“It’ll be beastly,” Rachel agreed, “but you can be resigned to anything.”
“That’s true,” said Mrs. Storm, “and I’ve helped prepare you for the evil day.”
Rachel was surprised. “How?” she wanted to know.
“All the parts I’ve taught you. Even the hardest working troupe of Wonders gets time between entrances. You’ve got plenty of parts you can work at in your head while you’re not on the stage.”
Rachel looked doubtful. “I don’t think the Wonders are supposed to sit and think. I’ve heard Aunt Cora say lots of times ‘Are you having fun, kiddiewinks?’ And by fun she means playing games in the dressing room with the matrons.”
“What sort of games?”
“All sorts, such as who can think of most things beginning with A, and card games.”
“But I don’t suppose you have to play games if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t know, never having been a Wonder, but from what I’ve heard all Wonders play games. It’s considered unsporting not to.”
“I see,” said Mrs. Storm, who did not see at all. “Now let me hear that speech of Viola’s.”
Being a stand-by meant very hard work for Rachel. For there were three troupes of Wonders with engagements near London in group three; twelve in Mother Goose, twelve working in a small show called Christmas Belles, and eight were to be toys in a children’s play.
“I’ll never learn it all,” Rachel told Hilary. “It isn’t that it’s difficult, but it’s all different. If any Wonder gets ill I should think I’d be certain to do the wrong dance in the wrong show.”
“You won’t,” said Hilary. “The clothes will help. You couldn’t dance as a gosling from Mother Goose when you’re dressed as a toy soldier, as you would be if it was Christmas Belles.”
All through the autumn term Dulcie worked at her part in Red Riding Hood. She was sent to a voice production teacher for her lines, but she had as well to work at them with Mrs. Storm. Hilary found Dulcie being Little Red Riding Hood excruciatingly funny, and she would make Rachel laugh imitating her. It was all exaggerated of course and not in the least fair to Dulcie, who, as Hilary admitted, was likely to be a great success.
“And of course her dancing really is good,” she would say, “and though I don’t like the way she does it I must own she puts over a number awfully well.”
Mrs. Storm watched the preparations for Dulcie’s first appearance with apparent tolerance, but at home she said to her husband: “If that child is a success she will be intolerable next term.”
Her husband knew all about Mrs. Wintle’s schoolroom. “Don’t worry. Fix your mind on Rachel.”
Mrs. Storm was increasingly fixing her mind on Rachel. That term, as a change from Shakespeare, Mrs. Storm was teaching her a speech of Joan’s from Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan. It was made by Joan when she learned she was not to be set free but imprisoned.
“It’s difficult,” Mrs. Storm explained, “but, as after Christmas you may be working as a Wonder where you will only learn the latest songs, I think for our lessons we should try difficult things.”
Rachel, Mrs. Storm found, was good as Joan. It seemed as if in a way she understood her. For when she pleaded not to be shut away from the sun, or from the bells which were her voices, she was a real person.
“I liked that,” Mrs. Storm said one day, “and as a reward I shall ask if I may take you to a theater this Christmas. Not Shakespeare this time, but a modern play. Would you like that?”
Rachel’s eyes shone. “Oh thank you, it will be something to look forward to, which I shall need this Christmas with my twelfth birthday hanging over me.”
CHAPTER 19
Red Riding Hood
Everybody, including Wanda and Yolanta, went to Dulcie’s first night. It happened two days before Christmas.
“And I’ll be glad when it’s over,” Hilary told Rachel, “for to hear the fuss you’d think Red Riding Hood was more important than Christmas Day.”
As well as Dulcie there were twelve Wonders in the pantomime, carefully picked to make Dulcie look even smaller and more dainty than she was. So, as Pursey said in her cozy voice as she read the programme: “Nobody can miss the name Wintle, that’s a certainty.”
Although Rachel did not care for pantomimes, nobody can help feeling a thrill as the house lights dim and the curtain rises. The first scene in Red Riding Hood was a village street. The chorus came on, dancing to and singing a song which began “Hurrah, Hurray. We’ve got a holiday.” Then from both sides of the stage, wearing print frocks and sunbonnets, or shorts, shirts, and little straw hats, on bounced the twelve Wonders. Then came two funny men, and then it was Dulcie’s entrance.
