The Songbird (16 page)

‘You'll be great,' Stella said. ‘You've got 'aura of stardom already.' She grinned. ‘I heard 'stage manager say that. I'd like to turn professional,' she added, ‘but I might have to join a circus rather than 'music hall.'

‘Would your parents let you?' Poppy asked. ‘My pa is very worried about me, even though I'm nearly fourteen.'

‘I'm seventeen,' Stella said, her cheeks dimpling. ‘Everybody thinks I'm about twelve. When I was twelve they thought I was seven! It has its advantages.' She winked. ‘I only pay half price for seats in 'theatre or 'music hall or for a train ticket, but I also get asked where's my ma!'

They heard a round of applause and Stella jumped up and started to peel off her jumper and socks. ‘I'm next,' she said. ‘Keep your fingers crossed for me.'

‘I will,' Poppy said. ‘I'll come out and watch you from the wings.' She took a deep breath, ‘And then it's me!'

She picked up a shawl to put round her shoulders so that she wouldn't be cold whilst she was waiting, having noted how Stella had kept warm with her jumper and socks, and followed her towards the stage. The applause had died away and the compère was announcing the next act. Stella somersaulted her way onto the stage, performing back flips and cartwheels and all manner of gyrations with her supple body.

Poppy rubbed her hands briskly together as she watched. She wasn't cold but the action helped to relieve her nervousness. Why am I nervous tonight? I've been fine on the other nights. Is it because this is the last time I'm going to be here? Before I go away to find success or failure elsewhere? She remembered what Dan Damone had said about forgetting she was a grocer's daughter. I'm Poppy Mazzini, she intoned under her breath. I'm Poppy Mazzini. Top of the bill. Top of the bill.

She swallowed hard as Stella bounced off the stage, then somersaulted back again to take another round of applause. She bowed and backed away and, on reaching the wings, grinned at Poppy. ‘You won't be able to do a thing wrong tonight,' she said. ‘They're really out to enjoy themselves. Listen!'

The musicians were tuning up, playing a few notes from the melodies Poppy had chosen, and the audience were chanting. ‘
Popp-
y!
Popp-
y!
Popp-
y!'

She took in another breath. The compère was announcing a star in the making. ‘Tonight – she is making her final appearance as an amateur performer; tomorrow – who knows? Please welcome – the star of the show, Hull's own, our very own –
Popp-y Mazz-ini
!'

Riotous applause broke out and, giving it just a second longer, Poppy ran out onto the stage and gave a low sweeping bow. As she rose, she looked out into the audience to the first few rows that she could see beyond the stage lights. Her father was sitting in the middle of the first row, flanked by Nan and Mattie. Miss Davina and Miss Eloise were both there, as were some of their other pupils. Mr and Mrs Chandler, Charlie's parents, sat at the end of the row next to Miss Miller, her schoolteacher, and another teacher. Lena and Albert were on the second row and she recognized several of her father's customers from the shop. She smiled. Pa's closed the shop, she thought, before again recalling Dan Damone's words. She swirled round, lifted her arms and began to sing.

She had been given three numbers and started with a medley of popular songs so that the audience could join in. Then she broke into the mazurka, which set everyone clapping their hands in time to the music, and as she polkaed her way to the front of the stage and stood momentarily with her hands clasped, someone called out, ‘Sing “Will You Be Forever True”, Poppy.' ‘Yes,' someone else called. ‘Sing “Forever True”.' ‘“Forever True”,' the call rang out from different areas of the hall and Poppy smiled and bowed. That was the one she had intended singing anyway.

She held up her arms and beckoned with her hands as if inviting the audience to dance, and began to waltz. ‘La la, la la, la la-ah, hold me close forever more. La la, la la, la la-ah.' This will be my song, she mused as she sang and danced. This is how I hope they will remember me at the Mechanics Music Hall.

As she finished with a wide stretch of her arms, tumultuous applause broke out. Her father and all those in the first few rows rose to their feet and she saw Mattie put her fingers to her lips and whistle. Then everyone else stood up, clapping and stamping their feet, and from the wings Mr Boscoe himself, the owner of the theatre, came onto the stage carrying an enormous bouquet of flowers.

