Theatre Shoes

by Noel Streatfeild

  On Monday morning they went to the Academy each carrying a brown-paper parcel. Inside Sorrel and Holly’s parcels were their black tunics, which had been given them second-hand at the Academy and brought home to be shortened, their black knickers, their black belts, their pink satin knickers and tunics, two pairs of white socks, their dancing sandals and a rough hand towel. In Mark’s parcel was a bathing suit, a pair of cotton shorts, some dancing sandals and a rough towel. The nearer the children got to the Academy the worse they felt about the parcels.

  “If only it was boxes!” said Sorrel. “A little box, now, would be neat and you could carry things about in it.”

  Mark angrily kicked a stone off the pavement.

  “Even that awful Shirley that did Mistress Mary and was only a holiday pupil had an attaché case.”

  Sorrel and Mark were walking fast and Holly had to run and skip to catch up.

  “And so has even that smallest child who is almost a baby—she’s so small that she doesn’t even carry her case herself, her mother does—and here’s us, old enough to go to the Academy alone, and not an attaché case between us.”

  Sorrel slowed up because the Academy was in sight.

  “I wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t for us being Grandmother’s grandchildren. People expect us to be good at everything because of her and because of our mother and the uncles and aunts and all the rest of it, and because of our having scholarships, and it’s bad enough that we aren’t good, but when as well we haven’t got anything but brown-paper parcels we really look most peculiar.”

  The Academy was quite a different place now that the term had started. Winifred was standing at the Students’ entrance with some lists in her hand, and she told the girls to hurry up and put on their black tunics with their white socks and dancing sandals, which they would wear for lessons. Sorrel and Holly had lockers side by side in one changing room, Mark’s was in the boys’ room down the passage. Sorrel opened her locker quickly and pushed her parcel inside and tried to unpack it in there. There did not seem to be many of the girls about that she knew, but all the same she thought she would like to get her parcel undone and everything hung up before anyone noticed. All round the room there was a flow of chatter.

  “Hullo! Had a good holiday?”

  “Hullo, Doris! Have you come back to live in London?”

  “Have you heard Freda will not be back until half term, she’s still with that concert party in Blackpool, lucky beast.”

  Then it happened. Somebody hurrying by tripped over Sorrel’s feet and the back half of her that was sticking out of her locker and a voice said:

  “Oh, bother! I nearly fell,” and then added, “One of the new girls grubbing about with a paper parcel.”

  Holly was sitting on the floor changing her socks. She did not so much care what anybody said to her, but she would not have anyone being rude to Sorrel. She raised her voice to what Ferntree School, who had not approved of such behaviour, would have called a shout.

  “We would have attaché cases if we could, but we can’t because there is a war on. Perhaps you didn’t know that.”

  There was a lot of laughter, and then somebody said, “That’s put you in your place, Miranda.”

  Miranda! Sorrel turned, her cheeks crimson. What an awful start she had made with her cousin. What an even worse start Holly had made, shouting like that. Miranda was walking up the line of lockers, she ran after her and caught hold of her arm.

  “Are you Miranda? I—I mean we—are your cousins. We’re Sorrel, Holly and Mark Forbes. Mark isn’t here just now, he’s in the boys’ room changing.”

  Miranda turned and Sorrel gave a little gasp of surprise, Miranda was so very like what Grandmother must have been like when she was a child. The same brown hair—it hung down at the back, of course, but the top part was piled up into curls—the same dark eyes, the same effect of being a patch of colour in a dull room. Only Grandmother was like a sparkling bit of colour and Miranda was more like the last smouldering red cinder lying amongst grey ash. Miranda was evidently not a person who minded if she had been rude to her cousins or not, or rather she seemed to have forgotten it, for she put on a very grown-up gracious air.

  “How do you do? I heard you were coming. We shall be quite a family gathering this term, for Uncle Mose is sending Miriam, did you know? You’re a beginner, aren’t you? I’m afraid that means we shan’t see much of each other.”

