Midsummer Mayhem Read online

  “Prat,” Demetrius muttered and followed her. “Why do you let him do that to you?”

  “It isn’t any of your business,” Hermia snapped.

  “I’m making it my business,” he replied.

  It was an intense, although quiet, exchange, and the others seemed not to hear—or they pretended not to. Hermia drove away in a cloud of dust, Demetrius left on a bicycle, Penelope in her orange Jazz, Puck slammed the door of his Ford Mondeo, and Ambrose and Max climbed into an older-model, but still quite respectable, silver Mercedes. Ambrose lowered the window and stuck his head out. “Pru, do you need a lift?”

  “No, thanks, I’m not far.”

  * * *

  —

  It was a longer journey home than going, made so because Pru stopped along the way to jot down notes. But the more she wrote, the more confused she became. Ring nurseries re wholesale trees and herbs—borrow or buy? What is production budget? How many different foliage colors—plain, gray, yellow, or white variegated. Silver! Artemisia, Japanese painted fern, astelia, lamb’s ears. No flowers. But one.

  Where was she to begin? Pru took a deep breath and let it out slowly to clear her head. She desperately needed a cup of tea and a nap. Perhaps later it would all fall into place.

  Inside the mudroom door, she deposited her bag on the bench, stepped into the kitchen, and found Evelyn, Polly, and Reverend Bernadette Freemantle from St. Mary’s Church looking up at her, a pot of tea and a plate of ginger cake on the table in front of them.

  “Is this a flower committee meeting?” Pru asked. “If so, may I be excused? I’m knackered.”

  Bernadette shook her head. “Not a meeting—I just happened to put my head in and found Polly here, too.” She adjusted her clerical collar, smoothed down her already smooth short black hair, and smiled.

  “You sit down,” Evelyn ordered. “This is a fresh pot.”

  Pru sighed and sank into a chair.

  “How did it go today?” Polly asked, pushing the cake toward Pru.

  “Was it just the two of you,” Bernadette asked, as she slid her own cup over to Evelyn, “you and the stage manager, or did you meet anyone else?”

  The three of them paused and stared at Pru. The penny dropped.

  “Well, I did meet the director, Max Stirling, but the cast wasn’t there today.” Pru saw the disappointment on the women’s faces, and she stifled a giggle and reached for a large wedge of cake. When Polly, Evelyn, and Bernadette had learned of Pru’s temporary job, the realization had hit there might be a mere one degree of separation between them and their idol. No wonder they had been lying in wait.

  “At least, not the entire cast—only a few,” she added, and the women leaned in. “The lovers were there. And Puck. Oh, and Ambrose Grant.”

  “Well?” the vicar asked. “What was he like?”

  Pru licked a finger. “He offered me a lift home.” She dangled this bait, and it was snapped up as all eyes shot to the door of the mudroom.

  “He was here?” Polly whispered.

  “I said no thanks and walked.”

  “Look, Pru”—Bernadette brushed crumbs off her ample chest—“do you need any help with this business? Because, you know, I can make myself available any day—apart from Sunday, of course.”

  “Peachey can transport plants for you,” Evelyn said. “But I’d better be there, too, just to make sure it all goes well.”

  “What if I—” Polly began.

  “Hang on.” Pru held a hand up to stop them. “I’m only the gardener. I can’t show up to rehearsal with a load of Ambrose Grant groupies. But if all goes well, maybe I could introduce you after a performance.”

  The three frowns she received told her that offer was not enough.

  “Oh, all right—let me think. I’ll sort something out.”

  * * *

  —

  That evening, tired as she was, Pru nattered on to Christopher about the experience, bouncing from the subject of the garden at Coeur-de-la-Mer Priory Hall—“I haven’t had a chance to see most of it”—to the wonders of the theater.

  “They still don’t know all their lines,” Pru marveled as she crawled into bed. “But the stage manager has a script, and she fills in. That would scare me senseless, thinking I might forget what I was supposed to say, but no one seems to mind. Yet, anyway. And I had to ask Penelope why, when Max said ‘stage right,’ he pointed to his left. She told me that the right and left directions were from the actor’s perspective, not the audience’s. I need to go back and correct some of my notes.”

