It's quite rough. So tear apart.
Chapter 2
Anne walked briskly along the cobbled streets, holding her thin cloak tightly against her as protection against the biting October wind. She clutched the basket with gloved fingers and glared at any man trying to make advances on her. Once at the King’s Theatre, she stood in front of the stage and checked the oranges inside her basket, to make sure none of the fruit was bruised or browned. Having made her inspection, Anne contented herself with gazing around her at the theatre, which never ceased to amaze her.
Glittering chandeliers shone above her, so the high ceiling seemed as if it were made of liquid gold. Bronze plaster Cupids decorated the walls, with stone wings frozen in flight forever and plump hands outstretched towards the audience. Rows and rows of gilded seats ascended upwards until the top ones seemed almost lost from view.
She felt a sharp tap on her shoulder and spun round to behold Eliza. A slim, gorgeous figure with a head of bouncy red curls and sparkling green eyes in a pretty, mischievous face. It was no wonder that Anne’s best friend had been accepted at the King’s Theatre the day she reached fourteen. Four years later, Eliza was now one of the best known performers in the theatre, and Anne was still an orange seller, just like the day she started, having neither her companion’s breath-taking looks nor her confidence on stage.
“What a lazy goose it is!” exclaimed Eliza dramatically, clutching Anne’s hand. “Oversleeping, I dare say. I must admit I was starting to think you would never arrive in time for the performance.”
Anne could not help smiling, in spite of her inner turmoil. “It is not like I am needed,” she said, feeling a pang of jealousy, as she always did, when comparing Eliza’s station and her own. “I wouldn’t have been missed, with all the other trollops around.”
“Come, now,” said Eliza, her light eyebrows knitting together. “Let’s not be sour.” She twirled around, holding out her skirts. She was clothed in a gown of fine embroidered cambric, trimmed in primrose yellow, with a blue velvet cloak. “Do you like it? It’s borrowed from the changing rooms, heavens knows what I would do if I had to buy my own costumes.”
Anne shook her head. “You’re vital to the theatre, Liza. They would pay you to work, if they had to.”
“You should try your hand at auditioning, Anne,” said Eliza. “With a bit of training, I’m sure you’d be promoted.”
“Oh no, Liza!” she replied. “That would never do. I...I couldn’t act.”
Eliza rolled her jade-sparked eyes. “The old bookshop dream, is it, Anne?”
Anne smiled. “Oh, Liza. You think I’m silly for it, don’t you? Well, at least you don’t repress me like Mother does.” She rolled her eyes. “I...I know it’s not very ambitious. But it would be so lovely, Liza. And imagine all the books!”
Eliza laughed, flinging her head back and parting full scarlet lips to reveal a perfect set of white teeth. She had never quite understood her companion's life-long dream of owning a little bookshop off the High Street, but she had no intention of inhibiting her for it. “You are quite mad, dearest, I am sure of it,” she said, looking fondly at her best friend. “But sometimes I wonder whether we all had better follow your example.”
As she said this, they both cast a glance of disdain around the stage, at the other orange girls. There were six of them in total, though not all selling oranges. Holding baskets of apples and lemons, and other various sweetmeats of frosted rose petals, sugared almonds and marzipan shapes. All wearing much lower cut dresses than Anne and all batting their eyelids flirtatiously at any gentlemen who would come to peer at their merchandise.
Whether that was the fruit or their bodies, each were given willingly. Anne tossed her head, black tendrils tumbling about her thin, pale neck.
“What harlots,” she groaned to Eliza, who nodded sympathetically, “I refuse to make any such spectacle of myself. I will simply...sell the goods. As usual.”
“Just as you should,” said Eliza approvingly, tossing a dainty head of bright curls at the crowd. “Whores, the lot of them. Do you remember the day you arrived here?”
“Indeed,” grinned Anne, her brown eyes crinkling up with laughter. “To fill the position you’d vacated, by being promoted to an actress.”
“And remember what Moll Megs said to you on your first day?”
“How could I forget?” Moll Megs, the woman in charge of the orange sellers, universally known as Orange Moll had terrified the fourteen-year-old Anne when she had first come to work at the King’s Theatre. She had but one grey tooth glistening in her mouth, and a head of lank white hair sparsely distributed over a frail skull.
She spoke kindly enough, however, explaining to Anne that the oranges were to be sold for sixpence. “An’ if you give a special smile to the gentlemen and p’raps a kiss on the cheek, you might find yerself earning extra.”
