The emporium turned out to be an Aladdin’s Cave, albeit a dusty, higgledy-piggledy one, selling a wide variety of goods. Amazingly, in all the chaos, Arnold seemed to know exactly where he could put his finger on any one item. With no trouble at all he produced a new-looking, stain-free flock mattress from amongst a pile of items at the very rear of the shop, along with a selection of sheets and blankets and a very nice plump eiderdown. ‘All came from a house clearance the other week,’ he told them. ‘Spinster lady, very clean and tidy. Want to see any more of her stuff?’
By the time Sophy left the shop she had bought the mattress and bedding, a thick hearthrug which would cover a good part of her little room, two flock cushions for the hardbacked chairs and a pair of bright yellow curtains for the window. Arnold had thrown in an old coal-scuttle, a knife, fork and spoon, a dinner plate and a mug. Sophy had been drawn to a small pink armchair in faded velvet but not only could she not afford it, it would barely have
fitted into her small attic room. Arnold had only charged her six shillings for the lot, which even Sophy knew was a bargain, but he’d assured her he would make up his money with some of the other goods from the spinster’s house which were all in excellent condition. He was going to deliver all the items after close of work, which for him meant ten or eleven o’clock, but Sophy was pleased about that as it meant she should have time to whitewash the walls and perhaps even get them dry if she lit a fire as soon as she got home.
Home
. She savoured the word as she and Dolly walked back towards Endell Street. And ridiculously, the little room felt like home already, probably due to Dolly’s kindness. She had seen several landladies over the last days and one or two had actually frightened her, and all the rooms had been too expensive anyway. She had already discovered that everything was more costly here than up north. Lamp oil was double the price at sixpence a quart, and candles a third more at sevenpence a pound. Even the piece of soap the shopkeeper had cut for her from a big bar had cost a penny; she could have had two pieces for that in Southwick. Half her money had gone already. She would have to concentrate on finding work now she had found somewhere to stay.
She had read the papers in the lounge of the hotel and made a list of all the theatres, deciding she would write to the managers asking for an interview over the next week or so. One thing she was absolutely decided on was that she didn’t intend to work the halls. She wanted to be an actress, a serious actress.
It was only last year that Henry Irving, the actor-manager of the Lyceum, had been knighted, and she remembered reading an article at that time in one of the newspapers Jessica had smuggled into the dormitory. The reporter had stated that in one fell swoop the theatre had risen above the music halls and had become respectable, and middle-class children who had been taken to the matinées at the Prince of Wales and had performed in endless drawing-room amateur dramatics, would now contemplate acting as a career. This would be particularly true of girls, the reporter had gone on with a touch of disapproval. Young ladies had always been taught that
women should be humble and obedient, and that ambition and independence were unfeminine attributes, but on the stage they could see women expressing passion and achieving fame. This was a double-edged sword, and might encourage women’s suffrage – a dangerous notion, he had finished darkly.
‘Here we are, dear.’ Dolly interrupted her thoughts, and Sophy realised they were home. ‘Would you like a nice cup of tea before you go upstairs? If I know my Jim, there’ll be a pot on the go. Loves his cuppa, he does.’
When Sophy entered the quarters of the landlady she found Jim with his feet up in front of the range and a big fat cat purring on his lap. The kitchen-cum-living area was large, much bigger than Sophy had expected, and a portion of the room had been divided into what was obviously the Heaths’ bedroom, with a big brass bed and wardrobe against the far wall. A curtain had been strung up to separate the bedroom area from the living area but this was only partially closed, and Sophy could see another two cats lying on top of the quilted eiderdown that covered the bed. The room was terribly overcrowded and more than a little smelly, but Jim beamed a welcome at them and Dolly pushed her down in the other armchair in front of the range, and Sophy felt herself relax. They were nice, this couple. She had been lucky to end up here. And then, for some strange reason, she had a great desire to cry.
