by Pamela Brown
Maddy found this very hard to sing, and would spoil the simple beauty of the tune by syncopating it. When Joseph and Mary had been turned away by the irate lady of the inn, they had a duet:
There is no room for us
In this town.
We have been wandering
Up and down.
We are still wandering,
Nowhere to go,
No one will pity us,
Humble and low.
Now the night darkens,
Oh, for a bed,
Or any rough place,
To lay our head.
Must we still wander
Up and down,
While folks are feasting
In the town?
After Maddy had directed them to the stable, Sandra, the Angel, had her solo. The stage was to be darkened, but Bulldog had a strongly powered torch to shine on her face as she sang her rejoicings. Jeremy had refused to write words for her, as he said that angels never did anything so mundane as singing rhyming lines, so she sang the words “Gloria in excelsis Deo” in a strange soprano chant.
“Why do angels talk in Latin?” Maddy wanted to know.
No one could think of a suitable explanation till Jeremy said, “You see, Maddy, we want the angel to seem impersonal and not human to the children, so if Sandra sings the words from the Latin Bible, it may make her seem more like an angel, and less like Sandra Fayne. Get it?”
Maddy got it. After the angel’s conversation with Maddy the first act ended with “Is it far to Bethlehem?” by the whole company behind the curtains. The second act was to begin with the entry of the three shepherds singing:
Over the mountains,
White with snow,
We followed the star,
So bright and low.
Over the hilltops,
Cold and bleak,
Our Baby King,
We’ve come to seek.
Over the rivers
And frozen brook,
For Jesus, our Lord,
We’ve come to look.
We have no gift,
No incense or myrrh,
Only a tiny
Lambkin’s fur.
Shepherds three,
We kneel on the floor,
And wish we were able
To give Him more.
Over the fields
From far away,
We have been travelling
Since break of day.
Then Maddy entered and offered to cut off her hair to give as a present, but Mary said that one hair would do, and Maddy leant over the crib while the Baby was supposed to take one hair out of her head. Then “O come all ye Faithful” was to be the final carol.
The clothes were simplicity itself. Maddy wore a loose blue tunic with a cord belt and beach sandals, Vicky a sheet dyed purple, draped orient-wise round her, and Sandra wore a gold shimmery bedspread, and did not wear wings, as Nigel said winged angels were Victorian. Lyn, as the Virgin Mary, wore a white sheet and a blue cloak, and Joseph a dark blue sheet. The shepherds all wore dark brown tunics and carried crooks, made of garden canes, with thick wire stuck in the top to make the hook, and bound with string all the way down.
They got the play prepared with much less rehearsing than they expected, but Jeremy was most strict concerning words in the songs.
“You must know every song, word for word,” he told them, and gave them rigorous practices, when he shot out a line of a carol, and there was trouble if they hesitated before capping it with the following line.
The morning before Christmas Eve, a dull day, when the sky was heavy with snow, they had a property rehearsal with scenery and lighting. The scenery for Act I was an arched doorway with no door, in the centre of the stage. It was made of grey paper and wooden laths, and was extremely fragile. The removal of it for the second act was a nightmare to Bulldog. The scenery for this act was a backcloth representing sloping eaves and dark corners, and a tiny window in the room through which could be seen the abnormally large star. They were at their wits’ end to get some straw for the floor, when Maddy remembered her friend Mr. Smallgood and Whittlecock, from whom she had obtained the spinning-wheel for Red as a Rose. Once, when she had passed the shop, a wooden crate lined with straw was standing in the doorway; so, with this in mind, she marched in.
The antique dealer was bending over a tin bath full of second-hand books, when a voice behind him said, “Mr. Smallgood and Whittlecock, I presume?” There was no mistaking the voice, and wearily he straightened himself and murmured, “Well?”
“I want some straw.”
“Some straw?”
“Yes, straw; what elephants eat.”
The little old man looked round the shop. “Take all you want.” He thought it best to humour her. She dived for the crate, which was still in the same position, and made her exit with arms folded. In a few moments she was back for a second load, and, when she was about to make a third and last journey, she spotted a small antique lantern.
“How perfect for the shepherds,” she thought. “Oh, Mr. Smallgood and Whittlecock, I’ll take this too. You can have it back after Christmas.”
The dealer stuttered helplessly as he saw one of his best pieces, guaranteed sixteenth century, disappearing down the road on a pile of straw.
The afternoon they spent at the roller-skating rink, and, in consequence, the dress rehearsal in the evening was very, very bad. They were exhausted and weary, and the dust from the floor had got into their throats, making their singing strained. Lyn got almost frantic in the stable scene.
“Don’t you see how beautiful this scene can be if we do it properly?” she pleaded. “But it must be done sincerely. Bulldog, when you kneel down don’t wriggle, even if you are on a crack in the boards.”
“P’raps he’ll go down the crack,” giggled Maddy, “like I told Mrs. Potter-Smith.”
“Shut up, Maddy, and don’t look so flippant all the time. Remember you’re a little uneducated village girl. And, Nigel, how old are you?”
“Nearly sixteen,” he told her, surprised.
“I mean in the play,” she said exasperatedly.
