Hettie of Hope Street

EIGHT

‘I am to have my first proper rehearsal at the Adelphi tomorrow and I am to sing there on Thursday afternoon,’ Hettie told Connie excitedly after church on Sunday, as she helped her with the little ones whilst they walked back to the house.

‘It all sounds very exciting,’ Connie agreed.

‘I have written home to tell Mam. Oh, I do hope they will be able to be there.’ Hettie’s face clouded slightly. She bet someone wouldn’t be coming, and that someone was John. She hadn’t heard from him since their argument and she wondered if they would ever go back to being the close friends they had always been.

‘I am sure they will be. I am certainly looking forward to it. I think the last time I went to the Adelphi was when cousin Cecily took us there. You can be sure she will want to come and hear you as well, Hettie, and I dare say she will bring her mama-in-law along too, so you will have some sturdy support from your family for your debut.’

‘I think that will make me even more nervous.’ Hettie laughed, and then said uncertainly, unable to shake him from her thoughts, ‘Is John still angry with me, do you know? I know that he doesn’t approve of what I’m doing, but I would so much like him to be there.’

Connie gave her a swift hug. ‘And so he shall be. I shall be with him myself. And as for him not approving, I dare say it just gave him a bit of a shock to see you looking so grown up. Men can be the oddest of creatures at times.’

Connie herself had enjoyed the fun she had had as a girl training to be a nurse, and she could see how much Hettie was enjoying her new independent life and the different friends she had made. She had blossomed in less than a month and had a new kind of worldliness about her.

‘I just hope that Mam will be well enough to come,’ Hettie continued. ‘When I telephoned yesterday, Mrs Jennings said that she was in bed and feeling sickly.’

‘Yes, the unseasonable heat has been pulling her down a little,’ Connie replied hastily. Ellie had said specifically that she did not wish to make it widely known yet that there was to be a new baby. Thankfully, though, she was no longer worrying so much about her own health or that of the coming baby.

Later in the day Connie watched indulgently whilst Hettie tucked hungrily into her dinner. All this singing was obviously giving her a good appetite. She was happily unaware that her Sunday dinners were the culinary highlight of Hettie’s week because the meagre amount of ‘pocket money’ she received from Mrs Buchanan was barely enough to buy her one decent meal a day.

‘You are enjoying that Madeira cake, Hettie, would you care to take a couple of slices with you to share with your friends?’ Connie invited her.

‘Oh yes, please,’ Hettie accepted, unblushingly allowing Connie to parcel up the whole lot for her, knowing that she herself would be the one to eat the lion’s share of it. Then she felt guilty at not sharing with Connie what life was really like at Ma Marshall’s. But as Babs had told her wryly, ‘sometimes it’s best not to let folks at ’ome know just how things are, ’Ettie. Saves ’em worrying then, like.’

‘My husband will be waiting for you at the Adelphi, Miss Walker. You will enter the hotel via the staff entrance at the rear of the hotel and not the main entrance – that is reserved for hotel guests. Once you are inside you will ask for the housekeeper and she will see to it that you are escorted to the room Mr Buchanan uses for practice. It would not do at all for the Adelphi’s guests to have their ears subjected to the noise of scales in the main salons.

‘You will present yourself at the hotel every morning this week at 10.00 a.m. and you will remain there until Mr Buchanan says that you may leave. Then, provided that he is satisfied with you, on Thursday you will bring with you your stage dress ready for the afternoon’s musical entertainment. Do you understand all of that?’

‘Yes, Mrs Buchanan,’ Hettie confirmed obediently. She could hardly believe the wait was nearly over!

‘Gideon – we don’t often see you up here,’ John greeted his brother-in-law warmly as Gideon stepped out of his car.

‘Aye, well if you will choose to make a living in such an outlandish way,’ Gideon joked, automatically ducking as one of John’s students took off, the wings of his flying machine wiggling alarmingly.

‘Ellie sent me up with a message for you.’

‘Ellie? Is she…’ John began anxiously.

