Dance on my Heart

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1928The Rolls-Royce had its bonnet open and its engine running. The chauffeur, as he was cleaning it, was whistling the very latest tune, with which, only a few weeks old, London was already satiated. Children were playing in the early morning sunshine on the cobblestones of the Mews. Fiona stirred in her narrow bed and finally awoke. She lay for a few minutes more trying to recapture her dreams and then gradually full consciousness of the noise outside her window roused her to complete wakefulness. ‘What a noise,’ she thought resentfully, wondering if she could find as cheap a room in some quieter spot. The room, which was only just large enough to hold a narrow iron bedstead, a chest of drawers and a washstand, was only desirable from the point of view of its price. Ten shillings a week was what Fiona paid regularly to the chauffeur’s wife who was her landlady and she had found that hard enough until last night, when she had started on a new job with the magnificent salary of thirty-five shillings a week. Remembrance of this new job came back to her now when she realised, as she opened them, how much her eyes smarted from the smoky atmosphere she had left five hours ago. Her legs were tired and her feet were sore. The new shoes bought for the occasion had been stiff and a trifle tight and this morning her feet were achingly resentful of that fact. Yet it was with complacent pleasure that she thought of her triumph in securing the job over the heads of many other applicants. They had all been struggling with that hungry look in their eyes for anything that would keep them from penury. The job itself, in its full glory, was known as ‘Dance Hostess’ at the most fashionable restaurant in the West End of London. Paglioni’s was frequented by Society and patronised by younger Royals. It employed two girls termed ‘Dance Hostesses’ and a man who enjoyed the same standing. Their duties were to dance the moment the band began at ten o’clock so as to encourage other people onto the floor. They sat at a table and any partnerless male could be introduced to the ‘Dance Hostesses’ while the man sought out elderly women whose husbands were too old or apathetic to learn the latest steps. It was all intensely respectable. A man wishing to dance with one of the Hostesses would first approach either Paglioni himself or send a message by a waiter, He was then formally introduced and the Hostess would accept his invitation to dance. At most restaurants tips were expected and given by the partners, but then the salary was only ten shillings a week, a purely nominal ‘retaining fee’. Paglioni, however, had an idea that it definitely encouraged more men to dine singly at his restaurant if they could dance with a girl and then not have to pay her. He impressed his munificence on his patrons, informing them that the girls received large salaries. Occasionally a man would be so pleased with his partner that he would slip a ten shilling note into her hand on leaving or a stranger would not know the rules of the house. It was a disadvantage to the girls, although it benefited Paglioni. Many men would desert their Clubs for the restaurant, knowing that if they felt shy alone they could get a Hostess to join them for the cost of an extra drink. Last night Fiona had found that, of her many partners, none of them would see sixty again. What was surprising was that most of them danced well, of which in most cases they were boastfully conceited. At nine-thirty Fiona and her companions had to be at their post. They were expected to be well dressed and Paglioni had informed her that one dress would not be sufficient. “There must be a change,” he had said in an airy way, as if evening dresses were easily procured on the princely sum that he paid them. But Fiona had been just too thankful to get the job to worry at that moment, whatever conditions he imposed. “The one thing for you to remember,” he had said in his broken English, “is that you are here to please my clients. That is the most important thing. The client must be pleased. If you don’t please them, you go. And I don’t give any notice.” Fiona had remembered his words as she journeyed up Piccadilly in a bus. She had not worried about her appearance. She knew that her red chiffon dress, bought cheaply in the sales, was just right and became her. She had already made a hole in her week’s earnings to buy the red shoes to match and a little beaded evening bag, feeling that her serviceable black leather one was not in keeping. Her hair had been waved, her nails manicured and she was fully conscious that the other occupants of the bus stared at her in admiration. She had no evening coat, but the black cloth one that she wore in the daytime was warm and could be quickly discarded in the cloakroom. ‘I must keep this job,’ she thought to herself. ‘Even if the pay is small, I at least get one good meal a day.’ Paglioni provided supper, exclusive of drinks, of course. She was early and had to wait in the lounge for the other two to appear. Clare Bailey was tall and dark and Fiona realised at once that Paglioni had chosen her because they were such opposite types, Fiona’s fair hair, blue eyes and very English appearance were a delightful foil for Clare’s sinuousness and dark almost Oriental beauty. She had been at Paglioni’s for two months and had proved herself a success with the clientele. She had lovely clothes, which filled Fiona with envy, until she discovered that Clare had managed to get a well-known dressmaker to allow her to borrow her models. Clare’s one horror was that a dress might be spoilt, in which case she would have to pay for it. “Men are so rough,” she confided to Fiona. Her smirk as she said it had made Fiona uneasily apprehensive of what she herself might have to experience later. Paul, the professional ‘Host’, was, as might be expected, tall, dark and good-looking. He had tried for some time to become a shop walker, but had been sacked from several places for incompetence due entirely to his innate laziness. He could not get up in the morning and found long hours of standing about too irksome to be endured. He therefore enjoyed his present position, which enabled him to spend most of the day in bed. He made more than the girls, by giving dancing lessons but, as they were generally only a subterfuge for elderly ladies to pursue a closer acquaintance with him, he was not required to put in an appearance until after luncheon at the earliest. Then he would present himself at their houses, to glide for an hour with them on their parquet floors, before indulging in tea and a little chat about himself. It was also suspected that he insisted on receiving tips in spite of Paglioni’s rule, not dancing twice unless compelled to with a woman who forgot. Being a man, he had the privilege of asking, while the girls were powerless to refuse an invitation. He had been at the restaurant for a long time and Paglioni well knew his worth, for his female admirers came regularly for dinner and supper, bringing their non-dancing husbands to pay the bill. Paul had been condescendingly polite to Fiona. He had the rather suave, over-polished manners of a gigolo, which he did not drop in his conversation with the girls, at any rate not within the precincts of Paglioni’s lounge. When they were seated at their tables and the band, after shuffling into their seats, started with the bright tune that was to raise the atmosphere to one of gaiety, he turned to Fiona with a little bow. “Will you dance this with me, Miss Mayne?” he said. Inwardly nervous but outwardly composed, Fiona rose. She was terrified of making a mistake, but Paul was a very good dancer. Although they danced for quite three minutes alone, before they were joined by three or four other couples, she managed to look as if she was used to giving such an exhibition. “We can now go back to our food,” Paul said at last, as at least six couples were dancing, and others seemed to be preparing to join them. They went back to their table to find that the fish that had been given to them for supper was cold. But it was still appetising to anyone who had lived on the scraps that Fiona had had for the last few weeks while she was looking for a job. London was full of people seeking positions, regardless of the smallness of the salaries offered. Anything to be in work and to feel some sort of security against that terrible dread of starvation. Fiona’s father had been a Solicitor in a London suburb where she had lived all her life. He had been a morose dour man, who had accepted life and death with a gloomy fatality that had made him no friends and rendered Fiona’s childhood a lengthy passage of loneliness. Her mother had died when she was young and there had been no one to take her place. The house was managed by a single servant, who had no affection either for her father or for herself, but who did her work passably well. Fiona was sent to the local High School, where she received an education that fitted her for no particular job, but showed her that a post of Schoolmistress or Governess was entirely out of the question. When she left school, she could type somewhat laboriously, but too slow to be employed anywhere but in her father’s office. Six months ago her father had died very suddenly. When his affairs were all cleared up, Fiona found herself with a capital of one hundred pounds. Her father was not a popular man and his business was a poor one. The house, which she did not want, was luckily nearly at the end of a long lease and when she explained her plight to the landlord he generously offered to relieve her of her last year’s tenancy. She quickly realised that there was no likelihood of her obtaining work locally. The market was already glutted with girls wanting to be independent or really in need of employment and with her one hundred pounds she had come to London and searched the West End. She was persuaded by her Bank Manager to invest the one hundred pounds in War Loans and she made a vow to herself that if possible she would not draw it out unless in really desperate straits. Once that money was gone, there was nothing and nobody between her and starvation. Her mother had come from the West Country, but Fiona had never met or heard of any of her relations, although she presumed vaguely that there were some still living. Her father had been born in the North and so far as she knew he had no relations and his death seemed to be unmourned. To begin with Fiona had to find herself a room and her Mews lodging, near Marble Arch Underground Station, was the first that caught her eye. She had taken it until she could find, or her salary permitted, something better. She did her own room, but her landlady provided her with breakfast. Tea, none too hot and far too strong and bread and margarine were placed outside her room somewhere about ten o’clock every morning. If she woke later and the tea was cold, that was her fault. She had stipulated this arrangement from the moment she decided that a restaurant or Night Club life was the best thing for her. The first week she had sought a job as a mannequin or saleswoman in the better class shops, only to find that one question stood in her way insurmountably, “Have you had any experience?” For the saleswoman job it was the same and there were queues of applicants for every vacancy. It was an advertisement in one of the newspapers that made Fiona apply for the job as ‘Dance Hostess”. She had not obtained that particular job, but she had realised that such employment was open to a ‘pretty well-dressed girl.’ She knew that she was smart at the moment for her clothes were new. In mourning for her father, she knew that their sombre black showed up her fairness to its best advantage. She had wandered from Cabaret to Night Club and from Night Club to a restaurant, meeting so often the same girls that one or two of them began to smile and chat with her. She was amazed at their good-humoured acceptance of refusal, but some of them seemed too numb to protest or even swear at the Fate that sent them away. The others would shrug their shoulders or joke about their ill-fortune. It was after she had been refused admission for the post was filled at a rather low Night Club in Regent Street, that she heard that Paglioni was likely to require another Hostess. “Brenda’s got a job on the stage,” the girl next to her was saying. “They go on tour next week, a try-out, I think and if it’s a success they’ll come back to London. She’s lucky, isn’t she, four pounds a week? And that means Paglioni will be looking out for someone else.” So Fiona joined the queue that waited outside Paglioni’s next morning. It was a damp day with a thin drizzle of rain and they stood shivering outside for a good hour after the appointed time before Paglioni arrived at the restaurant. Waiters were tidying up, trying to ventilate the room from the thick haze of stale smoke. The whole place had a tawdry rather dirty air in daylight, which clever lighting would conceal later on. The moment that Fiona saw Paglioni, she took an instinctive dislike to him. A thick-set swarthy Italian, unshaven at this hour in the morning but already smoking a cigar. With his hat on his head, he beckoned to the girls, taking them six at a time and they stood miserably in the centre of the floor while he cursed a waiter for some fault his quick eyes had detected. Finally, he attended to them. Fiona, having risen very early, was to be in the first six. He looked her up and down, asking her questions and inspecting the others. Two were not pretty enough for his liking and he dismissed them curtly. In the end Fiona was selected for the job and, while she rejoiced, she could hardly bear the disappointed faces of the others as they went away out into the drizzling rain to start their search all over again. Still everyone for herself and so this morning Fiona could think only of the joy of not having to search for a job. She stretched herself luxuriously in her bed and glanced at the clock, which ticked on a chair beside her. “Half-past ten.” She climbed out of bed, opened the door and brought in her breakfast tray. The tea was quite cold, but she drank it anyway and ate the whole of the rather stale chunk of bread on the plate. She wondered if she could do without luncheon and wait for further food until her supper at Paglioni’s tonight. * “Who is that?” Fiona asked Clare, as she went back to her seat, having been dancing for a quarter of an hour and there had been no answer. She had been nearly a month at Paglioni’s by this time and knew a good many of the people by sight. With some of the men she was quite friendly. The women, of course, ignored her and she had soon learned the difference in a man’s behaviour towards her when he was alone and when he was with a woman. There was rather a charming young man who she had danced with two or three times in succession one evening. He had been very cheery and had come over and sat at the table with Clare and herself and had insisted on providing them with champagne. This, of course, was noticed and greatly approved of by Paglioni. The next night Fiona had seen her new friend arriving in a party of other men and three women. “There’s Harry,” she had said excitedly to Clare, “I wonder if he will come over and speak to us.” But Clare had speedily disillusioned her. “Of course not,” she said sharply, “and for Goodness sake, Fiona, don’t try to attract his attention like that. You must not bow or smile until he sees you first.” And Fiona quickly realised that Harry had no intention of seeing her at all that evening. He avoided meeting her glance, but he returned to Paglioni’s two or three nights later and was just as cheerful and friendly as he had been on their first acquaintance. The man with whom Fiona had been dancing the moment before she spoke to Clare was tall and rather good-looking in an elderly way, but his face was lined and marked with the evident signs of too good living and dissipation. He had an unpleasant way of dancing far too intimately, Fiona thought. Although he had said very little, she had disliked him and had seized the opportunity of returning to her own table as quickly as possible. Her partner had ordered himself a bottle of champagne and had returned to his table to consume it and some oysters. He was evidently important for he was given the table of honour and a sofa in an alcove that was kept exclusively for the celebrities or Royalty who would condescend to come to Paglioni’s. “That is Lord Winthrop,” Clare