The Petticoat Men Read Online Free PDF Page B

said the doctor had pocketed it himself. But I was only half listening. And by the way, dont think I dont know what they’re really talking about when they talk about felony and Freddie and Ernest, I’m not a child and I’m not a fool but I – oh – never mind.
    When they first came to us Ernest and Freddie explained carefully to Ma that they already had rooms where they actually lived . They would rent a room sometimes for getting ready for work, they might stay overnight just occasionally. They straightway explained that they played women’s parts, so they would be bringing gowns to our house – there was no hiding what they were doing.
    Ma, liking theatre people, and seeing they were real gentlemen, even if they were only lads Billy’s age, agreed. (They were a bit – sort of unmanly – specially Ernest who was almost pretty, but we were used to people like that, we’d lived in a theatre for years.) They paid a deposit for one week. And next day we was most impressed when we saw them carrying in their costumes from a hansom cab: gowns, satin and silk, bustles and wigs and boots and bracelets and lockets and ribbons and bows and ladies’ hats.
    And they were sort-of actors – we have actually seen them acting, both playing women, as they had told – they asked us one night to a theatre show, me and Ma and Billy, we went all the way in a cab that a friend of theirs paid for who travelled with us, and he smoked about seven cigars and I was sick (I got out and spewed past Waterloo). It was in a little hall off Clapham High Street, not a real theatre , not really,but they played sisters, and Ernest – ‘Stella’ he was called – was the Star.
    He – she – had several songs he used to sing that the audiences called for again and again – he had a sweet voice and it was like a woman’s voice: ‘Fade Away’was one song, it was sad, ‘and it’s a bit mawkish ,’ I said to Ma and she laughed when I came up like that with some new interesting word I’d been reading. But I had a favourite of all Ernest’s songs: that lovely old Irish song, ‘Eileen Aroon’.Ma and me had heard it sometimes, by St Pancras, sad little evening fires with poor Irish beggars around them, thin and starving, gone from their own country, who is the fairest gem? Eileen Aroon , their voices longing and sad, breaking with the words in that way the Irish have with their songs.Ernest sang it just – simple. It was beautiful and I used to listen to that song and think about how it must be, to be the fairest gem, and be always remembered, like Eileen Aroon.
    And Freddie, he was called ‘Fanny’ on stage, and well he did look like a woman too, but sort of not the main one, not with pretty Stella there singing away. Freddie’s face was funny and kind and I often thought he looked like a man or a woman, he just looked like Freddie, whatever he was wearing. They weren’t real actors, like at Drury Lane or the Haymarket, but their gowns swished and shimmered and Ma’s a good judge and she thought they did well and looked lovely, and me and Billy did too, what I mean is we didn’t think there was anything cheap, it was amateur but it wasn’t laughable on the little stage at Clapham, it was better than that.
    And that night at Clapham was the first time we clapped our eyes on a particular man who turned out to be Lord Arthur Clinton. He was there with a very elegant, pretty lady and they clapped and laughed together and they both talked and laughed with Ernest afterwards, and later Ernest told us who the man was.
    ‘ Lord Arthur Clinton,’ he had said, ‘and that was his sister with him, Lady Susan – and he introduced me!’ And Ernest looked under his eyelashes in that coy way he had, and smoothed his hair fussily, pleased as anything and sort of quivering with excitement as he leaned towards us confidentially.
    ‘She’s a widow, her husband was insane and now she is a mistress of the Prince of Wales actually.’ Smoothing his