“Adamson,” said Owen. “He owns this joint.”
“Oh … I think I’ve heard of him.”
“You’re bound to do. He runs the fun fair down by the gas-works, and the Odeon, and several cafés besides this. And now he’s collared the old Drill Hall, where I put on my shows. It’s a headache for me, for he’s doubled the rent, knowing there isn’t another hall.”
This gave Lucy her opening.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” she said. “You see, Mr. Thornley has gone. He resigned at Christmas.”
“I had heard that,” said Owen.
“And I’m carrying on till they get a new Senior Director.”
“Why? Haven’t you got Thornley’s job?”
There was so much hostility in his voice that she opened her eyes.
“Not exactly,” she said. “I’m still only Junior Director. I’m not nearly experienced enough yet for the senior job.”
“Aren’t you?”
He conveyed immense astonishment.
“Oh, come off it,” said Lucy. “You know I’m not.”
“I’d have thought not. So how come Thornley went?”
“Oh … he wanted to give all his time to his other work.”
“Huh!”
She stifled an impulse to ask what Huh! meant. Everybody means the same thing by that sort of noise. He did not believe that Mr. Thornley had left for the reason stated, and she felt reluctant to discuss the matter further with him, because it troubled her. That Mr. Thornley should have gone away without a word of farewell to herself, to anybody — should have vanished from Ravonsbridge in the course of the Christmas vacation — was still hard to believe. He had given no hint of such a plan when they parted last term, and it was most unlike him to go off, in that way, leaving all the work, all his precious notes and files, like so much rubbish. She would have expected endless explanations and parting injunctions. Even Miss Frogmore and Miss Payne agreed that it was surprising, though they deplored his departure less than Lucy did. For some time now they had thought themselves perfectly able to run the Drama School without any interference from Mr. Thornley.
“Well, anyhow, I’ve got to carry on,” she said. “And I wanted to ask if you’d like the idea of putting on Outward Bound at the Institute theatre? You’ve often said what a nice theatre it is, and how wretched the hall is. I’m pretty sure that, as it’s a town dramatic society, and most of the company from the Works, you could have it for nothing, or anyway for the cost of lighting and heating. And you could have it for all rehearsals, and I expect Emil would do sets for you. We don’t put on a play in the Lent Term.”
She paused and looked at him enquiringly, but he said nothing.
“I thought I’d better sound you first,” she said. “But if you like the idea I could ask Lady Frances. Do you like it?”
“No.”
That was all. He offered no explanation. Lucy tried to keep her temper and asked if the hill was the difficulty. Did he think audiences would be deterred by the hill.
“Might do,” he agreed tonelessly.
“Any other reason?”
He lit a cigarette before he answered.
“I don’t reckon to pull your chestnuts out of the fire for you.”
“What?” cried Lucy in astonishment.
“You’re Director. You’re taking money, our money, to put on shows. All right, put them on. If you can’t, then you’re not up to the job, that’s all I can say. Don’t come running to me to do your work for you.”
“Owen! I thought you’d jump at it. You were glad enough to play Hamlet.”
“I wouldn’t have done, if I’d seen what was behind it.”
“What was behind it?”
“You know perfectly well what was behind it.”
“No, I don’t. All I know is that you’ve got some grievance so silly you don’t like to admit what it is.”
That stung him, and he let her have it. He accused her roundly of having schemed to get Thornley out. She had always meant, he said, to pinch the old man’s job and the Hamlet production had been engineered to that end. Thornley had not resigned. He had been sacked at the instigation of detractors set on by Lucy. The whole town knew it, and everybody thought it a dirty trick.
As he spoke of Thornley his eyes blazed and he became very Welsh. He seemed quite to have forgotten that he had ever been caustic and critical concerning Thornley’s production. His Celtic imagination had endowed the old man with a posthumous halo — had turned him into a hero and a martyr. Thornley had dared to stand up to Lady Millwood, and Lucy, that scheming toady, had got his place.
