The Urchin's Song (41 page)

‘I’ve never been one for sitting on my backside, lass,’ she confided to Josie the night they discussed the possibility of the others joining Lily. ‘Me mam used to say idle hands made work for the devil an’ I reckon she was right. And I’ll like the company an’ all of an evening. Nellie’s a good lass, none better, but with her working every night the evenings fair dragged.’

‘But you’re not to do any housework or washing or anything like that, mind,’ Josie warned her old friend. ‘Constance or Ethel are going to pop round for a few hours each day to deal with all that, and to prepare the main evening meal. It’ll be more than enough for you to keep an eye on the others and get breakfast and a bite at lunchtime, all right? We’ll see how it goes, eh? If it’s too much for you we’ll think again.’

‘Too much for me?’ Lily looked at her scornfully. ‘Ee, lass, if looking after two old biddies is too much for me I might as well pop me clogs right now.’

Josie had smiled but said nothing more. Lily’s fighting spirit was back and that boded nothing but good for the future.

When the house Josie was renting for the women came up for sale after a few months she bought it - once more against Oliver’s advice. Eighteen months later she was able to negotiate buying the properties either side of it, and within a matter of weeks the builders she hired had converted the three into one whole. This now housed eleven women, comprising Lily - whom Josie had put in charge of the household - along with a live-in housekeeper and cook, and eight other residents.

This was all accomplished independently of Oliver who had made it crystal clear he thought she was throwing good money after bad, and wanted no part of such a financially draining undertaking. For her part Josie made it plain to her husband that she was well aware of his gambling debts, which were beginning to eat away at every single penny she earned.

With the law of the land heavily favouring the husband in any matters of finance, after consulting with Gertie, Josie decided that she would be wise to have the deeds of the new property made out in the name of Miss Gertrude Burns. At the same time she settled a regular proportion of her income to be paid directly into an account she set up in Gertie’s name. Whatever happened in the future, this made Lily and the other women safe.

By the time all this was concluded, towards the end of her third year of marriage, Josie was reconciled to the fact that she had two separate lives running parallel with each other; each one so different as to be irreconcilable with the other.

Her work in the music halls; the time she spent with Lily and the other women; her appearances for charity and good causes; and her friendships with Mrs Wilde, Constance and Ethel all belonged to one life. The other, vastly less enjoyable, was bound up with being Oliver’s wife, with all that embodied.

In spite of having recognised the truth Oliver had kept hidden from her during their engagement, that his gambling was every bit as excessive and out of control as his father’s had been, that it was an addiction, a disease, Josie still felt commitment to their marriage. She had married Oliver thinking he was the strong one, but in reality she provided the emotional and financial backbone of their relationship, and at times it was exhausting. But there was no going back. She had taken her vows before God and man and she was Oliver’s wife.

However, what had begun as the odd altercation over issues such as Lily had snowballed into cool silences from Oliver which could last hours or days when Josie did or said something with which he disagreed. Oliver had belief in his own special position as a member of the upper class that went far beyond self-centredness. Josie had grown to understand that her husband considered himself superior to most of his fellow men simply because of an accident of birth, and along with that had developed a kind of imperiousness she found staggering at times.

Oliver Hogarth should be able to do what he wanted: hadn’t his ancestors consorted with nobility and ruled a vast country estate that had taken up half of Hertfordshire? Therefore his word should be law and he shouldn’t be opposed. He wanted to gamble and so he gambled; it was as simple as that, and he would not apologise for it.

Josie found she had married a man who could behave like a spoilt adolescent at times, or a cool, unapproachable stranger at others, and then again - when all was well - Oliver reverted into the charming, warm, amusing man she had first fallen in love with. It was confusing and wearing, and in the midst of the long weekend parties in country houses she attended as his wife and which she hated in the main, the select musical soirées he arranged, the dinner-parties and other equally draining social activities, she fulfilled her current commitment in the theatre several nights a week. If she had been prepared to compromise her own opinions and convictions Josie knew they would have got on better, but the price for a happy marriage was too high. She cared about people, and especially those who had come from the sort of beginnings she had been born into. It was a gut instinct to do something, even if it was a drop in the ocean in the overall scheme of things, and just as Oliver would not apologise for who and what he was, neither would she.

