by Smith, Joan
“A nine days’ wonder. You are to be congratulated.”
“The congratulations are not owing to me,” he answered, mistrusting her tone.
“I disagree. You deserve some credit for having bent the whole village to your will.”
“With one or two exceptions,” he answered mildly.
“I have been wondering when my turn for extravagant praise is to come. Don’t forget to tell me what an exquisite stitch I set, or I shall be out of reason disappointed. It is past time we, meaning I, began the costumes, is it not?”
“You will have ample help. The ladies have been showing me materials and designs for approval, and can stitch their own costumes.”
“That leaves several gentlemen’s outfits to be made. If the costumes are to be as elaborate as the sets, it is time we were working on them,” she persisted. “I do hope it is yourself who has been studying the period style, for you did not ask me to do it, and I have really very little notion what sort of outfits would suit. We would not want to dress Juliet in a spencer if togas were the fashion of the day.”
“Togas were never the style for ladies,” he pointed out. “Only men wore them. The toga virilis was adopted as a symbol of a fellow’s having achieved manhood, at fourteen or so.”
“I stand corrected,” she answered, with no humility, but rather an angry sparkle from her eyes. It was irksome that Dewar seemed to consider himself an authority on everything.
“Shakespeare himself was not overly precise about such items,” he consoled her. “He seldom bothered with period dress. Caesar, you recall, enters in his nightshirt, and Cleopatra has Charmian cut the laces of what must have been her corsets.”
“Still, I don’t imagine Mr. Altmore will be wearing his jacket of Bath cloth, nor Mr. Homberly his large brass-buttoned jacket. I would like to know what has to be done as soon as possible.”
“I have a cousin who is considered an expert in these matters. He was to arrive last week, but was detained in London. He is to bring sketches and some materials with him. I shall bring him to confer with you as soon as he arrives.”
Miss McCormack brightened at this speech. She had had no luck in attracting Mr. Altmore’s attention. He had joined Jane’s court of admirers, where he daily jostled with Dewar, Foxworth, and Homberly for her favours. Miss Lacey was having as bad luck as herself. Another cousin to Dewar, one who would come to confer with herself, sounded decidedly hopeful. “What is his name?” she asked.
“Sir Swithin Idle, but he is not at all well named. Swith keeps himself very busy.”
“At designing stage costumes?” she asked, fearing he would turn out another dilettante.
“At everything,” was the comprehensive reply. “He is remarkably adept in so many fields one hesitates to label him. Pleasing the ladies is not the least of his accomplishments either,” he added, with a little smile that sent her hopes soaring. “You will like him, I think.”
She disliked to ask outright whether he were a bachelor, but the description sounded very much like it. “Does Lady Idle come with him? I was just wondering, you know, whether I might have another pair of fingers to help with the sewing.”
“Swithin is a bachelor. A very eligible bachelor,” he added, with no particular emphasis, but a quick look to read her response.
“Pity,” she said, concealing her joy.
“You have some aversion to the breed, do you?”
“Oh no, they make the best husbands, one hears.”
“If you have designs on him, I hope you will not begin turning his head till we have the costumes in hand, on paper at least. Swithin is no good once he starts falling in love. I hope you will treat him with all the disdain you heap on me. Speaking of which...” He paused a moment while he fixed her with a sapient eye, then said, “How did you enjoy the service on Sunday? Friar Laurence did rather well, I thought.”
“I noticed you were at church, Lord Dewar. Am I to congratulate you on so ordinary an occurrence?”
“No, on my obedience. I was not only there, but Friar Laurence was here for luncheon as well. We have arranged for a man to come over from town to clamber up on the roof and see how big the holes are. If he tumbles off and breaks his head in the process, we shall lay it in your dish.”
“If he does not break his head, will the credit also be put in my dish? I am willing to accept full responsibility, if that is the case.”
“Welcome to it. You wouldn’t care to take the responsibility for the bill while you are about it, I suppose? No, I didn’t think so.”
