The Songbird

by Val Wood

  About the Book

  From the bestselling author of The Kitchen Maid

  Poppy Mazzini, born in Hull over her father’s grocery shop, lives up to the promise of her fiery red hair and Italian ancestry. Her lovely singing voice and good looks lead her to her great ambition – to go on the stage and see her name top of the bill. She becomes a music hall star both in her native town and in the south, after an appearance in the theatre at Brighton – she even performs in Paris, to tremendous acclaim.

  But when her first love, an ambitious shoemaker in her home town, becomes engaged to someone else Poppy is devastated. She disappears, believing that she will never return to her life of stardom. But her fame cannot be kept a secret...

  By the winner of the Catherine Cookson Prize for fiction.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  About the Author

  Also by Val Wood

  Copyright

  The Songbird

  Val Wood

  For my family with love

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My thanks are due to Peter Burgess, theatre researcher, for information and advice on nineteenth-century Hull theatres, music halls and Jenny Lind.

  My thanks and love to Peter, Catherine, Ruth and Alex for their support and encouragement.

  Sources

  David Piper, The Companion Guide to London, William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd, Glasgow, 1964

  ‘Greensleeves’, anon, attributed to Henry VIII

  ‘A Red, Red Rose’, Robert Burns, 1759–96

  ‘A Whole New World’, anon

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘Mama!’ Poppy untangled a wisp of red hair from her forehead and twirled it round her finger. ‘Can I ask you something? Something secret?’

  Mary Mazzini put down her mending and looked at her young daughter. ‘You mean tell me something? If it’s a secret?’

  Poppy clasped her hands beneath her chin and swayed from side to side. ‘No. I mean ask you something.’

  ‘You can ask me anything at all.’ Her mother smiled. ‘You know that.’

  ‘Yes, but this is especially special and I don’t want anyone else to know. Not Pa, and especially not Tommy!’

  ‘All right. What is it?’ Mary took up her sewing again. Poppy sometimes took a long time to get to the point. She didn’t like to miss anything out in case it was important.

  Poppy came up closer to her mother and, breathing into her ear, asked, ‘When will I be old enough to love somebody?’

  Her mother pondered. Poppy constantly surprised her with a variety of questions, but this one surprised her more than most, and although she thought she knew what she meant, she answered in a vague manner and kept her eyes on her sewing. ‘You love us already, don’t you? Your pa and Tommy and me?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mean us, our family,’ Poppy said urgently. ‘I mean somebody else! I mean somebody that I might want to marry one day.’

  ‘I think, sweetheart, that at only ten years old, you’re a little too young to consider that!’ Mary gave a tender smile. What was the child thinking of? Or who was the child thinking of might be the better question.

  ‘I know,’ Poppy said earnestly. ‘That’s why I’m asking. When will I be old enough?’

  ‘It’s difficult to say really,’ her mother replied in all seriousness, knowing that she mustn’t laugh or make fun. ‘It depends. It has nothing to do with how old a person is, it’s a matter of meeting someone and knowing that you love him or her.’

  ‘So could I have met somebody already? Am I old enough? Because I think I have. I do, I mean.’ Poppy shook her mother’s hand so that she had to put down her sewing and look at her.

  ‘You might well be fond of someone,’ her mother said gently. ‘But love is a different matter and you are far too young,’ she repeated, ‘to even think of such a thing.’ She leaned towards Poppy and kissed her cheek. ‘Love is for grown-up people. Playing with toys and games is for children.’

  Poppy frowned. ‘Is Tommy old enough – or Charlie?’ she added, as if in afterthought.

  Ah, Mary thought. Charlie! He’s the object of desire. Poor Charlie, how embarrassed he would be. ‘Your brother is far too young, even though he thinks he’s a man at fourteen, and so is Charlie. Boys don’t fall in love until they’re much older. Come now,’ she said firmly, bringing the conversation to an end. ‘Get the tablecloth out and set ’table. It’s time for supper. Then go and call your pa in from the shop. He said he’d come to ’Mechanics with us tonight.’

  Poppy and her mother went to the theatre or music hall nearly every Friday night. Tommy sometimes accompanied them, unless he thought there would be a lot of dancing, though he liked the singers and the comedians. If he wasn’t too busy, Poppy’s father, Joshua, would shut up his grocery and coffee shop in Savile Street, close by Hull’s town dock, and join them until the last act when he would slip out of the theatre and hurry back, and he and Tommy would prepare coffee and put out the cakes and pastries, and open up again in time to catch the late night crowd who came streaming out of the Mechanics Music Hall, the Theatre Royal or the Assembly Rooms, which were all close by.

