The Town in Bloom (5 page)

‘Oh yes, within reason. There’s no desperate hurry and they’ll help you to get the feel of the theatre. But I should think you’ll soon find them boring. And it’s messy work, I’m afraid. The job somehow has to go on, year after year, though we hardly ever need to look back at cuttings. I’ll be in my office if anything puzzles you.’

I did not find the cuttings boring; nothing connected with a theatre could have bored me then. But I did find the work tricky as the cuttings were so mixed up. And I soon realised I should never get finished if I read many of them, so I rationed myself to the letter-press under photographs. After a while I heard music and guessed that the theatre orchestra was playing. A few minutes later, Miss Lester came back.

Saying she was going to give me a little treat she switched off the lights, leaving the room lit only by a glow from the electric sign below the round windows. Then she told me to come and look through the spy-hole. We went into the short part of the room’s L and she slid open a very small, oblong section of the panelling.

I looked down over the people sitting in the gallery, down, down through the dark theatre, and was just in time to see the curtain rise to reveal a drawing-room. The
orchestra was still playing but very softly. Miss Lester whispered, ‘You can stay here until I come back. But be sure to keep quiet; and if you leave the spy-hole, close the panel.’

The music dwindled into silence. The play began.

An elderly lady was talking to a butler – the little figures were so far away that I was surprised how well I could hear them. The elderly lady chatted pleasantly, treating the butler as a human being. The audience obviously thought this unusually kind, also funny; there were ripples of pleased laughter. Then a door was flung open by a pretty woman, laden with parcels, who said: ‘Mother, darling, I’ve kept you waiting!’ The butler went. Mother and daughter proceeded to talk about daughter’s husband’s infidelities. Mother wanted something done about them. Daughter pretended to be more interested in the contents of her parcels. But her frivolous behaviour was just a ruse to hide her deep feelings; and though Mother was fooled, the audience wasn’t – because Daughter (by now I had realised she was the leading lady) gave it a few hints Mother wasn’t in on.

Soon Mr Crossway came on, looking rather less ordinary than at the audition but by no means glamorous; and his acting was so quiet that it barely seemed like acting. Mother departed and he and his leading lady played a scene I found unexciting as they were supposed to have been married for ten years. However, I cheered up when the leading lady was replaced by a young actress who made overtures to Mr Crossway. Knowing that ‘daring’ plays were fashionable, I thought (and hoped) she might have some luck, but 
before she’d made much progress Miss Lester returned and asked me to close the panel.

‘Sorry to tear you away,’ she said, ‘but I want you to sit in my office while I go down to Mr Fortescue – in case the telephone rings.’

‘If it does, shall I take a message or come and find you?’

‘A message, unless it’s something important. I’m expecting a trunk call from an actor Mr Crossway wants in the new play but that shouldn’t come through till later.’

I asked if there was anything I could be doing for her and she said I could grind some coffee beans. She measured them out.

I had never ground coffee beans before and rather enjoyed it. Then I sat at the desk I knew would be mine and watched the heavy rain now beating on the round windows. After a while it seemed extraordinary that I should be alone here at the top of a theatre. Since early childhood I had occasionally had a strange feeling that I was not who I was or where I was, and what was happening wasn’t real. I had this feeling now and, as usual, found it more interesting than frightening, though I always suspected that if it went on long one might go mad. But it never did go on long; one failed to concentrate or got interrupted. Tonight the telephone rang.

I planned to answer, ‘Crossway Theatre. Miss Lester’s assistant speaking.’ But somehow this came out as, ‘Hello.’

A woman’s voice, high and confident, said, ‘Miss Lester? This is Nancy Warden, back from Paris. I bet
you
chose that lovely lilac’

I said I wasn’t Miss Lester and asked if I could take a
message. Then, feeling the recipient of the lilac must rank as important, I added, ‘or I could go down and find her for you?’

After a second’s silence the voice said, ‘Oh, just give her a message. Ask her to let Mr Crossway know I’m expecting him for supper tonight. Did you get my name? Lady Warden.’

She had only just rung off when Miss Lester returned. I reported the whole conversation. She looked puzzled and said she’d chosen no lilac.

‘Someone called Tom did,’ I informed her and told what I had heard in the stalls that morning.

