘When I first went to the Convent, they tried to call me by my proper name, which is, of course, ‘Belinda’, but I fought for the name I had always known, ‘Linda’.’

‘Although the Nuns held out for some time, they were forced after a while to submit to the inevitable as the girls called me ‘Linda’ and I made a pretence of not hearing if addressed as ‘Belinda’.’

‘Mrs. Fisher-Simmons said nothing to me about the future and I was far too frightened of her, as everyone else was, to ask her point blank.’

‘Then just a fortnight ago they told us that she was seriously ill and special prayers and Masses were said for her in the Chapel.’

‘I have already outstayed my allotted time at the school for most of the girls leave when they are seventeen, while I shall be eighteen next month.’

‘I have not heard from Mummy for four or five months. She wrote that she had a job as a barmaid at the Cross Keys in North London, but since then, silence.’

‘However, the Cross Keys found her when news finally came that Mrs. Fisher-Simmonds was dead and had left me nothing.’

‘There was no mention of me at all in her will, nor in the instructions she left for her son, who has inherited everything she possessed.’

‘Ten days after she was buried the Mother Superior sent for me and told me that I must now make some choice as to what I would do.’

‘They would do their best to find me a position as they always did with their girls. But, she added, it was a pity that I had not specialised in any particular branch of their education and she blamed herself for being led away by the ideas and fancies as to what Mrs. Fisher-Simmonds intended.’

‘I made up my mind there and then to leave the Convent and fend for myself.’

‘I wrote to Mummy that very afternoon, saying that she must ask for me and insist on my coming home to her, wherever she was. If my letter was a surprise, her reply gave me a bit of a shock,

“Linda, dearie, I am sorry to hear the old lady is dead and has left you nothing. Come here to see me if you want to, but I really cannot promise anything as I am going to marry Bill Blomfield as owns this pub and so we will not have room for any more.

With love, yours, Mummy.”

‘I then had some difficulty in persuading the Mother Superior to let me go after she had insisted on seeing the letter, but, as she was in as much of a quandary as I am myself, I think she was glad that I firmly insisted on returning to Mummy however poor my welcome.’

‘I cannot believe it was only this morning that I said ‘goodbye’ to the Convent. It seems months ago now since Mummy met me at the Station.’

‘She gave me a kiss and said,

‘Well, here’s a pretty kettle of fish, Linda! And I hate your hat, dearie.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘I cannot sleep. The bed is too small for two people and Mummy is snoring so loudly that I know I shall never get a wink tonight.’

‘I cannot complain for there is not corner in this house where one could put in a bed.’

‘Bill is not bad and I think Mummy is wise to marry him. He is awfully fond of her, you can see that at once, he gives her an affectionate slap on the behind every time she goes near him.’

‘I am sure he is a good sort at heart, but, anyway, it is better for Mummy to be Mistress of the Cross Keys than just ‘behind the bar’.

‘I don’t suppose that husbands grow on gooseberry bushes and Mummy is looking older these days. She is fatter in the face and she has put on a lot of weight since she broke her leg, that’s her excuse, but I bet the number of ports she has with the customers has got something to do with it.’

‘I cannot help seeing how like Mummy I am in some ways. She has big grey eyes and a tiny turned-up nose, which is now almost lost in her face since she has become so fat.’

‘One thing I have that Mummy hasn’t – and that is awfully good feet and hands.’

‘Of course I have been living in great luxury the last few years while Mummy has been working, but that has nothing to do with the shape and I am glad I have long thin fingers and lovely nails.’

‘The father of one of the girls at the Convent, who was a Doctor, said that good hands and feet are a sign of breeding, so perhaps mine come from my father, whoever he was.’

‘I tried to have a talk with Mummy tonight before we came to bed, but I did not have much opportunity and she was tired when we reached upstairs. But, as I was undressing, she did say,

“‘You know you are pretty, Linda, and if you weren’t so thin you’d be even prettier not but that it isn’t fashionable nowadays to look like a lamp-post though I must say all the men I have ever known like a curve or two, especially on the bust and on the bustle’.”

‘Especially Bill,’ I said slyly and Mummy laughed.

‘Oh, Bill’s a caution. Do you like him, dearie?’

‘Yes,’ I said and I meant it.

