Death Treads the Boards

by Lesley Cookman

  Already, people were coming especially to see Jessie, and often coming back two or three times a week. The company, unlike many, were generous, and accepted Jessie’s talent and revelled in the fact that it reflected on them all a certain amount of distinction.

  ‘If it goes on like this,’ said Maude one morning during the fourth week, ‘we’ll have to add another row of seats by

  July.’

  ‘And a gallery by next year,’ said Dorinda thoughtfully.

  ‘A what?’ Maude looked startled.

  ‘A gallery. Balcony – call it what you like. And if we fitted proper theatre seats – you know, in a curve – we’d get a lot more people in.’

  Maude looked at her with her mouth open. ‘A proper theatre, then?’

  ‘Of course. Then we could hold concerts during the off-season – even pantomime, perhaps.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Dolly! There’s no visitors in the winter! That’s why we all go up to London.’

  ‘I didn’t, this time,’ said Dorinda.

  ‘Well, you taught piano, didn’t you? Still don’t see how you made enough to keep the wolf from the door.’ Maude shook her head.

  ‘I played for the Mayor’s Christmas Ball and a few other occasions,’ said Dorinda. ‘And Ivy and Sir Freddie’s Christmas Entertainment.’

  ‘I’m surprised anyone went to that,’ said Maude. ‘I thought they was out of favour with the gentry.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Dorinda, gazing out of the office window at the slope up to Victoria Place, ‘you’d be surprised what a bit of notoriety can do. People were only too eager to come along. I think they all wanted to go home and gossip about how dreadful it all was – instead, they all had a perfectly pleasant evening attended by the Honourable Jeremy and Mrs Coutts and the Earl of Hawkesley. Not to mention a few other lords and ladies.’ Dorinda grinned. ‘We all rubbed our hands with glee.’ Her tone changed as her gaze sharpened. ‘Maudie – do you know who that is?’

  ‘Who’s what?’ Maude turned to follow Dorinda’s gaze. ‘Where?’

  ‘Up on Victoria Place. Standing against the railings – not facing the sea.’

  ‘I dunno.’ Maude squinted. ‘Just someone waiting for someone? Why?’

  ‘Because I’ve seen him every day this week. If he was here at night, I’d say he was waiting for one of the girls, but he’s only been there in the afternoons.’

  Maude looked worried. ‘You don’t think..?’

  ‘Anything to do with Jessie?’ supplied Dorinda. ‘Well if he is, he’s not making trouble – yet. We’ll just keep an eye on him. Perhaps ask Will, or Ted and Algy, to get him in conversation.’

  But by the time Ted and Algy had strolled up the slope to start a conversation with the loiterer, he had disappeared. And it wasn’t until the Friday evening that he reappeared – this time with a half a dozen others, mainly women, who arranged themselves across the top of the slope, denying access to The Alexandria.

  ‘Whatever do they think they’re doing?’ Dorinda gasped, as Maude pointed them out. By this time, Dorinda was in her silver pierrot costume and an angry crowd of would-be audience members were trying to force their way down. However, as the women blocking their way appeared to be respectable, there had so far been no manhandling.

  ‘Maudie – telephone to Deal and ask them to send Constable Fowler here.’ Dorinda whirled out of the office, threw open the front doors and ran up the slope.

  ‘What is going on here?’ she panted as she got to the top.

  Two of the women forming the human barricade turned to face her. The first, tiny, wearing large spectacles and a superior expression, drew herself up to her maximum height, which must have been all of four feet ten inches, and glared at Dorinda. The second, taller and slightly drooping, with a red nose and watery eyes, tried to avoid looking at anyone.

  ‘We are preventing the deluded public from viewing this disgusting spectacle,’ squeaked the smaller of the two. Dorinda had to stop herself from laughing.

  ‘I see,’ she said mildly, and turned to the crowd now staring interestedly at this confrontation. ‘Did you come here to see a disgusting spectacle?’ she asked.

  There was laughter, a chorus of “Noes” and a few “Yeses”. She turned back to the two women, aware that the rest of their supporters had melted away.

  ‘I think you had better move away, don’t you?’ she said pleasantly. ‘A policeman will be here shortly, and after all, I don’t believe you are suffragists, ready to suffer jail for your cause?’

  The shorter woman gasped in outrage.

