by Maggie Ford
‘What happened to your wife?’ asked Emma as he lapsed into silence. ‘You said she got killed?’
‘Beneath the wheels of a brewer’s dray.’
He ignored the horror Emma registered at the vision, continuing as though rambling in feverishness, recalling aloud the events of some terrible night after appearing before an elite audience, seeing his wife exchange glances with an assistant of his and instantly accusing her of being too free with the young man. The ensuing argument, one of many, had her running out in a temper, into the path of the heavily laden brewer’s dray.
Emma listened in awe as he spoke of trying to put it from his mind by drinking, by spending recklessly and falling into financial debt, how it had affected his skill as a magician, with bookings no longer forthcoming, even his name spoken with disdain.
Her sympathy began slowly to return. She had little idea what it must be like to be wealthy, to move in upper-class circles, have beautiful clothes and eat mounds of fine foods. She saw the wealthy passing her by every day she stood selling her flowers and had often wondered about their lives, what their homes were like, what they did other than going to theatres and parties, what they thought about.
This man who’d moved in such circles must now be poorer than the meanest beggar in having known better things. She felt suddenly and strangely superior to him. It would be nice to have money – lots of money, but to have fame and then lose it must be awful.
‘I last performed at the Empress in Brixton, my lowest ebb,’ he was saying, almost musing. ‘I who appeared in the finest of London’s theatres, the Alhambra, the Empire, the Tivoli, the Palace Theatre, so many, and many of the best in other cities. I was known and toasted by everyone.’
His voice had grown throaty. ‘I dismissed my assistant and continued working alone but my act was therefore limited. I was drinking. On stage I told myself I had to have been mistaken about he and my wife together. One can think of other things when performing – illusions so well rehearsed over years of practice that the hands alone can go through the procedure, leaving the brain to concentrate on showmanship and patter, while one is free to exercise power over the audience. But with me, I couldn’t get the pair of them out of my mind, and couldn’t concentrate. In a way I regret dismissing him as I did, since I have often wondered if my suspicions might have been unfounded.’
Emma watched him take another sip of beer. It seemed to strengthen his voice, which began to develop a bitter edge.
‘I was in such a state, however, that one day I fumbled quite a simple trick. They were a rough lot. I heard myself being hooted at by some drunken louts and I committed the unforgivable – I bellowed back at them, told them they were not worthy of my time, and left the stage.’
He drained the mug. ‘In my dressing room I lit a cigar, had a brandy to quiet my nerves. One brandy became another, I who had upbraided those drunkards. When the stage manager entered to tell me he had cancelled my booking, I flew at him in a rage and left. Outside the stage door one of those I had insulted had been waiting for me, and attacked me with a knife.’
Ruefully, he fingered the scar. ‘I never returned to the stage.
He fell silent and Emma for the first time ever found nothing to say. She knew about violence. It could be found in every corner of the East End. She and her friend Lizzie had several times backed away on coming upon a street fight, and knives were as common apparel to a lout as his own cap, and most carried a scar or two. Dark alleys, and there were plenty of them, were places from which a thief with a ready cosh could leap out on an innocent passer-by. A girl in this area needed eyes at the back of her head. Being raped was horrible enough, and usually kept to herself out of shame, but being found to be carrying a baby out of wedlock, rape or no, could be an even worse disgrace.
She had a feeling that this man was really using his scarred face as an excuse to shun the life he’d known, the death of his wife having set him on a downward course long before the knife attack.
Needing to change the subject, Emma found her voice again, giving it a bright edge.
‘Are they all your tricks and things in them boxes?’
He looked at her like a man coming out of a dream. His lips even curled into a smile, but again a bitter one. ‘Tricks and things,’ he repeated. ‘That’s all they are. Nothing magical, nothing mystical, just cheap illusions.’
‘I’ve been ter watch magicians and it looks real enough ter me.’
She became aware that he was studying her closely. ‘Were you my assistant, you’d learn quickly enough that nothing about it is real.’ The gaze became a scrutiny, appraising, making her squirm and blush. ‘You would make an ideal assistant. You have beauty, grace, height, and already a good figure. And you are quite charming, even at your age.’
