To Nana a bracket was something hung on a wall, on which ornaments stood, but she was accustomed to Lalla and Max using words which meant nothing to her.
“I’ll speak to her about it, Mr Lindblom. She’s been a bit of a madam lately, but it should be passing off soon. Children are apt to get above themselves occasionally, but I’ll tell her plainly that you’re not pleased, and she’s to think of those brackets, or we’ll have to be bracketing her.”
Lalla was not the only member of the household to get above herself after the skating gala; Aunt Claudia was above herself too. Often she thought about that night, about the way the manager at the rink had received her, the applause, and the admiration and envy of her friends, of sitting watching the rest of the entertainment with Lalla’s bouquet on her knee, and people whispering about her; pointing her out and saying who she was, of leaving the rink, and the strangers who came up and said nice things. It was a new sort of world to her, and she wanted the same excitement to happen again very soon. She went to Mr Matthews. Mr Matthews had been having a bit of trouble with his duodenal ulcer, but when he heard that Aunt Claudia wanted to see him, he swallowed two dyspepsia tablets with a little milk, and went out to meet her, trying to look like a man who did not know what a troubled inside was. He brought Aunt Claudia into his office and sat her in his best armchair, and told her how pleased he was to see her, and how proud he was of the success Lalla had made at his gala. Aunt Claudia leant forward.
“It’s about that I’ve come to see you. I think an experience like that is good for Lalla. You won’t believe it, but there have been times when I’ve felt, not exactly a lack of enthusiasm, but a lack of ambition. Now I see why. The child needed a taste of success and applause.”
Mr Matthews looked at Aunt Claudia politely, but inside he was surprised. He was used to skating mothers, pushing forward their own little darlings, and if another child was given a chance that their child did not have, making a fuss, but he had not placed Lalla’s aunt as the type. He had looked upon her as a strict guardian, who saw in Lalla a child who might follow in her father’s footsteps and become a fine skater, and who was prepared to spend a great deal of money to achieve this. An Aunt Claudia who wanted Lalla made a show of, giving public performances, was a new idea to him, but he was a businessman and quickly saw two things. One, that it would bring credit on his rink if Lalla were allowed occasionally to appear for charity, and the other that Max Lindblom must not be told what was planned. Mr Matthews picked up any gossip that was round his rink as if he were a vacuum cleaner picking up dust; that Max thought Lalla’s skating success had gone to her head was gossip that had blown in from every quarter. He drew a diary towards him.
“There will not be many important events before the season ends, but there are two, at which I should be glad if you would allow Lalla to perform. One is in London, and one away. Of course you will have no trouble with the arrangements, the hotel bookings for the away date will be made by the management of the rink concerned.”
Aunt Claudia had a vision of herself, Lalla, and Nana walking into a large and expensive hotel, herself being pointed out as Mrs King with her niece, the little skating star. She saw herself returning in the evening, carrying Lalla’s flowers, and allowing her fellow guests to crowd round her and congratulate her. She told Mr Matthews that she thought they could manage the two dates, and she would see about Lalla’s frocks right away.
“I must plan quite a skating wardrobe for her before the winter season starts.”
Mr Matthews put his fingertips together and asked cautiously if Mrs King had discussed these additional public appearances with Max Lindblom.
Aunt Claudia felt Mr Matthews was not asking from idle curiosity, so she said “no”, and asked why.
Mr Matthews pressed his fingers more tightly together than ever, and hoped he was being tactful.
“Skating instructors are apt to think that only work on the figures for the tests is advisable before a test. With her silver test in May I think you may find Max Lindblom difficult to deal with.”
Aunt Claudia, having decided that public appearances were good for Lalla and knowing they were good for herself, was not prepared to let Max Lindblom spoil things. She gave the sort of laugh that means “who cares?”.
“Then I shan’t tell him; I think I know what’s good for Lalla, and I’m sure you do.”
After Aunt Claudia had gone Mr Matthews telephoned to the managers of the two rinks which were having charity performances about Lalla. After that he sat down meaning to get on with some other work, but the thought of his talk with Aunt Claudia kept interrupting him, and quite suddenly he said something out loud which surprised him very much, because it was “poor little kid”.
