Death of a Dancer. Caro Peacock
feather mattress with a dip in the middle. Every night Mrs Martley, being heavier than I was, would roll down into the dip, leaving me clinging with my fingertips to the edge of the mattress to stop myself rolling on top of her. Also, she snored. Yet she claimed she couldn’t get a wink of sleep all night because of my fidgeting. So I spent five shillings on a smaller bed for myself from a second-hand shop in Tottenham Court Road, and another two shillings to have it carted home. Soon afterwards I acquired a long curtain which I nailed from a ceiling beam, giving us the luxury of a narrow bedroom each. I had a peg for my bonnet, a wooden chest for my clothes and an old apple box to support my candlestick.
Still concentrating on slotting her treasure on to a vacant corner of the page, Mrs Martley said, ‘The landlord came round yesterday when you were out. You know Old Slippers is going?’ Old Slippers was the tenant of the attic rooms above our parlour, so called because nobody had ever seen him in any other sort of footwear. ‘When he goes, the landlord wants to do this whole place up and let it out to a gentleman. Mr Grindley says he wants fifty pounds for a deposit.’
My heart sank even further. I’d known my hold on Abel Yard was precarious, but had hoped to keep it for a little longer. Setting up house is an expensive business, even second hand, and with only nineteen pounds and a few shillings of my original capital left our options would be severely limited.
With thoughts of an uncertain future weighing heavily on me, Sunday was a long day; it came as a relief at half past six on Monday morning to let myself out of the small door in the double carriage gates of Abel Yard and see the red glow of Amos Legge’s pipe in the dark. Cupping his hands for me to put my foot in, he threw me up to Rancie’s back as if my eight stone were no more than a wisp of straw. As we crossed into the park I asked him if he’d heard of a man named Rodney Hardcastle. He laughed out loud.
‘Heard of him? He owes me money.’
‘What!’
‘Me and half London besides. Last week, his hat blew off when he was driving in the Ring and I chased it and brought it back for him. “I owe you half a sovereign, my man,” he says, feeling in his pockets, though everybody knows they’re as empty as a pauper’s belly. “I’ll look forward to that, sir,” I says politely. The other grooms were laughing fit to bust. Twenty thousand, he owes, so I shan’t see my half-sovereign this side of Judgement Day’
‘How can a man owe twenty thousand pounds?’
‘Quite easy, in this town. His father’s Lord Silverdale and he’s rolling in money, see, so they all thought he’d pick up the son’s debts. Only he says he won’t, so they can all whistle for their money.’
The name Silverdale was vaguely familiar. I had an idea that he’d been a government minister at one time.
‘But some people get locked up in the Marshalsea for owing twenty pounds,’ I said.
‘That’s how it works, look. If you owe enough, nobody can afford to let you go down, because if you do, they sink with you.’
Amos, who’d probably never owed a man sixpence in his life, explained it like a lesson in political economy.
‘But it has to end somewhere, doesn’t it?’ I said.
‘In tears, probably. They do say he’s coming near the end of his rope now.’
‘He’s friendly with a dancer called Columbine. Do you know her?’
But Amos wasn’t a theatre-goer and Columbine did not strike me as a woman likely to go horse riding, so her name meant nothing to him.
I wished that Mr Disraeli would come riding up, now I had more questions to ask him. He’d wanted me to find out about Columbine’s gentlemen friends, but from the way Rodney Hardcastle had been behaving, half of London already knew about his affairs, financial and otherwise. So was Hardcastle a friend of his? I was disappointed in Mr Disraeli’s taste, if that was the case. But my questions remained unanswered because Disraeli didn’t appear.
When I arrived home, Mrs Martley was even more disapproving than usual.
‘You’ve missed poor Mr Suter. He waited half an hour or more.’
It was just past eight o’clock, hardly light yet.
‘What did he want?’
‘He looked as if he’d been up all night. I made him a cup of chocolate, but he only drank the half of it. That poor gentleman needs somebody to look after him.’
Another dig at me. I ignored it and asked her again what Daniel had wanted.
‘He left a note for you.’
She produced it.
My Dear Libby,
I am sorry I can’t wait. I have a favour to ask. Would you very kindly attend the performance at the Augustus tonight and see if anybody there has the slightest idea where Jenny might be. As you know, Blake has forbidden me to set foot in the place. Also, I sense that the dancers might be more ready to talk to another woman than to a man. Surrey’s wife (who plays Desdemona) is a decent sort of woman. I know Jenny talked to her sometimes. She might help.
If you find out anything, please get word to me at any time of the night or day.
Thank you. I’m sorry to bring you into this.
Daniel
Mrs Martley was watching me as I read.
‘Bad news?’
I thought that the true answer was probably yes. Instead I told her I’d be late back and she shouldn’t wait up for me.
I had a pupil in Piccadilly who’d demanded some last-minute coaching, having been persuaded by friends to sing ‘impromptu’ at an evening reception. She needed so much fussing and reassurance that I didn’t get to the Augustus until it was almost time for the interval. I lingered outside for a while, with the loiterers who hoped to slip into the gallery free of charge for the second half of the evening. A chanter was strolling up and down, singing ballads and selling copies of the words for a penny. Chanters are almost as good as the newspapers in their way, and often nearly as accurate. It had always amazed me that these ballads were on sale on the streets, sometimes only a few hours after the events they described. Then I caught the name ‘Columbine’ and stopped to listen.
O come all you sportsmen who like a good fight Take seats at the ballet on Saturday night When fair Columbine is defending her crown Against young Copper-knob, the new battler in town.
Obviously the writer of the ballad hadn’t known Jenny by name, but the detail suggested he’d been there in person.
Queen Columbine deals her a whack to the shin But game Copper-knob swears the title she’ll win. ‘To spoil her coiffure, I’ll my talons engage.’ In the blink of an eye there are wigs on the stage.
I paid my penny and bought the word sheet. The chanter went on singing.
Says young Mr H: ‘I will back Columbine To lay out this upstart in round eight or nine
I put the ballad in my pocket, hoping Daniel hadn’t heard it.
After waiting at the side door until some of the musicians came out at the start of the interval, I slipped along the corridor to the orchestra pit. Toby Kennedy had taken over from Daniel as director of the orchestra and was there with a few of the other musicians. Immediately, we both asked, ‘Have you seen Daniel?’
‘I met him in the Haymarket around seven,’ Kennedy said. ‘He’s still looking for her. I told him if the poor lass has the sense she was born with, she’ll have taken herself back home to the country until the fuss dies down.’
‘I saw him after that,’ a trombone player said.
He’d obviously been eavesdropping unashamedly. I supposed that a lot of the musicians were gossiping about Daniel.