He thought of the Harcourt-Smith case. He remembered that the sensational papers made a great thing of the wife’s having no inkling of Harcourt-Smith’s second ‘personality’ and, yes, of his little son, who was six years old.

It’s our William, he thought. Blow me down flat but it’s our William that’s being got at. And after a further agitation: I’ll do nothing. It’s awkward, of course, but until the show’s been running for some time it’s better not to meddle. If then. I don’t know who’s typed it and I don’t want to know. Yet.

He looked at his day-to-day calendar. A red ring neatly encircled April 23. Shakespeare’s birthday. Opening night. Only a week left, he thought.

He was not a pious man but he caught himself wondering for the moment about the protective comfort of a phylactery and wishing he could experience it.

CHAPTER 5
Fifth Week.
Dress Rehearsals and First Night

The days before the opening night seemed to hurry and to darken. There were no disasters and no untoward happenings, only a rushing immediacy. The actors arrived early for rehearsals. Some who were not called came to the last of the piecemeal sessions and watched closely and with a painful intensity.

The first of the dress rehearsals, really a technical rehearsal, lasted all day with constant stoppages for lights and effects. The management had a meal sent in. It was set up in the rehearsal room: soup, cold meat, potatoes in their jackets, salad and coffee. Some members of the cast helped themselves when they had an opportunity. Others, Maggie for one, had nothing.

The props for the banquet were all there: a boar’s head with an apple in its jaws and glass eyes. Plastic chickens. A soup tureen that would exude steam when a serving-man removed the lid. Peregrine looked under the covers but the contents were all right: glued down. Loose: wine jugs; goblets; a huge candelabrum in the centre of the table.

The stoppages for lights were continual. Dialogue. Stop. ‘Catch them going up. Re-focus it. Is it fixed? This mustn’t happen again.’

The witches had each a tiny blue torch concealed in her clothes. They switched these on when Macbeth spoke to them. They had to be firmly sewn and accurately pointed at their faces.

Plain sailing for a bit but still the feeling of pressure and anxiety. But that, after all, was normal. The actors played ‘within themselves’. Or almost. They got an interrupted run. The tension was extreme. The theatre was full of marvellous but ominous sounds. The air was thick with menace.