Elizabeth and Lily

by Hilary Bailey

  Suddenly the truth hit Lily. ‘I’m not ill,’ she said loudly, in front of the guard, who was pushing her hamper from the van towards Harry Moran. ‘I’m going to have a baby. Oh my God! What am I going to do?’

  The guard and Harry stared at her. The train screeched and billowed out smoke. ‘I feel ill,’ came Lily’s indignant voice through the clouds of smoke. As it cleared a little the guard’s eyes were still fixed on her face. He was shutting the goods van’s doors. ‘I’m sorry, missus,’ he said.

  Ivy grasped Lily’s arm. ‘It may be a false alarm,’ she said consolingly. ‘Come along to the buffet and have a cup of tea.’

  They had an hour to wait for their train to Leeds. Much theatrical life was led in station buffets. There old friends reunited, partnerships began, deals were struck, ideas for acts suggested and discussed, past performances remembered. Stage marriages had been made and broken in railway stations, to the accompaniment of trains going in and out, the hissing of the tea urn and doors opening and closing in the buffet. So it was quite natural for Ivy and Lily to find themselves discussing Lily’s situation at a small, heavily varnished table in the buffet, beside which two commercial travellers were keenly swapping information about what they were selling. Harry Moran had tactfully gone out on to the platform to stretch his legs.

  Ivy Moran was twenty-eight. She was a soprano and it had only been a year since she had linked up with Harry, a baritone. Already they were a popular singing duo. They had recently married. Ivy was very lovely, with huge dark eyes, but lines were beginning to develop on her face. She had been working on stage since she was a child, when she had been part of a small, down-at-heel variety troupe managed by her parents. Her mother was a dancer. Ivy’s aunt – and then Ivy – sang. Her father was the comedian. She had made her début on a stage in a saloon in Oklahoma, as part of what Ivy’s father later described as their very successful tour of America. It had not been. They had left America with bills unpaid, and come back freezing in steerage. Ivy had been on the stage now for twenty years, many of them hard ones, and the marks were beginning to show.

  Now she looked at Lily with wise eyes. ‘Sip some tea,’ she advised. ‘It might settle your stomach.’ Lily was not listening. She was terrified.

  It must have happened in that bloody cupboard at Maggie and Gerry’s wedding reception, she thought desperately. What rotten luck. What rotten, filthy luck.

  The huge party had stopped the traffic most of the way from the church to the hotel. After the happy couple had been cheered off on their honeymoon, the party had gone momentarily flat but as the music on both floors started up again, Jack had grasped Lily round the waist and whispered, ‘They won’t miss us for a minute.’ It was true, for the guests were plainly getting back in full swing, talking and laughing in the flower-decked foyer, helping themselves from laden buffet tables in two rooms, taking a turn round the dance floor. ‘Where?’ Lily had whispered back.

  Jack had taken her hand and led her upstairs, past the band on the first floor, past the second floor, up to the third. He had opened every unlocked door as they went along the corridor. In one were high shelves of stacked linen. Brooms, a bucket and a dustpan stood in a corner. There Jack had pressed her back against the shelves furthest from the door, then drawn her down.

  ‘Someone might come in,’ she had muttered.

  Kneeling above her, pulling up her skirt, he said, ‘I’ll keep one foot against the door. I love you, darling. Lily – my darling.’ Lily could smell the fresh linen, felt the floorboards hard under her back. At one point, as they were reaching climax, his foot, pressed against the door, slipped. It hit the bucket in the corner, which gave a loud clang. Laughing and gasping, Lily had come.

  Later they had dusted themselves down and made themselves tidy. They had come down the decked staircase above the throng of guests, leaning against each other. Many of the women in bright dresses and big hats, the men with flowers in their buttonholes, had looked up. They had clapped and cheered as Jack and Lily descended. It was almost as if this had been their wedding.

  In the ballroom, dazed with love and happiness, they danced to a Lehár waltz. The other couple circling the dance floor had smiled at them. They had been so happy.

  In the buffet at Crewe, Lily stared blindly at Ivy, remembering. Then she asked, ‘What in God’s name am I going to do? I’m booked on this tour until the end of August. Then Sam’s rewarded me with a fortnight’s holiday. Then I’m working again. Jack’s defending his title at the Albert Hall on the twenty-ninth of September. I’m ruined – ruined.’

