Midsummer Mayhem Page 7

  Lysander sidled up behind the costumer, close enough to speak into her ear. “Here I am, Miriam—and I’m ready.”

  “As am I.” She smiled at him over her shoulder. “These two were just leaving.”

  Ambrose plonked his mug on the table, and tea sloshed out. “I’ll stay, if that’s all right.”

  “It isn’t,” Miriam snapped. “Why don’t you take your conversation to the cottage? I’m sure no one will disturb the two of you there.”

  Ambrose narrowed his eyes at this suggestion. Then he stormed out, shoving Lysander away as he went.

  Pru, putting a brave face over indignation and confusion, murmured, “Sorry,” and dashed through the door, stopping round the corner and out of sight to regain her composure.

  Behind her in the stables, she heard a sharp slap and Miriam’s heated tone. “Keep your hands to yourself, or you’ll end up the worse for it.”

  O then, what graces in my love do dwell

  That he hath turned a heaven unto a hell?

  1.1.206–7

  Chapter 9

  The next morning, Pru was once again first to arrive at Coeur-de-la-Mer Priory Hall, and so when Hal pulled up to the gates, she was waiting. They loaded the handcart, and she followed him down the green corridor, watching the gloves in Hal’s back pocket wave at her as they walked. Garden gloves don’t do a lot of good if you don’t actually put them on, Pru thought. But who was she to talk?

  After the first load, she left him to it and instead began arranging pots of hostas downstage at either corner. “Downstage” meant near the audience, not actually down off the stage—she knew that now. As she worked, she could see the pointed tips of the Italian cypresses dancing over the tops of the hedge as Hal shuttled them to her corral.

  “That’s the lot,” Hal declared when he finished. He kept near the hedge and glanced across the theater lawn as actors had started to drift in.

  “The urns, remember? Set them on the large central platform, one on each side. The acanthus will go in them—but don’t worry about planting them up, I’ll do that tomorrow.”

  “I’ll need to finish staking the Verbascum today. And the—”

  “Yes, all right. Just bring out the urns and then back to the dahlias and the rest. You don’t have to do it all at once, though. Also, don’t you have to drive down to the nursery at Beaulieu?”

  “Right, for the brunnera,” Hal replied, and left.

  Miriam stood at the other end of the theater lawn, pacing and talking on her phone. Pru watched her for a moment. She had the distinct impression Miriam didn’t like her—and here they hadn’t even been properly introduced. But Pru didn’t have to look far for a reason—she and Ambrose had been together in each of the few enounters she’d had with Miriam. Does she think there’s something going on between the two of us? Well, she’s got the wrong end of the stick there. She decided to remedy the misunderstanding and followed the costumer back to the stables. But a queue had formed outside the costume department. Helena had a fitting, as well as Puck, and apparently, so did Hermia—although she was nowhere in sight.

  “Where is the girl?” Miriam fumed.

  “I’ve no idea,” Puck said.

  Helena looked sullen as she replied, “I do.”

  Miriam pursed her lips. “Well, she should’ve realized by now that’ll get her nowhere.” The costumer cocked her head at Pru. “Is there something you need?”

  “I…no. Penelope, I think.” Pru backed a few steps away, then turned and retreated into the cottage.

  Penelope, unpacking what looked like an inordinate amount of food, nodded at two cakes on the counter. “Are these from Evelyn?”

  “Yes, ginger cakes—her blue-ribbon recipe,” Pru replied as she helped line up sandwich containers. Evelyn had cast herself in the role of company baker. She’d sent one cake along with Pru the day before and today, two. And good thing she had. “Looks like you’re expecting a crowd.”

  “We are that,” Penelope replied cheerfully.

  Perhaps the fairies were scheduled for the afternoon, Pru thought as she set off for her plant corral. Halfway up the green corridor, she saw Max standing outside the dahlia courtyard, hands in his pockets, silver head tilted to one side, as if listening.

  He was listening. As she approached, Pru could hear it, too—a clear voice emanating from over the hornbeam hedge.

