Hettie of Hope Street

by Groves, Annie

  ‘Did you see the look that old man at the ticket office gave us when we said we was all wanting to travel together?’ Sukey laughed.

  ‘He’s so old he probably thinks women should still travel in separate carriages, and not be allowed to do anything unless some fella says that we can,’ she added, tossing her head. ‘Catch me ever letting any fella tell me what to do.’

  A new mood was sweeping the country and its young women; a desire and a determination to escape the dark shadows of the war and all its lost young men, and to be independent and have fun.

  Young women now went out to work; they smoked and talked openly about subjects that would have shocked previous generations. Shop girls and factory girls, as well as debs, made it plain that they wanted to have fun in return for their hard work. They laughed and danced and stayed out until the early hours of the morning. They filled the picture houses, and went to afternoon tea dances on their days off. They enjoyed the company of a variety of young men in a way that shocked their own mothers. But nothing seemed to deter these strong-willed, determined daughters they and the war had raised.

  ‘They had Mary Pickford on a news-reel film at the cinema the other night, and her dress was so short you could nearly see her knees,’ Jenny announced.

  ‘So what? Everyone will be seeing ours once the show opens,’ Mary told her. ‘And I heard Jay Dalhousie telling that Archie that he wants our skirts to be even shorter, just like they have ’em on Broadway.’

  ‘I’ll bet old fuddy-duddy Harris had something to say about that. Just because she once stood in as wardrobe mistress for a show with Mr Cochran’s young ladies in it, she thinks she knows everything there is to know about what’s right and proper. How about you, ’Ettie? I heard as ’ow Jay Dalhousie is so pleased with your singing that he’s asked that Archie to put in another song for you.’

  Hettie felt herself blushing as they all turned to look at her.

  ‘You never said owt about that to me, ’Ettie,’ Babs reproached her.

  ‘Well, it isn’t definite yet,’ Hettie defended herself.

  ‘Seems to me our Mr Dalhousie has a right old soft spot for you, ’Ettie,’ one of the other girls called out meaningfully.

  ‘You can stop that right now, Sally-Anne.’ Babs leaped to Hettie’s defence. ‘’Ettie isn’t like that, especially not with a married man…’

  ‘Are you all right, Babs?’ Hettie asked her friend anxiously an hour later, noticing her unfamiliar silence.

  ‘I’ve never been in a London play before,’ Babs answered her. ‘I just hopes it isn’t true as some folk have been saying that we won’t run for so much as a week.’

  ‘Huh. Them as says that are just jealous cats, that’s all,’ Sukey declared, joining in the conversation. But Hettie knew that her normally optimistic friend’s uncertainty was shared by them all, and her admission turned the earlier laughter and high spirits into a much more sombre mood.

  ‘We don’t even know who this new director we’re going to be getting is yet,’ Eddie compained moodily.

  ‘Jay told me that he’s someone really good but that he doesn’t want to say too much until he’s definitely agreed to take us on.’

  ‘Seems like you know a good deal more about what’s happening than we do, Hettie,’ Sukey said to her semi-accusingly.

  ‘He just mentioned it when he told me that he had asked the composer to put in another song for me,’ Hettie defended herself. ‘Mervyn was there as well.’

  Mervyn Rodgers was the male lead singer, and he and the female lead were making their own way to London.

  ‘What else did he say?’ Eddie asked her.

  ‘Nothing much, just that the new director was also a choreographer.’

  ‘Well, I hope whoever he is he doesn’t want to make any more bleedin’ changes to the chorus line routines,’ Sukey complained. ‘I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m beginning to think I’d have bin better off sticking with panto. What with new routines and then having to open a week earlier on account of having to change theatres at the last minute.’

  The train had started to slow down.

  ‘It’s London.’ Jenny shrieked excitedly, pulling her twin to her feet. ‘Look, everyone, we’re here!’

  ‘I thought the old battleaxe’s house was bad enough, but this place…Cor, but it stinks of cabbage. And have you seen the bathroom?’ Aggie grumbled.

