by Maggie Ford
‘Let it be, my dear.’ The words were quiet, friendly, yet there was that same warning there, and bitterness too. ‘Best not to believe all he says.’ Page’s eyes were so gentle, so deep brown, for a moment she felt a person could have easily melted into them.
Barrington’s deep voice broke the spell. ‘I can see that I may indeed need to sport a beard.’
The interruption tore her away from the younger man. ‘What?’ she asked in bewilderment.
‘The beard,’ Barrington repeated.
Martin was immediately forgotten in her returning enthusiasm. ‘Yer mean yer’ll take my advice an’ go back on the stage?’
‘Not the stage, young lady. Not yet.’
‘Then like I said, yer could do the theatre queues. Yer can make good money playing ter them. People like entertainment what’s different when they’re ’aving … having ter queue up outside waiting ter go in.’
The eyes studied her. ‘“That is”.’
‘That is?’ she repeated, bewildered for a moment.
‘You said, “what”. “What’s different”. The word is “that”.’
She couldn’t recall. All she knew was that he was going to take her advice, and that if she was to be his assistant he would be her tutor, not only for the work but to improve her diction. She would be a willing pupil.
There came visions of becoming someone, something she’d yearned for all her life, especially since losing her father, and Mum having to skimp and scrape with no hope of ever getting out of the existence they now endured.
Emma had been so caught up in her visions of the future that she didn’t see Martin Page slip quietly out. But Barrington did, and he smiled to himself.
He had kept a perfect control over his fury at Martin’s continued professions of innocence. It had been a fine move, the reference to taking on a female assistant. Martin knew it had been directed at him, and it did Theo good to see the shock and anger on the younger man’s face.
The only mistake was to foolishly commit to promises, even half promises, to take up his profession again. But having done so, yes, it would serve its purpose admirably, thanks to an innocent young girl. What he would like to see was Martin coming back to him begging as he saw him regain his previous fame, Martin left out in the cold. Ah, the taste of revenge was sweet indeed. The man could protest all he liked against accusations of playing around with Eleanor. And what if Eleanor had made the first move?
He had known for a long time of the pleasure Eleanor had derived from making eyes at other men, but they knew better than to cross him. It was Martin who had been the fool, giving in to the temptation, even to being seduced, though sometimes he wondered if it had ever gone that far. He had always been an inherently jealous man and had perhaps read more into it than there had been. But who could say? Was Martin going to let on if there had been anything more?
There had been a time when he had felt very close to Martin, drawing strength from his youth. Then seeing him and Eleanor growing ever closer, ever friendlier, he’d grown suspicious, and even though he had never found them in any compromising situation, his affection for Martin had turned to bitterness. Yet there still remained a shred of that liking he’d once had for the boy, and that annoyed him. If only his suspicions had been founded, he could have hated Martin to his very core instead of being victim of these visions that bounded and rebounded in his brain. If only he could test him now. But it was too late.
Chapter Eight
The moment Emma came in through the door after seeing Barrington, she was greeted by a challenge from her mother.
‘Where ’ave yer been? What’ve yer been up to?’ Mum came to stare into her face, her tall, thin frame bent at the waist for fiercer scrutiny. ‘Ben says yer’ve been seeing some bloke.’
‘Ben?’ Emma tried to appear normal. ‘I’ve got lots of friends and of course some of ’em are boys. What’s wrong in that?’ she asked, taking off her coat and hat to drape them on one of the hooks behind the door that held all their outdoor clothes. ‘If I don’t look around at the boys I see around ’ere, I could end up bein’ left on the shelf, and yer wouldn’t be too ’appy with that – yer daughter an old maid.’
She was talking far too fast, rambling on trying to cover herself, she supposed, with the stupid sense that guilt must be practically written on her forehead as plain as chalk on a school blackboard.
‘I ain’t talking about lads,’ Mum was saying. ‘I’m talking about some older bloke. Ben said yer’ve been seein’ some older bloke.’
