The Urchin's Song Part 7

In spite of herself Josie's eyes were drawn to the little man's ears which were long and pointed and stuck straight out at the side of his head. And then she took hold of herself, and said a little breathlessly, 'I don't quite understand. Are you offering me a chance to sing at your theatre, Mr Harper?'

'Just for a night or two, to see how it works,' Ernest Harper said quickly. He didn't want to commit himself too far - sometimes they got onstage and dried up worse than old Finley's backside; you never could tell. But - and here he nodded reflectively - he felt in his water this one was going to come up trumps. She'd had 'em in the palm of her hand when she'd sung just now; if she could do the same at the theatre . . . He felt the stir of excitement - the same feeling he'd had once or twice in the past when he'd come across an act that had something extra. 'But if you suit us an' we suit you . . .'

Josie stared at him, her head spinning. There was nothing she would like more than to accept this little man's offer; it was the sort of chance she'd been dreaming about for years, but since her mind had cleared over the last few days and she had learned that her father had skedaddled with the lads, the weight of her mother's welfare had settled even heavier on her shoulders. She needed to find work, steady regular work, and pay Betty and Vera what she owed them before she did anything else, and that would take months when you considered the ongoing debt of their board and lodging. The bill for the doctor hadn't been cheap either, she knew that, and she couldn't let Frank and Betty cover it. What's more, her mam couldn't stay with Vera for ever . . .

Her racing thoughts were cut short as Vera spoke again, saying, 'Obviously with the la.s.s bein' so young her mam'll have a say in this. Can you give us a minute to talk it over?'

'Oh aye, aye. Aye, of course.' Ernest hid his disquiet at the thought that this particular prize might slip away from him, but what he said was, 'Mind, the best of 'em started young on the halls - mostly bairns, the lot of 'em. Look, I'll say a trial of seven nights, all right? An' we'll say two bob a night - that's more than I'd start many a one off, I tell you straight. You have a think with your mam, la.s.s, an' I'll see you afore I go.' He bobbed his head at them all and moved away.

Had he said two s.h.i.+llings a night? Josie had bargained with too many shopkeepers and the like in her young life to let her amazement at what she considered a huge amount of money show, but two s.h.i.+llings a night! That was fourteen s.h.i.+llings for just singing seven evenings, and she still had the days free. The laundry had paid three s.h.i.+llings and tenpence for five and a half days of backbreaking work, and she knew she'd been lucky to get that. In some of the factories and shops hereabouts, bit la.s.ses of her age were paid no more than two and sixpence a week on account of their age and s.e.x, whilst being expected to do the same day's work as women three times their age. And a collier like Frank only earned double what Mr Harper had just offered her! Had she heard right?

'Fourteen s.h.i.+llings, Josie.' Vera's voice was hushed, and s.h.i.+rley sat with her mouth agape staring at her amazing offspring. 'An' that's just for starters, la.s.s. You've got to give it a go. Now look, don't worry about your mam. Me an' s.h.i.+rl've already decided she's not leavin' whatever your da says when he turns up. I'm clearin' me front room an' your mam's havin' that, an' there'll be room for the lads if needs be.'

'Oh, Vera.' Josie reached over her mother and took Vera's hand. 'Not your lovely front room,' she protested. 'You don't have to, really. I'll sort something.'

'You can't say anythin' your mam hasn't said already, hinny, but me mind's made up. My Horace has never liked me front room anyway - says he don't dare breathe in it.' Vera grinned wryly. 'An' you're settled here now; our Bett says she don't know how she managed with the bairns an' mendin' an' all afore you come. Little G.o.dsend, she says you are. Gertie's doin' fine, too, aren't you, la.s.s?' The little girl had just sidled up to them and this last was said bracingly; Gertie still didn't like her new school.

Josie looked into the rough square northern face in front of her but found she couldn't speak for the emotion filling her throat. She saw now why Vera had got Mr Harper to leave them for a while; her friend had known she was teetering on the brink of refusing his offer and the reasons for her hesitation. The love in Vera's eyes was s.h.i.+ning out at her, and it was in answer to that that Josie said, 'I . . . I could give it a go for a week, couldn't I? I've lost nothing that way. And if it doesn't work out I can look for something else.'

