He gazed at me in the way that men often do when they’ve had a glass or two of punch. I was not dressed like a harlot, but I could see him gathering his courage, ready to make me an offer of a few coins. Any woman alone in a tavern is asking to be bought, after all. I imagined he had little experience of the matter, or how any of it was done.
‘Save your pennies, Mr Simmot,’ I said, patting his hand. ‘Go home to your father and write wonderful stories for young ladies trapped in their gilded prisons. Write their dreams for them and you will be the toast of the literary world. Then find yourself a kind wife to share your ambition. Don’t fritter your coins on women like me.’
His mouth gaped a little as I stood to leave. His face turned crimson. ‘I didn’t mean… I… wait. I didn’t ask your name…’
No, he hadn’t, and I wouldn’t give it. The conversation had been about him. He had much to learn if he wanted to find that wife, but I judged it was someone else’s task to teach him. I left him wondering, for the first time, who I really might have been.
Chapter Thirty-six
If Hunter and Dinsdale were conspiring to ruin Garrick and install Hunter in his place, then they would need two things: they would need to demonstrate that Garrick could not manage his company, and they would need the players and stage hands to transfer their loyalty from Garrick to them.
Accidents had certainly happened. Costumes had been ruined with paint or torn beyond repair. Scenery had fallen over at inappropriate moments. A young man’s health had been sacrificed to create a nasty fall from a ladder. George Hunter had spoken of candles falling out of the girandole. All of this suggested that Garrick was losing control. I wondered whether Joe Sugden had discovered the truth before me. When I confessed that I was working for the magistrate, trying to uncover the cause of the accidents, he had wanted to know what I had overheard in the dressing room. Maybe he knew that Hunter and Dinsdale were involved. Perhaps he had confronted them – or asked for a share of the profits to keep quiet – and they had silenced him.
Dinsdale had a strong crew among the stage hands. I remembered how, when Mr Fielding had questioned him, they had made noises of support as he spoke. These were theatre people, much more than they were Garrick’s people. I saw that now.
Hunter was jovial with the players. He barely spoke with stage hands, the company’s servants. He was happiest drinking with the actors, slapping them on the back, helping them learn lines, offering advice gleaned from years of experience. He was not harassing them to turn up on time to rehearsals, as Garrick was. He was the affable actors’ friend. He flirted with the actresses – I’d seen him snuggled up in Peg West’s bosom – he poured drinks for the men as if he were the one who had bought them wine and beer. How could they not suppose that, under his directorship, the theatre wouldn’t be a riot of fun?
And while Dinsdale was with the stage hands, and Hunter was gaining the support of the players, his wife was ensuring that the patrons were not forgotten. It would be crucial, if he were to oust Garrick, that the financial support continued. Hunter could hardly turn to the men of letters, the critics who praised Garrick’s attention to detail, and his transformation of the stage. He would look instead to the men of fashion who wanted pretty actresses more than Garrick’s elevated sense of artistry. No wonder he had sent her to Hawbridge, rather than Astley. Hawbridge, as well as being an earl, was wonderfully ignorant of theatre. Astley had gone home after the Lear, unimpressed by the farce that would follow the serious play. Astley, unlike his companions, thought the play a significant feature of the night out. Hawbridge was, by contrast, something of a philistine. It wasn’t his title that attracted Hunter, but his ignorance – and the knowledge that he would draw other, equally ignorant but wealthy men into Hunter’s circle. It made perfect sense.
I pushed open the back door and wandered down the dark corridor to the dressing rooms. I had no proof of any of this, of course.
Molly was still out. Or, she was not in the mending room. I made my way to the green room, wondering whether I would find her there. I needed to discover whether Sugden had said anything to her. She did not know that his death had been murder, so I needed to be careful. His death, and the lie that had been told about it, was dreadful enough, without her knowing that he had been locked in the trap room and left to die.
She wasn’t in the green room either, but Ketch was back. He was drinking with Tom Firmin. They were talking quietly, the monkey curled up on the table in front of them.
‘How’s Molly?’ I asked. ‘Where is she?’
