Hannah and Alice began one of those conversations about food that grown-up people enjoy, but Sorrel could feel that Hannah was not having this one because she was enjoying it, but to keep Alice from talking about something else, and she had a frightening thought that the something else was what Alice called bees and honey. What did Alice mean by saying “What they were going to do for bees and honey she didn’t know”? There always had seemed to be money. You couldn’t suddenly have none, could you, even when your grandfather died? Besides, how could there be none when they had a grandmother who had a big house in the middle of London?
Hannah and Alice had shifted from food to clothes.
“What have you got they can wear to-morrow?” Alice asked. “Have the girls got any of those shorts?”
Hannah was puzzled.
“Yes, they had them for games at their school, but you only put them on for games, didn’t you, dears? You didn’t wear them regular?”
Holly brushed her hair off her face and left some shrimp whiskers hanging on a curl.
“And we wore them for gymnasium and dancing.”
Hannah’s face was always red, but now it was going peony-coloured. Her eyes were fixed on Alice and they were anxious as are a dog’s who is afraid he is not going to be taken out with his family.
“I’ve never got to take the children to a theatre school, have I?”
Alice did not understand what Hannah was worrying about.
“I’ll tell you how to go.”
Hannah looked more anxious than ever; she was so worried she forgot to resent the suggestion that she could not find her way about London.
“It’s not that. Church now, or a parish concert, or out to tea however big the house, I’ve taken the children to them all, but a stage school! I’d feel awkward.”
Alice laughed.
“You’d think it was you had to have an audition.”
Mark tore the head off a shrimp as if he were tearing the word at the same time.
“What’s an audition?”
Alice shook her head at him.
“You’ll see, Master Scornful.”
Sorrel tried to make up for Mark’s rude voice.
“Please tell us, Alice dear.”
Alice loved talking about anything to do with the theatre. She took a gulp of tea as if to get her voice in order.
“Well, of course, an audition at a school isn’t the same as in a theatre, but it’s near enough to give you a taste of the real thing. Madame Fidolia will want to see what you can do. Of course, in a theatre audition you do whatever it is right off. Singing, reciting, high kicks and all, but I should think in a school like that different teachers would try you out for each thing separately.”
The children’s eyes were round with horror.
“But we don’t do any of those things,” Sorrel gasped.
Mark leant on the table, his voice was ferocious.
“Nor am I going to.”
“I did basket ball at our school,” Holly explained, “and you aren’t allowed to kick at it.”
Alice looked from one face to the other; you could see an idea dawning.
“Don’t you want to go on the stage?”
Her voice was bewildered and, with equal bewilderment, the children answered.
“Why should we?”
“I should jolly well think we don’t.”
“I want to go back to Ferntree, Matron’s expecting us.”
Alice hesitated. It was clear she had a lot to say, but before she could speak Hannah broke in.
“Maybe we could talk about all this later.” She looked round at their plates. “You get on with your shrimps now, I’ve all the unpacking to see to before bedtime.”
Alice, having run down to see that grandmother wanted nothing, helped Hannah unpack. They shut themselves in the nursery to do it and they talked hard in low voices. Sorrel thought Hannah talking to Alice was a good idea. Hannah knew they had been happy at their boarding schools and perhaps Alice could explain that to grandmother, and all this idea about the stage would be dropped. She invited Mark and Holly into her bedroom.
It was queer how different Sorrel’s bedroom was from the rest of the house. It was not only that it was pretty and not torn or dusty, it was something about it. Mark, prowling round, got somewhere near explaining this.
“I bet our mother didn’t care what that old Sir Joshua did.”
Sorrel was kneeling by the bookcase; she turned round, her eyes shining.
“Do you know, as you said that I could almost see her. She must have knelt by this bookcase just as I am now. I wonder what her hair was like. I wish there was a picture of her. Not grown-up, I mean, like the ones we had at home, but when she was my age.”
Holly climbed on to the bed and patted the felt doll.
“Can I untie this doll and play with her?”
