The Whicharts

by Noel Streatfeild

  “Tour!” Tania exclaimed. “But I can’t possibly go on tour, I thought it was for London.”

  “Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish, easily arranged, easily arranged, easily arranged,” said Madame firmly.

  “I expect you haven’t been on tour alone before, have you?” asked Mr. Long kindly. “But don’t worry, I’ll talk to Barbara Dane about you, she’s my leading lady, she’s a dear, and I’m sure will arrange that you can live with her.”

  Tania, painfully conscious she was fighting a losing battle, could only repeat breathlessly:

  “I can’t go on tour, I can’t.”

  “Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish,” said Madame again, and dismissing her with a nod, picked up the telephone.

  Tania stood in the passage feeling desperate. Madame was of course ringing up Nannie. Nannie would be delighted, for she would earn money, and be taken away from the garage. She couldn’t bear it. She rushed into the cloakroom, it was empty. She shut herself into a lavatory, and leaning against the door, shook with silent sobs. She cried so seldom that once she had started it was difficult to stop.

  “I can’t bear it,” she whispered. “What’s the good of trying—I’ll never get away, never, never, never—a tour! just as I’ve started at the garage—I can’t bear it, I can’t, I can’t.”

  Chapter 15

  TANIA arrived home to find her family entranced at her good fortune. She accepted the situation. If they thought it luck, they could go on thinking so.

  “Fancy,” said Daisy, “I never thought any of us would act in a real play. Imagine it! Shakespeare! Aren’t you thrilled?”

  Tania was made to recount the story of her audition. They were not interested to hear how badly she had danced, but they were spellbound at her description of Ian Long, and of her reading the part of the fairy. Both Maimie and Daisy said they would have died of fright if they had been asked to do it. Tania produced the list of her parts.

  “I’ll get my Shakespeare,” said Daisy. “Then we can see exactly what you’ve got to do.”

  They started with Julius Caesar. Carefully examining the list of characters—

  “Seems to come on with the troupe,” Maimie observed, “look at them! Varro, Clitus, Claudius, Strato, Lucius, Dardinius. I expect you’ll find on the programme, ‘Servants to Brutus—Played by Madame Elise’s Little Marvels.’ ”

  Only Daisy had studied the play at school, and she knew very little about it. So it took them some time to. find the part.

  “Oh gracious! Look!” Daisy pointed to the stage direction—“Music, and a song.”

  “I shouldn’t worry about that,” said Maimie consolingly, “I expect they’ll cut it, and put in a dance.”

  They turned to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” one of them had seen it acted, so they found it hard to visualise.

  “Seems to me it will be back to good old panto,” remarked Maimie. “I expect you’ll find Puck comes up through a trap, dressed like the Demon King.”

  They carefully searched “Macbeth” for Fleance.

  When at last they found the part, Maimie was sarcastic—

  “Well, I’d give it up, you’ll never learn a part that long.”

  “I like that!” said Daisy. “You that’s only had to say: ‘This way, sir’—to talk like that. I think it’s a very nice part.”

  They lost heart in their hunt through “Henry the Fifth” for the English Herald.

  “Well! if he’s in it, he’s keeping it a dead secret.” Maimie shut the book with a yawn.

  “Madame says,” Nannie broke in, “that there’s a very nice young lady, as maybe you could live with on tour.”

  “Yes,” Tania turned a tragic face to her sisters. “Mr. Long said she was his leading lady!”

  There was a horrified pause. Their only experience of leading ladies were the various pantomime principal boys, Pansy Daw, and the incredibly grand stars of the revues and musical comedies they had been connected with. Leading ladies, as they knew them, lived in a rarefied atmosphere, of which the outward sign was a plethora of expensive cars, little dogs, scents, and a perfect army of women hangers-on, who ran messages, took down telephone numbers, and generally spread an atmosphere of their star being too wonderful to mix with the humdrum world. Leading ladies on tour, if not quite so grand as the West-End stars, would certainly live up to more or less the same standard. They would live in hotels, or if they chose to live in rooms, would take the whole house. How then was Tania, on three pounds a week, to live with a leading lady? At last Maimie said hopefully:

  “I expect she isn’t travelling a maid, and wants you to pack for her, and will count that towards paying for your rooms in the hotels.” Tania looked so crushed at this suggestion that she added: “Well, don’t worry anyhow, she’s almost sure to refuse to have you when she sees you.”

