Chapter 1
“Look here,
mai man, I knows Lidy Jane, I does; I’ve been to an ‘ouse party wiv her,”
The strident
tones took Jane, who was half way down the stairs, back to the time when she and Caleb had met
Beau Popham, and their investigation into the murderous opera dancer.
Fowler’s
carefully cultured and orotund tones appeared to have slipped in agitation in
his reply.
“Ho, no you
don’t, my girl, and it ain’t Lady Jane, nowise, it’s Lady Armitage.”
“Well whatever
it is, I knows her, see? You cin ask. She’s a reel lidy she is.”
Jane sighed,
and stepped into view on the half landing, and began descending.
“Hello, Miss
de Vere,” she said, with great restraint.
“See?” said
Miss Esmeralda de Vere to Fowler. Jane was glad that she refrained from
sticking out her tongue to him. It would
upset Fowler’s dignitas.
“Strewth!”
said Fowler. “If you ain’t that young person wot put the nail in the coffin of
that there Floradora female.”
“Fowler, you
appear to have degenerated to the sound of Bow Bells; I pray you amend this glaring solecism,” said
Jane.
“Indeed,
madam, I do apologise. I was somewhat
taken aback by the appearance of Miss de Vere, or as I believe one should
properly call her, Miss Elizabeth Smith.”
“Well, I ain’t
one to insist on me stage name, but Lidy Jane, you can call me Ellie,” said
Miss de Vere, or Smith.
“Please, Miss
Smith, or Ellie if you prefer, you are promoting me,” said Jane. “I should have
to be the daughter of an earl, a marquis or a duke to be Lady Jane. I am Lady Armitage but in light of our
previous association, and if I am to call you ‘Ellie’, you should perhaps call
me ‘Jane’.”
“Cor, ta,
Jane, that’s real nice of you,” said Ellie, who did recognise what a concession
it was, and looked mightily impressed.
Jane could not
stomach being called ‘lidy’ anything. Especially by a young person whose blonde
hair looked as though the colour owed some debt to artifice, and who had a
voice like a corncrake.
“Come into the
parlour; Fowler will bring tea,” said Jane.
“I trust you have overcome the shock of being so badly deceived by
Jemima Harris, alias Floradora d’Ambrose?”
“Cor,
yes. Wot a liar that piece o’ goods
was!” said Ellie. “I mean, we all ‘as
stage names, know wot I mean? Arfter
all, some of us have family wot don’t care to know us now we’re on stage, but
it ain’t no reason to drag their name down. Not that ‘Smith’ is much of a name
to drag down, but me sister looks like me, see, and if I ain’t goin’ as ‘Smith’
she can pass it off as coincidence if anyone see me on stage, but not if me
name is the same as hers, see?” She paused to refill her apparently excellent
lungs after a delivery worthy of a soliloquy of Hamlet.
“Yes, I
understand,” said Jane.
“Yerse, well,
it weren’t just ‘er name Jemima was lyin’ about, she lied about ‘er age, and
when she told me she was a young girl wronged wot turned to actressing account
of it, that was a lie too, because her pore fambly come to the trial, oooh that was exciting!” she added
parenthetically, “And it turns out she got into trouble with her pa’s
apprentice, and had,” she dropped her voice dramatically, “An abortion!” and then she went on the
street before she fetched up in Covent Garden as an actress and Opera Dancer.”
“My goodness!”
said Jane, who could think of very little else to say.
“O’ course, I
‘ad to give my real name in court,” said Ellie, “But I didn’t ‘ave to say I was
an actress, only that I’d befriended the defendant, that’s Jemima, you know,
and believed she was a young girl who had attracted an older man who made a
fool of ‘imself over ‘er. Which ‘e did,
right enough,” she added.
“Alas, yes,”
said Jane. “It appears that she closely
resembled the woman he loved in his youth, who married another man.”
“Oh, that
explines it proper,” said Ellie. “Romeo!
Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? A rose
by any other name would smell as sweet,” she added, with perfect diction.
Jane stared.
“Ellie, you
have a beautiful speaking voice when delivering lines; better than Floradora at
her best, after months of training in how to be a lady. How on earth is it that you slip back into
....er, your vernacular?”
“’Abit,” said
Ellie. “And account of how this is me,
see? I don’t hold wiv playin’ a part
offstage as you might say. I weren’t
that ‘appy about Jemima doin’ it, but if it were to please ‘er Malvolio,
whatever the gager’s name was, I could see that, see?”
“Yes, quite,”
said Jane. “Mr. Henry Popham was his
name.”
“Malvolio
suited the pore ol’ fule better,” said Ellie.
Jane could not
bring herself to entirely disagree.
“So, you have
come to see me, and I doubt it was an entirely social visit,” said Jane. “How can I help you?”