Sorrel said “no” with a snap before she had time to bite it back. Then she was sorry.
“I didn’t mean to bite at you, but I do want to leave this room just like she had it, for a bit anyway.”
Mark joined Holly on the bed; he stroked the pillow-case cat. “You know the Bishop said he saw her act. I expect grandmother made her. I bet she didn’t do it because she wanted to.”
Sorrel was taking the books out of the shelves and opening them.
“I’m not sure. All these plays are rubbed with reading, just like Babar got when Holly was first given it and would read it every day.”
Mark laid his cheek on the cat’s back.
“I expect that was lessons.”
Sorrel shook her head.
“I don’t believe it. These ones are Shakespeare. This is ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ Nobody who had to read ‘Romeo and Juliet’ as a lesson as much as this has been read would keep it in their bedroom; they’d keep it wherever they did their lessons. What I believe is, our mother liked reading Shakespeare.”
Mark sat up.
“She couldn’t. Nobody could. That awful ‘Twelfth Night.’”
Sorrel put “Romeo and Juliet” back on the shelf.
“Shakespeare can be nice. I liked it when I was Shylock last Christmas; it wasn’t like lessons then.”
Holly was tugging at the cat, so Mark, to save a fuss, let her have it. He got off the bed and went over to the mantelpiece to have a look at the fourteen bears.
“That was because you dressed up and had a beard.”
“Partly,” Sorrel agreed, “but not only. When we all knew it and nobody forgot their words, then it was exciting. I felt cruel and as if I really meant to have a pound of flesh.”
Mark rearranged the bears in a crocodile, two and two, the small ones leading.
“Then you’d like to go to this awful stage school?”
Sorrel got up and pulled down her frock.
“I don’t know. I shouldn’t think so. We’d probably look awful fools.” She joined Mark and picked up the smallest bear. “It’s you. You simply can’t go to a stage school, you’ll never get into the Navy from there; at least it doesn’t sound right. Sailors don’t learn dancing and diction.”
Mark stood the biggest bear on its hindlegs.
“I never did mean to go. Not because of the Navy, there’s heaps of time to mug for that, but because I won’t be turned into a Warren when I’m all Forbes.”
Hannah opened the door.
“Come on, Holly dear. The water’s not too hot, but you must have a bath. You make a start too, Mark.”
Holly looked pleadingly at Sorrel.
“Could I, oh, could I take this cat to bed?”
Sorrel did not at all want her mother’s things to leave her room, but the old nursery was so dreary and her own room so perfect she could not be so mean as to say no. She was rewarded by Holly’s ecstatic hug and seeing her skip out of the room.
Mark hung about. Now that he was actually faced with sleeping in it his room seemed worse than ever. Sorrel, watching his face, felt swollen with being sorry for him. She nodded at the b
ears.
“Would you like to take those along with you? You’ve got a mantelpiece.”
Mark smiled properly for the first time since they had come to the house. He collected the bears quickly in case she should change her mind.
“Thanks awfully. I think their name is Tomkins. This is Mr. Tomkins and that’s Mrs. Tomkins. I’ll christen all the others later on; you don’t mind, do you?”
Sorrel did mind. She minded the mantelpiece not having her mother’s bears on it, but she was glad she had let Mark have them because his room really was horrible, and now that he had the bears he whistled as he went up the passage, which showed he must be minding less.
Alice came in. She closed the door behind her in a purposeful way.
“Sorrel dear, I’ve been having a talk with Hannah. She says that I had better speak right out to you.”
Sorrel felt as if somebody had taken hold of her in front and was squeezing hard. It was so certain that Alice was not going to say anything nice.
“Yes?”
“Your Granny won’t tell you, so I must. There’s no bees and honey in this house.”
Sorrel screwed up her eyes, she was thinking so hard.
“You mean Grandmother hasn’t any money? But we have. There’s some that comes from the Admiralty because of Daddy.”
“Right enough.”
“But most came from our grandfather, and as he’s dead and doesn’t need it I expect we can have it. He used to pay for our schools.”
