Chapter Thirteen
…She wants no courting neither: 'Tis well one of us does; else the man would have nothing but halcyon.
For the young Frances Barstow in the midst of that magical summer, however, much remained to be decided and discovered. And her first discovery was that, in such close and constant company, she could not expect to hoodwink Mrs. Markham Dere without also being observed by the others.
The first indication was a subtle one, so subtle that it escaped Frances.
“Have you noticed of late,” Maria remarked as the two sisters walked toward Greenwood Hall for one of the Athenians’ rehearsals, “when Oberon speaks to Puck, he has almost ceased to stammer?”
Frances considered this, running through the previous day’s rehearsal, where the king of fairies and the “shrewd and knavish sprite” plotted to trick Titania of the changeling child.
“Why, you’re right. He didn’t, did he? Hurrah for Mr. Midgecomb!
I hoped, as he grew accustomed to seeing Jane again and again, he would overcome his awkwardness with her, and now it might finally have happened.
” Skipping a little, Frances grinned. “And thank goodness. Too much stammering might have stretched our two-hour play into five! He hasn’t been cured altogether of his bumbling, however.
Perhaps the theatre gods require a certain amount of it every day from him, but they have graciously allowed him to distribute his stammers and stumbles more evenly across the cast.”
Maria did not think Mr. Midgecomb’s affliction any more evenly distributed now than it had been, but she bit her lip, peeking sidewise at her older sister.
If Frances as yet guessed nothing, it would be better to gather more evidence before she spoke, or Frances would be sure to blast her with scorn.
As it happened, more evidence would not prove hard to come by.
“M-Miss Barstow, Miss Maria,” Mr. Midgecomb welcomed them, when they were shown into the library.
He had propped his playbook on a music stand, but as he lifted his hand from it, papers and a ribbon fluttered down.
Bending to retrieve them, it took him several attempts, and then when he straightened, his head knocked into the stand, sending the book tumbling.
“Allow me, sir,” droned the footman Treadle, to everyone’s relief.
Fighting a giggle, Frances was hard put to don her now usual admiring expression.
“Yes,” she addressed him, hoping to distract him from his embarrassment, “you see I have come, though I am not needed until Act Four. I thought, with all of you so busy in this scene, I might be useful in my prompting and assistant-assistant-acting-manager roles.”
“Yes,” he agreed at once. “I am glad you have come, Miss Barstow. Glad. Very glad.”
From the depths of an armchair Mr. Hearne said, “Such a useful person you are. I suppose I am lacking as an assistant acting manager, if you felt it necessary to come.”
Frances nearly jumped. There ought to be some sort of warning, if he was going to pop out like that, beauty and all. Well, the man was nothing if not ornamental.
“What? Oh—I did not mean to suggest anything about your assistant work, sir,” she answered. “But as you do not figure in today’s scenes, and as I do, at the end of Act Four and beginning of Act Five, you might…enjoy a day’s sabbatical.”
Mr. Tilson waved a hand. “Ahem. As the other assistant acting manager, I would suggest you and Hearne practice the scene where Titania first wakes up and sees Bottom with the ass’s head. I don’t believe you’ve tried that since the very first reading altogether.”
“And as the actual acting manager,” said Mr. Midgecomb loudly, throwing frowns at his friends, “I overrule all you assistants and assistant-to-the-assistants and declare that Miss Barstow will remain here as our prompter. That scene you refer to, Tilson, is but a few lines long and can easily be appended to an Iffley-Cottage rehearsal with the fairies.”
“That’s just it,” returned Mr. Tilson. “It could, but it has not yet.”
“Soon enough, soon enough,” Mr. Midgecomb dismissed this. “Why don’t you take a seat, Miss Barstow?”
From the armchair facing Mr. Hearne’s, Mr. Tilson leapt up. “Here, please, Miss Barstow. As Demetrius I’ll be on my feet shortly.”
With a polite smile pinned to her face, she obeyed. Mr. Hearne beamed at her, blinking his customary sleepy blinks before raising his book to resume reading.
Frances gasped. Color flooded her face, and she gave her chest a tiny thump to start her breathing again, for the man held not the playbook she supposed but rather The Reform’d Coquet.
“Shall we begin?” asked Mr. Midgecomb, clapping his hands and recalling everyone’s attention.
He straightened and held up one hand in a theatrical gesture.