  ‘Other women manage,’ was all Ivy could find to say.

  ‘I’ve seen them, six months gone, letting out their costumes for the second time to go on stage. Dragging brats around the country on tour. I’m at the start of my career, Ivy. And you know what the managers are going to say – this is just the beginning, she’ll have one kid after another now, lose her looks, lose her energy, not safe to book Lily Strugnell any more. I’m not even married.’

  ‘That can be put right,’ Ivy told her.

  ‘I feel trapped,’ Lily said. ‘Just like my ma,’ she moaned. ‘What’s the point of being born if you end up like this? What’s Jack going to say?’

  ‘He might be pleased,’ Ivy said.

  Lily shook her head. ‘He won’t,’ she said flatly. ‘I know he does a lot for the local kids, but that’s to make up for how he was brought up. Jack doesn’t want kids. He wants to be free. He wants me to be free.’

  Ivy put her hand on Lily’s. ‘I’ve never been anywhere near having a baby, Lily. But I’d give a lot, a hell of a lot, to have one. If you want it enough, you’ll manage. Jack’ll manage. I’ve seen plenty of men who didn’t want children go potty over them when they’re born.’

  But Lily’s face remained set in misery.

  ‘Anyway, the first thing you’ve got to do,’ Ivy added in a practical tone, ‘is to see a doctor and find out if it’s true.’

  For a moment, Lily hoped. Then her despair returned. ‘I don’t need to see a doctor – I already know.’

  ‘Talk to Jack, then.’

  ‘And do you know what he’ll do?’ Lily asked violently. Ivy shook her head. ‘Well, I’ll tell you. He’ll black my eye. Just like any worn-out bloke in the East End when his wife tells him she’s expecting again.’

  ‘Jack’s not like that,’ protested Ivy. ‘You’re in love – he’s mad about you. Anybody can see that.’

  ‘No,’ Lily told her in a defeated voice. ‘No – I can see it. I know. When Jack hears this he’ll go for me. There’s something inside him – he’s brave, of course he’s brave. He can take any punishment in the ring. He’s fought his way up from the bottom. But he doesn’t like responsibility, and people feeling ill and tired and not ready to fall in with his plans. No – he won’t like this. And I don’t like it. I don’t want it at all.’ As she said this, the two men at the table next to theirs got up to go. Harry was coming into the buffet. As he approached their table, Lily bent her head towards Ivy. ‘Ivy,’ she said, ‘can you help me?’

  Chapter Twenty–One

  It was the first of September, a bright morning, and Elizabeth, wearing new black boots, a bottle-green jacket and skirt and a white tam-o’-shanter, walked up Shaftesbury Avenue towards the Imperial Theatre. The street was crowded with wagons, buses, trams and coaches. A big green open car frightened a pair of young horses pulling a smart carriage. Women looked at Elizabeth as they approached; men even more so. A man in a white waistcoat with a cane came up beside her and mumbled in her ear. Elizabeth walked faster.

  This was to be her first day at the Imperial. There had been several occasions since Constance Albury had made her offer when she thought the day would never come.

  The trouble had started before Elizabeth had even left school, when Miss Tully called her to her office some days after Constance’s offer. The headmistress looked rueful and astonished. On the blotter in front of her lay a letter in Bella’s handwrit
ing.

  Elizabeth had written excitedly to her mother the morning after Constance’s offer had been made. She had received, by return of post, a thrilled and delighted reply. And then, by the second post that day, came a formal letter from Constance Albury offering her the post.

  Now here was a second letter from Bella, to Miss Tully. There it lay in the middle of the immaculate blotter. And Miss Tully, Elizabeth saw, was absolutely dismayed.

  Elizabeth could not restrain herself. She burst out, ‘No! Not objections from my uncle!’

  ‘The letter is from your mother,’ Miss Tully pointed out.

  ‘Dictated by him,’ Elizabeth stated.

  Miss Tully did not contradict her. ‘As to that, I cannot say,’ she said gently. ‘Nevertheless, in this letter your mother says that she is very disappointed that Miss Constance Albury, on what ought to have been a private visit to the school, should see you in a play and offer you a post with her theatrical company without any consultation with her or your guardian. She does not appreciate the part this school played in the matter and is contemplating laying the whole thing before the board of governors.’ Miss Tully glanced down at the letter again. She looked up and continued. ‘Your mother also says that you had no right to accept the position without consulting your family, and she demands that you write straight away to Miss Albury saying that you cannot accept her offer. She does not want you to become an actress, she says, the métier is precarious, the world of the stage often undesirable. You must, she says, go to Fallowfield to teach, as originally planned.’

