The Swish of the Curtain (Blue Door Book 1)

by Pamela Brown

  “Now you can cross off anything to do with cleaning that you have on your lists. Next, please. Which of the twins is the younger?”

  “Bulldog. Half an hour.”

  Bulldog read his list.

  “Number one – plant marigolds in the garden. Number two – put up stage curtains. Number three – paint door. Cost – nothing.”

  “Good list. Now, about the first. We presume that you mean to do up the back-yard?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can we leave that to you? And what will it cost?”

  “Nothing. I can get some seeds and plants from home. And the path to the back gate must be scrubbed.”

  “About the curtains,” went on Nigel, “I should think we boys could manage that if the girls sewed on curtain rings and things. But what about the paint for the door?”

  “There’s some blue paint in our shed,” said Jeremy.

  “Fine. The door was blue originally. Well, that won’t cost anything. We can put those down on the final list. Yours, Vick?”

  “Number one – whiten the front steps. No cost. Number two – wait for a wet day and see if the roof leaks. Number three – mend all broken chairs and possibly paint them.”

  “Good idea,” applauded Nigel. “I’ll put down about whitening the steps. We can do that ourselves; and, Jeremy, is there enough blue paint to do the back fence and gate too?”

  “Yes, and the roof as well. It would look rather good.”

  “We’ll have to wait for a wet day to see about leaks; and couldn’t we paint the chairs and benches blue too?”

  “Rather gaudy!” Sandra objected.

  “Gayer the better. Let’s vote on it.”

  Sandra was the only one against it.

  “Sorry, old girl. Lyn, you next.”

  “One – re-creosote the exterior walls. Two – scrub the interior walls. Three – divide this room into two with a curtain, for dressing-rooms. Four – wash the electric-light shades.”

  “The creosote will cost something, but we’ll try and do it ourselves. We can also scrub the walls and we’ll have to find a curtain or something for this room, and we can easily scrub those light shades.” He added to the steadily growing list. “Jeremy?”

  “One – have piano tuned. Two – have chimney in this room swept. Three – clean up the wash basin. And four – see if there is anything wrong with the drains and the lavatory.”

  “You and your piano. It does need tuning though; and I admit a chimney sweep would be a good idea. How much does one cost?”

  “One and sixpence or thereabouts,” supplied Sandra.

  “Wash basin, drains, and lavatory we can manage ourselves, unless there is anything radically wrong. Your list, Sandra?”

  “One – wash the little flat hassocks and use them as cushions for people who sit at the back and can’t see too well. Two – make curtains for the window. Three – paint a signboard with the name of the theatre to hang over the door.”

  “Super idea about the cushions. What about the curtain material?”

  “Get it at Woolworth’s for sixpence a yard. Total cost, about” – she added up on her fingers – “five shillings if we have two at each window, half a crown if we only have one.”

  “Only one,” was the unanimous decision.

  “I can paint a sign-board,” offered Nigel, “if Jeremy supplies the paint; where do you get it from, by the way?”

  “Daddy deals in paints and varnishes,” Lyn explained.

  “Good for us. Well, the question now arises, what shall we call ourselves? And the theatre?”

  “Before we start that, have you any left on your list, Nigel?” Sandra asked him.

  “Only one. Scrub the pavement outside. And we must remember we have only a week to do everything in. This time next week we shall have our hands to the plough again.”

  “Do let’s make up our minds what we’re going to be called,” urged Lyn.

  “What sort of name do we want?” Vicky asked.

  “It must be short, it must roll easily off the tongue, it must explain what sort of people we are, and it must be attractive,” tabulated Nigel.

  They thought in silence, then Sandra asked, “Shall we be the Something-or-other Company, or the Something-or-other Club, or what?”

  “Not ‘club,’” stipulated Lyn; “we want to sound as professional as possible.”

  “What about the ‘Fenchester Repertory Company’?” suggested Vicky.

  Nigel shook his head. “No, we’re not a proper repertory, and we can’t call ourselves ‘Fenchester’ because we’re not important enough – yet,” he added optimistically.

  “What about the ‘Something-or-other Players,’ “ suggested Sandra.

