‘Yes,’ said Sebastian. ‘That is, we’ve got our ponies, of course. You see . . .’ There, on that foggy and deserted road in the wilds of Northumberland, with a bit of help from me, he told our story – all about the Bring and Buy Sale, Madame, my audition at Sadler’s Wells, and finally the last awful catastrophe – Aunt June and the mist. I expect it sounded a bit fantastic. Anyway, when we’d finished, the man whistled and said in an awestruck voice: ‘My holy godfathers! And you two have ridden on a couple of ponies all the way from Bracken to here, and you are prepared to do another twenty miles or so to Newcastle, in order to catch a hypothetical train to London. My sainted aunt!’
‘We did hope you would give us a lift, sir,’ said Sebastian hopefully.
‘A lift?’ said the man. ‘I should just say I could! But look here – I can get you two in the back all right but how about the animals? I doubt if they’d go in the boot! Do we tow them, or what? No doubt you have ideas! You don’t seem lacking in ingenuity!’
‘I have a friend who lives at this farm,’ Sebastian explained, waving in the direction of the gateway on our right. ‘We could leave the ponies here and I could collect them tomorrow morning. The mist’ll have cleared off by then, and I could ride them back all right – I mean ride one and lead the other.’
‘But, Sebastian,’ I expostulated, ‘won’t your friend object to being knocked up at two o’clock in the morning?’
Sebastian laughed shortly.
‘I should just say he would! We needn’t disturb him, though. As a matter of fact the farm is a couple of miles off the road, but I happen to know that this field is pasture’ – he flashed his torch on to the short grass inside the gate to reassure me – ‘and the animals will be quite OK. I’ll be back to collect them before he even knows they’re there!’
‘Well, that’s an idea, certainly,’ said the man in the car. ‘You two do the doings, and I’ll have a smoke meantime. The night’s young! I ought to have been in Newcastle before midnight, but now it’s of no account when I get there. May as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb!’
He flicked open his lighter, and I saw his eyes. They reassured me, being all crinkly round the edges, as if he laughed a lot. I breathed a sigh of relief. Being town bred, I felt it was a bit risky to go making friends with strangers in the middle of a moor at two o’clock in the morning!
As I fondled Arab’s warm, silky neck before setting him free, I suddenly realized that I was saying a long goodbye to my pony. If I was accepted as a pupil of the Wells School I shouldn’t be coming back here until the holidays, and who knew what might happen to Arabesque? Aunt June would most probably send him back to his owner at Merlingford, and I would see him no more. A tear stole down my nose at the thought of it.
‘Come on! What are you waiting for?’ said Sebastian’s voice at my elbow. ‘We’re all ready, aren’t we? I’ll dump the tack in this spinney – I certainly don’t feel like taking it with us to Newcastle – I should have to cart it all the way back tomorrow. Just shine the light, will you?’
I held the torch whilst Sebastian climbed the railings into a little copse that lay between the field and the road on one side of the gate. He pushed the saddles and bridles under a thick tangle of blackberry bushes, and piled bracken on top of them.
‘Nobody will know they’re there,’ he declared when he had finished. ‘Only hope it doesn’t rain really hard, that’s all!’
We went back to the car and got inside. Never had a car felt so warm and luxurious as that old and battered Ford Eight – not even Aunt June’s palatial Rolls! We sank down on the imitation leather cushions with a sigh of thankfulness, feeling that the worst of our long trek was over.
We got to Newcastle Central Station at exactly half past four, the mist having thinned considerably as we drove eastwards. We learned that there was a train to London at a quarter to six, so Sebastian led the way to the one and only buffet which was open all night, and procured two large, thick cups of steaming hot coffee and a plate of doorstep sandwiches. Ordinarily we might have turned up our noses at them, but after our ordeal we were only too thankful to get a hot drink and something to eat. When we had finished, we went to the general waiting room. There were several people sitting or lying on the seats and quite a few slumped over the centre table, fast asleep, their heads on their arms. Sebastian found the woman who was in charge of the place, and tipped her to wake us up in time for the London train. Then we lay down on an empty bench, our heads at opposite ends like a couple of sardines. Sebastian had taken off his coat and he covered us both with it. We used our rucksacks for pillows because the bench was made of wood and was pretty hard to lie on. I must add that I removed my pointe shoes (and Madame’s) from the rucksack before I lay on it for fear I squashed them!
