Ballet Shoes

by Noel Streatfeild

  That was the end of the day, when the carol was finished, and they had called out ‘Thank you. A happy Christmas’, for Nana was waiting to take them up to bed. They did not mind the day being over nearly as much as they had before the carol-singers came, because they had made such a lovely finish to it.

  The Christmas holidays went terribly fast. They did a lot of nice things; but the nicest of all was going to a pantomime in which all the children dancing in it came from the Academy. They found it very difficult not to whisper every time the children came on because they wanted to point out to each other that: ‘The one two from the end is that girl that came on the tube with us…’ and ‘That one with the black hair in the middle is the one who has a sister in our class.’ They felt very grand when they got home being able to say to Mr and Mrs Simpson and the two doctors that there were a lot of ‘our girls’ in the pantomime.

  The spring term at the Academy both Pauline and Posy loved, and Petrova hated. Pauline was given two real parts to learn, one as ‘Cinderella’ in French, a play of the fairy story called ‘Cendrillon’, and the other as ‘Tyltyl’ in some scenes from ‘The Blue Bird’. In the intermediate dancing class, although it was not till the end of the term that she used her points, she wore real ballet shoes. Theo Dane taught this class, which made it extra nice.

  Posy, after she joined Madame’s dancing class, seemed to get very grown-up for somebody who would not be seven until September. She said she did not do a great many exercises at her lessons, that a lot of the time Madame told her things. Asked what things, she could only say vaguely, ‘Just things’. She was always dancing. Sometimes in the nursery, which did not matter, but sometimes in the road, which Nana did not approve of at all, and once on the tube station, which Pauline and Petrova thought frightful showing off; for Posy was very noticeable, with her red hair, and she already danced rather well for somebody of her age, and people stared.

  ‘You are a show-off, Posy,’ Pauline said.

  ‘It’s not showing off, it’s because I thought of something and wanted to see if my feet would do it,’ Posy explained.

  ‘You could wait till you get home, couldn’t you?’ Petrova grumbled, for she hated people looking at them.

  ‘I might have forgotten,’ Posy argued. Then she danced again.

  ‘Make her stop, Nana,’ Petrova implored.

  ‘That’s enough, Posy,’ Nana said sharply. ‘Dancing on a railway station, indeed; we shall have people asking us where the organ is, for we seem to have got a monkey.’

  Posy stopped, not because she cared what Nana or the others thought, but because her feet had done what she wanted them to do. Both Pauline and Petrova then, and lots of times, had a feeling that she was not proud of her dancing, but looked on it as something that mattered more than anything else. She thought that doing an exercise beautifully mattered so much, that in spite of feeling that it was silly to let somebody of six think what she did mattered, they had an odd feeling that she was right.

  Petrova hated her classes. Not because she was the dunce of the class, for she was not. Left to herself without Pauline to practise with her she learnt all the exercises as easily as any of the other children; but the truth was she disliked dancing. This term’s work was almost all exercises, half of them done at the bar; and she had the sense to see that she would not like the work more as she moved higher up the school. The more efficient you became, the longer hours you were expected to work, and the more exercises you had to do. She felt very depressed because she had no one much to talk to about it. Pauline was so happy at the Academy that it was no good hoping she would understand, and Posy was not only too young to talk to, but thought dancing the only thing that mattered in the world.

  She could not say a word to Sylvia, because she knew it would be a help when she was old enough to earn money, nor to Nana, who had an idea that the reason she did not get on as well as the others was because she had ‘always been such a one for playing about like a boy.’ The only person she could talk to was Mr Simpson, and she did not see much of him. When she did he was grand; he thought just as she did — that dancing was rather stupid, and cars and things much more important.

  ‘Hullo, Petrova!’ he would call up the stairs sometimes on Sunday afternoons, ‘having a bit of trouble with the car. Come and give me a hand.’

