Dancing Shoes

by Noel Streatfeild

  Because she was sorry for Rachel, instead of leaving her alone to do homework for an hour Mrs. Storm would, when she could cut a few minutes off her shopping, get to the schoolroom early. She could then talk to Rachel before Dulcie and Hilary had finished changing after their dancing lessons.

  People cannot talk to each other every day without getting to know a little about each other. Unfortunately, although Rachel tried to explain, Mrs. Storm did not know a thing about real ballet. But she could understand very well somebody not wanting to learn to be a dancer, so she was gloriously sympathetic about musical comedy, acrobatics, and what Rachel called “that awful tap.”

  “It’s horrid for you, but I expect you’ll soon pick it up, and then things won’t be so bad. What we must try and find is something you do like doing, to make up for the dancing classes. Was there anything you were especially fond of at Folkestone?”

  Rachel tried to think. “I liked helping in the house.”

  “That’s most unusual and ought to be useful anywhere, but oddly enough I don’t think it’s of much use in this house.”

  Rachel sighed. “It isn’t. Do you know, Pursey even makes our beds. Hilary and I have been making our own for years.”

  “Wasn’t there anything you liked at school?”

  Rachel made herself think back to Folkestone, a place she had been trying not to think about. “Once we acted a piece of Toad of Toad Hall. I was Ratty. I liked that awfully. Hilary was a Wild Wooder.”

  Mrs. Storm was delighted. “How lucky you like acting. Mrs. Wintle wants Dulcie to have extra elocution, so we’ll have an acting class.”

  Rachel looked doubtful. “Aunt Cora wouldn’t want to come and watch, would she?”

  Mrs. Storm laughed. “Goose, why do you care if she does? Anyway, you might be good, and if you were I should be proud to have her watch you.”

  Rachel was remembering how much her mother had enjoyed watching her be Ratty. Aunt Cora would not enjoy watching her act anything. In fact, if she was as good as Dulcie Aunt Cora might be angry.

  CHAPTER 9

  Good Friday

  Rachel had one hope about Hilary’s dancing. One day Madame Raine would come to London and she would say to Aunt Cora: “I’ve come to take Hilary to The Royal Ballet School.” When she thought this Rachel imagined Aunt Cora answering in a humble voice: “Of course, Madame Raine. Hilary shall go with you at once.”

  Although the term went by and Madame Raine did not appear, Rachel never lost hope. One day she would come. She must, she absolutely must. Then Rachel kept her promise to the doctor and wrote him a letter. She could not say she was happy with Aunt Cora, but she did say she liked her school lessons and that she was fond of Pursey. Then she told him what a lot of dancing she had to do and that Hilary was doing an extra ballet class, as well as the ordinary school dancing. It was the doctor’s answer that made Rachel give up forever her hope of Madame Raine coming to the rescue.

  My dear Rachel,

  I was so pleased to get your nice letter. I am glad you like Mrs. Storm and Miss Purser. I am sorry you hate dancing, but I expect the exercise is good for you, even if you don’t learn very much.

  Yesterday Madame Raine who used to teach Hilary came to see me. She wanted news of Hilary, so I showed her your letter. She is, I think, disappointed to lose Hilary as a pupil, but of course she is glad that you two are together.

  Much love, my dear. Keep that chin up.

  Your affectionate friend,

  the doctor

  The doctor, not understanding about dancing, had believed truly that Madame Raine had come to see him only to get news of the children. But what she had really come for was to find out what sort of dancing Hilary was doing at Rachel’s aunt’s school. And what the doctor said had made her see that she could not possibly interfere. He was certain that the best thing was for Hilary and Rachel to be brought up together. So rather sadly she had gone away, deciding that her dreams for Hilary would have to be forgotten.

  Of course Rachel could not know what Madame Raine was thinking and so she had to believe that she, like everyone else, had stopped trying. As she accepted this, Rachel knew there was only one thing left to do. Hilary must be made ambitious. She was learning proper ballet with Pat. If she worked hard at that and not too hard at musical comedy, tap, and acrobatics there was still hope.