‘You do take things in, don’t you?’ she said amusedly. ‘Well, I must let Mr Crossway know about supper but I can’t go round yet; my trunk call may come through any minute now.’

‘Can’t you telephone Mr Crossway in an interval?’

She said he refused to have a telephone in his
dressing-room
and objected to taking calls at the stage door. ‘You’d better go round for me.’ She scribbled a note and put it in an envelope. ‘Take this to his dressing-room and wait for him; he’ll soon be off-stage for nearly ten minutes. Just explain that I sent you. And, er, don’t mention that you took the telephone call or know what’s in the note.’

She gave no reason for this and I needed none. Lilian’s views on Mr Crossway, the ominous word ‘supper’, and the sophistication of the play I had just been watching, all combined to make me think the worst – and I enjoyed thinking it; this was life in the London theatre world. Also, it did something for Mr Crossway. Who was I to find him unglamorous if Lady Warden didn’t?

I went to get my cloak.

‘And take your umbrella,’ said Miss Lester.

But I had not brought my umbrella. It had, that morning, provoked more comment than I cared for.

The rain was heavier than ever. I asked if I couldn’t go through the pass door instead of out to the stage door. Miss Lester said that would be all right if I tiptoed through the wings – ‘And be sure to lock the door after you.’ She gave me the key.

‘Will Brice Marton be in the prompt corner?’

‘No, Tom – he’s the assistant stage manager – will be on the book. Brice will be on the other side of the stage, coping with some off-stage noises; I shouldn’t think you’ll see him. Hurry up. Mr Crossway will be coming off in a few minutes.’

When I got down to the back of the dress circle I allowed myself a glance at the second act of the play. The young actress now appeared to be making good headway with Mr Crossway; she’d got her arms round his neck. I was sorry to see him detach himself. Tearing myself away I hurried down to the stalls and the pass door. I unlocked it, went through, locked it behind me and went up the steps. From the top I could see into the prompt corner, where Tom stood in readiness to prompt. (‘On the book’ – I had stored up that phrase.) There was no one else to be seen and I was instantly conscious of an almost undescribable atmosphere. It was something like that of a cathedral when one wanders around while a service is taking place at the far end. But here in the wings I should have felt it blasphemous to wander around. The very air seemed quietly attentive, as if fully aware that everything
here must be utterly subservient to what was happening in front of the audience.

I heard Mr Crossway addressing the young actress. ‘And now, my dear child, I shall beat a hasty retreat, still in good – well, fairly good – order.’ I took this to be his exit line so I made a dash for the door which led from the stage.

His dressing-room was so close that I found it at once. His dresser was standing by the open door. I had just started to explain what I’d come for when Mr Crossway arrived.

He gave one look at me and exclaimed, ‘“Lady Teazle, by all that’s wonderful!”’

I told him I was glad he hadn’t quoted, “Lady Teazle, by all that’s damnable!” He laughed and said that would have been most ungallant, and that he’d been delighted to hear I was joining Miss Lester. ‘Don’t let her overwork you, as she does herself. Has she sent you with some message?’

I handed the note and he asked me to wait in case it needed an answer; then read it, looked pleased and said, ‘Tell her I shan’t be coming up to the office after the show tonight. But don’t run away yet. Sit down and talk to me – and rather less fast than you did this morning. I couldn’t take everything in.’

I doubt if I slowed up much; I was too eager to tell him my entire past history and all my ambitions for the future. Again and again he smiled or laughed outright at what I said, and though I was talking with the utmost seriousness I couldn’t feel offended, because it was so obvious that he liked me. I liked him, too, and I decided that he had a
particularly charming smile, and that he looked rather younger than I had thought. Suddenly he said, ‘What are you staring at? Is my toupee adrift?’

I stared harder. ‘Is it a toupee?’

‘It is indeed. But only my number one. You should see me in my number two – it brings my hair line so low that I look positively simian.’ He turned to the glass. ‘No, it seems to be all right.’

I said, ‘How fascinating everything to do with make-up is! And greasepaint has such a lovely smell. Could I sniff a bit, just to keep me going?’

