The Glowing Hours

by Marina Oliver

  'We'll find rooms soon enough,' Gwyneth assured her. 'It just seemed simpler to go to an hotel for a night or so and give ourselves time to look round. We can try some in the centre of the city, they're bound to have rooms available.'

  'When do you go on tour again?'

  'In two weeks. We're in Leicester and Nottingham then. Luckily we have no bookings for this week, and the next one is in Walsall, so we don't have to stay away. We've plenty of time to find somewhere just to leave our belongings. It's amazing how much one acquires without realising.'

  'It's Sunday, not a good day for trying to find rooms. And neither of you look fit enough to start searching. You're very pale, Nell. Are you ill?'

  'Just a headache,' Nell said, but winced. It had intensified from the moment Kitty began her accusations, and she'd had no thought for aspirins, all her energy reserved for packing as rapidly as possible.

  'How fortunate I was here. I came just for a few minutes to sort out a problem. Now I'm taking you home with me. Just for a couple of nights. The hotel is full for the next few days, and if you haven't found anywhere more suitable by then you will be assured of a room here after Wednesday. Don't argue,' she added as Gwyneth opened her mouth. 'Nell ought to be in bed. And it's only for a short while. I always keep rooms ready for Richard's parents when they visit, but they are in America at the moment, they won't need them. Finish your coffee while I have your luggage put in my car.'

  *

  'You shouldn't have done it, Miss Kitty. It wasn't kind or ladylike. And if it hadn't been my day off I'd have told you so to your face.'

  'Oh, shut up, Meggy, and mind your own business! I was quite bored with sharing my home, and they were a pair of ungrateful little sluts.'

  'They were well mannered and polite, and always did what they could to help me,' Meggy retorted.

  'They may have crawled into your good graces, but they outstayed my welcome.'

  'What you mean is that you were afraid they might steal the men you thought you owned.'

  'You're as impertinent as they were. I wish I could get rid of you too.'

  'You can't. It's your mother pays my wages, and here I stay, though there's times I'd like to be free of your tantrums.'

  Kitty glared at her. 'I'm going shopping. See that you turn out their rooms and get rid of every single trace of them before I come back!'

  Meggy sniffed, and watched balefully as Kitty flounced out of the room. Then she collected her mops and dusters and went slowly upstairs. Three hours later the rooms Nell and Gwyneth had occupied were once more lifeless and sterile. In the middle of the dining room table, where Meggy, as she did when she was angry with Kitty, had laid out a coldly formal lunch, sat Nell's patch-box.

  'What's this?' Kitty demanded as she sat down.

  'I found it in Miss Nell's room. It had slipped under the paper in one of the drawers, and I expect she had to pack in such a rush she missed it. Where can you send it? Shall I ask Mr Andrew to give it to her?'

  'I'll ask him. Now do go away, Meggy, this room's gloomy enough without having your miserable face hanging over me while I eat.'

  When Meggy's grumbles became inaudible as she closed the door with a snap, Kitty picked up the patch-box and looked curiously at it. It was delightfully pretty, oval in shape. about two inches long and half an inch deep. The lid, which was slightly raised, had a border of deep royal blue, as did the sides. On the lid, on a white background, a spray of delicately painted flowers was being inspected by a pair of bluetits, and the flowers were reproduced on the sides. Kitty looked closely, and discovered that this was a free design, not the cheaper transfer prints which were more common. She raised the lid and found a tiny mirror inside it. Her eyes widened, for the inside, though tarnished, was silver. Most of these boxes, she knew, were made of copper or even cheaper metals. Then she noticed the inscription and carried it over to the light to read it.

  ' "To my true love Nell",' she repeated, astonished.

  How on earth had someone like Nell, who had been destitute when Kitty first met her, acquired such a beautiful object? Kitty frowned. It was possible either Andrew or Paul had given it to her, in which case they were more seriously attracted than she'd imagined. The thought made Kitty furious. It was not comforting to imagine that either of them liked her enough to spend a lot of money on such an unlikely present. Yet the engraving was old, it hadn't been done recently. Could Nell have bought it with her earnings from dancing? Kitty shook her head. Even with the free accomodation and transport Kitty had provided, it would have been far too expensive. Nell had, Kitty knew, spend a lot of money on clothes, since she'd possessed virtually nothing to begin with.

