Jill Churchill - A Midsummer Night's Scream

Tazz took her empty plate and glass back to the catering room and lurked until John Bunting had finished eating. She snatched his plate to return as well and said, "Come on, Mr. Bunting. I need to measure you."

He leered at her.

Jane sat down with Ms. Bunting. "Tazz is one of the people in the needlepoint class. You'll see her again tomorrow morning."

"She's a strong-minded girl. I'll be curious to see what kind of sampler she's doing."

"Have you started yours yet?" Jane asked.

"Barely. I had such fun putting those pretty colors in the jewelry thing you girls bought me. I'll treasure it forever. I've done only one square. I'm sticking with simple squares for my first effort."

Tazz gathered all the men in one large dressing room. "We're not having any witty remarks about inseams or dressing left or right. Got it? Just tell me the size of your trousers and jackets. I will measure across your shoulders and get the correct arm length. You'll all wear casual trousers circa 1930, shirts, and either jackets or sweaters

for the first two acts. The third act will be formal wear. White starched shirts, white formal jackets, black trousers with a silk stripe down the sides."

She finished this process quickly and efficiently, noting all the measurements in a notebook she carried.

Then she cornered Ms. Bunting to try on both of the dresses Tazz had selected for her. Holding the dress bag, Jane was present as well. The everyday one for the first two acts was a drop-waisted pink silk dress with a long string of fake pearls. It had three-quarter-length sleeves. "Other jewelry will be decided on later," Tazz told the actress.

Tazz then called in Imry to approve it. He even managed to eke out a compliment for Tazz on how well it suited the actress and the play.

"The formal dress will be along the same lines, but with black sequins. Don't dare let anyone who smokes near you, Ms. Bunting," Tazz warned, "or the sequins might catch fire — they're notoriously flammable. Even though the sequined one is supposed to have been sprayed with a fire retardant. I haven't chosen jewelry because I don't think it's needed. Just wear your own wedding ring and maybe a pair of smooth silver bracelets."

"You look like a queen," Jane said.

"I feel like one," Ms. Bunting said, pirouetting in front of the three-sided mirror in her dressingroom. The skirt flared nicely. "I'll have to find an occasion to do this, just to show off."

"I don't think the director will object to this," Tazz said. "We won't bother getting his approval of this one."

The next morning, Jane called Ms. Bunting at her hotel and offered to pick her up and take her to the needlepoint class.

"It's sweet of you to ask, but I have some shopping to do first, so I'll just take a cab. I have the owner's card with the address in my needlepoint bag. I'll see you then."

Ms. Bunting was only a few moments late. She had a bag from a toy store. "For my grandchildren," she said. As she set the bag down, soft baby toys tumbled out. Jane bent over to pick them up and put them back.

Martha introduced Ms. Bunting to the others, explaining that she, Martha, had bent the rules because Ms. Bunting was a famous actress who had known Sylvia Sidney, who was not only an actress but had written a very good needlepoint book.

Tazz said, "Ms. Bunting and I have met before. I'm providing her costumes for the play she's going to be in in another week, right here in Chicago."

Both Jane and Martha had brought along their copies of Sylvia Sidney's book. Everyone, even

those who had never heard of Sylvia Sidney, passed it around and asked questions about her.

Then they all pulled out their needlepoint work to show how they were coming along so far. Tazz's was the most complex. She'd done half of an American flag in the center, which would be surrounded by borders of stars and stripes in different stitches. They were all marked out on the canvas, and she had the kinds of stitches she was using on grid paper.

Ms. Bunting had barely started, but she'd used the upper left corner to do a section of bargello stitches in the darkest shades of each of her three colors and said she intended to do the same stitch in the opposite corner with the lightest shades of the same three colors.

Sam's consisted of fairly boring colors, and he'd stitched a little too tight, but he'd tackled some very complex stitches. "Don't worry," he assured the rest of them. "I know the first ones I did need to be ripped out."

Shelley had tried to catch up with Jane and had done an elongated cashmere stitch with her medium colors.

What most surprised Jane was that Elizabeth's looked the best, in spite of the muddy oranges, greens, and reds. She was way ahead of everyone else. She'd completed nearly a quarter of her project and used what looked like the most difficult stitches in the pattern book. There was an impressive Scotch plaid rectangle, which adjoined a long thin triangle of French knots.

Jane smiled at Elizabeth, who was, in this case at least, every bit as competitive as Shelley.

Seven

Elizabeth turned out to be rather tactless, in spite of her seemingly upper-crust façade.

After everyone had oohed and aahed over one another's work, Elizabeth said to Ms. Bunting, "Those cute toys must be for your great-grandchildren."

"No. They're for my daughter's children." "My goodness. She must have had them quite late in life."

Ignoring the obvious suggestion that Ms. Bunting must be at least in her nineties, Ms. Bunting said, "No, it was I who had my daughter late in life. I'd always wanted children, but suffered three miscarriages early in our marriage. I'd given up ever having children. Then, when I was forty-two, and doing a very silly movie in England, I found myself pregnant again. It was the worst movie I was ever in, but I was taking such good care of myself that I wasn't paying attention to what was going on around me."

She continued, "John, of course, was deeply embarrassed at becoming a father at forty-three. I don't think, frankly, that he'd have enjoyed the role at any age."

"So, was your daughter born in England?" Elizabeth persisted.

"Unfortunately not. She was born on the ship on the way home. I was afraid to fly. By the time the terrible, endless film was done, I was seven and a half months along."

"It must have been hard, raising a baby at that age. Did you keep acting?" Elizabeth asked.

"I had to. It was the only skill I had," Ms. Bunting said, picking out colors for her next sampler block. "Besides, John and I earned our living acting together. I took along a day nanny and a night nanny, then later both nannies and a teacher. It was very expensive and we had to work even harder to afford the help. I came as close as this," she said, holding her forefinger and her thumb a half inch apart, "to having a nervous breakdown once."

Ms. Bunting abruptly changed the subject. "I think these colors will go well together. Do you agree?" She was holding up three skeins — two light and one medium colors.

Jane leaped in and asked, "What would it look like if you used the darkest instead of the medium?"

This was enough to cut off any more personal

questions from Elizabeth. Jane thought it was about time Elizabeth's snoopiness was squelched.

The conversations shifted back to color and pattern choices, with Martha as busy as a hen advising various students. It drifted off into recipes for a bit, then to having pillows made of their work when it was done or having them mounted in acid-free paper and double glass, front and back.

An hour later, packing-up commenced. Ms. Bunting was spending the afternoon with her grandchildren to give them their toys. Elizabeth asked Jane, Shelley, and Ms. Bunting where they had found the wonderful jewelry bags in which they kept their floss, scissors, and needles. Shelley explained about the department store and that they were meant for jewelry.