the end, smiling down at the flowery faces, she sank into a formal curtsy, one hand over her heart, to please them. The girls came in twos and threes to thank her and make shy compliments.
As the room emptied, Aurora was left alone on the dais, packing her music away.
Mr. Ridgeway regarded her from his position by the windows, twenty feet away. Happy to have been able to play for the girls, she began to thank him for inviting her, but he waved a hand. They stood silent for a moment.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said, his look too direct for light conversation.
‘About what?’
He turned his head away, then fixed his eyes on her again, across the room. ‘You must know already, your voice is—you are—beautiful.’
Aurora was not shocked, exactly, but entirely surprised. She stared back at him, not smiling, unsure herself what to say or do.
Hurrying footsteps sounded in the hall: two tall girls rushed in with a bucket of blackboard erasers. ‘All clean, sir,’ the taller girl said.
The spell was broken, and Aurora picked up her hat and music case.
‘Don’t go, Mrs. Mayhew,’ Mr. Ridgeway said, his voice very dry and scholarly. ‘Miss Frye will want to see you about the Christmas concert.’
The girls said goodbye to her again, and to Mr. Ridgeway; he made a show of ushering them out and then turned back to Aurora. ‘I should correct myself—’ He shook his head, raised his hands. ‘I cannot apologize. It was an observation of fact.’
She walked home deep in thought, conscious of a terrible appetite. Not for Lewis Ridgeway, who was so odd and angular—but for some flare of excitement. Maybe she was perfectly frozen, and never would love anyone. There were women like that, pathologically cold—one heard about them. She had not been cold with Jimmy, but was never his, not really. Not the way Clover was Victor’s, unquestioningly, her whole heart open to him. Or Mabel, with her Aleck. For a moment Aurora wished very badly to have that. Perhaps one could be wholehearted with Lewis Ridgeway. Except that she was still married to Mayhew, so there was no point in thinking of—And she did not want to think of it, any of it. Better to be alone.
Not alone; with Avery. She could be whole in heart there. A hole in the heart, perhaps that is what she had.
Better and Better
Do you remember that time when you were sick backstage—that must have been the baby coming!—and I did Mrs. O’Hara? Well, I have been earning a bit of money doing monologues like that for the Gate variety theatre near here. Most of their comics have gone to the Front and they are starved for artistes. Good to have a jingle of coins in my pocket although Gali is kind and so is Madame. (But I think she is a little mad.)
Clover had taken to writing to Aurora in snatches—never able to sit long enough for a whole letter. Her mind was nervous and her body could not settle. Still no news from Victor. That was to be expected in wartime, but she wanted so badly to let him know her own news. Tying her apron above the small firm bulge of the baby, she longed to tell Aurora, to ask her about the tight feeling and whether it was all right to be so terribly sleepy all day long.
Clover went to beat carpets in the garden, a useful and therapeutic occupation, but found she had to sit down on the dead grass—crouch, really—and pant for a while. It was uncomfortably animal.
Through the window she could hear Victor’s mother in her bath, quietly chanting Coué’s auto-suggestion trick, ‘Every day, in every way, I am better and better.’ It was not really allowed. Gali did not approve of other gurus. When she visited the astrologer, Madame wore a mysterious grey veil as a disguise. Clover gave a hiccuping laugh and felt the baby inside her jump, and laughed again. To keep herself from worrying about Victor, she was working on a monologue character called Madame Scrappati. Victor would not mind her using his mother’s eccentricity, even in the unlikely event that he was able to see the show.
The baby turned a somersault and kicked her hard in the ribs, and Clover determined to be more cheerful, more courageous, for its sake. Fear would hurt the baby. How brave Aurora had been, dancing right to the minute of Avery’s birth. She could do that. Getting