The Diamond Waterfall Read online

  “They are cheering you,” he said.

  And then suddenly, coldly, she was alone on an enormous stage. No audience—just a dark emptiness. She saw that she was dressed entirely in jewels: rubies like pigeon’s eggs, sapphires, emeralds, rope upon rope of pearls. They are paste, of course, she thought. And indeed they weighed next to nothing, lying lightly along her arms, over her wrists, around her waist.

  It was then the diamonds came. More diamonds than she had ever seen in her life. They fell on the boards at her feet and she rushed to pick them up. But the necklace, or corsage—she did not know which—was heavy. With disbelief and joy, she saw that this one was not paste, but real She turned it over and over in her hands. Held it up—seeing the diamonds catch the light as they moved, changing color again and again. Streaming, falling …

  She woke with a start. Sitting up, searching for a light. They put something in my cocoa. These are opium dreams. They are making me into an addict, so that I may never leave home…. She tried to calm herself, but her heart raced. Going over to the window, she could make out odd moon shadows on the garden.

  “Miss Lily Greene,” she said out loud, “not Miss Greenwood—Miss Lily Greene.” Then, the curtains around her face like a veil:

  “For insertion in The Stage,” she announced, “the week of June 21, 1887: ‘Miss Lily Greene. Disengaged. Available for singing, dancing, acting roles. Address: 1, Wycliffe Avenue, Far Headingly, Leeds, West Riding, Yorkshire.’ “

  She had been intended for a respectable life. Respectable. Ma used that word. Dad used it. Even Ethel used it. Everything was respectable, or not. The stage was not. And especially so, it appeared, if you had done well from nothing, like Dad.

  From nothing: in 1850 he’d been just one of the hands at Wm. Paul’s Tannery in Kirkstall Road. Now he never spoke of it—except once when they were passing, and the smell of it had been blown down on the wind. Hard labor at the tannery, but also going to Sunday school, learning to read, add, subtract, divide, multiply. Above all, to multiply. Starting from a job as shop assistant, gained through his new skills; then, greatly daring, his own small shop in the Marsh Road area. Then another in Kirkstall. At first selling just food, then some clothing, and utensils…. Next, real multiple shops, some even selling furniture. Greenwood’s. By the time Lily knew anything about it there were ten branches. The Greenwood tree. She was Lily Greenwood….

  Except on the stage. There she would be Lily Greene. That idea had come from no less a person than the famous Sylvia Grey—who could sing, dance, and play the piano divinely.

  Lily had been to dancing class—but so had Daisy and Ethel, just as all three, at Dad’s special wish, had spent many hours learning the piano. It was the dances she’d invented herself which she wished to go out alone and show the “house.” (How she loved that word for the theater.) Singing: her voice was very small. She feared often that it might not fill the house, but it was true and strong and she’d been told it was pleasing. Her looks too: she had hair that could be called golden. It curled naturally too.

  She did not see herself as Miranda or Juliet or even Portia. It wasn’t straight acting that had captured her imagination, but rather the stage itself. (“The boards”—another phrase she loved.) Vaudeville, burlesque, attracted her. Her heroines, the stars of the Gaiety Theatre in the Strand. Last summer in Leeds she had seen the burlesque Little Jack Sheppard, when the Gaiety’s new manager, George Edwardes, sent it on tour. She had loved Nellie Farren as Jack—but it was Sylvia Grey she admired the most….

  From the theatrical magazines on which she spent every spare penny, she learned all that she could about Sylvia Grey. She had been asked to arrange Sir Henry Irving’s dances for The Dancing Girl. So pleased had Irving been that, in congratulation, he had shaken her foot….

  And I have met her, Lily thought.

  Six months ago now, the last show at the Grand before the Christmas pantomime. A benefit for someone: Fred Leslie, I think. Moore and Burgess were there and G. H. Chirgwin the White-eyed Kaffir, Ballyhooley Lonnen, Hayden Coffin singing “Love of My Life” … and—Sylvia Grey.

  Oh, but it was a wonderful evening. The special seats we had, for we were there by invitation—Dad was, is, Someone in the city of Leeds. I renewed my vow that evening. The vow I made four years ago that someday I would go on the boards. Then, my head full of dancing rhythms, lights, applause, I thought, Not someday—now.