‘She’s fine,’ Gideon assured him immediately. ‘It’s Hettie I’m here about. She’s to have her debut performance at the Adelphi this Thursday and she’s said special like that she wants you to be there. Seems she took what you said to her about her frock to heart.’

‘I can’t pretend I’m happy about what she’s doing,’ John replied. ‘Or the kind of life she’ll be exposing herself to…’

‘Aye, well you’d best blame me for that, John. My thinking is that the lass will soon tire of it and want to come home. Having Connie run off like she did was that upsetting for Ellie I didn’t want to risk it happening again. And Hettie can be headstrong just like all the other Pride women.’

Reluctantly John allowed himself to smile. Both his sisters were headstrong in their own individual way, and perhaps it was unfair of him to expect Hettie to be any less determined than her adopted mother and aunt.

‘Well, that’s as mebbe, Gideon, but it’s my belief that the stage is no place for a decent woman.’

‘Aye, but the difference is that Hettie is a singer not an actress. The lass has to have her chance, John. That’s only fair. I’ve seen what happens when a person is denied the right to make their own free choice,’ he added heavily, and John knew he was thinking of the way their own mother had forced Ellie to part from Gideon so many years ago and the unhappiness that had caused them both.

‘How’s business?’ Gideon asked him, changing the subject.

‘Not as good as I’d like.’

‘Having so many men out of work is hurting us all. I’m getting closer to having to lay men off meself, but Ellie is adamant that we’ll cut back at home before she’ll see a working man laid off and his wife and children going hungry. Fortunately, I’ve got a bit put by and even if I have to cut the rents on the properties we should be able to pull through. There’s many a business as won’t, though. They’re saying already that Liverpool has been hit very badly. There’s no shipping to speak of, the docks are lying empty and there’s not much of any other kind of work either. It’s a bad business and no mistake, and the politicians don’t seem to be doing anything about it.’

‘There’s a lot of men asking if they survived the war only to be left to starve to death,’ John agreed sombrely.

‘Anyway, lad.’ Gideon returned swiftly to his real reason for being there. ‘You’ll be there for Hettie’s debut, won’t you? Only your Ellie will give me a real telling off if you aren’t.’

John laughed. ‘Yes I’ll be there,’ he promised, even if the thought of seeing Hettie again, and in such a way, caused his heart to skip a beat.

It was hard for Hettie not to feel both nervous and excited as she hurried across Lime Street towards the Adelphi hotel, skirting the imposing main entrance and going instead to the staff entrance, where she found a group of chambermaids complaining about the meanness of the guests whose rooms they had just been cleaning.

‘Not so much as a farthing, they give us, and ’er dripping in diamonds and furs.’

‘Just as well then that you helped yourself to her fancy perfume, eh Nancy?’ Hettie heard one of them joke as she squeezed past them.

‘’Ere, where do you think you’re going?’ A fat bald uniformed doorman stopped her.

‘I’m here to see the housekeeper, Mrs Nevis. I’m the new singer for afternoon tea,’ Hettie explained.

‘Well, next time make sure you have a number so as we can sign yer in,’ he warned her before giving her directions for the housekeeper’s room.

Mrs Nevis told her that she was far too busy to bother herself with her and gave Hettie directions for the room where she would find Mr Buchanan.

These proved to be so complicated that Hettie had begun to fear she must have misunderstood them as she trudged up endless flights of stairs and along equally endless corridors before finally coming to an open door through which she could hear music being played.

Having knocked and received no response, she walked hesitantly through the door and into the room. Immediately, the pianist stopped playing and looked at her.

‘Mr Buchanan?’ Hettie asked him shyly.

‘Yes indeed, and you must be the delightful new protégée whose company I am to have the pleasure of.’

He was nothing like she had imagined, being small and rotund with black hair as shiny as patent leather pulled in strands across his bald head. But at least he was much jollier and kinder than his wife, Hettie acknowledged with relief.

‘Well, my dear wife has excelled herself – you are indeed a pretty child. The ladies will all envy you and their husbands will insist that their wives are to take tea here every day so they can join them and secretly admire you. I hope, my dear, that you have a gown that will do more for that pretty face than the clothes you are currently wearing, eh?’ he asked jovially, pinching Hettie’s cheek. ‘A gentleman likes nothing more than to be able to admire a neat ankle and a delicate shoulder.

