Dead, Mr Mozart

by Bernard Bastable

  One oasis of calm and common sense was Betty Ackroyd. What is more she looked a picture.

  ‘Your dresser is learning her trade,’ I commented.

  ‘I am my own dresser,’ she replied. ‘I have a washerwoman, a presser, a seamstress, but not a dresser.’

  The chaos backstage was gradually reduced to manageable proportions by the efficient leadership of Edward Clarkson, and on a signal from him I went into the orchestra pit and took my seat at the fortepiano. Sometimes I go to my place unnoticed, but not tonight. Was I mistaken in feeling there was a particular warmth in the audience’s response to my entrance? Probably. Most of these cloth-eared dullards I would guess did not know who I was, still less my connection with the piece that was to be played.

  But there was no mistaking their enjoyment as the piece proceeded. They laughed and they clapped – could the author of a comic burlesque ask for more? In particular they applauded Betty Ackroyd, who from the start had them in the palm of her hand. Perhaps I was wrong in thinking that the burlesque was not for her – though it was not so much her voice or her musicality they cheered as her gifts for comedy and mimicry. I, sitting at the keyboard, filling in music that in truth needed no filling in, there mainly to direct the orchestra and singers, began musing on the dispensability of the continuo player, and wondering whether I wouldn’t do better to go along with the Continental fad of waving a stick in front of the orchestra. It would certainly give me greater prominence. On the other hand Mr Popper would probably reduce my emoluments, on the grounds that I wasn’t actually playing anything …

  In the interval I went to the vestibule to mingle with the distinguished audience. This is something Mr Popper insists on, in the interests, so he says, of good relations with the public. I should have thought that providing them with good entertainment was the best way of procuring those. He was there once more himself, and a more ridiculous spectacle of turkey-cock conceit I could not imagine: he was, needless to say, taking credit for the success entirely to himself.

  By chance I happened to bump into Lord Egremere and Mr Brownlett talking together. They were the two gentlemen, you will remember, who on the day of the old King’s death had put the idea of a Coronation opera season into my head. They were profuse in their compliments on the performance and the music.

  ‘A wonderfully happy evening,’ said Lord Egremere urbanely. ‘I had forgotten what a splendid little piece it was.’

  I bowed my gratitude.

  ‘And a splendid augury for the opera season next year,’ said Mr Brownlett. ‘Are arrangements coming along?’

  ‘They progress,’ I said cautiously. ‘Money is a problem.’

  Shutters went down on both their faces.

  ‘It would be,’ said Lord Egremere flatly. ‘Country’s in a parlous state.’

  ‘It might be possible to acknowledge donations in the programme,’ I suggested, turning to Mr Brownlett. ‘“The opera season is put on with financial help from the Northern Counties Bank” – something like that.’

  ‘Oh dear me no!’ said Mr Brownlett, with something like panic in his voice. ‘What would they say in Manchester or Leeds if they thought I’d been giving their money to an opera company? And a London one, at that!’

  Ah well, another good idea whose time had not come. Their negative reactions made me doubly grateful for the support of Lord Hertford.

  Lord Harewood passed by, with a young lady who was not his wife on his arm.

  ‘Splendid little piece, Mr Mozart,’ he said genially. ‘Who wrote the music?’

  It occurred to me to wonder whether Lord Harewood was not playing jokes on me.

  My task of promoting good relations with the public done, I went backstage again. Betty Ackroyd was fuming because her second act dress had not been properly laid out for her. She looked glorious in it, however. Andrew Masters was fussing about whether he was doing justice to his vocal powers, and I said that all my expectations had been fulfilled. Then I went out and took my place once more at the keyboard.

  The second half went quite as well as the first. This London audience was beginning a love affair with Betty Ackroyd. At curtain call I was certainly not mistaken in detecting an increased warmth when I bowed by my instrument. But then a quite unaccustomed thing happened. Betty Ackroyd began pointedly applauding me from the stage. Most of the rest of the cast – my dear dunderhead’s of the Queen’s Theatre’s regular singers – followed suit, and then Betty came forward and beckoned me on to the stage. I disappeared into the bowels of the theatre, and a minute later appeared on stage, to gratifying applause. It was like the first night of Figaro come again. Now I in my turn applauded the cast and then modestly made my way to the wings.

