Lovers, Make Moan (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “I could! I could!”

  “You would have to take it off to wash your hair.”

  “Kings don’t wash their hair and they don’t get soap in their eyes.”

  “Neither would you if you kept your eyes shut. Anyway, we’re going to stay with Uncle Jon and Auntie Deb in the Cotswolds. Mummy said so. She said Auntie Deb must have talked Uncle Jon into having us.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “Yes, you do. There are dogs and rabbits and horses and a little donkey and geese and chickens and there’s almost sure to be a hound puppy like last time, and there’s the duck-pond and we can look for frogs and newts and those big snails Uncle Jon says you can eat, and we can dig up worms for the ducks and go into the woods and look for badger holes with the gamekeeper and find empty birds’ nests and paddle in the brook.”

  “Will Uncle Jon give me a puppy of my very own if I go?”

  “Cook says ‘them as don’t ask don’t want, and them as does ask shan’t have’, so I don’t know.”

  “Cook is mistaken in her first premise, and her second argues little faith in the efficacy of prayer,” said Simon, who had caught the end of the children’s conversation.

  “Cook says prayers are only a way of asking God for the things nobody else will give you,” said his daughter.

  “You are not to go into the kitchen and bother Cook.”

  “I didn’t. I only heard what she said to Carrie. Are we really going to have a lot of new clothes?”

  “Well, if you are going to stay with other people while we go on our second honeymoon, you must be kitted out decently, I suppose.”

  “What’s a second honeymoon?”

  “A compensation for the first one, which is hardly ever a success.”

  “Why isn’t it?”

  “The bride is nervous, the groom inadequate.”

  “Is it compensation to give us a lot of new clothes?”

  “No. It is for the sake of appearances. The compensation will be in the form of new toys. We shall take you to London to choose them for yourselves.”

  “Can we eat at a real hotel?”

  “Certainly. It will be part of the compensation.”

  “Cook says conscience doth make cowards of us all.”

  “Cook has an extraordinary faculty for hitting a nail on the head. When did she say that?”

  “It was when Carrie’s brother had to marry his young woman.”

  “I doubt whether that was a question of conscience, but we must give him the benefit of the doubt.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I cannot prove who plastered one of my best shirts with your mother’s lipstick.”

  “We were playing murders, so there had to be blood.”

  “I appreciate that and as you were having a birthday party and there were guests present, I forbore to ask any questions.”

  “Cook says you shouldn’t tell tales out of school.”

  “Nor in it, either. You remember that.”

  “So I didn’t tell you it was Bayard Thompson put the lipstick on your shirt.”

  “Well, it’s all fixed, it seems,” said Simon, a few weeks later. “There was only a fortnight unaccounted for, but the Yorkes are going to fill in in return for use of this place for the play. What’s more, the dancing-class lady, Signora Moretti, is undertaking to coach the Midsummer Dream fairies in dance and song, so Rosamund and Edmund will be in the play to that extent. I have only one misgiving. There are to be three performances and all of them in the evening. Lynn, the financier chap, is going to be Yorke’s ‘angel’, so the costumes will be lavish, the lighting professional, amplifiers hitched up among the trees and the Ladies’ Orchestra to supply the music. Heaven only knows what else he seems prepared to pay for. One thing: he can afford it.”

  “What are your misgivings?”

  “The lateness of the hour at which the performances will close. The children will be kept up until eleven at night or later.”

  “No, as a matter of fact, they won’t. I was talking to the signora when I took the children to dancing class last Saturday and she has made it a condition that the younger children will not be in the concluding scene at all. It can be played by Oberon, Titania, and Puck, with members of the Ladies’ Choral supplying the song and leaving out the last fairy dance. The small children will be released at the end of the first scene in the third act.”

  “Even then I suppose it will be long past their usual bedtime.”

  “It won’t hurt them for just three nights and they can sleep on in the mornings. It will mean a fat fee for Signora Moretti if the children appear. We can’t do her out of it. It’s not as though the play itself is something from which the children can take any harm, and they’ll adore being in it.”

