It was a week before the first dress rehearsal when the American who had written the words of the musical arrived at the theater. He sat in the stalls near where Mrs. Storm was sitting between Rachel and Hilary. Hilary, who always knew everything, knew who the man was and to their great embarrassment, for they were afraid he would hear, told Rachel and Mrs. Storm in a piercing whisper. “That’s Fred K. Scholtz. He wrote the words, not the music.”
If Fred K. Scholtz heard Hilary’s whisper he made no sign but sat absorbed in what was happening on the stage, now and again making notes on a writing pad. But when the act was over he was a quite different person. He shot out of his seat, through the stage box to the pass door, and onto the stage. All the cast were called back to hear what he had to say.
The play had first been produced in New York so Mr. Fred K. Scholtz knew what it should be like, and though on the whole he was pleased there were things he did not like; one of them was the way Dulcie said her lines. “Where’s the little girl who plays Friedl?”
Dulcie, very sure of herself, skipped forward. “Here I am.”
Mr. Fred K. Scholtz looked at her in a kind but puzzled way. “You do that skipping rope dance beautifully, better than little Sonia who played Friedl on Broadway, but your lines! You know, I don’t think you have your mind on what you are saying.”
Dulcie was astounded. Praise, praise, praise, was all she had heard. Mrs. Storm, Pat, and Ena scolded her sometimes, but who cared for them? But it could not happen in a theater. She gave Mr. Fred K. Scholtz a very proud look. “Of course I have.”
Mr. Fred K. Scholtz shook his head. “If you have it does not sound like it. See that you watch yourself in the second act.”
“Good,” Hilary whispered. “Perhaps she’ll be less cocky now.”
Mrs. Storm might not like Dulcie but she was not allowing that. “I hope you listened to what Mr. Scholtz said, for you never have your mind on what you are saying.”
Hilary grinned at Mrs. Storm. “But Miss Hilary Lennox doesn’t want to act parts, and Miss Dulcie Wintle does.”
In the second act Dulcie had her song in the swing. It was a simple, almost nursery rhyme sort of song. It did not suit Dulcie, who was not at her best doing things simply. The way she sang it so upset Mr. Fred K. Scholtz that he stopped the rehearsal.
He jumped out of his seat and ran to the orchestra pit. “No no no! Little girl, you want to sing these words as if you were singing a doll to sleep.”
Dulcie got out of the swing and came to the footlights. She shielded her eyes with one hand so that she could see Mr. Fred K. Scholtz. “I sang it as I’ve been told to sing it.”
This was not quite true, for at every rehearsal Dulcie had been told not to dramatize the song, but all the same the producer thought it was rather hard on somebody of twelve to be picked on before the whole cast. Very nicely he came onto the stage and put an arm around Dulcie. “I expect I’m to blame. Shall we pass it for now, and I’ll take Dulcie through it with you afterwards?”
But Mr. Fred K. Scholtz wanted immediate action. Little Sonia had been a great success in that song on Broadway, and he wanted to be sure Dulcie had the same success in London. “We’ll work at it later if you like, but I’m sure this little lady can put the number over if she tries, can’t you, my dear?”
Dulcie was furious but at the same time a tiny bit scared. It was so odd to be criticized. She was wonderful, everybody knew she was wonderful. Why couldn’t Mr. Scholtz see how clever she was?
Mr. Scholtz was thinking of nothing but the good of his play. “Now hop back into that swing and imagine you’re all alone singing to a baby doll.”
To be angry and scared at the same time is not the best way to feel while you are singing to a baby doll. Dulcie sang the song worse than she had the first time, and she knew it, which was so humiliating to her pride that she burst into tears.
Nobody liked that, for however Dulcie said her lines or sang that song she was a very pretty and talented child. The producer thought the kindest thing would be to give her a little rest. He looked into the theater. “Is the governess there?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Storm.
“Take Dulcie up to her room, will you? We’ll manage without her until after the lunch break. The understudy can take her place this morning.”