Dulcie wore a short frilly frock, white socks, red awkward-Adas, and a little cape and hood of red taffeta. She looked delightful. Soon after her first entrance, she sang a song. It was about a doll, and behind her the Wonders danced dressed as dolls.
There was no doubt about it, the audience loved Dulcie. As she sang and danced a sort of coo rose from the theater. “Isn’t she a love?” “What a beautiful little dancer.” “Isn’t she clever?” “Can’t be more than eight.”
Nobody clapped louder than Hilary. “Whatever I feel about her I have to admit she’s awfully good,” she whispered to Rachel.
Even Rachel was carried away. “Isn’t she? But for goodness sake don’t want to be like her.”
As the pantomime went on Aunt Cora felt prouder and prouder. In fact the only blot, on what was the most perfect evening she had ever spent, was when one of the Wonders fell over when she should have been walking on her hands. Out came the famous notebook. Pursey made tch-tch-ing sounds. “Poor Agnes, ever so nice a girl. Must be slippery on the stage.”
“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Wintle, writing hard. “Stick to your wardrobe, Pursey, you know nothing about acrobatics. Agnes fell because she timed her throw forward badly.”
“I’m surprised all twelve haven’t fallen over,” Hilary whispered to Rachel. “It must be the worst thing that could happen to be a Wonder in the show in which Dulcie is a star. Imagine!”
At the end of the pantomime, when all the artistes marched down a grand staircase, the audience had a chance to show Dulcie how much they enjoyed her performance. She came down alone, wearing a white net frock trimmed with silver stars. She still had on her crimson cape, but round her head was a wreath of silver flowers and on her feet silver slippers. As she ran down the steps and curtsied to the audience there was a roar from the theater.
“I think we can say,” Aunt Cora whispered to Uncle Tom, “our child is a smash hit.”
After the performance there was the usual visit backstage, but of course this time the first call was to Dulcie’s dressing room. She had a room to herself, with a matron to look after and dress her. When her family arrived she had just changed from her last-act frock and was wearing a dressing gown while she took off her make-up. Rachel and Hilary’s first impression was that success had made Dulcie nicer. She was very excited, but then who would not be, but she was not a bit stand-offish or grand. To their great surprise she hugged first Rachel and then Hilary and asked them if she had been good. Then, when they said she was marvelous, she pointed to an enormous box of chocolates the management had sent her and told them to help themselves.
“Too un-Dulcie-ish to last,” whispered Hilary to Rachel, picking out a chocolate with a crystallized violet on the top. “Almost I like her.”
The visit to the Wonders was just like all grand tours of a Wonders’ dressing room. But this time there was something for the Wonders to say. “Wasn’t Dulcie good, Mrs. Wintle?” they chorused.
“You must be feeling proud, Mrs. W.,” said the matron.
Mrs. Wintle smiled. “Thank you, kiddiewinks, thank you, matron, but we mustn’t let Dulcie’s success blind us to our faults, must we?” S
he opened her notebook. “I shall want you all at the school tomorrow to tidy up some bad work. As for you, Agnes…”
Hilary was right, the niceness of Dulcie after her first night did not last. It was not altogether Dulcie’s fault, for although Pursey and Uncle Tom tried to make her remember that one success does not make a star, Aunt Cora talked to her very stupidly, calling her “Mum’s little leading lady.” Also, Dulcie’s life in the theater made her have too good an opinion of herself. Her mother had spent too long in the theater to allow a child of hers to behave badly in front of the principals or the management. But in the dressing room she was a very different child.
At first Rachel and Hilary’s news of Dulcie in the dressing room was hearsay from Betty, that same Betty who had lent her little-girl frock to Hilary for the talent contest. Betty was Dulcie’s understudy, and before the pantomime opened she had been very pleased about her engagement.
But soon after the pantomime started Betty became gloomy. “I’m being made to sit in Dulcie’s room. It’s terrible.”
“What’s she want you there for?” Hilary asked.
