‘How could we?’ Petrova protested. ‘We only see him on the stage, and we aren’t allowed to go into the grown-ups’ dressing-rooms.’
‘I thought we’d write.’
Petrova looked in admiration at Pauline.
‘That’s an idea. When shall we write it?’
Pauline considered their crowded days.
‘Well, we might get Theo to let us off dancing practice if we said it was for something very important; but then Posy would want to know what we were doing; and we mustn’t tell anybody or we shan’t be allowed to send the letter. We shan’t have time at lessons, of course, and then there’s our walk, then it’s half past one. Sometimes there’s a quarter of an hour after lunch before our other walk; if there is, we could do it then. If there isn’t we’ll have to ask the doctors to give us ten minutes out of after-walk lessons, for there’s never a minute between them and tea-supper before we go to the theatre.’
‘How about us both writing one in our baths and comparing them? That would save time,’ Petrova suggested.
The letter which they finally took to the theatre next day was the result of snatched minutes. Theo would not let them off practice, but she gave them five minutes at the end before they began lessons. They got another five minutes after lunch before their walk. Pauline copied the letter out beautifully at evening lessons when she was supposed to be writing an essay. She showed it to Petrova on the tube, and they agreed it could not well be improved upon.
‘DEAR MR HOUGHTON,
‘We hear you are going to act King Richard the Third. Would you have us as the Princes? You will not know our names, but we are Pease-blossom and Mustard-seed. We are not supposed to write letters to people in the theatre so would you be sure to send the answer before the last act as we go then. Nana who comes to the theatre with us won’t mind but the real Matrons would.
‘Yours sincerely,
‘PAULINE FOSSIL.’
‘PETROVA FOSSIL.’
The letter was addressed clearly to Donald Houghton, Esq. At the theatre Pauline went ahead with Nana, and Petrova lagged behind. The moment they were out of sight, Petrova rushed the letter across to the doorkeeper, asking him to be sure and deliver it, but not to say anything about who had given it to him. He bowed very grandly and said, ‘Leave it to me, Miss Fossil.’ At that moment Nana called Petrova, and she had to race up the stairs.
Pauline and Petrova found the evening almost unbearably long. Each time they came back to the dressing-room they looked round for a letter, and there was not one. They came off after their last entrance and almost cried to find there was still nothing. Gloomily they peeled off their tights, and put on their dressing-gowns, and began to remove their make-up. Then suddenly there was a knock on the door. Nana opened it. Both Pauline and Petrova stopped cleaning their faces and listened.
‘Yes,’ they heard Nana say. ‘What is it?’
‘Do Pauline and Petrova Fossil dress here?’ a man’s voice asked.
‘They do.’ Nana sounded very uncompromising; they knew she thought they had done something wrong, and was going to deny it if she could.
‘Well,’ the man went on, ‘Mr Houghton says, would you bring the young ladies to his room for a minute?’
Cobweb and Moth stopped cleaning their faces. They stared at Pauline and Petrova.
‘Well I never,’ said Cobweb.
‘What’s Oberon want with you?’ Moth asked.
‘Button up your dressing-gowns, dears,’ Nana interrupted, ‘and come along. We’ll be able to tell these two what he wants when we’ve found out.’
Oberon was sitting at his dressing-table. He turned round as the dresser showed them in. He held out their letter.
‘You sent this?’
Pauline nodded.
He smiled at her.
‘What makes you think you could play the Prince of Wales?’
Pauline felt very shy.
‘We’ve been taught to speak Shakespeare.’
‘Who by?’
‘A Doctor Jakes. You wouldn’t know her.’
‘She teaches us English,’ Petrova added.
‘All right, then. If she teaches you to speak blank verse, let’s hear you.’ He nodded at Pauline. ‘You begin.’
In a dressing-room with your make-up not properly off is not a good moment to recite a speech of ‘Puck’s’, but, as usual, Pauline only had to begin and she was ‘Puck’. Petrova found the dressing-gown and rather smeared face a great help for the boy in ‘Henry the Fifth’. When they had finished, Oberon shook them both, and Nana, by the hand.
