Entertaining Death Read online

  Entertaining Death

  Lesley Cookman

  Chapter One

  ‘I’ve got a friend coming down. And she’ll want to come and see you.’ Lady Ivy Anderson grinned across the desk at her friend Dorinda Alexander. ‘Another Lady.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Lady Amelia Washington. Heard of her?’

  Dorinda frowned. ‘I don’t think so. Should I have done?’

  ‘Thought you might have. She was a Gaiety Girl. Married old Sir Harold.’

  ‘Ah.’ Dorinda knew that many members of the peerage had become enamoured of the beautiful girls who graced the stage of The Gaiety in George Edwardes’ glamorous productions, some going so far as to marry them.

  ‘So you know her, do you?’

  ‘She was Ada’s friend, actually, but I met her, and since I’ve become a “Lady” too, we’ve sort of struck up a bit of a friendship. Both of us beyond the pale with the nobs, if you know what I mean.’

  Ivy had once been a maid in the same household where Dorinda had been a governess, and had subsequently married Dorinda’s pupil’s grandfather, Sir Frederick.

  ‘So Nemone – Mrs Shepherd – will feel she has to pay a call on Amy – Amelia. And so she’ll come and see you at the same time.’

  ‘With Julia?’ Dorinda was still very fond of her former pupil, as, indeed, Julia was of her.

  ‘Oh, I expect so. She might even let Julia come to a performance. With her grandpa and me, of course.’

  ‘That would be very nice. And you say Lady Washington would like to come as well? But she’d turn up her nose at our sort of thing, wouldn’t she, if she’s been a Gaiety Girl?’

  Ivy let out a very unladylike snort of laughter. ‘Our Amy? Never! How do you think she become – became – friends with our Ada? They started off together in the small halls round Whitechapel. Worked their way up, so to speak, till Ada got in the family way. By then Amy had moved on, and met Sir Harold. And now she’s a merry widow.’

  ‘Oh – she won’t come to a hall, then?’ said Dorinda.

  ‘Course she will. He’s been dead a year. And she’ll have her blasted shadow with her.’

  ‘Shadow?’

  ‘Miss Mariah Belting, if you please.’ Ivy put on a highfalutin air and looked down her nose. ‘Amy’s “companion”. Perishin’ maid, if the truth be told.’

  ‘Oh?’ Dorinda looked puzzled.

  ‘She was mates with Amy at The Gaiety, see. They ’ad – had – a room together.’ Ivy’s carefully constructed English was falling apart a little, as it often did under stress. ‘And Amy took ’er when she marries old Sir Harold. I didn’t know ’er well then, so I dunno what ’appened, but – Gawd, that woman’s a nightmare.’

  Dorinda, amused by Ivy’s lapse into her East End roots, asked, ‘In what way a nightmare?’

  Ivy gave herself a little shake, sat up straight in her chair and cleared her throat. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘She don’t – doesn’t – think anything’s good enough for ’er Lady Washington. She’s posher than posh, if you know what I mean. Well, pretends to be, any’ow. All prim and pursed lips. ’Ow she and Amy ever become friends – well. And I swear she whispers poison in Amy’s ear. Ada’s told me. She reckons she’s only allowed me to be a friend because I married my old darling. The others have all been seen off.’

  ‘So your sister’s allowed to be friends, even though she still lives in Hoxton?’

  ‘Oh, Amy never goes there. They meet every now and then somewhere –’ Ivy flapped a hand.

  ‘Neutral?’ suggested Dorinda.

  ‘That’s it. So there we are. I’m doin’ – doing – you a favour. Getting Mrs Nemone down here with Julia.’

  ‘That’s not the only reason your friend Lady Washington is coming to Nethergate, is it?’ Dorinda said shrewdly.

  Ivy looked away.

  ‘Come on, Ivy. And why have you told me about her, anyway? You could just have turned up with her to see a show.’

  The Alexandria in Nethergate was Dorinda’s pride and joy, and was now home to her troupe of concert party artistes, known as “The Alexandrians”. She had cause to be grateful to both Ivy and Ivy’s husband, Sir Frederick, for the change in her fortunes since her fall from grace as a governess.

  ‘I could ’ave.’ Ivy was staring out of the window up the steps to Victoria Place, where chauffeur Billy waited, leaning against Sir Frederick’s new motor car.