  Miss Tully stood up and walked round her desk. She put a hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder. ‘Elizabeth,’ she said, ‘I cannot advise you. The stage is a difficult life. There are temptations in it you would not find at Fallowfield. If you are to embark on this career, the support and care of your family is almost indispensable.’

  ‘No, Miss Tully – no,’ Elizabeth pleaded. ‘It’s not fair.’

  ‘Mr Warren is your legal guardian. It is better not to quarrel with your family,’ Miss Tully said implacably. She was not happy about the threat of a complaint to the school’s trustees. She ought not to encourage Elizabeth to defy her legal guardians. They were right to call the stage an uncertain profession. And yet – the pale, agitated face in front of her aroused her sympathy. She went on, more gently, ‘Elizabeth – I have no experience of a situation such as your own. It may depend on the terms of your guardianship. But I’m sure the best course is to win your family over. Otherwise you face a very difficult future. And I remind you, I must write to Fallowfield soon if you are not going there, so that they have the opportunity to appoint another person before the start of the autumn term. I am very sorry all this has happened. I suggest you appeal to your uncle as soon as possible.’

  Emily found Elizabeth half an hour later. She was sitting on her bed in a state of despair.

  ‘Lunch. Gong’s gone,’ reported Emily. ‘Hurry up.’ She held out a letter. ‘I brought this one up. It looks as if it’s from your mother.’

  ‘Yes,’ Elizabeth said wearily. ‘This will be the one where she tells me that Uncle Robert made her write to Miss Tully – that she doesn’t agree with what he said but had no choice but to write it. Doesn’t she ever stand up to him? Doesn’t she ever think of me?’

  Emily frowned. It was unlike Elizabeth to attack her mother, or to sound so bitter. ‘What was in the letter to Miss Tully?’ she asked.

  Elizabeth did not answer.

  ‘It wasn’t about Constance Albury and the Imperial, was it? Oh, no…’

  Elizabeth broke in, saying harshly, ‘Here we are.’ Then she read, in a hard, mocking voice, the gist of what Bella had written: ‘My dear Elizabeth –I do so regret writing to Miss Tully as I did, but your Uncle Robert feels… quite unsuitable… unhealthy life for a woman… shocked you did not consult him… If on the other hand you feel… and so on and so forth.’ She threw Bella’s letter on to her bed. ‘In short, “I didn’t want to do what I did, but I did it anyway”! And in short, I’m to go to Fallowfield to teach. I can’t go to the Imperial.’

  Emily gasped. She had been horrified when she heard of Elizabeth’s future at Fallowfield, though she tried not to show it. Her own parents were returning from abroad to live in London, and a meeting had been arranged for her with the editor of the Daily Sketch. He and her father were old friends. When Elizabeth’s future had looked so drab in contrast with her own, she had been depressed. Her delight had known no bounds when Constance Albury made her offer. ‘We can see each other all the time,’ Emily had told Elizabeth, ‘and have exciting jobs and wonderful lives.’

  Now Emily paced about the room, declaring, ‘I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it.’ She snatched up the letter and read it carefully. ‘Hm,’ she said. Then she read it again. ‘Listen, Elizabeth,’ she said. ‘What your mother says at the end is, “If you feel you absolutely must accept Miss Albury’s offer, I have to tell you this will be in defiance of your Uncle Robert’s strongest wishes.” Do you see, Elizabeth?’ cried Emily. ‘It’s a message in code. You can accept the offer, she says, and if you do it will be in defiance of your Uncle Robert’s wishes. Not hers. She doesn’t say hers, Elizabeth,’ Emily said excitedly. ‘I’m sure your mother’s telling you there’s nothing to stop you from going to the Imperial. She just daren’t say so directly. Read it again.’

  Elizabeth did so. Comprehension dawned. ‘You’re right, Emily. You’re right!’

  And so Elizabeth told the daunted Miss Tully that she would not now go to Fallowfield, and wrote to Bella to say she had refused the position. She sat out the last week of term anxiously. There would be a dreadful row when she got home.