‘And a word to the wise. When you sing, it is towards the ladies you must look, but making sure when you do that the gentlemen can also see you at your best advantage. Maisie knew to a nicety how it should be done, but unfortunately she has grown above herself and must go. So, my beloved helpmate has been making you practise your scales, I hope, and now today you will sing them for me.’

Obediently Hettie took off her jacket and turned to face him.

‘No, no.’ Immediately, and to Hettie’s shock, he placed his hands on her body, one on her arm and the other on her waist, holding her so tightly she could feel their hot clamminess through her clothes.

‘You must stand by the piano like so,’ he told her, manipulating her so that she was turned away from the instrument and with her back to it. ‘You are to sing to the ladies, and not to me. However, if you were to be asked to sing in the evening then you would stand close to my shoulder and perhaps even lean forwards to turn my music for me. But then an evening audience is a very different thing and mostly for the gentlemen guests. Now, shall we try again?’

It was four o’clock before Mr Buchanan declared himself satisfied enough with her progress to dismiss her for the day, by which time Hettie was starving, since they had not stopped for any lunch.

Rather than go back to the boarding house she decided that, since it was virtually only across the road, she might as well go to the Royal Court and walk back with the other girls as their matinée performance would now have finished.

Frankie the doorman knew her by now and grinned as he let her in through the stage door. ‘They’ve just come orf,’ he told her.

Squeezing past him, Hettie made her way backstage to the large communal dressing room shared by the chorus.

‘’Ere ’Ettie, come over ’ere and tell us ’ow you’ve gorn on,’ Lizzie called out when she saw her.

Eagerly Hettie made her way through the busy room filled with chorus girls, no longer embarrassed as she would once have been by their various states of undress.

A mirror ran the length of one whole wall of the long rectangular room, with an equally long ‘dressing table’ top beneath it. Each girl was supposed to have her own small section of this table and her own chair, just as each girl was also supposed to have to herself one of the lockers on the opposite wall, and a coat hook. But as Babs had explained to Hettie, since there was never enough dressing table and mirror space or lockers, it was a case of first come first served, and frequent arguments and fights broke out amongst the girls over who owned what.

From one of the shorter walls, a door opened into the domain of the wardrobe mistress, and what space there was left was filled with racks of costumes all jumbled together.

The air in the room smelled stalely of cheap scent and sweat, but despite that Hettie loved the atmosphere of the dressing room with its frantic bustle and sense of excitement and urgency.

‘’Ere, help me get out of these bloody feathers, will yer?’ Lizzie puffed, tugging at her headdress and heaving a sigh of relief when it was finally removed.

‘So what was ’e like then, ’Ettie?’ Babs asked her.

‘Well, he was…’

Suddenly the dressing room door burst open and a woman rushed in still in full costume and make-up.

‘Oh gawd,’ Sukey muttered. ‘Now we’re in for it.’

‘Who is she?’ Hettie whispered curiously, as immediately all the girls seemed to be very busy ignoring the newcomer.

‘She’s the bloomin’ star, that’s wot, and she’s ’ere to mek trouble,’ Sukey told her.

‘Where is she, then?’ The imperious contralto voice rang theatrically round the now silent room.

‘Come on, you little sluts, no way are yer all deaf, even if yer dance like yer’ve never heard a tune in yer lives. Where’s the little slut wot’s bin making sheep’s eyes at my man?’

‘Just as well Maureen’s already left otherwise Gertie’d rip her to pieces,’ Babs muttered to Hettie.

‘Gertie, my darling, what on earth are you doing in here?’

Hettie goggled as a tall, handsome, blond-haired man walked into the room, ignoring the chorus girls and approaching the infuriated contralto.

‘You know bloody well what I’m doing,’ the contralto howled. ‘I’m looking for that little whore you’ve been seeing behind me back, that’s what. Well, you won’t be doing it no more, matey.’

