THE CONFESSIONS
OF A DANCING GIRL
BY HERSELF
HEATH, CRANTON & OUSELEY, LTD
FLEET LANE•LONDON•E.C.
CONTENTS
_Chapter_ _Page_
I. I Run Away . . . . . . 7
II. Apprenticed to an Acrobat . 29
III. Life in the Profession . . 48
IV. How I became a Dancer . . 67
V. My Spanish Admirer . . . 87
VI. Adventures in Spain . . . 108
VII. The Student of Coimbra . . 126
VIII. My Portuguese Hosts . . . 147
IX. Hard Times in London . . . 157
X. With a Troupe in America. . 177
THE CONFESSIONS OF A
DANCING GIRL
CHAPTER I
I RUN AWAY
I WAS born in 1887 in Camden Town. My parents had three children, all
girls, and I was the eldest. I cannot remember my mother well, for she
died when I was quite a child; but I have been told that she was a good
woman, and greatly devoted to her children. I do not wish to speak or
think harshly of my father. He may be still alive; but I have not seen
him since I began my career in the circus and on the stage. He kept
a public-house at the time when I was born. The business failed, and
he lost money and left us in great poverty soon after the death of my
mother. In a short time my father married again, and I saw nothing of
him for several months.
I suppose I was about four years old when I was sent to my mother’s
stepmother. I can remember her faintly, and my recollections of her are
that she treated me kindly. For three or four years I was sent from one
relative to another.
One of them I can recall more clearly—a hard, scolding woman who
beat me severely for the slightest fault. I have a remembrance of
my unhappiness throughout all those childhood days; and, with the
exception of my mother’s stepmother, I cannot recall to mind any woman
who ever “mothered” me, or showed any tenderness or love. I do not
think that I was a very naughty, difficult child, though no doubt I
caused my different guardians some worry and trouble. Whippings and
cuffings were more common in those days than loving words and caresses.
Nobody wanted me, and most of my relations found trouble in making both
ends meet.
I am very fond of children, and when I think that there are hundreds,
perhaps thousands, of little boys and girls living the sort of life
that I passed through up to the age of twelve, it makes me sad. God
help the unprotected, motherless child in this hard world!
I have never understood why my father appeared suddenly, after a long
absence, and took me away from my aunt, who was looking after me. Had
he repented for the neglect of his children?
I recall his coming late one night, and stealing me from bed, and
carrying me off to the woman whom he had married. My life with my
stepmother was not very unhappy; she was not unkind at first. But when
she had children of her own, I think she regarded me as an interloper
and a nuisance, and no doubt she was poor, and unable to provide for me
as well as her own children.
It was at this time that I was sent to school. My parents were Roman
Catholics, and I attended a convent school in London as a day scholar.
My education was meagre; I just learned to spell, read and write, and
that is all the schooling I ever had. All that I know I have learned
from the many men and women I have met in my travels in this country
and abroad, and from the books that I have read. But very few books
came into my hands when I was young.
One day my father again disappeared mysteriously. I cannot say whether
he afterwards returned to his second wife. This was the beginning of a
new series of changes for me, and I went to live with my grandfather,
who was married for the third time. This home was no better than the
others, for I was often cruelly beaten and ill-treated.
I suppose I was a spirited child; at any rate, life became so
unbearable that I made up my mind to run away. Quite distinctly, I
remember slipping out of the house in the fog of a winter afternoon,
and wandering through long, dreary streets in the North of London. I
had no plans, and no idea where I was going to spend the night. I had
escaped from my grandfather and his wife, and that was all that I cared
about. But after wandering for hours, I began to feel hungry. How well
I have known that feeling of hunger at different times of my life! The
hunger grew worse and worse, and I was getting very tired.
Presently I sat down on a doorstep in a quiet street. I cannot remember
the name of the street, but it was a long way from where I lived.