  ‘Mr Mozart!’

  It was Mr Popper, red and bulging of eye, calling me over. I thought he must be annoyed with me for taking a curtain call on stage. I was just about to go over to him, with considerably more confidence than I usually carried to recriminatory sessions with him, when Betty came off and took me back on to the stage to renewed applause. Again as I came off there was Mr Popper, standing in the shadowy depths of the wings, and beckoning agitatedly.

  ‘Mr Mozart! Quick. Come with me immediately. There is no time to lose!’

  Bemused I followed him. Back through the dusty wings, down dim corridors, up stairs.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Why are you not enjoying the applause? It’s been a great success!’

  Mr Popper shook his head with gloomy significance and put his finger to his lips. This drew my attention to his hands. They were shaking. This was not to be a ritual dressing down, a dampening of expectations such as singers and composers regularly receive from opera managers, and authors, I am told, from their publishers. Something had occurred that had terrified Mr Popper.

  We were at last in the long corridor on the first floor where most of the company’s dressing-rooms were. Further and further we went. What could this mean? At last he stopped outside Betty Ackroyd’s room.

  ‘Prepare yourself, Mr Mozart.’

  Foolish thing to say! How can you prepare yourself for you-know-not-what? For one moment the awful prospect of harm having come to Betty Ackroyd flooded into my mind, the very harm I had feared, but then I shook myself: I had just left her on stage, acknowledging applause. I swallowed. Mr Popper opened the door and I went in.

  The first thing I saw was Lord Hertford, standing, but leaning heavily on a stick, looking years older than when I had greeted him earlier in the evening. He looked at us, and then looked down. At his feet, her head facing away from us, sprawled into a curling shape around a little table, was a woman. She was wearing the usual drab dress of Jenny Bowles, but in its back there was a hideous red gash – a gaping wound from which the weapon had been wrenched. I remember giving a little desolate whimper of distress for the poor, sad creature.

  ‘Is it – it is Jenny, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lord Hertford.

  ‘And there’s no question she is—?’

  ‘Dead, Mr Mozart.’

  ‘No question?’

  ‘No question at all. That is how Mr Popper found her.’

  I moved forward. I came round to the other side of the table and looked down at her face. Words of my dear, improvident friend da Ponte came into my head: ‘quel volto unto e coperto del color di morte.’ The death of the Commendatore in Act I of Giovanni. And here was this sad scrap of humanity at my feet. The powerful, dignified paterfamilias, the pathetic creature who could hardly string two words together, yet for both the ‘colour of death’ was the same. My heart turned over for her. I looked towards Lord Hertford and Mr Popper.

  ‘Now, how are we going to dispose of the body?’ asked Lord Hertford.

  8. Trial by Water

  I spluttered. I’m afraid I splutter more and more as I get older, when I am surprised, or, as now, when I am outraged. As a younger man I took things more in my stride (and there were many things, believe me, to take).

 
‘But surely we must fetch a magistrate—’

  ‘My dear Mr Mozart, she can’t be found here,’ said Lord Hertford, seeming to summon reserves of resilience. ‘A former servant at Alderman Wood’s house, found dead in a theatre with which I am associated? No, no, she can’t be found here. In fact, for a variety of reasons, I don’t think she can be found at all.’

  There were sounds of footfalls down the corridor. The curtain calls were over.

  ‘Mr Popper, slip outside and prepare Miss Ackroyd – quietly and tactfully.’ That last word gave him cause to reconsider. ‘No – on second thoughts you go, Mr Mozart. Betty will have to know. Warn her before she comes in, in case she screams.’

  As I turned to the door it crossed my mind that in that instant, in going along with their plan, I was probably compounding a felony or committing some other high-sounding crime. I wondered whether I could plead ignorance of the law, on the grounds of not being a British subject. It seemed unlikely, in view of the fact that I have been in the country since I was seven. I would just have to plead the truth: that I am accustomed, when told to do something by a person of title, to do it.