‘The casting doesn’t rest entirely with me,’ he said, ‘but I’ll do what I can; I can’t promise more. Good night.’
Back in the dressing-room Moth and Cobweb were waiting.
‘Well,’ they asked as the door opened, ‘what did he want?’
Pauline and Petrova said nothing, as they were afraid to say they had been for parts, as they knew if they did every child in the theatre would be after them tomorrow. Nana came to the rescue.
‘They’ve been talking in the wings as usual,’ she said severely. ‘And it wasn’t a lie either,’ she added as the door closed on Moth and Cobweb, ‘for I’m yet to hear of the night when you don’t talk in the wings. Come on, Petrova, must get you out of the theatre, or I’ll have the stage manager after me, and you don’t want to have to tell him you’re fourteen, Pauline, or you’ll be kept till the end of the show, and that’ll mean a nice job for someone fetching you home. And when we get on the tube I’d like to hear what all this Prince of Wales business is about.’
4. More about Ballet Shoes
Now we come to the end of the book about which children write and ask ‘What happened?’
First I must explain what had happened. Pauline had acted in a film and had been an instant success. Posy, who showed signs that she might be a great dancer, had sneaked off alone to persuade a Monsieur Manoff, whose Czechoslovakian ballet was visiting London, to see her dance. Petrova, whose eyes were always on the stars, knew there was only one career for her and that was to be a flier.
In the last scene in the book a film agent is with Sylvia trying to persuade her to bring Pauline to California. Pauline can’t make up her mind, even for a lot of money, to break up the family. Posy is still out and no one knows where. Pauline and Petrova are discussing Pauline’s film offer when Posy, hysterical with happiness, rushes in to say Manoff will take her as a pupil in his dancing school in Czechoslovakia.
Petrova gasped:
‘But, Posy, how do you think Garnie’ – which is what the children called Sylvia – ‘is going to afford to send you there?’
Posy was past reason.
‘She’ll have to get the money. I must go. I must.’
That was when Pauline knew the answer.
‘You shall go, Posy,’ she said, and went back into the other room and told Garnie to sign her contract.
‘That’s settled,’ she said to Posy when she came out. ‘I’m going to make an awful lot of money, enough to keep you and Nana in Czechoslovakia as well as Garnie and me in Hollywood.’
Petrova managed not to cry, but she did wonder what was to become of her.
It was then Gum came back. He stamped in expecting to find everything just as he had left it, including three babies in the nursery. Of course the girls soon put him wise.
‘I’m going to Hollywood with Garnie to be a film star,’ Pauline told him.
‘And I’m going to Czechoslovia with Nana to train for ballet under Manoff,’ Posy said, thumping his good knee.
Gum looked at Petrova.
‘That seems to leave you and me. What do you want to do?’
Posy answered for her.
‘Flying and motor cars.’
‘That suits me,’ said Gum. ‘Cook and Clara still here?’ They told him they were. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Then they shall look after us. Might hire a car tomorrow, Petrova, and find a house near an aerodrome where you could study.’
I know
that all these plans happened, but of course the children who read Ballet Shoes do not. Now I am going to tell a little about the way things turned out for the three girls, and I hope in such a way that those of you who have not read the book are interested.
5. What Happened to Pauline, Petrova and Posy
The first to leave were Sylvia and Pauline. In a way, although they all hated to say ‘goodbye’, it was a relief when Pauline was really off.
‘There wouldn’t be as much fuss if it was royalty moving,’ Posy whispered to Petrova.
The film company was determined that as they intended to make a star of Pauline she should travel like one. A lady from the company arrived and for three days took Pauline shopping. Pauline had never worn outgrown clothes as Petrova and Posy had to do because she was the eldest. But during the years when they were poor while Gum was away she had cheap clothes, even for the first night of her film her frock was made at home by Nana. Pauline was now fifteen and the lady from the company made sure she was dressed as the most up-to-date teenager to be found anywhere.
