‘Look here, everyone. I want to move on to the Cain and Abel scene, and block it in before we call it a day.’
He pointed at the quiet, middle-aged actor who had already played several minor roles as angels. He had been so self-effacing that Doll had not yet learned his name. Mossop now provided it.
‘Harry, you are the yokel, Brewbarrel, and you come on from stage left.’ He waved his hand disdainfully. ‘Do your usual moping and leering.’
Harry blushed, and nodded as he walked off into the wings. Doll followed him offstage as she was not needed in this scene.
Standing by him in the darkness of the wingspace, she whispered in his ear, ‘What’s blocking?’
He cast a curious glance at her, thinking she perhaps was trying to take a rise out of him. But the genuinely puzzled look on her face showed him that this attractive, voluptuous woman with whom he was sharing this intimate little space was truly ignorant of theatrical jargon. He guessed that she had probably had to provide her services on the couch in Mossop’s office to get the part, rather than by dint of her acting skills. He glanced onstage, and saw that he had time to explain. Mossop was still manoeuvring Stanley and Tristram around the vast open space. He put his mouth to her pretty shell of an ear, and pointed onstage.
‘That is blocking. Giving the actors their moves, and hoping they will remember them at the next rehearsal.’
Doll breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Thank goodness. I thought it was going to be something quite painful.’
Harry grinned, observing how Morton Stanley was stumbling around the stage, much to Mossop’s exasperation.
‘Oh, for some actors of limited brain it is very painful, I assure you.’
Mossop’s harassed voice coming from the auditorium broke off their conversation.
‘Harry, that’s your entrance.’
The blocking lasted another full day, and then on the third day work began in earnest. Mossop wished the actors to concentrate on the tale of Adam and Eve, and Doll, Morton Stanley, and Perceval Trsitram, who played the part of King George/Satan, went over their lines again and again. Doll had spent the previous night learning her words with Malinferno, who had had to read both Adam and Satan. He had seemed to have taken great relish in the speech after the eating of the apple.
‘“Alas, my wife I blame, for so she to me said-”’ He broke off. ‘This text is quite up-to-date, is it not, Doll?’
Doll cuffed him around the head with her copy of the play. ‘I shouldn’t need to remind you, Joe Malinferno, that I am no wife of yours. Thanks to your reluctance to make an honest woman of me.’
Malinferno’s face went a little pale at the mention of marriage, but he diverted Doll’s sally into the running battle between them concerning making of her an honest woman.
‘What are you going to do about the fact that Adam and Eve are naked, my dear?’
Doll leered at him. ‘I shall be clad in the sheerest of muslin, and Morton will be bare-chested and wearing the tightest pair of breeches you have ever seen.’
That had shut Joe up, and now at the rehearsal, Doll examined the aforesaid actor’s shapely form from the wings, as she awaited her next entrance.
‘No good looking at that, dearie. Didn’t you know that Morton Stanley plays backgammon with the boys?’
It was Jed Lawless who had spoken out of the gloom where all the ropes for the backdrops came down to a series of cleats on the wall. It reminded Doll somewhat of a ship at sea, with taut ropes holding masts and sails in place. At the Royal Coburg, they disappeared into the space above the stage that she had learned was called the flies. This wing-space was Lawless’s domain, and he was often to be seen hauling on ropes and tying them off again. Usually, his crude comments were spoken sotto voce to his crew of scene shifters, but this time he had aimed his comment at Doll. He had also spoken too loud, and a red-faced Stanley stormed into the wings, brushing against Doll as he passed. He grabbed the unrepentant Lawless by the neck.
‘Make such unfounded allegations again, and I will kill you.’
The stagehand seemed unworried by the actor’s violent behaviour, and simply grinned at him. The even-tempered Harry, who had been playing an angel to Stanley’s Adam, hurried over and prised his colleague’s hand from Lawless’s throat.
‘Come, Morton, let’s get on. We have less than two weeks to opening night.’
Stanley growled deep in his throat, pushing Lawless back against the row of cleats.
As he strode back on to the stage, Doll heard the stagehand whisper to himself, ‘Kill me, Molly? Not before I have killed you first.’
Doll wanted to ask Lawless how he knew about Morton’s preference for boys, but before she could say anything, she heard her cue, and she was onstage. Strangely, the rehearsal progressed well after the altercation. Morton Stanley’s anger appeared to bring his performance to a higher pitch. And when they came to the expulsion from Eden, which was now represented by a field with a large beanstalk in it, he took hold of Doll in a feverish embrace.
‘“Oh, Eve, to see us is a shameful sight.
We both, who were in bliss so bright,
Must now go naked, day and night.”’
As he held her to him, she felt his manhood hard against her thigh. Her eyes flashed at him, and he grinned in a way that belied Lawless’s allegation. Then the spell was ruined as sporadic applause broke out in the auditorium. Doll held out her hand to shield her eyes from the light of the candles at her feet, and peered out to see who was watching. Two gentlemen were seated side by side in the stalls a few rows back. One was rather languid, with curly hair, and handsome in a rather feminine way. The other she recognised immediately. His silver-topped cane and elegant pose gave him away.
‘Why, Mr Quatremain! How did you find me?’
The charming Frenchman, whom Doll had last seen in the British Museum, rose from his seat, and bowed gravely.
‘It is a miracle, Mam’selle Pocket. I was invited by my friend, here… ’ He indicated the man at his side, who nodded her way but remained seated. ‘… to view a play he was funding. He knows I have some interest in the theatre due to my uncle, who was temporarily the commissioner for the Comédie Française in Paris. So I know they call such backers as my friend “angels” in theatre parlance. And an angel he is, for he has brought us together again.’
He walked down the aisle and leaned with his left elbow on the front edge of the stage. His cane remained extended to the right in a foppish pose.
‘And this time I will not let you go so easily.’
A light cough from Will Mossop interrupted the tête-à-tête, and Doll gave Quatremain a winning smile.
‘We shall meet after the rehearsal, Mr Quatremain.’
‘Oh, please. It’s Étienne. And, yes, I shall be waiting. My friend Mr Bankes and I are completely enthralled by your performance.’
He retreated to his seat, sliding down beside the handsome man, who was part-funding Bromhead’s endeavour. His teeth flashed a smile, and Doll turned reluctantly back to the task in hand. Morton was staring out into the auditorium, and she wondered what he felt about Quatremain’s presence. She felt a flush warming her face at the thought of choosing between these two rivals for her attention. Though whether the rampant Stanley, or the suave Quatremain was the devil or the deep sea, she was not sure.
Malinferno, meanwhile, had returned to Creechurch Lane with thoughts of the doom-laden Play of Adam racing around his brain. He had hoped Doll would be back from the theatre, but his rooms were in darkness. The only sound was that of Mrs Stanhope’s gin-soaked snores from below. He lit an oil-lamp, and slumped down at his table, at a loss as to what to do with this new information. Would he put off Doll from chasing her dream, if he mentioned Augustus’ comment about the warning in the old manuscript? Or would she merely laugh at his worries? He idly drew the papyrus sheets towards him, and looked at the cartouche in the centre of the top one again. Recalling that Doll had suggested she had made some progress, where he had signally failed, he reached out for his notebook in case she had written something in it. After the last page of his own notes, there was a single word in her sprawling hand.