“Why?”
“Because I’ve asked her to come. You can’t go on like this. Do you realise the wretched woman doesn’t even know she’s not your mother?”
Flossie dropped her eyes and fidgeted with the corner of a paper. It was obvious that this day was coming, somebody had got to tell Mum the truth, but she had half hoped Mouse would do it. It was neither laziness nor cowardice which had kept her from speaking out, but inability to see how to begin. It seemed to her that if Mum proved unreasonable her whole new world would topple. She looked with honest anxiety at Mouse.
“I suppose you wouldn’t talk to her?”
“No, I can’t break in on the big scene, but I’ll be about.” She looked at Flossie. “Don’t make heavy weather over it. After all, this royal stuff wasn’t your idea, and it’s only been spread as a rumour. You can deny it at any time.”
Flossie thought for a second that Mouse was pulling her leg, and then saw to her astonishment that she was serious. Was it possible that she thought that she, Virginia, would make herself a laughingstock, and be condescended to, even by the chorus, by admitting the greengrocery in the Fordham Road? During the last weeks for moments together she had succeeded in forgetting it herself. Didn’t Mouse realise that she was quite conscious it was a background to be ashamed of, and forgotten as soon as possible?
“As a matter of fact,” Mouse went on, “deny it as much as you like, but you won’t find it easy to kill the story. It’s a thing you might bear in mind, because some day somebody may start a rumour that you won’t like. Don’t give people more chances to talk than you can help, because gossip’s easier than yawning to start, and it’s never ended because there’s always someone somewhere who believes it.”
‘Well, that’s a comfort,’ thought Flossie, but aloud she said:
“Awful how careful a girl has to be.”
Mouse looked at her and felt an overpowering wish to giggle, she never had a conversation of any length with Flossie without wishing somebody, preferably Jim, was there to enjoy the joke with her. She tried to save up the best things to repeat, but without Flossie’s expression, they lost in the telling. She did not want to hurt the child’s feelings, so she hid her smile by getting up for some matches for her cigarette. ‘I’ll never be able to be angry with her, whatever she does,’ she thought. ‘I could forgive anything to a person who handed me so many laughs. Yet everybody didn’t feel like that. How odd Jasmine had been. Fancy bothering to dislike anything so silly as Flossie. After L.L.’s party last night, waiting for the cars to take them home, the way she had whispered, “A minx, Mouse.” Of course, engrossed talking to Jim, she hadn’t herself been looking at the girl, but had Jasmine? Was her remark based on impression or study?’
Flossie looked at Mouse from under her eyelids. Was this a good moment to talk to her? From Friday next she’d earn a salary, and that meant that the arrangement that she was kept and fed while training was finished. Mouse hadn’t said anything, but he was she meaning her to live somewhere else? Careful thought had shown her that the present living arrangements could not be bettered. Dad and Mum approved of them. If Dad and Mum were to be told that there wasn’t a Flossie Elk, and since Virginia wasn’t their daughter they wouldn’t see her, it would be easier if they felt that she was under the guardianship of Mouse. Then there was the question of finance. Living with Mouse she had realised what a little way money goes; she knew just what dressing she needed; in her present wardrobe nothing, except the outfit L.L. had provided for the party last night, would do, as Virginia she needed clothes to live up to her story and her stardom. Her contract with L.L. started at ten pounds a week and rose five pounds each year for five years, so that when she finished it she would be earning thirty. In the meantime it was only ten and in her opinion most inadequate. Deep in her soul she knew that a girl like herself ought to be denied nothing. Enquiry had shown her that she was on to a good thing in Mouse’s flat; nowhere else could she approach its comfort for the sort of sum she was prepared to pay. Then last night at the party she had found the third and greatest reason for staying where she was. Mouse knew a Lord and Lady. Speaking of the Lord she had tried to deceive her into thinking he was an ordinary man by just calling him Jim Menton, but L.L. wasn’t mean like that; he had known she was the sort of person who ought to know Lords, he was very surprised to know they had never met before, and had said at once: “This is Lord Menton,” and to him, “I needn’t tell you that this is Virginia.” She had been so surprised to find he was a Lord that she had almost said: “Pleased to meet you,” instead of the off-hand greeting Mouse had told her was correct, but she had swallowed it just in time. There had been no more chance to talk to him, which was a good thing as she didn’t know what to call a Lord, but in this flat she was bound to meet him again, and she’d find out. She hadn’t liked the look of the Lady, she supposed if you liked people dark and not very young, you might call her beautiful, but she wasn’t her type. She seemed to be a friend of Mouse’s which she wouldn’t be if she knew how many times her husband came to the flat. She looked at Mouse standing in the window smoking. Except for a decided feeling of distrust she had never clearly defined her feelings about her, but now, having met the Lady, she was almost sure she disliked her; they both looked as though nothing mattered much and most things were funny when they weren’t. Flossie was not even sure that Mouse didn’t find her success funny. What a pity, she thought, that a girl couldn’t live with men; men were so much nicer.