  2

  Read-Through

  Is all our company here?

  —You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.

  “Cast it yourself,” said Donald Bourton. “You know what a lot of time got wasted and what ill-feeling there was when we had a casting committee last October for the Christmas play. No two members agreed about anything and the result was very nearly a fiasco. You’re producing and directing and it was you who got Lynn to put up the money. You ought to have your own way about allotting the parts.”

  “That’s all very well, but it’s not so easy to take matters into one’s own hands with an amateur cast. With professionals you can say take it or leave it, but with people who are doing it for free, and with all the vested interests lined up against you, it’s not so simple. At least to have a committee does spread the load.”

  “And mucks up the production. Anyway, it seems to me that this time there is only one vested interest to consider, and that’s Lynn himself. I take it that he’s not financing us purely out of the goodness of his heart.”

  “No. He expects fat parts for himself, his wife, and, to a lesser degree because the boy is doing his A-levels this year, something for his son.”

  “Oh, well, he who pays the piper calls the tune. You’ll have to guide his choice a bit, that’s all.”

  “It’s all very well to talk. He’s short and stout, as you know, and will probably want to play one of the lovers. He’s already bespoken a part for his spouse. He’s read the play and thinks she would make a good Hermia. I wanted your Barbara for that.”

  “Cast Barbara as Helena and have the audience wondering why both the men wanted Hermia when Helena was in their midst. Barbara won’t mind what part she plays, so long as Lynn pays her. She is a professional, you know.”

  “Well, perhaps the read-through will settle a few things, although I doubt it. People always have such inflated ideas of what they can do on the stage.”

  “I hate to mention it, but do I get a look-in anywhere?”

  “So far as I’m concerned, you can have your pick of Lysander or Demetrius, unless Lynn picks one of them for himself. We must do our best to head him off if he does. There’s another thing which makes the casting a bit of a problem. Shakespeare, for obvious reasons, used as few women as he could, whereas in our lot we have far more women than men. In The Dream there are only four women’s parts and we haven’t enough men for the rest. We shall have to cast a woman as Oberon, I think, and perhaps for Egeus, Philostrate, and one or two of the workmen.”

  “Whoever plays Quince—and you must have a man for that, I think—could double as Egeus. They never appear together, and a girl could play Philostrate as a sort of glorified court page, couldn’t she?”

  “Well, yes, and there’s Robina Lester for one of the workmen.”

  “Yes, and a woman could do Flute. After all, Flute does take the part of Thisbe in the workmen’s play and it’s implicit in the text that he was little more than a boy. Doesn’t he say he has a beard coming? If it’s only coming (but not come), he can’t be more than about seventeen or so.”

  “You know, I think I will cast it myself, once I know whi
ch parts Lynn has got his eye on for himself and his wife and son.”

  “Well, if Emma Lynn, poor lost soul, wants to be Hermia, I shall opt for Demetrius. I’m hanged if I’m going to play Lysander opposite her.”

  It turned out that Marcus Lynn had chosen Quince the Carpenter for himself and Hermia for Emma. He was frank about it.

  “I’m not cut out for a lover. Anyway, I want a bossy part. I’m a bossy man. I’d have liked to play Bottom the Weaver, but there would be obvious jokes if my workers got to hear of it, my figure being such as it is, and that’s not good for discipline. I want Emma to show up well, and I guess Hermia is just about the best woman’s part. As for the lad, almost anything will do for him, the smaller the better. He’s got his A-levels coming up.”

  The read-through was held at Brian Yorke’s house, which was in the old part of the town near the quay. It was family property which he had inherited from his father and was a well-built Georgian house fronting on to the high street, but having a pleasant garden at the back. Here the children who had small speaking parts were sent out to amuse themselves, including Yorke’s nine-year-old daughter, who was put in charge of the younger ones, Rosamund, Edmund and two tiny creatures, all white teeth and smiles, the coffee-coloured progeny of Doctor Fitzroy and his wife. These two highly-qualified local practitioners were descended from French settlers in Mauritius and their sons rejoiced in the names of Ganymede and Lucien Fitzroy-Delahague.

