It Pays to Be Good

by Noel Streatfeild

  “Excuse me, but does your little girl learn the dancing?”

  The woman was delighted to talk of her child’s successes.

  “Kathy? Yes, she’s with Madame Elise. She’s going on the stage next Christmas when she’s ten. ‘Kiddy Kathy,’ Madame always bills her as, she’s a lovely dancer, but she’s a comic too. You should see her as a colonel; oh, she does make the boys laugh.”

  “Can anyone go?”

  The woman eyed Fanny’s shapeless shabbiness.

  “What, to Madame’s? No, Madame must see promise or she won’t take a child. What she says is, ‘I can have my choice, so I shall just pick an’ choose.’ Besides it costs money.”

  Kathy had been looking unblinkingly at Flossie. Every child at the academy knew that Madame never turned down a pretty child.

  “Madame’ll take her,” she said, “if she can pay.”

  CHAPTER V

  By the time she reached the Dancing Academy, Fanny had ceased to care if Madame Elise took her daughter as a pupil or not. She had woken with what she called ‘One of me turns,’ which meant that her inside felt as if it had dropped a little further than usual. She spent the morning in a fumbling attempt to get everything done, a result which was hindered by her mind which seemed unable to think, and by the shop bell which pinged, every time she got started on anything. She loathed the shop, it had become a vampire sucking, from the daily round, the little life-blood she had to give to it. She was making a wretched job of it too; apart from the fact that there were fewer varieties of fruit and vegetables to be had, Mr. Smith was not buying with the skill George had done. Then too, when George was in the shop, if a customer came in for something they could not have, he saw to it they bought something else. Fanny was no good at that. “Any tomatoes, Mrs. Elk?” She would look round vacantly as though hoping a few might miraculously have appeared while she had been making the beds, and seeing none, would shake her head, move an inch or two nearer to the door to her kitchen, and say: “No. No tomatoes.” ‘Elk’s’ in the Fordham Road lost its reputation. “No good goin’ up to Elk’s. I know it isn’t easy to get things with the war on, but Elk’s don’t even seem to try.”

  Dressed and washed, the dinner cleared away, and a neighbour put in to look after the shop, Fanny thankfully led Flossie to the tram terminus. A tram was the slowest means of getting to Madame Elise’s Academy, but it entailed no changing, and Fanny thought it safer; she had always known the other side of the river. ‘That West End’ was no place for a woman to be alone. Flossie insisted on going on the top of the tram, and the journey took an hour, during the whole of which time Fanny felt sick. She closed her eyes and told herself ‘it would pass off.’ It did not, ‘it passed out’ and that just as she had left the tram. She leant against a wall shaken, cold, and acutely embarrassed, for with the tram gone about its business, she had no excuse for what had happened. She had felt, years before, the same shame at Southend, when a similar misfortune had overtaken her in the middle of the sea-front, half a mile away from the Channel Queen which had been her undoing.

  “Oh, I am unlucky, Floss,” she said.

  Flossie looked at her with dislike.

  “Such a show to make of yourself. In the road too.”

  They walked to the studio, it was not far from the tram terminus, but Fanny did not feel like walking at all, and her eyes filled with tears when she saw that to reach the Madame Elise Academy you had to climb an immense flight of stone stairs.

  At the top of the stairs was a dusty hall, papered with posters of the shows in which the offspring of the Academy had appeared. ‘Madame Elise’s Little Wonders,’ ‘Madame Elise’s Baby Pierrots,’ ‘Madame Elise’s Dancing Dots,’ ‘Madame Elise’s Wonder Mites,’ and as well, programmes of innumerable plays and pantomimes which had a note on them to the effect that ‘The children appearing in this production are pupils of The Madame Elise School of Dancing.’

  Fanny gazed round with the glazed eyes of the recently sick, and took in nothing, but Flossie pulled her arm; she spoke in a whisper.

  “Look, Mum.” She pointed to the word ‘Office’ written over a door. “Do you think we goes in there?”

  Fanny never went in through doors with ‘Office’ written over them, never in fact went through strange doors at all, but they had a letter telling them to come; perhaps it would be all right.

  “Maybe you might give a knock, but gently, mind.”

  Flossie knocked.

  “Com’in. Com’in. Com’in.”

