The Bannister Girls Read Free Page B

glo-o-ry…’
    Amid roars of applause and whistling, Miss Eliza Kent bowed low, promising to sing for them all again for the finale of the show.
    â€˜I’m not sure I can stand another bout of slush and sentiment,’ Jacques muttered to Angel.
    â€˜Where’s your patriotism?’ She grinned back. ‘Can’t you see how much they all love this vicarious suffering? The war’s only been going for seven months. Think of all the work it’s giving to songwriters and musicians!’
    â€˜That’s very upper class cynicism, Miss Bannister!’ Jacques mocked her.
    â€˜Yes. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it –’
    â€˜Why not? Why shouldn’t we say what we think as long as we’re not giving away state secrets? We might all be dead tomorrow, and we spend half our lives saying what we don’t mean to people we don’t care about.’
    They looked at one another. It was a strangely charged moment. Just as quickly, they looked away. It was as if they had each glimpsed a secret truth that neither was prepared to acknowledge yet.

Chapter 2
    The sleazy comic was next on stage. His jokes were daring and risqué. Dolly squealed with laughter and clung to Reg, who laughed just as heartily. When the anecdotes poked lavatorial fun at Kaiser Bill and his balloons, the laughter grew noisier, but Angel had to admit that the man’s coarseness slightly diminished the horror of the threatened Zeppelin air raids.
    All the same, she was glad when the comic finished his act and the jugglers came on, to be followed by a fire-eater, who drew gasps of disbelief from the audience.
    â€˜Enjoying your slumming, are yer, lady?’ Dolly asked archly, as Angel laughingly wiped a film of beer froth from her upper lip at Jacques’ instruction.
    â€˜It’s not bad!’ Angel said airily. ‘It’s a change from the way I usually spend my evenings, but you know what they say about a change being as good as a rest.’
    â€˜And how do you usually spend your evenings?’ Jacques asked. ‘You’re a bit of a mystery lady, Angel.’
    â€˜Am I? You mean, because I was plucked out of the darkness and pushed into a London taxi-cab without proper introduction?’ She taunted lightly. ‘I know nothing about you, either, except your name and present occupation!’
    â€˜Isn’t that all we know of most people? We only know what little we choose to give of ourselves.’
    Angel felt herself warm to him. She liked a man who thought beyond the obvious. ‘How perceptive you are. Notmany people bother to analyse it so accurately. But you’re quite right. And we put on a different face to everyone we meet, too. Like donning a mask at a masquerade ball.’
    â€˜Now you’re being the perceptive one –’
    A sudden shushing all around them stopped any further conversation, to Angel’s annoyance. Jacques de Ville was definitely the most interesting man she had encountered for a very long time. Vastly more intelligent than some of the so-called intellectuals her parents invited to the house. Jacques was intelligent in a basic, vital way, not merely with the educated claptrap waffled by some of the young men down from university.
    They sat through the pseudo-ballerina’s performance, the woman teetering about on her points in a ghastly rendition of Swan Lake. Angel tried not to remember the exquisite performance given by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden.
    Next there was a ridiculous travesty of the Oxford and Cambridge boat race, so sadly terminated for the duration – that awful, doom-laden phrase that was bandied about so often now. Two teams of young men wearing huge dark blue or light blue scarves and caps, sat at opposite ends of the stage behind card cut-outs of the university boats, supposedly pulling on their oars, and singing the most hideous songs composed for the occasion.
    â€˜â€¦we’ll