Cursed in the Act

by Raymond Buckland

  She was a pretty young thing and I envied the Guv’nor having such a servant. Not much more than five feet and two inches in height and small bosomed, she was slim-waisted and had dark brown ringlets that escaped her cap. Her eyes were deep brown wells that drew me in. Her mouth, devoid of any artificial color, was full and red. I wondered what the other maids were like.

  “I’ve never been to the theatre,” she said wistfully.

  “You haven’t?” I was astonished. Here was a young woman who worked for England’s finest actor and yet she had never been to the theatre. I made a mental note to talk to Mr. Stoker about that. Perhaps an evening out for the Irving residence staff might be arranged? Glancing again at Jenny, I must admit I hoped it could come about and that I might, in some way, facilitate it. She bobbed again and turned for the door.

  “Wait!” I blurted out. Then, as she turned back, “Er—didn’t Mrs. Cooke ask you to—um—to see that I was comfortable?” It was a lame attempt to keep her there, and I think she recognized it as such. She came back into the room, her cheeks very much colored.

  “Can I fetch you a cup of tea, sir?” she asked.

  “Harry,” I said.

  “Can I fetch you a cup of tea . . . Harry?” she repeated, her eyes cast downward.

  “Thank you, Jenny. I’d like that very much.”

  While she was gone I started my search for the book I had been sent to retrieve. But my mind was not on it. It had been a long time since I had looked twice at any young lady. One of the penalties of working all hours as stage manager for a busy London theatre. Yet Jenny had really captured my attention. I knew it was a useless fancy . . . she being the maid for my main employer. I knew nothing about her. Perhaps she had a young man? Someone as pretty as she must surely . . .

  My thoughts were interrupted as she came back into the room, bearing a small silver tray on which rested a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits. She still avoided my eyes as she set it down on an occasional table.

  “Will there be anything else, sir—er—Harry?”

  “Yes.” I tried to sound businesslike. “Yes, Jenny. Mr. Irving sent me here to collect a book of his. Perhaps you can help me find it? It’s a small red-bound book of Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. You may have seen it about.”

  “Oh, I seldom have occasion to come into the study.” She looked all around her. “It could be anywhere.”

  “Let’s start with the desk,” I said. We both reached out to lift the lid and our hands touched. Jenny snatched hers away as though she had been burned. She hurried across to one of the bookshelves.

  “I’ll start here,” she said. “It’s a book so it should be on the bookshelf, right?” She giggled, a sound that made my heart skip a beat.

  “Good idea,” I said. “But if he’s been studying it recently, it may be in the desk. You look there and I’ll look here.”

  We settled to the search. As Jenny ran her fingers slowly along the leather backs of the volumes on the shelves, reading the titles, I realized that in fact she could read. So many maids and other belowstairs staff could not. For some reason I was pleased.

  I moved papers and memos in the walnut and burl Davenport. There were a couple of the small Brodie editions of Shakespeare’s plays in there—which gave me hope—but neither was Hamlet. There were bills marked PAID and receipts, lists of things that the Guv’nor apparently planned to purchase, short notes on different productions, written both by Mr. Irving and Miss Terry. I also recognized Mr. Stoker’s handwriting on some items.

  I turned my attention to the drawers in the sides of the desk. In the top one on the left there was a bundle of letters from Mrs. Florence Irving, the Guv’nor’s estranged wife. They bore postal marks over the past several months. None of them had been opened; they had just been stuffed into the drawer. I recalled what my boss had told me about Mrs. Irving.

  Born Florence O’Callaghan, she was the daughter of Surgeon General Daniel O’Callaghan of Her Majesty’s Indian Army. The O’Callaghans’ Irish roots went back to the tenth-century king of Munster. It was no surprise, then, that the surgeon general hoped for a good marriage for his daughter. Instead, a chance encounter in 1869 caused the rebellious young lady to become romantically infatuated and involved with Irving, then a young actor and the drama critic for the Sunday Times. Irving’s prospects were far from promising, but Florence was too much of a rebel to care. Despite her parents’ objections, she married Henry Irving in July of 1869.

