The Glowing Hours

by Marina Oliver

  Fleur gazed unhappily at her. 'I – I'm sorry, Kitty, I have a headache. I'd better lie down.'

  *

  'You have a pretty dress and you ought to try it out at a dance,' Gwyneth declared as she finished sewing on the fringe of long red tassels to the edge of the dress.

  'I've never before had anything so beautiful! You've been so good to me!' Nell exclaimed. She recalled the overlarge dress Tom's mother had lent her, and cringed as she thought how unfashionable it had been. Yet at the time she had been so pleased to wear it. She truly wasn't being ungrateful, it had been kind of Mrs Simmons to lend it to her, but now, as she walked to and from her new job in the centre of Birmingham, she saw how really fashionable women dressed.

  'Let's go to the Palais on Saturday.'

  'That's in Monument Road, it's too near where I used to live,' Nell said swiftly.

  'Of course, I'm sorry. I forgot.'

  'If anyone I knew saw me, and told Pa, he might find me.'

  'Are you still afraid? He couldn't make you go back home.'

  'No, I suppose not,' Nell said slowly. 'It's so fabulous, like waking up from a nightmare, to be free. But I'm sure he'd try to force me back.'

  'We won't risk it. We can go to Tony's, by the Hippodrome.'

  For the first hour Nell floated in a dream. Neither she nor Gwyneth lacked partners, but most of them had only a rudimentary idea of the proper steps and stumbled round the floor more or less in time to the music.

  Despite this Nell was in a cloud of happiness. For the first time in her adult life she felt she looked attractive. Instead of the outgrown rags she had worn until her adventure in the stable, and then the clothes Kitty had given her, she had something made especially for her, something new, something she had bought with money she had earned. She held her head high, and had no need of cosmetics to brighten her eyes and make her cheeks glow. Then the bubble burst.

  'I thought it was you! Even though you've had all your lovely hair cut off into this ugly shingle style.'

  She swung round, her hand covering her mouth to suppress the cry of dismay. 'Tom!'

  'Where on earth have you been, Nell?' Tom demanded, in his agitation grasping her arm until his fingers bit into the soft flesh and Nell cried out to him to let her go.

  'I found a room, and another job,' Nell told him, looking round for Gwyneth, but her friend was talking to a group of people at the far side of the ballroom.

  'A well paid one, by the look of this fancy dress,' he said sternly. 'It must have cost a great deal.'

  'My friend made it for me.'

  'Made it? What friend? Are you sure you don't mean a man friend, and he bought it for you?'

  'No I don't! I met Gwyneth at work, and have a room in the same house! How dare you suggest something disreputable!' Nell flared.

  Tom was instantly contrite. 'Nell, I'm sorry! I've been beside myself with worry, not knowing what had happened to you. I've been thinking all sorts of dreadful things. But you're looking well, better than before.'

  'Thank you. How is – everybody?'

  'Your Pa nearly went mad when he realised you'd gone, and he couldn't find you. He discovered we'd been out together, and came round to our house, demanding we give you back to him. Luckily my father was there and threatened to call the police if he didn't go away.'

  'Tom, I'm sorry! I didn't think he'd care whether I left or not, apart from losing my wages.'

  'He felt you'd made a laughing stock of him, I suppose. But after a week or so he calmed down and went round trying to convince everyone you'd run off with all his savings. No one believed him, naturally, they know he hasn't two pennies to rub together after he's been in the Ryland Arms or the Turf.'

  'What about Ma, and the little ones?' Nell asked quietly. 'I do feel bad about not telling them where I live, but if they knew he'd very likely beat it out of them. Ma always said it was wiser not to have secrets if we didn't want him to find out about them.'

  'She's probably right. I don't know how she can bear to stay with such a brute!'

  Nell shook her head sadly. 'What can she do? There's nowhere for her to go, and how could she possibly manage on her own with all the children to feed? He couldn't always have been like this. Surely not, or she couldn't ever have loved him!'

  At that moment Gwyneth returned, and Nell introduced Tom as an old friend.

  'Oh, dear, we hoped to avoid Nell's old friends,' Gwyneth said cheerfully. 'You won't peach on her, will you? You won't tell her father where she is?'