  Then, as the crowds wended their way home, the performers arrived at the coffee shop: the singers, dancers, jugglers and comics, who, though tired and bereft of wigs and make-up, were not quite ready to fall into their rented beds, but needed to unwind and chat, which they could do at Joshua Mazzini’s, for he was never in a hurry to close or go to his own bed. He was of Italian extraction and would have talked all night to anyone prepared to listen. They had all heard the story of his penniless grandfather, who had arrived in London from Italy looking for work, and was loaned a wooden cart by a fellow Italian, and advised to head north.

  ‘There isa no worka here,’ Joshua would mimic affectionately. ‘That’s what he was told. And so he walked. All ’way from London,’ he would add in his own Hull dialect. ‘All ’way to Hull, pushing his cart with his worldly belongings in it, and he finished up here.’ He would look proudly
round his shop, which on one side was shelved with groceries, with packets of this and that, sacks of flour, tins of biscuits, slabs of cheese and butter, while on the other side small tables were spread with checked cloths and a posy of flowers in the centre, with chairs with matching cushions, for, he said, folks will stay longer if they’re comfortable. The coffee pot was constantly bubbling and spitting and there were always warm pastries, chocolate cake and sweet biscuits, for his wife, Mary, was an excellent baker. Joshua would open the shop door and the aroma would drift out, bringing the customers in.

  Joshua advertised the local entertainment by putting posters in his window or on the shop counter, and for this he received two free tickets for a Monday, when the audience was sparse, and two for a Friday. Poppy, when she was allowed, would go to both performances, for she was entranced by the colour, the music, the dancing girls, the singers and the sheer magic of the theatre or music hall. She watched avidly as the dancers went through their routines, she memorized the songs, and when she came home she would put on her mother’s shoes, drape a shawl round her shoulders and perform in front of the mirror in her attic bedroom above the shop.

  That Friday night in April, Poppy hurried alongside her mother as they made their way to the Mechanics Music Hall in George Street. Mary Mazzini was, everyone agreed, the most elegant of women. She wore the simplest of fashion yet managed to look as if she had stepped out of a Paris Journal des Modes. Tonight she was wearing a pale blue outfit with a long trailing skirt, the frilled bodice cut into a wasp waist to show off her petite figure, the leg-o’-mutton sleeves edged at the wrist with thick wide lace. Usually she wore a large hat but tonight she wore a small felt boater with a single feather. In one hand she carried a muff and held up her skirt, and with the other she restrained Poppy, who skipped along in her white ankle-length dress, blue wool coat and soft leather boots. On her head she wore a bonnet, tied beneath her chin with ribbons.

  ‘I can’t decide whether to be a dancer or a singer,’ Poppy said. ‘It would be nice to do both.’ She took both dancing and singing lessons, not because her parents wished her to take up either of those professions, but because she had a sweet clear voice and a natural tendency to dance.

  ‘Oh, not to go on the stage!’ her mother declared. ‘It’s a very hard life. You’ve seen how exhausted the performers are when they come in for their supper? No, dear, just enjoy the pleasure of being able to do both. Besides, your papa wouldn’t allow it. He wouldn’t want you to go touring all over the country with strangers. He wouldn’t like that at all!’

  Poppy pouted. Her father spoiled her. She knew that well enough. Compared with her friends’ parents, she realized how lucky she was with hers. She was indulged with pretty clothes, visits to theatres, music halls and concerts too. There were outings to the seaside, lessons in dancing and deportment with Miss Davina and singing and elocution with Miss Eloise. Yet her parents were protective of her; she had to be accompanied wherever she went, either by them or – reluctantly – by her brother Tommy, and was not allowed to go wandering round the town on her own as some of her friends did.

  Mary Mazzini loved the theatre and music hall too. As a girl she had never been allowed to attend. Her parents were staunch chapelgoers and considered musical entertainment to be a ploy of the devil sent to entice young people into sinful ways. But Mary would sneak into the theatres on the pretence of doing something else worthwhile, and it was here that she had met Joshua, who had enough Italian blood running through his veins to enjoy music and singing, laughter and good food – all the things which she had been denied.

  They fell in love and as she was twenty-one she told her parents she was going to marry him with or without their permission. One of the first things Joshua did on their marriage was to buy Mary a pianoforte from the music shop that stood across from them in Savile Street, Gough and Davy, who arranged for her to have lessons.

  With a daughter of her own now, Mary had a better understanding of her parents’ concerns for her, though not of their unjoyous outlook on life.

  ‘I’ll have to slow down, Poppy,’ she said suddenly. ‘I’ve got a stitch in my side.’

  ‘We’ll be late,’ Poppy said anxiously, and looked back over her shoulder. ‘And Pa will miss ’beginning of ’show. Oh, there he is! He’s coming!’ Her father had stayed behind to lock up as Tommy had gone out, but now he was hurrying along George Street to catch up with them. She beckoned to him to be quick. ‘Shall I run on and save the seats?’