‘We'd better have a party,' her father said when he came backstage. He wiped his eyes and hugged her. ‘Tell everybody to come back to Mazzini's – all these grand folk who have entertained us tonight. What talent,' he snuffled. ‘What talent! Right under our noses, here in Hull.'

All the performers and Dan Damone came back to the coffee house, as did Mr and Mrs Chandler, Miss Davina, Miss Eloise, and Miss Miller, and Nan and Mattie who helped a grumpy Lena to serve coffee, chocolate and cakes to everyone. Albert had gone home, and Poppy was glad for she didn't want him near her on this most wonderful night.

‘I can't not let her go,' Joshua told Dan Damone. ‘Not after tonight. She has talent. I saw it for myself.'

‘It will be hard for her,' Dan told him. ‘Sometimes audiences don't come or there are bad reviews, or maybe she won't feel like singing or dancing.' He nodded thoughtfully. ‘But we'll see. Poppy's been protected; she's always had you to look after her. Now she'll be on her own. She won't be able to run home to her papa.' Then he smiled. ‘But yes, she has talent. She could go far. I saw that right from the beginning.'

Poppy slept late the next morning and awoke to hear Lena clattering pans below. She quickly washed, dressed and hurried downstairs, though she wondered why Lena was up so early when they didn't open the shop until nine o'clock on a Sunday morning, and they didn't make bread either. ‘Sorry, Lena,' she apologized. ‘You should have given me a shout!'

Lena grunted. ‘Huh. Not up to me,' she said. ‘I didn't think you'd be down at all now that you're a star! Good thing our Albert is here to give me a hand.'

‘Does that mean you won't be able to manage if I leave?' Poppy asked astutely, ignoring her sarcasm.

Lena glanced swiftly at her. ‘Wh— I thought it was all arranged? Yes, I can manage. Your pa and me will soon get into the way of doing things together.' She gave an unctuous smile as she said it. ‘And Albert can lift the heavy pans.'

‘Well, I wouldn't be able to do that anyway,' Poppy said, putting on a clean apron and noticing that Lena's was greasy from yesterday's baking. ‘Tommy always did that for Ma, or Pa did.'

‘Yes, well Tommy's not here either, is he? And your pa is busy looking after the shop. But never mind, I'm sure we'll manage without either of you.' Lena pushed a stray lock of hair under her cap with a floury finger. ‘I wonder if you and your brother realize how lucky you are to have such a lenient father? There's not many that would let their sons and daughters go gallivanting all over the place.'

Poppy swallowed. She didn't know why Lena made her feel so cross and uneasy and she felt sure she had got up early that morning and clattered about just to wake her. ‘We do realize it,' she said quietly, recognizing that what Lena said was true. ‘But Pa believes in letting us run our own lives and making our own mistakes. We'll make them, I expect,' she said. ‘But we know he's here whenever we need him.'

Lena raised her eyebrows and turned down her mouth in a cynical manner. ‘Let's hope he is,' she murmured. ‘Let's just hope that he is.'

On leaving on Saturday night, Dan Damone had said he was catching a train for London first thing Sunday morning and that he would write to her as soon as he heard anything from Brighton. ‘Be ready to leave immediately,' he had said. ‘Have your trunk packed with all that you need for a long stay.'

The shop and coffee house closed early on a Sunday. Lena went out for a walk, and Poppy, glad to have her father to herself, asked him if he would bring the metal trunk from his bedroom into hers. It hadn't been opened in a long time, and as they lifted the lid a scent of lavender rose from the contents, which were wrapped in brown paper. In it were baby clothes, cotton nightgowns and dresses which had belonged to her and Tommy. There was a sailor suit and knickerbockers from when Tommy was small, and a pretty cotton dress and bonnet, trimmed with ribbon, which had been Poppy's when she was a toddler. There were clothes belonging to her mother too, which she had worn when she was newly married.

‘I remember this.' Her father lifted out a white broderie anglaise bodice with leg-o'-mutton sleeves. ‘Your ma used to wear it with a black skirt and a string of pearls. And this,' he said, bringing out a pale green silk afternoon dress with porcelain buttons. He held it against Poppy's red hair. ‘You should wear this,' he said. ‘Colour would suit you.'

Some of her mother's clothes fitted her and were hardly worn, so she put them on one side, and the children's clothes she repacked in a box and put them under her bed. ‘You won't let Lena or Albert touch them, will you, Pa?' she said plaintively.