Tiny talons of alarm seemed to be clutching at Emma’s heart. ‘Don’t be so silly, Mum,’ she managed to laugh, but her mother stood her ground.
‘Don’t tell me not ter be silly! Ben saw yer.’
‘Saw me, what?’ The talons had tightened.
‘Going into some bloke’s ’ome.’ Mum’s lips were thin. ‘One of Ben’s mates saw yer goin’ off with some street musician. Yer was on ’is arm.’
‘Heaven ’elp us, Mum!’ Relief swept away the grip. She couldn’t help a ring of sarcasm in her voice. ‘You telling me yer’ve been listening to some soppy tale my brother’s been told by someone else what read something into what he thought he saw?’
‘Not just that. Ben’s followed yer to an ’ouse in Mitre Alley.’
Emma’s need to bluster came entirely from new fear. ‘Who do he think he is, following me around? Where’s he now?’
‘Out.’
‘That’s just like ’im, unable to accuse me ter me face.’
‘But did yer? Did yer go inter some bloke’s ’ouse?’
Mum was being persistent and she needed to brazen this thing out. ‘Did Ben see ’ow long I was supposed ter be in this bloke’s ’ouse? Did he hang around ter see if it belonged to one of me friends and not some bloke?’ She felt the tension in her muscles relax as her mother moved back to the loaf she’d been sawing before Emma came in.
‘As far as I know,’ Mum said in a more congenial tone, ‘he saw yer go by the Swan, and after what ’is mate told ’im, he left his drink on the bar and went after yer ter see where yer went, but he ’ad ter leave and go back to the pub in case someone else ’elped themselves to ’is beer.’
Relief was a silent sigh. She’d have liked to know who the mate was who’d seen her that first time, but it would have been foolish to ask, though there was a need to explain and vindicate herself.
‘I know what Ben’s mate must’ve seen,’ she began as though on some sudden recollection. ‘It was just before Christmas, a street musician what took ill. It was so cold and no one was bothering to ’elp ’im, so I did. I ’elped back him to where he lived. Anyone would do the same.’
When Mum looked back at her, the half-loaf hugged against her chest, bread knife held ready for slicing, her suspicions had flown, her eyes showing quiet pride. ‘There’s lots as wouldn’t. Yer a good gel, Em. Just like you ter ’elp some poor old devil.’
Emma smothered a bitter smile. Again told she was a good girl. Mum ought to know the excitement that was even now gripping her after what Theodore Barrington had said. The pictures danced in her head of her finally being someone, of getting out of this place. He’d filled her with such hopes and now she yearned for them to come true.
Mum had resumed her cutting of the three-day-old bread into thick slices to toast in front of the fire to go with their supper. ‘But yer ’ave ter be careful.’ Her tone had grown waspish. ‘Trust Ben ter listen ter gossip from mates no better than him.’
The moment was over, but she knew she ought to be well advised to keep away from people like Barrington. She was out of her depths with the likes of stage folk. That young man, too, who’d so taken her eye. What had he been alluding to with his words of caution? But such a wonderful picture had been painted for her of the sort of life she’d never contemplated but now felt that she had always yearned after.
A magician’s assistant. It sounded so wonderfully grand. Maybe it would only be street entertainment, but who could
say where it would lead? Visions came of one day having fine dresses, being on stage before an admiring audience.
Why not? She was tall, had a good figure once decent corsets instead of second-hand ones gave her a proper wasp waist. Theodore Barrington had remarked on her pretty face, he’d said beautiful. And he’d even hinted at teaching her how to talk. Yes, it could all come about.
Emma knew she would go back and see him, over and over again, until she was eventually able to persuade him to go back to the profession that had once made his name.
Martin Page had done his best to warn her against him, and of course he would – from what she’d gathered this evening, he and Barrington weren’t on too friendly terms, and of course Page would be jealous at being dropped in favour of her.
Of course nothing was certain, but she could dream.
Lizzie’s gaze was riveted on the pavement just ahead as she and Emma wandered back home along Commercial Road, arm in arm, after saying goodbye to a knot of half a dozen girls and lads around their own age.
