by Caro Peacock
‘Just for a minute or two, please. You could save somebody’s life.’
‘Jenny’s life, you mean?’
She walked over to her table, trailing the ribbon.
‘Yes. You knew she’d been sentenced?’
‘It was in the newspaper. My uncle told me.’
‘She didn’t kill Columbine,’ I said. ‘Don’t you want to help her?’
She shrugged. ‘That’s no concern of mine.’
I moved close to her so that our arms were almost touching and spoke in a low voice.
‘Has it occurred to you that you might be in danger too?’
She opened her mouth to say something then closed it, picked up a pair of scissors and started cutting the ribbon into lengths.
‘I know now why Columbine was killed,’ I said. ‘I know a lot of other things as well. I know she married Mr Hardcastle and you were a witness.’
The scissors halted in mid-snip.
‘You didn’t tell the police about that, did you?’ I said.
She mumbled, ‘They didn’t ask.’
‘I don’t suppose you told them about stealing her earring, either.’
‘I didn’t steal it.’
The indignation in her voice brought looks from the other two women. She began snipping at the ribbon again.
‘You pawned it.’
‘I had a right to. She’d have wanted me to. She always paid me my wages, every month. It was a month nearly when she died. She’d have wanted me to have my wages. She was good to me.’
‘If she was good to you, surely you must want the person who killed her to be punished.’
She bit her lip and said nothing. I hate bullying, but there was no other way.
‘A friend of mine was nearly killed, just for trying to find you,’ I said. ‘Until whoever killed Columbine is arrested, you’re in danger.’
She shook her head. It looked more like a gesture of distress than denial.
‘Did you poison her?’ I said.
She stared at me, scissors open in mid-snip.
‘No. Why should I? We were like sisters, her and me. Even the police could see that.’
‘Did she eat any of the syllabub, after the first ballet?’
‘No. She wasn’t well enough. It was true what I told the police. She took only a spoonful or two, just before the ballet, to keep her strength up. She had no appetite.’
‘The poison wasn’t in the syllabub before the first ballet,’ I said.
‘I know that. I told the police, but they wouldn’t believe me. I told them, “Madame would notice if there was the slightest lump in her syllabub, the tiniest speck of dust on it. Are you saying to me that she would eat syllabub with black seeds in it and not notice? I assure you, she would have thrown the whole bowlful on the floor.”’
The anger in her voice convinced me. The other women were grinning at each other, not understanding English but sure we were having an argument. They probably thought it was about some man.
‘Then somebody put it in there after she died to confuse the police,’ I said. ‘Was it you?’
‘No. Why would I do that?’
‘Do you know who did?’
‘No.’
‘Who came into the room after she was taken ill?’
‘The whole world. Everybody.’
I remembered that she’d been genuinely hysterical, in no condition to see who came and went.
‘So we know it wasn’t the syllabub that poisoned her. But something did. What?’
She picked up a length of ribbon and started pleating it into a rosette. I repeated the question.
‘How should I know? I can’t stop. I have to do twenty an hour.’
‘You told the police that she ate and drank nothing all evening except water and the syllabub.’
‘That was true.’
‘And the water?’
‘From the tap. We all drank it. I drank it.’
One of the other women went over to the glue pot in the corner and poured some of it into a dish. The smell was sickening, but none of the three seemed to notice.
‘You see, it doesn’t make sense,’ I said.
Marie whipped out a needle from the bodice of her dress, secured the rosette with two quick stitches, stuck the needle back and started pleating the next.
‘That’s not my fault. It’s the truth I’m telling you.’
‘I believe you,’ I said. ‘But the fact is, Columbine was poisoned. And from what you say, nothing she ate or drank can account for that.’
A shrug. The woman with the dish of glue was sticking red rosettes on to her pile of straw bonnets, punching them in place with precise hatred.
‘She can do twenty-four an hour,’ Marie said. ‘I can only do twenty.’
‘How much do you get paid for them?’ I said.
‘Penny for twenty.’
So working for twelve hours a day without a break would bring her a shilling. No wonder she wouldn’t stop.
‘That evening, before she was taken ill, did you see anybody backstage who hadn’t been there before?’ I said.
‘No.’
‘You’re sure? Not an elderly woman?’
‘No.’
‘Did Pauline come into Columbine’s dressing room?’
‘Of course not. Do you think I’d let her come prying round?’
‘What about Mr Hardcastle?’
‘No.’
‘They’d quarrelled, hadn’t they? About Jenny?’
She nodded.
‘Only it wasn’t Jenny’s fault,’ I said. ‘Hardcastle and his friends talked about a “last gallop round the course”. I suppose he meant a last fling as a supposed bachelor before his marriage became public. Columbine must have been hurt and angry.’
‘She knew what he was like. I told her there were other men, better men.’
She was more animated now.
‘What did she say to that?’
‘She laughed. She said there might be better men, but he was the best she could afford.’
‘She knew he was marrying her for her money?’
‘Yes.’
‘And she was marrying him for his title?’
‘Why else?’
‘Was she angry with you for criticising her?’
