The Girl from the Savoy (22 page)

“They need air to breathe, Mr. Clements. Same as people.”

He leans back, crossing one leg over the other. I can feel him studying me intently. “Still, I can't help wondering why.”

“Why what?”

“Why you're giving me a second chance? Why you're here at all. Even if Loretta May
is
my sister.”

I turn my face to his. I feel the warmth of the fire against my cheek, a flutter in my heart. The hesitant beat of a fledgling's wing. “The question isn't always why, Mr. Clements. The question is sometimes why not?” I put the poker down and sit back down on the chaise hoping that he hasn't noticed the tremble in my hands. “So, what is it you want your
muse
to do exactly? We didn't get round to discussing the details in the tearooms.”

He takes a moment to light a cigarette as he considers my question. “Quite simply I want to write music again. I want to entertain people, make them laugh. My sister thought it might be helpful for me to meet someone who inspires me.”

“And you were hoping for more than a maid.”

“Not just a maid. A maid with ambition, if I recall.”

I blush. So he has thought about me.

“Mr. Clements, I . . .”

“Miss Lane, I wanted to ask if you . . .”

We speak over each other, both stopping to allow the other to continue. Neither of us does.

I smile. He apologizes.

“Please,” he says. “Continue.”

“I was going to say that you must know a dozen beautiful ladies
who could inspire you. Why would someone like you go looking for a girl like me?”

“Because they
don't
inspire me. They bore me, and besides, everybody knows everybody else's business in our circles. A chap can't leave a restaurant without everyone whispering about the woman on his arm, or the woman who isn't on his arm. I wanted to find someone new. Someone real. Someone honest.” He hesitates before adding, “Someone like you.”

“Well, nobody ever notices me. I could walk into the Savoy Grill and tip all the tables on end and nobody would bat an eyelid. I'm invisible, Mr. Clements. Unimportant.” I remember Cutler's words.
“Back-of-house staff must not be seen. As far as our guests are concerned, they are invisible. You, Dorothy
Lane, do not exist.”
I feel suddenly weary and lean back on the chaise like a discarded coat as I drain the last of my tea. “I'd give anything to be whispered about as I left a restaurant.”

Mr. Clements sits up in his chair. “Then perhaps Loretta is right. Perhaps we
can
help each other after all.”

“What do you mean?”

“She can teach you to become visible.”

I almost trip over myself as I try not to fall into those gray puddles. “
Can
you teach someone to become visible?”

“Of course! What do you think finishing schools are all about? What do you think ladies spend their days doing? Thinking about what to wear. How to style their hair. It is all to attract attention, all to stand out from the crowd. It isn't difficult. You just need to know what you're doing.”

“And that's the problem. I don't know what I'm doing. I own three dresses and two pairs of shoes and all of them wouldn't look out of place at a jumble sale.”

“But there's something about you, Miss Lane. I see it, and
I know my sister sees it too. You could be so much more than a maid doing out rooms at The Savoy. You could be someone special. Someone
everyone
notices.”

I laugh. “I think you've seen too many romantic plays, Mr. Clements. This isn't Act Three of
The Shop Girl
. We can't start again in tomorrow's matinee if we get it wrong today.”

He leaps up and grasps my hands, pulling me to my feet. “You see! That's it! That's exactly what I'm talking about.” He rushes to the writing desk and grabs a pen from the ink pot. I hear the scratch of the nib across the page.

“What are you doing?”

“Writing your words. Your wonderful honesty. Listen.
‘I think you've seen too many romantic plays, Mr. Clements. This isn't Act Three of
The Shop Girl.
We can't start again in tomorrow's matinee if we get it wrong today.'
And cue the music for a wonderful duet.”

His eyes sparkle. His hair sticks up like the top of a pineapple.

I start to laugh.

“What?” he asks. “What's so amusing?”

“You, Mr. Clements. You look ridiculous!”

He picks up a teaspoon and peers into the back of it. “Yes. Yes, I do. Who cares?” He rushes over to me and for a moment I think he's going to kiss me, but he just stares at me as if he's hypnotized. “What do you say, Miss Lane? Am I forgiven? Shall we do this, together, or would you rather walk away and forget we ever met?”

I glance at the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, the second hand sweeping time away. I think about
The Adventure Book for Girls
perched on top of the clock at home. I think about Teddy and how far away I am from him. If I agree to this arrangement I'll step even farther from the path I used to imagine for me, for us. The thought of it fills me with sadness and yet my heart dances with hope. The life I know in one hand. The life I dream of in the other.

“Very well, Mr. Clements. I'll help you write your music and you'll help me to become someone other than a maid.” He claps his hands together so loud that I jump. “But you're going to have to stop being so unpredictable or I'll die of heart failure before you've written a single note.”

I pick up my purse and hat from the chaise.

“You're going already?”

“Yes. Before you change your mind again. It would be nice to be the first to leave this time.”

He joins me at the door and we stand for a moment, neither of us sure what to say next. I hold out my hand.

