The Swish of the Curtain

by Pamela Brown

  “Sir William Whitney,” suggested Jeremy.

  “In the garden of Sir William Whitney’s estate. Someone Whitney – what’s your name going to be, Lyn?”

  “Julia.”

  “Julia Whitney, his daughter, is sitting in a sunny arbour with her mother. They are embroidering.”

  “Don’t bother to put much except the dialogue,” advised Nigel, “because all the little etceteras will come as we rehearse.”

  They finished the first act before they went home, and on the way home they discussed the second. There was no rehearsal the next night, but in all three houses, when prep, was finished, work was being done for the concert. Jeremy sat at the piano with a manuscript book on the rack, and ran his fingers through his fair hair until it stood up like a cockatoo’s crest. Lyn was in the next room with the exercise book containing the first act of the play, and was learning her part. Sandra, up in her bedroom, was going through the chest that Mrs. Bell had given them and laying aside all the garments she thought would be useful. Downstairs, Maddy, with her tongue out, was copying people’s parts for them into separate exercise books, in her round, childish handwriting. She had already got an order mark in school for copying from the original book during Scripture, so that Lyn might have it for the evening. In the Halfords’ house Bulldog was at the piano giving his voice a little exercise. The thought of that solo to be sung in the Spanish musical play hung like a heavy load on his heart. In her bedroom, Vicky was in her toe-shoes going through a rigorous routine of exercises that she had learnt at the dancing-lessons she attended at her last school. Nigel was lying on his front on the lawn, sketching scenery on a drawing block.

  And when the sky over Goldenwood Avenue lost its sunset splendour they went to sleep and dreamed muddled dreams of the concert.

  At the next rehearsal Jeremy had finished the musical sketch.

  “I think Spanish Inn would be quite a good name for it,” he said as he sat down at the piano to play it to them. “Excuse my voice, won’t you. Enter the muleteers. This song will be accompanied by the violin.” He sang:

  “All our work is done,

  And the sinking sun

  Is telling everyone

  To come to the Inn.

  “In the day’s decline,

  There’s nothing quite so fine

  As the crimson wine,

  Down at the Inn.

  “There’ll be dancing soon,

  When the silver moon

  Makes it light as noon,

  Round by the Inn.

  “Every señorita,

  Dolores and Marquita,

  Carmina, Marguerita,

  Will be at the Inn.

  “We will be so gay,

  Guitars will start to play;

  Please don’t make delay,

  Come to the Inn.”

  “The last line of every verse,” he explained, “is shouted, and we stamp our feet on ‘inn’. Muleteers now retire to one side and enter Dolores and Marquita – that is, Lyn and Vicky.

  They sing:

  ‘I’m Dolores,

  I’m Marquita,

  We’re daughters of sunny Spain.

  It’s evening,

  It’s sunset,

  So we’ve come to dance again.

  Forget all

  Your troubles,

  Your sorrow and your pain,

  With Dolores,

  Marquita,

  In the evening hour in Spain.

  ‘The orange trees like lanterns

  In the darkening night,

  The Cyprus trees are rustling

  In the pale moonlight.

  The Inn is lit and busy,

  Come let us dance and sing,

  Tonight is meant for laughter,

  Mirth is everything.

  ‘So forget all

  Your troubles,

  Your sorrows and your pain,

  With Dolores,

  Marquita,

  In the evening hour in Spain.’

  “Now comes Vicky’s dance. This is the tune.”

  He played a wild tarantella that made Vicky tingle with excitement. It was perfect, just what she wanted.

  “Now enter Sandra. Nigel says, ‘Carolina looks sad tonight.’ I say, ‘And I can tell you why.’ I sing:

  ‘I heard a Spanish lady,

  A Spanish doña fair,

  With a fine silk shawl of orange,

  And a comb set in her hair,

  As she stood on her loggia,

  Sing this plaintive air:’

  “And Sandra sings, sadly:

  ‘I once used to dance for you, Juan,

  To the twang of your guitar,

  But now you have gone from me, Juan,

  And I know not where you are.