  The most gorgeous afternoons followed; he was not the sort of man who did everything himself and expected you to watch, but took turns fairly, passing over the spanner, saying ‘Here, you take those nuts off.’ Of course she used to get most terribly dirty; but Mrs Simpson always prepared for that by putting an old mackintosh, which she had cut down, on top of whatever Petrova was wearing, and she made her wash and inspected her carefully before Nana saw her. Neither Petrova nor Mr Simpson talked much while they were working; but he got to know quite a lot about how she felt.

  ‘How’s the dancing been this week?’ he would ask.

  ‘Awful.’

  ‘Still doing nothing but exercises?’

  ‘Yes. Battlements — always battlements.’

  She meant Battement, but she had only heard the word and never seen it written, and had got it wrong, and of course Mr Simpson did not know one dancing term from another.

  ‘Battlements,’ he murmured. Then he laughed. ‘Silly words they use at your dancing.’

  The moment he laughed she felt better. If even one person like Mr Simpson did not think dancing mattered terribly, perhaps it did not.

  Just before the end of the term Petrova had influenza. She had the worst kind, that is gastric, and makes you sick all day. She felt so miserable for a week that she did not care about anything. Nana looked after her, and Sylvia took the other two to their classes, helped by Mr Simpson and his car. At the end of a week Petrova woke up one morning suddenly better. Her head had stopped going round and round, and her inside felt itself again.

  ‘What can I have for breakfast, Nana?’ she asked. ‘I’m awfully hungry.’

  Nana felt her hands with an experienced air and nodded.

  ‘No temperature this morning. That’s a good girl. What about a boiled egg?’

  She went away and cooked it, and brought the tray and put it on the bed-table over Petrova’s knees. Then she laid down a large bundle of papers.

  ‘That Mr Simpson sent you those,’ she said. ‘He’s clearing out, and this lot he said you’d like.’

  Petrova looked at the papers. They were all about cars and aeroplanes, and she would like them; but she did not like the expression ‘clearing out’. It made her inside feel as if it was going down in a lift.

  ‘Are they going back to Kuala Lumpur?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Nana straightened the eiderdown. ‘Miss Brown will have to be looking for some new boarders.’

  ‘Oh!’ Petrova laid down her egg-spoon. Suddenly she was not hungry after all. ‘I don’t think I want this egg, Nana.’

  ‘Now, you come on and eat it.’

  Nana sat down beside her and began opening the magazines, and asked such silly questions about the aeroplanes that Petrova had to put her right, and talking, she ate her egg without noticing. Nana might be stupid about aeroplanes, but she was very good at getting people to eat when they did not want to.

  The first day out of bed when you have had gastric influenza is not nice. Everybody is the same, they say ‘Can’t I get up?’ and then at last they do get up, and they wish they were back in bed. That is exactly how it was with Petrova. Nana got her up about lunch-time, and moved her on to a sofa in the day nursery, and she left her there when she took the others out in the afternoon. Petrova looked through the window and watched them all walk up the Cromwell Road, and thought how miserable everything was. The Simpsons going away, and the Dancing Academy, and she laid down on the sofa and cried like anything. While she was crying and had got to that stage when all your words run together, and your nose is as if it was in the worst stage of a cold, and your face comes out in red lumps, there was a knock on the door. Sh
e stopped a sob to say ‘Come in’, but all that came out was ‘Cubin’, and that was so indistinct that nobody could have heard it. So the knock came again, and this time waited for no answer; but the door opened and in walked Mr Simpson. He did not do anything idiotic like pretending not to see that Petrova was howling, but instead sat down and laughed.

  ‘That’s exactly what I want to do after influenza. Have my handkerchief.’ He passed it over. ‘It’s new and it’s clean, and has beautiful initials embroidered on it.’

  Petrova took it, and after a lot of blowing and mopping, felt better. She looked at the initials on the handkerchief.

  ‘They are nice,’ she said stuffily. ‘What’s the J. for?’

  ‘John.’

