Kitty Little Read Free Page A

certain that the gown was destined never to be worn again. She was wrong, for the life of this particular garment had barely begun.
     
    Clara, supposedly supervising Myrtle frying kippers while she scraped margarine onto wafer thin slices of bread, kept the kitchen door half open and one ear cocked. She was determined to take her errant daughter to task for leaving poor Frank standing in the hall with not even a goodnight kiss after that expensive night at the theatre. She heard the front door slam and ran to snatch it open again to stand dancing with frustration on the front doorstep. She might well have yelled at Kitty to return this instant, were it not for the fact that such an action would make lace curtains twitch all along the street. Foiled in her plan, Clara snatched up a plate of bread and butter, yelled at Myrtle to start on the washing up the minute she’d brewed the tea, and flounced off to the dining room in search of a more sympathetic ear.
    Dear Frank was surely the best one to deal with Kitty when she was in one of her moods. He was also the ideal man to bring her grieving daughter back to life and offer her the future she deserved. Didn’t she herself know from personal experience what it was like to live alone, without the comforts a man could offer? The mere thought of the girl’s ingratitude made her blood boil.
    Clara kicked open the dining room door, smiling beneficially upon the guests waiting hopefully for their kippers as she slammed down plates of bread and marg. ‘Mr Cussins, may I have a word?’ she purred sweetly.
    He glanced up from his seat at the window table and quietly removed the spectacles from where they perched on the end of his nose so he could read the morning paper.
    ‘Certainly Mrs Terry.’ It was a delightful little game they played, that they were always so punctiliously formal in front of the other guests. He carefully folded the paper and laid it neatly by his plate before weaving his way between the tables towards her.
    Clara felt her heart give a little flutter for he was indeed a fine figure of a man. Heaven help us, the girl didn’t appreciate how fortunate she was. Twenty-one years old and still turning her nose up at every suitor who came along. She gave a simpering little giggle as he approached. If that little madam didn’t make an effort to treat this one with more respect she’d be left on the shelf, sure as eggs is eggs, and remain forever an old maid. The very idea made Clara shudder. She was determined that Kitty must be saved from herself no matter what the cost; dragged to the altar if necessary. Whatever had possessed her to run off this morning. She’d wring her bleeding neck when she got her hands on her.
    Though if her daughter did cry off in the end, Clara might well grab him herself.
     
    Kitty alighted from the bus when her fare ran out to find herself back by the theatre. It was then that the idea came to her. If she dreamed of being an actress, why not try? What did she have to lose? Once the notion had taken hold, there seemed to be no shifting it.
    She didn’t even get beyond the porter who sat puffing a malodorous pipe, jealously guarding the back stage entrance, warding off all-comers with a long arm and a short temper. ‘No auditions today girl,’ he growled, wafting her away through a haze of smoke.
    Kitty mustered every ounce of charm she possessed but it was clear that he wasn’t about to let her cross the threshold, not to see the producer, the stage manager, nor anyone. Not without a letter of introduction from her agent, which of course she didn’t possess, or unless there were auditions on, which there certainly weren’t as she could see by the fact there was no queue outside.
    ‘Where would I find an agent, exactly?’
    He peered at this tall, rather ordinary looking girl through dusty spectacles, then removing the pipe from his mouth, knocked out the bowl and began to plug it with fresh tobacco. Carefully tamping this down