  Tania went to her first rehearsal in a state of jelly. Her teeth chattered, her knees shook, she had difficulty with her breathing. But Mr. Long seemed to notice nothing. He came over to her as she stood quivering in the doorway. Laid his arm across her shoulders, swept his hair back with a grand gesture, and said to his assembled company:

  “This is Tania Whichart.”

  He made this statement with such an air and a flourish, that Tania felt quite embarrassed, and would have liked to explain to them all how totally unimportant she was really. But Mr. Long hadn’t finished with her. With the manner of one presenting a mother with her first-born, he presented Tania to a tall, dark girl.

  “Barbara, here is Tania Whichart. Miss Whichart, this is my leading lady, Barbara Dane.” Tania stared at Barbara Dane in bewilderment.

  She looked quite poor, she wore no jewellery, and she grinned at her as though she considered her an equal. The most noticeable thing about her was her simplicity. She said:

  “You’d better stick to me for the first week or two, and see how we get on. But I expect you’ll hate living with me, I’m dirty about the house. Clay, you know.”

  Tania didn’t know. But she was sure she likedBarbara. Leading lady or no leading lady, she didn’t believe this one toured cars, and maids, and dogs, and lived in hotels.

  The rehearsal started. They were working at “King Henry the Fifth.” Tania carefully followed each scene in her book, praying that she wouldn’t make too great a fool of herself when her turn came. She had never managed to find the English Herald, and desperately scanned the list of people who had to enter in each scene, terrified he might be amongst them. During the whole morning the only time she was wanted, it came as a complete shock to her. They had started on a scene which stated that those present were The Constable of France, The Lord Rambures, the Duke of Orleans, the Dauphin and Others. “Well, unless I’m ‘and Others,’ this can’t be me,” she thought, wriggling comfortably back in her chair. Ian Long called to her.

  “You dance here, Miss Whichart.”

  “Oh, do I!” Tania hastily grabbed her attaché case, pulled out her ballet shoes, and began to put them on. She looked up to find the amazed eyes of most of the cast on her, and Ian Long, not waiting for her, but carrying on with the scene. “These people are damned queer!” she thought. On the stage as she had always known it, you were told to dance, and dance you jolly well did, until you were told to stop. But in this show you were told to dance, but were apparently expected to remain in your seat. “What the hell were they playing at, anyhow?” She threw a despairing glance at Barbara Dane, who caught the glance, and beckoned to her.

  “He means you’ve got to arrange a dance for this scene,” she whispered. “I don’t suppose he’ll ever want you to do it at rehearsal. It’s a sort of wild life in a French camp affair, intended as a fearful contrast to the pure life led in the English camp next door, but as a rule none of the company can dance—and all it looks like is a Christmas party in the Y.W.C.A. Those two danced in the scene last tour, I expect they’ll do it again.�
�� She pointed to a fat, fair girl, and a thin, nondescript one. She dug a finger into the nondescript:

  “What about this dance in the French camp, Beatrice?”

  “Oh Lord! have I got to do that again? It was awful last tour, and a rotten change for me back into my boy’s dress.”

  “Well, how about Phyllis?” Barbara looked at the fat, fair girl.

  “Look at her! Does she look like a dancer? and she simply loathes doing it, says it messes her up for Alice, and she looks about as voluptuous as a pea-hen in child-birth Couldn’t she do it alone?” Beatrice nodded at Tania.

  “Do you think she could volupt?” They stared at Tania.

  “Ask the Old Man,” Barbara advised, glancing at Ian Long. “Anyway, she’s a dancer.”