“‘He’s reliable,’ Mummy said, ‘and, mind you, he has got a good bit put by. He’s clever you know but a bit close. Not that I am saying anything against him, mark you, but, of course, I got used to Alfred who never could save twopence. If Bill is close, it’s because he has to be. After all he has managed to buy this business out of his savings’.”

‘Although I did not tell Mummy so, I think Bill is mean. He has let out every room over the pub and I know he is looking forward to the time when he and Mummy share one room and he can let out the other.’

‘I saw at once that it was quite useless to hope that he would let me stay here until I get a job.’

‘They are getting married the day after tomorrow and Bill is looking for a tenant to come in that very evening to take possession of the vacant bedroom.’

‘But what Mummy said tonight made me think. I wonder if there is any hope for me on the stage. After all, if you are pretty that is surely half the battle and I have always had rather a hankering after the boards, memories of the old days, I suppose.’

‘Acting was one thing that I could do really well at the Convent, even though it was not encouraged.’

‘But, when we used to do a Shakespearean play once a year for the Governors, I always had the name part and because I was good, the Nun who taught elocution took extra care over me.’

‘I shall try to find a job tomorrow. I suppose that Mummy has a little money she could lend me until I earn some myself.’

‘Poor old Mummy, if she goes on snoring like this when she is married, I should think that Bill will be sorry he has let that extra room.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘I am absolutely dead beat, what with two days now looking for work and the Wedding yesterday, I am so tired I can hardly stand.’

‘I have a room for tonight in the house of Bill’s cousin.’

‘It is not very comfortable and from what I saw of the sheets it strikes me that they have not been washed for some time, but it’s better than nothing and she is only charging me two shillings for the night.’

‘The Wedding was a most exhausting business, but Mummy enjoyed herself and so did Bill.’

‘She was married in blue velvet and carried a huge bouquet of pink carnations. I could not be a bridesmaid although I offered to be, because no one would buy me a new dress and my Convent clothes are dark blue, not exactly suitable for a bridesmaid.’

‘Bill was beaming and he wore a white buttonhole as large as a cabbage and the car they hired for the occasion was covered in white ribbons and orange blossom.

‘When they went back to the Cross Keys, it was after three o’clock and the public bar was closed for the afternoon, so we all celebrated in there until it was time to open.’

‘It was very late before we left the happy couple alone and Bill’s sister took me home and let me sleep on the sofa in her parlour. It was terribly uncomfortable and I am glad that tonight I can go to Bill’s cousin.’

‘Bill’s relations have been awfully nice to me and Mummy has given me a ‘fiver’ until I find myself some sort of a job.’

‘But, oh, it is difficult! I went to all the Agencies the day before yesterday and tried two or three theatres where they were having auditions, but they were full up before I arrived.’

‘In one of the Agencies there was a little Jewish man and he said,

‘What do you want to do, what sort of part?’ and when I said ‘comic’, he laughed like anything and said,

“Have you looked at your face.’?”

‘Yes,’ I replied, rather surprised and he said,

“‘What you want is ingénue – you could not be comic if you tried with those eyes’.”

‘After that he tried to kiss me and it really annoyed me.’

‘I dug my elbow as sharply as I could into his waist as he came near me and he cried,

“‘Oh, you little bitch’!”

‘But by that time I had reached the door and went out slamming it.’

‘So that is one Agent off the list!’

‘I walked down Shaftesbury Avenue and the clothes were so lovely.’

‘It is only that I dare not spend too much money as yet.’

‘I was so hungry when I came into this restaurant I had to order some sausages and mash even though I really meant to have something cheap before going back for the night.

‘I feel lots better now I have had the sausages and mash, but I could eat the plateful all over again. It’s funny that I am so thin because I have a very good appetite really.’

‘Even Bill said when I dined with him and Mummy,

‘Linda has hollow legs, I cannot think where else she puts her food.’

‘Well, I suppose I must be getting off home. I cannot sit here all night and the best thing is to get some sleep before I start looking for work again in the morning.’

Look at those chocolate buns – I would love one – oozing with cream – I must have one!

CHAPTER FOUR

‘If things go on like this I shall begin to think my name is ‘Lucky Linda’.

‘Really it seems that Mummy was right and that I was born under a lucky star. Here I am getting three pounds a week in the chorus of Whoops Dearie and all through getting to know Bessie.’

‘If I had got up and gone as I intended after the sausages and mash that night, I should have missed all this, it just shows that greed is sometimes rewarded.’