Oliver’s counsel - as her agent rather than her husband - that she should stay in the capital and concentrate on establishing her name and position as one of the leading female performers of the halls was wise, and Josie knew it, but she missed the north-east more than she would have thought possible.

She brought Vera and Horace down to London to stay several times but it wasn’t the same as going home, and although she had accepted one or two engagements in the big halls in Birmingham, and the lead female part in a winter pantomime in Manchester’s prestigious Theatre Royal - such an honour couldn’t be refused, Oliver had insisted - that was the furthest north she’d got.

Through Vera, Josie had learned that Barney had disappeared for some twelve months after Pearl’s demise before popping up in Scotland, where he’d secured a reputable position as manager of Glasgow’s massive Empire Theatre in Sauchiehall Street. Doubtless Barney would settle down in Glasgow and make a new life for himself, Vera had gone on, which would be the best thing for the lad in her book. This had been said during one of Vera’s visits in Josie’s second year of marriage, and when Josie had made no reply but had left the room shortly afterwards, Vera and Gertie had exchanged a long look and the subject of Barney and his future hadn’t been mentioned again.

It had been shortly after this visit of Vera’s that Mr Webb had reported to Josie that his colleague in Sunderland had been unable to make contact with her brother, Hubert, as she’d requested. His colleague’s investigations had been fruitless and he’d suspected people were being deliberately unhelpful. Mrs Hogarth had to appreciate there was only so much which could be done in this regard, and as his colleague had been trying for well over twelve months to no avail it really was time to call it a day. Her brothers were young men now with minds of their own, and not to put too fine a point on it, they had obviously decided they did not want to see their sisters again. No doubt if they changed their minds in the future, Mrs Hogarth would hear from them. If they did not . . .

Josie had thanked Mr Webb, paid both him and his colleague in Sunderland handsomely for their trouble, and had seemingly put the matter out of her mind, much to Gertie’s relief. Privately, however, there wasn’t a day that passed when Josie didn’t dwell on thoughts of Barney and her brothers.

Gertie herself had no desire for the north-east or anyone in it, and this feeling was cemented when, much to her surprise for she had decided long ago that she would remain single all her life, the manager-cum-bookkeepercum-administrator of Oliver’s agency showed an interest in her which she in turn reciprocated.

Anthony Taylor was a small thin man with a pleasant face and prematurely receding hair, and was some ten years older than Gertie, but the two hit it off immediately and began walking out within a few months of Josie’s marriage. Anthony lived with his mother in a small but nicely furnished house in Hammersmith which was only twenty minutes’ walk from Oliver’s office, and Gertie was often invited to tea before she and Anthony went to a variety show or dancing, or yet again to an art gallery or promenade concert. Like quite a few of the educated middle classes, Anthony expressed an interest in writers, musicians and painters, and he opened up a new world to Gertie. That he was an academic and somewhat phlegmatic man there was no doubt, but this suited Gertie admirably, as did their staid and passionless courtship.

‘I don’t want to fall madly in love, I never have,’ Gertie confessed candidly to Josie one day some twelve months after she had started courting Anthony. Her sister had asked her how she felt about her beau. ‘In fact, I don’t think I’m capable of it, to be truthful. But I like Anthony; I enjoy being with him and I respect and admire him, and he’s teaching me so much. And his mam - his mother,’ she corrected quickly, since Anthony had taken it upon himself to relieve Gertie of her broad northern accent, with her full co-operation, ‘she’s so easy to get on with.’

And so the slow and very correct courtship had continued to the present day, although Josie had no doubt that when the time was right in Anthony’s opinion, he would ask her sister to marry him and Gertie would accept.

