Lovers Make Moan

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How much do you know?” asked Barbara Bourton.

“That is a stock question,” replied Dame Beatrice, “and I will give the appropriate answer. I know all that I need to know. For one thing, I know that Jasper Lynin did not put the fatal dagger among his father’s collection of weapons.”

“You make it sound like an Elizabethan tragedy and I suppose that is what it was.”

“Will you tell me the plot, or shall I tell it to you?”

“Oh, just as you please. I pay you the compliment of believing that by this time you know it all. If you did not, you would hardly have singled me out. There is one thing, though, which I should like to know.”

“Why the anonymous letters suddenly stopped?”

“I see that you are a thought-reader. No wonder you are so successful in your profession.”

“My profession helps, no doubt. The letters stopped because it was fairly obvious who was writing them. I sent her a warning, that is all, and she was sensible enough to accept it.”

“Is it of any use to ask—?”

“I shall name no names. There were two possible candidates, both unattractive, both, at the beginning of rehearsals, unhappy, but, before the letters were written, one had recovered her spirits, the other, I am sure, had not. You may or may not know that Mr Rinkley, as well as yourself and the two young girls, came to me for comfort and advice.”

“Rinkley? Had he received one of the letters?”

“More than one, he gave me to understand.”

“Oh, well, there is only one unattractive woman—you did say she was unattractive, didn’t you?—who would have written nasty letters to Rinkley, and that woman was not Emma Lynn.”

“Shall we leave it at that?”

“What did the letters accuse him of?—not paying his gambling debts to my husband? He should have ignored the letters. You can’t be had up for so-called debts of honour, and, whatever his faults, Donald didn’t employ strong-arm men to frighten or bash people into paying up. A properly conducted turf accountant’s business doesn’t need to go in for that sort of thing. It covers itself as it goes along. So, if the letters were not about gambling, they must have had to do with the play and that means Robina Lester.”

“When did you first realise that young Jasper Lynn was in love with you?” asked Dame Beatrice abruptly.

“Or thought he was. They get over it very quickly and easily, you know, although it can be a nuisance and a responsibility while it lasts—or so I’ve always discovered.”

“But Jasper got over it neither quickly nor easily, did he?”

“You can’t blame me for that. I’m sure I gave him no encouragement.”

“I seldom apportion blame. Let me hear the evidence for the defence. A woman of your experience could have put a stop to the affair as soon as you realised what was happening. Why did you not do so?”

“Oh, please! It never developed into an affair! It wasn’t until the very end that I knew what he was feeling, and then it was too late to do anything.”

“But at the rehearsals—?”

“Oh, those rehearsals! Really, Dame Beatrice, you have no idea how unutterably tedious and boring they were. And to have to use one’s voice all the time in the open air and in the evenings at that, with all the mist coming up from the bay and some idiotic bird trilling away in the trees! If it hadn’t been for Tom, I would have thrown up the part. I only took it on because the play gave us a chance to be alone together occasionally in those woods.”

“Ah, yes. ‘Under the greenwood tree, who loves to lie with me, and tune his merry note unto the sweet bird’s throat.’ ”

“Good gracious, Tom isn’t a gamekeeper, even if he does breed dogs! Neither am I Lady Chatterley. There was nothing improper in our encounters, I assure you. There were far too many people round and about, for one thing, for us to take any risks.”

“There was certainly one small and very inquisitive person to bear witness to the proceedings, so your circumspection was justified and I apologise for my lapsus linguae. I intended no odious comparisons. May we return to the matter in hand? It is serious enough, in all conscience. You must surely have been aware, very early on, that Jasper Lynn was infatuated with you. Boys of his age are adept at hiding some of their feelings, but the blind adoration of a beloved object is not among these.”

Barbara was silent for a full minute; then she said, “I don’t suppose you know this, but in the read-through of the play I was cast as Helena, not Hermia, and so I did not appear in the first scene until nobody was left on-stage except Emma and Tom. I knew that a gangling adolescent had been chosen as Egeus and my only concern was that he was hardly likely to be convincing in the part. As to his being billed as Emma’s father, well, I was thankful that they were only to play the opening scene together and that I didn’t have to appear with him, but when Emma turned down the part of Hermia and it was wished on me, the ludicrous aspect struck me all over again. It became embarrassing, though, when Brian Yorke, never the soul of tact, pulled the boy up in mid-speech in one of the early rehearsals.

“ ‘Look, Jasper, darling boy,’ he said, ‘you are suggesting that Barbara must either be put to death or become a nun if she doesn’t carry out your wishes. I realise that, left to your natural inclinations, you would not want either of these things to happen, but you are playing a part, not indulging in a visit to the Hesperides. Do pay attention to what is going on. Back to “With cunning hast thou filched my daughter’s heart”, and look daggers at Tom when you say it and then look at Barbara as though you’d like to give her a thrashing. All right, then. Now, please, everybody, put some pep in it. This scene sets the whole play moving.’ It was only then that I realised the boy had been making sheep’s eyes at me.”

“I can guess the next bit,” said Dame Beatrice. “The boy came to you at the end of the rehearsal and abased