CHAPTER 32: Exploded

The company felt jubilant enough to produce a riotous Harlequin and the Goddess of Love, presented “as a benefit for Mr. Dance and Mrs. Lightfoot.” Jenny played Venus behind a lavish mask, specially painted by Tom Ashbrook, as Kit had suggested. It drew a house. And to thank Alphonse, Jack engineered a full-scale production of The Tempest for the following week, audaciously billed as a benefit for the Heathpoole Antislavery Committee, a small but vocal provincial group spearheaded out of the law offices of Meade and Morton. They drew little business from the Wells, where many holiday revelers were connected with the West Indies in a commercial way. But seafaring fortunes in Heathpoole had been built upon timber and smuggling, not flesh-peddling, and bills posted in the outlying villages drew sympathizers and curiosity seekers alike, while Delaney thumped up business all along the waterfront.

Jack was feeling decidedly more like Prospero, the magician, than Harlequin, the clown, on the morning he took himself down to the Court House to see about the lease on the playhouse. He had conjured modest profits out of the Heathpoole season, paid his rent promptly after every play night, forty-one performances in ten weeks, kept up with the salaries of his people and paid half the deposit back to the family of the original lessee. He felt confident, now, proposing a higher bid to secure the playhouse for twelve weeks next summer. Not even the London theatres could expect to draw houses all the year long; the essence of a player's life would aways be strolling. But with Heathpoole as a home base, Jack thought he might be able to keep the company together throughout the year. They might see what could be done with Fairweather’s old Wessex circuit, perhaps even reclaim the Kelsingham playhouse for the winter, as long as they could always find refuge at Heathpoole. Perhaps even a Christmas season here, December and January, nothing but pantomimes. Tory would like that.

And Jack continued embroidering this pleasant fantasy right up to the moment that it all blew up in his face.

“I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Dance,” said Alderman Norris, whose province it was to lease the playhouse, among many other minor civic duties. “But the township has already accepted a preemptive bid for the license to the playhouse.”

“For next summer?” Jack gaped. “Already?”

“For a year’s time.”

“But . . .  may I not offer a counter bid?” As if he and Alphonse had not calculated to the penny exactly how much they could afford to bid.

“As I said, sir, the previous bid is preemptive.” But because Norris liked Jack and approved of the revenue his summer season had brought to the town, the alderman silently scribbled a sum on a scrap of paper and showed it to him.

“Eight thousand pounds?” Jack was thunderstruck; ten thousand would secure the lease on Drury Lane in London. “He can never hope to realize that kind of profit, not in such a small house.”

“He does not have to,” said Norris delicately. “He has paid the entire sum in advance to secure the license.”
    
Jack sat slowly back in his chair, gripping the arms as if he were afraid of tumbling out.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, that information is confidential.”

Jack nodded. Of course. “And his tenure begins in the new year?”

Norris looked uncomfortable and glanced down at his papers. “Your lease expires in one more week. The term of the new lessee begins on the following day.”

It was a balmy late summer mid-day, but Jack dragged himself along as if he were battling snowdrifts and blizzards, his posture hunched forward, his expression stormy. How could he have lost the Heathpoole playhouse so suddenly, so completely? The first place in nearly a year in England that he had almost dared to think of as home. How many nights had they created alchemy on their little stage to bewitch a delighted audience? How many mornings had he and Tory wakened with the sun and made slow, sweet love in their little balcony room above the sea, as if they owned the world? All of it exploded, now. In eight days’ time, they would be on the streets again with a property coach, a pair, and no prospects whatsoever.

A fine manager he'd proved to be, taking the reigns of the company in March only to see it utterly ruined by August.  Where could they go now? They could never return to the Brewhouse Theatre in Thornhampton so soon. Where else could they go? Back to Shepperton Close? Charton-on-Crewe? Become strollers in fact, making their way blindly to whatever barns and halls might be available for the night? Was that what he had brought Tory back for? Was that the life for which he'd sacrificed her freedom?