‘I'll lock 'door and put a padlock on it,' he said placatingly. ‘Though why you think they would want to come in, I don't understand. What about Nan? Can she come in to clean or is she banned as well?'

‘Nan's all right. I know she won't go nosing around.' She pressed her lips together. ‘Sorry,' she said. ‘I know I'm being unreasonable. It's just that . . .' She sighed. ‘Well, when I come back I want everything to be exactly as it is now.'

He smiled pensively and stroked her hair. ‘But it won't be, Poppy,' he said quietly. ‘And you'll be different too.'

There was nothing in the post from Dan Damone all the week, and when the Friday post came and still there was nothing, Poppy was filled with disappointment. ‘They must have taken someone else on in Brighton,' she said dismally to Mattie when she met her out in the street during the afternoon. ‘Mr Damone said they wanted a singer by next week, by which I suppose he meant Monday, so it's too late now.'

‘There'll be other places,' Mattie said, ‘or there might be all kinds of reasons why he hasn't written. Maybe you'll hear tomorrow,' she added. ‘Don't give up hope.'

‘But it will still be too late,' Poppy groaned. ‘I couldn't get to London and then Brighton for Monday.'

‘I'll come and see you off when you do go,' Mattie promised. ‘I think you're ever so brave travelling alone.'

‘I'm not brave at all,' Poppy replied. ‘I feel sick when I think about it. I've to change trains twice, and Pa has made me promise that I'll only travel in a ladies-only carriage.'

Saturday morning a letter came. ‘Dear Poppy,' Dan Damone wrote. ‘I travelled straight to Brighton to enquire about the booking on your behalf, only to find that there had been a small fire in the hall and next week's performances have been cancelled. The management are hoping to have everything ready for opening the following Monday and are willing to take you, act unseen, on my recommendation, for the first week. If you'll travel down to my office next Wednesday or Thursday, I'll give you all the details and that will give you enough time to get to Brighton and arrange lodgings. In haste, Dan Damone.'

‘Oh, Pa,' she whispered. ‘It's come. I'm to go to Brighton.' And as she well knew, Brighton was at the ends of the earth.

She'd never been to London and whenever she had travelled by train to the seaside, as sometimes they used to, her parents had always been with her. But she hadn't been out of Hull since her mother's death.

Charlie's in London, she thought as yet again she checked the contents of the trunk. How wonderful it would be if he could meet me. But I haven't got his address. Should I, dare I, ask Mr Chandler for it? She decided that she dared. Charlie is Tommy's friend too, she mused, and it would be natural for us to write to him. She had been cast down that she hadn't received a letter from Charlie since he went away, but then, she sighed, men don't write letters very often. They had received only one communication from Tommy and that was a brief note saying that he had arrived in Rotterdam and had been sick for the whole of the voyage.

She called on the Chandlers the next day and Mrs Chandler, who was a dour woman and hardly ever seemed to smile, gave her Charlie's address. She archly asked Poppy to remind him that he had parents who would be glad to hear from him sometime. ‘Though I don't know why I worry,' she said. ‘Your father's letting you go to London and you're onny a young girl!'

Poppy hastily wrote to Charlie telling him that she would be arriving in London late afternoon on Wednesday and gave him the approximate time of arrival. ‘I don't expect you to be there, of course,' she wrote, ‘but I can be contacted via my agent, Dan Damone of St Martin's Lane, which I understand is near Covent Garden.'

She read the letter through and felt a singular pang of pride and excitement at the words ‘my agent'.

‘I shall be appearing in Brighton,' she added, ‘on the first step of my stage career. I do hope that we might meet. Your friend, Poppy.'

There, it's done, she breathed as she dropped the letter into the postbox. Am I being forward? But he knows that I love him for I've told him so already, so it can't do any harm. Then she pondered. But I will be so upset if he doesn't come, or at least write to me.

Her father had ordered a horse cab to pick them up early on Wednesday morning and take them to the Paragon railway station. She said goodbye to Nan who was there early every morning to clean before Lena started the baking. Nan hugged her and told her to take good care of herself and to let them know how she was getting on. Poppy felt quite emotional. She would miss Nan, who had always been kind to her, and especially since her mother had died.