It is very difficult to listen to words you know perfectly well. That time Margaret truly tried but still Sir John was not pleased.

‘You may be listening now, I think you think you are. But I don’t believe the audience will know you are. An actor must show he is listening, he must react.’

Finally they finished with that scene and went on with the rest of the act. Sir John did not criticize her again and Margaret had no further trouble. But inside she was worried because she knew what Sir John had said was true, she had been only partly listening. It was something new about acting and she had an uncomfortable feeling it was something she did not quite understand.

They had seldom rehearsed the last scene for it was almost entirely pageantry and music, but two weeks before the play opened the cast were told that much of the next week would be spent on the last act. This meant that several more children came to rehearsals. The one who had the most to do was called Simon; he was a page. He was a terribly thin little boy who did not seem to want to mix with the other children. Margaret tried to talk to him because he reminded her of Peter, Lavinia’s brother, who had escaped with her on the canal boat, but she did not have much success because he seemed scared to talk and only said ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.

Liza, her eyes twinkling, watched Margaret’s efforts. ‘It won’t do no good, he’s scared to talk, he’s one of Ma Mud’s kids. That’s not her real name but it’s what we call her.’

‘Who is she?’

‘No one knows, turns up with two or three kids, orphans she says they are, and starts them earning money for her. Simon and one or two others she fixes in the theatre, but mostly they goes in the sweat shops.’

‘What are they?’

‘Where smart clothes is made. They aren’t allowed to use little kids no more but she gets by with it. She can smell a copper a mile away, Ma Mud can.’

‘Poor Simon looks terribly thin, do you think she gives them enough to eat?’

Liza shook her head. ‘No one knows for certain sure, but it’s said she feeds ’em dead cats and rats!’

Margaret shuddered. ‘Sounds like the Matron of that orphanage I was in. She didn’t give us cats and rats, but she would have if she dared.’

After that talk, Margaret, with the help of Katie, gave Simon little treats: a piece of chocolate, a slice of cake and once at dinner, when Miss Grey was not looking, they made him a meat sandwich.

‘Poor Simon, we can help now when we see him all day, but it won’t be so easy when the play starts.’

‘You leave it to me,’ said Liza. ‘I’ll find a way to give ’im what you get; that Ma Mud ’angs out in the street next to ours. When I sees ’er comin’ I crosses over, for I think she’s a witch.’