She didn’t, of course. She accepted her cup of tea and a piece of fruit cake thankfully – she hadn’t eaten since the previous evening – and listened while Dolly told her about her twelve children and eighteen grandchildren and all their doings. After another cup of tea and an even larger chunk of cake – Dolly had noticed how quickly the first piece had gone – Sophy made her goodbyes and went upstairs to begin work.
The first thing she did was to light the fire. The little room was as cold as ice and it had begun to snow outside, big feathery flakes that swirled and danced outside the window. She had only purchased one small sack of coal and a bag of wood bits the day before, and she had barely been able to lug that up the three flights of stairs. In one way she thought it was lovely that she was tucked away all
by herself at the top of the house, but the day-to-day practicalities of living in the attic room would be daunting for anyone less fit than herself. How old Mr Ferry had managed, she didn’t know.
It took her the rest of the day to painstakingly whitewash the walls and ceiling, and by the time she had finished her arm was aching fit to drop off. But the effect was dramatic. Suddenly her tiny home was brighter, and when she lit the oil lamp as it got dark, the white walls reflected the light. By standing on the little table and stretching to her full extent she had managed to reach the top of the walls and then the ceiling, but as she put the last stroke to the ceiling – she had painted the walls first as she wanted them to dry before bedtime – the crick in her neck told her she couldn’t have gone on a minute longer.
Climbing down, she put the table back in its place with the oil lamp in the middle of it and surveyed her work. She was tired and hungry and thirsty, she had nothing to eat or drink and she was covered in splashes of whitewash and had no water in which to wash, but she was satisfied. Yes, she was satisfied. Tomorrow she would buy a bucket so she could carry water from the yard up here for drinking, cooking and washing herself, but tonight she was too exhausted to do more than sit on the floorboards in front of the fire and wait for Arnold to deliver her things.
The rest of the house seemed to be asleep when Arnold came, although Sophy suspected they couldn’t have remained so with the noise Dolly’s son made on his three journeys up and down the stairs, cheerfully cursing and swearing about her rooftop abode. But he was kind, staying to put up the curtains on the piece of wire he had thoughtfully decided to bring, along with nails and a hammer, before clattering down the stairs for the last time, whistling tunelessly as he went.
Once he had gone, Sophy set about making her bed by the flickering light of the oil lamp, and when she had finished she stood admiring the first place she had ever really called home. The battered old brass coal-scuttle was reflecting the glow from the fire, the patterned hearthrug and curtains provided bright splashes of colour, along with the red flocked cushions on the
hardbacked chairs, and her bed, topped by its faded pink eiderdown, looked warm and cosy. She gave a quiet, heartfelt prayer of thanks for Patience’s quick thinking. But for her cousin she would have left Sunderland without a penny in her pocket, and even if she had sold her clothes and Miss Bainbridge’s ballerina brooch, they wouldn’t have provided sufficient funds for her train ticket to London, let alone anything else.
She would write to Patience one day. Not yet, perhaps not for a long time, but one day . . .
She sank down on her bed, staring at her whitewash-covered hands as a flood of mixed emotions stormed her breast. And then, for the first time since her aunt had screamed the truth about her beginnings at her, she let the tears come.
It was Sophy’s fifth week in London. She had written to umpteen theatrical managers asking for an interview, waited outside stage doors and in draughty vestibules hoping to catch someone who could help her, and spent a portion of her precious money having the cheapest cards possible printed with her details which she left at the theatres. She had quickly learned that the only way into the theatre was by the personal introduction and patronage of one of the actor-managers, and this often came by way of the acting classes some of the would-be actresses took. There was no drama training as such, these lessons came from working actresses and actors in their living rooms which doubled as the auditorium and stage for the purposes of the lesson, but the lessons cost money. Money she didn’t have. Likewise, she had heard about an acting academy, the first in the country, which guaranteed successful students their first job in one of the touring companies owned by the founder, but it could have been on the moon for all the chance she had of finding the fees.