  Could she have stolen it? Despite her need to think badly of Nell, who had filched away the affections of both Andrew and Paul, Kitty could not believe this. Besides, when would Nell have had an opportunity? It wasn't new, these boxes were not produced now. Besides, there was a slight scratch on it. It would have been too much of a coincidence if she had stolen a box bearing her own name. Unless she had somehow seen the inscription and been tempted because it was her name? To Kitty's knowledge Nell did not show any interest in shops selling such antiques, and had never been inside a house where it might have been carelessly displayed, a temptation for someone as poor as Nell. Perhaps she'd had it all the time. Kitty frowned. If she had, apart from the puzzle of where it had come from and how she had acquired it, she had never been as poor as she'd claimed. It could have been sold for a great deal of money, certainly enough to have kept Nell in comfort had she left home and looked for another job away from her family. And that meant she had been sponging on Kitty's good nature while she could have afforded to support herself.

  Conveniently forgetting that by the second time she and Nell had met, Nell had a job and was paying her own way, Kitty stoked the fires of her jealousy with resentment. However Nell had come to own the patch-box, she didn't deserve to have it returned to her. Losing it would serve her right for being so secretive.

  Forgetting the lunch she hadn't even started, Kitty went hastily to her sitting room and thrust the patch-box out of sight in one of her bureau drawers, behind some embroidery she had started a year ago and grown tired of. Then, a satisfied smile on her lips, she decided to go shopping for another hat.

  *

  Marigold calmly insisted that Nell go straight to bed in one of the communicating rooms overlooking the back garden of her house. She was thankful to rest her throbbing head on the soft, lavender-scented pillows, and sink down into a deliciously comfortable feather mattress. Within minutes she was fast asleep. It was dusk when she awoke, blessedly free from pain, and lay remembering her new hostess's kindness.

  'Would you like some soup?'

  It was Gwyneth. She'd been sitting quietly in an armchair beside the fireplace. Now she was in a condition to notice her surroundings Nell saw that the room was furnished as a sitting room as well as bedroom. She suddenly knew she was ravenous.

  'That would be lovely.'

  Gwyneth rose and tugged at a bellpull beside the fireplace. 'Marigold – she told us to call her that, she's not very much older than we are – said to ring down when you were ready'.

  'This is a lovely room. I'm not even sure where we are. It's not near Kitty's, is it?'

  'No, her house is much closer to the Hagley Road, on the north side of the Botanical Gardens. This is just off Richmond Hill Road, where Paul lives.'

  Nell busied herself pleating the sheets. 'Does he? I didn't know where he lived, precisely.'

  'Marigold told me. Isn't she fantastically kind, to bring us to her home? She insisted I had lunch with them all. At least, with the older boy, Dick, who's just ten. The two little ones are in the nursery.'

  'She doesn't look old enough herself to have a son of ten.'

  'She explained he was born when she was still only seventeen. Richard was a pilot in the war, and he was lost in Germany for years, terribly injured. It sounded so romantic. While everyone else thought he was
dead she opened the hotel and made a great success of it, and he thought she was dead, but eventually came home and found her. They are still terribly in love,' Gwyneth added almost to herself. 'It can't happen in many marriages. It's too great a risk, compared with dancing!'

  Marigold herself brought a tray with soup, some cold meat and salad, and a bowl of late raspberries. 'Do you feel better now, Nell?'

  'Much, and thank you for helping us! It was so kind.'

  'I can't let my most popular dancers be homeless! We didn't want to wake you for dinner, so I hope this is enough. If you stay in bed you'll be quite fit in the morning. You can take it easy tomorrow. Gwyneth says you have a rehearsal on Tuesday. Then you can begin looking for rooms. If you want anything else, ring for it.'

  'And I'll be in the room next door, with the door open.'

  *

  Andrew had booked Frank Bliss's studio for the rehearsal, and on Tuesday Nell and Gwyneth were there early.