  ‘Disgusting women!’ she squeaked. ‘As bad as your -your – your harlots!’ She went bright pink as she uttered this word, and her taller friend shut her eyes and moaned quietly.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw the burly frame of Constable Fred Fowler moving along Victoria Place, followed, surprisingly, by a younger man, also in the uniform of a constable, with a fresh face and a neat dark moustache.

  ‘Tell me why you are here, then,’ prompted Dorinda. ‘Who brought you?’

  ‘It’s against the teachings,’ whispered the Tall One. ‘Brother Anarawd told us.’

  ‘The teachings?’ said Dorinda.

  ‘Now, now!’ broke in the comfortable voice of Constable Fowler. ‘What’s all this then?’

  ‘We were doing our duty!’ gasped the Short One.

  ‘Oh? And what duty was that?’ asked Constable Fowler. He took her arm, nodded to his fellow constable, who took the arm of the Tall One, and began to move away. ‘Don’t you worry, Miss Dolly,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘We’ll see to it.’

  Dorinda watched, puzzled, with her hands on her hips, as the two women were led away. There was no sign of the rest of the protesters. She smiled at the crowd.

  ‘Come along in then,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about them.’

  ‘But,’ said a voice in her ear, as she moved back down the slope amid the crowd of would-be audience, ‘they was doin’ that in London. We saw them, didn’t we, Bert?’ said Mary.

  ‘Blocking theatre entrances?’ asked Dorinda.

  ‘Yes.’ Bert spoke in the other ear. ‘Said they didn’t ’old with theatricals, same as Mary said, and especially women dressin’ up as men.’

  ‘Said it was against the Bible,’ said Mary.

  ‘They didn’t sound Welsh,’ mused Dorinda.

  ‘Welsh?’ Mary sounded surprised. ‘They don’t make no trouble, do they? Not like the Irish.’

  ‘Shhh!’ Bert darted round behind Dorinda and grabbed Mary’s arm. ‘Never know who might be listenin’!’

  Dorinda pondered this cryptic remark as she retreated to her office, leaving Maude to deal with the tickets. Was this

  Brother Anarawd Jessie’s stepfather?

  During the interval in the afternoon’s show, Dorinda went back into the space behind the stage the company proudly called the “dressing rooms”, intending to bring the conversation round to the disturbance earlier in the afternoon. She didn’t have to.

  ‘Was that my stepfather out there?’ asked Jessie the moment Dorinda appeared. The rest of the room went silent.

  ‘It was mainly two women,’ said Dorinda. ‘There were a few others with them, but by the time I got there they’d gone. Melted into the crowd.’ She went over to Jessie and made her sit down. ‘Now,’ she said quietly, ‘why did you think that?’

  ‘Because that’s what they used to do,’ said Jessie. ‘Try and stop people from coming in. What did they say?’ She fiddled with the edge of the pink draperies the girls wore for The Fairies, the item which closed the first half.

  ‘What’s your stepfather’s name?’ asked Dorinda.

  ‘Michael Evans.’ Jessie looked nervous.

  ‘Then it wasn’t him.’ Dorinda felt as much relief as Jessie obviously did. ‘They mentioned someone called Brother Anarawd.’

  Jessie’s whole body sagged, and she smiled up at Dorinda. ‘Oh, thank you, Miss Dolly.’ She looked round at the other girls. ‘It wasn’t h
im!’ she said, and they all crowded round happily, patting her on the back and kissing her cheek.

  ‘All the same,’ said Dorinda later to Maude. ‘It’s a terrible coincidence, isn’t it, that we heard that the stepfather was a militant Welsh churchman, and one turns up soon after Jessie starts performing here.’

  ‘Do you think it’s him, then?’ Maude was pulling on her hat, preparing to go out for between shows sustenance.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Dorinda leant back in her chair, shaking out her hair. ‘I hope Constable Fowler comes to tell us what those women said.’

  It wasn’t until the interval in the evening show that Maude bustled round to ask Dorinda to come out to the office. The faces she was making told Dorinda that the news was not for the ears of the company, so reluctantly, Dorinda followed her through the auditorium and out into the foyer.

  ‘What is it, Maude?’ she asked.

  ‘Police!’ whispered back Maude dramatically, and threw open the office door.

  Inside, standing self-consciously by the desk, his helmet clasped to his chest, stood the young constable Dorinda had seen in the afternoon.

