Beasley insisted on taking her hand, as if she were still on the floor, and giving it a gentlemanly tug.
Tessa rewarded the effort with a dazzling smile. “What’ll we do now?” she asked Merriwether.
“First, I’ll drag this intoxicated sot into the wings, where he can sleep it off. Then you and I will do this scene properly.”
“I’ll see to Dawson,” Beasley said. He went over to the old man, spoke softly into his ear, then helped him over to the wings on the left, where he collapsed peacefully.
“We better wait for Annie,” Tessa said nervously.
“I’m the director, love.”
Just then Mrs. Thedford returned. “Well, Jason, you were right. He’s found a bottle somewhere and downed it. I’ve searched his room, but when he sleeps this off, we’ll have to watch him every minute until the show opens at eight-thirty.”
“He’ll never make it,” Merriwether said.
“Now, you know he’s an old pro. If he’s awake and no more than half drunk, he can outact any of us.”
“Jason says he’s going to play Lear tomorrow night,” Tessa said with just a hint of little-girl mischief in her voice.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now I’m more concerned with Dorothea’s health. She’s taken a tisane to help her sleep. She insists she’ll be ready for the farce tonight. And I believe her. She made no objection when I told her Tess was going to play Cordelia-to lessen the load on her till she’s feeling herself again.”
“Oh, thank you, Annie. Thank you!”
“So, whether Dawson does Lear tomorrow night or you, Jason, Tess needs a couple of run-throughs right now. Clarence and I will observe.”
“Just remember what I told you a few minutes ago and you’ll be fine, sweetie,” Merriwether said to Tessa as they walked back into the shadows, Merriwether looking very Promethean beside the slight, five-foot figure of the girl-woman.
“They’ve edited out the other parts, so there’s just Lear and Cordelia,” Hilliard whispered. But Marc’s attention was riveted on the stage.
There was a collective intake of breath in expectation of the five howls. Out of Jason Merriwether’s mouth they came, but this time they were more bellowed than uttered, more impressing than impressive. From the upstage shadows emerged this other octogenarian with the rag doll of his daughter draped across his outstretched arms. Merriwether was nothing if not the consummate actor, for, despite his height and imperial bearing, he looked now the bowed and broken monarch, his every wearied step a defeated trudge. Moreover, his hunched bulk rendered the slender, unbreathing Cordelia that much more vulnerable and pitiable. And when he laid her down and began his great speech of self-insight and contrition, there was no anomalous thump, only the cadence of the bard’s pentameter. But, scarcely noticed except by the quickest eye, the old king’s left hand, as it slipped Cordelia’s lower half stageward, lingered a split second more than necessary on the curved clef of her buttocks and, just possibly, gave them an impertinent squeeze. The girl herself gave no sign, not even a blink.
Marc heard the rasp of Rick’s breath and felt him rising from his chair. With well-coordinated movements, Marc pressed him back down with one hand and placed the other over his mouth in time to throttle the cry of outrage there.
“They’re only acting,” he hissed, and Rick reluctantly sank back.
Someone else had noticed the king’s incestuous touch, for Marc saw Mrs. Thedford’s eyes widen in disbelief, then fix upon the girl while Merriwether completed his series of lamentations over her prostrate form, and made a fine, rhetorical demise. Beasley began applauding, but Tessa turned her newly opened eyes upon Mrs. Thedford and smiled-knowingly, Marc thought. Owen Jenkin began to clap as well, and when Tessa rose to take her bow beside Merriwether, Rick joined him lustily. Marc felt obliged to clap politely, but Annemarie Thedford did not.
Well, well, Marc thought, the acting business hasn’t changed much since I dipped my toes into its roiling waters five years ago.
The next hour and a half unfolded less contentiously. The company showed a predilection for death scenes, with the demise of Antony, Cleopatra, Romeo, and Juliet being added to that of Lear. All of this gloom was leavened only by the razor-keen repartee of Annemarie and Jason as Beatrice and Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing. As far as Rick Hilliard was concerned, and he made his concern quite vocal, Tessa as Juliet (standing in, for today only, in place of Thea Clarkson) was the show-stopper, despite a less-than-satisfactory Romeo (Clarence Beasley), whose Yankee twang nearly ruined the balcony scene and certainly depreciated the glowing iambics of the beloved above him. And while all of the actors essayed some sort of approximate English stage-accent, Marc detected a trace of genuine English dialect in Mrs. Thedford’s speech, even when she wasn’t in character. Her performances as Gertrude and Lady Macbeth, opposite Merriwether’s Claudius and Macbeth, were the highlights of the afternoon.
The various bits and pieces usually taken by Armstrong or Thea Clarkson were merely read by one of the other players, and Mrs. Thedford agreed with the director’s suggestion that the scenes from The Tempest be dropped from the bill due to the comatose condition of Prospero. Rick groaned at the patent unfairness of a decision that would deprive him of seeing Tessa play Miranda, the quintessential ingenue. Miranda herself seemed blithely unconcerned.
Just as they were finishing, Thea Clarkson made a dramatic entrance, pale and fevered, and insisted on taking her part as Juliet, even though this set had already been run through twice with clear success.
“How nice of you to make an appearance, love,” Merriwether said acidly. “You look more like Lady Capulet or the Nurse than a fifteen-year-old virgin.”
Thea seemed about to burst into tears. Illness or not, she no longer gave the illusion of a woman in first bloom, for though she had a pretty, moon-pale face and striking almond eyes, she had put on weight that did not sit on her bones attractively. Moreover, her expression was that of one whose confidence has been shaken by the discovery of some knowledge still too daunting to admit.
“There’s no need for gratuitous cruelty,” Mrs. Thedford said to Merriwether. “Thea, dear, you and Clarence can rehearse the Romeo and Juliet scenes tomorrow afternoon. You need to rest now so you’ll be fresh for the farce tonight. After all, it is you who must carry the piece.”
Thea beamed her a bright smile, then began to weep quietly.
At this point in the proceedings, Dawson Armstrong woke up. “Where in hell did my Cordelia go?”
“Don’t you just love theatre people?” Rick exclaimed.
SIX
“Tessa has offered to give us a tour of the facility,” Rick called down to Marc and Jenkin, who were standing by the potbellied stove warming their hands. “And Mrs. Thedford has invited us to stay for the supper the Franks are laying on for the company in the hotel dining-room.”
“We’ll take the tour,” Marc said, “but this is my night to have supper with Aunt Catherine at the shop.”
“Speak for yourself, young fellow.” Jenkin laughed. He winked at Marc: “That Thedford woman’s a fine specimen of her sex.”
Rick hopped down, and they followed him through a curtained doorway to the left of the stage and into the gloomy space beside it, where the actors could rest between entrances. Tessa was waiting for them, her blond hair shimmering in the near-dark. She led them down a long, narrow hallway, on either side of which were several cubicles that Tessa, still leading the parade, referred to as dressing-chambers. Rick insisted on exploring the one assigned to Tessa and Thea Clarkson, professing his amazement at the drawerful of makeup paints and glues, the wig-stand, and the bedraggled mannequin with the evening’s costume in place upon it. Marc peered into Merriwether’s carrel, where several playbills caught his attention. One of them, an advertisement for Hamlet at the Park Theatre in New York, featured a sketch of a younger Merriwether as Claudius, with a wig of curly black hair, bushy brows, and a trim Vandyke of similar hue-looking very much the smiling villain of the piece. Having exhausted the wonders of the airless, windowless dressing-rooms, they retreated as they had come in, and Tessa pointed up the steps to the stage itself, indicating that they were to cross to the other side.