Death of a Dancer

by Caro Peacock

  ‘it’s the dancing girl, isn’t it?’ Mrs Martley said.

  The room was almost dark now. She had her back to me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s what’s worrying you and Mr Suter. I don’t intrude myself where I’m not wanted, but I can’t help knowing.’

  Her voice was low. She sounded as out of spirits as I felt.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  She came across the room and put her arm round me. I leaned my head against her shoulder, breathing in the smell of cloves and cinnamon that clung to her dress from all those apple dumplings.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Martley.’

  Sorry for a lot of things I couldn’t put into words – for taking her for granted, for laughing at her, for wanting to be rid of her. Now that it looked as if we were all to be scattered to the four winds, I’d have given almost anything to be back where we were before Jenny. She rocked me, murmuring soothing, wordless things as if I were a child.

  We were back in our own parlour, drinking tea, when somebody knocked on the door at the bottom of the staircase into the yard. It was dark by then so I lit a candle from the fire and went down. My heart was thumping, wondering if it might be a reply to my advertisement already, but the cloaked figure on the doorstep was female, a girl shivering in the cold. As soon as I opened the door she pushed a folded piece of paper into my hand.

  ‘If you please, ma’am, I’m to wait for a reply.’

  I gave her the candle to hold while I unfolded the note.

  Lady Silverdale hopes it may be convenient for Miss Lane to call on her at 11 o’clock tonight. Signed Beatrice Silverdale. It took me a moment to realise that I was looking at an invitation from Rodney Hardcastle’s mother. So that was Disraeli’s mysterious friend. The address was less than half a mile away, on the corner of Hertford Street and Park Lane. I looked at the girl.

  ‘doesn’t she mean eleven o’clock tomorrow morning?’

  ‘No ma’am, tonight.’

  She showed neither surprise nor curiosity.

  ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘You may tell Lady Silverdale I’ll be there.’

  I went back upstairs and told Mrs Martley I’d be going out late.

  ‘You can’t go traipsing all over London at night.’ ‘it’s not all over London. We’re practically next door neighbours.’

  I showed her the note. The crested paper and the address impressed her, but she was still suspicious. ‘What kind of lady wants callers at eleven o’clock?’ A lady who had something to hide, I was sure. Lady Silverdale obviously did not want her friends to see me coming and going. I changed into my red printed cotton with the pleated bodice. It was one of my most respectable garments but too light for a March night, so I wrapped my woollen cloak closely round me. Outside, the wind had risen, whipping rags of clouds across a thin crescent moon. I walked fast and arrived at the steps leading up to the Silverdale’s house at five minutes to eleven. It was grand, even by Park Lane standards with a portico at the top of the steps and two caryatids on either side like the ones on the Parthenon, illuminated by the lamplight from an uncurtained downstairs room. I tugged at the iron bell knob and before I’d even had time to let go of it the door opened. The girl who’d delivered the note was standing inside in a black dress and white cap. She stood back for me to go inside and closed the door.

  The only light came from a few candles in sconces all the way up the staircase to the top landing. The hall itself was in darkness and the doors to the ground floor rooms closed. No sound came from behind them. The maid and myself might have been the only people in the building. I followed her up the carpeted stairs between the candles to the first landing, on to the second landing and up again. The staircase was narrower now and might have been going to a servants’ attic, except there was still good deep carpet underfoot and the candles from the smell of them were finest beeswax. The maid stopped at a white and gold painted door and knocked.

  ‘Miss Lane, ma’am.’

  She opened the door for me. It was like stepping into a cave, with one side of it opening on to the night sky with its flying clouds and what looked like a gigantic insect crouching in front of it. After that first step I stood, trying to get my balance as if another move would send me over the brink. I suppose it might have been an ordinary room once, though it was hard to tell because it was illuminated only by patches of candlelight, closed in by shadows. One side of it was mostly windows from knee-height to ceiling, with only as much wall in between them as would hold the glass in place. The head of the giant insect appeared to have eaten a hole for itself through a wall and was sticking out on the other side. After a moment of sheer panic I identified it as one of the largest telescopes I had ever seen.

