‘Listen.’ The sound of treble conversation, non-stop, reached their ears. ‘No wonder they didn’t hear us shouting.’
They advanced upon them without noise, and then softly called their names. Jane and Meg shot to their feet, scattering flowers.
‘Hallo!’ they said, startled, sheepish.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I suppose you forgot the time?’
‘No,’ they said on a note of query, as if mystified.
‘We thought you’d like us to pick you some primroses,’ said Meg.
‘You know,’ said Jane stiffly, ‘you were wishing yesterday we would.’
They bent down and started to gather up their scattered bunches.
‘We’ve been whistling and yelling for twenty minutes. I suppose you didn’t hear us?’
‘No!’ they exclaimed, all honesty and amazement; and Jane added: ‘I promise you we didn’t.’
‘Puffles has come back,’ said Meg’s mother.
‘Oh, good! Jane, Puffles has come back. I thought he must have, as we hadn’t found him.’
‘Jane, what on earth have you got on?’
Jane was clad in a quilted scarlet jacket with a hood, a white sweater, and a flaring delphinium-blue skirt finished off with a broad red leather belt studded with silver. Everything was much too tight and much too short, but the effect was picturesque.
‘It’s Meg’s skating costume she brought back from America. And Meg’s got on her ski-ing costume, to make a pair.’
In truth, Meg was becomingly and totally encased in a trousered, zipped and belted garment of bright yellow woollen cloth, piped with crimson, with a hood to match.
‘It was sweet of Meg to let you wear it, and you both look rather divine, but thank goodness your trunk’s come, so perhaps you’d better fly back and change before you burst Meg’s lovely skating suit beyond repair.’
‘Oh, not my old shorts and jumper!’ Jane’s eyes dilated, expressing horror and anguish. ‘I can’t! Roger’s going to paint us both in these clothes to-morrow.’
‘He likes them,’ said Meg.
‘They are rather attractive,’ said Mrs. Carmichael, putting her head on one side and looking dreamy. ‘By the way, where are they all? The boys?’
‘Oh, Gerald and Oliver and John have gone home by the road. Hours ago. They were afraid they might be late for the rehearsal. I don’t know what they’ll do when they find you’ve simply gone out.’
‘Roger’s somewhere,’ said Jane. ‘He went to see if he could find some cherry low enough to pick.’ A look of extravagant welcome spread suddenly over her face. ‘Look, there he is, coming now.’
Roger Wickham, tall, slight, walking with the uncertain grace of his eighteen years, came through the trees towards them, carrying a huge sheaf of flowering cherry branches. He had a pale long cool-looking face, a fine head covered with wavy light-brown hair, beautiful secretive lips and clear eyes like aquamarines. They all looked at him smiling, and he smiled back, looking at none of them.
‘I picked these for you,’ he said, dividing his sheaf, giving half to Mrs. Carmichael, and half to Mrs. Ritchie.
3
‘My wedding hat!’
‘My funeral hat!’
On these words, a twofold wail of melodramatic woe, the rickety stage rocked and shuddered as John, in the wings, plunged upon the cords and propelled the curtains spasmodically together. Kneeling forward centre, still bearing aloft her share of a dripping Edwardian garden-party hat, she let her eyes slide through the dwindling space and observed, in the front row, seven dumbfounded adenoidal infants on their mothers’ laps. Mrs. Groner of the Post Office, permitting her masterful features a faint relaxation; Old Arthur, impassive, dusky, primitive wooden idol in chiaroscuro, stuck with a pipe, sealing deafness thicker in a cloud of shag; Mrs. Fuller, washerwoman, mountainous, rocking, rolling, perspiring in unbridled appreciation of ladies’ efforts: yes, all were there to watch her début. Blest pair of curtains, with a last convulsion their red plush folds flounced together and penned her safe from the many-headed monster. Clapping? Yes, loud, genuine clapping. Can it be that I am frightfully good at theatricals? She knelt back at ease on her knees, dropped the glutinous leghorn mass, and leaned across the zinc bath, arms outstretched, to embrace her fellow-actress. At this moment the stage rocked madly on its trestles, John crash-landed beside her, bellowed in her ear: ‘Get up, for God’s sake! Take a bow!’ and in one bound hurled himself into the wings and upon the cords again. This time the draperies whisked back as if by daemonic propulsion, the humming cavern crammed with moony fungoid growths yawned once more upon her. She stood in smiles and embarrassment, nodding and blushing, aware of her companion bending low in a succession of stately acknowledgements beside her. The zoological odours of the blacked-out and unventilated community assailed her in a palpable tide, Old Arthur predominant. ‘Good for you, ’M!’ shrieked Mrs. Fuller. Curtain again. Gerald, Oliver, Meg, John and Jane surged from the wings to congratulate her.