  As we were leaving the theater, we had to wait for Dad to shake hands in the foyer with some dignitaries. It was then I slipped away. Quick. I had to be quick. Asking the way to the dressing rooms. Imagining that four male admirers at least would be waiting outside Miss Grey’s room, be already inside….

  Her voice: a light “Come in …” She was made up still for the stage. The room struck me as chill. She had thrown a shawl about her shoulders. And she had a cold: she sneezed almost immediately after I came in.

  Quick, quick. Again, quick. My breathless self-introduction. Her surprise. (Although she did not seem so very surprised.) She was blowing her nose. Then she rubbed her wrists and her forehead with a cologne stick.

  I said, “I want, you see, to go on the stage, and …” Then out it all came: what I could do, would do—//given the chance…. And Miss Grey, smiling at me now, a smile of such radiance. Her reddened nose, showing now through the greasepaint, only enhancing her beauty.

  “You have learned deportment?” She was smiling still. “I see that you have.”

  “Yes. At school …”

  She was young. Not so much older than myself. But greater. Already successful. She did not ask me foolish questions such as “How do you propose to go about it?” but instead said with easy grace, reaching into a capacious velvet bag, handing me a card:

  “If you come, when you come to London to try your luck—please visit me. When I am not on tour, the Lyceum finds me. If I can help …”

  Her voice was so pretty: “Greenwood, did you say?” She put her head on one side: “Yes, that is nice. Nice. But … don’t you think … How about Lily Greene?”

  But of course. I should have known. Greenwood is all right—but for me, it is a shopkeeper’s name….

  “Lily Greene,” she said again. “Yes, I like that … Miss Greene, goodbye, and good luck.”

  In the foyer, indignation. Our carriage was waiting outside. Almost everyone else gone. “What’s the meaning of this, eh, Lily? Eh?”

  “Yes, Dad. No, Dad. I wandered off, then I couldn’t find my way back. …” I whispered something to my mother and then Ma whispered to Dad. Needing suddenly … natural functions … But Dad said only, “You should have taken your sister with you—” (As if I would take Ethel anywhere I didn’t have to—and certainly not the lavatory.)

  I was so happy, though. And proud too, when the next day I had caught her cold.

  She had never meant to run away. She had thought that, difficult as her father was, he would see the reasonableness of her ambitions and send her to London with some sort of blessing. If not immediately, at least when she was a little older. So just as Daisy had done a year or so earlier, she had made her announcement.

  With similar results. But sadly there was no longer an Aunt Millie to run to. She had died soon after Daisy’s marriage. I shall run away, Lily had thought then, it’s as simple as that. I shall run away to London.

  Money was the main problem. She had a small legacy from Aunt Millie, but it was hidden away, waiting for when she married. (“You’ll have a tidy sum to bring with you, Lily,” Dad had said.) That was the trouble with money, in Yorkshire: you never had it now. Hers sat in the Leeds Savings Bank, meant for marriage, when it would not really seem hers.

  And so on until the Last Day, when it was always “How much did he leave, what was he worth?” Dad, reading the “Wills” in the Yorkshire Post. Old Higging (“best Angel and Bride Cakes in the West Riding”) worth only half of what had been expected—a failure at the time of possibly his greatest triumph.

 
“No one’ll say that of me, eh, Lily, eh, Ethel? If things go the way they should … another three shops by 1890 … I’ll have the Co-operative off the map, eh?”

  She had seen an advertisement in the newspaper: “£5-£100 lent to respectable people only on their IOU’s and promissory notes without bonds— W. Trees, Esq., Park Villas, Heeley.”

  “Respectable people.” She liked that…. She went, taking Harry with her: she took Harry everywhere so that she might go out alone. She gave her name, a false one. Said what it was about. The parlormaid went off.

  And then, the enormous figure with rust-colored moustaches walking toward her in the hall. “Well, little girl, eh? My little lassie. Well

  She fled.

  In the end she had sold bit by bit anything she could lay her hands on. Any trinket, small unwanted gift. Anything larger she pawned, intending to leave behind the tickets.

