The Traffic of Our Stage

"Exit, pursued by a bear."

July 5th

The experience of months of rehearsals and a premiere performance seemed all for naught. The cast and crew of Who is The Gatekeeper? were in upheaval. The costumers were so far backed up that the stagehands had been called in to fix buttons and hems and hair. Finding things not been carefully reset after last night, Ann was re-organizing the sets and props herself. The few stagehands left to her mostly stood around her, insisting they had not made this mess. Morgaine was ambassador to the various provinces of this kingdom of insanity. As she ran to and fro, she shouted out warnings and reminders to anyone who had ears.

After learning a lesson last night, when she barely finished being dressed before the curtain went up, Belle Norman had arrived very early. She was among the first to be ready tonight. However, this had created a problem of a different sort: Belle had more time than she knew what to do with and no-one to spend it with.

Because she had fallen ill in the winter and had long been confined to the house, she had joined the cast late. After her illness compelled her to cancel Morgaine's interview about Belle's time at school, she had been sure she would not be welcome. Morgaine, bless her, had insisted upon her joining. She had a marvelous time as part of the ensemble. She even believed she had made a few friends - her cousins, who she had barely known before, and Bottom Summerdream among them. All of them were still in various stages of preparations, though. The few others who were done were not people who Belle felt comfortable approaching uninvited. At least this little hallway can't think I'm a nuisance...

Even if it was time spent alone, it was time away from her family. Belle had come home to find her father and brother as strange to her as anyone else. They had very little in common. Neither her father nor her brother cared what she did with herself until Stephen got it into his head that the Albions were 'Montague sympathizers' and goaded their father into forbidding her to be part of the Theatrical Society. Belle insisted the ladies kept the Society a neutral affair. Her father refused to believe this was so. To Belle's amazement, Lady Capulet saved her by pointing out that two of her own children belonged.. "It is not for one of us," the lady had said, "to surrender anything we might choose simply because a Montague was there first." An icy look from Lady Capulet to Stephen and her father had resolved the issue forever.

"Is Cherry's team finished with you?"

Belle looked around, unsure that the lady was talking to her. "Me?"

"Yes, you. One of the tables is threatening to break. I need someone to hold it steady while I fix it, and there isn't a steady hand to be had at the moment." Noticing Belle's apprehension, she added, "On my honor, it won't rumple your costume."

"And... and whose honor would that be?" Belle frowned.

"My apologies," Cecily replied, "I thought we had met. Cecily Nowell, stage hand."

Tentatively, Belle shook the extended hand. "Belle Norman. Actress," she added awkwardly.

"Norman? As in Stephen Norman?"

Oh no, not again! "Uh, yes."

It was Cecily turn to frown. "In that case, I will have to ask you not to drop the table onto my head. I quite like my head."

"I wouldn't. Why do you think I would?"

Cecily cocked an eyebrow, unconvinced by Belle's confused tone. "For setting your brother's hair alight? When your father wanted to betroth him to me?" She paused when Belle only shook her head, searching her memories for that particular incident. "Come to think of it, I don't remember you being at dinner that night. I suppose that explains it. I doubt he brags of it."

"No," Belle replied, "he does not." She omitted her comment on the rarity of something her brother could not bleed for a boast. Stephen was not entirely to blame for his faults - the majority, but not the entirety. "And anyway, I believe it takes more than not even a year to hear all the stories you missed in twelve."

"Twelve years? Where in the world were you?"

"School," Belle admitted sheepishly. "I'm the only female in our household, so my father thought it best..." The sentence dropped unnaturally when Belle decided she couldn't put words to her father's logic. She hasn't come here to discuss your life, anyhow.

"All while your brother was here to plague us all?" When Belle nodded, Cecily thought her own eyes might pop out of her head. "That's absolutely disgusting! My God, this world of ours! Then again, considering how your brother turned out under your father's supervision, I..." Cecily experienced a rare moment of re-considering her words. "Well, the less said, hm? Thank you all the same. I would very much have liked your help, but I'm afraid I can't apologize to you."

"No apology is necessary." Belle smiled. "If you tell me the story about my brother, I would be delighted to help you."

Catching sight of Cecily and Belle, Ann noted to herself that the damaged table was now off her list of concerns. That left only another thousand problems to handle before the performance began. In the past, help had been hired from a professional theater to oversee the backstage work. Because the costs for this play had run so far over budget, Ann and her sisters-in-law had voted to simply divide that work among themselves. It was a bit of economy that she would not endorse again. 

"Ann! We have a problem!"

Ann whirled around, startled by the volume of Morgaine's voice. For the volume of her own thoughts, she had only now heard Morgaine's footfalls and her shouts. "What is it?"

Rather than stop to explain, Morgaine grabbed Ann's hand and pulled her along. "Kent is sick and his understudy didn't learn his lines. We need to find Hal so he can show Cherry how he hides notes in his costume!"

In a door just beyond the chaos, Beatrice had carved out a small realm of peace for herself. It wouldn't last. Once the costumers' empire was in want of space, she would have to surrender it. It would be enough, she believed. In all but her wildest moments, she only needed a few minutes of calm to bring herself back into order. Ordinarily, she savored those high moments. Tonight was different. Tonight, she had lines to recite and a role to play, and she could do neither of those things when she thought her heart would fly out of her body.

"Bea, do you have a minute?"