“Just as a slave,” said Betty. “One matron isn’t enough, she has to have me too. Betty, pick that up. Betty, hold this. Betty, run up to the Wonders’ dressing room and fetch me some milk. I’m like one of those slaves the Romans had who had to row a ship chained to the seat.”
The next news came a few days later. Hilary was practicing acrobatics when Betty burst into the room. “Have you seen any of the Red Riding Hood Wonders?” Hilary shook her head. “Well, you ought to hear them. They’re mad as wasps.”
Hilary, who had been trying to walk on her hands, turned the right way up. “What’s happened?”
Betty had come for a tap lesson. She limbered up before she answered. “You know how we play games and have tea between shows. Well it’s been great fun, and we’ve got a new game with cars that you guide with a magnet. Now Dulcie comes to tea with us, and we only play the games she chooses.”
Hilary was amazed. “Why should she go into the Wonders’ dressing room when she’s got a posh one of her own?”
Betty practiced a few steps. “She gets bored. Luckily she has to have half an hour’s rest on her sofa, so we’re spared that. But then up she comes, so grand you’d think we all ought to curtsey. ‘Hullo, matron. Hullo, girls,’ she says, then she sits in a chair as if it was her birthday throne and picks on one of us and says: ‘Bring me my tea.’ ”
Before Hilary could hear more Ena fetched Betty for her lesson. But two days later she and Rachel found out for themselves what was going on. They were having breakfast with Pursey when Aunt Cora came in. “Good morning, dears. I’ve got a treat for you today. I’m sending you to the theater with Dulcie.”
Hilary looked as if she might be going to say something which Aunt Cora would not like, so Pursey spoke first. “I might go with them. I want to look over the Red Riding Hood Wonders’ costumes for their specialty.”
“A good idea,” Aunt Cora agreed. “You can bring these two home with you when the curtain goes up on the second performance.”
“Can we watch from the side of the stage?” Hilary asked.
Aunt Cora nodded. “I hope that may be allowed, but we must see what the stage manager says. I am sending him a note.” She looked at Rachel. “I have planned today so that you may get some idea of stage work from the back of the theater. You must remember that by this time next week, if we should have illness, you may be working.”
Rachel’s inside felt as if it was turning over. “Even if you were so pushed for Wonders that you had to use me I would hardly have got my license by this time next week, would I?”
“Don’t quibble,” said Aunt Cora severely. “I do hope I am soon to see some enthusiasm from you, Rachel. You are a very lucky child, you know. Few girls with as little talent as you have would have a chance to be a Wonder.”
Rachel knew that Aunt Cora was right. Plenty of children would like to be Wonders. What a pity she was not one of them! But whatever happened she must not let Aunt Cora know how she felt, for if she thought she was not trying she might punish her by not letting her become something else when she was fifteen. She struggled to make her face look interested. “I suppose I’d better watch the Wonders, for I’ll never be Red Riding Hood or anybody like that, will I?”
Aunt Cora gave a short barkish sort of laugh. “Hardly. But watching Dulcie can do you nothing but good. She has said you and Hilary may sit in her dressing room, and if permission is granted you will go with her down to the stage so that you can study her work closely.”
“Won’t that be splendid for us,” said Hilary.
Aunt Cora looked at Hilary thoughtfully. Was that meant or was she being cheeky? Pursey saw what Aunt Cora was wondering. She said quickly: “Ever so nice it will be for them, Mrs. W.”
“It will,” Aunt Cora agreed, “and do for goodness sake smile, Rachel. It is so disheartening when I work and plan for you to get nothing but a blank, bored expression.”
Rachel had so hoped she was looking as a would-be Wonder ought to look that a lump came into her throat. She bent over her plate so that it would not show that there were nearly tears in her eyes. As it happened Aunt Cora would not have noticed, for she said no more but went grandly out of the canteen.
Hilary managed to keep quiet until the door was shut. Then she said in an angry hiss: “Why do you let her talk in that despising way, Rachel? Why don’t you tell her you’d loathe to be a Wonder?”