He must write to Kelsingham at once, to find out if there was any hope of securing the playhouse there on such short notice. Fairweather did not usually open up there until nearly Christmas; the Theatres Royal at Bath and Bristol would be enormous competition, with their complement of London actors on the boards for another month until the London patent theatre re-opened in October. But they must try to feed off the traffic between the two towns in this high season. "Sensations," that was Fairweather's usual ploy, in contrast to the serious drama of the two neighboring patent houses. But  the company was well known in Kelsingham, and if profits were small, at least they could all live in the playhouse for protection. It would certainly be cheaper than lodgings.

But without a guarantee for a summer, let alone a winter playhouse, should Kelsingham prove unavailable, there was no way for a company to support itself. They must disband, all of them going their separate ways, trying their luck with whatever other companies might have them. He thought of Jenny, unemployed and vulnerable with her damaged face; how could he protect her, now? Even Kit would have a difficult time of it right now, finding another place, with that raccoon bruise across his eyes. Jack had put him on for Caliban and Kit was wonderfully funny and touching in the part, but no one would employ him as the romantic juvenile at the moment. Where would they all go?


 

Tory knew the minute she saw Jack's expression that she wasn't going to like whatever it was he had to tell her with such urgency. She closed the door to the manager's office behind her and steeled herself. When he told her they must abandon Heathpoole, it was as if a stage trapdoor had swung open under her. It was all she could do not to grasp the desk for support, or clutch her heart like an ingenue in a melodrama.

"I'm so sorry, Rusty. I know how you love this place." Jack looked miserable enough for both of them, and Tory congratulated herself on containing her dismay.

"I love you, hombre," she said instead. "It doesn't matter to me where we are."

He looked at her doubtfully,  then shook his head. "Christ, I've made such a bloody mess of things —"

"It's Crowder who's made a mess of things, I'd say," Tory interrupted him. "You've done everything humanly possible to —"

But Jack was suddenly staring at her. "And I'm a prize idiot into the bargain," he exclaimed. "Who else would have the means, much less the desire, to turn us all out on the streets? Crowder. Of course. "

 

 

Charles Crowder did not care to entertain his guest at his agent's office in Bristol, where he was accustomed to doing business. He always had the unpleasant impulse to count the silverware after the fellow was gone. So instead, he had agreed to meet Henry Harding  at this anonymous tavern just off Queen Square, near the waterfront, at an hour of midday when it was likely to be the least populated.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Harding," Crowder said again, eyeing the other's glass in hopes of concluding their interview before he was obliged to buy him another drink. "But as you are no longer a member of the company in question, I'm afraid I have no other employment for you."

"Well, seeing as I lost my situation on your account, sir," Harding began again, "I only thought . . . "

He did not quite have the nerve to give voice to his further thoughts, nor did Crowder feel moved to smooth over the awkward moment of silence. He wanted his indifference to fully register before he spoke again.

"Had you anything to tell me about this Dance fellow before he joined the company," Crowder said at last, "that might be of value to me."

Harding sat back in his chair, frowning, so that Crowder had time to study the showy but not elegant cut of his clothing and the oiled gloss on his dark hair. "Nobody'd ever heard of 'em before," Harding offered. "Said they'd had an engagement in the West Indies, of all godforsaken places, and one could believe it with that odd little Belair in tow. But otherwise . . . " He glanced all round the room, as if searching for inspiration, until his gaze fell on the notice board nearby; a tattered, yellowing broadsheet screamed Pirate's Curse! from amidst a layer of shipping timetables and notices of warehouse auctions.

"Fellow might have been a pirate, for all anybody knows," Harding grumbled. He sought the comfort of a last fortifying swig from his glass before he noticed the look on Crowder's face.

"Indeed he might," said Crowder.

Harding peered at him for a long interval before he began to take his meaning. Crowder was gratified to see that the fellow warmed to the idea once he finally began to comprehend it.

"Why — I suppose inquiries might be made — "

"Inquiries, bah! Waste of valuable time," said Crowder briskly. "All we need is an accusation that will stand up in court. From an unimpeachable source."

Harding frowned again. "Well, but that would require someone who has in fact been to the Indies. Have you business interests there?"

"I have not." Crowder responded. "But I know someone who has."

 

Top: Iain Mackay as Prospero, The Tempest, Royal Birmingham Ballet, 2016