The Songbird (3 page)

‘So who'll do the baking then, Pa?'

‘Tommy'll have to do more than he does,' her father said. ‘Don't you worry your head about it. It'll only be until your ma's feeling better.' He looked down at her, and she thought he looked sad and worried. ‘And when you're older you'll be able to help a bit more, won't you? Learn to bake like your ma does? She'll show you how.'

The idea of learning to bake didn't thrill her, but of course she would if it helped her mother. But did her father mean that she would have to work in the shop? The thought filled her with dismay. After being at the theatre tonight, meeting the Terry Sisters and seeing how they could transform themselves from being very ordinary-looking women into bright-eyed, cherry-cheeked, glittering, vivacious artistes had excited and stimulated her. I want to go on the stage, she yearned. That's what I want. Miss Davina used to be a dancer at the music hall. I'll ask her to teach me what to do. But I won't tell Mama or Pa just yet.

She went back into the shop and her father came too, telling Nan and Mattie that they could go home if they wanted to. ‘Thanks, Nan,' he said. ‘I appreciate your help. You too, Mattie.' He took some money from the cash drawer to give to Nan.

‘That's all right, Mr Mazzini,' she said. ‘I'll see you in 'morning. That table over yonder,' she added. ‘Those stage folk. They'll be here a while yet. I think they've no homes to go to!'

‘None that's comfortable anyway,' Joshua agreed. ‘They'll be sharing 'em with bedbugs I shouldn't wonder.'

At the table with the Terry Sisters was the man who had been dressed in the check suit and told tall stories that Poppy didn't understand. He looked grey and tired and not as bouncy as he'd been on stage, and he had very little hair, whereas when he had been performing he had had curly ginger hair. Another man made up the foursome. He was tall and dark-haired and appeared to be laying down the law about something.

Poppy went across to them. ‘Can I get you anything else?' she asked. ‘Would you like more coffee, or chocolate?'

The tall man glanced at her and smiled. ‘Shouldn't you be tucked up in bed, little girl?'

Poppy shook her head, her red curls tossing. ‘I'm allowed to stay up late on a Friday.'

‘She's been to see our show, Dan,' Ena told him. ‘She's a dancer too, just like us!'

‘Really?' The man swivelled round to look at Poppy. He nodded thoughtfully. ‘How old are you?'

‘Ten, eleven in January,' Poppy said. ‘I can sing too. I go for singing lessons with Miss Eloise.'

‘Miss Eloise?' Dan laughed and raised his eyebrows. ‘Not
the
Miss Eloise.'

Poppy gazed at him. ‘She's ‘only one I know,' she said solemnly. ‘She used to sing in concerts.'

‘Don't tease her,' Ronny murmured. ‘She's only a babe!'

‘Let's see what you can do, then,' Dan said. ‘Show us your speciality.'

‘I'll have to ask my pa first,' Poppy said. ‘I'm supposed to be helping. My mother isn't well. She has to rest.'

‘All right,' Dan said. ‘Is that your papa?' He glanced over to where Joshua was putting glasses into a cupboard. ‘Tell him we'd like a bottle of red wine and ask him if he would join us in a glass; and that we'd like to watch you dance.'

‘Pa,' Poppy said tremulously, and repeated the message.

Her father looked across at the group. People at the other tables were preparing to leave. The four from the theatre were the last customers. He nodded. He was tired. It had been a difficult evening. A glass of wine wouldn't go amiss; it would help him sleep, chase away his worries. ‘Clear a space, then,' he said to Tommy, who was listening to the remarks. ‘Then lock 'door. There'll be nobody else coming in tonight.'

‘Can you dance without music?' Ronny asked Poppy, as she waited for her father to bring a bottle of wine and glasses.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I can hear it in my head. But I'll sing first,' she told her. ‘Whilst I've got plenty of breath. Then I'll dance.'

The Terry Sisters both smiled at that. ‘You'll have to learn to do both and breathe at the same time if you go on the stage,' Ena said.

‘She's not going on 'stage,' her father commented, coming to the table and pouring the wine into five glasses. ‘Her ma wants her to sing and dance. She says it's an accomplishment.'

