Dancing Shoes

by Noel Streatfeild

  “When?” Mrs. Storm asked.

  “Now,” said Mr. Storm. “For I want a quiet evening, and I certainly won’t get it until you’ve got the subject of Rachel’s lessons off your chest.”

  Mrs. Wintle was also hoping for a quiet evening, but when Mrs. Storm knocked on her sitting room door there was a look in her eyes which showed her she was not going to have it. However, she pretended not to notice that anything was wrong. “Hello, Mrs. Storm. How nice to see you. I hope you’ve had a good holiday?”

  Mrs. Storm wasted no time. “I’ve come in answer to your letter.”

  “Oh yes,” said Mrs. Wintle, as if it were something of no importance, “about my plans for Rachel.”

  “I thought you’d better know right away that unless I teach Rachel I will not teach Dulcie or Hilary.”

  Mrs. Wintle could not believe her ears. Nobody for years had spoken to her like that. “What do you mean?”

  “What I say. I am a trained teacher, and I love my work. Rachel is an intelligent child, whom it is a pleasure to teach. Hilary is a lazy little thing, and Dulcie, though she’s sharp enough, takes no interest in her lessons. I bother myself with Dulcie and Hilary because of the delight I get from teaching Rachel. Take her away and I should be wasting my talents.”

  “But I have said I wish…,” Mrs. Wintle began.

  But Mrs. Storm interrupted her. “I’m afraid what you wish does not interest me. If I teach Rachel I will teach the other two, but if you send Rachel to a school I give you my notice. Perhaps you will let me know tomorrow what you decide. Good night.”

  It was Mrs. Wintle’s turn to rage up and down like a lioness. Her first thought was to tell Mrs. Storm she could leave, that London was full of governesses all twice as clever as she was. Then she had wiser thoughts. Mrs. Storm was a very good teacher, and Mrs. Wintle knew it. The London County Council only granted licenses to children of school age provided their work was up to standard. Thanks to Mrs. Storm Dulcie’s work was up to standard, but it had to stay up to standard. She had to go for examination every three months, and she was due for re-examination in a few weeks’ time. Mrs. Storm had taken her for her first examination and was supposed to be taking her to her next one. It was a bad moment for Dulcie to change governesses. Feeling very cross because she was not used to giving in, Mrs. Wintle picked up the telephone and rang Mrs. Storm’s telephone number.

  Before she went to bed Pursey very softly opened the door of Rachel and Hilary’s room. Hilary was asleep, but Rachel, as Pursey was afraid she might be, was under the bedclothes crying. Pursey could not turn on the light because of Hilary, but she could see Rachel by the light in the hall, and a very woebegone, miserable, wet Rachel she looked. With a kind of mew she threw herself into Pursey’s arms.

  “I’ve held back crying all day because I didn’t want Hilary to know. I said it was about lessons Aunt Cora wanted to see me and she said: ‘Oh, was that all’ and didn’t ask any more. I couldn’t tell her Aunt Cora thought I was jealous because she was to do lessons with Mrs. Storm and I wasn’t, could I?”

  Pursey hugged Rachel to her, rocking her to and fro. “There, my lambkin, there. Of course you couldn’t,” she whispered, “and a good job you didn’t. You should have listened to old Pursey. She said it would be all right, didn’t she? Well, it is.”

  Rachel, startled, raised a wet face. “How?”

  “Mrs. Storm came around and talked to Mrs. W. I don’t want to make you vain, dear, but it seems that if she can’t teach you then she won’t teach here at all.”

  Rachel was stunned. “You don’t mean she’s dared to say that to Aunt Cora?”

  “That’s right, dearie. So that was that, and you’ll be doing lessons as usual in the schoolroom the day after tomorrow.”

  It is difficult, when you have been drowning in misery, to reach happiness in one jump as it were, but Rachel managed it. “Oh Pursey,” she said as she wriggled down in bed, “how simply gorgeous! I couldn’t have borne not seeing Mrs. Storm again.”

  Pursey kissed her. “Of course you couldn’t. But let this be a lesson to you not to get in a state too soon. Now off you go to sleep.”

