by Pamela Brown
“Oh, I see!” Lynette said forlornly, and leaned against the doorpost. Vicky felt like sitting on the step and taking her shoes off.
“Come on, Lyn!” she said. “It’s almost seven. We shall quite obviously have to sleep in the gutter.”
The idea of this seemed to trouble Miss Blackman. She thought again.
“Well, if you wouldn’t mind sharing, I might be able to put you up in an attic.”
“Anywhere,” breathed Lynette. “The coal-hole will do.”
They followed her up many flights of stairs lined with heavy oil paintings of ugly ancestors, to a small attic at the top of the house. It contained two rather hard-looking little beds and a wash-basin.
“Three guineas all in,” she announced. It seemed a lot, but “all in” sounded comforting.
“Thank you,” said Lyn. “Our luggage is at the station. Could it be fetched?” Miss Blackman looked aghast.
“Oh, no! We haven’t the staff! This is the Season, you see.” She spoke of it in capital letters. When she had gone they looked wistfully at the beds.
“No. It’s nearly seven o’clock,” said Lynette firmly.
There was only time to wash their faces and dry them on the counterpane, as there were no towels provided, before they set off for the theatre once more. As they entered by the stage door they were greeted by a lumpy female wearing a turban and dirty dungarees. She surveyed them without enthusiasm.
“New A.S.M.s?” she inquired brusquely.
“Yes.”
“I’m the stage manager. My name is Jean. What are yours?” They told her their names shyly.
“Academy?” They nodded.
“Hm! I was at the Crosby-Wade School. Well, you’d better get cracking. I want the stage swept and dusted first. There are some old overalls behind the door in that dressing-room. You’d better put them on.”
“What we go through for our art!” murmured Lyn, brushing away at the torn carpet that seemed to stretch for miles.
“So many times I’ve told my mother I wanted to go on the stage, even if only to sweep it, and now I’m doing it!”
When it was finished Jean set them to polishing silver, which had obviously not been done for some time.
“Now I’ll show you how to check the props.” She handed them a typed list under the headings, “Off right”, “Off left”, “On Stage”, “Plant for Act Two”, “Strike for Act Three”, that completely bewildered them, and went round with them seeing that everything was in its correct place. There seemed to be hundreds of meals in the play, entailing trays of imitation foodstuffs that all had to be carefully checked, as one missing plate could ruin a piece of “business”.
“Run and call the half-hour, Lynette,” the stage manager ordered. “Knock on all the doors, or they’ll say they didn’t hear.” Timidly Lynette tapped on each dressing-room door and said, “Half an hour, please.” The usual reply was, “Oh, bother!” or “Not already.” Hurrying figures in wrappers with half-made-up faces flitted from one dressing-room to another, and stared at the new members of the company with interest. The quarter of an hour was called, then the five minutes. “It’s time to start the panatrope.” Jean showed them how it worked and put on a record of a dance tune that soon blared out over the audience, who sat talking and eating chocolates and rustling programmes.
“Watch for the buzz,” Vicky was told as she stood in the prompt corner.
“Watch for the buzz? What buzz? Where?” she thought frantically.
“Beginners, please!” Jean shouted in stentorian tones. And a little buzzer buzzed in the prompt corner.
“It buzzed! It buzzed!” cried Vicky wildly.
“Take the curtain up, then.—Here! Press that button.”
Vicky pressed it with all her might. And miraculously the heavy curtain rose. It was not for some minutes that she realized that the button-pressing had caused a little red light to go on on the other side of the stage, which was the signal for a stage hand to wind away at an enormous handle. Vicky felt a terrific surge of power as she stood in the prompt corner with Jean showing her how to control the house lights, while Lynette sat with her eyes glued to the prompt book, trembling lest anyone on the stage should falter. In between each act there was sheer chaos. Terry, the boy who had been painting scenery, and two decrepit stage hands, appeared to help change the set, but Lyn and Vicky carried “flats” and hammered in “braces” with the enthusiasm of novelty. There was no time to notice the other members of the company, nor what the show was like. It was “Lynette, run and wash these cups up.” “Vicky, take the book for a minute.” “One of you pop round to the front of the house with this message, please.”
