“We’re going to Exeter Hall,” he would announce, and whether this place really existed or he had invented it she never discovered. But, anyhow, at Exeter Hall it seemed people gathered in order to sing hymns and say prayers with a dreadful person presiding who, without warning, would single out some luckless member of the audience (or congregation) and ask them questions out of scripture.
“He’s sure to ask you, Phyllis, so mind you’re well up in Bible history or he’ll be annoyed. Then when question time is over there’ll be more prayers and hymn singing. Very pleasant and elevating. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”
Phyllis’s face would grow longer and longer till her mother took pity on her. “It’s all right, darling. We’re going to Drury Lane to see Dan Leno in ‘Mother Goose.’”
Sometimes there was hoaxing of a different kind. A disreputable-looking hawker who arrived with some live ducks for sale, and sold Sir Thomas a pair of his own pintail, turned out to be Mr. Blunt. Another time he was an American come to England to study country house life, talking about ‘vaises’ meaning vases, and ‘closets’ meaning cupboards, saying ‘pleased to meet you, Marquis’ to Lord Belgrave, who happened to be staying; and the show was only given away by Sir Thomas (who, of course was in the know) guffawing with laughter when the American said: “Ah’m tauld there’s nuthin in this harse later than Stephen.”
When the last name had been read out, the last joint tied up and the shepherd’s apron was no longer immaculate, the family left the kitchen to return upstairs, repassing as they did so the double rank of figures still lining the long passage, who, as they scurried past, gave them as a final valediction three loud and ringing cheers.
“That,” said Sir Thomas to Lord Belgrave as they mounted the pantry stairs, “is the most artificial part of the whole proceedings.”
Phyllis wished her father would not say things like that even if he believed them, which she doubted. Wasn’t it only natural that they should feel sufficient good will towards a kind employer to wish to cheer him and his family on Christmas Eve? But it was all part of the strange inhibition from which he suffered, which also prevented him from uttering a single word of endearment to any of his family, though his love was plainly visible for all to see.
It was the same with his home.
Sometimes in the summer acquaintances visiting a neighbouring spa would risk the breakdown of their none too reliable motor cars on the steep hills to see this place famed for its exceptional and haunting beauty. Brought into being, guarded, embellished, tended and cherished for centuries solely by one otherwise rather humdrum family, it constituted their chief claim to distinction, and in creating and preserving it they might be said to have justified their existence. Eagerly the visitors followed Lady Vayne on a tour of the house, listening to her account of its history whilst she displayed everything with loving pride. And in the background Sir Thomas would be doing his best to discount everything his wife said. Of the wood carvings in the saloon, after she had drawn attention to the various enchanting motifs—the lace handkerchief, the musical instruments, the delicate bird’s claws, the artist’s palette and brushes, he would say: “Obviously the work of Gibbons’s pupils.” Of the panelling in the Long Gallery: “You see, this is only sham oak, not the real thing.” Of the state bed in which James II had slept when Duke of York: “Almost every house of this sort has something of the kind, and anyhow it’s been spoilt by the curtains being relined.” Or, if it was not the house, it was the climate, or the pollution of the atmosphere from the nearby industrial town, or the stunted growth of the trees on the Cage hill, which at such an altitude could hardly be expected to soar luxuriantly, till his children could willingly have turned and rent him. Phyllis felt instinctively it was due to a kind of perverse pride: “I love my home and am proud of it, but no one shall ever hear me say so,” was her best guess as to what he must really feel.
They had no sooner regained the first floor than the sound of the dressing-gong booming through the house gave the signal for the grown-ups to disperse to their rooms and for the little girls, including Hilda, to say goodnight. It was characteristic of the times that Hilda, only about a year younger than Piers, was still condemned to schoolroom supper whilst he, because of his superior sex, had for several years now eaten all his meals in the dining-room.
Phyllis and Alethea accompanied Aunt Lucy to her room, which was off the central stretch of the first floor corridor. Here it broadened into a gallery along which stood marquetry, lacquer and walnut cabinets and high-backed chairs; and on the walls were family portraits and pictures of the house in its first youth.
Every window embrasure held pots of flowers. The windows themselves were curtainless but covered by blinds hanging in fringed festoons, every one of which had been made by Mrs. Campbell with the help of her machine and the spinster sister of one of the gardeners. Each blind had to be sewn with about a gross of brass rings through which the tapes were passed which held the material in its gathered loops, and poor Mrs. Campbell often bewailed the wearisome work which she nevertheless accomplished so faithfully and well.
The Tudor window in the gatehouse
Drawing aside one of these blinds, Phyllis looked out into the dark courtyard. The window in the gate-house, with its small, diamond-shaped panes which looked on to the inner court and behind which John, the hall-porter, slept, was lit and showed a white, even expanse of newly fallen snow completely covering the flags of the courtyard.
