Death of a Dancer

‘Yes, if you like.’

‘She could come straight home with you after the performance tonight. I’ll find a cab.’

Worse and worse. I’d hoped for a day or two’s breathing space.

‘I’ll have to warn Mrs Martley.’

‘We’ll send her a note.‘ He was buoyant now, glowing with relief. ’Now, what was it you wanted to see me about?’

‘My brother’s written you a letter,‘ I said. ’I think there may be something impertinent in it about me. He shouldn’t have written it; please disregard it.’

He looked blank for a while.

‘Oh yes, a letter from India arrived yesterday. I’m afraid I haven’t had time to open it yet. Is it important?’

‘No. Would you tear it up, please.’

‘Yes, if you want me to.’ He smiled like his old self. ‘Child, you’re a constant surprise. You walk from Mayfair to Long Acre to ask me to tear up a letter.’

‘There’s something else,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘What do you know about Columbine?’

His good humour was gone in an instant. He thumped his palm down on the bass notes of the piano, producing a sound like an elephant stepping on a stack of plates.

‘That she has the temperament of a cobra, the rhythmic sense of a lame cow and a belief in her own importance that would make Cleopatra look like a shrinking violet.’

I laughed.

‘Seriously,’ he said, ‘she is the most infuriating person it’s ever been my misfortune to work with. In two weeks, she’s attended rehearsal just four times and then walked out the moment it suited her. She won’t hear the faintest word of criticism, and the other dancers spend most of the time trying to keep the wretched woman upright. Why in the world are you interested in her?’

I took a deep breath and told him about the meeting with Disraeli, knowing he wouldn’t like it.

‘That puffed-up dilettante! He had no right to approach you. You should have snubbed him.’

‘He’s not easy to snub.’

‘I’m sure he’s past caring about his own reputation, but he should have more concern for yours.’

That sounded so like my brother that I began to suspect he’d read the letter after all.

‘I can take care of my own reputation, thank you. I know he’s a Conservative, but what else is to his discredit?’

‘Apart from the most ridiculous maiden speech in parliamentary history?’

It had been the talk of the town for days. Within a few weeks of taking his seat, Disraeli had made his first speech on the Irish question, with so many high-flown theatrical flourishes that he’d reduced even his own side to helpless laughter.

‘That’s beside the point,‘ I said. ’Apparently he has friends who are prepared to pay money for backstage gossip about Columbine.’

‘I hope you told him you’d have nothing to do with it.’

I didn’t answer. He drew the correct conclusion from that and sighed. He wanted to argue, I knew, but was too grateful to me at the moment.

‘Be very careful, Libby. I don’t trust that man or anything to do with him. Do you mind if I go and tell Jenny now?’

He ran up the steps towards the dressing-room corridor, leaving me sitting at the piano, fingering out some tune and trying in my head to talk sense to myself. I didn’t want to marry Daniel, did I? I’d been almost sure of that. So I would be an ungrateful dog in the manger if I did anything but wish him luck with all my heart in this affair with Jenny.

In the background, I was aware of things coming to life up on the stage behind the red curtain – bumpings and screechings of scenery being moved around, the swish of backcloth coming down. A deep voice with a West Country accent shouted instructions to the men up in the flies, as loudly as if he were in a Cape Horn tempest. He probably had been. Most scene-shifters are ex-sailors, hired because of their skill with ropes. Somebody must have lit gas-lights on stage. Even though I couldn’t see behind the curtain I could smell the acrid reek of them.

Hearing footsteps hurrying down the stairs to the pit, I thought it was Daniel coming back, but it turned out to be a tall, plump man of forty or so, with a paunch that filled out his waistcoat.

‘Suter, have you finished the music for the burletta?’

His voice was rounded and actorly. He had that air of professional dignity with panic showing through that seems normal with theatre managers. I told him that Mr Suter would be back in a minute. He gave me a harassed glance, not bothering to ask who I was.

‘Has he finished the music, do you know?’

‘Yes, I’m sure he has.’

I was far from sure. Daniel would probably be scribbling notes for his musician friends up until the curtain rose and beyond.

‘Tell him the business with the bucket is in. Cymbals when Charlie signals with his elbow. And in the Othello, the drummer’s to go on until he’s finished strangling the woman, however long it takes.’

He hurried back up the steps out of the pit. Daniel returned soon afterwards and I passed on the message.

‘Who is he?’ I said.

‘Barnaby Blake, the manager. Big ambitions for this place, but he’s trying to do everything on a small budget. He’s relying on Columbine to bring in the crowds, which is why he’s so patient with the confounded woman.’

