Dancing Shoes

by Noel Streatfeild

  “I know, Pat,” Ena whispered back, “but don’t be too hopeful. Dulcie is ambitious and Hilary is not.”

  Rachel had more than Pat’s word about Hilary’s ballet work, for one day she watched her. It was Pat’s idea. “I keep telling you Hilary’s working, but if you really want to know how she’s getting on come and see for yourself.”

  A few days later Rachel, having asked Mrs. Storm’s permission, slipped quietly into the classroom where Pat was giving Hilary her lesson.

  Rachel watched Hilary’s lesson with the pride of a mother. “My goodness,” she thought, “real Royal Ballet School dancing. Even Madame Raine would be pleased. If Hilary could be made to go on working like this for four more years everything would come right. Somehow she, Rachel, would find a way to earn enough money for Hilary to go to The Royal Ballet School. Pursey had said she need not be a Wonder after she was fifteen.” Very quietly, so as not to disturb Hilary, she crept out of the room.

  “Oh glory,” she thought as she ran back to the schoolroom, “in spite of everything Hilary’s learning to be a real proper dancer like Mummie wanted. Oh, glory, glory!”

  As Pat had hoped, Rachel was moved up into group three that term. In group three she found herself working with girls of her own age. They were, of course, dud Wonders, but that suited her, for she was able more or less to keep up with them. As well, after a day or two, she began to like them and make friends with some of them. Rachel would never be as popular as Hilary was, for she was a much quieter sort of person. Also, which the Wonders thought odd, she did not think being a good Wonder was important. When Pat or Ena praised the others they were thrilled, but Rachel did not care whether she was praised or not.

  To the Wonders another odd thing about Rachel was that she took no interest in auditions. In the first half of the term, parties of Wonders went to auditions almost every Saturday, shepherded by Pat or Ena or, when it was group one, by Mrs. Wintle herself.

  It was Mrs. Wintle’s ambition that every child old enough to be licensed should be engaged at Christmas, and that year it looked as though she would achieve her ambition. The twenty-four Blackpool Wonders were only just back at the school when the whole lot were engaged to go to Newcastle for Mother Goose.

  The holiday camp Wonders were after four auditions engaged for a pantomime in outer London.

  “It’s wonderful to be back in old London,” said Poppy. “It was gorgeous in the camp, but enough’s enough.”

  “When your holidays start,” Alice whispered to Hilary, “I’ll see if I can talk matron into letting you come and watch one of our rehearsals.”

  The Look Up and Smile troupe was broken up.

  “They’re too plain, that lot,” said Mrs. Wintle, “to be kept together. We’ll mix them up with the rest of group one and see if that way we can get them all into first-class panto.”

  The Look Up and Smile Wonders knew what was happening to them.

  “I wish she wouldn’t separate us,” Anne said sadly to Hilary. “You can think how humiliated you feel when you are sent out with the good lookers, and you have to hear, as I’ve done six times, ‘Little fat girl, fourth from the left, will you stand out.’ Then back I come without an engagement.”

  But in the end all the Look Up and Smile Wonders were placed, most of them, as Mrs. Wintle had hoped, in the grandest Christmas shows. By the end of auditions even most of those licensed in group three were placed.

  Rachel watched the Wonders marching off to auditions with a cold feeling in her inside. As girls who were not much better dancers than she was came back with engagements she felt as if she were in a lift that was coming down too fast. How would she bear it when she had to wear a little-girl frock and carry a case with her shoes in it and go to an audition? How terrible if, when she went to an audition, a manager engaged her as a Wonder. Each night when she said her prayers she added:

  “Oh God, if I have to be a Wonder, would you help me to get used to the idea before I’m twelve.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Festivals

  Dulcie’s birthday in November had been so big an occasion that Hilary had great hopes about Rachel’s and her own birthdays. Dulcie’s birthday was the day on which Mrs. Wintle gave all the Wonders an early Christmas party. There were presents for everybody, a grand tea with an enormous birthday cake cut by Dulcie, and what Mrs. Wintle called the birthday throne and crown. The throne was an ordinary chair made to look splendid by an arch of leaves and flowers. The crown, which Dulcie wore all through the party, was the sort a fairy queen would wear.

