#gillespie legacy
June 21st, 1910- Little Windenburg Village Hall
TITANIA: What, jealous Oberon? Fairies, skip hence, I have forsworn his bed and company.
OBERON: Tarry, rash wanton, am I not thy lord?
HELENA: O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent to set against me for your merriment.
TITANIA: Come, sit thee down upon this flow'ry bed while I thy amiable cheeks do coy.
TITANIA: My Oberon, what visions have I seen!
THISBE: Asleep, my love? What, dead, my dove? O Pyramus, arise!
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Sandoval Family Home, Greater Windenburg, Passover 1910
Chag Pesach Sameach for everyone who’s celebrating!
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June 21st, 1910- Little Windenburg Village Hall
The boys playing the Mechanicals had claimed the side room as the boys’ dressing-room, so the girls and Clem were packed into the little space behind the makeshift barrier they had made out of bedsheets. The crush of hairbrushes, costumes, and bodies was made more crowded still by Honour’s costume, which involved an antique and cumbersome crinoline several feet in diameter which had belonged to Lady Elaine’s grandmother.
‘Clem, can you help me with my crin? I’m all thumbs.’
Clem’s stomach lurched as her fingers brushed the small of Honour’s back in a way she couldn’t quite brush aside as pre-performance jitters. She could smell the Pears soap Honour used, could almost feel the warmth of the nape of her neck. Honour was muttering under her breath, ‘What, jealous Oberon? Fairies, skip hence, I have forsworn his bed and company.’
Honour drew in a breath as Clem murmured back ‘Tarry, rash wanton, am I not thy lord?’
‘She’shere!’ hissed Mattie, peering through the crack in the bedsheets. ‘And there’s someone with her.’
‘Who’s here?’ Clem asked, distracted, at the same time as Daisy asked ‘Who’s with her?’
‘Lady Elaine, and I don’t know. She looks awfully bohemian, whoever she is. She looks as though she’s made up.’
‘You’re made up too, Mattie.’
Mattie blushed and touched her fingers to her cheek, on which a smattering of rouge had been inexpertly applied. ‘It’s different if it’s for the stage!’
Myrtle elbowed Mattie out of the way, peered around the edge of the sheet, and reeled back white in the face.
‘It’sLydia Langley!’
‘Who’s that?’ asked Mattie. Myrtle dealt her a withering look.
‘Lydia Langley, Mattie. She was a showgirl, but then she married the Earl of Brindleton. It was a terrific scandal. Then he died and she went back to the stage even though she’s ever so rich and she didn’t have to. Now she owns a theatre in Greater Windenburg, I think. I can’t believe she’s here. The Church Ladies will be in fits.’
‘They might not be if she’s as rich as all that’, Clem pointed out.
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14th June, 1910- The Gillespie Farm
Extract from Clem’s diary
What a rude awakening it has been to realise that Dizzy isn’t a baby anymore. I can see how she and Eli look at each other now- I don’t know how I could have missed it before. Too wrapped up in my own pig-headedness. Soon she will be a young woman- and I- what will I be?
I’ve been thinking of nothing but the play. I’ve let myself think that we can be the Dramatic Society forever. That way I didn’t have to think about the future. But that isn’t going to cut ice much longer.
Mother and I were knitting on the porch this evening. She won’t allow me to pass an evening idle- by which she means, not wrapped up in some dreadful tangle of wool. I was knitting lumpy socks for the Benevolence Society to give to the poor. If they have any sense they’ll burn the ghastly things. Nobody could be poor enough to want them. Mother was knitting a blanket for Midge Dunn’s baby- born just six months after her and Norman’s wedding, in miraculously good health. Nobody will say a thing about it, of course. Do they think we can’t count? They’ve named him Cyril, a dreadful thing to do to a child.
It seems as though everybody is pairing off. They read the banns for Sybil Copeland and Paul Farber on Sunday. It seems such an odd match- clever, serious Paul and giggly little Sybil- but they were both fairly glowing. Half the girls I was at school with are engaged, or married, or about to be. It makes me feel so queer and alien.
We were talking about Paul and Sybil- or rather, Mother talked, and I nodded. I was thinking of the play. Then she looked at me and said, ‘It’ll be your turn soon, Clemmie.’
I felt like I was going to be sick. I felt like a fluttering bird in a cage growing smaller and smaller. That’s when I knew. I have to get out. I don’t know how- I don’t know where I’ll go- but I’ll find something. I can’t be a wife. I can’t be a mother. I can’tbe a woman.
———————————————-
Ten points to anyone who can identify the scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream they’re rehearsing.
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12th June, 1910- The Gillespie Farm
CONTENT NOTE: This chapter deals with anti-Semitism.
Annie looked up at Daisy as she came into the sewing room with an odd expression on her face. Daisy picked up her embroidery and sat down, and they stitched in silence for a few minutes.
Finally Annie said, without looking up: ‘Daisy, dear, Eli doesn’t…bother you, does he?’
Daisy kept her eyes fixed on her sewing. ‘Of course not’, she managed steadily. ‘He’s just a friend.’
There was another long pause, broken only by the soft, rhythmic sound of needles passing through fabric. ‘Just remember, dear…he’s not a Christian.’
