A Sovereign for a Song

by Annie Wilkinson

  The landlady gave him a sour look over the top of her spectacles. ‘I have to make a little profit, so a shilling if you please.’

  ‘There’s more than a little profit on that, missus.’

  The landlady’s expression soured further. ‘That’s the charge, and your bags don’t leave this hall until your bill’s paid.’

  He shrugged. ‘Next time I’ll find different digs.’

  The landlady gave him a sarcastic smile. ‘You won’t find any as good so convenient for the theatre, but you’ll always be welcome back here, dear, as long as you’re a good payer.’

  There was a great bustle in the hallway as trunks were carried out and loaded on to cabs bound for the station. She heard people shouting ‘cheerio’ and ‘see you at the Tivoli’, a lot of opening and slamming of doors and the rattle of cab wheels. After the door slammed for the last time, the house was as silent as the grave.

  The landlady turned to Ginny. ‘Well, you only booked for two weeks, dear, you still ’ant got a job and your young man ’ant turned up either.’ The beady eyes bored through her.

  ‘He’ll be here, never fear. I’ve got your money for this week and I’ll book in for next,’ said Ginny, assuming an air of confidence she was far from feeling. She hadn’t banked on needing to stay for more than two weeks at the most.

  ‘Better bring it now, dear, while I check to see whether I’ve got room for you next week.’

  Ginny went up to her room, perturbed to think that there might be any question about being able to book in for the following week. She put on her hat and coat and counted the money left in her purse. Her heart sank. Still, no good moping. If Charlie wasn’t going to turn up, she’d have to go out and find a job for herself. She looked at her new shoes and wondered what Maria would have thought to see them beat the pavements of London for hours on end. She paid the landlady on the way out, and received a curt nod. ‘That’s right, miss. And I’m pleased to say I can fit you in for next week. You’re very lucky. It’s not often I can oblige at such short notice.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’d know where I could get a job as a housemaid?’ she asked as the landlady slammed her cashbox shut and turned away.

  ‘I’m not an employment agency, dear. Go to one of them.’ She glanced again at Ginny as she turned to leave, her expression softening slightly. ‘Be careful what sort you choose. They’re not all reputable. You might do as well applying directly to the housekeepers as long as you can furnish good references. All the better-class districts like Hanover Square, or Hampstead, or Kensington prefer country girls to London ones.’

  Ginny left the house relieved that she at least had a roof over her head for the following week, and just enough-money to pay the account. She walked down Whitechapel Road, past itinerants and street traders, up Leadenhall Street and along Cornhill, gazing at banks, counting houses, jewellers and silversmiths either side; all imposing, ornate stone buildings carved with shields, cherubs and garlands. Then past famous Threadneedle Street and Lombard Street and along Watling Street to see a wedding party emerging from St Paul’s – domed, massive and white under a dull white sky. Middle-aged women in enormous hats and corsages were being helped into carriages by men in Scottish kilts. She waited a while to see the bride and groom, and filled the time by taking a stub of pencil and a scrap of paper from her pocket and scribbling a list of the streets she’d passed. London looked so enormous, she’d better not count on memory to find her way back. No bride or groom came out, so she walked on with a moist breeze in her face towards a group of statues; bare-breasted women with tridents and things, not very decent in front of a Christian church, or anywhere else for that matter.

  Down Ludgate Hill and more vast, carved stone buildings, some with ironwork balcony rails. She walked up a side street to look at the Old Bailey and the golden statue of Justice with her sword and scales and spiky crown standing atop the white dome. Up the hill to Fleet Street, and past Sergeants Inn Chambers, and another blindfolded justice with sword and scales, and a figure of Britannia that was on the pennies. More banks and a church, then a thin medieval building, the Old Cock Tavern, nothing like the Cock Inn at home. Then she passed a sort of fairy-tale castle, all spires and turrets and arches and leaded windows. She stopped to ask what it was and was told the Royal Courts of Justice, and thought there must be more than enough wrongdoing in London, to need so many massive courts.

