by Pamela Brown
The heavy silence was suddenly shattered by peal after peal at the door bell. He slung on his dressing-gown, groped for his slippers, and was down to answer the door a fraction of a second before Lyn. A peculiar sight met his eyes. The young Halfords and Faynes, in their night clothes and dressing-gowns, were huddled on the doorstep talking in excited whispers.
“Hullo, have you heard the verdict?” Jeremy asked excitedly.
“No; but will you come round and listen with us? We can hear perfectly through the keyhole.”
“O.K. What’s it like out? Do we need anything more than we’ve got on?”
“No. Hurry up. It’s dark, so nobody can see us.”
They crept silently in slippered feet along to the Corner House, with no awkward encounters. Two ladies passed on the other side of the road, talking in high-pitched voices, but did not notice the seven figures that slunk in the shadow of the fence. Cautiously they entered by the front door of the Corner House and grouped themselves round the closed door. The voices inside could easily be heard. Nigel mouthed, pointing to the keyhole, “Take turns in looking,” and pushed Maddy forward. Her fat bedtime plait stuck up in the air as she glued her eyes to the hole.
“They’re drinking sherry,” she reported, “and the men are smoking.”
“… and so,” the bishop was saying, “I promised them to do my best.”
There was silence, then Mrs. Darwin said in the tight voice that Lyn often used when annoyed, “It is very kind, I’m sure, Bishop, but hardly necessary.”
“It is more necessary than kind,” disagreed the bishop firmly. “It is not a nice thing to have to say, but if you disappoint your children now they will never forget it for the rest of their lives.” He tapped his fingers emphatically on the table.
“I think you exaggerate slightly, sir,” said Mr. Halford politely, flicking the ash of his cigarette into the fire. “This fit will soon pass.”
“Will it? If I thought that I should not be pleading for them tonight. I feel certain that, if they are frustrated in this matter, they will take up without enthusiasm the careers that you force them into, and when, through lack of it, they fail, their excuse will be ‘How different things might have turned out if only we had been allowed to go on the stage.’”
“Hear, hear,” came the firm voice of Mrs. Halford from her invalid chair. “I quite agree that the stage is their vocation, and I will do everything in my power to make it possible.”
She looked happily round the room at the disapproving faces of the other parents.
The bishop said, “Now, Mrs. Halford has been a dancer, and has it spoiled her? No. I consider her as good a mother as the rest of you, and that is the ultimate happiness that you wish for your girls.”
Maddy snorted into the keyhole.
“But, Bishop,” said Mrs. Fayne in a puzzled voice, “I can’t understand your advising us like this. You must have read about the wicked ways of theatrical folk in London.”
“I consider, Mrs. Fayne, that there is no more evil nowadays in the theatre than in any other walk of life.”
“But what we don’t want to happen,” put in Mr. Fayne, “is for our little girls to come home with painted faces and artificial ways, and drink and smoke and use bad language.”
“Impossible!” cried the bishop. “Sandra is too fastidious and Maddy has too much sense of humour, and Lyn and Vicky would do nothing to harm their careers. In a dramatic school today there is some danger of these things happening, but no more than at any women’s university, and I know that all your daughters are dependable and straight.”
Mr. Halford murmured something about the stage not being a man’s job.
“If by ‘a man’s job’ you mean strenuous, then I must disagree. And it calls for as much brain work as any other profession.”
“But what will people say?” burst out Mrs. Darwin, “when they hear that both of my children are on the stage?”
“They would possibly think, ‘Those children will not come home the delightful people that they left.’” The Blue Doors nudged each other. “But when they do, and people see them and are entertained by them at the theatre – ”
Mrs. Darwin laughed cynically. “So you think they’d come home?”
“I am sure of it. That is their aim, to make the Blue Doors a permanent repertory for Fenchester.” He leaned forward eagerly in his chair. “Now, let me outline the plan of action that Nigel put forward in his most sensible and businesslike way.”
Maddy pulled a corner of Nigel’s red-and-black dressing-gown and whispered laughing, “That’s you!”
“Nigel leaves school in two months’ time. He goes to a good dramatic school for three years’ training. All the others, except Maddy, take School Certificate in a year’s time, then for six months pursue their ‘auxiliary careers’. They will then all be around seventeen, and could go to a dramatic school for three years. As Nigel will be a year and a half ahead of them, he will have an extra year at scenic art, and then learn a little about the business side of it. To complete their training they would like a few months’ touring in some small repertory company as apprentices, and then by the time they are twenty they will be ready to open the Blue Doors professionally.”
“And Maddy?”
“By that time she will have got School Certificate, and they can take her as an apprentice and train her themselves.”
The parents were human and could not but feel a slight stir of the pulses at this scheme. Mr. Halford found himself so weakening that he said loudly and firmly, “It is a ridiculous scheme. Supposing they have no talent? Suppose they’re a flop? Suppose – ”
The bishop raised a hand for silence. “That is a point I omitted. They would all, at the end of their first year, consult the principal of their school as to whether they showed promise; if they are advised to give it up, they will forsake the stage for their auxiliary careers.”