Alice sat on the bed.
“We’ve earned a packet of bees and honey in our time, but stage people are all the same, easy come, easy go.”
“You mean it’s been spent. Can’t Grandmother earn some more?”
“Chance is a good thing. She’ll tell you we’ve had heaps of plays offered us and we didn’t fancy them. That’s not true. Your grandfather, John Warren, wasn’t much of an actor, but he was the cat’s whiskers at producing. While he was alive he hardly had a failure and he picked plays to star your grandmother. Since he’s been gone we’ve hardly had a success. Difficult to cast, and we’re a bit of a madam too. Must be the only fish in the pond.”
Sorrel did not understand all this but enough to grasp what Alice meant.
“If she hasn’t any money why does she live in this big house?”
“First, it’s our own, and secondly, have you had a good look at the house? Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard was crowded out compared to most of the rooms here.”
“Where’s it gone?”
“Sold. Things fetch good prices to-day. But don’t you tell your Granny.”
“But she must know if she’s sold things.”
Alice laughed.
“She didn’t. I did. Tradespeople must be paid, so must the gas bill and the electric light and the telephone.”
Sorrel was taking in so many things at once that her head spun.
“Are we to be trained to be actresses and an actor because of the money?”
Alice’s expression was approving.
“Clear spoken and sensible. I knew it the moment I set eyes on you. Now look, you don’t like the idea? Well, maybe you won’t have to stick to it. You can’t be licensed for the stage until you are twelve, and that’s not until next April. Meanwhile, there’s something called probate to do with lawyers going on about your grandfather’s money. When that how-de-do’s settled you may all be rolling for all we know.”
Sorrel sat on the bed by Alice, hugging her knees.
“It’s not me or Holly, it’s Mark. Daddy meant him to be a sailor and he ought to go to a school to teach him the right things.”
Alice put an arm round Sorrel.
“Don’t let’s worry about that, duckie, yet. Mark’s just about ten, isn’t he? Well, two or three months won’t make all that difference at his age.”
“But he ought to be at a proper school by the time he’s eleven anyway.”
“So he shall. Don’t you worry.” Alice gave Sorrel’s shoulders a squeeze. “I’ve spoken plain to you, ducks, because I want you to get the others to try to-morrow. This Madame Fidolia has known your Granny all her life, and, though none of you seem to appreciate it, the name of Warren counts for a lot. If you show even a scrap of talent she’ll take you for next to nothing. You see, you’ve got to be educated, that’s the law. In her school you do all the usual things and your training as well. I daresay you won’t need to go on the stage when the time comes, but it’s good to have galoshes by you, there’s no knowing when the road will be wet. Will you have a talk to the others?”
Sorrel felt very grand and eldest of the family.
“Yes, if you’ll give me a promise. Holly doesn’t matter, she’ll do what she’s told anyway. It’s Mark. I’ll have to work on him. If I do will you swear that you’ll help me to see he’s sent to a proper school next term, if possible.”
Alice raised her hand and put it on her head.
“I swear by my loaf of bread.”
Your head seemed a funny thing to swear by. Sorrel preferred “see this wet, see this dry,” or “my hand on my Bible,” which was what Hannah always said, but she could see that to Alice it was the most important swear that she could make and that she meant to keep it.
Sorrel waited till Mark was in bed. He was sitting up with his face very clean from the bath and his hair wet and, therefore, unusually neat. The room faced west and the sun was shining in and made the bare boards and the shabby curtain over the clothes and the battered iron bed look worse than ever. It was a warm evening and Mark had thrown back the rug and the blanket and had only the sheet over him. He had stretched this flat across his knees and on it, in a circle, he had stood the bears. As there was nowhere else to sit Sorrel sat on the end of the bed and promptly eight bears fell over. Mark looked up at her reproachfully.
“You have interrupted the christening. These bears have trekked for miles into the Antarctic for the ceremony.”
Sorrel helped stand the bears up again, and while she was doing it she was turning over in her mind the best way to bring up the subject of to-morrow.