‘Gone for a piss. She needs to sleep now, I think. It’s been a long and difficult day for my poor little lamb,’ said Ketch.
‘Is she… has she drunk much?’
Ketch put his head on one side. ‘Joe would have had something to say about it, no doubt. She’ll be all right by the morning.’
‘Poor Molly,’ I said. ‘Such a terrible thing to happen.’
Ketch looked me up and down, as if only now focussing on who I was. ‘You look fancy, Lizzie Blunt. Where did you get your new clothes, eh?’
I had forgotten, for a moment, who I was in this place. ‘I found a few coins, you know how it is, Ketch,’ I said. I gave him a sly look, as if I had just worked out how women earned their money in the theatre.
He chuckled into his drink. ‘And there was me thinking you were being paid by that runner,’ he said.
This startled me. ‘Paid by the runner?’
He raised his eyebrows, so that the skin on his bald head wrinkled. ‘Molly says you told her and Joe that you were here for the magistrate, spying on us all.’
‘Spying?’ Tom looked up in surprise. ‘Why would you be spying on us?’
I rehearsed my story again to them. How Mr Fielding had sent me, a thief, to Mr Garrick, and how I was trying to find out about the accidents in the theatre. ‘That was all before Lord Hawbridge was killed,’ I said. ‘His death put an end to my spying, but by then I was needed, and I like it here.’
Tom shook his head, frowning. ‘So when you were talking to me, asking about my fall, you were just wanting to know for the magistrate?’
‘In part,’ I said, not wishing to be dishonest, ‘but I did really want to know about your leg. It looked sore.’
‘I’m not sure I like your kind, Lizzie Blunt,’ he said. ‘I thought you were a friendly girl.’
I said nothing. If he knew the truth, he would be even more shocked.
Molly arrived, releasing us from the awkward silence, and helped herself to the dregs from Ketch’s cup. ‘Lizzie! Where’ve you been?’
I struggled to remember where I should have been. ‘I went for a walk and found something new to wear,’ was what I came up with.
She looked at my gown. ‘Suits you,’ she said. ‘Did you steal the coins for it? Aha, you little trollop, I know what you did.’
I looked suitably guilty.
‘I should box your ears for that. No girl from my dressing rooms puts herself about, even if she does need new clothes. You come to me for gowns – I can always find you something.’
‘I’m sorry, miss.’
‘You spend your life thieving and whoring, you’ll end up hanging for something or someone,’ she said. Her voice wobbled into a small sob.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to distress you,’ I said, but her face had crumpled now. She put her head into her hands and ran from the room.
Ketch, giving me a filthy look, ran after her.
‘What was that about?’ I asked Tom, conscious he was still scowling at me.
‘She’s upset, of course,’ he snapped. ‘She was close to Joe Sugden. Very close.’
I knew that.
‘Look Tom, I didn’t mean to spy on you,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to insult you.’
He rolled his eyes.
‘Really. You were kind to me. I liked that. But I had to find out. The magistrate put me here to do it.’
He turned his face away. I could see that he was angry
.
I stood for a moment, not knowing what to say, aware that I had lost his trust. I recalled the smile he had given me when we had met and felt a pang of regret. Then I remembered what he’d told me. It had been Dinsdale, he had said, who had rushed him, shouted to him to hurry up the ladder.
I made my way to the mending room, wanting to make peace with Molly, but she was not there. Someone was sobbing in Kitty Suckley’s dressing room, further along the passageway, so I tapped on the door and entered without waiting.
It wasn’t Molly, but Lucy Hunter. She was sitting at Kitty’s table, trying to paint her face with make-up. Assisted by the bright afternoon light that was coming through the window, I saw that she was trying to hide not only her red eyes, but the purple bruise under one of those eyes. It was a futile endeavour: not only was her face a mess, she was drinking. I could smell the liquor.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs Hunter,’ I said. ‘I thought this was Miss Suckley’s room. I’ve come to sort her costumes.’
She said nothing but began to apply rouge to her cheeks.