  ‘And why didn’t you?’ Dorinda tapped her fingers on the desk.

  Ivy sighed. ‘I wanted to talk to you first. She’s in a bit of trouble, see.’

  Dorinda’s stomach turned over. She didn’t want trouble. Twice in her life she had found herself at the centre of “trouble”, and twice was enough. She said nothing. Eventually, Ivy looked back at her.

  ‘I thought you might – I don’t know – give ’er some ’elp.’

  ‘Help? How could I possibly do that?’

  ‘Oh all right – support, then.’

  ‘How? I don’t even know what this trouble is, Ivy. And I do not want any more trouble in my life.’

  Ivy sighed. ‘I feel sorry for her, see. She married old Sir Harold and had just begun to have a nice little life, paid for her old mum to move somewhere a bit nicer, like –’

  ‘The same as you did for Ada,’ put in Dorinda.

  ‘A bit.’ Ivy looked uncomfortable. ‘Anyway, Sir Harold ups and dies. And at first everything’s all right. She goes into her blacks and trots along as usual. Then two things happen. Sir Harold’s got two daughters, see?’

  ‘Ah.’ Dorinda began to understand. ‘And they thought Amy had stolen their inheritance?’

  Ivy shrugged. ‘Something like that. But the other thing was, this young bloke started paying attention to her. Well, o’ course, she didn’t pay him no mind, but he kept leaving his card, see. And when she began to go out and about again, he was always there. And then the daughters – cows, they are, if you don’t mind me saying – spread about that Amy did away with Sir Harold to be with this young Jeremy.’

  Dorinda gasped. ‘That’s awful! Where did they get that idea? Or did they just make it up?’

  ‘I reckon they made it up. No one in their sort of society knows Amy well, see, so they’d believe anything anyone told them. Nasty, ain’t it?’

  ‘It’s vile. Did she know this Jeremy before Sir Harold died?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He was helping Sir Harold with some antiquarian – is that the right word? – papers. He – Sir Harold – liked all that old stuff.’

  ‘So Amy must have known him quite well?’ said Dorinda.

  ‘I dunno about well, but she says he often joined them for dinner – that sort of thing.’

  ‘So there’s enough there to give weight to the daughters’ tales.’

  ‘I reckon. Anyway, she wants to get away from London – you can see why – and Ada suggested she came here.’

  ‘I suppose Nethergate isn’t fashionable, so she won’t meet many society people here, but I still don’t see what I can do to help?’

  ‘I think she wants to be in the show,’ said Ivy.

  Chapter Two

  ‘In the show?’ gasped Dorinda.

  Ivy looked a little shamefaced. ‘Well, see, she’s missed it a lot, and I said –’

  ‘It was your idea, was it?’ Dorinda was looking thunderous.

  ‘She’d be incog – incong – you know, false name.’

  ‘Incognito,’ said Dorinda. ‘That’s all very well, but I can’t just put a new girl in without any warning.’

  ‘You could always say she was a replacement for Velda,’ suggested Ivy slyly.

  ‘She was an unauditioned addition to the cast,’ said Dorinda, ‘and look what happened to her.’

  ‘
That’s not going to happen to Amy.’

  ‘And what about this – Mariah, was it?’

  ‘Oh, she’d have to come too,’ said Ivy with a sigh, and then seeing Dorinda’s expression, ‘oh, not into the show. Just down here to run the household, you know.’

  ‘She’d take a house?’ Dorinda’s eyebrows shot up. ‘A member of a concert party?’

  ‘Probably a suite,’ said Ivy. ‘Nothing showy.’

  ‘That’s showy enough.’ Dorinda shook her head. ‘I’ll have to think about it. And she was just one of the ballet, was she? She might not be any good.’

  ‘She was when Ada knew her. Nice little soubrette she was. And did the comic stuff.’

  ‘Really?’ Dorinda thought. A pretty young woman who could sing and perhaps perform the funnier songs that audiences seemed so fond of – it certainly had its appeal. ‘When is she coming down?’

  Ivy’s cheeks, beneath their subtle blend of rouge and powder, turned even pinker. ‘She’s here already.’

  Dorinda scowled, disgusted.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dolly. Look, it wasn’t my fault. Ada had told her about Nethergate, and about The Alexandria, and then, blow me, if Sir Freddie didn’t take up the cause and tell her all about you –’ she caught Dorinda’s expression ‘– no, no, not all about you, but the theatre and you and everything, and recommended that big hotel on Victoria Place.’

