Break of Dawn

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.





Chapter 10


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.

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