Theatre Shoes

by Noel Streatfeild

  Though, of course, the Academy was primarily a dancing school, credit brought to it in any artistic direction was a pleasure to all the staff and, particularly, to Madame Fidolia. There were a lot of hopes built on Mark. It did seem likely that he might be the big hit of the afternoon. Then came discussion about what he should wear. All sorts of ideas were put forward, most of them impracticable because, of course, everything had to be either in the wardrobe or cut out of old things, or made of unrationed goods, for, naturally, there were no coupons to spare for one matinée. Then an old student of the Academy, who was visiting and had been brought to see the beginners’ class rehearse, made an offer. Her little boy had been a page at a wedding at the beginning of the war. He was at the time younger than Mark, but he was big for his age, and Mark, like all the Forbes children, was small for his. Her son had worn a Kate Greenaway suit with a very frilly white shirt, blue satin trousers, white silk socks and blue satin shoes. Everybody was enchanted, and from Madame Fidolia down they said so in their own way.

  Madame said, “That would be perfect; he will look a picture.”

  Winifred: “Won’t he look a duck!”

  Madame Moulin: “Tout à fait ravissant!”

  Dr. Felix Lente: “I know not this Kate Greenaway, but if he is made to look as pretty as ’is voice, then I satisfied am.”

  Miss Jay, because she had produced the nursery rhymes, was more pleased than anybody.

  “I shall have him on all the way through the scene with his hands in his pockets, leaning against the proscenium arch. When it’s his cue to sing, he can stroll to the centre of the stage; he moves very naturally; the effect ought to be simply enchanting.”

  They had all reckoned without Mark. The box with his clothes arrived one morning and Mark was sent for to try them on. Out of the box came a heavily-frilled shirt, and was held up against him, then, with squeaks of pleasure, Winifred and Miss Jay unpacked the blue shoes and blue trousers. Finally, Winifred discovered, rolled up in the corner, a pair of white silk socks. She turned to Miss Jay beaming.

  “Well, isn’t that thoughtful! Fancy lending us the socks too!”

  Mark, who had been gazing at the clothes in an almost trance-like way, pulled himself together.

  “Who is going to wear this?”

  Winifred opened her mouth to say “you” when Miss Jay gave her a little nudge. She had caught a look in Mark’s eye she did not like.

  “Kate Greenaway designed clothes very suitable for singing nursery rhymes,” she said briskly. “When she was alive, boys of all ages were dressed like this.”

  Mark looked at the socks and shoes and dismissed what Miss Jay was saying as sheer foolishness; and, indeed, the exact argument about that set of clothes was not worrying him for he had no intention of wearing them, but he was furious with Miss Jay. He considered her a friend and thought she had let him down.

  “You promised me I was dressed in blue and green feathers with a scarlet crest.”

  Miss Jay wished with all her heart she had never invented his bird. It had never crossed her mind that Mark thought he was going to be dressed in feathers. She was a scrupulously fair woman and would never pretend that something was going to happen that was not, in order to bribe a child to work well. She decided that she must have time to think of the right approach to Mark before she forced the clothes on him. She put the lid on the box and put her arm round him.

  “Sorry, I had never planned you should be dressed as a bird. I had only imagined you singing like one; but we’ll see what can be done.”

  It was no surprise to Miss Jay at the next nursery-rhyme rehearsal that Mark sang very badly. She was sorry, but she would have been sorrier still if she could have known how violently angry and hurt he was. He confided just how he felt to Sorrel.

  “It isn’t only they thought they could dress me like a girl in blue satin. I’m used to all that sort of thing. After all, when you’re made to put on white socks for every dancing class, you can get used to anything; but it was her absolute promise that I was to be a bird that I mind. I just hate the way grown-up people make promises and then break them. She says she didn’t, but she absolutely did. I was being a bird on a branch, and the only person near me was that Mrs. Blondin, and she was a mandrill looking for fleas.”

