by Janet Tanner
Gilbert frowned. ‘Five hundred pounds – in one game? I find that a little difficult to believe, Hugh. Unless you are more of a fool than I thought.’
‘Well yes – but what does it matter exactly how many games it was?’ Hugh asked. ‘I’ve lost it and there it is. And I’ve got to raise the cash somehow to pay it back before I leave for India. Debts in the regiment are regarded very seriously.’
‘You should have thought of that before you ran them up then, shouldn’t you?’ Gilbert said, beginning to be annoyed by Hugh’s irresponsibility. Lawrence a dullard, Alicia wild and perhaps wanton for all he knew and Hugh calmly asking him for five hundred pounds to settle a gambling debt. What in the name of heaven was wrong with them all?
‘I’m sorry, Father, I’m in the wrong I know,’ Hugh said, sounding a little pained at being taken to task. ‘But I really do need the money. I’ve said I’ll pay it back. What more can I do?’
Gilbert sighed. ‘ You can make damned sure, Hugh, that such a thing never happens again! I don’t suppose a lecture will do one bit of good but I’m afraid I don’t feel able to hand over five hundred pounds to you without at least pointing out the error of your ways. Gambling is the most ludicrous form of sport. You would do well to remember the old maxim – a fool and his money are soon parted. That is what happens ultimately to everyone who gambles.’
‘It didn’t happen to old Willoughby,’ Hugh said ruefully. ‘ He’s five hundred pounds better off.’
‘On this occasion, maybe.’
‘Every occasion. He’s cleaned out practically everyone in the Mess at one time or another.’
‘Then he’s either a cheat or he has the luck of the devil. Either way you’d do well to avoid him like the plague.’ Gilbert rose. ‘All right, Hugh, you shall have your five hundred pounds – but as a gift, not a loan. I shouldn’t like you to be tempted to a repeat performance with your next month’s allowance in the hope of winning enough to repay me.’ He crossed to the small oak bureau which stood in an alcove to the right of the fireplace and took out his cheque book. ‘To whom do I make this payable?’
Hugh did not answer. Gilbert was assailed by an unpleasant suspicion that Hugh had not been entirely truthful as to his reasons for wanting such a large amount of money.
‘Hugh? Are you sure you are not misleading me? This money is for a man named Willoughby, I believe you said?’
He turned to see Hugh staring as though transfixed at the Illustrated Weekly News.
‘Hugh?’ he said again, the suspicion deepening. ‘I intend to pay the money direct to your creditor – you might as well know that.’
‘Hang my creditor!’ Hugh said and the note of suppressed tension in his voice dispelled all Gilbert’s doubts instantly. The colour had drained from his face and he was clutching the periodical with hands that shook slightly. ‘Have you seen this?’
‘No – what is it?’ Gilbert asked, crossing to his son, and Hugh thrust the paper into his hands.
‘See for yourself!’
Gilbert took the paper which was open at the ballooning article. The heading, bold capitals, leaped up at him but imparted nothing.
‘THE SWEETHEART OF THE SKIES’ it proclaimed.
Beneath this, taking up a full half page, was a photograph of a young woman in the costume of an acrobatic balloonist and parachutist – natty knickerbocker suit, front laced calf-length boots and small cap, standing in front of an inflated balloon.
‘The young lady who has been delighting the crowds at air displays the length and breadth of the country with her thrilling aerobatics,’ he read and glanced again at Hugh who was still looking as if he had seen a ghost.
‘One of the daredevils who risk life and limb for the entertainment of the masses,’ he said easily. ‘ What of it?’
‘Yes – but do you see who it is?’ Hugh asked. He was recovering himself a little now but there was still a tremor in his voice. Gilbert returned to the feature and read on.