  ‘The Mansion House.’

  ‘Yeah, that one. See, and because it supplies meals and so on, she didn’t have to bring any staff with her.’

  ‘Except Mariah.’

  ‘Except her. But she wouldn’t call herself staff.’

  Dorinda stood up and went to the window, where she could just see the imposing frontage of The Mansion House. ‘I still don’t see how this is going to help her.’

  ‘She can disappear – vanish. Then it would all die down – the gossip.’

  ‘Has she registered under a false name at The Mansion House?’

  ‘Oh!’ Ivy looked taken aback. ‘I never thought of that.’

  ‘I hope she has, or she’s not going to stay hidden for very long, is she?’

  ‘I’ll ask her,’ said Ivy. ‘I know she said she’d use her old stage name if she came here. P’raps she’s used that?’

  ‘Depends what it is,’ said Dorinda. ‘Something like “Estella Le Pompadour” is hardly going to be inconspicuous, is it?’

  Ivy looked at her doubtfully. ‘Er – no. I don’t think it was that.’

  Dorinda laughed despite herself. ‘Oh, come on, Ivy, I wasn’t serious. You go and find out if Amy has sensibly registered under a different name, or even, perhaps her own maiden name, then ask her when she could come and audition.’

  ‘Audition?’ Ivy looked shocked.

  ‘Of course, audition. Even Velda had an audition, right here in this office.’

  ‘You said earlier she was unauditioned.’

  ‘She wasn’t formally auditioned, and she came asking to be in the show. But I did make her sing for me, here.’

  ‘Can I bring her to the show this afternoon?’

  ‘If you’re sure she wants to come. After all, one look at us, and she might turn straight round and head back for London.’

  ‘I know she wants to come. She’s already looked at the building and seen the posters.’

  ‘All right. Shall I ask Maude for a couple of tickets now?’

  ‘Three,’ said Ivy. ‘Bloody Mariah will have to come, too.’

  Dorinda deliberately didn’t look round the audience when she came to take her seat at the piano for the afternoon performance wearing her familiar pierrot costume. Her company knew that Lady Ivy, whom they’d met before, would be in, but Dorinda had said nothing about Lady Washington, who, despite Ivy’s assurances, was an unknown quantity.

  Aramantha Giles hurried over to her in the interval.

  ‘’Ere, Miss Dolly – is that Amy West with your Lady Ivy?’

  ‘I don’t know, Aramantha,’ said Dorinda truthfully. ‘Is it? I haven’t looked. Who’s Amy West?’

  ‘Worked the halls round Shoreditch and Whitechapel way when me and – well, you know. When I was working that way. Then she went up in the world. Actual musical comedy at the Gaiety. Really good, she was. Better even than … than Martha.’ Her voice dropped on the name of her late friend.

  ‘Too good for us, then,’ said Dorinda with a smile.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Aramantha looked up quickly. ‘She’d be perfect for us. We’re class, see.’ Dorinda’s smile grew wider. ‘But she went and married a toff, didn’t she?’

  ‘I don’t know what Amy West did, dear,’ said Dorinda, ‘but I think the lady with Lady Ivy is the widow of Sir Harold Washington, Lady Washington.’

  ‘Blimey!’ Aramantha’s eyes grew wide.

  ‘Now, you’d better get changed, hadn’t you?’ Dorinda looked round the dressing room and saw that the other girls had been listening.‘All of you!’

  At the end of the performance, while Dorinda was waiting backstage for the audience to file out of the hall before she could return to her office, Maude Beddowes, Dorinda’s general factotum and wife of Will, the original leader of “Will’s Wanderers”, the company which had become “The Alexandrians”, appeared in the dressing room.

  ‘Waiting for you in your office,’ she said with a grin. ‘That Lady Washington is as excited as a kid at Christmas.’

  ‘Is there another woman with her?’ asked Dorinda.

  Maude made a face. ‘There most certainly is. A sourer-faced piece I’ve not set eyes on.’

  Dorinda sighed. ‘Oh, well. Let’s get it over with.’

  Maude gave her a surprised look, but said nothing and led the way through the now empty auditorium. She opened the door of the office and stood back to let Dorinda pass. ‘Shall I fetch tea, Dolly?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, would you, Maude? How kind.’ Dorinda advanced into the room her eyes flicking from Ivy to the figure beside her who looked as though she would take off in flight any minute now.

