“Put them away,” Freda hissed at Florence, under cover of the engine letting off steam prior to departure. They were not alone in the carriage. An elderly man in a seat at the window was absorbed in the Times obituaries and a crotchety-looking woman had already stared at them with displeasure for no greater crime than their youth and sex.
Rather reluctantly, Florence returned her treasure to its cache. It would be bad enough when the Ingrams discovered that their precious Florence had run away, without finding that Mrs. Ingram’s jewellery had disappeared along with her. Freda suspected she would be blamed for both absences. In the end, she supposed, she would be blamed for everything.
They had barely clambered out of the train at King’s Cross when Freda began to feel the burden of Florence’s naivety. A woman had approached them while they were still on the platform retrieving their suitcases and asked if they were looking for lodgings, and Florence, who was like an affectionate but neglected dog, eager to make friends with anyone, said, “Yes, we are, how kind of you,” before Freda dragged her away by her coat sleeve. “Don’t talk to anyone who approaches you like that. In fact, don’t talk to anyone.”
“Why not? She was just being helpful,” Florence protested.
She was a lamb inviting slaughter! Had she never heard of the white slave trade? Of the yellow peril? Of Arab sheiks holding Western women captive in desert tents?
“That’s all just in films, silly,” Florence said. (And this from the most gullible person Freda knew!) “And we do have to find somewhere to sleep tonight, Freda.” It was nearly five o’clock. “Nearly tea time,” Florence added, betraying the anxiety of someone used to regular meals. Oh, Lord, Freda thought. Florence was not accustomed to fending for herself, whereas Freda felt as though she had done nothing else for her whole short life. “Don’t be such a grouch, Freda. We’re on holiday, after all.”
No, they weren’t! It had been a mistake to propose to the guileless Florence that she come to London with her.
They left the station and walked out into the crowded, overwhelming streets of London. Freda, although she couldn’t admit it, felt her stomach clench with sudden fear, but Florence, despite the weight of her suitcase, wasn’t in the least disconcerted and trotted happily along the pavement.
* * *
—
They found lodgings in a boarding house in Henrietta Street. The boarding house itself was as unfriendly as its keeper. There was neither name nor number on the door, only an iron knocker, fashioned with a demonic face that gave Freda a sense of foreboding when she first saw it, and as she lifted it she felt a little frisson of fear, like electricity, go through her body.
The door had opened quite suddenly, releasing the scent of cheap stewing meat, followed by a woman in a filthy, greasy apron who fired the discouraging opening salvo of “What?”
Her name, it transpired, was Mrs. Darling—rarely had a woman been so badly named—and she glanced quickly up and down the street before saying, “Get inside,” as if she wanted no one to see them enter. Freda had hesitated on the threshold and it was only her fond memories of playing Tinker Bell in an amateur Christmas production of Peter Pan that allowed Mrs. Darling to grasp her sharply by her forearm and pull her into the dark hallway. Florence, already inside, looked over her shoulder and said, “Come on, Freda, don’t be such a slowcoach,” which was, ironically, something that Freda usually said to Florence. Freda sighed and followed.
Mrs. Darling offered them tea in her dismal front room. The cups were filthy and Freda only pretended to sip at the weak liquid made with leaves that she recognized as having already been brewed several times.
There followed some confusion about the purpose of their visit. Mrs. Darling, surveying Freda, offered to “solve” her “problem,” and it took some time before their new landlady understood that the “problem” was the difficulty of finding lodgings. She laughed—a grating, humourless kind of sound—and said, “Well, as it happens, you’re in luck. A room in the attic’s just been vacated.”
* * *
—
Freda was always up long before Florence and had to shake her awake most mornings. Only the promise of breakfast was enough of a lure to rouse her from her bed. They ate breakfast out every day—Covent Garden was full of cheap cafés catering for the workers in the market. There were no cooking facilities in the boarding house, although Mrs. Darling put on a meal every evening, food so awful that even Florence, who had an heroic appetite, occasionally blanched at what was on offer. She wanted to eat in a restaurant every night and Freda, the keeper of their treasury, was growing weary of continual denial.
“Come on,” she said to Florence, pulling the bedclothes off her. “You can sleep when you’re dead,” which was something Vanda used to say to Duncan.
After breakfast they made their way to the West End and trailed up and down Regent Street and Oxford Street, as well as most of the smaller streets in between, to pass the time. Occasionally (rather often, in fact) Florence saw something in a shop window that took her fancy and she dived in and came out triumphantly with a trifle she didn’t need—a pencil set, a Kewpie doll, a powder puff. Freda supposed Florence had never wanted for anything and so hadn’t developed a concept of thrift. And Florence was like a magpie where anything shiny was concerned, her eye caught by the cheapest of baubles. You could have laid a trail of glitter and Florence would have unthinkingly followed it.
She had to be restrained outside Hamley’s. She was always wanting to go in the toy shop and look at the dolls, although she was obviously far too old for dolls. “No one’s too old for dolls,” she said staunchly. The dead-eyed dolls gave Freda the shivers. Florence was still a child, Freda thought ruefully, she believed in angels and fairies and the goodness of mankind, all rejected some time ago by Freda.
* * *
—
At Freda’s insistence, when they first arrived in London they had enrolled in a dance school—the grandly titled Vanbrugh Academy of Dance. It was important, Freda told Florence, that they keep their practice up, and the London dance schools would put you forward to the theatres if you were any good. It was run by a Miss Ada Sherbourne, who was as thin as a board and straight as a poker, wore only black and white, and carried a whip-like cane that was employed in an animated fashion when she was drilling a chorus troupe. Occasionally, she used it to smack the back of their legs if they got out of time. “Crikey,” Florence said.
They bought copies of the latest editions of The Stage and scrutinized them for open auditions, turning up early at the stage doors of the West End theatres to become a part of the snaking queue of eager girls, dance shoes in hand, waiting to be let in. Once inside, they joined another serpentine line of hopefuls, before taking to the empty, echoing boards to the accompaniment of a lone, spiritless pianist. The first time, at the Palace, Freda had been so overawed by standing on an actual West End stage that she could barely croak out her name when asked.
Poor old Florence, of course, stood no chance. The Muse Terpsichore had not favoured her, Miss Sherbourne said. It was true, Florence had no ear for either music or timing and her feet may as well have been encased in deep-sea diver’s boots. Freda, at least, usually managed to tap out a few nervous bars before someone unseen in the front row yelled, “Thank you, next!”