Chapter Nineteen
Back at the theatre, there’s an air of intrigue.
At first I think the furtive looks on the faces of the company are in response to Cavill and me, who have been gone some time.
But it soon becomes clear when Cavill asks one of the stagehands, that Gilda has taken a turn and gone home.
Cavill leaves immediately to do his duty as husband.
I hope that he’s not in trouble for having absconded when he was most needed.
I notice Mr Bentley pacing the stage, looking anxious. He’s studying his clipboard and scratching his head. One might put his agitation down to pre-performance nerves, now the leading lady won’t be leading, but I know differently. He’s worried about his lover.
Nessa rushes up the aisle towards me. I can tell from the exuberance on her face that she’s thrilled she’s getting the chance to perform.
I’m also immediately suspicious that she slipped something into Gilda’s tea which put her out of action.
Lavinia, who is on stage with a cup of coffee, catches my eye, then looks away swiftly.
A thought crosses my mind then. Lavinia works for a pharmacist. Might she have given Nessa a drug to make sure Gilda could not perform?
‘Isn’t it marvellous!’ Nessa declares breathlessly ‘I’m going to play Lady Macbeth!’
‘What happened to Gilda?’ I ask.
Nessa can barely muster up concern for the poor leading lady. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she replies dismissively. ‘She came over all queer. She’s gone home.’
‘Oh dear. I hope she’ll be all right for tomorrow?’
Nessa gives me sly grin. ‘I hope not. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Papa could see me playing Lady Macbeth?
He would have to give in then, wouldn’t he?
He would have to accept that this is where I belong.
On stage. My name in lights! Oh, it’s all so tremendously exciting!
’ She rubs her palms together with glee.
How horrendous it is to know that no one will watch her on stage tomorrow night. There will be no performance. In fact, there will be no theatre.
I feel the current of destiny pulling me through time and am acutely aware now of the inevitability of the terrible events that will unfold in the next twenty-four hours.
Nessa hurries off to prepare for her performance. She has a bounce in her step, and I feel sick to my stomach, knowing what will become of her. I focus with determination on my mission, to save her soul in the present, and climb onto the stage to talk to Mr Bentley.
He doesn’t smile when he sees me approach him. Fretfulness burns in his eyes. ‘You’ve heard about Miss Garrett?’ he says.
‘Yes, what happened?’
He shrugs and I intuit his sense of helplessness.
I suspect he’s wishing he was with her and feeling powerless because he can’t be.
‘I don’t know,’ he replies. ‘She was fine, going through her first scene, when she went very white and said she felt queasy. She hurried to the bathroom. A while later she returned and said she was going home. She was too ill to perform. Mrs Fry accompanied her.’
Mrs Fry works in wardrobe – elderly, kind, softly spoken, keen to please.
‘I hope she’ll be well enough to perform tomorrow,’ I say, even though I know there will be no performance tomorrow.
‘I hope so too,’ Mr Bentley agrees, but he looks unsure. He scratches his head again. I know he’s not worried about the play. He’s worried about Gilda.
The atmosphere soon lifts, and the excitement begins to build as guests start to arrive for the dress rehearsal.
The curtain is down and behind it last-minute adjustments are being made to the set.
I take my place on the chair in the wing and lay the script across my knee, ready to prompt if necessary.
Lydia, in her slacks and artist’s smock, appears and crouches down beside me.
‘What do you think happened to Gilda?’ she asks. I can tell from the sparkle in her eyes that she’s loving the drama.
‘I don’t know,’ I reply. ‘Maybe she ate a bad oyster.’
Lydia grins crookedly like a pirate. ‘Only if Nessa gave it to her.’
‘Oh, Lydia. I’m sure she wouldn’t do something like that.’ But I think she’s done something exactly like that.
‘This is Gilda’s big moment …’
‘Tomorrow night is her big moment,’ I interrupt.
‘Maybe she’ll take a turn tomorrow night as well.’ She arches her eyebrows suggestively.
‘You’re a menace, Lydia,’ I laugh, but she might be right. Perhaps Nessa put something in Gilda’s tea today to find out whether it would work. In which case, what’s to stop her doing it again tomorrow?
