Ruddy Gore (10 page)

and kiss-and-make-up like children. I feel like I’m running a nursery sometimes. Bad enough having Mr Evans in the cast, with all of them falling for him, and he’s a wicked one.’

‘Who has fallen for him?’

Mrs Pomeroy settled down to a cosy gossip.

‘Half the chorus, along with Miss Wiltshire, Miss Esperance, of course, and even Miss Webb, who’s usually level-headed enough. But he’s not really bad, Miss Fisher, not evil. If he was a horse you would have to say he had no vice in him. He just can’t help charming anything female that crosses his path. And he dearly wanted to play Sir Ruthven. Don’t make the mistake of thinking their emotions are all put on. They’re real people underneath, just exaggerated. They talk to me,’ she observed ‘because I care for them. They call me Mum. They’re quivering little things, under all that glamour. They’re always afraid that no one really loves them, that they’re going to fail. But they’re addicted to applause. You can tell by the light in the eyes. Even that boy, that Herbert, he’s got it.’

‘What about Walter Copland?’

‘Worse than any of them. Scared almost to death that he’d corpse. He used to stand in fittings and tremble. Miss Esperance could tell you about that. I was making up her change – the bride’s costume – and she was talking to him about stage fright. She was carrying on something fierce about the Rose Maybud costume. The trouble with G

and S is that it’s under licence, so it has to be produced in exactly the same costumes and script and 92

sets and music as the original. Fashions have changed since then. I was glad that she was talking to Mr Copland because it distracted her from how much she hated her smock. It does rather overcome her – she’s best in tight-fitting clothes, she can wear those glove-satin or angelskin evening dresses that need hip-bones to wear, as you can, Miss Fisher – but Rose Maybud’s got to look like a village maiden as Gilbert envisaged her.’

‘Did you hear what they were saying?’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Pomeroy, and shut her mouth tight.

‘Well, what were they saying?’ prompted Phryne.

‘I don’t like to listen to other people’s conversations,’ said the wardrobe mistress carefully, ‘but I heard one bit and I was so surprised I nearly stuck a pin into Miss Webb. I haven’t stuck a pin into anyone since I was an apprentice.’

‘Well, what did you hear?’

‘Mr Copland asked Miss Esperance to marry him.’

‘Did he, by Jove! And what did she say?’

‘She laughed.’

‘Oh. Was there more?’

‘He said he had a good bit put away and was retiring from the stage and going to live in Bendigo, or was it Ballarat? Some gold town, anyway. He said he couldn’t stand the strain any more and he needed a wife who could manage a great house and servants and so on and wouldn’t she think about it?’

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‘And?’ said Phryne, agog.

‘She said she’d think about it. Mr Copland wasn’t very . . . well, lovable. He was cool and aloof and I never heard a scrap of scandal attached to his name. But the fright had got to him. Mr Evans was counting the days until he got a go at Sir Ruthven. I only hope he can manage the part.

It’s often the way with things you want very dearly. When you get them you can’t handle them.’

‘What about this talk of a ghost, then? What do you think, Mrs Pomeroy?’

‘There are no such things as ghosts. We’ve got someone playing tricks. Don’t waste your time chasing after poor dead Dorothea, Dorothea’s safe in her grave and her soul is in Heaven – I hope. You want someone who is alive and making mischief. And see if you can find them quickly. This company is on the verge of breaking down altogether. They are forgetting cues and losing pitch and Sir Bernard was lucky that it was a gala last night or the audience would have noticed how scrappy the production was.

Even Mr Loveland-Hall is getting jumpy and he’s normally the calmest of men. The technicals are grumbling more than usual and it’s not pleasant to work here, though I usually like the Maj.

Now, Miss Fisher, if you’ll excuse me,’ she said, and stood up.

‘I’ll come back, if I may,’ said Phryne, and Mrs Pomeroy patted her briskly.

‘You do that, dear,’ she said, and went into the 94

racks as a female voice summoned her to alter the set of a frock coat.

Phryne walked out of Wardrobe and down the stairs. Someone was sitting on the top step and she almost fell over them.

‘Miss Wiltshire?’ she asked, recognising Mad Margaret. The actress was already arrayed in a tasteful collection of weeds and the face which turned up to Phryne was frenzied enough. ‘Why are you waiting here?’

‘Because he went into Wardrobe,’ she snarled,

‘and when he comes out I’m going to kill him.’

Phryne grabbed her left wrist in a strong grip.