  ‘So kind of you to come, Miss Lane.’

  The voice was low and pleasant. I looked down and saw a woman who seemed as strange as the room. She was as small and slim as a girl of twelve, with large eyes that glinted in the candlelight. Her silver hair was cut short like a cap, exposing neat oval ears like seashells. The hand she held out to me felt small in mine, but so full of nervous energy I half expected sparks to rise from the contact.

  ‘Your wig, mama.’

  An urgent whisper came from the corner. A young woman was sitting at a desk in one of the islands of candlelight, pen in hand. A thick book like a ledger and piles of paper covered the desk. Her eyes were on a table by the door, where an elaborate grey wig sat on a wooden block. Lady Silverdale laughed.

  ‘I’m sure Miss Lane doesn’t object. It saves so much time, don’t you think, to be able to send one’s hair to the coiffeur without one’s brain having to accompany it?’ Then as an afterthought, ‘My daughter Anna. She helps me in my work.’

  The young woman gave me a neutral nod and went back to her writing. Lady Silverdale walked briskly across the room to the telescope as if she couldn’t bear to be long away from it. It was so much larger than she was that a wooden platform had been built to bring her level with the eyepiece.

  ‘One of Herschel’s of course,’ she said, resting her hand on the brass tube much as I might rest mine on Rancie’s neck. ‘Thirty years ago my husband-to-be said he’d give me whatever I wanted for a wedding present. I think he expected me to say emeralds, but he kept his word.’

  I said nothing, still trying to adjust. I’d expected Rodney Hardcastle’s mother to be a fool. Her intelligence was as disconcerting as her room. She didn’t seem to mind my silence and went on talking.

  ‘it’s very civil of you to call so late. I’m afraid Anna and I have become as nocturnal as owls. There’s been so much cloud lately that we have great gaps in our observations and have to snatch our chances when we can.’

  ‘Observations? Are you looking for new stars?’

  ‘Oh, they’re as common as daisies in a meadow. We could have plenty of those if we wanted them.’ She dismissed galaxies with a wave of her small hand. ‘Orbits are the thing. Uranus seems to be behaving in a way That’s not entirely predictable. That can’t be the case of course. Everything’s predictable, if only you know enough.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘Oh yes. Look at Jupiter and Saturn.’ She spoke as if we might meet them strolling along Piccadilly. ‘People used to think that their orbits were unpredictable until Laplace proved otherwise. It was simply a matter of going backwards and forwards nine hundred years.’

  ‘That’s possible?’

  ‘Oh good heavens, yes. You can calculate backwards and forwards hundreds of thousands of years from observations, but you have to make sure the observations are right in the first place.’

  She removed her hand reluctantly from the telescope and led the way to a smaller island of candlelight on the far side of the room from where her daughter was working. Two armchairs stood on either side of a table crowded with empty coffee cups, a plate with half a sandwich, letters in a variety of handwritings. She signed to me to sit down and took the chair opposite.

  ‘But you haven’t come here to talk about as
tronomy, have you?’

  ‘I’ve come because you wanted to speak to me,’ I said.

  It sounded ungracious, but I was fighting an urge to like her. She didn’t take offence.

  ‘Yes. I understand you were at the theatre the night the dancer died.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘And you believe that the other girl didn’t kill her?’

  ‘I’m convinced of it.’

  ‘May I ask you why?’

  ‘Because of things that have happened since Jenny Jarvis was arrested. People are showing an interest in Columbine, even searching her dressing room. Why should they do that if it were such a simple case?’

  ‘People showing an interest?’

  ‘Yourself for instance,’ I said.

  ‘Ah.’ Her expression of polite attention didn’t change. ‘Then perhaps I should explain my interest to you. You know of my son Rodney?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What do you know of him?’

  ‘He was Columbine’s lover. He has serious debts. He was at the theatre on the night Columbine died.’

