Lovers' Vows (9 page)

“This is little short of blackmail,” she said, yet she was aware of a feeling of relief at the outcome.

“You are a hard judge,” he answered wearily, his tone indicating he was bored with the affair already.

“It’s a pity you aren’t as determined to achieve other goals, more worthwhile goals, as you are to direct this play,” she charged.

He looked at her and blinked twice slowly. “What worthy goals are these you speak of?”

“Why—taking care of your estate. We thought when you came here it was to attend to the orphanage and the roof of the church.”

“There is some disparity in our opinions of what constitutes my estate. I have got my affairs in order.”

“You haven’t dealt with the orphanage. It has always been your family’s charity, and you own the church.”

“The church belongs to the village. It doesn’t do to treat folks like children. They will appreciate their church more if they see to repairing its roof themselves. It is true it was built by my ancestors, but for the villagers. In fact, it is deeded to the Church of England, and the land for several acres round it is glebe land. As to the funding of St. Alton’s Orphanage, Johnson and I are looking after it.”

“When? As soon as you convinced Johnson he was Friar Laurence, he stopped worrying about the orphanage,” she replied, still vexed over this.

“Miss McCormack, there is really no need for you to concern yourself in my affairs,” he answered, with a stiffness of the spine indicating that great umbrage had been taken.

“Someone must concern herself in them, for it is pretty clear you do not and, since you’ve convinced Johnson he is an actor, he doesn’t care much either.”

“Very well then, we shall strike a bargain. I shall speak to Johnson on my way back to the Abbey about what funds he needs if you will accept the role of Lady Capulet. Agreed?”

She looked to see if he were serious, for it seemed such an odd bargain to be making. There was no sign of facetiousness about him. “All right, I agree,” she said, still startled.

“Excellent! I was afraid you’d haggle me into a new roof for the church as well. No doubt it will come before we get this play on the stage. Is your cousin finding much difficulty in recalling her lines? Fortunate her having played the role before.”

“She has the balcony scene down verbatim, Lord Dewar,” Holly replied, with a smile barely suppressed at the corners of her lips.

“The lines will come quickly back to her. At least she knows the story. I was toying with the idea of presenting it in the manner of the
commedia dell’arte,
but it would be rash to venture so far with amateurs. You perhaps could carry it off, and Altmore, but the others....”

“It would be above my talents, sir. I don’t even know what you are talking about.”

“
Ad lib,
as the Italian street players did in the fourteenth century. They settle on the story in advance, and present it in their own words. An intriguing idea. I might do something with it at Drury Lane when I return to London.”

“I would suggest you try this technique with some other playwright than Shakespeare. With him, the wording—the poetry—is all. Take away that and what are you left with? It would no longer be Shakespeare, but a rather mawkish, sentimental tragedy by Bandello, from whom Shakespeare stole his plot.”

“A good point. It would work better with a fair storyteller like Vanbrugh, whose language is not his forte, though it is not bad either,” he answered, then settled in quite comfortably for a chat, happy to find his companion a little knowledgeable about literary matters. Or had she been swotting up, and pretending she had no interest in the play?

“Tell me, Miss McCormack, did you happen to have the source of Shakespeare’s play at your fingertips, or have you been doing some reading since my coming?”

“I read it, just recently, in Jane’s copy of her play,” she answered, with no effort to pass herself off as a scholar. “It is very interesting. They show a sketch of the old Globe Theatre, too."

“I see. You were not totally uninterested in the play then. I wonder if I was not too easily shoved into agreeing to your terms of blackmail.”

“I was not interested in performing. It is just that everyone’s talking about it led me to read it—that’s all.”

“That usually happens. You may well find yourself studying up a little Italian to see where Bandello got his idea, or reading something of the history of the theatre. One thing leads to another. It is important to keep the cultural pot simmering, as it were. My own area of interest at the moment has to do with Shakespeare’s theatre—the actual physical building I mean. I am very much interested in duplicating a theatre such as the Globe, but I daresay they won’t agree to try it at Drury Lane.”

“Pity you had not thought of it a few years ago, when it was burned to the ground. That would have been the time to do it.”

