Chapter Three
Thank you, good Sir, I owe you one.
Adam Hearne slammed the lid on his trunk, the thud nearly drowned by the clangor of Great Tom through the open window of his chambers which overlooked the Quad.
There it was. Somehow, he was spending the summer—or a lengthy portion of it—in Iffley, instead of remaining in Oxford and getting up the play he had planned.
Midgecomb had won.
“Think, Adam: fresh air, change of scene, plenteous food, charming young ladies—”
“I cannot believe Tilson already agreed to this.”
Midge shrugged. “Well, John lost pretty badly at Newmarket and says it is the perfect time to be kept at another’s expense. Moreover, it gives him an excuse not to go into Kent to face his grandfather’s recriminations.”
“Ah,” Hearne said lightly. “Fair enough. But why do you need me? If this is your chance to woo the divine Miss E, you’ve told me often enough to stay away.”
Midge shifted. “Yes. I know. And I still depend on you keeping your word there, but, frankly, I understood the invitation to be for all three of us. All or nothing, unfortunately. Therefore you must come. Please. I will be in your debt. You may ask any favor of me in return, within reason. I’d promise to help you with your own amours, if not for your perpetual vow of bachelorhood. ”
“Thank you,” said Adam dryly. “But favors aside, I can think of other difficulties. Chief among them, when I was introduced to your angel and her mother, I affected blankness and idiocy. If I were to accompany you and John to Iffley, I would have to maintain that sham for weeks on end—a tiresome business, I promise you, and one I have no interest in perpetuating.”
“I know it,” said Midge again, disheartened.
“And,” he went on inexorably, “if I were to go to Iffley, A Midsummer Night’s Dream must be abandoned.
You know I have all the parts assigned, including yours, and if we were to walk or ride back to Oxford every day for the rehearsals, it would be better never to have removed to Iffley in the first place. ”
“I know it,” said Midge for the third time.
“If you’re so all-knowing, why do you make such blockheaded proposals?”
But instead of being chastened, Midge lit up, snapping his fingers. “That’s it!” he exclaimed.
“What’s it?”
“Suppose we were still to get up the play, but in Iffley, rather than Oxford?”
“Have you taken leave of your senses?” asked Hearne mildly.
“Where? How? You tell me the Eveleighs invited three of us. Would you then have a dozen descend on them? And did they furthermore invite you to make their home into a theatre, regardless of the attendant noise, expense and bother? Prodigious!”
But Midgecomb was undismayed. “I don’t say we suggest it the moment we arrive.
And why need there be a dozen ‘descending’ on them?
We will fob off Pendergast and the others and cast in their place the other guests!
Whoever is on hand. You say you got the parts down to, what, ten or eleven?
Surely we can enlist that many! Everyone loves a chance to ‘strut and fret his hour upon the stage.’ Nor need there be additional fuss or expense.
A wooden arch, a curtain, a few costumes which the ladies will delight in making.
For the rest, the audience must call upon their own imagination to see. ”
Adam pressed his lips together, his brow creasing, but Midge had known him long enough to recognize when the war was won.
The temptation of private theatricals! Private theatricals in an elegant setting (unlike the converted tennis court of Blue Boar Street), before a well-mannered, private audience (rather than the rowdy mixture of town and gown which attended tennis-court productions).
“There is no saying it will happen,” Hearne rejoined slowly.
“It will happen,” vowed Midge. “It will be my return favor to you. If you will give me a few days to make myself agreeable, I swear to bring it about.”
“You will have to, if I am to play the dunce again for weeks on end. Anything we want accomplished, you or John will have to do, while I sit there, staring into vacancy.”
Midgecomb dismissed this, seeing it already done in his mind.
“Certainly. We will work that out. We will work it all out, including a code for communication. The real trick will be trying not to laugh when you act the fool. But say, Adam, I will pay you any price, if you will make Miss Eveleigh the Titania to my Oberon.”
“Idiot. Titania spends more time caressing her changeling child and Bottom the weaver, neither activity which you would enjoy watching as you stood by. It would be better to make her Puck, so the two of you would have many occasions to practice your scenes.”
By which Miles Midgecomb understood he had prevailed.
Therefore, the packed trunk, and therefore a wagon requisitioned from the Angel Inn to carry them to Greenwood Hall. That is, to carry Tilson and Hearne and the trunks, for Midgecomb hired a horse, intending to arrive in style.
