by Sarah Burton
30
We did not tarry always at Clerkenwell, except on certain nights when we expected company, and often went abroad. I remained no stranger to Covent Garden, and also frequented the Exchange, but my preferred place of assignation was the playhouse, and we generally set forth two or three together, not only because there was a certain safety in numbers, but because it made us less subject to abuse. Modest women of course never ventured to the playhouse singly, so going two or three together avoided attracting the wrong kind of attention, and though we were painted and masked, so, to a lesser degree, were many ladies of fashion, and by these means we attracted only the gentlemen who were seeking the kind of entertainment we offered.
I had a particular fondness for the playhouse not only for the plays but for the playhouse itself, which from my first experience of it had shown itself to be full as entertaining as the action on the stage. In the first place, much of the haut ton barely noticed the play at all, and certainly did not pay the performance the attention they do today; there was a constant traffic of young idle people coming in and going out, often catching one act at one house and another act at the other. To see and to be seen was the reason for going for a multitude of the audience. The most outlandish fashions might get their first outing at the playhouse, as it seemed in a sense a privileged arena, and the most fashionable ladies could succeed in a get-up in the rarefied atmosphere of the playhouse that they would not be so bold as to wear in broad daylight, in Pall Mall or the Strand. I have seen a duchess in the playhouse with the front of her gown so low that her very nipples (which were painted scarlet) peeped out as if they too were trying to watch the play.
At the playhouse, as nowhere else, ordinary Londoners might see the King in the company of his wife or mistresses, and many other fine and titled people, and behaving one to another quite naturally and with unusual freedom. Sometimes the King showed his favour to one or another lady, and once the Queen walked out when an actress the whole town knew to be one of the King’s mistresses came on to dance a jig. I think it was one of the reasons the King was so popular, that he allowed himself to be seen often by the people at the theatre, which his father had not. And it also made the playhouse perhaps the only place in the country where a King and any poor fellow who could raise the price of a bench in the pit, could sit in the same place, and look on each other, and enjoy the same entertainment.
And as well as rich and poor laughing at the same jests, men and women mixed there with more freedom than I think anywhere else but at a masked ball. For some reason, behaviour seemed accepted at the playhouse that would be frowned on elsewhere. A lady might sit in her male companion’s lap, and much courting was conducted in the playhouse. Parliament men and prostitutes, duchesses and apprentices, shared in the same comedies and tragedies, laughed together and, on occasion, wept together.
More to the point, as regards the interests of women of our profession, the mere presence of men in the playhouse guaranteed that here was a concentrated number of them with money to spend and the leisure in which to spend it: the hours we passed there were rarely wasted; it was indeed unusual to walk out of the door without having secured a companion.
One night, Kat, Janey and I had gone to the Duke’s Playhouse, and the play proving dull, we fell to amusing ourselves. It was a kind of sport to us to detect among the spectators that new breed of whore, the Miss, so resented by Mother Cresswell and Pris Fotherington. Kat nudged us and nodded towards a box where a rather beautiful lady in a pale blue silk gown was conducting some kind of communication with a young man in the pit, mainly with her fan.
“She’s a whore, though she’ll neither drink nor swear,” said Kat. “She’s a whore for all her fine clothes and right jewels. I’ll warrant she lives in a great house in Pall Mall. She’ll have a velvet bed, stores of plate and handsome attendants, yet she’s a whore and an arrant one.” I was rather surprised at the assurance with which Kat said this, and wondered how she could be certain, but she was, as it turned out, quite correct, for when I looked again both the lady in blue and the gentleman in the pit had vanished. I looked at Janey to see whether she had observed this, but she had caught sight of her William and was mouthing and signalling him to meet her afterwards.
We then turned our attention to the play (which I think was Mustapha) and at least the spectacle of the moving scenes kept our interest, if the actors did not. The costumes had abundance of richly coloured silks and great feathers about them, and the Sultan even had a little African attendant, who you could see was really black, and not a white child painted. And as I looked on this handsome and exotic scene, a strange sensation gripped me, starting at the pit of my stomach and rising to my ribs so I could barely breathe, as my gaze kept being drawn back to this little servant, whom I became increasingly certain I knew. I tried to tell myself that just because it was a black boy did not mean it was Joe, and Joe was almost certainly dead. And then I began to wonder if I was in a manner being haunted by the memory of Joe, because I had not protected him and his sister as I had promised Aunt Madge I would, and this was why they came to me in dreams. But this did not have the quality of a dream. I could barely concentrate on the action on the stage and debated going behind the scenes after the play to satisfy myself that it was not him.
After the play was over, Janey bade me and Kat go with William and his friends, but I made an excuse and said I had business of my own to attend to, so off they went and I made my way to the door by the stage. No one seemed to mind me, but I could not see the boy, so asked one of the actresses what was the name of the little black boy from the play, and she said, “Sooty? What do you want with him?” and as I was about to reply, the boy came along. “Lady here asking after you, Sooty,” said the actress. “Don’t run off, now,” she added before going into the tiring room.
“Yes, mistress?” said the boy.