‘No. I told you, she laughed. She said, “I’ve come a long way from the cows’ udders, haven’t I?” We laughed about it together. I came from a farm too, in Normandy. Only I’m not doing as well as she did.’
My unexpected sympathy with Columbine flared again. This woman had genuinely liked her.
‘So Mr Hardcastle married her for her money,’ I said. ‘Do you think he killed her for it?’
‘I don’t know.’
Her fingers had slowed down and there was sadness in her voice.
‘Did he steal from her?’
‘He stole the earring. I saw him pick it up from the floor of her dressing room one day and put it in his pocket. I asked him for it, but he pretended he hadn’t got it. That was why I sold the matching one after she died, because he’d have it otherwise. They only gave me two pounds for it, in any case.’
‘How long had you worked for Columbine?’
‘Ten years. I’d just come over from France and I was a needlewoman, working on some of her costumes. She asked me if I’d like to be her maid.’
‘You were with her when she knew Rainer?’ I said.
She bit her lip and nodded.
‘And you know about him making threats against her from the dock?’
‘He was a wicked man. He told lies about her.’
She stabbed so savagely with her needle at a rosette that the point broke through and pierced her finger. She sucked it, looking at me as if it were my fault.
‘What kind of lies?’
‘He pretended she knew about what he’d been doing. She had no idea in the world.’
‘About forging bonds, you mean?’
Another nod. Privately, I thought it quite likely that Columbine had been wi
lling to profit from forgery, particularly if somebody else took the risk of ending up in the dock.
‘Was she glad when he was transported?’
‘Of course.’
‘Did she ever speak of him coming back again?’
‘She said she hoped he’d die in Van Diemen’s Land. A lot of people do.’
‘Has he come back?’
She stared at me.
‘How could he? He was sent away for ten years.’
‘Did she say anything about him escaping and being back in London?’
‘No.’
‘Did she seem scared of anything in those last few weeks of her life?’
‘No. She was never scared.’
She walked across to the table with the spools of ribbon. I followed and held out my arms so that she could wind the ribbon round them. Back at the table, she unwound it – without thanking me – and cut it into longer lengths than before.
‘You really liked Columbine?’ I said.
I’d almost given up hope of getting anything useful from her. Simply, I was interested in the new picture of Columbine I’d been building up in the last few days.
‘She was kind to me. I was only a silly girl when I came to her. She taught me a lot.’
‘Would you have stayed with her once she and Mr Hardcastle set up house together?’
‘Of course. She said she needed somebody to laugh at him with her. Also, when she was in society, she’d have many beautiful new dresses and I’d help her look after them. That was my métier, after all.’
She picked up a bonnet in her left hand and a knife in her right. I thought she intended to destroy it for its tawdriness, but all she did was make precise slits in each side. Methodically, she did the same to the next one.
‘What will you do now?’ I said. ‘Shall you go back to France?’
‘How can I? I don’t have the money for the fare.’
‘Why don’t you get work with another lady as a maid?’
‘How? With her dead, and not able to give me a character. The police making out I killed her. Who would employ me?’
The knife flashed in and out and the varnished straw made pucking sounds as it was pierced.
‘Why did you come all the way across the river to find work?’
‘My uncle owns this place. He said he’d give me a roof over my head until I made enough money for my fare home.’
I saw through her eyes the thousands upon thousands of glazed straw bonnets separating her from Normandy, with only a Sunday-morning brioche for pleasure. She’d gained nothing by Columbine’s death.
‘I didn’t know Columbine very well,’ I said, ‘but it struck me that she had a temper.’ She nodded, using the point of the knife to poke the end of a ribbon through the slits she’d made in the bonnets. ‘Did she ever lose it with you?’
‘Sometimes, but I understood. It wasn’t her fault. She had much suffering in her life.’
‘Suffering?’
‘She was not in good health. Sometimes it was a martyrdom for her to dance, to smile, but she did it always.’
‘Was that why she had to have her chair and cushion in the wings and so forth?’
‘Yes.’
I was still sceptical. Most dancers have to pirouette and smile through their injuries, but few have a lady’s maid waiting in the wings.
‘I suppose it was her feet that hurt her,’ I said, thinking of her en pointe.
Marie was indignant.
‘Never. Madame had beautiful strong feet, the finest feet in London. A gentleman wrote a poem about them.’
‘What was her trouble, then?’
She folded the ends of two ribbons in half and cut swallowtails, moving slowly for once. I had to strain to hear as she uttered two words in French under her breath.
‘Les hémorroïdes.”
It wasn’t a term familiar to me until one of the other women, who must have been listening with ears flapping for any word she could understand, gave a bellow of laughter and clapped a hand to her own backside. Marie gave her an angry look, threw words at her in French too fast for me to catch but clearly insulting, then reverted to English.
‘It’s no joking matter. She was in much pain.’
‘All the time?’
‘It came and went. In the days before she died, it was bad.’
‘Did she take anything for it?’
‘The doctor made her up some ointment. It helped a little.’
‘So when she was delirious and talking about blood and people not seeing …?’
