Theatre Shoes

by Noel Streatfeild

  “Well, I’ve not been in love much myself; and, of course, Orlando’s only one of the girls, but I think she’s like Rosalind. She certainly isn’t a bit like anybody reciting.”

  Grandmother chuckled.

  “And a very good thing, too. You’ve not met your Uncle Francis. Now, there’s a real actor!” She giggled as she said this. “All wind and roar. One of the few sensible things they ever did was to send that child to Fidolia. She won’t be allowed any of those tricks in her school.”

  Sorrel felt for words.

  “I don’t think Miranda wants to do any tricks. Miss Jay never teaches her much and she generally does things right all by herself.”

  Grandmother gave her shawl an angry shake.

  “It maddens me to think that when that girl appears her father will say she has inherited his talent. His talent indeed! He doesn’t know the meaning of the word. If he had even a grain of understanding, he would never allow your poor aunt to play the parts that she does. You’ve not met your Aunt Marguerite; she never had much talent, but the poor girl deserved a better fate than to be Lady Brain. Your Uncle Francis was a young man when we first met him, playing in our company. It was a costume piece and he was very good-looking, though just as much of a ham actor as he is to-day. Your Aunt Marguerite had a little part and the poor girl could hardly get through it for goggling at Francis. She thought him a genius, and still does if it comes to that. There they go, round and round the provinces with occasional trips to South Africa or Australia. There’s scarcely a corner of the British Empire that has not had to endure your Aunt Marguerite in such parts as Lady Macbeth, for which she’s totally unfitted. How upset your poor grandfather would be if he could see her.”

  “What happens to Miranda when they’re away?”

  Grandmother waved a hand as if these domestic problems were of no importance.

  “A governess, a good soul; and her doting parents come home practically every week-end.”

  “But they couldn’t from Africa or Australia, could they?”

  “Naturally, with the war on, they remain in England. When they went overseas they took the child with them. They dote on her.” Grandmother stroked the shawl and pleated it over her fingers. “Let them. That child is pure Warren. The Warren voice. The moment she sets a foot upon the stage, the critics will all say so. I would give a fortune to see your Uncle Francis’s face when he reads that sort of notice.” She suddenly remembered that Sorrel, too, was training. “And how are you doing, child?”

  Sorrel was so afraid of being asked to recite that she purposely made very little of her parts.

  “Well, of course, it’s my first term. I’ll have bigger parts later on.”

  “I must see Fidolia and enquire after you all. Mark, now, I’m sure there’s talent there.”

  This pulled Sorrel out of her shyness.

  “Oh no, I’m sure there isn’t. There wouldn’t be likely to be, you see, he’s going to be a sailor.”

  Grandmother would allow Mark to argue, but not Sorrel. Her eyes flashed.

  “Mark will do what he’s told. I’ve only one grandson and I pin great hopes on him. Great. Run along, child. Run along.”

  Holly looked forward to coming to see Grandmother because of the things there were to play with in the drawing-room. The green-jade horse was still her favourite; but there were other things as well, ivory fans, and a silver cart, and a case full of bangles. It was an understood thing that if she put everything back, she could play with what she liked while she was in the drawing-room. Holly amused Grandmother.

  “Well,” she would say, watching Holly pull a row of native bangles on to her arm, “who are you now? Tell me all about it.”

  Holly would start describing how she was a princess, or a fairy, or a child at a party, and then Grandmother would add to the story until Holly was the centre of an imaginary room full of people.

  “Look over there, Holly. A hundred and seventy-two fairies in cloth of gold have come to bring you birthday presents. And look, isn’t that a frog, all in white satin, coming in at the door? And here’s Cinderella and her fairy godmother.”

  Holly would get excited.

  “And look, there’s Cinderella’s mice, before they became ponies.”

  Sometimes, Grandmother would join the party herself and sweep round the room with her shawl trailing behind her, curtseying to everybody and speaking to Holly about their guests. They would be so carried away that they never noticed the time until Alice opened the door.