  Lyn screwed up her nose. “Sounds like cigarettes.”

  “Let’s decide what we’re going to call the theatre itself, then call ourselves the Something-or-other Theatre Company,” was Jeremy’s suggestion.

  “Yes, ‘Theatre Company’ sounds good, doesn’t it?” appealed the chairman.

  They all assented.

  “But what theatre company?”

  “We could call it the Blue Theatre,” suggested someone.

  Bulldog pounced on the suggestion. “Yes, but not just ‘Blue’ — what about ‘Blue Door’? ’Cos we are going to paint it blue.”

  “Blue Door Theatre Company.” They all tried it over to see how it sounded, and Nigel wrote it down and studied it from every angle.

  “We’ll vote on it,” he said, and every hand went up.

  They looked at each other excitedly across the table, now that the decision was made.

  “The Blue Door Theatre Company,” announced Maddy in B.B.C. accents, “now present to you Uncle Tom’s Cabin, with Madelaine Fayne as Little Eva, and Jeremy Darwin as Uncle Tom Cobley and all.”

  One afternoon during the next week Mrs. Fayne was out shopping when she ran into her next-door neighbour, Mrs. Darwin. After they had discussed maids and the price of bacon for a few minutes, Mrs. Darwin asked, “I suppose you can’t tell me where those children of ours get to all day and every day? They go out directly after breakfast, come back and gobble their dinner, and out they go again, and even if they are not out in the evenings, they congregate in your garden or ours or the Halfords’. I am sure they are up to some mischief.” Her dark eyes, so like Lyn’s, were anxious.

  “But haven’t they told you?” Mrs. Fayne was surprised.

  “Lyn and Jerry never tell me anything,” she confessed. “I have to drag it out of them.”

  “I always try to appear uninterested, and they soon come out with it,” said Mrs. Fayne, smiling. “But Sandra only told me last night.”

  “Well, what is it?”

  “There’s no need to be anxious, because the vicar and Mrs. Bell know all about it. You see, they broke a window of a little chapel or mission hall down Pleasant Street. Do you know the place? It’s a dilapidated wooden building.”

  “I think I know the one. It belongs to the All Souls Brethren. My last maid but one used to go there.”

  “It’s empty now,” went on Mrs. Fayne, “and they mended the window themselves, and at the same time explored the place. Well, when they were at Mrs. Bell’s, Lyn was saying how much she wanted to go on the stage.”

  “I know all about that,” groaned Mrs. Darwin. “I hear nothing but that subject morning, noon, and night, and Jerry is just as bad over his music.”

  “Evidently Mrs. Bell suggested their starting a little dramatic company of their own, and the vicar said they could have the hall, and he would make it all right with the authorities. So that’s where they go every day.”

  Light dawned on Mrs. Darwin.

  “Now I understand why my scrubbing brush disappeared, and why Jeremy’s been coming home with blue paint on his hands. Well, well, what will they get up to next?”

  “It’s better than going round the town in a gang and squandering their money right and left, as they were doing up to a few days ago,” said M
rs. Fayne. “And I don’t suppose this concert or whatever it is will ever come off.”

  “And then there’s school next week.” Mrs. Darwin heaved a sigh of relief. “They’ll soon forget this stunt.”

  And they parted to continue their shopping.

  At the All Souls Brethren chapel there was great activity, for today was Thursday, and on Saturday the Clean-up Campaign must be finished. There was a small gathering of dirty little children standing on the pavement gazing up at the roof where Nigel and Jeremy, in filthy dungarees, were slamming on blue paint with lavish brushes. This was the third coat it had been given, as the paint ran in little rivulets down the grooves of the corrugated iron and dripped to the ground; this time it looked as if it were going to stay on.

  “Oh, ain’t it grand to be bloomin’ well dead,” they carolled as they worked. Jeremy rubbed a hand across his brow, left a blue smudge, and sighed heavily as he squatted in a perilous position with his heels dug into the troughing.

  “I shall dream of blue paint tonight,” he moaned, “lakes of it, oceans of it, all dripping down on to my feet.” He made a final tour of inspection along his side, then shouted to Nigel, who was in a similar position on the other side of the roof.