Her head turned. Mercutio was near the top of the list of people she didn't want to see. Whatever he was doing, he had the air of the most clever person in the room, that he knew something everyone else did not. That made her partly annoyed and partly envious. Neither were feelings she wanted right now. "No."

"What did you do to your ha-"

"It's a wig. Now, leave me alone."

With an odd smile on his face, he began to accede to her demand. "I'll just leave that here." He nodded toward a small leather bag that hadn't been on the side table before he came in.

Beatrice's eyes locked onto the satchel. She had never been able to resist a present. "What is it?"

"Pins."

Beatrice eyed the bag suspiciously. If those pins had anything to do with sewing, she would stick them into Mercutio's eye while he slept tonight. "What sort of pins?"

"Icons of Laralita the Younger. She was worshiped as the goddess of drama before the Empire was converted. My mother used to wear them around her neck on a chain as pendants. I found them when I was putting back the..." Mercutio caught his lower lip between his teeth. "They belonged to one of Grandfather's sisters before that, and on back through the line. I thought you should have them."

Still distrusting her cousin's motives, she asked, "Why?"

"They should be worn."

"Yes," she sighed, exasperated, "but why give them to me?"

"They're Montague relics. You're a Montague."

Although she tried very hard to remain cross, Beatrice felt a little happier to hear it. It seemed the only time she was ever told that she was a Montague was when she was being scolded. The name was usually thrown at her like a chain. Whatever Mercutio's ulterior motive was, he could keep it. Beatrice didn't care right now. "So are Grandmother and Aunt Bianca."

"I'm not here two nights in a row to see Grandmother or Aunt Bianca, am I?"

"Since they aren't in the play," she sighed, "no. Romeo is, though. And I didn't know you came last night."

"I did." Mercutio smiled and shook his head. "Rom was good enough, but you were the best actress on the stage last night." 

"Me? You really think that?" Beatrice had often thought she was the best at something, at least in her own circle, but she couldn't remember the last time anyone else had said it. At least about something that matters, not sewing or deciding where to put some stupid old vase in that drafty hell-

"On my honor." He glanced back at the satchel. "If you don't like them, at least be careful with them. They are several hundred years old." Mercutio noticed the surroundings for the first time. "Why were you in here, anyway?"

"Fixing my costume." Beatrice may have suddenly liked her cousin a lot more, but she wasn't about to trust him with her personal problems. "Anyway, Cherry will need this room and you aren't wanted back here. We should go."

It was nearly dawn before the Albion ladies arrived home to collapse in their parlor. Sleep would be next, but they had to finish last night's business first. "Well," Ann started, "what is it they say about a bad dress rehearsal?"

"I think that only applies to opening night," Morgaine replied. "And that was barely short of a disaster."

Cherry reminded them of the unfortunate truth. "We didn't have a dress rehearsal. We had that... incident... in the ballroom." An emergency repair to the stage had forced the ladies to beg Lady Albion's permission to relocate the final dress rehearsal to the ballroom. She had acquiesced and had her graciousness repaid by the collapse of a chandelier and the as yet-unexplained destruction of a priceless wall fresco.

"Right," Ann said, "which means the opening night was really our dress rehearsal, and tonight the real opening."

Morgaine loved this assessment. More than anyone, she had been heartbroken when the opening night had gone poorly. There was always a pamphlet or two that touched on their plays, and she wanted the notices to be good. After so many months of work, she didn't think the script could be faulted too much, but she was protective of it all. "So, if we go by that, then we opened well after all!"

Cherry didn't think anyone else would see the matter that way, but they could hang for all she cared. Morgaine was happy, Ann was happy, the cast was happy, and she was about to get her first good sleep in three days. If only her mother would stop looking like the witness to a kitten massacre when she thought nobody was looking, her world would be all right. "Then I say we go by that."

"Hear, hear! As director, am I officially declaring the play to have been a success. Anything heard or read otherwise is hogwash, ladies." Ann stuck a pin in that thought, as it would be a good thing to add to her next pre-performance speech. "Moving on, do we know anything about Kent Capulet? Caius wasn't terrible, but we did cast Kent instead for a reason."

"That reason being Caius' sieve-like memory and wooden movements."

"Not that I would have put it so bluntly," Ann replied, "but yes."

Morgaine said, "I asked Hal and Desi both to check up on him. Neither of them had heard anything of it, so I doubt it is serious. If we are lucky, perhaps he will be back tonight. And if we aren't..." She bit her lip. "Hal made a success of those notes. We can ask him to give Caius a lesson."

"Or we can ask Beatrice to give him a sip of whatever she had before last night's performance," Cherry added. "Come to think of it, I would like a swig of it, too. Her monologue in Act Three was twice as good as she's ever done it."

When her sisters-in-law looked her way, Ann shrugged. "I haven't a clue where that came from. I'm glad of it, but I haven't a clue. And, speaking of things I know nothing about..." She looked at Cherry expectantly. "What do our financials look like?"

"I did some sums last night during the performance. We sold out the first two performances, and accounting for the average dip in attendance as the run continues... well, there's good news and bad news. The bad news is that we'll probably recover our costs but nothing more - nothing for a new rehearsal site."

"And the good news?" Morgaine asked.

"At current market rates in Hell, our three souls together ought to pay for the restoration of the ballroom."

Next Post: "Herein lives wisdom, beauty and increase."