‘Oh my goodness, can you believe this bedding? It’s positively dripping. I shall have to go and have a word with the landlady, it’s too much.’ Christabel Ardington-Tatler – Cat to her friends of which Sophy was one – struck a dramatic pose in the middle of the grim little room on the second floor of the theatrical lodging-house in Shepton Mallet. ‘We’ll die of pneumonia before we even get on the stage of that wretched theatre at this rate.’
Sophy dumped her valise on one of the two single beds the room held and gazed about her. The room was no worse and no better than all the others they had stayed in during the tour, but Cat always had to have her little protest at the beginning of each new lodging-house. That was just Cat. She was vocal and militant and funny and fiercely independent, but her bold, self-sufficient exterior covered a heart of gold and Sophy was very fond of her.
‘It’s no good saying anything, Cat,’ Sophy told her. ‘It won’t make any difference. You’ll just annoy her.’
‘Annoy her?’ Cat plumped down on her own bed and then let out a little shriek. ‘Look at my eiderdown, it’s all holes. The mice have been having a feast. No, I’m sorry, this time I am complaining. I’ll be back in a minute.’
After Cat had swept out of the room, Sophy opened the battered single wardrobe the room contained, wincing at the stale smell that assaulted her nose. She was definitely not hanging anything in there, it would reek for days. A slight movement in the corner of the room near the rotten skirting-board caught her attention, and a pair of bright round eyes stared at her for a second before the mouse shot back in its hole.
Mice again. Marvellous. That was another reason for not unpacking her valise. At their last stop she and Cat had found mice swinging from their clothes one morning when they had opened the wardrobe, and at another the walls had become alive with bugs at night.
She walked to the window which overlooked the street below and tried to open it, but it was stuck fast – the faded curtains hanging limply either side of the crumbling wooden frame. Lifting her eyes, she stared above the rooftops to where a bird was soaring high in the thermals, and smiled to herself. The company was playing three or four dramas a week, touring through many of the little towns of the south of England, but in spite of rehearsing all day, acting in the evening and arriving back at her lodgings in the early hours where she was lucky if she snatched five or six hours’ sleep, she was happy.
Her salary at the Lincoln had amounted to fifteen shillings a week, rising to a pound when she had gained a little experience by having a ‘walking-on’ part after six months, but when Mr Gregory had offered her the chance of joining his touring company where she might be able to tackle larger parts, she had jumped at the opportunity, even though she was financially worse off. She still earned a pound, but now, as well as having to pay for her costumes and digs, she also had to pay Dolly’s two shillings rent if she wanted to retain the tiny room which had become home.
Whilst at the Lincoln, she had managed to afford acting classes in the mornings, given by one of the working actresses from the West End. Sophy and several other girls had assembled in the actress’s sitting room, learning the techniques of a good entrance and exit, and how to throw their voices without shouting. This had been wonderful experience, not least because the theatre was a hierarchical institution, and new recruits had virtually no contact with the established stars of the stage, and no idea how to negotiate even a minimum wage or what constituted a good or bad contract. By talking to the actress in question Sophy had discovered that the Lincoln was well regarded for paying a reasonable salary, unlike some other theatres.
As the door opened she was brought out of her thoughts by an indignant Cat. ‘That ghastly woman!’ Cat flounced over to her bed, her blue eyes flashing. ‘Do you know what she said to me when I complained about the damp sheets and the holes in the eiderdown? She said she had a hole in her’ – Cat stuck out her bottom and tapped her buttock – ‘and it had never done her any harm.’
The two girls stared at each other, Cat outraged and red-faced and Sophy brimming up with the laughter that burst forth in the next instant. Within moments the two girls were howling with mirth and by the time they regained control their faces were wet.