Rose Campion and the Curse of the Doomstone

by Lyn Gardner

  “Please, call me Lydia,” she said, and her voice faltered charmingly.

  “I would be delighted,” said Edward softly.

  For a second the two of them stared at each other as if they were quite alone in the room. Stratford-Mark, watching this little scene, gave a cough, and with a struggle Lydia seemed to recover herself, and she clapped her hands girlishly.

  “Now, we must all celebrate Edward’s London debut.” She turned to everyone. “We will hit the town and drink champagne. Shall we start at the Ritz?” There were murmurs of agreement from many in the room.

  “But, Edward,” said Aurora, looking worried. “I thought we were going back to Campion’s to see the Illustrious Gandini do his show. That’s what we agreed.” Rose and Effie nodded their heads vigorously in support. It had been arranged as soon as it had been confirmed that Gandini would be performing at Campion’s tonight. Edward had already invited the cast, backstage crew and Stratford-Mark, who had expressed his delight at the prospect of seeing the wizard perform. Lydia was examining Rory.

  “Oh, Edward, this must be your long-lost daughter, Aurora. The town talks of nothing but how the two of you were so romantically reunited. You look so alike. She is as pretty as a plum. A real little lady.”

  Aurora blushed, and Rose smiled to herself, thinking that if Lydia had seen Aurora just a few hours earlier, when she, Rose and Effie had been covered with grease and dust working backstage at Campion’s, she wouldn’t have recognised her. Lydia looked at Rose and Effie.

  “What is this Campion’s, and who is this Illustrious Gandini?”

  “It’s a small music hall in Southwark across the river where Effie and I live. Rory and Edward sometimes stay too when they aren’t at Edward’s house in Silver Square, and tonight the magician Gandini is performing there,” said Rose. Then she added firmly, “We promised Thomas that we would come back after the show. He’ll be expecting…” She trailed off. She could see Edward’s face obviously torn between his loyalty to Campion’s and the bewitching Lydia Duchamps.

  Rose instinctively understood that Lydia was the sort of woman who liked to be seen and admired by the rich and powerful. For her, a place like Campion’s, down at heel and the wrong side of the river, would be slumming it. Why would she want to go there tonight, when she could share Edward’s triumph among the cream of society in the West End? Particularly when she was supposed to be showing off the Star of the Sea and creating interest in the upcoming auction. Nobody who lived in Southwark was going to buy it.

  But to Rose’s surprise, with a smile as sweet as fresh milk, Lydia said, “A promise is a promise and must not be broken. We will go to this Campion’s and see if this great wizard is as great as he claims. It will be charming, I am quite sure, and we will make this little music hall the most fashionable place in London simply by being there.” She tucked her arm firmly in Edward’s and walked towards the door, despite the protests from the men charged with protecting the Doomstone from thieving hands. They were disconcerted by the prospect of going south of the river to an area that was notorious for its priggers and blaggers. But Lydia simply laughed at their concerns.

  “I will be completely surrounded by people at a music hall. It will be impossible for the Star of the Sea to be stolen in front of everyone, with you sharp-eyed gentlemen watching my every move and with hundreds of other people present. It is probably the safest place in London tonight.” She turned to Edward. “Besides, I will have his Lordship by my side. Edward will protect me from any skulduggery.”

  3

  It took what seemed like forever to Rose to get everyone settled in coaches and cabs. Edward, Lydia, her two shadows and Stratford-Mark were settled in one. Rose and Rory and Effie got in another, and numerous other actors and hangers-on squashed into several more. Rose was beginning to worry that if they didn’t hurry, the Illustrious Gandini would have finished his act. They finally appeared to be ready to move when a girl wearing a mustard-yellow dress ran out of the stage door waving her arms.

  “Miss Duchamps! Miss Duchamps! Have you forgotten all about me? You told me to wait in your dressing room. You said you would return after the performance and tell me if you needed me again.”

  Rose recognised her as the red-haired girl they had seen peering from behind the door in the corridor. She was even lankier than Effie, and there was something of the foal about her, as if her legs were too long for her body, lending her a graceless but endearing quality. Lydia leaned out of the carriage window and put a hand to her head in a theatrical gesture.

