by Maggie Ford
This was the moment Emma had dreaded, though her move had been rehearsed during the week until perfected and Theo had been certain of feeling nothing as a ball was slipped into his pocket. Her heart racing, she did as she had been taught, praying not to be found out. In seconds, one of them, feeling in his pocket after she’d touched his arm before moving on, let out a coarse expletive. ‘I got it! ’Ow in bleedin’ ’ell did that get there?’
The other three were equally amazed, leaving Emma to retreat gratefully to pick up her tray.
Theo had one more thing to tempt appreciation from his audience as the queue began moving, the theatre door at last ready to admit them. He beckoned to the men who had unwittingly taken part in his illusion. He held up a coloured ball.
‘Would those of you who found one of these in your pockets, would you all come here? It seems that by some magic or other you discovered where not one but several of these elusive balls disappeared to. Each of you is a winner and winners deserve a small prize – a whole penny in coloured tissue paper.’
A ripple of laughter ran through the queue and some appreciative applause. The winners took it all in good part as well as being as chuffed by an unearned penny as they would have been had they found it lying in the street. Theo’s sprat to catch a mackerel had its effect, coins willingly tossed into the purple bag on the pavement as his audience slowly filed past. Even Emma, having gone back to her own pitch a little way down from him, found her flowers being readily bought, several remarking what a peach she was, and how brave she’d been to do what she had.
Theodore packed away his paraphernalia, folded his table and without a glance at her, walked off. As the queue dwindled, Emma too moved on down the now vacated side street into Leicester Square, making her way towards Haymarket, where she met Theo. They had something to eat before going on to the nearby Alhambra. Darkness falling, pickings from those waiting to go in to the second house of that theatre’s revue were equally as good as they had been at the Hippodrome.
There was no fear of discovery by any in the previous audience, too busy wending their way home after the matinée.
Emma’s success was twofold: her flowers all sold, and money in her pocket from helping Theo. Her little horde was mounting, and Mum still none the wiser. She told herself she wasn’t being underhand. It wasn’t as if she was squandering it, as Ben would have done. It was there to help if one day they should hit the depths of poverty. She told herself it was a life-saver. There was no wrong in that despite her being secretive about it.
One thing did bother her, though, as they came away to go home. ‘I think I might have imagined it,’ she remarked to Theo on his helping her into the four-wheeled cab. ‘But I thought I saw someone watching us. Did you see anyone?’
She saw him smile. Theo had a nice smile when he cared to use it. ‘I saw no one. Nor do I think it matters.’
But she had been so sure a couple of times of seeing someone lurking in the shadows not far from where Theo had been performing. He wouldn’t have noticed but she’d had time while hovering to look around, and twice when she’d looked in a certain direction, a figure had flitted back into the shadows, the movement itself making it obvious someone was there. Only someone not wanting to be seen would act like that. So who was it? Or perhaps it had been just imagination.
With money in her pocket and the warm feeling of success that it brings, she shrugged off the slightly creepy feelings, and let her thoughts dream of the future. And what a future it could prove to be with Theo beside her.
Chapter Eleven
Barrington let himself into his lodgings after leaving Amelia, as he preferred to call her. Emma Beech was an ordinary girl from the East End. Amelia Beech, seventeen in three months, was an enchanting young woman of mystery, precisely as she should be for his purpose.
Things were going well for him, and for her. Soon he planned to be back in the spotlight. With Christmas virtually around the corner, he’d sent a telegram to that effect to his old theatrical agent, Jack Simmons, who had replied asking where the devil he had been and that all he had for him at this late stage in bookings was a fifteen-minute spot in some second-rate music hall. But it was a start. He’d begun small that first time and had climbed to the pinnacle of his career before the nightmare that had taken him out of the circuit altogether. He’d start again and reach that pinnacle even faster. He’d introduce his beautiful assistant, Amelia Beech, and have the audience sitting up in admiration in no time at all.