  I once used to sing for you, Juan,

  To the twang of your guitar,

  You have broken your lady’s heart, Juan,

  And she’ll never lose the scar.

  I now could not dance for you, Juan,

  My feet and my mind are numb.

  I now could not sing for you, Juan,

  My lips and my heart are dumb.

  But always I’m hoping, Juan,

  From the highway winding far,

  I shall hear the sound I wait for,

  The twang of your guitar.’

  “That last note is top G, but I can’t get there. Now it is Maddy’s tap dance.”

  He played a funny little joggy tune with easy rhythm. It was very catchy, and soon they were shouting, “La, la, la, la,” to it.

  “It sounds grand with you all singing,” he said. “We’ll keep that in. Now comes Lyn and Sandra’s dance.” He played another tune, talking as he did so.

  “Lyn wears a rose in her hair, and here she takes it out and pretends to be about to throw it to one of the men. They all look hopeful, especially Bulldog. Sandra is not taking any notice of the men. She is thinking of Juan and how she used to dance for him.”

  The tune became more violent.

  “Marquita – that is, Lyn – at last throws the rose to Nigel, to Bulldog’s disgust. When the dance is over, wine is drunk, and I leave the piano where I have been playing for the girls’ dance, and come on with my violin and play this.” He played a melancholy wailing tune up in the treble. “Then Bulldog, who has been watching Marquita flirt with Nigel, joins in with me and sings, while Lyn dances a bit in the background:

  ‘I cannot smell the evening air,

  Only the roses in your hair—’”

  “He’s got catarrh,” giggled Maddy, making a horrible pun.

  “The scent of them is everywhere,

  Señorita,

  My Marquita!

  “The near guitars I cannot hear,

  Only your castanets are clear,

  As in the dance you rustle near,

  Señorita,

  Sweet Marquita!

  “I have eyes for only you,

  But, from your hair, the rose you threw

  Was not to your lover true,

  Señorita,

  O Marquita.

  “Every pirouette you turn

  Leaves a throbbing, searing burn

  In the heart of him you spurn,

  Señorita,

  Cruel Marquita!”

  “Bulldog then drowns his sorrows in drink, and we all join in a short dance, then sing:

  ‘Moon of the summer night,

  Up in the inky sky,

  Shine upon us a blessing,

  Good-night, sweet dreams, good-bye.

  After a night of dancing

  Sleep will come soon and sweet,

  Good-night, Spanish Inn and garden,

  Till next we meet.

  ‘Stars of the summer night,

  Up in the inky sky,

  Lighting our evening revels,

  Good-night, sweet dreams, good-bye.

  The sweet woodbine flowers are closing,

  Soon will come morning light,

  Good-night Spanish Inn and
garden,

  Good-night, good-night!’”

  Jeremy sat back and mopped his brow, moist from the effort of singing a whole operetta by himself. The others were staring at him wide-eyed.

  “Did you write all that by yourself?” asked Vicky wonderingly.

  “Yes; last night. Mother and Dad went out, and I started at seven and went on until I had finished, at half-past eleven. I heard the front gate open, so I switched on the wireless, and just dashed upstairs in time. I heard Dad say, ‘It wasn’t the piano, it was the wireless.’ Well, does it meet with approval?”

  “Approval! It’s glorious! If only we can do it as well as you did it, it will be an immense success.”

  They spent the rest of the evening learning the songs that they were all to sing together.

  It was arranged that rehearsals would be on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and once, either morning, afternoon, or evening, on Saturdays. By the following Saturday both With Madame Popoffski – as the sketch was called – and Red as the Rose, the three-act play, had been written, and Lyn said at the Saturday evening rehearsal, “We shan’t start rehearsing on the stage till Monday week, by which time everyone must know their parts absolutely word perfectly. Don’t bother about acting, but just get your lines parrot fashion and know the words of your songs.”