  ‘No,’ her mother said. ‘Wait for your father. Don’t pull,’ she exclaimed, as a sharp pain ran up her arm. A wave of sickness and nausea swept over her. Whatever had caused that? She had had only a little supper of potted meat and toast with a small glass of red wine. The wine was too acid, she decided, that’s all. It’s nothing. It will go away. But the nausea increased, her arm ached and she felt very swimmy, and she put her hand to her mouth.

  ‘Sorry.’ Poppy looked up at her mother, alarmed at her tone of voice. ‘You’ve gone ever so white! Papa,’ she called as her father hurried towards them. ‘Mama’s not well. See how white she is!’

  ‘I’m all right,’ Mary said. ‘I felt sick, but it’s nothing. Let’s go in. I’ll feel better once I’m sitting down.’

  Poppy was relieved. For a moment she had thought that they would have to go back home if her mother was unwell, and she really didn’t want to miss the show.

  The Mechanics Music Hall was the oldest music hall in the town. The building had once been a private house, owned by a local member of parliament and then by the Broadley clan, one of the distinguished families of Hull, who sold it to the Mechanics Institute, which had been founded in 1825 to provide education and useful instruction of members in the knowledge of science and art. On acquiring the property, the board built a large saloon at the rear which could hold twelve hundred people. In the front foyer, which was ornamented with fluted pilasters, stood a statue of the eminent Dr John Anderson, one of the founder members.

  The saloon was now used as a music hall and had had many changes of activity, proprietors and names. In its heyday it had been the most popular entertainment venue in town, but as other theatres and halls opened their doors its spirit failed from time to time and trade lapsed. Now in the ownership of Boscoe and Downs and under the name of Boscoe’s Empire Theatre of Varieties it was once again flourishing, but everyone still referred to it by the old name of the Mechanics.

  Poppy wriggled in her seat to get comfortable, and in a moment the curtains rose and the performance began.

  A magician came onto the stage for the first act. He was dressed in a colourful cloak adorned with stars and moons, which swirled around his feet as he moved about the stage. He produced balloons from his pointed hat, which drifted into the auditorium, and the children in the audience jumped up to catch them. He brought out rabbits from inside his wide sleeves and yards of coloured ribbon from his ears. Then he invited members of the audience to join him on the stage, whereupon he produced flowers from their hair, and a flock of doves, which flew round the participants and fluttered into the audience before returning to a straw casket which he closed with a flourish. He opened it a minute later, holding it aloft to reveal that it was empty, and took his bow to tumultuous applause.

  ‘How does he do that?’ Poppy turned to her mother, but her mother was bent low and didn’t answer, and her father had his head close to hers and was asking her something. The next act started. He was billed as a character comedian and singer. He wore an odd-looking checked jacket and knickerbockers and told incomprehensible stories, which made the adults in the audience laugh, whilst Poppy fidgeted in her seat and wished he would finish, as the Terry Sisters, who were billed as delightful dancers and sweet singers, would be on next but one, after the juggler, and they were the ones she really wanted to see.

  ‘Poppy!’ Her father leaned towards her as the juggler threw balls into the air. ‘We have to leave. Your ma’s not well. Pick up your coat.’

&
nbsp; ‘Oh, Pa! The Terry Sisters are next! Can’t I stay? I can come home on my own.’

  Her father shook his head, but her mother placed her hand on his arm. ‘She’ll be all right,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Let her stay. Tommy can come back to fetch her.’

  ‘Unless you want me to help you?’ Poppy suddenly felt guilty about asking to stay when her mother wasn’t well. ‘I’ll come if you like!’

  But her mother was already rising from her seat as the juggler took his bow. ‘No,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Stay until the end. But wait for Tommy outside.’

  Poppy settled down again and gave a deep sigh of pleasure, then put her hand into her pocket and brought out a bon-bon, which she unwrapped and popped into her mouth just as the Terry Sisters danced across the stage. They were dressed identically in silver flounced dresses trimmed with fluffy white fur. Their skirts came down to their slim ankles and showed dainty silver shoes. On their heads they wore tall feathered headdresses adorned with silver beads, which glistened as they moved.

  They were not very good singers, Poppy decided, as she sucked her bon-bon, but they were good dancers, moving in time to the music and tap-tap-tapping across the stage, their hips and arms synchronized, their white teeth gleaming in wide smiles.

  I could do that, Poppy thought, as she watched their movements and routine. I’ll practise when I get home. So absorbed was she that she momentarily forgot about her parents until the final curtain came down and she realized that she was alone. I know my way home, she thought, it’s only round the corner. I don’t need Tommy to collect me. But she was mindful that her father would be angry if she didn’t wait for her brother, so she stood by the doors as the crowds surged out, talking and laughing and discussing the programme.

  She waited for ten minutes and only a few stragglers were left and Tommy still hadn’t come. Shall I go on my own? I’ll probably meet him anyway. She looked down George Street towards the turning for Savile Street, but the entire crowd was heading that way, away from the theatre, and there was no sign of her sandy-haired brother coming towards her.