by Pamela Brown
“Lovely, dear! You made me cry as well as all the old ladies. But you must speak up more in the last scene, and you could be a bit more light-hearted in the light-hearted scenes at the beginning. Vicky, dear, you did very nicely. Pick your cues up a bit more quickly, though, and try not to stand with your feet in ballet positions. Quite nice, Chloe and Ingrid, but you could both put a little more life into it. Rehearsal not until eleven tomorrow. You all need a bit of sleep.”
“A bit…” sighed Lyn, as Diana went. “I need aeons and aeons.”
“Now you see the trials of a leading lady,” said Chloe.
“An A.S.M. has a much quieter time, don’t you think? But of course—to be both at once…” But Lyn was too tired to retaliate.
In the sandwich bar some of the regular patrons of the theatre had stayed behind to chat to the artistes. An elderly and slightly military-looking gentleman came up to Lyn and said, “Congratulations, Miss Darwin. You made me cry like a child.”
“Oh, I’m glad—I mean, I’m sorry,” stuttered Lyn, feeling very embarrassed and not carrying it off at all in the way she had always imagined an actress should receive flattery from a “fan”.
On the way home Vicky danced along the starlit streets.
“Oh, isn’t it fun!” she cried. “I could stay here for ever. It’s worth all the hard work. Lyn, we’re real actresses now—before any of the others, too.”
“Except Maddy,” Lyn reminded her, laughing. “And I expect she’s being paid fifty times as much as we are for her film work.”
“Lyn! That’s not like you! Why you sound—you sound dissatisfied.”
“I’m not dissatisfied,” contradicted Lyn, “just—ambitious. I’m glad to have this opportunity at Tutworth, but I couldn’t stay in Tutworth all my life.”
“Oh, nor could I! But we’re going back to Fenchester, aren’t we? And that will be fun. And as for money—well, we don’t have time to spend much of our wealth, do we?”
“Oh, it’s not really money I’m talking about—it’s—Oh, skip it. At the moment I’d give my week’s wages, all fifty shillings of it, in exchange for bed. And tomorrow we start thinking about the prop list for You Never Can Tell—I shall write to the R.S.P.C.A.”
“Whatever for?” queried Vicky.
“I mean the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Actresses.”
To Lyn and Vicky it seemed that they had been at Tutworth Wells all their lives. For now that they were appearing in a show they were known in the town. Complete strangers would say good morning to them in the street, and perhaps stop to say how much they enjoyed the play. They found the shopkeepers more lenient towards them when they were on scrounging expeditions. And they seemed to belong to the company more. Terry became their constant companion, and talked his head off as they painted scenery late into the night in the deserted theatre. He was an odd boy, temperamental and taciturn until his affection was won, but then a devoted friend. They told him all about the Blue Doors, and promised that when they returned to to form a professional company they would try to include him as scenic designer.
“Nigel is keen on it, but I expect he’ll want to stick to acting and producing,” said Lyn.
On the last night of The Constant Nymph, Lynette was touched to receive a bouquet of large yellow roses.
“Who on earth is this?” she said, peering at the card on which was written, “All good wishes, Letitia Bixby”.
“Letitia Bixby—Bixby?”
“Why, it must be Hepzibah,” suggested Vicky. “I think I’ve heard the waitress call her Miss Bixby.”
“How sweet of her to send these! I’ll take them back to the hotel to brighten up the attic.”
The next week it was rather dull to have to return to stage management, with all its trials and tribulations, and not to put on grease-paint every night. Jean took them aside one day and said:
“Listen, you two. Will you do me a favour?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, I’ve not had a rest for ten months. I’ve stage-managed over forty plays without a break, and I certainly need a holiday. So I wondered if I could ask Diana to let me have a week off, if you would be able to cope with the stage management for a week by yourselves.”
