The Diamond Waterfall (2 page)

“This way, Daisy. Over here is a girl who dances like a—wait till she does her piece…. That boy there, Stefan something or other, he plays the fiddle.”

Three minutes later Daisy met Joszef. She told Lily afterward that from the first moment she saw him, she knew. “I just stood there, with the dish of fruit salad—staring. Till he smiled and took it straightway from me. And then he
dared
to start eating.”

It was his beauty, she said. In spite of the ill-fitting clothes. His dark-shadowed face with its high cheekbones, the eyes, almost black, which she thought laughed at her, the hands with their long thin fingers: “I felt so pale and fluffy, Lily—beside him….”

When the food was all served and before the entertainments began, she had gone over to speak to him. She discovered that he was nineteen (a year younger than she), that he came from the Kovno province of Poland, and had escaped with his widowed mother and two elder brothers and young sister. He was apprenticed to a jeweler and hoped to become a watchmaker.

All this she learned from him, with the help of two girl immigrants, who laughed and blushed on either side of him. He himself was only a little shy— and obviously very proud of the English words he'd acquired in the few months since his arrival.

Daisy had determined there and then that she would—somehow—see more of him. And in spite of being quiet compliant Daisy (so very, very unlike Lily), that was what she did.

It hadn't been too difficult at first. For three or four years now, Mrs. Mandelbaum had been giving free English classes in her home. She limited the numbers to those who wished to write and read as well as speak. So far natural selection had kept the group small enough to be manageable; usually it was filled from among those who came to her monthly entertainments. Rachel, Herbert Varley's wife, had been helping since the very beginning.

Daisy heard about the lessons that afternoon. When the tea party was almost over, and the singing and fiddle playing done, she went over to Joszef and very prettily told him that he must come to Mrs. Mandelbaum's: “to make your English better and better.” Already he'd learned an unbelievable amount, she said. Here was a chance for him. Later she spoke directly to Rachel. She would like to teach. “Even though I'm not Jewish, I want to help these people.”

She told Lily everything, but no one else except Aunt Millie, who was Ma's older sister and the two girls' greatest ally. (If she were alive now, Lily thought, I would not be in this sorry mess.) At home, Daisy said that she was helping with Sunday-school teaching. Neither Ma nor Dad were really interested. Aunt Millie went with her as chaperone, and kept her secret. Not that it was much of one then: discovery would have meant, at most, punishment and a diatribe against immigrants generally, with the chief worry what contagion she might have picked up. A litany of nits, ringworm, fleas, and unmentionables.

But as the weeks and months passed, everything changed. Daisy was irrevocably, desperately, in love. And it was not, she told Lily, just her. From the blackboard where she or Rachel pointed—“take took taken”—their eyes met continually. When she corrected something with his pencil, their fingers touched.

He stayed behind once and talked with her after class: then, every time. Aunt Millie looked unhappy. Daisy invited herself to his home, and
he
looked unhappy. Aunt Millie even unhappier. But she went, taking Aunt Millie with her. His mother spoke only Yiddish, his two brothers were suspicious of the visitors, the young sister hid and would not come out at all. An uncle from Hull, a cabinetmaker, visited while they were there. A great bald-headed man with a scar on his temple from a Cossack sword, three years in England, he spoke good English. The whole Ziolkiwiski family, it appeared, would like to have gone on to America. It seemed unlikely now.

That was April, six months after their first meeting. In May, Daisy proposed. “I know it's very forward—but otherwise, how? He can hardly ask Dad for my hand, can he?” Indeed, that very week, Dad had been holding forth again. “Yorkshire for Yorkshire folk,” he said three times in one evening after reading that immigration figures were up.

Somehow, with Aunt Millie's help, it had come all right—if being turned out, forbidden to see your sisters or brother, cut off without a penny, your name never to be mentioned at the family dinner table could be called that…. But she
had
her prince—triumphing first over his diffidence, her non-Jewishness (she had taken on his religion), the problems of his family, who did not know what to make of her. She had poverty too, and ostracism.

For Dad, Joszef was no prince. He was—but Lily wanted to forget…. For the noise of that scene had filled the house. Daisy, seeking above all not to betray Aunt Millie, had stood her ground, trembling, white-faced. Sent up to bed in disgrace, she had left the house within the half hour, taking refuge first with Aunt Millie. Then, secure in the knowledge that she was of age by six weeks, she had become Mrs. Ziolkiwiski—and written to tell Dad so.

The disgrace, the shame, had been terrible. Ethel had taken her parents' side. But little Harry had wept for his beloved sister's absence and Lily had taken him secretly to visit her. Soon Daisy and Joszef would be moving to live in Hull with the uncle. This Christmas she expected a baby.

Although Daisy's name could not be mentioned, Dad was ruder than ever now about the immigrants. “Yorkshire for Yorkshire folk, let America have them…. They took the Paddies when I was a lad. In the Famine. Aye, let the
Yankees
have them.”

Her bedtime drink. Tonight, June 20, the sixth night of her imprisonment. It was drugged. She was sure of it. The bottom of the cup was gritty. It might possibly be of course just a different, poorer type of cocoa, something Dad was trying out in the shops. But it made her feel odd, strange. “I do feel strange,” she said out loud. Perhaps her tantrum had worn her out. She had all day to sleep if she wished, but: I sleep less than ever, she thought.

I am a prisoner. But no one can imprison my spirit. She tried to remember some poetry, any poetry, about prisons. But her mind kept going back to singing, dancing,
acting….

I am the Countess, no, the
Princess
Ludmila Hohenkopetal, imprisoned by my cruel stepfather because I wish to marry the impecunious Lieutenant Longlegs, who is really a king's son in disguise. He hears me singing, and so learns where I am imprisoned. … He comes to my rescue. Rescue. Cue. Cue for a song. … It was difficult to invent a song for a princess. Maybe, in her nightgown, the gas fire turned down, the curtains drawn back, moonlight across the floor (and if they don't like the noise, let them come and complain), she could sing….

“Ladies and gentlemen, the famous ‘Jack-in-the-Box' song as performed by Miss Fanny Leslie—”

Her feet dragged. I am drugged, she thought … so feet drag…. Drugged, drug. Dragged. Best to lie down now.

She dreamed—about the Golden Jubilee. She was in Leeds, in Duncan Street. The tram was coming toward her from Boar Lane. The people on top crowded, standing, hanging over the edge. The horses wore golden plumes, tossing gilt. Excitement filled the air. She thought, I'm glad I'm awake and not dreaming. A man, dressed poorly and without gold dust, stood near her. “What's happening?” she asked. When he didn't answer, she looked closer and saw that he was one of Joszef's brothers. “We just arrived,” he said, “we are not stopping. We go to America, you know.” As the tram drew nearer the crowd could be heard cheering. “Who is it,” she asked urgently, “who are they, what is it?”

“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?”