  Sorrel wished most heartily that this were going to be the case, but she remembered what Winifred had said about their both being in the same class. Quite time enough, however, for Miranda to find that out if it happened. So she just smiled politely and admitted to being a beginner and went back to her changing.

  Sorrel and Holly had just got into their overalls and were fastening their belts when the changing-room door was thrown open and a little girl dashed in. She had on a frock of bright orange linen, against which her thin little face looked pale and yellowish, in fact there seemed hardly any face at all, it was so surrounded by a fuzz of black hair. In one hand she carried a grand leather attaché case of the sort which cost pounds and pounds. She glanced imperiously round the room.

  “Which is my cousin Holly?”

  Holly was shy of being called out in front of all the big girls and she spoke in a very small voice.

  “Me.”

  The child dashed over to her, put her attaché case on the floor and gave her a kiss.

  “We’re cousins. I’m Miriam Cohen. You’re just a tiny bit older than me, I won’t be eight until the end of this month.”

  This was so insulting that Holly forgot to be shy.

  “If you don’t mind my saying so, I’m a great deal older than you. I shall be nine just after Christmas.”

  Miriam seemed to be a person who did everything quickly. She snapped her attaché case undone and threw everything in it out on to the floor.

  “Never mind, let’s be friends. Mum says if we’re friends I can ask you to tea. I can’t come to you because we’re not on speaking terms with Grandmother just now. We hardly ever are, you know, except at Christmas. Of course, we always go to Grandmother’s then.”

  Sorrel and Holly rather liked the look of Miriam, who was, at any rate, friendly. Sorrel knelt down beside her and began collecting the things that Miriam had upset.

  “I’m a cousin, too. I’m Sorrel. Do you know which your locker is?” She picked up a white satin tunic and knickers and gave them a shake. “These will get awfully dirty on the floor.”

  Miriam got up and began tearing her orange linen frock over her head.

  “Mum’s made me two tunics and two knickers. She cut up one of her best nightdresses. I think that was pretty decent of her, don’t you? She said I’d have to have two, she knew I wouldn’t be clean a minute if I only had one. I’ve got the locker next to Holly, they told me so at the door.”

  Sorrel hung up Miriam’s tunic and knickers and her linen frock and helped her into her black knickers and tunic. Holly passed Miriam her dancing sandals.

  “Are you absolutely new, like me, or have you learnt it before?”

  Miriam sat on the floor to put on her sandals.

  “Learnt what?”

  Holly crouched down beside her.

  “All these routines and things the big girls do, and that tap and that work at the bar.”

  Miriam tied the tapes of one of her sandals.

  “I began tap when I was three, then I started acrobatic work, you know, flip flaps and all that. I learnt to sing when I was four. I did some shows with Dad for charity when I was five. I don’t really ever remember a time when I wasn’t learning, but mostly I went to special classes or learnt at home. That’s why they’ve sent me here. It’s to see which way I’m heading—at least, that’s what Dad says. He thinks it’s time I specialised. He says I’m too plain for the glamour type and I ought to do a lot of acrobatic work and become a comedienne. But I shan’t, I’m going to dance. He knows that really.” She tied her second sand
al tapes. “There’s no doubt about it, I’m a bitter disappointment.”

  A bell clanged in the passage. At once there was a crash of locker doors and everybody hurried out. Winifred was standing at the foot of the stairs with a list in her hand.

  “Get in line, please, children, and come past me slowly.”

  Sorrel leaned a little way out of the line and looked up the passage for Mark. Boys were easy to pick out amongst that mass of black tunics and white socks. Mark had changed into his sandals, otherwise he was dressed exactly as he had started out in the morning. He saw Sorrel and gave her a grin. It was a cheerful grin, but she knew that inside he was feeling very much as she was, sort of sinking and wishing they were not so new.

  Winifred had stopped Miranda and told her to wait. She was standing at the foot of the stairs when Sorrel arrived at the head of the queue. Winifred laid a hand on Sorrel’s arm.

