White Boots

by Noel Streatfeild

  Presently Aunt Claudia got up to go. It was a moment when Harriet was thinking about everything but her feet. She was doing a change of edge as Aunt Claudia passed, and slipped and fell. She had no tights, so was wearing long stockings. When she stood up her stockings and pants met; when she fell there was an ugly gap showing bare leg. Aunt Claudia passed beside Nana; her crisp, sharp voice rang round the rink.

  “That poor child! She doesn’t seem to be getting on very well. Still, I suppose she enjoys herself, and if Lalla likes having her it can’t do any harm her learning.”

  The moment Aunt Claudia was off the rink Lalla flew across the ice to Harriet.

  “You are an idiot, Harriet. You know you can skate better than that. I was simply terrified that Aunt Claudia was going to say it was no good having you taught any more, and if she had I couldn’t have blamed her.” She giggled. “You would choose the one moment she’s looking at you to fall down on your tail.”

  Nana looked up from her knitting.

  “That’s not the way to talk, Lalla dear. We can’t all have the same gifts, and I’m sure Harriet does her best. There’s no need to be unkind just because she fell over, she might have hurt herself. You’ve fallen over plenty of times, and you haven’t caught me laughing at you.”

  Harriet took Lalla’s hand and skated round the rink beside her. She spoke in a low voice so that Nana should not hear.

  “You’d have skated badly if you’d been me. Max says I’ve got to take my preliminary and my bronze when you take your silver.”

  Lalla squeezed Harriet’s hand.

  “Don’t worry, they aren’t difficult. I’ll help you if I can. Anyway it doesn’t matter if you pass or not, does it? I mean, no one’s expecting you to be a champion grim.”

  Harriet swallowed before she answered.

  “That’s not all. If I pass them Max wants me to try for my inter-silver in May.”

  The enormity of daring to try for the inter-silver, which Lalla had only passed a year ago, made Harriet’s voice end in a batlike squeak. Lalla was as shocked as Harriet.

  “Inter-silver next May! But you couldn’t! Whatever is Max thinking of? I call it mean of him, and I’ll tell him so. Poor Harriet, as if you could!”

  Although Lalla said it was mean of Max to plan that Harriet should try for her inter-silver in May, inside she was cross and worried. It made things all upside down having Harriet going in for tests. Tests were her things and test days ought to be her special days. She had not minded Harriet taking her preliminary and bronze tests in the spring, for by then she would have got her silver and be working for her inter-gold, but it was a different thing letting her take them this autumn, so that she could work to take her inter-silver in spring. She knew Harriet could not pass an inter-silver test, but she did not like to think of her working for it. But the fact that Harriet was to work for it, if she passed her preliminary and bronze, made Lalla absolutely determined that she would pass her silver with good marks. But, although she was working extra hard, she made time to look at Harriet’s skating in a thinking way, which she had never done before. Harriet was not the sort of skater anyone would think about, she never did things which caught the eye, she was always in some corner, or, when they were on the big rink in the centre, working away by herself, practising and practising, and studying her tracings. Lalla made time to look at some of those tracings, and what she saw made her go back to her brackets, feeling surprised. “She’ll pass those tests,” she thought, “of course she’ll pass them.” Then her mind added comfortably, “Anybody would pass those easy sort of tests who works as hard as she does.” Inside she was mixed up, one piece of her feeling resentful, and another piece ashamed of feeling like that. The resentful piece felt that Harriet had sneaked up to being good at skating without saying anything about it, and the nice part said, “Don’t be silly, you’ve been watching her all the time, you could have found out how she was getting on if you’d wanted to.”

  Harriet passed her preliminary and bronze quite easily. She did not get as good marks as Lalla had when she had taken the tests, for she was stiff and lost marks for style. Harriet’s passing her tests only interested herself, Lalla, and Max, for nobody else knew anything about them. Miss Goldthorpe was present, and knew, of course, that Harriet was taking tests, but when Harriet said: “They’re just baby exams, everybody takes them,” she believed her, and did not bother to watch her while she was in front of the examiners, but settled back in the Forest of Arden and had a nice time with Rosalind and Celia. Something, she had no idea what, made Harriet hide that she was taking tests from her family. Not being sure whether Max thought really that she might make a skater made her shy of talking about her skating, and the shyness had got worse since Aunt Claudia had taken to coming to the rink. Harriet thought it quite likely she would not pass, and she didn’t want to come home and tell her family she had failed. They would be nice but she was sure they would say, when she was not there, “Poor old Harriet, let’s hope she hasn’t ideas she’s going to turn into a Lalla.” She had not any ideas like that, and she didn’t want anyone to think she had.

  Aunt Claudia turned up in time for Lalla’s silver test. She stood as near the judges as she could, looking smart, proud and disdainful. The judges, a man and a woman, did not seem to know she was there, which Harriet thought must be very annoying for Aunt Claudia. The moment Aunt Claudia arrived Miss Goldthorpe and Harriet moved as far away from her as possible. Miss Goldthorpe sat on her handkerchief and Harriet held her thumbs. This time the thumb-holding and the handkerchief worked. Lalla passed. But only just; once again Max managed to get her marks, she needed fifty-four to pass and what she got was fifty-five point two. Aunt Claudia was so glad that Lalla had got what she called “that silly test” behind her, she did not mention her low markings.