  But it seems that she had never really cared for her husband’s profession. Despite the birth of a son, husband and wife grew apart. After the opening night of Irving’s first big success—as Mathias in The Bells, just ten years ago—he and his wife were driving home when she said to him, “Are you going to go on making a fool of yourself like this all your life?” Mr. Irving stopped the carriage—it was at Hyde Park Corner, according to Stoker—and he descended to the pavement. At the time his wife was pregnant with their second child, but the Guv’nor walked off into the night and never saw her again. The Bells went on to run for 150 nights, and Mr. Irving’s name became one to be reckoned with in the English theatre.

  “No luck here,” said Jenny, breaking into my thoughts. “I’ll try the other bookcase.” She crossed the room.

  I turned to the drawers on the other side of the desk. I found the book I was looking for in the top drawer: a well-worn, slim, red-leather-bound volume. I don’t know why but, for some reason, I continued peering into the other drawers below it. (Curiosity about the great man, perhaps?) In the bottom drawer I found another bundles of letters addressed to him, though these had all been opened. The top letter was stuffed very roughly back into its envelope, and I could read the signature on the bottom of the letter. It was Peter Richland’s name. I have no excuse . . . I took out the letter and read it.

  Chapter Five

  “Tell me again, Harry.”

  “I was tempted to bring at least one of the letters to show you, sir, but on reflection I realized I should not.”

  “Quite right, too.”

  “They were letters from Peter Richland to the Guv’nor referring to some episode that occurred before Mr. Irving’s marriage. It would seem that he had strayed from the bachelor path, as it were, or possibly been led astray by a young woman named Daisy.”

  “Don’t beat about the bush, Harry.”

  “He’d had an affair.”

  “Ah!” Stoker nodded understandingly.

  “It was in 1866 when he was playing Doricourt in The Belle’s Stratagem at the St. James’s Theatre.”

  “He would have been twenty-eight.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “It seems that Peter Richland recently met this Daisy person and she spun him a yarn about the Guv’nor dallying with her and then abandoning her.”

  “Abandoning her? Doesn’t sound much like the Guv’nor to me!” said Stoker.

  “Nor to me. But apparently Richland made a very real threat to spread the story. It seems that this is why the Guv’nor took him into the Lyceum company as understudy, to keep an eye on him.”

  “Sounds suspiciously like blackmail!” Stoker’s eyes narrowed and his mustache fairly quivered.

  “My thinking exactly,” I said. “I’d often wondered why Richland was taken on. It certainly wasn’t for his acting ability.”

  “I think there must be more to the story, Harry. If it had been me I would have beaten the scoundrel and sent him on his way with a flea in his ear,” said Stoker darkly. “But the Guv’nor is too softhearted.” He scratched the top of his head and looked at me with one eye closed. “If our Mr. Richland was up to those sorts of tricks with other people also, he may very well have been pushed under that growler.”

  The same thought seemed suddenly to strike both of us. For just a moment we looked at each other. The Guv’nor . . . Would he? . . . Could he? . . . No! We both mentally shook our heads.


  “About this Daisy person?” I said.

  “Hrmph! The Guv’nor had a hard training. For almost a decade he played in a wide variety of stock companies around the country, mainly in the north. It was his first break when he played the St. James’s Theatre, here in London, in ’66. As a young bachelor, he might have been tempted to an occasional brief flirtation with one or more of the young ladies treading the boards in those days. It would be only natural. But I doubt very much that he would have taken advantage of this Daisy in any way. Much more likely that the young woman in question has seen his rise to fame and was looking—perhaps through our Mr. Richland—to gain monetarily.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “That does sound reasonable.”

  “Besides, it is my understanding that Henry was devoted to the stage and to fine-tuning his acting abilities even to the extent of living an almost monastic existence. No, I think we can dismiss those letters, Harry,” continued Stoker, turning his attention back to his crowded desk. “At least for now.”