Then there were interviews and photographs.
‘They wear me out,’ said Posy. ‘Here’s me chosen to join Manoff’s ballet company but nobody cares, but because Pauline is going to Hollywood to make a film people from papers come all day long.’
However, at last the day of departure came. It was in May, so Pauline, looking lovely in a tweed travelling coat over a lightweight frock, stepped into a huge hire car. Her wonderful matching luggage all marked ‘Pauline Fossil’ was packed in by the chauffeur and she and Sylvia rolled away.
Nana had the last word:
‘Don’t forget. Wool next the skin, dear. Warm climates can be treacherous.’
Posy left next. She and Nana in a taxi with their rather shabby suitcases piled beside the driver. Nobody could cry when Posy left, for she was radiant. They had not far to go, only to Victoria Station to join Monsieur Manoff and his ballet.
The final move was when pantechnicons came to fetch all the contents of the house in the Cromwell Road. When everything was gone Gum, Petrova, Cook and Clara got into a car and drove to the midlands. There, until the house Gum had bought was ready for them, they stayed in an hotel. Petrova was in a daze of excitement, for near the new house was an aerodrome, and at the aerodrome a man called Nobby Clark who had undertaken to train her to be a mechanic. Already a governess called Miss Potter came daily to give her lessons.
‘Can’t have you going to a school,’ Gum explained. ‘You see, I’m used to travelling. Now if you want to you can come too and we’ll take the Potter with us.’
Petrova, crooning over the overalls she was to wear when training at the aerodrome, could not imagine ever wanting to go away, but she could understand that Gum might.
‘But if he does,’ she told Cook and Clara, ‘we’ll see we know where he is. We don’t want him going away for years and leaving us with no money.’
The part for which Pauline had been given her Hollywood contract was the girl in an English book. The girl, who was called Sara, had run away from home when she found out that her father and mother no longer loved each other, so were not going to share a home any more. Sara adored both parents and the thought of living first with one and then with the other was more than she could bear. So she ran away to Europe where she got mixed up with extraordinary events. Of course in the end her father and mother, having found Sara, were so happy that they joined together again.
It is not easy to act in a film, as Pauline had found when she made her first. Then she had only played a small part, now she had the leading part. She was, of course, rehearsed by a coach, but that too was difficult. When Pauline understood why she was to say something in a certain way she could do it, but if she did not understand she would go on asking ‘Why?’ until she did understand. At first the coach thought Pauline a horrible girl, but later she came to see how her mind worked and then she and Pauline became friends. It was in fact largely due to her coach that Pauline made the enormous success in that first film that she did.
Her film being such a success Sylvia signed, on Pauline’s behalf, a long contract. They rented a very nice house with a swimming pool on the lawn and bought a car and hired a chauffeur. ‘It all sounds very grand,’ Sylvia wrote to Petrova, ‘but for Hollywood we live very simply.’
Two things Pauline insisted on. She must have a private governess. She would not go to the studio school and every eighteen months she must have time off to visit England and Czechoslovakia.
‘After all,’ she told Mr Silas B. Shoppenhanger, who owned the film company. ‘I have two sisters and I must see them. We’re family.’
Meanwhile in the midlands Petrova too was a success. She had taken examinations in mechanics and passed them with ease, and now she was promoted to studying aeroplane engines.
‘You see,’ she explained to Nobby on her fourteenth birthday, ‘I want, as soon as I can, to get my pilot’s licence. Then, the moment I am eighteen, I can fly alone.’
To Gum she said:
‘You wait until I’m grown up – then, if you can buy a little aeroplane, I can fly you anywhere in the world you want to go. And we can visit Czechoslovakia and Hollywood on the way.’
Posy was superbly happy training under Manoff, which well she might be, for Manoff thought her a genius and did not hide how he felt.
‘Posy,’ he would say, ‘soon I am taking this company to America. Before that happens you will be dancing for me. I plan two new ballets written specially for you.’
