The Charleston Scandal
Available in:
- eBook
- Audiobook
- Book info
- Sample
- Media
- Author updates
- Lists
Synopsis
Not Yet Available
Release date: November 24, 2020
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Print pages: 384
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
Reader buzz
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
Author updates
Close
The Charleston Scandal
Pamela Hart
The applause seemed to lift her up, like shooting the surf at Bondi Beach. But higher, much higher than any wave could take her.
One, two, four curtain calls. Another. One more. Charlot in the wings, smiling benignly. Bernes clapping them each on the back as they came offstage, kissing the women, shaking hands with the men.
‘Well done. Well done all. Party at the Riviera Club.’
The Riviera Club! Charlot wouldn’t have sprung for that if he’d had any doubts. They were a hit.
Susan Maxwell smiled at her as they went into their shared dressing room to change. Susan had clearly given up all ambition to play the lead: she was happily plump and her shoes were chosen for comfort rather than fashion. But she was a lady, and by God she could act. Kit had realised at the first rehearsal that she could learn a lot from watching Susan, and she had.
‘It went well, do you think?’ she asked her now.
‘Very well, pet.’ There was no trace of Susan’s New Zealand background in her voice, but she’d taken Kit under her wing, saying ‘we antipodeans have to stick together’.
‘Any notes?’
‘You might wait just a beat more before you say, “Maybe I do”.’
Kit nodded. That was a big moment in her character’s story, just after a romantic dance with Zeke. A beat would add more uncertainty and tension.
‘Thanks, Susan.’
They changed swiftly, Kit tucking a souvenir program in her purse. Susan had been going home, instead of to the party, but Kit talked her into changing her mind. ‘It wouldn’t be a celebration without you.’
‘Oh, you don’t need me.’ But she came anyway, pleased to be wanted.
Zeke grabbed Kit’s hand as she came out of her dressing room in her new dress and they went out to the street together, Kit arm in arm with Susan, surprised to find so many people clustered at the stage door. The pre-War days of the ‘stage-door Johnnies’ were long gone, but there were still fans; waiting for the real stars, Marguerite Ritchards and Basil Elliot, no doubt. But no, the earnest shop girls and a few middle-aged matrons thrust their autograph books at Kit and Zeke as well as Susan.
Kit beamed at them. ‘Our first autographs! Thank you!’
‘Oh, thank you, miss!’ a girl answered, and simpered at Zeke. ‘And you, Mr Gardiner.’
He bent down and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
‘For luck!’ Grinning, they got into a cab that the stage doorman had called. Behind them, the girls chattered, ‘Ooh, isn’t he nice!’ ‘You lucky thing!’ ‘I think I’m in love!’
‘You’ve made a hit,’ Kit laughed at him.
‘We both have!’ They were buoyed up by that very special potion: successful performance. The play had gone perfectly – but more than that, they had danced and sung better than ever before, moving together in a synchronised balance that was in itself intoxicating. And then, the applause!
Kit sighed in pure satisfaction. Supper at the Riviera Club, where the highest high of London society mingled!
It didn’t seem possible. She pinched herself, just in case.
Zeke’s hand closed over hers. ‘It’s real,’ he said. In the shadowy cab, with slabs of light flicking over his face as they went past streetlights and shop displays, his voice seemed deeper and darker than before. But it was full of a comforting solidity.
Real. She really was a successful actress.
She tucked her hand in his. ‘Let’s hope for real and a long run.’ He laughed out loud, the joyous sound making the cabbie turn and grin at them.
‘Let’s go dancing!’ Zeke said. ‘Susan, you’re first on my dance card.’ Kit could have hugged him.
Susan beamed at him. ‘Oh, you’re a lovely thing, aren’t you, but these shoes aren’t made for dancing.’
But hers were.
The Riviera Club … oh, my.
It looked so staid from the front; no different to all the other Georgian houses in Pimlico. The line of taxis outside the door, letting off couples arrayed in black tie and furs, was the first hint it wasn’t so; Zeke handed Kit out of their own taxi with a flourish that made her smile. Susan was collected by her counterpart in the play, Percy, so that was all right.
Marguerite, head high and smile wide, went in on Basil’s arm, Susan and Percy followed them, and then it was their turn.
All this success was still hard to believe. Kit shook her velvet evening coat around her shoulders and smiled up at Zeke, aware of a photographer’s flash somewhere nearby. He smiled down at her. The flash went off again, and then they moved on, into the portico, through the doors. Zeke took her coat off to the cloakroom, and Kit checked her hair in the big mirror to one side of the entrance.
She’d do. She didn’t have anything like the money some of these women had – not yet – but she’d show them what a ‘colonial’ could do.
Zeke came back, looking good in a tuxedo. The fashion was a few years old, the collar a bit too wide, but she knew a man’s evening dress was very expensive. He’d probably update it now they were getting full pay. At least his shoes were shined.
They went into the ballroom, arm in arm, following Charlot and the stars of the show through the Doric columns at the entrance. Small round tables skirted the room; in a corner a few had been pushed together for a larger party. The lights were low, and a jazz band was playing a syncopated beat. Not Paul Whiteman at the Grafton Galleries, but not bad. Kit found herself walking in time as they threaded their way around the dance floor, following the maître d’.
On the floor, couples danced – some trying unsuccessfully to foxtrot, others simply jigging in place. Feathers were in, it seemed; Kit smoothed down her dress, which had cost a whole week’s salary, adjusted her own ostrich feather headdress, and smiled, her heart almost bursting with excitement.
In Sydney, she’d never dared to go out dancing like this – the daughter of the Dean of St Andrew’s Cathedral was allowed to be up to date but not in the forefront of fashion. And certainly not fast. But here … here she could be herself without worrying she’d bring her family into the gossip columns.
The maître d’ showed them to a table near another large party.
