A Night of Gaiety Read online

  He 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.

  He 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.

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

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

  When 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.

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

  There was also an account from a Jeweller’s, and bills for his own clothes which seemed astronomical.

  Again 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.

  Then 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.

  But 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.

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

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

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

  It 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.”

  When 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.”

  Davita 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.”

  That, 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.”

  The 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.

  She 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.

  She 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.

  He 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.”

  Davita 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?”

  Hector 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’ ...”

  Davita 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.”

  She 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.”

  She 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.”

  She 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.

  Davita 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!”

  She 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.r />
  Then as she looked down at what he was packing she saw in the trunk a picture of Katie.

  It 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.

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

  Katie 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!”

  Then 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!”

  Katie had laughed again.

  “That picture brought me in a lot of shiny golden sovereigns, and that’s what mattered!”

  It was then, looking at Katie’s photograph, that Davita had an idea.

  What was the point of being looked down on and perhaps despised in Edinburgh?

  If she had to work, she was much more likely to find it in London than anywhere else.

  She would go to Violet, who had been very friendly all the time she was staying with her, and in fact at times she had seemed almost like the sister Davita had never had.

  She remembered too that Violet had said to her: “You’re very pretty, Davita, and in a year or two you’ll be stunning! If you take my advice, you’ll not waste yourself in this dead-or-alive place.”

  “But this is my home!” Davita had said.

  “Home or not, the moors aren’t going to pay you compliments, and the only kisses you’ll get will be from the wind, which anyway will ruin your skin!”

  Davita had laughed, but when Violet had gone she had missed her.

  It had been fun to have another girl of almost the same age to talk to, while she knew that her father, when he was with Katie, found her rather an encumbrance.

  Afterwards, when he was sober enough he clung to her because there was no-one else.

  “If you think I want that woman back, you are mistaken!” he would say angrily. “I’ll show her I can do without her! This is my home, and if it is not good enough for her, she can go and jump in the sea for all I care!”

  His violent mood would then give way to self-pity and a little while later he would cry:

  “I miss her, Davita! You are a good child and I am fond of you, but a man wants a woman in his life, and she was so pretty! I liked to hear her laugh. I wish you had seen her on the stage; I could not look at anybody else when she was there.”

  He would go on and on for hours, until once, without thinking, Davita had said:

  “Why do you not go to London, Papa? It would cheer you up.”

  Her father had turned on her angrily.

  “Do you suppose I have not thought of that? Do you suppose I wish to be stuck in this benighted place? Dammit all, London would help me to forget—of course it would—but I have not the money. Do you understand, Davita? I have not a penny to my name!”

  Davita could almost hear him now, shouting the words at her, and they seemed to be still echoing round the room.

  Then as Hector put a neatly folded suit over Katie Kingston’s photograph, she made up her mind.

  “I am going to London, Hector!” she said quietly. “If Miss Violet cannot help me to find work, then I will come back.”

  The train in which Davita was travelling from Edinburgh was uncomfortably crowded for the first part of the journey. Then gradually, as passengers got out at every stop, Davita found herself alone, with the exception of one other woman, in the carriage marked: “Ladies Only.”

  It was Hector who had insisted she should travel Second-Class.

  “I think it is too extravagant,” Davita had said, thinking how long her money had to last.

  “I’m not having ye, Miss Davita, going off on yer own in a Third-Class carriage with th’ type of scum that’s sometimes in ’em!” Hector replied.

  Although Davita knew he was talking good sense, she parted reluctantly with what seemed to her a lot of money, and left Hector to find her a corner seat and make sure her trunk was placed in the Guard’s-Van.

  As she waved him good-bye she felt as if she was leaving behind her in Scotland not only everything she loved but also her childhood.

  Now she was on her own, grown up, a woman who should take care of herself, but somehow she had not the least idea how to set about it.

  Then she thought that if things got too frightening, she could go back to Hector and stay with him in his tiny croft until she could start again.

  It consisted of only two rooms, one up and one down, but she knew it would not worry Hector to sleep in the lower room while she occupied the only bedroom.

  He would look after her as he had looked after her father from the time he was a boy, and her mother when they were married.

