Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Knew A Cardinal

"Do you actually live here, Qwill?"

"I utterly don't believe it!"

"Neat! Really neat! Must've cost plenty!"

"Did Dennis do all of this? He's a genius!"

"Man, there's room for three grand pianos and two billiard tables."

"Look at the size of those beams! They don't grow trees like that any more."

"Swell place for a hanging."

"Qwill, darling, it's shattering! Would you like to time-share?"

Qwilleran had met the entire troupe at one time or another, and some of them were his favorite acquaintances in Pickax:

Larry Lanspeak, owner of the local department store, for one. He had auditioned for Cardinal Wolsey but landed the King Henry role, and his slight build required fifteen pounds of padding to match the girth of the well-fed monarch.

Fran Brodie, Qwilleran's interior designer and also daughter of the police chief. She auditioned for Queen Katharine but was ultimately cast as the beauteous Anne Boleyn. Perfect casting, Qwilleran thought. During the coronation scene he had been unable to take his eyes from her, and he was afraid Polly would hear his heavy breathing.

Carol Lanspeak, president of the club and everyone's friend. She was another capable aspirant for Queen Katharine and was deeply disappointed when director VanBrook picked her as his assistant and understudy for the queen.

Susan Exbridge, antique dealer and recent divorcee. She looked younger than her forty years and desperately wanted to play Anne Boleyn. When the director assigned her to do the Old Lady, she was furious but quickly recovered upon learning that the Old Lady had some bawdy lines that might steal the show.

Derek Cuttlebrink, busboy at the Old Stone Mill. He played five minor roles and was outstanding - not for his acting but for his bean-pole stature. Derek was six feet seven and still growing. Each time he made an entrance as another character, the audience whispered, "Here he comes again."

Dennis Hough, building contractor and new man in town. He, too, wanted to play Cardinal Wolsey but had to settle for a lesser role. Nevertheless, as the Duke of Buckingham, unjustly sentenced to death, he made a farewell speech that plunged the audience into tears night after night.

Eddington Smith, dealer in used books. This shy little old man played Cardinal Campeius, although no one could hear a word he said. It hardly mattered, because Cardinal Wolsey had all the best lines.

Hixie Rice, advertising manager for the local newspaper. As volunteer publicist for the club, she sold enough ads in the playbill to defray the cost of the sumptuous court costumes.

Wally Toddwhistle, the talented young taxidermist. He built stage sets for Theatre Club productions, and for Henry VIII he worked miracles with used lumber, spray paint, and bedsheets.

Also present was the director, Hilary VanBrook, who wandered about by himself and had little or nothing to say. The rest of the company was sky-high after the heady experience of closing night: the standing ovation, the flowers, and the general relief that the whole thing was over. Now they were reacting noisily. The Siamese watched the crowd from a catwalk and twitched noses in recognition of the cheese, pepperoni, and anchovy wafting upward. The troupe appeared to be starved. They wolfed the pizza and washed it down with cold drinks and a strong brew from Qwilleran's computerized coffeemaker, all the while talking nonstop:

"Somebody missed the light cue, and I had to say my lines in the dark! I could have killed the jerk at the lightboard!"

"When Katharine had her vision tonight, the angels dropped the garland on her head. I could hardly keep a straight face."

"Everything goes haywire on the last night, but the audience doesn't know the difference."

"I was supposed to carry a gold scepter in the procession, you know, and tonight nobody could find the blasted thing!"

"At least nobody stepped on my train this time, thank God. For these small mercies we are grateful."

"Halfway through the treason trial he went up like a kite, and I had to ad-lib. That's tough to do in Elizabethan English."

"The audience was really with us tonight, weren't they? The Old Lady even got some belly laughs from the balcony."

"Why not? She played it like the side of a barn!"

Qwilleran moved hospitably through the group, jingling the ice in his glass of Squunk water. (It looked like vodka on the rocks, but everyone knew it was mineral water from a flowing well at Squunk Corners.) He was not surprised to see Dennis Hough surrounded by women. Among them were Susan Exbridge, her dark hair still sleek after wearing the Old Lady's wig... and Hixie Rice, tossing her asymetrical page-boy cut, which was auburn this week... and Fran Brodie, whose soft, strawberry blond curls contrasted surprisingly with her steely gray eyes.

Carol Lanspeak nudged Qwilleran's elbow slyly. "Look at Dennis with his groupies. Too bad I'm happily married to Larry; I'd join the pack."

Qwilleran said, "Dennis is a good- looking guy."

"And he has an interesting quality," Carol said. "Masculine and yet sensitive. He looks cool, but he's wired to a very short fuse. There were quite a few blowups during rehearsals."

"He's impulsive, but I overlooked his mood swings when we were working on the barn because he was doing such a great job. He was on his way to be a registered architect, you know, before he went into the construction business. Notice how he incorporated the old loft ladders into the design." As he spoke, the lanky busboy was halfway up a ladder, waving an arm and leg at those below. "The catwalks are for washing the high windows. We're going to hang tapestries from the railings."

"You could hang quilts," said Carol, whose taste ran to country coziness.

"No quilts!" Qwilleran said sternly. "Fran has ordered some contemporary hangings. They should be here any day now."

"Everyone in town is aching to see this place, Qwill."

"That's why we're having a public open house. The admission charge to benefit the library was Polly's idea."

"Serve refreshments and the library will clean up! We have a very hungry population." Then casually she inquired, with the licensed nosiness of a Pickax native, "Where's Polly tonight?"

Everyone knew that the Klingenschoen heir and the chief librarian spent weekends together. During bull sessions at the Dimsdale Diner one of the men usually asked, "Do you think he'll ever marry her?" And women drinking coffee at Lois's Luncheonette always brought up the topic: "Wonder why she doesn't marry him?"

To answer Carol's question Qwilleran explained, "Polly's in Lockmaster, attending a wedding. The librarian down there has a son who's going off the deep end."

"Who's taking care of Bootsie?" Another well-known fact in Pickax was the librarian's obsessive concern for her young cat.

"I went over there tonight to feed him, and I'll go again tomorrow morning to fill up his four hollow legs and police his commode. I never saw a cat eat so much!"

"He's still growing," Carol said.

"Polly will be home in the late afternoon to tell me what the bride wore and who caught the bouquet and all that guff. I don't know why you women are so wild about weddings."

"You talk like a grouchy old bachelor, Qwill."

"I'd rather go to a ballgame. Do you realize that I haven't seen a major league game in four years? And I was born a Cub fan in Chicago."

"It's your own fault, Qwill. You know very well that Larry would love to fly you down to Chicago or Minneapolis. He's bought a new four-seater. Polly and I could go along for a shopping binge. Or maybe she'd like to see the game, too."

"Polly-does-not-like-baseball!" Qwilleran said with emphasis. Nor shopping, either, he thought, reflecting on her limited wardrobe assembled haphazardly at Lanspeak's Department Store during sales.