Desperate Acts (16 page)

At the far end of the tall-windowed room,
where at least one formal ball had been held for the worthiest of
the worthies in the capital, a stage had been built – about
two-feet high with a playing-surface about twenty-five by fifteen
feet. There was no proscenium arch, but a right-angled, rectangular
framework and curtains had been rigged up on either side to provide
“wings” and a concealed area for those waiting off-stage for their
entrance cue. At the back of the stage, the visitors noticed a man
tacking canvas onto what looked like quilting-frames.

“That’s Mullins, preparing the flats we’ll
use,” said Sir P. helpfully. (Mullins was the Shuttleworth’s
gardener and general handyman.)

“We brought with us a steamer-trunk full of
theatrical costumes and props,” Lady Mad added in her low, throaty
voice, “but naturally we had to leave most of our flats and flies
at home.”

“We’re goin’ to have
costumes
?” Clemmy
said.

“The works,” Sir P. replied.

“Our little nieces and nephew – four of them
– have volunteered to play the fairies,” Lady Mad said. “But we’ll
have to find someone locally to make them fairy outfits.”

“There are a number of competent seamstresses
and dressmakers in town,” said Dutton, brushing up against a puffed
sleeve of green sateen.

“I’d recommend
Smallman’s
,” Crenshaw
said at the other sleeve. “Rose Halpenny is the best, Milady.”

“You must try to call me Maddy, all of you,”
Lady Mad said generously, “except of course when the servants are
about.”

“I shall try, Milady,” Crenshaw said.

“Oh, I don’t see how
I
could,” Clemmy
said. “It would seem too – too condescending.”

“Still, you must try,” said Sir P. as he
pointed out a cozy den adjacent to stage left, which would
eventually serve as a dressing-room, discreetly partitioned, for
both sexes. “Putting on a play brings its participants into close
and familiar contact. There can be no standing on ceremony. That is
why it is crucial to have only ladies and gentlemen in the
cast.”

This remark had caused Clemmy to blush with
pleasure and her husband to smile inwardly at his good – and, he
was certain, well-deserved – fortune.

While Horace Fullarton immediately upon his
arrival had started to tell Sir Peregrine about the events
surrounding the arrest of the youngest member of their troupe, Sir
Peregrine had silenced him, saying that no serious talk was
permitted till after the meal. True to his word, as the coffee was
being served to his guests, groggy from food and drink, Sir P. held
up his plump right hand and called for attention.

“Ladies and gentlemen, in a moment we shall
adjourn to the theatre to begin our first read-through of the
scripts I gave you and the roles I assigned. My butler Chivers and
his minions are setting up a table and chairs for that purpose.
After our efforts, some light refreshment will be served. But
before we initiate these delights, we must address an unexpected
and pressing problem.”

“Young Langford’s in jail, ya mean?” Clemmy
brayed through her hiccoughs. She, like several others, had been
waiting for a suitable opportunity to raise the question of
Brodie’s absence without offending their host or in any way
disrupting the atmosphere of congeniality and deference he had
striven to create for them.

“Putting it in the bluntest terms, yes,” said
Sir P. “Though Horace assures me that it is all a terrible mistake
and Brodie will soon be released.”

“I heard he stabbed some tramp near
Irishtown,” Clemmy said.

“There was a wild rumour going around about a
duel,” Dutton said, “but I paid no attention to it.”

“Anyone know who the victim was or why
Langford would be involved?” Crenshaw said.

“Chivers told me his name was Durgens or
Dougan – something like that,” said Lady Mad. “He didn’t mention
Mr. Langford, though, and I’ve never heard of this Dougan.”

Nor had anyone else, it seemed, for there was
a long pause.

“I’m sure nothing will come of it,” said Sir
P., wiping his rubbery lips with a monogrammed napkin. “Surely any
gentleman accosted on the street by a lowlife is entitled to
retaliate in kind. If not, then there is little hope for this
colony.”

“I agree that young Brodie is certain to be
released tomorrow morning,” Fullarton said, “but his lawyer, Mr.
Edwards, told me, when I saw him earlier today, that Brodie felt –
whatever the outcome of his arraignment before the magistrate – he
must resign his membership in the Shakespeare Club.”

“He must do nothing of the kind,” Dutton said
rather primly.