‘That’s the Prince of Wales,’ Zeke said as he pushed her chair in for her. She snuck a quick look over her shoulder. Royalty! If only her mother could see her now! That familiar feeling of acting a part crept over her, and her momentary confidence deserted her. Could she really carry this off? Next to royalty? Her dress suddenly felt much too revealing.
The Prince of Wales was part of a laughing group. She could identify some of them from the Sunday papers – that was the Duke of York and his fiancée, Lady Elizabeth someone-or-other. The youngest man could be Prince George … and there was –
‘Miss Linton!’ an American voice called, and a dapper figure threaded his way lightly through the chairs to her side.
‘Mr Astaire,’ she said, smiling. Astaire and Zeke shook hands, the American smiling genially. They had met the Astaires, Adele and her brother Fred, at the BBC, when they had both been doing radio broadcasts promoting their respective shows, and had hit it off immediately.
‘Well now, I guess we know each other well enough that you’d better call me Fred,’ he said, with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder at the princes. ‘Just about everyone else is.’
He winked drolly, and they both laughed. ‘Kit and Zeke, then,’ she said.
Astaire made the rounds of the big table, congratulating Charlot.
‘I’ve already heard it’s going to be a hit,’ he said, indicating the royal table. ‘Prince George was very taken with it.’
‘Let’s hope he tells all his friends!’ Charlot said, and there was general laughter.
Adele Astaire popped her head under Fred’s arm and dimpled at them. ‘Come and join us.’
‘Delly, you can’t invite people to join the Prince of Wales’ party,’ Fred remonstrated.
‘Oh, pooh!’ She turned and waved at the larger group. ‘Look, sir, it’s our friends! Kit and Zeke from Dance Crazy.’
‘Then we should definitely join the parties together. It would be divine to have some more dancers in the party.’ The voice was almost comically upper-class, but it was good-humoured. Trust Adele. She was the kind of person who could get away with just about anything through sheer charm and force of personality. No wonder she was a star.
Kit stood, uncertain, her heart fluttering with ridiculous nerves. Here he came. Zeke had straightened beside her and pulled down the back of his dinner jacket. Charlot rose, looking suitably respectable, and bowed, as did all the men. The women curtsied, a wave travelling around the table as the prince turned his head and acknowledged everyone.
The prince was in a tail-coat, perfectly tailored, naturally. Fair, not as tall as she’d thought he would be, a slight man rather of the same build as Astaire. In his late twenties, he seemed older.
He smiled down at her and put out his hand. Curtsey. Curtsey. Her debut training came back to her and she achieved an elegant bob.
‘Miss Linton,’ he said.
‘Your Royal Highness,’ she managed.
‘Oh, none of that stuff here!’ He waved her words away. ‘Sir is fine.’
She wanted to laugh. He thought he was being so magnanimous, but calling a man his age ‘sir’ seemed almost as stuffy to her. Like he was a schoolmaster. Or a grandfather.
‘Yes, sir,’ she managed, and he smiled again before shaking hands with Charlot and then with Zeke, who performed a rather shaky bow, as if he wasn’t sure how low he needed to bend.
‘Sir,’ he said.
‘That’s the ticket. Join us, won’t you?’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Zeke looked pale. A bit overwhelmed. She suspected she looked like that herself.
The real stars of the show, Marguerite and Basil, came up and were presented. Marguerite did the most beautiful curtsey imaginable and the prince nodded in approval. They began to chat, and Kit and Zeke moved thankfully into the background.
Adele Astaire slipped her arm through Kit’s. The waiters were hurriedly moving the tables together. ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ she whispered. ‘They’re all very sweet but oh! so dull!’
Kit bit back a grin and Adele winked at her.
They weren’t introduced to anyone at the royal table, and Kit realised they were expected to know the others on sight. Because they were all royal. Someone called Maud, another called George (he was the young man), Bertie and Liz (Prince Albert and Lady Elizabeth), and some others she could only guess at.
Champagne appeared at her elbow and she drank. Rather nice, but one glass would do her. Best to keep a clear head. And then she was on her feet, dancing with the Prince of Wales.
He was a good dancer, for an amateur. Fit, and knew how to lead, which was the main thing. But what was the etiquette for talking to him? She had a vague feeling that she was supposed to leave it to him to make the first remark, so she concentrated on the fine-sewn seam of his shoulder and gave herself over to the dance.
‘By Jove, you do dance well, don’t you!’
Emboldened, she smiled up at him. ‘Well, it’s my job, sir. It would be a worry if I didn’t.’
‘You colonial girls are all so sporting,’ he said, nodding in approval.
She had no idea if that were good or bad – it was clear that he thought it was good, but she’d met a few young British lads who thought ‘sporting’ meant that she’d race into bed with them. His hands on her didn’t have that feel, though – he held her very correctly, his right hand high up on her back, where he could guide her most easily. It never strayed downwards.
‘You’re a long way from home, eh?’
‘Yes, I am, sir.’
‘It’s hard to miss the ones one is fond of, isn’t it?’ This time, his voice was positively melancholy, and his expression matched. A thread of gossip awoke in her memory – something about a relationship with a woman who was in America.
‘It is hard, sir.’
He nodded, his attention withdrawn, his thoughts somewhere far away. They finished the dance back at their table, and he handed her off to his younger brother George, who danced energetically and whose hands were not quite so proper. But she could handle George with one hand tied behind her. The older prince went on to dance with Marguerite, and then with Charlot’s wife Florence.
Then Adele said, ‘Freddie, show us what you and Miss Linton can do.’
Kit and Fred took the floor, her stomach a little nervous as the others watched. But then he swung her into the first movement and they were away. Now this was more like it! The song was a waltz, Paul Whiteman’s ‘Three O’Clock in the Morning’, but with a swing beat, and it was too complex for most of the revellers, so they had a good clear space to fill. Kit grinned as they twirled, and Fred grinned with her. He tried a couple of steps she’d never done before in her life, but she followed him into them as naturally as if they’d practised all day.