It was a beautiful late June day, a day all the more beautiful for coming after a week of rain, and after the young men crossed the Pettypont and passed St. Clement’s Church and the toll gate, the fields and meadows of Iffley opened before them, riotous with wildflowers and grasses.
“Lucky for you the weather has been so wretched,” the Angel Inn stableman told them.
“If it’d been dry, there wouldn’t have been a wagon to be had for love or money, but now the haymaking must wait for Monday. ”
“What’s the hurry?” Adam called to Midge, the third time he rode ahead and circled back. “Why do we not first make a tour of the village and surroundings? Once we arrive at Greenwood Hall, we will be at the mercy of our hosts.”
But Midge was too impatient to see his beloved again. “You and Tilson take your time, then,” he replied, jumping on the opportunity to leave them behind. “I will make excuses for you.” And away he went, cutting through the nearest field.
The two remaining friends grinned at each other.
“Generous of you,” said Tilson, “to afford him this chance. This gives him maybe half an hour to impress Miss E before we arrive. ‘Then shall thy light break forth as the morning’ and utterly eclipse poor Midge.”
“Not unless she has a penchant for close-lipped dunces,” answered Hearne cheerfully. “Which reminds me—I suppose the deception begins now. If we are to spend weeks in Iffley, every person must be taken in, lest idle gossip unmask me.”
He spoke not a moment too soon, for voices soon carried to them across the fields. Their laden wagon was creaking past a sheepwalk, and glancing down it, the two gentlemen saw a pony cart standing at a tilt, a young lady perched at its front, dispensing instruction to the boy by the pony’s head.
“You mustn’t tug at Chauncey, Gordon. He will never budge if you do. He must be coaxed.”
Despite her troubled brow she was a fresh, lovely creature, queenly in height, with dark blonde hair escaping her chip bonnet, and before Tilson could urge Hearne to stop the wagon, the latter was already pulling them to a halt.
Thoroughly used to letting others take the lead when it came to the fair sex, Tilson sat back comfortably, content to watch what unfolded, until he received a kick to the ankle.
“Oh!” he muttered. “Quite right.” And then, more loudly, “Good day to you. Might we be of assistance?”
Both boy and young lady looked over, and Adam jerked his chin at his friend. Go on, then.
“Er. Yes.” Climbing down, John Tilson picked his way toward them, the sheepwalk being muddy from the recent rains, as those in the pony cart had discovered.
“Dear me, your boots, sir,” said the lady, our very own Frances. “You mustn’t. You needn’t.”
“No matter,” said Tilson, suppressing a sigh as he squelched through one miniature quagmire after another.
“I told my brother he need only cajole Chauncey, and the pony will tug like Hercules,” she explained, “but I’m afraid Chauncey has a long memory, and Gordy and his friend have often teased him.”
“Well, look at him,” returned Gordon, vexed to have his sister expose him thus before strangers. “He’s useless.”
“I would descend myself and do it,” she continued, “but—”
“—But she has new boots and doesn’t want to dirty them,” finished her brother vengefully.
“Nor would you, if they were a gift which you had just received from Mrs. Dere,” she answered through gritted teeth, mortified in turn. It had been Gordy who insisted on cutting through the sheepway, though Frances had told him how muddy it would be.
But the siblings ceased their wrangling when the young man reached them.
“Come, come, my fine fellow,” said Tilson to the pony, hardly easier than the Barstows.
Though he would gladly spend all his time at racecourses, he had no fondness for ponies, thinking them moody, unpredictable creatures.
Small blame to him, since a pony just like Chauncey had bitten his arm when Tilson was barely out of leading strings.
Moreover, he thought that, if only the young lady would descend from the cart, the vehicle would be freed in a jiff, but he could hardly demand such a thing.
“Pardon me, sir,” Frances said, “but you had better take hold of the bridle as well. I should have said that Chauncey requires both cajolery and a firm hand.”
With deep misgivings, Tilson reached for Chauncey’s cheekpiece, only to have the pony shy at the motion and toss his head with a whinny of protest. Then three things happened at once: Tilson issued an unmanly yip of fear; the cart joggled from the sudden movement; and Frances nearly tumbled over the front of it, only managing to stop her fall by scrabbling at the pony’s rump.
“Tilson,” came a voice over the confusion, “take the reins.”