Applause (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 2) by Madalyn Morgan (best authors to read txt) 📕

Foxden’s guests picked up their belongings and followed Margot, while Bess and Mr Porter headed for the door. ‘I’m going to the stables to check on the horses,’ Bess said. ‘Won’t be long.’ Mr Porter, nearest to the door, opened it and was almost knocked over as the land girls piled in.

By the time they returned to the kitchen the land girls and the Londoners were seated round the big wooden table drinking tea and eating muffins.

‘I see introductions aren’t needed,’ Bess said to Margot, who was watching Mrs Hartley test the dumplings in the stew.

‘Can’t get a word in edgeways,’ Margot said.

‘First time for everything,’ Bess laughed.

‘Go on you two, scoot!’ Mrs Hartley said, pouring two cups of tea. ‘Go and join your friends while I refresh the pot. You sit yourself down, Mr Porter, and I’ll bring your tea over.’

‘Right-ho,’ he said, lowering himself into one of two rocking chairs at the side of the fire.

Tea was loud and lots of fun. Kitty Woodcock, a cockney sparrow from the East End of London, kept them laughing with stories about her mum and the pub she worked in. Margot asked her if she’d heard from her mother lately and Kitty said she had. Looking relieved, George, who had been talking to a land girl named Sylvia, smiled across the table at Margot. Like Margot, she knew how dangerous it was for anyone living in the East End. One or another borough was blitzed every night.

After tea, while a couple of the land girls helped Mrs Hartley with the pots, the others took their London friends upstairs and helped them hang up the costumes. The weight of the clothes would pull any creases out overnight, they decided, but the ironing board had been put up in Mrs Hartley’s scullery in case it was needed.

During supper, sitting around Mrs Hartley’s kitchen table, they discussed the songs they could sing. One of the land girls tuned the wireless into the BBC Home Service, saying it would give them inspiration, while another found a sheet of paper and a pencil to make a list. The type of songs being sung in munitions and engineering factories were uplifting songs; songs that the BBC called “songs to work by”. “Roll Out The Barrel” was a good one. And “We’re Going To Hang Out The Washing On The Siegfried Line” was another. Both were put on the list.

‘I heard a new song by Glen Miller and his Orchestra, with Ray Eberle and the Modernaires, on the wireless the other day. Aren’t they just swoony?’ Betsy said, and she launched into “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else But Me”. Everyone joined in and it was added to the list.

‘A song we must sing at the Foundry is “Sing As We Go”,’ Margot said.

‘Yes!’ Betsy said. ‘But who’s going to sing the opening lines?’ Betsy launched into her Gracie Fields impression.

‘Not you, darling, that’s for sure. Our Gracie is from Lancashire, not Llanglovey.’

Everyone laughed again and Betsy made a show of pretending to be disappointed.

‘What about you, George?’ Margot said.

‘Me?’ George guffawed. ‘With my accent, darling, the northern charm of Gracie Fields’ opening lines would be annihilated. No,’ George looked at Margot. ‘Leicestershire is a damn sight nearer to Lancashire than Surrey. Besides, you’re a better actress than me.’

After supper, Artie went out for a smoke with Mr Porter while the girls, still laughing and singing, trooped upstairs to sort out costumes for the Foundry and Rover engineering factory, and the night at Foxden. Natalie had loaned them some amazing outfits from the theatre’s costume store. Most of them they had worn before, so alterations weren’t needed, and the shoes fitted perfectly.

After a fashion parade to decide which costumes would be worn at which concerts, the newly formed ‘Albert Sisters’ went downstairs to Mrs Hartley’s kitchen and practised songs with Artie on accordion and the land girls joining in as the orchestra. More laughing was done than rehearsing, which was just what Margot needed.

The village hall was freezing and the air musty with damp. Margot shivered. A fire had been laid in the small fireplace, in preparation for the next Home Guard meeting. Grinning, Artie took a box of Swan Vesta from his pocket and struck a match. Margot raised her eyebrows and looked the other way as he lit a rolled up newspaper under a handful of sticks and a couple of logs. ‘Got to have heat to dry the keys,’ Artie said, on his hands and knees, blowing the damp paper until it caught. Once the fire had taken hold the girls helped him to move the piano nearer. According to him, the Joanna needed air and heat. The Albert Sisters sat around the fire, coats buttoned up to their chins, while they went over the lyrics of the songs they were going to sing. By late morning the songs and routines, and the order in which they were going to be performed, had been decided. And the piano, whilst it wasn’t yet in tune, sounded better.

‘I think you ladies should take a break,’ Artie said, gently pressing the piano keys. ‘Go across to the pub and have a sandwich or something, and I’ll fetch you when I’ve tuned the old girl.’ The three women took no persuading and left for the Crown.

Sitting in front of the pub’s roaring fire, George with a tankard of beer and Margot and Betsy with glasses of sherry, they began to thaw out. George put her feet up and rested them on the corner of the inglenook. ‘This is the life. I could get used to this,’ she said, relaxing back in a big old armchair.

‘Too quiet for me,’ Betsy said. ‘Reminds me of the village I was brought