  Sorrel had known, from Mark, that he was going to be dressed as a bird and that he was pleased about it; but this was the first time she had known to what lengths his imagination had carried him.

  “But, Mark, Mrs. Blondin’s going to be sitting at the piano in the orchestra, where all the audience can see her. You couldn’t really have thought she was going to be dressed as a mandrill.” She thought a little more on the subject and then added: “A mandrill more than anything, seeing how they are behind.”

  Mark’s imagination, when in full flood, was quite incapable of being checked by material difficulties. He could only repeat, in a voice suffocated with anger:

  “It’s what she said and what she promised. Anyway, there was being a branch built for me up above everybody else. I shouldn’t have been looking at mandrills or anything. I was just looking at the sky and the sun. That’s what she said and it was an absolute promise.”

  Miss Jay went to see Madame and told her the whole story. All her life Madame had worked with imaginative people; and though, of course, now she was able to keep her imagination from running away with her, she had known what it was, when she was Mark’s age, to build a completely imaginary world from fragments of conversation overheard, or things invented by herself. She remembered her first interview with Mark and how he had said “Madame” in a low, deep growl, and when she had asked him how he was dressed when he bowed to her, she had got him to confess that he had thought he was a bear in the Antarctic who had travelled miles to call on the Queen.

  “Send Winifred along here, will you?” When Winifred in her practice dress came dashing in, Madame pointed to a chair for her to sit on. “Miss Jay and I are in a dilemma. It seems that Mark Forbes understood Miss Jay to promise that he was going to be dressed as a bird, and as a bird he was singing like a bird. Now he feels unjustly treated and is singing very badly. Miss Jay thinks that it isn’t naughtiness, but that he really feels so hurt and angry that he can’t use his voice properly. Now I think, since we can’t dress him as a bird, that we’ll have to suggest a compromise. Could we put a Polar bear into the winter ballet? We’ve got that white cat’s skin in the wardrobe we could alter, and I expect we can hire or contrive a white bear’s head, and we must make a stumpy tail. Anyway, it would be near enough.”

  Winifred got up and hummed the ballet music. Now and again doing half a step demi-point. She turned to Madame.

  “Why shouldn’t the child, when she wakes up in the land of winter, find herself lying with her head on a Polar bear? As a matter of fact, I wanted to think of something that would add to the fairy-tale atmosphere of that scene. It’s very difficult to get the effect before the ice fairies and snow fairies come on. Mark can’t dance much, of course, but he can manage a few simple steps and he’ll certainly add to the charm of the scene.”

  Winifred was sent to fetch Mark. He came in to Madame’s sitting-room, bowed nicely, and said “Madame,” but his eyes were not the friendly eyes that Madame usually saw, but hard and angry. She smiled at him.

  “Well, my son, I hear we’ve disappointed you.”

  Mark was fair enough not to blame Madame for what had happened.

  “It was an absolute promise, blue and green feathers and a red crest.”

  Madame spoke quietly.

  “No, Mark. It was not an absolute promise. You thought it was a promise, but it was a misunderstanding. Miss Jay wanted you to sing like a bird. She had never pictured you dressed as one.” Mark moved forward to speak. Madame lifted her hand and checked him. “And what is more, my child, you cannot be dressed as a bird because we have not got anything at all in the way of a costume for a bird; and, as you know, we cannot waste coupons on materials for these thi
ngs. Before we go any further with this discussion, I want you to apologise to Miss Jay. You should have known her too well to think that she would make you a promise and not keep it.”

  “But she did promise. And Mrs. Blondin was a mandrill.”

  This was too much for Madame. She laughed.

  “Nonsense, Mark! I do not care how vivid your imagination may be; but you cannot seriously, even at your age, think that Miss Jay was going to dress Mrs. Blondin as a mandrill.” She changed her tone. “But I do think you thought there was a promise and, because you thought that, when you have apologised to Miss Jay I shall tell you what we propose to do to make it up to you. I don’t expect you to apologise for anything except allowing your imagination to run away with you to such an extent that you could think Miss Jay would break a promise.”