  Betty Ackroyd was coming along from the stairs, happy and excited, with other members of the cast. One by one they turned into their own dressing-rooms until she alone was left. She saw at once from my face that something was amiss.

  ‘Prepare yourself for something very unpleasant,’ I said. ‘On no account should you scream.’

  She looked up at me for an instant, then swallowed. I opened the door and she passed in. I followed and shut the door behind us. Betty looked down at the terrible yet pathetic sight on the floor of her dressing-room.

  ‘Oh no! Poor damned child … Poor, poor Jenny!’

  She seemed about to bend over her, but Lord Hertford put up his hand and stopped her.

  ‘No point in going close. She’s quite dead, I’m afraid. Now, the question is: what to do next?’

  ‘We have to get rid of the body,’ said Betty at once.

  ‘Of course. You must have nothing to do with that. Go into the corner there and change into your day dress. We three will look the other way. Should be screens here, Mr Popper. Then you must leave and go home with Bradley in the usual way.’

  She looked at him, then nodded, and with her usual self-possession and quiet efficiency she went to the corner where her day dress hung, and began to unlace herself. I of course turned away, as Lord Hertford had promised. My mind was racing. I was shocked that Betty had immediately gone along with – nay, had independently suggested – the proposed illegal disposal of poor Jenny’s corpse. What was it intended we should do? Take the body to Regent’s Park or Hyde Park, to be found by a park-keeper in the morning? Leave her in Soho, and hope that the Runner or Watchman who found her would draw the obvious conclusion? But what if she had not lost her virtue?

  ‘Right,’ said Betty, her voice cracking as it had never cracked during her performance. ‘People may wonder why I have gone home after a success like this…’

  ‘Then stay around in the vestibule for a little while, particularly if there are patrons still there. When you do go, you will find Tom my coachman waiting in the Haymarket. My Lady will have gone in her own coach, thank heavens. Tell Tom to come up here, but discreetly.’

  And so we three stood there, waiting, listening to the sound of the actors one by one departing, with their usual actorish greetings. We had locked the door, so we had no fear of being surprised. After a while Lord Hertford sank down on the threadbare old sofa, looking quite exhausted, but none the less deep in thought. Finally he spoke to Mr Popper.

  ‘The theatre should be emptying by now. Go down and tell your people that you have work to do, caused by the immense success of the piece. Tell them you will leave by the stage door and lock it up. That is the best way for us to leave too, when the time comes.’ As the impresario went to the door he asked suddenly: ‘Got a coffin, Mr Popper?’

  Popper started.

  ‘A coffin? Oh, I see: a stage property.’ He posed, as if in thought. ‘No, I can’t say we have. We specialise in comedies. There’s been no call. Would a travelling trunk do?’

  ‘Admirably. It’s sturdy, is it?’

  ‘Sturdy enough for her.’

  He was about to slip out when there was a knock at the door. Lord Hertford got painfully up, opened it, and let Mr Popper out. As his steps faded down the corridor he pulled inside the door his hefty coachman. The man smelt of beer and onions, and his eyes popped out when he saw Jenny.

  ‘Tom, we have to get rid of that.’

  ‘I can see that, My Lord.’

  He didn’t turn a hair. It was as if getting rid of bodies was all in a day’s work for him. They went into a whispering huddle and I didn’t try to hear what was said. I hoped my part in the business was at an end and that I would be allowed to go back to my rooms and forget the horror of it in a pint of sherry and sleep. Then I caught My Lord looking in my direction as he spoke, then back to his coachman. No such luck: I was going to be involved, whether I liked it or not. I had been in on the matter since Jenny appeared on the scene, and I was going to be in on it till – somehow or other – she disappeared. Why me? I thought. I had nothing against Queen Caroline, beyond the fact that she was vulgar, without taste, promiscuous and probably not in her right mind. And the same could be said of several of the King’s brothers.