Mouse came back and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“What have you been thinking about so seriously?”
This was an obvious opening. Flossie looked up with her sweetest smile.
“I was thinking how happy I’ve been, living with you, and wondering whether you’d let me stay.” Mouse’s face gave her no lead as to what she was thinking, so she tried a wistful note: “I don’t earn much money, of course, but I would pay whatever you thought right for this one little room.”
The question of Flossie’s departure had not troubled Mouse. The last months rent-free had made her clearer of debt than she had been for years, but that was not to say that further clearance would not be to the good. She had supposed that Flossie would want to stay on for a week or two, but this more or less permanent suggestion came as a surprise. She didn’t want the girl, but it seemed a pity to turn good money from the door.
“Three pounds a week, the arrangement to come to an end at any time,” she said briskly.
“Three!” Flossie’s face fell. “I thought two, or perhaps two-ten.”
“No, my dear Mrs. Rosenbaum, three pounds vos my terms.”
‘Oh, she’s ever so mean,’ Flossie thought; ‘three pounds. It isn’t as though I ate much; wants me to keep her, I should think.’ But aloud she said grudgingly:
“All right, three pounds.”
“The ghost walking on Friday nights, it will be paid on Saturdays, so ask them to pay you in notes and not by cheque.” Mouse got up and stretched. “Me for a bath.” She crossed to the dressing-table and looked at her face. “God, what a hag!” She turned to go, and as she moved her dressing-gown caught on to Flossie’s evening bag. It fell to the floor and opened, scattering a cloakroom ticket, handkerchief, lipstick, powder-box, and two five-pound notes at her feet. She stooped and picked the things up; she folded the notes carefully. Yesterday she had lent Flossie a pound to carry her on until Friday, for this week the ten shillings allowance paid to her while training had stopped. Where in the world then had she got hold of ten pounds? It was none of her business, but it put an entirely different complexion on this idea of the girl living in the flat.
Flossie watched Mouse upset her bag and study her notes. She knew she was wondering how she had got them. ‘It’s none of her business,’ she thought. ‘I suppose a little present needn’t make everybody nosy.’
Mouse put the bag back on the dressing-table and sat on the
edge of it.
“If you stay on in this flat you’ve got to understand that you look after yourself. As long as you behave in the flat, it’s not my business what you do outside, though if you’ve any sense you’ll listen to my advice, because I know my world and you don’t. I shall explain this to your mother this afternoon, and I’ll write to your father.”
Flossie said nothing for a moment. ‘Oh, I do think she’s mean,’ she thought, ‘she knows what Dad is.’
“I suppose you’ve turned nasty,” she muttered at last, “because you saw a little money in my bag. I suppose you think you’re the only one who ought to have anything.”
“My dear girl, don’t be so silly, I don’t care if you’ve ten pounds or fifty, but seeing the money put it in my mind that it’s time I stopped acting as Nanny.”
Flossie pleated the eiderdown.
“As a matter of fact, since you’re so nosy, it was given me to buy a bouquet.”
“Yes? You ought to be able to get quite a nice little bunch with it.”
“It was that nice gentleman—man, I mean—who sat next to me at supper.”
Mouse looked at her almost with respect.
