When Lily began her act, a couple of the ballet girls were in the wings. They were joined by Issy Jepps, a low comedian with a red nose and a brown bowler. He and his brother had started on the stage at the ages of six and five. Then Mrs Maria Standish, a large contralto in a beaded evening dress, arrived in the wings. She hadn’t even done her long grey hair, which hung down her back. Harry Hyams was standing behind her. They had all been drawn to the side of the stage because they sensed that something was going on. That something was Lily Strugnell. They stood silently watching as Lily finished.
As the applause broke out, Issy Jepps spoke with certainty. ‘You won’t be seeing her round here again too often, Harry,’ he said to the manager. ‘That girl’s going to the top.’
The applause continued. Lily was curtseying. Harry Hyams, though, was still brooding over his earlier row with her. ‘If she can keep it up, she’ll be all right,’ he said dourly. But he knew, as those in the wings and in the audience knew, that they’d been at the Victoria Theatre on a night when something extraordinary had happened.
When Lily came off the stage, the audience still shouting, ‘Encore!’, the Dunedin dancers, Issy Jepps and Maria Standish all clapped her. Even Lily’s tough little heart was softened by the smiles and applause from the performers in the wings, contrasting so oddly with the roars and shouts from beyond the curtain. Surprised, she said, ‘Thanks, mates. Thanks ever so.’
Chapter Seventeen
1901
As Lily climbed higher and higher up the ladder and Francine did not, and as Francine did more and more tidying and cleaning at Macready Street and Lily did not – though Lily more often than not paid the rent – the situation in the flat became increasingly difficult.
Matters came to a head just after Lily’s fifteenth birthday. One Friday in July, important events began to take place in her life. Since the previous Monday she had been working three music halls a night – the Cambridge, where she had been a favourite since her début, the famous Collins Music Hall in Islington, and the even more famous Oxford in the West End of London. After doing the first house in Whitechapel at eight, she would go by cab to Islington, leaving there at a quarter to nine, in time to go on stage at the Oxford. After that, she might go straight home at about eleven, or to the pub for a drink and a gossip with the other artistes, though she still drank very little, port and lemon being her favourite tipple.
The previous night she’d stayed at the pub for an hour and a half, returning to Macready Street by cab at midnight. She’d blundered in loudly and, having thrown off her clothes, got on to her sofa and fell heavily asleep.
She did not welcome Queenie’s loud banging on the front door at eight, or her rushing up the stairs, or her flinging open of the door with a crash.
‘Get up,’ Queenie was shouting. ‘I told you – I need a hand with the move.’
Francine came out of her room, yawning. Queenie, seeing Lily still in bed, traces of greasepaint on her face, her clothes all over the floor, said, ‘Oh God, Lily. You’ve turned into a nice slut, haven’t you? Get up. I need some help.’
Queenie had been receiving half of Lily’s weekly income from Sam Stackpoole, the rest being retained by Sam on Lily’s behalf, except for the five guineas a week which he gave her on Fridays and which she promptly spent. Queenie’s share had enabled her to buy, and furnish, a little house in Hoxton. Lily had taken no notice of this activity, but now she was being confronted with the final stage – the move.
‘Can’t you get someone else to help, Ma?’ yawned Lily.
‘You unfeeling girl,’ Queenie cried. ‘Do you know, you haven’t even asked me the address yet, let alone helped with any of the work. There’s everything to do. The moving van will be at the door in an hour. If you’re coming to live in the house, you owe it to me to help.’
This statement came as a shock to Francine, who had heard nothing of Lily’s plan to move out. This was not surprising, for Lily had no such plan – Queenie had told her she was moving to Hoxton and she had not argued, for fear of a row.
‘I don’t know if I will move, Ma,’ she said from her prone position. ‘I’m very comfortable as I am.’ The couch was lumpy, the room bestrewn. Lily’s clothes hung from hooks and nails all round the room.
‘In this rat’s nest – sleeping on an old settee in your dirt!’ exclaimed Queenie. ‘I should think so.’