  Tom departed with a little bow. Lord Hertford shut the door, locked it, then walked heavily back to the sofa and sank into it.

  ‘Nothing to do but wait,’ he said. I cleared my throat.

  ‘When do you think we can … set about it?’ I asked. He took a jewelled gold watch from his waistcoat.

  ‘I should think we might get started about half-past eleven,’ he said. ‘With precaution, naturally. It will have to be absolutely quiet in the Haymarket, but once we’ve got her on to the coach we should be all right.’

  ‘And where?—’ I began, but was interrupted by a knock at the door. Lord Hertford handed me the key.

  ‘It will be Tom.’

  It was, with a box over his shoulder. It wasn’t a very large box, but then Jenny Bowles hadn’t been a very large person. It was a tatty job, put together by the theatre’s carpenter, and it was crudely painted, with the name ‘Peter’ on the front. I vaguely remembered its being used in a piece called The Jolly Tar, when the hero went off to sea with his belongings. I forget whether I wrote the music or not, but I do recall sitting at the harpsichord night after night, watching the witless action. It was about the time of Nelson’s victories, and people were much taken up with matters naval. The quality of the piece was immaterial, which was lucky.

  Tom came in, and lowered the box by the gruesome corpse on the floor. Lord Hertford nodded to me – ME! – to help him put poor Jenny into her coffin. I gave him a look he couldn’t ignore.

  ‘If you would be so good, Mr Mozart.’

  There are moments when I refuse to be taken for granted. I nodded my agreement and bent over. Tom could in fact have shovelled her in single-handed, but we did it a little more reverently. He took the head and I took the ankles, and together we lifted the body up – light as a cat’s, it seemed – and then down into the box. Thankfully I shut the lid.

  ‘Couldn’t we take it down to the stage door?’ I asked, anxious to get it out of the room. Lord Hertford pondered.

  ‘Better not. One of the watchmen could come round. It’s safer here. We could hide it under the dressing table if necessary.’

  He seemed unmoved by the makeshift coffin’s presence. He had apparently regained some of his vigour, and his eyes glinted keenly as he thought the matter through.After a minute or two he beckoned Tom over.

  ‘Putney, I think, as you suggested,’ he said. ‘Putney would be best.’

  They had obviously discussed various possibilities when they had their muttered discussion at the door, and now Lord Hertford had come to a decision. My heart sank. Putney seemed a hundred miles away. My night wa
s going to stretch into day. My Lord tapped his watch.

  ‘Go and make everything ready, Tom, and come back at half-past eleven.’

  Tom bowed and left again. I locked the door. So there we were, the two of us, a happy little party, Lord Hertford saying nothing and me quaking with apprehension. Where Mr Popper was I did not know, but I suspected in his office with a bottle for company. His drink was gin – a typically low preference. Still, I would have been happy with a bottle of anything at that moment. I looked around me but could spy none. Betty Ackroyd had clearly no need of the sort of stimulant many actresses and singers need before a performance. It would come, I thought, as the years of makeshift, setbacks and disappointments which is the lot of the English stage player took their toll on her optimism.

  The minutes ticked by, with none of the speed they ran with for Faust awaiting midnight. (Faust – now there’s a subject for an opera. Just the subject for an old man!) I walked restlessly up and down, but a look shot from under Lord Hertford’s elegantly-trimmed eyebrows told me I was distracting his train of thought. I sat at Betty’s dressing table and began jotting down the first movement of a serenade for wind instruments that I had had in my mind for some days. Suitable music for an aristocratic rout in Coronation Week. I do sometimes wonder why the aristocracy requires new music for such occasions, when no one listens anyway. But of course for me the first requirement is that they pay.

  At last it came. There was a knock on the door, I let Tom in, and at a nod from Lord Hertford we went over to the makeshift coffin.

  ‘Where’s Mr Popper?’ asked Lord Hertford.

  ‘At the stage door,’ said Tom, ‘keeping a lookout.’

  I detected a too-readiness about the answer. There was something wrong and I could guess what it was.