  Inside the house the adults were assembled in a well-proportioned, gracious room in which the furniture was a trifle shabby but was comfortable enough and where the high windows looked out on to one of the town alleys in which its houses had once been lodgings for sailors whose ships paid off at the port.

  The doctor’s wife, Jeanne-Marie, lighter in colour than her children and very beautiful, had been cast as Oberon, but, having dumped her offspring, she apologised for not staying, explaining that she and her husband (they were partners) had a heavy surgery and that she would pick up the children later, so Deborah, who had brought Rosamund and Edmund with her, was called upon to read the part.

  Emma Lynn, obviously years younger than her husband but equally obviously under his domination, struggled valiantly with Hermia’s lines but was completely overshadowed by Barbara Bourton’s reading of Helena. (“Call you me fair?—that fair again unsay!”) The frustration, the bitterness, the longing were all there. Barbara was a professional actress of some note and was, as she expressed it, “between shows” until the autumn. For that reason she was available to take part in The Dream.

  At a pause in the reading Marcus Lynn said, “I’m having entirely new costumes for the play. I read how Queen Elizabeth I used to delight in dressing up her boy actors in silks and velvet and jewels, so I thought we’d have a ball. I’m expecting the costumiers along about now to measure up for the principal parts, and then, as soon as the final casting is settled, they can get busy. It’s a biggish cast, so they’ll have plenty to do.”

  “That is probably them now,” said Brian.

  The measuring and note-taking were soon done, but before the rehearsal was resumed Lynn said, “And I want everything as authentic as possible so, although I shan’t release them until the dress rehearsal—they’re valuable and some are irreplaceable, if you’ll forgive my mentioning it—I thought the men might like to look over my collection of swords and daggers and get their eye on one they might fancy wearing. Come along to my house at any time. If I’m not there Emma will show them to you. I’ve brought along one I’m going to have copied, because, of course, there’s one dagger which certainly won’t be for real, and that’s the one Pyramus uses in the workmen’s play when he’s supposed to stab himself.”

  “He does that by sticking the dagger under his armpit, I thought,” said Tom Woolidge, “so it doesn’t need a special dagger, does it?”

  “Oh, the dagger Pyramus—that’s you, Rinkley—will use will look like the real thing, but it will have a retractable blade. That under-the-arm stuff is very unrealistic.”

  “The whole of the workmen’s play is unrealistic. It’s pure farce,” said Robina Lester.

  “All the same, to use a real dagger might be dangerous. We shall be out of doors and under floodlighting, remember,” said Brian Yorke, “and if Pyramus or Thisbe—they both commit suicide—were to make a boss shot, the consequences might be serious.”

  “When do I get the retractable dagger to practise with?” asked Rinkley.

  “Oh, I’ve put it in hand already,” Marcus Lynn replied.

  “I’ll need it to rehearse with, too,” said young Susan Hythe. “I’m supposed to draw it out of him and stick it in myself, and practice makes perfect. I think it would be funniest if I put my foot on his chest while he’s lying there supposed to be dead, and made a sort of a terrific heave and fell over backwards, don’t you? I mean, we’ve got to play for laughs, haven’t we?”

  “Not your laughs at my expense,” said Rinkley. “You kindly remember that I’m the centre-piece of those workmen’s scenes, not you.”

  “Oh, it’s too soon to talk of ‘business’ yet,” said Brian Yorke. “We’ll see how it goes in rehearsal when everybody knows the lines.”

  Yorke, who had cast himself as Theseus, took his readers only to the end of the second act. This gave everybody a chance to speak and included the children, but before the party broke up and when drinks had been provided, Emma Lynn came over to Deborah and said, “Will you take on my part as Hermia?”

  “Good Lord, no! Of course I won’t. Why?”

  “I’m a mess. I didn’t want to be in the play, anyway, only my husband was so keen on it. He’s really putting it on for me, you know, but I can’t act.”

  “You’ll be all right when we start rehearsing. This was only a read-through. It didn’t mean a thing.”