There was a hill near where she lived that led down to Sydney Harbour, and as a child she had rolled down it, the green of the grass and the blue of the water flashing around her in circles until she laughed and laughed and laughed. That was what dancing with Fred was like.
By the end, the other dancers had crowded to the edges of the floor to leave them to it, and as the music finished everyone applauded. Fred bowed, so she curtsied, and then they bowed and curtsied to each other before returning to their tables, flushed and triumphant, Charlot gazing at her approvingly. Zeke was about to say something, when Adele jumped up. ‘Now it’s our turn!’ She grabbed his hand and, before the other dancers could take the floor, dragged him out into the middle.
Smiling, he bowed elaborately to her and she made a full court curtsey. Then the band launched into ‘Stairway to Paradise’ and they floated around the floor in a quickstep. Adele was as light on her feet as a feather in the wind, with a charm that made it almost impossible to take your eyes off her to look at her partner.
Fred leaned one hip on the table next to her and watched critically. ‘That boy of yours is pretty good, Kit, but he’s not as good as you.’
‘He’s a good actor,’ she said, tucking that compliment away for later perusal. ‘But I’ve been doing the choreography.’
Fred nodded. ‘Delly’s better than me on the dance front, but I do our choreography, too.’
She grinned up at him. ‘Don’t listen to your big sister, Fred. You’re pretty special yourself.’
They smiled at each other. Well. She hadn’t expected to make a friend tonight, but she rather thought she had. Fred Astaire needed to come out of Adele’s shadow. But that probably wasn’t going to happen any time soon. Not when the girl had that ability to draw all eyes. There was just something about her. A sharp pang of envy hit Kit. No matter how hard she worked, she’d never have a tenth of Adele Astaire’s charm.
She straightened her spine. She’d just have to make do with great dancing and singing – and some pretty good acting, too.
The applause for Adele and Zeke was double what she and Fred had got. One day. One day she’d be as famous and as loved as Adele Astaire.
‘Good show,’ the Prince of Wales said. ‘Let’s have another drink on the strength of that.’
A while later, they all took a turn on the terrace overlooking the Thames. It was an intermittently cloudy night, so that the moon flashed out and was covered over and over again. A night when things seemed uncertain. Zeke and Adele leaned over the balustrade together, watching the late boats on the river.
‘Don’t worry about them, Kit,’ Fred said. ‘She’s got her head screwed on straight. She’s sworn never to marry anyone in the theatre.’
‘Marry? She doesn’t seem like the marrying kind.’
Fred crossed his fingers. ‘Let’s hope you’re right.’
Waiters came among them, distributing more champagne. The crisp breeze off the water, the wandering moonlight coaxing glints from the women’s jewels, the shiver of chiffon and silk, the dark blots of men’s suits, the precise British accents now a little slurred from drink, and there, the actual in-the-flesh Prince of Wales, with whom she had danced … and the two of them, from so far away … Kit leaned against the wall and lifted her glass. ‘To London, who welcomes visitors so well.’
Fred clinked solemnly. ‘To London.’
The next morning, Kit stood on the corner of Eaton Square under a pale blue English sky. The trees were in leaf in the park at the centre of the square, there were actual English daffodils blooming around their roots, and the air was full of a particular scent she’d never smelled before: earth coming back to life after a frozen winter. It was a heady, uplifting smell, and it called to something in her blood, proclaiming ‘Home’. This was what her mother had meant when she’d said, sighing, ‘I do miss proper seasons.’ Easter, which was next week, made so much more sense when it was celebrating spring instead of autumn, and the world was coming back to life around you.
Enough of that. She couldn’t stand here all day. There was her uncle’s house, just across the square. An imposing five-storey Georgian mansion, complete with a columned portico over the front door. All she had to do was go up to it and present her letter to whomever opened the door. The butler.
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t go up there like, like a servant or a poor relation, even if she was a poor relation. She wasn’t going to wait on the doorstep while his lordship decided if he’d see her.
The letter had her address in it. If he wanted to see her, he could send a messenger.
Which was an excellent idea. There was a newsboy on the opposite corner, just down from her uncle’s house. She crossed over to him.
‘Would you like to earn a shilling?’
‘Lead me to it, miss!’ he said, trying to salute despite his armful of papers. She showed him the envelope and pointed out the house.
‘Just go up, knock on that door, and hand over the letter. That’s it. Then come back here and I’ll give you the shilling.’
‘Right you are, miss!’ He reached out to take the letter, but his hand was grubby with ink from the newspaper.
‘Just a moment.’ Kit took out a handkerchief and tried to rub the ink away, but it was ground in; she wrapped the handkerchief around his hand instead so that the envelope would stay clean. How embarrassing it would be for her letter to be covered with dirty fingerprints! ‘Off you go.’
He dumped his papers at her feet and raced off. Knocked on the door. It opened. From this angle, she couldn’t see inside, but whoever it was took the letter and closed the door sharply. A long sigh escaped her. It was done. She’d kept her promise to her mother, and what happened next would be up to her uncle.
The boy ran back and received his shilling. She let him keep the handkerchief. It was ruined now, anyway.
‘Fanks, miss! Easiest shillin’ I ever made. Plus a nose rag!’
She smiled at him. ‘Thank you.’
On the bus back to Charlotte Street, she realised she didn’t know what she wanted: for her uncle to ignore her, or for him to contact her and welcome her into the family.
Right now, she was free, if alone … well, it didn’t matter, not really.
Because tonight she would be back on stage, singing and dancing in a new London musical. That was what had given her the courage to write the letter. It was one thing to say, I’m in London trying to be an actress. Quite another to say, I’m in the new Charlot production in a major part.