  ‘Is your name John? Nana would like that; it’s after an apostle like me and Pauline.’ She gave the handkerchief back.

  He put it in his pocket.

  ‘Do you think it would make you feel better to hear my troubles?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Well, I can’t go back to Kuala Lumpur.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘A thing called a slump.’

  She looked puzzled.

  ‘What’s a slump?’

  He thought a moment, and then explained that it was as if, after training for years to be a dancer, she grew up to find there were thousands of children all trained to dance, so there were more than were wanted, and none of them could earn anything. His rubber trees were like that.

  ‘Thousands more of them than are wanted?’

  ‘That’s right, and cheaper things than rubber trees found to get rubber from.’

  ‘Do you mean you won’t go back to Kuala Lumpur ever?’

  ‘Probably not.’ He smiled at her because she looked so pleased. ‘I’m glad somebody thinks it good news.’

  Will you just go on living here and doing nothing?’

  ‘Not nothing, no. I have bought a garage.’

  ‘Oh!’ Petrova was quite pink with excitement. ‘Where?’

  ‘It’s a big one not far from Piccadilly. I hope to make lots of money out of it.’

  ‘Will you go on living with us?’

  ‘I hope so. I thought on Sunday afternoons and in the holidays you might come along and lend a hand.’.

  ‘In a real garage?’

  Petrova could not believe her luck. Suddenly nothing mattered : dancing classes, or having influenza — everything looked gay. She got off the sofa, and her legs, instead of feeling like cotton wool as they had all the morning, felt strong enough to go for a walk. She put her arms round his neck.

  ‘When can I go and see it?’

  He stood up so that she had to curl her legs round his waist to hold on. He carried her through the door like that.

  ‘Tomorrow morning if it’s fine I am taking you there in the car; but you are only to be out for half an hour.. Now I am taking you down to tea with us. My wife has spent the whole morning thinking of things people might like to eat after having influenza.’

  CHAPTER VII

  Maeterlinck’s ‘Blue Bird’

  THE summer term at the Academy was fun. For two whole terms they had done nothing much but exercises, and though Pauline played parts in the acting class, there had been no dressing-up. Then one morning just before the term began, Sylvia got a letter asking them all to come to tea at the Academy, as Madame had something she wanted to talk about. There was a P.S. to the letter to say ‘The students will wear formal dress.’ None of them knew which formal dress was; but Theo said it meant overalls. They all thought this most peculiar, as you cannot think of anything less formal than an overall. They were all very excited to know what the meeting was about. Theo, who knew, would not say.

  ‘You wait, you’ll hear soon enough.’

  Pauline tugged at her hand.

  ‘Is it nice?’

  Theo thought a moment.

  ‘It’s to do with happiness. It means hard work.’

  They all tried to guess what she meant by that; but they could not, and she would not say another word.

  On the day of the meeting Mr Simpson drove them to the Academy. Sylvia went in at the middle door marked ‘emy of dancing, an’, the children and Nana in at the students’ entrance under ‘Children’s Acad’, and Theo in at the staff entrance in the third house marked ‘d Stage Training’.

  They all met in the big main hall which ran through all three houses. It was not looking a bit like it looked on ordin ary days. There was a platform with a lot of chairs and a table on it, and flowers standing in pots round it. There was tea laid out on the tables down the side, and rows of chairs at the bottom of the room for the grown-up people. The students stood until Madame came in and they had all given her their usual greeting, then they were told to sit cross-legged on the floor. Madame was looking as different as possible from how she looked in term time. Instead of her practice-dress she wore a really smart black satin frock; it was made a little like the school overalls, only very well cut. All her staff were with her, not looking themselves at all either, except Miss Catherine Jay, who had been a well-known actress, and was now head of the acting school, and her two assistants, Miss Brown and Miss Webb, also Madame Moulin, who taught acting in French. Those four usually looked quite nice; but the children had never seen the dancing teachers, except Theo, in anything but a grown-up edition of their own practice-dresses. When Madame came forward to speak there was an excited movement; for of course everyone wanted to know why they had been asked to tea. She started her speech by telling them how hard the lives of many Russians had been since the revolution, and, with so many poor of their own, how difficult it had been for other countries to take in penniless refugees. Then she told the story of one family who had come to England. She said that the mother had died, but work had been given the father, and how the three little girls had gone to an ordinary State school, and had begun to learn English and were getting on nicely, when the youngest, Olga, developed a serious illness. Careful nursing, good feeding, and good doctoring would be needed over a long time if she was ever to get better. What was the father to do? Olga’s illness was not one that a hospital would willingly take, as she could be nursed at home, and she would be in bed for such a while, and a bed over a long period could not easily be spared. He must go to work, or where was the money to come from for them to live? By the laws of England the two other girls must attend school, and in any case the eldest, Maria, was only ten.