“Oh,” cried Lucy, outraged, “I did not!”
“Didn’t you go creeping to her at Cyre Abbey, the moment she came back, before he could put his word in?”
“She sent for me….”
“She wasss put against him in that hour….”
“Who says so? Who says all this?”
“The whole town says it.”
“Yet they never bothered to go and see Mr. Thornley’s shows when he was here. If they had, perhaps he mightn’t have thought his other work suited him better. Only when he’s gone do they discover he ever existed!”
“This town iss waking up, let me tell you.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“And so am I. I wass a fool. I thought you were on the level. I didn’t believe you were snooping for them, and spying for them, till I saw you with Lady Millwood.”
“Do you mean Lady Frances?”
“I’m not on first-name terms with her.”
“Oh, don’t be so stupid. She’s not Lady Millwood. She’s Lady Frances Millwood because she’s an earl’s …”
“Thanks, I know she’s supposed to be an earl’s daughter, and I couldn’t care less. I’ve seen how you cringe to her, and that’s quite enough for me. I fell for it like a sucker; I played your game for you and acted for you. But then my eyes were opened. Oh, yes! When I saw you at the party, bowing and scraping before her, almost to your knees you went! Oh, my God! I wass sick and ashamed to see such servile gestures.”
“And I’m sick to hear such servile talk!” flamed Lucy.
“This is not servile talk.”
“Yes, it is. You talk like an underdog, and you are one. Couldn’t you see those bows and curtseys were just for fun, to make the party go? No! You’re so inferior, you imagine there must be some low motive in everything.”
“There wass a low motive …”
“There was not. But you can’t understand that, because you’ve got a slave’s mind, and you’ll always be a slave … somebody’s slave.”
“You come here to insult me….”
“You’ve insulted me. You’ve said what you think of me. So I’ll say what I think of you. I suppose you’re one of those idiots who think the Institute has been taken away from the town?”
“It’s God’s truth it has!”
“So what? What do you do about it? Go and get it back? Get your own shows put on at the theatre? Find out what you want to do with the Institute and keep on till you’ve got it done? Oh, no! That’s how top dogs behave. You’d rather be overcharged for a wretched hall and snivel about how you’ve been done down. You’ll always be done down, because you’re naturally servile.”
“We are the massters now….”
“Not people like you. All you’ll get is a change of masters. You think there ought to be some nice kind Nanny, somebody like Mrs. Meeker, to go and get your lovely Institute back for you. You don’t ask what she’d do with it, and you don’t know. All you can do is to howl that you’ve been done out of your rights, poor little underdog! So Nanny Meeker will get its rights back for it, and keep them locked up in her cupboard.”
Lucy paused, breathless and a little astonished at her own eloquence. Rees was astonished too. After a moment she went on, in a calmer voice but still violently indignant.
“You say the Institute shows are rotten? Very well, I agree,
they are. You say the town has a right to better? Very well. But who ought to be seeing to it? You know more about good shows than anyone else in Ravonsbridge. If you were worth a hill of beans you’d be on the job. But no! Everything has to be given to you — handed to you, all done up in tissue paper and labelled Poor Owen’s Rights! So somebody or other will always be able to do you down. You’ll only have yourself to thank when you open the parcel and find nothing inside but a raspberry. Goodbye, and thank you for the drink.”
She jumped up and ran out of the café.
Owen sat looking after her with his mouth open. Well, he thought, mopping his face, there’s a tartar she is! There’s a proper young termagant!
He liked her the better for her violence. Had she kept her dignity, and answered his accusations with well-bred restraint, he would never have forgiven her. In turning on him and abusing him she had admitted an equality which he was quick to appreciate. He had never wholly believed that she meant to pinch Thornley’s job, but, being a Celt, he could get up a very fine blaze of indignation without asking for any clear proof. Suspicion was enough, and he luxuriated in the mood of the moment.