‘No, you’re not,’ said Phryne, twisting until the knife fell into her other hand. ‘You’re coming back to your dressing room and having a nice cup of tea and brandy. And then you are going to talk to me about ghosts and laudanum and green whisky.’

‘I am?’ asked Miss Wiltshire, coming quietly.

‘You are.’

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CHAPTER SIX

In bygone days I had thy love –

Thou hadst my heart.

Ruddigore
, Gilbert and Sullivan PHRYNE HUSTLED Miss Wiltshire down the yellow corridor and into her own room. It was empty of people and crammed with costumes, clothes baskets, a mirror stuck all around with telegrams and a dressing table ranked with cosmetics. It smelt of cigarette smoke so Phryne lit a gasper for the actress and took one herself.

‘Sit down,’ she ordered. ‘I gather that you are in love with that scoundrel of a Welshman as well?’

‘Yes,’ Mad Margaret heaved a shuddering sigh.

‘Yes. I know he’s a rogue. Totally untrustworthy.’

‘Part of his charm,’ said Phryne authoritatively.

‘He has a dangerous feel to him, like skiing on the edge of a ridge or driving too fast in a big car.

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Exhilarating but very wearing on the emotions.

The only thing to do with scoundrels is to enjoy them while you have them and try not to regret them when they’ve gone. Who is his current amour, then?’

‘Leila. Or maybe Mollie. But he thinks that Leila can advance his career, which is true – she is able to influence the choice of her leading man.’ Miss Wiltshire threw back the mane of chestnut hair and laughed bitterly. ‘He swore that he loved me.

And he lied.’

‘Love-lonely?’ quoted Phryne. ‘Oh, my dear, don’t waste your time. Plenty of pretty men, Miss Wiltshire. Some even prettier than Gwilym Evans, who would not be improved by a steak-knife in the heart.’

‘He hasn’t got one. A heart, I mean. I think that you had better call me Violet,’ said the actress, heaving a sigh which seemed to come from her bare feet. ‘You’re right, of course. I ought to thank you for interfering. I’ll be able to do that in a little while.’

‘I don’t want thanks, I want information.’

Phryne sat down on a stool, moving aside some hanging weeds. A thin woman in a brown apron bustled in.

‘Make us some tea, Kit,’ said Miss Wilshire dully. ‘This is Miss Fisher.’

Kitty Collins sniffed and busied herself with a spirit stove and a kettle.

‘Did you know that Walter Copland was drinking?’

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‘Yes. Not my business. Gwil . . . Gwil said that he was waiting for him to make a hash of Sir Ruthven and was sure that he would get the part.’

‘He has got the part – for tonight, anyway.’

‘He always gets what he wants,’ she said with a brief spurt of anger.

‘He will always get everything that he wants and never get the one thing which he really desires –

that’s how it works with bounders,’ observed Phryne. ‘I speak from experience. A life of misery and frustration will be his. I’ve known a lot of Gwilyms.’

The first sign of independent thought crossed Miss Wiltshire’s ravaged face.

‘Yes, I think you have. The nicest thing I’ve heard in ages. Yes. Everything that he wants and not the one thing that he really desires. Very comforting. I’m glad I didn’t kill him.’

Kitty made a shocked noise and produced two cups of tea spiked heavily with brandy. ‘There, you drink that, Miss Violet, and you’ll feel better,’

she instructed. Phryne sipped. It was three quarters brandy with a little tea added and she put the cup carefully back into the saucer.

‘You’ll see,’ Phryne promised, watching the actress recover her poise. Miss Wiltshire was actually very striking, with a strong bony face, high cheekbones, brown expressive eyes and a mass of curly brown hair. Properly dressed, Phryne reflected, she would be not pretty – she could never be pretty – but
jolie laide
. Paris, for instance, would find her intriguing.

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‘Mad Margaret is not the best of parts for me at the moment,’ said Violet. ‘I’m already miserable and she has that sad song about the violet under the bush and the lover gathering only roses. I’ll be better as Ruth the piratical maid of all work or Little Buttercup the bumboat woman or as Katisha. In fact, I’m going to have a lot of fun with Katisha. ‘‘There is beauty in the bellow of the blast, there is grandeur in the howling of the gale,’’ ’ she sang softly. ‘Gilbert really despised older women, you know – all his older women are ridiculous. But Sullivan was sorry for them, perhaps because he had a mistress who was older than him, so he gave them beautiful music in which to sing their degradation. That’s what makes the elderly lady parts so sought-after. I’m alternating with Agnes in them.’