  'I heard how successful you were on your tour,' Edwina said while they were waiting for the others to arrive. 'I still wish you were dancing with us though.'

  'It was very good of you both not to mind when we left. We did feel disloyal after all you'd done to get us started.'

  'You mustn't, Gwyneth. We were sorry to lose you, but you have to take every opportunity. You are both too good to stay in a chorus line for ever, and anyway dancers have very short professional lives, they're finished at thirty. If you can develop other specialities, like the singing you're doing now, you'd be able to stay in the music halls for much longer if you wanted to.'

  'I enjoy the variety, but I still much prefer the dancing,' Gwyneth said. 'We hope you'll help us to devise some new routines. Will you have time? Are you busy with your classes?'

  'It's easier now we have an assistant teacher. I am helping Frank more with the paperwork, as he travels a great deal looking after the troupes and finding bookings for them. We have four troupes out now and another almost ready to start. They occasionally dance at charity shows, too. And we've sent one girl, who came to us after you left, she could already dance, to the Folies-Bergère to join John Tiller's girls there.'

  They couldn't ask any more. Andrew arrived with two of the musicians, and after greeting Edwina briefly began to lay out some sheets of music he'd brought.

  'Kitty isn't coming,' he announced abruptly. 'We'll have to reorganise the routines she was in.'

  The men clearly knew this, there were no exclamations or questions. They immediately began to offer suggestions for cutting out some of the songs and substituting others where Kitty's absence would not be noticed. Gwyneth waited for a pause.

  'We can alter the songs,' she said slowly. 'It won't be so easy to change the dancing. We haven't many routines for just the two of us as we wanted to include Kitty a much as possible.'

  'Can't you simply change them for two dancers?'

  'Of course not! They depend a lot on pattern and interaction. You can't get the same effect with a third of a team missing!'

  'Get another girl,' Andrew said dismissively. 'Surely Mrs Bliss has someone capable.'

  'Not someone able to learn several complicated routines in less than a week!' Gwyneth snapped. 'The three of us spent far longer doing it, and we'd had the advantage of working together for some time, and knowing some of the basic parts of the routines beforehand, just adapting them and making them look better.'

  'Then adapt these. The dancing is your problem, Gwyneth. I have enough to think about with the music. Let's begin with deciding what we definitely have to drop, and see how much is left. Then we can try out some of the new stuff.'

  'And we still have no help deciding what we are going to do!' Gwyneth fumed after they had finished the rehearsal and gone to have something to eat in a teashop in New Street. 'We'd better revive some of the speciality dances we did with the Bliss Beauties. At least Kitty wasn't involved in many of those.'

  'And Marigold said we could use the ballroom at the hotel for practising. It's free tonight.'

  'We also have to look for rooms! Sometimes I feel I could kill Kitty!'

  Nell grinned at her. She felt so much better, and could face her problems with much greater equanimity.

  'I know it makes it awkward for the act,' she said slowly, 'but it was never very easy living with Kitty. In some ways I think I'll prefer being independent. She always expected us to show how grateful we were, and though I was, of course, it felt uncomfortable.'

  Gwyneth nodded. 'I know what you mean. She was so unpredictable. She could be kind and generous but she had a nasty mean streak. Not with money, she was generous enough with that, but with her friends.'

  'Let's forget it. We need to find rooms.'

  *

  'Timothy, you shouldn't have come here!'

  'Why the devil not? Andrew told me where you were. The Endersbys are good friends of mine and I wanted to see you. I went to The Firs and Meggy told me what Kitty had done. Kitty wasn't there, or I really think I'd have wrung her neck!'

  Gwyneth chuckled. 'I can't imagine you summoning up the energy,' she said. 'Marigold offered us rooms here in her house for a few days, but we can't abuse her hospitality. We have to find somewhere to live soon.'

  'And have you?'

  'No, we saw some we liked, but there was always just one, and we want to be together. We'll try again tomorrow.'

  'Come and live with me.' She stared at him, utterly astounded. Timothy shrugged, and a wry smile twisted his lips. 'Yes, I know I was less than subtle when I enticed you into my wicked lair, but I thought you had partly forgiven me.'