“‘I wonder if Titania be awaked…’” Titania not being in the scene, there was no reason for him to glance her way, but he did, and Frances had just enough presence of mind to lower her lashes and put her irksome blush to good use.
Appearing satisfied, Mr. Midgecomb proceeded to address Miss Eveleigh as Puck, as unstutteringly as Maria had noted.
That’s good, Frances thought. If he can now present himself more sensibly to Jane than he has hitherto, it can only work in his favor.
What she was not prepared for, however, was Mr. Midgecomb glancing so often at her, Frances, while Puck described his mischievous trick upon the fairy queen. But so he did, even missing his cue when Jane finished her speech.
“That’s you, Mr. Midgecomb,” blurted Frances. “‘This falls out better than I could devise…’”
“Oh! Heh heh. So it is. I am too carried away with imagining the scene,” he answered. “But let us have Demetrius and Hermia join us now. ‘This falls out better than I could devise…’”
“I do not see how you proposed to prompt them, when you do not even have the playbook with you,” Frances leaned to hiss at Mr. Hearne, when the next bit was under way.
“Or do you expect me to believe you have worked day and night and committed the entire thing to memory?” She tapped her temple as he was wont to do.
Those maddening, idiotic blinks. Then, slowly, as if he were a flower closing up for the night, he squeezed himself into a smaller compass and extracted Dream from beside him.
“Oh,” said Frances lamely. “You do have it.”
“I daresay you watch Midge and the others carefully enough to replace a troop of assistant acting managers,” he answered in dulcet tones.
Frances pressed her lips together to prevent a grimace. “I take my job in good earnest,” she said primly.
“Your self-assigned job.”
“Someone has to mind our progress,” she sniffed, “if you are going to read other books.”
“Let me see.” Holding out his elegant hand, palm up, he began to count off.
“There’s Midge here, the actual acting manager.
Though you are right to guess he isn’t paying the proper attention.
In fact, he seems somewhat distracted. And not by Miss Eveleigh’s presence, curiously enough.
” Frowning, Mr. Hearne pressed on his forefinger, ruminating.
“So maybe you’re right, and he doesn’t count.
” He curled the finger downward. “Well, there’s still John, the assistant acting manager… ”
“It’s difficult to act and prompt at the same time,” Frances insisted, jabbing her own finger at her playbook.
“—Frances?” Maria interrupted.
“What?” Frances straightened guiltily.
“Never mind,” said her sister, consulting her book. “I found it.”
“Miss Barstow, would you like to draw your chair closer?” suggested Mr. Midgecomb.
No, she would not, but she made a vague sound in her throat and proceeded to do so, and the rehearsal went on, this time with Frances alert and attentive, tracing the lines in her playbook as they proceeded and forcing smiles whenever Mr. Midgecomb’s gaze wandered to her.
A muffled dragging sound announced Mr. Hearne following suit and bringing his armchair abreast of hers, his playbook open as well on his lap.
He said nothing, but he did not need to.
His nearness was enough to make her uneasy.
It was as if, though he was as simple-minded a man as Frances ever had the misfortune to meet, he somehow managed, through unerring skill or luck, to hit upon the things which made her feel most exposed.
With him sitting there, six inches from her, she inexplicably found her compelled smiles for Mr. Midgecomb distorting into grimaces, such that, after a few of these, Mr. Midgecomb halted proceedings once more to ask, “Miss Barstow, are you quite well? Does our fairy queen require a glass of wine? Some tea?”
Frances shook her head. “No. No, please. I’m quite well.
Do go on. It is—it is only—I will exchange my seat.
The heat—that is, the draft—” There being no fire in the fireplace it had been stupid to mention the heat, but Mr. Midgecomb did not seem to mind, and he hastened to set another chair for her to one side of where he stood.
Better too near him than too near Mr. Hearne, she thought.
And believed it, for the first few minutes, as she kept her eyes on her book and granted herself a respite from making up to Mr. Midgecomb.
Honestly, after only a few days of her sham, her fake liking for Jane’s would-be beau showed signs of becoming genuine dislike. Hardly fair to him, but so it was.
“Let me now attempt my part off book,” he announced, laying his copy down, to the wondering murmurs of the other Athenians.
Their admiration was short-lived, however, for he met with such limited success that he was obliged to lean over Frances frequently to find his place, and it took every ounce of Frances’ self-mastery not to shrink away or—worse—to give him a shove.