by Maggie Ford
Her mother’s voice sounded small, which was so unlike her.
‘I ’ad a go at him and it caused such an uproar, ’im bellowing and throwing things, a fire iron he threw hit the wall with such a crash. Mrs Blacker came up and called for the noise ter stop. But she didn’t do nothing. She was worried more about me.
‘Then last Saturday week he came in at one o’clock in the morning, banging on the door she’d locked, shouting out about what he was going to do to the bleeder what floored ’im with a foul punch and doing ’im out of ’is winnings and what he was going ter do to that crooked referee what ’ad been paid ter turn a blind eye, and yelling that he’d split their eyeballs for ’em both, calling ’em bleeding crooks, and worse words as I can’t repeat. It upset everyone to ’ear such words, them being decent people in this ’ouse.
‘Mrs Blacker ’ad ter let ’im in before the police turned up, and he ’ad a set to with ’er, insulting ’er and calling ’er names, an’ swearing something chronic. The next day she gave fair warning that any more disturbance and she’d ’ave ter ask us ter find somewhere else to live, that she couldn’t have her other guests upset this way. She said I could stay if he went but if he wouldn’t, the two of us would have ter go. She was sorry, she liked me, but ’ad no choice. And I do understand that. I wouldn’t want this sort of thing if it was my lodging ’ouse.
‘I tried telling ’im, but all he said was, “If we get slung out, Em’ll ’ave ter find somewhere else for us.” He said, “She might find us somewhere even better. She’s got the money, ain’t she?”’
Mum turned to face her, her expression bleak. ‘I told ’im, I wouldn’t take a penny off you what you didn’t give of yer own free will. But he just smirked and said so you ought, because you get plenty, showing yer legs on the stage and being kept by this magician bloke, and that’s what you was, a kept woman.’
She didn’t wait for Emma to protest, her daughter’s angry gasp going unheard as she said that this Saturday he had upset Mrs Blacker again.
It seemed that Mrs Blacker had put a polite note under everyone’s door saying that due to the rough element in the neighbourhood she’d be obliged to bolt the front door after midnight and she apologised if it might cause any inconvenience but all landlords were adopting the same procedure and she thought it best to follow suit. She gathered everyone was in full agreement and was confident that as self-respecting people they would abide by the rules and find it no serious inconvenience to them.
‘I got the same sort of note,’ Mum said.
Sighing, she went on to say that two days after the note, Ben had come home rolling drunk again at two in the morning, and finding the place locked had hammered on the door until the police had been called by a neighbour, but Mrs Blacker had got him inside before they arrived.
Mum’s face went deep red as she described how Mrs Blacker had said almost apologetically said this couldn’t go on and she would have to give her a week’s notice for the sake of her other tenants, and although she was a good woman, her son was not welcome, and that she was deeply sorry.
‘So at the end of the week,’ she finished, ‘I’ve got ter leave. I’ve been so comfortable and happy here. I’ve been dreading telling you, Em, but I ’ope yer see ’ow I’m placed.’
Back to finding Mum a place to live; her money would soon find her somewhere nice. The problem was always going to be Ben. If only he’d find a place of his own, but he knew where his bread was buttered, didn’t he?
There was some hope that Mum might be free of him. Before Emma left, she told her that Ben had apparently got a girl into trouble – a girl called Clara who he’d been going around with – at least going around with more than any of the others he consorted with before ending in prison.
It was now the end of September, Clara five months gone and hounding him. Ben was saying she couldn’t prove it was his, and with a drunken father too sozzled to demand he do the right thing by her, she could look elsewhere for the dad for all he cared.
‘But he likes ’er,’ Mum had said. ‘A lot. So maybe he’ll do the right thing, and if he does, they might find somewhere else ter live.’
Emma hoped so too, hoped to be able to wash her hands of him. Mum was her concern, finding her a new place. Without him, Mum’s life would improve.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Theo was holding out her savings book to her as she came into the bedroom.