  “Oh! There was one thing, though.” I suddenly remembered something. “There was reference in one of the letters—I didn’t read the whole thing, you understand? Just glanced through it—there was mention of Ralph Bateman.”

  “Bateman? Are you sure?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What did it say about him?”

  “As I said, sir, I didn’t actually read the letter. Just glanced at it. After all, sir, this was personal correspondence of the Guv’nor’s.”

  “Right.” Stoker’s brow furrowed. I knew he didn’t trust Ralph Bateman. And now it seemed there was a connection between Bateman and the late Peter Richland. “Perhaps we are being a trifle hasty in simply dismissing those letters,” he said, thoughtfully. “I’m thinking it may not be a bad idea to verify whether or not there’s anything there that might affect the well-being of the Lyceum.”

  “Would not the Guv’nor have brought such a thing to your attention?” I asked.

  “Maybe; maybe not. He always has a lot on his mind, of course. He may have dismissed out of hand much of what Richland wrote. And probably didn’t even read all of it. No, on reflection I rather wish you had borrowed one or two of these epistles.” He sighed. “But I suppose we have enough to worry about with the poisoning and the attempt on your life with that dropped sandbag.”

  I thought for a moment before asking, “If it is Sadler’s Wells at the bottom of this, sir, what would be their motive?”

  “Motive?” He gave a short, sharp laugh. “We beat them to the opening night, Harry! Our Hamlet started a good couple of days before their Twelfth Night, so we got the lion’s share of theatre-goers for the all-important start of the season. The pit customers gave us resounding approval. You know how these things go. Now, if Sadler’s Wells can manage somehow to disrupt our advantage—to perhaps cause us to close Hamlet, if only temporarily—then it would allow them to catch up and probably take over as the number one London production. Big houses mean big profits, Harry. You know that.”

  “Yes, sir. I do.”

  “There’s a lot of money at stake here.”

  “So there may very well be some sort of a vendetta being waged against the Lyceum and its production?”

  “That there may, Harry. That there may. And I’m wondering just where Ralph Bateman stands on that score.”

  I was able to get some of my regular work done for an hour or so after that. I must admit that I did have occasional thoughts of young Jenny but tried to put them out of my head and concentrate on Lyceum work. I remembered the fact that my mother had been a scullery maid before she met and married my father. I did make a point of suggesting to Mr. Stoker that the servants at 15a Grafton Street might benefit from a visit to the theatre. “Benefit” was the word I used, though I wasn’t able to elaborate on exactly how such a visit would advance them. Happily, Mr. Stoker didn’t press me on the matter. He merely grunted, as usual, and said he’d look into it when he had the time.

  * * *

  I was standing in the wings contemplating some changes that had been made to prop placement for Act Three, Scene Four, when suddenly Bellamy appeared beside me.

  “Goodness, Sergeant! You startled me.”

  “We’re sorry about that, sir, but we have a question or two that bears answering.”

  “Of course.”

  Out came the inevitable notebook and pencil.

  “It would appear that someone—and we do stress the word ‘someone,’ sir—has entered the churchyard of the Parish Church of Covent Garden—namely, St. Paul’s Church—and has seen fit to interfere with one of the interments at that location. In a word, sir, they have dug up a grave and removed the corpse from the coffin.” He fixed his bright, beady eyes on me. “Would you happen to know anything about that, we were wondering?”

  “Removed the corpse?” I said, not willing to admit to anything. I found that my mouth had suddenly gone dry and I was aware of my face growing hot. I swallowed and tried to look surprised.

  “There was no body in evidence, sir. A short, stout tree trunk of elm wood was lying in the place normally reserved for the deceased.”

  “Dear me,” I murmured. “And this was Mr. Richland’s grave?”

  “Did we say that, sir?” The pencil hovered and then scribbled in the notebook.