‘Is that usual?’

‘No, but we’re good at different things – she has a better voice than me, I can sing patter better than she can – so the audience gets us both.’ Kitty sniffed again.

‘Now, what about the ghost and all the odd things? Tell me what you can. I want to solve this, preferably before the admirable Jack Robinson gets his paws on anything . . . er . . . combustible.’

‘I don’t believe in ghosts,’ said Miss Wiltshire flatly. ‘But someone is playing tricks and it seems to be aimed at Leila and at Selwyn Alexander. I especially don’t believe in ghosts who write notes,’

she added. ‘Someone brought Gwil and Dupont to Leila’s room together, and there was a filthy row.

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Someone is certainly nicking Leila’s gloves, and someone is leaving things in Selwyn’s room.’

‘Any idea who?’

‘Look, theatres are emotional places – that’s our trade, emotions. The poisoning could have been done by anyone. Could be an ambitious member of the chorus wanting to move up. Could be me or Mollie or anyone attached to that bounder Gwil – could be Gwil himself, it’s suspicious that both Sir Ruthven himself and his understudy were removed. As to the gloves and the other things –

malicious mischief, trying to scare us? It’s working. We’re scared enough. Those who aren’t scared of ghosts are scared that someone could hate us enough to play all these tricks to make us scared. Selwyn’s terrified of the supernatural. He’s been to a medium who says that . . . well, you can talk to him about it. Load of rubbish.’

‘What is he like?’

‘Nice enough. Getting old and terrified of it. No money and a poverty-stricken old age staring him in the face. Have you met Tom Deeping, the doorkeeper?’

‘Yes.’

‘He’s our nightmare. We all fear that we’ll end up keeping a boarding house, fat and slopping around in down-at-the-heel slippers or muffled in a greatcoat complaining about our bronicals and dreaming of the good old days. The theatre demands youth – there aren’t many parts for character actors and not many stay on after their bloom has faded.’ She stood up and quickly 100

sketched an old woman, cigarette in mouth, leaning back to counterbalance her bulk, wrapping a greasy kimono round her waist and opening a boarding house door. It was both comic and bitter. ‘Thirty shillings a week, dear, and no gentleman callers in the rooms, I run a nice respectable ’ouse.’

She sat down again and the old woman vanished. ‘Well, that’s fate. Poor Selwyn isn’t old yet, of course, but Gwil shows him up. Gwil’s young.

And of course Selwyn, the silly fellow, had to go and fall for Leila, who has a heart of pure plati-num. Have you talked to her yet?’

‘No. I was on my way there when . . . ’

‘You fell over Murderous Meg on the steps,’ she laughed. ‘Well, you’ll see. But she’s a good actress,’ she added, lighting another gasper.

‘Nothing wrong with her craft, drat her. Thanks, Miss Fisher. I’ll be all right now. Excuse me, I have to put on my slap and go out and be Mad Margaret again.’

Phryne took her leave and knocked on the next door.

Selwyn Alexander was sitting in the chair in front of the mirror, muffled in a towel, while the short fat dresser combed what was evidently black dye through his thinning hair. Phryne perched on the edge of the table and the dresser glared at her.

‘Finished in a moment,’ he snapped at her.

‘Can’t you wait outside, Miss?’

‘No, I need to talk about ghosts and poisonings 101

and a lot of other interesting things before the cops come back.’

‘Miss Fisher!’ Selwyn’s face appeared through the towel. ‘Get on with it, Bradford,’ he snapped.

‘Talk to me, Miss Fisher. What do you want to know?’

‘Did you know that Walter was drinking?’

‘Oh, dear, someone told you, did they?’ She could not see the actor’s face but the voice was full of regret. ‘Poor Walter. He hit the bottle a few years ago and then dried out. I thought he was still on the wagon until I caught him in the wings with a little flask. It can happen to anyone,’ he said plaintively, as the dresser rubbed his hair with the towel and whisked it away, then stood behind him to comb the glossy hair over the bald patch. ‘He was never drunk – not on stage, not even when he was at his worst. The Management can fire you instantly if you’re drunk on stage. But he was scared – he had the worst stage fright I’ve ever seen. He was getting on and his powers were deserting him, but he still had magnificent presence. He was a better Sir Ruthven than Gwil Evans will ever be,’ he added through his teeth.

‘What happened to the bottle?’ asked Phryne. ‘It wasn’t on him when the police searched him, and it wasn’t in his costume.’