Before he could move, she had picked up one of the heavy hand mirrors the girls used to check the back of their costumes and brought it down hard on a place no lady ever looked at on a gentleman. As he doubled up in pain Babs whispered, ‘Gawd, she’s cracked ’im one right in the Kaisers,’ sounding more impressed than shocked. ‘Bloody ’ell that will put an end to his messing about.’

‘If you touch that little tart again, I’m cutting it right…’

As they both left the dressing room still arguing, Hettie looked at Babs and asked her curiously, ‘What was all that about?’

‘Well, she’s the star of the show, see, and ’e’s one of the angels.’

‘What’s an angel?’ Hettie interrupted.

Lizzie, who had been listening, sighed and explained, ‘An angel is wot we calls someone wot puts up the money to put on a show. Bertie has a bankful of money he got for marrying his wife.’

‘He’s married but…’

‘Gawd, but you’re a know-nothing, ain’t yer, Miss Innocent. Of course he’s married. They allus are. But that don’t stop any of them messing about, like. Of course, the moment Gertie clapped eyes on him she’d got her mind set on ’im and ’oo can blame her? It’s part of tradition, see, that the leading lady gets her choice of the men, and ’eaven help any hoofer wot steps out of line on to her territory. Mind you, it’s past time Gertie retired, and if you want my opinion it’s because she’s so old that he’s bin messin’ around with Maureen behind Gertie’s back.’

‘She didn’t look very old,’ Hettie had to protest. She had looked very glamorous with her rouged cheeks, cherry-red lips, and her short skirt revealing her legs.

‘That’s on account of all the greasepaint. You oughta see ’er close up. More lines on her face than a tram station, she’s got. Anyway it was when we wus doing Cinderella a couple of seasons back that Bertie first come on the scene. Madam there was swarming all over ’im right from the start, and of course it weren’t too long before ’e got the message and the two of ’em became an item, like. But now he’s getting fed up wi’ her and he’s got a bit of an eye for our Maureen who better watch out because that thump she gave him in the balls is nothing to what Gertie’s likely to do to her. Gawd, she left the girl who made eyes at her last fella wi’ a right nasty scar on her face. Threw acid at her, so I ’eard.’

Hettie gasped with shock.

‘There, don’t look so scared, young un,’ Lizzie comforted her. ‘She won’t do owt to ’arm you, why should she? So, what did you think of ’im, then, Ma Buchanan’s ’usband?’

‘He was kind and very jolly, not like I expected at all,’ Hettie told her innocently.

‘Was he now. Well, you just look out for men wot is kind to yer, cos like as not they’ll want sommat from yer, if yer knows what I mean,’ Lizzie warned her darkly.

Half an hour later, they all trooped out into the autumn sunshine, laughing and joking as they hurried to the chop house a short walk away from the theatre. The owner of the chop house gave them a good reduction off his normal prices on the understanding that they came in to eat earlier than the other customers, and brought their gentleman admirers in whenever they were asked out to dinner by them.

Hettie was hungry and she breathed in the warm, roasting-meat scented air appreciatively as she slid into one of the banquettes.

‘’Ere comes your admirer.’ Sukey nudged her when the owner’s young son suddenly appeared at their table.

He was still at school, and only just beginning to shave, but he had still Brilliantined his hair and he blushed bright red as he looked at Hettie. ‘’Ave the steak pie,’ he advised her in a mutter. ‘Me Da has ’ad the chops in for so long they’re about to get up and walk out of their own accord.’

‘Yes, we’ll all have a bit o’ it, young Max, and make sure we gets plenty of gravy and ’taters wi’ it,’ Lizzie told him firmly. ‘And yer can stop gawking at our ’Ettie as well, otherwise yer ears will be getting a rare boxing. Cheek of it!’

They all laughed, including Hettie, but the truth was that she was grateful to her new friends for their protection of her, not from Max, of course, but from everything that was so new and alien to her. She didn’t know what she would have done without them.

‘I’ll be right glad when that red-headed lad is gone,’ Jim told John grimly as they stood watching the group of young men sauntering across the airstrip in the direction of their accommodation. ‘You can’t tell him anything. He thinks he knows it all, and he’s beginning to get the others thinking the same way. It’s not even as though he’s going to make a good flyer. Too much of a risk-taker by half, he is. I caught him trying to get into the hangar this morning when his lesson wasn’t until after dinner.’

