“Then we are without a Demeter for our play!”Clemmy cried.
“That would seem so,” Sir P. said, and peereddown the table, now littered with the flotsam of the meal and itsaftermath, at his lady hostess.
“And you have no other handsome younggentleman about town who might step into his boots?” Lady Mad saidwith a helpless, beseeching look at the male members of the club, agesture that made their hearts lurch.
“I could twist Phineas Burke’s arm,” Duttonsaid. “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’smagic realm. “For the nonce, may I suggest that you leave hisreplacement up to me. For this evening I am quite happy to read mypart and young Langford’s as well.”
“But, Milord, my Cyrus could take onDemeter’s part,” Clemmy said in a trembling, brave voice. “I don’tthink it’s proper fer a gentleman who owns a candle factory an’keeps three servants to be playin’ an ill-littered weaverwith donkey ears stickin’ outta his head.”
Sir P. registered shock – at the boldness ofthe interruption itself, at its being uttered by a female, at theimpropriety of its sentiment, and at the outrageous malapropism inits predicate. But he recovered adroitly. “I did not realize, mydear Clementine, that Cyrus was dissatisfied with his assignedrole.”
Cyrus, of course, had been duly insulted atthe assignment and had done his damnedest to mangle the part lastnight at the club. But in rehearsing his lines with the assistanceof his wife this afternoon, he discovered that he had severalintimate scenes with the Queen of the Fairies, and when he laterlaid eyes upon the handsome lady who would be playing Titania, allthoughts of rebellion had vanished. Unfortunately, he had expressedhis feelings of outrage too forcefully to Clemmy before they hadbegun their rehearsal, and could not think now of a way to retractthem.
“It’s nothing to make a fuss over,” he saidlamely.
“But Cyrus’s daddy was a hero at the Battleof Moraviantown!” Clemmy carried on, taking such a deep breath thatshe almost popped her overtaxed stays.
“So I gather,” Sir P. said. “Some sort ofWaterloo 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 thedirector.
“Then why not let Mr. Crenshaw playDemetrius, Perry?” said Lady Mad. “It should be easier to find aweaver than a dashing lover.” And she darted a brown-eyed glance atthe scion of Moraviantown’s martyr.
Cyrus reddened, unsure whether he ought to beflattered at her intervention on his behalf or disappointed thatshe would so readily forgo the love scenes promised them in thescript. He had no choice but to reply, “Thank you, Milady. I’d behonoured to play Demetrius, if you feel I am worthy of therole.”
“Then that’s settled,” the lady said. “SirP., 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 approachOgden Frank and ask whether one of his troupe would deign to joinus – 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, whoas Titania would have to bear the brunt of any such commonness. Sheacknowledged his concern with a dip of her tiny chin and a prettyblink of the bold, brown eyes. He was compelled to look down, andhis look stayed there, somewhere in the region of herdécolletage.
“But that sort of person might prove to beeminently suitable for the role of Bottom the weaver,” Sir P. saidsmoothly. “And my lady is a supreme actress: I’ve seen her makemore than one silk purse out of an ass’s ears.”
He invited the guests to share in thiswitticism, and they obliged. Lady Mad was not amused.
***
The actors reassembled in the ‘theatre’ at thetemporary table set up by the Shuttleworth servants – after afifteen-minute break in which the men repaired to the adjoiningden-smoker and the ladies to the adjoining powder-room. ClemmyCrenshaw’s corsets had gone awry during her visit to thewater-closet, and Lady Mad’s maid had to be sent for to assist inthe ensuing readjustment. Lady Mad herself brought the distraughtvictim back into the theatre and graciously seated her.
“A woman’s difficulty,” she smiled at thegentlemen. “All taken care of.”
None of the gentlemen wishing further detailsabout the matter, Sir P. called his actors to order. To his leftsat Lizzie Wade, who had materialized without warning or noticefrom the sealed half of the manor. Sir P. introduced her andreminded the group that she would be playing Helena. She certainlylooked the part of a teenaged inamorata: a sixteen-year-old nymphof a girl with silken tresses of a strawberry hue and a burgeoningfigure nowhere near its final bloom. Lizzie dropped her blue eyesat the mention of her name.
The first read-through of The DreamSequence (as Sir P. now designated their production) was not anunalloyed success. The opening scene, where Oberon and Titania maketheir entrance and exchange barbs, went well enough. HoraceFullarton as Oberon delivered his lines not only with due attentionto the verse and dramatic flow but with much spirited feeling. AndLady Mad as the proud and beautiful Titania returned his words inkind:
Oberon: Ill met by moonlight, proudTitania.
Titania: What, jealous, Oberon? [tofairies] Skip hence,
I have forsworn his bed and company.
Oberon: Tarry, rash woman, am I notthy lord?
When Titania sweeps off with her train, Oberon andPuck take stage-centre. And here matters began to unravel. Sir P.delivered his lines as Puck in a voice threatening either todisintegrate or soar beyond falsetto. As a natural tenor, such anattempt by the baronet to sound youthful and puckish was hardlynecessary.
“Perhaps a little more from the diaphragm andless from the glottis,” Lady Mad suggested when one of Puck’sphrases had side-slipped into a squeak.
Sir P. smiled daggers at her, but dropped hisvoice an octave – with better results. Still, when he declaimed“I’ll put a girdle round about the earth / In forty minutes,” nomodulation of the voice could seduce an audience into believingthat the plump-cheeked, thick-waisted gentleman with spindle-legscould achieve such a feat in forty days. No-one was impoliteenough to say so, however.
Crenshaw as Demetrius then got his chance asthe dashing lover being importuned by the nubile Helena. He made aself-conscious effort to begin each speech slowly, but could notstop the gradual acceleration of his pace, which left himpanting and bug-eyed, and the meaning to fend for itself.Lizzie, it turned out, was an accomplished reader and reciter ofverse. And despite the overheated distractions of Demetrius, shemanaged a touching performance as the Athenian maiden in hopelesspursuit of a youth who claims to be in love with her friend Hermia.Her sole difficulty was a tendency to stammer whenever she becamenervous (a state induced only when her Uncle Peregrine attempted tooffer her needless directorial advice, which was, alas, quiteoften).
From speed-reading and stammering, therehearsal went downhill. Andrew Dutton continued his forensic,foghorn rendering of Lysander as he sets out to woo the skittishHermia. Clemmy Crenshaw, who had been growing more anxious witheach passing pentameter, was compelled to call upon her long-ago,finishing-school experience as a source of inspiration, andproceeded to pronounce the Bard’s iambic verse in a singsongfashion so exaggerated it might have served as accompaniment to ajig.
The mechanics’ parts had been excised, exceptfor Bottom the weaver, and Sir P., having offered to stand in forthe latter, went at the role with gusto – in a commoner’s accent noCockney would have recognized as English. Thus it was that theinitial read-through staggered to a grim halt some fifty minuteslater. By this time Sir. P. looked as if he had beenmartyred at the Battle of Moraviantown, but he continued to smileand proclaim that satisfactory progress was being made. Towards theend, however, he kept glancing at the hall door, where Chivers wasexpected to appear with a tea-trolley and refreshments.