  ‘Constable?’ she said in surprise. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Just come to report, Ma’am – I mean, Miss,’ said the constable, going rather red in the face. ‘Dad sent me... I mean – Constable Fowler.’

  ‘Dad?’ Dorinda beamed. ‘So you’re Constable Fowler, too?’

  ‘Constable Robert, Miss. Dad’s Constable Fred.’ Constable Robert shifted his feet. ‘He said to tell you -’

  ‘Oh, do sit down, Robert.’ Dorinda sat down in her chair behind the desk.

  ‘Oh – I – er...’ Constable Robert looked round nervously, and finally perched on the very edge of a visitor’s chair. ‘Dad said... about those women... I mean, ladies...’

  ‘The two who were trying to block the slope?’

  ‘Yes, Miss. He said they was from London.’

  ‘Yes.’ Dorinda frowned. ‘Two people in the crowd said that, too. And that they were against us on religious grounds.’

  ‘Yes, Miss. They said there was more people there, too, and someone was an -’ Constable Robert screwed up his face, ‘an abom – abom...’

  ‘Abomination?’ suggested Dorinda, hiding a grin.

  ‘That’s right, Miss.’ Constable Robert gave her a relieved smile. ‘Against the Bible, they said.’ He frowned. ‘They wouldn’t say no more.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Dorinda frowned down at her hands. ‘They didn’t say we’d be struck down, or anything like that?’

  Constable Robert was obviously shocked. ‘Oh, no, Miss! Nothing like that.’

  ‘So that was all?’ Dorinda was now tapping her fingers on the desk. ‘What did your father do with them?’

  ‘Well, nothing, Miss. He told them they were causing a public nuisance and he said if they did it again, he’d take ’em in charge.’

  ‘I bet he wouldn’t, though,’ said Dorinda, with another grin. ‘So, have they gone back to London?’

  ‘I don’t know, Miss. Dad said to tell you we’d be keeping our eye out.’

  Dorinda stood up. ‘Well, thank you, Constable Robert. It was good of you to come and tell me, and we’ll keep an eye out, too.’

  She watched as the young man walked quickly up the slope, now with his helmet jammed on his head, unhooked his bicycle from the railings and rode swiftly off.

  ‘Fred Fowler’s son,’ she told Maude as she went to go back through the auditorium. ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  After the final number of the evening, Dorinda went back into the dressing rooms.

  ‘I wanted to tell you,’ she said, sitting down on a wicker trunk, ‘that Constable Fowler has told the ladies who tried to block off the slope this afternoon to keep away and go back to London.’

  ‘Who was they?’ asked Betty.

  ‘Constable Fowler didn’t say, but they were religious, apparently.’

  ‘Did they...’ Jessie looked round at the girls. ‘Were they...’

  ‘They didn’t appear to have anything to do with your stepfather,’ said Dorinda, and tried to smile reassuringly. ‘Constable Fowler says he and his son are going to keep an eye on them if they don’t go back to London.’

  ‘His son?’ said Patsy.

  ‘Yes. He was with him this afternoon. He’s a constable, too.’

  Phoebe, Patsy, Betty, and Maisie all began asking questions, but Jessie merely retired behind the screen and began to change into her outdoor clothes. Dorinda made a face at the other girls, and Betty, assuming an air of importance, nodded and brightly changed the subject.

  Dorinda went back to her office through the now empty auditorium and found Maude locking the front doors. While herself changing from her silver pierrot costume into her plain grey flannel skirt and white blouse, she told Maude what Constable Robert had said.

  ‘I still think it’s suspicious, Maude,’ she said, struggling to roll her hair up into a semblance of respectability. Maude took over.

  ‘Fred Fowler didn’t say anything about a man, though,’ she said.

  ‘But there was a man with them – at least one,’ said Dorinda. ‘And there was that one I saw leaning up against the railings. I pointed him out to you – I’d seen him for a few days. He was there with that group at first, but he’d disappeared by the time I got to them.’

  ‘Don’t you think you’re just looking for trouble? After all that bother last year with Amy, and before that with Velda?’

  ‘But Amy and Ivy admitted that was why they thought Jessie would be safe here.’ Dorinda sighed. ‘I’ve become a home for displaced performers.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  There was no repeat of the unpleasantness during the next week, no sightings of lone men loitering at the top of the slope and Dorinda began to relax. Jessie was becoming more popular than ever, and although Dorinda expected a certain amount of resentment about this from the rest of the company, it never materialised. What did materialise, however, was far more unexpected.