One plan came true. Pauline took a three months’ break and did visit both Petrova and Gum and Nana and Posy. This was a great success. Pauline seemed unchanged. She always had been the star performer in the family and of course the eldest, and she still was. Cook and Clara were a bit in awe of her to start with, but they soon got over it when they found she still liked to come into the kitchen and sit on the table and talk to them.
Posy was charmed to see both Sylvia and Pauline again, but with her dancing was all her life. But Nana was thrilled to see them.
‘Oh dear, Miss Sylvia, you wouldn’t believe how I’ve counted the days until you came. Of course I’m glad Posy is doing so nicely at the dancing, but such a language they talk here. And the food! You wouldn’t believe the trouble I have to get the simplest things, like oatmeal for porridge and treacle for puddings.’
Sylvia, listening, could see life was hard on Nana. She knew not a word of the language and made no effort to learn. What with school and dancing classes Posy was out all day. It must be a lonely life.
She thought things over and made a suggestion.
‘I tell you what we’ll do, Nana. We’ll change places. You go back to Hollywood with Pauline and I’ll stay here and look after Posy. We might at least try it out.’
That was what happened and it was a great success. It was also very fortunate, for the next year the war started, which began in 1939.
To take a huge ballet company plus stage staff, wardrobe and scenery across the world takes immense organization at any time, but during a war it is a nightmare. Transport was hard to arrange and the company moved in isolated groups. Nana, without a word of the language, would have found things terribly difficult, but Sylvia took it in her stride and somehow arrived safely in New York with a wildly excited Posy.
For many of the ballet company life was to be very hard, for the war lasted five years and of course no theatre wanted to engage the company for that long. But Posy never suffered: when, having made a huge success in the new ballets, the company divided into small groups and went on tour, she and Sylvia went to stay with Pauline until the next ballet season started in New York.
As soon as she was old enough Petrova joined a flying service which transported new aeroplanes from the factory where they had been built to the air base which was waiting for them.
‘I am so lucky,’ she would say to Gum. ‘I could so easily have been born at a time when girls didn’t fly.’
When t
hey were children living in the Cromwell Road the girls had made a vow on their birthdays. It was: ‘We three Fossils vow to try and put our name in history books because it’s our own and nobody can say it’s because of our grandfathers.’
I don’t know if the Fossils ever got their name in history books. Pauline certainly didn’t – film stars don’t. Posy would for ever be part of ballet history, but not I think ordinary history. Petrova? I don’t know, but I sometimes wonder.
6. My Christmas Holidays
I wonder which is the best of the school holidays. When I was your age I looked forward passionately to all three, but then I hated being at school. Oh, the joy of the last day of term! The moment when you cleared out your desk and dusted all the books, which we had to do, something, which I dare say you don’t. Oh, the pleasure of stuffing all the bumph – drawings, essays your parents were supposed to enjoy reading – into your satchel, then shouting goodbyes, striding off for home. For me the striding was in the company of my sisters – one older than myself, one younger. For me – not for my sisters – there was a snag before joy could be unconfined. It was THE ENVELOPE. It lay white and crisp on top of the bumph in my satchel and without doubt was the bearer of bad news. It might just as well have had a black border.
Why is it – and this seems to have happened in all generations – that while the rest of the children in a family do well at school, one is a complete failure? It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with brains, more often it would appear to be sheer cussedness.
Picture me and my two sisters coming home for the start of the Christmas holidays. My sisters, radiantly happy – and why not? – for in their envelopes there would be no ‘inattentive’ or ‘slovenly work’ nor even ‘could do better if she would try’. They had each a whole column of ‘much improved’, ‘excellent’ or ‘shows real talent’.
Term after term I would loiter by every drain longing to post my report down it, but I was always prevented by one of my sisters saying: ‘It will do no good for if you haven’t got it Daddy will suppose it’s worse than it is.’ Which was not true for no one could imagine my report worse than it was.