  'I don't know where she's working or living,' Tom said stiffly, 'so I can hardly give her away. Besides, I'm not working at the same place as he is now.'

  'Good. It's best you're kept in ignorance, then you can't tell anyone accidentally.'

  'I am capable of holding my tongue!'

  'Yes, of course, Tom,' Nell reassured him. 'Where are you working now?'

  'I've obtained a post with the Railway Union, the same offices where my father works. Nell, I must see you again, I still meant what I said.'

  'I hope you didn't tell him where we live, he looked a sanctimonious prig!' Gwyneth muttered as they walked along Corporation Street.

  Nell laughed slightly. 'No. I said I might go to the dance most weeks. Poor Tom. He means well, and he was kind to me. He took me out several times, and he wanted to marry me. It would have been a way out, but somehow I simply can't bear the idea of being married, especially to Tom.'

  'Marriage is a trap, and with him you'd have regretted it more than with most!'

  'At least I can always be grateful to him for taking me to my first dance. If he hadn't, perhaps I'd never have got the courage to escape. Now I can't imagine life without dancing.'

  ***

  Chapter 8

  'Anyone home? Kitty! Meggy! I'm back.'

  Meggy came out of the kitchen as Kitty hurtled down the stairs and threw herself into Andrew's arms.

  'Why didn't you let us know?' they both demanded, and Meggy began to fuss about airing his bed and cooking a proper meal for him, while Kitty wanted to know where he had been and how long he was staying.

  'As a matter of fact, I shall be in Birmingham for a longish time, so I mean to find somewhere, a small apartment, where I can stay. I can't impose on you and Meggy for months,' he said after Meggy had returned to the kitchen and Kitty had gone to the drinks table and mixed a Stinger.

  'Why on earth not? I'm bored with no one else living here.'

  'Perhaps, but while it might be acceptable for me to stay here for a week or two when I've an engagement at one of the theatres in Birmingham, living here for months would not exactly enhance your reputation, my dear cousin.'

  'What reputation?' Kitty asked sharply. 'Do you really think a bastard with no known father and an absentee mother who's an ex-jailbird has any reputation to lose?'

  'You are yourself, Kitty, not what your parents were.'

  'Oh yes? Tell that to the stuffy old matrons in London who warn their daughters I'm contaminated, and refuse to invite me to their parties, and dirty old men old enough to be my father who think I'm like my mother, ready to jump into anyone's bed! Maybe one of them is my father!' she added bitterly. 'Why do you think I bury myself here? At least I have a few friends here in Edgbaston who don't turn up their noses at me.'

  'You exaggerate, darling. But that's beside the point. I shall be working. Some friends and I have formed a dance band, and I can't have Meggy sitting up all hours every night waiting for me to come home.'

  'A dance band? Andrew, how simply marvellous! So you won't be dashing all round the country playing at different theatres every week. Where will you be playing? At the Tower? Where?'

  'At Endersby's, actually, for three nights a week. And possibly at tea dances too. They are becoming very popular, and Mr Endersby plans to increase that side of the business. He means to open ballrooms at some of their other hotels too, and if they are successful maybe separate dance halls too. As well as playing in the band I will be advising him. And we
will be playing at private functions at the Grand and the Botanical Gardens.'

  'I've joined a dancing class at Endersby's,' Kitty said eagerly.

  'You? But you can dance very well already. Why do you need to go to classes?'

  'Not ballroom dancing, though I mean to keep those classes on too. There's an enormous amount I don't know, and new steps being invented all the time. As a matter of fact, darling, I'm doing stage dancing too.'

  'Stage dancing? Kitty, you can't! That would completely ruin your reputation!'

  'Why do you have this sudden interest in my reputation?' she demanded angrily, stamping her foot. 'I'll do what I like, and I won't be preached at! You're only my cousin, not my brother! At least Mama didn't saddle me with that horror!'

  'It's precisely because you have neither father nor brother, and a totally feckless mother, that I feel some responsibility towards you,' he said, angry in his turn. 'Don't you want to make a respectable marriage? Or do you mean to go the same way as your mother? It's neither a happy nor a satisfying life, as I'm sure she'd tell you if she loved you at all!'

