Don Gutteridge - Desperate Acts

Bottom: The woosel cock so black ofhue

With orange-tawny bill

The throstle with his note so true

The wren with little quill -

“Well done! Well done!” Sir P. enthused. “We’ll haveyou put that verse to a little tune of sorts. As Puck I may eventootle an accompaniment on my recorder.”

“Let the man recite , for God’s sake,”Lady Mad snapped. Sir P.’s jaw dropped, but before he could say aword, Lady Mad said sweetly to Cobb, “Just read your last line, asyou did, in that gravelly voice with those amazing vowels.”

Cobb blushed, turning his purple nosescarlet. He did as he was bid.

Lady Mad came in on cue, closing herlong-lashed eyes, then raising her head, with its burst ofstrawberry hair, and dreamily fluttering her fairy-queen eyelids.“What angel wakes me from my flowering bed?” Titania breathed.

If he was to get the part and help Marcdefend Brodie, Cobb decided he had better pretend to read thescript and thus keep his eyes where they would do the least harm.With his gaze fixed on the page, then, and hers upon her beastlylover, they moved through the scene – in which Titania professesher love and Bottom is both bedazzled and dazed. They wereinterrupted only once by the director, who informed Cobb that hisnieces and nephew would be playing the attendant fairies and that Smallman’s had been commissioned to render the costumesthereof.

While Cobb was able to keep his eyesfrom wandering where they wished to, he was un able to stophimself from picturing the actions that might be appended toTitania’s amorous declarations. Lady Mad certainly recited thesewith a passion hardly suited to a gentleman’s dining-room. Was suchtransparent ardour aimed at him or at her husband?

“Thank you, Cobb,” Sir P. said and, glancingat Lady Mad, who nodded, he added, “You’ll do nicely.”

“Ya mean I got the part?”

“You have indeed. And thank you, my lady, foryour selfless participation. I’m sure you’ll excuse Cobb while wego over some of the mundane details of our schedule andprotocol.”

“Of course. I am looking forward, Mr. Cobb,to a fruitful collaboration.” With that, Lady Mad made her exit.Cobb noticed that she was just as handsome going away as she wascoming at you.

Chivers appeared magically from somewherewith cigars and port. Cobb refused the cigar but welcomed the port,as he listened to Sir P. review the plans for the ensuingfortnight. Rehearsals would be held here on Tuesdays, Thursdays andSaturdays at seven-thirty in the evening. After a full read-throughon Tuesday next, the director hoped to get the cast on stage -still “on-book” – for elementary blocking. Costumes would besupplied from the Shuttleworth steamer-trunk or manufactured by Smallman’s. Individual scenes would be rehearsed on stage,while the actors not involved would be free to take refreshment inthe dining-room, smoke and chat in the adjacent den, or read in thelibrary just down the inner hall that led to the Shuttleworth’sprivate quarters.

“Now, Cobb, it occurred to me that you mightfind such extended down-time – well – boring.”

“I could read the newspapers,” Cobbsuggested.

“True, true. But I was wondering whether youcould . . .ah . . . paint.”

Cobb blinked. “Ya mean pictures?”

“Not quite. I was thinking of walls.”

“Oh. I see.”

“Mullins, our handyman, has built us asplendid stage, as you can see, and tacked together five canvasflats, which will display scenes that will provide our guests withthe most wonderful illusion of Shakespeare’s fairyland. Thesebucolic motifs – trees, stars, moonlight – have been elegantlysketched out on the canvas by my talented lady. But, alas, Mullinsis ham-fisted with a paintbrush and Madeleine is awater-colourist.”

“You’d like me to paint the scenery – when Iain’t actin’?”

“Only if you’d be bored otherwise, and onlyif you felt comfortable doing so.”

Cobb quickly concluded that the baronet wasreally concerned that a mere police constable might discomfit theregular ladies and gentlemen of the cast with his ordinary mannersand amazing vowels. While he should have been insulted – and was -he also realized that by painting the flats, which he had seenstacked up against the west wall near the curtained-off wing andthe door to the den, he could unobtrusively eavesdrop onconversations, and perhaps even move about with the “invisibility”of the servant class. “I’ve painted a porch or two in my time,” hesaid. “I’d be glad to help ya out.”

They shook hands in the vestibule. Sir P. hadinsisted that his brougham be brought around and put at Cobb’sservice. When the carriage and its liveried driver pulled up infront of the Cobb cottage fifteen minutes later, three faces werepressed up against the big window.

Cobb grinned, and waved the carriage away asif he were Puck with a fairy-wand in his hand.

***

The first rehearsal on Tuesday evening next producedno evidence that Cobb could take to Marc, who had instructed him toreport to Briar Cottage only when he felt it necessary. (ChiefSturges had wondered vaguely about Wilkie and Cobb exchangingshifts, but when Cobb explained that Wilkie owed him a month’sworth of night-shifts, Sturges had made no further inquiries aboutwhat Cobb might be up to in his spare time). The entire cast sataround the long-table in the theatre and did a directedread-through, and Cobb was able to observe the subtle interplayamong its members. During his other investigations with Marc, Cobbhad become adept at interpreting body language and facialexpressions, and there were plenty of both on display here.

The first thing he noticed, to his relief,was that he himself was not out of place as an actor. The rehearsalitself was bumpy and inconsistent – to put the best light on it,which the director endeavoured to do. As Lysander, Dutton readwoodenly, as if he were reciting an affidavit, but he mightpossibly loosen up as time went on. At least with his slim buildand handsome features, he could, with a wig or a decent dye-job, bemade to resemble a love-struck, newly bearded youth. As Oberon thefairy-king, Fullarton had a voice deep and commanding enough togive credence to the role, but on this occasion he flubbed a numberof lines, made matters worse by apologizing to Sir P. and, itappeared, to Lady Mad as well.

“There is no need to apologize, my dearFullarton,” Sir P. said, and Fullarton would invariably reply,“Sorry.”

Cyrus Crenshaw’s vowels were no less amazingthan Cobb’s, and he rambled through Demetrius’s heatedprotestations of love for Hermia as if they had been penned in aforeign tongue, while Hermia, played by Clemmy Crenshaw, respondedin a grating whine that increasingly skidded and slewed in concertwith her emotions (principally, fear). Cobb noted that Crenshawwould alternately glare at her for her mistakes (exacerbated by hisindecipherable cues) or offer her the tight smile of along-suffering spouse. Whenever she dared unglue her gaze from thepage, she directed it not at Demetrius (who was supposedly pursuingher through the forest) but at Lady Mad, who was seated beside himand attired more like Salomé than the fairy-queen.

Andrew Dutton, Cobb recalled, had been quickto seize the chair on the other side of Lady Mad when the cast hadfollowed the director out of the dining-room at seven-forty-five.And more than once, Lady Mad had rewarded his diligence by leaningover and pointing out a cue on the page before him with a dainty,manicured finger. Whenever Cobb spotted this manoeuvre he glancedat Sir P. – at the head of the table – and was surprised to seethat, even though he could not help but notice his wife’sflirtations, Sir P. chose not to react to them in any visiblemanner. Odd, Cobb mused, but then he had always presumed that lordsand their ladies were not really expected to like eachother.