“Sit down,” Elizabeth invited. “We were just discussing whether Erin’s happy, secure childhood makes it easier for her to handle a trauma like she had yesterday. What do you think?”
Dirk frowned. “Happy, secure childhood? Erin?”
“That’s what she always says. Like a storybook: floor-to-ceiling trees at Christmas, colored eggs and chocolate bunnies at Easter, family vacations at the beach. . .”
“Exactly like a storybook, I’d say. She got all that from the storybooks she read while she hid in her room and listened to her parents yell at each other.”
“She told you that?” Tori reentered with the asters in a vase and set them on the coffee table.
“I don’t think she ever would have, but my sister and I had a lot of counseling to help us recover from our parents’ divorce. So I talked to Erin pretty openly about my rotten childhood. I guess that’s what got her to open up because one night she really got going on it. Poor kid. That’s why I—” He stopped abruptly.
“What?” Elizabeth prodded.
He shrugged. “Why I wanted her to be happy,” he finished vaguely.
“Yes!” Elizabeth agreed with such enthusiasm even Thompkins looked up momentarily. “That’s what we all want. This is awful. It makes it so much worse—everything she’s going through now—to think of that poor, frightened little girl being hounded now by someone who wants to hurt her—or worse.”
Chapter 21
HER NEW PICTURE OF Erin as a tortured child and a troubled woman stayed with Elizabeth like a dark cloud even through the usually joyful process of dressing for dinner and a play on the last night of their honeymoon. She put on the red suit trimmed with crisp white piping she had been saving for this special occasion and chose a chunky gold necklace to match its brass buttons.
“Allow me.” Richard took the necklace from her hands, clipped it on, then bent and kissed her on the back of the neck.
“Ooooh,” she squealed and reveled in the delicious shivers back-of-the-neck kisses never failed to give her. “The other side, too.” She tipped her head to the right, and he obeyed. The dark cloud dispersed.
Her arm through his, Elizabeth walked down the street in the golden early evening sunshine striped with long shadows, her feet barely touching the sidewalk all the way to The Greengrocer’s. The restaurant they had chosen for their last night in Ashland was a combination of an old English inn and a natural foods grocery. They walked past artistically arranged wooden crates of colorful fresh fruits and vegetables and shelves looking like a page from a museum catalog with their rows of tins of imported foods. Hanging racks of gourmet cooking utensils led the way on into the back of the shop where a waitress in a mob cap and laced vest showed them to a well-scrubbed wooden table set with pewter ware.
Richard ordered for them from a carved, wooden plank the waitress held in both hands for them to read. Then their attention was taken by the bell-like crystalline tones of a musical instrument being played in the far corner of the room. A young woman with long hair, wearing a white dress, sat before a low table holding a wooden, stringed instrument which looked something like an autoharp.
When the song was over they walked over to the musician. “That was lovely. I’ve never heard anything like it. What is it?” Elizabeth asked.
The girl smiled. “A hammered dulcimer,” she answered in a lovely Irish lilt. “It’s something akin to a harp, but you see,” she held a pair of tiny, wooden hammers, “when you strike the strings rather than plucking them they give an especially clear sound.”
“It’s wonderful!”
“Thank you. Would you like me to play something special for you?” “Greensleeves?” Elizabeth asked.
“Oh, sure. And that’s my favorite, too.”
Elizabeth and Richard returned to their table, and sat smiling at each other through the song. Elizabeth turned to the musician to say thank you, but another couple, both grey-haired and nicely dressed, probably in their early seventies, had stopped to talk to the dulcimer player now, so Elizabeth gave her full attention to piercing the flaky crust to let the steam escape from the veal and mushroom pie the waitress set in front of her.
The couple returned to their table right across from Richard and Elizabeth. The musician played a selection of folk songs: “Danny Boy,” “All Through the Night,” and “Bring a Torch, Jeannette Isabella.” Elizabeth smiled at Richard between delectable bites. Until her attention was distracted by the woman next to her pointing insistently toward the grocery. The husband turned and hurried in the direction she pointed. To her surprise, Elizabeth saw that he had gone to meet the ubiquitous Larry Bohanon. Larry held out a little white packet. The man reached for his billfold.