  ‘Dolly, may I present Lady Amelia Washington. Amy, this is my friend Dorinda Alexander.’

  Lady Washington darted forward and grabbed Dorinda’s hand. ‘Oh, I’m so pleased to meet you – can I call you Dolly? What a lovely show – and a lovely hall! Such a surprise in a little town like this. We so enjoyed it, didn’t we, Mariah? Oh – I’m sorry, this is my friend, Mariah Belting. Mariah – Miss Dorinda Alexander.’

  The woman Lady Washington drew forward was tall and slim, her dark hair drawn back from her face and hidden under a small black hat with three feathers. She nodded unsmilingly at Dorinda and kept her hands clasped in front of her.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said Dorinda politely, and saw Mariah’s eyebrows lift a fraction. Didn’t expect my accent, thought Dorinda a touch maliciously. Lady Washington flicked her companion an uncertain glance.

  ‘Please – sit down,’ said Dorinda. ‘Ivy, do take my chair. Lady Washington, Miss Belting, please sit here.’ She indicated the two guest chairs, neither very comfortable, but all that was available. The two Ladies sat with alacrity, but Mariah Belting looked as though she were being invited to sit in a pigsty.

  ‘Now, Dolly.’ Lady Washington turned a determined face to Dorinda. ‘Has Ivy told you I’ve come here to apply for a job?’ Her tone was light-hearted, but Dorinda sensed a certain tension lay beneath.

  ‘She did mention something,’ she said carefully.

  Mariah Belting made a sound that could have been one of disapproval just as Maude followed her knock into the room, bearing a tray. Dorinda noticed she’d put out the best china, that Mrs Shepherd had given her when she gave up her own establishment.

  ‘Thank you, Maude.’ Dorinda smiled up at her.

  ‘Thanks, Maudie,’ said Ivy, deliberately, Dorinda felt sure, as she saw Mariah shudder.

  ‘So, the job,’ said Lady Washington as Maude closed the door behind her. ‘Is it possible? When could I audition?’

  ‘You’d hardly have
to audition.’ Mariah spoke for the first time, in a clipped cold voice.

  Lady Washington flashed her a look of annoyance. ‘Don’t be silly, Mariah. Of course I do.’

  ‘Well, perhaps after we’ve had tea?’ Dorinda found herself saying against her better judgement. Ivy beamed.

  ‘Really?’ Lady Washington’s pretty face turned pink. ‘On the stage here, perhaps? Won’t your company mind?’

  ‘I’ll speak to them first,’ said Dorinda. ‘But are you sure you would want to join us? After all, you haven’t been part of our world for some time.’

  ‘Neither have you, by the sound of it!’ said Lady Washington. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, that was rude! And not what I meant. I meant …’

  ‘It’s all right, Amy,’ said Ivy, amused. ‘Dolly ran away to join the circus, didn’t you, lovie?’

  ‘In a way.’ Dorinda smiled, first at Ivy, then at Amelia. ‘I’m happier here, although it’s hard work, and I miss my former charge.’

  ‘You still see her,’ said Ivy. ‘That’s Miss Julia I told you about, Amy.’

  ‘You’re so lucky.’ Amelia looked wistful. ‘I would have loved –’

  ‘None of that.’ Mariah’s sharp voice broke in. The other three women looked at her in surprise. To Dorinda’s astonishment, she saw two bright spots of pink on Mariah’s cheeks.

  ‘I’ll just go and see the rest of the company.’ She stood up and collected everyone’s attention. ‘I’ll come back and fetch you when I’ve spoken to them. Do you know what you would like to sing for me?’

  ‘Do you know Vesta Victoria’s “Waiting at the Church”?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dorinda, ‘but not the verse, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll just give you the chorus,’ said Amelia. ‘Although I could do the verse as a monologue, if you like?’

  ‘All right.’ Dorinda smiled at her guests and left the room.

  As she walked through the auditorium, she wondered if she was doing the right thing. Amelia seemed keen and not at all condescending or superior, although she couldn’t say the same about Mariah Belting. Amelia was pretty, too, and well-shaped – something which wouldn’t go down too well with Aramantha, who regarded herself as the beauty of the company, but Dorinda told herself it was her company and she should be able to appoint whom she liked.