Rhiannon (26 page)

London 1911

 

Nellie Parsons tightened her grubby shawl around her scrawny shoulders. Although it was mid May, at night there was still a chill in the air. She'd spent the last hour parading along the Embankment looking for punters, but no one seemed interested.

Through the dense fog a man's shadowy figure approached her. As he came closer she could tell by the way he was dressed that he was a toff.

‘Looking for a bit of business, eh? Ten bob can buy you a whole lot of fun,' she slurred her words, rubbing her body against his.

The man roughly pushed her away, causing her to lose her balance. ‘Get off me, you filthy wretch, you stink to high heaven. Ten bob? You must be joking.'

‘Sod off, you cheeky bugger!' she called out as she watched him march off towards Westminster Bridge.

Although Nellie had sounded disgruntled, in truth she knew only too well how she looked and smelled. Since Harry had forced her out of her digs penniless she'd been living rough, sleeping under the arches, forced to live on the streets.

The toff had been right. Who in their right mind would pay her ten bob for a bit of how's-yer-father? Why, the way she looked she'd be lucky to get five bob. Nellie sighed ... how things had changed.

When she and Harry had first arrived in London, fifty guineas was the going rate. Thing were so very different then; Harry, his pockets bulging with the proceeds of their ill-gotten gains in Cardiff, had rented them a posh apartment – right in the heart of theatreland parties and well-to-do punters, close to Soho.

Harry's promise of making an honest woman of her was soon
forgotten. Instead, one night she'd come home to find their apartment emptied of everything they'd possessed and a note to say that he'd moved on ‘to better things', whatever that meant. Nellie's so-called friends were quick to explain, telling her about the affair he'd been having with some well-to-do French tart – and how they'd left to start a new life in Paris, France.

‘Good riddance! That's what I say,' Nellie mumbled under her breath as she slowly made the long trek to the Strand.

Nellie stood outside the New Gaiety Theatre, situated on the Strand. It had been her regular patch since things had got hard, where she could watch the toffs in their finery parade themselves as they waited for the theatre doors to open for the evening performance.

Nellie sidled up to an old gent thinking, he'll do. After all, beggars can't be choosers. ‘Fancy a bit of business, eh?' she brazenly asked.

‘No, I most certainly do not. Get away with you!' he growled, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and raising it to his nose, as if to stanch a nasty smell.

‘What! You think you're too good for the likes of me,' Nellie slurred, the effect of hitting the gin earlier.

The man didn't answer. He simply turned his back, no doubt hoping she'd go away.

But she was having none of it. ‘Hey, I'm talking to you – you stuck-up bastard!'

Completely ignoring her, the man moved away.

‘I'll have you know that my stepdaughter's appearing here tonight. She's famous, don't you know? A big star of the theatre ... I only wish my own daughter – the ungrateful bitch, had shown such talent! What? Why are you all looking at me like that? Don't you believe me?'

At that moment the theatre door opened and everyone seemed to be pushing her, jostling her out of the way. She was more than a little tipsy and already unsteady on her feet, so suddenly she lost her balance and fell to the floor.

She struggled to get up and failed. ‘Harry – Harry, make them believe me,' she called out. ‘Tell them how I've rubbed shoulders ... and more ... oh yes, a lot more, with the rich and famous.' She gave a raucous laugh. ‘Go on Harry tell them.'

But Harry was nowhere to be seen. After all she'd done for him ... even helping him to auction off her own daughter. How could he have just upped and left her?

‘Good bloody riddance!' she cried out to anyone who cared to listen.
That's right she thought, I don't need him ... Mair ... Rhiannon or ... any-bloody-one! All I need right now is a nip of gin! And I'll show them. If I can get myself cleaned up a bit – maybe plead to the mercy of the do-gooders of the Salvation Army – and take a bath, I'd have punters lining up for me ... forget five or ten bob ... more like five or ten pounds!

Yes, that's what she'd do – she lay her head on the cobbled street, it felt cold and wet, she was so tired ... what she needed was a little nap. Yes, things always looked better after a little nap.

The streets were wet, and the night unusually cold and foggy, when minutes later a horse and carriage carrying two gentlemen theatregoers, raced to catch curtain up at the New Gaiety Theatre and, with the lack of visibility, the driver failed to notice the young woman. The carriage ran over her; just another bump in the road – nothing for driver or passengers to concern themselves with.

The carriage pulled to a halt outside the theatre where Rhiannon Hughes's name was up in lights. The two city gents stepped down from the carriage and joined the happy crowd entering the foyer, all oblivious to the lifeless soul that was Nellie Parsons, lying dead in the filthy street.