‘Superb, Mrs. Ritchie, superb! Incredible!’
‘There Mummy, you didn’t get a single word wrong. I was listening.’ Jane clasped her. ‘There, you see, you can act. The only thing was, your hair was untidy.’
Faint wonder crossed her mind that Jane and Meg should be wearing their pyjamas and dressing-gowns before she remembered that they were dressed for their parts. Their faces, made up by the expert hand of Mrs. Carmichael, gleamed in unnatural flawlessness, precious, lustrous as tropical shells.
‘Well done, Mum.’ Satisfied with her, wasting no words, John thumped her on the back.
‘I’m not the one to congratulate.’
She broke out of the throng to hug her companion, who was modestly busy collecting the properties and shaking the ostrich feathers out over the bath. Her arms enclosed not the light slenderness of Mrs. Carmichael, but the square athletically upholstered frame of Audrey, the bank manager’s sixteen-year-old daughter from Redbury. Was it only yesterday?—it was—that the telephone had rung at 7:30 a.m. and the broken voice of Mrs. Carmichael had quavered in her ear, announcing a sleepless night, expectation of nervous breakdown and total inability to master her part. She would do anything, anything to help: appear behind the footlights she could not. She was taking a day in bed to fit herself for every menial back-stage task that might be heaped upon her.
At eight o’clock trampings and murmurings arose from John’s ground-floor bedroom, and shortly after, her door was flung open and John, in his dressing-gown, stalked heavily towards her bed. He said:
‘Mrs. Carmichael has thrown her hand in.’
‘I know. She’s telephoned. Who told you?’
‘Gerald and Oliver. They came round.’
‘Where are they now?’
‘Just outside.’ He called over his shoulder, sour: ‘You may as well come in,’ sank on the bed, lay back and closed his puffy eyes. Short of sleep after three nights of setting up the stage, he was not quite himself.
‘Mrs. Ritchie, good-morning! Are we disturbing you?’
They came in and advanced to the foot of the bed, greeting her and apologising with a gentlemanly combination of diffidence and savoir faire.
‘The foundations of our lives have cracked overnight,’ said Oliver. ‘Our mother has let us down. We are simply adrift in the storm.’
‘We thought,’ said Gerald, assuming an expression of do-or-die practical responsibility, ‘we’d better come round at once and discuss the position. Do forgive us for not having shaved.’
‘How often do you shave?’ said John with a flicker of interest.
‘There’s no position to discuss,’ she said from the pillow. ‘There’s no sketch. It’s off. Or do you think perhaps I might manage both parts myself?’
‘Oh!—like Ruth Draper,’ cried Gerald. ‘Have yo
u seen her, Mrs. Ritchie? She’s incredible. She simply peoples the stage. If only you—I’m sure you—’
He broke off, looking thoughtful. Some private mental image caused him to break into a yell of laughter, rapidly suppressed. ‘No … no … I suppose it wouldn’t do.’
‘We’re incredibly sorry about Mummy,’ said Oliver, speaking now with serious manly regret. ‘I’m afraid her morale collapsed, we ragged her too much. Daddy woke us with the ghastly news before he started for the station. He’s rather fed up, I’m afraid. I’m sure we could brace her up if we had the chance, but he’s absolutely forbidden us to try.’
‘I’m not worrying,’ she said; ‘I shall rest now.’