  Ravenous, she went into St Clements to sit down for two minutes and again note down the streets, wondering if the church were the very one that said oranges and lemons. Then along the Strand with more vast buidings and elaborate façades. At last she came upon Trafalgar Square to see the fountain and the statue of Nelson on his column guarded by four black lions, and carvings of the Battle of Trafalgar on the base. And a couple of pigeons to fill the hole in his stomach would be all right, if he could catch ’em.

  More bloody columns and clocks and fancy façades, and she was fed up with it all, wondering when she would get to the sort of houses that needed servants, or servants of her sort, to be exact. Along Pall Mall and past Waterloo Place, and more columns with great British heroes on top, only now she didn’t stop to look.

  On, on, endlessly on, and she could imagine nothing worse than living here, with miles of streets and buildings, and not a green field in sight. Her village might consist of long terraces of blackened hovels with a skyline dominated by slag heaps and headgear, but just a ten-minute walk from home would take her into green countryside. She walked by the Queen’s Chapel and past a palace flanked by a wall that must have been ten feet high, and into St James’s Park.

  Her mood lifted at the sight of a few trees at last, and a bit of a lake. The sound of birdsong and the quacking of the ducks cheered her. The day had brightened and she looked up to see puffy white clouds in a blue sky. She walked down the Mall towards Bukcingham Palace, smiling at the sight of people in their carriages trotting up and down. More pillars and statues, and massive wrought-iron gates everywhere, but nothing looking the least bit tarnished or in need of her skills.

  She knocked on a couple of doors of the king’s neighbours down Buckingham Palace Road but received curt refusals, so walked on without stopping again into Belgravia. She would certainly be out of place at any of these front doors, and felt too intimidated even to knock. It would be round the back for her, and no two ways about it. She laughed at the thought of Helen Vine giving herself such airs about her little palace at the edge of a pit village. They must need a lot of skivvies at any rate, she thought, and if Charlie’s not here by tomorrow, I’ll have to start knocking before I get chucked onto the streets.

  Tired and discouraged, and without a soul she knew to turn to, puny little Ginny, with an even punier coin in her purse, turned back towards her lodgings, back through a city large enough to swallow Annsdale ten thousands times over, a city as hard as its stones, a city of cold and unforgiving grandeur. She’d have to learn, somehow, to survive in it.

  Famished and footsore, she got back after dark, and went into dinner to see a fat, far-haired, blousy woman sitting at her table.

  ‘Yer Ginny Wilde, ain’t yer?’ she asked with a friendly smile. Ginny nodded, surprised at being recognized by name by any of the outlandish population who drifted in and out of the lodgings. ‘I’ve been asked to look out for you,’ the woman continued. ‘Keep a friendly eye on yer. We’ve got a mutual friend.’

  ‘Charlie? When’s he coming? He said he’d be here last Friday.’

  ‘Ooh, yes, you are Ginny. Ginny the hinny, he calls yer. He says, “Daisy, you’ll have to learn hinny just to understand what she says,” but I can understand you all right. I’ve got a good ear. He said to tell yer as he begs your pardon, but he’s been delayed by very important business. He’s a rum one, Charlie, as I expect you know. Anyway, he’s asked me to take you under my wing.’

  ‘How? His brother-in-law said he’d be here to help me find a job.’

  ‘He says you’re going to try your lu
ck on the halls, so I’m to take you about with me. Get your glad rags on – you can come with me this evening.’

  Ginny followed her mentor through a crowded, grimy hall into a small, badly lit dressing room.

  ‘I’ll get changed now,’ Daisy said. ‘It saves all that pushing and shoving later.’

  ‘My God, there’s not much room, is there? And it’s filthy and all.’ She surveyed the tiny room, her eye taking in the stand with its tin basin half full of cold water, the tiny shelf with a couple of candles illuminating an old mirror that looked as if half the silver was off the back. Something in the corner of the room caught her attention and the corners of her mouth turned down. ‘Ugh, just look at that,’ she exclaimed.

  Daisy cast a nonchalant eye in the direction of the full chamber pot and shrugged. ‘Probably been there since last night,’ she said. ‘Do me a favour, and get the stagehand to shift it.’ Ginny called the man and held the door open while he carried it out.

  Her companion was leaning towards the mirror, applying greasepaint. ‘I’ll look seventeen when I’m done,’ she laughed, ‘from a distance.’ Ginny looked at her dubiously, thinking she looked at least as old as Mam Smith. It would take a miracle to make her look seventeen again, although there was an affectation of youth about her that Mam Smith would have despised.

