Movie Shoes

by Noel Streatfeild

  Rachel tried to think helpfully. The audition dress was red crepe de chine. It had been made out of an old evening dress of Peaseblossom’s. It was so old that the crepe de chine was cracking here and there, and there had been no thought of its being worn on the ship; it was much too precious. The clothes that had been left out for ship wear were sweaters, a pleated skirt, shorts, and two cotton frocks to change into in the evening.

  “Nobody could feel like dancing in a cotton frock everybody had seen a person change into for the evening. Would it be rude to say I couldn’t dance?”

  “Disobliging, I think. I don’t suppose there are many people on board who do things.”

  John had been once around the deck. He stopped for a moment. “Scrape her hair back and tie something on as an apron and turn her into Alice. “

  As soon as John spoke, Rachel and Bee saw he was right. With a ribbon around her hair and an apron tied over a cotton frock Rachel could easily look like Alice in Wonderland. Bee said, “I’ll make an apron out of something this afternoon, and you go tell whoever’s arranging the program that your dance is called ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ If they announce it like that, everybody will know who you are meant to be, even if you don’t look much like it.”

  Tim had practiced every day. The day they sailed he found out there was a piano in the lounge, and the next day he sat down to play on it. The lounge steward came hurrying over to him.

  “Now then, young man, none of that; no strumming here.”

  “I don’t strum. I’m going to practice. I have to practice every day. I promised Mr. Brown, who teaches me, that I would.”

  Tim had nice manners as a rule, and the lounge steward had already noticed him with approval as a child who would not be as much of a nuisance as some; but Tim changed when he was at a piano

  He could be as difficult as Jane if anyone interrupted him when he wanted to play.

  “Can’t have every child in the boat practicing; got the rest of the passengers t o think about.

  Tim glanced around the lounge. Most of the passengers were on the deck. Those sitting about had not yet got their sea legs and had their eyes closed and anxious, suffering expressions on their faces.

  “Them! I wouldn’t miss my practice for them.” Tim struck a fine scornful chord to express his feelings.

  Grown-up people who have no particular talent themselves are apt to think that talent in a child is miraculous. The lounge steward was that sort of man. He looked at Tim’s fingers and marveled that they find the notes at all, let alone make a big noise like that.

  “You professional?”

  “Of course not. I’m going to be, but not for ages.”

  “Let’s hear you play a piece.

  The lounge steward had a face and a voice which were just the sort of face and voice Tim liked best. There was a look and a sound about them as if, at any minute, there would be an enormous laugh coming. Besides, playing pieces was what Tim liked doing.

  “Actually I’m supposed to do some special things first, but I’ll play my favorite tune for you.”

  Tim was an unusually musical boy, as Mr. Brown and Jeremy Caulder had found out. Of course, there were years of work ahead of him, but already when he played, it was nice to listen. Even the passengers who had not got their sea legs opened their eyes and cheered up a little. The lounge steward leaned on the piano and found himself forgetting where he was and was carried in his mind to the village in Hampshire where he lived, especially to his garden. He found himself thinking, “Must pick the last of those tomatoes before the frost gets them.” It gave him quite a shock when Tim stopped playing and he found himself leaning on the piano in the cabin-class lounge.

  “That was nice. What was it?”

  “It’s by Debussy. It’s called ‘Jardins sous la Pluie.”

  “And what might that mean?”

  “Mr. Brown says that turned into the English we speak, it means ‘Gardens in the Rain’”

  The lounge steward blinked. “Crikey, and that’s just what it sounded like; as soon as you started, I thought of my tomatoes.”

  After that Tim practiced as long as he liked, and of course, when the concert was suggested, it was taken for granted that Tim would play. To please his friend the lounge steward and himself, Tim said he would play “Jardins sous la Pluie.”

  The concert would quite honestly not have been much of a success without Tim and Rachel, for the talent was poor. Tim was on in the first half of the program, and everybody applauded so heartily that after he had bowed several times which made the passengers laugh, he played Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G as an encore. Rachel danced at the end of the program. Her dance was quite short but arranged to show managers what she could do, so it was showy. The passengers were enraptured, and cheered as well as clapped. Rachel curtsied several times, but when the clapping and cheering went on, she hurried to Bee and John.

  “What shall I do? I don’t know another solo, and I’ve no more music.”

  John was pleased that his children had given enjoyment to everybody, but he thought it was time the concert finished and they went to bed.

  “Tell them so, then, and thank them nicely.”

  Rachel went back and curtsied again. Then she cleared her throat. She had never made a speech before, so her voice squeaked a little. “I’m afraid I can’t do another dance. I haven’t any more music, and it’s the only one I’ve practiced.”

  The audience clapped again, and a voice shouted, “Well, let’s have the same dance.”

  Rachel danced the dance again. It was not very good that time as she was excited and wobbled on her pirouettes and her arabesque, but the audience, who knew nothing about dancing, thought her wonderful and clapped louder than ever.