People passed me and took no notice. I was only a little, ill-dressed
girl. It was quite dark now, and I began to feel lonely. Perhaps I
sobbed; I think it is most likely that my loneliness and hunger made me
cry. At last, a passing policeman stopped and turned the light of his
bull’s-eye on me as I crouched on the cold stones.
“What’s the matter?” he asked in a gruff though kindly voice.
“Please, I am so hungry!” was my reply.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Marion,” I answered.
He tried to find out where I lived, but I would not tell him, for I did
not mean to return to my grandfather’s tenement.
“You had better come with me,” the constable said.
Taking my chilled little hand in his, he led me to the nearest
police-station, where I was received by the inspector and other
officers, and perched on a chair by the fire. After some discussion, to
which I listened intently, I heard the words:
“Better take her to the workhouse.”
This frightened me very much, for I had a fancy that when once you
enter a workhouse there is no coming out.
“Oh, please don’t take me there!” I begged, with tears.
But I was led through several streets, sobbing, till we reached a great
building with hundreds of gaslit windows. And presently I was in charge
of the matron, who tried to comfort me, and gave me into the care of
a woman, who undressed me and put me to bed in a ward full of other
little friendless children.
My stay in the workhouse was short. About noon the next day my
grandmother who had been making inquiries at the police-station,
came to take me home. She described me to the wardress as a naughty,
unmanageable child, and as soon as we were in the street she began to
threaten me with fearful punishment for running away.
“I’ll give you something when I get you home!” was her repeated threat.
She took me, trembling and white, into the house.
“Look at her!” she cried to my grandfather. “There’s a child for you!
Run away, will you?” And as she spoke she struck me in the face,
knocking me on to the floor.
All that night I lay sobbing in bed. The harshness with which my
grandmother treated me was perhaps the cause of my going on the stage.
If I had been brought up by my mother, who was a loving, kind-hearted
woman, my life would, no doubt, have been a very different one; and it
is possible that I should have been put to a trade, such as millinery
or dressmaking. I cannot remember that I had any strong hankering as
a child for a stage career. But at the age of twelve, after a most
unhappy childhood, I realized that nobody really wanted me. I was
considered an encumbrance and a nuisance. My relations were all poor,
and I was just another mouth that had to be filled. It is a common
story; but there are people who do not know how the poor orphaned
children, born of poor parents, suffer in body and mind.
I well remember the day when I slipped out of my grandmother’s house,
filled with a determination to escape for ever. There seemed to me no
occupation so easy and attractive as the music-hall stage. Once or
twice I had been taken by friends to a music-hall, where I had seen
some of the leading comic singers, wonderful acrobats, and nimble
dancers. But it was that day for the first time that I thought of the
stage as a profession. I had to earn a living somehow. How could a
child expect to get work? I knew no trade, and I was really too young
to obtain a situation of any sort.
“There is nothing but the stage,” I said to myself, as I walked quickly
through the streets of North London. I cannot remember how I came into
the possession of twopence, but I know that this was the amount of my
fortune on that day. With this twopence I bought a copy of the _Stage_.
Entering a quiet churchyard, where there were seats under the trees,
I sat down and turned over the pages of the paper until I found the
advertisement columns. How often I have searched those columns since
that day twelve years ago! And how much I have learned, seen, and done
since that morning.
There were plenty of advertisements for actresses, singers, and chorus
girls; but I knew that I was too young to act, and, of course, I had
no knowledge of music. My only chance seemed to lie in the circus
profession or on the variety stage.
After bending for a long time over the paper, I found this notice:
“Wanted immediately, girl of ten or twelve as apprentice to acrobatics.
Apply Mademoiselle Elvierra.” The address was somewhere in Balham. I
have quite forgotten the name of the street. I jumped up in a great
state of excitement. I was only just twelve years of age, and I looked
even younger. I imagine myself as a thin, ill-fed child, and I am sure
that I was badly dressed.
“Where is Balham? How can I get there?” was my thought as I hurried
from the churchyard.