When Max Lindblom heard that Lalla was going down to the south coast to skate at a charity gala he was very angry indeed. It happened to be a day when Miss Goldthorpe was at the rink, so she heard all that Max thought about it. Except when she was talking to Harriet, Miss Goldthorpe filled up her time at the rink with her favourite occupation, reciting Shakespeare in her head. She was a great lover of Shakespeare’s plays, and could recite them for hours on end and never repeat herself once. That particular day she was with Henry V. She was saying to herself “O For a Muse of fire” and imagining the rink had turned into “this wooden O” and that she was breathing the casque-filled air that did affright at Agincourt, when Max sat down beside her and spoke rapidly in her ear. Miss Goldthorpe took her time to come back from Agincourt and missed the first part of what he was saying. When she could give him her attention she found that about Lalla he and she had ideas in common.
“That one exhibition, yes. I had thought it was good for Lalla, I myself suggested it. But it was not good. Now she is the great star, she knows everything.‘Do not bother me, Max, I’ll do those silly old brackets in plenty of time for my test.’ But I tell you,” and here Max thumped his chest, “that she will not do them unless she works and works. There is not time for her to go away skating, and if she does she’ll be even more difficult to train. Applause goes to her head like the glass of wine. This must not be.”
Miss Goldthorpe looked at Max, and thought what a pity it was that such fire and earnestness should be wasted on so poor a cause as skating.
“I’m sure you are right, Mr Lindblom, but you are wasting your energy being angry with me. I have nothing whatsoever to do with Lalla’s skating. I educate her.”
Max became even more frenzied.
“Then you know how I feel. You must go to this aunt, and you must say Lalla may not perform in skating galas because it interrupts her education.”
Miss Goldthorpe looked again at Max. What a pity that such agile legs should not be allied to an equally agile brain. Clearly this young man’s brain was not only not agile but scarcely a brain at all, else why, having met Aunt Claudia, should he suppose that she, or anybody else, could tell her what Lalla might or might not do? Such volubility wasted on such mistaken thinking made Miss Goldthorpe sad. She patted Max’s knee.
“Keep calm. Now think. You know Mrs King will not be told what is best for Lalla, she is the only one who knows. If you or I or anybody else tried to argue with her all that would happen would be that we should cease to teach Lalla. I have on many occasions given notice to schools at which I have taught, but so far no one has given notice to me, and I don’t intend that they should. Partly because I should dislike the sensation, and partly because I’m fond of Lalla.”
Max put his head in his hands.
“Then all is finished.”
Miss Goldthorpe felt sorry for him, for he seemed to her pathetic and no older than Lalla. She spoke briskly as she would to a child who was upset.
“Nonsense. Now take your head out of your hands and listen to me. You can’t prevent Mrs King allowing Lalla to skate at charity performances however regrettable it may be, but you can do something to help Lalla. Her old nurse says that Lalla has got above herself, and that describes it exactly. Now the
remedy I suggest is the company of another child. Mrs King is already half-wedded to the idea of Harriet spending the day with Lalla and doing lessons with her. If you, quite on your own, would suggest that Harriet would be a help to Lalla’s career I think the affair could be settled. There’s nothing so good for a spoilt child as the company of another child of her own age.”
Max raised his head and looked at the rink. It was the few minutes that Lalla gave to Harriet before her practice and lesson with Max. Lalla was watching Harriet struggling with what Max’s eye recognised as forward outside threes, and Miss Goldthorpe supposed was the sort of playing about which would end by Harriet falling on the ice. As Max watched the two children he began to look less distraught, then after a bit, the sort of cheerful that people look when they are thinking about something they like to think about.
“I shall see Mrs King. I will tell her that I think it is good for Lalla that her friend Harriet should take lessons, and be on the small private rink when Lalla practises her figures. I have watched the little friend, she wastes no time, she is absorbed that one, she will not be able to know how a bracket should be, but she can watch Lalla, and be interested, and then perhaps Lalla will work.”