  “I’m finished, and I’m getting off this awful perch if I can.”

  “You can’t,” Nigel answered him; “the girls have taken the step-ladder.”

  “Whatever for?” wailed Jeremy.

  “To put up the window curtains, I think.”

  Inside the hall Sandra was seated on the platform, sewing on hooks and rings, while, at one side, Lyn had just arranged the vivid blue curtain. She stood back and admired it.

  “Looks good, doesn’t it? The ironing made all the difference.”

  Sandra broke off the thread. “Here you are, the last one. And now we shan’t see that awful frosted glass.”

  “But think what we shall burn in electric light!”

  “The vicar said he’d see to that. He’s a kind fairy in disguise.”

  “Now, what’s next on the list?”

  Lyn produced a piece of paper from the pocket of her dungarees, which she had borrowed from Jeremy.

  “Maddy’s washing the hassocks, Bulldog’s painting the back railings, the boys are painting the roof, and Vicky is mending chairs.”

  A sound of hammering from the little room confirmed this fact. Vicky was never happier than when armed with a hammer and a few nails. Whenever she finished a chair she would call to Maddy, who was standing at the wash-basin up to her eyes in soapsuds, and Maddy would come and jump up and down on the chair to test its safety.

  “Soapsuds, soapsuds,

  Oh, the pretty flowers,”

  sang Maddy, wringing out another flat blue hassock.

  “Come and try this one,” she was invited.

  She mounted the chair and bounced vigorously; there was a splintering sound, and she was precipitated to the floor.

  “I must say you’re a bad carpenter,” she grumbled, rubbing the part of her anatomy that had suffered most damage.

  Vicky was not perturbed. “Oh, I can easily mend it, and our audiences won’t jump on them, we hope.”

  “Unless they applaud very hard,” said Maddy. “Didn’t Lyn say it was her ambition for an audience to jump on their chairs?”

  “No. She said she wanted them to stand up and clap.”

  Maddy mused in silence for a while.

  “Lyn’s a peculiar person, isn’t she, Vicky?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, if she wasn’t Lyn she’d be stuck up and silly and bossy, but, as she is Lyn, she’s not.”

  “I think I see what you mean,” said Vicky, tentatively tapping a nail. “I’ve never met anyone so – so – like she is, before.”

  There was furious commotion on the ceiling above them.

  “What a row those boys are making on the roof,” remarked Maddy.

  Jeremy’s voice reached them faintly. “Bring us that ladder. We’ve finished.”

  Lyn and Sandra evidently obeyed, for a few minutes later the two roof painters came in, peeling off their filthy dungarees.

  “You look like a clown, Nigel,” giggled Maddy.

  Nigel dipped his blue-patched face under the tap and rubbed it with his hands.

  “Don’t bother to wash, Nigel,” said Lyn, entering. “The next job on the list is creosoting the outside walls.”

  Nigel groaned. “Who would be a painter?”

  “You said you wanted to be an artist,” Maddy reminded him.

  “I’m getting sick of flat washes. Where’s the creosote?” he asked wearily.

  “Bulldog’s just finishing the back fence. You’d better start on the back, then you can use the same pail.”

  At half-past four they cleared up and crawled wearily home. They all had baths, and in the Halfords’ garden after tea they rested their bodies for the first time that day. Their minds were still alert, and concentrated on the all-engrossing subject of the theatre.

  The next day the creosoting was finished, the stage curtains that Mrs. Bell had given them were erected, and the interior walls, which were of wood, given a good scrubbing. On Saturday morning they went over every inch of the building and found it to their satisfaction, and Nigel painted a very tasteful sign to put over the door. “The Blue Door Theatre,” it said, in bold, saxe-blue lettering on a brown background; underneath was a picture of the door itself, half opened and inviting. They fetched the ladder, and Nigel fixed up the sign; then he stepped back and regarded it critically with his head on one side.

  “How’s that?” he asked.

  “Wonderful!” breathed Lyn, a series of glamorous pictures floating through her brain. Already she could imagine appreciative audiences, colourful costumes, and a lighted stage.