  Rachel flung her arms around Pursey. “Most gorgeous Pursey. You’ll never, never know how much I love you.”

  CHAPTER 22

  News for Hilary

  Before lessons started on the first day of term Mrs. Storm had a talk with Rachel. “I can’t understand why you have allowed your aunt to think it was not that I would no longer be teaching you that you minded but that Hilary should learn from me and you shouldn’t, which is nonsense.”

  Rachel did not like Mrs. Storm to think she had been stupid. “She spoke as if Hilary was just a slave of Dulcie’s.”

  “Which is impossible, and you know it. Hilary is not the type to be anyone’s slave. You also know that she’s quite capable of standing up for herself.”

  Rachel was not allowing that. “Mummie always expected me to look after her. She said Hilary was irresponsible.”

  Mrs. Storm laughed. “That’s a long word. Do you know what it means?”

  “Not being able to look after yourself.”

  Mrs. Storm nodded. “More or less. Now can you look me in the eye and say that’s true of Hilary today?”

  Rachel tried to think clearly. It was true Hilary had managed in just under two years to be one of the best all-round dancers in group one, which, if you wanted to be a Wonder, was pretty good going. Only Hilary ought not to want to be a Wonder…“I think it’s irresponsible to want to be good at the sort of dancing the Wonders do when you know it’s not the sort of dancing you ought to be doing.”

  Mrs. Storm laid a hand on one of Rachel’s. “I think it’s high time you accepted the fact that Hilary is much more competent to look after herself than you are.” She saw Rachel was going to argue, so she went on quickly. “She is. I don’t see Hilary meekly having her life upset without putting up a fight. I want you to think about that. It’s no good your plotting and planning for Hilary, for I can promise you that, however fond of you she is, she will do what she wants to do and not what you want her to do.”

  The seed planted in Rachel’s mind the day she had talked to the Fairy Queen cracked and put out a minute root. But Rachel did not know it. “You don’t understand…everybody at Folkestone knew she had to go to The Royal Ballet School….”

  “I daresay, but you take my advice and think about yourself for a change.”

  Of course, in no time, without anyone knowing how they found out, all the Wonders were talking about the row between Mrs. Storm and Mrs. Wintle. The best story described Mrs. Wintle beating Mrs. Storm with an umbrella. Hilary did not meet many of her group at dancing classes as the pantomime season was not over, but a few came to the school and in a flash she had picked up a mixed collection of stories. She came to Rachel, her eyes dancing with excitement. “That morning you went to see Aunt Cora and you said it was about lessons, was it to tell you that you were going to a boarding school?”

  Rachel did not want to discuss that morning. “Of course not. How could I learn to be a Wonder at a boarding school?”

  “Well, did Mrs. Storm say that if she couldn’t teach you she would rather lie down in the road and be run over by a bus than teach so awful a child as Dulcie? And did Aunt Cora beat her with her umbrella?”

  That made Rachel laugh. “Of course Aunt Cora didn’t. And Mrs. Storm wouldn’t say anything about lying down in the road.”

  “You are the most miserable describer,” Hilary groaned. “Everybody knows something exciting happened. What was it? Don’t be mean, all the Wonders depend on me to find out.”

  “Aunt Cora talked about a day school….”

  “The one near here where some of the Wonders go?”

  “I think that was it.”

  “Well, why aren’t we going?” Hilary asked.


  “You never were, it was only me.”

  Hilary could not believe her ears. “Rachel Lennox, do you mean to say your Aunt Cora was planning to send you to school, which would be fun, and leave me slaving with Dulcie?”

  Hilary’s way of thinking was so different from her own that Rachel found it difficult to explain. “I didn’t think it sounded fun.”

  Hilary was disgusted. “You wouldn’t. And you never told me. You were just letting me be sacrificed as a burnt offering without raising a finger to save me? What a sister!”

  “I was angry at her separating us, but mostly I suppose I was minding not learning anymore with Mrs. Storm. Anyway it hasn’t happened.”

  Hilary had been practicing the splits while she talked. Now she stood up and came close to Rachel and put on a persuasive voice. “There was a row, wasn’t there? And Mrs. Storm did call Dulcie ‘your revolting daughter.’ That did happen, didn’t it?”

