Part 29 (2/2)
”Oh, gosh, Lady Beth. That's right. I'm going to miss you like crazy.”
Grantville, March 1634 ”So you think it's odd?” Mich.e.l.le Matowski frowned.
”Not odd here, so much.” Tom Quiney shook his head. ”You're lucky, you fair young maidens, that you landed in the Germanies and not in the comparably fair Isle of Albion.”
”Why?”
”Our grandfather, we've said, was an actor.”
”It shows.”
”A man of many words as well. He was a scribbler like Master Ma.s.singer. But although he made his living from words-a good living from words-he left our aunt and mother unlettered. Illiterate, as you have Latinized it in your American English.”
”You mean that your mom can't read or write?” Mich.e.l.le waved the rye roll withBratwurst that the high school cafeteria was offering for this day's lunch right under his nose, only to find it plucked out of her hand from behind.”
”Hi, d.i.c.k,” she said without even turning around. ”Give me that. Give it back. Now. Don't you dare take a bite.”
”There are more where it came from.”
”I don't have any more lunch money and they don't take credit cards. Give me thatBratwurst !” She lunged up just as he started to run, managing to grab the back of his belt.
Tom leaned back and started to whistle a theme which reminded them both that the farmer and the cowboy should be friends.
Mich.e.l.le hadn't given up. During rehearsal after school, she cornered Tom again. ”Did you really mean that your own mom can't read or write?”
”Yea. Forsooth. All that sort of Elizabethan English stuff.”
She frowned. Tom and d.i.c.k had picked up American English really fast, but Tom had the mannerism of retreating to something that sounded like the King James Version of the Bible when he was uneasy and then pretending that he hadn't done it by making fun of himself.
”Well, why not?”
”At home . . .” He paused. ”Back inEngland , that is . . .” He shrugged. ”Princesses are tutored, of course, as are the daughters of many of the great and powerful n.o.bles. But among the merchants, among the artisans . . .” He stopped again.
d.i.c.k, Lorie Lee trailing after him, plopped himself down on the other side of Mich.e.l.le. ”One thing I have learned, here in Grantville, is that the middle cla.s.s is rising.” His left hand waved through the air in an upward direction. ”According to Mr. Edgerton, the middle cla.s.s is floating through history almost like one of your balloons, ever following an updraft.”
”So?” Lorie Lee focused her eyes on his nose to the point that they crossed.
”The members of the German middle cla.s.s, while thus rising, school their daughters. Aside from a few peculiar Puritans, the English middle cla.s.s does not. Our aunt married a physician, very upright and prosperous. He finds it neither strange nor undesirable that she is unlettered.”
Tom nodded. ”Nor can we truly endorse the endeavors of the Puritans, given that they only wish their daughters to read pious literature and have done their best to extirpate our very calling.”
”What he means is that most true-born Englishmen cherish an ignorant damsel.” d.i.c.k winked. ”They are more like to be horrified than pleased by the schooling of females. More like to be scandalized than enchanted by those who are both fair and learn'd. It is far from all English men who share the admiration that Browne expressed for the late lamented dowager countess of Pembroke.”
Mich.e.l.le opened her mouth.
”We, of course, share it to the full,” d.i.c.k continued quickly. ”Don't we, Tom?”
”Oh, verily. Without the slightest shadow of a doubt.”
Mich.e.l.le twirled a strand of hair around her finger. ”Youcould sound a little more convinced. Are we stopping at the Freedom Arches once the rehearsal is over? I'm starved.”
”Mistress Higham . . .”
The woman perched on the edge of the orchestra pit in the high school auditorium looked up.
The man moved back a little. ”Mistress. My most humble apologies. I had expected Mistress Higham.”
”Mary Simpson's in town for a few days, on her way to theUpper Palatinate . Amber's extremely busy meeting with her, meeting with the other arts people, taking notes about what everyone is saying. I told her that I'd supervise the rehearsals this week.” She extended her hand. ”I'm Annabelle Piazza. Pleased to meet you.”
He backed up even farther, startled that the wife of the president of the State ofThuringia-Franconia , the new name proclaimed only a couple of weeks earlier, would have accepted such a task.
”No, stay. You must be Master Ma.s.singer. Amber told me that you would be coming.”
A couple of hours later, she asked, ”What do you think?”
”The style of the acting is much different from that customary inEngland . The acoustics in your theatre are excellent. Much of the humour is truly mordant.”
”But . . . Master Ma.s.singer?” Annabelle raised her eyebrows. ”I hear 'but' . . .”
”I do not care for the music. That is the truth. Although Tom and d.i.c.k like it very well, I find it dissonant.
Discordant. Perhaps it is suitable to the message of the piece, though. The play itself is most certainly relevant to the current situation inFranconia . According to the information in regard to the probability of a peasant revolt that we are receiving by way of the newspapers, of course. They certainly comment very freely, compared to the censors.h.i.+p that is imposed inEngland .”
”Censors.h.i.+p?”
”Why, of course.” He smiled. ”It is a rare man among us actors and playwrights, who has not spent at least some brief time in His Majesty's gaols for something he has written or spoken. It was not, as you say, 'politically correct' of me to write a play in which the protagonist was a Jesuit. One worthy of admiration. It led to accusations that I was a recusant. A decade ago-nay, eleven years ago, now-my play about a slave revolt in the ancient Greek city of Syracuse, although safely situated in antiquity and thus detached from modern politics, was found displeasing by some persons in authority. This . . . who knows? Perhaps I shall pen something inspired by it. Yet anotherNew Way to Pay Old Debts . Perhaps Sir Giles Overreach may have some parallels among the imperial knights.” He gestured: Now, for those other piddling complaints, Breathed out in bitterness; as, when they call me Extortioner, tyrant, cormorant, or intruder On my poor neighbour's right, or grand encloser Of what was common to my private use ; Nay, when my ears are pierced with widows' cries, And undone orphans wash with tears my threshold; I only think what 'tis to have my daughter Right honourable ; and 'tis a powerful charm, Makes me insensible of remorse, or pity, Or the least sting of conscience.
Annabelle shook her head. ”It never occurred to me thatOklahoma! had anything to say about what's going on inFranconia . It's way older than I am. I just thought of it as one of the standard musicals that Amber has put on regularly ever since she started teaching. About every four or five years, depending on whether or not the student body has enough dancers available to carry it. It needs more than something likeGuys and Dolls . Maybe that would make an a.s.signment. I'll suggest to her that she could have the kids do essays on the topic.”
”Essays,” Amber said. ”Essays. Annabelle, you would not believe what d.i.c.k Quiney has done.”
”After a week of supervising 'rehearsals with d.i.c.k,' I'd believe almost anything. But I hope it wasn't caused by the topic I recommended.”
”No, no. That went fairly smoothly. But then we moved on to this year's take on Arthur Miller'sThe Crucible . We always taught that, anyway. It's more relevant than ever, now, since I can tie it right into the theme of connections between up-time and down-time. Going fromKiss Me, Kate! as an up-time version of a down-time play toThe Crucible as an up-time take on a down-time historical phenomenon.
This year, I got Veronica Junius to come and give them a talk. That ties it even closer to 'real life' for these kids, since she was caught up in one of those persecutions five or six years ago. Before she came to Grantville, anyway. But . . .”
”What did d.i.c.k do?”
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