The play seemed to be going well, for the audience were laughing considerably, and Lynette did just notice that the players were well dressed. There was one hitch when the leading man opened his cigarette case and found no cigarette there. He made his exit smiling gaily, but once in the wings he turned on Jean in a fury. “Why did you let me go on without a cigarette?”
“If you’re not capable of taking a cigarette out of the prop box and putting it in your case, I’m sorry for you!” she replied tartly. He snorted, muttered something about “These women stage managers,” and strode off. Jean grimaced. “That’s the sort of thing you have to put up with,” she remarked. “All the kicks and no halfpence. Not even thanks when everything goes all right.”
“What a horrible man! Who is he?”
“Mark Gregory, our dear leading man, bless his little silk socks!”
Vicky and Lynette changed records on the panatrope, brought the curtains up and down, and even helped the leading lady in a quick change. At last it was time for the final curtain to be brought down, and there was a jumble of lighting to be changed, the time to be noted down in the time book, and the whole set to be moved, ready for tomorrow’s matinee. It was about eleven o’clock when Jean finally said, “You’d better run round to the stalls bar while there are still some sandwiches left.”
In the saloon the whole company were assembled, eating sandwiches. When they entered, the producer, whose name they had discovered to be Diana, said, “Oh, here are our two new ewe lambs, Lynette and Vicky. Be nice to them. They’re so hard to get.” Everyone laughed, and the two girls covered their confusion by purchasing orangeade and sausage rolls from the bar.
The youngish girl whom they had seen rehearsing that afternoon came up to them and said, “I hear you’re at the Academy. I was there two years ago. How is everyone? Old Whitfield, Roma, etc.?”
They told her all the latest Academy news, which seemed to interest her.
“These Academy folk! Always hang together, don’t they?” laughed the character woman, a plump, pleasant person of fifty or more. “I was there—about thirty years ago—so that dates me, I’m afraid.”
“Are you going to play any parts?” Chloe, the girl, wanted to know.
“We hope so.”
“Well, we’re doing The Constant Nymph in a few weeks’ time, so I hear. There are enough young parts in that. You’re bound to get something.”
“The Constant Nymph!” breathed Lynette. “Oh, how simply wonderful!”
“I suppose you’ve always longed to play ‘Tessa’ in it? Haven’t we all?” laughed Chloe.
“I’m the only woman in the company who won’t be envious of it,” laughed the character woman.
At this moment a grey-haired man wearing pince-nez came into the bar, and was saluted with respect.
“That’s the boss,” Chloe enlightened them. “He’s Diana’s father. Handles the business side.” After a while he came up and spoke to them, more kindly than anyone had done throughout the whole day.
“I’m very glad to see you both. I hope you will be happy with us and learn a lot.”
“Thank you, sir,” they said.
“How long have you been on the stage?” he inquired.
“Well, this is our first professional engagement,” Lyn explained. “We’re still at Dramatic School, you see.�
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“Ah, of course. I forgot. So you’re only with us for ten weeks? A pity.”
Before the last lights in the theatre were switched off and the doors locked Jean said to them, “Rehearsal is at ten tomorrow, but be here by 9.30. There are a hundred and one things to do.”
On their way back to the hotel Lyn said suddenly, “You know what?”
“What?”
“Our cases are at the station.”
“Oh, gosh! Don’t let’s bother—”
“But our washing things! Even our tooth-brushes, and our slacks for tomorrow—”
“And hair-brushes,” agreed Vicky. “Oh, how awful! And our cases are so heavy!”
“I wish the boys were here. We could send them. They’d grumble—but they’d go.”
They trailed down the long road to the station, almost numb with tiredness, only to find the left luggage office shut. It meant a long argument with a half-witted porter before the key could be found and their cases extracted. They stumbled back to the hotel, with frequent intervals of sitting on their cases, looking at the moon, saying, “Oh, why do we do it!”