“Well – oldish.”
“You act as if you’re about seventy. There’s no need to hobble; and you might look a bit more bewildered when the angel appears. You seem as if Nazarene carpenters entertained angels in stables every day of the week. Do try to act.”
Remembering that there was more or less peace between them at the moment, he took her criticisms in good part. She made them go through it four times, and each time it got worse. Lyn was the only one to take it seriously that night; all the others were exchanging jokes and quips during the scenes. When Bulldog appeared as a shepherd with his grey trousers beneath his short tunic she stifled a laugh, then looked as if she were about to cry; finally she picked up her coat and walked out of the door. Outside it was cold and sharp, and little snowflakes were fluttering to the ground. She found that she was not really cross, only tired, and she remembered the old stage superstition held that the worse the dress rehearsal the better the first night. Perhaps it would be all right on the night, and really it was too near Christmas to concentrate on anything.
Back in the hall the rest looked at each other.
“We are brutes,” remarked Nigel penitently, “to goad her like that.”
“She’s so darn short-tempered,” said her brother.
“Well, so should I be in her place,” confessed Sandra. “You know how I get when you won’t stand still to be fitted.”
“Come on,” cried Nigel, darting into the dressing-room for his clothes, “we’ll catch her up and apologize.”
Lyn was surprised as she walked through the gaily lit town to hear running feet behind her and Nigel’s voice, “Hi, Lyn!” He was first to catch up with her, and pressed into her hands a bag of roast chestnuts bought from a roadside vendor as a peace-offering. No one actually apologized, but as they munched the steaming nuts, leaving a trail of shells behin
d them, the atmosphere was very “peace-on-earth-goodwill-unto-men-ish”, as Maddy described it. The next morning they went early to the theatre, through the snow, and performed the play perfectly.
“It’s enough,” said Lyn, “to make John Gielgud’s heart glow.”
“Wonderful,” said Jeremy, after Sandra’s “Glorias”. “The best I’ve heard you sing.”
In the middle of the morning Mrs. Bell and several of the Sunday School teachers arrived to get ready for the party; the boys helped to put up paper chains, while the girls cut bread and butter. After lunch they helped to set the large table and several card tables brought by the teachers. They looked very gay when finished, with crackers and paper serviettes and a sprig of holly on each plate.
About three there was a peculiar noise outside the door.
“Whatever is that?” asked Sandra of Mrs. Bell.
“It’s only the children arriving,” she replied calmly. “They’re excited.”
From outside came whoops and shrieks and bangs on the door.
“Had I better let them in?” asked Sandra nervously, wondering how long the paint would stand such treatment.
“No; don’t let them in till half-past. That’s the time we are supposed to begin. They always come everywhere too early. You won’t find them aristocratic children at all. We have a good many from the quay area.”
The hubbub outside grew continually louder, till it sounded like the Parisian rabble at the gates of the Bastille. When at the appointed time the vicar opened the door a struggling mass of young humanity tumbled into the hall. There was a preponderance of sweet, but grubby, little boys, who eyed the laden tables like lions awaiting their prey, but towards the end of the queue came the little girls, some in frilly party frocks and socks, others still in their school tunics and jumpers. They were told to leave their outdoor clothes at the end of the hall, and then to sit down at the tables.
“It’s no good trying to do anything with them before they’ve had their tea,” one of the lady teachers confided in Sandra. Mrs. Bell went to the piano and played for the grace that they sang with greedy gusto:
“Thank you for the world so sweet,
Thank you for the food we eat;
Thank you for the birds that sing,
Thank you, Lord, for everything.”
“Now,” the vicar told them, “you may begin.”
Instantly sixty little hands grabbed at sixty sandwiches, which were stuffed down sixty throats in under sixty seconds. Maddy stood and watched one little boy while he demolished currant bun after currant bun. When he had finished the plateful he turned to her and asked gruffly, “Got any more o’ these buns?”
“Won’t you be sick if you eat any more?” Maddy inquired, concerned for his health.
“’Course I shall be. I always am after these ’ere parties.”
“Always?”
“Yeah, reg’lar as anything.”
Maddy backed away from him.
“Then you might as well have some more buns. I’ll fetch them.”
She had made a firm friend of him by the time tea was over, as she fetched him every dainty for which he expressed a wish.
“I’m glad I’m not his mother,” thought Maddy.
The school children drank pints of highly coloured lemonade, and spilt it all over the tables and the floor, and then, after pulling their crackers, dropped the papers into the lemonade. Lyn had a busy time with a large broom. Whenever she had a nice little collection of rubbish in a corner and strayed farther afield to find more, some child would alight on the heap with squeals of delight, and, rolling the paper into balls, would throw them at his friends.
“However do they manage to teach these little urchins anything?” Bulldog asked Nigel. “I shouldn’t think they could be kept in order long enough.”
“We shall have to chloroform them before attempting to do the play,” said Nigel.
“Mrs. Bell says they’ll play some games first and get them really tired out.”
There followed an attempt to organize a team race for the elder ones, but still they only rushed madly about screaming and fighting. Mrs. Bell thumped on the piano, and at last obtained a semblance of silence. “Musical Bumps,” she announced. There were shrieks of delight, and when she said that the prize for the winner would be a bar of chocolate their excitement rose beyond all bounds.