  “Gracious! a real one? Can you get up on your toes?”

  Tania nodded.

  “That settles it,” said Beatrice firmly. “If she can really dance, let her. Phyllis and I looked fools enough as it was, but if there’s going to be a real dancer hopping about the stage, we’re off. There are limits.”

  At this point in the discussion, Ian Long, running both hands through his hair, came across to Barbara.

  “Coming along finely, I think, don’t you?”

  Barbara, who had not paid the slightest attention to the rehearsal during the whole morning, agreed with fervour.

  “Marvellously! Is it lunch?”

  It was. Everyone leapt to their feet. So Tania got to hers. They all seemed hurrying off, chattering together. She looked at them, wondering where was the nearest place to buy some lunch, and how long one had to eat it in.

  “Come on, child, come with us,” called Barbara.

  “Yes, come along with us,” said the other two girls.

  They had a most amusing lunch. Tania had her views on leading ladies completely revised. Barbara not only looked poor, but didn’t mind owning that she was, and the other two girls didn’t seem to think it queer. Tania was bewildered. Surely if she was the leading lady she must make a lot of money?

  “I’m for bread-and-cheese and coffee,” said Barbara, as they sat down in a small teashop. “I’ve had a cast made of my dragon, and it’s cleaned me out.”

  Tania gathered from the discussion that followed, that although Barbara tried to make her living as an actress, her heart was in sculpture.

  “Never sculpt,” she said to Tania. “Clay simply eats money, and landladies hate it.”

  The mention of landladies turned their minds to the question of rooms. Barbara told Tania that she would write and engage rooms for the first month, and after that if they were still living together, Tania could take on the job.

  “She won’t live with you for more than a month,” observed Phyllis. “When she’s had a month of daily fights with the landlady about clay on the carpet, she’ll find it less wearing to live alone.”

  The afternoon rehearsal started badly. Evidently Ian Long’s lunch had not been a success. Then they were rehearsing over a vegetarian restaurant, and the room allotted to them for the afternoon had walls of a particularly trying shade of blue, which made the company look yellow, dull, and unpleasant. Also the company them­ selves, owing to a mixture of lunch and a morning spent in a stuffy room, had an afternoonish feeling, and were inclined to yawn. They were rehearsing some crowd effects; Tania found herself standing in a group with the major portion of the cast, emitting grunts and groans on given cues, while Ian Long dashed on to that portion of the floor they were using as a stage, exclaiming:

  “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.”

  He sailed along fairly happily with the speech, until he reached that point where he asked them to imitate the action of a tiger. Here there apparently should have been a few “Aye, ayes,” from the company. These were missing. Ian Long paused, he sighed, he ran both hands through his hair, and began again:

  “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.”

  This time the “Aye, ayes” were not forgotten, and he swept on with terrific fervour until he reached the point where he had to ask them to stand “Like greyhounds in the slips—” and there they broke down absolutely. Evidently they were not being like greyhounds. Tania had no idea how one expressed being like a greyhound, but it was clear even to her that the concerted wail that had issued from them wasn’t like greyhounds at all.

  “No! no! no!” shouted Ian Long. “It’s all wrong. Breathe! Breathe! You are greyhounds straining to be off.”

  “Oh mercy!” thought Tania, “how does a greyhound breathe?” She hadn’t time to wonder long, for they started again:

  “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.”

  They were getting on splendidly, “Aye, ayes,” and ferocious long-drawn “Ah’s” coming slick on every cue. Ian Long was being more fervent than ever. “Oh Lord,” prayed Tania silently, “let us get past the greyhounds.” They were reaching the greyhounds, they all tried to look as much like dogs straining on a leash as possible—“I see you stand”—they tried to breathe like greyhounds, but all that happened was a snuffling, as of bad colds.