  'Get out!' Kitty suddenly lost her temper completely and screamed at him hysterically. 'I was planning to marry you, but if all you can think about is conferring respectability on me by the generous gift of your precious name, then I don't want you!'

  She threw herself down on the floor, beating her fists into the thick rug. Andrew stared down at her in bewilderment, then shrugged.

  'My name happens to be the same as yours,' he said mildly. 'Even if it weren't, though, and even had we not been cousins, I would never have considered bestowing it on you. You are fun to be with Kitty, except when you're in a tantrum, but when I marry it will be to someone quite different.'

  As he turned to leave the room he met Meggy at the door.

  'Your room's ready, Master Andrew, and I'll have dinner on the table in half an hour.'

  'I'm sorry, Meggy, I can't stay. Look after Kitty.'

  *

  'Please, can you tell me the way to the ballroom? Oh, Miss Denver, it's you!'

  Kitty swung round and cried out in delight. 'Nell! It is Nell, isn't it? You look so different with your hair cut. What are you doing here at Endersby's?'

  Nell smiled shyly back at her. 'I'm going to one of Mr Bliss's stage classes.'

  'So am I! What a marvellous coincidence. It's this way, down this corridor. There's an outside entrance, but this way is quicker. I've often wondered what happened to you. You're looking better now, not so thin.'

  'I ran away from home. It was all because of you and the lovely clothes you gave me,' Nell explained. 'I was respectable enough to get a job, so I could save some money, and then I met Gwyneth, and she helped me run away from home, and to join the classes. I've never stopped being grateful to you.'

  Kitty beamed. 'You'll have to tell me everything. There isn't time now, but we'll have a pot of tea and some cakes afterwards. Can you stay?'

  Nell nodded. It was daunting enough having to enter such a magnificent hotel as Endersby's, now Mr Bliss held some of his classes here, more so to contemplate sitting in one of the rooms having waiters bringing tea in the elegant silver and china they used. But she'd promised to wait for Gwyneth who was in the later, more advanced class, and with Kitty to show her how to go on she knew she would not be nervous.

  Afterwards they chatted away eagerly, Nell telling Kitty all about Gwyneth and her new life. She repeatedly stressed that it would never have happened without the clothes Kitty had given her, and Kitty glowed with the remembered satisfaction of being generous.

  'Did you know Andrew is going to be playing here, at their dances?' she said suddenly.

  'Andrew? Your cousin? No, it's the first time I've even been here. Is he staying with you?'

  Kitty frowned. 'No, he flew into a pet when he heard I wanted to go on the stage, and stormed out. I haven't seen him since. He says it will damage my reputation, the idiot! Why he can do it but not me he didn't wait to explain!'

  'I don't see why you shouldn't if you want to,' Nell declared. 'It's supposed to be a different world now, with more chances for women. But does Andrew think all women on the stage are – well, disreputable?'

  'I suppose so. Silly man. Golly, is that the time? I must fly. See you next week.'

  *

  'Nell, it's time you bought a new hat.'

  Nell looked ruefully at the one she was trying, yet again, to make more fashionable. She stuck it on her head and began to pull faces at the mirror. 'I can't get it right! I've taken off the feathers and cut off part of the brim, but it still doesn't look like those gorgeous cloche hats we saw in Greys. Like the ones in that film.' She struck an attitude, clasping her hands in front of her and looking beseechingly at an imaginary partner.

  'You can afford something now.'

  'Not from Greys!'

  'Well, no, perhaps they are a bit expensive. But we could go to the Co-op. They're bound to have the Clara Bow style. One in velvet would look nice.'

  Nell felt ungrateful to be discarding Kitty's gift, but the hat really was so oldfashioned she now felt dowdy in it. She marvelled at herself. Only six months ago she'd been thankful to have anything, however ragged, to wear. Now she could afford to be particular, to actually consider style and fashion.

  'Come on then! Before I change my mind!'

  *

  'I think our luck has changed,' Frank gloated as he and Edwina walked home from Endersby's one frosty night. 'It's so much better working the good classes in the ballroom, and Mr Endersby is prepared to rent it to us for another day.'

