White Boots. Noel Streatfeild
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and therefore would be a better support to Harriet’s thin ankles. Sam seemed so proud of having found her a pair of boots that were new and a fairly good fit that Harriet tried to pretend she thought they were lovely boots. Actually she thought they were awful. Lalla Moore’s beautiful white boots had made Harriet hope she was going to wear white boots too, but the ones Sam put on her were a nasty shade of brown, with a band of green paint round the edge of the soles. Sam was not deceived by her trying to look pleased.
“’ired boots is all right, but nobody can’t say they’re oil paintings. If you want them stylish white ones you’ll have to buy your own. We buy for hard wear, you’d be surprised the time we make our boots last. Besides, nobody can’t make off with these.”
Olivia looked puzzled.
“Does anyone want to?”
“You’d be surprised, but they don’t get away with it. If Harriet here was to walk out with these someone would spot the green paint and be after her quicker than you could say winkle.”
Olivia laughed.
“I can’t see Harriet walking out in these. I’m going to have a job to get her to the rink.”
Sam finished lacing Harriet’s boots. He gave the right boot an affectionate pat.
“Too right you will. I wasn’t speaking personal, I was just explaining why the boots look the way they do.” He got up. “Good luck, duckie, enjoy yourself.”
If Olivia had not been there to hold her up Harriet would never have reached the rink. Her feet rolled over first to the right, and then to the left. First she clung to Olivia, and then lurched over and clung to a wall. When she came to some stairs that led to the rink it seemed to her as if she must be killed trying to get down them. The skates had behaved badly on the flat floor, but walking downstairs they behaved as if they had gone mad. She reached the bottom by gripping the stair rail with both hands while Olivia held her round her waist, lifting her so that her skates hardly touched the stairs. Olivia was breathless but triumphant when they got to the edge of the rink.
“Off you go now. I’ll sit here and get my breath back.”
Harriet gazed in horror at the ice. The creepers and crawlers who were beginners like herself clung so desperately to the barrier that she could not see much room to get in between them. Another thing was that even if she could find a space it was almost certain that one of the creepers and crawlers in front or behind her would choose that moment to fall over and knock her down at the same time. As a final terror, between the grand skaters in the middle of the rink and the creepers and crawlers round the edge, there were the roughest people. They seemed to go round and round like express trains, their chins stuck forward, their hands behind their backs, with apparently no other object than to see how fast they could go, and they did not seem to mind who they knocked over as they went. Gripping both sides of an opening in the barrier Harriet put one foot towards the ice and hurriedly took it back. This happened five times. Olivia was sympathetic but firm.
“I’m sorry, darling, I’d be scared stiff myself, but it’s no good wasting all the afternoon holding on to the barrier and never getting on to the ice. Be brave and take the plunge.”
Harriet looked as desperate as she felt.
“Would you think I’d feel braver if I shut my eyes?”
“No, darling, I think that would be fatal, someone would be bound to knock you down.”
It was at that moment that Olivia felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned round. Behind her sat an elderly lady looking rather like a cottage loaf. She wore a grey coat and skirt which bulged over her chest to make the top half of the loaf, and over her tail and front to make the bottom half. On her head she wore a neat black straw hat; she was knitting what looked as if it would be a jersey, in white wool.
“If you’ll wait a moment, ma’am, I’ll signal to my little girl, she’ll take her on to the ice for you.”
“Isn’t that kind! Which is your little girl?”
The lady stood up. Standing up she was even more like a cottage loaf than she had been when she was sitting down. She waved her knitting.
“She’s not really mine, I’m her nurse.”
From the centre of the ring the waving was answered. Harriet nudged her mother.
“Lalla Moore.”
Lalla cared nothing for people who went round pretending they were express trains, or for creepers and crawlers; she came flying across the rink as if she were running across an empty field.
“What is it, Nana?”
“This little girl, dear.” Nana turned to Harriet. “You won’t have been on the ice before, will you, dear?”
Harriet was gazing at Lalla.
“No, and I don’t really want to now. The doctor says I’ve got to, it’s to stop my legs being cotton-wool.”
Nana looked at Harriet’s legs wearing an I-thought-as-much expression.
“Take her carefully, Lalla, don’t let her fall.”
Lalla took hold of Harriet’s hands. She moved backwards. Suddenly Harriet found she was on the ice.
“You’ll have to try and straighten your legs a little, because then I can tow you.”
Harriet’s knees and ankles hadn’t been very good at standing straight on an ordinary floor since she had been ill, but in skates and boots it was terribly difficult. But Lalla had been skating for so long she could not see anything difficult about standing up on skates, and, because she did not find anything difficult about it, Harriet began to believe it could not be as difficult as it looked. Presently, Lalla, skating backwards, had towed her into the centre of the rink.
“There, now I’ll show you how to start. Put your feet apart.” With great difficulty Harriet got her feet into the sort of position that Lalla wanted. “Now lift them up. First your right foot. Put it down on the ice. Now your left foot. Now put it down.”
Nana, having asked Olivia’s permission to do so, had moved into the seat next to her. First of all they discussed Harriet’s illness and her leg muscles. Then Olivia said:
“Mr Matthews pointed out your child to us. I hear she’s been skating since she was a baby; you used to push her here in a perambulator, didn’t you?”
Nana laid her knitting in her lap. She could hear from Olivia’s tone she thought it odd teaching a baby to skate.
“So I did too, and I didn’t like it. I never have held with fancy upbringing for my children, and I never will.”
“But her father was a great skater, wasn’t he?”
“He was Cyril Moore. But maybe your father was a great preacher, ma’am, but that isn’t to say you want to spend all your life preaching.”
Olivia laughed.
“My father has a citrus estate in South Africa, and I’ve certainly never wanted to spend all my life growing oranges and lemons.”
“Nor would her father have wanted skating as a baby for Lalla. Bless him, he was a lovely gentleman and so was her mother a lovely lady.”
“What happened to them?”
“Well, he was the kind of gentleman that must always be doing something dangerous. He only had to see a board up saying ‘Don’t skate, danger’ and he was on the ice in a minute. That’s how he went, and poor Mrs Moore with him. Seems he was on a pond; they say there was a warning out the ice wouldn’t bear, but anyway they both popped through it, and were never seen alive again.”
“Oh, dear, what a sad story, and who is bringing little Lalla up?”
Nana’s voice took on a reserved tone.