I inquired the way from the first kind-looking woman whom I met. She
looked a little surprised.
“It’s a long way,” she said. “You’d better take a bus.”
“I’ve no money,” I said.
She directed me as well as she was able, and I started off, walking
over Blackfriars Bridge. By repeatedly inquiring the way, I reached
Balham in the afternoon, and found the road in which Mademoiselle
Elvierra lodged. It was a dingy street, and the lodgings were
third-rate and frowsy. The woman who admitted me said: “Are you an
acrobat?”
“I want to be one,” I answered.
“Go in there,” she said, pointing to a door.
I went into the room, and saw a woman with very yellow hair, untidily
dressed, who was talking to a girl of about my own age.
“No, it’s no use,” said mademoiselle firmly; “I can’t take you without
your parents’ consent. You’d better go home.”
The child’s eyes filled with tears as she turned from the room. Without
speaking, she went out. A great fear came over me, for how was I to
obtain my parents’ consent? My mother was dead, and I knew nothing
of the whereabouts of my father. I felt that I was shaking with
nervousness as Mademoiselle Elvierra’s eyes looked into mine. What
could I say? I had not thought of this hindrance to my entering the
artiste’s life.
“Well, who are you?” asked the acrobat, eyeing me very closely.
I told her my name, and that I wanted to go on the stage.
Possibly she was struck with my build, or she may have thought that I
was intelligent and likely to become a good pupil.
“What about your mother?” she inquired.
“Oh, she doesn’t mind,” I gasped out.
“You’d have to come for five years at least.”
“I wouldn’t mind that.”
“Well, get your mother to come and see me. I think you and I would get
on well together, my dear.”
A sudden flash of hope had come into my mind. I remembered that I had
a married cousin at Chelsea, who had two children. She was a very kind
woman. I resolved upon a desperate plan. I would see this cousin,
and get her to impersonate my mother, and to consent to my becoming
Mademoiselle Elvierra’s apprentice.
“When will you bring your mother?” she asked. “I’m starting for
Liverpool on Sunday for a week’s work, and I want this thing fixed up
at once. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said eagerly. “I’ll bring my mother along quickly—as soon as I
can.”
The woman patted my cheek, and called me a good girl. She was rather
a good-looking woman, and the fact that she was a performer almost
overawed me. I smiled up at her shyly, and then hurried away to the
back street in Chelsea where my cousin lived. How my heart thumped as I
walked along the streets. My face was flushed, and I was in a state of
intense excitement.
My cousin came to the door when I knocked.
“Bless me, Marion,” she said. “What brings you here, child?” And she
bent down and kissed me.
Seated on a footstool, with my head against her knee, I told her of my
troubles and how I longed to get away from my grandmother and to earn a
living.
“You poor kiddie,” she said when I had finished, and began to sob
quietly.
“It’s a queer job pretending to be your mother, but I don’t mind
risking it to help you. . . . You’ve had a cruel time of it, poor
child. But it’s a queer life that you’re going into. It’s hard work,
and it’s dangerous. You’ll have to risk your life and limbs every time
you perform, and the pay isn’t very good. Have you thought of all this?”
“I’ll do anything rather than go home,” I said, pressing her hand
eagerly.
“Very well, I’ll come along with you,” returned my cousin. “Just help
yourself to some bread and jam while I get my things on.”
I was glad to have something to eat, for I was very hungry; indeed, as
I have said before, I knew the feeling of hunger only too well in those
days.
Presently my cousin and I set out for Balham. We rode on an omnibus,
and were soon at Mademoiselle Elvierra’s lodgings.
The acrobat seemed pleased at seeing me back again so quickly. Turning
to my cousin, she said: “She’s a dear little child. She’ll get on well
with me.”
“I hope so,” my cousin said, pretending that she felt the parting from
me very deeply. “I do hope she’ll be a good girl. You’ll look after
her, won’t you, and see that she always gets enough to eat?”