Their obvious quarrel had been watched with interest by their neighbours. Adamson, on his way out, stopped by Owen’s table and asked who the lady friend was. When told, he sighed and observed that it burnt him all up to think of that place on the hill — rotting, wasted. His face shone with a cupidity so forthright that it had a kind of innocence as he mourned the fate of that great big hall, the biggest hall in Severnshire, standing empty. Pots of money, he declared, could be made out of a place like that, in spite of the hill, if it was properly handled.
“Know what I’d do?” he asked, putting both hands on Owen’s table and leaning forward. “If I had that hall I’d put on a Walkathon. That’s what I’d do.”
“It’d be banned,” said Owen.
“Not if it was handled right. In California they chain them. After two or three weeks, when there’s only a few couples left in, they chain them, see? So if the girl faints the feller can’t push her under the ropes, has to go on dragging her, see? Well, couldn’t do that here. They wouldn’t stand for it here, I agree. But at that, it’d go to town in a big way. I believe we’d have competing couples from all over the country, and the gate! Oh boy! Never been anything like it before, see? Novelty. Anyway, that’s what I’d do.”
“Not at the Institute,” said Owen coldly. “It’s supposed to be for Art.”
“That’s right,” agreed Adamson, gloomily straightening himself, “that’s where it is. And that’s why it’s empty. Art! Well … be seeing you….”
“Be seeing you,” agreed Owen without enthusiasm.
The idea of a Walkathon in the Institute would have shocked him, had he entertained it seriously. But he was confident that such an idea could never be translated into fact. The Institute was meant for Art. ‘They’ would never allow it to be used for such an obscenity. He was sure of that without ever asking himself who ‘they’ were.
2
DR. PIDGEON, after months of neglect, suddenly remembered that he was Senior Music Director at Ravonsbridge. He appeared at the Institute three times in one week, conducted the choir, conducted the orchestra, tore his hair over their inadequacy, and issued a command that they should all repair to Severnton for a concert in the Cathedral. Thither they went, on a Thursday morning in February, transported by a fleet of motor coaches across the hills of Slane forest.
Lucy went with the choir for she was not wanted in the orchestra. Her performance on the bassoon, though improved, was not up to Pidgeon’s standards. He had stopped them all in the middle of a bar to demand that that woman be forbidden to play that thing. Lucy relinquished the instrument with much relief, for she was growing to hate it. During her first term at Ravonsbridge she had been well content to hide in her attic at the Angeras’, making noises like a sick cow. Now that her zest for society had revived she had better things to do in the evenings.
Immediately on arrival at Severnton they were fed and herded to the Cathedral, where they spent the whole afternoon rehearsing and enduring the insults of Dr. Pidgeon, who told them, when he dismissed them for tea, that a monkey-house would have been more harmonious.
“It’s his own fault,” grumbled Bess. “He never comes near us, and Rickie sings so loud himself, when he’s conducting, I don’t believe he can hear what sort of noise we make.”
Lucy laughed and wondered if the Senior Drama Director, when appointed, would be as elusive as Dr. Pidgeon. No choice had yet been made; Mr. Thornley was not so easy to replace as Lady Frances had supposed. One or two people had been approached, so Hayter said, and had refused because Ravonsbridge was so far from London. It was possible that the post might remain vacant until the autumn.
This news was not wholly unwelcome to Lucy. She did not much like her ambiguous position, but she had a scheme for the Summer Term which she wanted to attempt before some new superior, suddenly put over her, should discourage or interfere with her. She had discovered in Slane forest a natural amphitheatre, a circular grassy hollow, surrounded by trees and easily accessible from the road. A play at midsummer, begun at sunset and continuing under a rising moon, with spotlights among the trees, began to take shape in her mind, though she had not yet chosen the actual piece. It was possible, she felt, to have too much of Shakespeare. But she meant to bicycle over before the end of the term and inspect the site again; there were practical points to be considered, such as a car park, and the seating of an audience on the banks of the hollow. While she was there perhaps the right play would occur to her.