Mrs Biggs had appeared upstairs and now stood in the doorway. ‘I’ll have you know that sofa was brand new a year ago,’ she said indignantly. She came further into the room. ‘If it looks old now, that’s your daughter’s doing.’ She looked round the room. ‘I’ve never seen such squalor.’
‘Would you mind minding your own business,’ Queenie requested. ‘We happen to be removing today, to a house with a garden, and I’m here to remind Lily of her duty. As to the squalor – if you don’t like it, try giving it a clean.’
An altercation threatened. Lily got up from the couch, naked, and said, ‘Well, if you want my help, give me room to dress.’ She picked up the bedspread to wrap round herself.
That was when Francine’s fiancé, Raymond Slater, came in. He looked straight past Francine and the two other women at Lily’s naked body, and turned bright red. Lily in the meantime had wrapped the counterpane round herself.
‘Oh, Lily!’ Raymond burst out helplessly. ‘Oh, Lily.’ It was an avowal. Without stopping to think, Francine smacked his face and started trying to push him out of the room.
Lily did not know that the previous night Francine had secretly searched his jacket pockets and found in one a picture postcard of Lily – leaning on a white parasol, head turned to the camera, smiling winsomely. A good deal of leg was on display. Hiding her anger, Francine had stuffed the photograph back into Raymond’s pocket and told him, when he came back into the room, that she was feeling tired; he’d better go home. Francine and Raymond often spent the night together at Macready Street, Raymond leaving very quietly in his socks early in the morning before the landlady got up. ‘It’s not what you think – we don’t do anything,’ Francine told Lily.
Lily had no direct experience of sharing a bed with a man, but her time on the stage had provided her with much information. Backstage she witnessed rows, affairs, women weeping, men drinking heavily, men and women falling in love and out of it. This was quite enough to show her the power of love and sex – and make her wonder if it was worth it. She was herself protected by most of the other artistes. There was trouble waiting for anyone who made approaches to Lily Strugnell; woe betide the man who tried to make her drunk and seduce her. It was widely held that Sam Stackpoole would kill anybody who laid a hand on Lily. Nevertheless, she was not ignorant. ‘Don’t do anything?’ she repeated. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ Francine said. ‘Men get restless during a long engagement. You have to give them something. While keeping your purity, of course. It’s essential to hold something back. I don’t want to go into any more detail.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Lily had said promptly.
But Lily had no idea Raymond had taken such a fancy to her. She knew nothing about the postcard in his pocket. All she knew was that she had been woken too early, in order to help carry pots and pans out of French Street. And that Queenie had probably had nearly everything delivered, new, to the new address. The affair was partly a demonstration for all in French Street, and at the new house, that the Strugnells were going up in the world.
Holding on to the bedcover with one hand, Lily picked her clothes up from the floor. ‘If no one’s leaving I’ll go in the other room and get dressed.’
‘Not so fast!’ cried Francine. ‘You’d better go to your ma’s, Lily. I’m fed up with your ways. Mrs Biggs, I’d like you to ask Lily to leave.’
‘Just a minute, Francine,’ pleaded the horrified Raymond, who, to do him justice, had been on his knees week after week in his Baptist chapel, asking God to take away the sinful feelings he had for Lily and restor
e his loyalty to his fiancée. Not that his prayers had been answered.
‘No – I’ve had enough,’ declared Francine, tossing her head. ‘I’m sick and tired of her dirty habits and bringing men home at all hours of the day and night.’
‘I never,’ Lily cried indignantly. ‘Come to that—’ In her indignation she was about to reveal the secret of Raymond’s overnight stays at Macready Street, but she was interrupted by Mrs Biggs, who was also annoyed by Lily’s comings and goings, untidiness, and general lack of respect.
‘Well, I think it might be best, Mrs Strugnell, if Lily came home with you. To your new residence with garden and a parlourmaid, no doubt. I think I’d prefer it if it was just myself and Miss Haughey living quietly here together.’
Raymond was standing there looking very unhappy. Francine’s mouth was tightly pursed. Lily was gazing from one to the other. Then she caught sight of the landlady’s stony face and shrugged.