“Very true, but then I was not with the theatre.”

“Do you—do you
work
at Drury Lane?” she asked, in some confusion as to these repeated references to it.

“I am a director, a member of the Directors’ Committee. I will occasionally select a play for presentation, or commission one, and assist at its production. I enjoy to involve myself in the arts.”

“That’s interesting.”

“I hope I do not flatter myself to feel I can offer something to the cultural life of the village.”

They were interrupted by a shout from Homberly, who was seated across the room. “Did you talk her into it? I see you have got her to stop frowning, at least.” He was in poor spirits. Altmore had got Jane’s ear, and he was forced to sit with the mother till Holly was talked round to accepting her role.

“Miss McCormack has been kind enough to take the part,” Dewar answered, with a repressive stare.

“Good. Can we go then?”

This question went unheeded, but as wine was soon being passed Homberly settled in happily enough to chew it up and pass judgement. Unhappy with the behaviour of the company, he assessed the wine to be ‘a commoner.’ Finally, Dewar outlined to Lady Proctor what arrangement of the seating he would like to prevail when he arrived on the morrow at eleven o’clock for the first reading, with all the cast assembled.

A holiday mood settled over Harknell with the beginning of the play rehearsals. This showed itself in various ways, the most common way, of course, being in conversation. Nothing else was spoken of. With so few roles for ladies, the majority of the women had to devise some other ruse to get themselves invited to Stonecroft to watch the daily proceedings. Mrs. Lacey had the excellent excuse of chaperoning her daughter, who was to be Nurse to Juliet. Mrs. Abercrombie let on she was writing up an essay on Shakespeare’s tragedies, and elected to do it in a neighbour’s saloon, where half the village was assembled, making a great deal of noise.

The less imaginative volunteered help with the costumes and prompting, till finally there was such a squeeze Sir Egbert threatened to bar the door and make them have their rehearsals in the barn. This scene got rid of all but the most persistent spectators. But on the first day only the cast met to sit in a circle around the fire and read their lines aloud, while the director jotted down notes in a black leather copy book.

Holly assumed, when Jane had twice to be urged to ‘speak up,’ that there would be a re-casting of this major role at the reading’s end. When Dewar went over to Jane for a private word later on, she was sure this was the reason, and felt sorry for her cousin, who took a strong delight in the whole business. Mr. Altmore strolled toward Holly and took up a seat beside her. By this time, of course, they were all in a fair way to calling each other by their stage names. “Lady Capulet, may I join you?” he asked, and sat down before she could do more than smile. “How did you enjoy your first brush with play-acting?”

“Very much. I am concerned about Jane, though. Her voice is so weak—I hope Dewar is not telling her she must give up the part. I’m sure her voice can be strengthened somehow.”

“Don’t worry your head on that score. He is very well pleased with Jane’s reading. I believe he is, at the moment, explaining to her how to throw her voice a little more. He has no notion of changing Juliet. Your voice will need no work. As Dewar said a moment ago, you are ready for Drury Lane today.”

“I’m sure I don’t know where I got such powerful lungs, for I don’t sing much, or use my voice beyond the normal. My papa was a preacher. Perhaps I inherited it from him.”

“Was he indeed?” Altmore asked, feeling it time to become better acquainted with these new folks he would be seeing much of. “That would explain your championing of Johnson’s cause then. Dewar wondered why it fell to your lot to lecture him into doing his duty, when Johnson himself neglected to mention it. He was a trifle put out—with himself, I mean, for not having attended to it sooner. He is a good fellow really, Dewar, but the artistic temperament—you know. He has his head full of poetry and painting, and now this play, along with the renovations at the Abbey. He will have the prettiest dairy in England. The tiles alone will cost five hundred pounds. Delft tiles from Holland.”

“That is extravagant for a dairy, is it not?”

“To us it seems extravagant, not to him. Though I think he is feeling a little foolish about the fountain to go with the tiles. We are all roasting him about it—a fancy carved statue in a dairy shed, the whole spouting water. I hate to think what he will have spent on it before he is finished. I know twenty-five hundred won’t cover it.”

