Rose Campion and the Christmas Mystery

by Lyn Gardner

  Over her arm, Rose was carrying the sailor suit that Pru would wear for the act, transforming her from shy, plain Prudence Smith into a fragile, handsome young man who sang hauntingly beautiful love songs. Pru’s mother, now fully recovered, had been making some last-minute alterations to the suit – Pru had lost weight and the trousers needed taking in. Rose and Effie had sat chatting to her as the old lady wielded her needle and thread.

  “I’m so sorry I haven’t got this ready and waiting for you,” said Mrs Smith in her thick Italian accent. “I was delayed. While Prudencia was rehearsing this afternoon, I had a visitor. An old lady who used to live in this house before my poor husband and I moved here. That was before Prudencia was born. She just wanted to have a peep inside. She was very nice. It brought back so many memories of when Prudencia was just a little girl.”

  “Why don’t you come back with us to Campion’s and watch Pru tonight? It’s cold out, but not too bitter,” said Rose.

  Mrs Smith shook her head vigorously and laughed.

  “It is not this cold I fear. My lovely Prudencia would murder me if she knew I watch her on her first night back on the bill. She says I gives her the stage fright.” She threw her arms up into the air in mock outrage. “What a thing to say about her poor mama. I will stay here by the fire. I will come see her in a few days when the nerves are settled. I would like to see this Madame de Valentina too. My Prudencia said she met her at the theatre this morning where Madame de Valentina was preparing. She said that Madame was very charming. She apologised for taking top billing.” Mrs Smith sniffed. “I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but that Ivy woman, she only ever sneered at my Prudencia.”

  Rose and Effie said goodbye to Mrs Smith and set off back to Campion’s, keeping their eyes peeled for the tiger cub, still on the loose despite numerous sightings. There were rumours that the Tanner Street boys had been out doing a spot of tiger-hunting. Rose hoped for the tiger’s sake that they were not successful.

  The churchyard was a place that made Effie feel nervous after dark, as if danger might loom up any minute from out of the shadows, but she could see that Rose was itching to go and see if the tiger was there, so she suggested that they make a short detour to St Olave’s graveyard in case they could glimpse it. Entering through the back gate as quietly as they could, they were rewarded almost immediately with a sudden flash of black stripes and reddish fur emerging from dense bushes and disappearing over the far wall. Rose felt relief. Clearly the Tanner Street boys hadn’t trapped the tiger – at least, not yet.

  They turned to head back to Campion’s, just as the moon came out. Effie suddenly stiffened, nudged Rose and put her finger to her mouth. Over in the far corner of the graveyard, two figures – both cloaked and hooded – stood with their backs to them, whispering together. They were so close to Effie’s mother’s grave they were almost standing on it. The conversation appeared to come to a close. One of the figures – they couldn’t see if it was a man or a woman – glided down the pathway towards the side gate, moving as silently and effortlessly as a ghost. The remaining figure turned slightly, as if making to leave by the main gate, giving a glimpse of a partial profile. Effie suppressed a gasp. The woman looked sharply around, as if she had heard something, and Rose pulled Effie down behind a mausoleum erected in memory of a spice merchant.

  Rose’s heart stuttered. She understood now why Effie had gasped. It was the Duchess. She was sure of it. She signalled to Effie to remain silent, and then very carefully she peeped out from behind the gravestone. The Duchess was peering suspiciously into the shadows. Then, clearly satisfied, she straightened up and picked her way through the weeping angels and crooked gravestones until she reached the churchyard path, and headed purposefully towards the river. Rose and Effie waited a moment and then set off towards Campion’s at a run, almost bumping into Perdita, who was hurrying ahead of them in the same direction, warmly wrapped in a thick, dark cloak.

  By the time Rose and Effie arrived back, Campion’s was already busy, and queues were beginning to form. Nobody wanted to miss Madame de Valentina’s Campion’s debut. A woman, ill defended against the cold, stood alone outside the hall, gazing at the poster for the performance as if her eyes were trying to drink it in.

  The girls went straight up to Thomas’s office, where they told him about spotting both the tiger and the Duchess in the graveyard.