In the dressing-room washing up was attempted, but as the gas ring was only capable of heating a very small amount of water it was a tiresome job.
After Musical Bumps they played “Pop goes the Weasel”, in which Maddy joined with complete abandon, quite forgetting her role as “helper”. After more energetic games the vicar announced that there was to be a talent competition, and any little girl or boy could dance or sing or recite. One little boy sang all the verses of “Good King Wenceslas” in a very slow, deliberate voice, and when he had reached the end, started again, and would have continued had he not been forcibly removed from the stage. A very coy little girl recited “I had a little Nutmeg”, and another one did a “dance”, which consisted of skipping up and down and waving her arms. When the stage was finally vacated, and the prize awarded to the boy who sang “Good King Wenceslas”, Bulldog began to erect the scenery for the inn, and the others went to change. The audience were ranged in rows on the blue chairs, and the vicar kept them amused with funny stories.
“They’re not really funny,” said Maddy regretfully, with her ear to the dressing-room door, “only amusing.”
“And now,” the vicar announced, “the Blue Door Theatre Company, who have so kindly lent you their hall today, are going to act for you a Christmas play called No Room in the Inn.”
The lights went out and the children squealed expectantly. The stage was lit up, but the curtains with their pastel drawing of a little village on the front, remained closed, while the seven of them, with Jeremy off-stage at the piano, sang:
“Oh little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by.
But in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting light.
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are born in thee tonight,” etc.
When the carol was ended the curtains swept apart, showing the inn doorway and an empty, dimly lit stage. A whisper of appreciation swept the audience as they perched, legs dangling, on their chairs. “Oh, ain’t that luvly?”
Maddy entered, looking angelic with her loose hair brushed and shining. Jeremy played a few chords on the piano, and she looked up into the sky and gasped, then sang “I see a Star on High”. She had a rather bad singing voice, and much to Jeremy’s annoyance she always spoke her songs to a certain extent, but in this case it was very effective. When she had finished her song she yawned and stretched.
“I’m so tired,” she soliloquized, “but my mother has told me to wait in the doorway and tell anyone that asks that there is no room in the inn.”
She curled up on the step and dozed. Joseph and Mary entered. Mrs. Bell caught in her breath sharply and clutched her husband’s arm.
“Philip, doesn’t Lyn look her part?”
“Just like a Madonna by an Italian master,” remarked the vicar, his eyes on Lyn’s pale face, luminous dark eyes, and red lips. Her usual expression, which was sharp and searching, was replaced by a tender patience. Nigel, as Joseph, was once more suffering from hair on the face – this time a large beard made of Mrs. Darwin’s hair. He was supporting Lyn’s drooping form. Together, softly and wearily, they sang, “There is no room for us in this town”. Then Joseph, catching sight of Maddy, said, “Wife, take heart. I will awaken this child and tell her we must have lodgings. She may know some place.” Lyn restrained him.
“No, Joseph, do not waken her, she looks so happy asleep.” She bent over her. “Sweet child.”
Maddy slowly opened her blue eyes, and looked up into Lyn’s black ones. T
his, for her, was the best moment of the play. She loved to be acting with Lyn, because she made her forget she was Madelaine Fayne.
“What is your name, child?” asked Lyn, in the low soft voice she had adopted for this part.
Maddy jumped to her feet. “Miriam is my name, lady.”
“A pretty name. And your parents are the keepers of this inn?”
“Yes, lady, but there is no more room inside. Our rooms are filled with those who have come here for the taxation.”
Mary turned to Joseph. “Husband, there is no room in this inn,” she told him sadly.
Joseph strode forward and said sternly, “Child, call thy mother. We mean to spend our night at this inn.”
Maddy, looking scared, ran inside. When Vicky, a voluble lady in a bad temper, had finally turned them away, Maddy stole after them and told them that if they cared to they could spend the night in the stable. Lyn turned up her eyes to heaven.
“I knew the Lord would provide for us,” she said.
The little girl told them where they would find the stable, and Lyn kissed her good-night. Maddy went back to her corner in the porch and the stage darkened. Off-stage Sandra’s “Gloria” began. She drifted on, her arms outstretched, with one end of her golden draperies attached to each wrist. Bulldog shone the strong white beam first on her small naked feet, then travelling over her shimmering form, finally focused it on her face, which was powdered very white, and on her shining hair. All the children gasped in awe. One of them asked audibly, “Who is that funny lady?” Sandra’s span had increased, and now she could reach G flat, but not well enough for a final note. Her words seemed gilt-edged, and floated through the theatre accompanied by the faintest vibration of piano notes. The first act ended as she stood on tiptoe, her head flung back, looking as if she were about to wing her way back to heaven.
The others joined her on stage after the curtains had been drawn together, to sing “Away in a Manger”.
“Wonderful,” whispered Jeremy. “Better than ever.” She flushed with pleasure. As Bulldog removed the scenery there was a splintering crash, and half the inn frontage fell away. He let out an ejaculation quite unsuited to a sacred play.