'Aye, la.s.s, you could.'

But she would make it work. As Josie looked at their faces - her mam's, Vera's and Gertie's - they were all expressing different emotions. Her mam's expression was one of incredulity and a certain amount of bewilderment, Vera's, one of fierce pride and encouragement; and Gertie was simply trying to work out what was going on and what she had missed. As Josie stared at the three people she loved best in all the world, she knew she would make it work whatever it cost. This was her chance; this was what she had dreamed of ever since she had first started singing in the pubs as a wee bairn - to earn her living singing. True, in those days she had never set her sights further than the pubs and supper rooms, but why couldn't she aspire higher?

She could learn what to do - how to sing properly, to walk, what clothes to wear and everything - she wasn't stupid, but unless she put her toe in the water she'd never get started, would she? This was her chance, it was. Everything seemed to have conspired to bring her to this moment; even the nasty run-ins with her da and Patrick Duffy. She felt a moment's chill but shrugged the spectres aside; she wouldn't let her da and that other evil man ruin this moment.

She said the words out loud: 'I'll do it.' And then louder: 'I'll do it, I will.'

s.h.i.+rley hadn't taken her eyes from Josie, and now she said very quietly, 'La.s.s, are you sure? I mean, a music hall? Some of them actress types an' singers are no better than they should be.'

Josie looked steadily at her mother. It was strange, but in this moment she felt years older than the woman who had given birth to her. Her mother had allowed her to go into some of the worst pubs in Sunderland from when she was little more than knee high in order to scratch them a decent going-on, and her father had brought men like Patrick Duffy into their home and moreover started her brothers on a life of crime as soon as they were off the breast, and now her mother was questioning the morals of the performers in the music halls?

For a second she wanted to laugh, and then the well of pity which always accompanied her dealings with her mother made itself felt. She didn't understand her mam at times, and she would never comprehend how she could have stood by and let Ada and then Dora go down that road, but she was her mam and she loved her. 'I'm going to give it a go, Mam, and see what happens because I'd regret it the rest of my life if I didn't.'

'Well, if you're sure, hinny.'

'Aye, I am sure.'

And so it was settled.

Part 2.

Ambition 1900.

Chapter Seven.

Josie smiled and curtsied as she stood listening to the tumultuous applause spilling over the gold radiance of the footlights, and not for the first time she reflected that the music hall was an enchanted place to its patrons. People just wanted to enter a warm world of magic and romance where their troubles were forgotten for a few hours, and who could blame them? She even managed to escape from the real world herself when she was onstage - or at least she usually did, she corrected herself in the next moment as the heavy velvet curtain swung across the stage and she heard the dapper Sidney Potts - in his role of chairman - begin his exposition to introduce the next act.

Josie moved gracefully into the wings of the theatre as the Amazing Lamphorcini Brothers pa.s.sed her. They were a troupe of five Italian brothers who presented a skilful juggling and acrobatic knockabout comedy routine, including grotesque gymnastics and outrageous innuendo. The youngest of the brothers, a cheeky seventeen year old, winked at her as he caught her eye, and Josie smiled back at him absently.

She was so glad she was finis.h.i.+ng at Hartlepool tonight. She needed to get back to Sunderland and see how her mam was. This wretched influenza. All that stuff they had written in the newspapers at the beginning of the year about inventions and suchlike, and yet no one knew how to fight the illness which was sweeping the country and ravaging its occupants. It had already taken old Maud and Enoch Tollett before Christmas.

The new century had been ushered in on the heels of a decade which many had glowingly described as one of unparalleled achievements. The spectacular discovery by the German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen of some kind of ray streaming out of gas-filled bottles when he pa.s.sed electricity through them (which he'd called X-rays simply because X was the standard symbol for anything scientists didn't understand) had been hailed as miraculous.

Residents of Coney Island in America were the first folk to try a novelty ride called an escalator; a miracle drug - aspirin - which contained properties to reduce fevers and pain and came in the form of easy-to-take tablets was now available, and most exciting of all - and the hardest for Josie to comprehend - was the birth of radio communications which had been pioneered in Britain at about the same time as she had first set foot on a stage.