  She was not surprised when there was no one to meet her and her luggage at the station when she reached London. She had to prevail on the man in the left luggage office to let her leave her trunk there for nothing. Then she had to walk back to Linden Grove, for she had no money at all.

  When she arrived, her stomach knotting in fear about the scenes to come, a small new maid, who’d come from the workhouse, opened the door to her, and blurted out, when she introduced herself, ‘We never had no warning you was coming. There’s no bed made up for you. How do I know you’re who you say you are?’

  ‘Well, can’t you let me come in and sit down for a bit, anyway, until someone comes home?’

  ‘You’ll have to sit in the kitchen, under my eye,’ declared the girl.

  Elizabeth agreed. They went down to the kitchen together. Elizabeth sat at the table.

  ‘What happened to Martha?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘Is she still here?’ The servants were replaced often at Linden Grove, for they were underpaid and overworked, and Harriet’s frugal housekeeping did not allow ample meals above or below stairs. Leftovers were few and sharply accounted for. One maid had been dismissed for eating a boiled potato left in the dish after supper on the way down to the kitchen.

  ‘Never met any Martha,’ said the girl.

  ‘Where’s the family gone?’ Elizabeth asked.

  ‘The Misses Warren are taking part in a musical recital at their school,’ said the girl. ‘Mrs Warren and Mrs Armitage went to listen. Have you come to stay?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The maid looked at her helplessly. ‘I don’t know where you could sleep.’

  ‘Who’s got my room? I used to be in the attic next to what must be your room.’

  ‘There’s a teacher in there, Mr Wilkinson. Been here ages. He’s off home tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Elizabeth, laughing, ‘they’ve been letting out my room while I’m not here.’ That explained the faint smell of pipe smoke she’d encountered each time she came back for the holidays. And the way her things always seemed to be in different positions. She went on laughing.

  ‘I’m glad you can see the funny side,’ said the girl.

  ‘I’ll end up down here, under the kitchen table with the beetles,’ said Elizabeth.

  The maid just looked at her hop
elessly. ‘I’ve got to stick it out here for a year to get a reference,’ she confided.

  ‘Well, I’m going on the stage,’ said Elizabeth defiantly, though as she spoke she realised that this boasting was unkind to the maid, an orphan or an abandoned child, brought up in an institution and working against her will in a bad household. ‘And I want some tea.’ Knowing that the girl would not dare to make tea without orders in that economical household, she put the kettle on. The small maid brightened up at the prospect of a cup.

  Neither of them got any, though, for as soon as it was made the front door banged and Harriet Warren’s feet came down the stairs. ‘Elizabeth,’ she said without pleasure. ‘You’re back. And tea’s made. Would you butter some bread and bring it up? And I believe there are some biscuits.’ Then she departed.

  Elizabeth obeyed, though she desperately wanted to see her mother. As she hastily made up the tea tray, Bella came in, and they embraced. Bella sobbed, ‘Oh, Elizabeth, I thought –I thought I’d hardly ever see you again. Why didn’t you come straight up?’

  ‘Aunt Harriet wanted tea made,’ said Elizabeth drily.

  Bella fell against her once more. In a muffled voice she said, ‘Don’t let them turn you into a servant as they have me.’ It could only have been the emotion of having Elizabeth home again which prompted this frankness. Normally she never said anything of this kind, might never have let herself think it.

  ‘I won’t, Mother. I will help you,’ claimed Elizabeth, fervently hoping she could keep her promise, as she felt the suffocating net of Linden Grove tighten round her yet again.

  It was the memory of this promise which fortified her later. Initially, Harriet had greeted her extremely coolly, as if she had turned up unexpectedly, like a caller she did not particularly like. But she made no comment.

  Then Robert Warren arrived, in a hurry. As Bella began to pour his tea he said, ‘Well, thank you very much, young lady, for this disruption. I’ve lost half an afternoon’s work as a result of your arrival.’ He took the cup from Bella’s hand without looking at her. His eyes were fixed on Elizabeth’s. Conditioned, like a dog with a bad master, she began to tremble. ‘The maid,’ her uncle went on, ‘has also been distracted from her work by being forced to go out and telephone me at my office. You no sooner arrive than chaos breaks out.’