  ‘Couldn’t we find somewhere else to lodge?’ Hettie asked unhappily as she and Babs looked round the cramped room to which they had just been shown by their new landlady.

  ‘I doubt as we’d be able to get anything much better,’ Sukey told them. ‘Sharp as knives these London landladies are. They all want as much as they can get out of yer, that’s wot I’ve been told at any rate, and at least ’ere we can all be together.’

  ‘But it’s so dirty,’ Hettie objected.

  ‘It’s noffink that a bit o’ scrubbin’ and some bleach won’t put right,’ Aggie chimed in hardily, adding, ‘I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m fair famished and I noticed there’s a chop house right on the corner.’

  ‘Well, we’ll have to go to the laundry first, cos no way am I sleeping on sheets I haven’t seen washed with me own eyes,’ Babs insisted firmly.

  Hettie hadn’t imagined that her first night in London would be spent washing sheets, she had to admit. The glamour and excitement she had expected seemed to be a million miles away from the grubby place which would be home for she didn’t know how long.

  ‘I say, Polly, shouldn’t you be in the drawing room?’ Alfred objected as the doors to the billiards room were flung open and his sister came in.

  ‘Doing what? Letting Great-Aunt Beatrice criticise everything I do?’ Polly retorted, pulling a face. ‘I’d much rather be in here with you boys. It’s so much more fun. Why on earth did you invite such dreadful bores, Alfie?’

  ‘Family. Had to…Hey, that was my shot,’ he protested indignantly as Polly picked up a cue and skilfully potted a ball.

  ‘You would never have potted it, you are useless at billiards, you know that. Come on, John,’ she called across the table. ‘I challenge you to beat me. Loser has to perform a forfeit of the winner’s choosing…’

  John hid a small smile as he saw the look of helpless acceptance on his friend’s face.

  ‘Alfie, why don’t you ring for Bates and organise some drinks? Tell him I want a martini – a strong one, too. And don’t look at me like that. Our horrid government may have only given the vote to women who are over thirty and married, but just because I can’t vote that doesn’t mean that I can’t drink or smoke. Look at you both,’ she burst out passionately, throwing aside her cue. ‘Why should you be able to vote because you are men? Why should men tell women what they can and can’t do? You don’t understand, do you, either of you?’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘Oh, why, why did my darling Oliver have to die? He would have understood…’

  As she ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her, Alfred gave John an apologetic look. ‘Sorry about that. Difficult time for Polly right now. Thought that this dance tonight might help cheer her up, but it seems not.’

  ‘Don’t be cross with me, John. I know I shouldn’t be here, but I had to apologise to you.’

  After his conversation with Alfred, John had excused himself and returned to his room closing the door, desperate for some time to himself. To his shock, Polly was lying on his bed.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ John demanded.

  Tears filled her eyes. ‘I can’t bear to think that I will never see Oliver again. It hurts so much, John.’ She gave a small hiccup, and sat up. ‘I’m a disgrace, aren’t I? Aren’t you glad I’m not your sister? It’s so horrid being a woman, John. A woman is so dependent on a man for everything and I hate that.’

  She stood up and started to pace the floor. ‘Will you dance with me tonight? Please do? And then tomorrow I shall take you for a drive in my new roadster. We can go to Brighton, and I shall drive as
fast as the wind.’

  Her eyes were starting to glitter as her tears dried. There was a half full martini glass on John’s bedside table, which she had obviously brought to his room, and she picked it up, quickly draining the contents. ‘Have you ever done something that changed your whole life, John? Something that you wish more than anything else you had not done?’ she asked him morosely.

  He thought instantly of the accident, his muscles compressing. And then of Hettie, his heart filling with despair.

  ‘I have, and I hate myself for it,’ Polly was continuing. ‘At first I blamed Oliver, but it wasn’t his fault. I blamed him because I couldn’t bear to blame myself…’

  John couldn’t speak. What she was saying reflected exactly how he felt about Hettie. He had blamed her for changing and pursuing a new life because he had not been man enough to accept the blame himself for not telling her how he truly felt about her – that his concerns for her were born out of love and tenderness not authority and harshness.