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9th June, 1910- Burdock Pond
Daisy was gathering angelica one evening by Burdock Pond when she heard footsteps behind her. She turned to see Eli standing a few feet away. Her heart gave a thump which she did her best to ignore.
‘Oh! I didn’t-‘
‘No, I- I came to apologise. About how I behaved the other day. It was…ungentlemanly.’
‘You don’t have to apologise.’ Both of their voices sounded stiff and unnatural. I shouldn’t have- I suppose we were both being rather silly.’
‘Yes.’ For a few long seconds, neither of them spoke. Then Eli turned to go. ‘Well, I should probably-‘
‘Wait!’
The word left her mouth before she could stop it. Eli turned back. ‘Daisy?’
‘Is that it?’ Daisy felt her face heat up. She couldn’t quite believe she was saying it, but she couldn’t stop herself. ‘Isn’t there anything else?’
Eli looked at her for a long moment. She couldn’t read his expression. ‘Do you want there to be something else, Daisy?’
She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t speak. She just nodded. She was looking at the ground, so when she heard him draw closer and looked up he was inches away. He smelled like soap and hay. She felt his fingers brush her cheek. ‘Can I…’
Daisy nodded.
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6th June, 1910- Little Windenburg Village Hall
As was usual for their productions, Clem took on the unofficial role of director.
‘Eli, when you enter this scene and say ‘Fair love, you faint with wandering in the woods’, I think you ought to be carrying Daisy.’
Eli and Daisy both went scarlet. He scooped Daisy awkwardly into his arms, staring over her head. ‘Fair love, you faint from-‘
‘For heaven’s sake, Eli, she’s your lady love, not a sack of potatoes!’
‘Clem’, said Honour, with a note of warning in her voice.
‘Well, they’re being ridiculous! How difficult is it to pretend to be in love?’
Eli deposited Daisy gently on the floor. ‘I have to go and feed the cows.’ Without another word, he turned and walked out of the hall. Daisy buried her face in her hands and fled the room.
Clem stood dumbfounded for a moment, looking back and forth between the doors they had left through. Then realisation dawned. ‘Oh. Oh, dear.’
‘I’ll go after him’, said Honour. ‘You talk to Daisy.’
Clem found Daisy in the side room, huddled on a bench.
‘Dizzy, are you and Eli- Is he your…uh…’
Daisy didn’t lift her face from her hands, but shook her head violently.
‘Oh.’ Clem struggled for words. ‘Do you…want him to be?’
‘It doesn’t m-matter!’ sobbed Daisy. ‘He doesn’t want me. H-he hardly looksat me anymore.’ She broke off into a fresh wave of tears.
‘Well, if that’s true, he’s a blockhead, and I’ll- I’ll clobber him’, said Clem. ‘No, better yet, I’ll challenge him to a duel. I’m sure Lady Elaine will lend me her swordsticks, if I tell her I’m defending your honour.’
Daisy let out a small, reluctant snort. ‘It doesn’t need defending. N-nothing’s happened. I’ve waited and waited- And even if it did-‘
Clem thought about their mother’s excited hopes for Daisy’s marital prospects. She pictured her face if she could hear this conversation, and her heart sank. ‘Oh, Dizzy. What a rotten mess.’
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24th May, 1910- Windenburg House
In one of the trunks they found a treasure trove of headdresses, costumes and accessories.
‘The Ilvars have always been madly keen on theatricals’, said Lady Elaine. ‘There used to be the most outrageous masquerades and fancy-dress balls. Apparently in 1880 the Duchess of Henford came as Cleopatra with a live grass snake. Of course the dashed thing got loose at dinner and one of the footmen had to chase it out of the epergne and hit it with a salad fork.’
Honour stepped back from affixing a gauzy pair of wings to Daisy’s back. ‘You look like a fairy queen, Daisy.’
‘Those were part of a Titania costume, I believe’, said Lady Elaine.
Clem smacked her forehead. ‘How stupid we’ve been! We should do A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’ll be midsummer when we put it on, or very nearly.’
There was a chorus of general affirmation. The moment of consensus was short-lived, however, as discussion turned immediately to casting.
‘Ican’tbe Titania’, Daisy pleaded. ‘I’m much too short and dumpy. Whoever heard of a dumpy Fairy Queen?’
‘You’re not dumpy, Dizzy’, Clem said. ‘But if you don’t want to be Titania, you can be Hermia. Though she be but little, she is fierce.’
‘And Helena is tall and fair- that sounds like Myrtle’, Honour said.
‘I suppose that means Honour will be Titania’, Myrtle sniffed.
‘I suppose it does’, Clem retorted. ‘Can’t you learn to take a compliment, Myrtle?’
‘We don’t have enough boys’, Honour interjected, ‘even with Clem. Playing one, I mean.’ They shared a brief, secret smile. ‘Someone else is going to have to be one.’
‘I am not being a boy’, Myrtle said with a delicate shudder. Clem sighed.
‘I will’, said Mattie, surprising everyone. She flushed a deep red as they all turned to look at her. ‘Well, why shouldn’t I? It’ll be jolly.’
‘Thank you, Mattie’, said Clem. ‘You’re a sport.’
‘I will too’, said Diana. ‘Mattie’s right. It’ll be a lark.’
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