They’d hang around one of the street lamps by a teashop or a pub. With the girls ogling the boys who came out, and the boys ogling the girls who passed by, they’d indulge in amiable backchat and jostling until time to go home around ten or ten-thirty.
‘I still fink yer should ferget about ’im, yer know,’ Lizzie said, tightening her arm in Emma’s to add weight to her bit of wisdom. ‘I think yer’ve gone a bit soppy over this bloke.’
‘I’ve not gone soppy over ’im,’ said Emma. ‘I was just saying I can’t ’elp thinking of what he said, like teaching me ter talk proper, and about he might go back ter being a conjuror, and me ’elping.’
‘I told yer before,’ Lizzie said, turning her head to look earnestly at her friend. ‘Blokes like that can spin enough tales ter turn any gel’s head. But you ain’t never normally been one ter let yours be turned.’
‘I’ve been telling meself that fer a week,’ came the admission.
‘There you are,’ said Lizzie, but with Emma bent on pouring her heart out to her, she was a willing listener.
‘I’ve been keepin’ all this ter meself for over a week now. But I’m a bit worried. Ben’s been following me. If he really do find out that Mr Barrington is more than twice my age, Mum’ll kill me.’
‘And so will he,’ Lizzie said, ‘knowing what your brother’s like.’
Ben Beech’s reputation was unsavoury in an area full of unsavoury characters. Louts between fourteen and nineteen lurked on street corners for any likely passer-by not guarding his purse, or to keep an eye out for any nosy copper when an illegal game of pitch and toss was going on in a back alley. There was always a street fight somewhere around, belts, buckles, sticks, coshes, with Ben Beech often in the thick of it. He preferred his fists and not just in the boxing booth. Big and beefy, head and shoulders taller than most of the undersized, underfed East End lads, he was a battler, a bruiser, and if a bloke didn’t have two or three mates with him, it was better to cross over to the other side of the street when Ben Beech came along. Yet girls threw themselves at him. Lizzie too would feel her heart go pit-a-pat when she saw him, though he never once looked her way, much less twice.
‘I ain’t told a soul except you,’ Emma was saying. ‘I still ain’t sure I’m doing the right thing.’
‘Well, yer know what I think,’ Lizzie said.
Two young lads passed, lurching along, shoulders hunched, hands in trouser pockets, necks deep in turned-up jacket collars against a breezy March evening. As they approached, their necks lengthened considerably and one lad let out an appraising whistle, the other asking, ‘Yer muvver’s let yer out, then?’ A common salutation that usually drew the retort, ‘An’ do yer own muvver know yer out?’ quite often leading to conversation and eventually a consent to go for a ‘cuppa tea’, so as to get to know each other.
Lizzie merely stuck her tongue out at them and they laughed as they lurched by, tugging threadbare caps to a jaunty angle over their foreheads in defiance of being spurned. There were plenty of other fish in the sea.
‘I think,’ Lizzie went on, ‘that yer’d be advised ter think twice about all that what he told yer. Especially after what this other geezer said about ’im, the one yer said was a nice-looking young man.’
Emma had touched on him on their way out to meet their friends in Commercial Road, but she hadn’t had time to expand before being greeted by everyone. The way she’d described him had made him sound quite romantic, like Prince Charming in the pantomime, but Emma hadn’t appeared smitten by him, more like she was being hypnotised by this conjuror chap and his talk of her being his assistant.
It wouldn’t happen, of course, just a lot of rubbish. Things like that didn’t happen to ordinary girls from around here. The man was leading her on and Em, who usually knew her own mind, for once needed to be warned. Lizzie no longer felt envy, only concern.
‘It all sounds fishy ter me,’ she said as they neared home. ‘Yer don’t know what blokes like that ’ave got in mind fer young gels, especially pretty ones. It could even ’ave something ter do with the white slave trade we ’ear about. Don’t want ter find yerself smuggled off ter some ’ot Arab land and never ter return. It do ’appen. More often than yer think.’
