The Urchin's Song (36 page)

Josie had noticed the pause before the use of the other woman’s name, and now there was a sickness churning her stomach which she endeavoured not to let show in her voice as she replied, ‘I don’t think she ignored me because of any reticence on her part, Oliver. She simply doesn’t like me.’ She couldn’t bring herself to tell him of the incident in the powder room somehow. ‘Were . . . were they invited to our reception?’

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘Then why didn’t they attend?’

It was a long moment before he answered and then only when he had drained the cup. ‘I understand they had a previous engagement.’

She wasn’t sure she believed that. In fact, she wasn’t sure Godfrey Stratton had even been aware of their reception. He had looked very surprised when someone had mentioned it the night before, anyway. Had Stella meant their absence to be taken as a snub directed at Oliver’s new wife? Or was she herself simply being silly? Prevarication wasn’t in Josie’s nature, and now she said outright, ‘Do you mind me asking how well you know Stella Stratton?’

She saw Oliver’s blue eyes widen just the slightest and knew she had surprised him with the directness of the question. ‘She is a friend; Godfrey and his wife both.’

‘And before she became his wife?’

Oliver’s eyes left hers and he pulled out from his waistcoat pocket a gold watch on a thick gold chain, glancing down at it before saying, ‘She was a social acquaintance, a friend, but I really can’t go into the history of everyone who was at the dinner-party last night at the moment. I should have been at my club over half an hour ago.’

Josie would have said more but for Gertie choosing that moment to burst into the room. Had they heard the news that the Queen had been taken gravely ill on the Isle of Wight? Stricken with paralysis? They hadn’t, and the next few minutes until Oliver left for his club were spent discussing the implications of the Queen’s ill-health.

Oliver returned from lunching at his club just in time to drive Josie and Gertie to the theatre in his carriage in time for the first of her evening performances, and much later, once they were home again, he made love to her so beautifully and so tenderly all thoughts of Stella Stratton were forgotten.

The next morning Josie awoke early. She lay for some time watching Oliver as he slept beside her in the enormous double bed the master bedroom boasted, and she forced herself to face the issue which Oliver’s experienced lovemaking had clouded the night before. This Lady Stratton, Stella, had meant something to Oliver at one time. She didn’t know how she knew it with such certainty, but know it she did. And along with the knowledge was the unwelcome conviction that whereas Oliver might not care for Lord Stratton’s wife any more, the lady in question certainly cared for him. But she had always known Oliver had had affairs before he met her; he hadn’t tried to hide the fact that he had lived life to the full, and in a manner which had embraced many of the vices.

Aye, she’d known it in her head, she admitted, biting hard on her lower lip, but it was different when she was faced with the living reality. If she was right in what she suspected, that woman had known him intimately. She had kissed him, she had lain with him, she had caressed and touched him and he her . . .
But it was in the past.
It was, and that was the important thing. She had to believe in him; she had to trust him and believe that he had been trying to spare her feelings in keeping the truth from her, and in all honesty, what good
would
it have done to admit that Stella had been his mistress? He had never questioned her about Barney, not once, but she knew he sensed something between them. The past was the past, that’s how she had to look at this or she was in very real danger of spoiling what they had in the present, and she wouldn’t give that horrible woman the satisfaction.

She snuggled down beside him again, feeling his body stir as he became aware of her presence, and in the moments before he reached for her she told herself that men and women were very complex creatures, each with their own sets of values and principles. Oliver had told her he had never loved anyone before her and that there would be no one after her, and she believed him. She must have done, to have married him. And coming from such different backgrounds and cultures they were going to have problems enough without dredging up the past. She would let sleeping dogs lie in this particular regard, that was what she would do, but should Stella Stratton make the mistake of cold-shouldering her again - and more especially repeating that little tactic she had tried in the powder room - she might just find that a born and bred northern lass was tougher under the skin than m’lady had bargained for.

