The Kingdom of Bones Read Online Free PDF

had a view of the forestage. There was Louise. Here was her song.
    And this was Tom Sayers’ nightly moment of weakness.
    Sayers was Edmund Whitlock’s acting manager, charged with all the business dealings of a company on the road. He booked the dates, he arranged the travel, he hired the staff, and he fired those who drank or disgraced themselves. He dealt with correspondence and sometimes stepped in to serve as stage manager or baggage master. To all he was a shoulder to lean upon, and for some a shoulder to cry on.
    It was Sayers who’d read
The Purple Diamond
and recommended its purchase to Whitlock, and it was Sayers who had found Louise when their last soubrette had jumped ship in Leicester and left them without cover. Louise was a young woman who had written a letter to Bertram’s inquiring about the possibility of a stage career, with no other qualification than that she sang and spoke poetry well.
    She’d had little idea of what a theatrical life entailed. Sayers’ understanding was that her family faced reduced circumstances after her father’s death. Going into service was no option for a child who had grown up in a house with a maid, and life as a governess or companion held no appeal. From the tone of her letter to the agency, it was clear that the stage represented some girlish dream. But inexperienced though she was, she was available to play and willing to take Whitlock’s wages.
    She’d since begun to mature into a considerable beauty. Not every man’s ideal, but enough for most. For those who liked their women big and broad and always ready to scrap, she would never do. But to a man like Sayers, largely inexperienced in romance, she represented perfection.
    Every performance ended with her song, and every night Sayers would pause in the wings and watch her. It was always the same: the graceful line of her neck and the angle of her shoulder, that profile when she turned her head. Against the darkness of the house, she seemed to glow. Dazzled by the white of her skin, he could have counted every hair.
    Most nights he would stay to the end, and join in the applause. But tonight he dared not. There was too much to be done, and when the sound of footsteps backstage brought him out of his reverie, he quickly consulted his notebook and returned to his work.
             
    Sayers made his way down to the scene dock, where the removers’ wagon was due to arrive at any moment. Some of the scenery was already folded and stacked there, and most of the properties numbered and wrapped in sacking and placed in wicker baskets. The costume hampers and the company’s personal luggage would be joining them shortly. All was darkness until the scenery doors began to roll back, whereupon a widening crack of light began to reveal the bricks and rain of the gaslit alley behind the theater.
    The wagon was already waiting there. It was high-sided, horse-drawn, and on time. The rain was coming down in silver darts under the gas lamps and the drays stood there in harness, stoical and unprotesting as it fell upon them. A man in oilskins was clambering down from the driver’s seat and another was around the back and opening up the tailgate.
    Satisfied that all was progressing as it should, Sayers went back up the iron stairs toward the dressing room corridor.
    At the top of the stairway he met James Caspar, about to descend. Caspar had wiped off his makeup but had done no more than throw a coat over his stage costume of black tie, wing collar, and tails. He stepped aside and indicated, with an overstated grace that had an air of mockery, that Sayers should pass.
    “Thank you, Caspar,” Sayers said. “Cabs at the stage door in twenty minutes.”
    Caspar made no comment, and his smile didn’t change. He was the company’s Leading Male Juvenile and, just as Louise had been “found” by Sayers, Caspar was Whitlock’s own discovery. He was very dark, very slick, and very handsome. He had few gifts as an actor, but