  All those elaborately laid plans. The timing: when best to go, where to go. She had the grand sum of ten pounds, and her wicker canvas-covered dress basket packed. The advertisement in The Stage had read, “Well-furnished Rooms to Let from 3s.6d. per Week …” She had worked out how long the money would last. In so many weeks she must find work.

  The best-laid plans … Harry in her confidence but no one else, not even Daisy. (Daisy would be upset for her. She would write to her from London.) Late at night was the best time to leave. The last train was half-past midnight. It was important to be at once on it so that she couldn’t be followed. But Ma was in bed always by ten, Ethel even earlier. And Dad was away, gone for two nights to Halifax.

  Or so she thought.

  “And what might you be doing?”

  He said it twice, three times. Each time growing more angry. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, turning up the gas, revealing her in a pool of light. It would not do. Her stammered explanation. Then her defiant declaration. His stunned horror. “What’s this? What’s this?” She had not seen him so angry since Daisy’s marriage.

  Bundling her up the stairs. A door on the landing opening and Ethel peeping out, nightcap pulled over her forehead, mouth open. Dad shouting at her, too. He was rough. She had hold still of her wicker basket. Dad pushing her into her bedroom: basket, cloak, and everything, snatching the key from the inside, and then—but this she could not believe—locking it from the outside. The key turned—and was removed.

  Five days ago now. They thought that they could wear her down. That in the end she would give up her foolish notions. They really believed that

  “Lily, Lil—it’s Harry. Listen—”

  “Harry, are you alone?”

  “Yes, hush—I’ve got to be quick. You know about the key, Lily? … I’ve found where Ma keeps it—”

  “Harry, dearest Harry—go on. Yes. Yes?”

  “She locks it in her desk and the desk key is on her belt. But, Lily, there’s a second desk key somewhere. I heard her say …”

  “Harry, you’ve got to help me. I won’t do anything terrible, it’s not her fault—but I must find a way—”

  “Ethel’s after your blood, Lily. She thinks you might do something, she says she’s always coming up with Ma. Every time.”

  “Oh lor’. Harry, listen, I’m desperately, terribly unhappy. And I know I’m wicked but—”

  “I’ll set you free, never fear, Ensign Greenwood to the rescue. God save the Queen. And trust me.”

  Already the second Sunday. Perhaps the worst day of all—Sunday. With the smell of roast beef from nine-thirty in the morning and a horrible hush everywhere: no piano, not even Ethel, no Harry with his tin trumpet. Just Dad’s voice outside on the landing. “She’ll be coming to her senses soon enough, will the lass. Don’t trouble yourself….” And through the window, only the sight of people going to church….

  To church. She could not believe her good fortune when it happened. When suddenly the door opened and Harry stood there.

  He was in his sailor suit, dressed for church. And breathless too, as if he’d been running.

  “You got in here,” she cried. “You got the key!”

  “Quick, quick. You’ve got to be quick, Lily—”

  “Harry, how did you do it?”

  “No time to say really—but we were just about off, and I was holding the books for Dad when he said, I’d best get those papers for old Holroyd.’ I followed him, Lily, and then—I couldn’t believe it—I saw where he had a desk key hidden, so then I put the books down sudden, and bent double. I was poorly, I said—and now I’m meant to be lying down in my room. Only, Lily, you’ve got to be quick—”

  It was too much, now that it had happened. She was all fingers and thumbs—and worry. About Harry.

  “I don’t want you in trouble—”

  “Don’t reckon to me. Honest. And Lily, Sunday trains, you’re sure? You know?”

  “Yes, yes, I do. By heart. Harry, push this in the hamper for me. Harry, Harry, Harry …”

  “What’ll you do, will you change your name? They’ll be after you, won’t they? Won’t they, Lily?”

  “How long have I got?”

  Without Harry, it would have been impossible. Hurry, Harry, hurry … in case someone should come back from church early.

  Then, down the stairs, out of the door, look right at the front gate, left …

  A kiss, a hug. “I’ll write to you, Harry, I’ll find a way …”

  Free, free, free, at last. Hurry, hurry.

