Hettie of Hope Street Read Online Free Page A

polished.
    â€˜Oh, Mam…’ Hettie whispered shakily.
    â€˜What is it, Hettie?’ Ellie asked her gently. ‘Have you changed your mind?’
    Immediately Hettie shook her head, missing the faint sigh Ellie gave and the look of anxiety in her eyes.
    A small, neatly dressed maid in a crisply immaculate apron and cap opened the front door to them and directed them to a dark back parlour, its furniture heavily festooned in dark brown material. Ellie and Hettie perched awkwardly on a bulging sofa.
    The faintly worn areas in the turkey carpet made Hettie wonder just how many anxious feet had paced across it whilst their owners waited in the room’s sombre silence. Thick net curtains obscured what light could have entered the room, making it seem even more gloomily oppressive.
    She reached out and placed her hand in Ellie’s. She wanted this more than she had ever wanted anything in the whole of her life, more than she would ever want anything ever again. She wanted it so much that it physically hurt, she told herself dramatically.
    The door opened, making Hettie jump. The parlour maid announced, ‘You’re both to go in now, if you please.’
    â€˜Good luck, my love,’ Ellie whispered to her as they both got up, kissing her lovingly whilst Hettie gripped her hand.
    Hettie had never felt so clumsy, nor so awkward. Her face was burning, and her throat had gone so dry she was afraid she would not be able to sing at all.
    The maid escorted them to the door of the front parlour and then whispered, ‘Knock on the door and then wait until she says to go in.’
    When her step-mother’s knock went unacknowledged,Hettie cast her an anguished look. ‘Perhaps she didn’t hear,’ she began and then stopped as a firm contralto voice from the other side of the door called out commandingly.
    â€˜Come.’
    With Ellie pushing her firmly ahead, Hettie stepped in to the room. Here there was no overstuffed sofa but instead a row of uncomfortable looking hard-backed chairs. But it was the piano and, more dramatically, the woman seated at it, that commanded Hettie’s attention.
    Mrs May Buchanan was almost the complete opposite of Miss Brown, being tall and stately where Miss Brown was small and thin; and her jet-black hair, unlike Miss Brown’s untidy grey bun, was drawn back into a formidably elegant chignon. Miss Brown’s manner was fussy yet gentle, whilst Hettie could tell, even on this first meeting, that Mrs Buchanan was chillingly distant.
    Hettie could feel herself tremble as Mrs Buchanan’s merciless gaze focused sharply on her.
    â€˜Your teacher has some very complimentary things to say about you, Miss Walker. She seems to think that you have a soprano voice of surpassing excellence.’
    Hettie looked towards Ellie for reassurance, not sure how she was meant to respond.
    â€˜Do you have the same high opinion of your voice as your teacher, Miss Walker?’
    â€˜I know that I love to sing,’ was all Hettie could find to say. Mrs Buchanan was making her feelvery small and unimportant; she was even beginning to wish that she had not put herself forward for her criticism.
    â€˜Very well then. Please stand up.’
    Obediently Hettie got to her feet. She felt sick with nervousness, and she just knew that she was going to do everything wrong.
    As she sang the opening bars of the song, she could hear the uncertainty affecting her voice and her heart sank with distress and panic. The song was so familiar to her that she knew it by heart, and yet in her agitation she almost missed a note. But then, as always when she got into the song itself, the music began to take her over and she became lost in its enchantment and the role it had cast for her.
    As she sang the last few notes she saw the emotional tears in Ellie’s eyes, and her spirits soared upwards in triumph and pleasure. But she was brought quickly back to earth when Mrs Buchanan commented