  “Now we’re for it,” whispered a young man who was standing next to Tania. Ian Long stopped, he ran his fingers through his hair and stared at them all:

  “Oh God! Oh God!” he appealed. His prayer appeared to remain unanswered, or at least he was dissatisfied with it, for he raced into a corner, knelt down, and with both hands clutching his hair, continued: “Oh God! give me patience with these fools, give me patience with these fools.”

  None of the company moved, or seemed in the least upset, they were evidently accustomed to scenes of this sort. The unquenchable young man next to Tania whispered:

  “Wonderful performance, that.”

  Then suddenly it seemed that Heaven had heard the prayer, for Ian Long got to his feet, and returning to his company with a cheerful smile remarked that they really must get this right, and off they went again—

  “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.”

  “How he must hate having to call us his ‘dear friends,’” thought Tania.

  Later in the afternoon they reached her English Herald. It didn’t look as though it would be difficult.

  K. Hen. “Now, Herald, are the dead numbered?” Herald.

  “Here is the number of the slaughter’d French.” (Delivers a paper.)

  But the part was deceptive.

  “‘Here—is—the number of the slaughter’d French.’”

  “No dear,” said Ian Long kindly. “ ‘Here is the number of the slaughter’d French,’ just like that, no emphasis.”

  “‘Here is the—number—of the slaughter’d French.’”

  Ian Long looked at her. He was still kindly, but it was plain he knew that he was dealing with a fool.

  “Oh dear, I’m sorry,” said Tania nervously. She took a deep breath—“‘Here is the number of the—slaughter’d French.’”

  She was kept at it for quarter of an hour. In that time she had used every combination of emphasis possible on the eight words. Finally Ian Long, with the manner of a judge passing a death sentence, told her he couldn’t hold the rehearsal up any longer, she must go and work at the line by herself, and he would take her through it again after rehearsal. She sat down crimson with shame, and found herself next to the chatty young man who had talked to her during the greyhound trouble.

  “Poor fool,” he said.

  “I know I am,” agreed Tania ruefully. “Not you, him.”

  “Oh, but I was terribly stupid, I just couldn’t get it right.”

  “Well, who cares about the bloomin’ French anyway? Especially dead.”

  “I would like to get it right, though.”

  “Would you?” The young man sounded surprised. “Well, I’ll show you how. You are saying: ‘Here is the number of the slaug
hter’d French,’ and you keep saying it wrong because it’s such a damn silly thing to have to say anyway. But if you say: ‘Here’s the list of French stiffs,’ it won’t fuss you, natural thing to say, see? Try saying both lines alternately—soon get it then—”

  Tania tried; she muttered both sentences : “‘Here is the number of the slaughter’d French­ Here’s the list of French stiffs—Here is the—’”

  He was quite right; after a few attempts, she had mastered the line.

  “Oh I say, I’ve got it now. How nice of you.”

  “Not at all. Name of Tony. I’m on in this,” said the young man, and wandered on to the stage. Tania hung about after rehearsal, waiting for Ian Long to hear her line. He came over to her with a smile:

  “Time to go home. Are you going to like playing for me?”

  “Oh awfully,” growled Tania nervously. “Shall I say the English Herald now?”

  “English Herald? No! why? Coming on very nicely.”

  Tania went home completely puzzled. They were queer, these high-brow actors. Make a fuss enough to raise the dead one minute, and then half an hour later tell you—it was coming on nicely. When you danced, you got the steps either right or wrong. Didn’t seem to be anything like that about acting; still they were quite nice, all of them. She dismissed them from her mind with a shrug, climbed on to a bus, and lolling back in her seat, thought about the garage.

  Chapter 16

  TANIA had a curious feeling that she was going away forever. Everyone she knew seemed to be saying good-bye to her. Madame, Muriel, the girls at the academy, Alfy and Mrs. Alfy, Cook, who got an afternoon off especially to wish her luck, and even Violet, whom they hardly ever saw now that she no longer lived in the house, turned up one evening to wish her success.

  Maimie was quite envious.

  “I wish I was you, Tania, I wouldn’t half mind getting away for a bit, life’s fairly lousy here.”