  “O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!

  Love takes the meaning in love’s conference—”

  Max noticed Pru and motioned her closer.

  “I mean that my heart unto yours is knit,

  So that but one heart we can make of it.”

  Hal emerged from the courtyard and stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of them.

  “We couldn’t help but hear,” Pru said as her assistant’s face flushed a deep red. “I hope you don’t mind. Do you use that as a party piece? Because you could, you know—you sound quite good.” She turned to the director. “You’ve met Hal, haven’t you?”

  “You are Prunella’s assistant—isn’t that right?” Max asked. “Very nice. If only our own Lysander’s voice carried as well as yours.”

  Hal nodded, looked at the ground, and mumbled, “Thank you, sir.” He started away but turned back to Pru. “I’ll bring the urns out for you”—a nod toward the stage—“and then I’m off to Beaulieu.”

  * * *

  —

  During the morning break, Pru ended up sitting across from Puck at the table in the cottage. Her bag was at her feet, and her fingers itched to reach in and pull out the cast list Penelope had given her so that she could know with whom she was talking. But she resisted. Instead, Pru asked him about his life in the theater, and he asked her the best time to divide bearded iris. When the stage manager called for Theseus and Hippolyta—Ambrose and Linden in their dual roles—and another new face and name, Egeus, Hermia’s father, everyone rose and departed.

  Pru, last out, found Puck on the phone just outside. He held up a finger for her to wait, and she stood a few feet away.

  “Right, love, see you later.” He ended the call and said to Pru, “Sorry, I always ring my wife right after morning break”—he checked his watch—“and here it’s twelve o’clock, a bit later than usual. I only wanted to say that Ambrose mentioned he told you about the arrangement for Max.”

  “Yes,” she said, “and what a fantastic idea. He seems to love what he’s doing.”

  Puck nodded. “He’s thrown himself back into it—this production is just what he needed. But you won’t say anything about it to him—how a few of us are behind the company. We don’t want him to think—”

  “That it’s charity,” Pru finished. “Not a word.”

  Hal walked out of the shed and into the empty yard.

  “I thought you’d gone,” Pru said.

  “I was putting the cart away. You told me you wanted the urns planted with the acanthus,” he reminded her.

  “Did I? Well, it could’ve waited until tomorrow, but thanks.” She hesitated before taking the plunge. She turned to Puck and said, “This is Hal Noakes, also a gardener. Hal, this is—sorry. I’ve forgotten your real name.”

  “Hal Noakes?” Puck extended a hand. “I’m Les Buchan.”

  Les Buchan, Les Buchan, Les Buchan.

  The men shook hands, and Pru and Les walked off, leaving Hal in the yard.

  * * *

  —

  Les Buchan turned left and headed toward the green corridor, while Pru took the first entrance into the theater lawn, which looked as if the circus had come to town.

  Six men stood in two rows as three sets of juggling pins flew through the air between them. They were dressed in balloon trousers of a wild print, their shirts were knotted at their waists, and they wore scarves tied tightly over their heads with long pon
ytails streaming from underneath. They had beards or mustaches, except for one who was clean-shaven.

  Two black-and-white border collies sat and watched the juggling intently, their eyes and heads following the arcs of the pins. Occasionally one of the jugglers would pause to hit two pins together and the rhymthic, loud clack of wood resounded round the lawn.

  One of men called, “Hey-hey-hey!” and they moved into a circle, juggling all the while. Now the pins crossed paths at a single high midpoint—and looked as if they’d crash into each other any second. The cast looked on, clapping and cheering.

  “It’s the Bumbling Blokes,” Pru said to no one in particular.

  The Bumbling Blokes appeared every summer with Chataway’s Circus, touring the south coast of England—Pru and Christopher had seen a performance near Mottisfont the previous summer. It was a good old-fashioned circus, full of magic tricks, vaudevillian acts, clowns, and well-treated horses that had starred in their own BBC Two documentary. The Bumbling Blokes juggled, did acrobatics, and played an odd assortment of brass instruments.