Now she really was squirming. ‘I ain’t nothink of the sort.’
‘You are, my dear. You should be in the theatre. I could teach you so much. Had I but known you a year ago, it could all have been so different.’
He was being too familiar. ‘I’ve got ter go,’ she burst out. ‘Me brother will be waiting for ’is beer. I’ll be late ’ome, and with only half a jug left.’
Barrington reached into the cardboard box beside him, and taking out the tin, opened the lid to extract a two-shilling piece. Before she knew what he intended, he caught hold of her hand and pressed the coin into it.
‘I can’t take that,’ she gasped. ‘I only need a penny to fill it again.’
‘For your kindness. You are a good girl.’ He gave her arm a weary push. ‘Go home now.’
Despite her protest, her hand had closed greedily over the florin. You didn’t come across generosity like this very often. At the door, she paused.
‘You sure yer’ll be orright?’ As he nodded, she tilted her head and gave him a speculative look. ‘Yer know, if yer was to grow a proper beard, no one would ever see that scar and I believe yer’d look just like our new King Edward. Impressive. I bet yer’d get yer confidence back if yer did that, and yer could go back on ter …’
Her observations were cut short. ‘I have asked you to go.’ He seemed to be fast succumbing to his illness again. ‘Please oblige me by doing so.’
Outside, with snow flurrying around her, Emma gazed down at the florin. What had possessed her to accept such an amount? She was assailed by conflicting thoughts. They could live well for days on this, but she should have made more protest. Even so, he wasn’t poor, as she had thought. But if he wasn’t poor, then why hadn’t he bought medicine to make himself better? Was he so filled with remorse that he’d intended to leave himself to die?
Emma grew suddenly determined that he shouldn’t die. Along by St Mary’s Church in Commercial Road were a few shops, still open, even on a Monday. There was an oil shop that sold everything from oil, vinegar, boot polish, washing boards, pails, to onions and open sacks of split peas, lentils, dried fruit, tea, and whatever else a housewife needed.
From shelves stacked with bottles and tins, she bought a bottle of soothing linctus for his chest, another tin of condensed milk and a few ounces of tea – after what he’d given her, the least she could do.
Bending her head before another snow shower, Emma retraced her steps, stopping off at the Swan to top up her jug, briefly impeded by a couple of belligerent drunks being thrown bodily out by a burly landlord.
Mr Barrington opened the door to her knock, taking so long to answer that she wondered if he’d fallen asleep or even collapsed. She thrust the things at him. ‘Ter ’elp yer get better,’ she blurted, and before he could argue, turned and ran off, jug held out to prevent any of it spilling.
Her mother was waiting for her, but Ben wasn’t. ‘Said he was fed up waiting, and went off out. Said he’d get ’is own beer with ’is mates. That means if he’s got any money at all, we won’t be seeing any of it. Probably borrowing off them and he’ll ’ave ter pay them back before I ever get a sniff of any from ’im. I do hate debt. It’s a killer.’
�
��Yer don’t ’ave ter worry,’ Emma told her. ‘Look what I found, lying in the road outside the Swan.’
On the way home she’d rehearsed her story. The florin now broken by buying medicine and tea, she held out a shilling, keeping back the rest for some rainy day. That way, saying she’d found it made it seem authentic.
It did her good to see Mum’s faded hazel eyes light up. Yet she looked sorrowful.
‘Some poor blighter could of done without losing that,’ was her comment but Emma detected that it was said without too much sympathy. Someone else’s loss was her gain, and a shilling was a fortune when come by unexpected. It meant a bit of extra meat, a loaf of bread, vegetables, a bit of coal for the fire. With what she’d hidden away out of Ben’s sudden burst of generosity last week, it was going to be a grand Christmas.
Chapter Five
‘I’m off ter see Lizzie,’ Emma said after a supper of potato and carrot stew, washing up while Mum went back to her work. Ben had already gone out, not even bothering to say he was off.
It was Monday and Emma hadn’t gone near that Mr Barrington for over a week, resisting the temptation to see how he was, while repeatedly telling herself that he wasn’t her concern. But staying indoors got her brooding and restless and glad when Tuesday came for her to spend it with her friend.
