The Sleeping Beauties

by Lucy Ashe

Genres: Suspense

Synopsis

Late spring 1945, London: The war in Europe is over. But for Briar Woods, a dancer at Sadler’s Wells Ballet, the past resurfaces and she must come face to face with the truth. It feels as though her war has only just begun.

Since 1939, Rosamund Caradon had taken in many children from Britain’s bombarded cities, sheltering them in her Devonshire manor. Now, with Germany’s surrender, she is en route to London to return the last evacuees, accompanied by her dance-obsessed daughter Jasmine. Rosamund vows to protect Jasmine from any peril, but a chance meeting with a Sadler’s Wells dancer changes everything. When the beautiful, elusive Briar Woods bursts into Rosamund’s train carriage, it’s clear her sights are set on the captivated Jasmine. As Briar sets out to charm them both, Rosamund cannot shake the eerie feeling this accidental encounter isn’t what it seems. While Briar may be far away from the pointe shoes and greasepaint of The Sleeping Beauty ballet rehearsals, her performance for Rosamund might just be her most successful yet. A dance that could turn deadly . . .

Release date: September 10, 2024

Publisher: Union Square & Co.

Print pages: 336

Sample

Praise for The Dance of the Dolls

“Ashe’s persuasive behind-the-scenes ballet sections lend heft and authenticity to what could otherwise be mere window dressing, and she transitions her narrative from charming slice of historical fiction to pulse-pounding suspense at an expert pace. It’s a fiercely memorable debut from a writer to watch.”

—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Historical-novel fans as well as those who enjoy a bit of gothic intrigue will appreciate this story.”

—Booklist

“The ballet world sets the stage for this terrifying psychological thriller that takes place in prewar London.”

—Entertainment Weekly

“Ashe trained with the Royal Ballet School, and she is fascinating on the detail of the girls’ lives; on the pain and the bloodied feet that underpin the perfection of the dance; on, as Samuel says, ‘this mad life you all live, always on the edge of pain and exhaustion.’ A wonderful, eye-opening debut.”

—London Times

“This unsettling tale … is set in 1933 in the poisonously competitive world of ballet.… As the story follows the rehearsals for the ballet Coppélia, we receive a quick-fire education on how the ballet works and why it inspires obsession.… An original thriller with a crafty plot.”

—Daily Mail

“Based on the real ballet scene in prewar London, this immersive tale will be a delight for historical-fiction fans who like a touch of suspense.”

—Library Journal

“Dances with historical details, with unease and atmosphere. You can feel the mist of the London canals, hear the ballet shoes touching the stage.”

—Abigail Dean, author of Girl A

“This book was a joy to read from start to finish. Ashe’s writing is razor-sharp with a lyrical edge to it.… Rich, mesmerizing, and compelling, The Dance of the Dolls heralds the arrival of a bright new voice in literary fiction.”

—Awais Khan, author of No Honour

“A spellbinding thriller, set against a fascinating background and so beautifully written.”

—Frances Quinn, author of The Smallest Man

“Lucy has created a mesmerizing atmosphere in her debut novel. This story is one of dreadful, delirious ambition as well as the relentless drive for perfection.… Beautiful.”

—Sally Oliver, author of The Weight of Loss

“The Dance of the Dolls is a delight, a book that is at times historical fiction, at times a love story to ballet, and at times even a bit of a thrilling whodunit.”

—The Bookbag

“Quite a debut, very assured and confident … a wonderfully told story.”

—@emreadsthebooks

“Haunting and richly evocative … takes the reader on a spellbinding journey through the 1930s London ballet scene, in which the beauty and elegance of the participants is the flip side of a destructive drive for perfection and darkly murderous obsessions. Lucy Ashe’s debut is absolutely en pointe.”

—Lexie Elliott, author of How to Kill Your Best Friend

“Lucy Ashe’s debut novel is a clever thriller set in a world which she knows so well, having trained at the Royal Ballet School and being a twin. It’s a story of sisterly love, ambition, and obsession.… Take a bow, Ms. Ashe.”