  “You don’t think the Duchess might have something to do with Ivy’s death?” asked Rose.

  “Why do you think that, Rose?” asked Thomas, and Rose shrugged. She couldn’t think of a single reason why an underworld criminal would want to kill Ivy Puddlewick.

  “Like the Inspector, I imagine the reason for Ivy’s murder lies rather closer to home,” said Thomas. “But I will send a note to Inspector Cliff to tell him that you saw her close to Campion’s. She must have a reason to be in this part of town. The East End is her usual patch.” His brow furrowed, and Rose wondered if Thomas was more worried than he was letting on. Thomas said he would also get in contact with the zoo again about the tiger.

  “You should,” said Effie. “It’s getting much bigger. It might gobble somebody up quite soon.”

  “Or get skinned by the Tanner Street boys,” said Rose darkly.

  Lottie poked her head around the door. “Bad news. A message has come from Susan – she’s down with influenza, so you haven’t got a pot girl tonight, and with three of them off sick in the kitchen, it’s going to be all hands on deck.”

  Rose stood up with a sigh.

  “I’d better go down and lend them a hand. I had hoped to see Madame de Valentina make her debut, but it looks like I’ll be scrubbing pots in the kitchen.”

  “Sorry, Rosie,” said Thomas ruefully. “I’ll try and make it up to you.”

  From the kitchen, Rose, up to her arms in water, trying to make a dent in the piles of dirty pots and crockery, could hear that Campion’s was buzzing in anticipation of the debut of Madame de Valentina. Effie had come and helped scrub plates for twenty minutes before being called backstage to help, and even Aurora, who had arrived with a party from Silver Square, appeared at the kitchen door and made to roll up her silk sleeves and lend a hand. Rose had chased her away.

  “Come off it, Rory,” said Rose. “The place will be crawling with journalists come to see the woman who has replaced poor Ivy at the top of the bill, and no doubt hoping for yet another murder on the Campion’s stage. If they get wind that a Lord’s daughter is working as a pot girl in the kitchen, they will turn it into a scandal and drag the Easingford name through the mud. It’s unfair on Grace. Sir Godfrey wouldn’t like it at all. Anyway, your dress will be ruined, and I might want to borrow it for that posh dinner when Grace gets given those emeralds.”

  Aurora retreated reluctantly, promising to look out for evening frocks for Rose and Effie.

  Rose set to work on yet another pie dish. The burned remnants of a beef and oyster pie stubbornly resisted her efforts. Her fingers and knuckles were red and raw. It wouldn’t be long before Madame de Valentina was on stage. She rubbed her sleeve across her sweaty forehead. The stack of pots and baking trays and pie dishes was still mounting at an alarming rate. She needed to cool down. She removed her apron and slipped out of the kitchen door into the icy air outside. It was snowing again. Rose luxuriated in the feeling of cool snow melting on her hot forehead. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, a woman was standing a few steps away, her eyes fixed on Rose.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” she said. “I wondered if there was any work in the kitchen tonight?”

  Rose looked at the woman in surprise. She spoke with an educated voice, and although the washed-out outfit that she was wearing had seen far better days, it had clearly once been stylish. The woman had a nasty gash over her eye, her face was grey with tiredness, and her matted chestnut hair was tied back with an old bootlace. Rose thought it might be the same women she had seen hanging around outside the theatre earlier, sta
ring at the poster of Madame de Valentina.

  “I just need a chance to get back on my feet,” continued the woman. “I’m not afraid of hard work.”

  From beyond the kitchen came the roar of the crowd. Rose cast a longing glance backwards. She would love to be out in the hall tonight rather than scraping pots.

  “Do you have any experience washing pots?” she asked.

  The woman shook her head nervously. “But I’m a quick learner.” And then she added, with a dash of spirit and irony that endeared her to Rose, “Being a pot girl can’t be that difficult.”

  Rose smiled. “No, it’s not difficult, but it is very hard work.”

  “I’ve plenty of elbow grease,” said the woman ruefully, holding up her elbow and showing where the once-fine blue material was soiled with dark oil.