“Apparently he feels that this sordid
episode, in which he gave into his anger and resorted to
fisticuffs
, would harm the reputation of the club and its
respectable members.”

“And he is adamant?” Sir P. said.

“He is. And while I regret such a decision, I
admire the courage and selflessness behind it.”

“Then we are without a Demeter for our play!”
Clemmy cried.

“That would seem so,” Sir P. said, and peered
down the table, now littered with the flotsam of the meal and its
aftermath, at his lady hostess.

“And you have no other handsome young
gentleman about town who might step into his boots?” Lady Mad said
with a helpless, beseeching look at the male members of the club, a
gesture that made their hearts lurch.

“I could twist Phineas Burke’s arm,” Dutton
said. “His wife’s in the States this month and – ”

“Only as a last resort, I think,” Sir P.
said, picturing the wooden-faced stationer stumbling about Oberon’s
magic realm. “For the nonce, may I suggest that you leave his
replacement up to me. For this evening I am quite happy to read my
part and young Langford’s as well.”

“But, Milord, my Cyrus could take on
Demeter’s part,” Clemmy said in a trembling, brave voice. “I don’t
think it’s proper fer a gentleman who owns a candle factory an’
keeps three servants to be playin’ an
ill-littered
weaver
with donkey ears stickin’ outta his head.”

Sir P. registered shock – at the boldness of
the interruption itself, at its being uttered by a female, at the
impropriety of its sentiment, and at the outrageous malapropism in
its predicate. But he recovered adroitly. “I did not realize, my
dear Clementine, that Cyrus was dissatisfied with his assigned
role.”

Cyrus, of course, had been duly insulted at
the assignment and had done his damnedest to mangle the part last
night at the club. But in rehearsing his lines with the assistance
of his wife this afternoon, he discovered that he had several
intimate scenes with the Queen of the Fairies, and when he later
laid eyes upon the handsome lady who would be playing Titania, all
thoughts of rebellion had vanished. Unfortunately, he had expressed
his feelings of outrage too forcefully to Clemmy before they had
begun their rehearsal, and could not think now of a way to retract
them.

“It’s nothing to make a fuss over,” he said
lamely.

“But Cyrus’s daddy was a hero at the Battle
of Moraviantown!” Clemmy carried on, taking such a deep breath that
she almost popped her overtaxed stays.

“So I gather,” Sir P. said. “Some sort of
Waterloo over here, I’m told.”

“There’s really no need to fuss,” Cyrus said,
though he wasn’t sure whether his plea was aimed at his wife or the
director.

“Then why not let Mr. Crenshaw play
Demetrius, Perry?” said Lady Mad. “It should be easier to find a
weaver than a dashing lover.” And she darted a brown-eyed glance at
the scion of Moraviantown’s martyr.

Cyrus reddened, unsure whether he ought to be
flattered at her intervention on his behalf or disappointed that
she would so readily forgo the love scenes promised them in the
script. He had no choice but to reply, “Thank you, Milady. I’d be
honoured to play Demetrius, if you feel I am worthy of the
role.”

“Then that’s settled,” the lady said. “Sir
P., you will seek out a suitable Bottom, I presume?”

Sir P. did not look pleased at this prospect,
but managed a flushed smile and said, “Perhaps I could approach
Ogden Frank and ask whether one of his troupe would deign to join
us – someone experienced in the comedic art.”

“But that would risk our getting someone too
– too common, would it not?” Dutton said, glancing at Lady Mad, who
as Titania would have to bear the brunt of any such commonness. She
acknowledged his concern with a dip of her tiny chin and a pretty
blink of the bold, brown eyes. He was compelled to look down, and
his look stayed there, somewhere in the region of her
décolletage.

“But that sort of person might prove to be
eminently suitable for the role of Bottom the weaver,” Sir P. said
smoothly. “And my lady is a supreme actress: I’ve seen her make
more than one silk purse out of an ass’s ears.”

He invited the guests to share in this
witticism, and they obliged. Lady Mad was not amused.

***

The actors reassembled in the ‘theatre’ at the
temporary table set up by the Shuttleworth servants – after a
fifteen-minute break in which the men repaired to the adjoining
den-smoker and the ladies to the adjoining powder-room. Clemmy
Crenshaw’s corsets had gone awry during her visit to the
water-closet, and Lady Mad’s maid had to be sent for to assist in
the ensuing readjustment. Lady Mad herself brought the distraught
victim back into the theatre and graciously seated her.