She had been thinking about it during the drive over and through most of the rehearsal. Pastoral plays did not as a rule attract her and she was surprised at her own eagerness to attempt this one. The place itself had inspired her — the sculptured antiquity of the great beech trunks and the emptiness of the grassy stage. She put figures upon it and asked herself why a natural background should always diminish human stature. They looked too small, too indistinct. Still without having settled on a play she decided to dress them in white and yellow, to have a crowded stage but few speaking parts, and to keep her principals as stationary as possible. It was only as she followed Bess out of the Cathedral that she thought of Comus.
Instantly the various ingredients which had already attracted her explained themselves; she must really have been thinking of Comus for quite a while. A little raised mound on the left of the stage was intended for the Lady’s chair; a pool and some reeds, on the right, suggested an entrance for Sabrina. She realised why Purcell’s music had been running in her head all day instead of the Parry Motet and Fauré’s Requiem, which she was to sing at the concert. Much excited, she dropped behind Bess and turned into the cloisters for a few minutes to examine this discovery.
If she wanted Purcell she had no time to lose. Rickie would need to rehearse his orchestra. She must get all the practical details settled this term, and secure the approval of Lady Frances and Mr. Hayter. Round and round the cloister she strode, the hood of her coat drawn over her head and her hands thrust into her sleeves for warmth, pacing and pondering like one of the young monks for whom, long ago, that cloister was built. Three times she passed the spot where Melissa and Stephen had once debated the constancy of women. On her fourth round she saw a man walking in front of her. He had come out of the Chapter House and was going towards the gate into the Close. His walk was familiar. She would almost have thought … she was sure … she ran after him calling:
“Mr. Thornley! Mr. Thornley!”
He turned as she came up with outstretched hand:
“Why … Lucy!”
As he took her hand they peered at one another in the gathering dusk. But how much older he looked! How shrunken and shabby and sad! This was the mere ghost of the dapper little man at whom she had so often laughed.
“How did you come …?” he exclaimed, and then remembered: “Oh, yes, the concert. I saw the poster. I suppose you�
��re all here?”
“Oh,” said Lucy, “I am so glad to see you. I’ve been wondering where you were. Are you, are you living in Severnton now? I hadn’t realised …”
“Oh, no, no. I’m only here on business. My headquarters are in Bristol now. Bristol … yes. I’ve settled in Bristol.”
“And are you very busy?”
“Oh, yes. Very busy. Very busy. But Lucy, my dear, how are you? How is … everybody?”
His voice shook a little, or she thought it did.
“Oh, everybody is very well.”
For a few seconds there seemed to be nothing to say. Then Lucy burst out:
“Mr. Thornley, it was so dreadful to come back this term and find you gone. How could you go off like that without saying goodbye to us? Were you … were you angry with us for anything?”
“Oh, no! No … but it was a sudden decision … I … I was sorry I had no opportunity to say goodbye … so much to see to, you know….”
“If I’d known your address I’d have written; I thought you’d gone abroad.”
“Yes, my dear, yes. I’m sure you would. We always got on very well together, didn’t we, Lucy? I always thought we got on so well. It’s been delightful, running into you like this. But I expect you’re in a hurry. You’ll be wanting your tea.”
The hint was plain, but Lucy stood her ground.
“Couldn’t you give me your address now?” she begged. “There is so much I want your advice about. I’m quite at sea. I’m having to carry on by myself. You know they’ve not appointed anyone yet, in your place? I never expected all this responsibility, and no chance to get your advice.”
Mr. Thornley sat down suddenly on the low wall between two cloister arches. The waning daylight fell on his face and she could see a small tear wandering down his cheek.
“Oh, Mr. Thornley!”
She sat beside him and put a timid hand on his arm. He blew his nose, and presently he quavered:
“Took me by surprise, meeting you like this. The dear old place … I loved dear Ravonsbridge….”
“I know,” said Lucy. “I know.”
Lucy Carmichael Page 24
