It was dark outside and the gas lamp on the pavement cast a pool of light at the saloon bar door where a knot of men in dark suits were standing listening. Among them was a tall man with a smouldering cigar in his hand and as she sang she was conscious of him watching her with an intent and unsentimental gaze. His calculating gaze disturbed her.
Later, when she was helping Bill behind the bar, the cigar smoker thrust his way through the throng and addressed her in an unceremonious way.
‘You did well. I’ve heard about you. You’ve got a good voice but you need training.’
She stared at him. ‘Thank you. But I don’t want training. I’m quite happy the way I am.’
He gave a short laugh. ‘Don’t be silly. You could be on the halls. You’d be a celebrity. I could make you a fortune.’
Bill, who had been listening, came over protectively and told the stranger, ‘Our girl doesn’t want to go on the halls. That’s not the life for her. She’s quite happy here, doing a turn on Saturday nights.’
‘Yes, sure, it draws in the customers, doesn’t it? But, believe me, this girl could be singing for the world instead of for a few gin drinkers in the East End.’
Bill stared aggressively at the arrogant face of the stranger but this was no ordinary Queen’s Head customer. His suit was of good cut and fine material and his cigar smelt rich and aromatic, not pungent like the small black cheroots smoked by people like Quinn.
‘What is it you want?’ asked Bill. ‘What’s your business? Say it or get out of my pub.’
The stranger reached into the breast pocket of his grey waistcoat and drew out a square of pasteboard which he handed over the bar.
She glanced over her adopted father’s shoulder and read:
Henry Beauchamp Chapman
Proprietor
Alhambra Theatre
The Strand
Bill’s face changed. He had obviously heard of Henry Beauchamp Chapman, who then said, ‘I want to give your girl a chance on the boards. Send her along next week and I’ll listen to her. If I like her act, I’ll put her on the bill.’
* * *
‘Oh Bella, I can’t do it. I’ll make a mess of it. I’ll forget the words of all my songs…’ She was near to tears as they walked towards the ornate entrance of the Alhambra Theatre.
Bella laid a comforting hand on her arm. ‘Don’t worry, ducky, it doesn’t matter a farthing if you do forget – but I know you won’t. Just don’t let Henry Thingummy What’s-His-Name upset you. They say he’s a real tyrant. But I won’t let him push you around, you can be sure of that.’
Lark managed a smile. She almost relished the thought of Henry Beauchamp Chapman and Bella locked in combat. They would be worthy adversaries.
At the theatre a grumpy man who was swabbing the marble floor of the entrance hall turned on them with rage as they tried to walk over his wet steps. ‘You can’t come in here. It’s not open.’
‘We’ve come to see Mr Chapman,’ said Bella haughtily. ‘Kindly tell him Miss Kennedy and Mrs Richardson have arrived.’
‘Gawd, you tell him, Missus. But go round the back like all the rest of them. Only paying customers comes in this way.’
The stage door was dark and shabby compared to the glamorous entrance and Bella and Lark were shown in by another old man in a collarless shirt and an open waistcoat.
‘Come for an audition, have you?’ he asked. ‘Well, you’re in luck, he’s in a good mood today for once.’
The stage was almost in darkness and Lark stood awkwardly at the side, almost hidden by a heavy red velvet curtain that smelled strongly of dust. A few gas lights flickered behind metal hoods at her feet and she shaded her eyes with her hand as she tried to stare into the auditorium. She had been to theatres many times with Bill or Bella but now, on the stage herself, she was filled with dread. A hostile world was out there waiting to devour her. She shivered with weakness and her stomach churned so violently that she feared she was going to vomit.
‘Come into the middle of the stage,’ called out a disembodied voice and she stepped forward into a pool of dim light that made her feel even more exposed.
‘Turn round,’ commanded the voice.
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Just turn round,’ was the abrupt reply, so she did what she was told.
‘Take off that hat,’ was the next command and she did not question the order but drew out the long hat pins with which Bella had secured the vast hat to her head that morning. As she held it in her hand she could feel her hair slowly uncurling from the series of combs that held it high up on her head and she awkwardly put up a hand to tidy it.
