‘That’s nice,’ Lottie said politely, accepting a slab of cake. ‘And I gather you come to the theatre sometimes since you recognised my name?’
‘Oh aye, I come most weeks,’ the old woman assured them. ‘I gets free tickets in winter when the panto season finishes and you’re a bit quiet like. You see, me sister’s eldest boy married the wardrobe mistress, and she gets what she calls “comps” from time to time, what means they’re free, though I reckon you know that.’ She beamed at Lottie. ‘I used to come special to see you and your mam, ’cos you were such a sweet kid, all blonde curls and big blue eyes. Mind you, I were surprised when your hair turned dark so sudden, and your mam became your sister, along with this ’ere other gal, but I reckon that’s thee-ay-ter for you.’
Lottie smiled at her. ‘My hair always was dark,’ she said gently. ‘But Louella thought that because we were mother and daughter we ought to look more alike, so I had my hair bleached. She really is fair-haired, though she does lighten it a little.’
The old woman nodded slowly. ‘Aye, now you mention it, when I first saw you your hair were dark. But that really were a long time ago. Now eat up that cake and drink your tea, then I’ll walk you to the end of the road. I’d like to keep you longer because to have two stars of the Gaiety sittin’ in me very own kitchen, suppin’ tea and eatin’ cake, is like a dream come true. The Lacey Sisters is me favourite act, though I like Mr and Mrs Magic as well, but when I tell my daughter I’ve met you, talked to you like you was just anybody, she’ll probably think I’m goin’ off me head.’
Both girls laughed, but Merle said gently: ‘I’m sure your daughter will believe you, if you explain what happened . . . the fog and us gettin’ lost, I mean. I don’t know whether we mentioned it, but we wandered for ages without seein’ a single light in any window. It were dead lucky for us that we ended up in Isobel Court and saw that someone was still up.’
The old woman had perched herself on one of the upright kitchen chairs. ‘Lucky for you I don’t sleep so good any more,’ she observed. ‘I don’t usually tek to me bed till well after midnight, and even then I can’t always sleep.’ She gave the girls a quick, twinkling glance. ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t see no point in trudging up all them stairs to a cold room and a colder bed. So quite often I dosses down on that there couch; if you look underneath it you’ll see there’s blankets and a piller stowed away there. That way, I keep nice and warm all night and I nips out o’ bed when it begins to get light, pokes up the fire, and pulls the kettle over the flame. I can have a nice cuppa while I wash in the sink, and since I’m already dressed in me underthings, I lays me skirt and that over one of the chairs before the fire, and dresses meself in the twinkling of a bedpost. Only don’t you go tellin’ no one,’ she added, ‘because me daughter don’t see it my way. She’s not lived aboard a canal barge since she were a child, where there’s only one room, you see.’
She beamed at them and Lottie suddenly realised why the old woman’s face was so brown and furrowed with wrinkles. If you lived an outdoor life for many years, your skin turned leathery; Louella had often been heard to remark on the injurious effects of too much sunshine. If Mrs Donovan had spent all her working life aboard a canal barge, it would account for the state of her complexion.
‘We won’t tell a soul,’ Merle assured their new friend. She drank the last of her tea and stood up, gesturing Lottie to follow suit. ‘It’s been ever so nice meetin’ you, Mrs Donovan, and I don’t like to ask you to venture out on such a night, but we really must be gettin’ home. So if you wouldn’t mind . . .’
‘Course you does, course you does,’ the old woman gabbled. She kicked off her old felt slippers and thrust her feet into a pair of stout boots, then reached down a number of shawls which hung on hooks on the back of the kitchen door and began to muffle herself in them. She was surprisingly quick and was ready before Lottie and Merle had scrambled into their own coats, buttoned up and wound their thick scarves about them. Mrs Donovan then picked up a lamp, lit it, and set off briskly towards the door. She accompanied them as far as Hopwood Street and they thanked her profusely, both for the refreshment they had enjoyed in her house and for seeing them safely on to a main road.
To Lottie’s relief, the fog was already beginning to thin and she had no doubt that they would find their way home safely. Indeed, they had barely turned in to Scotland Road when they saw two well-muffled figures coming towards them. ‘It’s Baz and Uncle Max, come to search for us,’ Merle said joyfully. ‘Oh, they must have been most dreadfully worried; I just hope they aren’t going to be awful cross.’
