Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  It was not the first time that Mrs. Harter had come to a rehearsal — it might have been the second, or at most the third.

  Bill took her straight up to Mary Ambrey, after she had received Claire’s very brief greeting, and had bowed stiffly in reply to mine.

  “Will you come into the green-room, Mrs. Harter? They’re all getting ready.”

  “I’m sorry we’re so late,” said Bill. “It was my fault, I started late to fetch her. I’ll just see the curtain go up, and then cut off and get into my things. I don’t come on till the middle of the scene.”

  He marched off to the piano, where Nancy sat already.

  I heard her say “Shall I begin the overture?” and Patch answer “Give her ten minutes to get changed. She says it won’t take her longer than that.”

  Mrs. Harter, of course, had to be on the stage before anybody else, in order to sing “The Bul-bul Ameer.”

  Bill and Christopher fussed about with the lights, and tested the curtain, and found that it had stuck, as curtains invariably do stick at all amateur theatricals, and Alfred Kendal said why not have put it up properly in the first place, and finally a step-ladder was produced and Patch went up it and dealt adequately with the curtain. It all took time, and created the right atmosphere of artistic crisis and masterly presence of mind, and I hope that nobody except myself heard my neighbour, old Carey, asking what the devil they were all mucking about like that for.

  When the curtain did go up, officially, as Lady Annabel Bending might have said, the small stage showed a painted background of palm trees and blue sea, and Mrs. Harter standing in front of it, in her Eastern dress.

  The straight lines of the long veil over her head, and the circlet of coins across her forehead, suited her very well, although the swarthiness of her colouring became almost startlingly evident. Her bare arms were hung with bracelets, and she wore long drop earrings, and a girdle of coloured stones. The dress, Claire was at pains to assure us quietly, was entirely incorrect from the point of view of any known nationality — but it was very effective, all the same.

  Sallie, in almost similar clothes, and Amy Kendal, had had their faces stained with some brown pigment or other, and their brows darkened, but Mary told me that Mrs. Harter had needed scarcely any make-up at all.

  She made no attempt at acting, but simply sang the ridiculous, mock-pathetic song on which Bill and Nancy had based their play, right through from beginning to end.

  I had forgotten how very good her voice was. At least, I supposed that I had. Since the day of the dress-rehearsal, I have sometimes wondered whether something new had come into it that had not been there when she had sung “The Bluebells of Scotland” at the concert.

  Mrs. Harter looked straight in front of her whilst she was singing, her hands behind her back. The silence in the room had a very peculiar character: it was strangely intent.

  Even old Carey was perfectly motionless, and he, like everybody else, was looking at the woman on the stage.

  It was with a perfectly conscious effort that I turned my eyes away from Mrs. Harter, and looked across to where Captain Patch stood.

  Bill was leaning against the wall, his back half turned to the stage, both hands thrust into his pockets. He seemed to be looking fixedly down at the floor, and he never once raised his eyes, or turned round, while the strong sound of Mrs. Harter’s singing vibrated in the room.

  There are six verses to the absurd song, and the air is repeated again and again. For days afterwards we all of us hummed it and sang it at intervals, and execrated it for the persistent way in which it haunted us.

  I can remember every note of it, and no doubt everybody else can too, for everybody, now, avoids humming or singing it. Even the least impressionable people are susceptible to the powers of association that lie in sound, and the “Bul-bul Ameer” song belongs eternally, so far as Cross Loman is concerned, to the affair of Mrs. Harter and Captain Patch.

  Mrs. Fazackerly played the final verse slowly, and then rattled off the refrain for the last time with a swing —

  “But of all the most reckless of life and of limb, Was Abdul the Bul-bul Ameer —

  Was Abdul, the Bul-bul Ameer.”

  Nancy’s small strong hands crashed out a couple of chords with astonishing sureness and emphasis.