‘Good, good, Mrs. Ritchie! Honestly, don’t worry. I promise you everything will be all right. If the worst comes to the worst, I’ll send a wire to Daly to come at once. You know he plays the accordion superbly. Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you: Roger plays the violin superbly. We found our grandfather’s violin in the attic last night, actually not broken, and he tuned it in no time and played absolutely any tune we asked by ear. It was incredible—wasn’t it, Oliver? Honestly, Mrs. Ritchie, though she is our mother, between ourselves, it’s turned out for the best. It became clearer and clearer to us—didn’t it, Oliver?—that Mummy’s sphere of usefulness lies elsewhere.’
John sat up.
‘Dividing the time equally between the two parts,’ he said, ‘I compute that your mother’s part runs for seven and a quarter minutes. Say four minutes of dialogue … absolutely elementary dialogue … three and a quarter of business.’ He shrugged his shoulders.
‘Minutes can seem years,’ said Oliver. ‘Obviously they seemed so to our mother conning her lines.’
His face went out of drawing, and he squinted at a point just above John’s head. Thus far, no farther, said his squint. I have covered our dishonour with mockery: you shall not expose and scourge it. Gerald looked anxious. She gave John a shove with her foot under the bedclothes, and he fell back again.
‘Oh, Mrs. Ritchie,’ said Gerald, ‘I’ve never been into your bedroom before. What an absolutely charming room you’ve made it. I adore pink for a bedroom—everything’s such marvellous taste. Would this be an Augustus John?’*
‘No. It’s by a friend of mine.’
‘A friend of yours? How superb!’
‘Leave me now, dear boys. I have to get up.’
‘Oh, Mrs. Ritchie, couldn’t we bring you breakfast in bed? I’m sure you ought to rest.’
‘Not this morning, thank you very much.’
‘Come on,’ said John. He got up, stretched himself, looked down at her with a brooding speculative eye. ‘Look, Mummy. Supposing …’
He had an idea. It was pinning her down helpless on the mattress. She made a movement to put the sheet over her face and waited, but he only repeated: ‘Come on,’ and led them out. In a few moments, hilarious shouts, upbraidings, squeaks and giggles from the other side of the wall told her that they had invaded Jane’s room and were rousing her from slumber. Shortly afterwards one of them stumbled, fell down at the turn of the stairs, cursed and groaned. Another brief interval elapsed before Jane rose against the doorway in floral pyjamas, tousled, flushed with joy and astonishment.
‘Fancy them coming round so early! Did you expect them? They were very crool, they took all my bedclothes off me. Mummy, has something new happened?’
When she came down twenty minutes later they had gone. Mrs. Plumley said John had taken a bowlful of porridge from the saucepan and gone off with the others on his bike. He hadn’t said nothing of where he was off to.
At eleven they were back with Audrey. She had a small suitcase strapped to the carrier of her bicycle, and entered with a quiet, ministering expression. She had come to get them out of a hole. Her mother, she said, had agreed to spare her for two nights. Committing lines to memory presented her with no difficulties, and she was an old hand at theatricals. She would retire now to her bedroom—could she help Mrs. Ritchie make up the bed?—be word-perfect by lunch and be ready to rehearse by two o’clock. It had been John’s idea. He knew her already for a woman nobly planned. His partner last summer in the Brading Junior Tennis Tournament, with many a Hard luck! and Well tried! she had shepherded his shocking inadequacy into the semi-finals. His eyes ran over her with a cryptic look; he went off whistling to the hall to finish a job on the footlights.
Only yesterday; and now she stood upon the stage, their saviour, as Gerald, Oliver, Meg, Jane, John assured her with varying degrees of volubility and emphasis.
‘I don’t know how you did it, Audrey,’ said Mrs. Ritchie.
‘I did it because I was determined to,’ said Audrey. She lifted her chin. Her cheeks sprang out, muscular, resolute.
Now the piano had been hoisted on to the stage, once more the curtain struggled back, and standing beside Jane in the wings, she beheld Oliver in evening trousers and dinner-jacket, wandering up and down behind the footlights, directing a stream of patter at the audience. Invisible to her, the piano gave out a chord.
‘That’s Roger,’ whispered Jane. ‘Isn’t he a good player? Some of the notes won’t sound.’
In a soupy croak Oliver began to sing. The accompaniment started to improvise in a different key and tempo. The fingers touching the instrument knew what they were about, wringing muffled but accomplished harmonies out of the twanging keys. Oliver stopped. The music rose in a crescendo of flourishes and stopped. An argument developed.