  “Er, no.” I cursed myself, conscious that I was now sweating profusely. “No. But I presumed, since you have come here to the Lyceum, that it must be he.” I felt better. That made sense, at least to me.

  “Mmm.” The sergeant was noncommittal.

  I pressed my slight advantage. “And was this log of elm wood placed in the coffin before or after the interment?” I asked, innocently.

  More scribbling. “That, sir, has not yet been ascertained.”

  “Then you had best be about your business and ascertain it,” I said triumphantly, and turned my back on the policeman. After a brief pause he walked away.

  * * *

  It was another day before Mr. Stoker got around to sending me off to Sadler’s Wells again, looking for clues as to who might have poisoned the Guv’nor.

  “If they did it once, they could do it again,” he said. “Perhaps poison the whole cast! That would certainly slow us down.”

  I don’t know that I was quite so suspicious myself, though that heavy sandbag that had only just missed me did give some emphasis to the possibility of a war that might well be developing. Such thoughts passed back and forth through my head as I sat in the red “Favorite” omnibus that would let me off outside the Sadler’s Wells Theatre.

  I was mentally somewhat numb from the transformation that Mr. Archibald had performed on me. He had completely agreed that any wig that would hide my bright carrot hair would have to be so large that it would draw more attention than the hair itself. His solution? To instead color my hair! I had been prevailed upon to dip my head repeatedly into a bucket filled with some odious brown liquid that smelled of garlic, coal tar, wood ash, and vinegar. The result was a drab, brownish red mop that, under certain light, I swear had a purplish tinge to it. Mr. Archibald had claimed that he could have done a far better job by adding walnuts to the mixture but that it would then have taken two to three months of washing to get it out again. I balked at that. I was just glad that Jenny couldn’t see me like this.

  To complete the transformation, Mr. Archibald dabbed on spirit gum and affixed a stringy mustache and an equally stringy beard. He clipped a pair of pince-nez spectacles on my nose, patted me on the shoulder, and sent me off.

  The two big shire horses brought the omnibus to a halt and I jumped off the vehicle and sauntered along to the stage door of Sadler’s Wells. Outside the theatre a trio of musicians played a desultory selection of popular tunes. I suspected that they were members of the Sadler’s Wells’ theatre orchestra and they were there seeking to expand their earnings. I slipped around the violinist
, cracked open the stage door, and peered inside. As I expected, George Dale was wedged into his booth and was sitting with a slice of pork pie in one hand and a copy of Sporting Life in the other. His eyes were half closed, the lids drooping. Even as I watched, his head nodded down and then he jerked it up again. He was obviously fighting sleep. The hand holding the half-eaten pork pie slowly descended to the countertop in front of him. I took a chance and slipped into the narrow passage in front of him as quietly as I could. I ducked down below the level of his window and crept along, hoping no one else would appear. As luck would have it, I made it all the way to the end of the passage and turned the corner without being seen.

  I headed for the scenery bays. I knew that the stagehands were anonymous in most houses. They did their job and the actors rarely thought about them. Consequently, during rehearsals and before performances the stagehands would many times pick up gossip overheard from actors exchanging what they believed to be confidential tidbits.

  I knew a couple of the Sadler’s Wells’ scene changers, though not well. One was Jack Parsons, and I was pleased now to see him in the scenery bay, measuring a flat that needed restoring. I knew him to be an honest man who always thought the best of his fellows.

  “How’s it going, Jack?” I asked.

  He glanced up, squinting a little as he tried to place me. I was thrilled that my disguise held up. “’Oo’s asking?”

  “Just came aboard,” I said, playing the part of a new employee. “Someone said that Jack Parsons could be found back here. I take it that’s you?”

  He nodded and returned to his measuring. “Didn’t know as ’ow they was ’iring?”

  “Not much,” I said. “I was just lucky to apply at the right time. What you doing? Building or rebuilding?”

  “Some clumsy actor managed to put ’is foot through this flat,” he said, sniffing. “Don’t ask me ’ow ’e did it! Just got to patch it.”