Hamlet. Acorn seemed pleased with the rehearsal. He was effusive in his praise for Jack, almost to the point of embarrassment. Ever since he had introduced Jack to the rest of the company a week previously, Acorn had treated him as though he were Garrick himself. He had related Jack’s Garrick story with undisguised glee to whomever they came across. To Jack’s surprise, everyone seemed impressed. Well, that was not entirely true. In fact, that point niggled. Mr Tyler Courtney, the undoubted leading attraction of the Theatre in the Bigg Market, had been very taken with the tale. So had the corpulent, merry Mr Southby. Mrs Edith Trump, an actress of some repute in her heyday, was quite overcome. But Miss Catherine Balmore? She had smiled her beautiful smile and said all the right things yet Jack knew she did not look upon him with the awe the others did. Which was a pity as he wanted to impress her more than anyone. She was young (maybe a little older than himself), vivacious, exciting to be with. Her long, black hair, parted in the middle, cascaded either side of an exquisite, fashionably pale face. The cheek bones were proud and high, the eyes dark and bewitching and the mouth… the mouth, full-rounded and inviting. And Miss Balmore had a gift no man could resist. She listened. She made him feel that he was the centre of her undivided attention. No man left her company without feeling uplifted, an image of her parting smile firmly planted in his mind.
Miss Balmore’s Ophelia promised to have the audience crying at her death. Not because she was a good actress, but because she was so easy to like. Tyler Courtney, though nearly forty, would do Hamlet fair justice. Mrs Trump, who would have given her missing eye teeth to play Ophelia, had to content herself with Gertrude, while the portly Mr Southby was a far-too-jovial Claudius. Jack wondered whether Southby would survive the energetic fight with Hamlet that Acorn had planned. For his part, Jack had volunteered to play the more minor role of Horatio. Acorn took this for modesty. Jack took it for self-preservation. He did not want to run the risk of showing himself up until he had gauged the standard of his fellow actors. He need not have worried himself unduly.
‘Excellent, excellent!’ cried Acorn, clapping his hands enthusiastically. ‘We will adjourn for something to eat and then we will continue with Act Three in an hour.’
The actors began to disperse. Mr Southby, quicker than most, took his regular place in the tavern which shared the building with the theatre. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement: the tavern attracted the public to the theatre and the theatre attracted the public to the tavern.
‘Miss Balmore,’ Acorn simpered, ‘your portrayal of Ophelia is a delight.’ He held out his hand and helped her from the stage. ‘Shakespeare must have had one such as you in mind when he wrote the part.’
Miss Balmore’s eyes opened wide and swallowed him in. ‘You are too kind, sir.’
There was a great snort of derision from behind her. ‘Far too bloody kind.’ And with that, Mrs Edith Trump stumped noisily off stage left.
Acorn flashed an angry glance after her, then his smile returned just as quickly. ‘You must forgive Edith. She is jealous of your beauty and your talent. Unfortunately, she seems to have lost both.’
The altercation came as no surprise to Jack. He had heard Acorn and Mrs Trump arguing after the previous day’s rehearsal. Realising that he had forgotten his Hamlet text, he had returned to the communal dressing room. As he was about to enter, he had heard raised voices. He thought it wiser not to proceed.
Trump’s deep cackle was unmistakable. ‘You are a pathetic creature, Thomas Acorn. As soon as that harlot makes moon eyes at you, you chase after her like a little boy lost. That talentless sow has you drinking from her trough.’
‘Catherine, I mean Miss Balmore, will be a great actress one day. That is why you hate her so.’
‘Great actress,’ Trump laughed coarsely. ‘You think the larger the paps, the greater the actress!’
‘Then you must be the greatest actress of them all with that grotesque, flabby, wrinkled bosom. Look at yourself! Your beauty’s withered. You are fat and disgusting. Miss Balmore is everything that you are not.’
Judging by the silence that followed, Acorn had taken the wind out of Trump’s sails. Her voice trembled when she spoke again. ‘Thomas, do not cast me aside. I love you. She does not and never will. She will only lead you into trouble. Leave her be, please.’
Jack heard the rustling of Trump’s dress. ‘Do not touch me, hag!’ Acorn’s tone was cold and vicious. ‘Be grateful that I keep you on here. No one else would take you. And if you interfere further, I will throw you onto the streets. I doubt if whoring at your age will keep you fed for long.’
A moment later, Acorn marched from the room and down the corridor in the opposite direction from where Jack stood transfixed. Trump rushed to the doorway and screamed ‘Bastard!’ Acorn did not turn about and disappeared round the corner. ‘You bastard,’ she repeated, though the venom had drained away.
She turned and spotted Jack. He coughed to hide his embarrassment at being caught eavesdropping. She eyed him up and down slowly, increasing his feeling of insecurity. Then she laughed. ‘So you heard all that. He will soon tire of his silly trollop when he realises she has no intention of spreading her legs for such as him. She plucks at his hopes while it suits her, but I think she is already playing a different tune. She has been seen in the company of Captain Hogg. How can an ageing actor of lowly birth fight against a younger man of wealth and position who is held in high regard in military circles? His father is a lord, so I am told. When the message is trumpeted loud and clear into Thomas Acorn’s thick skull, he will come scuttling back to my bed as he always does.’
Jack was at a loss as to how to respond to this rather one-sided conversation, so he just said that he had to pick up his text. He slipped past her into the dressing room, which was scattered with quickly cast-off costumes, masks and wigs. As he looked for the text, he had the uncomfortable feeling that Mrs Trump was staring at him. At last he found it under a discarded coat. Clutching it nervously in his hands, he found her barring his exit. ‘Why should Acorn have all the diversions? You have a pleasant enough figure, even if your face is not exactly the most handsome I have seen. Ears too big. The thighs look strong and well muscled. I expect the chest also.’ Jack found this frank evaluation of his physical features most disconcerting. She was making an inventory as though he were some prime beast.
Jack made a movement towards the door. She shut it. ‘Do you not find me pleasing? Many have found me so.’
“Pleasing” was probably the wrong word to describe Mrs Edith Trump. Even now she was in her middle forties, it was easy to detect that once she must have been most striking, if not classically beautiful. Though her figure had run to fat and her face was puffy and lined, there was still a primitive attraction about her. She certainly did not merit Acorn’s savage appraisal. According to Southby, she had walked the London stage in her youth and had been chased – and caught – by many an ardent admirer. Three bastard children, all dead at birth, drink, her waning looks and lack of money (Mr Trump had absconded with that) had forced her into the provinces, where she had been taken up by the ambitious Acorn. She became his lover while he unashamedly used her “London” name to further his cause. Now that he had his own theatre and stunning leading lady in Catherine Balmore, Edith Trump was losing her usefulness.
All Jack could do in reply to Trump’s question was nod.
‘Then it will be no hardship to roger me, young man.’ Was there something in the Newcastle water that made the women so forward? wondered Jack.
‘Well, no,’ he stammered uncertainly. ‘Where do you wish to go?’
‘We will go nowhere,’ she cackled loudly. ‘If an actress’s dressing room was good enough for the Duke of Crabwater, it is bloody good enough for the likes of you. And he brought his friends to watch!’
Three quarters of an hour later, Jack walked unsteadily out of the dressing room. He was exhausted but exhilarated. He had done things with Edith Trump that he had never done before. He didn’t even know the name of some of them. The only conclusion he had drawn was that Acorn was very stupid to cast aside a woman of such ingenuity and dexterity. He would try some of his new skills out on Bessie, who was now a regular visitor to his bedchamber.