It had been during her second week, whilst waiting in one of the foyers of a theatre hoping to catch the manager when he left, that his assistant had indicated he might be able to help her. He had taken her into a side room, and when she had found out the
price of this ‘help’ she had slapped his face and walked out, crying all the way home. It was then that Dolly had given her a little talk on what she called ‘the birds and the bees’, finishing with the warning that actresses – even young novices such as herself – were considered sexually sophisticated in the eyes of most men and therefore fair game.
Sophy had been embarrassed and horrified – as much from Dolly’s candid account of what went on between a man and a woman as the assistant’s designs on her, which apparently was only to be expected if she followed her chosen career – but the little talk stood her in good stead for the next time a man tried his luck, which was only a day or two later, as it happened.
None of this discouraged her, however. What did alarm her was the dwindling of her remaining money. Due to the years spent in Kitty’s kitchen, she knew how to cook a sustaining broth with scrag ends and vegetables, and other such inexpensive meals, but having no oven she had to buy shop-baked bread at tuppence a pound loaf, and even dripping – butter or magarine was quite out of the question – was thruppence a half-pound. Then there was coal and candles – she had decided lamp oil was too expensive – and of course, Dolly’s two-shillings-a-week rent.
She sat on her bed one morning, a snow flurry outside the window emphasising the unwelcome fact that the bad weather was far from over and spring was still a couple of months away, and contemplated the holes in the soles of her boots. She couldn’t afford to get them mended. She had four shillings left and the rent was due. The last of the coal was burning on the fire and it was essential she got a another sack today, for not only did the fire provide warmth but it was her only source of cooking and making a hot drink. Since the four ounces of tea had run out which she had bought the first morning after moving in, foregoing the luxury of milk and sugar, she had been making do with half a teaspoonful of raw oatmeal in a mug of hot water to thaw her out when she had come in frozen from tramping from one theatre to another all day.
She shouldn’t have bought the hearthrug and curtains and
cushions, she could have managed without them. She bit on her lower lip, anxiety flooding her. But one thing was clear. She had to put the ambition of becoming an actress to one side for the time being and find work of some kind. But what could she do? She wasn’t trained for anything.
And then she remembered the notice in the window of a little restaurant she’d passed the day before, advertising the position of waitress. The restaurant was in one of the streets west of the Gaiety Theatre; she hoped she could find it again. She tended to get her bearings more by the theatres than the myriad of street names, which were confusing.
Having decided to try, she lost no time in getting ready. The only food she had was the stale end of a loaf, but undeterred she toasted it in front of the glowing fire and spread the last of the dripping on it. She was even out of the oatmeal, so a mug of hot water had to suffice, but she felt better for having something inside her as she set out twenty minutes later, her feet soaked through within seconds.
She found the restaurant without any trouble. It was sandwiched between a Roman Catholic church and a small row of houses at the back of the Vaudeville and Adelphi theatres. She made a mental note of the street name. Maiden Lane. Perhaps that was a good omen? The next few minutes would tell.
She’d taken special care with her hair, drawing it neatly into a shining chignon, and her coat – bought especially to the requirements Miss Bainbridge laid down for her students – was of good quality. Fortunately no one could guess about the holes in her boots, she thought wryly, as she squelched into the restaurant which was quite full, considering it was only eight o’clock. There were no women among the customers, since respectable ladies dined in their own homes unless escorted by a gentleman, and most of these customers were clearly having breakfast before they went to work.
She stood just inside the door, uncertain of how to proceed and embarrassingly aware of the covert – and not so covert – glances of several of the men.
A small fat man with an harassed expression appeared from a
door at the back of the restaurant and on seeing her paused for a moment. Then he came towards her, a pair of shrewd black eyes surveying her from head to foot. Even before he spoke, Sophy felt herself bristling. There was something in his face . . .
‘Don’t tell me. You’ve come about the job as waitress.’
She stared at him, wondering what she had done to arouse such hostility. ‘Yes. Yes I have.’
He put down the coffeepot he was holding, nodding slowly as he crossed his arms over his fat stomach. ‘And why is that?’