  They stood and stared at it, hypnotized by the adventure it promised. The woman from the little café opposite came to the shop door and looked out.

  “The – Blue – Door – The-a-ter,” she spelt out laboriously. “Well, I never, what will them children do next?”

  6

  REHEARSAL TONIGHT

  Miss Mollings’ voice droned on, telling of the religious changes in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and Form Lower Five A were mentally dozing in the sunshine that streamed through the classroom windows. Sandra felt Lyn’s foot nudging her from behind. With the ease born of long practice, she stretched her hand down by the side of her chair, found the foot, and extricated a note slipped under the strap of the shoe. She smoothed it out and read it.

  “Rehearsal tonight,” it read. “Don’t forget. Pass to Vicky.” She obeyed, employing the same method as Lyn, and a few seconds later an answer came back. It was one single word, “Where?” Sandra wrote, “At the theatre?” and passed it back to Lyn, who leant forward and whispered, “I expect so.” At this moment the bell rang, signifying the end of school for the first day of term.

  “Oh, help!” groaned Sandra, as they packed their homework into their satchels. “Think how many times we’ve got to go through a day like this before end of term!”

  “Just look at all this,” Lyn held up a pile of books; “and as there’s a rehearsal I can’t see it getting done till tomorrow night.”

  “We shan’t rehearse every night, shall we?” asked Vicky anxiously, “because I’ve got lots of things to catch up in. You’re far more advanced than I was at my old school.”

  “How do you like being a new girl?” Lyn inquired.

  “Quite well, but I should hate it if you two weren’t here.”

  “Come on. Do hurry. We’ll go and meet the boys,” said Sandra, from the doorway.

  In the cloakroom of the Fenchester Grammar School Bulldog was sitting on a bench suffering from what he termed to himself “New-boy-itis.” The other boys who passed him occasionally stopped and fired a question or two at him, which he answered tersely and nervously. He wished Jeremy and Nigel would hurry up. They were in a higher form than he, and he only saw them on the
way to and from school. Nigel was a lucky dog to have someone he knew in his form.

  A boy came up to him, grinning, and said, “Halford, your young lady is waiting for you.”

  Bulldog blinked. “My – what?”

  “Your girl friend. She’s outside, and she asked me to hurry you up.”

  “What’s she like?”

  “Blonde.”

  Bulldog’s heart described an arabesque; surely Sandra had not deigned to come and meet him!

  “How old?” he asked eagerly.

  “Oh, just about your age – got sort of pigtails.”

  Bulldog ground his teeth. That little idiot Maddy! He would be the laughing-stock of the school now. The boy who had brought the message was shouting gleefully to the rest of the people in the cloakroom, “I say, chaps, the new boy’s sweetheart has come to meet him.” Bulldog blushed till he could blush no redder, while facetious remarks were passed that made him itch to start a fight. He was much relieved when Nigel and Jeremy appeared and said, “Sorry we’re late, and we must hurry ’cos the girls are waiting.”

  “The girls?” questioned someone.

  “Our sisters,” stated Jeremy, and the joke of Bulldog’s “young lady” was dropped.

  When the girls found that Maddy had preceded them and already sent a message to Bulldog they were annoyed.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” scolded Sandra; “you might have got him into a row.”

  But when Bulldog arrived it was Maddy that got into the row. He was in a temper, and Maddy, whose intentions had been of the very best, was nearly in tears when Nigel intervened.

  “That’s enough, Bulldog. You meant quite well, didn’t you, Maddy?”

  “Yes,” gulped Maddy.

  “Well, don’t do it again. And really, girls, if you don’t mind, please let this be the last time you come to meet us,” begged Jeremy.

  “Some boys would be pleased to have us to meet them,” said Lyn haughtily.

  “We’ll come to meet you, if you like,” offered Nigel.

  The girls were secretly pleased at this suggestion, but they did not reply and the matter dropped.

  At their gates Nigel said: “First rehearsal tonight, but we can’t rehearse because there’s nothing to rehearse; we’ve got to decide on a programme. I hope people have some ideas?”