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Kean.
    â€œYou’ll have to find another dagger for Pirate Anne,” said Chloe. “The one I use each night is no prop but a bayonet bequeathed to me by my paternal grandfather, who fought at Waterloo.”
    â€œOn which side?” said Mr. Kean.
    â€œThat’s enough, dear,” said Ellen Tree.
    â€œWhether the dagger is a prop or not, I don’t doubt you’ll take it with you,” said Mr. Kean, “along with everything else that isn’t screwed to the floor.”
    â€œWith all due respect, madam, I don’t write tragical romances,” Chloe told Ellen Tree. “I write chillers about escaped lunatics,” she added, fixing on her former employer as she swirled out of his office, “melodramas about gentlemen infected with lycanthropy, and sweeping sagas of intrepid lady explorers who take jungle gorillas for their lovers. If ever you need a potboiler, Mr. Kean, don’t hesitate to look me up.”

 
    2
    Chloe Finds Employment on the Estate of Charles Darwin, to the Benefit of Certain Giant Tortoises, Exotic Iguanas, and Rare Birds
    Needless to say, she did not intend to write a play about a second-rate highwayman, or any such spectacle for that matter, no melodrama seething with ghosts and ghouls, no plum pudding spiced with virgins imperiled by mad monks—and yet Chloe fervently hoped the theatre would remain her primary means of support. Although she disagreed with Mr. Shakespeare’s conclusion that all the world was a stage, in truth the stage was all she knew of the world. Aided by the faithful Fanny, she compiled an exhaustive list of London houses, then called upon each manager in turn, presenting herself as Mademoiselle Jeanne Feuillard, newly arrived from the Comédie-Française. In every instance she was rebuffed—such was the imprecision of her French accent, the notoriety of her final performance as Anne Bonney, and the transparency of her claim that, although she resembled the actress whose image graced the posters in the Adelphi Theatre lobby, she and that deranged young woman were two different people.
    â€œMademoiselle Feuillard— c’est-à-dire, Miss Bathurst—you are not without talent, but neither are you without reputation,” said the manager of the Majestic with an extravagant sneer.
    â€œThe next time I wish for my theatre to break out in a riot, you are the very mischief maker I shall call upon,” said the proprietor of the Trochaic.
    â€œI share your compassion for the downtrodden, Miss Bathurst, but this is a commercial enterprise, not Sherwood Forest,” said the owner of the Odeon.
    Sixteen houses, sixteen rejections: it was time to try something else—but what? Adrift in the great city, friendless save for Fanny, penniless save for Fanny’s patronage, Chloe had reached the frayed end of her ragged rope. Hunger became her daily fare, cold her nightly portion, conditions that might well have advanced to malnutrition and la grippe were her rooming-companion not possessed of so charitable a nature.
    â€œA gift of bread on a pauper’s table, a donation of coal to a friend’s warming-pan—these are the measures by which Christ assays our souls,” Fanny explained.
    â€œThen you’ll not be wanting for a berth in eternity,” said Chloe.
    â€œPromise me you’ll avoid that degraded sorority to which our profession is oft-times compared.”
    â€œNo, dear friend, never that—you have my word.”
    â€œHave you considered the milliner’s trade?” asked Fanny.
    â€œI was not born to make a lady’s bonnet, but to have a gentleman’s hat land at my feet as the curtain falls,” said Chloe.
    â€œPerhaps you should become a flower-seller like Nydia in The Last Days of Pompeii .”
    â€œNydia’s business prospered only because she was blind. The condition is easy enough to feign, but I would rather be despised than