In a splendid gown he would choose for her – he planned to dress her in the finest costumes, the most alluring feathered hats, her hair beautifully styled in the latest fashions, her lovely face radiant with just a hint of stage make-up – she would stun them all, and he would be proud to show her off.
Theodore closed the door of the squalid room where he’d lived for nearly two years. Soon he’d be living again in luxury, and as Amelia began to attain a mature beauty, he’d propose to her and, young though she was, she was bound to leap at his offer of marriage. Money could do that. Their love would be tender, unlike the fiery traumas of his first marriage, for he was now older and wiser, more understanding and patient than he had once been. Being older, he felt oddly protective towards her, felt there would be a need to protect the young, innocent child in her for the rest of his life, even when she grew to mature womanhood.
But he must take things slowly. Nothing should be rushed. He would be kind and thoughtful, not an easy task, knowing his own shortcomings, and look upon her as a young and tender shoot. He would give that shoot time to blossom, fruit and ripen. He must curb this wave of love that persisted in flowing through him. He must give her time.
He should have trodden more carefully when he’d met Eleanor. He hadn’t given himself time then to discover what an independent, spirited woman she’d been. Amelia too was spirited but in a quieter, more thoughtful way. She wasn’t wilful, as Eleanor had been. With care and guidance she’d become more subdued to his wishes. He knew he was comparing his first marriage with what he hoped one day would be his second, but if it came about, it would be different.
They had met and married all in the space of six months, he with not a little desperation, being in his mid-thirties, a self-restrained man in fear of never finding himself a wife, he’d given himself no time to properly know her, her whims, her self-indulgence, her eye for the men and theirs for her. The fiery girl, a dancer when he’d met her, whose fire so enamoured him, had a mind of her own.
He’d still felt passion for her. It had probably been that which had led to jealousy, his eyes always watching for hers to stray. Making love was still full of passion, a flesh thing, but trust began slowly to crumble away, three years into marriage, when that first mad flush of passion had dulled, at least for her. He would not be caught again so easily.
Eleanor began to enjoy her social life with her old friends. While he drank brandy and smoked cigars with the high and mighty, she preferred champagne and the fashionable smoking of opium. Then into the last eighteen months of their marriage came Martin. He was eighteen and full of energy, with his laughing eyes and a carefree attitude; all she ever talked about was Martin. It was she who had persuaded him to team up with Martin as a second assistant to her; said it would invigorate the act. And so it did. But she was too invigorated and he was sure he knew why. Martin.
Still in love with her body, he hadn’t wanted to lose her. Besides, it wouldn’t have been good for his image. The tension made him drink more than was good for his act. Until that final evening in their dressing room when, feeling he had every right to lose his temper at her intention to go off to some party with Martin, she’d thrown the bottle of whisky at him, saying she wasn’t going anywhere with some drunken sot, and had rushed from the theatre.
He couldn’t have foreseen what had occurred. Only later did he begin to feel guilt that he didn’t keep his head and reason with her instead of grabbing her arm and slapping her across the face.
One thing
he knew, he’d never lose that temper with Amelia. She was too honest, vulnerable too, not hardened by the stage as Eleanor had been.
Emma was worried. Theo was talking about stepping up the number of evenings they were doing, playing to the queues at several different theatres on most days of the week from now on, evenings and matinées.
‘Christmas is approaching,’ he explained. ‘People attend the theatre more often and they begin to feel more generous.’
Well, she knew that, from her own experience, but it would leave only the mornings for selling what Mum made.
Theo’s temper reared itself, if only mildly, when she tried to explain.
‘Dear God, girl!’ he burst out. ‘Get rid of the bloody stuff! In the damned gutter if you wish. Do I not give you money enough to match twice over what those ridiculous things make?’
She had to admit he did, even more if his takings were good. Even so, she did feel hurt at hearing her mother’s hard work and skill being described as ridiculous. It was those ridiculous things that were her mother’s only means of making a living; the silk work she still got from time to time when her employer thought fit to dole it out, which wasn’t very often, brought in next to nothing – and then to have him sneer at her.
