The Swish of the Curtain

by Pamela Brown

  “Thank you, Methuselah.”

  Vicky was looking for birds’ nests, all of which were empty, and Jeremy and Sandra wandered along humming tunes to themselves and shuffling their feet in the leaves.

  “I’m bored!” said Jeremy suddenly.

  “I’m very sorry if my company is as dull as all that,” Sandra told him, surprised. “But I thought you wished to be left alone with your thoughts, like all true musicians.”

  “Oh, it’s not you I’m bored with,” Jeremy hastened to assure her. “It’s life in general.”

  “Take some magnesia,” advised Sandra, who never suffered from either depression or exaltation.

  “I’m sick of doing nothing,” complained Jeremy.

  “Well, it’s your own fault. You’ve got something to work for.”

  “Yes, but I mean to fail. If I pass I go straight into father’s office, and that’s not going to be little Jeremy’s fate if he can help it.”

  “What good would it do you to fail?”

  “A lot. I only need an extra year and I might possibly get my L.R.A.M. – that is, if I have time to practise, but if I’m sweating in an office all day—”

  “I see your point,” agreed Sandra, “and you’re lucky to have music lessons at all. Look at me! Not a vestige of voice training have I had, and I don’t look like ever getting it. Next year I go in for School Cert. with Vicky and Lyn, and if I pass it, suppose I shall take full time Home Science till I get my diploma. Hopeless, isn’t it?”

  “We ought to do something about it.” Jeremy slashed at a bush with a stick he had picked up. “But what?”

  “All we can do is go on giving shows in the hope that we can persuade our parents to let us take up the careers we want.”

  “Yes, I suppose so. Why don’t we get going on another show, then?” Jeremy suggested. “We could get it ready for Christmas. If only we could find someone who really knows about acting to see it, and say what they thought.”

  “It beats me!” said Sandra. “Mummy loves to hear singers on the radio, yet she won’t hear of me taking it up. I tell her that if all mothers were as narrow-minded as she, there would be no good singing in the world. She argues that other people can take it up, but not me, and thinks that just because I happen to be her daughter I am different from other people.”

  “You know, I’m wondering…” began Jeremy.

  “Wondering what?”

  “I am wondering whether I shall be content just to be a music master or in an orchestra. I think I want to act as well.”

  “Oh, same here,” agreed Sandra. “I’d like to keep on acting.”

  “I was reading about a stage school in London,” went on Jeremy, “where pupils can take a course in acting and any subsidiary subject like dancing, elocution, music, and singing. That would suit you and me fine.”

  “Was it expensive?”

  “Pretty expensive.”

  “And what should we do afterwards?”

  “Why, it’s obvious. We should come back to Fenchester and make the Blue Doors professional. You know, we’ve got the material for a really good repertory, a decent little theatre that we could improve in time, a large town with no other theatres, and a team of actors who are used to playing together. We’ve got Lyn, who, if she were trained, would make a first-class actress; we’ve got you, who can sing and make costumes, and when you’d been taught you would be able to act extremely well, I’m sure; and then there’s Vicky, who can dance, and can be taught to act; and Nigel, who’s a marvel at scenic art already.”

  “And you,” added Sandra, “who can do anything in the music line, and you’re getting to be a good actor too. What about Maddy?”

  “I don’t know.” Jeremy frowned. “She’s rather a problem because of her age, but, you know, she’s got a lot of stage sense already. Has she shown you the play she has written?”

  “No. Have you seen it?”

  “Yes; and although it’s a trifle quaint, it’s definitely got something.”

  “She’s awfully keen on the stage. She said she’d be a wonder mite in a pantomime, if she had the chance.”

  Jeremy was amused. “I can’t see Maddy as a Babe in the Wood for long. But you know, she acted Maria jolly well last summer.”

  Sandra sighed. “Oh, it would be so wonderful! Think of it – the Blue Door Theatre Company going on for ever!”