 

Queen Victoria died three days later on 22 January at her seaside home on the Isle of Wight, and the death of the ‘Monarch of an Empire where the sun never sets’, as she had been hailed through her sixty-four years of reign, hit the ordinary people of England hard. The Queen had travelled to more parts of Britain than her predecessors, using the steam railways which linked her rapidly growing cities, and despite her years of public withdrawal after Albert’s death the people adored her. This ‘grandmother of Europe’ and ‘mother of the Empire’ was someone her common subjects could relate to; hadn’t she been worried to death about her eldest son’s behaviour the same as any mother the world over, and hadn’t she adored her Albert to the point where she nearly went mad when he died? What’s more, she was a woman who knew her duty, who maintained standards and stood for everything which had made Britain great. How, the ordinary fellow in the street wondered, would the Prince of Wales behave now he had succeeded to the throne?

Oliver, as Josie had expected knowing his leaning towards the Prince of Wales, took the publicly expressed doubts about Edward’s capacity to be King - put most forcefully by
The Times
- as a personal insult.

The morning after the Queen’s death they were sitting having breakfast with Gertie when he almost made the two girls jump out of their skin.
‘This is an outrage!’
He threw the newspaper down on the table, his face turkey red, only to snatch it up again and thrust it at Josie as he growled, ‘Read that! Just read what the damn upstarts have written.’

Josie cast a quick look at Gertie who stared back at her, her eyes bright with concealed mirth, and picked up the paper. In its leading article that day,
The Times
had commented that the new King must often have prayed ‘lead us not into temptation’ with a feeling akin to hopelessness, and while acknowledging that as Prince he had never failed in his duty to the throne and the nation, the newspaper continued that ‘we shall not pretend that there is nothing in his long career which those who respect and admire him would wish otherwise’.

‘This, on the day he makes his accession speech,’ Oliver ground out furiously. ‘The Queen refused to let him take on many of the royal duties which, as heir to the throne, he expected and wanted to perform, everyone knows that. And what sort of message does this send to the rest of the British Empire, eh?
Eh?
It’s a disgrace. An absolute disgrace! The bounders want taking to the Tower, if you ask me. He’ll be an excellent King, you mark my words.’

And even by the time of the Queen’s funeral on the second day of February it looked as though Oliver was going to be proved right, something he pointed out at the breakfast-table almost every morning. ‘Eight minutes, the King spoke for at the Accession Council, and without notes. Said he’s fully determined to be a constitutional sovereign in the strictest sense of the word. His judgement in deciding to call himself King Edward VII rather than King Albert I has been noted and well received, I tell you. He’ll make the bounders eat their words before the year’s out.’

By the time King Edward opened his first Parliament two weeks later Josie was heartily sick of the subject, and more than a little irritated by her husband’s excessive championing of someone she felt could well look after his own interests. Unlike one of her old friends who had recently been brought to her attention by Nellie, who was now working with her again in the current venue at Covent Garden.

Gertie had been helping Josie into her stage costume when Nellie burst into the dressing room in a whirl of cold air and melting snowflakes from the snow storm raging outside the warm confines of the fine theatre. When one of the other girls commented, ‘You’d better jump to, Nellie, else you’ll have old Angus on your back,’ her friend had responded with uncharacteristic sharpness, calling back, ‘I don’t need you to tell me the time, Amy Dodds.’

‘Sorry, I’m sure.’

Amy had settled back on her stool in a huff of hurt feelings and bristling taffeta, and Josie had let the buzz of conversation - which Nellie’s arrival and subsequent exchange with Amy had killed - rise again before she leaned across to her friend, who was busy slapping rouge and powder on her face with unnecessary vigour, and whispered, ‘You all right, lass?’

‘Oh, Josie.’ For a moment Josie thought Nellie was going to burst into tears, but then the other girl said shakily, ‘It’s poor old Lil. Blimey, gal, I had the shock of my life last night, I don’t mind telling you. Me and a gentleman friend were walking past Shepherd’s Bush Green just as a load of ne’er-do-wells the constable had moved out of Hyde Park ended up there, and one of the women caught my eye. It was Lily, Josie, I’m sure of it. And I reckon she recognised me because she ducked her head and hurried off.’

‘But . . .’ Josie sat back on her stool, staring at Nellie’s face. ‘Didn’t you call to her? Stop her?’