Miss Goldthorpe was glad that Max could grasp so quickly what she had in mind, and began to think better of his brain. Probably, since he was the skating instructor, Aunt Claudia would pay more attention to what he said than to what she might say. It would be a good idea that he should be the one to propose that Harriet should work with Lalla. When Max got up to go she asked when he intended seeing Mrs King, and was delighted to find that he not only moved fast on his legs, but evidently moved fast in things that he did.
“I go to Mr Matthews now. By tomorrow it will be arranged.”
Not by tomorrow, but by the day after, it was arranged. Mr Matthews telephoned Aunt Claudia and asked if she would see Max Lindblom, and he explained what it was about. That same evening Uncle David telephoned George and asked if Olivia could come to tea the next day to discuss the whole thing, and told him what it was about. Finally Aunt Claudia told Lalla and Nana, and Olivia told Harriet. Harriet was breathless with pleasure.
“All day! Tea too?”
Olivia kissed her.
“Lalla’s aunt wanted you to go to tea every day, but I wasn’t having that. We should never see you at all, darling. Sometimes, of course, you can go back with her, but often, I hope, you’ll bring Lalla and Nana to tea here.”
Lalla asked the same question.
“And tea, and after tea a bit?”
Aunt Claudia looked annoyed.
“That’s the one tiresome thing. For convenience’s sake, so that you have someone to play with, I invited Harriet to come back to tea every day, but her mother said that would mean they wouldn’t see enough of her. I’ve had to agree that now and again you may go to tea there as a change. I understand that it’s a treat for the Johnson family to have you, which I suppose is natural, they don’t know any other celebrities-to-be.”
The night when everything was decided Lalla and Harriet danced their way to bed.
“Mummy,” said Harriet hugging Olivia, “you do know I’ll miss being with you all day, but skating lessons! It’s probably the most gorgeous thing that’ll ever happen to me.”
Olivia put her arms round her.
“Is it, my pet? You are a funny little scrap. Who would have thought that less than six months ago you’d never seen a skate?”
Lalla butted Nana, who was trying to tuck her up, with her head.
“You wait and see my square-turn’d joints and strength of limb after I’ve had Harriet almost to live with me. They’ll grow so square-turn’d and so strong they couldn’t be squarer or stronger.”
Nana kissed Lalla goodnight.
“Lie down, and let’s have no more foolishness. You don’t want to get any squarer than you are or there’ll be more of that banting.”
Chapter Ten
SILVER TEST
LESSONS FOR BOTH Lalla and Harriet became fun, and Miss Goldthorpe enjoyed them enormously. The two girls were not only almost exactly the same age, but much of a muchness at lessons. Lalla was good at things like grammar, and remembering dates, and geography, and Harriet, which was a great pleasure to Miss Goldthorpe, loved reading. Both girls were bad at, and detested, sums. But it was fun being bad at the same thing. Lalla found even adding money, which she thought the nastiest kind of sums, could be pleasant if it meant she beat Harriet when she got them right. She did not like Harriet’s and Miss Goldthorpe’s taste for literature, especially not their fondness for Shakespeare’s plays.
“I wouldn’t have thought it of you, Harriet. You don’t look the mimsy-pimsy sort of person who could like hearing about that silly Viola and that awful Malvolio.”
At eleven the door would open and Nana would come in with glasses of milk for the girls and a cup of tea for Miss Goldthorpe and biscuits for everybody. Sometimes she would bring her own cup as well, and while she drank her tea would give a running commentary on how things were going in the house.
“Your aunt’s out for a fitting for her clothes for that Ascot. Cook has a chip on her shoulder this morning. She meant to go out with her sister this evening to the pictures, but now Wilson’s brought a message from your aunt to say there’ll be two extra for dinner. The sun’s coming out beautifully, the gardener says you ought to come down and see his crocuses, proper sight they are on the lawn.”
When Nana mentioned the gardener Lalla and Harriet would exchange looks with Miss Goldthorpe. It was time the boys came over and dug up that bed, and put in their lettuce seed. According to Alec it should have been planted some time before, and the little plants growing under cloches.