  The door opened into a little room, yellow-tinted by light which forced its way through an unwashed window. The drabness of the lighting was enhanced by the walls, which showed a little paper of a grubby green, but mainly a mass of photographs in fly-walked frames. Groups of children surrounding some star, or the finales of pantomimes, or single pictures of show performers signed in round childish handwriting, ‘To dear Madame, from Babsy,’ ‘Little Eva’ or ‘Baby Bubbles.’

  Madame was sitting at a kneehole desk. Tall, scraggy, in a velvet dress that had once been black, a strange garment, in which presumably she lived, for it had no visible fastenings, and yet fitted so closely the likelihood was that it never came off. It bore out this theory by being so overlaid with dust that it never appeared black, but in some lights grey, and in others brown. She was a surprising-looking woman, an unusually white skin was enhanced by eyebrows painted crookedly a gay reddish-brown, eyelashes alternately black-cosmeticked spikes or, since they were dashed on anyhow, their original grey, which gave a piebald look, and a mouth slashed in the colour of a letter-box without the aid of a glass, so it had little bearing on its original shape. Crowning her was a red wig, a wig which, when new, some twenty years before, might have been glossy, with some semblance to real hair, but since it had belonged to Madame, had seen neither comb nor brush. Her legs, sprawled comfortably apart, resting on their heels, wore white cotton stockings and pink canvas ballet shoes. Heaven had given her one beauty which neither age nor comicalities of appearance could alter. Shrewd, kindly, very blue eyes. She turned these on the door.

  She saw Fanny, and in a flash took in her lack of colour, both of body and soul. Then she studied Flossie. Madame was no procuress, as far as her school was concerned. The head of a woman’s college could not have been stricter, and as most of her children’s earning ability depended on their looking mere toddlers even when they had reached their late teens, she was seldom made anxious. Later, when choruses and musical halls, and more rarely stardom, had taken them from her, her first thought was a good marriage, what she called ‘something comfortable and safe.’ Nevertheless, should the marriage not mature, she approved what she called ‘The Little Nest,’ always provided the little nest was well endowed, and for choice embellished with a coronet. Her dancing establishment was built on a foundation of just such a nest. It had not been a nest at all as far as cosiness was concerned, but rather an iron-barred cage, gilded and even embellished with strawberry leaves, but nevertheless a cage which had imprisoned her, away from the ballet that she loved. Yet looking at her dancing school, the direct result of her faithful years with her Duke, she could not but feel that her pupils might do worse. Flossie, even at the age of nine, looked like somebody who might be trained to attain to almost anything. Madame’s shrewd eyes missed none of her perfections, she even appreciated that such perfect sculpturing would last. She rested her hands on her desk, and slowly withdrew her legs from under it, and stood up.

  “Com’long. Com’long. Com’long.”

  Flossie put up her hand to her mouth and sniggered. Madame gave her a look which made the snigger gurgle into silence. Majestically she led the way. She knew she made new children laugh, she was unconscious that she repeated everything three times, but that there was something humorous about her to the child mind she could not fail to realise. A laugh was a thing she understood, but a snigger, never.

  They went into the stu
dio. It was an airy room, lit by skylights, of which there were so many that even the layers of grime on them could not make the place dark; at one end of the room there was a piano, and round the walls were practice bars. A class of girls of fourteen and over, in cotton rompers and ballet shoes, were gripping the bars while doing an intricate exercise on their points. Instructing them was a stout, black-haired woman, dressed in dingy white; a short, pleated skirt, and a blouse. She occasionally, without the support of the bar, joined in the exercises herself, and when she did so her breasts, which were enormous, bounced up and down in the blouse. At the piano a fair pretty girl, her eyes on the rows of busy feet, thumped out a tune; occasionally she paused and each time she did so, the black-haired instructress roared: “And again, Connie dear, and again.”

  Connie caught Madame’s eye, and raised her eyebrows enquiringly. Madame held up her hand, the piano stopped, and the children, as though they were marionettes whose wires had been cut, dropped limply off the bars.

  “Muriel. Muriel. Muriel. Come here. Come here. Come here.” The instructress roared the quite superfluous instruction “Rest” and came to Madame. “Try this child. Try this child. Try this child.”

  Muriel looked at Flossie.

  “Got any music, dear?”

