Death of a Dancer

On stage, the dancers and the maid Marie had clustered round Columbine and were trying to soothe her. Barnaby Blake was taking no notice of them, shouting to the stagehands to change the set.

‘Suter, what are you doing here? Get back into the pit, stop that infernal jig and play the music I’m paying you for.’

‘Where’s Jenny?’ Daniel said.

‘Gone to throw herself in the Thames, I hope.’ Blake turned to yell at a stagehand, ‘Just get the bed on quickly, never mind the battlements.’ Then, ‘Suter, where do you think you’re going?’

Daniel went at a run past Diana’s glade, into the wings and out to the dimly lit backstage corridor. He hesitated at the door to the dancers’ room and noticed for the first time that I was following him.

‘I’d better go in first,’ I said. ‘She may be changing.’

The room was empty, the dancers still on stage.

‘She couldn’t have just run out in the street in her dancing clothes, could she?’ Daniel said.

‘I don’t know. She might have been desperate to get away. She knows she’s the one who’ll get the blame.’

We went out of the room and along the corridor to the side door. The fat man, Billy, was in the doorkeeper’s room, feeding his cat by the light of a feeble gas-lamp.

‘Has a girl just gone out?’ Daniel said.

‘Someone just went rushing past. Didn’t see who it was.’

I followed Daniel out of the door. Late-evening crowds were pushing along Long Acre. An endless procession of carriages went by, their lamps illuminating a dense mass of pedestrians, hawkers, chestnut braziers, beggars and patrolling policemen. There was no sign of Jenny.

‘I’ll go to her lodgings,’ Daniel said.

‘I’m coming with you, then.’

Seven Dials, a short walk from the theatre, was an area where even policemen didn’t venture alone after dark.

‘No. You go back to the Augustus. She might still be inside. If she is, keep her away from Columbine and tell her to wait for me.’

From the tone of his voice, there was no point in arguing, so I made my way back through the crowds to the Augustus. It seemed as if I’d been away from the pit for a long time, but Othello still hadn’t finished strangling Desdemona. Kennedy raised an eyebrow to ask what was going on. The audience were restive now, talking amongst themselves or shouting rude advice at Othello; for them, this was all an anti-climax after the scandal.

When the curtain had come down at last and the few remaining musicians had thumped out ‘God Save the Queen’ at quick-march speed, I told Kennedy what had happened.

‘He shouldn’t have gone into Seven Dials at this time of night.’

‘I tried to stop him,’ I said. ‘Do you know if the girl’s still here?’

He didn’t, so I went back along the dressing-room corridor. Barnaby Blake’s door was closed, but a hum of voices came from inside with Columbine’s plaintive tones among them.

The door to the dancers’ room was open, half-dressed girls spilling into the corridor from lack of space inside. I asked the nearest girls if they knew where Jenny might have gone.

‘A good long way, if she’s got any sense.’

‘Barney wants her guts for garters.’

Pauline took no notice, staring at the rest of them with eyes like a cat on the hunt. When I repeated the question to her she turned the look on me, assessing whether I might be of any use to her, and deciding it was unlikely.

‘Haven’t a notion.’

Only a small dark-haired dancer who looked no more than fourteen broke ranks to the extent of trying to do a kindness to Jenny.

‘She’s left her basket here. If you’re looking for her, you could take it to her.’

She darted into a corner and came out with the wicker basket.

‘That’s her ointments and things,’ one of the others said. ‘We should keep that for the next time one of us gets hurt.’

I took the basket from the dark-haired girl and thanked her before any of them could try to grab it.

The outside door slammed and Daniel arrived breathless, as if he’d run back down the road from Seven Dials. He looked at me questioningly. I shook my head.

‘Where’s Columbine?’

Scared at the tone of his voice, I said nothing. But Columbine’s voice, proclaiming loudly that she’d never set foot on stage again for any amount of money, sounded from behind Barnaby Blake’s door. Daniel strode to the door, flung it open and went in. Columbine was standing like a tragedy queen, wrapped in her velvet and fur cloak. Barnaby had his hands spread out, appealing to her. Behind them, the maid hovered with something hot in a glass. They all turned. Daniel stopped within a few feet of Columbine.

‘Get out, Suter,’ Blake said.

Daniel took no notice, staring at Columbine as if he wanted to hypnotise her.

‘You’re a wicked, talentless, selfish whore,’ he said. ‘I hope to God that somebody will treat you the way you’ve been treating others all your life.’

Silence. Columbine stood, mouth open. Blake recovered first.

‘He’s gone mad. Suter, get out at once and don’t come back.’

‘Don’t concern yourself about that. I shan’t set foot in any theatre that woman’s polluting, and neither will Jenny Jarvis.’

With that, Daniel turned and strode along the corridor and out of the side door.

When somebody makes a dramatic exit, other people have to attend to the practicalities. I went back to the pit to collect Daniel’s outdoor clothes and music, and to tell Toby Kennedy what had happened. We caught up with Daniel in St Martin’s Lane, still looking for Jenny and attracting attention even from the midnight beggars for his hatless and coatless state.

We took him back to his lodgings – rousing poor Izzy from her bed in the basement because Daniel had lost his key – then Kennedy insisted on seeing me home to Abel Yard. As we parted, he told me again that I shouldn’t worry, that Daniel would recover; only this time he didn’t sound so sure of it.

CHAPTER FIVE

The next day was Sunday. Mrs Martley went to church while I stayed at home and tried to distract myself with guitar practice. Later, she settled at our parlour table and allowed herself one of her indulgences: catching up with her Queen Victoria album. She had a stack of magazines that in their shining youth had been delivered to ladies in the houses fronting on to the park, and went from there via the hands of ladies’ maids to the kitchens, where Cook would fillet out recipes and household hints – possibly with the knife used to chop meat judging by the smears on some of the pages. They then made the sideways shift to our building because the carriage mender’s wife had friends in some of the kitchens. Mrs Martley would pore over them endlessly, looking for news of our young queen. Coming from a family of republicans, I didn’t share her loyal enthusiasm but tried not to laugh at it.

‘I got Mr Suter’s note,’ she said as she cut out an engraving of Little Vicky receiving an ambassador. ‘Your friend didn’t come home with you last night, then?’

‘No.’

‘Will she be coming today?’

‘I don’t know.’