Chapter Thirty-Nine

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

‘S he would have wanted you to go ahead with the wedding, Lillian,’ Tom said.

The weather the next morning had turned cold again. Lillian had come down to the breakfast table when the news arrived. Now she was sitting next to Tom, her arm over the back of his chair.

Jack looked around the table, his eyes dry, but with a foul emptiness in his chest. It was impossible that Ruby was gone. After the first ripple of shock had run through the room, it was Lillian who had suggested they should postpone. Jack was not sure anyone else could even start thinking about the practicalities as yet. Grace looked bereft and pale, as if she hadn’t fully grasped the news. Nikolai was staring at his hands.

Dixon had left at first light to supervise the day’s recordings. It seemed insane to think he was there now, arranging his microphones as Mabel and her jazz men arrived and unpacked their instruments, all in blissful ignorance of their terrible loss.

‘Are you quite sure, Tom?’ Nikolai asked. ‘She was a very important part of this family.’

Tom was still wearing the evening suit he had put on yesterday to play for ‘The Sunrise Song’. He looked older today.

‘I’m more than sure. She left very detailed instructions. It’s a private burial, just me and Sarah, her landlady. I’m her executor and have inherited all rights in her work.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Her savings go to her landlady. Grace, you are to have any of her costume jewellery you’d like, with the exception of a couple of things put aside for Sarah and Mabel.’ The corner of his mouth twisted into a smile. ‘She’s even drafted her obituary. But we are to allow Mabel to dedicate a song to her during her current season at the Metropole, if Mabel feels that would be appropriate.’

‘She planned it all very carefully,’ Lillian said. ‘Do you think she knew her time was coming?’

‘She said nothing to me,’ Tom replied. ‘She was a very private person in many ways.’

They all returned their gazes to the tablecloth, and Jack wondered if any of the others were, like him, considering the idea Ruby’s relationship with Sarah had been deeper than they had suspected.

Grace got up suddenly and went to the window. Jack joined her and she put her head on his shoulder. It felt like a cruel, dark reflection of the moment they had listened to ‘The Sunrise Song’ in the rehearsal corridor.

‘She was so delighted to see you on stage again, Lillian,’ Tom said, ‘and she thought you and Nikolai a great match.’

Nikolai patted Tom’s knee. ‘This pleases me very much, Tom.’

‘What about your mother, Tom?’ Jack asked. ‘What do we do about her?’

Tom’s lip curled. ‘Nothing for now.’

Jack felt a pang in his chest, and held Grace a little closer.

Tom stood up. ‘I’m going to the factory to break the news. You do the same for The Empire, and I’ll be over this afternoon to pick up the new masters. “The Sunrise Song” is coming off the presses this morning and every one is going to be perfect. And so will the next record be, and the next.’

‘Tom, dear!’ Lillian protested. ‘Shouldn’t you rest? You’ve been up all night.’

‘I’ll rest later. Ruby would expect me to do my job, for her and for all of you, and I’m not going to let her down.’

They remained in silence as he left, and in silence as they heard his car drive away. Finally Lillian stood up. ‘We can only follow his example, I think. Jack, if you and Grace don’t mind waiting while I dress, we can tell everyone at The Empire together.’

The announcement went to the newspapers in time for the midday editions, and by teatime Marcus and Mrs Briggs were gathering armfuls of flowers left in tribute by the lobby doors.

Grace decided to keep herself busy by helping out in the shop, and before the end of the day it was clear to her that Ruby would not get it all her own way. Highbridge wanted a chance to remember her.

‘She didn’t want anything, Grace,’ Tom said wearily as they ate their dinner that evening. ‘I understand people need . . . something. But a service, or a tribute in the theatre? She’ll come back and haunt us.’

‘I rather wish she would,’ Lillian said, as Hewitt cleared the soup. ‘What about something very simple. Not in the theatre itself, but the lobby, perhaps. We could just ask everyone to come along at lunchtime, perhaps. No speeches or ceremony, simply an opportunity to be together and remember her.’

‘It should be before the wedding,’ Nikolai said.

‘Yes, Thursday lunchtime perhaps,’ Jack replied. ‘Tom, do you think she’d compromise on that?’

He nodded, and they continued their meal in quiet.

That night Tom decided not to resist any longer. After dinner, he went to the Bricklayers Arms and sat in the saloon, where he had shared a table with Ruby and heard Sally for the first time, to listen to her second hour. The mood was subdued, and Sally sang ‘The Old Oak’ in Ruby’s honour, with Clive accompanying her on his accordion, the instrument sounding more mournful and lost than he’d ever thought possible. The song shook him down to the soles of his feet. Strange: Sally had said it would be like singing on stage with no clothes on, but it was Tom who felt naked as he listened. Bare and bruised. He only half heard the rest of the hour, as Sally got them all settled and laughing again. Alfred paid for a round in Ruby’s honour, the patrons toasted her, then turned back to their own concerns.

When Sally finished, Tom prepared to leave, and was so exhausted and sunk in his own misery he didn’t realise she was approaching till she sat down beside him and pushed a glass of whisky across the table towards him.

He looked round at her. ‘That’s a hell of a song, Sally.’

‘I know. Wish there was something I could say, Tom.’

He was terribly afraid he was going to weep. He thought about telling her about his mother, the struggles at the factory, the triumph, and the terrible finality of his loss. ‘Don’t say anything,’ he said. ‘But if you could just sit with me for a while.’