‘You’ll not lose that without a dab of comfrey, miss,’ I said, not looking at her, but concentrating on the gowns. ‘That’s what my mother used to do, whenever pa hit her.’ It was easier to lie than tell her about Emily’s magic salve.
She sat, now poised with the rouge pot and looked at me through the mirror.
‘What do you know of it?’ she said, taking a swig of brandy from the glass in front of her.
I shrugged. ‘Enough to know a shiner when I see one, miss.’ My own black eye was still in evidence, after all.
Her shoulders sagged and she dropped the rouge. Then she started sobbing again.
I plucked a handkerchief from my pocket and sat next to her on the bench. She took the offered handkerchief and held it to her face, covering the small white square in the rouge she’d just applied. It was Davenport’s handkerchief. He would not be impressed by the rouge.
‘Thank you.’
She looked at me with a teary, stained face, the bruise – up close – was ugly and sore, across the top of her right cheek. I assumed it was Hunter who had hit her. The skin had broken, probably damaged by the ruby ring he wore. The back of his hand then: short, sharp and brutal.
Bastard.
‘Does he do this often?’
She shook her head. ‘No, not often. Just sometimes. When I’m not good enough, or forgotten my lines, or when the man I’m supposed to be with decides he doesn’t want me.’
I pricked up my ears.
‘Mr Astley?’ I couldn’t help myself. ‘He doesn’t want you?’
She frowned a little. ‘Oh, it’s nothing. He’ll come back, he usually does. But he wasn’t happy that I was being so cheerful with Lord Hawbridge. He doesn’t want to share me.’
‘He won’t have to share you now, miss, will he? What with Lord Hawbridge being dead.’
She gave a weak smile, as if I had no idea how such things worked. ‘That doesn’t prevent him from being jealous, silly girl. It’s what men are like.’
Privately I imagined Mr Astley was too busy fussing over Lady Hawbridge to spend time with his mistress. Instead I asked, ‘Is your husband jealous of Mr Astley, or doesn’t he mind?’
She seemed to shrink again at the mention of Hunter. Then she shook herself.
‘He likes it that other men want me. But they have to be rich. It’s his great plan: one day we’ll have enough money and enough support for him to take over a theatre and we’ll be the talk of the town.’ She scooped up her glass of brandy and toasted herself in the mirror, with something of an ironic lift in her brow. ‘Ouch, that hurts.’ She put a fingertip to the bruise.
‘He’d like to take over this theatre, you mean?’
‘Oh yes,’ she cast a glance at me in the mirror, believing that she was talking to a nobody. ‘He’ll be master of Drury Lane one day. That’s the big idea. We just need the support, that’s all. Garrick’s not so popular.’ She returned her gaze to herself, swaying a little as she tried to focus.
‘Then you’ll be the star of the show, miss,’ I laughed. ‘In the papers more than Mrs Cibber.’
Her face dropped again. ‘Perhaps. As long as that spiteful whore Kitty Suckley doesn’t steal it all from me. She’s after Astley too. That’s what George said. And she’ll stop at nothing to get herself a rich patron. George said I wasn’t doing well enough.’ She sighed. ‘That’s when he hit me.’ She mimed the strike, wafting a gentle hand in front of her image in the mirror. George Hunter would have been drinking and probably wouldn’t even recall it.
‘Where is Mr Hunter now, miss? Can you keep away from him?’
‘Ah, thank you for your concern, little one. He’ll be in the Shakespeare, or the Rose. I should probably avoid him for the time being.’
I nodded.
‘You can keep the handkerchief, miss, but mind what I say: comfrey. A salve or a poultice will help.’
She went back to dabbing at her face. I hoped, for her sake, that she would stay away from her husband – and out of the view of the public – for a day or two.
I went to look for Davenport, and not only to report the loss of his handkerchief.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Bow Street magistrate’s court was only a short step from the theatre. I made my way to the house, and not the court, and found the door opened by the young lad whose acquaintance I had made some months ago. He recognised me, bowed solemnly – he was a solemn little creature – and scuttled off to find Davenport. I waited in the hallway which was large, but only minimally furnished with a simple table and a vase of flowers from the market. A magistrate would not want to parade his good pieces when there were thieves about.
