Hettie of Hope Street. Annie Groves
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up. Men can be the oddest of creatures at times.’
Connie herself had enjoyed the fun she had had as a girl training to be a nurse, and she could see how much Hettie was enjoying her new independent life and the different friends she had made. She had blossomed in less than a month and had a new kind of worldliness about her.
‘I just hope that Mam will be well enough to come,’ Hettie continued. ‘When I telephoned yesterday, Mrs Jennings said that she was in bed and feeling sickly.’
‘Yes, the unseasonable heat has been pulling her down a little,’ Connie replied hastily. Ellie had said specifically that she did not wish to make it widely known yet that there was to be a new baby. Thankfully, though, she was no longer worrying so much about her own health or that of the coming baby.
Later in the day Connie watched indulgently whilst Hettie tucked hungrily into her dinner. All this singing was obviously giving her a good appetite. She was happily unaware that her Sunday dinners were the culinary highlight of Hettie’s week because the meagre amount of ‘pocket money’ she received from Mrs Buchanan was barely enough to buy her one decent meal a day.
‘You are enjoying that Madeira cake, Hettie, would you care to take a couple of slices with you to share with your friends?’ Connie invited her.
‘Oh yes, please,’ Hettie accepted, unblushingly allowing Connie to parcel up the whole lot for her, knowing that she herself would be the one to eat the lion’s share of it. Then she felt guilty at not sharing with Connie what life was really like at Ma Marshall’s. But as Babs had told her wryly, ‘sometimes it’s best not to let folks at ’ome know just how things are, ’Ettie. Saves ’em worrying then, like.’
‘My husband will be waiting for you at the Adelphi, Miss Walker. You will enter the hotel via the staff entrance at the rear of the hotel and not the main entrance – that is reserved for hotel guests. Once you are inside you will ask for the housekeeper and she will see to it that you are escorted to the room Mr Buchanan uses for practice. It would not do at all for the Adelphi’s guests to have their ears subjected to the noise of scales in the main salons.
‘You will present yourself at the hotel every morning this week at 10.00 a.m. and you will remain there until Mr Buchanan says that you may leave. Then, provided that he is satisfied with you, on Thursday you will bring with you your stage dress ready for the afternoon’s musical entertainment. Do you understand all of that?’
‘Yes, Mrs Buchanan,’ Hettie confirmed obediently. She could hardly believe the wait was nearly over!
‘Gideon – we don’t often see you up here,’ John greeted his brother-in-law warmly as Gideon stepped out of his car.
‘Aye, well if you will choose to make a living in such an outlandish way,’ Gideon joked, automatically ducking as one of John’s students took off, the wings of his flying machine wiggling alarmingly.
‘Ellie sent me up with a message for you.’
‘Ellie? Is she…’ John began anxiously.
‘She’s fine,’ Gideon assured him immediately. ‘It’s Hettie I’m here about. She’s to have her debut performance at the Adelphi this Thursday and she’s said special like that she wants you to be there. Seems she took what you said to her about her frock to heart.’
‘I can’t pretend I’m happy about what she’s doing,’ John replied. ‘Or the kind of life she’ll be exposing herself to…’
‘Aye, well you’d best blame me for that, John. My thinking is that the lass will soon tire of it and want to come home. Having Connie run off like she did was that upsetting for Ellie I didn’t want to risk it happening again. And Hettie can be headstrong just like all the other Pride women.’
Reluctantly John allowed himself to smile. Both his sisters were headstrong in their own individual way, and perhaps it was unfair of him to expect Hettie to be any less determined than her adopted mother and aunt.
‘Well, that’s as mebbe, Gideon, but it’s my belief that the stage is no place for a decent woman.’
‘Aye, but the difference is that Hettie is a singer not an actress. The lass has to have her chance, John. That’s only fair. I’ve seen what happens when a person is denied the right to make their own free choice,’ he added heavily, and John knew he was thinking of the way their own mother had forced Ellie to part from Gideon so many years ago and the unhappiness that had caused them both.
‘How’s business?’ Gideon asked him, changing the subject.
‘Not as good as I’d like.’
‘Having so many men out of work is hurting us all. I’m getting closer to having to lay men off meself, but Ellie is adamant that we’ll cut back at home before she’ll see a working man laid off and his wife and children going hungry. Fortunately, I’ve got a bit put by and even if I have to cut the rents on the properties we should be able to pull through. There’s many a business as won’t, though. They’re saying already that Liverpool has been hit very badly. There’s no shipping to speak of, the docks are lying empty and there’s not much of any other kind of work either. It’s a bad business and no mistake, and the politicians don’t seem to be doing anything about it.’
‘There’s a lot of men asking if they survived the war only to be left to starve to death,’ John agreed sombrely.
‘Anyway, lad.’ Gideon returned swiftly to his real reason for being there. ‘You’ll be there for Hettie’s debut, won’t you? Only your Ellie will give me a real telling off if you aren’t.’
John laughed. ‘Yes I’ll be there,’ he promised, even if the thought of seeing Hettie again, and in such a way, caused his heart to skip a beat.
It was hard for Hettie not to feel both nervous and excited as she hurried across Lime Street towards the Adelphi hotel, skirting the imposing main entrance and going instead to the staff entrance, where she found a group of chambermaids complaining about the meanness of the guests whose rooms they had just been cleaning.
‘Not so much as a farthing, they give us, and ’er dripping in diamonds and furs.’
‘Just as well then that you helped yourself to her fancy perfume, eh Nancy?’ Hettie heard one of them joke as she squeezed past them.
‘’Ere, where do you think you’re going?’ A fat bald uniformed doorman stopped her.
‘I’m here to see the housekeeper, Mrs Nevis. I’m the new singer for afternoon tea,’ Hettie explained.
‘Well, next time make sure you have a number so as we can sign yer in,’ he warned her before giving her directions for the housekeeper’s room.
Mrs Nevis told her that she was far too busy to bother herself with her and gave Hettie directions for the room where she would find Mr Buchanan.
These proved to be so complicated that Hettie had begun to fear she must have misunderstood them as she trudged up endless flights of stairs and along equally endless corridors before finally coming to an open door through which she could hear music being played.
Having knocked and received no response, she walked hesitantly through the door and into the room. Immediately, the pianist stopped playing and looked at her.
‘Mr Buchanan?’ Hettie asked him shyly.
‘Yes indeed, and you must be the delightful new protégée whose company I am to have the pleasure of.’
He was nothing like she had imagined, being small and rotund with black hair as shiny as patent leather pulled in strands across his bald head. But at least he was much jollier and kinder than his wife, Hettie acknowledged with relief.
‘Well, my dear wife has excelled herself – you are indeed a pretty child. The ladies will all envy you and their husbands will insist that their wives