She smiled to herself, ignoring the stares from the man across the aisle. Rude. So rude, the way men always stared. It was why she preferred getting cabs to buses. From now on, though, they’d be staring up at her from the stalls.
And that was the way she liked it.
A reply came by messenger in late afternoon the next day, when everyone at the Theatrical Girls’ Boarding House (otherwise known as the Cats’ Home) was having tea before they went off to their theatres.
‘It’s for you, Kit,’ Mrs French, the owner, said, handing over an envelope.
‘Oooh!’ Perry, her roommate, raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows. ‘Is it a billet-doux from an admirer?’
‘Wish I was getting billy-doos by messenger,’ Brenda said.
‘Just from my agent.’ Kit waved off their interest, which died away immediately. Agents weren’t interesting unless they were offering you work.
The girls of the Cats’ Home were a dazzling mix: an Indian girl who claimed to be a princess and did a snake-charming act at the Tivoli; a flaming redheaded magician’s assistant with a broad Yorkshire accent who shared a room and a bed with a blonde contortionist; a pair of twins who both played violin in a Lyons tea shop orchestra; an Italian soprano studying for the opera. And then there was Val, auburn-haired, blue-eyed and willowy.
A well-known female impersonator, her ad in The Stage said, but it seemed to Kit that Val was less a female impersonator than … a female. Mrs French had declared her an honorary Theatrical Girl after a heavy at her last boarding house had beaten her up.
And Perry, her roommate, a black-haired, red-lipped girl who danced in the chorus of Let the Fun Begin!
They all stuck together, lending each other stockings and hair grips and frocks, straying in and out of each other’s rooms with no respect for privacy. Kit had two sisters, but they had never acted like this. It made her vaguely uneasy, but she didn’t let it show. If this was what being a Theatrical Girl took, she’d do it.
‘I wish I was a bit bigger in the knocker department,’ Sally mourned. ‘Larger headlights would get me more dates.’
Rude responses flew around the room.
They really were very vulgar. But so funny. If only she could have joined in, and laughed and joked. But Kit sat mute, not knowing what to say or how to say it. Some of the words they used she’d never even heard before.
Up in their room, washing her stockings at the sink, Perry said, ‘You think we’re all pretty low class, don’t you?’
She didn’t sound upset, but Kit felt panic sweep over her. How was she supposed to answer that without alienating Perry forever? She tried so hard not to stand out; she wanted so much to belong here. Perry glanced over at her and laughed.
‘You don’t need to look like a kid who’s had her lolly stolen. It’s okay. We are pretty low class. Except Val, maybe.’
‘It’s just …’ Kit pleated the bedspread under her fingers and tried to find the words. ‘If I’d said any of those things, my mouth would have been washed out with soap.’
‘How did a proper young lady like you get onto the stage in the first place? It’s as likely as a Derby winner pulling the baker’s cart!’ Perry laid her stockings over a hand towel on the rail next to the sink while Kit sought for a way to explain.
How could she describe her own frustration, her internal railing at the narrow world of the Deanery? Her passionate need for something wider, wilder … Dance was the first thing that had promised something more than obedience and social conformity, and she’d clung to it like a lifeline.
‘I was started on ballet because of poor posture,’ she said at last. ‘And I loved it. We all learnt ballroom –’
‘For your debut –’ Perry cut in, gently mocking. Kit flushed. If she knew that Kit had actually been a deb, the teasing would never end.
‘Well, for social occasions. And then we did amateur theatricals at school. Shakespeare, you know. And … and I liked it. I liked being someone else – stepping into someone else’s life. Mine was so boring.’
Boring, confined … stultifying. A double pressure on her: the same social conventions that all young women of good class were expected to follow, but then also the conventions of a church family, always on show, always held up as models of behaviour. How she’d hated sitting in the front pew, all eyes upon them!
‘But tap? You’re not telling me your posh school taught tap!’ Perry propped her hip against the chest of drawers and waited.
Kit leaned back against the bedhead and laughed. ‘Not on your life! But some of the theatre in Sydney is a mixture of amateurs and professionals. The amateurs pay some real actors to come in and make them look good. And there was a girl. Jane Burns.’
‘Jane and Jonesy? They played on the bill at the Palladium last year!’
‘Yes. That’s the one. She came over in ’21, but she’s in New York now, on Broadway. Gosh, she’s nice. She taught me, just for fun. And then I paid for lessons later. And there we were.’
‘Your parents wouldn’t have liked you being a professional, though.’
Kit jumped up and dusted down her skirt. She wasn’t going to be drawn into reminiscing about that horrible week. ‘No, but they adjusted. I had to change my name, though, so as not to bring scandal on the family.’
Perry laughed out loud. ‘So what’s your real name?’
Kit dimpled. ‘Honestly? Katherine Agatha Scott. But everyone’s always called me Kit.’
‘Agatha!’ Perry howled with laughter, and Kit threw a pillow at her, which she caught and threw back.
‘I suppose I can’t laugh,’ Perry confessed. ‘My real name is Persephone. My mum didn’t even know what it meant – she just liked the sound of it.’
Kit tried not to laugh. Persephone would be a burden of a name. ‘And your parents didn’t mind you going on the stage?’
‘Mum was all for it!’ She eyed Kit with sympathy. ‘Your parents wouldn’t have wanted you to come to London, I suppose?’
Kit winced at the memory of that fight, the biggest one of all. ‘I was twenty-one. They couldn’t stop me.’
Looking back, she was amazed at how brave she’d been. But it hadn’t been bravery. It had been desperation. She’d just had to get out of Sydney, where everyone who was anyone had known her – and mostly disapproved of her. She had pinned her hopes on London being somewhere she would fit.
Maybe she would, some day. She smiled at Perry.
