Entertaining Death

Book 0: The Alexandrian Series

by Lesley Cookman

Genres: Historical Fiction; Cozy Mystery; Historical Mysteries; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

The second Edwardian mystery featuring Dorinda Alexander by Lesley Cookman. When the recently widowed Lady Amelia Washington comes to Nethergate's Alexandria theatre, its proprietor Dorinda has her suspicions that this is more than just a passing visit. Dorinda's old friend Lady Ivy has suggested to Amelia that Nethergate's quiet seaside setting would make the perfect retreat from the pressures of life in society ? and with both ladies having a background in the music halls, Dorinda's troupe seems like the perfect place to blend in and get away from it all. It seems like a reasonable story ? but in that case, why are the police so interested in speaking to Lady Amelia ? and what secrets do she and her retinue hide?

Release date: January 31, 2017

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 115

Sample

Chapter One

‘I’ve got a friend coming down. And she’ll want to come and see you.’ Lady Ivy Anderson grinned across the desk at her friend Dorinda Alexander. ‘Another Lady.’

‘Oh?’

‘Lady Amelia Washington. Heard of her?’

Dorinda frowned. ‘I don’t think so. Should I have done?’

‘Thought you might have. She was a Gaiety Girl. Married old Sir Harold.’

‘Ah.’ Dorinda knew that many members of the peerage had become enamoured of the beautiful girls who graced the stage of The Gaiety in George Edwardes’ glamorous productions, some going so far as to marry them.

‘So you know her, do you?’

‘She was Ada’s friend, actually, but I met her, and since I’ve become a “Lady” too, we’ve sort of struck up a bit of a friendship. Both of us beyond the pale with the nobs, if you know what I mean.’

Ivy had once been a maid in the same household where Dorinda had been a governess, and had subsequently married Dorinda’s pupil’s grandfather, Sir Frederick.

‘So Nemone – Mrs Shepherd – will feel she has to pay a call on Amy – Amelia. And so she’ll come and see you at the same time.’

‘With Julia?’ Dorinda was still very fond of her former pupil, as, indeed, Julia was of her.

‘Oh, I expect so. She might even let Julia come to a performance. With her grandpa and me, of course.’

‘That would be very nice. And you say Lady Washington would like to come as well? But she’d turn up her nose at our sort of thing, wouldn’t she, if she’s been a Gaiety Girl?’

Ivy let out a very unladylike snort of laughter. ‘Our Amy? Never! How do you think she become – became – friends with our Ada? They started off together in the small halls round Whitechapel. Worked their way up, so to speak, till Ada got in the family way. By then Amy had moved on, and met Sir Harold. And now she’s a merry widow.’

‘Oh – she won’t come to a hall, then?’ said Dorinda.

‘Course she will. He’s been dead a year. And she’ll have her blasted shadow with her.’

‘Shadow?’

‘Miss Mariah Belting, if you please.’ Ivy put on a highfalutin air and looked down her nose. ‘Amy’s “companion”. Perishin’ maid, if the truth be told.’

‘Oh?’ Dorinda looked puzzled.

‘She was mates with Amy at The Gaiety, see. They ’ad – had – a room together.’ Ivy’s carefully constructed English was falling apart a little, as it often did under stress. ‘And Amy took ’er when she marries old Sir Harold. I didn’t know ’er well then, so I dunno what ’appened, but – Gawd, that woman’s a nightmare.’

Dorinda, amused by Ivy’s lapse into her East End roots, asked, ‘In what way a nightmare?’

Ivy gave herself a little shake, sat up straight in her chair and cleared her throat. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘She don’t – doesn’t – think anything’s good enough for ’er Lady Washington. She’s posher than posh, if you know what I mean. Well, pretends to be, any’ow. All prim and pursed lips. ’Ow she and Amy ever become friends – well. And I swear she whispers poison in Amy’s ear. Ada’s told me. She reckons she’s only allowed me to be a friend because I married my old darling. The others have all been seen off.’

‘So your sister’s allowed to be friends, even though she still lives in Hoxton?’

‘Oh, Amy never goes there. They meet every now and then somewhere –’ Ivy flapped a hand.

‘Neutral?’ suggested Dorinda.

‘That’s it. So there we are. I’m doin’ – doing – you a favour. Getting Mrs Nemone down here with Julia.’

‘That’s not the only reason your friend Lady Washington is coming to Nethergate, is it?’ Dorinda said shrewdly.

Ivy looked away.

‘Come on, Ivy. And why have you told me about her, anyway? You could just have turned up with her to see a show.’

The Alexandria in Nethergate was Dorinda’s pride and joy, and was now home to her troupe of concert party artistes, known as “The Alexandrians”. She had cause to be grateful to both Ivy and Ivy’s husband, Sir Frederick, for the change in her fortunes since her fall from grace as a governess.

