Remember Me (4 page)

But…no! This was wrong. This should not be happening at all. This was not what she had expected or wanted. She struggled to free both her hands then she pushed him away. ‘Samuel…no!’ she cried. ‘We can’t… We mustn’t… It’s not right. I didn’t know. I wanted you to kiss me, that’s all. I don’t understand…’ Her voice petered out as she looked at him in puzzlement and fear.

His eyes were dark and brooding. She could see the disbelief there and the annoyance, verging on anger. ‘Don’t start that silly nonsense with me,’ he began as she straightened her skirt and, fumblingly, tried to fasten the buttons on her blouse.

‘I could tell you were dying for it; so why the play-acting now, eh?’

‘I’m not… I wasn’t…’ she faltered. ‘I don’t know what you mean…’

‘Of course you know what I mean. You’ve been making up to me for months, for years, really. It’s a bit late now to tell me that you don’t want to. You’re nothing but a tease, Madeleine Moon. There’s a name for girls like you… But I won’t offend your delicate little ears by uttering it.’ He was looking at her more dispassionately now, the fury in his eyes abating. But his face was still stern and unsmiling as he said, ‘I really thought you had grown up. And I thought, well…’ He gave a dismissive shrug. ‘I thought with you being a pro – an artiste, if you like – that you would be only too willing, if you know what I mean.’ He sighed. ‘It really is time you knew what was going on in the world around you, Maddy.’

A myriad of thoughts were flashing through her mind as she listened to what he was saying. And she realised that it was true; that she knew very little at all about what went on between a man and a woman when they did what was called ‘making love’. It was still a mystery to her, although she knew it must have a lot to do with kissing, the passionate sort of kissing that Samuel had wanted to do, and the other things: the feeling in her breasts and in that other more intimate part of her. And it was vaguely connected with having monthly periods as well; she knew that.

When her periods had started it had been soon after her father and Faith had got married. She had known a little about it from what some of the other girls at school had said. But it was not something that was supposed to be talked about. Aunty Faith had explained to her what was happening to her body; that she was growing up and it was nature’s way of preparing her for when she got married and had babies. But Aunty Faith was far too ladylike to tell her anything other than that. Now, however, she was beginning to have an inkling as to what might be involved. She remembered something that a very rude boy had once said in the playground, but she and Evie, her best friend at that time, had been too shocked to even think about it or believe it might be true.

‘I’m sorry, Samuel,’ she said now. ‘I didn’t…I don’t understand, honestly I don’t. I wanted you to kiss me because…because I thought you loved me.’

He smiled at that, rather sadly. ‘I’m fond of you, Maddy,’ he replied. ‘Of course I am. I’ve known you ever since you were a little girl. You were my sister’s friend. And I couldn’t help but notice that you liked me,’ he added with a touch of superiority. ‘You weren’t exactly backward in coming forward, as one might say. You made your feelings very clear. That’s why I thought…’

‘I loved you, Samuel,’ she replied, feeling puzzled. ‘I do…love you. And I thought – well, you know, after what you said at Christmas…an’ all
that – I thought there was something special between us…’

‘Oh, Maddy, Maddy,’ he cried, shaking his head and giving an exasperated sigh. ‘I’ve told you – I’m fond of you. And I’m sorry if I misread the signs. But let’s forget all this nonsense about love, shall we? Believe me, Madeleine, you will fall in love many many times, or imagine you have done so, before you meet the man who is the one for you. And I know that I am certainly not the one,’ he added, with a brusqueness that caused a stab of anguish right through her. But she managed to control herself.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m a silly fool and I’ve made such a mess of things. You won’t say anything, will you – to Jessie? I haven’t told anybody, not even Jessie about…about what I thought.’

‘Give me credit for a bit of common sense, Madeleine,’ scoffed Samuel. ‘I’m not in the habit of having intimate conversations with my sister, or with any of my family for that matter. I seem to recall, though, that Jessica had a soft spot for your brother at one time, didn’t she? But I’m pleased to say she seems to have got over it.’

‘Patrick…yes,’ agreed Maddy. ‘I think she did rather…like him. But he’s engaged to Katy now and Jessie’s concentrating on her exams and getting a good job.’

‘Good for her,’ said Samuel, although he sounded
as though he were not particularly interested. ‘Now, I think it’s time that you should be going home. We don’t want – what is she called…Susannah? – getting worried about you. Come along then. “Put on your ta-ta, little girlie…”’ He laughed as he quoted the music hall song he had heard earlier that evening, helping Maddy to slip on her jacket and watching with a grin on his face as she fastened her saucy little hat on top of her golden curls.