Theo hadn’t seen it that way. ‘If you are going to continue working for me,’ he said, calming himself with an effort, ‘it will be when I say.’
It came as a shock to realise that she was indeed working for him. Until now she had seen it as helping him, and he handing her a small gratuity at the end of it.
‘Working for you?’ she flared. ‘Is that what I am to you, your worker? As if I was working in some factory?’
She wasn’t having him intimidate her. He didn’t own her. She could walk away whenever she pleased and he couldn’t stop her. The thing was, she couldn’t walk away, that money and the promise of wonderful things to come held her here. That thought sobered her.
‘Mum will start wondering what I’m up to,’ she said lamely.
‘Tell her anything you please,’ came the reply.
‘I can’t go on for ever lying about, well, what I’m up to.’
‘Then tell her what you are … up to.’ The stress on those last words conveyed sarcasm, but Emma had an answer to that.
‘She’ll stop me from doing it.’
‘Have you no will of your own?’
‘Of course I have! But I’ve got some feeling for other people too. She’ll be shocked when I tell her about you and me, and me only sixteen. She’s bound to think I’ve been up to no good.’
He held her angry glare with his blue eyes now calm. ‘Whether you lie or tell the truth is up to you, Amelia. But you either come with me or pull out altogether. It is no more complicated than that. Any complication will be with yourself – whether you want to be taken out of the gutter, be given fine clothes to wear, have yourself taken to move among genteel company, be the toast wherever you go, or prefer to stay as you are. For I am now resolved to aim for higher things and leave all this behind me.’
His arm swept out to encompass the filthy gutters, the dark buildings, the cracked pavements.
‘I’ve decided to return to working on stage, and I want it to be with you beside me. Or are you content to stay here earning pennies? It is your decision. But I will not wait for you, Amelia.’
It was bluff, Emma was certain. But for her, he’d never have come this far. While Martin Page, who hadn’t been seen since that evening he’d quietly left whilst she’d been talking to Theo, hadn’t been able to persuade him, she had. Otherwise what had Theo been doing entertaining a theatre queue with magic instead of turning his miserable hurdy-gurdy? It was her persuasion that had got him started again.
But his resolution this evening had her worried. Hurrying home, she thought of all ways to tell Mum what had been going on. And really, it had been nothing to be ashamed of – a business alliance, nothing more.
Trouble was, Mum wouldn’t see it that way, a middle-aged man consorting with a girl not yet seventeen. Nor could she go against Mum’s decision though she’d do her best to argue, her ace being the money she’d saved from this secret alliance. She would go to its hiding place, so long as Ben wasn’t there to see, and tip the lot out on to the table. Mum’s eyes would pop. Then she’d tell her that this sort of money was this family’s salvation. Without it Mum would be trapped here until the day she died. With it there’d be no need for her ever to work again. Nor would she ever have to worry about Ben. He could drink himself into the grave if he wished.
What Emma foresaw was a fortune just waiting in the wings for her to pick up. Surely Mum would see that and come round to her way of thinking.
‘What yer mean, yer been ’elping some bloke do ’is magic?’
Emma knew immediately that it had been the wrong decision. So long as Mum had remained in ignorance, she could go on doing what she did. But the moment her mother forbade it, how could she go against her? And by the sound of Mum’s tone, she was ready to forbid her. Now she was reaping the results of not having made a clean breast of it earlier. Her mother was looking shocked, and furious. Yet there was still a chance.
‘Just a minute, Mum,’ Emma broke in before she could get any steam up. ‘Wait until you see what I’ve saved while I’ve been helping him.’
There was no need to revert to her old way of speaking now the truth was out. In good time she’d explain the reason for that too.
Hurrying into their bedroom, she bent down and fished under the gap beneath the flimsy chest of drawers that served them both, other clothes hung on pegs on the wall, and brought out an old and patched stocking of hers. Back in the other room she upended the stocking to pour a shining cascade of silver coins, threepenny pieces, sixpences, shillings, florins, even half-crowns, on to the table.