‘No, leave it. Let it alone,’ came the man’s voice. ‘Now tell the pianist what you’re going to sing.’
She stared into the orchestra pit at her feet and saw a man leaning idly over the keyboard of a piano. ‘I’d like to sing “A Bicycle Made for Two” and “Following in Father’s Footsteps”,’ she told him. Then she added, ‘And perhaps you could also play these for me.’ She handed down a couple of sheets of music, her favourite Scottish songs that Bill had asked a musical friend to transcribe for her.
The pianist put the sheets on the piano and rippled through the notes.
‘Is that what you want?’ he called up.
Gulping down the lump in her throat, she nodded. ‘Yes, that’s fine. I’ll set the time, just you follow me.’
There was an explosion of laughter from the darkened stalls at this but she ignored it and launched into her repertoire. By the time she was on her second song, all her nerves had disappeared, she forgot she was alone in the middle of a darkened stage in front of critical strangers and sang and sang, entertaining herself. Finally she sang the Scottish songs and once again, her longing and her yearning were poured out in music. She even made herself cry with the evoked memories that song aroused. She could see the soft green slopes of the hills behind Aylie’s little cottage; she could smell the old-fashioned apple-ringie herb in the garden and feel the gentle rain on her face as soft clouds drifted over the vast sky… Oh, the beloved Borderland, how she missed it.
As the last notes died away into the darkness, she dropped her hands and stood silent, her head drooping like the head of a fading flower. What brought her back to immediacy was the voice of Bella.
‘Lovely, lovely! Oh, my God, you sang like a bird, Larkie.’
She smiled at that and lifted her head to see Henry B. Chapman climbing on to the stage with another man, older and more distinguished-looking than he.
‘You’ll do,’ he said to her. ‘This is Signor Arnotti, he’s going to teach you some tricks of the business, breathing and voice projection, things like that. You’ll study with him for a couple of months and then I’ll put you on here.’
Bella materialized beside them, red-faced, maternal and anxious. ‘And who’s going to pay for the lessons?’ she demanded.
‘I will,’ said Mr Chapman. ‘You can call it an investment. But I never make investments that don’t pay dividends so you’d better be prepared to work hard, Miss.’
* * *
Working with Arnotti was hard. Her ribs and diaphragm ached from the singing exercises and her waist hurt because the stage dressmakers tied her stays so tight that she felt they were trying to cut her through the middle like the woman a magician sawed in half each night on stage.
Chapman and his cronies criticized her to her face… ‘She’s too skinny up top,’ said Chapman to the dressmaker. ‘Do something to plump out her tits, will you?’ So a high corset that cruelly shoved up her breasts was laced round her until a satisfactory cleavage was produced.
‘Her hair’s all right but make it hang free, she needs to look a bit more wanton…’ was another Chapman comment, and two women with sizzling curling tongs heated in the gas ring descended on her, frizzing and singeing the fine hair till her nose was full of the smell of burning and a curtain of coy ringlets hung round her temples. They slapped paint and powder on her face so that when she st
ared in the mirror before going on stage she felt like a clown. They taught her to step across the boards in a coquettish way when she was singing the provocative songs that the music-hall audiences loved, but they did not have to teach her how to change from a flirt into a wistful, nostalgic stirrer of hearts when she sang the old Scots songs for which she was to become famous.
Her name appeared on theatre bills, though in small letters and well down at the bottom. But it was not her own name that was used because Chapman had decided that Kennedy was too ordinary a name and when Lark told him that her great-grandfather was a Frenchman called Blaize Chardenel, he manufactured a stage name for her. ‘Lark Chardelle, that’s what we’ll call you… it’s a perfect name for a singer!’
On the day that Lark was to appear in public for the first time, Hannah arrived unannounced at the Queen’s Head. She was irked because no one had time to be very surprised or impressed at her arrival from foreign parts. She was in London to attend a meeting of the Russian Social Democratic Party in exile and longed to boast about her importance.