‘Goodnight, Veronica,’ Sebastian said with a yawn. ‘We managed it OK, didn’t we?’
‘Oh, Sebastian,’ I said, half to myself. ‘You are sweet!’
‘What’s that?’ asked Sebastian sleepily.
‘Oh, nothing,’ I answered, knowing by past experience that under no circumstances must you call a boy ‘sweet’! ‘Goodnight!’
Fortunately the train started from Newcastle, so it was punctual. There were no sleepers on it, even if I had the necessary cash, which I hadn’t, but Sebastian managed to hire me a rug and a pillow. How he did it I don’t know, but I was full of gratitude and admiration. I couldn’t help thinking of the time when I had held the view that people who lived in Northumberland were next door to savages. Sebastian knew a great deal more about travelling than I did – there was no denying the fact.
‘Mind you get a taxi straight to the school,’ he said as the guard began slamming carriage doors. ‘And don’t forget the address – 45 Colet Gardens, Baron’s Court.’
‘As if I should!’ I laughed. ‘Why, it’s written on my heart!’
‘So long, Veronica!’ he yelled, as the train began to slide away from the platform. ‘Good luck!’
‘Goodbye!’ I yelled back. ‘And thank you for everything!’
His face swam in a mist before my eyes, and I realized that I was no longer laughing – I was crying! It wasn’t only leaving Sebastian behind that made me cry, but all the other things too – Arabesque, the moors, Caroline, Bracken Hall itself. I realized, too late, that I hadn’t even said a proper goodbye to them.
As the train got up speed, I lay down on the seat and tried to sleep, but the carriage wheels seemed as if they were turning in my head, and the melody they played was the Holberg Suite. My heart had a queer feeling – as if someone was slowly squeezing it – a feeling I hadn’t had for a very long time; in fact, not since that journey north more than a year ago. How odd, I thought, that on that occasion I had been homesick for the noisy Underground and all the sounds and sights of London. Now my heart was aching for the moors and woods of Northumberland!
The Holberg Suite changed to The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, then to Les Sylphides, and finally the whirring of the wheels merged into the unearthly music of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. I slept at last.
The train was only a quarter of an hour late. I learned from some well-informed passengers that the fog had lifted as soon as we had left Darlington behind, and the train had made up time on the southern part of the journey. It was half past eleven when I dashed through the barrier at King’s Cross and made for the taxi rank. There was a touch on my arm.
‘Veronica!’
I turned in surprise; then gave a gasp of joy. There in front of me was a well-known figure, towering above the other passengers – a young man with a shock of unruly black hair, and a little black beard.
‘Jonathan! Whatever are you doing here?’
‘It looks as if I’m meeting you!’ he laughed.
‘But how did you –’ I began.
‘Look,’ said Jonathan, taking my arm and hurrying me along. ‘D’you mind if we leave the explanations until we’re in the taxi – we’ll have to get moving, you know, if we’re to get to B
aron’s Court by twelve o’clock. And I expect you’ll need a few spare minutes to get ready –’ He whirled me along and into the taxi.
‘Five minutes will do!’ I laughed, as I sank on to the seat. ‘Oh, Jonathan, it is good to see you! I was feeling dreadfully homesick, but now it’s as though I’ve come home instead! But please, will you explain how you knew I was on that train. I didn’t know I was going to be on it myself until half past five this morning.’
‘Just a moment,’ said Jonathan. ‘Mrs Crapper, the dear old soul, said I was to give you this, and to be sure you drank it’ – he pulled a Thermos flask out of his pocket. ‘She said she was sure you wouldn’t have had any breakfast. Have you?’
‘Well, no – I haven’t,’ I confessed.
‘Get on with these then,’ went on Jonathan, producing a packet of sandwiches out of the other pocket. ‘You’ve only a few minutes. Well, now for the explanation. At a most uncivilized hour in the morning – six-thirty to be exact – I was roused from my downy pillow by a long-distance telephone call. It was from a friend of yours way up north – a young man, I guessed, from the voice.’