“Richard,” Elizabeth whispered urgently and pointed.
Richard jerked around, took one look at the scene and jumped to his feet. In his haste to reach the men in the grocery he bumped into a beautifully displayed basket of Sungold oranges, sending the flame-colored balls in every direction like a well-aimed billiards break.
Jumping back in alarm at the havoc he had created, Richard cannoned into the tweed-jacketed man, knocking the envelope from his hand. Larry stooped to snatch it, but Richard was too quick for him.
Seeing her husband’s Abbott and Costello act from the next room, Elizabeth’s impulse had been to hide her face in her hands, but she forced herself to watch. What was in the packet? Drugs? Payoff money? A threatening letter? Had Larry kidnapped someone else and now delivered the ransom demand?
Was Richard in danger? Would Larry get violent?
The scene seemed frozen as Richard slowly opened the envelope. He pulled out two long, rectangular strips of card stock. Tickets for that evening’s performance of The Tempest.
Richard gave a smile of abject apology, handed the tickets to their owner, and turned to help the grocer retrieve his scattered oranges. In his typical way, Larry disappeared.
When Richard returned to the dining room he stopped at the neighboring table and presented the couple with two oranges he had bought from the grocer. “I don’t know how I could have been so awkward. I do hope I didn’t hurt you.”
The man introduced himself and his wife as George and Velda Vail from Olympia, Washington, and assured Richard that he was entirely unhurt. Velda, whose back had been turned to the door and whose attention had been on the music the whole time, was delighted with the oranges. “Everyone’s been so kind here. It’s my birthday, and George brought me to see the play as a special treat. I’ve always wanted to come to the festival, but somehow we never got around to it. And with the birthdays seeming to come faster and faster now. . .well, I mean we never know how long we have, do we?”
She paused to smile at her husband. “And then it was almost spoiled because we didn’t realize you have to order your tickets ahead. We were so happy when the man at the hotel said he thought he knew someone who could help us. And that nice young man we called said he’d bring them right to us. So sad about his aunt’s getting sick and not being able to come. But lucky for us.”
“Yes, very lucky,” Richard managed to get in when Velda paused for breath.
“Of course, he asked for a bit extra for his trouble—quite a bit extra, really—but I was glad to oblige. Nothing’s too good for my Velda.” George beamed, and Velda blushed like a schoolgirl.
Richard stepped aside for a word with the dulcimer player, then returned to Elizabeth. Velda clapped her hands and cried out in delight as “Happy Birthday to You” chimed through the room.
“So Larry’s scalping tickets,” Elizabeth said under the music.
“So it would seem. Wonder how many relatives he’s bought tickets for this season that then suddenly fell ill.”
“Pity, he seems like a healthy chap to come from such sickly stock. Do you think it’s Larry’s fiddle or the man in the hotel’s?”
“Most likely a cooperative effort. Mr. Hotel probably has a bunch of people who live here or are connected with the festival in a minor way to keep him su
pplied. I imagine he gets a cut of the profit on the tickets and it all keeps his guests happy—which means better tips.”
“You know, I’ve been thinking about something else. I knew something bothered me about seeing Larry this morning—oh, that looks wonderful. Thank you.” She interrupted herself as the waitress set pewter dishes of raspberry trifle in front of them. “Mmm.” She savored her first bite.
“Well, as I was saying, I knew something looked wrong when I saw Larry in the window reflection, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. Now I realize. It was odd that he carried a box into the hardware store, not out of it.”
“Maybe he took something in to be repaired.”
“Sure. Or exchanged. There are a lot of logical possibilities. But then when I found those light bulbs hidden away backstage, and Trevor said something about pilfering being a problem for some companies—well, I wonder if it all adds up.”