When Max and Baz greeted them, however, it was clear that relief was their main emotion. ‘I was beginning to wonder whether you’d wandered into the dock area,’ Max said, giving both girls a hug. ‘As for your mam, Lottie, she was nigh on hysterical, saying it was all her fault for keeping you out late. Now come along, best foot forward, otherwise you’re not going to get any sleep at all before morning. And while we walk, you can tell us how you come to be such a long way from home. We thought at first you must have gone into Mrs Parrot’s place with Jack, but we knocked the old girl up – Jack must sleep like the dead – and she assured us they’d not seen hide nor hair of you. By then, though, the fog was beginning to lift, so we simply kept on searching. Now tell us your side of the story.’
The two girls explained, making the most of their fright when they had realised they were lost, and praising Mrs Donovan for her kindness. ‘We’ll have to make sure she comes to the Gaiety whenever she wants to and gets a complimentary ticket every time,’ Lottie said. ‘She was so nice, Max, and a really keen theatregoer. She first started coming to the theatre when I was just a kid; she remembered my hair changing colour and everything!’
‘I reckon you two girls ought to club together and buy her a box of chocolates,’ Baz said, speaking for the first time. ‘Everyone likes to gobble chocolates whilst watching a performance.’
‘What a good idea, Baz,’ Merle said eagerly. ‘We’ll do it, won’t we, Lottie?’ She was walking beside Baz, but Lottie thought her friend had not liked to take Baz’s arm and Baz, whilst not appearing to avoid her, had still managed to keep a little distance between them. ‘Lottie? Did you hear what I said?’
Lottie blinked, then spoke apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, I think I’m sleepwalking, but I did hear, and I agree, of course. Tomorrow’s Sunday, but we’ll go out first thing on Monday and buy some. We can take the comps to her at the same time.’
Louella was delighted to see them when they came into the kitchen. She hugged both girls exuberantly and told them she had put hot bottles into their beds and would make them a nice cup of cocoa to warm them up. ‘And I think I’ve solved your problem, Merle,’ she said. ‘There are really nice places, full of kind understanding people, who take girls who’ve got into trouble and look after them until their babies are born. Then they arrange the adoption and everything, and the girls can take up their old lives where they left off.’
Merle looked doubtful and cast an appealing glance at Max. ‘Is that what you want me to do, Uncle Max?’ she asked.
Max nodded. ‘It’s for the best, darling Merle; I’m sure it is,’ he said gravely. ‘This way, we shall avoid any trace of scandal – we’ll tell folk you’ve had to go home to look after your mother. And when you return, everything will be back to normal.’
Merle looked hunted. She turned to Baz. ‘What do you think, Baz?’
‘I agree with Louella and my dad,’ Baz said quickly. ‘It is for the best, honest to God, Merle. No one will know anything; you won’t have to say a word to your pa and before you know it you’ll be back here, one o’ the Lacey Sisters, and doin’ all your modern dance routines, as though you’d never been away.’
Lottie thought he had meant to give Merle an encouraging smile, but somehow it didn’t quite come off and Merle turned away quickly and went to the table to pick up her mug of cocoa. ‘I think I’ll take this up to bed,’ she said, not meeting anyone’s eyes. ‘I’m that tired, I could sleep for a week. You comin’, Lottie?’
‘Hang on a minute, I didn’t mean . . .’ Max was beginning anxiously, but Merle had already left the room, so Lottie turned and smiled apologetically.
‘Sorry, Max, but it is true that we’re both absolutely exhausted,’ she said. ‘And talking, when you’re tired out, is never a good idea. You can give us all the details at breakfast.’
Max looked worried. ‘Yes, but I wouldn’t want Merle worrying all night because we’d not explained properly . . .’ he began, but Lottie shook her head.
‘Don’t start, please, Max, because I’m far too tired to listen properly,’ she said firmly. ‘Goodnight, one and all – see you at breakfast.’
By the time Lottie got upstairs Merle was already in bed, having clearly not bothered to wash. Lottie did not blame her: the bedroom was freezing cold and there was a thin film of ice across the top of the ewer, so she gladly followed Merle’s example, ripping off her own clothes and dropping them on the floor before bounding between the sheets. It was lovely to find the bed well warmed and she remarked to Merle that they should soon be asleep, adding that no one was likely to wake them early on the Sunday morning, since they had had such a nasty adventure in the fog. ‘Though it didn’t end nastily,’ she added. ‘Mrs Donovan was ever so nice. And – and it does look as though Louella and Max mean to do what’s best for you. Louella must have agreed to have you back after the baby’s born, and it would be awkward, you know, if you stayed here with us, to hide your – your condition.’
