Cool Repentance by Antonia Fraser Read Free Book Online Page A

Larminster, rather than the programme being worked out in London, it might have been supposed that Nat Fitzwilliam would have concentrated on the rustic side of things. But this would have been to underestimate the cheerful cherub's capacity to be in both places at once, or at any rate to commute on his motor-bike all too regularly between them.
    'That young man will be the death of me,' grumbled Guthrie Carlyle after one of Nat's unsolicited calls at Megalithic House. ('I was supposed to see both Peter mid Trevor this morning - they're interested in my Sung Hamlet at the National - no, no, it's Trevor who's talking musicals and Middlemarch at the rsc - but luckily Peter chucked, so that I thought that on my way to see Jonathan at the bisc , I'd just pop in—') 'Correction. This Festival will be the death of me,' continued Guthrie. 'Or if not me,  the death of someone probably in the contracts department, in view of Spike Thompson's latest coup over his expenses.'
    'Wouldn't it be lovely if it was the death of Nat Fitzwilliam?' Jemima spoke wistfully. 'I speak purely professionally, you understand. Just his reputation. I don't want his youthful corpse on my hands, looking all pathetic, appealing to the mother in me. But this morning he gave me most cogently his views on Jonathan Millers views on Shakespeare and I'm not sure that I can take—'
    'Have you heard the latest?' Cherry tripped in. 'Our Nat is going to direct The Seagull himself. Boy Greville has withdrawn. Personal reasons, he says. And that is not all, my friends. What about this? 1 She paused for effect, and who could deny the effect was ravishing - pale-pink ‘I -shirt perilously scoop-necked and pale-pink skirt slit up both sides to reveal plump smooth olive-skinned thighs.
    Guthrie whistled appreciatively. 'Wowee, as Nat Fitzwilliam would say. And has Spike Thompson taken time off from his expenses to have the pleasure?' But Cherry for once was not in a mood for tribute.
    'Believe or not, she's agreed! Our Nat has fixed it. Christabel Herrick stars! The Seagull. And that lovely weepy piece of Gregory Rowan's everyone does at school, Widow Capet. You know, Marie Antoinette in prison, thinking about the diamond necklace etc., etc. She'll be Marie Antoinette, yes? Tres, tres revolutionary France. And The Seagull.' Cherry's voice dropped. 'Very, very nineteenth-century Russia.'
    'Knowing Nat Fitzwilliam, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it was exactly the other way round,' observed Jemima tartly. But she was more concerned to digest the surprising and not particularly welcome news of Nat Fitzwilliam's successful recasting. She had no doubt already that the return to the stage of Christabel Herrick - even to the stage of the Watchtower, Bridset, would attract a great deal of interest not all of it purely theatrical in origin. Was this quite what Cy Fredericks had in mind when he had spoken to Jemima of including in her series 'one really superbly insignificant country festival'?
    Cy had warmed to his theme: 'Significant in its very insignificance, my dear Jem. A repertory company of the greatest integrity; local worthies, each more respectable than the last, whose wives have never even raised their eyes above another man's feet, sleeping in their seats, the sleep of the just after a long day's work like characters in Hardy, the whole lot preferably in dinner jackets, the worthies of course, not their wives. The wives should be wearing gowns of classical inextravagance in keeping with the plays presented, eternal values kept decently in check. This festival, through the medium of Megalith Television, should symbolize of itself all that makes English cultural country life what it is today.'
    Cy had leant back in satisfied contemplation of his own eloquence. 'In short, my dear Jem, the sort of thing that you and I would run a mile rather than attend.' Remembering rather too late that he was in fact recommending Jemima to spend several weeks at such a festival, Cy