  This conversation was only the first of many that occurred during the following weeks on the subject of the future. Then, one day, when for the hundredth time they had decided that they must study at a dramatic school, Vicky said sagely, “We’re flops, stooges, and nincompoops. We’re living so much in the future that we’re not bothering about the present. Look here, there are only four weeks to Christmas Day, and surely we’re going to do a show for Christmas?” It was a Friday evening, and they were in the study of the Halfords’ house. Vicky’s words put fresh life into them.

  “Yes, Vicky’s quite right. Let’s shake off our grumbles and vain hopes and make the best of the moment. Now, any ideas for a Christmas show?” Nigel had fallen into his old rôle as chairman.

  “Not another Nativity play!” begged Bulldog. “I object to being a shepherd and having to have bare feet, and not being allowed to be funny.”

  “No, not a Nativity,” Lyn agreed. “Something more dramatic.”

  “No, we don’t want drama at Christmas time,” objected Nigel. “We want something light and frothy.”

  “Oh, a pantomime; do let’s do a pantomime,” begged Maddy.

  Nigel was sceptical. We haven’t got enough people,” he objected.

  “Oh, I don’t mean a Drury Lane affair with a revolving stage and a beauty chorus and real ponies.”

  “It would be rather fun,” said Jeremy. “I’ve got positively tons of songs that would fit a pantomime. Listen to this one.” He sat down at the piano and sang:

  “I wonder why

  The day’s so long

  And holds no song

  For me.

  I wonder why?

  I wonder why

  I feel so sad,

  There’s nothing glad

  In me.

  I wonder why?

  Is it because there’s no one here

  I feel a thrill just to be near?

  I wonder why

  The sky seems dark,

  And fate won’t hark

  To me.

  I wonder why?”

  “Marvellous!”

  “Splendiferous!”

  “Gorgeous!”

  “I thought perhaps Sandra would be able to sing it some time. It’s her type.”

  “Thanks! I love it. But what pantomime could it come into?”

  “Beauty and the Beast, then Bulldog can have a part,” suggested Maddy. “Don’t kick me, Bulldog; I meant that you could be Beauty.”

  “I should think Cinderella,” suggested Nigel.

  “Oh yes, Sandra, you’d make a good Cinderella,” said Vicky.

  Lyn was feeling hurt and lost. If they did Cinderella, whatever part could she play? She knew she had not enough voice to play the lead in a pantomime, but she did hope for a minor part. “Perhaps I’ll be one of the ugly sisters,” she thought angrily.

  “Who’ll be Prince Charming?” Maddy wanted to know. “Nigel or Jeremy? I must say neither of them is a very good example of that title!”

  “Who’s got the best voice?”

  “Nigel,” said Jeremy at the same moment as Nigel protested that it must be Jeremy.

  “I will not be Prince Charming,” said Jeremy decidedly. “I’ve had enough of hose and breeches for one term, thank you. Let me be one of the ugly sisters.”

  “Bags be the other.” Bulldog was eager for the part.

  “O.K., I’ll be the prince, then.” Nigel was secretly rather pleased to get the part.

  “Vicky must be the fairy godmother,” Maddy insisted, “so that she can dance. And what about me?”

  “Page and guests at the ball, and Pri
nce Charming’s retinue,” laughed Nigel.

  “Gosh!” said Maddy. “What a whale of a part.”

  Lyn spoke evenly but furiously. “I suppose I may be allowed a walking-on part. I might even be capable of saying, ‘The carriage awaits without.’”

  There was a petrified silence.

  Then Nigel exclaimed, “Why, Lyn, I’d forgotten all about you. I’m sorry. Of course you must have a part!”

  Lyn laughed sarcastically. “Oh, don’t bother. I quite enjoy scene shifting.”

  There was another awkward pause, then Bulldog stepped into the breach by saying, “We’ve forgotten Buttons!”

  “We must have a Buttons, and Lyn would look super in a kitchen-boy’s suit.”

  Lyn thawed slightly at the compliment.

  “Like to play Buttons?” Nigel asked her.

  “Look’s as if it’s settled,” she replied sullenly.

  “Will you attempt a song?” Jeremy wanted to know.

  “If you can trust me with one.”

  “O.K. I’ll give you a duet with Maddy, perhaps.”

  Jeremy scribbled down some notes in his pocket-book.