“A waste of time and money,” said Mr. Fayne cautiously. “If we could make sure the idea would be a success . . .”
“We don’t even know whether they’re really good, or whether we only think so because they’re ours,” his wife backed him up.
“But you could know. This one-act play competition for which they are so keen to enter is judged by an elderly lady who was once an actress, and is now on the board of the British Actors’ Guild. If they were to win it …” He stopped, looking hopefully around.
“Win it?”
“But that’s impossible!”
“Why should they?”
“Unless they could win it, it would show that they are only average amateurs, not really fit to be trained, when there are so many young people crowding the stage. But if they won it – it would help them to get places in some good school, perhaps, and also assure us that they are good actors.”
There was a dubious silence, and the bishop and Mrs. Halford exchanged quizzical looks.
“Go on,” she urged, forming the words with silent lips. “Say some more.”
He thought for a second, then began again. “As a lover of Fenchester, I feel the need for a good theatre. The cinemas are crowded. Although they do not know it at the moment, people would relish good drama, were it made possible. And we know, don’t we, that the children have a knack of knowing what will entertain? If they can entertain us now, untrained and merely babies, how much more of a success will they be in four or five years’ time, fresh from their teacher and at ages of discretion?”
“But supposing in those four years another company comes along and plants itself in Fenchester, what then?” asked Mr. Halford.
The bishop smiled.
“They would have to get permission from the town council, and I, as bishop, would advise the council to refuse permission and wait for the Blue Doors. The town council,” he stressed the words, “they take my advice.”
The parents blushed and looked uncomfortable, each thinking, “A bishop ought to know what’s right.”
“We’ll think it over.�
�� Mr. Fayne made as if to rise, but the bishop shook his head.
“No, please! I beg you to decide once and for all tonight. Your children are in such a state of nerves that it would be cruelty to keep them at that pitch. Won’t you discuss it among yourselves for a while, remembering that their careers will always have my interest and blessing?”
He retired to the window seat, picked up a newspaper and pretended to read it. Outside the door the children sank on to the stairs, worn out with eavesdropping. They looked at each other, eyes large with mingled hope and despair. Lyn drew her kimono more tightly round her and whispered with chattering teeth, “May I never go though another night like this!” Nigel went into the dining-room and came back holding a cigarette between his trembling fingers.
“You look like the hero of some very modern play,” Maddy told him. “Most sophisticated and blasé.” Bulldog rubbed his flushed cheek along the banister to cool it.
“I wish this were the Middle Ages, then if they wouldn’t take the bishop’s advice he could excommunicate them,” he said forcefully.
On the other side of the door earnest confabulation was going on.
“Please, please, darling Murray,” wheedled Mrs. Halford, “do say yes!” She gripped his hand in her own. “The bishop has been talking sense, hasn’t he?”
Her husband was forced to admit that it did seem pretty feasible, but it was the sound of the thing …
“But you didn’t mind the ‘sound of the thing’ when I told you I was on the stage. And if Vicky ends her career by marrying someone as good as you …” The flutter of eyelashes was Mr. Halford’s undoing.
“Oh, have it your own way, woman – that is, if they can win the contest.”
She squeezed his hands excitedly. “It’ll be worth the sacrifices of your ideals to see the look on their faces when we tell them.”
“Come on, Madge,” said Mr. Darwin. “We can’t defy the bishop, can we? What would people think?”
The thrust went home and his wife’s dark eyes were troubled.
“I don’t know what to say! Still, it’ll be fairly safe to say they can if they win the competition.”
“Yes, my dear. Of course, only if they manage to do that. They’ll deserve to.”
“It’ll be nice if after four years they’re back in Fenchester for good, won’t it?” observed Mrs. Fayne. “If they took any other job they’d probably only come home for holidays.”
“There’s that about it. Well, I suppose we give in if the others do.”
They went across to hear the other two verdicts. Bulldog was at the keyhole and watched these movements, saw the nods and sighs, and then sheepish smiles. The others understood what was happening by the panorama of expressions that crossed his features. Then came the bishop’s low, modulated voice.
“Well? You have decided?”
The girls clung together in an agony of suspense, and it seemed decades and centuries before Mr. Halford pronounced the verdict in painfully slow tones.
“We’ve decided, Bishop, that we will let them enter the contest. If they win they may go to a dramatic school, on condition that they have also some training for another profession, and that they return to Fenchester five years from now.”
“A most sensible decision, and I – ” began the bishop, but the sentence was never finished, for the seven adults were engulfed in the rush of seven thrilled figures in night attire, who kissed and hugged them and shook hands with them as if demented.
“You wicked children,” scolded Mrs. Fayne, her voice muffled by Maddy’s embracing arms. “You’ll catch cold.”
Mrs. Halford lit the stove and gave them sherry diluted with water, to warm them up after their draughty vigil in the hall. The parents reminded them every other minute: “You haven’t won the competition yet, remember,” but the Blue Doors were so overjoyed that they could think no damping thoughts. It was past eleven before they could be persuaded to break up the meeting.