She’d read about it in the penny romances she sometimes bought. Being laid off from the match factory after Christmas had done her a bit of good. She’d been taken on at Edward Cook and Company soapworks, not as clean as the match factory, but she was earning one shilling and sixpence more. Her father didn’t bring in a lot but at least he was now in work as a casual crossing sweeper so she could afford to splash out on the occasional penny romance she so loved reading, with no long words to get stumped over.
‘Them Arab potentates is always ready ter pay a lot of money fer pretty girls fer their slaves. ’Ow der you know this conjuror bloke ain’t got you in mind fer somethink like that?’
But she could see by Em’s face as they parted company that she was set on having her own way. Emma had always been a stubborn one. Lizzie didn’t want to think of what awful things could happen to her best friend because of this silly notion of hers, so she put it out of her mind. It was Emma’s look-out and there was nothing she could do about it.
No passers-by had paused to listen to him today. People hurrying out from The Flying Swan would glance at him then walk on. Nor did any children dance, though beyond the arches boys were playing a noisy game of ball down the street and a group of girls had a washing line for a skipping rope stretched across Mitre Street a little way off.
He couldn’t blame the weather for his lack of success, a spring-like Friday buoying the spirit. His mind wasn’t on his playing. He’d pause every now and again, thinking of a beautiful young girl who had come to haunt his thoughts. She’d not been nigh or by for over a week and he was certain he and Martin between them had frightened her off. Damn Martin!
Darkness was descending, later now that March was giving way to April. When she came this way it was usually around half seven, but with the lengthening days she could stay out selling her mother’s flowers for longer, taking advantage of the better weather.
Positioned as he was on the corner, Theodore could see along both Three Colt Street and Mitre Street. She could come from either direction. When she did, if she did, he must not appear too welcoming. It would give her airs. He’d made that mistake with Eleanor, had allowed her too much rope, and look what she had done to him in return.
This girl reminded him of Eleanor, self-assured but without any of the spitefulness. Eleanor had been tall and beautiful, and hard. This girl, for all her independent nature, struck him as being more pliable, where Eleanor had stood up to his moods and fought back, tooth and nail.
He knew he could be moody. Strange moods when they were upon him, when he’d grow silent, drink more than he ought, become sombre and brooding. He’d been like this all his life, making few friends for all he was sometimes capable of indulging in uproarious bouts
of socialising.
Maybe it was being an only child, sent to boarding school by parents who spent most of their lives in India, his father in the diplomatic corps, a chargé d’affaires. Growing up lonely amid a crowd of contemporaries, he’d studied alone, sought individualism; magic had lured him naturally. So had hypnotism, wielding power over any who might mock his hobby. He became very good at it, would practise on college companions to their amazement, and he loved seeing them in awe of him. Thus the magic and the pull of the stage. But the hypnotism was something best forgotten.
He turned from it now as it started to invade his peace of mind, and thought of the girl who, whether she’d meant to or not, had begun to give him new hope, something he’d been dead to for over a year.
She’d been so persuasive, so certain of his return to life. Her words of encouragement coupled with a sudden desire to let Page see that he hadn’t fallen by the wayside, had done its job. He’d even begun to grow that beard she’d suggested. The long, stark white cicatrice, once so noticeable, was being slowly hidden. He could have done this long ago, but it would have been too easy. After a year of self-recrimination and mental self-flagellation, was it time it was all put behind him? Maybe. Pausing yet again in his playing, he glanced once more along Mitre Street.
And there she was.
Emma came to stand several feet away, but sullenly, he not having taken the slightest notice of her. Her sullenness, however, gave way a little as she saw that at least he’d taken notice of the suggestion she’d made the last time she had seen him. Even though the early April evening was cold, he was no longer wearing his muffler and that there were definite signs of a beard, not just a mere stubble from neglect. It was fair and just thick enough to lessen the indent the scar made across his chin.
Emma began to move towards him and at last he ceased turning the hurdy-gurdy’s handle, the underlying low whine dying.