In less than three hours, I intend to sit down with thin white gloves on my hands, the better to handle fifty-year-old journal pages from my own personal archives downstairs in that tea trunk. In the meantime, I’ll be a gracious, if somewhat distracted, host.
Seven
October 30, 1929. Winnipeg
The Bailey Dance Company has collapsed and we girls are expected to pay the hotel bill here! Which of course we can’t do because Bailey got our performance payment in advance by some means. Oh, he’s a tricky one! There is no way we can afford to stay anywhere in Regina either. We are booked to dance there in four days’ time. At least we all have our train tickets. We are waiting for Margery to come back from sending a telegram to the theatre people in Regina. She has a business head on her shoulders and is after them for room and board as part of our fee.
What if Bailey back in Montreal has grabbed that money as well as the Winnipeg money? How can we pay our hotel bill here when we’ve run up a week’s worth of residence? I’ve proposed that one of us should distract the clerk while the rest of us file quietly out the back door with a cab waiting so we could race for the westbound train! Wouldn’t that be exciting! Margery was very much against it but Chloe, Brigitte and Ida are all for it. It may be our only hope. We’ll just stay at a different hotel when next we come to Winnipeg or we’ll pay them back after we get to the West Coast and make our fortune at the Orpheum. Surely this silly stock market business isn’t as bad as it seems in the papers? I certainly don’t see businessmen jumping out of windows in Winnipeg. They’re much too sensible for that here.
October 31, 1929
We woke up to a foot of snow this morning but the sun is melting much of it now. Margery received word back from Regina that Bailey had not cancelled our performance but had tried to get our fees ahead of time there. The Regina theatre refused to co-operate with his shady tactics, fortunately for us. Margery proposed the same fee minus room and board at the establishment they customarily dealt with and they went for this offer. What a bright girl she is! We’re all very proud of her and very grateful too. As well, Ida hocked her ruby earrings and necklace set. She smiled mysteriously and said there were plenty more where that came from. Little scamp! We think there is a certain wealthy individual who admires our little Ida back in Montreal. We paid the hotel bill, thanks to Ida, and joined in the Hallowe’en party downstairs until 4 a.m. Then we packed our things and went to the Winnipeg Train Station to board the 6 a.m. train.
Snow is falling again and the whole world is white. I would like very much to practise my new piece, La Chanson de L’Hiver pour Jonquiere when we arrive in Regina. I would also like a chance to look at the backdrops in their theatre just in case a winter scene is appropriate. Of course, I want luxurious swaths of white cloth covered with silver sparkles and the five of us dressed in Snow Princess furs! Make believe, make believe, my favourite thing in the world to do!
November 1, 1929
We slept past the first breakfast call to recuperate from the shenanigans in Winnipeg. How I do love trains! We keep to ourselves to avoid the dreadful attempts at engaging our conversation by cigar-smoking men in shiny suits (one hesitates to call them gentlemen). The travelling families often eye us as though we might snatch away their children or as if they think we are some sort of travelling freak show. There are no other single women travelling on this train except us. From Toronto to Winnipeg there were a number of schoolteachers travelling together because they were to start teaching posts in smaller country places in Manitoba. Apparently they were replacing teachers who had resigned after just two months on the prairie. The Winnipeg Normal School couldn’t keep up with the demand. I wonder how they are doing now with this fierce winter weather. Some of them are only seventeen years of age. I was very stung when one of the older ones told the two girls I’d been chatting with in the dining car that they were not to talk to “those dance hall girls.” I have as much education and am every bit as refined as they, I’ll wager. I’m certainly better travelled than that creature from Guelph in charge of them all.
November 2, 1929
We are comfortably ensconced in a boarding house one block from the theatre. All the theatre people stay here and the proprietor, Mrs. Digby, is not only a generous cook but an understanding soul. She has no problem with our schedule of practise and performance and keeps dinner warm for us so that we can eat afterward. Some places insist we eat at 6 p.m. or not at all, so we go without rather than dance on full stomachs.
Regina has some grand hotels and very fine homes. Chloe and Brigitte and I went out for a walk this afternoon after we had settled in at Mrs. Digby’s. We were going to cross town to the legislature but the wind came up bitterly cold and we decided against that plan for today. We went to the theatre at 4 p.m. to practise for two hours. I assessed the props, Margery conducted more discussion with the Manager, who seems very sympathetic to our situation. The other girls ironed and hung costumes in the dressing room. Practise was marvellous. Everyone was very willing. The Manager appeared with tea and coffee and shortbread for us. The blizzard howled outside all the while but he reassured us that there would be an audience for tonight at 8. Indeed there was! A full house. We were introduced as the Prima Ballerinas of Mount Royal. Margery had our name changed from Bailey’s Ballerinas of Mount Royal. We had a standing ovation! (We did not attempt my Chanson and it is the only sour note for me as it is always the piece left till the last at practise. I have a certain apprehension as to why this might be but I do not wish to create ill feelings during these trying times.)
After, we linked arms and walked in fresh falling snow back to Mrs. Digby’s where we tucked into roast chicken, mashed potatoes, mashed turnips, gravy and a stupendous rhubarb cobbler. We utterly demolished the table and Mrs. Digby chuckled away at us. “You ballerinas tuck it away like a threshing gang,” she said, rather proudly I thought!
November 3, 1929
Margery booked us for another night as the Manager persuaded her that the newspaper advertisements, new posters in several influential places and word of mouth would be sufficient to attract another good crowd.
Ida is not feeling well today so Brigitte and Chloe and I went for a good long walk across the town, near to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police headquarters. We had a grand time and stopped at a little café in the centre of town for hot chocolates. There was a poster advertising tonight’s “show” at the theatre on the door! Margery sent still more telegrams to confirm our scheduled performances in Calgary, Banff and Vancouver. She is cleverly signing herself as M.B. Scott, Manager.
Everyone is resting now as I write. I am very pleased to have begun this practise of writing my daily thoughts and activities. I must write Mamma and thank her again for this pretty book and her kind words waiting for me in Winnipeg. “As I cannot discourage you from your destiny, my darling, I will wish you Godspeed.” I have waited so long for her sincere best wishes to win out over Father’s censure and scorn for “this unmarriageable beanpole of a daughter who flaunts herself to the public.” Her words are a balm to his. I conduct myself with the utmost propriety precisely because the eyes of most of the public appraise a spirited dancer in a wispy white gown or tutu very favourably, but squint coldly with condemnation if one of us so much as laughs a little too joyously on a train platform.
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