  ‘You look very nice.’

  Daisy beamed at her. ‘Charlie says you’ve a bit of talent yourself,’ she said. ‘You can try it out tonight. The chairman’s a particular friend of mine. I know he’ll let you do a turn if you like, as a favour to me.’

  ‘I don’t mind. Will I get any money for it, like?’ Ginny asked, looking for a solution to the problem of the empty purse.

  Daisy laughed. ‘You’ve got all your buttons on. I’ll get paid, and you might. Or you might not. It depends how you go down. You’d have to be one of the first turns, though. That means you have to warm the audience up for the acts that come after you.’

  ‘All right,’ said Ginny. ‘This isn’t a proper music hall though, is it? It’s no better than the club me dad goes to at home.’

  ‘It’s places like this where music hall began. I’ve been top of the bill at some of the best ones in my time,’ Daisy boasted, and gave a wistful sigh, ‘but when you get a bit older and a bit fatter, they don’t want to know. I started in places like these when I was about as old as you are now, then I played the best halls in the land. Now here I am again, in this old gaff. That’s how it goes.’

  The chairman stood at his table near the stage, portly and pompous, a thick gold watch chain stretched over his abdomen, and rings decorating his stubby fingers. He nodded towards Daisy, and looked Ginny up and down. She’d never seen a man so full of his own importance and had an urge to laugh.

  ‘How are you these days, Miss May? We haven’t seen you for a bit.’

  ‘And you won’t get a bit now you have seen me,’ quipped Daisy with a giggle. Ginny joined in, wondering what the joke was, but glad of the chance to let her laughter escape.

  ‘Quite a sense of humour she’s got,’ said the chairman, inclining his head towards Ginny. ‘Who is she?’

  Daisy introduced her, and made the request.

  ‘All right. What are you going to sing, Miss Wilde?’ “Johnnie Seddon’s Dead”,’ said Ginny, giving the name of the only familiar song that she thought a Londoner would understand.

  ‘It doesn’t sound very humorous, but as it’s only going to be a first turn, I expect it’ll do. Might soften them up a bit for the other acts. Have you got your music?’ Ginny shook her head and the chairman sighed. ‘Well, go and hum a few bars in the pianist’s ear, then stand by the steps and wait for me to announce you.’

  She did as she was bid, then, without greasepaint or stage clothes, got up, and was surprised to hear groans and catcalls from the audience before she even started. These people were a far cry from the polite audiences of the Methodist schoolroom or the Catholic Club at home, or even the club in which her father spent most of his evenings. A fragment of memory flashed into her mind, of her father lifting her on to the bar when she was about three years old to do a little clog dance for the men. They had all been merry and laughing, and had given her pennies. She smiled, then, undaunted and very confident of her vocal powers, she opened her mouth and sang. After the first line a wilting cabbage hit her on the knee. Hardly pausing in her song, Ginny lifted her skirts and kicked it back into the audience. She heard a few sniggers and a shout of protest, then the hubbub died down and she continued without further interruption. After some applause and a few whistles, someone shouted, ‘Rubbish. Don’t yer know nuffink more cheerful?’

  ‘Yes,’ she called back, enunciating carefully, thinking of a song she’d heard in the digs, ‘do you like “On Southend Pier”?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘All right. We’ll do a duet. I’ll sing it, and you go and jump off it.’ Amid roars of laughter she quit the stage.

  ‘They’re not a right polite lot, are they?’ she commented in stilted English when she rejoined Daisy and the chairman.

  ‘You can’t expect a very refined audience,’ he said, rewarding her effort by taking her meaning the first time. ‘Seats are only a bob, and that includes the price of a pint. Anyway, you’re none too polite yourself. Give as good as you get. You might go far.’

  ‘Your song was nice, dear,’ said Daisy, ‘but the punters like something to make them laugh. Especially something saucy. Life’s miserable enough. Most of them want to forget that when they come to the halls.

  ‘I know a song about a barmaid,’ she volunteered.

