Hettie of Hope Street. Annie Groves

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СКАЧАТЬ in the room’s sombre silence. Thick net curtains obscured what light could have entered the room, making it seem even more gloomily oppressive.

      She reached out and placed her hand in Ellie’s. She wanted this more than she had ever wanted anything in the whole of her life, more than she would ever want anything ever again. She wanted it so much that it physically hurt, she told herself dramatically.

      The door opened, making Hettie jump. The parlour maid announced, ‘You’re both to go in now, if you please.’

      ‘Good luck, my love,’ Ellie whispered to her as they both got up, kissing her lovingly whilst Hettie gripped her hand.

      Hettie had never felt so clumsy, nor so awkward. Her face was burning, and her throat had gone so dry she was afraid she would not be able to sing at all.

      The maid escorted them to the door of the front parlour and then whispered, ‘Knock on the door and then wait until she says to go in.’

      When her step-mother’s knock went unacknowledged, Hettie cast her an anguished look. ‘Perhaps she didn’t hear,’ she began and then stopped as a firm contralto voice from the other side of the door called out commandingly.

      ‘Come.’

      With Ellie pushing her firmly ahead, Hettie stepped in to the room. Here there was no overstuffed sofa but instead a row of uncomfortable looking hard-backed chairs. But it was the piano and, more dramatically, the woman seated at it, that commanded Hettie’s attention.

      Mrs May Buchanan was almost the complete opposite of Miss Brown, being tall and stately where Miss Brown was small and thin; and her jet-black hair, unlike Miss Brown’s untidy grey bun, was drawn back into a formidably elegant chignon. Miss Brown’s manner was fussy yet gentle, whilst Hettie could tell, even on this first meeting, that Mrs Buchanan was chillingly distant.

      Hettie could feel herself tremble as Mrs Buchanan’s merciless gaze focused sharply on her.

      ‘Your teacher has some very complimentary things to say about you, Miss Walker. She seems to think that you have a soprano voice of surpassing excellence.’

      Hettie looked towards Ellie for reassurance, not sure how she was meant to respond.

      ‘Do you have the same high opinion of your voice as your teacher, Miss Walker?’

      ‘I know that I love to sing,’ was all Hettie could find to say. Mrs Buchanan was making her feel very small and unimportant; she was even beginning to wish that she had not put herself forward for her criticism.

      ‘Very well then. Please stand up.’

      Obediently Hettie got to her feet. She felt sick with nervousness, and she just knew that she was going to do everything wrong.

      As she sang the opening bars of the song, she could hear the uncertainty affecting her voice and her heart sank with distress and panic. The song was so familiar to her that she knew it by heart, and yet in her agitation she almost missed a note. But then, as always when she got into the song itself, the music began to take her over and she became lost in its enchantment and the role it had cast for her.

      As she sang the last few notes she saw the emotional tears in Ellie’s eyes, and her spirits soared upwards in triumph and pleasure. But she was brought quickly back to earth when Mrs Buchanan commented coldly, ‘You were off key in the first bar.’

      ‘I was nervous.’

      ‘If you are nervous about singing in front of me then how do you think you will be able to sing in front of an audience of a hundred?’

      Hettie did not dare look at her mother. She knew if she did she would burst into tears of shame and disappointment.

       THREE

      ‘You have been gone such an age. What happened?’

      ‘Poor Hettie was very nervous,’ Hettie heard Ellie answering as Connie ushered them both into her cosy parlour.

      ‘I was off key in the opening bars,’ Hettie added, watching as Connie’s expression grew grave and sympathetic, and then laughing and saying, ‘But I am to have the job because Mrs Buchanan says that I am the best of all the applicants.’

      ‘Oh, you terror, letting me think that you hadn’t got it!’ Connie chided her, laughing back.

      ‘And I am going to board with Mrs Buchanan’s sister, aren’t I, Mam? She lives in the same street and only takes in female lodgers. I will have lessons with Mrs Buchanan every morning for a month and then I shall sing at the Adelphi hotel every afternoon. Except, of course, for Sunday, which will be my day off. Then after that I will have two days together off each month, which means I can go home to Preston.’

      ‘Well, inbetween times you must come here to us, then. You will enjoy listening to our school choir, and it will be so lovely to have you. Dr Kenton, the school’s music teacher, is very proud of them, and says they are far superior to the Bluecoat School boys.’

      Connie’s husband Harry was the headmaster of a private boys’ school and he, Connie and their children lived in the headmaster’s house right next to the school. In addition to her responsibilities as a headmaster’s wife, Connie was also still very involved in the nursery for children whose parents were out at work or who, in some cases, had no parents to care for them at all. She had set up this nursery prior to her marriage to Harry.

      ‘So, when do you start your new job, Hettie?’

      ‘Next week, but I shall need to have a new dress first, shan’t I, Mam?’

      ‘Yes, my love, you will. Mrs Buchanan has told us that Hettie will need a proper tea dress to wear when she sings,’ Ellie explained to her sister.

      ‘Well, you will be certain to find something here in Liverpool. We shall go out together tomorrow and look.’

      ‘Connie, I wonder, would you mind taking Hettie to get a dress without me? Only I have already arranged to see Iris tomorrow.’

      Hettie stared at her step-mother in consternation. ‘But you must come with me,’ she protested. ‘Please, Mam, I want you to,’ she pleaded desperately. For although she wanted her new life and its independence, inwardly Hettie felt vulnerable and uncertain, and very much in need of Ellie’s love and support. How could she think of putting seeing Iris before something so important as helping her to find the right dress for her new job? Even Connie was frowning at her.

      ‘Hettie, I am sorry,’ Ellie said, seeing the disappointed look on Hettie’s face. ‘But Iris is only in Liverpool for tomorrow, and it is important that I see her…’

      ‘But I need you to help me choose my dress.’ Hettie was ready to burst into tears.

      After one look at her pale face and tear-filled eyes, Connie attempted to placate her by saying calmly, ‘Of course you are disappointed that your mother can’t go shopping with you, Hettie. But I can come with you and I’m sure between us we shall be able to find the right thing.’

      Somehow Hettie managed to swallow back her tears and nod her head, but it just wouldn’t СКАЧАТЬ