“What, old Ossie Bone?” Flossie nodded. “Do you know who he is?” The other shook her head. “Just owns about half the newspapers in the country. That’s all.”
“Well, he can afford it then.”
“He certainly can. I’ve always heard he’s mean, just shows how unfair gossip is.”
Flossie felt encouraged by Mouse’s manner.
“You see he said if he’d known just how pretty I was, he’d have sent me some flowers. So I said I was sorry he hadn’t. So he put his hand under the table,” Mouse’s eyes were goggling, “and gave me the money and told me to buy myself something pretty.”
“Well now, isn’t that a nice story? And he never suggested another meeting?”
“Yes, he did, he asked me to motor with him to lunch at Guildford on Sunday.”
Mouse looked at her. She looked as innocent as a daffodil.
“Look here, my sweet,” she came to the bedside. “I’ve always said your Auntie Mouse had you taped, but you’ve beaten me this time. Do you honestly think that a nice drive into the country is all that Ossie’s after?”
Flossie again pleated the sheet. She hated putting any card on the table, but it did seem as though this time she would have to. If Mouse meant to write to Dad, then it would be better if she thought that she could take care of herself. She looked up with half a smile.
“I think it’s all he’ll get.”
CHAPTER XIII
Fanny had awoken, feeling, as she explained to George, all anyhow. Knowing it was Flossie’s first night had worked her up to such a state of excitement she had not been able to sleep. It seemed so funny somehow not knowing if she was all right. Lying awake is apt to bring thoughts, kept at bay in the day hours, to roost in the brain. Fanny had a lot of thoughts kept at bay, and by two o’clock in the morning she could no longer hold them back. Why hadn’t Flossie been able to get her a seat? Not a grand one, just anywhere would have done. It was nice of Miss Shane to have written to explain how difficult it was to get seats, but at two in the morning that hadn’t helped much. ’Course I know it’s difficult, a first night like that’s bound to draw all the nobs, but she might have managed one seat, just for her Mum.’ For days her waking thoughts had fought the suggestion that Floss was acting queer, but in the early hours she had to admit it. Not a sign of her, not even a post card from the day the first rehearsal had begun. Of course she was working hard, no denying that, but she might have managed to slip down one Sunday, she must have known how her Mum would enjoy a good gossip, hearing all about everything. Then that business of changing her name. Course she could call herself what she liked, and no one had the right to stop her, but it would have been nice if she’d sent a line to let them know she was doing it, and not left it so Mr. Smith down the High Street had to show Dad a photo in the paper. Nice photo it was, with a piece under it calling her ‘Virginia,’ Leon Low’s new discovery to play the name part in ‘Looby.’ Dad had brought the paper home; he didn’t seem upset her changing her name, just said, ‘Floss up to her foolishness,’ but it would have been nice if she’d told her Mum, they could have had a bit of fun together choosing it. Of course there was nothing in it, but it would have been nice if she’d told her Mum.
They did not take in a daily paper, George liked to read his Express on Sundays, but he had not much time for reading all the week, so as soon as she had the breakfast cleared away Fanny put on her hat and went to Gregson’s, the stationers on the corner. It took her quite a time to get there, she was feeling so bad it would not have surprised her if her inside had dropped out on the pavement. Mrs. Gregson was serving, she looked up and smiled broadly.
“I said to Mr. Gregson when he went out to take round the papers, ‘I know who’ll be in while you’re gone, and that’s Mrs. Elk.’ Made a wonderful success, hasn’t she? You were there, I suppose.”
Fanny sank into a chair.
“No.” She eyed the pile of papers, hardly able to prevent herself from snatching at them. “I’ve not been so well lately, so I asked Floss not to get me a seat till later.”
“You don’t look up to much, I must say. I said to Mr. Gregson after chapel last Sunday night, ‘Mrs. Elk doesn’t look herself, not at all she doesn’t. Nasty colour she is.’ You had any growths in your family, dear?”
“No.” Fanny picked up a Daily Mail “I’ll take the Mail, Mr. Elk likes that one.” Feverishly she turned over the pages.