Conversation did not flow easily as they walked to the tram stop, nor on the rattling noisy tramcar as it made its way down Woodhouse Lane and thence on to City Square, where they alighted. Maddy’s lodgings were just off Wellington Street, a couple of minutes’ walk away. It wasn’t until they reached her door that he told her, with an air of nonchalance, that it was more than likely that she would not be seeing him at all in the near future, at least not for a while, and neither would the rest of his family.

‘When I have been awarded my degree this summer,’ he said, with the confidence of one who would never consider the possibility of failure, ‘I am hoping to join an expedition to Peru.’

‘Peru?’ gasped Maddy. ‘You mean… South America?’

‘Of course,’ smiled Samuel. ‘I’m glad your geography is up to scratch. Yes; a silver mining expedition. The sort of thing I have always wanted to do.’

‘Yes, so I remember,’ said Maddy, recalling his interest in fossils and old rocks and such like from the very first time she had met him, which had led him eventually to go on to study for a degree in Geology. ‘Well then, I hope it all works out for you, according to plan.’

‘I’m sure it will,’ he replied. ‘I’ll see you before I go, though, to say cheerio.’ He leant forward to kiss her cheek. ‘Goodnight, Maddy. Thank you for a very nice evening. I have enjoyed your company…in spite of everything. Now, promise me that you won’t worry about anything? It’s all water under the bridge, as they say.’

‘No…no, I won’t,’ she replied, feeling a lump forming in her throat. ‘And thank you too, Samuel.’

With a casual salute he was gone, leaving Maddy to find her key and let herself into the dark hallway. She was sharing a room on the first floor with Susannah and Nancy, the menfolk being across the corridor. There was only a vague stirring from the other two beds as she undressed in the dark and then crept between the sheets. She did not even consider whether or not they could hear her muffled sobs, sobs of misery and perplexity and humiliation, as she said goodbye to her foolish and naive girlhood dream.

Chapter Three

M
addy slept surprisingly well, despite the trauma of the evening. When she awoke it took a few moments for her to become acclimatised to yet another strange bedroom. Her eyes took in the dark brown, floral pattern of the wallpaper, the massive wardrobe looming like a giant in the corner, the two other beds in close proximity to her own, and the early morning sunlight stealing through the thin fabric of the curtains. Yes, of course; they were in Leeds this week.

And the remembrance of what had happened the previous night hit her then with the force of a thunderbolt. Samuel…his kisses, which had turned out to be not what she had expected; and then her own stupid, childish behaviour. She had ruined everything that there might have been between them. But Samuel had said that there wasn’t anything; she had been mistaken. He didn’t love her; he was fond of her, that was all. And neither should she imagine that she loved him, or so he had told her. But I do! I do! a part of her cried out; whilst the more rational side of her mind was conjuring up, almost against her will, the memory
of the annoyance in his eyes when things had started to go wrong; and then the casual way in which he had told her of his plans for the future, and the lack of warmth in his goodbye to her.

It hurt; goodness, how it hurt! There was a pain in the region of her heart and an odd feeling of emptiness. But there was embarrassment, too, when she recalled how she had behaved like an idiot, like a foolish little girl who didn’t know anything about…anything.

Susannah, in the bed nearest to her, was stirring, raising herself up on one elbow to look at Maddy. A Susannah that her public would never be allowed to see, with a pink sleeping net covering her blonde curls and her face devoid of make-up.

‘Hello there, Maddy,’ she called. ‘Finding it hard to wake up this morning, are you?’

‘Mmm…yes; I was rather late getting in,’ replied Maddy.

‘You dirty stop-out, you!’ Susannah laughed. ‘I didn’t wait up for you, ’cause I knew you’d be all right with your brother. Did you have a good time? It would be nice to see him again, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes, it was,’ said Maddy. ‘And, yes…we had a good time, a very nice meal.’ She paused. ‘Actually, he’s my stepbrother, not my real brother.’

‘I think you told me that.’ Susannah nodded, looking at her keenly. ‘Why? Is there something wrong? You look rather worried, love. You haven’t had some bad news, have you; family news?’

‘No, not at all; nothing like that,’ replied Maddy. ‘But I’m…well, yes, I am rather worried about something. D’you think I could have a chat with you, Susannah, sometime today? Perhaps this afternoon?’

‘Yes, why not?’ agreed Susannah. ‘We’re free until the first house starts, aren’t we? Shall we find a nice little café and have lunch together? Just you and me, eh?’

‘Yes, that sounds like a good idea,’ said Maddy, but a little doubtfully. She didn’t want people on the nearby tables eavesdropping; she wanted to ask her friend something very, very personal.

Susannah put her head on one side, watching her a trifle anxiously. ‘I take it you want to have a heart-to-heart chat about something? Am I right?’ Maddy nodded. ‘Well, whatever it is, don’t look so worried. I’m sure we’ll be able to sort it out.’