‘Miss Sarah Thomas, popularly known as The Sweetheart of the Skies, has been performing now for the past two seasons with the renowned Dare Brothers. Miss Thomas, seen above in her ballooning costume, is second only in both ability and popular charisma to Miss Doily Shepherd of the Gaudron team and makes her daring ascents attached to her small swaying trapeze with all the grace of a ballerina of the air. Once aloft, high over the heads of the watching crowds, Miss Thomas detaches herself and floats effortlessly to earth beneath her billowing parachute. And how the public love her! ‘‘Without a doubt is is Sarah they come to see,’’ Captain Eric Dare, himself an experienced and extremely daring balloonist, told our correspondent. ‘‘ When beauty and bravery go hand in hand, who can resist the spectacle they provide?’’’
‘Sarah!’ he said, as shocked now as Hugh had been. ‘I don’t believe it!’
‘It’s her all right,’ Hugh said, poring over his father’s shoulder. ‘But what the devil is she doing ballooning?’
‘Heaven knows.’ Gilbert looked again at the photograph, examining the face of the young woman more closely. At first glance it had appeared to bear no resemblance to the child he had taken into his care and who had left in such mysterious circumstances three years previously; now, with confirmation of the name to guide him, he accepted reluctantly that it could indeed be Sarah. She had grown up in the intervening years of course – stupidly whenever he had thought of her he had pictured her as being unchanged from the last time he had seen her. Now he looked at the small face beneath the jaunty cap, at the even features and wise smiling mouth and felt something close up inside him. By George, she was the image of her mother – why had he not noticed it at once? And yet why should he? Without the accompanying article it would simply never have occurred to him that Sarah and ‘The Sweetheart of the Skies’ could be one and the same.
‘I’ve seen these ballooning displays,’ Hugh was saying. ‘ They are pretty damned spectacular. But they can also be dangerous. I’ve heard of all kinds of things going wrong with the apparatus and more than one parachutist has been killed or badly injured when they have been blown off course. Why in heaven’s name should Sarah get involved with something like that?’
Gilbert took a cigarette from the box that stood on the table and lit it.
‘I don’t know, Hugh, but I mean to find out.’
‘Why should you do that?’ Hugh asked, the colour draining from his face.
‘Because I have never understood why she left us as she did,’ Gilbert said. ‘ Don’t you ever wonder about it?’
‘I suppose so,’ Hugh said edgily. ‘But I assume she must have had her reasons.’
‘True. And I would like to know what they were. I thought Sarah was happy with us. When I left for France there was nothing to suggest anything different. Yet when I returned she had gone.’
He paused, remembering the shock he had experienced at the time when Blanche had told him that Sarah had simply packed her bags one night and disappeared, leaving not one single clue to her whereabouts. ‘ She must have been planning it for months,‘ Blanche had said. ‘Either that or she had some other secret life that she did not want us to know about.’ ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he had protested. ‘A secret life – Sarah? She is as open as the day is long!’ But Blanche had merely shrugged and remained totally unmoved by the disappearance of the girl who had shared their lives for five years. ‘I don’t know why you should be surprised,’ she had said. ‘A girl like that … Don’t waste a second’s thought on her, Gilbert.’
But Gilbert had thought about her long and often and in spite of Blanche’s protestations he had made every effort to discover her whereabouts. All very well for Blanche to insist she had simply run away and that was the end of the matter. Blanche had resented Sarah from the beginning. But each of his lines of enquiry had drawn a blank and at last he had been forced to concede defeat. Sarah had disappeared like a stone in a deep pond leaving not so much as a ripple on the surface.
It was not only Blanche who
seemed glad to see the back of Sarah, however. The rest of the family were clearly equally relieved that his efforts had proved fruitless and it had occurred to Gilbert to wonder if he had been told the whole truth. Since none of them would admit to any knowledge beyond the story as Blanche had related it and it was impossible to ask Sarah herself for an explanation he had eventually had to let the matter rest though it had continued to bother him, like a tiny splinter of glass buried deep in the flesh. Now, looking at Hugh’s pale face and listening to his protests, the suspicion that there was indeed more to Sarah’s disappearance than he had been led to believe reared its head once again.
‘Don’t you think it would be a good idea for me to go and see Sarah?’ he asked, watching Hugh closely.