  “This sounds as if it’s a bigger job than you or Simon expected,” Christopher pointed out.

  “Mmm,” Pru said, stifling a yawn and stretching. “And you and Sophie? Did you learn the intricacies of psychological profiling in the…whatever?”

  Christopher climbed into bed, switched off the lamp, and put his arms round Pru. “Why don’t we save that for an evening when you have a touch of insomnia, because I can guarantee it will put you right to sleep.”

  * * *

  —

  Pru took over in the kitchen at Greenoak on Saturday mornings. She had never been a cook—although she was now learning under Evelyn’s tutelage—but there was one food item her Texan father had taught her to make: biscuits. American biscuits, she was always quick to explain—what the British called biscuits were cookies in the States. And she didn’t cook biscuits, she fixed them, a term that prompted all sorts of comments in England about how they got broken in the first place.

  They had become a favorite of Christopher’s from the first time she’d made them while she worked at Primrose House and he could visit only at the odd weekend. Now at Greenoak, they were a Saturday routine, and breakfast had become a communal affair.

  “The Rhodohypoxis will be in bloom.” Simon reached for a biscuit off the platter. “Masses of them. Did you not go in the rock garden?”

  “I didn’t have the chance.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t want to miss them,” her brother replied.

  Pru passed the strawberry jam to Christopher. “This isn’t just throwing up a load of box balls on the stage—there’s more to it than that.” She heard a knock at the mudroom door, and got up to put another pan in the oven. “I can’t see I’ll have much leisure to explore.”

  Bernadette stuck her head in the door. “Morning, all,” she said.

  “Here you are now.” Christopher rose and offered his chair.

  “Tea or coffee?” Polly asked. “I’ll start a fresh round.”

  “Coffee, please. Thanks, Christopher. Oh, say, the Scouts are so looking forward to your help in working on their angler badges,” Bernadette said as she settled in.

  Pru and Christopher were not regular churchgoers, but Reverend Bernadette Freemantle had been undaunted by their lack of attendance, deciding to work on them in a roundabout fashion. That was how Pru found herself volunteering to be on the flower committee, and Christopher had discovered the Scout troop needed another adult.

  “But,” Bernadette added, “you won’t have them tying flies first thing, will you?”

  Christopher shook his head. “We’ll go straight for action—let them cast for a while and see how they like it.”

  “What about the dahlia courtyard? Jeremy starts some in the glasshouse before planting them out—a few might be in bloom already. Can you make a list of the cultivars?” Simon asked his sister. “They should be labeled.”

  “If you wanted a list of the dahlias”—Pru shook a spatula at him—“then you should’ve taken on this job yourself. It already feels like more than I can handle—I don’t know when I’ll get to the actual garden.”

  The mudroom door rattled, and in walked Hal Noakes. Their part-time gardener was a pleasant young man somewhere near thirty—tall with blond-streaked, toasty brown hair and creamy s
kin marked with bright red cheeks. Simon and Pru had hired Hal straight out of his horticultural college program, and he worked for them half-time. Gardening was a new career for him, and he had embraced it.

  “Morning,” Hal said to the group at the table. He looked hopefully at the platter, empty but for two biscuits. “Just thought I’d stop in.”

  “No hot date last night?” Simon held the theory that Hal showed up for Saturday breakfasts only when he’d had an uneventful Friday evening.

  Hal’s rosy cheeks glowed as he grinned and held out a half-pint, hexagonal-shaped jar of honey. “Here you are, Pru. It’s from the farm shop near Brockenhurst—New Forest honey.”

  “Thanks, Hal,” Pru said and held up the jar to examine the label. It was in color, showing a hummocky landscape with patches of mauve. “It’s heather honey, isn’t it—the kind that’s set like jelly. I love it. Sit—hot biscuits are on the way.”

  He didn’t need to be asked twice. He fell into a chair and took one of the remainders from the platter. “Just to tide me over,” he explained.