  “Time young Holly was in bed. Come on, Holly. Hannah wants your head on your weeping willow, pillow to you.”

  Because visiting Grandmother was an event, and because they lived so much more in the world of the Academy than the world of home, the children never felt that there was excitement in the house. They knew Grandmother was out a lot, but they never thought of asking why. Then, one night when Hannah was giving them their supper, Alice came in looking important.

  “I’ll bet you a lord of the manor none of you three’ll guess my bit of news.” Mark was trying very hard to think what a lord of the manor might be. Alice ruffled his hair. “A tanner. A sixpence.” The children were all looking at her and she could not keep her secret any longer. “We’re working again; we’ve got a new part and a very good part. We start rehearsing the week after next, and our play opens in January.”

  Although, of course, they knew Grandmother was an actress, they had somehow never thought of her as going to act any more.

  “Do you mean Grandmother’s got a part?” Mark asked, obviously amazed. “She must be acting somebody very old, mustn’t she?”

  Alice laughed.

  “’Tisn’t only young nippers like you that people see in plays. All ages, all types, they are.” She lowered her voice. “If you’ll all swear not to repeat it, I’ll tell you something else. Come on, touch your loaves of bread.” All the children put their hands on their heads. Alice took a deep breath. “There’s a little girl in the play and your Grandmother wants young Miranda to play her.”

  “What, in a real play?” said Sorrel. “She told me she wasn’t going on the stage until she was eighteen.”

  “That’s what she thinks; but we think differently, and we’re seeing Sir Francis about it, and we generally get our own way. So you can take it from me that, in the next few days, you’ll see young Miranda setting off to apply for a licence.”

  CHAPTER XI

  MOSTLY ABOUT MARK

  Grandmother got her way. Miranda was to act in the play with her. Miriam told the children bits of the excitement that had gone on about it.

  “Aunt Marguerite telephoned to Mum about every twenty minutes all last night and all the night before. Dad says he thinks they never went to sleep, but rang each other up instead. Uncle Francis thinks it would be better if Miranda waited to make her first appearance under his management. When Mum heard that, she just threw her telephone down and left it hanging from the wall without even putting it back on its rest. I heard it growling and sighing, and went and put it back for her. Mum said to Dad, ‘That’s all this awful jealousy; he thinks nobody in the world can teach anybody to act but himself.’ Anyway, in the end, Grandmother got her way. I couldn’t think what Mum and Aunt Marguerite were fussing about, because I knew she would, she always does.”

  Mark scowled.

  “I know one thing she is not going to get her way about, and that’s me. She won’t put me on the stage and make an actor of me, whatever she does.”

  Miriam had been doing some foot exercises while she was speaking. She did eight battements in the fourth position front before she answered him. Then she gave a little flourish with her foot to show that she thought he was talking stupidly.

  “You wait and see, my boy. You’ve not really come up against our Grandmother yet, and when you do you’ll know.”

  Miranda’s engagement caused a certain amount of stir in the Academy. It would have caused more, only it was the autumn term and quite a lot of the o
ther girls who were old enough for a licence had got engagements, too. Most of the other children’s engagements were for pantomime though two of them were going into “Peter Pan”; and, of course, Miranda’s acting part was something rather grand and special. But an engagement was an engagement, and just because Miranda’s was for acting and most of the others were for dancing, that was no reason for her to think she was of more importance than anyone else.

  Every pupil at the Academy, as they were nearing their twelfth birthday, prepared what they called “m’audition,” which was their way of saying “my audition.” This meant that they had learnt a speech or a recitation that suited them, and that they had a song ready which had a dance to a repeat of the chorus, or special music to which they could do a little dance. Of course, this was the full audition. If a child was going about a singing part or a dancing part, or an acting part only, naturally they only sang or danced or acted; but for a pantomime they usually did all three. Nearly forty of the children were over twelve and every day one or two were standing in the hall in the best frock or suit they had, waiting to be inspected by Miss Jay or Winifred before they went to their audition. The rest of the school, passing them, would call out “Good luck, John,” or “Good luck, Mary.” Sorrel had studied the twelve-year-olds waiting in the hall pretty carefully. Next April she would be twelve and perhaps sent for an audition, and she wanted to get a good idea of what ought to be worn, and the right sort of face to put on. It was not at all a good thing to look cocky, because, if you did and then came back without the engagement you had gone after, you looked a fool. On the other hand, it was not a good thing to look nervous and miserable because then the school said, “Gosh, I shouldn’t think anyone would ever give her a job; she looked as if it had been raining for a week.”

