Malinferno, who until this point had not paid much attention to what his friend had said, suddenly perked up. If Bromhead was prepared to pay to mount this play, maybe he would take on Doll in one of the parts. It did not need to be a major role, simply enough to assuage her desire to be an actress. Frankly, he thought she would not stick at it once she discovered how hard and repetitive the work was. He just needed to ensure she got the madcap scheme out of her system.
He swallowed a rather gristly piece of pork chop and, once recovered from the coughing fit it induced, enquired of Bromhead how far he had progressed in selecting a cast. The little man swayed on his seat, shaking his overlarge dome in such a way that Malinferno thought he might topple from his perch.
‘I have not yet settled on the theatre, let alone thought of actors. That is why I am seeing Mossop. Anyway, I would leave the choice of actors to the theatre manager.’
Malinferno grimaced. It would not be so easy to persuade an experienced theatrical person to go along with choosing Doll. On the other hand, the money man should carry some weight, so it was as well to keep in with Bromhead.
The Egyptological expert pushed his empty plate to one side, scrutinised the first page of the manuscript, and read the opening words out loud.
‘“I am gracious and great God without beginning.
I am maker unmade; all might is in me.
I am life and way, unto weal winning.
I am foremost and first; as I bid, shall it be.”’
They were obviously the words of God, so that wouldn’t be a part for Doll Pocket. He wondered if there was some small part for her to play. And as he turned the heavy, stiff pages he saw it. The next play was ‘The Fall of Man’, and he read aloud the dialogue down to the seductive words spoken by Eve to Adam as she offered him the apple.
‘“Bite on boldly, for it is true;
We shall be gods, and know everything!”’
He looked at Bromhead with a winning smile on his face.
‘I know just the actress for the role of Eve.’
The very person he had in mind was at that moment not thinking at all of her career as an actress. Doll had become engrossed in the puzzle of the Egyptian hieroglyphs that had so exercised Malinferno’s brain. She had read his notebook, where he had recorded the discoveries of Thomas Young concerning the name Ptolemy. It had astonished Doll to learn from Malinferno that this ruler of Egypt wasn’t really Egyptian, but Greek. And his name, according to Young, appeared on the Rosetta Stone at least three times. The mathematician had even tentatively identified some of the symbols as spelling out Ptolemy’s name sound by sound. And as Ptolemy had wed Berenice, Young assumed the next cartouche was her name, and identified some other sounds. But Young and many others still considered the signs and symbols on obelisks and papyruses as representing ideas not words. It was only the foreign Greek names that were different. So Doll spent the morning comparing Young’s translated sounds with the cartouches in Joe’s papyrus texts. The most promising name was frustratingly close to completion, and yet so far away. She looked at the word she had scribbled down in Joe’s notebook inserting dashes for the letters Young could not supply.
– OLE I P KE-KE
It was not very promising, but it had fired her imagination. She could see another possibility if only the bird symbol was not the ‘ke’ sound from the end of Berenice. Just as she began to try other sequences of symbols, she heard the creak of the stairs up to the first-floor rooms that Joe rented from Mrs Stanhope. She knew his gait, and the way he took two steps at a time when he was excited. She pushed the pen and ink aside, and turned round in the chair that was one of only two in the sparsely furnished parlour. The door burst open, and Malinferno entered with a look of the deepest pleasure on his face.
‘Doll. I have some news for you.’
She grinned, patting the papyruses on the table. ‘And I for you. I think I have made a breakthrough with the hieroglyphs… ’
She stopped in her tracks when she saw the dark look that came over his face at her news. She realised she had made a mistake by telling him she had potentially solved in a few hours a problem that had had him stumped for weeks, if not months. She changed tack, rising from the chair, and crossing the room towards him.
‘But it’s probably all wrong. Tell me what your news is.’
Malinferno, crushed by what Doll had said, looked cautiously at her. ‘You’re sure you want to know?’
She hugged him close to her ample bosom, and squeaked in the most mindless way she could muster, ‘Ooooh, yes, kind sir. What treats do you have in store for me?’
He couldn’t help himself, and a smile cracked his downcast features.
‘I may have a part for you in a play.’
Doll Pocket gasped. Despite the distractions of her Egyptian studies, this was news indeed.
‘Really?’ Her voice, normally low and seductive, went up a pitch in genuinely uncontrolled excitement. She looked hard into Joe’s eyes, however. ‘You’re not teasing me, are you? Only I wouldn’t forgive you if you were.’
‘Would I do that? No, Bromhead has found an old copy of some Biblical plays, and fancies to put them on in the West End.’
Doll gasped. The matter of the plays didn’t sound alluring, but the idea of performing in the shadow of Drury Lane or Covent Garden certainly was.
‘When can we talk to him about it? Which theatre has he booked?’
Malinferno saw he had run a little ahead of himself in his desires to cheer up Doll. She had pulled away from his embrace, and had grabbed the empty ewer on the sideboard. She was all for fetching some fresh water, and reviving herself with a wash and some perfume preparatory to meeting Bromhead in his new guise of impresario. But before she could dash out the door to get some water from Mrs Stanhope, Malinferno put a restraining hand on her arm.
‘Hold on, Doll. He hasn’t quite got there yet. He has only just found this medieval manuscript of something called The Play of Adam. It’s all Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel, and the Flood and such. But he hasn’t sold his idea to anyone yet.’
Doll’s shoulders slumped. ‘I knew it was too much to hope for. Damn it, Joe, I was looking forward to it already. I could be the first woman, Eve.’
It was of course the very thought that Malinferno had had over breakfast, and which he had mooted with Bromhead. And the idea of Doll Pocket as the naked seductress still aroused him in a familiar way.
‘It will happen, Doll. Only just not yet.’
His companion did not look convinced, and Malinferno wished he hadn’t mentioned Augustus’ idea. He rested his backside on the table edge, and the papyrus rustled beneath him. It gave him an idea of how to raise Doll from her sudden depression.
‘Now, how about we follow your suggestion, and go to the British Museum, and take a look at exhibit EA24.’
Doll smiled, and immediately reached for her favourite headgear, an oriental turban in lavish brocaded material of the sort also favoured by Queen Caroline.
Montagu House was quite crowded, especially in the Egyptian Gallery, where everyone was hurrying to the far end of the room. As Malinferno and Doll Pocket approached the back of the tightly packed mob, they could see what all the fuss was about. Set between two tall windows in order to give it the best light stood the massive bust that was known as Young Memnon. One of Malinferno’s countrymen, Giovanni Belzoni, had engineered its shipment from Egypt to London. There the Royal Corps of Sappers and Miners had used a huge block-and-tackle system set in an A-frame to hoist the head onto the plinth on which it now stood. It had been a Herculean task, and the bust was only recently cleared of its encumbrances of thick ropes and struts. It was now a glorious sight, despite the hole drilled in its right shoulder by the Frenchman Drovetti for the insertion of dynamite. It had been his idea to blast the colossus to pieces in order to reduce its mass for shipment. Belzoni, a hydraulic engineer and circus strongman, had managed the task without such drastic action being taken. It was now the latest wonder for the Egyptian-obsessed gentry to marvel at.