‘Sebastian!’ I gasped, pausing with a sandwich halfway to my mouth. ‘He isn’t a young man; he’s a boy, and my cousin. At least a sort of a cousin. But how did he find your number? I never told it to him – in fact I don’t know it myself. At least I did, but I’ve forgotten it.’
‘Well, I’m as much in the dark there as you are!’ laughed Jonathan. ‘All I can suggest is that he knew my address and badgered the exchange until they looked up my number.’
‘Oh, he’d do that all right!’ I exclaimed. ‘Trust Sebastian!’
‘Anyway, he got me all right,’ went on Jonathan. ‘And he told me the tale, and here I am, half asleep through being robbed of my beauty sleep, but willing! And by the way, Veronica – congratulations!’
‘Keep them till afterwards!’ I said, finishing off the coffee. ‘They may think I’m frightful and turn me away. Gosh! Here we are. Oh, Jonathan – I feel awful!’
‘Keep your pecker up!’ said Jonathan. ‘I’ll be waiting for you with the taxi at the corner. Best of luck!’
At exactly twelve o’clock I walked into the studio where I’d been told my audition would take place. My hair was neatly fastened in the net, my tights pulled up, and the creases in my tunic smoothed out as much as possible. I had a queer feeling in my inside, like when you dive off the high springboard at the swimming baths for the first time, and my legs felt as if they belonged to somebody else. My hour had come – the hour I had thought of, and dreamed of for so long. I could hardly believe it.
The audition wasn’t really so terrifying after all. Only a pretty fair-haired lady and a quiet gentleman with sad, dark eyes that looked as if they saw through you, and far beyond you, and yet made you feel at home just the same. I learned afterwards that usually part of the audition takes place in an ordinary class, but Madame had managed to get me one all to myself because the school hadn’t yet started after the holidays.
While I was doing some grands-jetés the door of the studio opened and another gentleman looked in. He watched me for a moment, and then said: ‘Come! You can spring higher than that! Try again!’
I was very tired, but he didn’t know that, of course, and I certainly wasn’t going to tell him, because that would have looked like making excuses for myself. I made up my mind to jump higher than I had ever done before – somehow he made me want to do it.
‘Good!’ he said approvingly. ‘I knew you could! Your elevation is excellent. You’ve got a nice line, too.’
Then suddenly I recognized him. He was the temperamental ballet master I had watched the day I’d gatecrashed. And here he was being quite friendly! With a smile and a nod he shut the door again, and went away.
When I had done all they asked, the lady told me to take off my socks. She examined my feet most carefully, asking me all sorts of questions as to whether I had ever had any trouble with my feet, whether they ever ached, whether I had ever sprained either of my ankles, all of which I answered truthfully in the negative. Finally she murmured: ‘Very nice!’ told me I could put on my socks again, and go.
‘Please – please!’ I begged. ‘Is it all right? Can I come? Of course I expect it’s all against the rules, but couldn’t you – couldn’t you just tell me if I can come?’
The gentleman looked at the lady and they both smiled.
‘Well,’ said the gentleman, ‘it is a little – shall we say unusual, but I think we can put you out of your misery. If you really think you’ll be happy here, and don’t mind the hard work, well, yes – you shall come.’
‘Oh, thank you!’ I said. ‘I know I shall be happy. When your dream comes true, you’re bound to be happy, aren’t you? And as for work – I’ll – I’ll work my fingers to the bone . . .’ I stopped suddenly, realizing that this was rather a funny way to put it when one was referring to ballet! ‘I mean, I’ll do the very best I can if you’ll let me work here.’
‘That is all that is necessary,’ said the lady, writing something in a book. ‘And now I expect you’ll want to be going? The secretary will write to your aunt about times and so on. Term begins on Monday and you’ll be in the Junior class.’ Then she looked at me rather hard, and added: ‘You look tired, dear. Were you very excited about your audition?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but not as excited as I would have been if it hadn’t been for missing the train last night.’ Then out it all came – Aunt June’s visit, my flight from Bracken Hall, and my encounter with Sebastian. As I talked, I realized how unbelievable it must all sound, here in civilized London, with the Underground, and the buses, not to mention taxis at every street corner, all taking you wherever you wanted to go at a moment’s notice.