  'And you have several bookings for the Bliss Blondies. That was a good name for the stage troupe.'

  'Yes, that side is going well too. Gwyneth Davis was disappointed not to be included, but she's much too dark. I promised her I would soon be able to get a troups of brunettes together.'

  'Her young friend Nell Baxter might be good enough, she's a natural in the stage class and has worked very hard to learn the steps,' Edwina suggested. She had a soft spot for Nell, recognising in the girl someone from a similar background to her own who had the talent to escape.

  'Possibly, and that haughty Kitty Denver could be good if she paid more attention, though she hasn't the same strict grounding as the others. It doesn't mean so much to her, and I'm not sure she understands how hard a life it can be on the stage.'

  'I doubt if she'll stay. But why not put her in to start with, and by the time she gives up, if she does, you'll have someone else to take her place. Could you manage with a line of ten?'

  'For the bookings at the smaller theatres it would be better. Eight might be enough, sometimes, and I might even try to devise a speciality act with the three of them. They can all sing well.'

  'And Nell is a marvellous mimic. I overheard her entertaining the other girls one day, she'd been to a review at the Empire and was showing them some of the acts.'

  'Let's promote Nell and Kitty to the advanced stage class and watch them, see how they work together. We could put them in a longer line first, then decide about something smaller after they've had a few professional engagements.'

  The opportunity for a professional booking came sooner than he or Edwina had hoped. After just a few lessons with the enlarged stage class Mrs Endersby asked to see Frank.

  'I hope you don't mind,' she said when he was seated in her office drinking coffee, 'but I've been watching the girls. My husband and I are planning a special series of dinner dances with entertainment for the guests during dinner. It would be a longer programme than the normal exhibition dances you and Mrs Bliss do. I wondered if some of your girls would be able to perform too. Just half a dozen of them, since the ballroom is not very large with tables set out all round.'

  He put on what he considered his irresistable smile and smoothed his moustache. Mrs Endersby was very young, very lovely with her deep golden hair, bobbed in the latest style, and her almost ethereal air which often misled people into underestimating her considerable b
usiness acumen and iron determination. He'd heard stories about how she had built up a chain of hotels during and immediately after the war, when for some reason her husband had been detained in Germany. She couldn't have been more than a girl then, and she didn't look more than twenty now, despite her three children.

  'It would be a wonderful experience for them,' he said slowly.

  'I will pay the appropriate fee, both for you and the girls,' Mrs Endersby went on. 'Our new band is so good we want to do something different to display their talent, but solos by the boys would not be varied enough. Would you think it over and next week we can discuss your suggestions?'

  'This is the answer,' Frank said exultantly that night as he and Edwina lay in bed. 'We spread the word, get some of the theatre managers to come and see them, and bookings will be flooding in! And I've thought of another name, The Bliss Beauties. Tomorrow we'll work out a really special routine for them. And we'll have to hire someone to design costumes. This is no time for economies, we must have the best!'

  *

  'You can't leave the troupe now, Kitty!' Gwyneth said persuasively. Through Nell she'd come to know Kitty well, since the three of them had developed the habit of going to the Kardomah café after classes, where they talked about dancing, the films they saw, and their dreams of life on the stage.

  'I can if I choose to! And if that dreadful girl Jane tries to make fun of me once more I shall!'

  Edwina sighed. 'Kitty, she was just angry because you missed that step. You started off on the wrong foot.'

  'I couldn't help it! I've only done that sequence once before!'

  'That's the problem,' Gwyneth said slowly. 'You're very good, Kitty, but you've had less practice than the rest of us, and it's not surprising you don't remember it all straight away. Can we go through it out of class sometime?'

  'I'd like to do it too,' Nell said eagerly. 'I don't know it as well as the rest do, and I made some mistakes today. And we've only got a week before the performance. That has to be perfect.'

  'Isn't the studio empty sometimes now there are so many classes at the hotel?' Gwyneth asked Edwina. 'Would Mr Bliss permit us to use it? Just the three of us? That would be enough to practise the routines. We could use a gramophone, we wouldn't need the pianist.'