  “Harry, I love you best of all. Best in all the world …”

  “Hurry …”

  Part One

  1897–1918

  1

  Roses, roses, roses. Waiting for her this evening, as always. Yellow, white, and deep dark red. Roses. From Edmund.

  In another part of the dressing room, a great basket of fruit tied with ribbon—hothouse peaches, grapes, nectarines. “Miss Lily Greene, star of The Duke and the Shopgirl Carlton Theatre …” She looked inside casually, flicking the card over, finger skimming the heavy raised copperplate. The Honorable Herbert or Algy or Whatever—the very same who had said (how original!) that her skin was like a peach….

  Evie, her dresser, said, “Over there they are, ducky—the roses from You Know Who….”

  But Lily had seen them already.

  “He’s out of Town,” she said, “my viscount—till Thursday.”

  “Some other gentleman giving you supper?”

  “Yes. It’s the one you don’t care for. Mr. Firth.”

  “Romano’s, is it, ducky?”

  “No, the Savoy. But it’s a party. We shan’t be alone.”

  I am just filling in the days, she thought—until Edmund returns. Anything, anyone else, it is nothing.

  1897. And another Jubilee. Diamond now. My year, as well as Queen Victoria’s, thought Lily.

  How everything dazzled, this summer of the Jubilee. Day after day of sunshine, and excitement. The air shimmered with it. And then the great day itself—June TwoTwo, as they called it—it was as if the excitement could no longer be contained.

  It had been a while coming. Sound of hammers and saws, smell of yellow pine. Carpenters putting up stands along the procession route. Scrubbing up of statues. Food imported for a million and a half people. Celebrations. Illuminations. Colored glass and gas jets. 1837–97 in fairy lamps. VR in cut glass, and brown paper.

  A procession to St. Paul’s. The hero, General Roberts, on his white Arabpony (six medals hanging from its breast): “God bless you, Bobs,” called the crowd. And inside the cathedral, someone from the States paying two thousand dollars for a seat. The fabulous Indian princes, their coats sewn with real diamonds….

  For Lily, starring in the most popular show of the Jubilee Season, the excitement felt almost unreal…. That in ten years she should have risen from a frightened, defiant seventeen-year-old to this. Her name on every smart person’s lips…. And—but wasn’t this the most important?—the betrothed (well, almost) of the Viscount Tristram. Of Edmund.

  It was that,
wasn’t it, the real excitement? Fairy tales can happen in real life, she told herself.

  He was altogether too handsome, she had thought at first. Mistrusting such good looks. Then—why not? she had thought. Since for him, at least, it was love at first sight. And for her at the most, third sight.

  It had all seemed part of the wonder: that it should have happened just this Jubilee summer. As if everything had conspired, as if it had been ordained.

  Heroine of The Duke and the Shopgirl. Suddenly to be offered, fruit of ten years’ hard work, this plum. … It had even caused Dad to get in touch with her (although apparently, for the past three or four years, he had been collecting clippings). Now he was actually proud of her. Even spoke as if her success were his doing. While she—she was in quite a bargaining position. She did not want to see him, and did so as little as possible. As for her mother: Ma, she felt, had let her down. Taken the wrong side. Ethel … well, Ethel was simply jealous. But what it had meant was being able to see something of Harry again….

  Meantime the wonderful enchanted season that had begun with the opening of the show in April went on. She had never looked so well, and knew it. Her new way of doing her hair: waved and brushed back high from her forehead—so much better than last year’s fringe. Those photographs: a silk thread held either side of her nose, just tilting it up slightly…. A year, too, when it was the fashion to show off the figure. And hers was good….

  Oh, those lovely dresses, silk, batiste, ninon, lace, all stitched by hand, all paid for by Max Hochoy; it was his show, The Duke and the Shopgirl. Ascot Sunday, and an attentive Edmund—straw boater, white flannels. Herself, lying back on the punt cushions. Taking care not to be burned by the sun (had she not promised Max?). Her parasol of orange and gray chiffon, with its Dresden china handle. At Bolter’s Lock, a crowd singing, as soon as they saw us, songs from my show….