  “I’m so forgetful. Forgive me, Amy,” she said with a tinkling laugh. Then she called out to everyone, as if an explanation was necessary. “Dear little Amy is my dresser while I’m at the Pall Mall. I have no further need of you tonight. You can return to your lodgings, Amy.” Then, as an afterthought, she asked, “Where do you lodge, Amy?”

  “Rotherhithe way, Miss Duchamps,” muttered the girl, twisting her hands awkwardly and keeping her head bent.

  “How convenient,” said Lydia. “We will be able to give you a ride. Pop in the cab at the back. There’s a spare seat. You can come with us to Campion’s music hall if you so wish. That will be a treat for you, Amy.”

  The girl kept her eyes on the ground. “I don’t know, Miss Duchamps. I don’t want to impose.”

  “Oh, the more the merrier, I always say, although of course if you are too tired…”

  “No, Miss Duchamps. Thank you, Miss Duchamps,” said the girl. “I’ll come to see the Illustrious Gandini.” And she gave a bob and ran back to the final cab, clambering in and almost falling over her own limbs in the scramble.

  “Let’s go,” said Lydia, clapping her hands, and the coachman snapped his whip and the party set off.

  “Crikey,” said Effie as their cab began to move. “That poor Amy could have bin all night at the theatre waiting for Lydia to come back, if she ain’t come looking for her. Was a good thing we didn’t set off a minute earlier.”

  “It was kind of Lydia to invite her, wasn’t it?” said Aurora. “She’s so glamorous and beautiful and sure of herself, I thought she might be spoilt and used to getting everything she wanted.” Rose wondered whether Aurora was really trying to say that she had been worried by the way that Lydia had so obviously fixed her cap at Edward. “But I was wrong,” continued Aurora. “You can see by the way she insisted that she would come along with us to Campion’s when we mentioned our plans, and saw how important it was to us, that she’s got a caring heart.”

  Rose made a non-committal noise. She thought that Lydia would have gone wherever Edward was going, even if he had announced that he planned to pop to the very ends of the earth and back. She ran over the exchange between Lydia and Amy in her head and frowned – there was something else about the conversation, something that had been said that had jarred, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

  “What’s wrong, Rosie?” asked Effie. “You’re not worried that the curse of the Doomstone will catch up with Lydia and she’ll drop down dead at Campion’s in the middle of Gandini’s act?”

  Rose grinned. “I’m more worried those thieving Tanner Street boys will filch it while she’s not looking.”

  “Them Tanner Street boys’ll know the Doomstone’s way out of their league. Ain’t no fence in London will touch swag like that gem. Way too hot. Every Blue in town would be looking for it. Anyways, they wouldn’t dare finger it if they knew about the curse. Them Tanner Street boys may look tough, but they’re scaredy-cats. Remember how long they stayed away from Campion’s when that rumour went round that you’d seen Ned Dorset’s ghost, Rosie,” said Effie.

  Rose said nothing. She knew that she had seen poor, murdered Ned Dorset’s ghost.

  “Come on, Rosie,” said Aurora. “Tell us more about the curse, and how you know about it.”

  “I read about the Doomstone in a copy of one of Thomas’s gazettes. It said that it was looted from a palace in India in the fourteenth century. The stone was pulled
from the crown of an empress whose husband had been stabbed to death by marauding invaders. Legend has it that the empress begged the soldiers to take the diamond, but to spare her twin daughters, who she was cradling in her arms. But they bayoneted the babes to death and stabbed the empress too. With her dying breath she cursed the diamond, saying that it would only ever bring grief and disaster to those who stole or owned it.”

  “And has it?” asked Effie, wide-eyed.

  Rose nodded. “It didn’t bring much luck to Marie Antoinette. She owned it and she lost her head to the guillotine during the French Revolution. Over the last century the Doomstone has turned up all over Europe, even in America, sometimes stolen and sometimes traded, and often bringing sudden death, suicide, debt and destruction in its wake. It’s been in a vault for the last twelve years since the Doomstone’s last owner jumped to his death after his entire family were killed in a carriage accident, and it was sold to pay off his debts.”

  Effie’s eyes widened further. “So the curse is true! We must warn Lydia.”