pointed out. “He is immensely rich and lives in that lovely house at the corner of Park Lane.” “Winthrop House,” Fiona said. “Of course I know it. But I don’t think I like him much.” “I’m not surprised” Clare replied. “He is a beast. Here’s my old boy coming along. I shall not see you again tonight, I’m going to have supper with him.” She smiled, as an elderly General, bald-headed and short of breath, approached her. They moved to another table at the far end of the room, where she proceeded to order herself the most expensive things on the menu. This was not only in accordance with Paglioni’s instructions for, of course, the Hostesses were expected to encourage the clients to spend money, but Clare was naturally greedy. Fiona was not long at her table before Lord Winthrop approached her. She rose to her feet unwillingly, feeling a strong inclination to refuse, but conscious that from the doorway Paglioni was watching her. Lord Winthrop danced fairly well, but held her far too tightly. “You are very pretty, you know,” he said at last. “Thank you,” Fiona replied as coldly as she dared. She did not care for compliments of this sort anyway and not from someone she disliked. “Will you have supper with me tomorrow night?” Lord Winthrop continued. Fiona sought wildly for an excuse. “I think I have someone else,” she began hesitatingly. “That is all right,” he replied. “I’ll tell Paglioni that I want you.” “Don’t do that, please” Fiona said hastily. “I think I can manage it.” “Then that is settled, my dear,” he replied. “I will be here about eleven o’clock.” He held her tighter still for a moment. “Where do you live?” “I have a room in a Mews,” Fiona replied. “A nice room?” “It is a very small one,” she answered. “I have been meaning to move on, but it is very difficult to find anywhere suitable.” “Can you have friends there?” he asked. Fiona, realising the drift of his remark, said quickly, “Oh, no that is quite impossible. I lodge with a chauffeur’s wife and have only a tiny room next to hers.” “That seems rather inconvenient for a pretty girl like you,” Lord Winthrop said jovially. Fiona shook her head. “I never take friends home,” she said firmly, hoping that there was meaning in her voice. “Perhaps they take you instead?” he asked. “No,” Fiona replied, “I am very tired when I leave here. I am only too thankful to go straight home – I think this is the end of the dance. Don’t you want to go back to your supper?” “I’ll come over and dance with you later” he promised, giving her a final squeeze, which sent Fiona back to her table with burning cheeks and angry eyes. “The old fool’s getting fresh,” she told Paul. He laughed. “I should not mind,” he said, “after all he is rich enough.” “I think he is revolting,” Fiona replied. Paul looked somewhat superciliously at her. “Are you really going to keep up this pose of virginity?” he said. “It is amusing for a little while, but you really cannot do the baby eyes stunt indefinitely. “And anyhow” he added in a kinder tone, “I should be careful not to offend his Lordship. He is an old devil for complaining and he is one of the best customers here.” Fiona nodded. “I gathered that, from the fuss that is been made over him.” “Don’t you forget it,” Paul advised her. “Oh, Lord – the band is going to play a tango. That means we have to start this dance.” He and Fiona stood up and then began to dance. Two or three other couples gradually drifted onto the dance floor, but there were very few of them and Fiona was all the time conscious that Lord Winthrop’s eyes were following every movement she made. They went through all the swaying movements and intricate cross-steps of an exhibition tango, but all the time she was wondering how she could avoid the man who was watching her from across the room. She had a vague presentiment of nastiness and a desire to avoid him at any cost. She knew that Clare would think her a fool and Paul would give her no sympathy. There was no one else who she could confide her fears to. After all they might well be unfounded, yet at the same time she felt that he was going to be objectionable. She had been so comfortable these last few weeks at Paglioni’s. The late hours had been difficult at first, but now she was used to them and had learnt to sleep in spite of the noise in the Mews until nearly luncheontime. She had certainly not managed to save any money, in fact she had already expended next week’s pay on a new dress, which she had been obliged to buy. She could not face the thought of finding another job and at the same time she realised that the one she held depended entirely on herself. One complaint might be sufficient to bring that curt dismissal and put her back again into those long queues. ‘How morbid I am getting,’ she thought, giving herself mentally a little shake, ‘and how stupid, just because one old man asks me to supper.’ She looked quickly round at him. He was watching her still. As she was back to her table, she said to Paul with a sudden gust of anger, “How I hate this life!” He looked at her in surprise. “If you know a better job – ” Half-ashamed of herself, Fiona laughed up at him. “I don’t,” she confessed. “I have met worse myself,” Paul answered, taking a long drink of water. Rising to his feet he walked across the room to ask a gay Dowager of sixty-five for the next foxtrot. As he passed a mirror, he gave himself a self-satisfied glance. ‘He is too stupid to want anything better,’ Fiona told herself candidly. Then she saw that Lord Winthrop had risen and was making his way towards her.