  Quite soon it was Easter. But holidays did not mean that one had a long holiday at Mrs. Wintle’s school. Ordinary lessons stopped, but because the Wonders were not attending school they had more dancing classes. There was a long week-end holiday from Thursday night until Tuesday morning, but that was all. Rachel had not liked to think about Easter because at Folkestone her mother had always made Easter Day fun. But she need not have worried. Pursey knew all about proper things for proper days.

  “What did you and Hilary do of a Good Friday?” she asked Rachel one lunch time when she was pouring out her medicine.

  Rachel chose her piece of chocolate. “First there was the children’s service. Then we packed sandwiches, hot cross buns, and a banana and joined some other children and went by bus to a wood to pick primroses to decorate the church.”

  “Very right and proper,” said Pursey. “And if it’s fine we’ll do the same. Of course it’s quite a way out of London to get primroses, but we’ll manage.”

  Churchgoing had been rather vague since Rachel and Hilary had come to London. They had gone several times to morning service with Pursey, which they had found much duller than a children’s service. On Palm Sunday they had gone to a quite different church with Aunt Cora and Dulcie and had been given palm crosses. And once when Pursey had a cold, and Aunt Cora had taken Dulcie to spend the day with relations, they had gone to church with Wanda and Yolanta, the Polish refugees who did the cooking and serving. Theirs was a quite different sort of church, with the service in a foreign language.

  “Oh well,” Pursey had said, “it won’t hurt for once. What I say is church is church. It’s going somewhere that matters.”

  Good Friday was a lovely day, from start to finish. Hilary, Rachel, and Pursey, carrying baskets full of lunch, and wool to tie up primroses, caught a very early train into Sussex. There they first went to the village church where a service was going on, and then into a primrose wood where they ate lunch and then got down to picking.

  It was a truly superb wood. The primroses made a yellow carpet, with a pattern of dog violets and wood anemones running through them. And so many birds were singing they might have been rehearsing for a bird concert.

  Picking primroses is hard work, and Pursey soon found that it “got her back,” so she spread her mackintosh under a tree and sat down for a rest. Hilary became bored with picking and practiced cartwheels. Rachel alone went on pick, pick, picking until her basket was full of bunches, and the more she picked the better she felt inside herself.

  When her basket was full Rachel brought it to Pursey’s tree. “Shall I put some of these in your basket?”

  Pursey looked admiring. “My, my, what a lot. Yes, do but take a rest first. I’ll pour you out some lemonade, and maybe after all that work you could find room for another hot cross bun.”

  Pursey made a place for Rachel on her mackintosh, and to Rachel’s surprise there was room inside her for a hot cross bun.

  Pursey smiled at her approvingly. “That’s what I like to see. No pecking for once.”

  “I don’t mean to peck,” Rachel apologized, “it’s just that I’ve not been very hungry lately.”

  Pursey nodded. “I know, dear. But time’s a great healer.”

  Pursey’s cozy voice fitted in with the wood and the birds and made Rachel feel able to talk. “Time isn’t making me able to dance. Do you think I must be a Little Wonder, Pursey?”

  Pursey chose her words carefully. “Now I don’t want you to misunderstand what I say,
dear. When everything’s sold there won’t be all that money for you. So what your aunt and uncle plan is that what there is will be kept until you are grown up. That means it will be more than it is now. I don’t quite understand how, but it’s something called interest.”

  It was the first Rachel had heard about her having any money. “Does it have to wait until I’m grown up?”

  “Yes, if your uncle and aunt say it does. They’re your guardians, so to speak.”

  “And they can do what they like?”

  “What they think right is more like it.”

  “And what they think right is that I shall be a Little Wonder?”

  Pursey paused for a long while before she answered. “It’s natural that your Aunt Cora should plan to have you trained. All the children she knows she’s training. Maybe you aren’t cut out for a dancer, but I’m sure she’ll make something of you.”