“Well, Lidy,
uh, Jane, I means, it’s this wise,” said Ellie. “Nobody don’t care for
actresses, and when one turns up dead, well it ‘appens, and you don’t make much
fuss about it, see? In case it’s you
next. And besides, the top actresses,
they’ve got their own worries, wiv some kind o’ nasty business, and I don’t
know wot it is, and I don’t want to.
Only a friend o’ mine’s gone missin’, and I don’t like it.”
“Tell me about
it.”
“’Er name is
Jenny Black, an’ she calls ‘erself Guinevere Lenoire. Seemingly some mort who was bein’ rogered by
King Arfur an’ half ‘is knights orl over the rahnd table was called Guinevere,
an’ she ain’t treated like a whore by the poets, so I dunno, but anywise,
that’s what Jenny picked. An’ she tells
me ‘Lenoire’ is frog for ‘Black’ and she orta know. Talks French she does, and sounds like a
toff, like you, Jane.”
“Possibly,
like me, an impoverished relation of a country vicar who chose a career as an
actress rather than marriage,” said Jane.
“That’d fit,”
nodded Ellie. “Anyway, I seen her
talking to some swell cove, and next fing I know, Gawd, there she is gorn, and
‘er room cleared out too.”
“She did not
take up an offer of better accommodation in return for being his chere amie?” asked Jane.
“If she’d been
any man’s peculiar, why for would she disappear? I’m afraid ‘e offered her that and took ‘er
off for foul ceremonies or vivisection or summat,” said Ellie.
“And you think
she may have died like the other girl you mentioned?”
“Nah, that
weren’t anyfink to do wiv it: I just
mentioned Alice account of nobody doing nuffink about ‘er dying.”
“So you are
saying she died, or was killed, and nothing was done? That’s as outrageous as a girl being able to
disappear without questions asked. And
can you be sure the two incidents were not related? Because maybe Alice suspected something and
was killed to stop her from talking.”
Ellie
considered.
“Nah,” she
said. “The bas...ket wot cut her took
all her jewelry.”
“Well murder
in commission of a robbery should have been investigated,” said Jane.
“Nah, you
don’t get it, Lidy ... Jane, I mean.
Alice, Alethea Fazackerly ‘er stage name was, didn’t have no good
jewellery, only glass and fish scale pearls.
I dunno why it was took.
‘Ere! You means someone might of
took ‘er jools to make it look like a robbery, and it were meant to be a
disappearance?”
“It crossed my
mind,” said Jane.
“Well, that
would put a different complexion on it,” said Ellie, frowning. “And it would spite her gentleman friend wot
give her the jools, though if you asks me, they wasn’t as pretty as the ones
the props left in ‘er jool box for her costume;
if it’d been me, I’d of nicked some o’ them extras to wear rather than
break them up to sew on her dress. I’m
dancing her part now, it’s a harem girl wiv a sultan and all thet sort of
thing, cuh and they do shine nice,” she added.
“Ellie,” said
Jane, with great restraint, “Have you spoken to, er, props about the jewels?”
“Nah, why
would I?” said Ellie.
“Well, Ellie,
suppose someone, er, prigged some sparklers from swell morts and hid them in a
Covent Garden girl’s jewel box, leaving directions for an accomplice to collect
them later, who encountered Alice and killed her, taking the wrong jewels as
the real ones were sewn to her dress.”
“It ain’t
Covent Garden; I’m moonlighting to do ‘er role at the Royal Coburg[1]. Now they built the Waterloo Bridge, it ain’t
but a couple of minutes to nip from one theatre to the other and do two shows a
night; and the pay more’n makes up for paying the foot toll on the bridge,”
said Ellie. “Cor, Jane, you mean I’m
dancing wiv real sparklers on me dress?”
“I wouldn’t be
at all surprised, Ellie, my girl, and seriously as I take your friend’s
disappearance, I take it more seriously that this puts your life in danger, if
the flash cove snabbled a heap of fawneys and gee-gaws and recognises any of it
on your costume.”
“Cuh, Jane,
even I don’t know that much cant!” Ellie was impressed. “It don’t half sound funny in your voice.”
Jane smiled.
“Fawneys are
rings, gee-gaws are small valuables.”
“Well it was
more nor that, there was ear rings and bracelets and necklaces, and Alice said
they must of been made up for some play and trust Props to leave her to have to
take them apart and sew them on. Cuh,
she made a proper job with two pair o’ earrings, managed to hook them together
and sewed them onto the bit over the bubbies, and don’t they dangle nicely and
sway about!”
“I would imagine
they would,” said Jane, trying not to imagine Ellie’s fairly ample bosoms with
flashing jewels attached strategically, swinging about as she moved ...
doubtless in a number of different directions at once.
Most of the
men in the audience would be likely to find it quite hypnotic. Well, if it
boosted the young woman’s pay, if they were real, she would get a finder’s fee
and could replace them with glass.