When Guglielmo Marconi was granted a patent which met with Royal approval and Queen Victoria herself communicated wirelessly from Osborne House with the Prince of Wales on board the Royal Yacht, the newspapers had been full of it, along with the news that Lord Kelvin had sent the first ever telegram by wireless.

Which was how it should be, Britain's inhabitants had declared patriotically. Didn't one in four of the world's population look to Britain as their ruler? The Empire was the greatest power on earth, and there was no doubt in anyone's mind that Britain ruled far-flung lands as well as the waves and that this would always be so.

However, as the influenza epidemic which had taken hold in December grew worse, there was less thought about the glory of the Empire and more about who was going to be the next to die in all the towns and cities of Britain. Fifty people a day were dying in London alone, and the illness which had been regarded as something of a fas.h.i.+onable malady when it had first occurred several years before, was now inspiring widespread panic and alarm. Gravediggers were working day and night all over the country, and due to a shortage of nurses and closure of some hospital wards, the situation was getting worse daily.

As with the dreaded typhoid and cholera, the influenza seemed to hit the old, infirm and very young most severely, and this was on Josie's mind as she walked down the thirty or so stone steps leading from the stage to the dressing rooms.

The room designated for the female performers was long and low, with whitewashed walls and one window. Gas jets gave feeble illumination, but overall it was dark and hot and smelly, two ventilators releasing draughts of unpleasant air. Apart from several wooden forms to sit on and a large wardrobe, the room was empty. An ancient stone sink stood in a corner. The dresser, a blowsy old woman with a permanent dewdrop at the end of her nose, used the sink solely for the purpose of keeping her grey hen - a large narrow-necked stone jar holding a vast quant.i.ty of beer - cool, and consequently there was always a pool of water skimming the floor where she'd had to remove it for a few minutes for performers to wash either before or after applying their stage make-up.

Since entering the bra.s.sy, rumbustious world of the music hall, Josie had appeared at numerous venues, from halls which were little more than the song and supper rooms which const.i.tuted the origins of the music halls, to theatres which had been purpose-built. Certain music halls, she had found, had personalities of their own, but by and large they were all much of a pattern. However, she'd never travelled further afield than some thirty or forty miles from Sunderland, simply because she always felt she must be within easy travelling distance of home, should she be needed. Josie knew her mother was ill, very ill, and wanted to be able to reach her within a couple of hours, should it be necessary.

The fact that this had severely restricted her choice of venues and undoubtedly held her career back had caused Josie some regret but no real dilemma. During the last four years she had been approached by numerous agents, most of whom had made extravagant promises that they would take her to top billing if she was prepared to put herself in their hands, but knowing this would mean travelling all over the country and undoubtedly working the London halls, she had refused them all.

And so, with Gertie by her side, she had done a few weeks here and a few weeks there all over the north-east, comforting herself with the knowledge that she was getting plenty of valuable experience and a good basic understanding of how things operated. Josie knew she was fortunate never to have been without work since she'd first started. Most weeks she would appear at two or occasionally three halls a night in the area in which she was working, earning a certain amount at each per week which added up to her final wage.

She could now command a fee of thirty s.h.i.+llings a week or more at any one hall, but her expenses were considerable. Board and lodging for herself and Gertie, carriages to whisk her from one venue to another several times a night, her costumes and make-up all took their toll, and she sent home regular payments to Vera for taking care of her mother, along with extra funds to cover her mother's doctors' bills and medication. Although Gertie was her dresser, in some of the halls the management would insist that the artistes contributed to the wage of the resident dresser, whether they availed themselves of her a.s.sistance or not, like this present one.

Gertie was waiting for her when she opened the door to the dressing room and as ever, amid all the chaos and bustle, her sister had contrived to secure a small corner where Josie's clothes were folded neatly and securely and her hat box and other possessions were in place. 'Here.' Gertie handed her a mug of hot, sweet tea. 'Drink this afore you do anything else, la.s.s.'

Josie took the tea gratefully, remarking, as she did most nights, 'I don't know what I'd do without you, Gertie.'