“Same time next week?”

“Same time next week. At my apartment. And thank you, Miss Lane. Thank you very much.”

“Don't thank me. Thank your sister. And you can call me Dolly,” I say.

“And you can call me Perry.”

I look into his eyes. “I
can,
but I won't. I always call my employers by their full name. This is strictly business, Mr. Clements. Nothing more. Please thank Miss May very much for her hospitality.”

Elsie shows me out. I follow her down the elegant staircase, somehow resisting the urge to turn around to see if he is watching.

I walk from the building with my head held a little higher than usual. Fat rose-tinted snow clouds have settled above the city again, lending a sense of magic to the air. I tip my head back and gaze up, appreciating its beauty. My steps feel light against the streets, my heart feels secretive and hopeful.

I feel hope in my heart and love in the air and wonderful adventures beginning.

Nobody had ever made me feel more loved or alive and I adored the very bones of him.

T
here is a moment just before curtain up when I feel completely alone in the world. I close my eyes, embracing the hush that settles across the auditorium; the orchestra's tune-up dissipating into the very last hum of a violin string until that too fades and is gone. There is no going back now. The lines of script have been memorized, the delivery rehearsed, the dance moves meticulously choreographed, the notes and harmony of each musical number sung time and again until everyone is pitch-perfect. I am surrounded by prop hands and directors, chorus girls and rigging assistants. I am anticipated by the audience, all of whom have come to hear my famous husky voice, to stamp their feet at my innuendo-laden lines, to gasp at the beauty of my costumes. And yet I remain entirely alone, my thoughts and fears, my doubts and insecurities my only companions. In that dark silence my thoughts meander back across the years to the night when Jimmy passed me the letter in the interval and my entire world shifted.

I
t was March 1917. The start of my second full season, and my first principal role. I was a triumph, that opening night. It was pure joy.
Cockie didn't even see my performance. He sat with his back to the stage so he could watch the reaction of the audience. “Why would I want to watch the stage?” he said. “I know the thing inside out and back to front. It's the audience that matters now. I can tell immediately if a show will be a hit from the reaction of the first-night audience.”

They adored the principals and fell in love with the chorus. Every one of our girls was beautiful, fashionable, and talented, a far cry from the corseted burlesque girls of vaudeville and music hall.

Lucile, Cockie, and I were a powerful team. Her clothes were so perfect for me that everyone wanted to copy them. Lucile laughed. She said there were few women who could wear her clothes with even a fraction of my style and elegance. And of course there were the streams of gentlemen callers. Stage-door Johnnies, we called them. Silly fools with romantic notions in their heads and lavish gifts in their arms. I was young and easily impressed. I adored the fame and attention, but I wasn't interested in them. Despite my best efforts to be rude and discouraging, the marriage proposals kept coming, some of them screamingly funny, others deadly serious. The colder I acted toward my admirers, the more in love with me they became. Men are such infuriating creatures that way.

The brilliant performances continued night after night and my name became synonymous with beauty and success. Every producer in town wanted to engage me for their latest production. My star shone ever brighter amid the curfews and blackouts of war.

Even the after-show parties and suppers continued, although we often felt more than a shade of guilt while we danced and drank. We all had a story to tell about a loved one we were missing and worrying about, but what use was there in locking ourselves away to be miserable? We couldn't stop the war, couldn't bring our men home. Blocking it out with a bottle of champagne or some
thing stronger, putting on a dazzling show to provide a distraction . . . it was the only way we could carry on.

And then the letter arrived.

It was written by a Roger Dawes, an officer on the Western Front. Jimmy handed it to me in the interval. I thought about it all the way through the second and third acts.

Somewhere in France. March 1917

My dear Miss May,

You must forgive me, but I have fallen hopelessly in love with you and I must tell you that you are now inextricably linked to my survival in this dreadful war.

I know nothing about you. I have never met you, nor seen you perform, and yet I have an image of you stuck to the wall of my dugout. It belonged to one of the privates but I won it from him in a game of poker. The stakes were high, the prize was your picture, and I was the victor.

So now you are mine.

Please know that to see your beautiful smiling face each morning makes me determined to survive this wretched war so that I might one day watch you perform and meet you in person. I would like to see for myself how true the likeness is. Is it possible for someone to be so beautiful?

Please write a reply. You will make a lonely soldier very happy indeed.

Officer Roger Dawes

I replied.

We exchanged letters for six months. At first they were brief
and frivolous. Roger joked about the holes in his socks and the trench rats, choosing not to dwell on what life was really like at the front. I wrote to him of life in London, of brighter things: my latest show, society gossip. I sent him photographs and notices from the papers describing my dazzling performances. But as the months passed our exchanges became more serious. He shared his deepest thoughts and darkest fears. I told him I took morphine to escape from the dreadful reality of it all. I told Roger things I had never told anyone, not even my closest friends.