  Rachel felt quite apologetic at spoiling Hilary’s story. “I’m certain it didn’t. What Mrs. Storm did say was that I was the only one who liked lessons, so she wanted to go on teaching me and…”

  Hilary put her fingers in her ears. “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to hear. It’s the most gorgeous story, and you’re making it duller every minute. I’d rather believe the Wonders.”

  Dulcie’s pantomime finished but she did not stop working. Her agent, who was called Mr. Al Purk, got her several little engagements. She made a film for television, advertising soap, in which she had to dance. She appeared in a television variety show and in a children’s television panel game.

  Luck came to the whole house out of Dulcie’s television engagements, for because Mrs. Wintle thought everybody ought to watch her daughter, she put a television set in the canteen. Before it came the only television set had been in her sitting room, which meant no one looked at it except the Wintles. And, as Hilary said, you had to be pretty desperate to sit watching a programme with Aunt Cora and Dulcie.

  Now that there was a television set in the canteen Pursey, Yolanta, Wanda, and anybody who had stayed on late would sit glued to the set, eating sweets or cakes made by Wanda. And very cozy and happy they all were. When Dulcie appeared, even advertising soap, it made Wanda and Yolanta’s day. They were so proud their eyebrows went up, the corners of their mouths, their hands, even their feet, while they crooned “She is yooist the most beautiful liddle girl.”

  Dulcie on television puzzled Hilary.

  “As a matter of fact,” she said to Rachel, “she does look all right, doesn’t she? But it’s odd that she looks nice. The Wonders say their mothers suppose they’re jealous when they say what they think of her. People say the television screen can’t lie, but it lies all right about Dulcie. You could say all sorts of things about her but nobody could say she was nice.”

  It certainly was very hard for Rachel, Hilary, or for Mrs. Storm to think of Dulcie as nice that term. She had always been pleased with herself, but that term she was conceited beyond bearing. She truly thought Rachel and Hilary lucky to be allowed to learn with her, and Mrs. Storm lucky to be allowed to teach her.

  “Why is it,” Mrs. Storm asked Pursey, “when the whole school is, I hear, quacking about my argument with Mrs. Wintle, that Dulcie, who would be the better for knowing what happened, clearly knows nothing about it?”

  “Ah well,” said Pursey in her cozy voice, “she wouldn’t. She never did mix with the Wonders, and since she’s been Red Riding Hood and on television I’m afraid she’s Miss High-and-Mighty.”

  “I’ll say she is,” Mrs. Storm agreed. “Honestly, Pursey, if it wasn’t for Rachel I’d leave tomorrow.”

  Pursey shook her head. “Don’t ever think that way, dear. I don’t like to see Dulcie as she is any more than you do, but it’s Dulcie I’m sorry for. Pride always has a fall, and when Miss High-and-Mighty has hers a terrible fall it will be.”

  “I hope my tender heart will break when that happens,” said Mrs. Storm, “but I doubt it.”

  Hilary had a gorgeous twelfth birthday. Uncle Tom had absolutely refused to say what was going to happen, and so had Pursey, so she and Rachel had not even known what sort of clothes to wear. But they had soon found out, for Pursey, when she brought them a birthday breakfast in bed, brought amongst Hilary’s parcels a picture puzzle drawn by Uncle Tom of how they were spending the day. The first drawing had shown Hilary and Rachel dressed in their everyday clothes at the zoo. Then there was a picture of them resting, with dreams of the animals they had seen chasing each other round the ceiling. Then a funny one of them changing into best dresses, and then one of them sitting watching what turned out to be The Royal Ballet dancing The Sleeping Princess.

  Inside her Hilary had been disappointed when she had discovered Uncle Tom was taking her and Rachel to The Sleeping Princess. She thought he was doing it to get her to like ballet to please Rachel. But once the curtain was up she had forgotten all about being disappointed and instead had been carried along as if on wings by the lovely dancing and the fairy story.

  But of course to Hilary the best thing about her birthday was that she was of an age to be a Wonder. And though she would not have admitted it even to Rachel she was a bit nervous when Mrs. Storm took her to County Hall for her license.

