Constance Street: The true story of one family and one street in London’s East End. Charlie Connelly
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had arrived, something that hadn’t endeared her to her family at the time. She took in a bit of laundry for some extra money now and again, initially for something to do, but the children took up so much time and with Billy’s job paying so well she concentrated mainly on bringing up the family.
Nell enjoyed school and the teachers seemed to like her, inasmuch as her answers would receive a prim nod rather than the outright derision meted out to most of her classmates. Wanstead Flats were close by, where she and her friends could go and explore, but she enjoyed helping her mother at home. The permanent cloud of plaster dust in which Billy moved meant the Painter dwelling took more cleaning than most, and Saturday being laundry day meant Nell was usually to be found kneeling over a wooden barrel in the yard, scrubbing, dunking and scraping the dirt from the family’s clothes and linen, her hands pink and raw, her face a picture of concentration, singing the songs her mother had taught her quietly to herself as she did so.
Even as she grew up she always looked forward to her father coming home. He made her laugh, he was funny, his friends often said he’d have been great in the halls but he always countered that the only way he’d ever work in a music hall was if they needed some plastering done. Nobody made Nell laugh like he did; sometimes he only needed to give her a look and she’d be gone, doubled up with laughter.
Harriet had a beautiful singing voice – ‘my Whitechapel nightingale’, Billy sometimes called her – and her father would tell Nell she’d inherited her mother’s vocal talents and would one day make all their fortunes for them. The music halls were reaching their peak in the 1880s and the east end of London was the beating heart of this entertainment revolution. Billy would take Nell to the halls sometimes, which she found absolutely magical. The heat, the smells, the laughter: her senses were overloaded. But the singers, their smiling faces lit from below by the lime footlights, left her open-mouthed in wonder. She was entranced by Marie Lloyd – when she sang ‘The Boy I Love Is Up in the Gallery’ Nell would well up with emotion at the simple beauty of it – and especially captivated by the male impersonator Vesta Tilley. All the way home she’d memorise the songs as far as she could, and then sing them by the fireside at her proud father’s encouragement.
The Painters’ world fell to pieces the day Billy died. Nell came home from school singing ‘The Boy I Love Is Up in the Gallery’ to find her mother sitting bolt upright in the kitchen, as white as a ghost. He’d had a stroke at work, just collapsed as if someone had turned out a light, they said, and never regained consciousness.
On her father’s death Nell’s immediate future was both erased and confirmed. She was always going to have to leave school at the first opportunity, but now, with no money coming in, it was a matter of urgency. She was 12 years old and barely had time to grieve. Elder brother Christopher was already apprenticed to a plumber but that brought little in. There was no time for the family to ponder upon their loss: there were bills to be met and three young mouths to be fed. She was growing into a young woman already wise beyond her years, a serious expression set on a strong jaw line, her brown hair tumbling down her shoulders and deep brown eyes that reflected deep thought beyond; eyes whose corners dropped slightly towards her cheeks and gave her a faintly melancholic countenance.
The Painters left the house on Norman Road and moved half a mile east to a couple of rooms in a house in David Street, Forest Gate, a poorer area, a hotchpotch of back lanes and alleyways. Harriet took whatever domestic cleaning jobs she could, sometimes walking as far as Stepney to the big old merchants’ houses where the pay was better but the days very long.
A neighbour worked in a butcher’s shop and it was arranged that Nell would work five mornings a week and twelve hours on a Saturday, going to school in the afternoons until she could leave and go full-time. The butcher’s shop was on Stratford High Street and Nell was put to work sweeping, mopping, running errands and occasionally taking orders. The regular customers soon took to her ready smile and immaculate appearance and Nell enjoyed the work up to a point, but she was always happy to get back to school in the afternoons. One morning at the butcher’s she accidentally gave a woman far too much change. Fortunately the woman noticed and handed it back, chuckling and saying, ‘You’ll have the place bankrupted, Nellie.’
The butcher saw the exchange, thought for a moment, called Nell over, took a piece of paper, wrote something on it, folded it three times and handed it to her, telling her to take it to another butcher at the other end of Stratford High Street. Used to similar errands, she nodded, reached up and took her hat from the peg and walked out of the door.
It was a Saturday so the street was busy and filled with the noise of commerce. Horses clopped along the cobbles, men manoeuvred hand carts laden with crates and boxes of vegetables, telling her, ‘Mind out there, you’ll lose your ankles.’ Shoppers strode with determined gaits and Nell was forced to sidestep and check herself, hopping off the pavement into the kerb among the dirty cabbage leaves and horse dung as she negotiated the crowds. Finally she reached the butcher’s, told him where she’d come from and handed him the note. He read it, looked at her, read it again, folded it up and handed it back to her.
‘It’s not me you want,’ he said. ‘You want Randall’s on Leyton High Road. You’d better look lively about it, too.’
Nell left the shop and turned north towards Leyton. It was a good twenty minutes’ walk to Randall’s, she thought. Plus coming back. The crowds thinned slightly but the High Road was still busy and it took longer than she expected. It was a warm day and she felt the sweat prickling against her hatband and she reached Randall’s a little out of breath. She presented the note and once again the butcher took it, read it, read it again, folded it up and handed it back to her.
‘I can’t help you, I’m afraid, love,’ said Randall. ‘I know someone who can, though. Christopher’s in Walthamstow. Do you know it?’
Nell shook her head.
‘Left out of the shop and just keep going up the street. About fifteen minutes for a strong girl like you, on the right. Christopher’s.’
Nell nodded, getting worried now that Mr Peacock would be wondering where she was. This was supposed to be just a quick errand, but now she was going to be away most of the afternoon.
She set off again, a little uneasily as she was now in an area she didn’t know at all. She peered at the shop signs, darting her eyes between both sides of the road for fear of missing Christopher’s. Finally, there it was, with a man she presumed to be Christopher himself sitting outside in a chair, straw boater on, white coat, apron, bushy moustache, cleaning beneath his fingernails with a knife.
As Nell panted towards him, he looked up and smiled. She explained between short breaths who she was and where she’d come from – that he was the third shop she had tried, so she really hoped he could help her as she was getting worried about how long she’d been away from Peacock’s – and handed him the note.
He had a red face with lines by his eyes that suggested he was quick to laugh, thought Nell, a kind face, and as he opened the note and read it a smile spread beneath the moustache, confirming her impression.
‘So you’ve come all the way from Peacock’s in Stratford with this?’ said Mr Christopher.
Nell worried that this meant he couldn’t help with whatever it was Peacock needed, and nodded.
‘And I’m the third place you’ve tried?’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said.
Mr Christopher let his hands drop into his lap, glanced down at the note and smiled again. He looked sideways at her, opened out the note, and held it up so she could see.
It was a Peacock’s butcher’s receipt, and on it, in Mr Peacock’s familiar scrawly handwriting, was the phrase, ‘Send the silly cow further.’
Her cheeks flushed.
‘What did you do to deserve that?’ asked Christopher.
‘I … I gave a lady the wrong change,’ she stammered.
‘Ha, did you? Too much or too little?’
‘Too