Bella however only nodded in her direction and said, ‘You’ve gone quite grey,’ as she bustled past. She was carrying a long tinsel dress in her arms and looked flustered.
‘You’re acting as if I’ve only been away a couple of days,’ said Hannah in an aggrieved tone.
‘You’ve been away nearly three years,’ replied Bella, ‘and would you mind getting out of the way? I’ve got to take this dress out to Larkie’s hansom cab.’
‘Larkie? I hate it when you call her that. Her name’s Lark, it’s a beautiful name. Where’s she going in a hansom cab?’
‘She’s not going anywhere, she’s there. The cab’s taking her dress to the Alhambra Theatre. I’ve just been putting the finishing touches to it.’ And Bella raised her voice in an unladylike yell: ‘Sadie, where the hell are you? Sadie, come and get this dress.’
Sadie, in her street clothes, came out of the parlour and took the dress from Bella, who delivered it up with a stern warning.
‘You make sure you take good care of it and that she looks her best. It’s your responsibility – and don’t let those old cows lace her up too tight. She’s got to sing and we don’t want her fainting from tight lacing. All they worry about is making her waist look as small as possible.’
Sadie nodded and bustled off into the waiting cab.
‘Would you mind telling me what’s going on?’ asked Hannah. ‘What’s Lark doing at the Alhambra Theatre?’
‘She’s singing there tonight. It’s her first night. We’re all going to hear her. You’ve just arrived in time.’
‘She’s on the stage!’ Hannah was astonished. Her memories of her daughter were of a small, pale-faced child who was too timid to talk far less sing in a theatre. For a moment she wondered if Bella had taken leave of her senses.
‘She’s going to be a famous artiste,’ said Bella proudly. ‘She’s going to make a lot of money.’
Hannah sniffed. Her principles did not permit her to enthuse about that.
‘Well, I’ll come along with you and hear her singing,’ she said, but Bella looked none too pleased.
‘You can only come if you sit in the theatre and keep quiet. I’m not having you rushing in and upsetting her before she goes on the stage. She’s got enough to worry about without you!’
Bella, Bill, Sadie, Quinn and Hannah sat in a row in the Grand Circle, their elbows on the gilded rail, impatiently awaiting Lark’s debut. When she stepped on to the stage, shining in the tinsel dress and with her golden hair tumbling round her face, each one of them drew in their breath with a gasp. No one gasped more loudly than Hannah.
Signor Arnotti’s teaching had not been wasted. Lark controlled her voice superbly; she knew every trick for holding an audience and drew them to her like an enchantress. In every seat people sat with their eyes abstracted and their fidgeting stopped as she weaved her spells around them. The shy girl, who blushed when people spoke to her and who moved awkwardly when she was embarrassed, had totally disappeared and a singing siren had taken her place.
Hannah sat silent, her mind in turmoil but her predominant feeling one of regret. She should have got to know this child better; she should have taken trouble with her. Anyone who could sing with such conviction, who had such power over other people, must have depths that she had never suspected. But she was not going to show her regret to Bill and Bella, who were behaving like the managers of a successful prize fighter. They wept and clung to each other; they wiped their eyes and sighed in sheer bliss. The audience were cheering and their darling was a success. That was all they wanted.
Afterwards, in the cramped communal dressing rooms which all the lesser female artistes on the bill shared, they crowded round Lark who once again became shy and blushed if a stranger spoke to her. The unexpected appearance of Hannah did not have the devastating effect that Bella had feared, for the girl had long ago stopped thinking about her mother. Now this tall, gaunt woman was back, thrusting herself forward and talking, talking, talking as she had always done…
‘I’m in London for a conference, darling. Lenin’s here – what a man, Lark, a real genius! And he’s very impressed with me. I backed him up today when he pressed for the party being given the name Bolshevik. Don’t you think that’s a good name?’
Bolshevik? What’s a Bolshevik? Lark wondered, but agreed, ‘It’s a very good name, Mother,’ while Sadie gently rubbed cream into her face to take off the heavy make-up.
