The rabbit is out of the hat! (again)

So, here I am. Back in the saddle, so to speak, in what should have been a deserted London churchyard in the last twilight minutes before dawn, with my letter of introduction to William Crawley explaining my circumstances, and asking him, as the surviving relative of my late husband to help me find "a position" and lodgings. Since I have no dependent children and am still of an age to work it seemed like a fairly good ruse to get started. However, I think the poor derelict who was aroused from his drunken slumber by my arrival may recover given time, and good care. He might even dine out on his experience if he can find an audience gullible enough!
I guess the time to be nearly six o'clock as the sun comes up and I make my way towards Beaver Street. Not named for the American rodent, so much as for the hats made from its felt. Far from being the prosperous frontage I was expecting, Bradleigh hats is a cramped, smelly workshop squeezed into a small property opening off an equally small alley from the street: with its low ceiling and close walls there is barely room for two people to pass and the vinegar smell of sulphuric acid announces my proximity to Bradleigh's as soon as I enter the alley.
When he shows up, around six-thirty, William (who smells of cheap beer and is still finishing off a pie) seems less than pleased to meet his mourning sister-in-law and spends the first fifteen minutes of our encounter trying to persuade me to join the oldest profession, or at least, leave him in peace until midday. When I finally persuade him to open the letter he reads it with considerable difficulty and I have to help him with some of the words, which does nothing to improve his disposition.
Our discourse is still continuing when Mr.Bradleigh himself arrives, slightly shorter than William, he has a well-developed beer belly and a naturally gregarious disposition. As soon as my relationship to William is explained, I am invited to join him in his office for a cup of tea, and it is as he pours tea for me that I notice the involuntary tremor of his hands. It seems quite likely that Mr.Bradleigh is starting to show the symptoms of mercurial poisoning, always a hazard of his trade.
To cut a long story short, after Mr.Crawleigh's rather cool reception I thought perhaps I might have a better chance if I could make contact with his wife, and set about the business of locating her. After a couple of hours questioning market traders, a constable, a priest, and the proprietor of a gin-shop, and being accosted by two young men who were annoyingly persistent in their approaches despite my best efforts to hide in my poke bonnet, I was decidedly in need of sustenance and refreshment which led me to seek refuge in the Red Lion public house. It was while waiting to receive my hot pork pie and glass of perry that I overheard the landlord instructing his barmaid to fill the pitcher for Mrs.Crawleigh.
When Mrs.Susan Crawleigh arrives twenty minutes later to collect her pitcher, my host makes the briefest of introductions and I find myself swept into the keeping of this human steam-engine of a woman, physically large and bustling with a quiet energy she invites me to return home with her, greeting perhaps half the people we pass on the way as if they were family. The Crawleigh apartments are very modest: three rooms on the second floor of an older house, with a shared privy behind the property. The two older Crawleigh girls are counting pins into papers and stirring a cauldron of laundry over a coal fire while three-year old Jacob Athanasius proudly demonstrates his wooden sword and shield, a model soldier in years to come, and baby Eliza sleeps fitfully in her crib.
Although Susan has several suggestions for possible employers, I am put to work by the family today, taking Jacob and Jane along the canal towpath to collect dandelions for winemaking, tonic, and coffee. And when Mr.Crawleigh finally returns from work the children have been laid down to sleep, under the watchful eye of grandmother Caroline so that the three of us can visit the music hall. The layout of the hall is more reminiscent of a cabaret club than a theatre, with tables arranged so that the audience can see the acts on the stage at one end of the hall. To one side, a Master of Ceremonies announces each act in the most astonishingly convoluted and verbose terms, and Mrs.Crawleigh ensures that we are well-provided with liquid refreshment from the bar at the back of the hall.
Most of the entertainments seemed unremarkable, and a little vulgar to me, but the following recently published Neapolitan barcarolle was encored twice before the performers were allowed to leave the stage.
                    

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