‘They were rather cross that I used my own money, too – I don’t think they’d realised how much I was earning!’
Perry grinned at her. ‘Hah! An independent woman, right under . . .
One, two, four curtain calls. Another. One more. Charlot in the wings, smiling benignly. Bernes clapping them each on the back as they came offstage, kissing the women, shaking hands with the men.
‘Well done. Well done all. Party at the Riviera Club.’
The Riviera Club! Charlot wouldn’t have sprung for that if he’d had any doubts. They were a hit.
Susan Maxwell smiled at her as they went into their shared dressing room to change. Susan had clearly given up all ambition to play the lead: she was happily plump and her shoes were chosen for comfort rather than fashion. But she was a lady, and by God she could act. Kit had realised at the first rehearsal that she could learn a lot from watching Susan, and she had.
‘It went well, do you think?’ she asked her now.
‘Very well, pet.’ There was no trace of Susan’s New Zealand background in her voice, but she’d taken Kit under her wing, saying ‘we antipodeans have to stick together’.
‘Any notes?’
‘You might wait just a beat more before you say, “Maybe I do”.’
Kit nodded. That was a big moment in her character’s story, just after a romantic dance with Zeke. A beat would add more uncertainty and tension.
‘Thanks, Susan.’
They changed swiftly, Kit tucking a souvenir program in her purse. Susan had been going home, instead of to the party, but Kit talked her into changing her mind. ‘It wouldn’t be a celebration without you.’
‘Oh, you don’t need me.’ But she came anyway, pleased to be wanted.
Zeke grabbed Kit’s hand as she came out of her dressing room in her new dress and they went out to the street together, Kit arm in arm with Susan, surprised to find so many people clustered at the stage door. The pre-War days of the ‘stage-door Johnnies’ were long gone, but there were still fans; waiting for the real stars, Marguerite Ritchards and Basil Elliot, no doubt. But no, the earnest shop girls and a few middle-aged matrons thrust their autograph books at Kit and Zeke as well as Susan.
Kit beamed at them. ‘Our first autographs! Thank you!’
‘Oh, thank you, miss!’ a girl answered, and simpered at Zeke. ‘And you, Mr Gardiner.’
He bent down and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
‘For luck!’ Grinning, they got into a cab that the stage doorman had called. Behind them, the girls chattered, ‘Ooh, isn’t he nice!’ ‘You lucky thing!’ ‘I think I’m in love!’
‘You’ve made a hit,’ Kit laughed at him.
‘We both have!’ They were buoyed up by that very special potion: successful performance. The play had gone perfectly – but more than that, they had danced and sung better than ever before, moving together in a synchronised balance that was in itself intoxicating. And then, the applause!
Kit sighed in pure satisfaction. Supper at the Riviera Club, where the highest high of London society mingled!
It didn’t seem possible. She pinched herself, just in case.
Zeke’s hand closed over hers. ‘It’s real,’ he said. In the shadowy cab, with slabs of light flicking over his face as they went past streetlights and shop displays, his voice seemed deeper and darker than before. But it was full of a comforting solidity.
Real. She really was a successful actress.
She tucked her hand in his. ‘Let’s hope for real and a long run.’ He laughed out loud, the joyous sound making the cabbie turn and grin at them.
‘Let’s go dancing!’ Zeke said. ‘Susan, you’re first on my dance card.’ Kit could have hugged him.
Susan beamed at him. ‘Oh, you’re a lovely thing, aren’t you, but these shoes aren’t made for dancing.’
But hers were.
The Riviera Club … oh, my.
It looked so staid from the front; no different to all the other Georgian houses in Pimlico. The line of taxis outside the door, letting off couples arrayed in black tie and furs, was the first hint it wasn’t so; Zeke handed Kit out of their own taxi with a flourish that made her smile. Susan was collected by her counterpart in the play, Percy, so that was all right.
Marguerite, head high and smile wide, went in on Basil’s arm, Susan and Percy followed them, and then it was their turn.
All this success was still hard to believe. Kit shook her velvet evening coat around her shoulders and smiled up at Zeke, aware of a photographer’s flash somewhere nearby. He smiled down at her. The flash went off again, and then they moved on, into the portico, through the doors. Zeke took her coat off to the cloakroom, and Kit checked her hair in the big mirror to one side of the entrance.
She’d do. She didn’t have anything like the money some of these women had – not yet – but she’d show them what a ‘colonial’ could do.
Zeke came back, looking good in a tuxedo. The fashion was a few years old, the collar a bit too wide, but she knew a man’s evening dress was very expensive. He’d probably update it now they were getting full pay. At least his shoes were shined.
They went into the ballroom, arm in arm, following Charlot and the stars of the show through the Doric columns at the entrance. Small round tables skirted the room; in a corner a few had been pushed together for a larger party. The lights were low, and a jazz band was playing a syncopated beat. Not Paul Whiteman at the Grafton Galleries, but not bad. Kit found herself walking in time as they threaded their way around the dance floor, following the maître d’.
On the floor, couples danced – some trying unsuccessfully to foxtrot, others simply jigging in place. Feathers were in, it seemed; Kit smoothed down her dress, which had cost a whole week’s salary, adjusted her own ostrich feather headdress, and smiled, her heart almost bursting with excitement.
In Sydney, she’d never dared to go out dancing like this – the daughter of the Dean of St Andrew’s Cathedral was allowed to be up to date but not in the forefront of fashion. And certainly not fast. But here … here she could be herself without worrying she’d bring her family into the gossip columns.
The maître d’ showed them to a table near another large party.
‘That’s the Prince of Wales,’ Zeke said as he pushed her chair in for her. She snuck a quick look over her shoulder. Royalty! If only her mother could see her now! That familiar feeling of acting a part crept over her, and her momentary confidence deserted her. Could she really carry this off? Next to royalty? Her dress suddenly felt much too revealing.
