Mathilda Grey did not approve of my joining them but shrugged her shoulders and accepted it; it was one of the millestones on the road to becoming Lady Macbeth.

Sometimes my mother would be very late, and then I knew it was no use waiting. She would be having supper with Charlie Claverham or Monsieur Robert Bouchere or some other admirer. I was disappointed at such times, because that would mean she would sleep late the next morning and I would have very little time with her before she left for the theatre.

Dolly was a frequent visitor to the house and there would be long conferences. He and my mother quarrelled a lot, which used to frighten me at first, until I learned that they were not serious quarrels.

They called each other abusive names, which might have been alarming if I had not heard it all before. Sometimes Dolly marched out of the drawing room, slamming the door and striding out of the house.

We would be in the kitchen, listening. We could hardly help hearing had we wanted not to—which, of course, we did not.

“Sounds bad this time,” Mrs. Crimp would say. “But he’ll be back, mark my words.”

And she was always right. He would come back. There would be a reconciliation and we would hear my mother’s strong clear voice trying out some song in the new musical comedy he had found for her. There would be frequent visits, more songs to be sung, perhaps a few arguments on the way, but nothing vital. Then there would be rehearsals and more arguments and finally the dress rehearsal and the first night.

Mrs. Crimp revelled in it. She was highly critical of much, but then one of her greatest pleasures was criticizing everyone who did not conform to her ways. There was my mother’s name, for instance. “Desiree!” she announced derisively. “What a name to go to bed with!” Jane said she reckoned there were some … and more than one … who didn’t mind going to bed with such a name.

“That’s not the sort of talk I’ll have in my kitchen,” said Mrs. Crimp severely. “And particularly …” followed by a significant nod in my direction.

I knew, of course, to what they referred. I did not mind. Everything my mother did was perfect in my eyes, and it was not her fault that so many people fell in love with her.

Mrs. Crimp had a way with names. She pronounced them as, in her opinion, they ought to be pronounced. My mother was “Daisy Ray,” and Robert Bouchere, the elegant Frenchman who was such a frequent visitor, was “Monsewer Robber.”

I myself was a little puzzled about my mother’s name until I asked her and she explained it to me.

“Desiree is my stage name,” she said. “It wasn’t given to me in church or anything like that. I gave it to myself. People have a right to a name of their choice, and if they don’t get the one they like to start off with, why shouldn’t they change it? Don’t you agree, pet?”

I nodded vigorously. I always agreed with everything she said.

“Well, you’ve got to know one day … seeing you’re a part of it all … so listen, love, and I’ll tell you how it all came about.”

We were lying on her bed. She was wearing a pale blue negligee. I was fully dressed, for it was half past ten in the morning. I had been up for several hours; she had not yet risen. It was at this time of day when she was most communicative. I think it was because she was not entirely awake.

“What’s your real name?” I asked.

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Oh yes,” I assured her with delight. “I love secrets.”

“Well, it was Daisy. Mrs. Crimp hit on the right one as far as the Daisy is concerned. I didn’t think it suited me, love. Do I look like a Daisy?”

“Well, you could. It’s a nice flower.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Daisy Tremaston.”

“I think it sounds rather nice, and when people knew it was yours, it would sound even better.”

She kissed the tip of my nose. “You say nice things, love. And what’s particularly nice about them is that you mean them. No. I thought for the stage I’d need a special name … a name that would stick in people’s memories. That’s important. It’s the package that’s important. Always remember that. You could be a real genius on the stage … you could be a knockout … but if the package isn’t right, well then, it’s going to be a lot harder. I can tell you, love, to get on in my business, you need all you can lay your hands on … talent … staying power … a push here and there in the right direction at the right time by the right people.”

“And package?” I reminded her.

“That’s it.” She laughed with appreciation. That was another of her gifts: she made people feel that their most ordinary remarks were very clever.

“Desiree. It’s got something, hasn’t it, love? It means ‘Desired.’ It’s a hint to everyone who hears it. Here, this lady is special. Tell them you’re desired and they’ll, be halfway to believing it, and with a bit of talent you’re halfway there, and with a bit of luck you can clinch it. So I was Desiree for the stage and I kept to it. Well, you have to go all out for it. Otherwise there’s a muddle!”

“So you’re not Daisy anymore.”

