LITMIR.BIZ

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relieved to being intrigued and then downright piqued—especially as she was beginning to enjoy a flattering amount of success with her come-out. The least Nicholas could do was to ask her to dance occasionally. When his parting shot at Lady Cressett’s musical evening was, ‘I am glad to see you are doing nothing indiscreet or unwise', Tallie was filled with an urge to do something quite outrageous out of sheer defiance.

      Fortunately nothing occurred to her and the next afternoon she set off in the Parrys’ carriage for a cosy evening in Upper Wimpole Street to discuss the lodging-house scheme with Mrs Blackstock.

      She arrived early enough to spend some time with Millie before she set off for the Opera House and listened with interest to tales of backstage rivalries, Millie’s excellent progress in her singing and the flattering number of floral tributes she was receiving.

      Tallie caught Zenna’s eye. She had confided her experience with Jack Hemsley because she wanted to put Zenna on her guard if she had any further contact with him. Now she raised an eyebrow and nodded slightly in Millie’s direction. Zenna shrugged and a few moments later took the opportunity to whisper, ‘I have not seen him around, but it doesn’t mean she isn’t seeing him at the Opera House.’

      ‘Probably hiding his bruises,’ Tallie said grimly, remembering the sound of those blows thudding home on flesh and bone.

      * * *

      By seven o’clock Tallie and Mrs Blackstock found themselves alone. Zenna had been invited to visit the family of one of her ex-pupils and Millie had departed for the Opera House in a hackney carriage.

      ‘I’ll just spread out the details of the ones we thought most suitable,’ Tallie suggested, picking up the sheaf of house particulars. ‘If I move these things off the table … Is this not Millie’s reticule?’

      Tallie held it up and Mrs Blackstock looked anxious. ‘Oh, dear, it is, she must have forgotten it. Is her purse inside?’

      A quick glance found the stocking purse nestling within, along with Millie’s house key.

      ‘I had better take a cab and go to the theatre,’ Mrs Blackstock said with a sigh. ‘She could borrow the cab fare back from another girl, I suppose, but knowing Millie she won’t think of it until she’s outside the theatre on her way home.’

      Tallie looked at the older woman’s tired face and got to her feet. ‘No, I’ll go. I haven’t seen the new production yet and it will be fun to do so from backstage.’

      Mrs Blackstock accepted the offer with gratitude, but insisted on coming out with Tallie until she found a respectable-looking hackney carriage and made sure that Tallie had Millie’s stocking purse tucked inside her own reticule.

      It took some while for the cab to make its way through the crowded evening streets from Upper Wimpole Street to the point where the Opera House stood on the corner of Haymarket and Pall Mall. Tallie had never been backstage before, but she knew where to find the stage door and the elderly man on duty there let her in willingly enough when she asked for Millie and tipped him a silver coin.

      Tallie had to push her way through shabby, crowded corridors half-blocked with scenery flats and overflowing wicker baskets. Faintly she could hear the orchestra tuning up ahead and small knots of people hurried past, careless of whom they pushed aside in their haste.

      Searching for someone who was not in such a hurry, Tallie turned into a quieter passageway. A door opened in front of her and a man wearing nothing but skintight inexpressibles, an obvious wig of red hair and a scowl stepped out. Tallie blinked at this apparition, unsure whether to scream or give way to giggles.

      ‘John!’ the man bawled, breaking off to glare at Tallie. ‘Where in the name of Heaven is my fool of a dresser?’

      ‘I have no idea, sir,’ she replied, tearing her gaze away from his naked torso. ‘Where is the chorus changing room?’

      ‘Boys or girls?’ he demanded.

      ‘Girls!’ Tallie said indignantly.

      ‘Never can tell,’ he observed obscurely. ‘Down there, turn left, down the stairs, follow the cackling. John, you idle bastard!’

      With her hands clamped over her ears Tallie hastened down the corridor in the direction of his pointing hand. There was no denying that the noise betrayed the location of the dressing-room, and when Tallie peeped round the door she could quite see why.

      At least two dozen girls in various stages of undress filled the room, which was overheated, glaringly lit and reeked of perspiration, cheap scent and face powder.

      At the nearest makeshift dressing-table to the door a dark girl in a thin chemise was clutching a post while another in pink fleshings that left nothing to the imagination hauled on her stay laces. ‘Tighter, you silly tart,’ the first girl gasped when the second stopped heaving. ‘Tighter or I’ll never get into the costume.’

      ‘Fall out of it more like,’ her friend retorted with a chuckle. ‘That’ll be a crowd pleaser.’

      ‘Excuse me,’ Tallie ventured when they both subsided panting, ‘is Amelie LeNoir in here?’

      ‘Millie? Yes, over there. Here, luv, just stick your finger on that knot while I do the bow. Ta. Millie!’ She raised a voice trained to be heard from the front row of the chorus to the back seats in the gods. ‘Visitor!’

      Tallie extracted her finger from the tangle of stay laces and hurried over to where Millie’s startled face appeared round a rack of costumes.

      ‘You forgot your purse,’ she explained, plumping down on a stool next to her friend. ‘May I watch the performance from backstage?’

      ‘Oh, thank you, Tallie,’ Millie said warmly. ‘Yes, of course, just take care you do not get in anyone’s way—and you won’t have to mind the language.’

      Tallie settled down to absorb the atmosphere. Once her ears adjusted to the din and apparent chaos she began to pick out differences in costumes and to make some sense out of what was going on.

      What had seemed to her first startled gaze to be Millie’s state of near nudity was revealed as being a set of skin-toned fleshings over which a dress, apparently made of disparate pieces of fabric, was in fact held together by panels of pink net. It still revealed slender ankles and a quantity of Millie’s well-turned calf.

      Millie dusted her face with a vast powder puff and searched frantically through her cluttered table. ‘Where’s my lampblack? Jemmie!’

      ‘Yes, miss?’ A sharp-faced urchin appeared as though by magic.

      ‘Where’s my lampblack?’

      ‘Suzy half-inched it,’ the boy reported.

      ‘Well, go and half-inch it back.’

      ‘That’s a boy!’ Tallie gasped.

      ‘Yes, I know. That’s Jemmie. He’s eight.’

      ‘But you are all … I mean, half of you haven’t got any clothes on and—’

      ‘He’s used to it,’ Millie said calmly. ‘Doesn’t know any different. Thinks we’re all his sisters in any case.’

      A man stuck his head round the door. ‘Overture and beginners! Shift your assets, you load of …’ A chorus of abuse and thrown objects greeted this announcement and he ducked back through he door.

      Tallie had a sudden vision of what Nick would say if he saw her now and had to suppress a laugh. He hoped she was being neither indiscreet nor unwise, did he? How would he categorise sitting in the middle of the opera-chorus dressing-room?

      Millie was jamming a saucy hat on her head and picking up a beribboned shepherd’s crook. ‘Right. Here we go. I’m in the first scene with the other village girls.’

      Tallie spent an exhilarating hour and a half being jostled, sworn at, deafened and shocked as she jammed herself into a corner of the wings and watched the performance.

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