The Prince of Wales was part of a laughing group. She could identify some of them from the Sunday papers – that was the Duke of York and his fiancée, Lady Elizabeth someone-or-other. The youngest man could be Prince George … and there was –
‘Miss Linton!’ an American voice called, and a dapper figure threaded his way lightly through the chairs to her side.
‘Mr Astaire,’ she said, smiling. Astaire and Zeke shook hands, the American smiling genially. They had met the Astaires, Adele and her brother Fred, at the BBC, when they had both been doing radio broadcasts promoting their respective shows, and had hit it off immediately.
‘Well now, I guess we know each other well enough that you’d better call me Fred,’ he said, with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder at the princes. ‘Just about everyone else is.’
He winked drolly, and they both laughed. ‘Kit and Zeke, then,’ she said.
Astaire made the rounds of the big table, congratulating Charlot.
‘I’ve already heard it’s going to be a hit,’ he said, indicating the royal table. ‘Prince George was very taken with it.’
‘Let’s hope he tells all his friends!’ Charlot said, and there was general laughter.
Adele Astaire popped her head under Fred’s arm and dimpled at them. ‘Come and join us.’
‘Delly, you can’t invite people to join the Prince of Wales’ party,’ Fred remonstrated.
‘Oh, pooh!’ She turned and waved at the larger group. ‘Look, sir, it’s our friends! Kit and Zeke from Dance Crazy.’
‘Then we should definitely join the parties together. It would be divine to have some more dancers in the party.’ The voice was almost comically upper-class, but it was good-humoured. Trust Adele. She was the kind of person who could get away with just about anything through sheer charm and force of personality. No wonder she was a star.
Kit stood, uncertain, her heart fluttering with ridiculous nerves. Here he came. Zeke had straightened beside her and pulled down the back of his dinner jacket. Charlot rose, looking suitably respectable, and bowed, as did all the men. The women curtsied, a wave travelling around the table as the prince turned his head and acknowledged everyone.
The prince was in a tail-coat, perfectly tailored, naturally. Fair, not as tall as she’d thought he would be, a slight man rather of the same build as Astaire. In his late twenties, he seemed older.
He smiled down at her and put out his hand. Curtsey. Curtsey. Her debut training came back to her and she achieved an elegant bob.
‘Miss Linton,’ he said.
‘Your Royal Highness,’ she managed.
‘Oh, none of that stuff here!’ He waved her words away. ‘Sir is fine.’
She wanted to laugh. He thought he was being so magnanimous, but calling a man his age ‘sir’ seemed almost as stuffy to her. Like he was a schoolmaster. Or a grandfather.
‘Yes, sir,’ she managed, and he smiled again before shaking hands with Charlot and then with Zeke, who performed a rather shaky bow, as if he wasn’t sure how low he needed to bend.
‘Sir,’ he said.
‘That’s the ticket. Join us, won’t you?’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Zeke looked pale. A bit overwhelmed. She suspected she looked like that herself.
The real stars of the show, Marguerite and Basil, came up and were presented. Marguerite did the most beautiful curtsey imaginable and the prince nodded in approval. They began to chat, and Kit and Zeke moved thankfully into the background.
Adele Astaire slipped her arm through Kit’s. The waiters were hurriedly moving the tables together. ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ she whispered. ‘They’re all very sweet but oh! so dull!’
Kit bit back a grin and Adele winked at her.
They weren’t introduced to anyone at the royal table, and Kit realised they were expected to know the others on sight. Because they were all royal. Someone called Maud, another called George (he was the young man), Bertie and Liz (Prince Albert and Lady Elizabeth), and some others she could only guess at.
Champagne appeared at her elbow and she drank. Rather nice, but one glass would do her. Best to keep a clear head. And then she was on her feet, dancing with the Prince of Wales.
He was a good dancer, for an amateur. Fit, and knew how to lead, which was the main thing. But what was the etiquette for talking to him? She had a vague feeling that she was supposed to leave it to him to make the first remark, so she concentrated on the fine-sewn seam of his shoulder and gave herself over to the dance.
‘By Jove, you do dance well, don’t you!’
Emboldened, she smiled up at him. ‘Well, it’s my job, sir. It would be a worry if I didn’t.’
‘You colonial girls are all so sporting,’ he said, nodding in approval.
She had no idea if that were good or bad – it was clear that he thought it was good, but she’d met a few young British lads who thought ‘sporting’ meant that she’d race into bed with them. His hands on her didn’t have that feel, though – he held her very correctly, his right hand high up on her back, where he could guide her most easily. It never strayed downwards.
‘You’re a long way from home, eh?’
‘Yes, I am, sir.’
‘It’s hard to miss the ones one is fond of, isn’t it?’ This time, his voice was positively melancholy, and his expression matched. A thread of gossip awoke in her memory – something about a relationship with a woman who was in America.
‘It is hard, sir.’
He nodded, his attention withdrawn, his thoughts somewhere far away. They finished the dance back at their table, and he handed her off to his younger brother George, who danced energetically and whose hands were not quite so proper. But she could handle George with one hand tied behind her. The older prince went on to dance with Marguerite, and then with Charlot’s wife Florence.
Then Adele said, ‘Freddie, show us what you and Miss Linton can do.’
Kit and Fred took the floor, her stomach a little nervous as the others watched. But then he swung her into the first movement and they were away. Now this was more like it! The song was a waltz, Paul Whiteman’s ‘Three O’Clock in the Morning’, but with a swing beat, and it was too complex for most of the revellers, so they had a good clear space to fill. Kit grinned as they twirled, and Fred grinned with her. He tried a couple of steps she’d never done before in her life, but she followed him into them as naturally as if they’d practised all day.