—Historical Novel Society

Thorns catch her dress. The girl ignores the sharp scratch against her wrist, the spike that digs its way beneath her skin. She runs fast through an arch of roses and beneath the heavy scent of summer jasmine, her cheek brushing the faded rot of lilac: she wishes the garden would consume her, grow tall and wild into one giant tangle of branches, roots dug hard into the ground. Tonight, she longs to hide inside a secret garden, to escape for a hundred years between thick forest walls.

She runs farther into the garden. The sounds from the house fade until all that is left is the quiet echo of the wind against the trees, their trunks choked with ivy.

At last she feels safe, her breath gradually easing as she slows her legs and walks. There is a marble seat at the end of the path, its cold silver stone offering a steady glow under the moonlight. It seems to take her an age to reach it, her legs losing their strength now that she is no longer running. When she finally collapses against the marble, her head swims. All evening she has been drinking, and her body is not used to the rising haze of champagne. She knows she should have been more careful, more alert to the dangers around her.

But tonight there was no one to watch over her, no fairy godmother, no mother at all.

Midnight. She can sense time shifting, the night ticking on toward morning. If she can just rest her head, close her eyes for a few minutes, she thinks she will find the strength she needs. She imagines a bedroom, an absurd image of pink silk and tasseled cushions. Instead all she has is a hard marble seat and potted topiary spikes. The summer air thickens around her as though a huge hand is pressing her down. No one can hear her whisper to herself, an incoherent muddle of sighs. Perhaps, she thinks, this is how Princess Aurora felt as the forest groaned and grew, the prick of her finger sending her to sleep.

A man appears at the end of the path, but she doesn’t see him. She is nearly asleep, shadows dancing beneath her eyelids, turning trees, shrubs, the red bloom of roses, the bulk of the man, into one eddying monochrome mess.

The man has seen her, though. He walks forward, silent as he pushes a rose away from his face, the thorns shivering into the thicket.

Music scratches in the distance, at the house or farther away in the streets. There are people somewhere, a party, faint shrieks and cries that rise and fall as her eyelids droop. She tries to fight the weight of exhaustion that pulls her body down, but it is no use. The darkness of the garden, the trees that encircle her, the sweet scent of roses: they consume her like the swirling magic of an incantation, a fairy waving her wand.

She falls asleep.

Rosamund Caradon is surrounded by children. Keeping them close, she walks swiftly, a basket of treats for the train journey hanging from her elbow. Inside the basket are the eggs she collected earlier this morning from their garden hens, a task she had lingered over while watching the children run up and down the lawn for the very last time.

As they make their way onto the platform, Rosamund feels the basket press against her, little fingers clutching at the edge. It is Jasmine who peers inside, checking that the eggs, the packet of salt, the sandwiches, the mock marzipan balls of beans, rice, and vanilla essence are exactly where they should be.

Jasmine is the youngest of the little crowd of children that Rosamund hurries farther along the platform, but no one would think it from watching her, seeing how she bubbles with confidence as she hops among them. For she is Rosamund Caradon’s daughter. And as her daughter, she takes her hosting responsibilities seriously. Too seriously at times, Rosamund has secretly observed, smiling as her daughter instructs her playmates in the most complex of games and scenarios. The sadness of saying goodbye to the children is only heightened by her worry of how Jasmine will cope without this little army of girls and boys who provide her with endless entertainment and purpose.

Rosamund took in many children during the war, some lasting for less than a month before their parents called for their return, others staying for years. Since the winter of 1939, there has been a steady progress of tears and goodbyes, of children suddenly shy in front of their parents or itching to get back to the familiarity of city living. Rosamund remembers how one little boy hardly recognized the aunt who had come to collect him, hiding behind Jasmine and Rosamund until the poor woman convinced him that she was taking him home. The boy’s mother was working all hours at a London hospital, the aunt told Rosamund, but she could no longer stand the pointed questions from the other nurses about when her son was coming home.