  Flossie had skipped about to nursery rhymes when she had been in ‘The Infants’,’ but since she had been in ‘The Girls’’ had done nothing more graceful than physical exercises. She raised puzzled eyes to Muriel. Muriel had been looking into children’s eyes for the past ten years, ever since the evening when Madame had called her into her room, and had told her that she, the star child, who had fallen from that to front row of the chorus, to the back row, and from there to no job at all, had not the appearance for the stage. The horror of hearing, put into words, what she had been suspecting, had caused Madame’s statement that she was getting too old to teach and proposed that Muriel should take her place, to fall on years closed by misery. That was ten years ago, she was happy in her work: after all, time dulls even the most bitter of frustrations. In all her ten years she had never looked into such eyes as were looking at her now. She spoke gently.

  “Take off your things, dear.”

  The removal of Flossie’s hat made Connie sit upright on the piano stool, Madame murmur: “Goodness. Goodness. Goodness,” and Muriel stretch out her hand to stroke, only the stony eyes of her watching class made her resist the temptation.

  “Come along, darling.” She held out her hand. “Connie, play that little polka you play for the babies.”

  Not all her looks could blind the experienced eyes round her to the fact that Flossie knew nothing of dancing, but she had an ear to keep time, and she was loosely made. Muriel lifting first one of the child’s legs over her head, and then the other, nodded at Madame, who poked Fanny with her elbow.

  “Com’long. Com’long. Com’long.”

  Back in the office Madame eyed Fanny; she thought her a poor thing, but saw that she was exhausted; she returned to the door, opened it a crack and yelled, “Tea. Tea. Tea.”

  A cup of coal-black tea, part of which, awash in the saucer, was licking away the contour of two lumps of sugar, partially restored Fanny. Madame, in spite of her queries coming in triplicate, succeeded in learning the story of the ‘Britain’s most beautiful child’ competition, and of how George in the Army didn’t hold with any such things, and must never know about the dancing. Also of the meeting with Kiddy Kathy. It was from this last that Madame got an inkling of what Fanny was aiming at for her child. She had not run a dancing school without learning what incredible sacrifices mothers will make for their children, but she was moved none the less when Fanny said haltingly:

  “Havin’ the looks it seems she should do better’n what her dad an’ me have done.”

  Madame lit a cigarette. Fanny was shocked, she had heard of women doing such things, but had never seen one at it. Madame, her smoke curling over her head, neither knew nor cared what Fanny thought, her mind was on Flossie’s future. How simple it would be to draw up a contract that would grasp the child’s earnings for years; this good-hearted, weak fool would sign anything. Instead she opened a drawer, took out one of her contracts, always fair documents, and with a few strokes of her pen made it more generous than it already was, and shoved it across to Fanny.

  “Sign there. Sign there. Sign there.”

  Fanny, clutching the contract, which was totally unintelligible to her, and a list of those shoes and garments needed before the first class the following Monday, sank down in their home-bound tram. She looked at her daughter and a faint sigh of satisfaction escaped her.

  “I was glad I made you put on those clean drawers, lifting up your legs the way that Muriel did.”

  CHAPTER VI

  Those rescued from shipwrecks can only re-tell scattered impressions. Fearful jumps from swinging ladders. Overturned boats gripped by icy fingers. Long hours in embarrassing juxtaposition to fellow-humans so sunk in discomfort that all behaviour became possible.

  In retrospect, that is how the next three years were to Fanny. She closed the shop. She was surprised at herself for doing it, surprised that ‘Elk’s’ was no more, but Flossie had to be taken to classes, and mornings had to be spent in food queues that Flossie might be properly fed; she could not run a shop as well. Heaven knows what scraps Fanny ate in order that Flossie should never go short.

  Flossie became ten, she was old enough to have a licence, she was put into a troupe in a pantomime. Flossie must leave the Fordham Road ‘Girls’,’ she must share the troupe governess, Fanny must go and explain to Miss Elder. So far, Fanny had been borne up in the rush of her existence, by the knowledge that, however exhausting her life, she was doing grand things for her child. The interview with Miss Elder was not a help to one who needed all the bearing up she could have; what she said became, in the days that followed, a memory apt to give a feeling of sinking. ‘Beauty was a danger, Fanny by exploiting it was committing a sin, if Flossie came to a bad end as she assuredly would, she had only her mother to blame.’ Washing endless frilly garments, stitching at layer after layer of tarleton, fighting in food queues, struggling over her stove to make what she had been able to buy palatable, pushing her way into buses and trams to deliver Flossie, waiting in draughty stage doors to take her home, sitting on the floor of a cellar with Flossie asleep in her arms, Fanny remembered what Miss Elder had said. Later, pride covered the searing words. Flossie was one of a small troupe, Flossie danced a solo, Flossie was a juvenile star, other mothers envied. It was always a little surprising to Fanny that she could be envied, plain Mrs. Elk from the Fordham Road. Her visions were no longer dim like smoke, they were built on facts.