  “She didn’t say it was only Dulcie’s crown,” Hilary said hopefully to Rachel after the party was over. “You’re a niece and I’m almost one. Wouldn’t it be terrific if we had parties like that on our birthdays and wore that stupendous crown? I’d feel too grand to be true.”

  “I’d hate it,” Rachel said. “If I have a birthday party what I’d like would be to go to a theater.”

  Hilary’s eyes twinkled. “Don’t say it, I’ve guessed. We’d all go to Covent Garden.”

  “I’d like that,” Rachel agreed, “but what I’d like better would be a play of Shakespeare’s, especially Henry V, where that boy comes I learned in the summer holidays.”

  Hilary fell flat on the floor pretending to faint. “Oh my goodness! You wouldn’t want that, not on a birthday. You couldn’t, Rachel.”

  “I shouldn’t worry, it won’t happen. I can’t see Aunt Cora asking me what I would like to do, can you?”

  “No,” Hilary agreed, “she never would.”

  Christmas Day was as nice a day for Rachel and Hilary as Pursey, Uncle Tom, Wanda, and Yolanta could make it. By what Hilary said could only be described as “gorgeous luck,” two days before Christmas Mrs. Wintle had to rush up to Newcastle. Mumps had broken out in what had in the summer been the Blackpool troupe, and three Wonders had caught it. An ill Wonder ceased to be a Wonder to Mrs. Wintle and became just a tiresome child. “So stupid, I suppose they have been shopping in crowded places and picked up a germ. Well, there’s nothing for it but to scrape the bottom of the barrel.”

  The bottom of the barrel was Wonders from group three who had not been engaged even as understudies. Now the best of them would have to join the troupe.

  Mrs. Wintle decided that as Dulcie had already had mumps she could go with her. “I’ll take you with me, darling. You can help me teach those stupid children the routines. It’ll be hard work but we can’t let the name of Wintle be disgraced, can we?”

  Rachel and Hilary saw the departure of Mrs. Wintle, Dulcie, and the three Wonders from their bedroom window.

  “Poor, poor beasts,” said Hilary as she saw the last blue duffel coat vanish into a taxi. “I should think it’ll be a Christmas they’ll never forget. Traveling with Aunt Cora and Dulcie-Pulsie, knowing inside them that however hard they work they’ll never get the routines right because it isn’t in them. It’s cruel!”

  Rachel turned away from the window. “Thank goodness it isn’t me. But it will be when I’m twelve, for my natural niche as a Wonder will be the bottom of the barrel.”

  Hilary giggled. Then, propped against the end of her bed, she stood on her hands. “Anyway, they’ve gone. Oh glorious day! Never, never did I think anything so perfect could happen as both Aunt Cora and Dulcie being away for Christmas.”

  In Newcastle something exciting for Dulcie happened. The manager of a theater saw Dulcie trying to teach the new girls a dance routine. He watched her for some time, then found Mrs. Wintle. “Has your Dulcie just had her eleventh birthday?”

  Mrs. Wintle nodded. “That’s a brilliant kiddie you’ve got, Mrs. W. What’s her singing like?”

  “She has quite a nice voice.”

  “Got an audition routine?”

  “I could arrange one. Why?”

  “I think she’s a star in the making, and I’d like to
give her a chance. If she can speak lines and sing I could use her next Christmas, for I’m doing Red Riding Hood as my London panto.”

  Two days later a contract was signed for Dulcie to star in Red Riding Hood the following Christmas. The result of this was that Dulcie came back from Newcastle terribly conceited. Rachel could escape quite often to Uncle Tom’s studio and there forget Dulcie and everything else through the pages of a book. But Hilary had a great deal to suffer. She would slip, as she hoped unnoticed, into a practice room and would be happily working at acrobatics when the door would open and Dulcie come in. Dulcie would watch Hilary for a minute or two with an amused smile, then say condescendingly: “You’re doing that wrong. Let me show you.”

  The miserable thing was that Dulcie could show how dancing and acrobatics should be done. But there are ways and ways of showing, and Dulcie’s was the worst way. Hilary did not endure in silence. “I don’t want to be shown. Ena will show me in class. I’d rather do it wrong than have you show me anything.”