‘We always took care that people didn’t see. It is not a polite complaint.’
An unhappy thought came to me.
‘Did Jenny happen to give her any herbs for it?’
Marie glared. Even talking about it seemed to be provoking her temper.
‘Certainly not. She wouldn’t have taken anything from Jenny. She went to a proper doctor who cost a lot of money. Besides, Jenny would have gossiped about it to all the other girls.’
‘So they didn’t know?’
‘Nobody knew, except Madame and I. Can you imagine – people seeing her on stage and thinking about…?’
She threw up her hands at the impossibility of it. I saw what she meant. Fairy queens gliding on tiptoe are not meant to be subject to such humiliating ailments.
‘Did Mr Hardcastle know?’
‘Now you’re being ridiculous. She’d rather have died than have him know.’
An idea was forming in my mind, as strange and bright as the piles of glazed straw bonnets. I think Marie was surprised when I thanked her for her time, told her I’d be back one day soon, and walked out of the room and down the stairs.
The idea grew in my mind all the long walk home across London to Mayfair and Abel Yard. When I opened the door of our parlour, Daniel’s eyes turned to me from the couch. He must have seen something in my face.
‘What’s happened?’
‘I found Marie.’
I told him about the room in Southwark and the straw hats.
‘She didn’t kill Columbine, I’m sure of that,’ I said.
‘Does she know who did?’
‘No, but she confirmed something I suspected. The poison that killed Columbine was never in the syllabub.’
‘Then how was she poisoned?’
‘I don’t know, but I have an idea. I must go back to the Augustus tomorrow.’
I was almost certain, but didn’t want to raise his hopes until I had the last link in the chain.
I went upstairs and found Mrs Martley dozing on her bed. The days of caring for Daniel had almost exhausted her. When she opened her eyes, I asked what she knew about haemorrhoids, giving them their plain name of piles. She was shocked.
‘You shouldn’t have them at your age. It’s all that riding.’
‘Not I, just somebody I know. Would they make you bad-tempered?’
‘From what my ladies told me, they’d make a saint bad-tempered.’
‘Your ladies?’
‘There are some things you can’t talk about to doctors. It’s easier with another woman.’
‘Did you prescribe for them?’
‘As far as I could, yes.’
‘What did you prescribe?’
‘An ointment of dried marigold petals to reduce the swelling, and thornapple seeds boiled in water, all pounded up in hog’s lard.’
‘And you have to apply it to the … site?’
‘Of course.’
‘Is that your own recipe, or would most people use it?’
‘Anybody with any sense would. It’s an old recipe, but I’ve never heard of a better one. Do you want me to write it down for your friend?’
‘No, thank you. I shall remember it.’
‘Tell her to go careful with the amount of thornapple.’
Too late, alas, though I didn’t say that to Mrs Martley. She’d given me the last piece in the puzzle and the question now was what to do with it.
All that night I
lay awake, looking at the dark rectangle of sky through the window, making plans.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I arrived at the Augustus at ten o’clock in the morning, but the Surrey family were there before me. Susanna’s clear voice came from their dressing room:
Your crown’s awry; I’ll mend it and then play.
Then her mother’s quieter voice murmuring and Susanna repeating the line. I knocked and was invited to come in. Mrs Surrey was sitting at the table in her everyday clothes with a brush and a tiny pot of gold paint, re-gilding Cleopatra’s head-dress, which looked as if it had survived several desert sandstorms. Susanna was sitting on the costume basket in a yellowish-white taffeta tunic, feet bare.
‘Miss Lane, is there something wrong?’
Being an actor, Honoria Surrey was alert to expressions or perhaps to tension in the way I was standing.
‘I need to ask Susanna something,’ I said.
There was no point in pretending casualness. Mrs Surrey wiped the paintbrush on a piece of rag and put it down, without taking her eyes from my face.
‘Susanna now? David told us he’d been talking to you about stealing the syllabub for the cat. It was wrong of him, of course, but does it matter?’
‘It may matter very much, but it wasn’t his fault. Neither of them has done anything except what all children do, especially older sisters with younger brothers.’
From the corner of my eye I could see that Susanna was giving me a hard stare.
‘Neither of them?’ Mrs Surrey said.
‘I have a younger brother too,’ I said. ‘When we were children, we were always giving each other dares. It got us into the most terrible trouble. I remember once Tom got stuck on a church roof and another time I went up to a very grand lady at a party and asked her if it was true she wore a wig.’
A nervous snort of laughter came from Susanna.
‘We usually had to bring something back to show we’d done the dare,’ I went on. ‘A sprig of mistletoe from the top of the apple tree, say, or a piece of slate from the haunted house.’
‘You could have cheated,’ Susanna said. ‘It could have been a sprig of mistletoe that had fallen down, or any old piece of slate.’
‘Yes, but you don’t, do you?’ I said. ‘There’s no point in a dare, if you cheat.’
Susanna and I stared at each other; her eyes were clear and challenging.
‘David went in to Columbine’s room because you dared him,’ I said.