Merle mumbled something, but her voice was muffled by the pillow and Lottie had to ask her to repeat what she had said. Merle gave an exasperated yelp, and shot upright in bed. Her eyes were very bright and she looked extremely angry. ‘I am not goin’ into one of them awful homes, like Effie Evans did,’ she said positively. ‘Uncle Max don’t know nothin’ if he thinks they’s nice to you in them places. Effie went when she were seven months gone and they hired her out as a scrubbin’ woman, and the people she was made to work for treated her like dirt. When her time come, the staff bullied her, smacked her across the face, and told her she was a dirty little slut and if she died in childbirth it would be no more than she deserved. I bleedin’ well won’t get sent to somewhere like that. I’ll kill meself first.’
Lottie was genuinely alarmed. She, too, had heard horrible and frightening stories about ‘homes for bad girls’ and she sympathised with her friend, but never before had Merle threatened to harm herself, and Lottie thought she had sounded as though she meant it.
‘Don’t be so foolish, Merle,’ she said, in a scolding tone. ‘If you explain to your Uncle Max how you feel, I’m sure he’ll understand. And now we’d better get to sleep or we’ll be a couple of wrecks in the morning.’
‘I’ll never sleep,’ Merle wailed. ‘I’m far too upset. I never thought me uncle could be so heartless, and as for Baz . . . well, I’m just glad he ain’t me boyfriend any more now that he’s shown himself in his true colours. As for that Alex, I just wish there was some way I could get me own back on him. It ain’t fair, is it, Lottie? A feller persuades you to do what you know is wrong and then he just walks away. Well, if we do go back to Yarmouth next summer, I’ll make him suffer, see if I don’t.’
Lottie, who had sat up in bed when her friend did, snuggled down again, feeling greatly relieved. If Merle was talking of revenge and next summer, then it seemed unlikely that she meant to do away with herself immediately, and in Lottie’s experience things always looked better in daylight. And presently she heard something almost more reassuring: Merle was snoring gently.
Despite the fact that she was exhausted, or perhaps because of it, Lottie found it extremely difficult to drop off to sleep. Her mind was too active, going over and over the events of the day and wondering what to do for the best should Max prove adamant and insist that Merle enter a home for bad girls. She was after all in his care and only her father could overrule him, since Merle would not be twenty-one for another three years.
Having wrestled with that problem in vain, her thoughts then turned to Louella. She had known for a long time that Louella desperately wanted to marry Max, and had wondered why Max had never proposed. He had said it was because he wanted children and Louella did not, but Lottie thought there must be more to it than that. She had watched Louella back-pedalling with some embarrassment, for she was sure it must be as clear to everyone else as it was to her that Louella’s sudden change of heart was a last-ditch attempt to wring a proposal of marriage from the handsome and easy-going Mr Magic. Lottie, however, did not think that her mother would succeed in her aim. Max might say he wanted a comfortable wife and a cottage with roses round the door but if this was so, why had he never got himself a lady friend amongst the many girls who hung around the stage door in the hope of seeing him? Why did he go everywhere with Louella, who was anything but a comfortable woman? No matter what she might tell him in order to win his favour, Max must know, as Lottie did, that Louella was a player through and through, and would never give up her place in the spotlight for anyone, not even for Max.
When the first faint lightening of the sky began to show through their thin bedroom curtains – and Merle’s snores were at their loudest – Lottie gave up all attempt to sleep. Naturally, as soon as she did so, slumber overcame her and she found herself in the dream.
She was very happy, but that went without saying, for she had known nothing but happiness whenever she entered this particular dream. She was in a wood, with a basket hooked over one arm and a headscarf tied under her chin. She looked into the basket and saw she had been collecting sweet chestnuts, and even as she realised this saw the prickly husks at her feet, and the gleaming nuts, half hidden by the gold of fallen leaves. It’s autumn, Lottie told herself, and these nuts will be for Gran. She looked around her, at the close-crowding trees and the leaf mould beneath her feet, then she listened. Water, chuckling and gurgling somewhere ahead. Lottie smiled to herself.