“ ‘Look,’ ” said Macdougal, “being the operative word, I hope.”

“Yes, of course. We’ll have it made of plastic. And Maggie… do you like what you see, darling?”

What she saw was a skin-tight gown of dull metallic material, slit up one side to allow her to walk. A crimson, heavily furred garment was worn over it, open down the front. She had only one jewel, a great clasp.

“I hope I’ll fit it,” said Maggie.

“You’ll do that,” he said. “And now” — he was conscious of a tightness in his chest — “we’ll clear stage and get down to business. Oh! There’s one point I’ve missed. You will see that for our first week some of the rehearsals are at night. This is to accommodate Sir Dougal, who is shooting the finals of his new film. The theatre is dark, the current production being on tour. It’s a bit out of the ordinary, I know, and I hope nobody finds it too awkward?”

There was a silence during which Sir Dougal with spread arms mimed a helpless apology.

“I can’t forbear saying it’s very inconvenient,” said Banquo.

“Are you filming?”

“Not precisely. But it might arise.”

“We’ll hope it doesn’t,” Peregrine said. “Right? Good. Clear stage, please, everyone. Scene One. The Witches.”

It’s going very smoothly,” said Peregrine, three days later. “Almost too smoothly.”

“Keep your fingers crossed,” said his wife, Emily. “It’s early days yet.”

“True.” He looked curiously at her. “I’ve never asked you,” he said. “Do you believe in it? The superstitious legend?”

“No,” she said quickly.

“Not the least tiny bit? Really?”

Emily looked steadily at him. “Truly?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“My mother was a one-hundred-percent Highlander.”

“So?”

“So it’s not easy to give you a direct answer. Some superstitions — most, I think — are silly little matters of habit. A pinch of spilt salt over the left shoulder. One may do it without thinking but if one doesn’t it’s no great matter. That sort of thing. But… there are other ones. Not silly. I don’t believe in them. No. But I think I avoid them.”

“Like the Macbeth ones?”

“Like them. Yes. But I didn’t mind you doing it. Or not enough to try to stop you. Because I don’t really believe,” said Emily very firmly.

“I don’t believe at all. Not at any level. I’ve done two productions of the play and they both were accident-free and very successful. As for the instances they drag up — Macbeth’s sword breaking and a bit of it hitting someone in the audience or a dropped weight narrowly missing an actor’s head — if they’d happened in any other play nobody would have said it was an unlucky one. How about Rex Harrison’s hairpiece being caught in a chandelier and whisked up into the flies? Nobody said My Fair Lady was unlucky.”

“Nobody dared to mention it, I should think.”

“There is that, of course,” Peregrine agreed.

“All the same, it’s not a fair example.”

“Why isn’t it?”

“Well, it’s not serious. I mean… well…”

“You wouldn’t say that if you’d been there, I daresay,” said Peregrine.

He walked over to the window and looked at the Thames: at the punctual late-afternoon traffic. It congealed on the south bank, piled up, broke out into a viscous stream, and crossed by bridge to the north bank. Above it, caught by the sun, shone the theatre: not very big but conspicuous in its whiteness and, because of the squat mass of little riverside buildings that surrounded it, appearing tall, even majestic.

“You can tell which of them’s bothered about the bad-luck stories,” he said. “They won’t say his name. They talk about the ‘Thane’ and the ‘Scots play’ and ‘The Lady.’ It’s catching. Lady Macduff — Nina Gaythorne — silly little ass, is steeped up to the eyebrows in it. And talks about it. Stops if she sees I’m about but she does, all right, and they listen to her.”

“Don’t let it worry you, darling. It’s not affecting their work, is it?” Emily asked.

“No.”

“Well, then.”

“I know, I know.”

Emily joined him and they both looked out, over the Thames, to where the Dolphin shone so brightly. She took his arm. “It’s easy to say, I know,” she said, “but if you could just not. Don’t brood. It’s not like you. Tell me how the great Scot is making out as Macbeth.”

“Fine. Fine. He’s uncannily lamblike and everyone told me he was a Frankenstein’s Monster to work with.”

“It’s his biggest role so far, isn’t it?” Emily asked.

“Yes. He was a good Benedick, but that’s the only other Shakespeare part he’s played. Out of Scotland. He had a bash at Othello in his repertory days. He was a fantastic Anatomist in Bridie’s play when they engaged him for the revival at the Haymarket. That started him off in the West End. Now, of course, he’s way up there.”

“How’s his love life going?”

“I don’t really know. He’s making a great play for Lady Macbeth at the moment but Maggie Mannering takes it with a tidy load of salt, don’t worry.”

“Dear Maggie!”

“And dear you!” he said. “You’ve lightened the load no end. Shall I tackle Nina and tell her not to? Or go on pretending I haven’t noticed?”

“What would you say? ‘Oh, by the way, Nina darling, could you leave off the bad-luck business, scaring the pants off the cast? Just a thought!’ ”

Peregrine burst out laughing and gave her a pat. “I tell you what,” he said, “you’re so bloody sharp you can have a go yourself. I’ll ask her for a drink, here, and you can choose your moment and then lay into her.”

“Are you serious?”

“No. Yes, I believe I am. It might work.”

“I don’t think it would. She’s never been here before. She’d rumble.”

“Would that matter? Oh, I don’t know. Shall we leave it a bit longer? I think so.”

“And so do I,” said Emily. “With any luck they’ll get sick of it and it’ll die a natural death.”

“So it may,” he agreed and hoped he sounded convincing. “That’s a comforting thought. I must return to the blasted heath.”

He wouldn’t have taken much comfort from the lady in question if he could have seen her at that moment. Nina Gaythorne came into her minute flat in Westminster and began a sort of delousing ritual. Without waiting to take off her hat or her gloves, she scuffled in her handbag and produced a crucifix, which she kissed and laid on the table near a clove of garlic and her prayerbook. She opened the letter, put on her spectacles, crossed herself, and read aloud the ninety-first Psalm.

“ ‘Whoso dwelleth under the defence of the Most High,’ ” read Nina in the well-trained, beautifully modulated tones of a professional actress. When she reached the end, she kissed her prayerbook, crossed herself again, laid her marked-up part on the table, the prayerbook on top of it, the crucifix on the prayerbook, and, after a slight hesitation, the clove of garlic at the foot of the crucifix:

“That ought to settle their hash,” she said and took off her gloves.

Her belief in curses and things being lucky or unlucky was based not on any serious study but merely on the odds and ends of gossip and behavior accumulated by four generations of theatre people. In that most hazardous profession where so many mischances can occur, when so much hangs in the precarious balance on opening night, when five weeks’ preparation may turn to ashes or blaze for years, there is a fertile soil indeed for superstition to take root and flourish.

Nina was forty years old, a good dependable actress, happy to strike a long run and play the same part eight times a week for year after year, being very careful not to let it become an entirely mechanical exercise. The last part of this kind had come to an end six months ago and nothing followed it, so that this little plum, Lady Macduff, uncut for once, had been a relief. And the child might be a nice boy. Not the precocious little horror that could emerge from an indifferent school. And the house! The Dolphin! The enormous prestige attached to an engagement there. Its phenomenal run of good luck and, above all, its practice of using the same people when they had gained an entry, whenever a suitable role occurred: a happy engagement. Touch wood!