  But she hadn’t seen the dogs before, and now watched with delight as they treated the men’s legs like an agility course, weaving in and out round the circle. One of the dogs broke away and leapt into the air, catching a pin in its mouth, and Pru gasped. When a Bloke took the pin and tossed it to her, Pru threw her hands up and ducked, but managed to catch it—only to discover the pin was made of foam rubber.

  Pru laughed, and Linden, next to her, joined in. “You never saw the switch, did you?” she asked. “You thought it was a wooden pin. Aren’t they brilliant?”

  The pins disappeared from the air one by one as the jugglers caught and dropped them into cloth bags hanging from their shoulders.

  Penelope clapped her hands and shouted, “Back to work!” and the Bumbling Blokes, who a moment ago had appeared larger than life, shrank to the size of normal people. A Bloke with a thin black beard secured like a ponytail approached Pru, the dogs trotting alongside.

  “Nick Bottom,” he said, holding out a hand.

  “Hello. Pru Parke. I’m the gardener—happy to meet you.”

  “And here are Bubble and Squeak,” Linden added. The dogs looked up at her with the same adoring expression the little fairies had.

  “The names weren’t my idea,” Nick said, giving Linden a wink.

  She winked back and bent over, planting a kiss on each dog’s snout, and straightened, pulling up a spaghetti strap that had slipped off her shoulder.

  The other Blokes introduced themselves to Pru, also by the names of their characters in the play. Peter Quince had a long droopy mustache; Tom Snout a fuzzy ginger beard; and Snug the Joiner, a brown mustache that curled up at the ends. Robin Starveling’s beard lay in blond ringlets.

  And so, when the smooth-shaven one walked up, Pru said, “Wait, I know who you are—you’re Francis Flute.”

  “Hiya.”

  “Oh, sorry, I didn’t—”

  Francis Flute, as it turned out, was a woman of about Pru’s height with large brown eyes. A curl of dark hair had escaped onto her forehead, and she blew it away.

  “No, you’re right,” she replied with a firm shake and a big smile. “I am Frances—but with an ‘e’ of course. I’m just one of the Blokes. We play the Mechanicals.”

  The Mechanicals were Pru’s favorite part of A Midsummer Night’s Dream: the comic relief. In hopes of performing at the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta, they rehearse their play-within-a-play in the forest. That’s where Bottom develops the head of an ass, and the queen of the fairies, under the influence of a love potion—Oberon’s joke on his Titania—falls in love with the beast. Casting the Bumbling Blokes was a stroke of genius.

  “I’m so pleased to meet you,” she told them. “I had no idea you were actors as well.”

  Nick Bottom grinned. “It’s how we met—Max cast us in Twelfth Night donkey’s years ago. It’s because of him we formed the Blokes.”

  Max really does know people, Pru thought, and said, “So you go back a long way.”

  “We do indeed. And say”— he tapped a finger on the side of his nose—“Linden tells me you know of our little conspiracy about Max, and you’ll go along with us.”

  “Of course I will.”

  “We all want this to be a success for him,” Nick said.

  “Prunella,” Max called from across the lawn.

  “Excuse me.” Pru trotted up to the director.

  “I see we have the urns in place,” he said.

  They were not quite Grecian in style, but heavy Victorian planters, a mix of chipped white paint and rusted iron, sitting atop spindly pedestals. Probably fern stands in a former life. Hal had set one on either side of the center platform—the Athenian court—just as she had asked, and potted them up with the acanthus. Pru climbed onto the stage and shifted one a few inches. It rocked dangerously back and forth, and she grabbed hold to steady it.

  “I like the plants,” the director pronounced.

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, just as I imagined—what do you think, Penny?”

  “Spot on,” the stage manager replied. “Well done, Pru.”

  Pru beamed and released the planter, which, to her relief, remained upright. Later, she would find something to stabilize them. “Thanks. Perhaps they could stay here and we could put something large in front to hide them when they aren’t needed.”

  Max nodded. “Good thinking, Prunella. Now, what about the fairy bower?”

