She must have fallen asleep over the tea tray, as she was roused by Mrs. Bodley approaching. “A gentleman,” she said, giving the word the full weight of her displeasure, “has left something for you at reception.”
Following Mrs. Bodley to the front desk, Gwendolen discovered, to her astonishment, that the “something” left there was her stolen handbag. How on earth had it found its way back to the Warrender?
“It wasn’t a Mr. Niven who left it by any chance, was it?” she asked.
“Gave no name,” Mrs. Bodley said. “Good-looking sort. It might not be my place to say it, Miss Kelling, but you shouldn’t be running around London consorting with types like that.”
“I will do my best not to meet good-looking men in future, Mrs. Bodley,” Gwendolen said solemnly.
The mystery deepened, for on further investigation, Gwendolen discovered that there was nothing missing from her bag, not so much as a farthing or a handkerchief. It must have been Mr. Niven, no one else knew about the theft, but there was no note, no explanation at all as to how the bag had been returned intact. Of course, a note would have necessitated a response, an expression of gratitude. A correspondence might have propelled further acquaintance, which was clearly not desired by him. She would not flatter herself to think he had an interest in her. All he had seen was the tired tweed and dreadful hair and all he had felt was pity, most likely. She was annoyed with herself for the little pang of disappointment she felt.
Iced Fancies
A few months before Freda ran away to London, her feckless mother, Gladys, acquired a suitor, or a “fancy man,” as Freda had heard a neighbour refer to him. There was, in fact, nothing fancy about Mr. Birdwhistle （a ridiculous name!） except for his cakes. He owned a small chain of bakeries and courted Gladys with what he referred to as his “specialities”： gluey vanilla puffs and sickeningly sweet French fancies. He was always saying to Freda, “Call me Uncle Lenny.” Freda would not.
Mr. Birdwhistle made many rash promises—an engagement ring, a house on the Mount and so on—but nothing had as yet materialized. Gladys blamed Freda’s cheek. “Be nice to him,” she warned. “With any luck he’s going to be your new father.”
Freda felt that the last thing she needed was a father, new or otherwise.
She wasn’t completely au fait, as Duncan would say, with how a father should behave, but she was pretty sure it was not like Mr. Birdwhistle. He contrived to pull and pinch and pat Freda even more than she had been pulled and pinched and patted when she had been modelling the Knits. He was always inviting her to perch on his hammy thigh or give him a kiss on his tobacco-flecked moustache. She was used to being pawed, of course. The previous year she had been Peaseblossom in a Rowntree Players’ production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Mechanicals could hardly leave her alone, but it was just teasing really and they were easy to distract. Mr. Birdwhistle, on the other hand, was relentless.
He had begun to “stay over” at the weekends, Gladys going through the charade of making up the “guest room”—an airless, windowless box-room at the back of the house—as if Freda had no idea what was going on beneath her nose. As soon as they were all in their respective beds, she could hear Mr. Birdwhistle slithering across the landing to her mother’s room, which, after an indecent interval, was followed by Mr. Birdwhistle’s porcine snoring.
* * *
—
Not counting Vanda and Duncan—now both lost to her—Florence Ingram was Freda’s only friend. She was a veteran of the same dance school as Freda, but sadly had little in the way of either looks or talent and was usually consigned to the clod-hopping back row in the end-of-term concerts. This neglect had not made her envious of Freda’s star turns. On the contrary, she spurred Freda on to shine and basked in her friend’s reflected light. Nonetheless, Florence understood feelings. She had many, some quite dramatic.
She was a robust, kind girl, almost unnaturally clumsy, and the pantomime village never mustered her lumbering limbs to dance in its square or around its maypole, although both girls had been in a production of Dick Whittington and His Cat last Christmas at the Theatre Royal.
They had played cats. Not the Cat, just one of several who were friends of the Cat. They got billing in the programme notes, though. Freda was “A Pretty Cat.” They performed a routine called “The Cat Dance,” although Freda doubted that any cat had ever been taught to tap. They also did a great deal of washing of their ears with their paws. Florence had made it onto the stage playing “A Comedy Cat,” a plump, ponderous feline who garnered much audience laughter with its bumbling antics. “Not much acting needed,” Freda overheard the pantomime’s director say to the costume mistress. Poor Florence!