Once war was over, everyone wanted to find some normality, to settle and fix their disordered homes. The reality, of course, was that it was impossible. Not with rationing and homes bombed and fathers not yet returned. How could any woman be expected to carry on as before, the aunt exclaimed as Rosamund busied herself in the kitchen making sandwiches for their journey. Rosamund had nodded sagely, thinking how empty the huge house was going to feel with all the children finally gone, just her precious Jasmine left to look after and protect. She would need work, an occupation to keep her busy, make her feel needed and in control of her day. The thought of vacant rooms and acres of empty gardens, silent hallways and the front lawn too smooth without the scuff of balls and cricket bats, made her breathless, as though all the life was being sucked out of her lungs.

The whistle of the train propels the children forward along the platform of Exeter St. David’s, Rosamund gathering arms and hands and pushing them into the carriage. Each child has a small suitcase, Jasmine insisting on carrying Eliza’s as well as her own, her shoulders straining as she lifts herself up the steps and into the train.

“Come on, Eliza. Time waits for no man.” It is a phrase she has picked up from her grandmother, who lives with them at Gittisham Manor and likes to offer clipped words of instruction from her armchair in the front room. Jasmine encourages her friend up into the carriage, keeping the suitcase gripped tightly in her hand.

“You’re going to need to give that back to her at some point,” Rosamund says, charmed by the effort her daughter is making to look after her friend. Jasmine doesn’t reply, a mass of tangled blond hair swishing as she marches forward and finds an empty carriage, the others following obediently.

Behind her is Eliza Matthews, nine years old and declared by Jasmine to be her best friend for life. She is followed by Julia Greene, a fourteen-year-old who goes nowhere without her ballet shoes at her side in a soft cloth bag. She brought a cutout paper theatre with her when she arrived from London, and the children spent hours assembling its pieces and pushing pantomime characters and ballerina fairies in paper tutus around a colorful stage made of cardboard. Then there are the two boys, twin brothers Timothy and John Giles, who were desperately homesick when they arrived, only to become the sole evacuees to stay throughout the war, establishing routines and structures that had settled them and made Gittisham Manor feel like home. Rosamund worries about how they will adjust to London after nearly six years of country living. Her home in Devon is all space and greenery, wide lawns, sturdy old trees to climb, a labyrinthine wood to explore. The Giles brothers live in a tiny flat in Clerkenwell, surrounded by noise. When they boarded a train to the countryside in that first energetic wave of September evacuations, aged just six, London was all they had known. But their memories of London have faded now, replaced with Devon’s rolling hills.

The whistle cries out once again and the train starts its slow roll out of Exeter. There are people on the platform, waving with bright smiles as they send children back home to London. Rosamund knows those smiles will lose their certainty once they return to their kitchens and start to accustom themselves to the ordinary simplicity of life without the evacuees, these children that they have found ways to love, nurture, ease their homesickness. They have tried to discover common ground with those who had never seen the sea, never walked through a field of cows, never been the victim of the stinging nettles’ rash.

Pulling back from the window, Rosamund settles down to watch the children. She hadn’t really wanted to come with them to London, but Jasmine would never agree to waving them off from a platform edge when she could have her own adventure in the big city she has heard so much about. War kept her from it, and now, finally, at the age of eight, she is hurtling through Devon, Somerset, Wiltshire, Berkshire, all these counties she can name on a map, rattling them off like a song. London awaits.

Rosamund has another reason for accompanying the children on the train journey back to London. Her family has a flat in Chelsea, two neglected stories of tired walls and dated furniture that no one has had the energy or inclination to refresh. Her brother Matthew lived there for years, filling it with books and newspapers, piles of notebooks scratched with his attempts at poetry, dusty playbills and signed photographs from actors and opera singers. He left when the war began, moving into a cottage in Somerset with two other bachelors and washing his hands of responsibility for anything to do with the London flat, with Gittisham Manor, with his mother and her endless expectations. He knew that his parents had always judged him, resented how he refused to marry and provide the next generation of men to preserve Gittisham Manor and its acres of farmland. When their father had died two years before the war, Rosamund considered spending some time in London, but life in Devon took on new meaning when Jasmine arrived. Her father was dead, but her husband was gone too, his absence forcing a realignment of what she wanted from her life. Without him, she was nervous about leaving her home in the countryside, of forging her way through unknown and unfamiliar streets.