“Why didn’t we decide to be school teachers?”
“Or clerks?”
“Or merely to sit at home and wait for ‘Mr. Right’ to come along.” But although they said these things, beyond their fatigue there was a feeling that something very exciting was starting, and that Tutworth Wells held out opportunities of work and experience and Life with a capital L.
On the hall table of the Parade Hotel (Family and Commercial) there was a note saying, “Please lock doors and see lights out.—Emily Blackman.”
They toiled up the stairs with their cases, but then were too tired to make much use of the tooth-brushes, sponges, and hair-brushes which they had rescued. Lyn’s last words before she fell into a deep sleep were, “Rehearsal tomorrow at 9.30. Oh, gosh!”
6
THE ENVIOUS NYMPHS
In Tutworth Wells it was high summer. The streets flocked with holiday-makers, and there were queues to book at the box office of the Pavilion Theatre. Even the Wednesday matinees were packed out to the doors. And while the young people on holiday in the town swam in the river, played tennis, listened to the music round the bandstand, and went to the theatre in the cool of the evenings, Vicky and Lynette worked harder than they had ever worked before.
Inevitably, every morning, they over-slept. The decrepit chambermaid seemed incapable of calling them at the correct hour. They would leap out of bed, fling on the workman’s blue dungarees they had invested in for comfort and coolness, and dash down to the dining-room, where the waitress would infuriate them by serving watery haddock and cold toast at a snail’s pace. Consequently they had to run down the hill to the theatre in time to set the stage ready for the morning’s rehearsal. While one of them held the prompt book, the other would be despatched round the town to collect properties. Vicky and Lyn were soon known in the town as being “from the theatre” and were welcomed by the shopkeepers in varying manners. From their ingratiating smiles and remarks about the weather, it was always obvious that they were “on the scrounge”.
“Well—what is it this time?” the ironmonger would inquire, assuming a fierce air.
“I wonder, Mr. Cardew, could you, would it be possible—to lend us a wheelbarrow?”
Mr. Cardew would wooffle into his moustache, and disappear into the jumble at the back of his shop, and soon Lyn or Vicky would be wheeling a barrow proudly through the streets of Tutworth Wells. But in some shops the welcome was very different.
“Ah—yes. We’ve lent things to the theatre before now—and never seen them back.”
“But we’re different people. We’d be sure to bring them back.”
“Ah! That’s what they all say.” And it would need a lot of reassuring, and perhaps a complimentary seat for the show, before the wireless set, or the tin bath, or the rolling pin would be lent.
Terry, the vague young scenic artist, was always needing a hand with the painting of the set. There were last week’s costumes to be packed up and despatched to the costumier’s in London, and next week’s furniture to be sorted, and re-covered and disguised. Occasionally the girls had an hour to spare between tea and the evening show, and they would fling themselves on the grass of one of the parks, and doze over next week’s prop list. Saturday nights were the worst, for after the evening show the set had to be taken to pieces, the furniture lugged to the store-room, and the properties returned to the prop-room. They were lucky if they reached the Parade Hotel before midnight. Sunday mornings were occasionally free from rehearsal, and they slept until lunch-time, did odd jobs at the theatre in the afternoon, and went on the river in the evening. They would try to get to bed early, but Sunday was a favourite night for members of the company to throw parties, and Lyn and Vicky were invited to several of these. After an extremely noisy and late night, it was awful to have to rise early on Monday morning, with the nightmare prospect of a dress rehearsal that would last all day, and the first night of a new play in the evening. And, then, on Tuesday, rehearsals of the next play would begin.
“Oh, it’s a vicious circle!” cried Lynette, as on a Tuesday night she vainly studied two different prop lists, and carried three different play scripts around with her.
But in spite of the hard work they were happy. Here was the enthusiasm and team spirit of the Blue Door Theatre and the Academy, but on a larger and grown-up scale. Granted, the company all adopted a rather blasé air towards their profession, and often spoke of it as merely a money-making concern, or discussed taking up other careers, but on a Monday night there was the same atmosphere of striving and achievement that exists from Tutworth Wells to Drury Lane.