  “I expect you’ve met Miranda in the changing room.” She looked at Miranda. “I want you to look after Sorrel. You two are in the same form.”

  Miranda gaped at Winifred.

  “But she’s younger than I am and she’s never done a thing.”

  Winifred spoke nicely, but you could not help feeling she was not sorry to be able to say what she did.

  “She may be younger, but from the paper I set her she’s well up to the standard of work in the upper middle, and, as well, Madame has granted her the scholarship Pauline Fossil has given for dramatic work.”

  This last remark seemed to stun Miranda into silence. She caught Sorrel by the hand and pulled her up the stairs after her. It was only when they were outside the door of the practice room in which the upper middle worked that she suddenly stopped.

  “I didn’t know you could act, nobody told me.”

  “I don’t know that I can.”

  “What did Madame see you do?”

  Sorrel was just going to tell her and then she thought better of it. Perhaps Madame had been over-generous in granting her the scholarship. Perhaps she had not really seen very much talent, but if that was so she was certainly not going to let Miranda know about it. Like a distant light at the end of a long tunnel a thought shaped in Sorrel’s head. She had not ever thought of being an actress, but she was the daughter of one and the grandchild of an actor and an actress, and the great-grandchild of a very great actor indeed, if all they said about that old Sir Joshua was right. Anyway, there was every bit as much reason why she should be an actress as why Miranda should. Why should not she see if she could be good? If she could really be worth Pauline Fossil’s scholarship? She answered Miranda casually:

  “Oh, just a bit of a play that she asked us to do. Is this the classroom?”

  In the next few weeks the children were so busy that they had no time to think if they liked London or the Academy, or living with Grandmother or anything else. Every morning they left the house at a quarter past eight to be ready and dressed for their first class at nine. They worked at lessons until twelve. From twelve till one Mark and Holly played games with the smaller children in the garden near the Academy, but Sorrel had special ballet classes with Winifred. At one o’clock they went down to the dining-room, which was in the basement, and had lunch, which was brought in vast containers from the British Restaurant. They were then sent out when it was fine, or, if it was wet, did what they liked indoors until two-thirty, they then did lessons until four-thirty. Sometimes they had singing or dancing or an acting class in the afternoon, and then they did extra lessons after tea. Normally, tea was at four-thirty, and from five till six-thirty they had special classes; ballet one night, tap dancing the next and on each night acting in either French or English, or a mime class.

  All day long, unless there was a special class, the girls worked in their black overalls, white socks and sandals; but if there was a special class, such as Sorrel’s extra ballet lesson before lunch, or Holly had an extra ballet lesson in the afternoon, then down they had to rush to the changing room, get into their tunics and knickers, snatch up their towels and go up to their class. At the end of that, after a quick rub down, back they had to dash into their overalls. “It’s not so bad as it used to be,” the other children told them. “Now, until you get to wearing block shoes, the same sandals do for everything except tap, and the world doesn’t come to an end if you just wear your tunic knickers and a shirt for tap; but when we could get the stuff there was all that changing into rompers, and we’d special satin sandals for ballet. It was change, change, all the time.”

  As far as the lessons were concerned the children found things easy. The Academy standard was reasonably high, but nothing like as high as it had been at their previous schools, and some subjects were dropped altogether, such as Latin, but, of course, other things took their place. There was a tremendous lot of history of dancing and of the theatre, and any amount of time given to music. They had not only to learn the theory of music, but there were special classes on rhythm and special classes on appreciation, when music was played to them on gramophone records, and they were taught how to listen to it and to understand it. Music was an afternoon class. A Doctor Felix Lente came every afternoon and taught the whole school.

  The children could have kept pace with all the ordinary school things, even the music, for, as a whole, the pupils were not exceptionally musical, but it was the dancing they found so difficult. In spite of extra coaching and the fact that all three were quite intelligent, they were taking a long time to catch up. Sorrel, in fact, was obviously never going to catch up with her age, and when she was finally put to bar work with a class, it was with girls of Holly’s age. Holly and Mark worked with a special little class of beginners.