  Rachel picked some dog violets growing beside the edge of Pursey’s mackintosh. “But suppose I don’t want to be made something of?”

  Pursey patted Rachel’s shoulder. “But you do if you think right. You’ve got a nice home, and no expense spared. And mind you, if by the time you’re fifteen or so you still aren’t taking to the Wonders, then I’m sure your aunt will see reason and let you have part of your money to train for something different.”

  Rachel swung round to Pursey. “Honestly? She would let me do something different?”

  Pursey hoped she had not said too much. “Yes, but you’ve got to give the dancing a chance first.”

  Rachel was watching Hilary trying to turn a good cartwheel. Fifteen would not be too late. Hilary was still learning proper dancing each morning. She would have to talk her out of practicing acrobatics, tap, and musical comedy, but it might happen. It wouldn’t be so long before she was fifteen, and then she could train for something sensible, and Hilary could come and live with her and learn to be a proper ballerina.

  Rachel knelt and flung her arms around Pursey’s neck. “Angel Pursey, you can’t think how much better I feel. I will try and be a Little Wonder, honestly I will. It won’t seem so bad if it’s only till I’m fifteen.”

  Pursey returned Rachel’s hug, but she was worried. “Now what have I done,” she thought. “Put the cat among the pigeons, shouldn’t wonder. Still, it’s nice to see her smiling, bless her.”

  All of Easter was nice. On Easter Day there were breakfast eggs beautifully dyed by Wanda. After breakfast there was an egg hunt all over the house. The eggs had been hidden by Uncle Tom, who was such a good hider that even Dulcie got excited and forgot to be a Little Wonder and instead rushed about like an ordinary child.

  Aunt Cora’s parents lived just outside London, so after the egg hunting she and Uncle Tom and Dulcie went to spend the day with them. Hilary, watching them go, turned a cartwheel and said: “That suits us. All the house for you and me, Rachel, Pursey, Wanda, and Yolanta.”

  It rained in the afternoon, so after a superb Easter luncheon Wanda, Yolanta, Rachel, and Hilary played hide and seek all over the house. Pursey said she was too old for hide and seek and that she would have a nice read in her room. Actually she slept until teatime, in spite of the hide-and-seek noise, for each time the others passed her door they heard her snoring.

  On Monday Uncle Tom said he was going to Hampstead Heath, and he asked the children to come with him. Aunt Cora did not want them to go, because she said Hampstead on an Easter Monday was too rough, but Pursey said: “Lovely air at Hampstead, freshen the children up for their dancing tomorrow.”

  So Aunt Cora agreed that Rachel and Hilary might go, but not Dulcie. “I’m sorry, but those two feet are too valuable to be trodden on, Dulcie darling.”

  Hampstead was gorgeous, with its roundabouts and swings. And Uncle Tom was the perfect companion at a fair. He believed in doing everything and, if you liked anything very much, in doing it over and over again until you were bored with it. He also believed in eating anything you fancied. So what with the things that went round, and up and down, and those which whipped around corners, and the mixture of eating, the children felt most peculiar before they were home and were both sick in the night. Still, it had been a lovely day, and when they woke the next morning and saw the things they had won at the stalls they both agreed that being sick was worth it. Pursey, who came in to see how they were, agreed with them. “What’s being sick? Better out than in, I say. And a nice day is something to remember.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Pocket Money

  With something to work for Rachel struggled hard at her dancing classes and as a result began at last to improve. She gave up falling over her feet and lifting her right leg when she was told to lift her left. She even began in a dim way to understand tap. She could not learn to smile while she danced, for she had to think so hard she always wore an anxious frown. But during the Easter school holidays, for the first time Pat and Ena were able to say that she was getting on.

  “Rachel’s improving, Mrs. W. We might be able to shift her into group three in the autumn,” said Pat.

  Ena agreed. “She’s working hard and seems to put some heart into her dancing. A great change since she first came to us.”

  Mrs. Wintle looked upon Rachel as a duty and could not imagine her being a pleasure. “I’m glad she’s working. It’s the least she can do, seeing what we’ve done for her.”