‘What is this?’ he asked, his tone tight and level, which always denoted controlled anger, penetrating and wounding anger. She wasn’t so much alarmed by it as thrown off balance, incapable of maintaining self control. She didn’t know which was the more preferable, a good open row with shouting and bawling, things said that shouldn’t be, or this silent hostility.
‘What is what?’ she asked insolently. She knew full well what it was, and could imagine him having been standing there for ages, still fully dressed, simply waiting for her. How dare he pry into her private things? Yet she couldn’t say it was none of his business when it was he who gave her an allowance, and a generous one.
He’d been fine earlier on. They spent the evening sitting at ease in the lounge, she and Martin reading, Theo at his desk writing, no talk for once of rehearsals, just passing the time pleasantly. Martin finally finished off his brandy and went off to his own apartment, murmuring goodnight. These days he seemed to be spending more time in Theo’s than his own. Whether Theo approved, Emma wasn’t sure, though he could hardly tell him not to come in of an evening when at any time day or night Theo would be summoning him for yet more rehearsal. Anyway, she enjoyed Martin’s company.
The moment Martin left, Theo went off into their bedroom, leaving her to follow at her leisure. He never did until Martin left, perhaps imagining he might take advantage of Emma if they were left alone. Emma knew that even the casual admiration from those stage-door Johnnies made him edgy. But with Martin, perhaps he had a point? On several occasions she’d caught Martin studying her, and as their eyes met, he would smile and look quickly away. He had a nice smile, and its warmth seemed to flow over her like morning sunshine, making her feel suddenly alive. She felt different in his company than in Theo’s. There were moments when she realised how she’d changed since being with Theo, her old naturalness insidiously sacrificed for what he preferred her to be, sophisticated, aloof – a goddess. Martin was showing her that under the veneer, she was still what she had always been. She liked it.
Now she faced Theo’s cold censure, glancing disparagingly at the savings book and back at him, her gaze glacial. ‘You’ve no right to go through my private things,’ she said as coolly as she could.
‘This is not private,’ he said gratingly. ‘This is the allowance I give you. For your own needs, not those of feckless hangers-on.’ She leaped on the implication. ‘My mother’s not a hanger-on!’ He was looking down at the savings book again, his scrutiny slow and deliberate. ‘There is hardly anything left in here. You told me she and your brother were being evicted and needed to find somewhere else to live. I do not complain at your helping them with that, so long as it does not interfere with your work. But this … this is a huge sum, Amelia! What have you been doing, buying Buckingham Palace for them?’
‘I’m not buying anything,’ she gabbled, gradually losing control. ‘I’m letting her have a sum of money so she won’t feel beholden to me any more. I know she hates it. She’s an independent-minded person and she can now put some away and live on the interest, perhaps find employment enough to supplement it. It’s what she’d want.’
‘In the meantime she will allow that feckless son of hers to bleed her of every penny, proving that whatever you give to her will be thrown down the drain. I do not recall your asking my opinion on whether you should spend your money in this way. I recall your having told me the sort of person your brother is. Yet you, Amelia, woolly-headed little fool that you are, continue to use what I allow you in order to support these people. In other words, it is I who am supporting your fa
mily! Yet you behave as though I have no say in the matter.’
‘That’s unfair,’ she cried. ‘You give it me. It’s mine to use as I please.’
‘I beg to differ, my dear.’ She hated him calling her ‘my dear’ – not a term of endearment these days, but usually heralding censure. ‘I’m extremely upset at your having kept this from me. I will be your husband before long and responsible for you and all your actions. It’s not a good start and I am not at all pleased.’
‘Neither am I,’ she burst out. ‘I’m not a child, but you treat me like one, then expect me to be a woman when I’m in your bed. I won’t have you …’
He closed the book quietly. ‘Kindly lower your voice, Amelia. Martin will hear us and think we are quarrelling. The whole apartment block will think we are quarrelling.’
‘I couldn’t care less,’ she said, but lowered her voice anyway. ‘And we are quarrelling.’
