A Night of Gaiety (2 page)

“I adore it! I’d not leave the Gaiety if a Duke asked me to run away with him, let alone a Baronet!”

She spoke without thinking, and added apologetically:

“I suppose I shouldn’t have said that.”

“I understand,” Davita said with a smile.

“I don’t know how Mum sticks it,” Violet went on. “All this space!”

She looked out over the moors.

“I like to see houses out the window. You must be cut off here in the winter.”

Davita laughed.

“You will be back in London before that.”

“I sincerely hope so!” Violet exclaimed fervently.

“
“Your mother is very happy with my father,” Davita said quickly, “although she misses London sometimes.”

“I’m not surprised!”

Violet made herself very pleasant and Davita liked her.

Actually there was not very much difference in their ages, because Violet, having been, as Katie said “a little mistake” when she was only seventeen, had just passed her eighteenth birthday.

Davita could never quite understand what had happened to her father, Katie’s first husband, whose name had been Lock.

“Good-looking he was,” Katie had once said reminiscently, “with dark eyes that always seemed to have a smouldering fire in them, and that’s why the audience
went mad about him! But Lord knows he was dull when he got home! I was very young and very stupid, but Violet’s got her head screwed on all right. I’ve seen to that!”

D
avita did not quite understand the innuendoes in this conversation, but she gathered that Mr. Lock had left Katie before Violet was born.

A
lthough she had never seen him again, he had not died until three years ago, leaving Katie free to marry Sir Iain Kilcraig.

“
It must have been very difficult for you bringing up Violet all by yourself,” Davita said sympathetically. ,

“
I was lucky, I had very good—friends,” Katie said briefly, and left it at that.

V
iolet learnt to fish while she was staying in Scotland. She soon picked up the art of casting and was thrilled with the first salmon she caught.

D
avita persuaded her to walk up to the top of the moors and for a short time she forgot that she was an actress from the Gaiety Theatre and became just a young girl enjoying the exercise and, when it grew hot, paddling with Davita in the burns.

T
hey went riding on the sure-footed small ponies that Davita had ridden ever since she was a child, talked to the crofters, and shopped in the village which was over two miles from the Castle.

I
t was only afterwards that Davita realised that while she was enjoying her time with Violet, Katie was spending her time with Harry.

H
er father had been busy because it was the lambing season and he always made a point of assisting the shepherds. Moreover, unfortunately as it turned out, there was a run of salmon, which meant that the fishing was good, and he had spent a good part of each day by the river.

E
ven so, Davita thought that what happened was inevitable and it was only a question of Katie finding the right moment.

S
oon after Violet had returned to London and Harry went with her, Katie disappeared.

S
he left a note for her husband saying that she had an irresistible urge to see her friends, and she had not told him so to his face because she could not face a scene! She promised to write to him later.

W
hen she did write, and the letter arrived just as Sir Iain was determined to go and find her, it was to say that she was sorry but she could not leave the stage.

S
he had the chance of going to America with a part on Broadway, and it was something she could not refuse.

I
t was Hector who revealed that that was where Harry also had gone.

“
He talked aboot it a great deal, Miss Davita, while I was putting out his clothes. He said it was the chance of a lifetime an’ something he’d no intention o’ missing.”

I
n a way, Davita could understand that it had been the “chance of a lifetime” for Katie as well, but her father behaved at first like a madman, then settled down to drown his sorrows.

H
e died of pneumonia, caught because he had fallen into a ditch on his way back from the village where he had gone to buy more whisky.

H
e had apparently been so drunk that he lay there all night, and in the morning a shepherd found him and helped him home. But the cold he caught turned to pneumonia, and when Davita called the Doctor there was nothing he could do.

D
avita now realised with a shock that she had been left penniless, although it was satisfactory that Hector had been provided for.

H
er father had left him a small croft with a pension, separated from everything else which had been pooled to meet his debts.

W
hen Davita looked at the bills she had been appalled at what her father had managed to spend in London during the time he had spent there after her mother’s death.

T
here were bills for champagne, for flowers, for gowns, hats, furs, sun-shades, all of which she presumed he had given to Katie.

T
here was also an account from a Jeweller’s, and bills for his own clothes which seemed astronomical.

A
gain in her imagination she could understand that her father would have wanted to be smart, dashing, and young, as he had been in the days before he first married.

T
hen he had his own hansom-cab always waiting for him, belonged to the best Clubs, and dined every night, naturally not alone, at Romano’s, Rules, or The Continental.

B
ut now Davita was alone, and it was frightening to think that everything that was familiar, everything that had been her background ever since she was a child, was no longer hers.

M
r. Stirling put into words the question that was in her mind.

“
What are you going to do, Miss Kilcraig?”

D
avita made a helpless little gesture with her hands, and the elderly man watching her thought how young she was and how very lovely.

I
t struck him that she was like a beautiful, exotic flower, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that she might not transplant.

“
Surely you must have some relations?” he asked gently.

“
Papa’s sister, who was older than he was, is dead,” Davita answered. “I had a Great-Aunt who lived in Edinburgh, but she died a long time ago, and I never remember meeting any of Mama’s family because they lived so far away.”

“
You could write to them,” Mr. Stirling suggested.

“
It would be very embarrassing if I tried to foist myself on them,” Davita answered, “and I do not think they are well off.”

W
hen she thought about it, the Western Isles seemed to be in another world.