  “Don’t worry, dear, I dare say those judges… what curious clothes… are not very experienced. You’ve passed and that’s what matters. You will, of course, have to work hard at those figures; they must be perfect by the time you enter for open championships, but I’m very pleased with you.”

  In spite of all Max felt about it, Lalla gave four skating exhibitions that Christmas. He had an argument with Aunt Claudia, but he lost. He arrived at Aunt Claudia’s side where she was watching Lalla practise, in a mood to speak his mind; but when it came to mind-speaking it was difficult to be as good at it as Aunt Claudia. She watched Max thumping his chest, saw his eyes flash, heard what he said about it being bad for Lalla, who was not a child whose work was improved by applause, heard that he wished her to work for her inter-gold only and not be distracted, with an amused expression in her eyes.

  “My dear man, there’s nothing to get excited about. All work and no play is bad for any child. Lalla is now eleven, and it is important she gets used to public appearances. It will not be for long before I shall be travelling with her all over the world for open championships, as indeed so will you. I never interfere with your skating lessons, but over these public appearances you will please allow me to be the best judge.”

  Max took a deep breath, and opened his mouth. It was as if he were trying to say something important, and yet was afraid of saying it. Then he shut his mouth, shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

  That Christmas Aunt Claudia and Uncle David again went away and Lalla spent Christmas Day with the Johnsons. On Boxing Day she was allowed to invite the Johnsons to her house, to see scenes from “Alice”. Aunt Claudia supposed only Lalla and Harriet were acting, but Miss Goldthorpe thought that would be dull, so there were scenes for the boys too. Harriet was Alice, partly because she had the sort of hair, but mostly because she could rehearse the boys’ scenes at home. The boys acted the mad tea party with Alec as the Mad Hatter, Toby the March Hare, and Edward the Dormouse, and the Walrus and the Carpenter scene with Alec the Walrus, Toby the Carpenter and Edward a very gay, dancing oyster. Lalla played lots of parts. She was the Red Queen. She was the White Knight riding on her rocking horse, and
she was the Caterpillar. Lalla was very funny; the audience of Olivia, George, Cook, Wilson, Helen and Nana laughed and laughed. Lalla’s gift for mimicking people made her feel she was the person or creature she was acting. She knew just the right way to say Lewis Carroll’s words to make them sound as funny as they truly were. As the Caterpillar she had been sewn by Miss Goldthorpe into a green eiderdown, and her face, looking out, with the hookah hanging from her mouth, was almost as funny as the words. When she had climbed off the piano stool which Nana had trimmed as a toadstool, and crawled out of sight, Cook said:

  “She is a caution!”

  “Better than going to the pictures,” Wilson agreed.

  Olivia turned to Nana.

  “I never knew she was an actress, bless her.”

  Nana thought acting “Alice in Wonderland” in the drawing room at home at Christmas was the very thing for Lalla to be doing, and she was pleased she had made a success of it.

  “She was always a rare mimic. Of course I stop her at once if she starts it, but you ought to see the way she takes off her aunt, the very image of her she is.”

  When Christmas was over, there was the excitement of Lalla’s four galas. Lalla enjoyed these more even than she had the year before, because now that she was eleven she was not sent home after her performance with Nana, but stayed till the end, sitting beside Aunt Claudia, hearing the nice things people had to say about her. Aunt Claudia too enjoyed Lalla’s exhibitions more than ever; it was fun having Lalla with her; there was no doubt about it that she was not only attractive to look at, but had the sort of personality that made people remember her. She was usually amusing and gay, but when she was on the ice to give an exhibition, she seemed to be saying “Look at me, isn’t it lovely to be me? I find skating such fun.” After the last of her public performances, Aunt Claudia said, as she kissed her goodnight:

  “I’m so proud of you, dear. Do hurry up and pass all those nasty tests, so that you can be entered for open championships. We shall have such fun. We’ll take Miss Goldthorpe with us and Nana to look after your clothes, and Max Lindblom. Won’t it be exciting?”

  Lalla, carried away by the success of the evening and Aunt Claudia’s enthusiasm, did something very unusual. She flung her arms round Aunt Claudia, gave her a hug, and said, “Won’t it be? I just can’t wait.”

  After that night things began to go wrong. First Lalla’s house had influenza, and then Harriet’s. When everybody got over influenza, the weather turned bitterly cold, and though the rink was warm and they wore plenty of Nana’s knitted underclothes, both Lalla and Harriet got cold and stiff if they stopped working for a moment, and both Miss Goldthorpe and Nana got chilblains and snivelling colds from sitting at the rink, and were inclined to be snappish in consequence. Worst of all, Lalla’s skating went wrong. This time the going wrong was not because she would not work. For her inter-gold she had to do figures called change edge loops. Change edge loops needed the sort of skating which was not Lalla’s. They needed control, and rhythm, both of which she had sometimes, but as well they needed immense concentration, and that was not a quality Lalla possessed when she was skating figures. Somehow, however hard she fought to stop it, her mind would slip off what her feet were doing, and this showed on the ice in a bad tracing. Because of her success at exhibition skating, and Aunt Claudia’s promises of the fun they would have when she was through with her tests, Lalla really had meant to startle everybody by passing her inter-gold test that May. Always before she had been sure she could do a figure if she worked at it, but this time she had to learn a figure she simply could not get right. Max was sorry for her, as well as worried.

