Death Sits Down to Dinner (37 page)
Read Death Sits Down to Dinner Online
Authors: Tessa Arlen
—NELLIE MELBA
At the name of Melba, crowned heads would nod respectful acknowledgment, noble lords and ladies would open their doors, newspaper editors would clear space for headlines, theater managers would turn pale, and the house would be full. The tsar paid tribute; Paris, Monte Carlo, and Brussels were crowns strewn in her path. Nellie Melba was the era’s megastar. She was quick-witted, outspoken, and unpredictable as she held her ground at center stage against rival sopranos, male colleagues, and conductors. She alienated Sir Thomas Beecham so thoroughly that she never sang at the Royal Opera House in the years before the Great War. She did, however, sing for private events, and was singularly generous in her fund-raising efforts.
She came from a well-to-do middle-class family in Australia, was trained in piano and voice, and became something of a minor celebrity in Melbourne. Nellie took the pseudonym “Melba” from Melbourne, her hometown.
Looking for a greater public and a more sophisticated arena to appreciate her unparalleled voice, Melba came to Europe: “… the voice, pure and limpid, with an adorable timbre and perfect accuracy, emerges with the greatest ease,” Arthur Pougin said of her in Paris. But she was so unspeakably rude to everyone that it took the intervention of the Marchioness of Ripon to prevent her from being fired from the opera house in Brussels, and it was only with the support of the British nobility and particularly Lady Ripon that Melba made her breakthrough at London’s Royal Opera House to become a world superstar. Her technique and coloratura soprano made her an ideal voice for the Italian operas of Puccini and Verdi. It was Melba who made Puccini’s
La Bohème
a success (it was not particularly well received on its opening night), but through her role as Mimi,
La Bohème
became one of the world’s most favorite operas.
She invariably would finish her concerts with “Home, Sweet Home,” leaving everyone misty-eyed and begging for more. And when it was announced (not before her time, some thought) that the diva might soon retire to her native Australia, the editor of
The Musical Times
wrote under the headline
THE DIVA TO GO HOME
: “And by all means why not? As Miss Melba has melodiously declared, only too often, there’s no place like it.”
* * *
For more information on these and other wonderful Edwardian characters please visit my blog, Redoubtable Edwardians:
www.tessaarlen.com/redoubtable-edwardian
.
It has been a perfectly thrilling experience to write the second volume in the Lady Montfort series and I have much to be grateful for. My greatest thanks as always go to my husband. His steadfast belief that I will be successful in everything I do—if I just knuckle down and do it—and his wonderful sense of humor only added to the fun of this past year. And here I am again thanking those who have been so generous with their support and time in that interesting period known as the “writing process.”
Thank you to my daughters, family, and friends for graciously putting up with all the vagaries of a late-blooming novelist with kind patience. Your generosity is always much appreciated—as is your telling me where to get off when my insecurity looms too large.
Kevan Lyon, my agent and advocate in this still very-new-to-me world of publishing, never ceases to impress me with her patience, her commitment, and her wisdom.
To the team at Thomas Dunne and Minotaur: Thank you all for whipping me into shape! We none of us complete our books successfully without the help of our publishers and their talented staff. My thanks especially to my editor, Anne Brewer, for her keen observations and thoughtful guidance; to assistant editors, Emma Stein and Jennifer Letwack, for their huge, hard work to keep me on track; to David Rotstein, who gave me yet another stunning cover; and to Shailyn Tavella, my publicist, for her creative ideas and her delightful enthusiasm. Also: to Toni Kirkpatrick, who gave me my start at Thomas Dunne Books, and for her kindness and generosity.
And last of all to all my readers who told me on Facebook and Goodreads how much they enjoyed my debut: thank you. I hope you enjoy Clementine and Edith Jackson’s new adventure as much as I have enjoyed writing it!
ALSO BY
TESSA ARLEN
Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman
TESSA ARLEN
is the author of
Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman
. She is the daughter of a British diplomat and had lived in or visited her parents in Singapore, Berlin, the Persian Gulf, Beijing, Delhi, and Warsaw by the time she was sixteen. She came to the United States in 1980 and worked as an HR recruiter for the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee for the 1984 Olympic Games, where she interviewed her future husband for a job. She lives with her family on an island in the Puget Sound. You can sign up for email updates
here
.
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Contents
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK FOR MINOTAUR BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
DEATH SITS DOWN TO DINNER.
Copyright © 2016 by Tessa Arlen. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein
Cover photographs: building © Bildarchiv Monheim GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo; staircase © Maxim Petrichuk / Shutterstock; lamppost © Alastair Wallace / Shutterstock; woman © Raisa Kanareva / Shutterstock
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Arlen, Tessa, author.
Title: Death sits down to dinner: a mystery / Tessa Arlen.
Description: First edition. | New York: Minotaur Books, 2016. | A Thomas Dunne book.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015043804 | ISBN 9781250052506 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781466854284 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Countesses—Fiction. | Upper class—England—London— Fiction. | Murder—Investigation—Fiction. | Great Britain—History— Edward VII, 1901–1910—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Historical. | FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Traditional British. | FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Women Sleuths. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction. | Historical fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3601.R5445 D44 2016 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at
http://lccn.loc.gov/2015043804
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First Edition: March 2016