“Oh, gosh!” The prospect alarmed them. It was all very well doing the hundred and one chores of an A.S.M. when Jean was behind them to chivvy them, but without her reminders of “Have you called the half yet?” and “Don’t forget the panatrope” where would they be?
Lynette gulped. “Yes, Jean, I think we can manage. Which week will you be going?”
“I thought of making it the Private Lives week. There’s nothing very difficult there.” But there was the anxiety of knowing that the full responsibility was theirs, that if the curtain were late in rising it was no-one’s fault but their own, that if they forgot a prop there was no Jean to rush on with it just in time and return to blow them sky high.
On the first night the scene-shifters did not turn up, and the two girls and Terry struggled manfully with the heavy “flats”, while Mark lounged in an armchair on the stage, saying, “This is a very long interval, isn’t it?”
Although nothing went radically wrong, they were in a fever of anxiety every night, and almost held their breaths until they brought down the final curtain. The preparations for the following week’s show were rather more fun, for they could decide for themselves what furniture and curtains and properties to use, without waiting to be told.
“Jean will probably alter everything when she comes back,” said Lyn, “but I think we’ve planned the set very nicely.”
And so did Diana.
“You know, you two,” she told them one day, “you don’t have to go at the end of your ten weeks. We’d be very pleased to keep you, if you’ll stay. Father would probably raise your salary to three pounds!”
They were quite shocked at the idea.
“But we must go back to the Academy—”
“Why? You’re learning as much here, if not more, and being paid for it.”
“Oh, no. We must finish our course. Thank you very much for suggesting it, though.”
“I couldn’t bear not to go back, could you?” Lyn asked Vicky afterwards.
“No, it would be quite out of the question. I’m longing to see everyone again—the Blue Doors, and Roma, and Mr. Whitfield—even Mrs. Bosham. We seem to have been away for years.”
“But we have learned a lot,” admitted Lyn. “I shall feel frightfully superior to everyone at the Academy who has never been in rep. I wonder if we shall have any more parts before we leave?”
They did, but none so exciting as the first. In one play they appeared as guests at a dinner party and had about one line each, and in Pride and Prejudice Vicky was given the part of Lydia. By this time she was so tired after all the weeks of hard work that she could not learn her lines, and on the first night she disgraced herself by having three “dries”.
“I think it’s a good job we’re going back to the Academy,” she told Lynette, “if only for a rest cure.”
As the weeks went by and the time for their departure drew near they became more and more attached to Tutworth Wells. Most of the visitors had gone and the audiences were smaller, but somehow the town seemed more friendly. Snatching a cup of coffee in “Ye Old Oake Tea Rooms”, walking through the woods where the beech trees were already showing brown, or dancing in turn with Terry at the Town Hall tea dances, they felt that they were lords of all they surveyed, and pitied the shopgirls and typists and undergraduates whom they saw around them.
At the end of September it turned cold and the gas fire in their attic had to be fed with valuable shillings from their meagre salaries. They wore heavy coats over their slacks in the prompt corner, and Jean told them dour stories of winter in Tutworth Wells. But this only lasted a fortnight, and October came in with soft summery winds and mellow sunshine.
As they would not be present for the following week’s show they were tol
d it would not be necessary for them to attend the rehearsals for it during the daytime, so they took this opportunity to explore the surrounding countryside, accompanied sometimes by Terry.
“I wish you weren’t going back,” he would say. “You won’t forget about having me as scenic artist when you open the Blue Door Theatre again, will you?”
“No,” said Lyn, “but frankly you’ll have to work a jolly sight harder than you do here, because we shall be too busy to help you.”
“Oh, no,” Lyn assured him. “We realize that we shall have to add to the company when we make it professional, and we’ve been on the lookout for people for a long time. It’s nice to meet a scenic artist who at heart doesn’t want to be an actor.”
“Me—an actor?” He wrinkled up his funny face. “Can you imagine that? But listen, what are we going to do to celebrate your going? I mean, as a parting fling.”
“There’s nothing we can do—”
“Let’s think of something really unusual that we shall remember.”