Alberic’s death frightened her, how sudden and unnecessary it was, how easily avoided. He had been at a weekend party in London, a dull event that he felt duty-bound to attend, he’d said before he left: old school friends who insisted they meet once a year for stodgy food and a giddy dose of nostalgic reminiscing. Driving too fast on his way home, Alberic Caradon was killed, his car overturned in a grass ditch, the towering monoliths of Stonehenge impassively watching from across the nearby fields.

Rosamund knows it is time to face London again. Not just for herself, but for Jasmine too. While Rosamund would prefer to keep her safe within the high woodland walls of the Otter Valley, she knows that Jasmine is already outgrowing the smallness of her world. The villages of Devon will not contain her for much longer. Now the war is over, there is nothing left to stop them from getting on the train and starting a new adventure. She just wishes she could have brought her ancient dog Felix along with them, but it wasn’t possible. He has stayed behind in Devon, moving from one sunlit spot to another.

Her London lawyer visited the flat last month, reporting back that it had been miraculously saved from bombing while much more loved and cared-for homes on the same street stood in ruins. This was a sign, Rosamund thought, that she must open the flat, flush out its dust and dirt, and start making it into a modern home where she and Jasmine could carve out whatever sort of life they desired. Looking at Jasmine now, hearing her loud chatter as she hands out the sandwiches much earlier than is necessary, Rosamund feels torn between her desire to keep her daughter with her always, protected by the familiar fields of her estate, and her acceptance that this will not be enough. If she could, she’d hide away with Jasmine forever, never venturing beyond the tree-lined border of their home.

Just as the children have settled after the excitement of those first lumbering lurches of the train, a face looms into view at the door. Rosamund inhales and tries to avoid the gaze of the intruder. She wants this compartment for herself and for the children, her last opportunity to take on such a vast maternal role.

A woman is standing in the doorway of their compartment, peering uncertainly inside. When the train staggers, she catches herself against the door, her fingertips pressed white on the wood. “Is there space for one more?” the woman asks. The children stare up at her, momentarily diverted from organizing their bags and sandwiches, the two boys already trying to search for a pack of cards hidden amid their suitcases. Jasmine bares her teeth, smiling at the woman a little aggressively, Rosamund thinks.

“Please,” says Rosamund, gesturing to the spare seat opposite her. She cannot risk pretending it is taken, not when Jasmine’s disarming honesty would likely have her blurt out the truth. But she wishes they could have the space to themselves without worrying about whether their games are too loud and chaotic. The woman has, however, chosen this carriage when there must, surely, be quieter ones farther along the train: so she will have to put up with them and their chaos.

The woman places her suitcase on the luggage rack, rising high on her toes as she does so. When the train rocks this time, she is steady, her weight shifting gracefully as she slips into her seat. Leaning back, she stretches her legs out in front of her. Rosamund is struck by the agility of the woman’s feet, the way they arch over and push against the leather soles of her heeled sandals. She is young, maybe in her mid-twenties, with slim shoulders and hips and a neat waist over which she wears a pretty polka-dotted blue belt that matches her dress. Her hair seems impossibly soft, a light brown wave that bounces against her shoulders.

Rosamund looks down at her own untidy fingernails, the faint smudge of soil beneath them, and closes her hands in her lap. She wishes the woman would go to another carriage. Already the pressure to conform to London fashions and standards is making her anxious, and she finds herself thinking that this young woman has no business looking so pretty and polished when Rosamund is wearing the same old skirt she has patched up many times now. Her mother, back at the manor house, had pursed her lips in disapproval when Rosamund came down this morning, ready for her London trip. A disappointment again, Rosamund knew, her refusal to dress up, fashion her hair smartly, to spend more money on herself than strictly necessary. Rosamund prefers to buy clothes for her daughter—and maybe fresh summer bedding for the garden now that the war is over and she doesn’t need to feel guilty taking up precious vegetable space with flowers.