  It was a dress-rehearsal, and Bill Patch and I were the only people in the room who were entitled to speak, just then. I waited for him, but he only gave me a quick glance, and a nod. So I said: “That’s splendid, Mrs. Harter, thank you very much. Will you go off left, please? Now then, for the first scene.”

  She left the stage and came round to the front. Then Captain Patch left the wall, and walked across the room and went and sat down beside her.

  XI

  WHEN the day preceding that of the show arrived, we had all reached the stage of believing, with entire conviction, that nothing else in the world mattered but a successful performance. It is this temporary but complete absence of a sense of proportion that puts life into almost any undertaking, but more especially into one about which a number of people are engaged.

  On the morning of that day Bill tried to hold a final rehearsal, at which half of the performers failed to appear because they were frantically and irrationally mislaying vital pieces of property in different parts of the house, or dashing off in search of substitutes for other equally vital pieces of property, alleged by them to have been mislaid by other members of the caste.

  “If Alfred Kendal isn’t taken through his bit of dialogue at least half a dozen times more, he’ll ruin the whole thing,” said Patch, looking perfectly distraught. “In fact, he’ll probably do that anyhow. For Heaven’s sake, someone hear him his words.”

  “I will,” said Nancy. “Where is Alfred?”

  She snatched up a housemaid’s tray that had been loaded with empty vases for which Claire, her hands full of flowers, had been vainly inquiring a few moments earlier. “I’ll take this. Where is Alfred?”

  “Always remember, when you’re carrying a loaded tray,” said General Kendal, “to put the heavy articles in the middle of the tray and not at the sides.”

  “Oh yes, thank you.”

  “Let me show you—”

  “I’ll leave Alfred to you,” said Bill Patch, earnestly, “and if you can get him to say height and not heighth in the last scene, it’ll make all the difference.”

  “I’ll try, but you know — Oh, General Kendal, thank you very much — yes, I do quite see. Only I think Lady Flower is in a hurry—”

  “Are you looking for Alfred?” said Sallie, dashing past. “He’s trying on his beard in the dining-room. Cousin Claire is looking everywhere for those drawing-room vases.”

  “I know. Thank you so much, Sallie.”

  “This fellow is the heaviest, I should say — put him in the middle. Then these little light bits of glass—”

  “Oh thank you, thank you!”

  “Wait a minute — that isn’t quite right yet. It always saves time in the long run,” said the General impressively, “to do things in the right way.”

  “Yes, indeed. Shall I take it now? I know Lady Flower is in a hurry.”

  “Did someone say Alfred was wanted?” Dolly inquired, also hurrying, and also with her arms full “Because I heard him say something about going off on his bicycle to fetch...” she vanished through the door, and we only heard faintly the words... “seems to have been forgotten.”

  “Oh, stop him!” cried Nancy. “Do go and stop Alfred, somebody. Wait! I’ll go myself.”

  “Do you want Ahlfred?” said Mrs. Kendal. “Because if so, he is on the stage. If you want Ahlfred for anything, I can go and find him for you.”

  “I thought you wanted to take these vase affairs to Lady Flower,” the General said rather reproachfully to Mrs. Fazackerly. “If you want Alfred, I can fetch him for you.”

  “Oh, thank you,” said Nancy, quite wildly, and she rushed away with the tray of vases, and Mrs. Kendal went away too, an
d presently reappeared with Alfred, and then, as Nancy was no longer to be seen, let him go again, whereupon Nancy came in again by another door and immediately said— “But where’s Alfred?”

  That sort of thing went on all day long, and running all through my recollection of the whole chaotic business is a sort of intermittent’ duet between Nancy Fazackerly and Alfred Kendal, when at last they found themselves on the same spot, at the same moment, and she was hearing him his part. “Your cue is— ‘colour of the sea.’”

  “Yes, yes. Just give me my cue, will you?”

  “— ‘colour of the sea.’”

  “Yes. Colour of the sea. Now, what do I say? Funny thing, it’s on the very tip of my tongue.

  Don’t tell me—”

  “Colour of—”

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “I was only going to give you your cue again.