“It’s all shut away in the realms of yesterday. That was the title of one of my first songs. Rather good, eh?” She started to sing. I loved to hear her sing.

When the song about memories being shut away in the realms of yesterday was over, I guided the conversation to where I wanted it to go.

“Did Dolly help you choose Desir6e?”

“Dolly! Not him! He’d be against it. He thinks it’s not quite good class. That’s Dolly all over. I don’t always go along with him, though I must say he has a good eye for spotting the winner. No. This was before Dolly’s day. This was in my struggling days. I could tell you some stories.”

I nestled down to hear them, but there were none forthcoming. It was just a figure of speech. Something happened to her when she talked of the past. I could feel the shutters coming down in her mind. She did tell me once that she had begun life in a Cornish village.

“Tell me about Cornwall,” I had demanded.

I waited breathlessly, for when I broached the subject she seemed inclined to talk of something else.

“Oh,” she said in rather a dreaming voice. “It wasn’t right for me. I used to dream of coming to London even when I was a little one. I liked it when people came to the inn in the village. It was an out-of-the-way place, but now and then someone would come down from the big cities. There was one man from London. I used to get him to talk about the theatres. I knew then that one day I was going to London. I was going to be in the theatre.”

She was silent, and I was afraid that she would start to talk of something else.

“It was all shut in,” she said slowly. “That’s how I felt … shut in. All Sunday-go-to-meetings … if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, yes, I know.”

“Too many gossiping old women … men, too. There was nothing else to do but look for sin. It was the only excitement they had. You wouldn’t believe how much sin they found in that little old village by the moor.”

“The moor must have been lovely.”

“It was bleak and you should have heard how the wind could blow across those moors. It was lonely … no people about. I was tired of all that by the time I was six. And then when I started to know what I wanted, there was no holding me back. I hated the cottage … cramped and dark. Prayers morning, noon and night, and church twice on a Sunday. I liked the singing, though. Specially the carols. ‘Away in a Manger,’ ‘Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.’ I discovered I had a voice. Gran’fer said I’d have to watch. I was vainglorious. I had to remember all gifts came from God. They were to tempt you to vanity … and look out for yourself when Judgement Day came if you gave way to it. It was no credit to you.”

It was the first time I had heard of Gran’fer and I wanted to hear more.

“Did he live with you?”

“He’d say I lived with him. They looked after me when my mother died.”

I said rather tentatively: “And your father, too?”

I waited uneasily. I sensed that the subject of fathers was one I had to approach cautiously. I had never been able to discover anything about mine except that he was a fine man—a father I could be proud of.

“Oh, he wasn’t around,” she said lightly. “You should have seen that cottage—windows that let in hardly any light—cob walls —that’s a sort of clay. If you’ve seen one you’ve seen the lot. Two rooms up, two down. You’re lucky, Noelle, to live in a house like this in the heart of London. What wouldn’t I have given for that when I was your age!”

“But you got it later.”

“Ah yes. I got it, didn’t I? And you, my angel, I got you.”

“This is better than Gran’fer’s old cottage. Why did you call him Gran’fer?”

“It’s their way of talking down there. He was always Gran’fer, like all the other grandfathers. That way of talking was no good for the London stage. I can tell you, I had to get away, love. If you’d been there you would have seen why.”

It was as though she were making excuses for herself.

“I used to go out to the moor. There were a lot of old stones there … prehistoric, they said they were. I used to dance round them and sing at the top of my voice. It sounded wonderful, and there was a lovely feeling of freedom. What I loved at school was singing. It was all hymns and carols. But there were other songs I picked up as well. ‘Come to the Fair,’ ‘Early One Morning’ and ‘Barbara Allen.’ If I heard a new song I had to sing it. How I loved to dance, too! I had to be careful about that. Singing—if it was psalms and carols—was all right, but dancing was wicked … unless it was country dancing. When they danced the furry dance, which is an old Cornish dance—a custom, so they couldn’t say that was sinful—I’d be in the town dancing all through the day. I loved to dance on the moors, though. Particularly round the stones. In some lights they looked like young girls. The story was they’d been turned to stone. Someone like my Gran’fer must have seen to that. Dancing on the Sabbath, most likely. They had Sabbaths in those days. Yes, I was always dancing. People said I was pisky-mazed.”