The Trial of Elizabeth Cree by Peter Ackroyd Page A

out of your packet. Is that all right?”
    I nodded. I felt that I had already entered a new life, and was so delighted by my transformation that I even looked with pleasure upon the confusion of this little room. As soon as Austin had gone I cleared the bed and placed all my clothes upon a nearby chair and side table. There were some withered flowers in pots upon the windowsill and, when I looked out, I could see the new railway and a row of warehouses beneath it. It was all so astonishing and so unfamiliar that I really felt as if I had been taken out of the old world and raised to some blessed place of freedom. Even the lines of the railway track seemed to glow.
    “I know what you’re thinking,” a woman said behind me. “You’re thinking, why ever did I leave my little back room in Bloomsbury?”
    “I come from Lambeth. Lambeth Marsh.”
    “It’s just a song, dear.” I had turned around to find myself addressed by a tall young woman with very long dark hair. She frightened me a little, because she was dressed all in white. “I’m the goddess of wire-walking,” she said. “Doris to you.” She took my hand very kindly, and we sat down together upon her bed. “Dan told me to expect you. Why, you look half-starved.” She went over to a little chest of drawers and came back with a bag of monkey nuts and a bottle of lemon fizz. “I’ll make us some nice toast and butter in a minute.” We sat together for the remainder of the afternoon; I told her that my parents had died when I was very young, that I had earned my living as a seamstress in Hanover Square, and that I had run away from a hard mistress before I had found lodgings with a sail-maker in LambethMarsh. After that, I had been found by Uncle and Dan Leno. Of course she believed my story—who would not?—and throughout my narrative she patted my hand and sighed. At one point she began to cry, but then wiped her eyes, saying, “Pay no attention to me. It’s just my way.” We were having a very comfortable cup of tea, after my story, when there was a tap on the door.
    “Five o’clock, dears.” It was Austin’s high, womanly voice. “Overture and beginners, all down for the first scene.”
    “Don’t mind him,” Doris whispered to me. “He’s in the inebriate way. Do you know what I mean? Only the one?” Then she called out to him, “All right, my darling! We’re getting ourselves fully prepared!” She got up from the bed, and began undressing in front of me. My mother had always hidden herself when she washed, so furtive and ashamed of her flesh was she, and I stared at the sight of Doris’s fair skin and breasts. She was what they call in our trade statuesque. I washed myself quickly as well, and, when she saw the plain gown I had put on, she gently draped a fine wool coat around me before we left the house together.
    I did not know how or when I was to begin my work but, obedient as ever, I went with Doris to the Washington. It must have been near our diggings, but she put out her hand and waved to a brougham. At first I thought she had hired it but when the driver looked down, and addressed her familiarly as “Goddess,” I realized that he must have some connection with the company. “Is it Effs tonight,” he said, “or the Old Mo?”
    “We’re starting at Battersea, Lionel, and then we’re working our way around.”
    “Who’s the new cub?”
    “Never you mind, and keep your eyes on the road.” As soon as we had entered the brougham Doris whispered to me, “Lionelmay seem very nice to you, dear. But he is not a gentleman of the old school.”
    We arrived at the Washington just a few minutes later and, as we hurried towards the side door, a young man approached Doris with a notepad. “Can I have a word?” he said. “I’m from the
Era
.” He was well-spoken, and his eyes were as pale as the marshes. Of course I could never have known that one day he would become my husband; that he was John Cree.

EIGHTEEN
    S EPTEMBER