This was the last thing that Dulcie wanted, and her tears turned almost into hysterics. The producer could feel the whole cast was distressed, so as Mrs. Storm led Dulcie away he said cheerfully: “Come on, everybody. Dulcie will be all right this afternoon. Now, where’s that understudy?”
Thanks to Mrs. Storm’s efforts Hilary knew her lines. She also, from having watched the rehearsals, knew every entrance and exit, and she had of course learned the dances. But she had never thought about Friedl, the sort of girl she was meant to be or how she would play the part if ever she had to play it. So when she suddenly, to her great disgust, found she had to rehearse in place of Dulcie, instead of trying to feel like Friedl she gave an imitation of Dulcie being Friedl.
At first everybody thought what an excellent understudy Hilary was, but towards the end of the act there was an amusing modern dance by the chorus in which Dulcie took part, and in this Hilary let herself go. It was intended that Dulcie should give a slightly exaggerated imitation of a rather showing-off child. Hilary, enjoying herself at last, gave a really funny caricature of Dulcie’s performance. It was so funny that she had everybody who was watching laughing.
“That kid’s a scream,” the stage manager whispered to the producer.
The producer nodded. “She’s got nothing like Dulcie’s polish, but we’re quite safe if she has to go on.”
Of course Dulcie knew that Hilary was thought a good understudy, for that is the sort of thing it is impossible to keep secret in a theater. But until Mr. Fred K. Scholtz came to rehearsal, she had supposed that she was so clever and so pretty that nobody could replace her. She did not really worry about Hilary, who, she was certain, had nowhere near as much talent as she had, but she was not taking any risks, so she got Mrs. Storm alone. “Will you help me with my song in the swing and with my lines?”
Mrs. Storm, for the first time since she had been Dulcie’s governess, admired the girl. “Of course, dear, I’ll be pleased to.” She would have liked to have added: “And you’re a sensible girl to bury your pride and admit you need help,” but she was too wise to say so.
Partly thanks to Mrs. Storm’s working with Dulcie, and partly because, for the first time, Dulcie had to believe she was not quite perfect, she had no further trouble with her part. In fact, though the musical did not get very good notices, Dulcie did. This of course made her forget the trouble at rehearsal and become apparently her own bouncy conceited self. But it was only apparently, for right inside her where nobody else knew about it was a nervous Dulcie. This Dulcie had learned something every actress has to learn sooner or later, which is that she is not indispensable. And Dulcie did not like it one little bit.
CHAPTER 24
Hilary Fights
Just after the musical began its run Rachel, with others of her group, had to attend an audition for a touring revue. Children attending auditions had to assemble in the front hall to be looked over by Pursey, and perhaps afterwards by Mrs. Wintle, before they left the school.
Rachel felt dreadfully self-conscious in her little-girl frock, for she knew it did not suit her. She was the last in a row of twenty-one Wonders lined up for inspection. Hilary, feeling much as a hospital nurse must feel when presenting to the doctor a patient she personally has prepared for an operation, hovered in the background.
When Rachel and Hilary woke up that morning the position of elder and younger sister had been reversed, for it was Hilary who took charge.
“I’ve been thinking about your hair,” she said to Rachel. “Those plaits suit you, but the uniform hat looks awful on top o
f them.”
“Shall I wear them unpinned?” Rachel suggested. “I could get some blue ribbon from Pursey to tie on the ends of my plaits.”
Hilary looked at Rachel with the face some mothers wear when one of their children is being exceptionally stupid. “No Wonder has her hair plaited for an audition. Even you must know that, Rachel. Almost all are specially curled, and don’t forget, more often than not your Aunt Cora comes to wish the kiddiewinks good luck before they go, so you must look right.”
Rachel had never bothered to watch what happened before auditions. Now, seeing Hilary’s shocked eyes, she realized that she should have done so. “I’ll wear it loose if you say so.”
“Loose, and curled,” said Hilary firmly. “Pursey has a curling iron. I’ll get her to do it.”
