Half Moon Street - Anne Perry [121]
Hamlet and Horatio entered, this time in costume. It was not long until the first night, and Pitt noticed immediately how much more polished they were. There was an air of certainty about them as if they were absorbed in the passions of the story and no longer aware of direction, let alone of the world beyond.
Pitt glanced at Tellman and saw the light reflected in his face as he listened, the words washing over him, not in familiar cadence as they did for so many, for Pitt himself, but heard for the first time.
“ ‘Alas poor Yorick!—I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy . . .’ ”
Tellman’s eyes were wide. He was unaware of Pitt. He stared at the plaster skull in Orlando Antrim’s hand, and saw the emotions within him.
“ ‘Now get you to my lady’s chamber,’ ” Orlando said with irony hard-edged in his voice, harsh with pain, “ ‘. . . and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor must she come; make her laugh at that,—Pr’ythee, Horatio, tell me one thing.’ ”
“ ‘What’s that, my lord?’ ” the other actor enquired.
Tellman leaned forward a little. His face was like a mask, not a muscle moved, nor did his eyes ever leave the small pool of light on the stage. The words poured around him.
“ ‘To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping a bung-hole?’ ”
Someone moved in the wings. A look of annoyance crossed Tellman’s face but he did not turn to see who it was.
“ ‘Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay.’ ” Orlando spoke the words softly, filled with centuries of wonder and music, as if they wove a magic for him.
“ ‘. . . Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O, that that earth which kept the world in awe
should patch a wall to expel the winter’s flaw!
But soft! But soft! aside—Here comes the king.’ ”
And from the wing moved a slow, sad procession in somber, magnificent garments. Priests, the coffin of Ophelia followed by her brother, then the king, and Cecily Antrim, beautiful as Gertrude. It was extraordinary how she could hold one’s attention, even when the scene was not about her at all. There was a light in her face, a force of emotion in her that could not be ignored.
The drama played itself out, and neither Pitt nor Tellman moved until it was over. Then Pitt stepped forward.
Tellman was still transfixed. In a space of less than fifteen minutes he had glimpsed a new world which had thrown aside the old. The still water of his preconceptions had been disturbed by a wave whose ripples were going to reach to the very outer edges, and already he felt it.
Pitt walked alone across the stage to Cecily Antrim.
“I apologize for interrupting you, but there is a matter I need to discuss which will not wait.”
“For God’s sake, man!” Bellmaine shouted in outrage, his voice raw-edged with tension. “Have you no soul, no sensibilities at all? The curtain goes up in two days! Whatever you want, it can wait!”
Pitt stood quite still. “No, Mr. Bellmaine, it cannot wait. It will not take a great deal of Miss Antrim’s time, but it will be even less if you permit me to begin straightaway, rather than stand here and argue about it.”
Bellmaine swore colorfully and without repeating himself, but he also waved his hands in dismissal, indicating the general direction of the dressing rooms. Tellman remained rooted to the spot, spellbound for the next scene.
Cecily Antrim’s room was filled with rails hung with velvets and embroidered satins. A second wig rested on a stand on the long table beneath the mirror amid a clutter of pots, brushes, bowls, powders and rouges.
“Well?” she asked with a wry smile. “What is it that is so urgent