Read Online Connie’s Courage by Annie Groves - Free Book Online Page B

begged. ‘Otherwise I’ll be going out stinking of carbolic.’
    â€˜You can have some of my lavender water, Connie,’ Josie offered, and Connie had to accept it with good grace, whilst wishing that she could go out scented with the more exotic gardenia fragrance.
    The four of them were in high spirits as they left the nurses’ home and set off for the bus stop, linking up together at Connie’s instigation, and laughing in the summer sunshine.
    The conductor on the bus gave them a wink and said, ‘Off to have some fun, is you, girls! By, I wish I was coming with youse!’ as he took their fares.
    â€˜I’m hungry,’ Josie complained. ‘I was that excited I never ate me dinner.’
    â€˜Well they won’t let us in with food any more,’ Vera complained. ‘So we’ll get a glass of porter and summat to eat before we go in.’
    The bus took them right up to the music hall. Vera had suggested that they got off a few stops short of it and had a look at the shops, ‘whilst we’ve got the chance', but Mavis and Josie had both vetoed this suggestion.
    â€˜Ooh, look, they’ve got George Robey as the comedian,’ Josie gasped in thrilled excitement, as they got off the bus and hurried over to look at the programmes posted outside the building.
    Clinging together to avoid being jostled by the growing crowd, the four of them peered excitedly at the billboard.
    â€˜Look there, right at the top, there’s Marie Lloyd, and he’s there, too!’ Vera burst out excitedly. ‘It’s him as I was telling you all about, George Lashwood. He’s that handsome …’ She gave a deep sigh.
    â€˜It says here that there’s an Ella Shields on as a male impersonator, Josie began, and then stopped to demand, ‘does that means she’s a woman pretending to be a man?
    â€˜ Ere come on you girls, let someone else get a look at the billing.’
    The jocular request, made by a young man with a ready smile and twinkling blue eyes, had them falling back, blushing.
    â€˜Going in, are yer?’ he asked. ‘Only I’m with a few of me pals and we could sit together, if you fancied it.’
    Immediately Connie tensed. Kieron’s desertion of her and its frightening aftermath had left her feeling very wary of the male sex. And aware, too, of her own shameful secret. She felt a fierce need to protect herself, not just from having her past discovered, but also from giving any other man the idea that he could treat her as Kieron had. This might go against the grain of her normally fun-loving, light-hearted personality, but men, in Connie’s eyes, had become a species who were not to be trusted – and certainly not allowed to take any kind of liberties!
    â€˜What, let you sit with us? Not likely!’ she answered him sharply, exclaiming to the others,as he stuck his hands in his pockets and laughed before walking off, ‘Cheek!’
    â€˜You’re turning into a right spoilsport, Connie!’ Vera complained. ‘It would have been a bit of fun sitting with ‘em!’
    The crowd outside the building was growing by the minute, and when Mavis suggested that they get themselves something to eat and then go inside, the other three willingly agreed. By the time the curtain went up on the first act, they were sitting cosily in their seats, waiting expectantly.
    The loud roar of approval with which the crowd greeted the first act set the tone for the whole night, and, well before the curtain had been rung down on the first half of the evening, all four girls had thrown themselves into the spirit of things.
    â€˜I’m hoarse already from singing,’ Mavis complained, as the curtain swung down.
    â€˜Ooh, that comedian had me laughing that much me ribs ache,’ Josie marvelled. ‘No wonder they calls him the Prime Minister of Mirth.’
    The interval gave everyone the opportunity to get up from