“I’m gwine to
‘ave to give ‘em to that nice gent of a husband o’ yours, ain’t I?” said Ellie,
mournfully.
“If they are
indeed the real thing, I’m afraid so,” said Jane. “And what’s more, he’ll be sleeping in your
dressing room to guard you. But you will
at least get a finder’s fee, and I would advise you to spend a little more if
you want to replace them, with foil-backed glass. It sparkles more.”
“Catch me
replacing them; if props didn’t provide them, ‘e orta of done,” said
Ellie. “Mind, I might replace them bubby
tassels. Right captivated the men in the
front row are,” she said, beaming with innocent pleasure.
“I am sure
that having something made up especially will be even more, er, captivating,”
said Jane. “And spangles are cheap
enough now they are all made by machine.”
Ellie
brightened.
“Yerse, and
they’d catch the light proper-like,” she said.
“And I don’t need to sew them on like wot you do on a dress being seen
close up. Ta, Jane!”
“You’re
welcome,” said Jane. “Sir Caleb will be
in soon, and then we can bespeak the carriage and go and look at your costume.”
“Well, if you
don’t mind, I’ll ‘ave anover of them nice little cakes,” said Ellie. “I gotta be careful abaht me figger, but they
don’t seem ‘eavy.”
“They are
Russian tea cakes, and they do rather melt in the mouth,” said Jane. “Lady Lieven gave me the recipe for them.”
“Cor! P’haps you can let me ‘ave a copy? I ain’t a half bad cook when I got a
kitchen,” said Ellie. “A girl has to have some skills wot will keep a man as
well as them as catch ‘im in the first place, and a man might commit adultery,
but ‘e don’t abandon a wife wot can feed ‘im good and proper.”
“That’s very
sensible of you,” said Jane, reflecting that it was a sad thing that the poor
girl had to think that way and felt herself unlikely to find true love.
Ellie beamed.
“And that’s why I ain’t ‘olding out for as swell a
cove as Jemima’s Malvolio,” she said.
“No point aiming for the moon! A
nice gent wiv a couple o’ ‘undred a year’ll do me nicely.”
“Yes, it’s
enough for a nice little house with a cook-housekeeper, kitchen maid, lady’s
maid, man servant and a girl of all work,” said Jane. “And enough if your husband wants to keep a
horse in a livery stable as well.”
“Yes, and even
better if ‘e likes one o’ these yere draisines or ‘obby ‘orses,” said
Ellie. “The outlay ain’t no more’n a
good ‘orse, and they don’t eat you outta ‘ouse and ‘ome.”
“Sir Caleb
enjoys his,” said Jane.
“Well, there
yer go,” said Ellie. “Ere, was that the
door?”
“I believe
so,” said Jane, hoping that Fowler would warn his master about the visitor.
Caleb came in,
and achieved a genial smile, bowing to Ellie as well as to Jane.
“Why, Miss
Smith, what a surprise,” he said.
“Cor, you Bow
Street Orficers ain’t ‘alf clever,” said Ellie.
“Your man knew my name and so do you!”
“Fowler is
inestimable,” said Caleb. “Jane-girl,
why is he answering the door not Mostyn?”
“Mostyn is
having a tooth drawn, and I advised him that when he got in he was to go to bed
with a couple of drops of laudanum in hot chocolate,” said Jane. “He has been
hiding misery for a couple of days. I
sent Jacky with him to manhandle him if need be, and see he gets home safe.”
“Ah, I feel
for him,” said Caleb. “I didn’t like to
ask Fowler in case it was over some wager he had with Mostyn which he preferred
not to speak about.”
“Speaking of
wagers, did you win?” asked Jane.
“By a
comfortable margin, Jane-girl,” said Caleb.
“You’d have enjoyed it if you’d been able to come.”
“Well, Frances
is not often unwell,” said Jane. “And she has gone to sleep now, and the fever
has abated.
“Strewf!” said
Ellie. “I never knew swell morts seed to
their own kiddies!”
“Some of us
do,” said Jane, “But I fear, in the main, you are correct, Ellie. And my
apologies for talking over you a bit concerning Sir Caleb’s Draisine race. His machine has some improvements he
suggested, and Mr. Grey was keen to see it in action. They settled on a town
route as Sir Caleb was confident his machine could leave any ordinary curricle
standing in town traffic.”
“I did too,”
said Caleb, “for one of Grey’s friends obliged.
Will made a killing on side bets for the lads, I believe. Now what are
we doing for Miss Smith?”
Jane filled
Caleb in quickly and incisively, taking a fraction of the time it had taken
Ellie to cover the salient points.
“Well, give me
time to sink a cup of tea, and we’ll be off to look at Miss Smith’s costume,”
said Caleb. “And let me ring for Fowler
to pack me an overnight bag.”