  I could see no point in tiptoeing round it and she did not strike me as the kind of woman who would want me to.

  ‘Rodney is a worry to us,’ she said. Her voice was as calm as when she talked about the puzzling behaviour of the planet Uranus. ‘I’m concerned with the effect all this is having on his father’s health.’

  ‘Lord Silverdale is ill?’

  I thought if the illness were serious, Hardcastle’s hypothetical bride might be expecting to claim her coronet sooner rather than later.

  ‘So far, not seriously. But he’s a sensitive man and all the gossip makes things very difficult. I’ve persuaded him to go down to the country for a while to escape from it. You see, I am very fond of my husband.’

  She said it in exactly the tone of voice a person might talk of a faithful old labrador.

  ‘he’s refused to be responsible for his son’s debts, I gather.’

  ‘Of course, otherwise all these dreadful people who’ve brought Rodney into this state of affairs would encourage him to spend even more.’ She sighed and glanced over to the corner where Anna was bent low over her copying. ‘Daughters are so much more satisfactory, don’t you think? But That’s beside the point. I wanted to talk to you because you might help me spare his father further distress.’

  ‘How?’

  For once, she didn’t answer directly.

  ‘I gather the case will come to trial soon.’

  ‘In five days time.’

  ‘As soon as that? Tell me, is it likely that Rodney will be called as a witness?’

  She couldn’t quite keep the urgency out of her voice.

  ‘Why do you think he might be?’

  ‘I don’t know. I know so little law. But I understand that barristers will throw in all kinds of irrelevant things to try and muddle the minds of the jury.’

  ‘It might not be entirely irrelevant,’ I said. ‘He must have known more about her than most people. He knew his way round backstage too.’

  I was trying to unsettle her and she guessed it. Her frown of annoyance was smoothed out almost as soon as it appeared and her voice was back under control.

  ‘But he would be, wouldn’t he? I gather that gentlemen in his set do pay calls on dancers in their dressing rooms.’

  ‘He didn’t that evening. they’d quarrelled. Did he tell you about that?’

  She smiled. ‘He tells me so little, like most young men. But if he didn’t go into her dressing room that night, he couldn’t be a witness, could he? Whoever poisoned her must have had access to the room.’

  Had that been in the newspapers? At any rate she must have studied the case very carefully to know it.

  ‘Is that generally known, that she wouldn’t let him in?’ she said.

  ‘The manager Barnaby Blake knew and I daresay most of the girls in the chorus did too.’

  ‘Do the police know?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Have they questioned you?’

  ‘No.’

  She looked longingly towards the telescope and the night sky.

  ‘Perhaps they should know. And yet, if nobody’s thought of calling Rodney as a witness, we don’t want to put ideas into their heads.’

  ‘Would it really be so disastrous?’

  I thought Hardcastle anywhere would be a disaster, but it wouldn’t help to say it. She gave me a sharp look.

  ‘My husband has done the state some service. Do you think it’s fair that he should be a public mockery because his son’s standing up in the Old Bailey being questioned about associations with dancers and prostitutes?’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ I said.

  ‘I’m told you are a young woman of unusual judgement.’ (Disraeli, I supposed.) ‘I want you to do what you can to prevent my son from having to stand up in court. Believe me, I shall be very grateful.’

  It was the nearest she could come to offering me money without treating me as a tradeswoman. I suspected that she’d thought that out carefully in advance.

  ‘You know the condition I made,’ I said.

  ‘That you would do nothing against the interests of the dancer?’

  ‘Of Jenny Jarvis.’

  It seemed important to me to say her name.

  ‘Yes, but I fail to see how dragging Rodney through the mud would help her.’

  There was an edge of hostility on her voice now.

  ‘There’s something else,’ I said.

  ‘what’s that?’

  ‘Mr Hardcastle’s valet was threatening to leave unless his wages were paid. So he gave him a single diamond earring to take to the pawnbroker. I have reason to think it belonged to Columbine.’