‘I’ve not counted how much there is there, Mum, but there must be at least five or six pounds. I’ve saved every penny.’
She waited for her mother to register surprise, but the woman merely stood gazing down at it, silent.
‘Well?’ Emma prompted eagerly.
All this money, enough to feed them for weeks when things got tight, as they would come the freezing days of January and February. This surely would sway her.
Her mother’s voice came quietly and very slowly. ‘And what did yer ’ave ter do fer this?’
‘What d’yer mean, what did I ’ave ter do for this?’
Her mother’s gaze lifted itself to her face. ‘I dare say only you’d know, of course.’
‘Mum! If what you’re thinking is right, then you’re wrong. I’ve just been doing what I said I was doing, helping this man, this magician, with his tricks.’
‘Hmm! Tricks, is it?’
‘Illusions, the magic he does, I help him. People give him money, and he gives me a sort of wage out of it. And it’s all here. And I can still sell me flowers …’
She got no further. Mum’s hand swept out and round, the palm catching her smartly on one cheek.
‘Yer can go off an’ ’elp ’im all yer like, miss, because I don’t want yer selling me flowers for me. I can do it meself. An’ I don’t want yer money.’
She gave the coins a contemptuous shove with her hand. ‘Yer can take it out of me sight. An’ go off and live with this bloke yer’ve took up with. It’s the one what Ben saw yer with, ain’t it? That middle-aged bloke.’
As Emma gathered the coins into the stocking, she turned away and picked up the poker to prod the dying fire in a bout of furious energy. She still had her back to her as Emma, her cheek still smarting from the slap, came back from stashing away her well-meant hoard.
‘Mum?’ she ventured.
‘Don’t talk ter me! Ternight yer can sleep out ’ere, under the table. I’ll get yer piller and a cover. I don’t want yer in me bed.’
‘But I ain’t done nothing, Mum!’
‘Who ain’t done nothink?’ Ben had come in unnoticed. ‘What ain’t yer done, Em?’
Befor
e she could answer, her mother swung round on him. ‘That man yer told me about, the one yer saw ’er with, the one yer said was twice ’er age, she’s been going around with ’im be’ind me back.’
The poker was thrown down in the hearth with a dull crash.
‘You knew what she was up to, and yer didn’t even bother ter put a stop to it. Call yerself ’ead of the family? Well, ’ead of the family, ain’t yer supposed ter protect yer sister from men like that? Ain’t yer supposed ter keep an eye on ’er? All you ever do is booze with yer mates. Look at yerself. Yer drunk now. You ain’t no good ter man nor beast. Not ter me neither!’
‘Don’t bloody take it out on me!’ Ben shouted, yanking off his cap and flinging it across the room in sudden rage. ‘I can’t be looking out for ’er every hour of the day. What did yer expect me ter do, drag ’er back ’ome by the scruff of ’er neck?’
Emma remembered the odd times she had glimpsed a figure hovering in the shadows. It had happened again tonight. As she turned towards it, the figure had moved hastily back into deep shadow as though not wanting to be seen. It had to be Ben, spying on her.
‘I’ve not done anything wrong.’ She wasn’t going to say she’d seen him. What she needed was to justify the matter. ‘It’s someone I met ages ago. His name’s Theodore Barrington and he suggested I’d be his assistant while he entertained theatre queues with magic tricks. He’s a magician.’
She wanted to say more, but Mum’s face was such a picture of anger and disbelief.
‘’Ow long’s this been goin’ on?’
‘Since the beginning of summer,’ she said, hating what lay behind her mother’s insinuation. She hated Ben being here to hear this. Why did he have to come home now, poking his nose in?
‘And you never said a word?’
‘I didn’t think you’d understand. All I’ve done is help him with his business. He’s sort of employed me. There was no harm in it.’
‘If there ain’t no ’arm in it, then why did you ’ave ter keep it secret?’