There was a hill near where she lived that led down to Sydney Harbour, and as a child she had rolled down it, the green of the grass and the blue of the water flashing around her in circles until she laughed and laughed and laughed. That was what dancing with Fred was like.
By the end, the other dancers had crowded to the edges of the floor to leave them to it, and as the music finished everyone applauded. Fred bowed, so she curtsied, and then they bowed and curtsied to each other before returning to their tables, flushed and triumphant, Charlot gazing at her approvingly. Zeke was about to say something, when Adele jumped up. ‘Now it’s our turn!’ She grabbed his hand and, before the other dancers could take the floor, dragged him out into the middle.
Smiling, he bowed elaborately to her and she made a full court curtsey. Then the band launched into ‘Stairway to Paradise’ and they floated around the floor in a quickstep. Adele was as light on her feet as a feather in the wind, with a charm that made it almost impossible to take your eyes off her to look at her partner.
Fred leaned one hip on the table next to her and watched critically. ‘That boy of yours is pretty good, Kit, but he’s not as good as you.’
‘He’s a good actor,’ she said, tucking that compliment away for later perusal. ‘But I’ve been doing the choreography.’
Fred nodded. ‘Delly’s better than me on the dance front, but I do our choreography, too.’
She grinned up at him. ‘Don’t listen to your big sister, Fred. You’re pretty special yourself.’
They smiled at each other. Well. She hadn’t expected to make a friend tonight, but she rather thought she had. Fred Astaire needed to come out of Adele’s shadow. But that probably wasn’t going to happen any time soon. Not when the girl had that ability to draw all eyes. There was just something about her. A sharp pang of envy hit Kit. No matter how hard she worked, she’d never have a tenth of Adele Astaire’s charm.
She straightened her spine. She’d just have to make do with great dancing and singing – and some pretty good acting, too.
The applause for Adele and Zeke was double what she and Fred had got. One day. One day she’d be as famous and as loved as Adele Astaire.
‘Good show,’ the Prince of Wales said. ‘Let’s have another drink on the strength of that.’
A while later, they all took a turn on the terrace overlooking the Thames. It was an intermittently cloudy night, so that the moon flashed out and was covered over and over again. A night when things seemed uncertain. Zeke and Adele leaned over the balustrade together, watching the late boats on the river.
‘Don’t worry about them, Kit,’ Fred said. ‘She’s got her head screwed on straight. She’s sworn never to marry anyone in the theatre.’
‘Marry? She doesn’t seem like the marrying kind.’
Fred crossed his fingers. ‘Let’s hope you’re right.’
Waiters came among them, distributing more champagne. The crisp breeze off the water, the wandering moonlight coaxing glints from the women’s jewels, the shiver of chiffon and silk, the dark blots of men’s suits, the precise British accents now a little slurred from drink, and there, the actual in-the-flesh Prince of Wales, with whom she had danced … and the two of them, from so far away … Kit leaned against the wall and lifted her glass. ‘To London, who welcomes visitors so well.’
Fred clinked solemnly. ‘To London.’
The next morning, Kit stood on the corner of Eaton Square under a pale blue English sky. The trees were in leaf in the park at the centre of the square, there were actual English daffodils blooming around their roots, and the air was full of a particular scent she’d never smelled before: earth coming back to life after a frozen winter. It was a heady, uplifting smell, and it called to something in her blood, proclaiming ‘Home’. This was what her mother had meant when she’d said, sighing, ‘I do miss proper seasons.’ Easter, which was next week, made so much more sense when it was celebrating spring instead of autumn, and the world was coming back to life around you.
Enough of that. She couldn’t stand here all day. There was her uncle’s house, just across the square. An imposing five-storey Georgian mansion, complete with a columned portico over the front door. All she had to do was go up to it and present her letter to whomever opened the door. The butler.
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t go up there like, like a servant or a poor relation, even if she was a poor relation. She wasn’t going to wait on the doorstep while his lordship decided if he’d see her.
The letter had her address in it. If he wanted to see her, he could send a messenger.
Which was an excellent idea. There was a newsboy on the opposite corner, just down from her uncle’s house. She crossed over to him.
‘Would you like to earn a shilling?’
‘Lead me to it, miss!’ he said, trying to salute despite his armful of papers. She showed him the envelope and pointed out the house.
‘Just go up, knock on that door, and hand over the letter. That’s it. Then come back here and I’ll give you the shilling.’
‘Right you are, miss!’ He reached out to take the letter, but his hand was grubby with ink from the newspaper.
‘Just a moment.’ Kit took out a handkerchief and tried to rub the ink away, but it was ground in; she wrapped the handkerchief around his hand instead so that the envelope would stay clean. How embarrassing it would be for her letter to be covered with dirty fingerprints! ‘Off you go.’
He dumped his papers at her feet and raced off. Knocked on the door. It opened. From this angle, she couldn’t see inside, but whoever it was took the letter and closed the door sharply. A long sigh escaped her. It was done. She’d kept her promise to her mother, and what happened next would be up to her uncle.
The boy ran back and received his shilling. She let him keep the handkerchief. It was ruined now, anyway.
‘Fanks, miss! Easiest shillin’ I ever made. Plus a nose rag!’
She smiled at him. ‘Thank you.’
On the bus back to Charlotte Street, she realised she didn’t know what she wanted: for her uncle to ignore her, or for him to contact her and welcome her into the family.
Right now, she was free, if alone … well, it didn’t matter, not really.
Because tonight she would be back on stage, singing and dancing in a new London musical. That was what had given her the courage to write the letter. It was one thing to say, I’m in London trying to be an actress. Quite another to say, I’m in the new Charlot production in a major part.
She smiled to herself, ignoring the stares from the man across the aisle. Rude. So rude, the way men always stared. It was why she preferred getting cabs to buses. From now on, though, they’d be staring up at her from the stalls.
