Little Stars Read online

  ‘I am pleased,’ said Bertie, hugging me to him at last. ‘So, are you going to grow your hair even longer and talk in a husky manner and wear odd gowns without waists and have beads clanking down to your knees now that you’re an actress?’

  I giggled, though I thought Miss Royal looked wonderful, and certainly had considered fashioning myself a gown in the new art style.

  ‘I’m going to wear a little fur suit with a tail,’ said Diamond. ‘And Hetty says I can wear special red greasepaint on my lips to make my mouth look really smiley. She’s shown me how to stretch like a cat, and bat at people with my paw if I don’t like them. She says I’ll make everyone laugh.’

  ‘And you will. You two will be the stars of the show,’ said Bertie. ‘My Little Stars.’

  I so hoped he was right. I took the rehearsals very seriously indeed, straining to prove that I could be as good an actress as anyone. Well, I knew I could never be as good as Marina Royal. She was wonderfully scary as the Red Queen, striding about the stage bellowing ‘Off with her head!’ However, I was pretty certain I was already better than Stella. I wondered if she was annoyed with me for taking over her part, but she seemed relieved more than anything.

  She seemed very vague and distracted, mumbling her way through her series of minor parts. I gathered from the way she kept looking at Cedric, the young male lead, that she was hopelessly in love, but he seemed barely aware of her existance. She only came into her own as the Mock Turtle towards the end of the piece, playing it in her natural melancholy manner. She had a surprisingly good singing voice, high and pure.

  The whole cast had to join in the Lobster-Quadrille dance, which was very nearly my undoing. I had never danced before and discovered I was hopeless at it.

  ‘It’s a very simple routine, Emerald. You’re so quick at picking things up, you’ll learn it in ten minutes,’ said Miss Royal.

  It soon became obvious that I’d still be stumbling and getting my feet mixed up in ten hours. I wondered if I were simply self-conscious in front of the others, but I was equally hopeless when I tried to practise at home. When I failed to remember the dance for what seemed like the fiftieth time, I threw myself on the bed, thumping my pillow in despair.

  ‘Don’t get upset, Hetty. Shall I help you learn it?’ Diamond offered.

  She really had learned the dance in ten minutes, moving naturally this way and that, her feet tapping and thumping and pointing obediently.

  ‘Yes please, do help me,’ I said humbly.

  Our usual roles were now reversed. Diamond instructed me in every way she knew, being endlessly encouraging, while I did my best to copy her.

  ‘How do you know to start with your left foot rather than your right, and to turn round clockwise rather than anti-clockwise, when I didn’t even think you could tell left from right, and I know for a fact that you can’t tell the time properly,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know how I know. I just sort of do it.’

  She could also turn perfect cartwheels and walk bent backwards like a crab. She hadn’t needed to be taught. She could just do it instinctively.

  It took me a long, painful time to learn the dance. I found I was even stumbling through it in my sleep. I practised everywhere I could. Thelma saw me trying to perfect the simple step-tap-tap, step-tap-tap in a corner of the crowded dressing room and laughed at me. But then she stood alongside me and showed me how to do it very slowly until I stepped out properly instead of dithering and hopping all over the place.

  ‘That’s it, girl, you’re getting it!’ she said. ‘Then you can progress to this – and this – and this!’ She danced the most complicated little routine in her high-heeled boots, her strong muscled legs moving so fast I could barely follow what she was doing.

  ‘You’re so clever, Thelma,’ I said, clapping her.

  ‘I wish I was,’ she said. ‘It strikes me you’re the clever one. You’re already everybody’s pet. You’ll go far. But you’ll have to learn to look out for yourself. Is Samson still giving you grief?’

  ‘Oh, I’m managing to keep out of his way,’ I said cheerily.

  I was also having to keep out of his so-called aunt’s way. Mrs Ruby wasn’t at all pleased that Diamond and I were taking part in the play.

  ‘You should have asked my permission first! I’m the one who employs you. The Players aren’t part of my company, they’re just here for the season. They’ve no right to involve you and your little sister. You’ll get distracted and mess up your performance – if you can be bothered to get here on time,’ she said snippily.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Ruby. I’ve only been late once, and I’ll make sure it never happens again. Our performance will be perfect every night, I promise you,’ I said sincerely. She simply sniffed at me, refusing to be mollified.

  I didn’t really care. I’d rather admired her before, but now I only had eyes for Miss Royal. She was being so kind, helping me with all sorts of little suggestions for playing Alice. Mr Parkinson was the director, but he basically told me to stand here or turn there. He didn’t help me become Alice.

  ‘No need to take it so seriously – it’s hardly Shakespeare, just a little piece of childish comic business to amuse the hoi polloi,’ he said loftily.

  But Miss Royal had a different attitude altogether. She took all acting seriously. We had long discussions about what kind of little girl Alice was. It was hard for me at first because I couldn’t imagine a girl like Alice in the Foundling Hospital. She was so calm, so confident, so curious. She coped splendidly in the bizarre world of Wonderland. I wondered how she’d fare dealing with Matron Bottomly. If she’d shaken her head contemptuously and poked her starched apron and told her she was nothing but a playing card, she’d have been whipped.

  I was disconcerted by the long blonde wig Miss Royal fished out of the props box. It was a little big for me, but she managed to tie a blue ribbon tightly round it so that it didn’t slip too much. I looked so strange with fair hair.

  ‘You really do look like my big sister now!’ said Diamond.

  The fair hair somehow made my face look softer, and not quite so pale, and my eyes looked more intensely blue. I peered hard in the looking glass in Miss Royal’s dressing room. Did I actually look pretty now? I was so used to being plain.

  I couldn’t wait for Bertie to see me transformed. I asked Miss Royal if he could possibly sit in on a rehearsal. She looked doubtful, and said that the company always liked to rehearse in private.

  ‘Oh please, please, Miss Royal. Bertie will be very quiet and very discreet. You won’t even know he’s there,’ I said. ‘And it’s not as if he’s some outsider. He’s one of the Cavalcade artistes.’

  ‘It sounds as if you’re really fond of him. Is he your sweetheart?’ she asked, sounding amused.

  I felt myself blushing. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Well, try not to lose your heart to someone you’ve only known five minutes, dear.’

  ‘I’ve known him a long time, since I was a servant and he was the local butcher’s boy,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, that sounds exactly like a music-hall song! Very well, Bertie can come and watch tomorrow, so long as he doesn’t make you lose concentration. You have the makings of a superb little actress, Emerald. I don’t want you to be distracted.’

  ‘Oh, I won’t be, I promise!’ I declared. ‘I’m so grateful to you, Miss Royal. Thank you so much.’

  It was all wasted effort, because when I told Bertie he could come the following day, he shook his head. ‘I don’t think I really want to, if it’s all the same to you,’ he said.

  ‘What? Look, this is a special favour! Miss Royal doesn’t usually let anyone watch rehearsals,’ I said indignantly.

  ‘I don’t want any special favours from Miss Royal, thanks very much.’

  ‘Don’t you want to watch me? Don’t you care? This is the most important thing in my life!’

  ‘I know it is,’ said Bertie shortly.

  ‘Well, the most important work thing. Not