As Hannah watched this process, she saw the daughter she remembered emerge from under the stage paint.
‘You look so very like my mother, Lark,’ she said suddenly, ‘it’s quite amazing.’
She could not have said anything that gave her daughter more pleasure. A smile of beautiful brilliance swept across the girl’s face and, rising to her feet, she threw her arms around Hannah and hugged her.
Lark, 1914
‘You really need somebody to look after you, you do,’ said Sadie disapprovingly, twitching away at Lark’s skirt in the dressing room filled with flowers which she now occupied alone as befitted her star status.
‘But I couldn’t refuse her, I’ve plenty of money,’ Lark excused herself, but Sadie was unimpressed.
‘Money doesn’t last long unless you look after it. Don’t do it again, even if she gets down on her bended knees. What did she say she wanted it for?’
As she spoke she was bustling around, arranging the pots of stage make-up on the dressing table and reading the cards on the bouquets of flowers that had been handed in at the stage door by admirers of Lark Chardelle, ‘The Sweetest Songbird’.
‘She said she needed it to go to Russia. Apparently there’s something going on there.’
Sadie looked relieved. Russia was a long way away and she was always very irritable when Hannah descended on their little household and unashamedly preyed on Lark, who at twenty-three was the toast of London. Invitations to grand houses flowed in; photographers pleaded to be allowed to take her picture; postcards of her posing against a background of flowers in a tight-waisted stage costume were bought in their thousands by her admirers; sheet music of her Scottish songs sold in every music shop. When she appeared on stage, queues formed to buy tickets and the applause was rapturous.
Chapman was still her manager and he insisted that she confine her appearances to his theatres. There was to be no chance of the public growing tired of his Songbird through hearing too much of her, he said.
In spite of her success and the money that was flowing in, Bella and Sadie still felt that their little Lark was too innocent and naive to face the world alone. They clucked round her as much as ever and though she now lived in an elegant apartment in Mount Street, Mayfair, Bella made regular visits with steak and kidney puddings wrapped in white cloths, for it was her conviction that Lark did not eat enough. While the tiny span of her waist delighted her admirers, it terrified Bill and Bella, who thought women should have a generous layer of fat on them.
Sadie had taken on the role of Lark’s dresser and protector, her guard dog in fact, snarling angrily at any young man who tried to penetrate the barrier of the stage door to speak to his idol. Everyone in the theatre was terrified of Sadie and her sharp Cockney tongue. Lark had bought her and Quinn a little house in Pimlico where they lived in semi-sparring bliss but neither of them were much there because Sadie could not bear to leave Lark unprotected and Quinn was at the moment languishing in prison. As he grew older, he was less nimble and it was easier for the officers of the law to catch him.
Lark was anxious to divert her friend from the subject of Hannah, for she was apprehensive of what Sadie would say if she knew that Lark had given her mother one hundred pounds.
‘When does Quinn get out?’ she asked.
Sadie’s face brightened. ‘The day after tomorrow. I’ll go up to Pentonville with a cab and collect him, if it’s all right with you.’
‘Of course, bring him back here. We’ll have a bottle of champagne to celebrate. Chapman’s coming round because there’s some contract he wants to discuss with me.’
‘Don’t you agree to anything till I’m back here,’ warned Sadie anxiously. ‘You don’t want him trying to put one over on you. I don’t trust that man.’
‘Oh Sadie, he’s done well by us. I’m rich. Look at what we’ve got.’
‘You’re rich because you’re the best singer in London,’ said Sadie. ‘You’d be rich no matter who was managing you. Chapman’s got rich out of you and he doesn’t want to let you go. He needs to be watched and if he wants you to stay with him, he’s going to have to make it worth your while.’
Lark smiled. She knew that between them Bella and Sadie would see that her interests were protected. She felt as safe as a cherished child with the people who cared most for her, and not even when Hannah was at her most flattering did she ever feel like that about her mother.
Lark Returning Page 34