From the moment Josie had put her hair up that first night she had stepped on to Ginnett's Amphitheatre's stage four years ago and received a hearty encore, she had no longer felt like a young girl, but a young woman. Sure enough, within the following eighteen months her figure had filled out, she had grown another few inches and now - at seventeen years of age - she had turned into a composed and very lovely young woman. Gertie, on the other hand, had barely changed at all, and at fifteen was still tiny. However, what she lacked in inches she had gained in confidence, and although her health was never particularly robust, Gertie had developed into a force to be reckoned with, Josie reflected fondly, as she gazed into the plain little face smiling at her.

'You tired, la.s.s?' Gertie asked her and then, shaking her head at herself, she said, ' 'Course you're tired, hark at me! Das.h.i.+ng about like a blue-a.r.s.ed fly seven days a week, it's no wonder. I wish you'd take a break for a few days.'

'I can't refuse bookings if they're there, la.s.s. You know that.'

'Aye, but they'll always be there for you; folk know a good thing when they see it. There's another of them agent types been asking about you, by the way; old Aggie just told me. He was here earlier, apparently. I tell you, la.s.s, if you let one of 'em look after you, you'd be making a mint in a little while. You're too good to kill yourself haring from one flea-pit to another.'

The sisters had had this same conversation a hundred times, and now Josie answered as she always did, 'There's Mam.'

Aye, there was Mam. Gertie's voice was brisk now as she said, 'Sit yourself down an' let's get that hat off.' Josie's stage clothes were elaborate and on the gaudy side, and not at all what she would wear outside. As Gertie moved behind her sister, carefully extracting the hat pins and lifting the concoction of lace and feathers off the golden-brown hair, the younger girl was frowning.

She'd been in this business nearly as long as Josie, having started travelling round with her sister as soon as she had finished at school, and one thing she knew was that you needed an agent. The music hall was a world within the world; it had its own managers, agents, scouts, touts, newspapers, slang, fas.h.i.+ons, and no one - no one - got anywhere without an agent; they didn't even take you seriously for a start. Josie could be earning three, four times what she was on now, even playing the same halls if she had an agent behind her, but no - there was Mam.

'Stop frowning,' Josie said suddenly.

'How do you know I'm frowning?' Gertie asked, quickly straightening her face.

Josie swung round on the bench and stared up at her sister. 'I can feel it,' she said softly. 'And I'm not daft, la.s.s. I know we need an agent but I'll get one when I'm ready. You know how bad Mam is; she . . . she could go any time.'

'We've been thinking that for the last two or three years,' Gertie retorted, and then added quickly, 'Oh I'm sorry, la.s.s, I don't mean that nasty, but it's true. Sometimes folk hold on for years an' years in Mam's state, an' you're missing opportunity after opportunity.'

This was where Gertie normally said she wasn't getting any younger, Josie thought, as she rose from the bench and, with Gertie's help, stripped off the satin and brocade dress she had been wearing. She knew her sister meant well, but they were poles apart in their thinking on this. Perhaps it was because their mam had always been ailing and Josie, herself, had been more like Gertie's mother - protecting her, watching out for her and generally mothering her - but Gertie didn't seem to have any deep feeling for s.h.i.+rley. Or for anyone else for that matter, apart from her big sister.

'Bloomin' 'ell!' The dressing-room door opened and in came a big blonde woman who was billed as a cla.s.sical and exotic dancer; swathed in veils of crepe de chine, her feet were bare beneath her diaphanous costume. Everyone turned and glanced her way. Lily went under the name of Madame de Vonte, but she was a Newcastle la.s.s born and bred, and something of a card. 'You heard that new 'un who's supposed to imitate the sound of a harp? Harp my backside! You know what old Sidney said on the quiet?' Lily struck a pose and imitated the la-di-da voice of the chairman as she said, '"That woman has grossly libelled the instrument if you ask me." ' And as everyone fell about laughing, she added, 'He did, he did! I nearly died. An' Madam had just finished warbling her first song and that lot in the gallery were shouting and heckling when some bright spark in the stalls shouted, "Knock it off! Give the poor cow a chance!" An' you know what she said? "Thank you, kind sir. It's good to know there's one gentleman in the audience." '

Pandemonium reigned for a few moments, and Josie, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes as she continued dressing, thought, Oh, I'm going to miss Lily when I'm back home. I've never laughed so much as these last twelve weeks and it's better than a tonic. It had even put Gertie in a good mood; the young girl was chattering quite happily as the two sisters stepped into the greasy street ten minutes later, where, through the steadily falling rain, loomed the carriage they'd ordered to transport them back to their lodgings some streets away.