‘Then let us do it quietly,’ he suggested, so evenly that she was at a loss how to carry on the argument.
Perhaps she shouldn’t blame him for being annoyed, but she blamed him for snooping into her business. That she’d settled her mother into her new home would come out eventually; she was biding her time to tell him in her own words without it seeming as though she was being underhand with him. She’d waited a bit too long – three weeks too long.
In a way it had been a bit sneaky, but like her mother, she was independent by nature, and though she would be Theo’s wife, she needed to remain her own person. He, like many, expected a wife to be guided by her husband in all things. Little wonder those suffragette women selling their newspaper on street corners and parading so as to recruit more supporters thought they had a point. They wanted the right to vote, and questioned women’s subservience to men who thought they needed protection and guidance to be told what to do and how to behave. By law the man was also responsible for his wife’s debts and possibly Theo was thinking of that too. But it was this thinking that trapped a woman in marriage, and with such a forceful man as Theo she again had qualms about it.
‘I do what I like with my own money,’ she said sullenly but with a certain edge of determination, and began undressing for bed, ignoring him.
She was relieved as he put her savings book back into the drawer where she kept her undergarments with no more being said. Not until after he had made love to her and they lay side by side in cosy reverie, when he turned his face to kiss her lingeringly on her cheek.
‘I love you so very much, my sweetest,’ he whispered against her ear. ‘And I am concerned for your wellbeing and safety and feel a need to protect the one I love against the impulse to spend unwisely. You allow me that, don’t you, my darling?’
When she nodded silently, he added, ‘I feel it my duty to look after you, nothing more. You are my whole life, sweetheart, and soon we will be married.’
The fond kiss became another, then another, growing passionate once more until he took her again with his usual immense energy, leaving her utterly breathless.
‘I would marry you tomorrow, were it possible,’ she heard him say as they lay side by side. ‘But sadly it is not. We will be working until well into the new year. Simmons has several engagements lined up for me.’ His appetite satisfied, instead of being ready for sleep he seemed inclined to talk on, while she wanted only to relax and doze off.
‘To think how my life has changed since we met, Amelia, my sweet, in three short years. It will soon be 1906, and we have our whole lives ahead of us, as husband and wife.’
Every now and again she made little sounds of agreement though only half hearing, his voice lulling her close to sleep. It was becoming hard to keep awake.
She vaguely heard him say that there would be a break from work in May and that this would be a good time for the wedding. ‘I’m sorry it can’t be sooner,’ came his voice, as if from a long distance away. Her breath caught in a snort deep in her throat. Instantly he turned to her.
‘But I am keeping you awake, my dear,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll talk no more of our wedding, and let you sleep. But you do agree, the month of May would be a good time?’
The last she remembered was trying to offer an assenting grunt and wondering vaguely why she should feel strangely glad that there was still plenty of time before then.
After all these years, Mum had her own front door once more – no more living in other people’s houses. She had a small apartment on the ground floor of a three-storeyed block of flats in the heart of London in one of the small roads behind the Tiv, as the Tivoli Music Hall in the Strand was known. It was a moderate walk from where Theo’s more splendid apartment lay, and by going through the back turnings Emma could pop in to visit any time she pleased and still be on hand when Theo needed to practise the dozens of illusions he devised. And so the months to Christmas passed smoothly enough.
She made a point of spending Christmas afternoon with Mum before going off to a party that she and Theo had been invited to. She found Mum in good spirits. In fact she had never seen her so bright.
‘You go off ter yer party,’ she urged. ‘I’m off out too. Been asked ter spend the evenin’ with Mr and Mrs Copeland and their son and daughter-in-law. They’re me new friends what I’ve made, what live just along the street.’
Listening to her, she was the mother Emma remembered when Dad was alive, still of a distant disposition, never kissed or cuddled or touched her, but cheerful and optimistic, a real mother. Widowed, impoverished, forced out of her home, she’d grown gaunt both in stature and attitude. Now the Maud Beech of old had returned. Emma felt gratified, at ease.
