practising our entrances and exits several times over on the green. Once again we had an hour or two to spend as we wished, pursuing rustic girls in the kitchen or wild men in the woods, lying on our beds on the upper floor, poring over the scrolls containing our parts – what you will. Having several days to prepare
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
was a June holiday for us and I began to see why companies liked to leave the city in mid-year. The rush of plays in London, where one piece is being rehearsed in the morning, another played in the afternoon, and a third scanned for next week, leaves you breathless. Here at Instede we had time to sit and stare, walk and talk.
And talking of walking. I stayed behind on the green when most of my fellows vanished after our practice. I had a mind to explore some of the nearby walks and arbours. Perhaps I was trying to imagine what it would be like to be heir to a great house after all. My curiosity was particularly roused by the garden enclosed by a high wall of hornbeams.
I ambled through the nearest entrance. And halted there for several moments, breathless. For, inside the hornbeam-enclosed garden, there was stored a cornucopia of scents and shapes. I shaded my eyes with my hand, as if to protect my sight from the dazzle. Even though there was no one to say I shouldn’t be here, I had an uneasy sense of trespassing. Directly ahead was a massy white marble fountain with figures of nymphs and sea-monsters twining around its base. On a pedestal in the centre of the basin stood Neptune, looking newly risen from the waves, his trident still dripping stone weeds. I peered over the thick rim. Dark finny shapes lounged in the depths, carp perhaps. Clouds of minute aerial creatures clustered over the water. I wandered round the fountain, running my fingers along its cool rim. To either side were narrow paths fringed with lavender and rosemary. A sanded walk stretched ahead to a little rise in the ground on which stood a summer-house, large enough to accommodate a yeoman farmer and his family. Standing in front of it was a low sun-dial whose sharp-pointed brass gnomon told me that it was after five in the afternoon. Round the face of the dial were engraved the Latin words
tempus edax rerum,
and I nodded sagely in agreement with the poet Ovid, whose words these are: time is indeed the devourer of all things.
This pleasure garden was parcelled up into precise areas marked off by paths or low hedges. Stone seats had been provided in sheltered, out-of-the-way corners. Black obelisks were grouped in pairs like impassive sentries. Statues of nymphs and fauns and of quite unaccountable creatures were dotted about. With the sun beginning to slip down the sky, the shadows were massing thickly at the base of the hedges. I wondered which members of the household took their ease in this garden. The place was immaculately tended but queerly devoid of activity, of human presence.
But while I stood gazing round, my nose and eyes assailed by the sights and scents, I caught a different noise beneath the plashing of the fountain and the humming of the bees. It sounded like someone talking softly to himself, a continuous low mumble broken by occasional sharper sounds. Recalling my earlier resolution that whatever was happening at Instede House was really no concern of N. Revill, my first instinct was to steal out of the hornbeam garden. So I turned away from the summer-house and walked back towards the Neptune fountain. But as I passed one of the many little bays which had been created out the low box hedges that crossed and re-crossed the garden, I noticed a figure sitting on a stone seat. He was in shadow and must have been very still for me not to have seen him earlier. He was bowed forward, with his hands covering his face. His whole posture bespoke gloom, even despair. Through his clasped hands there poured an indistinct stream of words, expressive of anger or lamentation, I couldn’t be sure which.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
was a June holiday for us and I began to see why companies liked to leave the city in mid-year. The rush of plays in London, where one piece is being rehearsed in the morning, another played in the afternoon, and a third scanned for next week, leaves you breathless. Here at Instede we had time to sit and stare, walk and talk.
And talking of walking. I stayed behind on the green when most of my fellows vanished after our practice. I had a mind to explore some of the nearby walks and arbours. Perhaps I was trying to imagine what it would be like to be heir to a great house after all. My curiosity was particularly roused by the garden enclosed by a high wall of hornbeams.
I ambled through the nearest entrance. And halted there for several moments, breathless. For, inside the hornbeam-enclosed garden, there was stored a cornucopia of scents and shapes. I shaded my eyes with my hand, as if to protect my sight from the dazzle. Even though there was no one to say I shouldn’t be here, I had an uneasy sense of trespassing. Directly ahead was a massy white marble fountain with figures of nymphs and sea-monsters twining around its base. On a pedestal in the centre of the basin stood Neptune, looking newly risen from the waves, his trident still dripping stone weeds. I peered over the thick rim. Dark finny shapes lounged in the depths, carp perhaps. Clouds of minute aerial creatures clustered over the water. I wandered round the fountain, running my fingers along its cool rim. To either side were narrow paths fringed with lavender and rosemary. A sanded walk stretched ahead to a little rise in the ground on which stood a summer-house, large enough to accommodate a yeoman farmer and his family. Standing in front of it was a low sun-dial whose sharp-pointed brass gnomon told me that it was after five in the afternoon. Round the face of the dial were engraved the Latin words
tempus edax rerum,
and I nodded sagely in agreement with the poet Ovid, whose words these are: time is indeed the devourer of all things.
This pleasure garden was parcelled up into precise areas marked off by paths or low hedges. Stone seats had been provided in sheltered, out-of-the-way corners. Black obelisks were grouped in pairs like impassive sentries. Statues of nymphs and fauns and of quite unaccountable creatures were dotted about. With the sun beginning to slip down the sky, the shadows were massing thickly at the base of the hedges. I wondered which members of the household took their ease in this garden. The place was immaculately tended but queerly devoid of activity, of human presence.
But while I stood gazing round, my nose and eyes assailed by the sights and scents, I caught a different noise beneath the plashing of the fountain and the humming of the bees. It sounded like someone talking softly to himself, a continuous low mumble broken by occasional sharper sounds. Recalling my earlier resolution that whatever was happening at Instede House was really no concern of N. Revill, my first instinct was to steal out of the hornbeam garden. So I turned away from the summer-house and walked back towards the Neptune fountain. But as I passed one of the many little bays which had been created out the low box hedges that crossed and re-crossed the garden, I noticed a figure sitting on a stone seat. He was in shadow and must have been very still for me not to have seen him earlier. He was bowed forward, with his hands covering his face. His whole posture bespoke gloom, even despair. Through his clasped hands there poured an indistinct stream of words, expressive of anger or lamentation, I couldn’t be sure which.
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