want to work with the girls beforehand?’
‘Yes! They’ll be wet rags by the time we’re finished with them. We’ll start this afternoon, learning the words and music—in a one-off revue like this their number should be more than just an opener.’
She saw that he looked blank, but it was not worth explaining.
Mabel met Aurora and Clover outside the school and walked with them to the Opera House, saying, ‘I hope it’s not too Machiavellian, but I’ve asked Mrs. Gower to take complete charge of the tea—she’ll be in here redirecting the numbers if you don’t keep her busy.’
‘Perfection.’ Clover gave Mabel a quick, surprising kiss. ‘But you are going to help us, not her?’
Taking Mabel’s other arm, Aurora agreed. ‘Mrs. Gower can’t have you. We need you for backstage mistress, if you are willing.’
Mabel was perfectly willing, and they went inside to measure and make more lists and wait for the high-school girls. By the time Aurora and Clover had driven them through an hour of singing practice and a strenuous hour of dance, all the little faces were red and puffing. Nell Barr-Smith gave a wild hoot at the end of one successfully executed set of steps, but the other girls were too winded.
‘We’ll have to bring Mama in tomorrow,’ Clover said. Aurora was interested to see that Clover often realized better than she what Mama could do, not being used to thinking of her as negligible. Clover had left Harriet in Mama’s care quite happily, for example, though she never left Harriet with Victor. It seemed to be doing Mama good.
Next day Mrs. Gower came by the theatre midway through rehearsal to announce that tickets had sold out, and they were going to add two more rows of seats.
‘Nobody will be comfortable,’ she said. ‘But it’s all in a good cause.’
The girls came trooping in for their first run-through, so Mrs. Gower sat and watched. ‘Sprightly does it,’ Aurora called. Twenty spines lifted, twenty chins came up.
‘Hello! Hello! Who’s your lady friend?
Who’s the little girlie by your side?
I’ve seen you with a girl or two.
Oh! Oh! Oh! I am surprised at you.’
Mama pulled at Clover’s sleeve, whispering, ‘Knife, steel!’ Clover executed the brushing movement of the entrechat more crisply—and the girls obediently sharpened up their motion.
‘Banks of the Saskatchewan, please,’ Aurora called, and the girls fluttered and regathered stage left. ‘This will be a very quick turnaround, you’ll have to be on your toes—’ She played the intro and they were off, dancing during the tenor’s verse, which Clover sang for now. East would do a lovely job of it.
‘By the banks of the Seine live girls so beautiful
It gives one pain to remain quite dutiful
And yet I’ve sworn by the stars above
Throughout my life to reserve my love,
for the girl by the Saskatchewan, the girl by the
Saskatchewan.’
At one end of the upright piano Lewis stood watching, with Miss Frye nodding her head gaily in time to the swooping music.
‘Lovely,’ Aurora called, as Clover gave the girls a round of applause for getting all the way through the steps. ‘We’d better take one more run at Hello, Hello, please.’
Miss Frye, recalled to the world, said, ‘Oh! The bandage-rolling is due to begin at five, and we’re in their space—I’ll just start setting up the tables.’
‘Hello, hello, stop your little games,
Don’t you think your ways you ought to mend?’
The girls stomped and wagged their fingers and had a hilarious time scolding Clover, then scurried in a swirling fan around her to carry her off.
Aurora began to fold the music away. Lewis put an arm over the piano to hold the sheets open. They looked at each other.
‘Do you know that I—’
She waited to hear what he would say.
‘I would give the world—if your circumstances were different,’ he said. ‘Or mine.’
‘Yes,’ she said. He had such a pretty brick house. She touched his hand lightly. ‘I know you would.’
‘How do we know love?’ he asked her.
Another of his difficult questions. She did not know the least thing about love. When she looked back, it seemed that she was always happiest alone. Not pretending, not folding herself small to fit in someone else’s grasp.
The girls were laughing, clanging the folding legs for the bandage tables into place. Clover gestured from the door to say she would walk home ahead rather than wait for the car. Her eagerness to return to Victor plainly showing.
Aurora brought her attention back to Lewis. ‘I think we know, already, the ones we love. It seems that