Richard nodded. “I think there’s a very good chance that two plus two will make twenty-seven anywhere our Larry is involved.”
“Oh, and I saw Larry slip a pair of pliers in his pocket backstage, too. Of course, he might just have been keeping them handy for the next job, but he did go out then.”
“Yeah. Hard stuff to prove, but it makes sense.”
“So do you think Sally found out about all this? Maybe Erin, too? And he silenced Sally and is trying to scare Erin to keep her quiet?”
Richard considered that over a spoonful of custard and cream. “I don’t know. There doesn’t seem to be any doubt Larry has his hand in the till, but it’s penny-ante stuff. Not the sort of thing you’d kill to keep hushed up, surely.”
“Unless there’s something we don’t know yet.”
“Oh, I think there’s quite a few things we don’t know yet. And I intend to start by confronting our favorite electrician.” He signaled the waitress for the bill.
The Green Show was just beginning when they were welcomed to the theatre by a lady in a gold and green Tudor gown. Elizabeth took one of her cards to fill out. She most certainly wanted to be on the mailing list for next year’s festival. “You enjoy the dancers. I’ll be back soon,” Richard said.
“Where are you going?”
“Backstage.”
“Not without me, you aren’t.”
“I thought you loved Elizabethan dancing.”
“Not as much as I love you.” She held tightly to his arm.
Locating Larry was no problem. He was at his console, concentrating on some mysterious movement of electrons in his usual stoop-shouldered, nearsighted way. “Okay, Larry,” Richard didn’t waste any time. “We know about the ticket scalping and pilfering the electrical supplies. I just want to hear your version of it.”
Larry flipped his hair out of his face and blinked at Richard. “So if you know so much, what do you need to hear from me?”
“I know what you’re doing. I don’t know why. Drug habit to support? Sick mother needs an operation? You like the thrill of the game? You must have some excuse.”
Larry shrugged. “Nothing so dramatic. I liked having pocket money. It wasn’t much, but it was something.”
His tone changed from defiant to bitter. “Kids at school always laughed at me for being a nerd. I didn’t mind that so much. I like being a nerd—but I hated being the only one who never had fifty cents in his pocket to go out for a coke. I never dated because I couldn’t. Money I got from jobs I had to spend on essentials.”
His face suddenly twisted with grief. “Then I met Sally this summer, and she smiled at me—she had the cutest smile. She seemed really interested in technical problems with the lights. I decided it would be different this time. I’d find a way to have some pocket money.” He paused for a long time, and his shoulders dropped even lower. “Now I’ve got the spare change but nothing to spend it on. So what are you doing to do? Call the police?”
Richard hesitated.
“He won’t have to.” Trevor Stevens stepped around a pile of flats stacked beside the console. “It’s my budget he’s messed up. I’ll deal with it.”
“And the tickets?” Richard asked.
“Tickets? Did I miss something?”
Richard told him what they suspected about the scalping operation. “Yes, the authorities should know about that,” Trevor agreed just as the trumpet fanfare accompanying the raising of the flag sounded above their heads. “But there’s a play ready to go on the boards here right now. Can you folks find your seats all right?”
They found their seats. But Elizabeth wasn’t satisfied. “So where does all that get us?”
“Probably no closer to the real solution.”
“You don’t think he said all that about Sally to throw us off?”
“Possible, but I doubt it. He certainly seemed truly grieved.”
“What about Trevor? Do you think he will take care of it, or was he covering? Maybe he’s part of the group.”
Richard he broke into a smile. “I must say, you have an admirably suspicious mind, Mrs. Spenser.” Then he frowned. “But I’ll have to agree. At this point anything seems feasible.”
“I know. But nothing seems sensible.”
THE TEMPEST
Our revels now are ended; these actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air.
- Prospero
Chapter 22
THE LIGHTS CAME UP onstage. Prospero, wearing Tori’s masterpiece of jewel-toned enchanter’s cape, stood on the highest balcony and held his magician’s staff over the wave-tossed ship on the stage below. The mariners did fierce battle with Prospero’s violent tempest until a rending noise and great crash accompanied the total blackout of the lights. Then silence.
