Desdemona lay on the ground, supposedly dead from drinking poison but having winked at the audience to say she was not really dead. How she’d got there had been filled with rushes from one end of the stage to another, plaintive speeches proclaiming her innocence as she cradled the alleged bottle of poison, a final drinking of said poison, and a sudden collapse.
Miss Mayton had just rushed onstage, oddly cast as Iago’s bride, though dressed in widow’s weeds, to deliver the message against her husband. Desdemona had spoken the truth, she was innocent, and the vile plot was Iago’s.
“I will run you through!” Lady Agatha’s Othello shouted.
“Not before I runyouthrough!” Mrs. Robinson’s Iago shouted back.
Percival leaned forward. Here was the danger.
The two ladies danced round each other and then thrust their swords.
They stopped and glanced down at themselves, noticing nothing had happened. They had not managed to pierce whatever bags held his aunt’s concoctions of blood—red paint mixed with a little flour to thicken it.
They swung their swords again. This time, Lady Agatha hit her mark. The audience gasped as a sickly red erupted through the material of Mrs. Robinson’s costume and dripped down in rivulets.
Mrs. Robinson sank dramatically to the floor, seeming to have forgotten that she and Lady Agatha were supposed to kill each other andbothdie.
Lady Agatha, through what Percival supposed was quick thinking, turned her sword on herself and stabbed her bag, then dropped to the floor.
“Everyone!” a voice from the doorway shouted, “stay calm and follow my directions!”
Percival turned and saw the portly physician hurrying forward. “Gentlemen, I need towels and bandaging! Ladies, this sight is too horrifying to witness—turn away!”
Percival put his head in his hands. Apparently, Jones had forgot to tell the poor fellow about the bags of blood.
Chapter Sixteen
Percival leaned backand observed the debacle before him. Lady Rawley’s doctor had rushed the stage.
As men were always ready to spring into action once one of them had sprung, it hardly mattered whether there was cause or not. Various of them raced this way and that.
Mr. Hemmingshaw attempted to pull down a curtain, though Percival was certain that had there actually been a need for bandaging, there would have been better options. The poor fellow had raced past a foot-high stack of linen napkins that would have done very well.
Despite the physician warning the ladies to turn away from the gruesome sight, the two women next to him were very determinedly staring at it.
One said, “It was bound to go wrong sooner or later.”
The other nodded. “She took the thing too far.”
Both Lady Agatha and Mrs. Robinson sat up.
“Do not move, ladies!” the physician cried. “You are gravely injured.”
Percival could not hear what Lady Rawley said from her location on the floor, but her lips moved rapidly so she clearly had a lot to say to her doctor.
The poor fellow, seeming to finally understand the case of the thing, stood and turned to the audience just as Mr. Hemmingshaw was dragging a curtain to the stage.
The doctor waved him away. “Well!” he said. “It seems that was a false alarm of sorts. Now, to carry on, Lady Rawley informs me that both Iago and Othello are dead, and Lady Agatha and Mrs. Robinson are very much alive.”
The fellow hurried from the stage and the last Percival saw of him, he was gesticulating to the butler.
The play carried on to its happy ending, with Cassio and Desdemona strolling off the stage arm in arm, while Iago and Othello lay dead. Apparently, nobody had told Miss Mayton what she was to be doing at this moment of the play, so she just turned and left.
It was certainly a night to remember.
The applause was hearty, as everyone had a delightful story to tell in their drawing rooms on the morrow—poor Lady Rawley’s physician had thought Lady Agatha and Mrs. Robinson had stabbed one another.
The acting troupe had all curtsied and left the stage to receive their congratulations.
