Then she thought of Hannah's cousin, Betty Higgins at Hampstead. Lavinia
had saved a little money while with Rich and Huddy and she could afford
a small rent for lodgings while she was seeking how to maintain herself.
Concerts were given at the Great Room, Hampstead Wells. She might appear
there too. She would love it. She had seldom had an opportunity of
singing in any of the parts she had played, and singing was what her
soul delighted in.
She made her way to Hampstead. The heath was wild enough in those
days--clumps of woodland, straggling bushes, wide expanses of turf, vast
pits made by the gravel and sand diggers, the slopes scored by water
courses with here and there a foot path--all was picturesque. The ponds
were very much as they are now, save that their boundaries were not
restrained and after heavy rains the water spread at its own free will.
The village itself on the slopes overlooking the heath was cramped, the
houses squeezed together in narrow passages with openings here and there
where glorious views of the Highgate Woods and the country beyond
delighted the eye.
Lavinia inquired for Betty Higgins in the village, but without success.
Indeed, the houses were not such as washerwomen could afford to live in.
Then she went into the quaint tavern known as the Upper Flask and here
she was told that a Mrs. Higgins who did laundry work was to be found in
a cottage not far from Jack Straw's Castle on the Spaniards' road and
thither Lavinia tramped, footsore and tired, for she had walked all the
way from London.
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