‘I should have.’ Small white teeth nipped at Nellie’s lip. ‘I know I should have; I don’t know why I didn’t really, except I was with this bloke and we were going back to his place, and . . . Oh, I don’t know. I was taken aback and they were all so dirty and some of the men were drunk. I didn’t want to know her, I suppose. Only for a minute,’ she added hastily. ‘But by the time I’d turned round and gone back she was nowhere to be seen. I went half-mad then. Told this bloke where to go as if it was
his
fault, and searched the streets for her. Oh Josie, I feel so rotten.’

‘Well, don’t.’ Careless of her silk and satin dress Josie hugged Nellie. ‘It was the shock of seeing her like that, it’s perfectly understandable. Look, we’ll find her. All right? I’ll have a word with Oliver and we’ll find her.’

In the event her word with Oliver had yielded nothing beyond causing Josie to acknowledge that if she wanted to help Lily, she would have to do it by herself.

She’d related her conversation with Nellie word by word and her husband’s reaction had disappointed her greatly. He had been amazed and nonplussed at her desire to find Lily for a start, and then ill-disposed to help in any way. ‘My dear, the profession is full of individuals like Lily and you cannot help them all.’

‘I don’t want to help them all, just Lily,’ she had objected.

‘Even if you could find her, that would be very unwise. Your star is in the ascent, hers is all but extinguished. Please, my dear, trust me on this and let’s not discuss the subject again.’

She had stared at him, long and hard, before replying, ‘I won’t discuss Lily with you again, Oliver, but it’s only fair to tell you I shall make my own enquiries as to her whereabouts, and should I find her, I shall help her.’

At this point he had sighed deeply, shaking his head. ‘If you must, you must, but your enquiries will be fruitless no doubt. If, as you say, she is one of the flotsam and jetsam of which the
Illustrated London News
talked recently, she will have no fixed abode and be impossible to trace.’

‘And this doesn’t bother you? That these people are ill and dying and have no roof over their heads?’

‘There is no need for it. There are the workhouses, aren’t there?’

She had continued to stare at him for a moment before turning away. The divide between them was huge, massive - how could she have not realised it before they were married? But even as she asked the question of herself, she knew the answer. Oliver had skirted any confrontational issues during their engagement, just as he did now most of the time. It was only occasionally, when something like this incident with Lily cropped up or yet again the matter within their own home concerning Constance and Ethel, that his true feelings were expressed.

For a moment she knew a terrifying feeling of blind panic - the knowledge that she had made a catastrophic mistake. And then she cautioned herself, her mind becoming filled with a voice not unlike Vera’s which said, A day at a time, lass. A day at a time. He loves you and you love him, and love covers a multitude of sins.

And so she had stiffened her back and faced the fact that this was something she had to do on her own. After consulting with Angus, the under manager at the theatre who was sixty years old and a mine of wisdom, Josie had ventured into Ealing to the premises of Turner & Webb, Private Investigators. There she’d employed Mr Webb to discover the whereabouts of a Miss Lily Atkinson. She gave him all the facts and the location where Lily had last been spotted, and told him to contact her at the theatre with any information he might unearth.

 

It was a cold but sunny morning when Josie and Gertie, along with Mrs Wilde and Constance and Ethel to whom Josie had given most of the day off, joined the boisterous crowds lining London’s streets to see the new King open his first Parliament. There was a carnival atmosphere prevailing at the revival of pageantry and the release of the monarchy from many of the restraints Queen Victoria had put upon it; the street vendors were doing a roaring trade selling hot baked potatoes, mussels and whelks, and fragrant roasted chestnuts at tuppence a bag, along with the organ grinders and their beautifully dressed little monkeys providing a tune, and stalls galore lining the pavements selling small Union Jacks for the children and penny whistles to add to the noise.

Josie and the others managed to push their way forwards to a perfect spot on the route to Westminster, and they knew long before they saw the magnificent state coach - which had not been seen in public since the death of Prince Albert forty years before - that it was close, from the enthusiastic acclaim of the crowd. King Edward and Queen Alexandra were making the journey from Buckingham Palace to Westminster in full state splendour, and as the coach neared Josie she could see the two figures inside and their beautiful long robes edged in ermine. Despite the splash of colour provided by the coach and the soldiers’ uniforms, the prevailing colour was black - in mourning for Queen Victoria - but this took nothing away from the wonder and splendour of the occasion, and the people were wild with excitement.