  The other inhabitants of Goldenwood Avenue were rather surprised by the behaviour of their young neighbours during the following week. They were used to seeing them walking briskly up the hill, laughing and chattering so they could be heard the length of the road; but now they walked silently, generally in single file, with red exercise books in their hands, either with their eyes glued intently on the contents, or staring into space and muttering quickly under their breath. They carried their parts with them all day at school, snatching at every possible moment; nearly every evening they went up into fields nearby that were not yet built on, and sprawled in the long grass to continue their study.

  “The sweet woodbine flowers are closing,” Maddy would mutter as she undressed for bed, while Sandra said rapidly, “Oh my poor husband would to heaven these dastardly rebels were struck down what time is it daughter?”

  One night as Mrs. Darwin went upstairs to bed at eleven o’clock she heard someone speaking in the back bedroom. She looked in. The moon was shining through the window on to Lyn, who sat up in bed, her hair tousled, going through her longest speech. It was her vituperation of the ex-gardener captain.

  “O you serpent!” she was declaiming bitterly. “We have treated you as an equal, you have professed your love for me, and now you return to scorn us, to treat us as we might have treated you had we not been so kind-hearted, oh, so foolishly kind-hearted—” Here Mrs. Darwin shook her gently by the shoulder and she woke up, alarmed.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  “Nothing, dear, but you were snoring.”

  Her mother kissed her and went out. Lyn soon fell into the heavy sleep that only an overworked brain produces.

  7

  THE VICAR APPROVES

  Mrs. Bell was a constant attender at rehearsals, and a useful critic. Her gentle advice on puzzling subjects was always followed by the children. On one occasion when Bulldog and Nigel were arguing over the pronunciation of “señorita”, she only just arrived in time, for, as in most fraternal quarrels, one thing had led to another.

  Every Saturday evening she sat on one of the blue chairs at the back of the hall, and they went through the whole programme. She made it her rule not to speak until the end, and then her words were pearls of tact.

  “Maddy, dear,” she would say, “when you are the soldier in Red as the Rose, you might stand up in a more military manner. Roundheads didn’t stick their tummies out!” And Maddy, who had objected when Lyn had told her she looked more like a pigling than a soldier, beamed and said yes, she’d try.

  It was Mrs. Bell who told Nigel that he might look a bit more dashing when Lyn was flirting with him in the Spanish play, and informed Sandra that her top G was too loud. All these points had been noted by the producer at rehearsals during the week, but Lyn got so worked up under the strain of controlling a stage full of people that her tongue was apt to run away with her.

  The first few rehearsals were hilarious affairs. They were excited and could not concentrate on the work in hand, but after that boredom and slackness set in. Bulldog would excuse himself from rehearsals on the ground that he had to stay at school for a rugger practice, and had his homework to do. Maddy would feel tired and go to bed early, and Lyn very often had to go out with her mother. After one particularly bad rehearsal, when Lyn had slapped Jeremy’s face because he had laughed at a too melodramatic rendering of Julia Whitney, and Maddy was sulking because she could not remember the routine of her tap dance, Mrs. Bell decided to have it out with them. She walked up to the lighted stage and said mildly:

  “Well, and when are you going to give the concert?”

  They looked blank. Rehearsals had become so much a part of their lives that it seemed as if this state of things would last for ever, with the programme getting no better and no worse. Also, exams had begun, and naturally they were busy revising. They had acquired numerous little slovenly habits, such as not bothering to pull the curtains at the beginning and end of items, and hurrying over long speeches and saying, “Oh, well, I did that bit properly last rehearsal.”

  “There are three weeks before the end of the term,” went on Mrs. Bell, “and the vicar and I are going away the first week in August, so…” She left the sentence expressively unfinished. “I really can’t spend my time at rehearsals like this, so I won’t come again until a fortnight tonight, when the vicar will come too. If he approves, the concert ought to come off the next week. Good-night, dear, and work hard, won’t you?”