‘I’m sure we will,’ said Maddy, smiling uncertainly.

Susannah grinned. ‘That’s right; you tell yer Aunty Susie what’s worrying you. I daresay it’ll all come out in the wash, as my mam used to say. I tell you what; I’ve got a better idea. It looks as though it’s going to be a nice day. How about us getting a tramcar out to Roundhay Park and spending a couple of hours there? I’ve been told it’s well worth a visit and we ought to find out what the city has to offer whilst we’re here.’

‘Yes, that’s a much better idea,’ agreed Maddy,
with more enthusiasm. ‘Like you say, there’s the promise of a fine day.’ She glanced across to the third bed, which was empty. ‘It looks as though the sunshine has got Nancy out of bed already.’

‘Oh, Nancy’s always an early bird,’ said Susannah. ‘She’s probably taking her little doggies for a walk before breakfast.’

Maddy nodded. ‘Yes, I expect so… There’ll be just you and me going to the park, won’t there?’

‘Yes, of course; I said so, didn’t I?’

‘Yes, you did. It’s just that…well, it’s rather private. I don’t want the rest of the troupe to know anything about it. Frank won’t mind, will he, you going off on a jaunt without him?’

‘No, why on earth should he?’ Susannah laughed. ‘We don’t live in one another’s pockets, you know. I must admit we’ve got rather friendly recently; well, a great deal more than friendly, as I’m sure everybody knows. But we’ll have to see how it goes. We’re both pretty independent people, Frank and me. It’s strange; we’d known one another for years, always enjoyed a chat and a laugh together, and then, somehow, something just clicked between us and… Bob’s yer uncle!

‘Now then…’ She pushed back the bedclothes, revealing her shapely legs as her feet felt around for her fur-trimmed slippers. ‘Shall I use the bathroom first, or do you want to?’

‘No, it’s all right; you have first turn,’ replied Maddy. ‘I’ll put my clothes away in the wardrobe. I
left them all higgledy-piggledy when I came in last night.’ Her garments of underwear were scattered on the floor with her hat on top of them, and her blouse and smart suit had been flung untidily over the back of a chair.

‘Very well then; I won’t be long,’ said Susannah, slipping a pink velvet dressing gown over her pink silken nightdress. ‘Toodle-oo…’

Maddy guessed that she would, in fact, be a good fifteen or twenty minutes, having a strip-wash in the small bathroom at the end of the corridor. Guests were not permitted to take baths in the morning or, indeed, at whatever time they wished. Hot water was in short supply and so each guest was allowed one bath per week, or per stay.

Maddy, along with the other members of the troupe, was learning to accept the rules and regulations of the various lodging houses in which they stayed. She knew that they were quite fortunate to have a bathroom at all, and an indoor toilet. At some of their digs there was a bowl and a large jug on a washstand in the corner of the bedroom, which the landlady would fill with hot water twice a day, if they were lucky. In those households they had to resort to a chamber pot beneath the bed, or the whitewashed lav at the end of the backyard.

Sleeping arrangements varied as well. Sometimes the married couples managed to get rooms on their own, and Maddy knew that sometimes Susannah
and Frank shared a room as though they, too, were a couple. At other times the men shared one or two rooms and the ladies another, as they were doing this week. On the whole, their digs at Mrs Howard’s establishment in Leeds were more than adequate. She provided a cooked breakfast and would rustle up a snack for them at other times if they required one. She even accommodated Nancy’s two West Highland terriers in comfortable baskets in the kitchen. Daisy and Dolly were a very popular turn on the programme, wherever they were playing. Because they were performing dogs they were well-trained and obedient, though not meek or subservient. Nancy loved them as though they were her children, which, indeed, they were as she and Pete had no sons or daughters. Sometimes the dogs had to make do with a makeshift kennel or a garden shed in which to sleep, if the landlady was not fond of animals. It was not often that they were allowed in the bedroom, which was what Nancy would have liked.

Maddy tidied up her clothes, hanging her suit in the wardrobe, then she made her bed. She was feeling a little calmer now and she tried to push to the back of her mind the thoughts of what a silly fool she had made of herself last night. Well, at least she knew where she stood now with regard to Samuel. She would just have to put it behind her and get on with her life. Like a true ‘pro’, she thought wryly. She had heard many stories of how
dedicated artistes carried on despite their heartbreak and misery. What was it they said? The show must go on…

She guessed that Susannah might well have suffered her share of heartache along the way. Maddy knew that she had had a succession of gentlemen friends and admirers, but had never been married. She had attracted a fair number of what she called ‘stage door Johnnies’ in the past, but since Maddy had joined the troupe Susannah seemed to have settled into a stable relationship with Frank Morrison. Audiences, seeing her up on the stage, singing and dancing and flirting with the menfolk in her own inimitable style, might take her to be nineteen or twenty years of age, but when you observed her more closely you realised she was older than that. Maddy was not sure how old, and no one else seemed to be sure either, but the consensus of opinion was that she was well past thirty.