I told Daniel I was going for a walk outside and would come back in time for the performance. The gas fumes were making my eyes water. The doors along the dressing-room corridor were still closed, but sounds and voices were coming from some of them. A distant smell of dung suggested that Signor Cavalari’s arithmetical horse had arrived.

Outside, drizzle was falling, smearing a greasy gleam over the pavements under the lamplight. I put up the hood of my cloak and strolled to Covent Garden. At this time on a winter afternoon, the main business of the day was over, but the place was still teeming with people. Ragged women and children gleaned cabbage leaves and crushed potatoes from gutters by the light of public house windows. Sounds of loud voices and singing came from inside the public houses, while gaunt horses dozed in the shafts of empty carts outside. A few porters were still at work, collecting up empty baskets and stacking them, ready for the morning. They carried half a dozen of them easily on their heads. Some of the porters were Irish women, calling out to each other in their own language. There was one I noticed particularly, a woman who must have been nearly six feet tall, face brown as leather, thick dark hair with streaks of grey hanging in damp waves over her broad shoulders. She wore a man’s tweed cap and jacket and a red printed cotton skirt with as many petticoats under it as a grand lady’s. Her muddy bare feet were firmly planted on the cobbles and she was shouting the odds at a male porter who’d offended her in some way. She was surrounded by other women, yelling their support, jeering at the man until eventually he slunk away. I thought, There’s a woman who can look after herself, and felt somehow comforted.

I bought a beef pie from a man selling them from a tray and took it to a bench outside St Paul’s Church on the west side of the market. I ate it with my fingers, getting gravy on my second-best gloves, as I watched a man juggling with flaming torches. A young woman walked past him into the church. She was tall and confident, wearing a purple cloak and feathered bonnet. Her hair under the bonnet was as yellow as an artificial daffodil and her pretty face had a hard, intent look in the flickering torchlight. I should not have put her down as a church-goer.

Having finished the pie I walked back to the Augustus. Under flaring gas-lights people were queuing for the gallery. This time there was somebody on duty in the doorkeeper’s room, a plump, bald-headed man with tired eyes. He watched me walk in without inquiring who I was. By now, with less than an hour to curtain-up, the dressing-room corridor was noisy and crowded. Some of the crowd were artistes. Twin boys in harlequin suits who looked no more than twelve years of age had their heads together in serious discussion. A man in a satin doublet with a handsome face and grizzled hair put his head round a door and yelled, ‘Honoria, where are my breeches?’

Some half-dozen of the people cluttering the corridor were gentlemen about town, elegantly dressed and all with that air of condescending boredom, as if this would do as well as anywhere to fill the gap between card games and supper. They were clustered round the half-open door of one dressing room, leaning against the wall or on their canes, top hats tilted over their foreheads. Girls’ laughter came from the room, along with a whiff of face powder and stale sweat. I glanced inside as I pushed my way past the dandies, collecting a hurt yelp as I trod on a fine leather boot. Gas-lights and mirrors took up one wall of a long and narrow room. Piles of outdoor clothes covered most of the floor. Seven girls in green muslin dresses with low-cut bodices and short skirts showing ankles and calves were crammed into the room with hardly space to turn. Some of them were pretending to disregard the men, leaning into the mirrors to apply colour to their lips, patting powder on to their bosoms. Two or three were talking to them, giving and receiving cheerful insults as if they were old friends. The men had probably spent most of the afternoon drinking at their clubs and when you came close to them their breath fumed stale claret. Only one of the seven girls genuinely seemed to want to avoid their notice. At the far end of the room, a head of copper-beech hair was turned away from them all.

A blast of damp air from outside blew along the corridor. Barnaby Blake came running from the direction of the stage.

‘Madame’s arriving, thank God.’

He dashed out to the pavement and returned as part of a small procession. First came the doorkeeper, struggling under the weight of an armchair with a gold wooden frame and damask seat. After him came a woman in her thirties, dark-haired and trimly dressed. She had an ivory silk cushion under one arm, a bag hooked round the other elbow and a glass bowl with a silver cover in both hands. Behind her Columbine floated in a swirl of plum-coloured velvet and white fur, dark hair flying loose. She looked furious. The gentlemen had to squeeze against the corridor walls like a reluctant guard of honour, but she didn’t give them a glance. Seen close to, she was beautiful still, but looked all of her thirty or so years. Barnaby Blake walked behind her, expression anxious. She seemed to be lecturing him over her shoulder, her voice loud and carrying.

‘… hoped you’d have sold out all the boxes by now. I’ve no intention of dancing to half-empty houses.’