The Swish of the Curtain

by Pamela Brown

  They went round hawking the programmes. Maddy was the most successful. Knowing the weaker sex, where money is concerned, she concentrated mainly on elderly gentlemen.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Green.”

  “Good afternoon, Maddy. Enjoying yourself?”

  “Rather! Are you staying to see our plays?”

  “Yes; I wouldn’t miss them for anything.”

  “Do you know what we’re going to do?” she would ask conversationally.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Would you like to?”

  “Very much.”

  Here Maddy would produce a programme from behind her back, slam it down on the tea-table, and hold out her hand, “Programmes, halfpenny each, in aid of expenses.” They very soon got rid of the full four hundred, and as a lot of people had refused to accept their change they found they had collected just over a pound.

  “I’ve spent eighteen and three by now,” Sandra informed them; “so we’ve got two and ninepence for the Bible Campaign fund.”

  “I spent a shilling on whitewash out of my own purse,” objected Nigel, and Sandra gave him his due.

  “I spent sixpence on cold cream,” put in Bulldog, and received sixpence.

  “That’s one and three left. Not much,” reflected Sandra.

  “What about those four dyes for the stockings at threepence each?” Vicky reminded her.

  Sandra laughed, and put the remaining coppers in with the rest. “There, we’re still threepence up.”

  “Enough for half a pint,” murmured Bulldog.

  This reminded them that they were thirsty, and they visited Miss Thropple and Mrs. Potter-Smith and drank crimson raspberryade with lumps of ice cream floating among gassy bubbles.

  “We go on at seven, and it’s five now, so no one must eat anything else after this, understand?” ordered Sandra, as they sat down for tea at a little table. A Ladies’ Institute member hobbled up with a tray complaining of her swollen ankles.

  “Cheer up!” grinned Bulldog. “Think what it must be when a centipede has swollen ankles.”

  He received a glare, and when his tea arrived it was slopped over into the saucer.

  “Nippy is hating to serve me,” misquoted Bulldog aptly. He was in a good mood. “I say, don’t you think these waitresses would look better in uniform? Something snappy, like lift girls!”

  Lyn, with her mouth full of meringue and a smear of cream on her chin, was laughing at an idiocy of Bulldog’s when Maddy said, “Lyn, don’t look round, but the snootiest lady I ever saw is looking at you as if you were something the cat’s brought in.”

  Lyn looked, and found Mrs. Flanders’ agate eyes fixed on her.

  “Gosh,” she spluttered into her cup, “and I said I never ate tea before acting.”

  “You wait till afterwards,” said Maddy. “We’ll have something worth eating then.”

  At six o’clock all the old ladies of the parish began to arrange themselves on the front row of chairs on the tennis court, and the Blue Doors went up to change. Immediately they closed their dressing-room doors they were attacked by the yellow demon, Stage Fright. Sandra alone was a calm rock of strength as her deft fingers dressed and made them up. They were all ready and on the landing by five to seven. The four who were in the fairy scene were enveloped in the black cloaks used for Spanish Inn, Bulldog in his Twelfth Night clothes, and Lyn and Nigel in their ordinary clothes. Lyn carried the big Shakespeare. They strained their ears and heard the vicar telling people to take their seats. Sandra looked at Nigel’s watch and said, “Come on.”

  “We face the firing squad,” murmured Jeremy.

  They made their way to the back of the shrubbery by a devious route to avoid peering eyes of the audience, and Maddy and Vicky shed their cloaks and solemnly wished each other good luck. Vicky stayed by the entrance near the balcony, and Maddy went to the other side. Jeremy, leaning against a tree trunk, struck up the overture, and Lyn and Nigel, shivering in sympathy with the two about to appear, sat together on a log, following the lines in the volume of Shakespeare. The audience said “Sh!” to their neighbours when they heard the violin, and Maddy danced on. She wore a simple gold tunic made of the angel’s dress from No Room in the Inn, and green cellophane wings. Her feet were bare, but for little wreaths of ivy leaves round her ankles, and her loose hair was twined with tiny roses.

  “Doesn’t Maddy look thin?” remarked her mother to Mr. Fayne.