‘I certainly do not!’ Hugh said. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow; Gilbert saw that it was glistening with a fine haze of perspiration.
‘Why not?’
‘Because if Sarah had wanted to see you or any of us she would have come back before now,’ Hugh said. His voice was eager – too eager. ‘Good grief, you must see that, Father. She has made a new life for herself. The last thing she will want is to be reminded of her roots. Look at her – ‘‘The Sweetheart of the Skies’’. It wouldn’t suit if the truth were to come out about her, would it?’
‘What truth?’
‘That she is the illegitimate daughter of a seamstress,’ Hugh blustered.
‘Why should she be ashamed of it? And in any case there is no reason for anything to ‘‘come out’’ as you put it. I intend to see her in private, not seek an interview with the world press looking on.’
‘Well I think it is a pointless idea,’ Hugh repeated. ‘No good will come of it. And besides, how would you know where to find her?’
Gilbert stabbed at the article with his forefinger. ‘It says here that when she is not ballooning Sarah works with the Dare Brothers at the balloon factory at Alexandra Palace,’ he said. ‘I shall visit her there.’
Hugh wiped another bead of sweat from his face. He knew that further argument was useless with his father in this mood.
‘Well I suppose it is up to you,’ he said truculently.
Gilbert’s lips tightened. If he had been undecided before about his course of action Hugh’s attitude had removed every last vestige of doubt.
‘Yes, Hugh, it is,’ he said. ‘ I shall visit Sarah immediately. And I only wish something like this article had come into my hands long ago.’
Hugh did not reply. He was wishing heartily that he had been alone when he had seen the article – and that he had consigned the Illustrated Weekly News to the bonfire. Ghosts which had seemed to be laid for the past three years were about to rear up and begin haunting him again. Still, at least he would soon be in India and well out of the way. He had no wish to be anywhere in the vicinity when his father discovered the truth about Sarah’s departure from Chewton Leigh.
Chapter Fourteen
Bright spring sunshine bathed the vast pleasure ground that was Alexandra Palace in a warm golden hue. It dappled through the leafy branches of the lime and cherry trees which shaded the tables in the open air restaurants, it reflected from the shining metal and bright paintwork of the rides in the fairground in arrow-sharp shards and glanced off the water of the boating lake in myriads of diamond and sapphire-like light. Between the lines of booths where the sideshows were situated the shadows lay tall and distinct across the hoardings proclaiming the attractions and the warm air hummed with the mingled shouts of the barkers, the strains of a brass band playing Sousa and the shouts of laughter and the constant chattering hum of people intent on enjoying themselves.
As Sarah made her way across the park she smiled to herself. All the world, it seemed, flocked to Alexandra Palace – or ‘Ally Pally’ as it was popularly known. Some came for the entertainments and the concerts, some came to see the horse racing on the magnificent race course, some simply to sit and watch the world go by. But all were set on pleasure, determined to enjoy every moment to the full, and although after almost two years Sarah was familiar with every corner of the place it never failed to give a lift to her spirits to see the smiling faces and feel the air of excitement that prevailed, just as it had been when she had first come seeking employment as a waitress.
How long ago it seemed now, she thought as she skirted the tables where once she had served pots of tea and long cool glasses of lemonade, ice cream in shallow silver dishes, plates of pastries and sticky buns. Sometimes it was difficult to believe she had been that young girl, overawed by the enormity of the world into which she had launched herself, alone and a little frightened, but determined to stand on her own two feet and make something of herself. Now she had a circle of friends, a life style which took her to the best suites in the best hotels, a wardrobe of fashionable clothes and a degree of fame. She was no longer little Sarah, orphan, scullery maid and waitress. She was Sarah Thomas, Sweetheart of the Skies.