  When she was gone they were strangely subdued.

  “Sorry, Jerry,” said Lyn; “I hope it didn’t hurt.”

  Jeremy grunted his acceptance of the apology.

  Nigel said, “Look here, everyone; we’re slackers, rotters, idiots, and parasites.”

  “Hear, hear,” seconded Lyn. “Through Mr. Bell’s kindness we have a marvellous theatre; through Mrs. Bell’s kindness some good costumes, and then we don’t work to please them.”

  “I think it’s a mistake to rehearse during term,” said Sandra thoughtfully. “It’s a case of trying to do two things at once, and doing them both badly.”

  “In future,” decided Nigel, “we’ll keep our dramatic attempts for the holidays. Personally, I feel dead beat all day with exams and rehearsals.”

  “And night starvation,” laughed Maddy, whose good-humour was restored.

  “In three weeks’ time we’ve got to do it!” Vicky reminded them, with horrified eyes.

  “We can do it,” said Nigel, with his face set determinedly. “Next week exams are over, and we shall have no homework, and we shan’t do any work at school, and we’ve jolly well got to do it.”

  Lyn said suddenly, as the thought struck her, “I know what it is that’s wrong; why we get so fed up with the plays.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’ve gone on too long without properties and costumes. We knew everything properly after the first fortnight of rehearsing, but now it’s gone dull and stagnant. Sandra, put us into costumes, and Nigel and Bulldog, get the scenery and properties fixed, and we’ll make it come to life again.”

  Lyn’s eloquence was approved, and in Sandra’s home during the next week the prevailing noise was the whir of the sewing machine. Round at the theatre Nigel, in his dungarees, was slashing pastel colours on to immense sheets of brown paper. Bulldog was getting himself all mixed up with electric light flexes in the attempt to arrange the footlights.

  “It’s no good, Nigel,” he said despondently one evening, “I shall never fix up these wretched lights. I’m a darned bad electrician if I can’t, though.” He scratched his head thoughtfully.

  “Well, if you can’t, no one else can,” Nigel so
othed him.

  “And if we make a good lot out of this concert, we may be able to have a proper electrician to fix them up for us. As it is, the two-hundred-watt bulb with the reflector will be quite O.K.”

  Bulldog had brought an extra strong bulb and a reflector, and arranged it to hang from one of the beams over the platform, so that the light would be thrown on to the stage and not on to the audience.

  They had several rehearsals with properties and scenery, to get used to timing their actions, and there were some amusing muddles. Lyn took too long over eating a piece of bread which was supposed to be some supper in Red as the Rose, and when Jeremy, as Anthony, walked in she could not exclaim her appointed lines because her mouth was full. In Spanish Inn Vicky inadvertently leaned up against the backcloth that Nigel had painted – representing a long low tavern with mountains behind – and smudged the roof.

  As the weather was gradually getting hotter they wore as little as possible at the rehearsals. The boys wore shirts and flannels, and the girls generally put on their check cotton tunics – which were the regulation gym dress in summer at the Fenchester Girls’ School – as these were brief and cool, and allowed for free movement.

  “Whatever shall I do when I have to wear that great heavy skirt for Julia?” groaned Lyn.

  “What about me, then, in a plumed hat and hair hanging all over my face?” groaned Nigel.

  Nigel’s hair was a standing joke. Sandra had been at her wits’ end, wondering how she was going to provide him with long curling hair, as the Cavalier gentleman, Lyn’s father. Then she had seen a photo of Mrs. Darwin when a child, with long black ringlets.

  “Lyn,” she exclaimed, “what’s happened to your mother’s ringlets?”

  “They’ve been cut off of course. Have you only just noticed?”

  “Can she possibly have kept them?” asked Sandra eagerly.

  “I believe she has.” Lyn called up the stairs, “Mum, have you got your hair stowed away anywhere?”