  With a little yodelling shout Vicky bounded on with a jump she had learned at her ballet class. She wore a green bathing costume with tiny cellophane wings on the shoulder, and Sandra had made up her face with slanting eyebrows and scarlet lips. Her red hair had been brushed till it stood up on either side of her head, springy and bobbing.

  Their acting was not extraordinarily good, but their appearance and vivacity helped them. They both spoke too fast and their voices did not carry, but their laughter when Puck described his tricks was most convincing. Then they ran off in alarm as the King and Queen of the Fairies entered.

  Jeremy looked most fantastic. Sandra had cut out curly antlers from black cardboard, and he wore these on his head. His face was dead white but for crimson spots on each cheek, and his blue eyes were heavily mascara’d. He wore his Sir Andrew clothes under his black cloak, as there would be no time to change. Sandra looked a delightful vision. She wore drapery of light blue, and dark blue cellophane wings. Their scene was not brilliant, but the audience enjoyed the picturesque effect. Jeremy’s last speech,

  “Well, go thy way; thou shalt not from this grove

  Til I torment thee for this injury”

  was delivered with great gusto, and the Fairy King and Queen stalked off with their heads in the air.

  As the audience applauded, even Mrs. Potter-Smith had to acknowledge it was good. Behind the shrubbery Vicky stopped massaging her ankles, and, as Jeremy picked up his violin, she ran on to the stage. For the next five minutes she was a leaping, ethereal sprite, her red curls tossing and flying as she made swift successions of hand-springs, back-bends, and fancy jumps. The sun was beginning to set with an orange glow through the shrubbery, and Jeremy played in a fashion that would have done credit to Oberon himself. She ended up with a high jump into the air, landing in the splits with her body bent backwards nearly parallel with her back leg.

  Mrs. Potter-Smith sniffed a delicate sniff and confided to her neighbour that it was a most vulgar display and that Vicky ought to have worn more. Her neighbour happened to be Mr. Darwin, who replied that he disagreed and that Vicky had a figure to be proud of.

  As soon as Jeremy had played the last weird note he ran as fast as his legs could carry him back to the dressing-rooms, where he added his accessories for Sir Andrew. Sandra made him up when she had arrayed Maddy for Maria, and dispatched her in time for her entrance. Nigel and Lyn strolled back in silence to dress.

  On the stage Maria and Sir Toby were back-chatting the slick Shakespearean lines. Bulldog wore a pair of his sister’s dark green gym knickers stuffed to an enormous size, a leather jerkin made of an old cycling blouse, and bright red stockings. His hair was brushed up on end, and Sandra had made his face to a jovial and beery pink. Maddy had her hair in a bun, red cheeks and lips, and wore her sweetest smile. Her blue dress was plain and low cut, and she had a small white apron. Their acting was brisk, and had an almost French quality in its boisterous vivacity.

  “For here comes Sir Andrew Aguecheek,” roared Bulldog cheerily, waving Mr. Smallgood and Whittlecock’s tankard.

  Jeremy entered, dragging his heels, with his head hung. He wore very skimpy yellow trunks, long black stockings to emphasize his thinness, and a scarlet jacket that was far too big for him. His fair hair was parted in the middle, and, with the curls greased out, hung lankly on either side of his foolish face. He spoke in a weak, vacant voice that contrasted with the boisterous accents of the other knight. After Maria had been introduced to him she made her exit, to hearty applause. Sandra and Vicky banged her
on the back.

  “Gosh! you were wonderful,” Vicky told her, “better than anyone has been yet.”

  Maddy’s eyes were shining. “I felt like Lyn always looks as if she’s feeling when she’s acting.”

  “Lyn couldn’t have acted it better,” Sandra told her.

  On the stage Sir Andrew and Sir Toby were frolicking, accompanied by frequent draughts from the beaker of ale, and a lot of laughter from the audience. Even Mrs. Flanders laughed as they went off dancing.

  “What a fool that boy is,” she remarked.

  For a long time the audience broke into further chuckles as they clapped. The three players had to appear again to bow. Lyn and Nigel walked down the gravel path between the tall box hedges.

  “You look beautiful,” Nigel told her seriously. “John Flanders will never get over it. Just imagine it’s him in my place.”

