A Night of Gaiety by Barbara Cartland Read Free Book Online

London with her father, had told her with what for him had been fulsome praise of her achievements and her courage.
    “ Her wouldn’a gi’ in wi’out a struggle,” he had said to Davita, “an’ it’ll be awful hard for ’em to find someone to replace her.”
    “ I would like to have seen her,” Davita had said, thinking it was something she would never be able to do any more than she would ever see the Gaiety itself.
    Y et here she was, watching a new edition of the Show, and she was aware that Lottie Collins, who had been in the Gaiety chorus and was the well-known skipping-rope dancer, had now taken over the Lead.
    I t was difficult, however, to think of anything but the beauty of the stage-sets and the dancing of the corps de ballet.
    And of course there was the elegance of Violet and the seven other girls like her as they came onto the stage, looking so exquisitely beautiful that she thought that every man in the Theatre must fall in love with them.
    J ust once when Violet was on the stage, Davita glanced at Lord Mundesley sitting next to her and found, to her surprise, that he was looking not at Violet but at her.
    S he wanted to tell him how much she was enjoying herself, but she thought she should not speak, and instead gave him a shy little smile.
    T hen her eyes went back to the stage.
    T here was an amazing performance from Fred Leslie, and Davita was to learn later that he was a unique draw of the Show. Then after several dancing-sequences and some very comic performances, Lottie Collins came onto the stage dressed in a red gown and a big Gainsborough hat, with her blonde hair streaming over her shoulders.
    S he sang softly, almost timidly, it seemed to Davita, making a great play with a lace handkerchief.
    S he sang the verse of a song in the manner, although Davita did not know it, of a Leading Lady in a Light Opera, quietly, simply, and perhaps rather nervously:
    “A smart and stylish girl you see,
    The Belle of High Society,
    Fond of fun as fond could be —
    When it’s on the strict Q.T.
    Not too young, and not too old,
    Not too timid, not too bold,
    But just the very thing I’m told,
    That in your arms you’d like to hold ... ”
    Then suddenly, so suddenly that Davita started, the chorus crashed out, wildly, boldly, and noisily, and the first boom was accompanied by the bang of drums and a terrific crash of cymbals which seemed almost to break the ear-drums.
    Then, with one hand on her hip, the other waving her handkerchief, Lottie appeared to go mad.
    Her voice and those of the chorus seemed to grow louder and louder:
    “ Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay, Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay,
    Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay,
    Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!”
    The whole Theatre was filled with it, and as her hair streamed the hat bobbed, her short skirts whirled and showed her white petticoats. She was primeval, Bacchic, with all the fury of wild abandon that was associated with a Gypsy dance.
    As Davita found it difficult to breathe and impossible even to think, and she could only stare in astonishment, the refrain grew wilder and wilder and the drums, the cymbals, and the wild dancing swept the audience off their feet.
    There was a last “ Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay ” that finished with the whole audience shouting and applauding, the gentlemen shouting “Bravo! Bravo!” while those in the Gallery were screaming their heads off.
    It was not what Davita had expected. It was not anything she could have imagined in her wildest dreams would occur at the Gaiety.
    Only as the curtain fell and the applause gradually subsided did she look at the man sitting next to her. His eyes were still on her face and he was smiling as if at her surprise.
    Because she felt he was waiting for her to speak, she said in a hesitating little voice:
    “I ... I had no idea ... that ... anyone could ... dance like that.”
    “Were you shocked?”
    “N-not ... really.”
    “I think you were,” he said with a smile. “Lottie is rather overwhelming when she lets