‘What are they supposed to be doing?’
‘Really, Mummy! It’s their comic turn. They’re entertainers. Oliver’s a crooner and Roger’s coming in all wrong on purpose.’
Another chord reverberated. At this moment a red-nosed music-hall charwoman in bonnet, shawl and trailing black petticoats, and carrying a bucket, whirled past Jane and herself, scrabbled on to the sugar-box that served for step, and with a bawl of: ‘Can I do you now, sir?’ burst upon the stage.
The laughter came with a crack and a roar. Two rows of children in front got up and cheered. Everybody knew where they were now.
‘Who on earth is that?’
‘Gerald. Really, Mummy, have your eyes gone wrong? Or your brains? You knew they had to change it all and put in a bit of sort of Itma* when you said their other turn wasn’t funny enough.’
‘I’d forgotten. So many things have happened.’
The day before yesterday, summoned to approve their rendering of a sketch of veiled but unmistakable impropriety, plucked and reassembled from fervid memories of Fast and Furious, she had been obliged, amid the astonished protests of Jane and Meg, to veto it.
The stage was given over to rowdiness and horse-play. Clanking her pail, the char scurried round and round on hands and knees, the crooner tripped over her repeatedly and fell prone, she lunged with her scrubbing brush between the pedalling legs of the accompanist. She sat on his lap, leered at him, tickled him with the poppy in her bonnet.
‘Roger has to go on trying to be polite and dignified,’ explained Jane. ‘They’re making it all up out of their heads as they go along—do you realise?’
Howl after howl tore the auditorium. Whistles, jeers, cheers and catcalls flew from the nether region where the local youth barred the main exit in a menacing phalanx. Mrs. Ritchie caught a glimpse of Audrey in the opposite wings, watching the exhibition with a smile of deprecating indulgence.
‘My God, the stage will come down.’ She moved closer to John, by the ropes. ‘Hadn’t this better stop soon?’
‘Why? It’s going down like hot cakes.’
She saw Mr. Carmichael rise urgently from his seat in the fifth row and press towards them. His sons were now advancing upon and retreating from one another in the abandonment of a kind of apache dance. At rapid intervals Gerald flung his skirts over his head, revealing red woollen bloomers, hirsute calves, green socks and sock suspender
s. The howls increased in frenzy.
‘Get that curtain down at once,’ commanded Mr. Carmichael.
Startled, obedient, John attacked the ropes. Mr. Carmichael fell back against the wall and mopped his forehead.
‘They don’t mind making fools of themselves,’ he said faintly.
‘It’s wonderful,’ she said, ‘to be so completely unselfconscious.’
‘They don’t inherit their temperament from my side of the family,’ said Mr. Carmichael. He added: ‘My wife has French blood.’ He sighed.
‘Mrs. Ritchie, Mrs. Ritchie, was it frightful? God, I’ve never felt so embarrassed in my life. I thought the curtain would never come down.’ His bonnet askew over one eye, the grease-paint streaming off him, Gerald peered with wild gasps into her face.
‘I thought you were terribly funny,’ said Jane.
‘Oh, Jane! Thank you, Jane! Oliver, Jane thinks we were terribly funny.’
‘Our father did not think so,’ Oliver said, brushing dust in a cloud off his sleeves, shoulders and trouser legs. ‘He is ashamed, and rightly, of his sons.’
‘Oh, Daddy, where have you sprung from? Have you come round behind to congratulate us?’
‘Get out of my sight,’ said Mr. Carmichael.
Jane stiffened and took a sharp breath.
‘Sorry, Daddy. Oh, Daddy, you ruined my performance. In the middle of my best line I suddenly saw your dear face in front and I simply dried up.’ At the recollection Gerald let out a yell of laughter.
‘Never in my life,’ said Mr. Carmichael, ‘have I been so appalled, so humiliated.’
‘You would rather have seen us dead at your feet,’ said Oliver.
Mr. Carmichael passed a handkerchief over his lips. Carefully blank, his eyes sought those of Mrs. Ritchie.
‘Sir,’ said John anxiously, ‘would you make the announcement? There ought to be community singing going on—and the collection. If we don’t start something soon, they’ll start breaking the place up.’
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