I’d got away with it. What luck! If there was the chance of a job here for me, I had to take it. If I came away without employment today, my only option would be in service. I knew how to do a maid’s work, Mrs B had been a stickler for keeping our tiny space clean, but my very soul revolted against it. Not just because at any time my mistress might find out that I was from the St Giles slums and fire me for it, but because I’d promised my mother that I would do all I could to avoid becoming a servant, where a woman is dependent on the kindness and restraint of a master. Come on, Zillah. You can do this. I almost ran to the three steps that led to the stage. I took my place in the centre. To my surprise, it made me feel powerful.

‘Start from the beginning,’ Crillick called up to me.

I began again. The stage was my island; I flung my arms out as I declaimed to show my ownership of it.

‘“Had it pleas’d heaven to try me with affliction, had they rain’d all kind of sores and shames on my bare head—”’

‘Louder,’ Crillick said. With each line I delivered, he backed further and further away. It was like he had my voice on a chain in his hands because, as he stepped back, he pulled more and more out of me. My words soared, they filled the space. If the roof-scrapers had been in, filling the cheap seats up in the gods, they would have heard me. By the end I was quite spent and crouched down for fear I would faint. I had no idea where this performance had come from.

Crillick clapped heartily as he walked back towards me.

‘Very good. Very good. Wholly unexpected, but I have to say you do it well.’

‘Are you planning to put on a play, sir?’

I’d walked past Crillick’s Variety Theatre enough times to know it wasn’t famous for its classical acting. It had acrobats, a magician named Aldous, dancers and some popular comedians. Crillick put his head to one side and stroked his chin, looking wilier than ever.

‘I have something a little different in mind. Something new. You’re quite tall, aren’t you, girl, well built. Lift up your skirt.’ I froze. I knew what they said about actresses. I wasn’t that desperate. Not yet.

Crillick was looking at me expectantly. He must have read my face, however, as he sighed impatiently. ‘Only to the knee.’

I did as he said, wondering what it was he had in mind for me. The elastic that I’d used to hold up my stockings had left a ring of dents in my skin.

‘Good legs,’ Crillick muttered to himself. ‘Tell me, have you ever been to Holman’s House of Wonders?’