  ‘It was then,’ said Madame, ‘that friends came to me and told me their story. It happened that I had met a man attached as head surgeon to a great children’s hospital. I told him about Olga; he said something must be done. What was done, children, was that they took her in, they kept her in the hospital for over six months, and then they sent her away to the country for nearly six months more, and she came back completely well.’ Madame smiled. ‘Before I go on I know you will want to know where she is now. She is a hospital nurse in the very children’s hospital that cured her.’ Madame leant on the table and her face grew serious. ‘Two weeks ago Olga came to me. “Madame,” she said, “the hospital needs money, it has to be moved into the country. I have done what I can to help, but it is very little.” Then she turned to me with her hands out and said, “Madame, will you help the hospital as once you helped me?” Children, what could I say?’

  None of the children were very certain if this was a real question, or the sort of one people first asked and then answered themselves, so only a very muttered ‘Yes’ was heard; but of course they all knew that she must have said ‘yes’ — what else could she say? Madame looked round the hall as if to be certain that everyone was listening.

  ‘My children, my guests, I have asked you here this afternoon to put the same question to you. Will you help the hospital that once helped Olga ?’

  She did not wait for an answer this time, but went on to explain what she meant. They had been lent a theatre for a matinee at the end of July, and she intended to give a perfor mance of ‘The Blue Bird�
�. All her old students had offered to help — they would play and dance all the grown-up roles; but the school would have to provide, besides Tyltyl and Mytyl, Stars and Hours and Unborn Children, and a lot of other things. This would not only mean a considerable amount of work for the children, but a lot of clothes. She was going to ask everybody present who would help to stand up. The parents, if they would provide and make the dresses, and the children, if they would give the extra work.

  Of course everybody stood up, and then one of the senior girls asked what everybody wanted to know. She gave a deep curtsy.

  ‘Madame, who are to be Tyltyl and Mytyl?’

  Madame nodded.

  ‘Of course you all want to know that. Miss Jay and I have decided that Pauline Fossil shall play Tyltyl. The two children must be petite, and she has been working at the part for a whole term already. The child who has played Mytyl all last term has unfortunately got measles, so we have decided to try Pauline’s sister Petrova, because it will be easy for the two to work together.’ Then she waved to the tea. ‘Will you please all come and eat.’

  Madame served tea to the grown up people out of a samovar. The children had tea out of ordinary teapots, poured out for them by the teachers. Pauline and Petrova felt very red about the face. Half the school did not know them by sight and others had to point them out, and more people came over and asked them if they were Pauline and Petrova, and told them how lucky they were. Just before they left, Theo told them to go and speak to Madame.

  Madame was still sitting in front of her samovar. As soon as they had given their curtsies, she put an arm round each of them.

  P‘auline, Madame Jay gives me a very good account of your work in her class, that is why I am trusting Tyltyl to you.’ Then she looked at Petrova. ‘I am very anxious that you should be sufficiently good to play Mytyl, not only because, being sisters, it will make rehearsals easy, but because you are also Russian, and so have an especial debt to the hospital for its goodness to one of your countrywomen.’