  Miranda’s rehearsals were not starting for ten days and she was to continue with her ordinary training until they did; and, as far as possible, while rehearsals were in progress. Until the Christmas holidays began, she had to get in five hours’ lessons a day by law, and in the meantime the management were trying not to call her to rehearsals until the late afternoons and on Saturday mornings. Miranda resented having to come to the Academy at all. To Sorrel’s great surprise, she chose her to confide in.

  “It’s a long and difficult part. I ought to be at home studying it. It’s ridiculous to waste my time bringing me here.”

  “Couldn’t you arrange with Madame only to do dancing, singing and lessons, and drop the acting classes? I shouldn’t think anyone would mind if you did.”

  Miranda looked at Sorrel as if she were a worm.

  “So that’s what you think, do you? I suppose it has never struck you to wonder what would happen to these troop concerts if they hadn’t got me to keep them together.”

  Sorrel had no wish to quarrel with Miranda, but she did wonder how anybody could be as conceited as she was, and she could not help her voice showing a bit what she was thinking.

  “I suppose somebody else could do your part. I mean, they’d have to if you weren’t there, wouldn’t they?”

  “I’d like to know who,” said Miranda, and stalked away.

  As it happened, a concert for the troops was at that very moment being discussed by Madame and her staff.

  “They want us to give a matinée for the Forces in the Princess Theatre, or rather, they want us to take over one half of it. The rest will be music-hall turns. It’s to take place just before Christmas. I had said ‘yes,’ intending to use Miranda; but now I don’t know what we are going to do if we can’t have her. I don’t think we’ve any other child competent to act as compère. However, I’ve written to her management to ask if they will release her from rehearsal for that one afternoon, and we must wait to see what they say. For the rest we’ll use the best of the items in the various other programmes that we have given this term. And I think, as it’s a Christmas entertainment, we should put in a Christmas ballet and perhaps a carol, or something like that. Has anyone any ideas?”

  The result of that conference began to filter through the Academy. Winifred started some strenuous rehearsals on the new ballet. The best of the school dancers were not able to take part in it as they would be rehearsing for their pantomimes, so the second-best team had to work very hard indeed to be sufficiently good for Winifred to pass them. Miriam was, of course, too young to be allowed to work on her points; but she was so very much the most promising dancer in the school that the ballet was to centre round her in the part of the child. Miriam, to the children’s surprise, was not at all pleased at what the rest of the Academy thought her good fortune. She tried to explain to them why.

  “It’s very important at my age that I shouldn’t be brought forward in any way. I should now be getting my technique firm, so that in a year’s time, when I begin to work on my points, I can take my training seriously.”

  Sorrel had to laugh.

  “You can’t say you don’t take it seriously now, Miriam. You never think about anything else.”

  “That’s perfectly true. But it isn’t only making me do too advanced work that I’m worried about, I know neither Winifred nor Madame would allow that; but if I dance in public, there’s almost sure to be notice taken of me and then Dad’ll hear, and then probably there’ll be a row. Not, mind you, that a row is going to make any difference at all, I’m going to be a dancer whatever anybody says; but it could be tiresome, and I don’t want it to be.”

  Sorrel, in her free moments, thought a lot about these conversations with Miranda and Miriam. How confident they were! And how different about it. Miranda was conceited somehow and spoilt, but Miriam was like a person following a path through a wood. There might be a lot of other interesting paths branching off at the side, but Miriam only saw the path that her feet were on, and nothing could distract her from it.