John frowned. ‘Did he say what he was doing there?’

‘Aye, sommat about having left his helmet in there, but I’d been in there working meself and there was no helmet there.’

‘Would you prefer me to take him up for the rest of his lessons?’ John offered. Normally they split the students into two and then kept them in those groups so that they could monitor their progress individually.

‘Nah. I’ve made sure he knows I’m on to him, and I gave him a bit of dressing down in front of the others this afternoon, told him that the only way he’d ever be good enough to loop the loop would be with a toy flying machine. By the way, did you manage to get the photographs you wanted?’

John had spent most of the day photographing the North West coastline for a government department whilst one of his previous students had come over for the day to fly the machine for him. The Ministry paid well and promptly, and he certainly needed the money.

He had read in the papers that a certain type of wealthy young rip was now making flying lessons extremely fashionable, and that flying clubs were springing up all over the country to cater for their new passion. These wealthy young socialites apparently liked nothing better than to drive up to their flying club in their expensive motors, and then take to the skies to show off their skills to their admiring friends and ‘popsies’, as the article had referred to their lady friends. He suppose he shouldn’t have been surprised after what Alfie had said about his new venture when they had met up at the Adelphi, the same weekend as his quarrel with Hettie. He may not have seen Hettie since, John admitted, but that did not mean he hadn’t been thinking about her – and worrying about her, too.

Them as who had written that article ought to come up to Lancashire and see how real people lived. But of course the likes of the young toffs the article had referred to did not have to concern themselves with the problem of the country’s two million unemployed, John acknowledged bitterly. He had never thought of himself as an activist of any kind, but he had seen at first hand what poverty did to people. As a lad growing up under the roof of a father who was a butcher, his belly had always been full; but after their mother’s death, with the four of them – Ellie, Connie, baby Philip and himself – shared out amongst his mother’s sisters to be brought up by them, he had come to discover what hardship was.

You only had to go to Liverpool’s once proud docks and look into the pinched bitter faces of its working men to know the true state of the country, John reflected. The country was in a sorry way and his business with it. Tomorrow, instead of dressing himself up in the cast-off suit of Gideon’s that Ellie had sent up for him and sitting watching Hettie sing, he should by rights have been working on his figures and thinking of ways to bring in some much needed extra money. His flying machines were sound enough but getting old. He thought enviously of the new machines Alfred had told him he was ordering for his own club. The science of building flying machines was changing almost by the day. Only weeks ago the Americans had stunned the world by announcing that they had used flying machines to drop bombs on a captured German boat.

If the unthinkable happened and there should be another war, would his beloved flying machines be used to rain death down out of the skies? If so, John prayed he would not be there to witness it.

NINE

Having refused Connie’s suggestion that she come to her house to prepare for her debut, and that Connie and Harry escort her to the Adelphi, Hettie was now wishing she had agreed and was longing for the support of those closest to her as she stood in her shift and gazed anxiously at her red gown.

‘’Ee tha looks that pale, ’Ettie. Not getting nervous, are yer?’ one of the girls asked her sympathetically.

‘Only a little,’ Hettie fibbed.

‘Everyone gets stage-fright, Hettie,’ Babs comforted her. ‘But yer family are going to be there, didn’t yer say?’

‘Yes. Mam and Da, and Aunt Connie, and Mam’s cousin Cecily. And John has promised to be there as well,’ Hettie added.

‘John? So ’oo’s this John, then?’ Babs teased.

‘He’s Mam’s younger brother,’ Hettie explained.

‘So ’e’s yer uncle, then?’

Hettie shook her head. ‘No, because Mam is my step-mother – I’m adopted, you see. John and I are the best of friends, thick as thieves – or we used to be anyway,’ Hettie trailed off.

‘Oh ho, I see now, and yer sweet on this ’ere John, are yer?’

‘No,’ Hettie denied, but she still couldn’t help blushing as Babs laughed at her.