Across the street Cobb noticed that Marc wasstill up in Briar Cottage. He had nothing concrete to report, butthe possibilities had increased dramatically.
TWELVE
The Legislature was set to open on the firstMonday in November, and Brodie’s trial on the following Thursday.Marc made sure he spent at least one hour a day with Brodie atHarlem Place, not because he had anything yet to tell him about theplan for his defense, but because he wanted to keep the lad fromfalling into a depression. Marc encouraged Brodie to talk about theman they had both admired, Doubtful Dick Dougherty, and Brodieresponded enthusiastically. He reminisced quite happily aboutDick’s famous and infamous trials – what he knew of them as hewatched and listened in the sanctuary of his boyhood home and whathe learned later by secretly reading the old New York newspapersstored in a nearby room. Diana Ramsay, of course, wanted to visithim as well, but Brodie, fearing for her reputation, forbade her tocome. Instead, the lovers corresponded by letter, twice daily.
When not cheering up his client or playingwith Maggie at Briar Cottage, Marc spent his time in the service ofthe Durhamites. Robert Baldwin’s stratagem of winning over themoderate conservatives in the Assembly by feeding Governor Thomsonthe arguments he would need to do the actual persuading was workingbetter than anyone had anticipated. As opening day approached, itlooked as if there would be fewer than a dozen dedicated Toriesleft to vote against the union in the form desired by the Governorand the Whig administration back in London. However, the hardlinerswere expected to mount an indirect challenge by offering amendmentsthat would in fact gut the main bill itself. Hence, Robert, hisfather, Marc, Francis Hincks and other Reformers continued to meetquietly with individual MLAs as they arrived in town in a concertedeffort to keep the temporary coalition shored up. Having the Reformparty itself keep a low profile while Governor Thomson did thearm-twisting and blandishing was paying huge dividends so far.Still, the entire enterprise was as fragile as a house ofcards.
***
The rehearsal on Saturday evening began right onschedule. As promised, the director called on stage only thoseinvolved in the particular scene to be worked on. The blocking andthe delivery of lines (script in-hand, still) was patientlymonitored by Sir P., with interruptions that he presumed to bewarranted and judicious, though they were not always accepted inthat spirit. As Cobb’s first scene was forty or fifty minutes away,he asked if he might begin painting the flats. So, while theCrenshaws, as Demetrius and Hermia, continued to flounder andsquabble, on stage and off, and fray the sweet temper of theirdirector, Cobb was supplied with bottles of paint and brushes byMullins the gardener from a stock located, Cobb assumed, in thesummer kitchen some distance away. As Mullins communicatedexclusively in grunts, punctuated by the occasional monosyllable,Cobb was not quite sure where that room was, but he did understandthat, from now on, he was on his own. Which suited him justfine.
Donning a plasterer’s smock that dropped tohis knees, he set the flats up against the inner wall near thecurtained-off wing to the right of the stage, in which Sir P. hadhad Mullins place four comfortable chairs upon which the actors “oncall,” as it were, could sit and converse quietly. As Sir P. hadboasted to Cobb, his talented lady had sketched several backdropscenes to suggest various parts of the magical forest: mostly bushytrees, dark starlit skies, a cloud-besieged moon, a brown boulderor two, and one flowering shrub. He began with the sky, of whichthere was plenty. As he daubed slowly away at this task, he wasable, off and on over the course of the next hour, to eavesdrop ona number of nearby conversations.
Thus:
Clemmy: I still can’t understand whySir P. would ask a common peeler to Oakwood Manor. He might aswell’ve asked the gardener!
Dutton: I think there’s a lot more toCobb than meets the eye.
Clemmy: He looks perfectly stupid tome. Cyrus an’ me didn’t join this silly play-business to concertwith the likes of him. My husband’s daddy was a war hero, youknow.
Dutton: He’s learned all of hislines.
Clemmy (indignant): He had a headstart!
Dutton: And he’s quite comical, youmust admit.
Clemmy: With that nose, who wouldn’tbe?
And:
Crenshaw: I’m beginning to regret Iever suggested this play to you. You’re embarrassing me in front ofthe very people we’re hopin’ to impress.
Clemmy: We’re every bit as good asthey are!
Crenshaw: Of course we are. But Idon’t get invited to Bishop Strachan’s for dinner once a month, doI?
Clemmy: Just because he’s got a titlean’ oodles of cash.
Crenshaw: And donated a good chunk ofit to the vicarage restoration fund.
Clemmy (after a pause): I just wishyou’d keep yer eyes offa that creature!
Crenshaw: I told you to quit harpin’on that. It’s a dead horse.
Clemmy: I think I better go to theladies’ room.
Crenshaw (in an angry whisper): You’vehad enough of that stuff!
And:
Lady Mad: Is he bothering you,Lizzie?
Lizzie: Who?
Lady Mad: Mr. Dutton.
Lizzie: No, not at all. He’s lovelyand kind. Like a grandpa.
Lady Mad (whispering): Just keep aneye on his hands, luv.
And:
Clemmy: Don’t you find it hard to keepgood servants these days?
Lady Mad: I brought my maid with me,and Perry brought Chivers, of course.
Clemmy: An’ the grammar they talk! Yapractically haveta teach ‘em their own language. An’ the pertinenceof some of them!
Lady Mad: But you must remember, mydear, we live among colonials.
And:
Dutton: How’s Bernice holding up?
Fullarton: Quite well. Thank you forasking. I feel terrible coming out here three evenings a week andleaving her alone. But she insists that I do.
Dutton: She’s a fine woman.
Fullarton: Yes, she is.
Dutton (after a pause): Have you beenup to see young Langford?
Fullarton: He sent word that I was notto come.
Dutton: I can’t believe they’llconvict him.
Fullarton: All I can do is offermyself as a character witness. Which I’ve done.
Dutton: Yes. I’ve done that, too.
Cobb’s own scenes went well. The first one, whereTitania wakes up and falls in love with him, particularly pleasedSir P., whose rubicund face had grown alarmingly more rubicund ashis frustration with the Crenshaws accelerated. Cobb was gratefulthat Lady Mad had chosen to lay a scarf over her décolletage and toomit the unscripted testicle-squeeze. In the second scene Bottom isfound in his lover’s bower, surrounded by her fairies who, whenthey were finally released from their half of Oakwood Manor, wouldbe feeding him delicacies while his inamorata caressed him withword and deed. He thought he might suggest to Dora that she payespecial attention to the action in this scene and the salubriouseffects it worked upon the male in question.
By nine o’clock Sir P. decided he hadsuffered all the indignities and disappointments a baronet oughtto. A glassy-eyed Hermia had just tripped over one of the chalkarrows and upended Demetrius when an abrupt halt was called to thedismembering of the Bard’s divine comedy. With seething politeness,Sir P. ordered his actors to seek out a quiet spot and study boththeir lines and their blocking assignments – along with the manysuggestions offered for their execution. He himself was going offto the solitude of his library for half an hour, after which hewould return, like Achilles from his sulking-tent, to deliver themthe director’s “notes.”