David Dickinson - Death Comes to the Ballets Russes

Sergeant Rufus Jenkins had taken up smoking again. He had managed to give it up at the request of Marjorie, his girlfriend from the Post Office — well, in fact, as the Sergeant told himself regularly, it was more of an ultimatum really — me or those damned cigarettes — and hoped that if he only smoked on duty and changed his clothes when he got home, he might get away with it. Marjorie couldn’t stand the smell. She said it made her feel ill. The Sergeant rationed himself to one every half an hour. He was now in the second half of 1887, and had reached the letter P. Most of those letters were more than familiar to him now and he groaned as he reached the letter P. He knew it contained a good number of popular Christian names. Patrick Gilbert, Newcastle under Lyme, Patrick Gilbert, Wolverhampton, Patrick Gilbert, Southampton, Patrick Gilbert, Ludlow Shropshire.

Ahead were the Pauls and the Peters and God only knew how many of those. The Sergeant lit another cigarette in anticipation.

‘“Friday June the seventh. Sometimes I find life in the ballet rather confusing. Our main purpose is our art, to produce the finest ballet in the world. M. Diaghilev keeps telling us that if we work hard we will reach that goal. It’s the languages, really. With my uncle I speak English. With some of Diaghilev’s people I speak French, as they prefer that to Russian. On my ballet work I speak Russian, like everybody else. The stagehands and everybody else speaks Russian. Which one do I belong to? At home I always feel Russian, even though Mama insists we speak English all the time, rather than French. My old nurse — I do hope she hasn’t died yet, she must be well over eighty now — always spoke to me in Russian. She couldn’t do anything else. But what am I? Am I Russian or am I English? I have spent a lot of time in England, with these two summers over here, and I find I can think in English. I can’t do that in French, though I can speak it fluently. And of course I can think in Russian. I wouldn’t like to lose the English bits of me if I was told I was Russian, any more than I would like to lose the Russian bits of me if I was told I was English. What am I to do? I shall write to Mama, although I know what she will say. She will say I am English. If I wrote to Papa he would say I was Russian. It’s all very confusing.”’

Rhys was coughing at the door. ‘Urgent message from the Oxfordshire Constabulary,’ he announced. ‘From Inspector Jackson, my lord, my lady.’

‘“We have received intelligence from a number of places concerning the Russian who might have been at Blenheim Palace,”’ Powerscourt read, feeling rather like one of the slaves of some Eastern potentate whose sole job was to read messages or to tell stories to his master when the master was bored. ‘“The first one said that he had been seen entering the Ashmolean Museum. We have no reports of his coming out, but I doubt if he is still inside. The second sighting was of him at the railway station, about to board a train, presumably, unless he was meeting somebody. The third report, from rather further afield, has him walking through the village of Goring on the borders between Oxfordshire and Berkshire. They could, of course, all refer to the same man. Further reports as news comes in.”’

‘I can see that a man might want to catch a train or visit the Ashmolean Museum, Francis,’ said Lady Lucy, ‘but what on earth was he doing in Goring? What do you know of Goring, Francis?’

The word originates from an old French dance resembling the gavotte. In ballet, this denotes quick, even movements often done on pointe; the movement gives the look of gliding.

‘What do I know of Goring?’ mused Lord Powerscourt. ‘Absolutely nothing, my love. I shall return to the diary.

‘“Saturday June the eighth. I think the rehearsals have gone very well. This morning I had to take on the role of the Prince in Thamar in case Bolm should be indisposed or is too busy chasing the corps de ballet. I have watched Bolm perform this role so many times and I know, heaven knows I have been told often enough, that my role is to perform it in exactly the same way as he does. I am not to add any little touches of my own. The audience, Monsieur Fokine says, have come to see Bolm, not me, and the least I can do is to replicate down to the smallest movement what he would have done.”

‘There’s a break here, Lucy, as if he added this last bit later in the day. Here we go:

‘“Some of the girls are thinking of complaining about the way Bolm treats them all. They ask me for my advice! I agree that his antics, his endless approaches, sometimes physical, would be quite disgusting if you were a girl. Perhaps I am lucky in that I have sisters and I know how I would feel if anybody behaved like that with them. But I tell them that the Ballets Russes is more important than any individual. One of the girls told me that I sounded like Diaghilev when I said that. I told her I didn’t care. One complaint of that nature could split the company apart, half for Bolm and half against Bolm. The performances would never recover. The unity of the company must come first. And I tell them that Fokine, for one, must know what is going on. If he knows, Diaghilev knows. Maybe somebody high up will have a word with Bolm. That, I tell them, would be for the best.”’

Sergeant Jenkins was having another cigarette. He wondered if the smoke got into your hair. He could always say that he was surrounded by people smoking inside and outside the building. People were always smoking on the bus. He thought he could mount a reasonable defence against that charge. He was on the Rs now. He hoped for a moment that the entry might be for a Mrs Richard Gilbert rather than a Mrs Sophie Gilbert, née Shore. Ahead of them was another long line of Raphaels, Richards, Roberts and Ruperts. He consoled himself with the thought that the place closed in forty minutes’ time.

‘“Saturday June the eighth. The girls are still going on about Bolm. Don’t they realize that if they go on and on about something it can get more than a little boring. I am in my room at the Premier Hotel now. The traffic is always very thick down our side of the square. I am feeling unsettled. There hasn’t been time for a reply from Mama yet. I wonder how Papa is coping now Ivan is away on manoeuvres for a fortnight. Papa always says he finds it difficult being in a house full of women with no other man to talk to apart from the servants. That is why he always runs up those enormous bills at the yacht club when the men of the family are away. I wonder how he’s coping now.

‘“I have to say that I have not felt homesick since I have been here, not once. Just now I wish I was back home in St Petersburg, having family supper with some lively conversation going on.”’

‘Poor boy,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘He could have come round here if we’d known he wanted a bit of family life, couldn’t he Francis?’

‘He could have played a bit of chess with Thomas, though I wouldn’t recommend it. We haven’t heard anything like what we want, Lucy. Not yet anyway.’

Sergeant Rufus Jenkins was feeling like a lone fisherman who has taken his rods and his fishing basket and his rug to a remote riverbank and cast away all day. He finds nothing. Just when he thinks he might as well pack up and go home, he finally catches a fish. There it was! At last! He made a careful note in his notebook, including the entries on either side of it, and hurried off at full speed to Markham Square where he expected to find his Inspector. As he wished his bus would go faster, Sergeant Jenkins thought that the Powerscourt residence was turning into a sort of extra police station.

Rhys showed the panting young man, one or two buttons undone, hair dishevelled, gasping heavily, into the drawing room.