‘I could ’ave.’ Ivy was staring out of the window up the steps to Victoria Place, where chauffeur Billy waited, leaning against Sir Frederick’s new motor car.

‘And why didn’t you?’ Dorinda tapped her fingers on the desk.

Ivy sighed. ‘I wanted to talk to you first. She’s in a bit of trouble, see.’

Dorinda’s stomach turned over. She didn’t want trouble. Twice in her life she had found herself at the centre of “trouble”, and twice was enough. She said nothing. Eventually, Ivy looked back at her.

‘I thought you might – I don’t know – give ’er some ’elp.’

‘Help? How could I possibly do that?’

‘Oh all right – support, then.’

‘How? I don’t even know what this trouble is, Ivy. And I do not want any more trouble in my life.’

Ivy sighed. ‘I feel sorry for her, see. She married old Sir Harold and had just begun to have a nice little life, paid for her old mum to move somewhere a bit nicer, like –’

‘The same as you did for Ada,’ put in Dorinda.

‘A bit.’ Ivy looked uncomfortable. ‘Anyway, Sir Harold ups and dies. And at first everything’s all right. She goes into her blacks and trots along as usual. Then two things happen. Sir Harold’s got two daughters, see?’

‘Ah.’ Dorinda began to understand. ‘And they thought Amy had stolen their inheritance?’

Ivy shrugged. ‘Something like that. But the other thing was, this young bloke started paying attention to her. Well, o’ course, she didn’t pay him no mind, but he kept leaving his card, see. And when she began to go out and about again, he was always there. And then the daughters – cows, they are, if you don’t mind me saying – spread about that Amy did away with Sir Harold to be with this young Jeremy.’

Dorinda gasped. ‘That’s awful! Where did they get that idea? Or did they just make it up?’

‘I reckon they made it up. No one in their sort of society knows Amy well, see, so they’d believe anything anyone told them. Nasty, ain’t it?’

‘It’s vile. Did she know this Jeremy before Sir Harold died?’

‘Oh, yes. He was helping Sir Harold with some antiquarian – is that the right word? – papers. He – Sir Harold – liked all that old stuff.’

‘So Amy must have known him quite well?’ said Dorinda.

‘I dunno about well, but she says he often joined them for dinner – that sort of thing.’

‘So there’s enough there to give weight to the daughters’ tales.’

‘I reckon. Anyway, she wants to get away from London – you can see why – and Ada suggested she came here.’

‘I suppose Nethergate isn’t fashionable, so she won’t meet many society people here, but I still don’t see what I can do to help?’

‘I think she wants to be in the show,’ said Ivy.

Chapter Two

‘In the show?’ gasped Dorinda.

Ivy looked a little shamefaced. ‘Well, see, she’s missed it a lot, and I said –’

‘It was your idea, was it?’ Dorinda was looking thunderous.

‘She’d be incog – incong – you know, false name.’

‘Incognito,’ said Dorinda. ‘That’s all very well, but I can’t just put a new girl in without any warning.’

‘You could always say she was a replacement for Velda,’ suggested Ivy slyly.

‘She was an unauditioned addition to the cast,’ said Dorinda, ‘and look what happened to her.’

‘That’s not going to happen to Amy.’

‘And what about this – Mariah, was it?’

‘Oh, she’d have to come too,’ said Ivy with a sigh, and then seeing Dorinda’s expression, ‘oh, not into the show. Just down here to run the household, you know.’

‘She’d take a house?’ Dorinda’s eyebrows shot up. ‘A member of a concert party?’

‘Probably a suite,’ said Ivy. ‘Nothing showy.’

‘That’s showy enough.’ Dorinda shook her head. ‘I’ll have to think about it. And she was just one of the ballet, was she? She might not be any good.’

‘She was when Ada knew her. Nice little soubrette she was. And did the comic stuff.’

‘Really?’ Dorinda thought. A pretty young woman who could sing and perhaps perform the funnier songs that audiences seemed so fond of – it certainly had its appeal. ‘When is she coming down?’

Ivy’s cheeks, beneath their subtle blend of rouge and powder, turned even pinker. ‘She’s here already.’

Dorinda scowled, disgusted.

‘I’m sorry, Dolly. Look, it wasn’t my fault. Ada had told her about Nethergate, and about The Alexandria, and then, blow me, if Sir Freddie didn’t take up the cause and tell her all about you –’ she caught Dorinda’s expression ‘– no, no, not all about you, but the theatre and you and everything, and recommended that big hotel on Victoria Place.’

‘The Mansion House.’

‘Yeah, that one. See, and because it supplies meals and so on, she didn’t have to bring any staff with her.’

‘Except Mariah.’

‘Except her. But she wouldn’t call herself staff.’

Dorinda stood up and went to the window, where she could just see the imposing frontage of The Mansio. . .