“If you are feeling the pinch, you could postpone the fountain you are importing from Italy for your dairy,” she said reasonably.
“You have been misinformed. I sponsor English artists, though the design perhaps owes something to Italy.”
“It seems a shame to go to so much trouble only for cows. Why do you not put it in your garden?”
“There are fountains in the garden already,” was the answer. “My dairy girls will appreciate it, as well as the cows. Beauty is important. It has a civilizing influence on mankind. Ladies, and gentlemen too, act better when they are in decent surroundings, and dressed up in their prettiest outfits. They try to live up to their costumes, I suppose.”
She was suddenly very aware of her own clothing, on which she never spent a thought but to see it was clean and decent. “You must have Sir Swithin design your dairy girls an outfit while he is with you,” she said, as though bored with the whole subject.
“An excellent idea. Blue, to match the Delft tiles. Tell me, have you any more derelictions of duty to point out to me? If not, I shall speak to Lady Montague. I have just discovered a footman who is a perfect clown. She will be able to use him in our post-drâme comedy routine. He falls well, and can somersault divinely.”
“He sounds a perfectly accomplished fellow. Before you go, one other item does occur to me....”
“How much is it going to cost me?” he asked, taking a deep breath.
“It is not a matter of money,”
“There’s a change. Well, spit it out,” he urged, with a peculiar little half smile on his face. She noticed that he had sunk from his usually elegant, mannered speech into an utterance that had very much the sound of Rex Homberly to it. “What’s the matter? What are you looking at?” he asked, noticing her frown.
“Nothing. What I meant to tell—ask you—is whether something could not be done about Arthur Evans—one of your tenants.”
“The name is familiar to me. I do know some of my own people, particularly those who have been with me a long lime. I even suspect what matter you have in mind. It is the business of a footpath through his rose garden?”
“Rose garden?” she asked, staring. “I would not call one faded tea rose and a patch of weeds a rose garden. He is the most stubborn man in the county. The whole party who come here to rehearse each day must go a mile out of their way because Mr. Evans refuses to let us use the footpath through his meadow. One corner of it does hold the tea rose, to be sure, and his cattle graze in the rest, but a roadway exists, and was always used, till three years ago. Then he suddenly went mad and took a gun to Sam Needles one day when he was scooting home from poaching in your woods. Since that time, hundreds of people have been inconvenienced from fear of being shot at. It is bad enough for those with a mount or carriage but, for pedestrians, a mile’s extra walking is a considerable disadvantage. Especially in winter.”
“Do you know why he did this, shot the fellow?”
“Because he is not allowed to shoot game, I have heard.”
“Again, why?”
“You have consistently refused to lease him the measly acres he requires to qualify under the Game Laws. If a man leases, his lease must be worth one hundred and fifty pounds a year to qualify, and he is five acres short of it. You must have five idle acres you can let him lease.”
“Is the man actually insane?”
“To tell the truth, I think he has gone a little crazy, though he con
tinues running his farm in a sane enough manner, and that’s all Mr. Roots cares for. Evans has made so many enemies that no one much talks to him.”
“I am expected to approach this lunatic and demand he open up the road, am I?” he asked.
“He will hardly dare to shoot you.”
“Lunatics don’t much care where they point their guns.”
“If he is violent, then he must be put under restraint. It is your place...”
“I thought it would be,” he said with a resigned sigh, and turned aside to accost Mrs. Raymond as she walked past.
The troupe of players was soon on the stage, while the audience sat below, craning their necks up to see what they could of the goings-on. There was later a loud harangue by the director, who was not pleased with their reading their speeches, when they should have at least the first act by heart. Jane was particularly shy when she looked into the upturned faces, and could hardly bring herself to mumble, after all her lessons in projection.
Dewar’s French chef did not deign to perform for such a motley crew of provincials, but Lady Dewar’s own cook, Meg Appleby, made coffee and sandwiches and plum cake, which were as well received as gourmet fare by the undemanding actors.
Altmore strolled up to Dewar and said in a quiet voice, “Do you really think Jane will do for this role, Dew?”