  Mark wrestled with himself. He was so convinced that he had been promised, that it was very hard to be fair about it, but at last he managed to say to Miss Jay:

  “Well, I’m sorry if I said you broke a promise when you didn’t.”

  Miss Jay accepted this.

  “Thank you, Mark.”

  Madame beckoned him to her and held out a hand.

  “Now hear what we have planned for you instead. How would you like to be a bear?”

  Mark’s world reeled. He flew off his branch, cast aside his feathers and dressed himself in fur.

  “What sort of bear?”

  “Polar,” said Madame.

  Mark turned to Miss Jay.

  “All the songs will have to be set very low to be sung in a growl.”

  Miss Jay had a horrifying vision of what Mark, as a bear, might do to her nursery rhymes. She spoke slowly and rather severely, so that there might be no mistake this time.

  “The nursery rhymes come first, and for those you wear the Kate Greenaway dress that you saw in the box. You will sing the nursery rhymes just the same as you did when you were a bird, but you will be dressed as a boy.”

  Madame took up the conversation.

  “You know all about the ballet in the second half. We want a Polar bear in that. If you sing the nursery rhymes well you shall be that bear, but one of the other children will understudy you, and if you don’t sing well then you won’t be the bear.”

  Mark took most of the day to get his ideas sorted out, but after tea there was a rehearsal of the winter ballet, and he was given two or three steps to learn, including some Pas de Chats, which, in his opinion, were just right for the movements of a bear. Coming home on the Underground he was in the wildest spirits and told Sorrel and Holly all about it.

  “He’s not one of those slow, heavy bears. He’s a very gay, light-footed bear. The best dancer in the Antarctic.”

  Sorrel spoke cautiously.

  “What’s happening about the clothes for the nursery rhymes?”

  “Oh, that! I wear the most awful suit, all frills and blue satin, but the boy who’s wearing it doesn’t feel a fool in it because he knows he’s under a spell, and when the witch that made the spell is dead, he’ll be a bear again.”

  “I see,” said Sorrel. “Well, for goodness’ sake don’t let the witch break the spell in the middle of the songs.”

  Mark was clear about that, too.

  “She won’t. If she breaks the spell one minute too soon, then that boy will never be a bear again, never, never, never.”

  Holly was looking forward to the matinée. She was small and pretty and what the staff called “dressable.” All the clothes came out of the wardrobe, of course, there was nothing new; but she was given three little parts, and for each she had something pretty to wear. She was the buttercup in Mistress Mary’s garden. She had a crinoline and bonnet in a singing number, and a flame-coloured tunic in a little dance.

  Sorrel was the only one of the family to stay in the background. She still had nothing to do but dance as a black lamb. She tried to pretend she did not mind. She told herself she never had wanted to be an actress anyway, so what did she care; but actually she did mind very much indeed. She had been getting on well in her acting classes, both Madame Moulin and Miss Jay said so, and as soon as she had heard of the matinée she had a secret hope that she would be given a little part in a sketch, not a big or showy part, just something quite small. There were some small parts going. It had been a blow and made her feel discouraged when the parts were handed out and she had nothing. To make things worse, because she had so little to do she was made to take Miranda’s parts while Miranda was at her play rehearsals. Miranda, of course, got to hear about this.

  “You’ll have to stand-in for me again to-day, Sorrel. They need me at the theatre.”

  Sorrel tried not to be rude, but it was difficult.

  “I’m not standing-in. If it’s anything it’s understudying.”

  “Call it what you like. You ought to be pleased, it’s admirable experience for you.”

  When a notice was put on the board to say there would be a dress rehearsal at the Princess Theatre on the morning of the day before the matinée, Sorrel was delighted.

  “They can’t get that awful old matinée over quick enough for me,” she confided to a fellow lamb. “I’m so bored with it, it makes my mouth yawn every time it’s mentioned.”