  'Yes, on the understanding that you never tried anything again!'

  'I won't, without your full agreement. If you insist we can have a proper document setting out how far I can go, and on what terms.'

  'Don't be idiotic!'

  'I mean it, Gwyneth. I want you, and if you came to live with me you'd be treated like a queen. I've been kicking myself ever since it happened for being so crass, so impatient, and ruining my chances with you. Haven't I shown you that I've reformed?'

  'I won't give up dancing for anyone. And I don't want to marry you, Timothy.'

  'Ah. I haven't explained myself properly. I didn't mean we would get married. It isn't that I wouldn't prefer to,' he added swiftly, seeing her expression. 'My family wouldn't stand for it, you see. They expect me to marry a girl from – well, from amongst our set. Not that I have any intention of complying for years yet, and in the meantime we could have fun together.'

  Gwyneth, with a tremendous effort, suppressed the urge to pick up all the ornaments in Marigold's drawing room and throw them, one after the other, at Timothy's head.

  'That is almost as insulting as what you tried to do before,' she said, her voice taut with fury. 'I would not have accepted marriage, from you or anyone, and I certainly have no desire to become your mistress just to enable you to while away a few idle hours when you have nothing better to do – '

  'Gwyneth, it wouldn't be like that, believe me! We'd be together, we could travel, I'd take you to all the places you could go to as my wife! It's just that it wouldn't be – suitable – to marry you.'

  'Everywhere but to meet your family, I suppose? Or your superior friends? I think you'd better go before I really lose my temper. Get out! Go! And I never want to see your superior smiling, silly simpering face again!'

  'It's getting farcical, everyone throwing people out,' she said ruefully to Nell later that night, when they were sitting in Nell's room. 'I was so furious, but I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. I didn't know which to do first.'

  'Is it because of your upbringing that you won't go and live with him?' Nell asked curiously. 'Do you think it's wrong?' If it had been Paul suggesting it to her she would have gone without a second thought, and gladly.

  Gwyneth shook her head. 'Oh, yes, I've always been taught it was one of the worst sins. But I don't think that was my main reason. I just don't want to. And it was so insulting, the way he
told me I was fit to go to bed with him, but not to be his wife. And I want to dance,' she added firmly.

  As she prepared for bed she allowed herself to wonder what her response would have been if it had been Paul making the suggestion. Then she shrugged. It was impossible to imagine. Paul wasn't that sort of man, and even if Nell couldn't see it it was obvious to Gwyneth that he had no time for anyone else. If it had been otherwise, she might have been tempted. As it was, her dancing must be sufficient.

  *

  Andrew called rehearsals every morning, and Edwina offered to help Nell and Gwyneth as they struggled to prepare different routines.

  'If you are interested, by the way,' she said as they were taking a short rest, 'there are a couple of ground floor rooms available in a house on the other side of the road. They aren't cheap, but I think you could afford them.'

  'Really? That would be ideal!'

  'Go and see them when we've finished. It would certainly be convenient for rehearsals here.'

  The rooms were large and bright, and well furnished, although by no means as elegant as either The Firs or the Endersby home. Nell and Gwyneth were relieved to have found somewhere and arranged to move in the following day.

  All week they were so busy rehearsing they did no more than unpack what they needed immediately. It was not until Sunday, when they were trying to decide which costumes they would need for the next week's show, that Nell missed her patch-box. She searched in all her cases, and through every possible place where it might have been concealed. Then she sat and tried to recall that dreadful morning when they had been packing in frantic haste so as to get out of Kitty's house. She'd been slow, too much in pain to hurry, and Gwyneth had helped her. Gwyneth may have taken the other things out of the drawer where she'd kept the patch-box, and missed it. She hadn't thought to look herself.

  She remained amidst the chaos of the room, desperately trying to convince herself she'd put the patch-box in some other place, where so far she hadn't thought to search. Gradually, as the realisation that it was lost penetrated her brain, blind panic overwhelmed her. Her thoughts whirled. It was her talisman, and she'd always had the feeling that while she had it there was hope for a better life. More than that, it was the only link she had with her grandparents, the only tangible thing to sustain her memory of her happiest years.