“Could you leave the christening for a moment? There’s something rather important I’ve got to explain. Did you know that when people died other people don’t get their money at once? I mean, we haven’t got Grandfather’s yet.”
“Do we get it ever?” Mark asked, moving the bear that was to be christened into the centre of the ring.
“I think so, or at least Daddy does, and then we can have it to educate us. Anyway, at the moment there isn’t any except what we get from the Admiralty, and that, I suppose, is just enough for clothes and food and things. Grandmother hasn’t any. When they want money Alice sells something. That’s why the house is empty. Alice wants us to try very hard when we go to that school tomorrow, because then she thinks they won’t charge much to take us. Alice doesn’t think we’ll ever have to be actresses or an actor really. She thinks Grandfather’s money will have come before then and, anyway, I’ve made her swear that you shall go to a proper school for the Navy by the time you are eleven.”
Mark swept all the bears into a hollow that he had made between his knees.
“If you think I’m going to shout poetry like grandmother so that everybody thinks I’m like that Sir Joshua, you’re wrong.”
Sorrel made little pleats in Sir Joshua’s rug.
“I absolutely see how you feel about grandmother, but I don’t believe that it’s grandmother who’s going to worry about the school. It seems to me it’s Alice, and I like her.”
Mark stared at her.
“But why should Alice? She’s not a relation or anything, is she?”
“Why should Hannah? But she does.”
Mark picked up the bears again and once more arranged them in a circle. He took the largest and a medium one and put them in the middle. He made a growling sound.
“That’s the christening call ringing across the ice.” He pulled forward the smallest bear and spoke in a squeak. “What names
do you give these bears?” He turned to Sorrel. “A sea-lion’s taking the christening.” He barked, with his hand on the largest bear. “I name thee Hannah.” Then he touched the other bear. “I name thee Alice.” Then he made a lot more growling noises. “That’s the bears growling ‘amen.’”
Sorrel thought Mark christening one of the bears Alice was a good sign.
“If it’s to help Alice would you try to-morrow?”
Mark did not answer for a moment because he was collecting the bears to put them on the mantelpiece for the night.
“All right. Just for her I will, though I should think we’d all look the most awful fools.”
Sorrel kissed him good-night.
“I should think that’s certain. I wish to-morrow was over.”
CHAPTER VI
THE ACADEMY
The Children’s Academy of Dancing and Stage Training was in Bloomsbury. Hannah tried very hard to persuade Alice to take the children.
“The very word ‘stage’ turns me over. I was brought up strict and though I daresay some of these actresses live just as nicely as the rest of us, I can’t get over the way I was raised!”
Alice would have loved to have taken the children. It would have been a day out for her, but she had to say no.
“I wish I could oblige but we take a terrible lot of getting up in the morning. Our hair alone takes us half an hour, what with the brushing and fixing the combs and that. And we have our ways; you’ll get used to us in time, but right away the first morning wouldn’t do. And we’ve got an artistic temperament. We’ve been known to throw things when we weren’t pleased. We don’t want any of that.” She gave Hannah a friendly pat. “Cheer up now, there are worse troubles at sea.”
Neither Hannah nor Sorrel thought that shorts were at all suitable wear for London. London was a place for best clothes and even for gloves. But Alice was firm, and so it was in their school cotton blouses and grey flannel shorts that Sorrel and Holly dressed. Mark had on his school grey flannel suit and his school tie and turn-over stockings with the school colours.
They went to the Academy by tube, getting in at Knightsbridge and getting out at Russell Square. It made a good beginning to the day because of the escalator at Knightsbridge. None of them had ever been on a moving staircase before and they thought it too thrilling for words. Hannah loathed the escalator. She stood at the top putting out a foot and pulling it back, afraid to get on, and she was only got on to it by Sorrel dragging her on one side and Mark on the other. Even when she reached the bottom she was still what she called “all of a shake” and she sat in the tube in a kind of heap, taking up more room even than usual, saying in an angry whisper at intervals, “It’s not a Christian way to get about. It was never meant.”
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