Pursey patted Rachel’s hand, and her voice was even cozier than usual. “Because Rachel knows what’s right, don’t you, my lambkin? All the others work when they’re twelve, and you don’t want to be the only one that’s different, do you, dear?”
“But she doesn’t want to be a Wonder, and I can’t see why she doesn’t say so,” Hilary argued. “There must be something else she could do.”
“Not at twelve there isn’t,” said Pursey. “When she’s older it will be different.”
Rachel looked up. “When I’m fifteen. That’s what you said, wasn’t it, Pursey?”
Pursey hoped she had not been too optimistic, but now was not the moment to say so. “That’s right, my lamb. Time you’re fifteen or so everything will be all right.”
CHAPTER 20
Chicken Pox
Dulcie drove to and from the theater in a hired car, so that day Pursey, Rachel, and Hilary drove with her.
Seeing Dulcie leave for the theater was quite an experience. Her mother had decided that Dulcie should wear a glorified version of the Wonders’ outdoor uniform. This meant a very smartly tailored coat of the same blue as the Wonders’ duffel coats. On her head Dulcie wore the same beret as the Wonders, but her W.W., instead of being embroidered, was on a diamond brooch. But what amazed Rachel and Hilary most was not Dulcie’s clothes or her smart car but the fact that she carried a large teddy bear. Never since they had lived with her had either Rachel or Hilary seen her cuddling anything.
“Are you going to take that bear to the theater?” Hilary asked.
Dulcie hugged her bear tighter and smiled up at the chauffeur, who was holding the car door open for her. “ ’Course I’m taking Teddy. He always comes, doesn’t he, Jenkins?”
Jenkins gave Dulcie what Rachel and Hilary thought a silly sort of smile. “I reckon there wouldn’t be a pantomime unless Teddy was in the theater.”
Hilary’s face had the screwed-up look faces get just before they laugh, so Pursey said: “You sit in front with Mr. Jenkins, dear.”
At the theater the stage doorkeeper, otherwise probably a sensible man, turned just as silly as Jenkins at the sight of Dulcie. “How are little Miss Wintle and Mr. Teddy today?”
Dulcie put on what was known in the school as her Dulcie-Pulsie face. “We’re both very well, thank you. Has my mail gone up?”
The doorkeepe
r nodded. “Too much for your little hands to carry. Lots of letters, some autograph albums, and two parcels which look like chocolates.”
All the way to Dulcie’s dressing room the same sort of talk went on. “How’s Teddy?” seemed to be the sort of greeting Dulcie got from everybody. Hilary would have laughed out loud but Rachel prevented her. “Don’t. She’ll only be angry, and we don’t want that if we’ve got to sit in her dressing room.”
“I’ll try not to,” Hilary whispered back, “but much more of this Mr. Teddy talk and I’ll have to laugh or I’ll blow up.”
Hilary did not have to laugh or blow up for in the dressing room with the door shut Dulcie stopped being a little girl hugging a teddy bear and became Miss Dulcie Wintle, the star of Red Riding Hood.
“Good afternoon,” she said to the matron, who was helping her off with her coat. “You can open my letters, Rachel, and read them to me while I’m making up. You can undo the parcels, Hilary. And Betty, as my cousins are here, I shan’t want you in my room today. You can go and sit with the Wonders.”
Betty, delighted, skipped out of the room. But before she left she caught Hilary’s eye and, to remind her of what she had said about being a galley slave, made a rowing movement.
Pursey also went up to the Wonders’ dressing room, but before she left she said to the matron: “You’re looking tired, Mrs. Mann dear.”
Mrs. Mann would have liked to say she would rather have charge of sixty Wonders than one Dulcie, but she did not, for she did not want to lose her job. Instead she said: “Well, you know how it is when it’s twice daily. And Dulcie does have a lot of changes.”
Pursey guessed it was Dulcie rather than hard work which was making Mrs. Mann look so tired. She was a very good matron, and Pursey did not want to lose her, so she turned to Rachel for help. “As you’re here today, you and Hilary will do everything you can to help Mrs. Mann, won’t you?”
Rachel was going to say that of course they would, but Hilary spoke first. “We’ll love helping, won’t we, Rachel?”
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