  It was Saturday afternoon, with no performance until the evening. Dorinda had decided that as it was change-over day for the holidaymakers, it was better that the company went to the station to both meet and see off their changing audiences. It paid off in two ways: those leaving were left with an indelible memory of The Alexandrians wedded to that of Nethergate, and would be keen to return next year, while newcomers would be introduced to the company and possibly persuaded to attend at least one performance. Sometimes it could be awkward, as when a returning member of the public claimed undying friendship with a member of the company and expected to be remembered -sometimes intimately. But this Saturday, someone arrived and found no one to meet her.

  Dorinda was sitting at her desk sighing over the accounts when a flurried movement on the slope outside caught her eye. The next moment there was a hammering on the door, after which she heard raised voices and the office door burst open.

  ‘Dolly!’ gasped Maude but was pushed aside.

  ‘’Ere, Miss, you got to take me back!’

  Dorinda gaped. On the other side of the desk stood Aramantha Giles, nee Ethel Small, now arrayed in what she obviously thought was the latest fashion and in a state of considerable agitation.

  Dorinda looked helplessly at Maude, who looked helplessly back and spread her hands in a gesture of hopelessness.

  ‘Aramantha,’ said Dorinda. ‘Sit down, do, and tell me what’s the matter.’ She went around the desk, pausing in front of Maude just long enough to whisper ‘Tea’, and urged the girl into the best visitor’s chair.

  ‘Now,’ she said. ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’

  ‘Well,’ gulped Aramantha, ‘I got to leave me job.’

  Dorinda’s eyebrows rose. ‘Job? What job?’

  If Aramantha had been a horse, she would have shown the whites of her eyes. As it was, she visibly shied.

  ‘Come on, Aramantha,’ urged Dorinda, taking hold of the girl’s shoulders. ‘What job?’

&nb
sp; ‘I bin doin’ chorus,’ whispered Aramantha.

  ‘Well, that’s marvellous! Where?’ Dorinda sat back, smiling.

  Aramantha sat, opening and closing her mouth for all the world like a fish, thought Dorinda, her frightened eyes fixed on Dorinda.

  ‘Well, it can’t be the Gaiety anymore, can it? In London?’

  Aramantha heaved a great sigh, dropped her gaze, and nodded.

  ‘Come on, then. Tell me all about it.’

  ‘I couldn’t get no work, see.’ The girl shifted uncomfortably on her chair. ‘I kep’ bumpin’ into this same girl in all the places I looked for work, an’ in the end, she said I could go alonga her that night.’

  Maude came in silently and put a tea tray down on the desk.

  ‘So you went?’ prompted Dorinda.

  Aramantha nodded.

  ‘And it wasn’t what you were used to?’

  Aramantha shook her head.

  Dorinda looked up and exchanged worried glances with Maude.

  ‘What did they want you to do, ducks?’ asked Maude, perching on the desk.

  There was a pause, then... ‘Take me clothes off,’ mumbled Aramantha.

  Dorinda swallowed a horrified exclamation.

  Maude patted the girl’s hand. ‘Yes, I’ve seen some o’ those,’ she said, and looked sideways at Dorinda. ‘So did they give you a job?’

  ‘I couldn’t get no work,’ whispered Aramantha. ‘I ’ad to do it.’

  ‘’Course you did,’ said Maude. ‘How long have you been there?’

  ‘Coupla months.’

  ‘And why have you got to leave?’

  Aramantha’s head dropped even lower and she suddenly burst into tears.

  ‘Never mind about that now,’ said Dorinda hastily. ‘Here, have your tea.’

  She placed a cup and saucer on the desk in front of the sobbing girl, then got up and left the office. Maude was better equipped to deal with this situation than she was.

  She walked through the auditorium and the dressing rooms to the back door, which led out onto the little gallery that ran around The Alexandria, overlooking the beach. From here the brightly painted bathing machines could be seen, drawn up at the water’s edge. Families crowded round Marvello’s Punch and Judy tent, and up on Victoria Place sat in deckchairs or leant against the railings. Dorinda viewed all of this with none of her usual complacency, worried about the scene she had left behind. Presently, the door opened, and Maude slipped out to join her.