“We could have a midnight feast,” said Vicky, harking back to the Fourth Form.
“Where?”
“In our attic. Very select. Just the three of us.”
“But whatever would Miss Blackman say?”
“It would be rather fun. We’ve got a gas ring. We could cook things on it…”
On the Sunday night before they left they stayed late at the theatre painting scenery, and at midnight three stealthy figures ascended the stairs of the Parade Hotel loaded with food. First they cooked corn cobs over the gas ring, in an ornamental vase of a particularly ugly lime green, and ate them in their fingers, soaked with butter. Then they made cocoa in tooth glasses and toasted welsh rarebits by holding them on forks over the gas ring. They were inclined to fall off into the flames, but tasted good all the same. They finished up with walnuts and chocolate, and felt very full and very tired, and it seemed as if the party were over. Suddenly Terry said, “I know what. Let’s go for a swim—”
“At this hour of the night?”
“Yes, it’ll be wonderful by moonlight.”
“But cold—”
“Refreshing. Do us good. Come on. I dare you to.”
That was enough for the girls. They rolled up their bathing costumes and crept down the stairs, which by this time vibrated with the noise of all the old ladies’ snores.
Outside it was a crystal-clear night with a silver moon, and the streets as light as day. A policeman on his beat looked at them suspiciously as they ran, laughing, down the street to Terry’s digs, where he collected his costume. They pranced down to the river, singing and shouting, almost drunk with the exhilaration of the night air. The river was very high and rushing swiftly over the rocks.
“I’m frightened,” said Vicky. “It looks so cold.”
“Come on. We’ve been dared.”
In a few seconds Lyn was into her costume and wading through the icy waters. It was impossible to swim as the current was too strong. Terry and she clung on to rocks and splashed each other, shivering audibly. After a few minutes Lynette shouted, “Come on, Vicky, you old funk.” But there was no reply. The bank was deserted.
“Vicky!” they yelled in unison, and from farther down the river came a feeble “Help!” Lyn’s knees felt weak with fear, and the night suddenly seemed cruel and terrible. But Terry took charge of the situation.
“You run along that bank,” he ordered brusquely, “and I’ll run along this one.”
He clambered on to the left bank, and Lyn plunged across to the right one. She ran as though wild horses were after her, the stones cutting her feet, and the cold wind piercing her wet body. A good quarter of a mile down the river Vicky was clutching desperately at rocks as she was swept by in the black swirling current. Her red hair was flattened out by the water, and she seemed like a mermaid in distress. Lyn looked round wildly for some means of rescue. It was no use for her or Terry to go into the water as well. Terry flung himself on to a bush that grew near the edge of the river, pulled off several long branches, and threw them to Vicky, who clutched them gasping and choking. As the stream bore Vicky past her, Lyn, lying full length on the bank, grasped some of the green foliage, then a few twigs, and finally the thick branch, and pulled Vicky ashore, where she lay stretched out half laughing and half crying.
“Oh, gosh!” she gasped, “Oh, gosh!”
“Are you all right?” yelled Terry. “I’m not risking coming across. I’ll run back to the bridge. Will you bring my clothes?”
Frozen to the skin and shaken by Vicky’s narrow escape, they ran all the way back to the Parade to try to get warm, and consumed more cocoa, huddled over the gas fire.
“Thank you, one and all,” said Vicky, “for rescuing me.”
“Only did it because I want that job as scenic artist,” Terry said gruffly.
“Only did it because I thought Bulldog and Nigel might be a bit hurt if I went back tomorrow and said I’d mislaid their sister,” teased Lyn.
“That’s what comes of saying we wanted a binge we would always remember,” remarked Vicky.
It was about three o’clock by this time, and with a view to catching their train they decided that the binge was over.
“And if I bump into Miss Blackman on the stairs,” said Terry, as he departed, “I shall ask her to come for a swim.”