Usually Nana would finish with a bit of news for Harriet. She would say she had been going through Lalla’s drawers and cupboards and had found this thing or that thing which would be useful to her. The things she found were always worn in the house, they never went back to Harriet’s house. Nana had not talked to Miss Goldthorpe about Harriet’s clothes; it was no good talking to Miss Goldthorpe about clothes, she never knew what anyone had on, or cared what she looked like herself, but now and again she had confided in her about the Johnsons.
“They haven’t any money, poor things, and Mrs Johnson so nice and all. I don’t want her knowing, but never knowing when Mrs King will pop in and out of the schoolroom, and knowing how she expects the children to look, I find the easiest thing is to use Lalla’s clothes for both. As soon as Harriet comes I say,‘Take that off, dear, we don’t want it spoilt,’ and I’ve popped her into something of Lalla’s before you can say Jack Robinson.”
Usually Nana’s news for Harriet would come just as she was picking up the tray.
“After your dinner, Harriet, I’d like you in Lalla’s room. I’ve an old frock of hers, more than good enough for lessons, it will fit you nicely if I take it in and let it down.”
At twelve o’clock on Mondays and Thursdays Miss Goldthorpe walked the children round to Alonso Vittori’s studio for Lalla’s dancing class. Alonso Vittori was a leading stage dancer, but as well he took a few private pupils. He had been teaching Lalla for some time. He did not have to give her a strict ballet training, more a good grounding, so that she learned to hold postures and move her body and hands gracefully. As well, of course, ballet exercises were very good for her legs. Alonso was fond of Lalla as a person, but not really fond of teaching her dancing, because, although she liked Alonso, Lalla thought learning dancing a waste of time. “Not that beastly exercise again, Alonso darling. Why should I have to do it, I’m a skater? On my skates I couldn’t do that, so why should I learn it on a floor?”
To begin with, after Harriet had joined Lalla for lessons, she had watched her being taught to dance with the same open-eyed admiration she watched her skating. How extraordinary for legs to do that. How clever of Lalla to have legs that did that. At the end of the third lesson, at which Lalla had been particularly tiresome about barre
exercises, Alonso noticed Harriet’s admiring face. He had lived all his life in the ballet world, and had met any amount of young Lallas in his day, with admiring mothers and aunts who called them geniuses, and he had known what had happened to Lalla the very first lesson she came to him after the skating gala. Other people might think Harriet too big in the eyes, and too thin in the legs, but Alonso admired her; he liked her thin look, and thought it a pity that now Lalla had Harriet to work with, for of course he had heard about Harriet ever since Lalla had first met her, she should be a devoted admirer instead of an ordinary critical friend. So he went across to her.
“Why don’t you join the class next time?”
Harriet blinked at him in astonishment.
“Me! But I couldn’t.”
Alonso told her not to be silly.
“Take off your hat and coat, put on Lalla’s shoes and go over there.”
Harriet felt rather shy standing all alone in the middle of the room in ordinary school clothes, trying to do what Alonso told her, while Lalla and Miss Goldthorpe looked on, but Alonso did not think too badly of her. Just before he finished with her he called Lalla over.
“Have a look at that. Harriet’s never learned but she’s holding her hands better than I’ve ever succeeded in making you hold yours.”
It was not absolutely true, but it was near enough true for Alonso to think he might say it, and it certainly had the desired effect on Lalla. She had never been jealous but she had never had cause to be. She gave Harriet a push, and told her to take off her shoes, and told Alonso he was only saying that to annoy her. He knew Harriet could not be as good as she was. Alonso laughed, rumpled Lalla’s hair, and told her that from now on Harriet was to attend his classes, and he expected she would have to work hard to keep up with her.
Lalla had never needed to be told to work hard at fencing. She liked it, and found it fun, but Monsieur Cordon had often thought it would be good for Lalla to have a child of her own size to fence with. He ran his fencing classes with the aid of his sons, and they had a great many pupils, and it was not always convenient for him to fence with Lalla or to spare one of his sons to give his full attention to her for half an hour. So when he discovered that Harriet was always coming to watch his classes, he decided she should learn to fence too, and he told one of his sons to instruct her. He explained what he was doing to Miss Goldthorpe.
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