Death of a Dancer. Caro Peacock
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.’
‘I promise you, the figures are very promising, considering,’ he told her.
She went on talking, taking no notice. The man with the armchair and the maid waited in the corridor as Blake held a dressing-room door open for Columbine, more like a nervous host welcoming a duchess than a theatre manager whose star was late. The maid and the doorkeeper followed them inside with their burdens, then the doorkeeper came out, puffing his cheeks.
‘Dovey-wovey, why didn’t you wait for Rodders?’
The cry came from a gentleman who’d just strolled in from outside. He was a young man so pleased with himself that he seemed to glow from inside like a fat white candle. He was probably twenty-five or so, average height and running to fat already. His head was round and slightly too large for his body, set on his shoulders without much in the way of neck intervening, his hair so fair and fine that it stood out like a halo round his head. Buckskin breeches, fine tan riding boots with pink tops that matched the tassel on his walking cane, a chestnut-coloured cutaway coat over a waistcoat figured in squares of chestnut and pink completed the look of something from a child’s toy box grown to life size. The other gentlemen seemed to know him well and called out various sarcastic remarks about being late. He brushed past them and rapped with his cane on Columbine’s closed door.
Barnaby Blake’s voice was audible from inside, still trying to argue his case.
‘… audiences improving all the time. We’ll be playing to full houses all summer with the coronation coming up. There’ll be people from all over the country who’ve never seen anything like these shows before, fighting to get into theatres. I’ve had men begging me to let them invest.’
It sounded as if he hoped to keep Columbine on the bill all season, which would be bad news for Daniel.
The gentleman who called himself Rodders rapped on the door again.
‘Open up, Dovey-wovey.’
Columbine’s maid opened the door a crack, said some words that I couldn’t hear, and closed it in his face.
‘Dovey-wovey.’
The man set up a howl like a disappointed child. Barnaby Blake came out, looking annoyed at having his diplomacy interrupted, but his face changed when he saw who was causing the commotion.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Hardcastle.’
‘She won’t let me in,’ the gentleman wailed. ‘Why won’t she let me in?’
By now the sounds of the orchestra tuning up were drifting along the corridor. The chances of Columbine being ready in time for the first ballet seemed remote.
‘Artistic temperament, Mr Hardcastle. I’m sure she’ll be delighted to see you at the interval,’ Blake soothed, as if calming a child. ‘My wine merchant has just delivered a case of claret and I’d appreciate your opinion. Would you join me in a glass?’
Young Mr Hardcastle allowed himself to be led into the manager’s room, with backward glances towards Columbine’s door.
A smaller fuss was going on back at the dancers‘ dressing room. An eighth girl had arrived late and at a run, to a chorus of ironic cheers from the gentlemen and twitterings of ’Where were you, Pauline?’ from the girls. She was already unhooking her outdoor cloak as she ran into the room. A purple cloak and a bonnet with feathers over daffodil-coloured hair; the girl I’d seen going into the church. But then, why shouldn’t a dancer enter a church? Theatre people are notoriously superstitious; perhaps she was praying for good luck.
‘Has Madame arrived yet?’ she asked the other girls, her tone suggesting that she didn’t much care for Columbine. They told her that, yes, she had, so she’d better hurry up changing.
I walked towards the pit, intending to warn Daniel that curtain-rise looked likely to be late. Running footsteps sounded behind me. I turned and there was Jenny in her thin costume and dancing pumps. She laid a hand on my arm, light as a falling leaf.
‘Excuse me, Miss Lane …’ She spoke in a whisper, with a Kentish accent. She was shaking with nerves or cold, but determined to say her piece. ‘I wanted to tell you how grateful I am. I didn’t… didn’t know anybody could be so kind.’
I looked into her wide grey eyes and understood what Daniel meant about her courage, but she was fragile too. You could no more be unkind to her than a bird fallen out of its nest. I held out my hand to her.
Instead of taking it, she suddenly threw her arms round my neck and kissed me on the cheek.
‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’
Then she turned and fled in a rustle of muslin, back towards the dancers’ dressing room.
CHAPTER FOUR
The curtain rose half an hour late, but the audience seemed cheerful enough about it. Rodney Hardcastle and his gentlemen friends took their places in the two on-stage boxes after the overture had started. Most of them were talking loudly to each other, although Hardcastle himself looked sulky. I was standing by Daniel at the piano, making myself useful sorting out music and giving myself a good view of stage boxes and stage. As the overture ended, the twin acrobats spun themselves into complicated somersaults on and off a see-saw placed in front of the curtain.