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WHEN THEY PULLED UP in front of The Globe, Rosemary was dismayed to see that a line ran out the theater doors and down the block. Her heart sank at the thought of standing on the footway in a pair of new, unbroken-in high heels for the length of time it would take to gain admittance. She scratched an itch on her neck and scowled when she felt the clasp of her necklace catch on her sleeve and break. Into her handbag, it went with a sigh, and she wondered if the night wasn’t just set to be a disaster.
“I’m not going to be able to walk tomorrow, Vera,” she whined.
Frederick snorted. “Old Des here will have to carry you,” he said out of the corner of his mouth and earned himself a sharp elbow to the ribs. “Ouch, Rosie, I was only joking.”
“Stop your bickering, children,” Vera retorted. “Just because I didn’t get picked to play the role of Titania doesn’t mean I don’t still have friends in high places. Or, at least, friends with access to the side entrance.”
Vera instructed Wadsworth where to turn. “Pull up just there, if you don’t mind.”
The four piled out of the car and onto the footway, where Vera led them into a short alley and knocked on a door hidden in a shallow alcove. It swung open, and a short, balding man with rosy cheeks peeked out from inside.
“’Ello, Vera. You’re looking splendid tonight. Come, come.” He motioned them inside and led them along the edge of the backstage area where actors and crew bustled about getting ready for the show. The mixture of excitement, nervousness, and impatience made for an intense atmosphere.
“Hurry up with the corset; I’ve got to be strapped into this thing by curtain call,” one of the actresses snapped at her aide. “I can’t imagine how women used to dress this way every day. It’s positively barbaric.” Rosemary heartily agreed with the sentiment.
“Yes, but they do make for the most amazing view,” Frederick snickered to Desmond, who grinned in agreement.
“Shush, Freddie,” Rosemary warned, “at least until we get to our seats, and then you can mutter inappropriate remarks under your breath where Vera and I don’t have to hear them.”
Not in the least bit chagrined, Frederick shut his mouth and made a mental list of inappropriate remarks with which to regale his sister later.
An irritated-looking man shoved past Rosemary on his way towards the back of the stage. He bumped her elbow and sent her handbag flying without a backwards glance, the contents spewing out onto the floor. “Oh no!” she cried, kneeling to retrieve the items from beneath racks of costumes and stacks of stage props.
“Hey there!” Desmond shouted as he took a few steps after the man. “You owe the lady an apology.”
The man didn’t turn and simply tossed a “bugger off” over his shoulder.
Vera placed a hand on Desmond’s arm. “That was the director. Let him be. He seems to be having a fabulously rough go of it,” she said cheerily. “Come, our seats are this way.”
She thanked the man who had let them through the side entrance, and he winked at her as he circled back in the opposite direction.
Having skipped the queue out the front, the section of ground-level seats where Rosemary and company were situated was relatively empty, and they were allowed an opportunity to watch as the space around them filled with men in their natty suits and women decked out in their best finery.
“Explain to me why we’re sitting down here in the stalls,” Frederick griped to Vera. “I thought you had more pull than this.”
“It’s opening night, Freddie,” Vera retorted. “All the box seats were sold ages ago. And besides, I happen to think these are the best seats in the house. I like to be able to see the nuances of the actors’ expressions. Now, why don’t you shut up and order a drink so I can tolerate you?”
Frederick obliged, taking Desmond along with him and allowing Rosemary and Vera some moments to people watch. As the sounds of shuffling feet, rustling dresses, and polite conversation rose to a dull roar, Vera fell into an increasingly and uncharacteristically morose silence.
Until that was, she flipped open the playbill and scanned through the section listing the accomplishments of the major players.
“Did you read this ... this scandalous horror?” Vera flapped the pamphlet in Rosemary’s face. “It’s fiction, I tell you. Pure fiction. It lists Jennie Bryer as a former student of both the Royal Academy and The Guildhall School. Look at the dates. Impossible. You know I attended the Royal Academy during the same period, and I can tell you she was not a student while I was there.”
The Vera who normally took life with a wink and a smile had flown, leaving this unsettling creature in her place. Rosemary tried to talk her friend around.
“Someone made an error. Maybe the printers mixed her up with someone else.”