  ‘Have you seen this earring?’

  ‘No, but I have a sketch of it.’

  I took it out of my reticule, unfolded it and handed it to her. She held it so close to the candle flame to look that I was afraid she was going to burn it and kept my hand ready to grab it back. She laughed and returned it to me.

  ‘I recognise that. it’s mine.’

  ‘Yours?’

  ‘Was mine, rather. I gave the pair to poor Rodney a month ago. I’m sure it’s very weak of me, and of course his father’s quite right not to pay his debts, but, well … a mother’s fondness, I suppose.’

  ‘It must have been a sacrifice,’ I said.

  ‘Not a great one. I hadn’t worn them for years.’

  Her manner had changed. She wanted me to go.

  ‘I’m glad we’ve had a chance to talk, Miss Lane. I should appreciate it very much if you’d keep me informed. you’ll find us here at the same time any night and I’ll give Jane instructions that you are to be shown up.’

  I looked away from her face, down at the letters on the table.

  ‘You have a lot of correspondence.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ She grasped the opportunity to drop into social conversation. ‘This one’s from Herschel’s sister Caroline, nearly ninety years old and her mind’s as remarkable as ever.’

  The closely written sheet was sprinkled with figures and mathematical symbols. I peered closely as she held it in the candlelight.

  ‘Remarkable, yes.’

  She stood up and went over to the telescope. Her eagerness to get back to it was almost touching.

  ‘There’s so much to know, you see. it’s quite endless.’

  She stared up at the sky. I stood beside her and stared down on London. Wandering stars of carriage lanterns followed their courses along Park Lane and Piccadilly. Windows near at hand blazed with lights from chandeliers or glowed, more humbly and distantly, from oil lamps. To the west was the darkness of the park, to the south a band of deeper darkness that was the Thames. Somewhere on the far side of it, Marie might be sleeping or waking. On this side, not far from the dome of St Paul’s, Jenny Jarvis would most likely be lying awake on her plank bed. Somewhere Daniel would be walking down alleyways or into dark courtyar
ds, looking for a man with a brown face. She was right – so much to know. I envied the astronomers their almost predictable planets.

  The clouds were still flying across the moon as I hurried home. My head felt as if it were spinning with the planets. She’d lied to me. It had been, in the circumstances, a quick and clever lie. When I’d pretended interest in her correspondence and pored so closely over the letter, it had given me a chance to look at her ears in the candlelight. They were, as I’d first noticed, unusually neat. They had no lobes. That wasn’t so rare, but if You’ve no lobes, you can’t have your ears pierced. The earring in the sketch the pawnbroker made for me had a hook for a pierced ear, so she couldn’t have worn it, not years ago or ever. And yet, I thought she’d been telling something not far from the truth when she said she was worried about her son having to appear in the witness box.

  Only it wasn’t the witness box she was worried about. It was the dock.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  There was no riding on Thursday morning because Amos had a horse to deliver to Highgate, so I was at Kennedy’s lodgings soon after it got light. He’d been working late the night before and was still in his dressing gown and slippers, breakfasting on coffee and anchovy toast with a newspaper on the table in front of him. He jumped up when the servant showed me in, setting toast and paper flying.

  ‘What’s happened now?’

  ‘Nothing bad,’ I said. ‘Progress, I think.’

  We sat down, he found another cup and poured coffee for me and I told him every detail of the meeting with Lady Silverdale.

  ‘So she’s nearly sure Hardcastle stole the earrings from Columbine,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a lot more than that. She’s terrified of him facing any questions about Columbine.’

  ‘We can’t prove that.’

  ‘I wish you’d stop talking like a lawyer,’ I snapped. ‘Everything I try to do, you pour cold water on.’

  He sighed. ‘Liberty, if I’m talking like a lawyer, it’s because I’m having to think like one. I spent an hour or more yesterday speaking to Harmer.’

  It took me a moment to remember that was his solicitor friend.