“I knew we had the best parents in the world,” crowed Maddy, her arm in her mother’s, as they went towards the front door.
Their cheerful good-nights were kept up from the door-step until Mr. Halford shut it by force.
When the children were finally sent up to bed he and his wife had another chat with the bishop.
“Aren’t they sweet when they’re happy?” said Mrs. Halford.
“When they’re happy they’re very, very happy, and when they’re not they’re wretched,” misquoted the bishop.
“It’s the artistic temperament,” she sighed contentedly.
The next few weeks were ones of intense mental concentration. The Blue Doors sent up for details of the contest, and received full instructions. The name of the lady organizing it was Roma Seymore; in each town she was offering a trophy to the winners. In Fenchester the competition would start on the Wednesday night of the last week in June, for as long as it took for every company entered to perform. The Palace Cinema was to be used; this at one time had been a theatre and was fully equipped for plays. One rehearsal only was allowed in the Palace, and companies could arrange with the manager about their time, which must be in the week before the contest, and some time when the cinema was not being used for films.
“That means,” said Nigel, “that we must get it on the Saturday morning, because we shall still be at school, and they’ll be showing films in the evenings.”
“Let’s go down and bag Saturday morning at once,” said Maddy, who loved to be going places and doing things.
They went, and interviewed the manager, a jolly little man in sandy tweeds with a bald head and waxed moustache.
“Sorry, my dears, it’s already booked,” he told them. “A lady came in here this morning and said she was bringing her company on the Saturday morning, and would I see that the dressing-rooms were clean enough for them to go in. I nearly told her to see if her ladies were clean enough to go into my dressing-rooms. She stank of enough scent and I don’t know what.”
“I say,” said Nigel, “it sounds like Mrs. P.-S. Potter-Smith was the name?”
“Couldn’t say. But she was head of some parish ladies’ institute.”
“That’s her,” crowed Bulldog. “Oh, let us be joyful!”
“I wonder if she would change places with us,” mused Nigel, “because her ladies can rehearse any time. Still, if she won’t …”
“Sunday is still free, all day,” the little manager suggested, but Nigel shook his head.
“Sorry, no good.”
“It’s bad luck to rehearse on Sundays,” murmured Lyn.
“And the bishop wouldn’t like it,” said Sandra.
“Put us down for Friday morning, then,” Nigel said, “and we’ll try to change places with Mrs. Potter-Smith.”
As they walked away from his office down the soft-carpeted corridors he added, “If she won’t change we’ll have to cut school that morning.”
“We could all catch cold,” suggested Maddy unoriginally.
“Too fishy!” they decided.
“We could eat something, all of us. Something peculiar like – oysters, then get awful pains. That would explain us all being away.”
“Oh, Mrs. P.-S. will change. We’ll wring her fat neck if she doesn’t,” vowed Jeremy.
The same evening they went up to her house. It was a small detached villa with a crazy pavement and a sundial, and several stone figures crowded into the pocket-handkerchief lawn. The door was painted a sickly pink, and, to crown it all, it was called “Chez Moi”.
“Cheese Moy,” read Maddy. “What a silly name! It ought really to be called ‘The Potter-Smithy.’”
They knocked at the pink front door with a minute door-knocker in the shape of a pixie, with “A present from Cornwall” engraved on it. Mrs. Potter-Smith had a craze for anything “dinky”, as she called it.
“Has she got a husband?” whispered Maddy, as they waited for an answer.
“No. She’s a widow.”
“What a happy delivera
nce for some poor man!” said Bulldog piously.
A little maid, also in pink, showed them into a room crowded with “dinky” ornaments and little stools and tables, and soon Mrs. Potter-Smith fussed in, in great good humour. When they revealed the reason for their visit she shook her head sadly, disturbing the repose of her double chins, saying:
“Now, isn’t that a pity! Saturday morning is the only time I can manage. You see, my nephew from Bristol is coming in to watch the rehearsal, and he will only be in Fenchester on Saturday.”
“But couldn’t your nephew come in to the actual performance?” pleaded Nigel. “We’d pay his fare.”
“I’m afraid not. He’ll be here on business on Saturday, so he won’t want to come in again.”
She shut her loose mouth tightly for once, to show that the matter was at an end, and made a move towards the door. They went out despondently, Nigel alone being polite enough to say “Good-night.”
“Come on,” he sighed, picking his way down the narrow crazy pavement. “We’ll go down to the Palace again and take Sunday afternoon. If it’s still there.”
“Oh, Nigel,” pleaded Sandra, “don’t let’s.”
“Well, look here: is it more wicked to rehearse on Sunday afternoon if we go to church in the morning and evening, than to cut school on Friday morning?”
They could not decide this, and found themselves at the cinema before it was settled.
“Well,” asked the manager kindly, “did you succeed in changing?”
“No. The beastly old woman wants Saturday just so some beastly nephew can come and watch her still more beastly play.”
“Hard luck! And all day Sunday is booked.” He showed them his pad. “Since you’ve been out I’ve had phone calls from the Fenchester Amateurs, the Police Force Dramatic Club, and the St. Anne’s Amateurs.”