Authors: Beth Trissel
“‘
Angels and ministers of grace defend us...be thou a spirit of health or goblin
damn’d
, bring with thee airs fr
om heaven or blasts from hell.
Thou come
s
in such a questionable shape.
I’ll c
all thee Hamlet, King, father.
What may this mean that thou
should revisit us?’”
Dave grabbed his sleeve.
“‘
It beckons you to go aw
ay with it, but do not go.’”
A nice touch
, Will
conceded. He shook Dave off.
“‘
It will n
ot speak, then I will follow it.” Leaving Dave, he
dash
ed
up the stairs.
“Skip ahead to the parts I specified!”
h
is grandmother
called
out
.
Will stumbled as Joe lunged at him, more in a
n attack mode than as a fearsome
specter, and gripped
his shoulders.
“‘
I am thy father’s spirit doomed for a certain term to walk the night and for the day confined to f
ast in fires,’”
Joe declared in
his gravelly bass
voice
.
Will recited his part automatically, his chief concern escaping this ape-man unscathed. Joe was a hard worker, but not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Moaning
as though he were portraying Ja
cob Marley
, he g
ave Will a teeth-rattling jar.
“‘
If thou didst ever thy dear father lov
e––’”
“‘Oh, God,’”
Will said, both as Hamlet and himself.
“‘
Revenge his
foul and most unnatural murder,’”
Joe demanded.
“‘Murder?’”
Will echoed
.
Jon tightened his hold.
S
urely
, he was
the most hell-bent ghostly king any actor had ever portrayed.
“‘Now, Hamlet, hear me,’”
he growled, like a hit man about to elimina
te him if he didn’t take heed.
“‘Tis given out that sleeping in m
y or
chard a serpent stung me.
T
he serpent that did sting that fat
her’s life now wears his crown.’”
“‘
Oh, my prophet
ic soul
––
my uncle,’”
Will said
.
“‘Aye,’” Joe groaned.
“‘
That incestuous, adulterous beast with witchcraft of
his wit and traitorous gifts.
While sleeping in my orchard, my custom always in the
afternoon, thy uncle stole with juice of cursed
hebona
in a vial and in the porches of my ears did pour the leprous dist
ilment.’”
Joe clutched
him by the throat.
Was Hamlet ever so beset upon?
With a credible effort at lamentat
ion, Joe roared in mock agony, “‘
If thou hast nature in thee bear it not! Let not the royal bed of Denmark be a couch
for luxury and damned incest.
As for thy mother leave her to heaven and to those thorns that in her bosom lod
ge to prick and sting her.
Fare thee well. Adie
u, Adieu. Hamlet, remember me.’”
Joe relea
sed Will and he
staggered back
,
gasping
for breath
.
But the prophetic plea coupled with the warning of treachery struck him as significant. He sensed it had to
do with Cole.
Was there something more he should
do about his distant cousin?
Cole had
been struck down with a sword.
Ev
eryone knew that, didn’t they?
O
r was there more to the story?
Some crucial aspect left untold?
Unless Cole’s accomplishments had been exaggerated ove
r the years, he was an outstanding
swordsman.
Come to think of it, how had he fallen so eas
ily under his attacker’s blow?
Will had scant tim
e to dwell on the mystery.
Their
director rapped her cane
.
“Excellent, gentlemen!
Now, let’s rehearse the scene between Laertes and
his sister,
Ophelia.
Mr.
McChesney and Miss Morrow center stage.”
Lyle ambled out into the middle of the hall in his sleeveless muscle
shirt, worn jeans, and boots.
His ba
re arms bulged beneath the covering
of reddish hair and he had the neck of
a bull.
In total
contrast
to Lyle
, Julia rose and drifted
out
onto the floor in a white sundress that draped her entic
ing figure with girlish charm.
Her hair hung around her in a silken sheen and she looked every bit the innocent
character
she portrayed
.
Laying
his hand
on her shoulder, Lyle
spoke in earnest tones far removed from his usual banter
as he cautioned her
.
“‘
Perhaps Hamlet loves you now, but you must fear. His greatness weighed, his will is not his own, for he is subject to his birth. He may not as unvalued persons do carve for himself, for on his choice depend the safety
and health of the whole state.
Therefore must his choice be c
ircumscribed.’”
This was eerily like Will’s predicament with Grandmother Nor
a adamant about his own marital
choice.
“Jump ahead to the scene where Laertes bids
Ophelia goodbye!” she directed
.
Lyle circled his arms around Julia i
n what was supposed to be a fond
embrace, but pulled her cl
oser than Will thought he had any business doing
.
That damn Aussie could feel her soft curves against his bulging chest.