“Of course, she’ll be well treated. Don’t you fear about that.”
“Is it very dangerous?” asked my cousin.
“Oh, dear no; nothing like what people think,” said the artiste,
smiling.
“We teach all the tricks with a lunge, and our pupils never hurt
themselves. Even the trapeze and rings are not as dangerous as they
look.”
“Well, Marion, you’ve quite made up your mind?” asked my cousin.
“Oh, yes,” I answered earnestly.
Mademoiselle Elvierra then produced a written contract, and began to
fill in my name. She handed my cousin the pen. A glance of hesitation
crossed her face for an instant, but she wrote her name hurriedly, and
then, catching me in her arms, pressed me to her breast and kissed me
long and lovingly. I do not think that the tears in her eyes were a
pretence; they were real tears, for she felt deeply for me.
“It’s always a sad business parting,” said Mademoiselle Elvierra. “By
the way,” she added suddenly, “hasn’t she any better clothes than
those?”
“This is my only frock,” I explained.
“Well, she must have another. You’ll agree that this is very shabby.”
My kindly cousin offered at once to buy me another frock and a hat.
I knew that this dear soul could not well afford to buy me clothes. But
she was full of love and sympathy.
After tea we went shopping, and I returned to my cousin’s house,
carrying a pretty dress and blouse and a hat with poppies on it. I felt
very happy indeed; I had only one regret. There was a girl friend—the
only one I had—living in Camden Town, and I longed to say good-bye to
her.
The longing was so strong that I could not resist it, and my cousin,
touched by my affection for my friend, encouraged me to go and say
good-bye to her.
Little did I think what would happen. My cousin gave me my bus fare,
and I started off, eager to tell my friend of the good luck that had
come to me. I was beginning a new life; in fact, I felt that I was just
beginning to live for the first time. I had a beautiful new dress and
a lovely hat, and I was going to Liverpool with mademoiselle to be an
acrobat. It was like a fairy story.
I felt my heart beating with joy. Now I was free, and I was going to
see the world.
These were my thoughts as I sat on top of a bus in Hampstead Road. I
had never felt more happy and excited in my whole life. Judge of my
dismay when I suddenly saw my grandmother standing on the pavement
looking up at me. I realized at once that she had seen me. There was
no escaping her. I sat stiff with fright; I didn’t even attempt to get
off the vehicle when it stopped. My heart stood still as my grandmother
came up the steps to the bus roof. She just seized my arm and led me
along. I was paralysed with fright; I couldn’t speak a word.
Gripping my hand hard, she strode along to our home, and all she said
was: “My word, you’ll get it for this. You’ll not run away again!”
When we reached home my grandmother’s anger blazed up like a flame. She
had restrained her temper in the street, but safely within the house,
she lost all control, and began to rave.
“Look at her,” she cried to my grandfather. “There’s a disreputable
child for you. She’s too wicked for words. I’ll teach you to run away.”
And with these words she struck me a severe blow in the face. I lay for
an instant half-stunned. Then the wrathful woman seized me by the arm,
and gave me a sound thrashing, finally dragging me to my bedroom and
flinging me in.
I heard the key turn in the lock. I was a prisoner. My back was stiff
and sore from the beating. But what hurt me most was the thought that I
was locked up, and that Mademoiselle Elvierra was expecting me the next
day. What would she think? I thought, too, of my cousin. She would be
alarmed at my absence.
Oh, how I suffered that night! I cried and cried till my eyes ached.
My position seemed quite hopeless; there was a hard fate against me.
At the very moment when I fancied that I was free this terrible fate
had overtaken me, and I was again in the clutch of my grandmother. I
saw the dawn break, and I still lay sobbing on the bed in the utmost
dejection.
It was Sunday morning, and the street was quiet. I could only hear the
clink of the milkman’s pail, the steady tread of a policeman, and the
distant sound of a railway train. I knew that my guardians would not
get up until about eleven o’clock.