That was as it should be—a white Christmas. When the curtain went up at the given moment it would be on the perfect Christmas scene. Phyllis knew the exact moment when the curtain would rise—not when she first woke in the morning and felt for the bulges in the stocking at the foot of her bed. It was a little later when the strains of ‘Christians, awake’ sung by the carol singers in the courtyard below penetrated to her bedroom.
The reception of these carol singers was the only part of the Christmas festivities which seemed to be not quite perfect. They were not the ordinary waits out to receive alms, but members of the unusually well-trained choir from the village church, whose organist and choir-master happened to be a skilled musician. In the still air of early morning from the enclosed courtyard their voices soared sweet and true and clear:
The praises of redeeming love they sang,
And Heaven’s whole orb with Alleluias rang.
Yet, strangely enough, no one seemed to appreciate their performance nor the fact that they had climbed the two miles of continuously rising ground from the park gates in the frost and snow of winter to sing to the occupants of the great house. What was more, having sung, they would then have to tramp back again.
Phyllis felt rather ashamed that up till now she had never bothered to find out when or where they were given refreshment. It was not after their singing, for she had seen them walking away from the seemingly still sleeping house. No doubt Truelove gave them breakfast on arrival: some of them were friends of his—Mr. Swan the schoolmaster and Miss Bennet from the post office—and some would be coming as guests to the Servants’ Ball on New Year’s Eve, which formed the climax of the Christmas festivities. But it was rather strange, she now thought for the first time, she could not recall either of her parents ever mentioning them. For they were the overture to the Christmas drama!
She might, if she had been older, have remembered it is the fate of most overtures to be disregarded.
Alethea wanted to stay with her mother whilst she dressed for dinner, but Aunt Lucy would not allow this.
“You’ve had a long journey and you must get to bed early,” she said. “Besides, it’s time for your supper, and mind, you two, you’re not to wake up in the middle of the night and start looking at your stockings.” She was sitting in an armchair by the fire, taking off her boots, and after saying this she suddenly threw herself back in her chair, waved her legs in the air and cried: “Hurrah! Christmas Day to-morrow.”
Aunt Lucy, like her brother William, sometimes gave expr
ession to feelings of joy in very childlike ways, a characteristic which Phyllis’s mother also shared and which not even the powerful brake of Vayne reserve could altogether curb. Alethea echoed her mother’s exuberance, but the equally if not more joyous-hearted Phyllis only smiled indulgently. No one knew better than she how one felt on Christmas Eve, but the Vaynes were strange people. They might display anger but not joy—their joy, it seemed, was too intimate a thing to be shown to anyone—only, perhaps, to God.
They said goodnight and proceeded to disregard the instructions of mother and aunt to go straight to supper and then to bed by going instead to the Long Gallery.
“Fräulein won’t mind our being a bit late to-night,” said Phyllis, and led Alethea up another side staircase to the top corridor, this time along the front of the house, so that they entered the gallery by the door at the opposite end to the stage.
The room was now in complete darkness, but Phyllis groped for the switch by the door and the great length of the gallery leapt into view.
The Christmas tree was fully decorated, and they stopped first to inspect this before strolling on to the stage. It was not forbidden to look at the tree before Christmas Day, but no one might go into that part of the gallery behind the stage where all the presents were laid out on the billiard table.
Truelove had as usual made a thoroughly good job of the tree. The shape was now perfect, thanks to the additional branches, which no one, without being told, could possibly have detected. There were rainbow-coloured, iridescent glass balls hanging singly and in garlands, showers of sparkling tinsel, spun glass humming birds, bells and stars, trumpets and violins, small toy crocodiles and golliwogs, a figure of Father Christmas on the topmost branch and, of course, innumerable candles.
Having examined the tree at length, they turned their attention to the stage. Phyllis switched on the footlights and the woodland scene was revealed in all its glory.
When they started rehearsals on Boxing Day, it would be under difficulties. On this day the pheasants were shot for the second time and neither the men nor the boys would be at rehearsal. They would all be home for lunch though, and all told one hundred persons would sit down to their mid-day meal at Vyne.
For the first rehearsal, therefore, Mr. Blunt, who did not shoot, would have only the ladies and little girls at his disposal.
Phyllis did not always enjoy rehearsals. She had no difficulty in memorising her part; what was so difficult was the playing of it. She sometimes wondered why success had seemed to come so easily, almost effortlessly, a year or two ago—no one had yet enlightened her and she was too young to find the answer for herself. The answer, of course, was to be found in that all too common failing—that terrible selfconsciousness growing with the years which must inevitably be destructive of all natural grace. A little older, the player might acquire enough artifice to conceal it—a little younger, there was nothing to conceal.
Quite rightly Mr. Blunt was not easily satisfied. Sometimes, but not often, he would say, “Charming, Babbles, charming” (he called her this, her mother’s name for her, when he was pleased), but more often he would cover his face with his hands and groan.
Singing, too, was an ordeal, and the highest praise she had won was from her father, who had said: “Phyllis can always sing in tune.”