  “Shut up!” cut in Lyn. “I shan’t be acting for anyone but Romeo.”

  “But surely,” pursued Nigel, “if you imagine I’m someone you like—”

  “You’re no one but Romeo,” she persisted. Then relenting, “Well perhaps you’re a bit Nigel, too.”

  “Thank you. I can assure you that if I do happen to attain anything worth calling acting, it will be a tribute to you, not Juliet or Shakespeare.”

  “I bet I can make you act better than you have ever acted before,” vowed Lyn. “Remember, you’ve never acted opposite me in any of our other plays.”

  She went up the step-ladder, assisted by Jeremy, who sat down on the bottom rung to prompt. Peering through a hole in the curtain she saw the audience gazing expectantly upwards. Nigel entered from the far side, and she saw that, as he soliloquized, he seemed at least thirty years old. Her cue came, “It is my lady, oh, it is my love!”

  Slowly she pulled aside the curtain and stepped on to the balcony with her hands resting lightly on the top, looking up at the darkening sky with lips slightly parted. A murmur went round the audience. It was a masterpiece of costuming on Sandra’s part. Lyn’s hair had been washed a day or two before, and it had not yet regained its usual sleekness; the gold sequin Juliet cap was surrounded by carefully pinned curls. Her dress was mauve and slim-fitting, with a low square neck, and round it she wore a heavy gold chain. The sleeves were long and full, gathered in at the wrist, and slightly transparent. Nigel, who had only seen her under a cloak, was taken aback at her appearance and faltered most effectively.

  Juliet’s first utterance, a long sigh, floated through the shadowy garden. Nigel’s next speech was quite impassioned, and when Lyn, speaking aloud to herself, cried, “And for that name, which is no part of thee, take all myself”, the audience began to realize that they were about to witness a first-rate performance.

  Lyn and Nigel went from strength to strength, Lyn continually leading him on, and forcing him to act. He was so happy to find himself acting well that he forgot the argument in which he said the balcony scene should be acted soberly, and once or twice laughed gently, gazing up at Lyn with adoring eyes, that, even if they were not so sincere, easily beat the eyes of John Flanders.

  Lyn felt exalted and rash, exactly as she knew Juliet ought to feel, and forgot her effort to imitate Felicity Warren; consequently her performance was more natural and very much younger.

  The bishop sighed contentedly. For the first time in his life he was seeing Romeo and Juliet at their correct ages, and he knew that by taking them to the Shakespeare Festival he had been instrumental in bringing this about.

  Lyn made her exit on the famous words, “Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say good-night till it be morrow.”

  Nigel murmured a blessing, looking up at the spot where they had ordained that the moon should be, and then walked determinedly off the stage. Behind the shrubbery Lyn and Nigel ran to meet each other. They could see the praise and delight in each other’s eyes, but neither could speak. Nigel took her arm.

  “Come on! We must take our bows.”

  The whole company bowed to the audience, who clapped and the younger people cheered. The bishop had been sitting next to Mrs. Darwin and talking earnestly to her between scenes. Now, as Lyn was called for again and again, he asked, “And after this are you not convinced, Mrs. Darwin, that your daughter is an actress?”

  Mrs. Darwin, watching her daughter, who, flushed and smiling, was bowing with complete self-confidence and charm, replied slowly, “Perhaps I am, Bishop.”

  14

  AUTUMN LEAVES

  The Blue Doors went back to school the second week in September with not much inclination to work. Mr. and Mrs. Halford had sent Nigel, who had got his School Certificate, back for another year to learn shorthand and typewriting, and to these subjects he managed to add art. The idea of his being a barrister had now been given up. His parents’ ideas had turned towards private secretarial work. He was the only one of the Lower Sixth Form who was not taking Higher Certificate, and was therefore left to himself a good deal. As the art master was a friend of his he was allowed to spend all his spare time in the art room, daubing vivid lettering on enormous pieces of paper to make posters, advertising everything under the sun.