I felt sure now that it was Joe but I had to find a way of ascertaining this without revealing my identity to him. I was quite sure he did not recognise me, painted, masked and dolled up as it were. So I said, “Is your name Joe?”
The child looked frightened, which pained me, and twitched, in a manner drawing his chin to his right shoulder momentarily. I had not noticed this when he was on the stage. Joe certainly did not use to do it.
“They call me Sooty here. Who’s asking?” he said.
“A friend,” I said. “An old friend of the family.”
“I have no family,” he said, and there was the twitch again. “What do you want? Who are you?”
“Joe, I need to be sure you are who I think you are before I tell you who I am.”
“Sooty!” called a man’s voice. “Gentleman here’s got something for you.”
This provoked a double twitch.
“I haven’t got time for riddles, lady,” said the boy, then gave a little bow and turned and walked briskly away. And then I heard myself saying,
“Fair stood the wind for France
When we our sails advance,
Nor now to prove our chance,
Longer will tarry… ”
And as I spoke I saw the boy slow his step, then stop and slowly turn back. He said,
“But putting to the main,
At Caux, the mouth of Seine,
With all his martial train,
Landed King Harry.”
And I took off my mask and said, “Don’t you know me, Joe?”
And he cried “Miss H!” and ran to me and we embraced. Over his shoulder I saw a man coming calling him so I whispered, “Say nothing to anyone. Meet me outside at the same time tomorrow,” and then I let him go and put on my mask again. And I stood and watched as he walked off with the man, who held him tight by the shoulder.
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The next evening, I learnt from Joe that both Sal and Cook had died of the plague, but he was one of the lucky ones who recovered for reasons no one comprehended and was eventually freed from the plague hospital. He told me all this with his eyes fixed firmly
on some point in the distance (when he did not twitch) and I guessed that he must have seen some terrible things. He did not dare return to the house at Cheapside, Roger’s behaviour having perfectly terrified him, and he had been obliged, like me, to live on the streets and, as I had sadly suspected by the manner of the man in the playhouse, had been obliged to earn his bread the same way as I.
The man, whom we shall call Mr Fricker, was a minor player, fallen on hard times, as he told Joe. Fricker, I later found out from my playhouse friends, had once been a very beautiful actor, but had somehow crossed his mistress (a lady of my own profession, by all accounts), who had, in an argument, thrown acid in his face. The deformity he now bore had put paid to his life on the stage but also deformed his heart: though the manager kept him on to help about the playhouse, his bitterness lost him the few friends he had had, and he had begun to look about for other beauties he might exploit. To cut a long story short, he had in a manner adopted Joe, when he had found him on a street corner dancing for pennies. (Joe and Sal had both loved to dance, and Joe was yet small for his eleven years and a pretty fellow and it was an easy matter to see what a quaint and appealing sight this would have made.) Joe had been grateful for a roof over his head and a protector, and Fricker brought him to the playhouse, where he was often used to add a little colour and interest to a scene, and also sent him off with gentlemen, and, I ascertained, kept the money rendered for both these services, keeping Joe merely in good clothes and food.
I had to break to Joe the fact of Evelyn’s death and told him how I too had been turned out of the house and that I thought both Roger and Sylvia must be dead and he should return to Cheapside, where Aunt Madge must have returned, and where he would be loved and looked after, as I was determined to get him out of the hands of Fricker, who, before I even learned his history, I recognised to be an unscrupulous and cruel keeper.
“But you thought I must be dead,” he said, “and I’m not.” He twitched three times before he was able to say: “What if Master Roger is still there?”
This was a fair point, I thought, and we pondered how we might discover how things stood at Cheapside. I promised Joe I would think of something, and he was to look for me outside the playhouse a week hence.
The next day I took the risk of going to Cheapside to see what I could learn from appearances. I decided to walk past (I was painted and masked of course) one way, busy myself at a stall and then pass back the other way, thus getting two opportunities to have a good look. I too was for some reason terrified of seeing Roger, or indeed my aunt, for although Doll had great face and a seeming confidence, there was nothing underneath.
In fact I passed and re-passed the house three times without being able to read anything from it and I was on the point of giving up when a boy ran to the door with a letter and knocked. I looked to see who would answer it and bless me if it wasn’t dear Reg Potter! I almost cried out with the shock and relief of seeing so familiar a face. I walked away quickly, trying to control my feelings and wondering how to use this information to Joe’s benefit.
I needed a go-between, someone who could speak to Reg and find out what the situation was at Aunt Madge’s, and whether it was safe for Joe to return. But who? And could I get Joe away in the meantime to Clerkenwell where he would be safe? Although Mother Cresswell did some business with young gentlemen of our profession, she would not deal in boys, and though some of her girls were very young, they were not children, for there, to be fair to her, she drew the line. I quickly rejected this line of thought as, should we be followed or any connection be made with me, we should bring trouble on Mother Cresswell’s house, and I would be turned out, and then where would I be, and what use to Joe?