Queenie, meanwhile, was looking insultingly round the room. She gave an artificial laugh. ‘I’m surprised you find my daughter an undesirable tenant,’ she said. ‘And her a rising star of the music halls. Luckily she’s got somewhere better to go. You’ll be well out of here, Lily. Get dressed – we’re leaving.’
Thus, that day, Lily was evicted. But she certainly did not mean to go back to her parents, living under Queenie’s fierce and erratic rule and sharing a room with Rose.
She dressed quickly in the bedroom, threw together two untidy bundles of clothes, one wrapped in a scarlet cloak, and left with her mother.
Outside the house in French Street stood a small horse-drawn cart, which Charlie, helped by the boys, was loading. Martha was on the pavement, crying. Her husband was sad too, but more for Martha than himself. He and Charlie were both back working for Carr, their old employer, so would continue to see each other every day. Lily ran up and embraced Martha. ‘Come what may, through thick and thin,’ she said, ‘we’ll all see each other every Christmas.’
Queenie had gone beyond sentiment. She had spent the past two months buying the house and furnishing it. She had had no help from Charlie because he was against the move; Rose was now working in a West End store, and the boys were too young to assist. Now that this final moment had come, she was pale and tense, wound up like a coiled spring.
Noting that the cart had been loaded anyway, and knowing that Queenie’s mood was building, minute by minute, towards a row, denunciations and hysteria, Lily threw one of her bundles on to the piled-up vehicle and, carrying the other in her arms, turned in the opposite direction from the one the cart was due to take. She cried back, ‘I’ll see you lot later.’
‘Where are you going?’ shouted Queenie. ‘Come back here and help.’
But Lily, the bundle in the red cloak beginning to sag open, just walked away.
She had spent last Saturday’s allowance, of course: on a new pair of kid boots, some extra rolling stock for Lennie and Dan’s train set, and the rent at Macready Street. She went straight to the Cambridge to ask Sam Stackpoole for money. Sam, though he had gathered about him several useful clients, was still operating cautiously out of his office at the theatre. The backers, however, especially Mr Green, were increasingly dissatisfied with this arrangement.
Lily opened the door looking very untidy. As she stepped in, her bundle fell to pieces on his carpet. A petticoat, the case containing her greasepaint, several sheets of music, a dress and the new pair of boots were among the items which strewed themselves across Sam’s floor.
Sam looked up from his desk, took in Lily’s appearance and fallen luggage, and asked calmly, ‘You flitted, Lily?’
‘Thrown out of my lodgings,’ Lily told him. ‘Francine got the landlady to sack me.’
‘I never liked the girl,’ Sam said in the same cool tone. ‘It wasn’t a good arrangement. You’ll be much better off with your parents in this new house of theirs.’
Lily stared. She hadn’t told Sam about the house. Who had? She would ask him about that later. Now, though, she said, ‘I’m not going there.’
Sam looked at Lily, standing there in an expensive but carelessly thrown-on pink dress, her hair hanging down uncombed and her face unwashed, and shook his head. ‘Lily,’ he said reasonably, ‘you need someone to take care of you. Living the way you do might be all right at the moment, but it can’t go on. You’ll burn out if you aren’t careful.’ Secretly he dreaded that without her family behind her, one of the many men, fellow artistes or stage-door Johnnies, who prowled round Lily would get hold of her and ruin her. Women on the stage could make happy marriages, he knew, but Lily, at her age and with her temperament, would be lucky to achieve this. It was far more likely, he considered, that any relationship she formed with a man would fall into the predictable pattern he had seen so often – delirious happiness would be followed by trouble, one man would succeed another, and she would end in disaster. It could not be easy for a young woman of Lily’s age, with talent and money to burn, to stay in a settled marriage.
Sam thought that Lily needed stability. She needed to work. She learnt quickly, but she was a little clumsy on stage from time to time. She still couldn’t measure her performance properly; that took years. Her music reading was rudimentary, which mattered if she wanted to start buying her own songs, and she was still rattled if the orchestra was bad – or not on her side. All this he had told her over and over again. She had her good points, many of them, he thought. For example, she had an inner clock, which meant she was never late. But she needed to work.