Maddy admired her very much, and in spite of her being considerably – well, quite a few years – her senior, Susannah was still the nearest female to her in age, and the one who had treated her more as a friend than as a child who needed taking care of. She sat on the bed now, thinking about Susannah, who was, as usual, taking a good deal of time over her morning ablutions; and about the other members of the troupe. They had hardly changed at all since she had watched them on the sands with Jessie, when she was a little girl…

Frank Morrison, Susannah’s friend, was still something of an enigma to Maddy. She liked him well enough, but she was a little in awe of him and dubious about his droll sense of humour. She could never tell whether he was being serious or having her on. He was a very talented performer who could turn his hand to almost anything. He played the piano accordion, the mouth organ and the banjo; he could sing quite passably and dance a little; and he was also a ‘funny man’ with a good selection of amusing – rather lengthy – stories, which he related in his own peculiar style. His lugubrious expression would convince the audience he was being serious until, at the last minute, there would come the punchline, and they would shriek with laughter as his solemn face broke into a beaming smile.

Frank was what might be called a jack of all trades, but far from being master of none he had a talent for most of the performing arts. This, indeed, was a requirement for anyone who joined Percy Morgan’s troupe, either in the summer as a Pierrot or out of season as a Melody Maker. They all needed to be versatile enough to take part in sketches, to act as a stooge to a comedian, or to join in a chorus line, singing or dancing. Percy Morgan himself was a good baritone singer as well as being able to act and to take part in comedy duos. But his chief function was to act as leader and to make sure that all was running smoothly amongst the
members of his little concert party. His wife, Letty, was a very able musician who could tackle the music for all kinds of songs and dance routines, and act in sketches as well, when required.

Nancy Pritchard’s act was unique because she had the performing dogs, Daisy and Dolly, who danced, jumped through hoops and over obstacles, obeyed all her commands in a delightful manner, and endeared themselves to audiences with their friendly faces, wagging tails and immaculately white coats. It was obvious, too, that they were much loved. Nancy, it must be admitted, did little else but perform with her dogs and look after them, but her husband, Pete, was a good all-rounder. He sang a little, danced a little, was the chief comedian and played the male lead in the sketches; and during the summer at the Pierrot shows he acted as the ‘bottler’, collecting the money from the crowd. Pete and Nancy did not really need to earn money in this way; it was well known that they had ‘independent means’. They lived in York in a leafy suburb where they owned a comfortable detached house, left to them by Pete’s parents. So Nancy had told Maddy, but not in a boasting fashion; Nancy knew that they were very fortunate. Pete had been the only child of a successful solicitor. He had tried, but without a great deal of enthusiasm, to follow in his father’s footsteps. But his heart was not in it and so, eventually, he had left the business in a partner’s capable hands and concentrated on his first love,
the stage. A decision with which Nancy had only been too pleased to concur.

Barney and Benjy – Barnaby Dewhurst and Benjamin Carstairs; now they were an unusual couple and no mistake! Maddy had been puzzled at Susannah’s remarks about them and the reason why neither of them had married. Come to think of it, she hadn’t stated a reason except that they were wedded to their art. They were certainly brilliant in their tap-dancing routines, their feet, clad in shiny patent leather, flashing to and fro like quicksilver; their equally flashing smiles which delighted the audiences revealing gleaming pearly white teeth. Benjy was blonde-haired and fresh-faced, a perfect complement to Barney, whose hair was dark and sleek and who had a leaner look about him. Admittedly they, too, did little else besides dance. They might, occasionally, be coerced into taking part in a sketch or a chorus line, and always, of course, in the final scene when all the troupe appeared on the stage; but it was their song and dance routines that were a favourite with the audiences, especially with the ladies.

Carlo – his real name was Charles – and Queenie Colman had joined the troupe somewhat later than the other members, when Charlie Wagstaff, the ‘character man’, had retired. Carlo had stepped partially into Charlie’s shoes. He performed monologues such as ‘Gunga Din’ and ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus’, and acted in character as a tramp,
a policeman or a Chelsea pensioner. But his chief asset was his superb tenor voice. He sang solos, and also duets with Queenie. She was – or had been at one time – a vibrant mezzo-soprano. Her voice was now a little wobbly, as was her magnificent bosom. Maddy remembered how she and Jessie had hardly been able to control their giggles the first time they had seen her perform on Scarborough sands.