  Pru got busy. They’d covered the grass with burlap, and Hal had carted in a load of compost. The grass would soon yellow and die, but what Jeremy didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. She began carrying flats of thyme out from her corral, removing the plants from their rectangular trays and nestling them in the compost. She would need to douse them with water before the end of the day. When would Hal return from Beaulieu?

  Penelope had taken over rehearsal—Max’s directorial camp chair was empty—and ran lines with the Mechanicals, while Pru enlisted help in shifting plants from Demetrius, until she couldn’t find him. After that, Ambrose lent a hand, and after that she had to finish it herself. Meanwhile, Linden lounged halfway down the theater lawn, the border collies’ heads in her lap. Helena and Hermia walked in from stage left, apparently going over lines for a scene in which they argue. In a far corner of the theater lawn, Miriam had brought out her own chair and was doing handwork on a costume.

  Pru had saved the heaviest piece of scenery for last, and struggled out of the plant corral with a huge smoke bush in a black nursery pot. Dropping it to the ground in the middle of the green corridor, she wished she’d remembered to bring the handcart out.

  Max had returned and called, “Titania! What angel wakes me from my flowery bed? Ready?”

  “Hang on,” Linden replied, leaping up and dashing out of the theater lawn. She looked left and right and spotted Pru. “Have you seen my Bottom?” she asked.

  “Here I am!” Bottom waved from down at the end of the green corridor near the orchard. He trotted toward them. “Sorry, I lost track of the time.”

  The time? Pru thought it must be quite close to lunch.

  “Prunella! It’s all right for the actors to walk on the plants in the bower?”

  She assured Max it was, and then spent the next half hour going over the budget with Penelope. “The nurseries were happy to lend us most of it,” Pru explained, “especially as you offered each of them a free advertisement in the program, but as I explained, we’ll have to pay for the thyme.”

  “Next,” Max shouted, “the lovers are found! Everyone, we’ll do this scene and then to lunch.”

  Penelope returned to her post to follow the script and write notes, and Francis Flute settled next to her. The rest of the Mechanicals threw themselves on the ground to watch, while Ambrose, Linden, Demetrius, He
rmia, Egeus, and Helena stood ready. Puck walked in from one side of the lawn.

  “Where is Lysander?” Max asked.

  The actors looked round as if he might be hiding in plain sight.

  “Lysander!” the director boomed, flushing a complaining crow from a nearby chestnut tree. “Where has he got off to?”

  “Shall we have a nose round?” someone asked, and before Max could reply, everyone peeled off in a different direction, looking as if they were going on a stroll through the gardens rather than a manhunt. This dispersal seemed to make the dogs nervous, and at first they attempted to keep the flock together, but, failing that, they trotted after Linden and Nick Bottom.

  Soon, shouts of “Lysander!” and “Gabriel!” drifted over hedges. Pru remembered she’d once caught a fleeting glimpse of him in the birch copse on the other side of the stables, and so headed in that direction, when Hermia’s voice pierced the air.

  “The cottage!”

  Pru made it into the yard first, followed quickly by the others.

  “The door’s locked,” Hermia said, rattling the handle as evidence. “Did someone throw the latch?”

  “Is he in there?” Ambrose banged on the door. “Does he think this is a game?”

  Helena peered through a front window. “I saw him go in, but that was a couple of hours ago. Didn’t he have a scene after that?”

  They discussed Lysander’s schedule. “He had a fitting earlier.” “Weren’t you running lines with him?” “I haven’t seen him since coffee.”

  Pru and Nick Bottom circled the cottage to the left. The bedroom curtains were open and he looked in, but reported, “I don’t see anything.” She climbed onto a large, upturned terra-cotta pot and squinted into the bathroom window. “Empty.” They returned to the front, where Ambrose continued to beat on the door as the rest of the Mechanicals and Puck came out of the stables, shaking their heads.

  “There’s a window over here,” Demetrius said, coming round from the other side, “but I can’t get near it for the bees.”