 

But now it was the summer of 1905, and with the Commons giving a second reading of a bill to provide London with electricity, and car owners protesting that police speed-traps to catch anyone driving faster than the legal limit of 20mph were wildly inaccurate, the capital was in the midst of a metamorphosis the like of which hadn’t been seen in previous decades.

Evidence of social advancements was not clear to Josie, however, when she and Gertie and Lily entered one of the worst tenement districts of London’s East End on a sunny morning towards the end of July. Josie had been notified of the plight of an old singer-cum-dancer of Spanish-Irish descent by a mysterious ‘well-wisher’ a few days earlier. After checking the name with Lily, the fount of all music-hall knowledge, Josie discovered that the woman in question had been a rather temperamental performer who had become mentally deranged by the loss of her second husband. The gentleman in question had expired whilst making love to his current mistress. When the said Lottie Lemoine - the husband had been a Frenchman, Lily had said darkly; never, but
never
get involved with a Frenchman - had taken to jumping down into the audience and accosting any poor man who resembled her late husband, the music halls had closed ranks against her. Although Lily’s telling of the story had been hilarious, Josie had felt immensely sorry for the tragic Lottie, and had therefore decided to visit the address which had been left by word of mouth with her current theatre manager.

Gertie had been against the idea, but then as Anthony had made it plain in recent months that his opinion coincided with Oliver’s on the matter of Josie’s generosity to the unfortunates of the music-hall profession, Josie hadn’t expected anything else. She had told Gertie, and not for the first time, that Anthony was entitled to his views but that she would prefer Gertie to keep them to herself, and that her sister did not have to accompany her to the address in the East End. After a difficult ten minutes when a few home truths were expressed by both women, Gertie had decided she would go with her as usual.

Josie would have much preferred to just go with Lily, who was a tower of strength in these sorts of situations and always seemed to know just the right words to say to defuse any difficulties, but she nevertheless accepted the extended olive branch.

The area the three women were in was well known for its gin shops which were in full feather night and day, their swinging doors never still. An itinerant band was blowing and banging on one street corner and a scruffy organ boy grinding monotonously on another, but although the fine weather was making the smells worse, Josie preferred it to the last time she’d passed this way on a similar mission. Then gas flares had been burning in the streets at midday because of the thick choking fog, and small boys with flaring torches had guided people along the streets. In an area renowned for its crime, it was reassuring today to be able to see what was ahead.

This present mission turned out to be abortive, however. Lottie had passed away two days previously, an obese matriarch swathed in a long shapeless black dress told them, the dress somehow giving the woman the aspect of a pantomime charlady. The body had already been taken away and the room cleared, but Lottie’s end had been peaceful, if that proved to be any comfort?

‘Thank you.’ It wasn’t the first time Josie had undertaken such a task and been disappointed in the last years, but there was something different about this occasion. The woman had asked them into the kitchen straight off for a start, rather than keeping them standing at the door whilst she asked their business, and both the hall and the kitchen, although devoid of any comfort being utilitarian and starkly functional, were clearly freshly whitewashed and scrupulously clean. There were none of the bad smells associated with this poor area either, and the stone-flagged floors would have passed even Vera’s standard of housekeeping. ‘I understand Lottie was working at the box-making factory until recently?’ Josie said quietly. ‘Do I owe you anything for her board and lodging, or the funeral expenses?’

‘No, lass, you don’t owe me nowt.’

Perhaps it was the broad northern accent, or yet again the lively brown eyes whose brightness seemed unquenched by the hardships life had undoubtedly imposed upon the woman, but Josie had a strange feeling upon her. She ignored Gertie’s, ‘Come on then, let’s get home,’ and said instead to the woman, ‘You’re from the north?’

‘Aye.’ There was a moment’s hesitation, and then the woman said, her voice still low, ‘From your neck of the woods. You’re Josie Burns, aren’t you? The lass who’s made good in the halls.’