  ‘Colour of the sea’—”

  “‘What man can measure the heighth of the mountains? They are—”

  “Didn’t Captain Patch suggest that it really makes the lines run better to say height?”

  “I said height.”

  “Oh, did you? I’m so sorry. How stupid of me. Let’s start again... ‘colour of the sea.’”

  “‘What man can measure the heighth of the mountains?..

  Bill passed them once or twice and each time he heard Alfred, he groaned. By and by Martyn Ambrey, as though he had been the first person to think of it, came up to me and said —

  “You know, this sort of thing really won’t do. If this show is to be any good at all, we ought to pull ourselves together and have a proper rehearsal.”

  “The heighth of the mountains” came faintly from the far corner of the hall.

  “If you will collect everyone, and bring them here, I’ll keep them together and send for Patch, and we’ll go through the whole thing,” I said.

  “Right you are. I’ll ring the gong and they’ll think it’s lunch. That’ll bring them.”

  “The young are so cynical, nowadays,” I heard Sallie murmur.

  “Why not be content with the spirit of the thing, supposing the actual letter fails me?” Alfred Kendal suggested in the distance. “As a matter of fact, there’s always a certain amount of gag expected at a show of this kind.”

  “I’m sure you’ll get it in a minute,” said Nancy, with her usual kindly, if unfounded, optimism. “Let’s just run through it again... ‘colour of the sea.’”

  They crawled through it again.

  Martyn’s performance on the gong actually did bring most people into the hall, and I then announced that a final rehearsal was to take place at once, and everybody said that it was utterly impossible, and adduced important reasons why they should be somewhere else, doing something quite different.

  “Very well, then we’ll call a general rehearsal immediately after lunch. Three o’clock sharp. Does that suit everybody?”

  Almost everybody assented, presumably because they were relieved at having the thing postponed for an hour or two.

  “What about Mrs. Harter?” Martyn suddenly inquired.

  She was not present.

  “If it’s to be the last rehearsal we ought to do the thing properly and have her song at the beginning and at the end.”

  “I can send her down a note,” said Claire.

  “I’ll fetch her on my motor-bike,” young Martyn volunteered.

  He is not always so ready to put himself out on behalf of other people.

  “Does Martyn admire Mrs. Harter?” I had the curiosity to ask his sister, later.

  “It’s mostly that he’s so frightfully interested. The whole psychological situation, you know,” Sallie explained. “I think it’s interesting too, but I don’t agree with him altogether that it’s her personality that makes it so. Bill, in his own way, is quite as well worth watching as she is.”

  “You talk as though it were a cinematograph film, being shown for your express benefit.”

  “That’s rather a good simile,” said Sallie condescendingly.

  “My dear child, bar joking, I wish you’d tell me something. These two people, I quite agree with you, are out of the ordinary. Are you wholly and solely curious, and analytical, and interested — or do you ever feel sorry for them?”

  I really wanted to know, and Sallie saw that. “Honestly, I don’t think I really feel sorry for them, because if the whole thing came to an end tomorrow, say, she went back to her husband, and he started an affair with somebody else — I should be ‘disappointed, in a way. I don’t want it all to peter out in some trivial way. I want to have something worth watching.”

  “Quite impersonally?”

  “Of course,” said Sallie.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” suddenly said Claire behind me. Neither of us had seen her. “A child of your age has neither the experience nor the understanding to discuss that sort of problem.” From being natural, if patronising, Sallie instantly became stiffly arrogant.

  “I’ve already been training for some time, with a view to making that, or any other, sort of problem affecting human beings, my work in life.”

  “Even a little medical student of two years’ standing, doesn’t know everything, darling.”

  Claire saw herself as being gently and subtly satirical as she said this, and I saw her as being more or less unconsciously jealous of Sallie’s youth and her cleverness, and her opportunities — and above all resentful of her self-confidence. But Sallie, I suppose, only saw her as being stupidly “superior” and aggressive.