“A woman’s difficulty,” she smiled at the
gentlemen. “All taken care of.”

None of the gentlemen wishing further details
about the matter, Sir P. called his actors to order. To his left
sat Lizzie Wade, who had materialized without warning or notice
from the sealed half of the manor. Sir P. introduced her and
reminded the group that she would be playing Helena. She certainly
looked the part of a teenaged inamorata: a sixteen-year-old nymph
of a girl with silken tresses of a strawberry hue and a burgeoning
figure nowhere near its final bloom. Lizzie dropped her blue eyes
at the mention of her name.

The first read-through of
The Dream
Sequence
(as Sir P. now designated their production) was not an
unalloyed success. The opening scene, where Oberon and Titania make
their entrance and exchange barbs, went well enough. Horace
Fullarton as Oberon delivered his lines not only with due attention
to the verse and dramatic flow but with much spirited feeling. And
Lady Mad as the proud and beautiful Titania returned his words in
kind:

Oberon
: Ill met by moonlight, proud
Titania.

Titania
: What, jealous, Oberon? [to
fairies] Skip hence,

I have forsworn his bed and company.

Oberon
: Tarry, rash woman, am I not
thy lord?

When Titania sweeps off with her train, Oberon and
Puck take stage-centre. And here matters began to unravel. Sir P.
delivered his lines as Puck in a voice threatening either to
disintegrate or soar beyond falsetto. As a natural tenor, such an
attempt by the baronet to sound youthful and puckish was hardly
necessary.

“Perhaps a little more from the diaphragm and
less from the glottis,” Lady Mad suggested when one of Puck’s
phrases had side-slipped into a squeak.

Sir P. smiled daggers at her, but dropped his
voice an octave – with better results. Still, when he declaimed
“I’ll put a girdle round about the earth / In forty minutes,” no
modulation of the voice could seduce an audience into believing
that the plump-cheeked, thick-waisted gentleman with spindle-legs
could achieve such a feat in forty
days.
No-one was impolite
enough to say so, however.

Crenshaw as Demetrius then got his chance as
the dashing lover being importuned by the nubile Helena. He made a
self-conscious effort to begin each speech slowly, but could not
stop the gradual acceleration of his pace, which left
him
panting and bug-eyed, and the
meaning
to fend for itself.
Lizzie, it turned out, was an accomplished reader and reciter of
verse. And despite the overheated distractions of Demetrius, she
managed a touching performance as the Athenian maiden in hopeless
pursuit of a youth who claims to be in love with her friend Hermia.
Her sole difficulty was a tendency to stammer whenever she became
nervous (a state induced only when her Uncle Peregrine attempted to
offer her needless directorial advice, which was, alas, quite
often).

From speed-reading and stammering, the
rehearsal went downhill. Andrew Dutton continued his forensic,
foghorn rendering of Lysander as he sets out to woo the skittish
Hermia. Clemmy Crenshaw, who had been growing more anxious with
each passing pentameter, was compelled to call upon her long-ago,
finishing-school experience as a source of inspiration, and
proceeded to pronounce the Bard’s iambic verse in a singsong
fashion so exaggerated it might have served as accompaniment to a
jig.

The mechanics’ parts had been excised, except
for Bottom the weaver, and Sir P., having offered to stand in for
the latter, went at the role with gusto – in a commoner’s accent no
Cockney would have recognized as English. Thus it was that the
initial read-through staggered to a grim halt some fifty minutes
later. By this time Sir. P. looked as if
he
had been
martyred at the Battle of Moraviantown, but he continued to smile
and proclaim that satisfactory progress was being made. Towards the
end, however, he kept glancing at the hall door, where Chivers was
expected to appear with a tea-trolley and refreshments.

“We’ll have a break, ladies and gentlemen,
and then try one more read-through before we bring the curtain down
on our evening,” he said to the troupe as soon as his ear detected
the familiar footfall of his butler.

The hall door did indeed open, but Chivers
was not there gliding behind his trolley. Instead he stood blocking
the doorway, a look of consternation on his face.