  The Grammar School acted The Merchant of Venice during the autumn term, and Nigel and the art master provided the scenery. The most striking piece was the window of Portia’s apartment with the sun shining through. In this play the Blue Door Theatre Company was well represented, for Jeremy was Antonio and Bulldog had the part of Launcelot Gobbo. The four girls went to the performance and were greatly impressed by Jeremy’s acting.

  “Gosh, hasn’t he improved!” whispered Lyn, during the trial scene, when Antonio, pale and fragile in his prisoner’s fetters, was declaiming:

  “Give me your hand, Bassanio, fare you well,

  Grieve not that I am fallen to this for you.”

  “Rather!” agreed Maddy. “One can almost forget his fantastic legs.”

  Although Bulldog’s part was small he made the best of it, and received a lot of laughter from the audience.

  After the excitement of the play the boys found it rather hard to settle down to work. Jeremy was supposed to be taking School Certificate in the coming July, but in October it seemed so far away that he did not bother about it, and spent all his evenings at the cinema or the piano. He was indulging in a fit of sentimental songs, and mournful strains could be heard issuing from the Darwins’ house at all times of the day.

  The girls also were slacking in a final period of enjoyment prior to a real “swot” the next year. Sandra’s form mistress told her that she, the eldest girl in the form, should be ashamed of herself for coming out bottom two weeks running. Sandra sighed, and comforted herself with the thought that, although she could not calculate equivalent weights in chemistry, she could contrive charlotte russe fit to make a king’s mouth water, and that the shorts she was working on in dressmaking had a better line than anyone else’s in the form.

  Lyn was working hard, but not at school subjects. The list of parts in which she was word perfect grew bigger every week. She had long ago learned the rest of Juliet, besides the balcony scene, and now, as well as her old favourites, St. Joan and Portia, she had Ann from Outward Bound, Eliza from Pygmalion, Cleopatra, Ophelia, and Katharina from The Taming of the Shrew. These eight parts she rehearsed in turn each night before she went to sleep and at any other odd moment during the day, until they were as real to her as were any of the girls at school.

  A touring repertory company would occasionally come to Fenchester, and the Blue Doors always went to the first night, when two seats were sold for the price of one. Lyn, however, went to each performance during the week, borrowing from her friends in order to do so, and then going without her pocket-money for the next few weeks so that she could pay her debts.

  The weather became cooler and cooler, and the girls began to wear jumpers and blazers over their summer frocks, then thick skirts; by half-term it was blustery autumn weather. There was a half-holiday on the Friday with a long week-e
nd to follow. In the afternoon they decided to go for a bicycle ride to Pendlebury Thicket, some woods about seven miles from Fenchester. They cycled merrily along through the sharp November air until they could see the brown cluster of trees in the distance.

  “Doesn’t it look super?” remarked Sandra, pedalling hard on her sedate bicycle. “We must get some autumn leaves.”

  “You’re a hopeless person,” grumbled Maddy, rattling along behind. “If we go to the seaside you collect seaweed, if we go to the woods you want autumn leaves. I believe if you went to the Zoo you’d want to take home a nice little bunch of Baby Pandas.”

  They leaned the bicycles against a fallen tree trunk and entered the deep, dark woods. The soggy brown-tinted leaves made a soft carpet to their brogue-shod feet as they walked between the trees.

  “I’m going up aloft,” announced Maddy, clambering on to the bottom branch of a tall fir. She made her way upwards until she was out of sight of the others, then they heard her voice crying, “Do come up. It’s marvellous. Just like being in a ship.”

  “Shall we go up?” asked Nigel.

  “I’m not very fond of heights,” confessed Sandra.

  “It’s easy as anything,” yelled down the pioneer. “Like going upstairs to bed.”

  Bulldog joined her at the top, where they sat and sang sea shanties at the top of their voices and rocked the tree perilously backwards and forwards, till Sandra called up to them to be careful. In reply she received a fir cone on her head.

  “It shows how you originated, Maddy,” shouted Jeremy to her. “Substitute a coconut for a cone and the answer’s a monkey.”

  “Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!” bawled Maddy and Bulldog. The others left them there and walked on to where a little stream rippled through a glade. Nigel was fired with a childish desire to dam the stream, and this he did with mud and twigs until the glade was sufficiently irrigated to please him.

  “You’re still a kid!” teased Lyn.