He handed me a stick and said what a happy life I must have lived with my dear aunt, to be so blessedly un-shy. This had the effect of making me
feel
shy – I had never before considered the subject of shyness. But the moment passed and I was soon eagerly asking what I could understudy in the next play. He looked dubious, then said there was a maid’s part – ‘Though parlour maids need to be tall. Oh, well, we must manage something.’

Then the call boy tapped on the open door. Mr Crossway, giving me a last smile, said, ‘Good night, my child,’ and returned to the stage.

I waited a few minutes to let him make his entrance before I went back through the wings, so that I could listen to him then. I was extremely happy. Already I as good as had an understudy, though I wasn’t going to be content with understudying a maid; I would end by understudying the part I had fancied in the morning. And Mr Crossway was very, very nice. It scarcely mattered that he wasn’t romantic. (That toupee had been a bit of a shock, though.)

When at last I began my return journey I found the
wings much darker than they had been before. A dimly lit scene must be in progress – yes, there was a lamp flooding moonlight through a window. Quietly I moved in the direction of the pass door. Mr Crossway, now back on stage, was again resisting the young actress. I heard him say: ‘You naughty girl! How could I know you’d be waiting for me here?’ Then there was a tap on a door and the leading lady’s voice said: ‘Who’s in there? Why is this door locked?’ Mr Crossway whispered: ‘Keep dead quiet!’ And at that perfectly chosen moment I tripped painfully over something hard and fell forward onto the lamp that was flooding the stage with moonlight. There was a very loud crash, and the moon went out.

I had barely picked myself up before Tom reached me from the prompt corner. Then Brice Marton came racing round from the far side of the stage. He positively dragged me to the iron door leading to the passage, flung me through, told me to wait, and then went back to the wings – presumably to see what could be done about the moon.

I waited in a state of dazed fury, with myself more than with Brice Marton. The minute he returned I said, ‘I’m terribly, terribly sorry.’

‘What the hell were you doing there? How did you get past the stage door keeper?’

I realised he did not know I was working in the office so I explained. He barely heard me out before saying, ‘Well, you can go back to Miss Lester and tell her – No, I’ll tell her myself. Now get out.’

I stopped feeling apologetic and said furiously, ‘Anyway, you’ve no right to have obstructions in the wings. What was that iron bar doing there?’

‘It was a brace holding up the scenery, though God knows it’ll take more than iron bars to do that if you’re around. Now I’ve told you: get out!’

I said I should be only too happy to. ‘But you’ll have to unlock the pass door for me. I dropped Miss Lester’s key when I fell.’

‘You’re not going through the pass door.’

He grabbed my arm and hurried me up the stairs to the stage door. As we reached it I freed myself from his grasp and said, ‘But it’s pouring. I shall get wet.’

‘I don’t care if you drown,’ said Brice Marton, and went back into the theatre.

I made a dash for it, keeping close to the wall, and didn’t get too badly soaked. The minute I was back with Miss Lester I burst into my story, finishing by asking if we could look through the spy-hole and see what had happened about the moon.

She said we should be too late. ‘That moonlit scene only lasts a few minutes, even without your intervention. I’m entirely to blame, of course. There’s a sort of unwritten law that one doesn’t use the pass door during a performance, and though Brice doesn’t mind when I do it I oughtn’t to have sent you. He was quite justified in being angry.’

‘But not in being so rude, surely? And he was so rough.’

‘He has a violent temper. Well, I must patch things up between you. Not that you’ll see much of him – unless you understudy; he rehearses the understudies.’

‘How ghastly for them. And I
am
going to understudy. I’ve just asked Mr Crossway.’

She looked amused. ‘Not bashful, are you?’

A sudden fear came to me. ‘Oh, goodness, will Mr Crossway be angry about my accident?’

‘Not with you. An accident’s an accident. He might be annoyed with me, for sending you; but he’s never annoyed with anyone for very long. What’s the matter?’ She had noticed I was rubbing one of my ankles. ‘Did you twist it when you fell?’

‘Only bruised it a bit. It’s not at all bad.’

‘Still, you must have been jarred. It was a horrid thing to happen on your first night here. I’m going to send you home in a taxi – you can charge it to petty cash as you got injured in the line of duty.’ She rang up for a taxi, then said I must have coffee while I waited. A percolator was bubbling on a gas-ring.