“
You cannot stay here,” Mr. Stirling said, “so I am afraid you will have to find either a relative with whom you can live, or some sort of employment.”

“
Employment?” Davita queried. “But I am not certain what I could do.”

“
One of my partners might be able to suggest something,” Mr. Stirling suggested. “There must be employment in Edinburgh for a young lady like yourself, but for the moment I cannot think what it could be.”

“
It is very kind of you to think of it,” Davita said with a smile, “but although Papa always insisted I should be well educated, it seems extraordinary that nothing I have learnt seems likely to be saleable.”

D
avita gave him a brief little smile as if she was determined to make light of her difficulties.

“
Of course the best thing would be for you to be married,” Mr. Stirling said.

“
That would be rather difficult,” Davita replied, “as nobody has asked me.”

T
hat, she thought, was not surprising, since there were no young men in the vicinity, and she had never stayed in Edinburgh for any length of time, nor, after her mother’s death, had she made contact with the few friends they had there.

“
I tell you what I will do,” Mr. Stirling said. “I will have a talk with my wife and the wives of my partners. Perhaps you could look after children or something of that sort.”

“
It is very kind of you,” Davita replied, “very, very kind, and I am most grateful.”

“
You will be hearing from me.”

T
he carriage was waiting to drive him to the Station, and as he drove away, raising his old-fashioned, low top-hat, Davita thought he looked like one of the Elders of the Church, and her heart sank.

S
he could imagine all too clearly what his wife and the wives of his partners would look like, and she was quite sure they would disapprove of her because she looked so young, just as they disapproved because her father had married a Gaiety Girl.

S
he knew that the stage was considered extremely disreputable, especially in Scotland, and she could almost see the ladies in Edinburgh wringing their hands in horror because she had been associated with anyone so reprehensible as an actress from the Gaiety Theatre. ‘What am I to do? What
am
I to do?’ she questioned. Because she was frightened for her future, she went in search of Hector.

H
e was packing up her father’s clothes, and as she entered the bedroom he looked up from the leather trunk beside which he was kneeling to ask:

“
Has the gentleman gone, Miss Davita?”

“
Yes,” Davita answered, “and as we both expected, Hector, he brought bad news.”

“
I was afraid o’ that, Miss Davita,” Hector said, “an’ it’s awful hard on ye.”

D
avita had no secrets from Hector, he knew her financial position, and he had in fact explained a great deal to her before Mr. Stirling had arrived.

“
When everything is cleared up,” Davita said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, “I shall have precisely one hundred ninety-six pounds, ten shillings!”

“
Well, that’s better than nought,” Hector remarked.

“Yes, I know,” Davita replied, “but it will not last forever, and I shall have to find work of some sort, Hector. But what can I do?”

“
Work, Miss Davita?”

H
ector sat back on his heels and it was obvious that this had not occurred to him before.

“
Either that, or live on air, which I do not believe is very substantial fare,” Davita said.

“
Now suppose for th’ time being ye have me croft, Miss Davita?” Hector said. “I’ve still got a few years o’ work left in me, an’
...
”

D
avita gave a little cry and interrupted him before he could say any more.

“
Do not be so ridiculous, Hector!” she said. “It is sweet of you, and just like your kind heart, but you know as well as I do that you should not go on working any longer, and Papa was sensible enough to give you a croft and leave you enough money so that you will not starve.”

S
he paused to say in a more practical tone:

“
All the same, there will be work at the Castle to employ you for a few days a week, which will provide you with the luxuries you could not otherwise afford.”

“
I don’t need much, Miss Davita,” Hector replied, “and there’s always a wee rabbit or a grouse up th’ hill.” Davita laughed, and they both knew he intended to poach what he required.

“
If it comes to that,” he said, “there’ll be enough for two. I’m not a big eater.”

“
You are the kindest man in the world,” Davita replied, “but we have to be sensible, Hector. I cannot stay with you for the rest of my life, and at eighteen I have to learn to look after myself.”

S
he gave a little sigh.

“
Not that it would be very exciting being in Edinburgh with Mrs. Stirling!”

“
Is that what he suggested?” Hector enquired.

“Something of the
...
sort.”

S
he knew by the expression on the old man’s face that he was thinking, as she had, that Mrs. Stirling would disapprove of her father having died as he had, and more especially of Katie.

D
avita felt she could almost hear the whispers:

“
You can’t touch pitch without being defiled!” “Those who sup with the Devil should use a long spoon!”

S
he wanted to cry out that she could not bear it, and she felt she would be quite incapable of controlling young children and making them obey her.

“
Oh, Hector, what shall I ... do?” she asked.

T
hen as she looked down at what he was packing she saw in the trunk a picture of Katie.

I
t was in a silver frame and Hector had laid it on top
of one of her father’s suits and obviously intended to cover it with another so that there was no possibility of the glass breaking.

D
avita had heard from Katie all about the photographic beauties whose faces filled the illustrated papers and show-windows.

K
atie had been photographed for advertisements and, like Maude Branscombe, who had been the first of the beauties, had posed for a religious picture.

“
Very pretty I looked,” she had told Davita, “wearing a kind of nightgown with my hair hanging over my shoulders, and clinging to a cross!”

T
hen she had laughed the light, spontaneous laugh which had always delighted Sir Iain.

“
I wonder what some of those old battle-axes who took my picture into their pious homes would feel if they knew it was a Gaiety Girl they were pressing in their Bibles or hanging on the wall!”