‘And so it is,' Dan said. ‘Everyone should have at least one. Some are lucky enough to have more than one.' He smiled at Poppy, who positioned herself the way Miss Eloise had taught her, and began to sing.

It was a simple ballad. A story of springtime and flowers and birds singing in the treetops, the music charming and lyrical for a young pure voice, and when she had finished the listeners broke into spontaneous applause, and her father drank his wine and nodded. Poppy gave a curtsy, and then began to dance. She hummed a tune in her head and tried to remember what she had been taught by Miss Davina. Keeping her head up and her shoulders back, and her arms and hands at a graceful angle, she tapped and pirouetted and swung her skirts. She also improvised on the dance steps she had seen performed by the Terry Sisters. Finally she swung round, put her forefinger under her chin and gave another deep curtsy.

The sisters clapped. The comedian yawned, but the tall man called Dan leaned towards her and said, ‘Well done, young lady. Very well done. And what's your name?'

‘Poppy Mazzini,' she said breathlessly.

‘
Poppy Mazzini
! A lovely name for a young lady of talent.' He glanced at her father. ‘A talent that ought not to be hidden away.'

Her father shook his head. ‘We wouldn't want to lose her,' he stated. ‘Like I said. She won't be going on 'stage.'

Poppy attended a private school, but now that her mother was unwell, instead of playing with her friends as she usually did after school was finished for the day, she had to help in the shop. Nothing too arduous, not like Tommy who was now baking the bread and cakes, whilst his father served the groceries, made tea or coffee, unpacked the provisions which came in daily and delivered orders to their customers. Poppy had to set the tables, clear away the dirty crockery and wash and dry it, but Tuesdays and Wednesdays were the days for her dancing and singing lessons. ‘I can still go, Pa, can't I?' she begged him. ‘Miss Davina will be expecting me.' She was allowed to attend the lessons alone as both Miss Davina and Miss Eloise had rooms in George Street, only minutes away from where she lived.

‘Aye,' her father said. ‘For 'time being anyway. Your ma wants you to keep going. But if we're busy when you get back you'll have to help.'

‘Oh, I will,' she said eagerly. ‘But I want to ask Miss Davina about some new steps that 'Terry Sisters did last week. I know I can do them.'

Her father smiled indulgently and patted her cheek, but added, ‘Don't get fancy ideas, just because you've seen them two dancers. That life's not for you. It takes a different kind of person to perform on stage. It's not for folks like us.'

‘One, two, three, turn. One two three skip. One two three
swirl
. Keep your head
up
! Smile. Step one two three, four five six, finger under chin –
and
curtsy! Well done, Poppy!' Miss Davina nodded approvingly. ‘Now walk towards me, toes out, head up, shoulders down, tummy in,
derrière
nipped! Good! That's it for today, dear. See you next week.'

‘Miss Davina! I went to see 'Terry Sisters last week. Can I show you the dance they did?'

Miss Davina looked at her watch. ‘If it won't take long. I have another lesson in ten minutes.' She hadn't as it happened, but it didn't do to let her pupils know how much she relied on them.

Poppy performed as much as she remembered of the dance and improvised where she had forgotten, giving a provocative shrug of her shoulders and a twitch of her rear as she had seen the Terry Sisters do. Miss Davina raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, Poppy, that's all very well for stage girls, but I don't think your mama would want you to learn that style of dancing.'

‘But could you teach me if she didn't mind?'

‘Oh, yes, of course I could. But you must ask her first.' Miss Davina, when she had been just Jane Davidson, had had aspirations to the stage and her parents had not considered it to be a demeaning occupation. But at ten, she had already inherited her mother's large build. No matter how she exercised, danced or starved herself, by twelve she was solid and heavy-limbed. At fourteen, as she auditioned for the theatre, she knew that it was hopeless, that no-one would want this tall, plain, buxom-chested, ample-hipped girl as a dancer. But yet she loved to dance and continued with her lessons, and when the teacher could teach her no more she turned herself to teaching and tried instead to inspire the children who came to her. None, she thought, would ever go onto the stage, for most were well-off tradesmen's children without ambition or talent, or if they had, then their parents would nip it in the bud as being an undesirable occupation for their daughters, as she thought that the Mazzinis would also.