  Rose laughed. “It’s probably just a series of unfortunate coincidences. Anyway, I don’t think Lydia has much to worry about. It’s not as if she’s stolen the diamond or owns it. After tonight she’s going to give it back, and it will be auctioned next week.”

  “Well, I ain’t buying it,” said Effie, “and I don’t know who would.”

  Rose smiled. Effie didn’t have more than a tuppence to her name, and a deuce wasn’t going to buy her the Doomstone.

  “Rich speculators,” said Rose. “They won’t care about the curse as long as the price of the diamond keeps rising, and as it’s the most flawless blue diamond in the world, it almost certainly will. In fact, the curse probably only adds to the fascination of the Doomstone and increases its worth.”

  “We’ve arrived,” said Aurora excitedly, and she stood up before the cab had come to a halt, falling in a heap on top of Rose and Effie when it pulled up sharply.

  4

  They were still laughing as they piled out of the cab into Hangman’s Alley, lifting their skirts as they stepped over the muddy pockmarks in the road and shooing away the yapping stray dogs. They were immediately surrounded by a throng of ragged children, their faces haunted by the exhaustion of long days in the factory or begging on the street. The girls gave them all the pennies they had.

  Music spilled out on to the street from Campion’s; from the roar of the crowd it was clear that a cancan led by Lottie and the ballet dancers was in full swing. Rose thought that there was no lovelier sight in the world than the golden light and the flitting shadows glimpsed through the windows of Campion’s on a late summer’s night. Every time the door opened the sound of merriment filtered out on to the street.

  Rose glanced through the open gate into the yard that led backstage. She could just see O’Leary’s feet poking out from the open stage door, where he was sitting, supposedly charged with keeping strangers out but all too often slumped in a semi-drunken stupor. Tiny Titch, a comic and singer – so-called because he was a huge giant of a man, over six feet tall and seemingly almost as wide – was chatting to Dolores, known as Queen of the Slack Wire, and Belle Canterbury, a Campion’s regular whose crystal voice was so unworldly that when she sang audiences felt as if someone was running a finger down their spines. Rose was glad to see Belle back at Campion’s; it must mean that her mother, to whom Belle was devoted, had recovered from her most recent illness.

  Tobias Fraggles, the newish flyman, who shifted the scenery backstage, was standing smoking by the gate, gazing longingly after Lydia, who was just disappearing through the entrance to Campion’s. Rose smiled to herself. Clearly Edward wasn’t Lydia’s only conquest tonight. The young flyman looked dazzled.

  Rose glimpsed Jem Dorries, a Campion’s fixture who played romantic leads in the melodramas, did a bit of magic, sang when required in his pleasing tight tenor and helped out backstage when needed. He was standing in the corner of the yard close to the gate, passing a handful of coins to a small boy. Rose guessed that Jem was using the child as a runner to place a bet, probably at this time of night on some illegal activity such as cockfighting. Jem would bet on anything. Only yesterday he had tried to get Rose to wager sixpence against him on which one of two raindrops running down a Campion’s dressing-room window would reach the bottom first. She’d noted the desperation in his eyes when she refused, and hadn’t been at all surprised when he had asked her if she could lend him a shilling, which she couldn’t. It was always the same with Jem Dorries – he was either flush with cash or penniless. Clearly he must have had some serious luck since yesterday, when he hadn’t a penny to his name.

  The crowd at the box office began to move forward, but not before Rose spotted Billy Proctor, the new barman who had been taken on a couple of days back, just after Gandini’s appearance had been announced. He was on his own smoking moodily in the shadows of the yard. Thomas had said they were short-handed, and with the extra custom that Gandini would bring in, it was an ideal time to hire a new member of staff. Rose hadn’t taken to Billy Proctor. He was surly, as if he thought being a barman was beneath him, and he was slow and clumsy when serving, and kept popping up unexpectedly in places backstage where he had no business being. What was he doing in the yard at this time of an evening when Campion’s was packed? Just before setting out for the Pall Mall this evening, she had seen him outside Gandini’s dressing room. The door was ajar and he’d appeared to be eavesdropping on Gandini and Jem, who were playing cards together.