Although Jean ranted at them when things went wrong, she soon became attached to Lyn and Vicky and did her best to teach them all there was to learn. But when Vicky messed up a lighting cue by turning all the lights off when someone in the play remarked, “I’ll just turn the lights on,” or when Lynette forgot to put a wedge in the folding legs of the table and it folded up as the hero leaned amorously across it to the heroine, these things made Jean come out with a stream of unkind epithets that reduced Vicky to tears and made Lynette seethe with anger at her own stupidity. But it was soon forgotten after the first flare-up, and Jean would buy them corned-beef sandwiches after the show as a peace-offering.
Week followed week, and still there was no sign of the “small parts” mentioned in the letter. Diana, the producer, and her father had a system whereby the taste of the Tutworth holiday-makers and their own slightly more intellectual tastes were both satisfied. One week was a “dope” week, in which they performed a light modern comedy, likely to please the audience, and during the next week they did some more original play that the company would enjoy.
One Saturday night, after an interesting week of rehearsing Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, Lyn said, “I believe next week’s cast list is up. Let’s go and look.”
“Oh, it’s only a dope week,” said Vicky, but followed Lyn to the notice-board.
Cast for The Constant Nymph,” it read. All the parts were cast except Tessa, Antonia, Paulina, and Kate, the four girls.
“There will be a reading for these parts on Sunday afternoon at two-thirty. Will Chloe Pettinger, Lynette Darwin, Vicky Halford, and Ingrid Ringman please attend.” They gazed spellbound at this notice and read and re-read it.
“There are four parts,” Lyn began, wonderstruck.
“And only four names,” finished Vicky.
“That means we’ve got to play something.”
“Oh, Lyn, how wonderful! How wonderful!”
“Chloe is sure to play Tessa,” said Lyn. “She plays all the ingénues.”
“But even to play Kate—or Paulina.”
“You’re sure to play Paulina, Vicky, you look so young.”
“I wish we’d got some scripts. D’you think they’ve arrived yet?”
“Let’s go and see.” They ran down to D
iana’s office, and she handed them much dog-eared copies of the play.
“D’you think you’ll be able to play parts next week as well as stage-manage?” she asked.
“Oh, yes!” they cried, fearing lest this opportunity should be snatched away.
“Good. Well, we’ll sort you out tomorrow afternoon.”
All the next morning they lay in bed reading the four girls’ parts aloud, but always returning to the part of Tessa, the ill-fated little schoolgirl. The ancient chambermaid kept appearing in the doorway, anxious to “do” their room.
“We’ll make our beds,” they reassured her loudly on account of her deafness.
“Got bad heads?” she misunderstood them. “Well, they’ll be better when you get out in the air.”
“It’s no good,” said Vicky despairingly. “We’ll have to get up.” They went outside into the park and sprawled near the bandstand, where the Tutworth Wells Civic Band was playing military music with a lot of very brassy instruments. Lyn buried her face in the grass and repeated some of Tessa’s lines that she had already learned by heart, and the band pounded away at the Marche Militaire.
They could hardly eat the cold mutton and rice and prunes of which lunch consisted.
By this time they were quite friendly with several of the old ladies in the hotel, who would engage them in long conversations at the slightest provocation. They were sure that one of them, whom they had christened Hepzibah, had been stage-struck in her youth, for she would pump them for the minutest details about their work and sigh wistfully as they described it. Today she opened up and became quite informative.
“You know, I had a brother who was very interested in theatricals and all that sort of thing, and one day he had an offer from Mr. Hayden Coffin, of whom you have probably heard. But my mother was very strict and she said, ‘No, Walter. Rather than see you with Mr. Coffin, I’d see you in your coffin!’ And within six months he was! Wasn’t that a funny thing?” Lyn and Vicky, with their mouths full of prunes, tried not to laugh, and agreed that it was. “Hepzibah” was full of morbid stories of the deaths of her relations.