‘It's a pity,' she said to her friend, Miss Eloise, the following evening as they shared their weekly bottle of wine in Miss Eloise's rooms. ‘Poppy is a beautiful dancer. She's not too tall, she's dainty and pretty, and has all the makings of a stage personality.'

‘Not to mention those lovely red curls,' Eloise, formerly Ella Stanton, agreed. ‘She would look good and she'll have the trim figure of her mother when she is older. But she also has a voice,' she added, and sighed. ‘She could go far.'

She too had suffered disappointment. She was set for a career in the concert halls, but constant bouts of laryngitis had caused her to cancel appearances, and eventually ruined her voice. Fortunately her father had left her reasonably secure financially, so she had set up as a singing teacher for the children of aspiring parents who wanted their daughters to charm future suitors with their accomplishments.

‘Just suppose.' Miss Davina tapped her mouth. ‘Just suppose we train her – only to see what she can do,' she added. ‘Not with any ulterior motive, you understand. But give her extra coaching, push her a little further than we would normally do. What do you think?'

It would be satisfying, they both agreed, to do something worthwhile. To prepare a child to her full potential. A life in the theatre and the music hall was becoming more acceptable in this last decade of the nineteenth century, though there were some who still considered it to be a degrading and immoral occupation for dissolute people. But Poppy had flair, grace and ability, they decided. She could, they thought, bring her own touch of class and style to the stage if she ever took matters into her own hands.

They opened another bottle of wine and gave a toast to Poppy's future, linked to their own, for wouldn't it add to their own esteem, Miss Eloise said, if they were known as the former teachers of a bright and shining star?

‘Your voice is improving, Poppy,' her mother said. She was lying on the sofa in the parlour with a shawl over her and a pillow beneath her head. It was now September and her health hadn't improved. She still rose early to do the baking, but Tommy got up too to help her. He lifted the pans and the baking trays into and out of the oven. He kneaded the dough for the bread and carried the trays of finished cakes and pastries into the shop for their early customers whilst his father prepared orders, weighed flour into bags, stacked the shelves with tins and jars and saw to the delivery men who brought in sacks of potatoes and carrots from the market. Nan washed the floor and windows and then cleaned their private rooms.

Poppy had come home from school and her mother had heard her singing as she came through from the shop into the parlour. ‘That sounds lovely,' she said. ‘Is it something new?'

‘Yes.' Poppy took off her coat and sat at her mother's side. ‘Miss Eloise said we should try something different. Are you cold?' she asked, touching her mother's hand, which was thin and blue.

‘I am cold,' she said. ‘I don't seem to be able to get warm, except when I'm baking.'

It was a cosy parlour with pictures on the walls, and ornaments on the overmantel in front of the mirror. A bright fire burned in the tiled fireplace, and because the heavy curtains were partly closed to keep the room warmer, an oil lamp was lit in the centre of a round table, until later when Joshua would come in to light the gas chandelier.

‘Pa said Tommy will have to take over the baking,' Poppy said, tucking the shawl closer round her mother. ‘If you're not up to it.' She pressed her lips together. ‘You are getting better, aren't you, Mama?' she asked anxiously.

‘Not much,' her mother admitted. ‘I don't seem to have much energy.' She gazed at Poppy and her eyes misted over. ‘You'll help your pa if he needs you, won't you, Poppy? He'll rely on you and Tommy, though I know that Tommy wants to go to sea. He says he doesn't want to stop in the shop all his life.'

‘You're not going to die, are you? I shan't bear it if you do.' Poppy started to cry. ‘What will we do?' She began to sob. ‘What will Pa do?'

Her mother sat up and put her arms about her. ‘Hush, hush. I'm not thinking of dying for a long time. But everyone does, eventually.' She pushed back Poppy's red hair and kissed her forehead. ‘We can't live for ever, you know.'

But I am tired, she thought. So very tired, and I don't like the way I feel; as if I'm living on borrowed time. But I must make an effort. For the sake of my son and daughter, I must fight this. And for Joshua too, but there will be some woman who'll come scurrying round if I'm not here. He's a handsome, prosperous man. But weak. He won't be able to manage on his own.