  “I’ll explain the difference between the medical side and the psycho-analytical side some other time, cousin Claire,” she said, smiling. “I’m afraid I haven’t got time now.”

  Of course she knew as well as I did that nothing is less endurable to Claire than the suggestion that she stands in need of having any subject under the sun explained to her.

  Sallie walked off, cool and triumphant, and Claire turned white with anger.

  She has often said — and it is perfectly true — that she would share her last penny with Mary’s children did they stand in need of it. But she cannot allow them to assert themselves.

  Claire was not enjoying the theatricals. Bill Patch had diffidently offered her a part, and she had, wisely enough, refused it. But I think she regretted, all the time, not holding the centre of the stage, especially when she found that it was Sallie who quite naturally took that place. Nancy Fazackerly might be one of the authors of the piece, and get all the credit of the musical part of it, but she was neither as pretty, as young, as clever, nor as self-assertive as Sallie. Nancy is always ready to let somebody else take the lead, and moreover, in those days, she seemed to be living in a dream.

  Christopher was very devoted to her, and they looked happy. It was understood that their engagement would not be announced until Mrs. Fazackerly judged her father’s mood to be a propitious one. Knowing Nancy’s weakness, and her parent’s force of character, one was inclined to look upon the case as being adjourned sine die, or at least until old Carey should be translated into another sphere from this.

  The strain on Claire was a considerable one, and of course she did nothing whatever to lessen it, but rather lay awake at nights and wept, and by day forced upon the unwilling and inadequate Christopher emotional appeals and impulsive generosities. Nancy had been so much absorbed by the theatricals that she had, with her usual tact, avoided Claire altogether, without blatantly appearing to do so.

  Now, of course, we were every one of us utterly obsessed by the theatricals. They seemed to have become the one supreme reality in life.

  Before three o’clock the performers were assembled round the stage, and most of them were saying —

  “Where’s Mrs. Harter?”

  “She isn’t here yet, is she?” said Mrs. Kendal, looking round with an inquiring expression. And presently she added as though struck by an afterthought: “Mrs. Harter is late, isn’t she?”

  “Ma
rtyn went for her on his motor-bike.”

  “They’ll probably be brought in on two stretchers directly,” Sallie said cheerfully. “Meanwhile, couldn’t we get on without them?”

  Of course they could, and did. Bill Patch stuck to his post, and never took his eyes off his company until the cue was spoken for Martyn’s first entrance. Then there was a pause, and Mrs. Fazackerly said— “Oh dear, haven’t they come yet?”

  Bill shook his head. Evidently, although he hadn’t turned round, he would have known it if they had come.

  Mary, who was prompting, began to read her son’s part, but before she had spoken two sentences he came in.

  He was by himself.

  It was one of the Kendals, needless to say, although I cannot remember which one, who asked: “Hasn’t Mrs. Harter come?”

  “She can’t get here this afternoon. Apologies, and all-that. Look here, Patch, can I carry on without changing?”

  “Of course,” said Bill. “Fire away.”

  They got through it fairly well. Alfred forgot his words several times, and said “Don’t tell me,” with great emphasis, when Mary tried to prompt him, and Mumma called out from her place amongst the spectators; “Now, Ahlfred, don’t get fussed.

  Don’t let yourself get fussed, dear.” The only sentence that he seemed to have no difficulty at all in remembering was the one in which he referred to the heighth of the mountains. The others acquitted themselves reasonably well, and Sallie, who has never known the meaning of nervousness, was brilliant as the Muscovite maiden.

  “Those boots of mine look uncommonly well, on the stage,” said General Kendal at the end of it all.

  And the only comment that I heard from either of his daughters was, that we must try and remember it would be all the same a hundred years hence.

  Whether or not Bill Patch was encouraged by these observations, he made no reply to them, but gave his attention to Mrs. Fazackerly and a doubtful point in the music.

  Martyn Ambrey came up to me.

  “Do you know what’s happened?”