So Rachel’s hair was loose and curled. The style was not becoming to her serious, high-cheekboned face, but, as Hilary observed, it did make her look at least from the back very much like the other girls of her group. Thanks to Hilary, Rachel ought to have looked like the others from the front too, for her summer uniform coat was hanging on her left arm, and open at her feet were her attaché case with the right shoes in it and, of course, a brush and comb. She was wearing her clean, little-girl frock, and her socks were spotless. Yet somehow from the front she looked all wrong. No matter how often Hilary had twitched at her hat to pull it to the proper Wonder angle it had skidded on Rachel’s fuzzed hair and sat on the top of her head. There was not a thing wrong with her little-girl frock, but on Rachel it looked ridiculous.
“Perhaps she’s standing wrong,” thought Hilary worriedly. “None of the rest of us make those frocks look odd, but she does.”
Mrs. Wintle did inspect the Wonders that afternoon, and behind her, every inch a star, pranced Dulcie. To do her justice Mrs. Wintle did not want to pick on Rachel. In fact when she first arrived in the hall, to her relief a quick glance in Rachel’s direction had shown her a most correct-looking Wonder. But when she reached Rachel she felt irritated, as she had so often felt before when looking at her. All the other twenty Wonders were excited about the audition, and looked it. Rachel, though bored at having to go to an audition, had hidden it. But when her aunt Cora appeared she felt scared and went stiff all over. In fact, by the time Aunt Cora was standing in front of her Rachel looked like a dummy in a shop window. Perhaps, as it was the first time Rachel had been to an audition, Mrs. Wintle would have managed to hold back her irritation and said nothing, but Dulcie made that impossible. She put both hands over her mouth and giggled in a hissing way. Then she gurgled: “Sorry, Rachel, but you do look funny in your uniform frock.”
Hilary, afterwards cross-examined by the Wonders, never knew if she decided to do what she did or whether it happened before she had time to think. At any rate, in a flash she had rushed around to Dulcie and had given her cheek a very noisy slap.
Mrs. Wintle waited until the Wonders had left for their audition. Then she said in a voice which sounded like chips being hacked off a block of ice: “I will see you now, Hilary, in my sitting room.”
Any other child in the school would have been cowed, but not Hilary. She knew quite well that she ought not to have hit Dulcie and that keeping her temper but telling Dulcie exactly what she thought of her rudeness would have been more effective. But she was not repentant, for she was glad she had stood up for Rachel.
Mrs. Wintle sat at her desk and told Hilary to face her. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”
“No.”
That answer was a surprise, and for a moment left Mrs. Wintle wondering what to say next. “Why aren’t you?”
“If anyone’s ashamed it ought to be Dulcie,” Hilary explained. “She’s got everything, and Rachel’s got nothing, so it was awfully mean to laugh at her.”
Mrs. Wintle was silenced. Could that be true? It was certainly true that Dulcie had everything and that poor plain untalented Rachel had nothing. At last she said: “Perhaps it was not kind of Dulcie, but you should not have hit her, should you?”
“No,” Hilary agreed, “I shouldn’t—though, mind you, a few hits won’t do Dulcie any harm.”
Mrs. Wintle’s voice sounded more like chips off a block of ice than ever. “She’s a wonderfully talented child. I’m afraid you are jealous of her.”
That made Hilary laugh. “Not me. I would simply hate to be her.”
“Why?”
“I don’t like hard work. I hope she’ll never be off, for I don’t want to go on for her. All I want is to be an ordinary Wonder.”
Mrs. Wintle disliked lack of keenness in her pupils. “Nonsense. All my Wonders are ambitious. I can understand your dread of going on for Dulcie, after the success she has made. What I can’t understand is why you should wish to defend Rachel. She doesn’t stand up for you.”
“I don’t need standing up for,” Hilary explained, “but if I did she would.”
“I don’t want to come between you and Rachel,” Mrs. Wintle said untruthfully, “but I think you ought to know that Rachel, far from standing up for you, has on many occasions shown me that she is jealous of you.”
Hilary thought that a most idiotic remark. “Of me! What would she be jealous of me for?”
“Your talents. You are one of the more promising children I am training, and she, poor child, one of the least…”
“Me being promising wouldn’t make Rachel jealous.”