A moment later lights flooded Prospero’s charmed island. And never before had the art of stagecraft worked such enchantment. Elizabeth caught her breath at the beauty of it. The rocky caverns and wild vegetation shimmered as if fashioned of crystal and fire. One didn’t need to know the play to be certain that strange and ethereal beings waited behind every iridescent rock and luminous tree. Miranda, Prospero’s daughter—his most precious jewel—in a gown of a gauzelike fabric that might have been spun from fabulous gems, ran to her father and set the theme for the play with her plea for the lives of the sailors.
As the story of Prospero and Miranda’s banishment by the brother who now lay shipwrecked on the very same island unfolded, Elizabeth found herself gripped on a new level. The play she had always loved simply for its poetry and enchanted beauty now spoke to her far more deeply of forgiveness and redemption. Especially the redemptive power of beauty.
Even Caliban, the witch’s son condemned to monster status for plotting to ravish Miranda, moved Elizabeth to pity for the harshness of his punishment. For even that hideous creature was so capable of being moved by beauty he could declare, “When I wak’d I cried to dream again.”
Elizabeth swallowed hard, knowing that the beauty surrounding her that night would so remain in her dreams.
Then Ariel, the spirit of air, as Caliban was the spirit of earth, in his costume seemingly woven of down, dew and silver cobwebs, found Prospero gloating that his enemies were now all at his mercy. He should shortly have his revenge. But the magic-maker, newly moved by his daughter’s love for the son of Prospero’s own double-dealing brother, was ripe for Ariel’s plea for pity.
“The rarer action is In Virtue, than in vengeance,” Prospero declared and released his enemies.
And with that swift action of forgiveness and redemption, it was actually Prospero himself who was restored to full humanity as he left enchantment to return to the world of men with the vow, “This rough magic I here abjure.”
Elizabeth’s heart filled to overflowing when, having relinquished his magic powers and thereby taken another step toward his own redemption, Prospero embraced his former enemies. “I do forgive thy rankest fault.” And in forgiving others Prospero himself found forgiveness.
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Elizabeth looked to her right where Tori and Gregg sat, holding hands. Elizabeth had earlier diagnosed Gregg’s need for forgiveness. But now she saw her own need to forgive. She had been holding Gregg’s past faults against him, just as Prospero had his brother’s. Gregg and Tori needed the same freedom to find their happiness that Prospero granted Miranda and Ferdinand. For as Prospero returned to humanity, so could his daughter. Her eyes were opened to the world of people: “O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in‘t!”
Now Elizabeth knew what she would say to Gregg at her first opportunity. She would speak to him in his own language and remind him of the words he himself had quoted in Jacksonville, “Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil; with them forgive yourself.”
On the stage Prospero brought the tangled plot to its joyous conclusion: “And my ending is despair unless I be reliev’d by prayer, Which pierces so, that it assaults Mercy itself, and frees all faults. As you from crimes would pardon’d be, let your indulgence set me free.”
With the departure of the humans the gently glowing stage was left to its spirits, now freed from the magician’s control. The enchantment of mystical music floated from above. The gossamer Ariel and a no-longer-monstrous Caliban led the nymphs, fairies and sprites in a light, flowing dance with garlands of flowers while glitter like stardust fell on them through the glimmering lights.
And just when Elizabeth thought it was over and she, like Prospero, would have to return to the real world while everything in her cried for the magic and beauty to go on and on, Prospero appeared on the upper level, splendid in his ducal robes and crown. With a wave of his hand the dance below stopped and the spirits disappeared from sight. Then, to Elizabeth’s great thrill, Prospero repeated the lines that she loved most in all of Shakespeare; possibly the loveliest piece of poetry in the English language; Shakespeare at his most mature:
Our revels now are ended: these actors
(As I foretold you) were all spirits, and
A Midsummer Eve's Nightmare Page 13
