Free Theatre Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

grandmother has money and …”
    Hannah had to interrupt.
    â€œI don’t know about uncles and aunts, Madame; we haven’t seen them. But the old lady hasn’t any money. Alice, it’s her that looks after the old lady, she hasn’t known where to turn.”
    Madame leant forward, her voice startled.
    â€œReally! I had no idea! Well, in that case …,” she broke off and held up a finger, for at that moment the children came in.
    The charade was rather fun. Holly was very pleased with herself as the child, and Mark made a really grand bear; but it was Sorrel who surpassed herself. Somehow, seeing Holly off into the wood to look for strawberries, because there was nothing to eat in the house, was so like what was really happening to them that it made her voice full of anxiety, and you could feel that she honestly minded. There was a proper mother’s fussiness about the way she told Holly all the places to look for strawberries and to try very hard and not come back until her basket was full. Then, at the end, when Mark suddenly stood upright, instead of on all fours, and said in a rather disapproving voice that he was now a prince instead of a bear, that he was very rich and they would all live happily ever afterwards, Sorrel was quite overcome, it all sounded so nice, and she said, “Oh, goodness, yes, I’d simply love to marry you, thank you so very much for asking me,” with such fervour that even Hannah smiled and Madame went so far as to clap.
    When the charade was over, Madame went to a cupboard and took out a tin marked “Candies.”
    â€œThese were sent me from America. From that Pauline whose picture you were looking at downstairs. I want to talk to you about those three sisters, so you each take a sweet and listen very carefully. The Fossils were brought to me because their guardian had gone away and not left enough money to look after them. Gum, they called him. It was short for Great-Uncle Matthew. He was not really their great-uncle; he was the uncle of a very nice person called Sylvia, who brought the three little Fossil girls up with the help of someone called Nana.”
    â€œWas Nana like Hannah?” Holly interrupted.
    â€œIn a lot of ways, very like her. The children did well at my school. Pauline was, and is, lovely; and while she was still quite a child she went to Hollywood and became a very great film star. One day I will take you to see her on the pictures. But to me the most exciting of the three was Posy, the youngest. You see, I am a dancer. All my life I have lived for dancing; and Posy, from a tiny child, had talent; sometimes, I thought, genius. When Posy was eleven she went to Czechoslovakia to study under the greatest living ballet teacher, Manoff. Before the Germans over-ran Czechoslovakia, Monsieur Manoff and most of his pupils, including Posy and Nana, who was with her, escaped to America. There, Posy and Nana joined Pauline and their guardian, Sylvia, in Hollywood. They had, of course, nothing but what they stood up in, and I’m afraid poor Monsieur Manoff went through a bad time, but finally he succeeded in starting a Ballet School of a sort in California; and, of course, Posy attends the classes when she can. Posy, under another name, is dancing on the films.” Madame laughed. “She detests it, the naughty girl. I must read you her letters some time.”
    Sorrel was eating the most beautiful sweet all over nuts. All the sweets in the box were marvellous. Much better than anything to be bought in England, and choosing a sweet each had distracted them a little from what Madame was saying, but they had picked up the main part of the story.
    â€œWhat happened to the middle one?”
    â€œPetrova?” Madame said the word affectionately. “Funny little girl! She is a countrywoman of my own. I am Russian. Petrova went away and lived with Great-Uncle Matthew, and learnt to fly. She is now a pilot. You know,