An East End Girl

by Maggie Ford

  It all sounded so grand, she quelled a little. Langley had attended prep school then public school, then Oxford. Wasn’t doing much at the moment, he said – Pater somewhat put out by his lack of interest in a worthwhile career. But why the dickens should he need be? The farm would manage itself when it came to him. With a decent accountant to deal with its running costs, a competent steward, a housekeeper to run the house itself and rents from farm tenants collected regularly, what point was there in earning a living?

  Cissy, lapping it up, wondered at his interest in her, a girl of council school education, taking elocution lessons at sixpence an hour paid for out of wages as a machinist at Cohens, her father a lighterman, with hardly ever more than two ha’pennies to rub together. Could this really be her – dancing with someone to whom areas like Park Lane and Grosvenor Place were as familiar as Canning Town and East India Dock Road were to her?

  ‘By the way,’ he broke off to say, ‘not going steady with the chap you were with last week?’

  ‘Oh, no.’ How easily she lied. ‘We’ve known each other since we were children. Just a friend. Why?’

  ‘Merely wondering.’

  She didn’t pursue it. The foxtrot ended, he guided her from the floor, his hand under her elbow. On the perimeter he paused.

  ‘I say, don’t you find this place rather a bore? Hardly enough to sustain a whole evening. What d’you say to visiting a little nightclub I know. I’ve got friends going there. Introduce you to them, what?’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Little place off Cromwell Road. Knightsbridge. The car’s nearby. We’d be there in half a tick. What d’you say?’

  ‘I’d love to.’ A thrill of nervous anticipation raced through her. How would she be received by his posh friends? But she was sure he’d protect her from any untoward reception they might afford her.

  Handing in her cloakroom ticket and collecting the shoes and the dress she had stuffed into the little fabric bag, she met Langley at the exit. His smile did look protective. She’d be all right with him.

  Drawing her arm through his, he led her into the April night. The electric street lighting was diffused by the damp mild air and gave her the impression of emerging into some heavenly wonderland. His car was parked some way along the road, a shiny black vehicle from which the lighting bounced and glinted as they approached. Its top could be folded back on fine summer days but at this moment was fully up.

  Conducting her to the passenger seat he opened the door for her. Feeling like a queen, she slipped into the seat and watched him close her door and go round to the driver’s side to lean in and pull on the starter knob. Going to the front of the vehicle, he gave the engine a brief crank and, as it roared into life, came back to slide in beside her.

  ‘Here we go!’ he announced, easing off the brake. Smoothly the car moved forward. ‘If you’re cold, there’s a rug on the back seat.’

  ‘I’m fine!’ she yelled, over the rumble of the engine.

  ‘Good!’

  He lapsed into silence, concentrating on driving. She watched the shops and houses fly by. It was the first time she had ever sat in a car, much less one moving so fast – twenty-five miles per hour by the big black needle on the indicator – but she wasn’t going to tell him that. She just hoped it appeared as if this was nothing at all new to her.

  Ten minutes later they were drawing up by a brightly lit electric sign ‘The Golden Cockerel’ above a dimly lit door. The engine died as the key was turned off and Cissy sat very still as Langley got out and came round to open her door. This was the done thing, she knew, a girl doing nothing until her escort ran to open doors for her. Eddie did the same, of course, but with far less panache, less noticeable.

  A doorman in black and gold livery opened the door to them. The interior, small but brightly lit, had a tiny cloakroom like a cubicle, with pink and black drapes. The entire decor was pink and black, very modern in the new cubic design that tended to confuse the vision.

  Cissy managed not to blink, acting as though all this was no more than she was used to, as the cloakroom girl took her hat, coat and the bulging, now cheap-looking shoe bag. Beyond a second set of curtains of the same cubic design, dance music could be heard.

  Handing in his driving gloves, trilby and white scarf, Langley took her arm and led her through the drapes. Pink was everywhere – varying shades hitting her between the eyes: chairs, tables, carpet around the edge of the small dance floor, the ceiling and the walls, except for embossed figures of crowing cockerels here and there in gold. Even the grand piano on a low dais was pink.