  Simon held up an index finger. “Hang on,” he said to Pru. “You need help, and help has arrived. Take Hal with you.”

  The top half of a biscuit had disappeared into Hal’s mouth, and so he could only raise his eyebrows at Simon’s comment.

  “You wouldn’t mind?” Pru asked.

  “Not at all, we’re fine here.”

  “What do you need?” Hal asked. “Is it the orchard? Still a bit early for summer pruning.”

  Pru shook her head. “Not the orchard. Do you remember we told you that I’m doing some work at Coeur-de-la-Mer Priory Hall?”

  “That garden no one’s allowed to see?”

  “Yes, the garden, but there’s more to it than that. It’s the Shakespeare production on the grounds. I need to source plants, bring them in, and arrange them on the set. Outdoor Shakespeare—it’s fun as well as work. Would you want to give me a hand?”

  Hal had shoved the other half of the biscuit in his mouth but ceased chewing. “Wot?” he managed to mumble. Swallowing hard, he added, “It’s theater?”

  “You must’ve seen the posters—they’re all over the village and in Romsey, too,” Polly said.

  “Ambrose Grant,” Bernadette added, although Pru doubted if that would matter to Hal.

  “No, Pru.” He frowned, his rosy cheeks fading to pale pink. “I can’t do that. That isn’t gardening.”

  “We’re not a part of the actual play. We’ll have our own work as the actors carry on with their rehearsals.” She paused, trying to gauge his interest. It didn’t look good. “All right, how about this—you can do maintenance on the gardens if you’ll also collect plants and haul them about the place for me. And anything over your usual hours here, you’ll get paid for. I do need the help, Hal—you’d be doing me an enormous favor. As our assistant gardener.”

  She didn’t want to lay the guilt on too thick, but Hal had told Pru and Simon many times over how grateful he was that they’d hired him on at Greenoak—such a fine opportunity and right out of school. They’d been equally grateful for his ability and had told his lecturer from the program so only recently. Now she needed Hal’s gratitude to extend a bit further.

  Hal took a deep breath and let it out like a kettle coming off the boil. “Yeah, well, I suppose I could. I mean—if it’s the garden. And if you’re really desperate.”

  Are we all met?

  3.1.1

  Chapter 6

  After the breakfast crowd departed, Christopher drove off to meet the Scout troop on the banks of the River Test, and Pru started across the first field toward Coeur-de-la-Mer. She’d told Hal he wouldn’t be needed until Monday, and he had instantly looked as if she’d given him a GET OUT OF JAIL FREE card.

  Max had said “late morning”—she took that vague call time to mean eleven o’clockish. Even so, she stepped up her pace, hoping she would have the opportunity to sit down with Penelope and sort out details—the stage manager seemed more attuned to practical matters than the director.

  The gates stood open, and the string of cars stretched partway down the drive—the orange Jazz, the silver Mercedes, Helena’s older-model Vauxhall, she recognized, and now here was an older green Peugeot plus a couple of cars she hadn’t seen the day before.

  As she passed through and reached the variegated holly, there was the sound of a car arriving and the hand brake being pulled.

  Pru turned and watched a woman emerge from the driver’s side of a metallic-blue, vintage Rolls-Royce. She looked in her mid forties with translucent skin and thick ginger hair infused with gold and piled high on her head. She wore a loose pink satin top with spaghetti straps that might have been part of a fancy pajama set, and her denims were worn almost through. A glint came off her nose—a diamond stud?

  This was Linden Parfitt—Pru recognized her from a BBC production of Lady Chatterley’s Lover a couple of years back. She must be Titania in this production.

  Linden wore cherry-red lipstick applied in a heart shape, like Betty Boop in the cartoons. The heart widened as the corners of her mouth drew up in a smile when her passenger got out. It was Lysander.

  He came round the car and gently pushed Linden against it, giving her a thorough kiss, which she returned. He shed his leather satchel, and his hands went up inside her pink satin top while hers reached down.

  Pru backed up against the holly, the spiny leaves sticking into her neck, and peered round the edge. Is this what a theatrical production was like? Would she be hiding from these brief encounters every day? If she moved, would they hear her on the chippings and know she’d seen them? Should she make a sudden loud noise to let them know there were others about?