  Dulcie looked smug. “I shall tell Mum you’re being silly and that you wouldn’t let me help you. Considering I’ve been engaged to play Red Riding Hood it’s pretty nice of me to bother with you.”

  “I don’t want you to bother,” Hilary would retort. “I want you to go away.”

  Then Dulcie would walk on her hands, or do a flip-flap, or turn a cartwheel, all of which she did beautifully. When she was the right way up again she would say: “You see. That’s how it ought to look.” Then, before Hilary had time to answer, she would skip out of the room.

  Two or three times a week Mrs. Wintle took all three children and Pursey to the theater. It was a repetition of the summer holiday; at each theater Wonders were appearing, so at each theater out came Mrs. Wintle’s notebook. Dulcie’s criticisms, now that she was engaged for Red Riding Hood, came more often than they had in the summer, and she was even grander during the visit to the dressing rooms. Pursey, who knew how Rachel and Hilary felt, would find an opportunity to soothe them. “Don’t let her upset you, she doesn’t upset the Wonders.”

  “But she’s so despising,” Hilary would complain.

  “I daresay, dear,” Pursey would agree, “but it’s no wonder. Booked to star a year before she can have a license, which never happened to any other Wonder, was bound to go to her head. But you watch, pride will come before a fall.”

  Because everyone was busy Hilary was afraid Rachel’s birthday would be forgotten, so she went round reminding the household about it. She started with Pursey. “Pursey, it’s Rachel’s birthday next week.”

  Pursey looked up from the shopping list she was making. “I’m glad you reminded me, I must tell Wanda to make her a cake, and we’ll want eleven candles.”

  “Will she have her chair decorated and wear a crown like Dulcie did?”

  Pursey looked flustered. “Oh no, dear, that’s special for Dulcie.” Then her face cleared. “Anyway Rachel wouldn’t want it.”

  “Then what will happen for Rachel? She always had a gorgeous birthday at Folkestone.”

  Pursey, her mind half on the Wonders’ wardrobes and half on Rachel’s birthday, could not make a decision. “I don’t know, dear. Why don’t you speak to her uncle? He’s the one for plans.”

  It was difficult for Hilary to see Uncle Tom alone, for so often Rachel was in the studio, but the next morning she caught him while Rachel was working at her tap. She was so afraid Rachel would finish her practice before she had time to talk to Uncle Tom that she burst into the studio talking as she came.

  “It’s Rachel’s birthday on Wednesday, she can’t have a crown and special chair because they belong to Dulcie, and except for a cake Wanda’s making and a chocolate fish and a piece of soap made like a dog I’ve bought her, nothing’s happening at all, and…”

  Uncle Tom stopped painting and looked with a laugh on his face at Hilary. “That’s not all. I’ve bought Rachel a present I know she’ll like.”

  “What?”

  “I shan’t tell you, wait and see. But I hadn’t thought about how the day was to be spent. What would Rachel like to do?”

  Hilary had to fight with herself before she could make herself tell the truth. “To see one of Shakespeare’s beastly plays. Can you imagine? How could a child think seeing Shakespeare a birthday thing?”

  Uncle Tom laughed. “Plenty do.” He fetched a paper which was on a table and turned up the theater list. “I’m not sure what the Old Vic is doing. I think it’ll be Twelfth Night. How would she like that?”

  “She wanted Henry V, but I think Twelfth Night will do splendidly.”

  “Good. I’ll book us seats.”

  “Us? You hadn’t thought I’d want to go, had you?”

  Uncle Tom ruffled Hilary’s hair. “You are a card! I hadn’t thought you’d want to go but you’re going, for that sister of yours won’t enjoy her birthday party unless you’re there. And I shall try and get Dulcie to come too. It’s time she saw some good plays.”

  Hilary looked at him as if he were a stupid child. “Dulcie will hate it, and, quite truthfully, though I know Dulcie is your child, I must point out Rachel won’t really enjoy having her.”

  Uncle Tom gave Hilary an affectionate pat on her behind. “Run along, and leave the arranging to me. If Rachel and Dulcie don’t get on it’s high time they did.”