  But it was all right. Hilary was never sure if it was that the man who examined her had faith in Mrs. Storm, or whether by luck she could answer the questions she was asked, but she was granted her license.

  Mrs. Storm must have guessed Hilary had not felt too happy for, as they came out of County Hall, she said something she had never thought of saying to Dulcie, or even to Rachel. “I think this calls for an ice.”

  Just before Easter Dulcie got a really grand stage engagement. A big new musical was about to go into rehearsal and there was a part for a child in it. Dozens of little girls were auditioned, but Dulcie was engaged.

  “And that’s only a beginning, Mrs. W.,” said Mr. Al Purk, rubbing his hands together in a pleased way. “There’s interest in the little lady in the film world. She’ll have a contract for pictures before the year’s out, you’ll see.”

  “Well, that settles her for the summer,” said Hilary. “Now everybody’s got to hold their thumbs for me. What I want is a long engagement by the sea.”

  But there was no engagement by the sea for Hilary. The day after Dulcie signed her contract Hilary was bustled into her uniform and little-girl frock and taken in a taxi by Mrs. Wintle herself to see Dulcie’s manager. She came back to the school looking, for her, really crushed.

  “Imagine, girls,” she told her group. “Talk about a living death, no one could guess what horror is happening to me this summer. I’ve got to understudy dear, dear little Dulcie.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Rehearsal Trouble

  Dulcie’s musical was a story about Austria. There were three sisters in it, and Dulcie played the youngest. Her part was small but what Mr. Al Purk described as showy. It was for convenience that Hilary had been picked as Dulcie’s understudy.

  “Have you got a clever child suitable for the understudy?” Dulcie’s manager had asked. “She can share Dulcie’s dressing room, be looked after by the same woman, and, of course, do lessons with Dulcie.”

  The obvious answer was Hilary. Mrs. Wintle was not altogether pleased at having to choose her. She would have preferred a less attractive and clever child as the understudy. It was not likely Dulcie would ever be off, but if it were to happen a rather plain but adequate substitute was the answer, a child who would make the management sigh for the return of brilliant little Dulcie. Hilary was attractive, Mrs. Wintle had to admit, though of course nothing like as pretty as Dulcie, and she was a good dancer, though without Dulcie’s all-round talent and polish. But Mrs. Wintle had to weigh convenience against a possible rival for Dulcie, and convenience won.

  The beginning of Dulcie’s rehe
arsals happened during the Easter holidays. Hilary, who of course had to watch rehearsals, told Rachel about the play. “It’s in a place called the Tyrol, and Dulcie’s one of the daughters of the man who keeps the inn. The story’s soppy, all about love, but Dulcie’s father and a little American man are gorgeously funny, and there is some terrific dancing.”

  “Ballet?”

  Hilary grinned. “It’s no good hoping, they don’t do that in the Tyrol. Some of it’s that slap-your-tail-and-stamp sort of dancing,” Hilary broke off to imitate Austrian folk dancing, “but mostly it’s a very grand kind of musical comedy.”

  “What does Dulcie do?”

  “That Friedl that she is, is an awfully silly girl, and she has some awfully silly things to do. She skips—well, it’s a skipping dance really, with a rope of flowers.”

  “I can see Dulcie doing that,” said Rachel.

  Hilary sounded gloomy. “You will. As a matter of fact she does it very well, if you like that sort of thing, but I don’t.”

  “What else does she do?”

  “She sings a song in a swing, she’s not so good at that, and she’s going to have lots of little bits in the grown-up dancers’ routines. They’re not fixed yet, but they’ll be good, I think.”

  “Why do you say Friedl’s silly?”

  Hilary thought. “She hasn’t got much to say, and everything that she does say is silly, but I think Dulcie makes her sillier than she is. You know the way Dulcie says things.”

  When the Easter holidays finished it was decided that while the play was in rehearsal, lessons for both Dulcie and Hilary should take place in the theater wardrobe. That of course meant Rachel did her lessons there too. It also meant that Rachel and Mrs. Storm watched rehearsals, which was how they came to be in the theater on the day Dulcie met trouble.