“I’m ready to go,” Armstrong said with a pathetic sweep of the cloak about his stooped shoulders.
“He’s been drinking again.”
“That’s a lie!”
“Smell his breath.”
“I had one mouthful, for my rheumatism.”
Mrs. Thedford took Armstrong’s hand in hers and pulled him up to face her. “When we’re finished here, old friend-and I expect you to stay till the last word is uttered-I want you to accompany me to your room and give me the bottle. God knows where you managed to hide it.”
“I’m sorry, love. It won’t happen again. I promise.”
“For the love of Christ, can we get on with this farce?”
“I think we’re doing that tonight,” Mrs. Thedford said dryly, and drew a giggle and a chortle from the back of the stage.
“Am I the director here or not?” Merriwether said somewhere between complaint and petition.
“You are, Mr. Merriwether, and a damn good one.”
Merriwether looked mollified. Then with a sly grin he stepped under the candlelight and into the shadows upstage.
“Then I am making a casting decision that should have been made weeks ago.” Into the spotlight he drew by one tiny white hand a young woman, barely beyond girlhood, but nonetheless stunning for all that.
“Tessa,” Marc murmured before Rick could.
Tessa Guildersleeve had the white blond hair of an albino, and it fell where it wished in flowing coils over her bare shoulders, its native lustre merely enhanced by the meagre light above it. Her Dutch skin was unblemished and uniformly alabaster from the brow to the rim of her bosom that winked enticingly from the low-cut, frothy shift she wore-which resembled either a priest’s frock or a courtesan’s nightie, depending on the angle of observation. Her diminutive feet were caressed by ballet slippers, and she moved her slim, pale arms with the impetus and delicacy of a prima ballerina’s grand entrance. She was all elfin innocence in movement, but out of the translucence of her blue eyes shone pure desire.
“Tessa, my pretty, you have understudied the role long enough. Tomorrow night you shall step onto this stage as Cordelia.”
“You’re not going to wait for Thea, then?” Mrs. Thedford said evenly, but there was an edge behind the remark.
“Thea’s getting too old and fat for the ingenue, ma chère. She’ll be laughed off the stage like she was in Buffalo. We don’t want that to happen again, do we?”
“What about Juliet, then?”
“Well, I thought Tessa did splendidly at short notice during the entr’acte in Rochester, didn’t you, Clarence?”
At this, a young man in his mid-twenties stepped into the circle of light that now illumined five of the six acting members of the troupe. He was handsome in a feminine sort of way that contrasted sharply with the aggressive masculinity of Merriwether. He had curly red hair, pale freckles, and a pallor to match, and languid blue eyes that most directors would have instantly labelled a poet’s. He peered towards Mrs. Thedford, but she was staring intently at Merriwether. “Tessa always gives her best,” he said guardedly.
“Thea will play Juliet tomorrow night, if she’s well enough,” Mrs. Thedford said.
“You could let her take the role of Beatrice,” Merriwether said, staring straight back at her with his intimidating, black gaze.
Mrs. Thedford smiled cryptically. “Meaning that I myself am somewhat too advanced in years to play the part?”
“Not at all, my dear. You’ll be acting Beatrice and Cleopatra when you’re eighty, should you wish to. What I’m suggesting is that, outside of the farce, there are not, in the makeup of our current program, any roles now suited to the peculiar talents of our Miss Clarkson. That is all.”
“I would be more than happy to let Thea play Beatrice, Jason, but then it would be incumbent upon us to find a Benedick young enough to be credible.”
“I wouldn’t think of it-” Clarence Beasley said, looking abashed at both the director and the proprietor.
“But I’m ready to play Juliet! I am!” There was no sweetness in the ingenue’s statement of fact, only the petulance of a child approaching tantrum. Tessa’s pretty features were suddenly contorted, and flushed with an unbecoming rush of crimson pique.
“If you carry on like that, missy, we’ll have to put you in the Punch-and-Judy show with a slapstick.” Mrs. Thedford spoke in the way a mother might in gently reproving a much-doted-on daughter. “Be content with Cordelia, for the time being.”
Rick Hilliard stirred beside Marc, who put a restraining hand upon his friend’s arm and one finger to his lips. It was obvious that the actors, in the intensity of this interplay, had forgotten they were being observed, and Marc was thoroughly enjoying his invisibility.
Tessa’s face lit up instantly, and all traces of tantrum vanished in the unrepressed joy of her response. “Oh, Annie, you are such a dear! I could hug you to death!”
When she threatened to do so, Mrs. Thedford held up a hand and said, “Save that ardour for Cordelia and Miranda tomorrow night.” She turned to Merriwether. “Get on with the scene, then, Jason dear. I’ll just go and see how Thea’s getting on. We’ll need her for the farce tonight.”
“We’ll need everybody,” Merriwether said, glaring at Dawson Armstrong, who had taken advantage of the diversion to squat on his haunches and drift into a doze.
Mrs. Thedford left, and the director clapped his hands for attention, as if he were orchestrating a cast of hundreds. “All right, Dawson, you know the routine. Tessa, my sweet, while you have no lines for this particular scene-we’ll rehearse your other scene later-it is vitally important that you lie absolutely limp in the old man’s arms. I suggest that you let the arm facing the audience droop-like this-and your head should be tilted back so your beautiful, long tresses hang down to almost touch the floor, and you can let one slipper dangle from your toes, and contrive to let it fall just as Lear moves from his ‘howls’ to his speech.”
“Must I wear Thea’s costume?”
“I think not. We’ll try something gauzier that will let your figure show through-in a modest way, of course. Thea’s figure, alas, has to be disguised wherever possible: that was the point about her age I was attempting to make.”
“I do hope Thea won’t be too upset. She’s a very nice woman.”
“Dawson! Wake up and take your place!”
Armstrong glared at Merriwether’s knees, got up, and strode manfully back into the shadows upstage. Tessa padded after him. Clarence Beasley came and stood as close to Merriwether as he dared, anticipating the action to come. A moment later, Lear began his escalating sequence of howls.
Marc felt a chill down his spine. Lear’s cri de coeur was heart-wrenching: a deep animal howl bred in the flesh and bone of love and loss. Armstrong might be old, but he was not past his prime as a tragedian. Slowly the howls came nearer and the ruined old king staggered forward with the hanged Cordelia in his arms and floating, it appeared, on the cloak. Tessa looked lifeless, one arm adroop, the body arched but limp, the hair lifting and falling with the cadence of Lear’s step, as if something of her was yet living and not ready to die. Marc was moved deeply, and braced himself for the speech he knew by heart.
It was at this critical point, and just as Cordelia’s slipper struck the floor like a severed appendage, that Dawson Armstrong staggered, careened, and toppled sideways. Then, in a pathetic effort to maintain his balance, he dropped Cordelia upon the boards with an ugly thump.
“What the fuck are you doing, you goddamn moron, you drunken pig, you stinking excuse for an actor!”
Marc leaned forward in alarm, as did Rick and Jenkin.
But having spewed this venom at the toppled Lear, who lay semi-comatose where he had fallen, Merriwether dashed to Tessa’s side, almost colliding with Clarence Beasley.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Tessa said, whipping her dress down over her prettily exposed knees and scrambling to her feet. “I fell on my derriere.” She giggled, and gave that part of her anatomy a reconnoitring rub. “An’ there’s nothin’ much to hurt down there!”