“Do?” he asked, astonished. “My dear fellow, she is perfect for the part. She is the very essence, the soul of Juliet. So young, so beautiful and shy, with a soft, vulnerable quality, yet with some strength behind it to make her suicide credible. The voice needs more work, but I was never so enraptured with anyone as I am with Jane’s Juliet. It is far and away the best thing in this play. Not to belittle you, my dear chap. You are an excellent Romeo too, but then you are half professional. You no longer require praise heaped on your head.”
“It is just that her voice is very small, and she doesn’t always remember her lines either, or where she should be on stage.”
“That light voice is a part of what makes her performance so riveting. It will be tricky to increase it enough without losing the softness. The refectory hall is not large. She doesn’t have to fill Drury Lane. She would never do in the real theatre but for this experiment in intimate theatre I am undertaking here her uncertainty is an advantage. Lady Capulet is a good foil for her too. Miss McCormack is more sure of herself, more forceful and everyday, down-to-earth. An excellent contrast to Jane’s more timid quality. As to her forgetting her lines occasionally, I am ready to tolerate even that. It adds to her wistfulness, that helpless quality I am striving for.
"The scene where she is forced to have Count Paris, for instance! The audience will all be cheering her on without realizing they are doing it, or why they are doing it, at least. It will compound the tragedy when she finally kills herself. There will be plentiful tears in the hall, I promise you, including my own.”
“What can I do to bring out this effect you want?” Altmore asked.
“You do well now, Romeo. Just be madly in love with her. Who could be otherwise?”
“I might have known!” Altmore laughed. “You can never put on a play without falling in love with your leading lady, can you?”
“My dear fellow, that is half the charm of it!” Dewar replied, with a fond glance across the room to Juliet.
* * *
Chapter 10
Miss McCormack had had such good luck in bending Dewar to her bidding that she sat in hourly expectation of hearing the short cut through Evan’s pasture was open to traffic. They arrived back at Stonecroft at four. Dewar, content that his Juliet was learning to project her voice, had absolved himself of further duty in her exercises, and assigned the task to Holly.
It was a blow to Lady Proctor that the evening visits were ended, but she was fairly sure he would find some other excuse to present himself in her saloon. She held herself every bit as much ready as Miss McCormack to receive him. When the knocker sounded at eight-thirty there was a bustling of putting away the orphans’ shirts by Holly, of straightening her lace collar and tidying her skirts by the mother, and of smiling with anticipation by Jane. The excited shouts in the hallway told them their caller was not Dewar, but Mr. Homberly.
"That pest of a fellow. I hope he has left his sword at home,” Lady Proctor said. “He has mangled my best fern; it will take eons to recover,”
“Tried to kill me, by Jove!” he was shouting. “Call a sawbones, quick! Bleeding to death!”
This stark pronouncement soon had the three ladies in the hallway, where there was no evidence of blood, but a good deal of embarrassment. Rex stood, red-faced, with both hands clutching at the seat of his trousers, while his blue eyes popped in mute horror. “Oh—evening, Lady Proctor, ladies,” he said, with a quick nod of his head. “Fool of a fellow took a shot at me. Afraid he might have killed me. Ought to be in Bedlam. Crazy lunatic.”
“Mr. Homberly, are you hurt?” Jane asked, running forward.
“No!” He leapt away, backing towards the door. “That is—only a scratch.”
“But where were you hit? I don’t see any blood,” she insisted, searching him from head to toe.
“Who shot at you?” Lady Proctor asked, seeing with relief that there was no sword in evidence this evening.
“Silly old fool who lives in that cottage a mile down the road. Took the short cut from the Abbey; out he comes with a gun, makes me dismount. No sooner turned my back on him than he discharged his shotgun on me.”
“Were you hit?” Jane asked, still seeing no evidence of his wounds.
“Certainly was! That is,” he added, again clutching the seat of his trousers, “heh, heh—only a graze. Still, dashed uncomfortable. Wish you would call a sawbones.”
