Read Online A Night of Gaiety by Barbara Cartland - Free Book Online Page B

become the Earl of Clancarty.
    K atie had told her that they lived in Ireland and had twin sons, and she had laughed when she said it.
    “ That’s something your father and I aren’t likely to have, so don’t worry that you might lose your inheritance.”
    D avita had assured her at the time that she had not thought of such a thing, and, thinking of it now, she could not help feeling that she would have had a small inheritance indeed if she had had to share the one hundred ninety-nine pounds with twin half-brothers.
    K atie had mentioned another Gaiety Girl called Katie Vaughan, who she had said was the biggest star the Gaiety had ever known, and she had married the Honourable Arthur Frederick Wellesley, nephew of the great Duke of Wellington.
    “ But that marriage,” she had said in her gossipy way, “ended upside-down in the Divorce Courts.”
    ‘ That might have happened to Papa,’ Davita thought, ‘if he had wanted to re-marry after Katie had left him.’ Instead he had just taken to drink, and she wondered if the Gaiety Girls did in fact make such very good wives.
    S he was just dropping off to sleep when it seemed she could almost hear the Marquis’s voice saying:
    “ Go back to Scotland!”
    T he next morning Davita awoke at what seemed to her to be a disgracefully late hour, and she sat up staring at the clock beside her bed incredulously to find it was a quarter-to-ten.
    ‘ Violet will think I am very lazy,’ she thought.
    T hen she knew she was being foolish because Violet certainly would not yet be awake.
    H owever, she washed herself in the cold water that was in a china ewer in the corner of her tiny room, extracted a day-gown from her trunk, and went downstairs to the kitchen.
    M rs. Jenkins, with her hair in curling-rags, was cooking on the range.
    “ Good-morning, Mrs. Jenkins,” Davita said.
    “ I suppose you’re looking for breakfast,” Mrs. Jenkins replied. “Well, yer’re a bit early, but I’ll see wot I can do.”
    “ Early!” Davita exclaimed.
    Mrs. Jenkins laughed.
    “ Those as come ’ere from the country all starts by appearing at the crack o’ dawn. Then they soon gets into the Theatre ways. Yer’ll find yer friend Violet won’t open her blue eyes ’til after noon, and then only if she’s lunching with one o’ the ‘Nobs.’ ”
    “ I would love some breakfast, if it is no trouble,” Davita said. “I am hungry.”
    “ Then sit down and I’ll fry yer some eggs,” Mrs. Jenkins said. “Yer’ll find a pot of tea on the stove. There’s a cup and saucer in the cupboard.”
    D avita fetched the cup and saucer, poured the tea out of the brown china pot, and found that it was so strong that it would be impossible to drink it unless she added some hot water.
    F ortunately, there was also a kettle boiling with which to dilute what seemed more like stew than ordinary tea, and in a cupboard she found a jug filled with very thin, watery-looking milk.
    B ecause she was genuinely hungry and had drunk very little champagne last night, she ate a hearty breakfast for which she thanked Mrs. Jenkins profusely.
    “ Don’t thank me,” the Landlady replied, “yer’re payin’ for it, as yer’ll find when you gets the bill at the end o’ the week!”
    S he thought there was a frightened expression in Davita’s eyes, and added kindly:
    “ Now don’t yer fret yerself, child. I’ll not over-charge yer. And one day yer might find yerself in the lead an’ drawing two hundred pounds a week like Lottie Collins.”
    “ Two hundred pounds a week!” Davita exclaimed. She began to think that perhaps she was being stupid about not going on the stage. Then she remembered Lottie Collins’s performance, and knew that Lord Mundesley had been right. It had indeed shocked her!
    E ven though she was acting, for a woman to appear so abandoned, so out of control, had made her feel ashamed.
    S he knew in her heart that she wanted to be like her mother, soft, sweet, feminine, and at the same