  After “God Save the King” had been played, the passengers crowded around Bee and John, and words like “wonderful” and “genius” buzzed about. Jane, who had been sitting between John and Bee for the concert, tried to get out of the crowd and off to bed, but it was difficult. Just as she reached the door she heard a woman say to a man, “That child going out of the door is a sister, you know, but she doesn’t do anything.”

  The man answered, “Queer having that plain kid with the other two so good-looking.”

  When Jane reached the cabin, Rachel and Tim were telling Peaseblossom all about the concert.

  “But it’s so odd,” Rachel said. “They clapped just as much when I danced my worst.”

  Jane shut the door and began to undress.

  “That’s what is known as an undiscriminating audience, dear,” Peaseblossom said, “but I feel sure our side did splendidly.”

  Rachel folded her apron. “Tim bowed beautifully.”

  Tim nodded. “I thought that was rather good. It was copied from Sir Malcolm Sargent last Christmas when we went to the carols at the Albert Hall.”

  Jane felt so miserable she would have liked to cry, but she cried only over desperate things like leaving Chewing-gum behind. What mattered was that those silly fools said was true. She couldn’t do anything, not anything at all, and she was the only plain Winter. She looked so sour that at last the others noticed. Peaseblossom said, “What’s the matter, dear?”

  Jane was brushing her teeth. She took the brush out of her mouth. “Nothing. It’s just that I’ve already listened to that awful concert, and I was not exactly enjoying hearing about it all over again.”

  Peaseblossom was shocked. She had known that Jane had been getting out of hand ever since she had quoted, “It’s going to be such splendid fun.” She spoke in her usual voice and not the fade away, gentle voice she had spoken in ever since her first morning on board.

  “Jane! That’s a disgraceful way to talk! You’re jealous. Jealousy is a horrible fault. We may not all be equally talented, but we can all be equally nice people.”

  Jane said no more. She climbed into her bunk with indignation sticking out all over her. She lay down and turned her face to the wall and for the first time since the Mauretania
had sailed missed Chewing-gum so much that it hurt. Chewing-gum, who thought her much the nicest of the family; who even thought her the best-looking; who did not care a bit if she could dance or play the piano; who liked her just as she was with no alteration at all. “I’ll say exactly what I like,” she told herself. “I don’t mind being plain, and I don’t mind not doing anything. I hate them all; I’ll just be me whether they like it or not.”

  The whole family, even Peaseblossom, was on deck to catch a first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. After so long at sea it was thrilling to see land and ships darting about. At first there was no sign of the statue. Then one of the crew held out a finger, pointing. “She lies there. You watch.” The statue was on an island. She was even bigger and more like herself than she looked in photographs. The man grinned at her affectionately. “Looks a bit of all right, don’t she, bless ‘er? Now you look over there. Watch close.”

  At first there was nothing to see, for where the man pointed was a bank of mist. What happened at the end of the Sleeping Beauty’s story, that part where the prince fights his way through overhanging branches and cobwebs and sees a magic castle. The mist broke away as if it were overhanging branches and cobwebs and out of it came what seemed a magic castle: pinkish in color, an irregular outline stretching almost to the sky.

  Awestruck, Rachel gasped “What’s that!

  The man laughed. “That! That’s good old New York!”

  7

  New York City

  John and Bee were met at the dockside by a friend of Aunt Cora’s They were very glad to see him because he had dollars for them. By the law of England they might not change pounds into dollars. So if they had not met the man, they would have had no money at all. The children, thought they tried not to stared at the man because he was so exactly like a rich American in the movies. He was very welcoming, so welcoming that at first the children supposed he must be an old friend of John and Bee’s. When they found out he was a stranger, they decided that to be welcoming must be an American habit, and a very nice one, as it made the whole family stop feeling they were strangers in a strange land. After he had got over telling them how fine it was to see them, he became suddenly brisk and bustling He said he would take them over to the railroad, where they could check their baggage and turn the railway vouchers they had bought in England into railway tickets for California, and then he would show them around a bit and give them lunch. He said all this all so obviously only to John and Bee, not including Peaseblossom or the children in his plans and invitations, that the only thing they could do was to separate. Bee said in a scared voice, “We’ve none of us been in New York before. I suppose my family won’t get lost?”

  The man laughed. “Why, no. What these kids will like will be to go to the top of the Empire State Building and then fill themselves up with ice-cream sodas. Come along, you folks, we’ve go a lot to do.” With that, he put one arm through John’s and the other through Bee’s and hurried them away.

  Peaseblossom and the children looked after them, feeling rather deserted. Rachel said, “He’s a friend of Aunt Cora’s. Do you suppose Aunt Cora’s the sort of person who thinks children never want to do the same things as their parents do?”

  Peaseblossom tried to sound confident.

  “Don’t talk nonsense, dear. Naturally that nice friend of your aunt’s doesn’t want the whole lot of us hanging around. Besides, we’ll manage splendidly on our own, won’t we? Up the Winters!”

