Ngaio Marsh - Light Thickens

“Call Scene Three,” he said and sank into his seat.

“Scene Three,” called the assistant stage manager. “Witches. Macbeth. Banquo.”

Scene Three was pretty thoroughly rehearsed. The witches came in from separate spots and met onstage. Rangi contrived an excretion of venom in voice and face, egged on by moans of pleasure from his sisters. Enter Macbeth and Banquo. Trouble. Banquo’s position. He felt he should be on a higher level. He could not see Macbeth’s face. On and on in his beautiful voice. Peregrine, exquisitely uncomfortable and feeling rather sick, dealt with him, only just keeping his temper.

“The ladies will vanish as they did before. They get up to position on their Banquo and Macbeth, all hail .”

“May I interrupt?” fluted Banquo.

“No,” said Peregrine over a vicious stab of pain. “You may not. Later, dear boy. On, please.”

The scene continued with Banquo disconcerted, silver-voiced, and ominously well behaved.

Macbeth was halfway through his soliloquy. “ Present fears ,” he said, “ are less than horrible imaginings and if the gentleman with the fetching laugh would be good enough to shut his silly trap my thought whose murder yet is but fantastical will probably remain so.”

He was removed by the total width and much of the depth of the stage from Banquo, who had been placed in a tactful conversation with the other lairds as far away as possible from the soliloquist and had burst into a peal of jolly laughter and slapped the disconcerted Ross on his shoulders.

“Cut the laugh, Bruce,” said Peregrine. “It distracts. Pipe down. On.”

The scene ended as written by the author and with the barely concealed merriment of Ross and Angus.

Dougal went into the auditorium to apologize to Peregrine. Banquo affected innocence. “Cauldron Scene,” Peregrine called.

Afterward he wondered how he got through the rest of the rehearsal. Luckily the actors and apparitions were pretty solid and it was a matter of making the lighting manager and the effects man acquainted with what would be expected of them.

The cauldron would be in the passage under the steps up to what had been Duncan’s room. A door, indistinguishable when shut, would shut at the disappearance of the cauldron and witches amidst noise, blackout, and a great display of dry-ice fog and galloping hooves. Full lighting and Lennox tapping with his sword hilt at the door.

“You’ve seen our side of it,” Peregrine said to the effects man. “It’s up to you to interpret. Go home, have a think. Then come and tell me. Right?”

“Right. I say,” said the effects man, “that kid’s good, isn’t he?”

“Yes, isn’t he?” said Peregrine. “If you’ll excuse me, I want a word with Charlie. Thank you so much. Good-bye till we three meet again. Sooner the better.”

“Yes, indeed.”

The men left. Peregrine mopped his face. I’d better get out of this, he thought, and wondered if he could drive.

It was not yet four-thirty. Banquo was not in sight and the traffic had not thickened. His car was in the yard. To hell with everything, thought Peregrine. He said to the assistant stage manager: “I want to get off, Charlie. Have you fixed it up? The sword?”

“It’s okay. Are you all right?”

“It’s just a bruise. No breakages. You’ll lock up?”

“Sure!”

He went out with Peregrine, opened the car door, and watched him in.

“Are you all right? Can you drive?”

“Yes.”

“Saturday tomorrow.”

“That’s the story, Charlie. Thank you. Don’t talk about this, will you? It’s their silly superstition.”

“I don’t talk,” said Charlie. “ Are you all right?”

He was, or nearly so, when he settled. He could manage. Charlie watched him out of the yard. Along the Embankment, over the bridge, and then turn right and right again.

When he got there he was going to sound his horn. To his surprise, Emily came out of their house and ran down the steps to the car. “I thought you’d never get here,” she cried. And then: “Darling, what’s wrong?”

“Give me a bit of a prop. I’ve bruised myself. Nothing serious.”

“Right you are. Here we go, then. Which is the side?”

“The other. Here we go.”

He clung to her, slid out, and stood holding onto the car. She shut and locked the door.

“Shall I get a stick or will you use me?”

“I’ll use you, love, if you don’t mind.”

“Away we go, then.”

They staggered up the steps. Emily got the giggles. “If Mrs. Sleigh next door sees us she’ll think we’re tight,” she said.

“You needn’t help me, after all. Once I’ve straightened up I’m okay. My legs are absolutely right. Let go.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course,” he said. He straightened up and gave a short howl. “Absolutely all right,” he said and walked rather quickly up the steps into the house and fell into an armchair. Emily went to the telephone.

“What are you doing, Em?”

“Ringing up the doctor.”

“I don’t think —”

“I do,” said Emily. She had an incisive conversation. “How did it happen?” she broke off.

“I fell on a sword. On the wooden hilt.”

She repeated this into the telephone and hung up. “He’s looking in on his way home,” she said.

“I’d like a drink.”

“I suppose it won’t do you any harm?”

“It certainly will not.”

She fetched him a drink. “I’m not sure about this,” she said.

“I am,” said Peregrine. He swallowed it. “Better,” he said. “Why did you come running out of the house?”

“I’ve got something to show you but I don’t know that you’re in a fit state to see it.”

“Bad news?”

“Not directly.”

“Then show me.”

“Here, then. Look at this.”

She fetched an envelope from the table and pulled out a cutting from one of the more lurid Sunday tabloids. It was a photograph of a woman and a small boy. They were in a street and had obviously been caught unaware. She was white-faced and stricken. The little boy looked frightened. “Mrs. Geoffrey Harcourt-Smith and William,” the caption read. “After the verdict.”

“It’s three years old,” said Emily. “It came in the post this morning.”

“My God,” Peregrine said. “I remember. It was a murder. Decapitation. The last of five, I think. The husband was found guilty but insane and he got a life sentence.” Peregrine looked at the cutting for a minute and then held it out. “Burn it?” he said.

“Gladly.” She lit a match and he held the cutting over an ashtray. It turned black and disintegrated. He let it drop.

“This too?” Emily asked, holding up the envelope. It was addressed in capital letters.

“Yes. No. No, not that. Not yet,” said Peregrine. “Put it in my desk.”

Emily did so. “You’re quite sure? It is your little William?”

“Three years younger. Absolutely sure. And his mother. Damn.”

“Perry, you’ve never seen the thing. Put it out of your mind.”

“I can’t do that. But it makes no difference. The father was a schizophrenic monster. Lifetime in Broadmoor. They called him the Hampstead Chopper.”

“You don’t think — it’s — anybody in the theatre who sent this?”

“ No .”

Emily was silent.

“They’ve no cause. None.”

After a pause he said: “I suppose it might be a sort of warning.”

“You haven’t told me how you came to fall on the claymore.”

“I was showing the girls and Rangi how to fall soft. They don’t know what happened. They’ve each got a special place. The sword was halfway between two places, under the tarp covering the mattresses they fall on.”