'Miss Burns?'

Josie nearly jumped out of her skin as a figure materialised seemingly out of the brickwork at the side of them, and she knew Gertie had reacted the same when her sister's voice came in a sharp snap, saying, 'An' who wants to know?'

'I startled you. Do forgive me.'

It was a cultured voice, deep and pleasing to the ear, and as Josie stared at the big tall man clothed in a top hat and a long grey cloak which almost covered him from head to foot, she managed to answer quite naturally, 'It's quite all right, but I'm sorry, we have to go. The rain . . .'

'Dastardly weather,' he agreed immediately, adding, 'Please let me introduce myself, Miss Burns. Oliver Hogarth, at your service.' He bowed, raising his head as he said, 'I do need to talk to you, Miss Burns. May I perhaps ride with you and your lovely chaperone?'

There had been irony in the perfunctory bow and enquiring glance, and something mocking in the way he had proclaimed himself. Josie looked into a dark, handsome face in which the eyes were slightly hooded and excessively bagged, with bright irises, and now her voice had reverted to stilted correctness when she said, 'I don't think so, Mr Hogarth. Good night.'

She had crossed the wet pavement and climbed into the carriage, Gertie just behind her, before the man had time to collect himself, and as Gertie called to the driver to move on, they could just see Mr Hogarth stroll out of the shadows and into the light of a street-lamp, before the horse was clip-clopping them away.

'Cheek.' Gertie's voice was a little bemused. 'Fancied his chances, didn't he?'

Josie nodded. 'He did an' all.'

'Did you see his face when you said "I don't think so"? His mouth sort of fell open a bit, like this.' Gertie dropped her mouth into an exaggerated gape and the two began to giggle.

'Oliver Hogarth.' Josie's voice was thoughtful once they had sobered up. 'I've heard that name before but I can't remember where. If Lily gets back before we're in bed, I'll ask her.'

Lily was staying in the same boarding house as the sisters, and, having been in the music-hall business since she was a toddler featuring in her parents' high-wire act as a human balancing pole, was the fount of all knowledge.

Mrs Bainsby's terraced boarding house in the less salubrious part of Hartlepool always smelt of cabbage and f.a.ggots when one stepped into the dark brown hall, but the lady herself had a heart of gold and moreover understood her guests who mostly consisted of visiting music-hall performers. The rooms were clean and cheap - two attributes which Josie had found rarely went together - and unlike some landladies, Mrs Bainsby didn't lock the door after a certain hour and refuse to open it again until morning. Indeed, the landlady seemed to relish the more wild goings-on of some of her guests, like Lily, for example, and was always hovering around with cocoa and seed cake whatever time her lodgers got home. Josie suspected that she and Gertie were something of a disappointment to the good lady, although Lily's escapades more than made up for their unexciting behaviour.

Lily hadn't returned by the time she and Gertie snuggled into their narrow iron beds, wearing several layers of clothing beneath the thin grey blankets, but Josie hadn't really expected her to. The middle-aged blonde had several men friends among whom she divided her favours and was often out all night, returning in the early hours heavy-eyed and tousle-haired, whereupon she would sleep the rest of the day away until it was time to get ready for the theatre.

It was all the more surreal, therefore, when in the pitch blackness of the night, Josie was brought out of a deep, thick sleep to a hand shaking her shoulder and Lily's voice hissing, 'Josie? Josie, la.s.s. For cryin' out loud, wake up! Josie!'

'Wha . . . what?' Josie could smell Lily had got a load on her, she stank of whisky. 'What's the matter?'

'I need to talk to you. Wake up, la.s.s. It's important.'

