the local buses don’t run as late as the play does, anyway. Let it rip. If those two can get some fun out of Shakespeare’s clowning, good luck to them, says I.”
“You’ll speak to Narayan Rao, then?”
“Of course I will. In any case, he may have forgiven Rinkley by this time.”
“I doubt it. These motoring cases can be the very devil when a cross-summons is brought. After all, Rao only lost on a technicality. I don’t know the details, but I believe it was touch and go how the verdict went.”
“But it was the court’s decision, not Rinkley’s. Surely Narayan realises that.”
“I don’t suppose it compensates him, any more than it compensated Rinkley in the other case he was involved in, that wretched charge of molesting a child, although he got off.”
“One thing, it doesn’t matter two hoots whether we have a little changeling boy on stage or not. I should think the signora would be thankful not to have another small child to look after, particularly one she doesn’t know.”
“Dr Jeanne-Marie has committed us now, I’m afraid, if Narayan agrees.”
“Oh, well, I’ll speak to Narayan. That will settle it one way or the other. It will be up to him to bring the kid or to opt out.”
“See that you make quite sure to mention Rinkley. But I do wish Dr Jeanne-Marie hadn’t stuck her oar in. I’ve got enough problems without having a race-relations squabble on my hands.”
“Narayan’s case would have had just the same result if Narayan had been an Englishman, you know.”
“I doubt very much whether Narayan sees it quite like that. The ethnic minorities are very sensitive, I believe.”
“Anyway, I’ll talk to him and see how it goes. He’s a nice chap. I don’t suppose he bears Rinkley any real malice.”
“That’s your guess, not mine.”
“What does Marcus think of the play? Has he said anything—made any comments?”
“He seems well satisfied, I think. He has certainly done us proud over the whole production. Your supposedly diamond dewdrop get-up looked fantastic under the lights. Now our only query seems to be the weather. Fate must have something up its sleeve. That dress rehearsal went ever so much too well.”
Chapter 5
All Right on the Night
“And we will do it in action as we will do it before the duke.”
« ^ »
Marcus Lynn was well satisfied with all the arrangements. To his mind, simple in all its workings except where finance and sheer business acumen were concerned, nothing could have been more pleasing than the woodland setting for the production, the splendid (albeit very expensive) designs the theatrical dressmakers had contrived for the costumes, the lighting and sound effects and the few but important theatrical properties which had been provided to augment the swords and daggers he had brought.
More than anything else, he was pleased with his Emma. He was fully aware that unkind opinion was convinced that he had married her for her money and he was honest enough with himself to admit that, to a large extent, this was true. However, the dowry the plain-featured and shy young woman had brought with her had given him the capital he needed in order (in his own words) to get going. It was now, however, but a drop in the ocean of his financial success, and he had paid it back in the form of a trust for her.
Moreover, he had been a kind and most considerate husband and although Emma had not provided him with the child he so desperately longed for, he had never held it against her. Even though medical opinion had informed him that it was not due to any deficiency on his part that no issue had come from the marriage, neither was there any physical reason why Emma should not conceive. After three years of frustration, they had adopted the boy Jasper, the son of a woman cousin of his who had had an affair with what Marcus vaguely referred to as ‘a lord’.
“When I buy stock it’s got to be pedigree,” he said to Emma.
“It’s a poor start for the boy, being illegitimate,” she said.
“We must do our best for him. He’s ten. He’s sure to know he is not our own.”
“Of course, but he also knows his mother is dead. That’s reason enough for us to have taken him on. No need for him to know about the rest of it. I don’t suppose she told him.”
“It will come out at some time or other.”
“Leave things alone,” said Marcus. “Our money will see him through.” This had been seven years ago. On the night of the play he said to her, “Not nervous about the show, are you?—or about Jasper’s performance?”
“Mrs Bradley won’t let me be nervous, and Jasper is used to being in the school plays, so he’ll be all right. Anyway, Barbara Bourton is so outstanding as Hermia that nobody is going to notice little me. I’m not surprised Jasper looks at her and nobody else. He’s completely moonstruck, poor boy.”
“You’ve got better speeches than hers in the opening scene and you say them well.”
“That’s Deborah Bradley’s doing. What I say really ought to be addressed to her, you know, not to Barbara Bourton. ‘Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue’s sweet air More tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear, When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.’ I love those lines, don’t you, Marcus?”
“Oh, well, they’re Shakespeare, of course,” said Marcus, looking at her rather anxiously. “Not getting a ‘thing’ about Deborah Bradley, are you?”