She moved a little closer to him, so their shoulders were touching, and did exactly that.

On Thursday they closed the shop at midday precisely. Everyone who worked there wanted to take their chance to honour Ruby, and when Grace came into the lobby with the staff, she found it already full of people. Tom was there, with Ruby’s landlady, and the workers from the factory: Miss James, Patterson, Fossil and a dozen other faces Grace didn’t recognise. Tom came over and put an envelope into her hand.

‘Grace, I was looking through Ruby’s notebooks and I found this. I’m sure she was thinking about you when she wrote it.’

Grace thanked him and put the envelope, unopened, into her bag. They had left all the arrangements, other than the time and place, to Mr Poole. Grace saw a black-edged notice had been put up on an easel in the lobby, normally used to announce coming attractions. A large photograph of Ruby as a young woman had been pasted to the board, and neatly inked above it, Grace read SUSANNA ‘RUBY’ ROWNTREE. COMPOSER, TEACHER, FRIEND. 1855–1927.

Jack and Miss Chisholm came to join her, and Jack put his arm around his wife’s waist. As they watched from the back of the crowd, the Empire band leader, Mr Porter, positioned himself next to the easel, put his violin to his chin, and began to play one of the ballads Ruby had written for Cairo Nights . A middle-aged man, with a frayed collar, removed his bowler hat, shuffled forward to lay a posy of violets under the easel. It was a cue. More floral tributes were brought forward: primroses tied in ribbons, scatterings of forget-me-nots and snowdrops.

‘What’s happening?’ a voice asked at Grace’s shoulder. She turned to discover Stella behind her, her eyes hidden by huge dark glasses. ‘Oh, Grace, it’s true! I can’t . . .’

Grace embraced her. ‘Stella, yes, it is. When did you get here?’

‘Just this minute. I went up to the house and Hewitt sent me here. Grace, how are we going to manage without her?’

‘I really don’t know, Stella. Where have you been?’

‘Norfolk, mostly. With the viscount. What will Mr Poole say? He hates to have his lobby disarranged.’

Jack pointed through the crowd. Mr Poole and Marcus were helping to arrange the flood of flowers, putting them around the notice itself. Already the black edges of the notice were disappearing under waves of spring blooms.

‘Oh,’ Stella said softly. ‘Oh, Ruby!’

As the bandleader played, members of the crowd continued to come forward, offer their flowers, or simply stand for a moment with their heads bowed, then move back to join their fellow mourners. Danny stood near the doors to the auditorium with Ollie in his arms. Next to him, Milly held a handkerchief to her eyes. Grace saw Tom stiffen as Sally Blow, holding hands with a little boy, came through the crowd and laid a posy of daffodils at the edge of the growing mass. Poole smiled at them both, and ruffled the boy’s hair, and Grace thought of the day Ruby had thrust her songs into Sally’s pockets.

An elderly man, leaning on a bamboo cane, glanced round and caught sight of Stella, then whispered something to his neighbour. She nudged the woman next to her, and the news of Miss Stanmore’s presence passed through the crowd like a breeze. Porter brought his tune to a close, then saw her, too.

‘Miss Stanmore,’ he said, and the crowd was so quiet he hardly needed to raise his voice. ‘Might you join me for a song?’

‘What do I do, Grace?’ Stella whispered. ‘I haven’t . . .’

‘This is for Ruby, Stella. Do what you do best.’ Grace sighed. ‘Make them feel better.’

Stella inhaled sharply, then nodded. She handed her coat to Jack, then took off her dark glasses and walked through the crowd. She paused for a second, as the others had, in front of the easel, before turning to face them. She was not dressed to perform. She barely had any make-up on at all, her lips pale and her hair loose and in curls. She wore a dark shirt and long flared trousers, but that glamour she had, that strange power, still made it impossible to look anywhere else but at her.

‘How many of you were Ruby’s pupils?’ she asked. A number of hands went up in the air. ‘Me, too. I remember once when we were rehearsing for Riviera Nights , she said to me, “Stella, dear, you have a very nice range, but when are you going to learn to count to four?”’

A ripple of laughter ran round the room.

‘Well, let’s see if she managed to teach me anything. What would you like to hear?’

Members of the crowd called out the titles of various of Ruby’s songs.

‘What about “My First Dance”?’ the man who had laid the violets called out, to a murmur of approval. Grace was surprised; it was a recent number Ruby had written for a show in Manchester – a strange, slightly alien tune with words taken from a local poet. She thought it very unlikely Stella would know it.

But Stella nodded, then turned to the bandleader. They consulted briefly in whispers, and he played a single note, passing his bow over the open string of his violin so it sounded almost like the drone of an accordion. Then Stella sang. Grace had forgotten, there was a call and response in the song when the singer asked if her lover remembered their first dance, and the lover replied that he did. As she reached the line, she paused. The audience were uncertain of their role, and the response was tentative and off-key.

Stella broke off and smiled at them and they laughed nervously. ‘Now, I think we can do better than that. When I say “Do you remember, can you recall?”, you reply, “I can remember, I can recall, now shall we dance again?” Let’s try it.’

They did, and exchanged relieved smiles. Faces flushed; hands sought out hands.

‘Much better! Mr Porter, if you would be so kind.’

They took the tune from the second verse, and this time the response filled the lobby. Grace felt the small hairs on her arms stand up. She took Jack’s hand, and the next time the line came, they, Tom and Lillian, added their voices to the throng.