As to the go-between, I needed someone I could trust and who seemed respectable. I immediately hit on Kat, as she was naturally elegant and ladylike and, though we never discussed our respective histories, I sensed she had fallen from a great height, as she was refined in her manners even when there was no custom about. I found an opportunity to speak to her alone and asked if she could do me a great favour, and I offered her a guinea for doing it. I told her that there was a child I wished very much to see reunited with his friends, but that I could in no way be seen to be personally connected with the business, and needed her to go in my stead and establish whether it would be safe for him to return, principally by enquiring after Roger. She was to go to the kitchen door and ask for Reg or Ted and discuss the matter with no one else. After I had assured her that there was no danger involved, and that she was free to take flight at any moment should she sense there might be, she accepted. She could not go till Friday, which was the day I had arranged to see Joe again, so she agreed to come straight from Cheapside to meet us at a coffee-house in Drury Lane.
32
Kat was on time and looked pleased. She said she had seen both Reg and Ted and that as soon as she mentioned Joe, Ted made an excuse to leave and when he returned it was with a lady, and she described an older, sadder, thinner Aunt Madge. At this point Kat threatened to leave as she said she was in no way empowered to deal with anyone but the Potters, but that as soon as the lady had wept and had made it clear she earnestly wished to have Joe back, she had been obliged to trust her too. Aunt Madge had then spent a long time writing a letter which Kat was to give Joe, which Kat now presented to me and which, after encouragement from Joe, I read aloud to them both. It ran:
My dear Joe,
I cannot tell you how happy I am to learn you are alive and well and urge you to come home at once, my dear, dear boy. Your friend tells me that you are anxious to know whether your return here would be welcome and I assure you that nothing would make me happier.
When I returned from the country last November I found no one but the Potters here, who had returned only days before me. The rest of our dear friends and family, apart from Frederick, whom it pleased God to spare, are alas gone and the only remembrance I have of any of them is a certificate of Roger’s death and a letter he wrote shortly before he died. In the letter he states that he behaved very wrongly towards you and your sister and towards my two nieces, and that he believed none of you were like to have survived and that dear Evelyn was certainly taken, for he witnessed this himself. He also states that, he knows not how she got away, but Sylvia abandoned him as soon as he showed tokens of the plague. (I have reason to believe that she made use of a certificate of health provided by Mr Fluke, who tells me he furnished my nieces with four, and on my return here I found only two, one of which was made out in your dear name.) Roger ended his letter “May God forgive me” and I am sorry to say that he then took his own life.
I hope you can rest assured on that score: Roger can hurt you no more. I should add that, learning some weeks later of Roger’s death, Sylvia had the temerity to return here and claim his fortune as his widow. To cut a long story short I came to a legal arrangement with her and she too will trouble us no more.
Let these reassurances bring you home, dear Joe. All these shocks and misfortunes have greatly afflicted me and it would make my heart glad to have you with me again, my dear boy.
Finally, whatever you may have done, or have been forced to do, while you have been away, will not make you seem any less in my eyes. These have been hard times and we have none of us escaped unscathed.
Your loving aunt,
Margaret.
Joe and I were just recovering from the emotion we felt on reading these words, when Kat threw a purse on the table.
“There you are. We get the rest when we deliver him.”
For a moment I was speechless. A chill ran through me.
“Kat! You didn’t ask for money!”
“Of course I did!” said Kat. “What do you take me for?”
“But Kat! We’re not selling him! We’re rescuing him. You should never have asked for money!”
“Come, come, Doll, people expect it. She could afford it. What’s the matter with you? She gets her boy back, we get ten guineas each: everybod
y’s happy.”
“Kat! We’re not criminals!”
“Oh yes we are, Doll,” said Kat. “Or do you work in a hat shop?”
“We must give it back,” I said, feeling sick to the stomach.
Kat snatched up the purse and counted out five coins, which she put in her pocket, and then threw the purse back on the table.
“Give yours back,” she said, “since your conscience is so tender on that score,” and walked out. And as my eyes followed her out I saw, sitting in the corner, watching us, the unpleasing sight of Fricker.
It was unreasonable to suppose that Fricker was about to let me merely walk off with his little goldmine, so I unwillingly bade Joe good-bye and watched him go into the playhouse as one of his tasks was to sweep the stage each night and collect up the properties. As if he did not trust me, Fricker followed Joe, throwing a most filthy look in my direction. I dawdled outside the playhouse for a while, undecided as to whether to go straight back to Clerkenwell or look about for a little business first, as these out-of-doors opportunities were ways of making extra money which one could avoid declaring to Mother Cresswell, if one were discreet about it. I soon noticed a gentleman standing a little way away from me who also seemed to be waiting for a stranger.
I don’t know how it was, but those of our trade could easily recognise our opposite numbers in the male sex (though they were of course much fewer in number than ourselves) and this was most definitely a brother. He had a very beautiful face, and though there was nothing womanish about him, he was very pleasing to look upon, and moved with graceful assurance, and dressed with a little more attention to studied carelessness than most men bothered with. He caught me looking at him and smiled and tipped his hat and turned slightly away, to show he was demonstrating his manners rather than his interest, and that, combined with the fact that I noticed that, though a gentleman, he did not wear a sword, confirmed my suspicion.