  ‘Ah, there they are!’ Langley said, spotting familiar faces seated around a far table. ‘Come on, Cissy, I’ll introduce you.’

  Whisked across the vacated floor, the pianist having finished his number, Cissy found herself before several pairs of enquiring eyes.

  ‘Langley, darling!’ gushed a girl, looking up, her dark hair so short as to look like a boy’s. Her black dress with tier upon tier of red fringe was definitely silk, her double string of pearls, sea-born.

  ‘Langley, darling, who is it? Do introduce.’

  The girl’s tawny mascara’d eyes took Cissy in from head to foot.

  ‘This is Cissy Farmer, Margo. Cissy – Margo Fox-Prinshaw.’

  A brief nod, the tawny eyes returned to Langley. ‘Darling, where did you find her?’

  ‘Nowhere you’d know.’

  ‘Oh, you are a bore!’ The painted lips pouted.

  ‘And this is Miles Devlin,’ Langley went on with a grin, while Miles, puffing at a cigarette, exclaimed, ‘Stunned!’

  ‘And this is Simon Hackett-Claves. And this…’

  Bombarded by a string of names – Faith Silk, Dickie Verhoeven, Pamela Carstairs, Ginger Bratts, Effie Messenger, Penny Balling-Jones, Paul Marquand – it was hard to memorise any of them.

  ‘And I want no questions asked about Cissy.’ Langley said with authority. ‘I found her. She’s mine.’

  Cissy wasn’t sure if she cared for that one, but smiled sweetly. It wasn’t easy to smile with genuine warmth at any one of them. If the jewellery was real, the smiles she received back were definitely false, these bright young people’s minds on the moment – themselves – their own pleasures. She found herself ignored.

  ‘Dickie – it’s a tango.’ A cigarette in its holder was stubbed out.

  ‘You know I don’t tango.’

  ‘Of course you do. Come on!’

  ‘Penny, I want to finish this drink.’

  ‘You haven’t time – it’ll be finished soon. Besides, you’ve had enough, don’t you think? Come on, Dickie, you old soak!’

  Cissy watched the putty-faced Dickie being dragged onto the dance floor, a little unsteadily. The table at which they sat was massed by champagne and cocktail glasses, most of them half empty and rather sticky. Tiny cocktail biscuits littered the pink cloth.

  Langley took Cissy’s arm, guiding her to an empty chair. ‘Let’s sit this one out. Have some champagne.’

  There was to be more. But this was her first, and it was lovely.

  Chapter Eight

  Eddie had been in training for a year for the coveted Doggett’s Coat and Badge race. All through spring and half the summer, the odd evenings and Sunday mornings rowing strongly and rhythmically up and down the river with his father coaching him had allowed Cissy time to herself; glad, at the same time full of self-reproach for being glad.

  It had been unsettling, this conflict of feelings. She had tried not to miss him, for obvious reasons, and felt angry with herself to find that sometimes she did miss him. Being with him so long had become a habit, but recognised as such, it frightened her, knowing the inevitable conclusion to that.

  If he were Langley with an exciting life to offer, there’d be no worry. But he wasn’t. He was Eddie. Gently offering her a quicksand of a marriage into which she was expected to sink. How could she, even though he stirred something wonderful in her when they were together?

&n
bsp; At least his occupation with the race had put off the buying of the engagement ring for a while. They could get engaged any time, but a chance at the Doggetts came only once. He never said that in so many words, of course. For her part she magnanimously told him that she understood – the magnanimity a lie, and lying to Eddie hurt her, he was so gullible, so trusting, and she…. She hated herself.

  But today, the time to herself must come to an end. Today, Eddie was taking part in his race, when it was over, whether he won or lost, there would be no more days training.

  A fine, hot day, the August sun shining down its blessings on the race, all the friends and families of the newly licensed Freemen of the river lined the course from Chelsea Embankment at the approach to the finishing line four and a half miles up the river from the start at London Bridge. As the sweating men, bending over their oars, came into view, each family had begun shouting itself hoarse.