I soon found myself waiting desperately for news, for Jimmy to hand me another little blue envelope. As the number of losses and casualties increased, a call was put out for more volunteer nurses. I told Cockie I was stepping out of the limelight for a while to concentrate on nursing full-time.

I relocated to Guy's Hospital, once again photographed in my nurse's uniform. The newspapers thrived on good news stories like this.

BRAVE THEATER STAR TO CONCENTRATE ON ASSISTING THE WAR WOUNDED

I worked a full shift during the day, and often continued through the night. I rose early every morning to help with the rounds of temperature checks and dressings and cooking the men's meals, all the while knowing that another wave of injured men would come through the doors that day, and the next, and the next. None of us knew when it might end, when our lives might return to normality, and through it all, Roger and I opened our hearts to each other.

For eighteen months we exchanged letters. Toward the end of that time, I had returned to the theater for occasional special
performances. And then Roger sent word that he was coming home on a period of special leave.
I will return to battle the happiest man in the world if you would do me the honor of meeting me, my dear Loretta.
I wrote back immediately, telling him to come to the Shaftesbury and to give Jimmy, the stage-door manager, his name.

I could not have imagined a moment more wonderful or perfect than when he stepped into my dressing room, all smiles and peonies, his cap in his hand, his searching emerald eyes meeting mine. He was here. Roger. My darling Roger. Without hesitation, I flew into his arms and there I stayed for the most glorious time. I felt safe. I felt loved. I felt real.

I feigned a dose of laryngitis and informed Matron I would be absent for the week.

We spent our first night together at The Savoy drinking Ada Coleman's decadent cocktails in the American Bar and dancing the foxtrot in the ballroom while everyone watched, spellbound by the inescapable chemistry between us. I didn't care about the whispers and glances as we took the lift together to a river suite on the top floor. We gazed at the stars from the balcony and drank the finest champagne. We danced cheek to cheek to a gramophone record before he lifted me into his arms and carried me to the bedroom. He was the perfect gentleman. So gentle and yet so passionate. He insisted we leave the blinds open so that we could see the stars as we made love. He was so delicious that night, so perfect. He took my breath away.

I awoke to morning sunshine that spilled across the crumpled bedsheets, luxuriating in the warmth of Roger's naked body beside me. We were married by special license later that day, traveling on to Brighton for our honeymoon, like forbidden lovers eloping to Gretna Green. Roger was everything to me, and I to him. I reveled
in the knowledge of Mother's disappointment when she learned that I had married a man like him: untitled, unimportant, Roger Dawes. Exactly what I had always longed for in a lover and husband. Exactly the type of man my mother loathed.

We spent our third day together blissfully alone and in love.

They were the most perfect three days of my life. He could not have been kinder, warmer, funnier, or more thoughtful. For the first time in my life, I felt loved for who I really was, not just admired because of my fame and my beauty. Roger had started with fame and beauty and spent eighteen months getting to know the real person behind the dazzle. When I told him my real name he insisted on calling me Virginia. Ginny. “It suits you,” he teased. “It's especially perfect for someone who drinks so much gin!” Nobody had ever made me feel more loved or alive and I adored the very bones of him.

My heart shattered when he returned to France. I stayed in bed for two days, convinced that nothing could ever console me. But my misery then was nothing compared to what was ahead. Roger's letters stopped. I couldn't understand why, although I feared the worst.

He was killed exactly a week after we were married. A shell explosion in a deadly offensive near the Belgian town of Ypres.

I didn't find out until three months later, by which time the war was over and I was back at the theater full-time. Jimmy passed me the letter during the interval. It was from Roger's mother. She'd enclosed a bundle of letters found in his greatcoat.
My
letters. “It was as if they were trying to protect him,” she wrote. “A barrier of love, wrapped around his heart.”

My life as Mrs. Roger Dawes was at an end. The life I had carried secretly within me for three months ended soon after, a crimson bedsheet all I had to show that either my husband, or our child,
had ever existed. I was left with nothing. Just a bundle of scorched letters and a broken heart.

T
he houselights go down, plunging me into darkness. The conductor taps his baton on his music stand. The orchestra settles and the pianist strikes up the first bar. The curtain goes up, the passing glare of the spotlight offering a glimpse of the audience. Couples in love, out for an evening at the theater together. Press reporters and society-magazine columnists, eager to write their reviews and gain the admiration of their editor. And way up, in the farthest reaches of the cheap seats in the gallery, I see the hopeful, adoring faces of the ordinary girls who wish to be everything that I am.

Right on cue I step forward, spread my arms wide, and smile. The audience cheer wildly as I search for him in the dark, willing my imagination to find him. And there he is, resting casually against a pillar at the back of the stalls. He smiles and blows kisses and Virginia Clements's heart breaks into a thousand tiny fragments, dragging her to her knees, crushed beneath the immense weight of her grief, and yet all the while, Loretta May dazzles. Loretta May keeps dancing, keeps performing and everybody in the auditorium loves her, unaware that her world is crumbling around her.