Alethea, on the other hand, was not only a born actress but possessed a charming little singing voice which had already received some training. It hardly seemed fair, thought Phyllis a little ruefully, though not resentfully, that in addition to her looks Alethea should be so talented.
Hilda generally played a character part, and this year she was to double the roles of gipsy soothsayer and a maid in the highwayman piece which followed. Mr. Blunt took the part of Phyllis’s wicked guardian. He was really an ideal producer, giving the closest attention to detail. In last year’s production Harry had to call attention to some distant sound off-stage by saying “Hark!”
“You can’t say that, it’s too much like ‘Bark,’” objected Mr. Blunt.
“Hush, then,” suggested Harry.
“No, that’s like ghost.”
“Listen” was at last agreed upon.
Somebody else had to lie down on a sofa and go to sleep.
“What are the soles of your shoes like?” he asked. “You can’t put up a great pair of white soles.”
The children were always being exhorted to bear in mind that their voices had to carry the whole length of the room. “Speak up! Speak up and don’t say your lines to the backcloth,” was Mr. Blunt’s continual cry.
In spite of everything, though, rehearsing was rather fun, perhaps for the very reason that the best was expected from everyone.
Behind the stage the gallery broadened out considerably and was used as a Green Room, all the stage properties being laid out on the billiard table. Mr. Blunt made everybody up in his bedroom, which was close at hand, the end room of the bachelors’ passage which ran parallel with the Long Gallery and looked on to the inner courtyard. It was fun watching him do it.
“Give me beetling eyebrows,” said Piers when he was being made up as the poor but honest peasant. “I want beetling eyebrows like yours.”
Oh, the delicious, thrilling smell of greasepaint and rouge and all that they stood for! Waiting on the set but darkened stage, dressed in fascinating transforming garments, peeping through a slit in the lowered curtain at the rows of faces in the audience, seeing a like transformation in all one’s familiar companions, Richard a cavalier with a large curly hat. Mama in a towering white wig and hooped skirts, Hilda a witch in a sugar-loaf hat, and Mr. Blunt a villainous highwayman in a mask!
Three evenings were devoted to the theatricals. The first, the dress rehearsal, which everybody in the house attended, usually went off without a hitch. On the second the élite of the county and magnates from the industrial town came with their families, a small charge being made for admission, the proceeds going to the local infirmary. The final performance was attended by the tenants, workpeople and villagers. Truelove acted as prompter, but it was rare for anyone to require his services—except, oddly enough, Mr. Blunt.
It might here be questioned whether even at the start of the century people were willing to put up with this kind of thing even at Christmas and in a play performed chiefly by children. But they were. A very small section of the audience might not be altogether sorry when the entertainment drew to its triumphant close, but they remained a tiny minority; and when it is remembered that at two out of three of the performances there were always some members of the audience who could neither read nor write, that there was no competition from cinemas or wireless, that the nearest professional entertainment was fifteen miles distant and that most people were still dependent on horse-drawn vehicles and bicycles, the undoubted success of the Vyne theatricals seems less surprising.
After walking about on the stage for some time admiring the woodland scene and exchanging opinions about their parts, Phyllis and Alethea finally left the gallery by the door giving on to the grand staircase.
Here they met Mr. Blunt coming up very late to dress for dinner. “If you don’t all know your parts perfectly by Boxing Day I’ll kiss the lot of you,” he said threateningly as he passed them.
“Oh, we can’t risk that, we’ll know them all right,” Alethea called after him, and Phyllis wondered admiringly how she had learnt to say things like that already.
Once through the door at the head of the stairs, the appearance of the corridor changed considerably, drugget instead of Persian runners on the floor, only the throw-outs of the pictures on the plain, unwainscoted walls, and plain calico blinds at the windows.
In the schoolroom Fräulein and Hilda were waiting with supper on the table and Hilda was inclined to be a little resentful.
“Where have you been, Phyllis? I know Aunt Lucy wanted Alethea to go to bed early to-night, and we’ve been waiting ages for you!”
Alethea was gentle and placating, Phyllis less so. Fräule
in, still indulgently forbearing, led them to the table and called on Phyllis to say grace.
Mike was not present, but Lady, the big mastiff, lay in her usual place in front of the fire. She was the last of her breed, the famous breed of Vyne mastiffs, of which there was documentary proof that a pair had been sent along with other gifts by James I to the King of Spain. A copy of Velasquez’s picture “Las Meninas” hung on the grand staircase, and certainly the dog in the picture bore a great resemblance to Lady and might well have been a descendant of the famous pair. People said what a pity it was to let the breed die out, but Sir Thomas was too great a lover of dogs to keep a pack of useless animals fretting their hearts out behind bars and only let out for exercise; for even at Vyne one huge dog in the house was enough: and so Lady was the last of her breed.
Lady
The children were rather silent at supper, Alethea a little weary, Hilda and Phyllis thinking of to-morrow night when they would not be sitting up here with Fräulein but dressed in their best, forming part of the festive gathering downstairs.
A Country House Christmas Page 5