  “It’s rather an undertaking,” Sandra remarked.

  “No worse than Shakespeare,” said Bulldog.

  “You will give me a really funny song, won’t you, Jeremy?”

  “I’ll try, but you may have to make up your own words. I’m not so good at being funny to music. May I have Maddy to help me with the story part of it?”

  Maddy was delighted to think that her beloved Jeremy needed her help.

  As they went home Sandra whispered to Jeremy, “Please write Lyn a good part, Jerry; she’s rather upset.”

  Lyn was upset, and furious at herself for being upset. “I mustn’t expect to get the chief part every time,” she told herself over and over again, but still she could not remove the little spark of jealousy of Sandra that persisted inside her.

  For the next week Jeremy and Maddy were a fixture after school in the dining-room of the Darwins’ house, where they covered sheet after sheet of manuscript and exercise book paper. The script was finished by the following Saturday, and they went down to the theatre to read it over to the rest of the company. It met with the greatest approval. Even Lyn was delighted with her part, and they wanted to start rehearsing right away; but Lyn, as producer, ordered everyone to learn their words before they started to rehearse.

  Over the garden fence one morning Mrs. Fayne said wryly to Mrs. Darwin, “So they’ve started it again!”

  “You mean acting?”

  “Yes, a pantomime this time, if you please.”

  “My goodness, they’re ambitious,” Mrs. Darwin said. “But I don’t think it will suit Lyn; she’s all for tragedy and melodrama. What pantomime is it?”

  “Cinderella, I believe.”

  “It ought to be quite good. You know, I find myself looking forward to the children’s shows,” confessed Mrs. Darwin. “Don’t you?”

  “Yes,” agreed Mrs. Fayne, “I do. I suppose it’s because they’re our children, but I prefer one of their little plays to the cinema.”

  “You’re not the only one. I was speaking to Miss Pritchard the other day – she’s one of the Sunday School teachers, you know – and she said that she thinks they’re quite as good as some of the professional companies that come here.”

  “They’re getting quite famous in a small way,” remarked Mrs. Fayne.

  “They are. I was introduced to a lady the other day that I’d never seen before, and she said, ‘Aren’t you the lady with the little daughter that acts?’ She was at the garden fête last summer.”

  “I’m sure Lyn was thrilled to hear that, wasn’t she?”

  “I didn’t tell her. I don’t want her to get a swelled head. She’s got big enough ideas about going on the stage already. I can see difficulty ahead.”

  “I suppose you would not think of letting her go on the stage?” Mrs. Fayne asked.

  “Would you let Sandra?” asked Mrs. Darwin sharply.

  “Why, no.” Mrs. Fayne was about to add, “That’s quite a different matter,” but realizing that perhaps it wasn’t, she checked herself.

  “Well, then, why do you think I should let Lyn? And now she seems to have led Jeremy into thinking he wants to be an actor. They talk of going to a dramatic school. I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous!”

  Mrs. Darwin was getting heated. Mrs. Fayne laughed.

  “Oh, there’s no need to worry. They’re young yet, and they’ll soon forget all these foolish ideas.”

  Her voice did not carry the conviction that it would have done a year ago, and if the two mothers had seen the rehearsal at the Blue Door Theatre that evening their maternal hearts would have been still more troubled. Even Lyn, usually hard to please, acknowledged that if they went on rehearsing as well as they had done that night, it ought to be a jolly super show.

  They went home after locking up the little theatre – that little theatre that held the ghosts of so many songs and so much laughter.

  15

  PANTOMIME

  Miss Maclowrie, the headmistress of Fenchester Girl’s School, was approaching the finish of her usual end-of-term address. “And above all,” she said “think wisely, speak kindly, and act vigorously.” She was puzzled to see three Lower Fifth girls nudge each other at these words, and hide their faces to giggle, while little Madelaine Fayne turned round to them with an expansive grin. If the headmistress had been at the Blue Door Theatre the previous night she would have seen the joke, for the Blue Door Company had gone through the pantomime with scenery and properties, and all the time Lyn had been urging them, “Put more pep into it; faster; get a move on; act vigorously.”