  When he realised Rose had spotted him, Billy had scuttled away, something shifty in his manner. Rose had lingered for a moment to see if Billy returned, and Gandini, suddenly aware of her presence through the gap in the door, had courteously bowed his head at Rose in such a gentlemanly manner she had almost wanted to curtsy. Thinking about it, Rose wondered whether Jem had taken money off Gandini at cards, and that’s where his money had come from. If he had beaten Gandini at cards, it was hardly the greatest advertisement for the Great Wizard’s supposed skills.

  Edward, Lydia and Stratford-Mark were already inside by the time Rose and the others passed under the legend that declared “Campion’s Palace of Varieties and Wonders.” They walked through the new double-fronted door, flanked with intricate plasterwork decorated with fruits and vines, painted in fresco colours and picked out in gold leaf. They were immediately enveloped in the welcoming, warm fug of Campion’s. Rose thought it was like no other smell in the world: it was the cosy smell of home. There was a clamour of people talking, a piano tinkling and the faint hiss of the gaslights. Rose realised that Amy was standing right next to her, looking as nervous as a newborn foal and scowling slightly as she looked around. Rose tried to set the girl at ease. She was clearly highly strung.

  “Have you seen Gandini perform before?” she asked, trying to make conversation. Amy seemed startled by her question.

  “No,” she mumbled. “Of course not. I’d never even heard of him until Miss Duchamps told me to come with everyone here tonight.” Amy had dark shadows under her eyes. Maybe the poor girl was just exhausted and would have preferred to have gone home to sleep, rather than being dragged to Campion’s.

  With a wide beam, Thomas beckoned them towards a large vacant table in the centre of the room that he had saved for their return. It was just as well, because Campion’s was crammed like an overfilled meat pie. Several small, sooty boys were clinging like monkeys to the gilt candy-cane pillars that looked far too slender to support the horseshoe balcony. It seemed that the whole of Southwark, and most of Bermondsey too, wanted to see the Illustrious Gandini perform his magic act.

  But the crowd parted as best they could, and all eyes turned away from the stage, where Campion’s regular Molly, who did acrobatic tricks hanging by her teeth from a strap above the stage, was performing. Eyes swivelled to watch Edward and Lydia as the pair moved slowly through the room to the vacant table. The diamond around Lydia’s neck caught the light and something seeme
d to glow and move in its depths, just as an ocean shifts and changes. Edward had become a familiar figure around Campion’s, even taking to the stage occasionally to play a small part in one of the melodramas, which had endeared him to the Campion’s crowd. They knew he had a title but they afforded him no special treatment, and were as likely to boo him as anyone else if he bored them. Toff or no toff, the Campion’s audience never stood on ceremony – when they handed over their hard-earned money they expected to be royally entertained, and they didn’t care if it was a lord on stage or a pauper. They were fascinated to see him looking so handsome in full evening dress, with the beautiful, luminous Lydia on his arm. There were a number of whistles and saucy shouts as they progressed across the room.

  “I hear you triumphed, my boy,” said Thomas above the hubbub as the two men hugged each other warmly. Thomas was only a decade older than Edward, but he had swiftly become something of a father figure to the younger man.

  Edward introduced Thomas to Lydia, who gave Thomas her hand and a look as soft as butter, before sinking gracefully into one of the seats.

  “That bauble weighing you down, luv?” called somebody loudly from the gallery, much to the delight of the crowd, who hooted and whistled.

  “Bring it ’ere, ducks. If it’s too ’eavy for yer, I’ll look after it,” shouted another.

  Effie plucked at Thomas’s sleeve. “Any news from Holloway Prison about my ma?”

  “I’m sorry, Effie. No,” said Thomas gently. “As soon as I hear any further news I will let you know at once.”

  Rose noticed that a vein in Thomas’s neck was twitching, a sure sign that he was anxious. “Is everything all right?” she whispered.

  Thomas splashed her a smile. “You don’t miss a thing, Rose Campion,” he said with a hint of pride in his voice. “You’re as sharp as a tiger’s tooth.” He lowered his voice. “I was backstage just before you arrived, and Gandini looked terrible. Very pale. Beads of sweat on his brow. As if he had a bad fever. Said he was fine, that he’d eaten a dodgy oyster and it would pass. I hope it does and he’s able to perform, because otherwise we’re going to have to give this lot their money back. They’re up for a good night out, and if Gandini is a no-show they’ll be sure to make their displeasure very clear.”