  “I wish she’d smile more,” said Pat. “She’d look so much prettier.”

  Mrs. Wintle made an impatient noise. “It will take more than a smile to improve that child. She’s hard and jealous by nature and it comes out in her face. Look at the way she tried to prevent me taking in Hilary and wasn’t even upset when her mother died.”

  It was in the Easter holidays that Rachel talked to Hilary about concentrating on her ballet classes. In term time, wet or fine, Dulcie, Rachel, and Hilary had an afternoon walk with Mrs. Storm. In the holidays they still had to go out every day, but it was not always a set walk. Sometimes they went shopping with Pursey or Wanda. But one day there was no shopping and Dulcie was at the dentist, so Rachel and Hilary were sent out alone to play in the nearest park. It was very easy to say a thing in such a way that it made Hilary laugh, so Rachel started carefully. “Do you get on much faster at ballet, with the extra classes you’re having now it’s holidays?”

  Hilary had been about to try new acrobatics she was learning called flip-flaps. She paused, both arms up, hoping to throw herself backward to land on her hands, from which position somebody who could do flip-flaps would spring upright again. “I suppose so. I’m having blocked ballet shoes next week.”

  Rachel thought it very odd of Hilary not to have told her such important news before. “Proper ones? Like the big girls wore at Madame Raine’s?”

  Hilary tried her flip-flap and fell over. She spoke sitting on the grass. “Of course. Blocked shoes are blocked shoes.”

  “That means you’re going to dance proper dancing on your toes.”

  “On my pointes,” Hilary corrected her. She got up and stretched up her arms again. “But it’s not any different. The same old exercises, frappés, battements, and all those, only on my pointes instead of demi-pointes.”

  Rachel waited until Hilary had tried another flip-flap. This was a better one, but it still landed her on the grass. Then she said: “But being on your pointes at all is pretty grand. None of the Wonders, even those old enough to be working, dance on their pointes.”

  Hilary shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t feel grand, I just feel bored. I think in this school it’s a waste of time learning ballet. None of the troupes do it.”

  Rachel wanted to say “But you’re not going to be a Wonder forever. When I’m fifteen…” But she bit it back and said, instead: “Pursey told me that Dulcie was not going to be a Wonder…I mean not in a troupe. She thought she would get important parts like Alice in Alice in Wonderland,
and that’s why we’re doing acting with Mrs. Storm. She said Pat and Ena thought you might get proper parts too.”

  Hilary turned a nice cartwheel, then she skipped along beside Rachel. “I’m not sure I’d like that. The girls say it’s terrific fun being in a troupe.”

  It was no news to Rachel that Hilary was not ambitious, but it was the first time she had heard her actually want to join a troupe. “Pursey says you’d earn a lot of money if you were a star child.”

  Hilary sighed. “I wish I could earn now. Do you know, Rachel, we’re the only children in the school who have no pocket money at all.”

  “We get sixpence on Sundays.”

  “What good’s that? We have to put it in the collection plate. I asked Pursey if I could have mine in six pennies, because I thought then church could have three and me three. But Pursey said: ‘I’m too old a dog for that trick’ and gave me a sixpence as usual.”

  Rachel was often shocked by Hilary. “You wouldn’t have stolen from the church, Hilary!”

  “I don’t think it would be stealing. Church money is charity, and I don’t know a more important charity than us, with no pocket money at all.”

  “What would you buy if you had pocket money? We’re given everything, even sweets,” Rachel pointed out.

  Rachel, struggling with her dancing classes, and her plans for Hilary, had not taken much interest in the school. The children in the beginners’ class were too young for her, and she had not made friends in the groups. But Hilary, working with the Wonders in group two, had any number of friends, all of whom were swept by new fashions which cost money. Now she looked at Rachel in a despairing way. What would she buy if she had pocket money? What a question! “Haven’t you noticed that coffee whirls, which aren’t sold in the canteen, are being eaten this holiday? Or that the best Wonders have a toy animal to bring to school?”