It transpired that Dorothea’s cousin had, when she was barley fifteen,raped her. But as Dorothea had explained to Henry there was no violence, but instead a well thought out and rather logical reason why he (thecousin) would ensure that she (Dorothea) would not get a single penny of her father’s money unless he, Colonel Percy Hamilton-Packmore, DSC, was allowed the occasional sexual favour from his very bright and very beautiful cousin. Dorothea agreed readily (money was the key to her future and she could deal with Percy and his treachery at a later date), and, if she was truthful, she rather enjoyed the encounter with thesomewhat dim, but charming, hero of Balaclava; although he wasn’t half as good as her English teacher, who’d made love to her on the banks of the River Severn the summer before.

After her explanation Dorothea suggested to a rather stunned  Donaldsonthat he have a chat with her cousin, informing him that he (the cousin) should signthe papers releasing Dorothea’s inheritance immediately, otherwise she (Dorothea) would go to the nearest police station and tearfully explain, in detail,how the colonel had violently, and repeatedly, raped her without mercy. Oh, and to just make sure Henry knew what he was letting himself in for, Dorothea insisted she become Henry’s business partner, and his wife. Oh, and just to make quite, quite sure Henry knew what he was letting himself in for, Dorothea told him she might have to tell the same policeman that he (Henry) had raped her too if he didn’t agree to hersuggestions.

” Damn the woman,” whispered Henry Donaldson to himself.

And the couple, in the spring of 1861, were duly married, and with great ceremony, followed by a honeymoon in the South of France where Dorothea went horse riding most days, and where, in a small villa in the
foothills to the north of Aubagne, she secretly met her lover, the English teacher, while Henry, back at the large villa they had rented at Toulon, put the finishing touches to his manuscript of Trafalgar,
which was due to go into rehearsals upon their return.

Blackpool had never seen such a show as Trafalgar, which was one of the first shows to be produced on the end of the newly constructed North Pier. And what a production it was, with a full size replica of the
stern end of HMS Victory filling the whole of the stage.

The building of the replica warship had taken hundreds of man hours (and many hours of worry for one of the directors of the production company, and the manager of the theatre, Mr Jack Goode) with over thirty tons of
timber used in its construction.

But that wasn’t all. At certain points in the production the facing half of the black and white stern section of the ship was raised to reveal the insides, with its tiered decking alive with sailors and bristling with firing canon. At the height of the battle a system of pulleys and winches rocked the ship to suggest movement upon the waves, which, with the sound of the Irish Sea pounding beneath the pier, created a wonderful verisimilitude that caused many in the audience to run from the auditorium to be violently sick.

Oh, to have seen that show, and Henry Donaldson’s thoughtful, and hugely emotional, portrayal of Admiral Nelson, especially the scene where he lay in the arms of his faithful second-in-command, Captain Hardy, and
pleaded for that final kiss of loyalty and friendship, followed immediately – through a deceit of lighting – by Dorothea’s tearful soliloquy upon receiving news of her lover’s death. It was to be the show that finally put Henry’s and Dorothea’s name into the national theatrical limelight.

After the show’s run in Blackpool the play was taken on a tour of Britain where it played to packed house. And when every theatre in Britain, that was big enough to stage the show, had been visited the production was packed aboard a steam ship in Bristol and taken across the Atlantic where it ran on Broadway for over six months before heading north-west across Canada to play in Vancouver, where its bravado, romance, and technical brilliance, wooed that emerging city’s theatre hungry public.

And it was while Donaldson was in Vancouver that he met Augustus Littleton (who had crossed the border with Samuelson and Bartlett to avoid arrest) who, after seeing the show agreed to put up some money, rather a lot of money, so that Donaldson could take the play down the west coast and then across the Pacific to Australia, before sailing for India, followed by a tour of the Middle-East and then Europe, before finally sailing for home. It was to be, for Littleton, a sure fired way of getting back to England in a less detectable fashion.

As soon as the show closed in Vancouver Littleton, Donaldson, Samuelson, and Bartlett, headed across the border for a little bit of banking business they had planned. It was an evil partnership that was to commit
Donaldson, as it had Samuelson and Bartlett, to Littleton and his dangerous future.

To Be Continued…

Read Chapters 1 -11