  Cissy’s own cries of encouragement were drowned by it all. She did want to see Eddie win. She would be proud to see him standing straight and tall as he accepted his rewards. But through it came the knowledge that the evenings of training were past. From now on he would be all hers and she would be all his – for ever and ever.

  The leaders of the now well-spaced skiffs came abreast, shooting on towards the finish an eighth of a mile further along, each man pulling strongly, fighting aching, flagging muscles, his eye on his nearest and most dangerous contender, the four hopefuls almost in line with each other.

  Mum, in a flowered dress and knitted blue cloche hat, was practically jumping up and down, her bosom bouncing.

  ‘Look – there’s Eddie! He’s pulling ahead! He’s going to win!’

  ‘He’s doing well,’ Dad said cautiously, eyeing the other skiffs almost alongside that of his future son-in-law. ‘Got a way to go yet.’

  Eddie’s parents were waving their arms in excitement as the two leading craft shot past in a final effort of endurance; first one ahead, then the other, Eddie rowing like a demon. The finish, not half a foot in it.

  Eddie was a happy man. He’d come second, but that was enough for him. Bringing his skiff to the bank and leaping on to dry land with a ready hand for the winner, everyone was thumping the heroes’ backs, but he hurried, shirt still soaked in perspiration, to where his cluster of supporters stood to catch Cissy to him in triumphant enbrace.

  ‘I did it! I did it, Cissy! I did it!’

  ‘I’m absolutely over the moon.’ Her arms came around his neck with genuine pleasure for him, her laughter muffled in his chest. ‘But let me breathe, Eddie!’

  He too laughed, releasing her as his mother came to kiss him. His father, lean as himself and once just as tall, clutched at his hand and shook it vigorously.

  ‘Well done, son! I’m proud of yer.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cissy’s mum put in, ‘lots of congratulations, Eddie.’

  He bent to allow his future mother-in-law to add her congratulatory kiss on the cheek. ‘Missed getting me cap and badge, but I didn’t dream I’d get anywhere near.’

  ‘You can thank yer dad for that,’ Charlie reminded, his deep voice ringing with pride. ‘Spendin’ all them hours coaching you. You’ve got ’im ter thank.’

  ‘And well I know it.’ Eddie’s face glowed with delight as well as from his earlier exertions. He looked across at Cissy. ‘But I’ve got ’er to thank too, for putting up with me being away all of them long evenings, training. Without her understanding, I don’t think I’d ever ’ave gone in for it. It’s the woman, you know, what helps a man win.’

  ‘Yeah, my Cissy’s a good ’un,’ Charlie admitted with no small boast, while Cissy blushed at what lay behind her noble generosity. ‘But you did it, son.’

  Standing back, Cissy noted the pride on her father’s face for Eddie, as if Eddie were his own son, which he virtually would be once she and he were married. Next year. Maybe in eight months’ time. It would be upon them before they knew it, the date probably firmed by Christmas.

  And yet, if she was honest with herself, by next year she might be in a different frame of mind, perhaps she’d love Eddie with all her heart and want to take up the responsibilities of a wife from an ordinary family, all silly adolescent notions put aside.

  After all, if she was honest with herself, she must know that her brief escapade with Langley Makepeace was probably coming to an end. She had seen him five times in all, the odd Friday evening when Eddie had been training and she could make her fictitious friend, Olive, available. Not too often of course, in case Dad got suspicious.

  Olive had been a godsend and Dad had not once suspected. But soon Olive would disappear – moved away somewhere – for last week Langley had dropped the news that he and his friends would be off to Paris for the autumn, going on to winter in the south of France like migrating birds to play the casinos there and bask in the Mediterranean sun. She should have known anyway that something like that would happen. So it would soon be goodbye to the brief bouts of high life she had enjoyed.

  It had all been too good to be true, feeling herself part of the happy band of bright young things. Langley had revelled in her background being kept a secret. To him it was a joke. But he had been attention itself towards her, as if she had indeed been a princess.

  In the drawer in her bedroom, beneath her undies, lay a thin gold bangle he’d given to her. She had protested at the time but what was money to him? And it had only been a small one. Naturally she could never wear it, but it would always be a reminder. He’d asked nothing of her in return…. Well, he had, but when she’d told him she wasn’t that kind of girl, he’d shrugged. She guessed that he got his fun from that tawny-eyed Margo who was always ready to hang on his arm.