  CHAPTER XII

  A SWOLLEN HEAD

  Alice took the children to their dress rehearsal. Hannah did not exactly refuse to go but she said, looking very stubborn, “she couldn’t seem to fancy it.” Alice was glad of the opportunity to get inside any theatre.

  “We’ve gone to our rehearsal,” she said, “and we can manage by ourselves for one morning, and I know my way about behind the scenes, and there’s nothing like understanding how things ought to be done, so you can trust old Alice to see the children through.”

  Sorrel found as she had when she went to the performance for the seamen, that she felt wormy inside; at least, that was how she described her feelings to herself. When she woke up she felt as if a big worm was turning round and round in her middle. It was not, of course, anything to do with her. She was not really worried about being a lamb; she had danced all right at the seamen’s hospital and there had been plenty of rehearsals since. It was a mixture of things. Worrying whether Mark would sing all right, wondering if all Holly’s dresses were there, if the girls would turn up in time, and how it would feel to be on a real stage in a real theatre.

  The dress rehearsal was supposed to start at half-past ten; but, like most dress rehearsals, it did not start punctually. The stage was hung with curtains of a pale-grey shade, coloured lighting was to be used to give different effects to different scenes. Miss Jay and Winifred had written out what lighting they wanted for the different items; but that did not seem to satisfy the electrician, and for quite a while there was a great deal of “Put in your ambers, Bill,” “Might try a frost on that,” “Would you like it all frost, Miss? You get a colder look that way.” Miranda, in her black overall, and the children who were taking part in the small ballet which followed the prologue, stood on the edge of the stage watching and whispering and trying to keep quiet, but not succeeding very well because they were all rather excited and it is difficult to behave quietly when you feel like that. Miranda was very quiet, but that was because she was very annoyed. She considered herself a star now, and was furious at being kept waiting.

  “It’s disgraceful, keeping me hanging about like this. If I had known I’d have come much later. My management didn’t let me off my rehearsal for this sort of thing.”

  The other children got bored with Miranda making such a fuss. One of them said so.

  “Why don’t you go and tell Miss Jay about it? Tell her that, with a person as important as you in the cast, we’ve simply got to begin.”

  The girl was, of course, trying to be funny. To everybody’s surprise, Miranda took her quite seriously. She tossed her head and said, “I think I will,” and marched down to Miss Jay standing by the footlights. The other girls, their eyes round with horror, watched her, holding their brea
ths for the explosion which was bound to follow. Miranda spoke to Miss Jay quite quietly. Miss Jay, busy talking to the electrician, did not hear what she said.

  “Thank you very much,” she called to the electrician. “That’s exactly the effect I want.” She turned to Miranda. “What is it, dear? You can see I’m busy.” Miranda lost her temper.

  “I was asking if we could begin. It’s really ludicrous to bring me here at this hour of the morning to hang about.”

  Miss Jay, a very steely glint in her eye, was turning to answer, when a voice came from the dress circle. Nobody had seen Madame arrive, for she had come in quietly and sat down, and there was very little light in the theatre. The group of dancers, quite cold with fright for Miranda, hurriedly curtseyed and said “Madame,” but Madame was not attending to them.

  “Miranda, would you please repeat clearly the words you have just used to Miss Jay.”

  Miranda had the grace to look a little frightened. She dropped a beautiful curtsey and said “Madame” before she answered.

  “I was just asking if we couldn’t begin.”

  “And why, pray, did you take it upon yourself to dictate to Miss Jay when the curtain should go up?”

  “Well, I’ve got a morning off from my rehearsal to come here and it seems a most awful waste of time. I mean, it isn’t as though it was a real performance or anything like that. I mean …”

  “I see quite clearly what you mean; but I see no point in your argument. I have here a letter from your management saying that you may have the morning off and that they would not have needed you this morning in any case, as they are not taking your scenes. I’m most distressed, Miranda, that a pupil of mine should behave as you’ve just behaved. Because you have been engaged for a part in a production, that is no reason for you to behave in a spoilt and vulgar manner.”