And that was the way she liked it.
A reply came by messenger in late afternoon the next day, when everyone at the Theatrical Girls’ Boarding House (otherwise known as the Cats’ Home) was having tea before they went off to their theatres.
‘It’s for you, Kit,’ Mrs French, the owner, said, handing over an envelope.
‘Oooh!’ Perry, her roommate, raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows. ‘Is it a billet-doux from an admirer?’
‘Wish I was getting billy-doos by messenger,’ Brenda said.
‘Just from my agent.’ Kit waved off their interest, which died away immediately. Agents weren’t interesting unless they were offering you work.
The girls of the Cats’ Home were a dazzling mix: an Indian girl who claimed to be a princess and did a snake-charming act at the Tivoli; a flaming redheaded magician’s assistant with a broad Yorkshire accent who shared a room and a bed with a blonde contortionist; a pair of twins who both played violin in a Lyons tea shop orchestra; an Italian soprano studying for the opera. And then there was Val, auburn-haired, blue-eyed and willowy.
A well-known female impersonator, her ad in The Stage said, but it seemed to Kit that Val was less a female impersonator than … a female. Mrs French had declared her an honorary Theatrical Girl after a heavy at her last boarding house had beaten her up.
And Perry, her roommate, a black-haired, red-lipped girl who danced in the chorus of Let the Fun Begin!
They all stuck together, lending each other stockings and hair grips and frocks, straying in and out of each other’s rooms with no respect for privacy. Kit had two sisters, but they had never acted like this. It made her vaguely uneasy, but she didn’t let it show. If this was what being a Theatrical Girl took, she’d do it.
‘I wish I was a bit bigger in the knocker department,’ Sally mourned. ‘Larger headlights would get me more dates.’
Rude responses flew around the room.
They really were very vulgar. But so funny. If only she could have joined in, and laughed and joked. But Kit sat mute, not knowing what to say or how to say it. Some of the words they used she’d never even heard before.
Up in their room, washing her stockings at the sink, Perry said, ‘You think we’re all pretty low class, don’t you?’
She didn’t sound upset, but Kit felt panic sweep over her. How was she supposed to answer that without alienating Perry forever? She tried so hard not to stand out; she wanted so much to belong here. Perry glanced over at her and laughed.
‘You don’t need to look like a kid who’s had her lolly stolen. It’s okay. We are pretty low class. Except Val, maybe.’
‘It’s just …’ Kit pleated the bedspread under her fingers and tried to find the words. ‘If I’d said any of those things, my mouth would have been washed out with soap.’
‘How did a proper young lady like you get onto the stage in the first place? It’s as likely as a Derby winner pulling the baker’s cart!’ Perry laid her stockings over a hand towel on the rail next to the sink while Kit sought for a way to explain.
How could she describe her own frustration, her internal railing at the narrow world of the Deanery? Her passionate need for something wider, wilder … Dance was the first thing that had promised something more than obedience and social conformity, and she’d clung to it like a lifeline.
‘I was started on ballet because of poor posture,’ she said at last. ‘And I loved it. We all learnt ballroom –’
‘For your debut –’ Perry cut in, gently mocking. Kit flushed. If she knew that Kit had actually been a deb, the teasing would never end.
‘Well, for social occasions. And then we did amateur theatricals at school. Shakespeare, you know. And … and I liked it. I liked being someone else – stepping into someone else’s life. Mine was so boring.’
Boring, confined … stultifying. A double pressure on her: the same social conventions that all young women of good class were expected to follow, but then also the conventions of a church family, always on show, always held up as models of behaviour. How she’d hated sitting in the front pew, all eyes upon them!
‘But tap? You’re not telling me your posh school taught tap!’ Perry propped her hip against the chest of drawers and waited.
Kit leaned back against the bedhead and laughed. ‘Not on your life! But some of the theatre in Sydney is a mixture of amateurs and professionals. The amateurs pay some real actors to come in and make them look good. And there was a girl. Jane Burns.’
‘Jane and Jonesy? They played on the bill at the Palladium last year!’
‘Yes. That’s the one. She came over in ’21, but she’s in New York now, on Broadway. Gosh, she’s nice. She taught me, just for fun. And then I paid for lessons later. And there we were.’
‘Your parents wouldn’t have liked you being a professional, though.’
Kit jumped up and dusted down her skirt. She wasn’t going to be drawn into reminiscing about that horrible week. ‘No, but they adjusted. I had to change my name, though, so as not to bring scandal on the family.’
Perry laughed out loud. ‘So what’s your real name?’
Kit dimpled. ‘Honestly? Katherine Agatha Scott. But everyone’s always called me Kit.’
‘Agatha!’ Perry howled with laughter, and Kit threw a pillow at her, which she caught and threw back.
‘I suppose I can’t laugh,’ Perry confessed. ‘My real name is Persephone. My mum didn’t even know what it meant – she just liked the sound of it.’
Kit tried not to laugh. Persephone would be a burden of a name. ‘And your parents didn’t mind you going on the stage?’
‘Mum was all for it!’ She eyed Kit with sympathy. ‘Your parents wouldn’t have wanted you to come to London, I suppose?’
Kit winced at the memory of that fight, the biggest one of all. ‘I was twenty-one. They couldn’t stop me.’
Looking back, she was amazed at how brave she’d been. But it hadn’t been bravery. It had been desperation. She’d just had to get out of Sydney, where everyone who was anyone had known her – and mostly disapproved of her. She had pinned her hopes on London being somewhere she would fit.
Maybe she would, some day. She smiled at Perry.
‘They were rather cross that I used my own money, too – I don’t think they’d realised how much I was earning!’
Perry grinned at her. ‘Hah! An independent woman, right under . . .
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
The Charleston Scandal
Pamela Hart
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved