More than anything else, he was pleased with his Emma. He was fully aware that unkind opinion was convinced that he had married her for her money and he was honest enough with himself to admit that, to a large extent, this was true. However, the dowry the plain-featured and shy young woman had brought with her had given him the capital he needed in order (in his own words) to get going. It was now, however, but a drop in the ocean of his financial success, and he had paid it back in the form of a trust for her.
Moreover, he had been a kind and most considerate husband and although Emma had not provided him with the child he so desperately longed for, he had never held it against her. Even though medical opinion had informed him that it was not due to any deficiency on his part that no issue had come from the marriage, neither was there any physical reason why Emma should not conceive. After three years of frustration, they had adopted the boy Jasper, the son of a woman cousin of his who had had an affair with what Marcus vaguely referred to as ‘a lord’.
“When I buy stock it’s got to be pedigree,” he said to Emma.
“It’s a poor start for the boy, being illegitimate,” she said.
“We must do our best for him. He’s ten. He’s sure to know he is not our own.”
“Of course, but he also knows his mother is dead. That’s reason enough for us to have taken him on. No need for him to know about the rest of it. I don’t suppose she told him.”
“It will come out at some time or other.”
“Leave things alone,” said Marcus. “Our money will see him through.” This had been seven years ago. On the night of the play he said to her, “Not nervous about the show, are you?—or about Jasper’s performance?”
“Mrs Bradley won’t let me be nervous, and Jasper is used to being in the school plays, so he’ll be all right. Anyway, Barbara Bourton is so outstanding as Hermia that nobody is going to notice little me. I’m not surprised Jasper looks at her and nobody else. He’s completely moonstruck, poor boy.”
“You’ve got better speeches than hers in the opening scene and you say them well.”
“That’s Deborah Bradley’s doing. What I say really ought to be addressed to her, you know, not to Barbara Bourton. ‘Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue’s sweet air More tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear, When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.’ I love those lines, don’t you, Marcus?”
“Oh, well, they’re Shakespeare, of course,” said Marcus, looking at her rather anxiously. “Not getting a ‘thing’ about Deborah Bradley, are you?”
So near midsummer day, the opening scenes of the play took place in daylight, but by the time the fairy scenes came on, so did the lamps among the trees, and effectively enough, although they were seen to greater advantage towards the end, when the wonderful summer night was brilliant with stars.
Dame Beatrice and Laura attended the first performance, for, as Laura pointed out, it was likely to be the best.
“They will all be nervous and on their toes,” she observed, “and will excel themselves in consequence. Nothing like being scared to death to bring out the best in people.”
“A strange philosophy, surely?” said Dame Beatrice.
“I don’t know so much. Look at people in the last war. They were so unexpectedly brave when it really came to the crunch.”
“I wonder how Rosamund will acquit herself this evening?”
“ ‘So wonder on, till Truth make all things plain’,” quoted Laura. “Not that I have any doubts. Rosamund was born minus nerves and plus the most immortal crust the Lord ever bestowed on a human being. As for Edmund, he will most likely babble everybody’s part as well as his own. They’ll probably have to gag him for the second performance.”
Dame Beatrice had declined an invitation to dine with her relatives, rightly supposing (as Laura put it) that they would have enough on their plates without the added distraction of having to entertain company. Jonathan was disappointed, but Deborah was grateful. She had not only Rosamund and Edmund to calm down and then dress in their fairy costumes, but she also had on her hands the two delightful, ebullient little boys, Ganymede and Lucien, full of fun, laughing and chattering, sometimes in English, sometimes in French, and abounding with what she classified as the joys of spring.
“We are not to be a trouble to you,” Ganymede, aged four, confided to her.
“Maman will demand a full report,” said Lucien, who was six. “Elle dit qu’il faut être très gentil chez vous.”
“Well, so you are. I think you are both beautifully behaved,” said Deborah. “Now, when you are dressed, I would like you to sit and look at picture books and not to race around and get hot and dirty. I have to dress up, too, and so has Mr Bradley, so please help Rosamund to keep an eye on Edmund while Mr Bradley and I are upstairs.”
Jonathan and Deborah had decided, long before the dress-rehearsal, that the summer-house and the conservatory were too inadequate and inconvenient to serve as dressing-rooms for the rest of the cast, so the male actors had been allotted the dining-room and the females the small morning-room. Signora Moretti and her fairies had been given the entrance hall. It had the advantage of having a cloakroom of its own. This was a consideration which mattered a good deal when a dozen excitable children with doubtful control over their bodily functions had to be kept comfortable and free from anxiety.
As the auditorium was a small one, having been fashioned by the previous owner as a setting for private theatricals only, the number of tickets available had had to be limited to one hundred and twenty for each performance. Statistics showed that the first and third nights had been sold out, but that the attendance on the second night had slumped somewhat. This had been anticipated and disappointed nobody.
“The second night of a three-night amateur show is always the dud one,” said Brian Yorke philosophically. “The effervescence of the opening night has worn off and the keyed-up atmosphere of the third night hasn’t arrived. We must try to keep each other up to scratch, that’s all. One thing: Barbara is a professional and won’t let things slide. So long as the rest of us play up to her we shall be all right. Rinkley will pull off the workmen’s scenes and the fairies are a knock-out anyway. Signora Moretti will see to that. Her living depends on it.”
Prevented by Emma’s arguments from offering Deborah money or an expensive present, the grateful Marcus had approached Jonathan and suggested a handsome sum for the use of the sylvan and most appropriate setting for the play. Jonathan, who liked him, had laughed and slapped him on the back and had pointed out that he himself was the tenant, not the owner of the property.
“But my cousin gave full permission for the play to be staged here,” he said, “and it’s made a lot of fun for my wife and me.” Although he did not say so, he respected Marcus for choosing a minor part for himself which was well inside his scope instead of opting for a major rôle which, under the circumstances, could hardly have been refused him. As for the ‘gate-money’, he knew that Lynn had never expected to get back what he had spent on the play, let alone make a profit.
“It’s a bit of fun for Emma and the boy and me, too,” Marcus said. “I’m glad the boy is in it. Tosses off his lines as Egeus rather well, don’t you think?”
“I’m sure Yorke will give him a bigger part next time, when he’s got through his A-levels,” said Jonathan tactfully. “He has a good stage presence.”