  Miriam was not the only person who came into prominence over the Forces matinée. The juniors were dancing and miming some of their nursery rhymes. Most of these were accompanied by Mrs. Blondin on the piano and an orchestra, but for four of the songs the rhymes were to be sung as a solo. “I Had a Little Nut Tree,” “I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing By,” “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” and “Little Boy Blue.” Dr. Lente was asked to pick a child for these solos. To everybody’s surprise, because he had never said anything about him before, he at once mentioned Mark. Dr. Lente did not speak English very well.

  “The little Mark, when he is trying, which is by no means always, has the voice of much charm, true and clear.”

  At the next nursery-rhyme rehearsal, Mark was placed beside the piano and Mrs. Blondin, and told to sing “I Had a Little Nut Tree.” Miss Jay had got used to Mark by now and knew he liked to find something that he personally thought interesting about what he was asked to do, or else it was very difficult for him to attend properly. Dr. Lente having said that Mark could sing like a bird, Miss Jay built on that idea.

  “I want you to think of yourself as rather an important kind of bird singing on a bough. All the rest of the class are hopping about on the ground, but you are by yourself with nothing but sky over your head and the sun shining.”

  Mark considered this.

  “What sort of a bird?”

  Ornithology was not Miss Jay’s subject. She could only think of larks and nightingales as having singing voices, and off-hand she could not remember how either bird looked, and she knew that Mark would want to picture himself in feathers.

  “A special bird. A foreign bird. I think his feathers are blue and green and he has a scarlet crest.”

  Mark visualised such a bird and before he knew where he was he was thinking of himself as being the bird with feathers such as Miss Jay had described, singing against a blue sky. Then his eye fell on Mrs. Blondin. She was in her red blouse. She had on that morning a small green felt hat with a little feather in it. She was gazing into space humming, “I know where I’m going.” Mark lowered his voice. Not that he worried really whether Mrs. Blondin was listening, because everybody in t
he Academy knew she only heard the words “Begin” and “Stop”; but he felt the subject called for a confidential tone.

  “What’s she doing in the wood with me? Is she a bird too?”

  Miss Jay also believed Mrs. Blondin to be deaf to ordinary conversation, but she was certainly not going to risk offending a good accompanist, so she moved away, saying with that sort of dismissing smile grown-ups use when they do not want a child to go on with a conversation:

  “Of course, dear, a lovely bird.”

  Mark, mentally swaying on his bough, his feathers gay in the sun, was still being a boy with part of him, and that part of him was trying to imagine some sort of bird which could possibly be identified not only with Mrs. Blondin but with a piano.

  Miss Jay had got the grouping for “I Had a Little Nut Tree” ready, she was holding the Queen of Spain’s daughter by the hand. She turned her head towards the piano and barked in the only tone that was known to penetrate Mrs. Blondin’s dreams:

  “Begin!”

  Mrs. Blondin played the opening bars and Mark, proudly swaying on his branch, began to sing:

  “I had a little nut tree and nothing would it bear,” then he stopped. He turned a pleased face to Miss Jay. “Not a bird at all; one of those monkeys that’s got no fur behind but blue and pink instead, and its fingers are moving all the time because it’s looking for fleas.”

  The children laughed, though nobody except Miss Jay knew what Mark was talking about. Mrs. Blondin certainly had not heard because she was still playing, for Miss Jay had not said “Stop!” Miss Jay looked severe.

  “I’m not interested in anyone in this particular forest except a bird that I’m waiting to hear sing.” Then she changed her voice to a bark. “Stop!” Mrs. Blondin’s fingers shot off the piano and fell in her lap. Miss Jay went over to her and tapped her shoulder. “We’re doing that all over again.” She returned to the class and put a restraining hand on the Queen of Spain’s daughter. “Begin!”

  Mark singing really was a lovely noise. He had an absolutely true voice, and now that he had placed Mrs. Blondin as a mandrill, he was able to dismiss her from his mind and sing with the unforced ease of a bird, which was no wonder, as, by the time he was half-way through the verse, he was certain he was one.