A door opened, and Davenport came out.
‘I can only assume that you come bearing news?’
‘And good afternoon to you too, sir.’
He chuckled. ‘My apologies, Miss Hardwicke. Or are you still Lizzie Blunt?’
I gave him my most superior look. ‘At the moment, I am, indeed, the archangel Gabriel, the bearer of tidings.’
He ushered me into the kitchen, much to the surprise of the housekeeper, who I recalled was Mrs Priddy. She said nothing as Davenport pulled a chair for me at the table and bade her bring a pot of tea. The boy stared, wide-eyed, at me, before running back to his station by the door.
As Davenport poured the tea, I shared with him all that I knew, beginning with what I’d gleaned from Simmot. He interrupted me from time to time for clarification but let me tell my story mostly unhindered.
‘Have we seen the last of Mr Simmot?’ he asked, grimacing, ‘or is he still to be found handing out his scandal sheets in the piazza?’
‘I believe he will be in Lichfield soon,’ I said, ‘but if you wish to speak to him, he lodges on Drury Lane, in one of the better lodging houses. I think he’s relieved to be saving his funds by going home, his landlord is milking him dry.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. You have saved us all from his plays and pamphlets,’ he said. ‘I am better able to avoid his novels, I think.’
‘They’ll be everyone’s favourite soon, believe me,’ I laughed back. ‘The talk of the coffee houses.’
‘What I want to know,’ he said, leaning forward and helping himself to a piece of the cake Mrs Priddy had also set in front of us, ‘is how you persuaded him to tell you all that about Hunter and Dinsdale?’
‘There are ways of retrieving information from men like Simmot, if you know how to deal with them.’
‘Oh God, please don’t tell me you took him to bed.’
‘Don’t be foolish. Of course I didn’t. He has no money and there are limits to my charity. I find a little flattery works well on most men.’
‘You never flatter me,’ he muttered into his cake. ‘Mrs Hunter confirmed his speculations, you say?’
I thought of Lucy Hunter, red-eyed and battered. ‘I don’t think she’s living the life she imagined when she married George Hunter,�
�� I said. ‘I’ve no doubt she enjoys the attention from men like Mr Astley, to say nothing of the cheers from the crowds and notices in the newspapers, but I don’t think she quite understands what he’s up to – there was no deviousness or circumspection in her comments to me. Even so, she said that it was their plan to take over the theatre.’
He chewed for a while, thinking. ‘I can well believe that Hunter and Dinsdale are behind the mischief in the theatre. I can imagine them plotting to put an end to Garrick’s dominance, although I cannot see how Lord Hawbridge’s death fits with their plan.’
‘I don’t think it does,’ I said, remembering the conversation I’d overheard in the dressing room. ‘Hunter was agitated about it. Hawbridge was a big prize for him, that’s why he was throwing Lucy in his way.’
‘Exactly.’
‘What about Joe Sugden, though?’ I asked. ‘Did they lock him in the trap room?’
He pulled a face. ‘I can’t imagine that either, although, if they thought he would go to Garrick they may have resorted to desperate measures.’
I remembered Dinsdale’s face, his bewilderment, and his grief at Sugden’s death. He didn’t look like a man who was hiding a murder; he looked like someone who had lost an old and trusted friend.
‘Besides,’ said Davenport, ‘if they didn’t kill either Lord Hawbridge or Sugden, then all that they have done is cause a few accidents and some damage. Garrick will be at liberty to send them packing, or to claim for the loss, but there’s little we can do.’
‘And we still have a dead earl.’
‘We still have a dead earl,’ he agreed. ‘You know, I think that your earlier guess was nearer the mark. This has more to do with Hawbridge House than it does with Drury Lane.’
‘Hmm,’ I said, taking a bite of cake.
‘Unfortunately, I can’t return there,’ he said. ‘As far as Lady Hawbridge is concerned, we’ve discovered her husband’s killer.’
‘I won’t be welcome either.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Are you sure? You don’t think you can use those famous charms of yours and find a way inside? Search for more letters while you’re mending neck cloths?’
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