  This morning was the twenty-first of December, and they had arranged for the show to be given on the day after Boxing Day. As the girls walked home with laden satchels slung over their shoulders Sandra announced kindly, but firmly, “Fitting this afternoon, please, at the theatre.”

  “At the theatre!” they groaned. “It’s so darned cold in that dressing-room.”

  “Well, then, everyone must bring a lump of coal, and we’ll make a fire.”

  “Need I come, Sandra?” Maddy pleaded. “Because you’ve tried my clothes on.”

  “Yes, you must come. I’m having Bulldog there to work the lights. I want to see the effect.”

  Maddy stamped her foot angrily, and a cascade of books fell from her crammed satchel. She put down the case she was carrying in her left hand, the overall she had under her right arm, and repacked her satchel. When it was once more slung on her back she started off again, but this time a gym shoe fell out of her chemistry overall.

  “Bother! Lyn, tie this shoe on the strap of my satchel.”

  “There’s not room,” Lyn told her; “you’ve got your shoebag and your needlework bag attached already. You’ll look like the White Knight.”

  “I’ll put it in my case, then.” Once more Maddy stopped in the middle of the High Street pavement and opened her case. She folded her gym shoe into a ball and stuffed it into a corner, but then found to her exasperation that the lid would not close. She turned it broadside down on to the pavement and sat on it, bouncing up and down in an attempt to secure the lock. The other three stood watching her and writhing under the amused glances of passers-by. “’Sno use,” sighed Maddy, “I’ll have to repack it.”

  Before Sandra could stop her she had emptied the case of its contents, school books covered with ink, paints and pencils, and all the peculiar junk she had accumulated in her desk during term.

  Just when she was in the middle of repacking, squatting on the pavement with her round velour hat tilted on the back of her head, and her pigtails sticking out at an angle of ninety degrees, Vicky hissed in a deathly whisper, “Look out, here comes Miss Maclowrie.” And sure enough, there was the tall thin figure of their headmistress threading her way along the crowded pavement.

  “Gosh,” gasped Maddy, “just look at all th
is! What am I going to do?”

  Miss Maclowrie, though very fair in other matters of discipline, had strict ideas about behaviour in the street, and many a girl had been “up on the carpet” for slighter misdeeds than emptying and repacking her case in the middle of High Street.

  “Do something, do something,” said Sandra urgently.

  She had a horror of rows from mistresses. Then help came from an unexpected quarter. While they were still staring at the pile of rubbish on the ground and waiting for Miss Maclowrie’s cold grey eyes to light on it and to hear Miss Maclowrie’s equally cold grey voice saying, “And what is the meaning of this?” the bishop, like a great black bird, crossed the road to them.

  “Hullo, girls,” he cried cheerfully, his thin face flushed with the cold, “you look as if you’d broken up with a vengeance.”

  “I’m at my wits’ end,” Maddy told him softly. “All my worldly goods are on the ground, and Miss Maclowrie is just about to pass.”

  The bishop, grasping the situation, said, “Well gather round this heap of stuff and she won’t see it. She’s quite a friend of mine.”

  When Miss Maclowrie passed, all she saw was the Bishop of Fenchester talking to a bunch of her girls. He raised his corded hat to her in a courteous gesture. She nodded politely and passed on. The girls heaved a sigh of relief.

  “Thank you, Bishop,” said Maddy gratefully. “I’ll do the same for you one day.”

  “And how’s the pantomime getting along?” he wanted to know.

  “Not so badly,” Lyn told him. “But we’re suffering rather from having such a small cast.”

  “How are you off for funds?” he asked.

  “We haven’t a penny, but we’re going to take out of the proceeds whatever money we’ve spent on costumes.”

  The bishop put his hand into his pocket and brought out a ten-shilling note, which he gave to Sandra. “There you are, wardrobe mistress, do what you can with that,” and he strode off before they could thank him.

  “Oh, the darling man!” gasped Sandra. “Now you can have some more tinsel on your fairy frock, Vicky.”

  “I’ve got quite enough,” Vicky told her stoutly. “You must have a better ball dress, that’s what.”