Anne spluttered at the memory, and then the smile disappeared as her thoughts darkened. “But oh, Lisa,” she sighed. “I detest this lowliness...I would give anything to leave it. Though now poor Mother and I need all the money I can bring in. Because-“
She was cut off as Eliza was escorted away to rehearsals by an apologetic co-actor. She waved in Anne’s direction, making faces, and then disappeared into the changing rooms. Anne sighed and then hung her coat up and progressed to the middle of the stage, to stand with the other orange girls.
She ended up being forced to stand by Elinor Marson, the most vulgar of the lot. She wore a scarlet gown so low-cut that each time she bent over, both bosoms appeared obligingly at the top of her dress. A fact which didn’t go unnoticed by the boys lighting the chandeliers at the top of the stage. They frequently threw copper pennies at the girls, of course, making sure they landed on the floor.
Elinor swaggered over to Anne once Eliza had gone. She simpered at her. “Your pockets look a bit empty today, Anne dear,” she said, displaying a fistful of shillings. “Though I dare say it’s nothing out of the ordinary. You ought to take a page out of my book, girl.”
Anne raised her eyebrows. “What book might that be, Elinor? Oh, you mean I ought to accompany any scallywag home for the night, for little less than a pint of tuppeny ale?"
Anne’s interlocutor stomped her satin-clad foot angrily and walked away, muttering angry comments. “Thinks herself above everyone else, don’t she?” Anne could make out. “What a plain, bookish tramp of a girl.”
Anne laughed drily, catching sight of herself in a cracked mirror lying on the stage floor. She believed Elinor in that moment, though the quiet watcher standing nearby, had he heard her thoughts, would have strongly disagreed. She was not pretty in the same way as Eliza or Elinor, but her aquiline features were so arresting, it was impossible to dismiss her as plain.
Anne’s face was white and angular, with thick dark brows curving over her intelligent tea mosaic eyes, starred with a jungle of bristly black lashes. She had not much of a figure, being tall and straight. She emanated fragility, an impression contradictory to her temperament.
Refusing to let her feelings be bruised by the girl she held in the most strong contempt, she turned away from the jagged glass and felt a light tap on her shoulder. She turned round, expecting it to be Eliza, but instead she found herself looking into the audacious black eyes of a stranger. He was staring at her in such a cool, impertinent manner that it aroused mixed feelings of indignation and feminine pleasure within her.
“May I help you, sir?” she asked abruptly, feeling increasingly uncomfortable as the man’s sharp gaze travelled the length of her form. Seeing as he did not reply, she took the opportunity to conduct a quick surveillance of him, in turn.
Anne estimated the man to be in his mid-forties, judging from his jowly, bearded face and broad shoulders clad in a vast black overcoat. He was powerfully built and very tall, and when she met his bold eyes he smiled with animal-white teeth shadowed with a dark, close-cut beard.
Trying to conceal the unease that was building up within her, she strengthened her voice and unlocked her eyes from his. “Sir, if you do not want to buy anything, would you kindly step away.”
He seemed surprised by the firm tone of her voice, and was about to reply when a younger man appeared by his side. He was dressed in a blue waistcoat and jacket, a cravat setting off his frilled shirt. His eyes were like liquid gold and seemed remote, far away.
“Bit young for you, eh, Father?” he said, his drowsy golden eyes laughing. Anne looked away, humiliated because she knew with what disdain everybody treated orange girls. “Sirs,” she started, a slight high-pitched quaver to her voice, “I am merely here to sell this fruit. I am most certainly not the kind of woman who-“
Her protests were ignored and she was interrupted mid-speech by the stranger’s son, who bowed – Anne could not tell whether the gesture was in sincerity or in jest – and began to depart from the stage. Before they had started to descend the steps, however, the overcoat-clad gentlemen returned and tipped his top hat at Anne.
“James Murdoch,” he said in a deep, throaty voice. “At your service. And your name might be...”
“Anne. Anne Lincombe,” she replied uncertainly, her dark eyebrows knitting together.
“A pleasure,” Mr Murdoch replied, his eyes twinkling. Then, he reached into the depths of his overcoat pocket and withdrew a handful of sovereigns. Anne was quick to refuse but he was quite insistent, pressing the coins back into her small palm. “Think of it as a gift from a well-meaning grand-father,” he said.
Anne declined. “No thank you, Mr Murdoch,” she said. “I have no need of it."
At that moment, the massive scarlet curtains started to close and the musicians raised their instruments and began to tune up. “No trouble,” Mr Murdoch said. “No trouble at all. I believe tonight’s performance is beginning. Might I accompany you off the stage, Miss Lincombe?”
Anne smiled broadly and took the arm he crooked towards her, walking down the stairs with a renewed spring in her step.
) 
The only way to make it better, I feel, is to carry on with it. I'll come back tomorrow, and give a longer, better and altogether more interesting.