  “You must relax, Lalla, this is not difficult for you, you know how it should be, but each day those tracings are worse.” He knelt down on the ice and pointed to her circles. “Look at this! And this!”

  Lalla, because she was unaccustomed to not being able to do something became unusually silent for her, and inclined to be sulky.

  “I can’t help it. I try and try. I don’t know why I can’t do this stupid old figure. I wish you’d leave me alone.”

  Max did not mind her sounding cross because he understood it.

  “You must not worry, Lalla. We will leave the loops for two or three weeks. If, when we try them again, they are still difficult, we will give ourselves longer. You will not try for the inter-gold until the autumn.”

  “I’m trying for the inter-gold this May. You know I know how to do the beastly things, and that I always do better in tests than in practice.”

  Max nodded, and agreed this was true, but if Lalla could not get better tracings after a rest he thought she had better leave the test for the time being.

  Lalla did not give up her loops; she had no lessons on them for two weeks, but she never stopped practising them, until at last she began practising them in her sleep. Sometimes she would wake up with a jump, thinking she had just finished a loop and done it wrong; sometimes she just went on practising in her head all night. Whichever way it happened it was bad for her, and instead of looking round-faced and gay with shining eyes, she began to look thin and pale, and her curls hung lankly, and she had a hang-dog look in her eyes. Miss Goldthorpe and Nana were very worried.

  “I don’t know what it is, Miss Goldthorpe dear,” Nana said. “Of course there’s this taking the test again, but then there’s always one of those. Last time it was the brackets bothered her, and this time, from what I can gather, it’s something called the circles, but she’s not one to let skating get on her mind.”

  “Is it her diet?”

  Nana made scornful, clicking noises.

  “Diet! Me let a child in my nursery diet looking the way she does? If there’s anything she fancies to eat, she has it, and as much of it as she likes, and has done ever since she had the influenza. Not that she eats as she should, only picks at her food, and if there’s a thing I can’t abide, it’s seeing a child pick at her food.”

  “You know Mr King better than I do, could you talk to him?”

  Nana was knitting a new pattern of a jersey, and had to count her stitches. In the pause she thought about Uncle David.

  “What would I say? I dare say he’d get Mrs King to have the doctor along, but he’d only give her a tonic same as he did after the flu.”

  “Couldn’t you get Mr King to have a talk to Lalla, she’s fond of him? And he might get to the bottom of what’s troubling her.”

  Nana considered it.

  “Well, of course, I always said it’s better going to a gentleman when you want advice. Seem to have more sense than a lady. I might do that. She doesn’t see much of him really, being only her step-uncle and one to laugh at the skating and all. But it was him that told Lalla to speak her mind about having Harriet to work with her.” She turned over the problem a little longer. “I’ll do that, Miss Goldthorpe, I can’t say when, me not going much in their part of the house, but I’ll manage it somehow.”

  “And I’ll have to talk with Max Lindblom; I’ll see him sometime when the children aren’t there, and ask whether there’s any need for her to take that examination just now. Then I might have a talk with Harriet’s mother, she’s a very sensible woman, she might have an idea of what’s upsetting the child. Harriet may have said something.”

  Nana shook her head.

  “Never. Harriet’s Miss Quiet in my nursery, you never know what she’s thinking. But you see Mrs Johnson, dear; it can’t do any harm and it might do good. Anything’s worth trying; it properly upsets me to see my blessed lamb the way she’s looking now.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE QUARREL

  MISS GOLDTHORPE SAW Max Lindblom one evening. He was giving a lesson when she reached the rink, but she waited until he had finished, then asked him if he could spare a moment.

  “This is nothing to do with me, and I don’t know what Mrs King would say if she knew I was seeing you, but Lalla isn’t herself at all. She’s quiet at her lessons, which is quite unlike her, and
she gets cross easily, and that’s unlike her too. She always was a child who liked to have her own way, and order people about, but she never does that now, almost I wish she would. You know, I think this test is worrying her.”

  Max did not answer at once. He led Miss Goldthorpe to a seat where nobody could hear what they were saying.

  “I do not wish her to try for this inter-gold test. There is no need; she is still very young, why should there be this rush?”

  “I think she wants to get it over and done with. You know what great plans there are for her when she has finished these tests.”

  Max made an angry, growling noise.

  “It has been wrong from the beginning. The child has talent, yes. She has a good personality, yes. But these things do not necessarily make the great skater.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more. I think it wretched that she feels that she must be a skater and nothing else. But she had been brought up to believe in a great future ever since she was a baby, and, except of course for that one time when she failed to pass a test, it’s all been coming true. But now I gather there is something she can’t do. I learn from Harriet she’s working terribly hard, and still she can’t do whatever it is.”