Lyle ran his finger
s over Julia’s rippling hair.
“‘
Farewell, Ophelia. Remember well what I have said to
you.’”
She lifted her face.
“‘Tis in my memory locked, and you you
rself shall keep the key of it.’”
“‘Fare thee well.’”
Lyle bent his head and kissed her full on the mouth.
Julia seemed
as startled as Will was angry.
He charged toward them wi
th everyone looking on.
“You’
re
supposed to be
brother and sister, for Christ’s sake!”
Lyle frowned at him, still circling her waist in that in
furiatingly possessive manner.
“It was a brotherly kiss.”
“Like hell
it was
,” Will growled, clamping his fingers into Lyle’s solid flesh and jerking his arm away.
Balling up his fist, he drove
it into Lyle’s shoulder.
His jaw was next. “Keep your hands off her.”
A loud rap of the cane, and his grandmother interceded.
“En
ough, William!
In times past a kiss on the lips
didn’t mean what it does today.
I’ve seen Laertes and Ophelia portrayed this way.
”
Not with Laertes exuding lust
, Will hadn’t
.
Lyle dropped his arms fr
om Julia and Will let it pass.
For now.
“
Let’s move on to the scene in Ophelia’s chamber when Hamlet
first pretends madness with her,
”
their d
irector
decreed
.
Why Hamlet had hidden behind false insanity rather than simply striking his uncle down in the first pl
ace, Will had never understood
. But to his satisfaction,
Lyle stalked to the sidelines.
Will
took his place beside Julia and
gazed
down
into her upturned face.
“‘
Nymph, in thy oriso
ns be all my sins remembered.’”
Shakespeare had
the most unusual way of speaking
about
a woman’s reproachful eyes.
And Julia’s were plenty reproachful.
“‘
Good my lord,
how does your h
o
nor for this many a day?’”
she
asked.
“‘I humbly thank you, well.’”
He started to walk away as the script decreed.
She hastened
afte
r him as she had in the hall
the evening before
and
caught his
arm.
Warmth
charged through him at her touch.
“‘
My lord, I have remembrances of yours
that I have longed to redeliver,
’”
She reached into the
bodice of her
dress, reminding him of the mounded breasts he’d come excruciatingly near to seeing, and drew out the
black velvet ribbon and gold heart he’
d given her that morning.
The delicate jewelry draped her slender f
ingers as she held it out
to him
.
“‘
I pray you now receive them,
’”
she said with a hint of frost in her lilting accent.
Why couldn’t
she have used costume jewelry?
Will didn’t want his gift back
anymore
than Hamlet had
. “‘No.
I never gave you ought,’”
he denied in Hamlet’s words.
Julia challenged him
as she had the night before.
“‘
My honored lor
d, you know right well you did.
And with them words of so sweet breath composed
as made the things more rich.
Their perfume l
ost, take these again.’”
Her memory of the newly acquired
lines
was amazing, as was her convincing
delivery.
M
ore than acting was at work
.
Will took the jewelry and slipped it into his pants pocket intent on returning it
to her later
.
Then
, as Hamlet,
he launched into pretended madness, raving at her, all the while wanting to ki
ss her protesting mouth.
Hamlet
paused in h
is ranting long enough to say, “‘I did love you once.’”
Her eyes skewered him.
“‘
Indeed, m
y lord, you made me believe so.’”
Will had no heart to utter the cruel lines he must hurl at Ophelia next. Hamlet should have been taken out and whipped, the way he treated that poor girl.
Instead, Will did some adlibbing of his own and to
ok Julia tenderly in his arms.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered in her ear, pressing his lips to her glorious hair.
“You hurt me,” she said softly.
Her pain was his.
“William, do get on with it!”
Loudly, for all to he
ar, he said in a tortured voice,
“‘
Yo
u should not have believed me.’”
Releasing her with wrenching reluctance,
he paced around and demanded,
“‘Where is your father?’”
“‘At home my lord.’”
Will glanced at the corner of the room where Jon, a
cting the role of
Polonious
, stood
partly hidden behind
the
damask drapes as though in Ophelia’s chamber.
“‘
Let the doors be shut upon him that he may play the fool
nowhere
but his own house!’”
Will shouted
, taking satisfaction in that line after all
of
the blabbing Jon had done
earlier
to Lyle.
His grandmother stopped him there.
“Let’s run through the banquet Hamlet’s traitorous uncle is throwing with his deceived mother
, the queen
.
Mill about ev
eryone, smile and laugh.
You’re to be
eating, drin
king, enjoying yourselves.
We shall
have music
ians on the night of the play.
Fire-eaters would be an authentic touch,
don’t you th
ink
, William
?
” she suggested hopefully.