  But Hector was growing old, and she had to be sensible and start to find her own way in the world, as many other young women had done before her.

  But deep down inside she was frightened, and she found herself wishing, as she had so often before in her life, that she had been the boy her mother had expected, who was to have been called “David,” which was a family name, instead of being a girl and an only child at that.

  She had brought with her the only possessions she owned, and they filled exactly two trunks.

  After her mother’s death she had fortunately kept her clothes and altered them to fit herself.

  But she was quite sure, even though they were made of good materials and some of them came from the best shops in Edinburgh, that by now they would be out of fashion.

  Katie’s clothes had of course been very different.

  At the same time, while she had been living with them Davita had taken the opportunity of altering some of her mother’s gowns to make them more fashionable.

  Katie had also occasionally thrown a gown at Davita and said:

  “Here, you take this! I’ll never wear it again, and although it’s too big for you, the stuffs good—the Guv’nor saw to that!”

  Davita had managed to make herself two gowns out of Katie’s cast-offs, but the third was of crimson taffeta, which was a hopeless contrast to her hair.

  She did not dare spend one penny of her precious inheritance on clothes, so she merely wore a travelling-gown and cape which had belonged to her mother, and changed the ribbons and feathers from one bonnet to another to make what she hoped was a suitable ensemble in which to appear in London.

  As the train drew nearer and nearer to the Metropolis, Davita became more and more frightened.

  She had never been to London before, but from all she had heard about it, she suddenly felt that she had made a mistake and would much better have stayed in the world to which she belonged, however lonely it might have been.

  Her father had extolled London as if it were a Paradise of gaiety and excitement, with dashing, handsome men and beautiful, alluring women.

  But he was a man, and from some of the things Katie had told her, Davita had been well aware that for a woman without money life could be a struggle with a lot of danger about it that she did not completely understand.

  “I had a hard time on me own with Violet to look after, and no job until I got back my health and strength, and my figure too, when it came to that.”

  “Surely your husband ...?” Davita began.

  “He’d gone—scuttled!” Katie said. “He was the sort who never ought to have got married. I was a fool to listen to him, but when you’re in love ...”

  She had spoken derisively, then with one of her lilting little laughs she had added:

  “I never learn, do I? Here I am at thir
ty-six, letting me heart rule me head once again, and where’s it got me? To bonnie Scotland, and not so bonnie from what I’ve seen of it!”

  Davita had laughed, but she had thought then that there was a little note of desperation in Katie’s voice, which had worried her.

  Katie had left for America with not only her experience of the stage to help her but also Harry.

  Afterwards, Davita thought she might have expected that Katie was infatuated with the handsome actor, from the way she looked at him all the time he had been staying with them.

  She had thought innocently that it was because he was a great actor and, as Violet had described him, a “star.” But after Katie was gone she supposed that the expression in her blue eyes had been one of love, and she thought the way Harry had looked at her had explained why the women at the matinees had watched him breathlessly and found their hearts beating quicker.

  Katie would be all right, Davita thought, and wondered how she could let her know she was now a widow. Then she remembered that she was going to see Violet, who would undoubtedly know where her mother was to be found.

  Again Davita felt a little quiver of fear.

  Suppose Violet did not want her? Suppose she was angry with her for coming South without waiting for a reply to her letters? Davita had written to her ten days ago, but she had not actually expected Violet to answer, because she remembered her saying several times when she had been staying with them:

  “I can’t bear writing letters or anything else for that matter! I learnt enough at School to read, but writing’s hard work, and besides, I can’t spell!”

  “Better not let the Guv’nor hear you talking like that!” Katie had exclaimed. “You know he likes his girls to be ladylike, and ladies always say ‘thank you’ properly.”

  “I don’t know what you mean by ‘properly,’ ” Violet had replied. “I’d rather say ‘thank you’ with a kiss than write.”

  Katie had laughed.

  “That’s a different thing! But if a Duke asks you out to supper, you can hardly send him a kiss to say ‘yes.’ ”

  “I manage!” Violet answered, and they both had laughed.

  Davita thought now that if Violet refused to have her, she would have to try to find a Domestic Bureau.