  He had lost her for ever now. He was filled with an aching sense of loss and emptiness. Had he been guilty of treating her as though he had the right to dictate to her what she did?

  ‘’Ere, Sukey, where ’ave you been?’

  ‘Mind your own business, Mary,’ Sukey replied sharply as she hurried into the dressing room, pushing a small package into her coat pocket before starting to get changed into her practice clothes.

  ‘This is the third time you’ve been late for rehearsals,’ Mary persisted.

  ‘So what’s that to you?’ Sukey snapped.

  Hettie and Babs exchanged wary looks and Babs grimaced silently. Sukey had become increasingly on edge and secretive since they had come to London.

  ‘It’s on account of the new director telling her she has to lose some weight,’ Jenny guessed. ‘Got herself into a right state about it, she has. Hardly touches her food any more. Of course, them sort allus want to see women looking like lads,’ she added knowingly.

  The new director-choreographer was a fiery-tempered Russian who had worked with the Ballet Russe, and had escaped from his own country to live in France during the revolution.

  With his slicked-back black hair and flashing eyes he looked like Valentino, but he was, as they had all quickly realised, far more interested in the chorus boys than the chorus girls.

  Hettie gave Jay Dalhousie a grateful smile as she heard him clapping her from the wings. He had been so kind to her and she was extremely grateful to him.

  ‘That was good, Hettie,’ Jay praised her, giving her arm a small squeeze. ‘I want you to have dinner with me soon,’ he told her abruptly.

  Hettie looked at him uncertainly. ‘To talk about the operetta? I thought you were pleased that…’

  ‘No, not to talk about the operetta,’ he stopped her softly. ‘I want to take you to dinner so that I can talk to you, Hettie…’

  How could she feel so excited and elated but so scared at the same time, Hettie wondered. ‘I…’

  ‘What is it? Don’t you trust me to behave like a gentleman?’ he teased her.

  ‘Of course I do.’ Her voice was indignant and her face pink.

  She was so naive, Jay reflected, and so innocent. His pulse leaped and he had trouble stopping himself from taking hold of her right there and then. She was the reason he had ended his relationship with his now ex-mistress, and he was in danger of becoming obsessed with her.

  ‘So it’s a date, then?’ he demanded, reaching for her hand and keeping hold of it. ‘Opening night, after the show, you and I are having dinner together?’

  Speechlessly, Hettie nodded.

  Fortunately she had the dressing room to herself since the others were still rehearsing their final number. Sinking down on to a stool she stared at her reflection in the mirror, a delicious shiver of excitement racing down her spine. Her hand still felt warm from Jay holding it. And she felt warm from the way he had looked at her.

  Hettie might be inexperienced so far as men were concerned, but she knew right from wrong and she knew too that her feelings of excitement and anticipation were not the ones she should be feeling for a married man. Only if no one else but she knew about them, that was all right, surely, wasn’t it? And Jay had probably not even been serious about taking her to dinner, anyway.

  The dressing room door opened and Sukey peered anxiously round it, and then hurried towards the hooks where they hung their coats, coming to an abrupt halt when she saw Hettie.

  ‘Oh, you made me jump.’

  Sukey might be thinner now but she did not look very well, Hettie decided. Her face was too flushed and too thin, and its thinness made her eyes look somehow as though they were bulging out of their sockets.

  ‘I thought you were still rehearsing,’ Hettie commented as Sukey grabbed hold of her coat and put her hand into one of the pockets.

  ‘We are, but I wasn’t feeling too good, so I had to come and get one of me tablets,’ Sukey explained, her body tensing as she began to tug feverishly at her pocket, exclaiming, ‘Me tablets. Where are they…I need them.’ She looked almost panic-stricken and started tearing frantically at her coat, her face burning hotly.

  Sympathetic, Hettie got off her stool and went to help her. ‘I didn’t realise you weren’t well, Sukey,’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t want to tell anyone, and you mustn’t either,’ Sukey informed Hettie fiercely. ‘Promise me that you won’t.’