‘How’s Ben?’ she asked. Ben must surely be behaving himself or Mum wouldn’t have smiled the way she did.
‘Oh ’im! He’s getting married.’
‘Getting married?’ Emma echoed. ‘Who to?’
‘That girl he got in the family way. That Clara. You remember – the one he said whose baby he swore wasn’t ’is?’ She gave a smirk. ‘It’s due mid-January, and he’s now admitted that he must be the dad.’
‘Why the change of mind?’ Emma asked. Her mother shrugged.
‘I think he had a real scare over that prison business. He probably needs ter settle down and she’s handy, baby or no baby. I think he’s secretly proud of being a dad. Twenty-two now, and he’s feeling ’is responsibilities.’
‘And somewhere to live?’ Emma queried. Again her mother shrugged.
‘We’ve got two bedrooms ’ere. They’ll ’ave one of ’em. He might find a place later but I don’t mind ’em ’ere. Because it’s ’appened sudden like, them getting wed in two weeks, ’er so near to ’aving the baby. Ben did the banns as from last week. They’ll just be in time before she ’as it.’
‘So long as it’s not at the altar,’ Emma commented.
Her mother didn’t laugh. ‘I ’ope not. She’ll be ’aving it ’ere. Her own mother’s ill and her dad’s a drunkard and they’ve umpteen kids. This place will be a little ’eaven for ’er, and I don’t mind. I’ll be glad of some excitement in me life. An’ me a grandmother.’
It was exciting for Emma too. Ben settling down at last, she could hardly believe it. It would be very quietly done, Mum said. In her obdurate way she had put her foot down at inviting any of Ben’s mates. ‘Not a nice sort, and I won’t ’ave any of ’em ’ere!’ she said. ‘Just them two and me, and me new friends as witnesses – I asked and they agreed. I told ’em of ’er condition but don’t know what they’ll think, seeing ’er so way out in front.’
She gave Emma a narrow look. ‘And there’s you. You’ll be there, won’t yer, Em? Won’t be too busy?’
‘I shall be there, no matter what,’ Emma vowed, ignoring the sly dig, and turned to more social chit-chat.
Spending the whole of Christmas afternoon with Mum had been rather against Theo’s wishes. They were off to a big party that evening, every bit as good as the one last year. Theo was receiving more acclaim than ever, able to fill a theatre twice over, m
aking his theatrical agent a happy man into the bargain.
He tended to see Emma as basking in his glory, but she was aware that it was her own glory she basked in as well. The beauty he’d made of her, turning men’s heads and filling women with envy, still seemed unbelievable to her at times. But while he was pleased to see the girl he planned to marry so well admired, she often noticed the sidelong glare he would give any who admired her too much, and it was this that also brought her vague unease, hardly sure of what she wanted. She told herself it was probably some sort of premature premarital nerves. After all, they were living together, as much husband and wife as they could be without a ceremony, and whatever she wanted he provided. That he loved her intensely went without question, but it was a possessive love, she knew that too, and there was that dark and smouldering side to him, and the unnatural ability to control his temper, somehow far harder for her to combat than if it had been an explosive temper. Once married, she would be compelled to live with it for the rest of her life, and that worried her.
‘Theo says we’re getting married in May,’ she told Martin in February, as their four-week engagement at the Empire in Leeds came to an end and they prepared to go back to London.
She had just about managed to fit in Ben’s wedding to Clara before being whisked off up country, anxious that Theo would insist on going that one day sooner than he’d planned and she’d be forced to break her promise to Mum. But he had been kind to her, seeing how much she needed to be there. The whole thing was over in four hours, just the ceremony and a bite to eat in Mum’s apartment, the Copelands departing soon after drinking the champagne Emma had brought. They, along with everyone else politely tried to look as if they liked it, and Ben said more crudely, ‘Tastes like cat’s piss ter me!’ while Clara, with her stomach larger than she was, laughed.