“What a night!” sighed Vicky, as they prepared to sleep. “Oh, Lyn, we’re leaving tomorrow. I can’t bear the idea.”
Next morning even the cool haddock at breakfast aroused a nostalgia of its own. They dressed more soberly than they had for weeks. “Don’t skirts seem funny after slacks,” remarked Vicky, before the mirror. And as for their packing… They seemed to have collected twice as many belongings during their stay, and their battered cases needed much bouncing on before they would shut.
“Do you remember carrying these up from the station on the first night, when we were so tired? Doesn’t it seem ages ago?”
They put off going down to the theatre to say goodbye for as long as possible by going round the town first. They saw their friend the ironmonger, and Hepzibah wheeling a friend in a bath chair, and several regular patrons of the theatre, who all expressed their sorrow that Lyn and Vicky were going.
“Tutworth won’t seem the same without you two popping round the town in your little blue overalls,” they were told.
“Come on,” said Lyn. “We’d better go down to the theatre or they’ll have broken rehearsal for lunch.” They crept into the back of the stalls as they had done on the first day, and watched the rehearsal. It was funny to think how well they knew all these people who had been strangers to them then.
“It’s a very sweet little theatre, you know,” said Vicky. “I wonder if it will ever be famous because we made our first appearances here?”
“Of course it will,” Lyn said sarcastically. “Pilgrims will travel here from miles away so that there’s a deep groove worn right down the middle of the High Street.”
Hearing them laugh, Diana looked up and said, “Hullo. You’ve come to say goodbye, I suppose. Hold on just a second.”
“How scared we were of her at first!” reflected Lyn.
They went up on to the stage when the rehearsal was over and shook hands with everyone. The character woman gave them a little embroidered handkerchief each, and kissed them on both cheeks. Mark said, “Oh, you’re leaving today, are you?” as if he couldn’t have cared less, and Chloe and Ingrid were very gushing, although Lyn and Vicky could not help feeling that it was mainly relief at seeing the back of them. Jean said, “Well, I hope we haven’t worked you too hard. You’ve certainly done your share,” which was praise coming from Jean. The business manager, Diana’s father, shook hands with them with much old-world courtesy, and told them that while Tutworth Rep. was open they need never be out of a job.
“Which is quite something in this profession,” said Lynette to Vicky.
The faithful Terry was waiting to take their cases
to the station.
“Good heavens!” he cried. “What on earth have you got in here? Miss Blackman’s flat-irons?”
Miss Blackman, looking quite human for once, wished them good luck as they settled the bill in her aspidistra-filled office, and a bevy of old ladies bowed and smiled from the windows as they set off down the street. Hepzibah wiped a tear away with a cambric handkerchief, and the Tutworth Wells Civic Band seemed to be playing the Marche Militaire with greater abandon than usual. On the way to the station Terry was silent and depressed.
“I shall never get the sets done in time without you two,” he grumbled. “Will you come again next vacation?”
“No, I don’t expect to,” said Lyn. “Sad, isn’t it? We shall probably go home for Christmas.”
At the station they leaned out of the window engaging in rather embarrassed conversation. The engine kept making false starts, so that they would say “famous last words” and start waving, only to find that they were still standing at the platform. When this had happened a few times Terry said, “I know what—I’ll go and get you some lemonade from the refreshment room. Shan’t be a tick.” He loped off. And while he was battling with the crowd in the refreshment room the train slid slyly out of the station.
“Oh, Terry…” cried Lyn and Vicky, leaping to the window. Just as the train rounded the bend they caught a glimpse of Terry, balancing three glasses of lemonade, emerging in a dishevelled condition on to the platform. They laughed shakily.
“How like him.”
“Oh, Lyn!” sighed Vicky, “I wish I didn’t get so attached to places. It’s so awful leaving them.”
“Yes, I know. And Tutworth had a very special atmosphere of its own.”
They watched the fields speed by, feeling very lost and empty inside.