‘I could not resist the chocolate cream bun I saw on the counter and, when I was tucking into it guiltily, Bessie came in and ordered herself a steak and onions.’

I liked her the moment I saw her, she has such a jolly face and, when she smiled at me and said,

“‘Are you slimming’?” of course I smiled back and we started a conversation.

‘She has been in the chorus for years and knows all the ropes and, when I told her my troubles she was perfectly charming, and the end of it was that here I am sharing a room with her in a funny little street off Tottenham Court Road.’

‘She got me into Whoops Dearie because, as she explained it with a wink, the Assistant Stage Manager was after her and prepared to pay for it up to a point.’

‘I don’t think it is much of a show myself, but, of course, I am no judge, not having been to theatres since I was eleven, but Bessie agrees with me that it will not last long. I only hope we are wrong for we are on clover while it does.’

‘Bessie took me to a little second-hand clothes shop and I found a frightfully smart dress and coat for three pounds blowing my first week’s wages, but then I have still have some of Mummy’s money in hand.’

‘I didn’t know enough about dancing to get into the dancing troupe with Bessie, but they have made me one of the Show Girls.’

‘I walk about the stage in the loveliest frocks and huge picture hats. They suit me and I would like to own a few of them for myself.’

‘The leading lady looks a hundred when she is not made up. She used to be a well-known West End star, but she has come down in the world. She is kind though and not a bit catty or jealous.’

‘The rehearsals were pretty strenuous. They kept us at the theatre until after midnight and I felt dead in the mornings, but now we have opened it’s not so bad.’

The second lead, a girl who dances quite well, but who cannot sing for toffee, gets very temperamental and, when she bursts into tears, she has to be smoothed down by everyone.’

The dresses we wear are all made by a male dress designer and he keeps tearing in and making alterations and, when I appeared, he said to the Producer,

‘Stop! Stop! It is too devastating. I particularly said that red model was to be worn by a brunette and now they have given it an absolute blonde!’

‘Everyone turned to look at me and, personally, I thought the red dress looked lovely, but, of course, I could not say so and only after a terrific argument the young designer agreed that it would have to be left on me, as it was too tight for the other show girls.

‘But in the wings he went on murmuring for ages afterwards,

“‘It’s too infuriating. Really, theatrical production makes me weep’!”

‘I was terrified that I would lose my job, but Bessie told me not to take any notice, as she had been in a show he dressed before and he always behaved like that.’

‘Is he a success?’ I asked.

“‘He makes millions, she answered, ‘as it’s the fashion now to have men designers of women’s clothes! That’s why they insist on making all their models for flat-chested girls with no hips. Pansy-ish, if you ask me. It’s all right for you, Linda, but I daren’t eat a thing now until the show is over’.”

‘I am tired tonight and I ought to be asleep, if I don’t want to look a freak tomorrow for the matinée, but I have to mend these stockings, bother holes and runs!’

“I am not really complaining, it is all so exciting’!”

CHAPTER FIVE

‘I am frightfully thrilled because I am going out tonight for the first time.’

‘Bessie is taking me with her and her boy. She has a regular one now ever since the show started.’

‘Bessie calls him a ‘boy’, but that is just a manner of speaking, for he is quite old, thirty-five at least and very clever, at least Bessie says so, he is in a stock-broking firm in the City.

‘He has a wife too and that would put me off if I was Bessie. I always feel that married men belong to someone else.’

‘But Bessie does not care. In fact I am surprised in some ways how little Bessie does care about anything.’

‘She likes Teddy, as she calls him, and when he is with us, she makes ever such a fuss of him. But, when he is not there she never talks of him or seems to mind one way or another, except when he sends her presents.’

‘I asked her one day if she was jealous of his wife and she answered,

“‘What questions you do ask, Linda. Is it likely? My dear, she is very much the grand lady of Walton Health. She and I will not come to blows over Teddy, I can assure you’.”

‘I cannot understand it, Bessie,’ I said, ‘because if I was you I should mind.’

‘Bessie has been away with him for two or three weekends and I know she often goes back to his flat after the show.’

‘She comes in ever so late – or rather ever so early – waking me up, though not for long for she just drags off her clothes and simply flops into bed.’

I have never had much to say to Teddy, just, ‘how do you do?’ when he has come round to the stage door for Bessie or standing outside the dressing room waiting for her.’