“More likely she’s a scheming, cheating—”
“Excuse us, please.” A man’s voice interrupted the conversation, and as Rosemary shifted to allow for his passage, she looked up into the eyes of her neighbor Abigail Redberry.
“Oh, hello.” Rosemary ignored the seething Vera and said pleasantly, “You look lovely this evening, Abigail.” She merely nodded towards the dress Abigail wore, a silvery sheath of beaded silk, but Martin Redberry took notice.
He smiled at his wife indulgently, and Rosemary remembered Abigail’s description of teenagers in love. “She absolutely does. Worth every penny, darling.” He kissed Abigail full on the lips, bringing a soft smile to the woman’s face that made Rosemary’s heart ache.
“I should have realized it was this play to which you referred earlier, but I’m happy for the coincidence nonetheless.” Rosemary gave Vera a nudge with her elbow.
“My friend, Vera here, was up for the part of Titania. We’re tasked with deciding whether the director made the right choice or not.” She introduced Vera to Mr. and Mrs. Redberry, who both promised to assess Jennie Bryer’s performance with the shrewdest of eyes.
“You’re Vera Blackburn!” Abigail’s eyes widened with shock and pleasure. “I saw you in a performance of Othello, the one in the park a year or so back. I’m a fan!” She looked positively thrilled, and Vera preened at the compliment.
“Thank you so much,” Vera replied. “But I don’t think the director felt the same way, considering I’m here in the audience instead of backstage waiting for my cue.”
Frederick and Desmond chose that moment to return, and a second round of introductions finished up just as the lights blinked to warn that the play would begin shortly.
“Now that I know you might have played Titania, I fear some of the shine has gone from the evening,” Abigail assured Vera while her husband nodded in agreement. “However, I will relish your company almost enough to make up for the lack.”
Leaning over to talk past Martin, Abigail said, “Darling, didn’t I tell you these seats would be the berries?”
In answer, he glanced back and up towards the box seats. “I suppose.”
Abigail’s cheer could not be contained. “Martin prefers sitting in the back,” she explained, “but I always try to get closer to the action. He’s a darling to indulge me. I haven’t missed a show here for the last three seasons, and box seats are awfully dear.”
Vera winked at her. “Well, now I know whom to invite. You’ll be better company than this lot, save Rosie here.”
Tired of being the man in the middle, Martin suggested a swap so that Abigail could sit on Rosemary’s other side during the show. Rosemary watched the couple carefully to see if Martin might exhibit signs of loutish behavior, but it seemed the moment of upset had been forgotten as the man played the attentive husband.
Smiling as if besotted, Martin held Abigail’s hand gently in his own; he whispered in her ear, words that turned her lips up into a smile. Still, Rosemary wondered what could have caused a man who appeared so attentive to engage in a screaming match just that morning.
She thought perhaps she’d been hasty to jump to the conclusion that the man was a cad. Anyone could have a beastly day. She wondered why she cared so much anyway; it was absolutely none of her business. She vowed to mind her manners in the future and clasped Vera’s hand as the opening curtain rose to reveal a representation of ancient Athens.
As soon as Theseus began lamenting the interminable length of four more days, Rosemary forgot about everything else around her. She enjoyed the rhythm of Shakespeare’s cadence, and the complexity of the language, not to mention the elaborate costumes and sets that transported one to a fairy woodland.
Vera’s fists clenched and her body went stiff in the seat when Jennie Bryer emerged from between two enormous papier-mâché flowers. She smiled benevolently at the sprites who fluttered around her skirts, anxious to do the queen’s bidding.
“Well, she does look the part,” Desmond offered in a low voice. “Statuesque with queen-like attributes.”
Vera might have let the comment pass as it hadn’t been uttered in any leering sort of way, but Frederick spoke up and doomed the pair of them to her bad graces.
“Yes, and just look at those attributes.” He earned a pinch for his efforts.
From the corner of her eye, Rosemary watched Vera mouth the words along with Titania. “Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead, By pavèd fountain, or by rushy brook, Or in the beachèd margent of the sea—” Jennie Bryer stumbled over the line, and for a moment, her mouth opened and closed without any sound escaping at all.
Vera didn’t even try to hide her triumphant smile, but she never said another word during the rest of the performance.