“Then there are your looks. You are, I hope, going to be nice looking, whereas poor Rachel…” Hilary seldom saw the Rachel that Mrs. Wintle almost always saw.
“I think Rachel looks gorgeous. Madame Raine, who taught me dancing at Folkestone, said it ought to have been her who danced, not me, as she had classic beauty.”
Mrs. Wintle simply did not believe that. “Nonsense. You and Rachel are two silly little girls. One would think from the way you behave that I was trying to stand in your way, instead of doing everything I can to insure that you both have a successful future.”
Hilary thought that another silly remark. “Rachel won’t be a successful Wonder. She hates being one.”
Mrs. Wintle did not want to hear Hilary’s views on Rachel. Rachel was a Wonder, and all Wonders enjoyed their work. So she turned back to the afternoon’s crime. “You must, of course, apologize to Dulcie.”
“I won’t,” said Hilary, “unless she apologizes to Rachel.”
Mrs. Wintle saw that getting apologies would take a long time. She had meant to give Hilary a punishment as well as making her apologize, but now she pretended she had planned on one or the other. “Very well then, I must punish you. You will go to bed immediately after supper on Sunday. In other words, no television.”
Hilary looked Mrs. Wintle squarely in the eyes. “Is Dulcie being punished too? She started it.”
“I shall speak to Dulcie, but you are old enough to understand that she’s a very exceptional little girl, highly sensitive, and cannot be treated as an ordinary child such as yourself.”
“I know that’s what you think,” Hilary agreed, “but if I was her mother I’d punish her. It was mean of her to laugh at Rachel, and you can’t say it wasn’t.”
Hilary liked having the last word, so on that she marched out of the room and shut the door.
Mrs. Wintle, as she usually did when anything went wrong, visited the wardrobe to talk things over with Pursey. Pursey had broken off work to have a cup of tea, and now she poured one out for Mrs. Wintle.
“I thought you’d be along, Mrs. W. It’s this business of Hilary slapping Dulcie, I suppose.”
Mrs. Wintle sat on a wardrobe basket. “Yes. It was very wrong of her. It might have upset Dulcie before tonight’s show.”
Pursey stirred her tea before she answered. “Very fond of each other, Rachel and Hilary are. No wonder, I suppose, left on their own, like.”
“That’s no reason why Hil
ary should hit poor little Dulcie.”
Pursey did not answer that directly. “If Hilary has been to question me once about this audition she’s been fifty times. Was Rachel’s little-girl frock—that’s what she calls the audition dresses—exactly like all the others? Was her summer coat the right length? Yesterday I found her going through one of Rachel’s drawers to be sure she had a clean pair of socks…”
“I daresay,” Mrs. Wintle interrupted, “but none of this excuses her hitting Dulcie. And whatever trouble you and Hilary may have taken, the fact is Rachel does look a figure of fun in her uniform.”
Pursey went on in her cozy voice, just as if Mrs. Wintle had not spoken. “Then this morning ever so early Hilary brings Rachel in here and asks will I curl her hair. Well, I know it doesn’t suit Rachel to have her hair curled, but…”
Mrs. Wintle sniffed. “Nothing suits that child.”
“That’s a matter of opinion,” said Pursey, “but I couldn’t put Hilary off curls for Rachel. ‘I want her,’ she said, ‘to look as if more trouble had been taken over her than over any of the others.’ Rachel herself didn’t care how she looked, but…”
Mrs. Wintle put down her cup. “That I can well believe.”
“But,” Pursey went on quietly, “Hilary did, so I curled Rachel’s hair. Hilary’s smart and I don’t suppose she thought Rachel looked right in the frock. But with all the trouble she’d gone to to see that Rachel looked as near right as possible, it must have been cruel when Dulcie laughed and, in front of all the Wonders, said Rachel looked funny.”
“Well, she did look funny.”
Pursey poured more tea into Mrs. Wintle’s cup. “I daresay, but Dulcie should have been better behaved than to have said so.”
“What d’you want me to do?” said Mrs. Wintle crossly. “I suppose you’re not going to say Hilary was right to hit her.”
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