  Hettie nodded whilst Sukey muttered, ‘Perhaps I put them in me bag. Yes, I must have done…’ before darting over to her clothes and pushing them out of the way until she had found her handbag. ‘’Ere, go and get us a cup of water, will you, ’Ettie’ she begged.

  Dutifully Hettie hurried to the small kitchen and filled a glass with water, carrying it carefully back to the dressing room.

  ‘Quick, give it ’ere,’ Sukey commanded. She was trembling violently as she swallowed several small white tablets, and even though she held the glass with both hands, water still splashed out of it.

  Anxiously, Hettie watched her.

  ‘I’d better get back before anyone misses me,’ Sukey told her.

  ‘But if you aren’t well…’

  ‘I’ve just told you, Hettie…I don’t want no one to know about that,’ Sukey repeated angrily. ‘So don’t you go mentioning it to no one, you hear?’

  They were opening on New Year’s Day and several members of the cast had complained that it was a bad date on which to open and that the only reason Jay had been given the theatre early was because no one else would take that week.

  ‘He might have got every blasted critic in London coming, but that just means there’ll be more of ’em to give us bad reviews,’ the actor playing the comic role of household controller to the royal household had prophesied.

  Since she had finished rehearsals for the day she might as well go, Hettie decided. She had almost reached the stage door when she heard the sound of two familiar and very angry male voices – Eddie and their new director – and they were plainly quarrelling. If she walked past the open door to the small room they were in, they were bound to see her. But if she didn’t, she couldn’t get to the stage door, and she certainly didn’t want to eavesdrop on them.

  As she hesitated, her dilemma was solved for her when Eddie strode out of the room, turning back to say bitterly, ‘Do you really think I don’t know why you’re doing this? If you think I’m jealous of that poxy little faggot of a chorus boy…’

  Hettie gasped as the door was slammed in his face with such force that, if he hadn’t stepped back, it must have hit him.

  He wheeled round and then stopped as he saw her.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to listen. It was just…’

  ‘I need a drink. Come with me, Hettie…Please…’

  He had grabbed hold of her arm and was practically dragging her out of the theatre and down Drury Lane before she could stop him. It was raining and the streets were wet and shiny, busy with shop girls and office workers as well as o
ther theatre people. The cold air smelled of damp and wet wool tinged with bad drains, making Hettie wrinkle her nose.

  Eddie hurried her into a small smoky public house where they managed to find a solitary table tucked away in a corner. When the waiter came, Eddie told him shortly, ‘Absinthe, and be quick about it. What will you have, Hettie?’

  ‘Oh, coffee, please.’

  As soon as the waiter had gone Eddie leaned his elbows on the table and placed his head in his hands.

  ‘Eddie, what is it? What’s wrong?’ Hettie asked him anxiously.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? Hell, the whole theatre’s gossiping about it.’ His voice was thick with emotion. ‘It’s bad enough that Ivan’s here without him tormenting me by making cows’ eyes at that smirking little toad. I thought he loved me. He told me he did.’

  Hettie bit her lip. There had been gossip about the intensity of the animosity between Eddie and their new director, but it still shocked Hettie to hear Eddie speak so openly about the situation.

  The waiter returned with Eddie’s drink and Hettie’s coffee. She pulled a face as she saw the murky greenish colour of Eddie’s drink.

  ‘What is that?’ she asked him.

  ‘Absinthe? It’s the drink of the devil and the damned,’ he told her bitterly. ‘Everyone in Paris drinks it. They say it can send a man mad. Sometimes I think I already am. I must be to have let myself…And now he’s here mocking me, tormenting me.’

  Eddie gave a deep shudder and Hettie realised with shock that he was actually crying. ‘I can’t bear it, Hettie. I can’t bear this torment. It’s killing me. But Ivan doesn’t care. All he thinks about is his own pleasure. When he begged me for my love he told me that we’d be together for always.’

  Hettie’s shock and discomfort increased. She had never witnessed a grown man cry before.

  ‘Was it for this that I broke my mother’s heart and brought such shame on my family that my father declared that he wanted nothing more to do with me, and that he would rather I had been dead?’ Eddie demanded with despair.