  But the whine of a vehicle running too fast in too low a gear drifted up the drive, breaking Lysander and Titania apart. A minibus came into view—the sort that could seat fifteen or twenty people. It lurched to a stop at the gate, opened its door, and out poured a swarm of girls and boys, all about eight or nine years old. They were a whirlwind, circling Linden Parfitt, Lysander, and the car before breaking their orbit and careening through the gates just as a woman stuck her head out of the minibus and yelled, “Fairies, freeze!”

  The children froze, some with arms in the air, some on one foot, all of them giggling.

  “There now,” the woman said, stepping from the vehicle and brushing herself off. She stepped back into the bus and called to the rear, “It’s all right, Miriam, Linden is here—we’ll walk them in.”

  Pru was struck by several things, not the least of which was that she had a boatload of names to learn if it also included these children. And, she remembered, the cast was larger than this. Perhaps she could get a list from Penelope and study it in the evening.

  “Thanks, Nina,” a voice from within answered. “I’ll be just behind you.”

  “Fairies!” Linden held her arms out to either side. “Peaseblossoms and Cobwebs to my left, Mustardseeds and Moths to my right!”

  The children split themselves in half and formed two lines of six boys and six girls—every one of them looking up at their Titania in adoration.

  “And now,” she said, turning and waving her arms in the air, “we’re off.”

  Linden led the parade, and Nina brought up the rear. She started when she saw Pru standing in the holly. “Oh, hello. I hope my fairies didn’t push you in there. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” Pru emerged and plucked off a leaf that had caught in her shirt.

  She introduced herself and learned that Nina Lockwood was one of two fairy chaperones.

  “Miriam’s the other.” Nina nodded back to the minibus. “Double duty for her, as she’s also the costumer.”

  Pru joined Nina but turned back to see Lysander linger near the gate until the second woman—Miriam—emerged carrying a large carpetbag stu
ffed full. She was a few years older than Pru—perhaps sixty—and her trouser-and-tunic ensemble was nipped and tucked in just the right spots to accentuate her curvy figure. Her shoulder-length blond hair was in disarray, one side pulled back with a comb.

  Lysander looked at the costumer the way he had looked at Linden Parfitt only a few minutes earlier—the way he’d looked at Hermia and Helena—and Pru. “Can I give you a hand, Miriam?” he asked.

  She stopped on the last step of the minibus and shot him a lopsided smile, revealing a dimple in one cheek. “No, thank you, Lysander, I can manage.”

  Well, thought Pru, as she turned and fled. Isn’t he a busy boy?

  She had made it past the stables and gardener’s cottage and almost to the theater lawn when Penelope came barreling out of a yew arch and screeched to a halt.

  “Oh, Pru!” She held up a hand and gasped, “Sorry.” After a deep breath, she continued. “I’ve just remembered I left the sandwiches in the boot of my car. Well, that wouldn’t be so much a problem, but the ice lollies are in there, too, when they should be in the freezer at the cottage. The children would be so disappointed if their treats melted into a puddle. Could you lend a hand?”

  The boot was crammed with shopping bags full of bottled drinks and sandwich containers. One of the bags Pru grabbed was cold against her leg—the melting ice lollies, no doubt. As they carried out their rescue mission, Pru asked, “Do you have the key to the cottage handy? Shall I take your bags?”

  “It’s never locked,” Penelope said, and as if to prove her correct, the cottage door opened in front of them, and Lysander strode out.

  “Here,” he said, “I’ll take those. General dogsbody, aren’t you, Penny?”

  “Sod off,” Penelope said, and he grinned as she relinquished her bags. “I need to get back, Pru. You all right here?”

  “Yes, fine,” Pru replied, relieved Lysander hadn’t tried to grab her along with the bags. Penelope left, and Pru followed him into the cottage, where he stowed the treats into the freezer while she emptied the rest of the bags onto the counter. “It’s the ice lollies, you see,” she explained. “Wouldn’t want them to melt.”