‘No. You may go, Bess. I have found my Eve.’
‘Gawd, Will. You said the part was mine.’ The girl was clearly annoyed at the man. ‘I even-’
Will rose quickly from his seat, and strode to the front of the stage. He leaned on the edge, and whispered words that seemed to mollify the angry actress. Malinferno guessed that future promises were being made in response to what he assumed was the girl’s amorous offering to Will. She walked away into the darkness of the wings with a disdainful look at Doll, who still sat on the end of the front row. Bromhead rose from his seat, though his doing so didn’t increase his height much from when he had been seated. He took Doll’s hand, and raised her up.
‘Doll Pocket, this is Will Mossop, manager of the Royal Coburg, and producer of The Play of Adam.’
Will tossed his curly head, and bowed elegantly, kissing Doll’s proffered hand.
‘Mistress Pocket, I am delighted to meet you at last. Augustus has told me much about you, and until you appeared I was fearful that we would never fill the part of Eve. Now I am a happy man.’
Once again, Malinferno witnessed Doll’s simpering. This time it was at Mossop’s complimentary tones, just as it had been when the Frenchman, Quatremain, fell all over her. He slumped sulkily in his seat, and wished some of the buxom young girls were still on display, so that he could simper over them and make Doll jealous. For the first time, he took note of the pile of newspapers and caricatures strewn on the crimson carpet. They were mostly of Queen Caroline and the King. The farce of the Queen being kept out of George’s coronation ceremony, and their independent sexual adventures had caused a storm of cartoons in magazines like John Bull. And printers like George Humphrey had produced a whole series of denigratory caricatures aimed at the royals. Some of them lay at Mossop’s feet now, and he picked one up. It showed a corpulent Caroline sitting at a table surrounded by her advisors, one of whom was Alderman Matthew Wood in the form of a naked, hairy devil. On a pile of books on the table stood a little mannequin Pergami, the Queen’s lover who had been abandoned on the continent. The caption read: ‘The Effusions of a Troubled Brain’.
Since the Queen had been turned away from the coronation of her husband due to their estranged relationship, Caroline had been a figure of great debate. These caricatures lampooned her and her Italian lover, a handsome courtier, who had been bought a defunct baronage by Caroline. The cartoons did show him to best effect, though. In the caricature, as in life, he was tall, with an enviable physique and a full head of curly black hair, luxuriant moustachios and side whiskers.
Malinferno was about to replace the caricatures on the stack of papers, when Bromhead, noticing what his friend had seen, whispered in his ear, ‘Doll will make a fine Queen, do you not think?’
Malinferno was puzzled. ‘I thought she was to be cast as Eve.’
Augustus waved his hand at the cartoon in Malinferno’s hand, his face reddening slightly. ‘Did I not explain in my note to you?’
Malinferno brought out the piece of paper given to him by Mrs Stanhope. He realised that his landlady, in tucking it securely into the pocket of her pinafore, had folded it several times. Malinferno had omitted to open the last fold, and beneath it he read the explanation for Bromhead’s words. He looked his friend in the eye.
‘You are to give The Play of Adam a topical twist to suit the present mood for matters royal?’
Bromhead pulled a face. ‘Yes. It was the only way I could get the play accepted. I tried several theatres without any luck, before Will Mossop suggested that each scene should be brought bang up to date by having the characters resemble the royals. So Adam himself will look like Baron Pergami; the snake will be King George, and Eve, Queen Caroline. Each scene will be performed in that way. The Prime Minister and the Attorney-General will appear in “The Fall of Man”, and Cain and Abel will be George and Pergami once again.’
Malinferno laughed out loud. He realised now why all the pretty girls had been rejected in favour of Doll. They had all been too young to bear any passing resemblance to the Queen, who was over fifty, and overweight. He wondered when the truth would dawn on Doll, and he cast a glance over at where she and Mossop were talking animatedly. As he looked on, he saw her face cloud over, and annoyance spread across her normally buoyant features. She stormed over to where Malinferno and Bromhead sat.
‘I am to play Eve, because of my apparent resemblance to the Queen, Joe.’
Malinferno tried to keep a straight face. Both he and Doll had seen Caroline at closer quarters than most of the common crowd. Only a few months ago, they had been embroiled in a murder and scandal at a soirée on Solsbury Hill. The Queen had attended incognito under the name Hat Vaughan, and they had both received personal thanks from her when they had saved her already tarnished reputation from further scandal. The consequence was that neither could tell anyone of their intimacy with Caroline, having been sworn to secrecy. But they both knew that the Queen’s unusually liberal lifestyle had told on her. Doll had at first taken the buxom and blowsy lady for an aging trollop, employed to amuse the titled gentlemen at the soirée. It was only later they had learned she was the Queen. Now Doll was being selected because of her likeness to Caroline.
Malinferno strove to find words to soften the blow.
‘I am sure it is because of your shapeliness and not because of any reference to her age. The leading lady of a play must still be a great beauty, Doll.’
Bromhead’s great leonine head nodded vigorously in agreement. ‘Indeed, Doll. You will portray her obvious charms… ’ he described two orbs with cupped hands, ‘… so well, and win over the mob in the pit, hungry to view great beauty.’
Doll narrowed her eyes, trying to guess whether the two men were mocking her. Satisfied they weren’t, she dipped her eyes in an exaggerated show of modest concurrence with their sentiments. She turned back to Will Mossop, who looked anxiously on. He had, after all, sent away all the other actresses, including apparently one to whom he had already promised the part of Eve.
‘I will do it, Mr Mossop.’
Malinferno could already detect in her tones something of the prima donna, and sighed. She would be insufferable if this mad scheme came off, as well it might. The coronation, so very recent, was already being performed in pageant form at Drury Lane with Robert Elliston impersonating the King so well that it played to full houses. Mossop was all smiles.
‘Excellent, Miss Pocket. We begin rehearsing tomorrow.’
‘So soon?’
‘Oh, yes, the play must open in two weeks’ time, if we are to benefit from the topical nature of its presentation. And tomorrow is when you will meet Mr Morton Stanley – your Pergami.’
Malinferno didn’t like the broad wink that accompanied this declaration from the theatre manager. He felt this Stanley fellow would be another seeker after Doll’s attention. His comfortable position as Doll’s paramour seemed to be under siege from all sides.