  As well as all the dancing they had to memorise. Each of the children had two or three acting parts. In those first weeks they frequently found themselves trying to do three things at once. Have a bath, say a part out loud, and stick out one foot, murmuring with half their minds, plié and rise, plié and rise.

  Everything was much more difficult for Sorrel than for Holly and Mark. Mark took his dancing lessons very lightly. He tried to remember all he could but he felt it was a shocking waste of time for somebody who was going into the Navy. Holly had only to compete with the new girls, who knew no more than she did, and very soon she began to like dancing and became one of the best in her small class. It was not saying much, but it was something to show for the person who held the Posy Fossil scholarship. But, for Sorrel, life was pretty tough. Every girl of her age had been learning dancing for at least two years, most of them had been working on their points for quite a while. Of course the majority had been evacuated for about a year during the heavy bombing, but they had kept up fairly well by working under a local ballet teacher. Sorrel could see that however hard she worked and however many extra classes she had she was never really going to be a dancer. It was not even as though she had any especial talent. She was light on her feet and quick at remembering, but it took more than that to make a dancer. Sometimes, in the night, she thought desperately of going to Madame and asking if she could not drop all this dancing, but even before she had framed the thought she knew it would be hopeless. Madame’s Academy was primarily for dancing, and to get inside those doors you had to dance.

  What Sorrel did find as the weeks went by was that she looked forward to all the acting classes. Mime, where you acted scenes with no words spoken at all, she loved. Then there were her speaking parts. She had the part of the queen in a French version of “The Sleeping Beauty.” She had a scene or two of Rosalind’s in “As You Like It” and she had Friar Tuck in “Robin Hood.” Every acting class, she liked acting more. She found things happened to her. One day, quite suddenly, she knew what her hands should be doing. Another, she discovered how she should get from one place to another across the stage. She found that she knew what it meant when Miss Jay said, “You were well in the scene, Sorrel dear.” She began to know how to be acting, and yet to sound natural. Quite a lot of these things she could not possibly h
ave explained, but they were each becoming clear thoughts, so that she knew that presently each one would be sorted out and she would be able to say, “I did that because …”

  All the time in front of her at the acting classes there was Miranda to watch. Miranda in the school, or Miranda at a dancing class, or Miranda listening to an appreciation of music lesson was just an ordinary schoolgirl. But Miranda acting was something so special that you forgot she was Miranda. It did not matter to Miranda that she was dressed in a black overall and white socks and black sandals, and looked just like all the other girls, for when she was acting she became the person she was meant to be. As the princess as a child in “The Sleeping Beauty” you knew that she was very young and wearing stiff satin, and that she had never heard there were such things as needles in the world, and when the needle pricked her, though there was no needle there, you could see that it had gone in and had hurt her, and you could watch her going to sleep and know it was not just an ordinary sleep but would last for a hundred years. In her Rosalind scene she took the words and they sang out of her mouth in a golden stream, and yet, somehow, she made them ordinary words and Rosalind a real girl. And so it was when she played Maid Marian. Miranda always played the best parts; she never thought that she would not play them, and it seemed to be the rule that she picked what she liked and the rest of the class shared out what was over. Both Miss Jay and Madame Moulin treated Miranda as something special when she was acting. When she was not acting they treated her as the rather conceited schoolgirl that she was. It was all very muddling. In what little time Sorrel had to think about anything except her work, she thought about Miranda. Miranda was full of talent, she had inherited all the family gifts, everybody said so. To Madame Moulin and Miss Jay it was something wonderful to be descended from the Warrens. Sorrel respected Madame Moulin and Miss Jay, and so what they thought mattered to her. She still thought of herself as Forbes, but just now and again, when she was watching Miranda act, something stirred in her, and she felt excited and then part of her mind said, “You’re a Warren too. You’re a Warren too.”