  “You ought to have a better part.”

  “I’ve got the one I opted for. I’m going to be Wall in the workmen’s play. I was only a stand-in tonight. At college they would always cast me as Desdemona or Ophelia and in my third year I was St. Joan and most unconvincing.”

  “It meant you can act, though. I can’t act and I can’t make anybody want to listen to me when I speak, and I couldn’t make any actor pretend to fall in love with me, however much I tried.”

  “Oh, nonsense!” said Deborah. “Your husband certainly wouldn’t agree.”

  “Oh, Marcus fell in love with my money, not with me.”

  Deborah tried not to look as embarrassed as she felt and, to relieve the situation, she said impulsively,

  “Look here, I’ll tell you what. I used to lecture in Eng. lit. before I married, and I know The Dream backwards. If you’ve got any free afternoons, why don’t you come along to our place and I’ll read your cues for you so that you really soak up the part and make it your own? We’ll do it indoors first and then have a go in the garden so that you get used to speaking in the open air. Even with amplifiers it’s quite different from playing a scene indoors, I always think.”

  “What about your husband?”

  “He can take the children down to the beach or somewhere. Jonathan isn’t any problem.”

  “‘How happy some o’er other some can be,’” said Emma, with an effort to produce a smile. “I’d be better as Helena than as Hermia, if I’ve got to be one of them, especially now I’ve heard Mrs. Bourton read the part.”

  “Well, swop over parts. Look, Mrs. Bourton is just being helped on with her coat. Helena would suit you better. Come on, let’s see how she reacts and then we can tell Mr. Yorke. I don’t suppose he’ll have any objection, so long as you and she are satisfied.”

  “Well, it’s up to you, I suppose,” said Marcus Lynn, “though I would have liked to see you in the plummier part. After all, I am standing Sam for this do.”

  “Well, you know, Marcus, I really couldn’t do Hermia, but Mrs. Bradley thinks I will be quite all right as Helena. She says I’ve got the ‘feel’ of the part already. She’s been wonderful
, the way she’s helping me.”

  “That’s another thing. If she’s coaching you she’ll expect to be paid. Well, I don’t grudge it. You’d better find out what the figure is.”

  “Oh, Marcus, she said nothing about coaching me. Besides, I couldn’t mention money to her! She’s a lady.”

  “Oh, well—”

  “And I do hope you won’t mention it, either. She would be so offended that she might stop helping me. In fact, I know she would. You can’t offer those sort of people money.”

  “Not my experience of the world, but have it your own way. I suppose I can always give her a thumping present after the show. Probably cost more than paying her, but I expect I can shoulder the overheads.”

  “Thank you, Marcus. You are very kind-hearted. The only thing is—”

  “Well?”

  “I don’t think she would like an expensive present, either, and perhaps her husband wouldn’t like you to give her one. It might—well—suggest something to him, don’t you think, you being a man?”

  “Well,” said Marcus again, looking in the mirror and smirking as he straightened his tie, “there could be that, I suppose.”

  “She’s so beautiful, you see,” said Emma wistfully. “Anybody could be excused for—well, you know.”

  “There’s one fellow who wouldn’t be excused—not, at any rate, by Bradley (God help us, what a gorilla!) and that’s Rinkley.”

  “Oh, dear, yes!” said Emma, grateful to get away from the subject of emoluments or presents to Deborah. “It was quite frightening, wasn’t it?”

  “Oh, any red-blooded chap would have done the same,” said Marcus, trying to make himself look taller and slimmer than nature had allowed for, “and Rinkley had better watch his step. If he tries any of his antics on Madam Dr. Fitzroy-Delahague, that husband of hers will put a knife in his ribs, Hippocratic Oath notwithstanding.”

  “Oh, Dr. Jeanne-Marie Delahague has turned down the part. Says that a doctor’s hours are so uncertain that at the last minute she might have to let us all down. Her husband agrees, but the two little boys are to stay in as elves and Deborah Bradley has promised to look after them and to put them to bed in her house after each performance, so that nobody need come and take them home.”