The fact that Lily wasn't slurring her words told Josie the other woman wasn't as drunk as she had thought at first, and now, pulling herself up out of the warmth of the bed, she groped her way over to the battered chest of drawers on the other side of the room and felt for the candlestick and box of matches at the side of it. After lighting the candle she carried it over to the bed, sliding her legs back under the covers as her frozen toes searched for warmth. She looked at Lily in the flickering light and whispered, 'What's the matter and how did you get in this room? I locked the door, didn't I?'

Lily flapped her hand impatiently. 'I've been picking locks since I was a bairn,' she said matter-of-factly. 'Look, I had to speak to you before you went tomorrow morning, an' you know what I'm like once I get me head down. The roof could cave in an' I'd sleep through it. It's Oliver, Oliver Hogarth. He said he spoke to you tonight.'

'Oliver Hogarth?' Gertie was awake now. 'Do you know him, Lily?'

'In a manner of speaking.' Lily didn't say here that normally the likes of Oliver Hogarth wouldn't be seen dead consorting with a tuppenny act like hers, and that she had nearly pa.s.sed out with shock when she'd found him waiting for her outside the female dressing room earlier. She'd known as soon as he opened his mouth that he was after Josie, but it wasn't often she was wined and dined by such as Oliver and she'd made the most of the experience. She smiled inwardly. By, she had. She'd heard he liked the women and drink and he'd proved her right the night. But even after he'd had his way he'd been a gentleman - which was more than you could say for some. Couldn't get rid of you quick enough after, some of 'em.

'Do you know who he is, Josie?' Lily asked now, her voice low. 'One of the best agents in the business, that's who. He lives in London but often travels about here an' there, an' one of his touts told him about you - well, more than one actually - so he thought he'd come up and take a look for himself. He wants to talk to you about him becoming your agent.'

Lily couldn't keep a thread of envy out of her voice at this point. She'd have given her eye-teeth for Oliver Hogarth to be after her.

'You know how things are,' Josie shrugged. 'I don't want an agent at the moment.' Lily knew all about s.h.i.+rley's poor health and the hold the north-east had on Josie for the immediate future.

'Don't talk soft, la.s.s. We're not talking about any old agent here! This is Oliver Hogarth. He's got some of the best on his books an' he's loaded, la.s.s. Absolutely stinking with money. Look, I promised him I'd get you to talk to him before you leave, an' he said he'd come and take you to lunch, Gertie an' all. All right? And let's face it, la.s.s, you're not exactly das.h.i.+ng off anywhere particular in the morning, are you! Oh, I know you want to spend a bit of time with your mam, but I mean - Sunderland. Now if it was the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, or the Gaiety in Manchester, I'd be up at the crack of dawn meself.'

'There's nothing wrong with Sunderland.'

'No, no, I give you that, la.s.s, an' you've got work which is more than some can say, but you've got something that'll take you beyond the provinces if you let it. That's what I'm saying.'

'I intend to get somewhere one day, Lily,' Josie said quietly and levelly, 'but not at the cost of going against my conscience or my heart. And if that sounds silly to you I can't help it,' she added a trifle aggressively. 'Speaking of Sunderland, Henry Irving made his stage debut at the Royal Lyceum, you know, and he still speaks fondly of it to this day, according to the newspapers. Now if Sunderland is good enough for the greatest actor of our age, it's good enough for me.'

'All right, all right.' Lily was laughing now. 'By, you can be a fiery little thing when you want, can't you! I don't want to stop you visiting your precious Sunderland, la.s.s. All I'm asking is that you hear what Oliver has to say first. He's on for a nice meal you know, and he goes to all the right places. Likes to be seen to be seen, does Oliver Hogarth, if you know what I mean. He was telling me how the Prince of Wales enjoys meeting performers and hearing them sing; has his own private parties, apparently, and he's generous - jewelled tie-pins and snuff boxes and all sorts. Oh aye. Oliver's been there and seen it. You could do a lot worse than having him speak for you. Mind, one look into them big peepers of yours and he might want to do more than just speak for you. Bit of a ladies' man, is our Oliver, but nice with it. Reckon he could charm the drawers off the old Queen herself if he had a mind!'