Sometimes as she mingled with the crowds wearing her natty ballooning costume of red and gold braid-trimmed knickerbocker suit and cap and knee-high laced boots of softest black leather someone would recognise her and point her out. The knowledge that she was a personality never failed to please her; she walked jauntily now, her head held high, a small smile ready on her lips, for although it was three hours yet until the ballooning display of the day and she had not yet changed into her costume, that air of readiness to be recognised had become a part of her everyday demeanour, contributing to her natural grace and drawing attention to her striking good looks – her figure, as slender now at seventeen as it had been three years earlier and curved in all the right places, her eyes, sparkling blue and fringed with long lashes, her nut brown hair swept up into a loose pompadour from which ends escaped to frame her neat featured face. Sarah had always had the promise of beauty – now she possessed an aura too. In her own way, in the world of aero-acrobatics, Sarah was a star.
Sarah skirted the bandstand, moving with that easy grace between the crowds who had gathered to listen to the stirring music and made for the banqueting hall which housed the aeronaut’s workshop.
To her it was and always had been a magic place where a potent alchemy turned canvas, hemp and wicker into gondolas which could float and soar on the wind and mere mortals into demi-gods of the skies. From the first day she had come here and learned of the work which went on in the vast and mysterious hall she had been drawn to it like a moth to a flame for ballooning had always seemed to her a most romantic activity. As a child she had listened eagerly when Richard Hartley had talked of it, lapping up the stories of the first-ever passengers in a balloon – a cockerel, a sheep and a duck who had been sent two miles high by the Moltgolfier brothers over a hundred years earlier, watched by a crowd of some 30,000 including King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette – and Vincent Lunardi, secretary to the Neapolitan ambassador in London, who had made the first manned balloon voyage in Britain with a pigeon, a cat and a dog to keep him company. The names of the pioneers had become as familiar to her as any of the great figures of history and she had been enthralled to learn that some of the modern giants of the air were based here – Henry Spencer, a third generation balloonist of the famous Spencer family, his brother-in-law, Captain Gaudron, who headed a full team of stunt parachutists, and most outrageous of all, Samuel Franklin Cody, who had used his sharp shooting act The Klondike Nugget to finance his serious business of building a kite strong enough to carry a man into the air until he had been lured away by the challenge of building and flying aeroplanes. Sometimes the balloon men came into the restaurant where she worked, drinking gallons of tea and absentmindedly tucking into pastries as they discussed the latest innovations, and when she could be spared from her duties Sarah slipped away to watch the parachutists giving their daring displays of aerial acrobatics. The balloons gave joyrides too to those who could afford to pay for the pleasure; watching them float away over the tree tops Sarah had made up her mind to save he
r pennies until she could afford to make a trip herself.
That day seemed very distant however. Her wages, though better than the meagre three shillings she had earned as a kitchen maid at Deedham Green, were swallowed up each week by the day to day expenses of living. There was food to buy, for she was too sensible to try to exist on the buns and pastries she served at the restaurant, shoe leather to be replaced, for the constant traipsing back and forth meant it wore thin at an alarming rate, and the rent to pay for the room she had taken over a teashop in a suburban high street. Sarah considered herself fortunate to have found the room – Molly Norkett who owned the teashop was a widow and a motherly soul and soon she had suggested that Sarah should share her meals with her and keep her company in the evenings. But Sarah felt obliged to contribute towards the good wholesome stews and roasts, cooked in the same oven that Molly used to bake buns and teacakes for her shop so that the little apartment was always redolent of delicious mouth-watering smells, and though she helped Molly in the teashop on her days off from her regular work at Alexandra Palace in order to increase her income money still seemed to flow out of her purse every bit as fast as it went in and her savings for her balloon ride grew so slowly that she began to doubt she would ever have enough.
It was when Dolly Shepherd, star parachutist of the Gaudron team, had come into the restaurant one day that Sarah had realised there was ‘more than one way of skinning a cat’ as Bertha Pugh might have put it. Dolly was a pretty girl with bubbling curls and a warm smile. In her ballooning costume of royal blue she drew glances of admiration from the men and frank envy from the women and she was brave and resourceful as well as pretty. But fame had done nothing to spoil her. Dolly had a smile and a friendly word for everyone and as Sarah watched her chatting unaffectedly to the autograph hunters who sought her out Becky, one of the other waitresses, nudged her arm.