‘Queenie take care of me?’ exclaimed Lily. ‘Fat chance! I’d be taking care of my brothers if I lived at home. When I wasn’t black-leading grates or up to my armpits in suds.’
Which might not be such a bad thing, Sam thought grimly. She certainly had enough energy. He was tempted to offer to take her home to live in his little villa in north London – but what would his Becky say?
‘Mrs Potter, the stage doorkeeper’s wife, takes in lodgers,’ he told her.
‘All I want is some money, Sam,’ Lily told him. ‘I can find somewhere for myself.’
‘Lily,’ he said, ‘you haven’t got any.’
‘What! No money? Why not? What happened to last week? What happened to all that money you’re keeping for me? I need it. It’s an emergency.’
Sam tried to disguise his horror. Lily followed his eyes and turned to look at his secretary. Miss Dickinson was shaking her head at him. She produced a large ledger.
‘Mrs Strugnell had ten pounds last week and ten the week before. That leaves the balance at minus fourteen guineas. The Collins still owes twenty guineas, which should have been paid yesterday—’
‘Ma’s been coming here for money?’ Lily asked weakly.
Sam nodded.
‘On top of what you send her?’
‘I’m afraid so. She told me you’d approved the expenditure,’ Sam said carefully. He added, ‘Lily, I’m sorry. I thought – she said – you were moving into the house yourself.’
‘I never told her I would,’ Lily sulked. ‘She never told me anything about all this. Now what am I going to do?’
Sam sighed. ‘I am sorry, Lily.’
‘Why didn’t you ask me? I’ve been working six nights a week for a month, and now I find I’m broke. I bet Dad doesn’t know anything about this, either. He wouldn’t have allowed it.’
Sam did not reply.
‘Oh, how could you let this happen to me?’ Lily cried. ‘Well – what have I got for next week?’
‘Back at the Collins; Clapham; the Alhambra; and I’ve just had a message from the Oxford. They want you back for a fortnight. Do you want to do it?’
‘Looks like I’ve got to,’ Lily said. She held out her hand. ‘Come on, Sam. Lend us a couple of quid. I’ll go round to Maggie Sullivan’s house and beg for a space on the kitchen floor for a week or two, till I’m sorted out.’
Sam, guiltily, gave her three. ‘I take it you’d prefer me not to give any more money to your mot
her for the time being.’
‘You’ve got that right,’ said Lily, and departed.
When she walked in with her bundle, Maggie Sullivan was too preoccupied to look up. She was shovelling buns into bags for the workers’ dinners at a nearby shoe factory. One of the waiting customers, though, recognised Lily. ‘Lily Strugnell! We saw you Tuesday at the Cambridge. A lovely little turn.’
Maggie closed the last bag of buns and looked up. She smiled. She looked at Lily’s bundle. Then she laughed.
‘I’ve got the push from Mrs Biggs’ and Ma’s got all my wages. Can you take me in for a bit till I’m on my feet again?’
‘I didn’t think you’d come here with a bundle with your drawers hanging out of it just to say hullo,’ Maggie told her. Lily looked down. It was quite true. She’d walked from Sam Stackpoole’s office to the bakery with a pair of lace-edged drawers trailing from the bundle. She blushed.
Mrs Sullivan came, plump and sweating, from the back of the shop where the ovens were. She put a tray of freshly baked buns on the counter and gave Lily a hug. ‘Is that your luggage, Lily?’
‘Will you have me here for a bit, Mrs S.?’ Lily asked humbly.
‘Always room for a little one,’ Mrs Sullivan replied.
‘Thank Christ,’ said Lily with a laugh. ‘Ooh, sorry, Mrs Sullivan – thank goodness, I mean. I’m ever so grateful. So here we are again, little Lily Strugnell, the darling of the music halls, back to sleeping on the kitchen floor.’
‘You know where it is,’ Maggie said. ‘You’d better hop upstairs with that smart valise of yours.’ Then she went back to serving the queue, which had lengthened, though many thought the wait worthwhile.
Lily trailed upstairs with her collapsing bundle and entered the parlour, where she thought she would leave everything for the time being.
Elizabeth and Lily Page 18