Lizzie was a year older than herself. They usually met each other on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings when they could, though this Thursday was Christmas Day, a day for family. Sometimes she went to Lizzie’s, sometimes Lizzie came to her. If Ben happened to be in, they’d pop off down Commercial Road out of his way. It had coffee stalls and pubs and street entertainers; they’d meet other friends to chat with under the street lamps, giggling and swapping naughty stories and weighing up the lads.
She was comfortable with these sorts of people. Unlike the man she’d helped home who had, she felt, become just a little too familiar for her taste. Yet she couldn’t get him out of her mind.
For a whole week she hadn’t even been to the Swan for Ben’s beer, daring his wrath with excuses, in case she bumped into the man. After all, it was up to the fellow to look after himself. Anyway, it wasn’t proper, a girl her age visiting a man of his age.
‘If you and Lizzie Wallis go out ternight,’ Mum said, her head still bent over her silk work, ‘don’t get too free with the boys. I know what they’re like. Yer don’t want no trouble. Yer only fifteen, remember.’
‘I’ll be sixteen come the end of February,’ Emma reminded her. ‘I know what I’m doing.’
A girl grew up quickly in the East End, not like pampered daughters of the rich with their private tutors and girls’ colleges, not knowing the facts of life but merely expected to become good little wives to wealthy husbands.
‘Well, you just be careful if you and ’er goes out,’ Mum was saying. ‘Be ’ome by ten before the pubs get too rowdy, you ’ear me?’
Yes, she heard her. Pubs stayed open all day from early morning until the early hours of next morning, depending on the whim of the publican.
She let herself out with Mum’s last snippet ringing in her ears. ‘Keep away from drunks. Pretty young gels like you can draw too much attention from the wrong sort.’
Was Mr Barrington the wrong sort? He’d sipped that mug as genteel as a gentleman might a glass of wine, not swilling it like some vulgar ruffian. Yet he’d overstepped the mark in taking hold of her hand without her permission, and had looked at her in a way she’d rather he hadn’t, saying she was a beauty, admiring her figure, then giving her money as though, now that she thought back on it, he saw her as one of those to whom men did pay money.
Mum obviously knew all about a girl drawing attention. Had she ever been innocently lured when young?
At forty-odd, there were still traces of her having been pretty, though hard work and want these last two years had put lines on her face that shouldn’t have been there yet. She’d probably been a real heart-stopper at sixteen, and married at nineteen. Her hair was faded and dry now and dragged back into a convenient bun, but it still retained a touch or two of that vibrant auburn Emma herself had inherited from her.
She had Mum’s hazel eyes too, though Mum’s were faded. But it was probably their natural glint of fun that bothered Mum in case they could attract the opposite sex before Emma was ready to cope with them.
From the window Lizzie saw her coming and her lips tightened with mild envy at those swaying hips that even petticoat and skirt couldn’t hide. She wasn’t jealous of Emma, but she couldn’t help wishing she were the one who caught the eye of all the boys. She merely stood in the background, ignored by all except for some pimply, skinny lout who couldn’t find anyone else.
As Emma came in through the downstairs door that like all those in this row was too warped to lock, Lizzie turned and hurried to her own door.
‘Em’s ’ere,’ she said over her shoulder to her mother, sitting by the small fire. Her mum did little around the place and it was a shambles, not like her friend’s tidy little home. Her mum was always scrubbing and cleaning. But the bugs and mice and rats got in just the same. Her own mum never even tried to fight the constant fifth of these places. Who could blame her?
Emma Beech burst in through the door and reverting automatically to her old way of talking, chirped, ‘’Ello, Mrs Wallis. ’Elio, you lot,’ to the five younger children playing on the floor around the fire. ‘Evenin’, Mr Wallis,’ who’d lumbered down from the bedroom where he’d been sleeping all day.
He was temporary night watchman for a gang of navvies, keeping an eye on abandoned machinery and tools. He was usually gone by dusk, but they were working late to get as much done before Christmas as possible.