‘And then the car came along,’ I finished, ‘and that was the end of our adventure – except that Sebastian will have to collect the ponies this morning and ride them all that way back – twenty miles, at least.’
‘A real friend in need – that young man!’ said the quiet gentleman. Then he murmured something to the lady about the grit and tenacity of these North Country children. ‘And, after all, it’s what we need,’ he added. ‘That, along with other qualities.’
‘Oh, but it was Sebastian who was tenacious,’ I said quickly. ‘I’d never have managed it if it hadn’t been for him. You don’t know how marvellous he was!’
‘I think there was grit on both sides,’ declared the gentleman with a smile. ‘I’m glad to see that you don’t easily give up, my dear, when you make up your mind to do a thing.’
And that was the end of my audition. As I left the building, I looked back and gave a sigh of happiness:
45 COLET GARDENS – SADLER’S WELLS SCHOOL OF BALLET.
My dream had come true!
Ballet for Drina
by Jean Estoril
Drina’s parents died when she was very young and now she lives with her grandparents. She has everything a girl could ask for, but when they move to London, to her horror Drina is told that she is no longer allowed to dance, and dancing is what Drina likes to do best . . .
NOTHING MUCH WAS said that evening before Drina went to bed, and, as a matter of fact, she went to bed very early. She was heavy and headachy after the emotional afternoon, so Mrs Chester packed her off and brought her hot milk when she was undressed.
‘Now don’t lie there thinking about things. Get a good sleep. You’re going to have your wish, and there’s no further need to worry.’
‘I’ll try, Granny,’ Drina said meekly, and she drank the milk and curled up contentedly in her narrow bed. She slept almost at once and Big Ben was striking nine before she awoke.
After breakfast Mrs Chester said: ‘Why don’t you go out for a brisk walk this morning? It’s a lovely day, though very cold.’
So Drina put on her hat and coat and the big fur-lined gloves that had been one of her grandfather’s Christmas presents. She took her purse, too, just in case she cam
e back past any bookshops.
She paused for a short while on Westminster Bridge, but the wind was too cold for lingering. So she returned to the Embankment and strode rapidly towards Waterloo Bridge, her heavy hair blown back from her face and her cheeks beginning to glow.
Seagulls wheeled and cried over the grey water, reminding her suddenly and vividly of the coasts of Wester Ross and the Lleyn Peninsula, where there had been so many seabirds. Perhaps, next summer, she would ask to be taken back to one of them.
She walked so fast that she had soon reached Waterloo Bridge, and she turned towards the Strand, with some idea of making her way back to Trafalgar Square and then across St James’s Park. But she had not gone far when she caught sight of a poster and the words ‘Royal Opera House’ sprang out at her. It was a programme for the current season. A moment’s study showed her that there would be opera that night, but the next evening there was ballet . . . a wonderful programme. Ballet at Covent Garden on New Year’s Eve!
Drina stood stock-still on the crowded pavement, and a little man, pushing past her, said amiably enough: ‘Nar then! Nar then! Bin struck all of a heap?’
It was true enough, too. Drina had been struck by a daring idea. In her purse she had her Christmas money. Was there the faintest hope that, if she went to the Royal Opera House, she might get two seats for the ballet? If she did manage to get them, then surely her grandmother would go with her – now?
But there probably wasn’t any hope at such a late date, though she had heard her grandfather speak of getting ‘returns’. ‘Returns’ were tickets that people handed back at the last moment, because they had found they couldn’t use them.
Her heart was beating wildly by this time, and her hands were clammy with excitement and hope. She had never seen the Royal Opera House, but was sure that it was not far away from where she stood.
A policeman was standing on the corner and she retraced her steps to ask hesitantly: ‘Please can you tell me the way to the Royal Opera House?’
Darcey Bussell Favourite Ballet Stories Page 10