Lydia pats my arm. ‘You know I love intrigue.’
‘I do,’ I reply.
‘I’m going to watch from the stalls. See you after the show. Tallyho!’
I watch her stride across the stage with her mannish gait. She casts another glance at her magnificent set, mutters something to herself, then disappears into the wing.
I can hear people taking their places on the other side of the curtain.
It’s not a full audience tonight, simply friends of the cast and a few people from the industry.
I have gleaned from snippets of conversation that Lady Faversham is always invited to the dress rehearsal but prefers to come to the first night and sit in the royal box with her family and Mr Pengower.
How terrible that tomorrow night Cavill will lose his theatre.
And Nessa will lose her life.
That’s the worst part about being a timeslider – being unable to change the future by altering the present.
And falling in love.
Falling in love and being separated by time.
I push away those gloomy thoughts and focus instead on the script.
I read the lines in order to distract myself from the feelings of self-pity and frustration that are roiling inside me.
I need to calm down. To slow my breathing and, in turn, my pulse.
There’s no point feeling sorry for myself.
It won’t get me what I want. It will only make my last hours with Cavill miserable.
My last hours.
I open my eyes wide, willing the tears back, and I say Macbeth’s first line of the play aloud. So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
The curtains open and the play begins. The three witches in white gowns and bare feet take centre stage to the sound of thunder and the flash of lightening.
The set does, indeed, look wonderfully gothic and creepy.
The witches themselves are suitably spooky in the mist that swirls around their ankles.
The oldest witch is played by an elderly Scottish woman called Eileen McGraw, who is married to the fishmonger whose shop, Seacombe Trawler, is the most popular fishmonger in town.
She doesn’t have to wear a wig because her wild, curly white hair is already pretty spectacular.
She does, however, wear a prosthetic nose with a large wart on the end of it.
She’s throwing herself into the part with aplomb, waving her arms and spreading her long fingers wide, and being wonderfully weird.
When she recites the lines, she hisses like a snake.
Jacqueline Rowe is a less convincing witch.
Young and pretty, she’s more like a seductive siren in The Odyssey than an old crone.
Her day job is at the hair salon in town where she works as a beautician, and where, she told me cheerfully, they cut her hair into a fashionable bob for free.
Tonight, she’s sporting a black wig that reaches her waist and frames her pale face, emphasising her sharp cheekbones and angular jawline most beautifully.
She flicks her hair self-consciously and does a lot of pouting.
She reminds me of those self-loving influencers on Instagram.
The third witch is played by Lavinia. With her heavy black eye make-up and long wig of tangled red hair – I suspect it’s the same wig that Gilda borrowed for The Lady of Shalott – I failed to recognise her at first. Unlike Jacqueline, Lavinia is convincing, and I stop keeping track of the script and watch her with a strange fascination.
Something about the vigour in her movements is quite compelling.
‘Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air.’ I can’t see the audience from where I’m hidden away in the wing, but I can feel their rapt attention in the stillness and silence of the auditorium. So far, so good.
Enter Lady Macbeth in a gown of emerald green trimmed with gold.
She too wears a wig in an elaborate updo of dark brown curls.
Her stage presence is off the scale; indeed, nothing has prepared me for Nessa.
I suspected she’d be a good actor, because she has that fluid, pliable personality that can take the shape of whatever it fills.
Lady Macbeth is the perfect vessel for her.
Like water, Nessa fills it right into the very corners.
She is Lady Macbeth. Now I don’t even glance at the script.
If she forgets her lines, I’m screwed. I doubt she will forget her lines, though.
She’s much too professional for that. She’s relishing this opportunity to put Gilda in the shade – and put her in the shade she most certainly does!
But Gilda is the wife of the proprietor and lover of the director, Nessa doesn’t stand a chance however accomplished she is.
If Gilda is back tomorrow, Nessa won’t get the chance to perform for her father. I feel sorry for her then, before remembering the fire with a jolt.
No one will get the chance to perform tomorrow night.