'Oh, Lily.'

'Don't oh, Lily me! Flippin' 'ell, any other la.s.s I know'd be falling on me neck crying in grat.i.tude, I tell you. You're one on your own, Josie Burns. Oliver Hogarth - and she sends him away with a flea in his ear!' There was no animosity in Lily's tone; in truth she had thoroughly enjoyed Oliver's story of what had happened when he'd tried to approach Josie. Some of those agents at the top had more power than the Queen herself within the business, and fancied themselves rotten. It had undoubtedly been an unusual experience for Oliver Hogarth to find himself put in his place by a bit la.s.s. 'Anyway, you'll talk to him tomorrow then? You can still catch the train home later.'

'You could at least hear what he has to say, Josie. That wouldn't matter, would it?' Gertie added her twopennyworth from her bed.

Josie herself was remembering the strange little s.h.i.+ver which had sped down her spine when she'd looked into Oliver Hogarth's dark face. There was an insouciance about him that was curiously magnetic; something which drew as well as repelled. How old would he be? Forty? A little younger maybe? And tall, six foot or so. And although he was good-looking it was his manner which formed most of his dark attraction; the self-possession and cool authority had been entirely natural, as had the blatant cynicism which had carved deep lines into his tanned skin. He wasn't a bit like Barney.

The last thought brought her stiffening, and she said abruptly, 'It's the middle of the night and we're all going to look like death in the morning at this rate. If I say I'll see him, can we all go to sleep, please?'

Lily grinned into the face she privately thought was one of the most beautiful she had ever seen. Those great eyes of Josie's were killers, and if Oliver Hogarth could see her now with her hair all spread out on her shoulders . . . 'He'll be here at midday.' Lily slid off the foot of Josie's bed, holding out her hand for the candlestick, which she carried over to the chest of drawers before extinguis.h.i.+ng the flame with her thumb and forefinger. And then her voice came in the darkness, saying, 'And dress up a bit, for goodness' sake, la.s.s. Even if you're going to refuse him it's better to leave 'em panting!'

There was a saucy laugh, which found an echo from Gertie's bed, and then Lily was gone, leaving Josie herself grinning in the blackness. She was a card, Lily, and no mistake. Nothing ever seemed to get her down, and what she didn't know about life and men wasn't worth knowing.

'Josie, what if--'

'Gertie, we're not discussing this any more now. We'll talk in the morning. We both need our beauty sleep.'

'Aye, all right.' Gertie knew better than to argue when that note was in her sister's voice.

However, long after Gertie's steady breathing indicated she was asleep, Josie lay wide-eyed in the stillness. She usually kept her mind from thinking about Barney, having found from experience that she suffered for it. And tonight was no exception. She twisted restlessly in the narrow bed, the ancient, flock-filled mattress lumpy and hard beneath her limbs.

Since she and Gertie had left Betty's for good, some nine months after she had first appeared at Ginnett's and just after Gertie had finished her schooling, her contact with the family had been spasmodic, depending on her current work venue. Those nine months when she'd continued to live with Frank and Betty had seen a change in Barney that she knew had alarmed his stepmother and father, because Betty wasn't one for keeping her anxieties to herself. He had been subdued on the occasions he popped in to see them all, even taciturn, and he hadn't repeated any of the invitations he'd made before the marriage for them all to visit his wife and himself. And Pearl never accompanied him.

Josie had left Newcastle to work first in Gateshead for a season, and then travelled some sixteen miles or so down country in Durham, before moving backwards and forwards to other theatres scattered all over the north-east, and during that time she hadn't seen Barney above once or twice. The encounters had been strange - Barney had almost seemed like someone else - and uncomfortable, but it was the last time she had been at Betty's, just over six months ago, that she had been actually shocked at the change in the tall, laughing, bright-eyed lad of old. She'd heard from Vera that Betty thought the marriage had run into real problems. Knowing Betty's conviction that a happy marriage was one in which the wife presented the husband with a baby every twelve months, Josie had found herself wondering if Betty's verdict was based largely on the fact that as yet, Pearl and Barney were childless.