He chatted on for a few moments, at the end of which Holly was in possession of all the details of His Lordship’s extravagant folly. When Altmore arose, Johnson took his place. “You will be happy to hear Lord Dewar has increased our funding at St. Alton’s,” were his first words.

“I have heard it. How much did you get?”

“An extra thousand pounds a year.”

“He is more generous with his dairy cattle.”

“It is enough. Pray don’t pester him for more. He told me you had spoken to him. I wish you had not. He found it very strange that you should do so.”

“Perhaps what he found strange was that you had
not
spoken to him, Mr. Johnson.”

“The matter is settled. We agreed on a thousand pounds earlier, you will remember.”

“Yes, I remember you said one thousand was the
minimum.”

“Well now, Lady Capulet,” he said, hastening on to happier topics, “they are saying you are the best player amongst the lot of us. Congratulations! Dewar says I have the right quality for Friar Laurence. I’m not sure what he means, truth to tell, but I daresay he refers to my calling—the church. Poor Jane will soon be relegated to a lady-in-waiting, I fear. She has no voice. Pity. Miss Lacey, I fancy, will replace her.”

This opinion was generally held. When Rex Homberly took his turn by Lady Capulet, he said, “There is no one can holler out the lines like you, Miss McCormack. You put us all to the blush. You would make a dandy Juliet. Pity Miss Proctor has no voice. Such a pretty little thing, she would make a much better ... that is to say ... younger, you know. Not to say you are ancient. Not a day over thirty, I warrant.”

“You are mistaken, Tybalt. I am thirty-nine,” she told him, with a very civil smile that hid all her anger.

“That so? Don’t look it. In a high state of preservation. Daresay it is your rusticating here forever in the country, nothing to wear a body out.” He considered this a moment, then a worried frown creased his brow. “Say—how old is Miss Proctor?” he asked.

“Only thirty-five,” she assured him gravely.

“Oh—
only
thirty-five, eh? Twenty-seven myself. Seven—eight years’ difference. Don’t look her age. By the living jingo, what a climate it is here. A body’d last forever. Must tell my mama. Very worried about her wrinkles.”

This was the end of his pleasantries. He wandered into the hallway to lift up his sword and jab at the fern that sat on a hall table. When he had dismembered several fronds it occurred to him Lady Proctor might dislike it, and he kicked them under the table.

The company finally left, after arranging the hour for meeting on the morrow. Holly immediately asked Jane if Dewar had said anything about her reading. “He complimented me on it,” Jane answered. “He said you were very good too, Cousin.”

Holly thought Dewar might have offered her a word of praise himself, as he had apparently thought well enough of her voice that he had mentioned it to everyone else. “He is going to give me lessons in projecting my voice, for it is a little too light,” Jane added.

“Private lessons? Well, well, here is a new excuse for dalliance,” Lady Proctor said, with an arch smile at her girl. “Where are these lessons to take place?”

“Here, if you will allow it, Mama.”

“Certainly. There can be no objection to it, but of course you must be chaperoned.”

“He wants me to practice singing out loud too, to teach me to throw my voice from the lungs, not the throat. That is the problem, that I don’t use my lungs,” she added. “Holly has the trick of it.”

There was no mention of Holly giving the lessons instead of Dewar coming to the house. “You see what he is about,” Lady Proctor said to her niece after Jane had taken her play to her room to study. “An excuse to be alone with her. He made up this idea of a play to look her over, and now that he has decided he likes what he sees he wishes to have some privacy without giving rise to too much speculation. I do not fear he will soon tire of her. Jane improves upon longer acquaintance. She is a bit shy at first, but will soon overcome that. My, what a crowd of people we had this morning. Quite like a party, and it will be the same every day.”

A happier affair even than the daily party, in the mother’s view, was the nightly meeting when Dewar came alone to coach her daughter in private. She elected to play chaperone herself, as a special mark of condescension, a sort of recognition that his calls were appreciated as having to do with more than voice lessons. She could not but feel, after a second evening spent in tedious, quiet listening to him actually teaching Jane to breathe and throw her voice across the room, however, that her presence had the desired effect. He was shy in front of Jane’s mother. Holly must take her place next time he came. Nobody paid any mind to Holly.