Free Ruddy Gore by Kerry Greenwood

revenue sloop,’ he sang softly, and Phryne saw the slimmer, less confident Bernard of 1898 and reflected that he must have been very attractive. ‘Yes, well, Robin Oakapple, who’s later Sir Ruthven, was played by Charles Sheffield, and Rose Maybud was Dorothea Curtis.’ He paused, his eyes full of memory. ‘She was so beautiful, was Dorothea. Small – can’t have been above five feet, a proud beauty, with midnight black hair in curls all down her back and dark eyes which burned holes in me. Buxom, but I could span her waist with my hands. She could sing like a lark and dance like an angel on the head of a pin. And she was . . . alive. Dorothea was all alive, from her tiny hands to her neat little feet.
    She was proud of her small hands – size three, she had to have her gloves specially made, and her boots. Everyone was in love with her. She had mash notes by the crate and her dressing room was always full of flowers – her favourites. You could smell her hyacinths all the way out into the street when they were in season. The flower girls in the 70
    Haymarket used to order them in by the basket.’
    ‘Were you in love with her?’ asked Phryne softly.
    ‘Oh, yes, of course. So were Sheffield and the chorus boys and half the orchestra. She could charm the soul out of an audience. I could stand on stage with her and watch them melt.’
    ‘Whom did the lady favour?’ asked Robinson.
    ‘No one. She wasn’t interested in people, only the effect she could have on them – it amused her.
    She carried Sheffield in the part, he was weak, couldn’t dance, and his voice was not really strong enough for the Savoy. But I don’t think she loved him, either – or me, though she favoured us in turn with suppers and sometimes let us stay in her dressing room while she changed. I loved sitting in her armchair and watching her face, her eyes, the perfect curve of her white throat – she was altogether lovely. In a way the part of Rose Maybud was perfect for her. She had force and passion but she really didn’t have a heart. Or so I thought.
    Poor Dorothea.’
    ‘What happened to her?’ insinuated Phryne.
    ‘She used to say that she was a vicar’s daughter,’
    said Sir Bernard, ‘but she wasn’t. She was born Dot Mobbs and her father was a coal heaver. She had to work when she was a child, hard work in a hotel, fetching and carrying and possibly other things as well – things were different for women then. She had a weakness for madeira, though I never saw her drunk, and that early work had hurt her back and her legs. She was often in pain, for 71
    which she took laudanum. You know what that is?’
    ‘Alcoholic tincture of opium,’ said Dr Fielding, drawn outside his own disquiet by this strange story.
    ‘I wanted to marry her,’ said Sir Bernard sadly,
    ‘but she wouldn’t have me. She sent me a note, refusing my proposal, telling me not to call for her after the show. I didn’t – I didn’t want to press her – but I should have. I’ve blamed myself ever since.’
    ‘Why?’ asked Phryne, as Bernard paused and stared into the fire.
    ‘Why, because she hadn’t refused. That bastard Sheffield had intercepted her note and sent another telling me no. She had agreed to marry me, and she waited for me – sat all night in her dressing room, waiting for me to come and I didn’t. She must have been so joyful, then joy turned to despair when I didn’t come and she thought me faithless. And when they found her in the morning – ’ Sir Bernard groped for a handkerchief.
    Tears were running down his face. ‘She was dead, sitting in her chair, her head on her arm, my poor Dorothea. She’d taken enough laudanum to kill three men, then laid her head down in a nest of hyacinths and passed away. Her beautiful black hair was scented with the flowers. I never forgave myself.’
    ‘What did you do to Sheffield?’ asked Robinson, professionally interested.
    ‘The call boy found the original note where he 72
    had