He barely nodded as she entered. The children didn’t even look up. Emma took up position in the middle of the shabby room with its bed in one corner where the children and Lizzie slept top to tail, but still in each other’s way.
Without looking at her, Lizzie’s mother muttered, ‘You two gels can go inter our bedroom to ’ave yer little chats, if yer like.’ But Lizzie looked at Emma, her tongue playing with her top lip in indecision.
‘Did yer want ter go out instead?’
Emma shook her head. There was something she needed to ask Lizzie’s advice on. The look in her eyes must have conveyed itself to Lizzie, who without another word led the way into the one bedroom.
Sitting on the bed Lizzie’s dad had just vacated, still warm under Emma’s bottom and acceptable on a cold night with no fire in here, they chatted about this and that. Lizzie still worked at the match factory and had a long moan about the grind and the conditions. Emma spoke of how cold it was standing at the kerbside selling to people who more often than not hurried by without a glance in her direction and how she trudged up and down theatre queues on Fridays and Saturdays, other days stamping her feet outside Liverpool Street Station or plying the queues at bus stops or hanging about the hackney carriage ranks. In a lighter vein they discussed lads they knew, giggling over some of their antics to get noticed, but all the time Emma’s mind was on something far more important. She finally seized her chance as there came a lull in the talk.
‘I met someone the other day,’ she blurted.
Lizzie’s interest rose. ‘Some boy? Do I know ’im?’
‘Not really a boy.’ Emma took a deep breath. ‘A man, I’d ’ave ter say.’
‘You mean a proper man, like over twenty-five.’
This was difficult. ‘Older than that.’ Now she’d begun, she’d have to continue. Lizzie wouldn’t let it rest until she heard the lot. ‘It was a bloke what plays outside The Flying Swan sometimes. You might of seen ’im.’
‘I’ve seen lots of ’em playing outside the Swan,’ came the arch reply. ‘An organ grinder, a bloke singing ditties. Lots, like they do everywhere.’
‘What really ’appened,’ Emma went on, ‘was that I stumbled into ’im in that fog around the end of November. I knocked ’im over …’ She stopped as her friend let out a
peel of laughter. ‘No, really. I ’elped him up. Then I saw him the next day playing this hurdy-gurdy thing outside the pub.’
Lizzie stopped laughing to listen as Emma went on to say how offhanded he’d been on that second occasion, how, after disappearing, he had shown up terribly ill and how out of the goodness of her heart she’d assisted him to where he lived, and what had transpired after helping him into his room.
Lizzie’s eyes were like saucers. ‘You went in ’is room with ’im?’
‘Well, what else could I do?’ Emma said. ‘I couldn’t leave him there on ’is doorstep. He’s only got one room ter live in and he was ever so ill.’
‘Not so ill as ter ’old yer hand without asking.’
‘It was only me hand,’ Emma reminded. But she needed to get everything that was bothering her off her chest. ‘That’s not what’s worrying me. It was what he said ter me, what’s made me feel peculiar.’
‘What did ’e say to yer?’
‘Like he thought I was nice.’
She didn’t want to go into detail and make Lizzie aware of her own plainness, the thin, pinched face, the pale blue eyes, the straight, mousy hair straggling in stringy strands down her back whereas her own curled in a thick auburn mass. ‘Things what blokes shouldn’t be saying to someone they’ve just met and who’s bin good enough to ’elp them ’ome.’
‘Oo,’ said Lizzie, her tone full of uncertainty and warning, reading more into it than Emma intended.
‘Nothink improper went on,’ she hastened. ‘But I didn’t think I ought ter go back since ter see how he is.’
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Lizzie said emphatically.
‘The trouble is, I can’t stop thinking about ’im.’
‘Blimey, yer ain’t started fancying ’im, ’ave yer?’
‘No, of course not!’ Emma fiddled with the ragged edge of the washed-out blue coverlet. ‘He’s twice my age. Maybe more. I don’t know. But he was very handsome in a sort of commanding way. Sure of himself. He was once a magician on the stage.’ She proceeded to tell Lizzie what Barrington had told her of his life.
