“You’re fabulous,” Dougal said. Some of the people had recognized them and were smiling. The maître d’hôtel made a discreet fuss over them. She was in rehearsal for a superb play and opposite her was her leading man.
She began to talk, easily and well. When champagne was brought she thought; I ought to stop him opening it. I never drink before rehearsals. But how dreary and out of tune with the lovely evening that would be.
“Temperamental inexactitude,” she said quite loudly. “British Constitution.”
“I beg your pardon, Maggie?”
“I was just testing myself to make sure I’m not tiddly.”
“You are not tiddly.”
“I’m not used to whiskey and you gave me a big one.”
“No, I didn’t. You are not tiddly. You’re just suddenly elevated. Here come our oysters.”
“Well, if you say so, I suppose I’m all right.”
“Of course you are. Wade in.”
So she did wade in and she was not tiddly. In the days to come she was to remember this evening, from the time when she left the flat until the end of their rehearsal, as something apart. Something between her and London, with Dougal Macdougal as a sort of necessary ingredient. But no more.
Gaston Sears inhabited a large old two-story house in a tiny cul-de-sac opening off Alleyn Road in Dulwich. It was called Alleyn’s Surprise and the house and grounds occupied the whole of one side. The opposite side was filled with neglected trees and an unused pumping house.
The rental of such a large building must have been high, and among the Dulwich College boys there was a legend that Mr. Sears was an eccentric foreign millionaire who lived there, surrounded by fabulous pieces of armor, and made swords and practiced black magic. Like most legends this was founded on highly distorted fact. He did live amongst his armor and he did very occasionally make swords. And his collection of armor was the most prestigious, outside the walls of a museum, in Europe. And certainly he was eccentric.
Moreover, he was comfortably off. He had started as an actor, a good one in far-out, eccentric parts, but so inclined to extremes of argumentative temperament that nobody cared to employ him. A legacy enabled him to develop his flair for historic arms and accoutrements. His expertise was recognized by all the European collectors and he was the possessor of honorary degrees from various universities. He made lecture tours in America for which he charged astronomical fees, and extorted frightening amounts from greedy, ignorant, and unscrupulous buyers which more than compensated for the opinions he gave freely to those he decided to respect. Of these Peregrine Jay was one.
The unexpected invitation to appear as sword-bearer to Macbeth had been accepted with complacency. “I shall be able to watch the contest,” he had observed. “And afterward correct any errors that may creep in. I do not altogether trust the Macbeth. Dougal Macdougal! Indeed!” he sneered. “No, He is not to be trusted.”
He was engaged upon making molds for the weapons. From a mold of the genuine, historical claidheamh-mor a replica would be cast in molten steel, which Macbeth would wear. Gaston himself would carry the real claidheamh-mor throughout the performance. A second claymore, less elaborate, would make the mold for the weapon Macduff would wear.
His workshop was a formidable background. Suits of armor stood ominously about the room, swords of various ages and countries hung on the walls with drawings of details in ornamentation. A life-size effigy of a Japanese warrior in an ecstasy of the utmost ferocity, clad in full armor, crouched in warlike attitude, his face contorted with rage and his sword poised to strike.
Gaston hummed and occasionally muttered as he made the long wooden trough that was to contain clay from which the matrix would be formed. He made a good figure for a Vulcan, being hugely tall with a shock of black hair and heavily muscled arms.
“Double, double toil and trouble,”
he hummed in time with his hammering. And then:
“Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’ the Tiger
But in a sieve I’ll thither sail
And, like a rat without a tail,
I’ll do and I’ll do and I’ll do — ”
And on the final I’ll do he tapped home his nail.
Bruce Barrabell, who played Banquo, was not on call for the current rehearsal. He stayed at home and learned his part and dwelt upon his grievances. His newest agent was getting him quite a bit of work but nothing that was likely to do him any lasting good. A rather dim supporting role in another police series for Grenada. And now, Banquo. He’d asked to be tried for Macbeth and been told the part was already cast. Macduff: same thing. He was leaving the theatre when some whippersnapper came after him and said would he come to read Banquo. There’d been some kind of a slipup. So he did and he’d got it. Small part, actually. Lot of standing round with one foot up and the other down on those bloody steps. But there was one little bit. He flipped his part over and began to read it.
“There’s husbandry in heaven; Their candles are all out.”
He read it aloud. Quietly. The slightest touch of whimsicality. Feel the time of night and the great empty courtyard. He had to admit it was good. “There’s housekeeping in Heaven.” The homely touch that somehow made you want to cry. Would a modern audience understand that housekeeping was what was meant by husbandry? Nobody else could write about the small empty hours as this man did. The young actor they’d produced for Fleance, his son, was nice: unbroken, clear voice. And then Macbeth’s entrance and Banquo’s reaction. Good stuff. His scene, but of course the Macbeth would overact and Perry would let him get away with it. Look at the earlier scene. Although Perry, fair’s fair, put a stop to that little caper. But the intention was there for all to see.
He set himself to memorize, but it wasn’t easy. Incidents out of the past kept coming in. Conversations…
“Actually, we are not quite strangers. There was a Macbeth up in Dundee, sir. I won’t say how many years ago.”
“Oh?”
“We were witches.” Whispering it. Looking coy.
“Really? Sorry. Excuse me. I want to — Perry, Perry, dear boy, just a word —”
Swine! Of course he remembered.
It was the Angus’s birthday. He, the Ross, and the rest of the lairds and the three witches were not called for the evening’s rehearsal. They arranged with other free members of the cast to meet at the Swan in Southwark and drink Angus’s health.
They arrived in twos and threes and it was quite late by the time the witches, who had been rehearsing in the afternoon, came in. Two girls and a man. The man (First Witch) was a part Maori called Rangi Western, not very dark but with the distinctive short upper lip and flashing eyes. He had a beautiful voice and was a prize student from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. The second witch was a nondescript thin girl called Wendy, possessed of a remarkable voice: harsh, with strange, unexpected intervals. The third was a lovely child, a white-blonde, delicate, with enormous eyes and a babyish high-pitched voice. She was called Blondie.
Their rehearsal had excited them. They came in talking loudly. “Rangi, you were marvelous. You sent cold shivers down my spine. Truly. And that movement! I thought Perry would stop you but he didn’t. The stamp. It was super. We’ve got to do it, Wendy, along with Rangi. His tongue. And his eyes. Everything.”