Marriage By Arrangement

‘Thank you. When did you want to start the lessons?’

‘On Monday.’

The older woman shot her a glance. ‘I’m really very busy. I’m not sure if I can fit you in at such short notice. But in three weeks or so—’

‘I can’t wait that long.’

‘You’ve got the chance of another part, have you?’

Figuring that there was always a chance of a part, Red nodded. ‘I’ve got to get rid of this accent.’

‘Yes, well, I’m hardly surprised. Actually, you’re in luck; I have a young man who’s joined a touring company, so he has postponed his course of lessons. You can take his block of appointments, if you like.’

‘That’s great. When do I start?’

‘Come on Tuesday, at eleven.’

‘And how much is a course of lessons?’

Mrs St Aubyn named the figure. ‘That’s for ten lessons of one hour.’

The price was high, but not a lot more than Red had expected. She nodded. ‘Right.’

‘Your name?’

‘Red McGee.’

Raising delicately arched eyebrows, Mrs St Aubyn wrote in her name. Watching as she did so, Red rather wistfully noticed how elegant she looked, even though unmade-up and wearing just a nightdress and the negligée over it. Most women wouldn’t have got away with it, but Mrs St Aubyn seemed to be one of the fortunate ones who always looked classy under any circumstances.

Remembering how she herself looked after a late night, let alone a hectic one spent with a lover, Red wondered if it would be possible to learn how to acquire such elegance along with the voice training.

Showing her to the door, Mrs St Aubyn said firmly, ‘And please don’t call here again at the weekends.’

Was that because she always had her boyfriend to stay then? Red wondered. She glanced up the staircase with its curved banister rail, but there was no sign of the man who’d tried so hard to get rid of her.

What had Mrs St Aubyn called him? Some outlandish name. Linus, that was it. What kind of wimpish, pommy name was that? Although the man hadn’t looked like a wimp—more like a drunk. Still, he must have something, because it was quite obvious that Mrs St Aubyn was keen for her to go so that she could go back to bed, back to her toy boy. Red hardly had time to turn to say goodbye before the door was shut behind her.

Glancing back at the narrow, three-storeyed Georgian house, with its wrought-iron balconies at the first-floor windows, Red saw that the shutters on that floor were still closed, and couldn’t help wondering if that was the room where the two slept—or more likely weren’t sleeping at all.

This was a place typical of London, in the area they called Pimlico—a quiet street, tree-lined, the houses long terraces of yellow brick that had weathered into a pleasant greyness over the last two hundred years. Each house had a solid front door, generally painted white, with an ornate fanlight over it, and some of them had tubs containing neat bay laurels on either side of the doorway. Not a pretentious street, but nevertheless one that gave an aura of quiet gentility and the means to preserve it.

Red hurried home to the small flat she shared with another actress, Jenny, older than herself by some eight years, and told her all about it.

Jenny whistled when she heard how much the lessons were going to cost. ‘Where on earth did you get the money?’

‘I pawned my watch,’ Red answered without a qualm.

‘Not the one your father gave you for your twenty-first birthday?’ And when Red nodded, she added, ‘What if he finds out?’

‘He’s in Australia; how will he find out?’

Jenny shook her head. ‘You shouldn’t have done it.’

‘He should have sent me the money instead,’ Red said impatiently. She had in fact asked for money, but her father considered that the allowance he sent her every month was enough for her to live on so had ignored her plea, instead sending instructions for her to collect the watch, a gold one, from a famous London jeweller’s instead.

When Red went to the house in Pimlico again for her first lesson, Mrs St Aubyn was beautifully dressed and made-up, looking even younger than Red had first expected her to be. Of her boyfriend there was no sign. Nor of a Mr St Aubyn.

The lesson went well; Mrs St Aubyn took her right back to basics, teaching her how to breathe and form vowels, and being very patient with her, making sure that Red had got it right before moving on. She was such a good teacher that the hour flew by, and Red went home to drive Jenny mad by practising all evening.

‘Do you mind? I’m trying to watch television,’ Jenny remonstrated.

‘I’ve got to get it right. Mrs St Aubyn said I should practise until it comes naturally to me.’

‘So go in your bedroom and do it! I’m sick of listening to you. You sound like Eliza Dolittle.’

Red gave her an indignant look. ‘You know I don’t have long. If I don’t get a decent part within the next few months my father will make me go home.’

‘I’m beginning to be glad I’m an orphan. Surely you can persuade him to let you stay on in England?’

‘You don’t know my father,’ Red said with feeling. ‘I had to promise that if I didn’t get a decent part within a year then I’d go back.’ Turning away, she began again. ‘Ooo. Aaa.’

Jenny threw a cushion at her in exasperation, then covered up her ears.

During that month Red went to her voice coach twice a week and made such progress that she managed to get a part in a commercial. She didn’t have to say much, just the name of the product a couple of times in a sexy tone, but at least it was work. On the strength of it she sent her father a picture postcard of Buckingham Palace saying, ‘Have got important new role,’ and hoped that it would keep him off her back for a while longer.

Her course of ten lessons was coming to an end, and she could now, with care, speak in what Mrs St Aubyn called ‘an unaccented tone’, but which Red thought of as an English accent.

Considering it money well spent, Red decided to spend the fee she’d got from the commercial on extending the course of lessons. If she could do a cockney accept there was a chance of getting a part in the soap set in London’s East End. And if she could sign a contract for a long-running part then there was no way that her father could make her go back to Australia.

Travelling home on the tube late one afternoon, Red noticed that the line went through Pimlico and, having made her decision, thought that she might as well break off her journey to go to Mrs St Aubyn’s house and book another set of lessons before someone else got there first.

It was a grey, dark day, and there was a light showing in the first-floor window and another through the fanlight over the front door, so Red rang the doorbell, confident that the voice coach was at home.

She waited but no one came, although Red thought that she heard a noise inside. Again she rang, waited, and was about to turn away, thinking that the lights must have been left on as a burglar deterrent, when she heard the noise coming from inside for a second time, and louder now. A strange sound, almost like a baby crying.

Ever curious, Red stooped to the letter box and lifted the flap to peer inside. There was an inner flap obscuring her view; she worked her hand inside, pushed the flap up, and gave a gasp of horror. Mrs St Aubyn was lying at the bottom of the staircase and looked as if she was trying to crawl towards the door. She cried out, the sound now a distinct cry for help.

‘Stay right there,’ Red yelled. ‘I’ll get an ambulance.’

She ran to the next-door house and rang the bell insistently, at the same time hammering with the knocker.

‘What is it? What on earth’s the matter?’ the middle-aged man who came to open the door demanded.

‘It’s Mrs St Aubyn; I think she must have fallen down the stairs. Could you call an ambulance? Oh, and we’ll need the police; they might have to break down the door.’

The man came to look for himself before he would phone, but then was more than helpful. ‘You wait here for the ambulance,’ he instructed once the phone call had been made. ‘I’ll go out the back and see if there’s a window open. We don’t want to have to break the door down unless it’s absolutely necessary.’

A police car was pulling up at the kerb just as the neighbour came hurrying back. ‘There’s a bathroom window partly open at the back,’ he said, panting slightly. ‘Only a small one, though.’