  They would have managed perfectly if the effect of New York on Peaseblossom had not been to turn her from her competent self into something rather like a sheep in a narrow lane trying to go the opposite way from the rest of the flock. Everybody was kind and helpful and told them how to get out of the docks and which way to go when they were out, but Peaseblossom could not take in what she was told. She kept saying in an agitated way, “I beg your pardon?” and even “What?” which shocked the children, who had been told since they were babies that to say “What?” was rude. Worst of all, she behaved as though the directions were being given to her in another language, commenting on them to the children in loud whispers, which the people politely trying to help must have overheard. “I can’t make out a word he’s saying... Better ask somebody else. I don’t think he knows where the Empire State Building is.”

  The children were so ashamed that at last they took control. Rachel gripped one of Peaseblossom’s arms, and Jane the other, and they hurried her out of the docks and across the road; but once there, they forgot the direction they had been given and found it was difficult to get them again because nobody in New York walked slowly. Instead the people moved slowly. Instead the people practicing for a walking race. First one of the children and then another stepped forward to ask the way, saying politely, “Excuse me,” but by the time they had got that out the person they had spoken to was almost out of sight and never even knew he had been addressed. At last a man who was held up by the traffic lights noticed them and leaned out of his car.

  “You folks need help?”

  They all explained at once. He was a terribly kind man. He told them to get into his car, and he would drive them to where they could get a bus. As they drove along, he told them that he knew they came from Britain because of their British accents. This surprised the children, who had supposed that it was America which had an accent and not England, unless, of course, you were Scottish or Welsh or something like that, but they kept this thought to themselves. The man was most considerate; he put them down where he said the bus would stop, and told them that in the bus they would have to travel only six blocks. He had been so kind that as he drove away, they felt they had lost a friend.

  The thing they all had forgotten, and had not noticed when the man was driving them, was the traffic drove on the opposite side of the road from the way it did at home, so, in spite of the man’s having told them that they were at the right stop, they thought they must cross the street. Even when they did grasp which bus to take, they made a very silly entrance for they tried to get on the back end, as they did at home. Peaseblossom looked so flustered that Rachel said comfortingly, “We couldn’t know.”’

  Tim was indignant. “If you ask me, American buses are like tortoises; I mean, like you have to give a shut-up tortoise a buttercup at each end to know which end’s going to eat.”

  Peaseblossom had always known the values of American money and had carefully restudied the subject before she left England, but by the time she was on the bus she was in that state of mind when people say, “I’ll forget my own name next!” When the driver told her how many nickels he wanted she became deaf again and repeated in an ever-louder voice, “I beg your pardon?” Fortunately John had given her a lot of small change, and Jane had the good idea of taking her purse from her, tipping the money into her hand and letting the driver help himself. It worked all right, though the bus driver not seem pleased, for he made international bus-driver

  Tim was surprised at this display of grumpiness m a country where everybody seemed so welcoming. As he sat down he whispered to Jane, “It was because you didn’t put the money in that slot machine. Do you think I could go and tell him we aren’t stupid really; it’s only we’ve never seen one of those before?”

  Jane was cross because though she would not admit it, the driver’s being angry fussed her. So she said, “Don’t be a silly idiot; interrupting him when he’s driving will make him hate us worse.”

  To make up for the driver, the people in the bus could not have been kinder. Nearly all of them had expressions on their faces to show they thought seeing strangers get off buses at the right place was the most important thing in life. Tim was so charmed by this that before they left the bus, he thanked everybody. This seemed to cause quite a sensation, for the Winters got off to a hum of “Isn’t he cute! ... Isn’t he darling!”

  Tim looked after the departing bus with affection. “Did you hear what those people said about me?”

  Rachel looked at Peaseblossom. Neithe
r of them said anything, but they made faces which showed they hoped Tim was not going to be spoiled in America. Jane as usual spoke what she thought.

  “You aren’t cute, and goodness knows, nobody could call you darling.”

  There would have been a quarrel, but fighting their way through the half-running citizens of New York took up all their attention and breath.

  The Empire State Building was a wonderful thrill to the children but not to Peaseblossom. Her insides could not comfortably have stood a ride up 2 stories; 102 were nearly fatal. She arrived at the top looking green as grass and holding a handkerchief ready. Actually they got the best view when they came down one story because there they could go outside and lean over a wall. The mist of the morning had gone, and it was a marvelous sight. On the top of the highest building in the world the skyscrapers of New York ceased to tower; instead they seemed to be straining to be as tall as the Empire State Building. On one side of the city wound the Hudson River, the ships on it looking from that height like toy ships made to float in a bath. The children saw how neatly arranged the New York streets were, almost as neat as a chessboard: long roads stretching across the city and across them other roads east and west. The children would have stayed up there twice as long as they did; only Peaseblossom said it made her feel queer even to watch them hanging over the wall, so out of pity they had to take her down.

  When they came out of the Empire State Building, they remembered the other thing Aunt Cora’s friend had said they would like: ice-cream sodas. Peaseblossom looked around at the hurrying, swirling crowd.

  “I must find a policeman. He will be sure to know somewhere nice.”

  It took time but Peaseblossom found a policeman. At once she felt more at home than she had done since she arrived, for policemen knew everything, never minded how many questions you asked, and were never in a hurry.

  She went up to this one with a confident smile.

  “Constable, could you tell me of a nice place to take these children to drink ice cream sodas?