  A waiter brought them drinks and they sat back to watch a couple of the acts. Daisy fidgeted. ‘I can never settle properly until I’ve got my turn over,’ she said. Ginny nodded absently, eyes intent on the stage. She watched aghast, enthralled but half disbelieving as a baritone abruptly stopped singing halfway through his aria and walked off the stage amid jeers and insults, his beautiful white shirt front plastered with rotten egg. The piano faltered to a stop, and struck up merrily again as a juggler took the stage.

  ‘I don’t know why we pay that chucker-out,’ said the chairman. ‘He’s supposed to confiscate all that sort of muck before they come in. Daisy, you’re next.’

  ‘Rotten clientele you’ve got tonight,’ she breathed before hurrying backstage.

  ‘Same clientele we’ve always had.’ The chairman took a leisurely draught of port before bringing his hammer down on the table.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, at enormous expense, the management bring you Miss Daisy May. Miss May will now oblige.’

  ‘Daisy May’s an old floozy,’ shouted one ruffian.

  ‘Daisy May?’ snorted another. ‘I shouldn’t think she’d have to ask permission – at her age.’ A roar of laughter ascended to the rafters.

  ‘Nevertheless the lady will now oblige,’ insisted the chairman.

  The piano struck up and Daisy launched into a familiar number, giving it everything she had. She soon had the audience with her, joining in the chorus, and Ginny breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘Amazes me how she still gets away with it,’ the chairman murmured. ‘Her stuffs got whiskers on. She’s lucky she ain’t had a couple of rotten eggs lobbed her way trotting that old number out again.’ He gave Ginny a speculative look. ‘You can do your barmaid number later, if you like. If you don’t get the bird, I’ll engage you for the rest of the week.’

  Ginny was silent. At least she’d had a bit of applause, and only one cabbage thrown at her. Judging by what they’d done to the act that followed hers, the audience couldn’t have hated her.

  ‘Fifteen bob,’ he said, ‘it’s all you’re worth. You’ve no name.’

  ‘What about a pound?’ she asked.

  If I want to make many fifteen bobs I’ll have to learn more of the sort of songs the audiences like, she thought. Some of the people who could teach her the ropes would be in the same house for the whole week, Daisy included. Ginny determine
d to make the best of her chance and learn as much from them as she could. She eavesdropped on conversations, and mimicked their speech until she managed to make herself understood without having to repeat things two or three times.

  ‘Eddie died at the Lyceum.’ The news was expressed in hushed tones. Ginny passed the gossip on to Daisy.

  ‘Don’t worry, there’s no profit for the undertaker in it. It means he didn’t get any applause. Feels as bad as dying, though.’

  ‘Miss Bloggs? Voice is good but she won’t get far. She don’t know how to sell her stuff,’ a fellow artiste remarked contemptuously over the breakfast table. Ginny nodded, and took the hint to heart.

  ‘I wonder why we laughed so much at Dan – more than all the others?’

  ‘Ever looked in his eyes? Saddest eyes in the whole world. If we didn’t kill ourselves laughing at him, we’d cry. I think that’s what real comedy is, a whisker away from tragedy.’

  It was what instinct told her. You didn’t need to feel like laughing yourself to be able to make others laugh, and that was just as well.

  She rifled through the sheet music in the piano stool at every opportunity, hunting for the most light-hearted and amusing numbers. ‘The punters like something to make them laugh. Especially something saucy,’ Daisy had said. Well, if that’s what they like, that’s what I’ll give them, she thought. Any song that looked as if it might fit the bill, she took to Daisy to make her hum the tune or pick it out on the piano keys. If Ginny liked it, she hummed it over and over again and secreted the music upstairs to copy the words into an exercise book before returning it to the piano stool. Oh, to be able to read music, to know what all those little black dots signified. She smiled. If Miss Carr could see her now, she wouldn’t believe her eyes. She had never worked her brain so hard in her life.

  At night, in the Trades, she worked her barmaid song wonderfully and by Thursday she could add a version of another song bursting with innuendo. She worked it with an air of round-eyed innocence, opening her arms in appeal to the audience, her disingenuous shrugs and a demure tilting of the head belied by the knowing curve of the lips and arching of the eyebrows. When she got to the last line the audience went wild. Although she was still the first turn, no missiles were thrown that night.