  The attempt at a joke made Rose smile. For a moment she gazed at the woman again, and the woman held her stare with grey eyes, dark as slate. Rose said, “Well, we could certainly do with a hand if you’re willing. I can pay you, and you are welcome to as many pies as you can eat.”

  “I can’t thank you enough. You’re my fairy godmother.”

  “Actually,” said Rose, “I think you might be mine. You’ve saved me from a night in the kitchen.”

  It was less than half an hour before she joined Effie and Aurora, who were sharing a banquette at the back of the hall near the bar. The woman, who had said her name was Ella, had turned out to be a real grafter, and within twenty minutes of arriving she had made a significant dent in the pile of dirty pots.

  “Shove up,” said Rose, as she slipped in beside them and explained her good fortune and the miraculous arrival of the woman. “Madame de Valentina will be on after Pru does her act, and I want to see if her world domination extends to quieting a rowdy Campion’s audience.”

  The theatre was buzzing. Notoriety had brought half of Southwark and Bermondsey out, as well as plenty of more affluent punters from the West End.

  Effie grinned. “Maybe she’ll read your mind, Rosie.”

  Rose snorted. “If she tries, she’ll find it a complete blank.”

  “Don’t tell me you are doubting Madame de Valentina’s remarkable talents, Rosie?” Effie said, picking up a playbill and pointing at the lettering. “Look! It says ’ere, she’s the ‘Wonder of the Age’. It’s written down in black and white so it must be true. One of the things I’ve noticed since I learned to read is that people believe things when they’re written down. Even complete lies.”

  “Well, Thomas clearly isn’t completely convinced about Madame de Valentina – he’s only booked her for tonight,” said Rose. “He doesn’t want his fingers burned again after those useless illusionists, Hopkin and Dent. They turned out to be such a disappointment on Tuesday – they were as nervous as cats, fumbling their illusions so badly. I can’t imagine why they were ever rated so highly. He had to pay them off for the entire week – if he let them go on stage again the Campion’s audience would have murdered them.” She stopped and put a hand to her mouth, realising what she had said and how inappropriate it was, after what had happened to poor Ivy. Somebody in the audience had murdered her – but not because her act was bad.

  “Well, I’ve heard Madame de Valentina is really very impressive,” said Rory. “That she knows things about people that they have never told a living soul.”

  Rose frowned. “Honestly, Rory, you don’t actually believe this stuff, do you?”

  “Of course not,” she said indignantly. “I know it’s just an act. But she’s all the rage. Georgiana Fitzcillian said she was astonishing. She saw her on Friday night at the Alhambra. She told me all about it when we went to her house for tea this afternoon. Apparently two of the Fitzcillian parlourmaids went, and one of them, Polly, was hypnotised and barked like a dog, and the other got told she would come into money, and the next day she found a shilling.”

  “Georgiana Fitzcillian is a nincompoop,” said Rose. “When she saw Effie performing she was convinced that she was doing real magic. The shilling was a coincidence.”

  Effie gave Rose a warning look and Rory swallowed hard.

  “Well, I was just reporting what I’d heard,” said Rory defensively.

  Rose gave an inward sigh. She could kick herself for not keeping her big mouth shut. Only this afternoon Effie had warned her that she was going to drive a wedge between herself and Aurora if she kept on sniping at her aristocratic connections. Rose couldn’t wait until Grace and Sir Godfrey got married, and everything got back to normal – including her and Rory doing the new bicycle act. Maybe Aurora could be persuaded to take part in the pantomime after all. She squeezed Rory’s hand tightly.

  “Of course you’re right, Rory. I’m being horrid. Don’t listen to me. Madame de Valentina probably is the eighth wonder of the world. I hope so, for Thomas’s sake.”

  Edward and Grace arrived just before Belle Canterbury took to the stage, and joined Perdita, who was sitting at a small table, drumming her fingers and seeming nervous. Rose went over to talk to them.

  “Are you looking forward to seeing Madame de Valentina?” she asked Perdita, who seemed jumpy and distracted.

  “Yes, of course,” said Perdita. “I can’t wait to get a good look at her.” There was a quaver in her voice.

  Pru’s angelic voice rose to the rafters, its ethereal beauty wrapping the entire audience in a cloak of emotion. Dressed in the sailor suit, she sang yearningly of a love lost forever. Rose could hear the sound of soft sobbing all around the auditorium, and when she glanced at Perdita’s face, she saw that her eyes were dark pools of tears. Even Thomas, who had heard the song many times, looked moved, as if remembering his own lost wife, Maud, and twin baby daughters, who had all succumbed to the measles, turning him from a proud and loving father and husband into a grief-stricken widower in less than a week. Thomas often said that if he had not found Rose abandoned on the steps of Campion’s so soon after their deaths, he would never have survived his loss.

  Pru was taking her bow, and Rose knew that within minutes she would have wiped the make-up from her face, changed back into her skirts, reattached the false plait she wore when out of doors, put her hat on her head and slipped out of the Campion’s stage door. Before St Olave’s had chimed the quarter she would be back by her mother’s side in Lant Street.

  The ballet girls were back on stage doing their Little Bo Peep act, but few of the audience were taking much notice. They were getting drinks and chatting excitedly in readiness for the main event: Madame de Valentina. The lights flickered. Then came the distant, silvery tinkle of a small bell, sounding eerie in the darkness. Suddenly a light appeared from out of the darkness and darted about the stage like a little bird. The crowd, already in a heightened state of excitement, squealed. Rose smiled. It wasn’t a difficult trick to pull off, but it was mightily effective. The bell sounded again, and as a haze of blue smoke cleared, the light found the face of Madame de Valentina, so for a moment she looked like a disembodied head suspended in mid-air, dark eyes simmering in an unnaturally white face. The crowd gasped. Even Rose felt a shiver down her spine. She leaned forward and felt a strange sense of dread, as if something terrible was about to happen.

  Madame de Valentina emerged out of the darkness into a pool of light. She was a commanding figure, dressed in a long silvery dress that glittered in the lights. Her arms were sheathed in black silk gloves that extended almost to her shoulders. Her eyes glittered in her snow-white face, her blonde hair was pulled back severely and piled on her head, and her cheekbones gleamed in a way that reminded Rose of the Snow Queen, a character in a story she had read in a book of Danish fairy tales that Thomas had given her. There were two tables and a chair on stage. On one of the tables sat a crystal ball and a small silver bell, and on the other a cauldron from which wreathes of smoke coiled.

  Rose nudged Thomas and whispered, “I think someone’s been reading too much Macbeth.”

  Madame de Valentina couldn’t have possibly heard he
r, but Rose felt as if the woman’s eyes had sought her out and were boring into her. It was ridiculous, of course, but it still made her shift uncomfortably in her chair.

  Madame de Valentina began to speak, her voice low and a touch husky. What followed were fifteen minutes of mind-reading tricks, cleverly delivered but of a kind that were regularly seen in music halls across the land. Rose winked at Effie. She knew that Effie could perform tricks as well as this, persuading the punters that they had freely chosen a particular card or circled a word in a book when in fact they had been cleverly directed to make the right choice. Rose glanced around. All of Perdita’s nervous tension seemed to have dissipated, and she sat relaxed alongside Grace and Edward.

  Just as Rose was beginning to think that things couldn’t get duller, Madame de Valentina suddenly changed tack. She held a hand in the air to quieten the crowd and gazed around the auditorium, her head on one side like an inquisitive bird. She scanned the audience, occasionally capturing an individual in her gaze and scrutinising them long and hard. Rose caught Thomas’s eye. It was a good act, creating suspense because it was unnerving, but both of them knew that any really talented actor could do the same. Some performers had a talent for holding an audience in the palm of their hand, and Madame de Valentina was clearly one of them. She continued to fix the audience with her dagger-like eyes. The entire room was still now, as if every single person was holding their breath. The silence was suddenly broken by the nervous giggle of several young women, including one with red hair sitting a few rows back and to the side of the auditorium.

  Madame de Valentina swung round towards her, pointed a long finger at the girl and said, “Florrie? It is Florrie, isn’t it?”

  The young woman’s eyes bulged with surprise as she nodded. She looked terrified. “How … how…” she stuttered. “How do you know my name?”