“Are they all yours?” the young woman says to Rosamund, gesturing at the children with a little laugh.

“I sometimes wish they were,” Rosamund replies, forcing herself to be friendly. The last thing she wants to do is make polite conversation with this pretty young woman. In her final few hours with these children that she has grown to love, she doesn’t want a minute stolen.

“Returning home, are they?” The woman’s voice is gentle, and Rosamund can tell she is genuinely interested. But it doesn’t stop her from feeling irritated.

“Yes. I took in a lot of evacuees. My home is big, you see, with lots of space for children to play. There have been many coming and going throughout the war. These are the final few.”

“Do you live in Exeter?” the woman asks, reaching into her handbag and pulling out a small needle case.

“No, a village about half an hour away. Gittisham.”

“Oh, Gittisham is lovely. How lucky for the children,” the woman exclaims, setting the sewing kit open on her lap. “I live not far from there. Ottery St. Mary. Well, at least my parents live there, and I return when I can. My home is London now.”

“We took the children into Ottery St. Mary a few times. And it’s where I do my shopping, there or Honiton, if I can’t face driving all the way into Exeter.”

“Mama, we’re going to play I Spy,” calls out Jasmine from the window seat, her voice cutting through the conversation. The woman jumps slightly, turning quickly toward the children.

“Of course, darling,” Rosamund replies, smiling apologetically at the woman.

“Oh, please do,” the woman says. “Such a fun game for a long journey. Perhaps I can join in?”

“If you want. But don’t feel obliged to continue if it gets boring.” Rosamund remembers how, before Jasmine arrived, she had longed to be able to play a game of I Spy with a child of her own, watching families enviously on the bus journeys into Exeter when her parents wouldn’t let her take the car. She tries to warm to the woman, doing her best to find sympathy for this obvious desire to interact with the children. It is a feeling she understands well.

Jasmine leads, finding a myriad of details to spy, a bright infusion of colors and shapes: the red of the seats; the brown leather of a suitcase; the black and white pattern of a cow as the train rushes by. Even Eliza’s blue sailor’s collar gets a mention, her loud and surprisingly low laugh rumbling through the carriage when she realizes. When it is the woman’s turn, she stumps them all with the letter B. They try everything: the banana in Timothy’s lunch bag, waiting to be eaten; belts, bags, the floral brooch on Rosamund’s collar; the billows of steam from the train engine that occasionally drift past the window. Finally, it is Julia Greene who works it out.

“Ballet shoes!” she exclaims, noticing the pale pink of her own ballet slippers poking their toes out of her bag. A frayed silk ribbon has escaped, and the dusty soles of the shoes are turned up toward the seat.

“And I have my own, too,” says the woman. She pulls out from her bag a pair of brand-new pointe shoes. From the reaction of the children, they could be a pair of magic rabbits drawn dramatically out of a hat. The satin shines brightly, so different to the scuffed ends of Julia’s. At once all attention is on her, the children forgetting their game and staring intently at this woman who has suddenly become much more interesting. “I need to sew on the ribbons and darn the ends before I reach London,” she says, winding a long pink ribbon round and round her hands.

“Are you a ballerina?” asks Jasmine, standing and going right up to her side. Rosamund can see how desperately her daughter wants to reach out and touch the shoes.

“Yes. At Sadler’s Wells. I have been dancing all through the war.” She waves her arm as she says this. It is a graceful port de bras, but it makes Rosamund wince, the warmth she was trying her best to feel gone once again. This will be it now for the rest of the journey, the girls plying this ballet dancer with questions, perhaps an impromptu barre class in the corridor, endless admiration. “You can hold them if you want.” The woman passes her shoes to Jasmine, who turns them over in her hands, delicately stroking the satin as though it were a precious pet. Julia has risen to join her, and the two boys are watching with a failed attempt at indifference. They are at that age now where a pretty young woman will capture their interest. Rosamund has noticed them growing and changing, in that awkward space between childhood and puberty. At times she feels some relief that they are returning home before she must navigate them through the uncomfortable passage toward early adulthood.