“Ah!” Mrs. Gregson came round from behind the counter. “You take the Mail, there’s a nice piece in, but you have a look at some of the others while you’re here.”
Fanny looked. She opened paper after paper. It was wonderful reading. Of course it wasn’t easy to think of Flossie as Virginia, but there was no mistaking it was her all right, with all the pictures of her looking up in just that pretty way of hers. Mrs. Gregson read over her shoulder, breathing heavily because of the stooping this entailed, and she was no figure to stoop.
“Why’d they call her Virginia, Mrs. Elk? There’s been a lot asking that.”
Fanny pretended to be absorbed in her reading, it gave her a moment to think. Why? Funny Mrs. Gregson should ask that after what she’d been thinking in the night. Why? She looked up.
“Well, Flossie hasn’t said exactly, but—” Fanny lowered her voice to a confidential note, “it’s my belief it was to please her dad. You see, Mr. Elk being so religious-minded, he never properly held with her goin’ on the stage, and I think she thought it’d sort of please him if she called herself somethin’ different.”
“And ’as it?”
“I couldn’t say,” said Fanny with truth, “he’s never been a man to speak how he feels.” She got up, and laid a penny on the counter, “That’s for the Mail and thank you ever so for lettin’ me ’ave a look at the others.”
“Oh, it’s a pleasure. Will she be home this weekend?”
Fanny stepped into the street.
“She may, and she may not, it’s all accordin’. Good morning, Mrs. Gregson.”
George was in the shop. She took him the paper.
“There’s a bit about Floss in there. Seems she’s made a wonderful hit. I had a read of some lovely pieces about her up at Gregson’s. I bought the Daily Mail, knowing you like that one,”
George continued to sort potatoes.
“Put it there. I’ll take a look later.” He glanced at Fanny, and paused in his work. “Your stomach giving you trouble? You look bad.”
“Yes. I don’t rightly know how I got up the street. It’s cruel this morning.”
He jerked his thumb at the door into the house.
“You go in and have a nice sit down, and make yourself a cup of tea.”
Fanny filled t
he kettle mechanically, and then, waiting for the water to boil, sank in a heap in the arm-chair. She stared almost without thought through the window, over the rusty gate to the street beyond. Suddenly the years slipped away like shadows. Flossie swung on the gate. There was the little red coat she’d made her, and the little cap. Funny remembering that day, it was the time she had planned how things should be for her. Funny here she was grown up and all the things she’d hoped for coming true. Suddenly a great sob broke in her throat, and she had her head in her hands and was crying, “I never thought it would be this way, Floss. Why don’t you come and see your Mum?”
Half an hour later the telegram came. She read it, then, grey-tinted with fright, she ran to George.
“Something’s wrong, I know it. Shouldn’t wonder if she was ill.”
George studied the telegram.
“Nothing ain’t wrong, why should it be? First she says half-past two, if she was ill Miss Shane would have sent and said we was to come at once. Accordin’ to what I read in the paper she was all right last night, and she’s all right this mornin’ or she wouldn’t have sent no telegram.” He hung a bunch of bananas, which he had taken down for a customer, back on its hook. “After dinner I’ll bring the arm-chair in here out of the kitchen so you can sit comfortable same time as minding the shop, and I’ll go up West and see what she wants.”
“Oh, I do wish I didn’t feel so bad.” Fanny’s face was creased with anxiety. “You see, it says Mrs. Elk on the envelope, and she says: ‘Must see you,’ that means she wants her Mum.”
“Well, she can’t ’ave ’er. With your inside dropped the way it is to-day, you couldn’t get to the High Street, let alone to Miss Shane’s flat. Now you go and get dinner ready, and after put on the big kettle so’s I can have a nice wash.”
Mouse had sent Mrs. Hodge out, so that she should not see Fanny, so it was she who opened the door to George.
“Good gracious, Mr. Elk! I was expecting your wife. Come into the sitting-room. I’ll call Flossie.” George sat down in an arm-chair; he fidgeted round looking for somewhere to put his hat. Mouse took it from him. “Let me take that outside. You’ll have a cigarette, won’t you? What’s happened to Mrs. Elk?”
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