  She had felt jealous, discarded and betrayed, but then relieved that she hadn’t got in too deep. With Langley going off to the Continent with his friends, he’d forget all about her. Just as well then that she hadn’t made herself cheap with him – like the cockney girl might.

  But if she had consented to his request that night several weeks ago, might he have asked her to go with him to Paris? She doubted it.

  Following in the rear of the two families now off to the Crown and Anchor for a celebration drink before going on to Eddie’s house where a celebration meal would be on hand, Cissy went over the evening when Langley had kissed her hard on the lips before putting her in the taxi to come home.

  ‘It’s late,’ he’d whispered, his tone soft and seductive. ‘Why not spend the night at my place – go home in the morning? Just say that your friend’s father wasn’t available to take you home.’ He knew about the fictitious Olive of course.

  Cissy had bridled, instinct telling her that he could only be after one thing. For an instant he had grown angry, saying she was being a little fool, then just as she was thinking of slapping his face, he’d become protective again. ‘You’re right, Cissy. You must be thinking all sorts of things of me. I should never have mentioned it.’

  But if she had consented to spend the night with him…

  ‘All right, ole gel?’ Eddie, dropping back, took her arm, bringing her back to the present. ‘You looked a bit lost there.’

  ‘I was only thinking,’ she said as they trailed after the happy celebrators, but didn’t say what, and anyway, he had turned to look at the couple trailing up behind, slowing his pace for them to catch up.

  ‘You all right, Ethel? She all right, Bobby?’

  ‘She’s fine. Just got to take things a bit slower, you know.’

  ‘Still a couple of months to go, eh?’

  ‘Yes.’ Bobby’s face coloured while Ethel, hanging on to his arm like grim death, tightened her lips. Her stomach, well to the fore, almost swamping her small height, spoke volumes, but people would soon forget to count dates. She knew of a couple of other girls around here who had been obliged to marry in a hurry and the regularity of that sort of thing bred disinterest. Her lips tightened nevertheless.

  ‘You two go on,’ she said tersely. ‘We j
ust fancy taking it easy. Don’t want ter ’old you up.’

  Her pinched and sour expression was enough of a hint, and without more ado, Eddie strode ahead, bursting with energy as always, obliging Cissy to break into an intermittent trot to keep up with him.

  Marriage, Cissy thought, as she strove to keep up with Eddie, had turned Ethel into a real misery guts. Maybe she had expected wonders. But there were no wonders once the excitement of the wedding was over. Just drudgery. Even Bobby’s once carefree face had become grave with responsibility. If that was what marriage did for you, you can keep it, came the thought. But she too was committed in a way, wasn’t she?

  ‘Cissy – there’s a letter fer you.’

  The post had come rattling through the letterbox, but as no one had need to write to her, Cissy had ignored it. Now she came downstairs ready for work, her pretty features twisted into a frown of curiosity.

  ‘Who’s it from?’ she queried, taking the letter Mum handed her.

  ‘’Ow should I know? Wouldn’t be yer cards, would it?’

  ‘If they handed me my cards,’ Cissy said, slitting open the flap of the envelope with her thumb, ‘it would be done on the spot. Anyway, they keep a hold on good machinists,’ she added, without boast, her thoughts on the sheet of pale green, expensive notepaper. Only one glance was needed to tell her who it was from as she quickly slid it back into its envelope.

  ‘Ain’t you going to read it?’ asked her mother, craning her neck, her interest pricked.

  Cissy tilted the envelope away from the avid gaze. ‘It’s from a workmate. She left a few weeks ago. I’ll read it later.’

  ‘Looks a bit fancy, that paper. Must be doin’ well fer herself. That or she’s got more money than sense.’

  ‘Probably pinched it from her new employers,’ Cissy said. Hurrying back upstairs to the seclusion of her bedroom, thankful that May who shared the room with her had left for work a few moments earlier, so wouldn’t be taking her turn to pry, she scanned the short message: