All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred eight)

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter Four

Counterfeits

(part one hundred eight)

ii.

Traveling company

So far Richard’s job was the simple one, of rapping knuckles on the door (to imagination), Ermentrude entrusted with sounds. Mrs. Allen’s start, full-bodied theatrical, seemed not for her husband’s gratification. A private joke amused her, possibly that she could act, and Allen’s accents in the Italian, French, German…

Suggested he could not. Though, tolerably, Richard allowed—in that he’d seen countless stage performances Allen’s equal. It was something to have a French wife and sit confident in your zees and zats.

“Oh, pray let it be only the post!” [vibrant whisper; quavering voice] “Margaret!”

Margaret was not cast, and so, chameleonic, Mrs. Allen, gait and careless swing ideal, spoke the maid’s line. “Mrs. Selby, it’s Doctor Jones.”

Doctor Jones was Irish. “Sure and I’ve the worst news to be telling you.”

In the nine variations of Allen’s script Richard had assisted, there was always a doctor, who always knocked at the door with bad news.

They were an unlicensed traveling company, setting stage on market streets, launching on the poor deck of a steamer, impromptu in the company room of a boarding house; not selling tickets but absorbing pocket change. The hat Richard’s to keep his eye on.

Ermentrude, besides her darning egg, used a glass jar filled with marbles. This shut mouths, this indefinably portentous noise, and cued Allen, or his wife, or a day player (of whom in any city Allen knew dozens), to utter: “Great Scott [Heavens, in the feminine], what can it be?”

Never swear on the stage, Allen had ticked off to Richard. And all the world’s a stage, keep in that in mind. Do anything takes a nickel out of that hat, you’re done.

One of the standbys: “Oh, I have a terrible secret!”

The best of all (but more select): “Sir, you have arrested an innocent man! I have the proof of it!”

Near the end of every page of dialogue, these suspenders worked for their creator, prying leniency from vessels’ captains, policemen enforcing curfews, shooing and yawning landlords.

Allen had dunned each trouper a dime, and got them a single. The Palmyra’s proprietors had dressed the bed and hung a curtain. It was nearing dark…the Allens always took the bed, and they were not maritally discreet.

“Allen, I’m going out walking.”

“No, you hold up. Get me a light.” Allen struck a match. Room candles were allowed by the Palmyra. Any number of flops Richard had stayed in had stamped on their features their date with destiny—

May it not be tonight. “What the hell you want, Allen?”

116

Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred nine)

(2024, Stephanie Foster)