  George, safely buried in a trench somewhere, had no place in the new world Fanny was building for Flossie. On his leaves she was glad to see him, but he was an interlude merely; all he said and did were outside the business of her life. He fussed about things which did not matter, whether he would get his trade back after the war, that the Ethbridges at number ten had lost their boy. He had two leaves after Flossie had her licence, but on neither occasion was she working, and while he was at home she did not even go to her classes. On his second leave a neighbour asked him if he was not proud of his daughter’s success. Arrived home he ruffled Flossie’s hair.

  “What’s all this dancing you’re doin’ at the school? Cooking and sewing will do you more good if you want a nice husband.”

  Flossie, in romper and ballet shoes, or alternatively little ankle-strapped patent leather ones for character work, learnt first to loosen up her muscles, and then to get up on her points. Gradually her knees straightened, her instep was arched but firm, her arms and hands learnt to curve. Flossie learnt to be an efficient dancer, never for a second was a movement of hers inspired by ecstasy, but always by technique. The years flicked by her marked by rises in status. From a new child to a second term one, from there to a th
ird, and then at the beginning of her second year she had a licence. That Christmas of 1916 she became one of Madame’s ‘Twenty Khaki Kids.’ In the summer of seventeen, she was one of Madame’s ‘Ten Little Sailors,’ the Christmas of the same year she was one of Madame’s ‘Four Little Snowflakes,’ in the spring of eighteen, billed as ‘Baby Flora,’ she was Cupid in a revue, and that summer, solo dancer and singer in the Academy star troupe, Madame Elise’s ‘Twenty Little Marvels,’ and when peace was declared she was already rehearsing the part of the girl babe for a West End pantomime.

  The beginning of her training Flossie disliked intensely. She liked wearing a romper, she was proud of her shoes, she liked gossiping and giggling with the other children, and she liked Saturday afternoons, when in relays the entire school worked at elocution and singing, but these were the only things she did like. She found nothing amusing in the classes. Loosening her muscles was a weary task.

  “Left leg, right leg. Higher, higher. Flossie, you aren’t working. Rest, girls, Flossie will do it alone. And again, Connie dear, and again.”

  Then the next phase, the lessons lengthened by half an hour, point work. Her toes throbbed, no amount of cotton wool seemed to help, often they bled. Her instep got cramp, her muscles, especially those in her calves, ached monotonously, her hands got blistered from gripping the bar, but Muriel was remorseless.

  “Flossie, you aren’t working. Flossie, you can do that exercise alone. And again, Connie dear, and again.”

  There were daily scenes, Flossie howled, she sulked, but always Fanny got her to her lesson. What made Flossie see any sense in what she was doing was a charity matinée. It was a large affair in aid of comforts for prisoners of war; the Academy’s share was a ballet and tableaux. All those children who were not working appeared either as emblematic patriotic figures, or as one of the allied countries, and as a finale, Flossie as the dove of peace wobbled in on her toes. The applause which greeted her was tumultuous, partly because, with an air raid the night before, and an appalling list of casualties in the paper, even Flossie in a white feathered ballet frock was a divine messenger, ‘Perhaps, some day.’ But also because as a dove, she really looked delicious. Afterwards Madame was sent a doll by one of the committee, and asked to give it to ‘that darling little Peace.’ Flossie did not care for dolls, but this was such a magnificent specimen that it was worth carrying about to inspire envy in other small girls, and it made her think. She knew that later she would earn money, but she knew from the other children how very little of that she would have to spend—but presents! That put a different complexion on things. From that moment her work improved. Muriel, seeing in Flossie those gifts which would have made of her own life such a different thing, was as unremitting in her efforts as ever, but after the matinée her adjurations changed.