Presently I became wild and desperate. I looked into the street, and
measured with my eye the height of the drop on to the pavement. Had
I been a trained acrobat, as I am now, I would not have hesitated to
clamber down the water spout. But my courage was not strong enough to
risk a broken neck. I wrung my hands in utter misery. Oh, that I could
screw up my courage to leap out of the window. Again and again I looked
down on the pavement with a shudder of fright. If I jumped and broke
my leg, I could not get to Balham. No, fate was against me. I was a
wretched, helpless little girl.
Soon I began to hear sounds in the house. My grandmother was up and
getting a cup of tea to carry to my grandfather. The church bells began
to ring, and people passed along the street. It was a bright day, and
the sky was a clear blue, but the sunshine seemed to mock at my grief.
Suddenly the door was thrown open, and my stern grandmother appeared.
“Now, then, you worthless little hussy, go and take the milk in, and
then make your bed,” she said, scowling at me.
Here was my chance. If I gained the front door I could easily make a
dash down the street. My heart began to throb hurriedly, and my breath
came short, as I opened the front door. The street was quiet; no one
was in sight. I left the door open, darted off as fast as I could run,
and flew round the first corner. In a few minutes I was panting down
the Camden Road, running as I had never run before. Several people
stared at me as I tore along. I think I ran nearly the whole length of
the Hampstead Road before I dropped into a walk. I was at last forced
to walk, for there was a sharp pain in my chest, and my breath was
quite spent. But I am sure that I ran almost all the way to Balham.
Sometimes I looked anxiously behind me, fearing that some one might be
pursuing me. And when I thought of my grandmother’s rage, I started to
run again, like a hunted creature.
At last I staggered up the steps of Mademoiselle Elvierra’s lodgings. I
had scarcely strength enough left to knock at the door.
My future mistress was up and busy packing her things in a theatrical
dress-basket. I entered a littered room, and found her, with her yellow
hair down her back, kneeling at a drawer.
“Great Scott!” she exclaimed; “I’ve been tearing my hair all the
morning. Do you know we’re due at Euston in two hours? Where have you
been? I expected you early.”
Her voice was agitated and angry, and there was a gleam in her eyes
that frightened me. I noticed that she was not a woman to be trifled
with.
Well, I am afraid I told her a long string of fibs about having
overslept myself, and lost my way walking from my cousin’s house.
“You’ll have to smarten up,” she said. “If you’d have come a little
later you’d have found me gone, bag and baggage, and you wouldn’t have
been able to find me. Where are those clothes you were going to get,
and where is your hat?”
Then I remembered that I had run away without my hat, and that my new
clothes were at my cousin’s.
“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “You see, I was in such a hurry that I came
out without my hat and the parcel of things.”
“You little idiot,” said Mademoiselle Elvierra. “We’ll have to drive
round that way and fetch your things. That’ll be another two or three
shillings for the cab fare. How vexing!”
She tossed a pair of mauve tights into the basket, and muttered
something under her breath, which I took for a threat. It was quite
plain that my employer had a temper. I wondered if I had jumped out of
the frying-pan into the fire. Would she be cruel to me?
Soon the packing was finished, and I was sent to bring a four-wheeler
from a neighbouring stand. Mademoiselle Elvierra was ready for the
journey. Her cheeks were touched with rouge, and she had darkened her
eyebrows, and passed a powder-puff over her face. She looked every
inch a performer. No one could have mistaken her for anything else
than a “professional.” She wore a large, showy hat and a lot of flash
jewellery.
I felt very shabby and insignificant by her side as we sat in the
jolting cab.
At my cousin’s I jumped out and rang the bell. Mademoiselle Elvierra
remained in the cab, and told me to be quick.
My dear cousin was delighted to see me again, for she had been very
alarmed at my absence; but there was no time to waste. I told my story
hurriedly, took my clothes, and, after she had pressed me to her
breast, and asked me to write often to her, my cousin bade me good-bye.