Holly had figured out the nature of his problem and took the matter in hand, shepherding the ladies back into the saloon while the butler shouted for footmen, for a message to be sent to the doctor, for water and basilicum powder, and for a bed to be prepared.
“Pair of Sir Egbert’s trousers, if he can spare 'em,” Rex added.
“You had better go to bed and spend the night here, Mr. Homberly,” Holly suggested.
“I wouldn’t like to ... that is ... not a bad idea, actually,” he said, changing his tack as the possibilities this would present for throwing himself into Jane’s path occurred to him.
“Shall I send a note up to the Abbey?” Holly asked him.
“Sorry to put you to so much trouble. Daresay they won’t miss me. Roper, my valet, will worry.”
“I’ll let them know where you are.”
Lady Proctor sighed in exasperation when she heard the plan, but was soon back in smiles. Dewar would naturally come down to see how his cousin progressed. Before Dewar arrived, however, Mr. Homberly’s valet was on the scene, bearing a valise that held enough garments for a week. The doctor was taken abovestairs to attend to the victim while Holly, satisfied that the wounds were not serious, foresaw the attack could be put to good use in bringing pressure to bear on Dewar to settle once for all the matter of Mr. Evans.
It was just above an hour when Dewar finally arrived. “I am most dreadfully sorry to have imposed on you in this way,” he told Lady Proctor.
“Not at all. What are friends for?” she asked merrily, after having complained for fifty of the sixty minutes while she was uncertain he would come. “We are happy to be of service.”
“How is he?” was the next question.
“The doctor is not down yet, but the servants tell us it is not at all serious. Old Evans has run completely mad, and must be restrained before he kills someone,” Lady Proctor said, indicating a seat by the fireside for her guest.
“I’d like to run up and see Rex,” Dewar said, and was graciously given permission.
Dr. John was soon down, explaining that Homberly’s valet would see to his needs. “A few days’ rest. He will recover quickly—just surface wounds. You will not long have him here,” he promised. “Let him remain overnight,
and by tomorrow he can be moved, but in a carriage. He will not be able to ride for a week or so.”
Dewar wasted very few moments upstairs. “He’ll live,” was his unsympathetic pronouncement when he came down. “If the gudgeon hadn’t popped back on his horse and ridden here, he would be in a lot less pain. The worst thing he could have done, but then Rex hardly realizes he has a pair of legs. He rides everywhere, and dislikes even to dismount to come to the table.”
“I’ll run up and see if he needs anything. Is he able to see me?” Holly asked.
“Yes,” Dewar answered briefly, regarding her with a self-conscious expression. “Then you will come down and see me. I hope the doctor has not left! I have an inkling I will have need of him.”
“Perhaps now you will do something about it,” she replied as she swept past him.
“You may be very sure I have! I would not have dared to show my face otherwise. I spoke to Evans on my way here.”
She found Rex propped up in bed, hoisting a glass of wine to his lips. About his shoulders rested a housecoat of iridescent satin, in hues of peacock, black, and rose. The fringed tassel of the tie was being applied to his lips, in lieu of a napkin.
“Oh, Miss McCormack,” he exclaimed, peering behind her shoulder to see if, by any chance, Jane was hiding there. “Dashed rig to run into. How am I to duel with Foxey in this state?”
“The doctor says you will soon be up and about.”
“Don’t know about that. Think I may have to batten myself on you for a couple of weeks,” he said happily, and snuggled down into the sheets. “Er—if Miss Proctor is wondering, I can receive visitors. Didn’t take no laudanum. Couple of glasses of ale will put me to sleep right and tight. Or wine.”
“I hope you are not suffering too much. So very unfortunate.”
“Little pain ... heh heh. Well, well—all been very kind. Very kind indeed. Won’t be a bit of bother to you. Roper will take care of me. I like steak for breakfast, with fried murphies. Roper knows just how I like ‘em. If Miss Proctor enquires, you can tell her I am fine. Ain’t going to stick my fork in the wall by a long shot. Will she be coming up?”