  Although she hated doing it, Hilary also reminded Aunt Cora about Rachel’s birthday. She saw her having luncheon with Dulcie and, though she was scared, she marched up to their table.

  Aunt Cora looked up with a why-interrupt-me-now look on her face. “What is it?”

  “I thought perhaps you’d forgotten it’s Rachel’s birthday next Wednesday.”

  Aunt Cora had forgotten, but she was not going to admit it. “Yes…yes, I know it is.”

  Dulcie was not going to be left out. “You needn’t bother. We’re giving her a present, aren’t we, Mum?”

  Aunt Cora, though she was generous, had no time for shopping, so what she did was to tell Pursey to buy something that Rachel would like and to order a box of chocolates for Dulcie to give.

  Rachel enjoyed her birthday. Not knowing that Pursey had chosen them she was amazed to get book ends from Aunt Cora. But what thrilled her was Uncle Tom’s present. For when she opened his parcel she found inside a gold wrist watch.

  “Imagine,” she said to Hilary, “we’ve both got one now.”

  Hilary was as pleased as Rachel was. “And come as a birthday present, not dancing as a Wonder, so you needn’t be ashamed of it.”

  Dulcie refused to go to the theater party. “No thank you, Dad, I’ll go again to Aladdin with Mum. There’s a good dancer in it Mum wants me to watch.”

  To make up to Hilary for having to sit through Twelfth Night Uncle Tom bought a large box of chocolates which Hilary almost finished during the first half of the play. The result of this was that she slept through the second half.

  “It was either going to sleep or being sick,” she told Rachel as they undressed for bed. “I felt most peculiar, but luckily it wore off by the time I woke up.”

  Rachel was standing by the window. “ ‘If music be the food of love, play on’…what heavenly words. Because I’ve seen Twelfth Night, almost I don’t mind being eleven though it means only a year left before I’m a Wonder.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Being Eleven

  Being eleven meant a great deal in Mrs. Wintle’s school. When you were eleven you worked both for a solo and a troupe audition and had special singing lessons. When you were eleven you became more important because you would soon stop being a training Wonder and become a working Wonder.

  Because they were so busy the year skimmed by. Hilary moved up into group one, and she had her birthday. To her disgust there was no crown or throne, but there was a large cake and a special tea for her group, and Mrs. Storm to
ok her, Dulcie, and Rachel to Madame Tussaud’s. Easter came round again, and there was a picnic on Good Friday with Pursey and an egg hunt on Easter Day. Then it was summer again, and once more they were all visiting the Wonders. Then, before it seemed possible, it was autumn and all Wonders old enough for a license were marched to auditions. But this year there was a difference.

  “We don’t want the same trouble we had last year,” said Mrs. Wintle to Pat and Ena. “So I want stand-ins who know the routines trained in advance so they can be sent off at once if there is illness.”

  “What about Rachel, Mrs. W.?” Pat asked. “She will be twelve in January.”

  “Train her,” said Mrs. Wintle. “It would indeed be scraping the barrel if I were forced to use her, but there is no harm in having her ready in case.”

  Rachel heard the news that she was to be trained as a stand-by Wonder in resigned silence. That evening when she was undressing for bed she told Hilary what was to happen.

  “It means I’ll be taken to the County Hall for a license on my birthday, I should think. I wish the London County Council wouldn’t give me a license.”

  “They will,” said Hilary. “You’re terribly good at lessons, and you’re not ill. Those are the things they care about.”

  “I know,” Rachel agreed, “and I’ve accepted my fate. Ever since I got here I’ve asked in my prayers that when I’m twelve I won’t mind being a Wonder. They say everybody gets the strength they need for the cross they have to bear. I can feel I’m getting strength to bear being a Wonder, even if it means being an elf like the Aladdin Wonders were last Christmas.”

  Hilary giggled at the memory of the Aladdin Wonders. “Pixies they were, not elves, peeping out of tree trunks. I must say they were awful.”

  Mrs. Storm was Rachel’s other confidante. “I’ve got to stand by for the group three Wonders when I’m twelve, in January.”

  Mrs. Storm was not surprised. “I guessed you would soon be working. I’m sorry. I’m afraid you’ll hate it.”