“Julia is a ballet dancer too,” Jasmine announces proudly.

“Yes, I gathered as much from the ballet shoes. Where do you dance?” she asks Julia, her face lighting up with curiosity.

“I’m a student at Sadler’s Wells School. At least I was until my parents finally decided it wasn’t safe for me to stay in London last year. I’ve tried to keep up with ballet class in Devon, but it isn’t the same without a teacher.”

“Oh, she dances every day,” interjects Jasmine. “We set up a ballet studio in the library and used the back of the chairs as barres. Julia taught us all how to dance.” Jasmine performs a little arabesque, her leg stuck out awkwardly behind her. The woman smiles and claps her hands. Rather too generous, Rosamund thinks. While Julia is a talented dancer, working with focus and commitment every day to maintain her flexibility, poise, balance, and grace, Jasmine is more enthusiastic than accurate in her ballet training. She prefers to throw herself energetically across the room, coming dangerously close to knocking books from their shelves with her wild bouncing arms. Her long blond hair, always an impossible bird’s nest of tangles, refuses to be tamed into a neat bun on top of her head, wisps of white flying in all directions. Eliza would join in with the ballet classes too, moving solidly through the exercises without any grace to speak of but a charming and unembarrassed strength. Timothy was reluctant to get involved, but John gradually migrated from his position as observer on the armchair at the corner of the room, to timidly mimicking the exercises, to finally taking his place behind a kitchen chair. Julia had coached him kindly and patiently, lifting his elbows when they drooped, showing him how to rotate his legs from the hips, how to get his heels firmly down on the ground when he jumped in petit allegro. He found strength through ballet, the pursuit to master every exercise distracting him from sudden bursts of homesickness.

“When will Sadler’s Wells open again as a theatre?” Julia asks. She has been longing for information, writing long letters to her friends and to her parents, desperate to know when her ballet training will resume along with its promise of performance and a dancing career. The little paper theatre and its pantomime characters that they had assembled in the hall was not quite an adequate replacement for the real lights of the London stage. She continues, the nostalgia for those missed ballet lessons rekindled. “When I left last year, only the school was still in residence at the theatre. Up there on the top floor, Miss Phillips and Mr. Sergeyev kept the studio open every morning. There could have been bombing all night, but we’d still turn up to class. I suppose you were with the ballet company on tour and at the New Theatre?”

“Yes,” the ballet dancer replies, full of animation. “The rest of Sadler’s Wells quickly became a soup kitchen and shelter for people who lost their homes in the bombings. We had to find a new home after that, though much of the time we were touring around England, getting used to a different theatre or community hall or even a makeshift stage in an aircraft hangar every few days. I will be glad when we have a space to call our own again.” She has taken her shoes back now and is measuring out a stretch of pale pink thread, slipping it through the eye of the needle as she talks.

“What is your name?” asks Julia. “I might have seen you perform.”

“I expect you have. I was in the school too, back in the thirties. I joined the company in the spring of 1936. It was wonderful making that transition from the studio at the top of Sadler’s Wells to company class and rehearsals.” She looks up from the ribbons she is sewing onto her shoes. “My name is Briar Woods. It’s lovely to meet you all.”

Rosamund watches as Briar speaks brightly with the children, telling dynamic stories about ballet during the war: tales of silk tights drying on the luggage racks of trains as they sped across the country; the parcels of sugar that would arrive in their dressing rooms from fans willing to give up their precious rations to keep the dancers fed; the bored troops sitting through performances of Les Sylphides when all they wanted was a music hall number.

But it is Jasmine she seems to smile at the most, her eyes flicking to h. . .