by Pamela Brown
“Indeed, I am. And she has told me that you are looking for a front-of-house manager for your theatre. Now, I have had many years of experience in that line. I began as a chartered accountant, and then took to the boards as a tenor singer, following which I toured abroad for many years with my own company.”
“I see,” said Nigel. “You could produce references, I suppose?”
Out came a sheaf of dog-eared yellow papers, all testifying to the complete integrity of their owner. Nigel explained what the duties would be, and that all the financial side of the theatre would be his responsibility.
“And your age?” Nigel inquired, feeling rather impertinent.
“Fifty,” said the old man, without batting an eyelid. Nigel mentally added on another good fifteen years, and said, “Well, I shall have to think it over, Mr.—er—what was the name?”
“Chubb.”
Jeremy, who was sitting quietly in the corner, looked up sharply.
“Well, Mr. Chubb,” concluded Nigel, “if you’ll leave me your address I’ll get in touch with you.”
“Care of the General Post Office, Leicester Square,” was the reply, as the visitor bowed himself out of the room.
Jeremy saw him to the front door, and as he watched the bent figure down the road a chord seemed to strike in his memory. And the name…
“Chubb—Chubb,” he murmured, and suddenly recalled Maddy’s voice saying, “Mr. Chubb was such a nice gentleman.”
“Well, I’m blowed!” And he ran to tell Nigel, who had been in Scotland during the barrel-organ incident.
“Maddy!” Nigel yelled up the stairs. “Come here at once.”
“I’m in the bath!” she replied.
“Well, get out.”
In a few minutes Maddy, clad in a bath towel and with a pink and shining face ran down the stairs.
“Did you like him? Isn’t he nice?”
“What on earth do you mean by sending that old ruffian round for the job?” Nigel demanded angrily.
“But I think he’s so suitable, somehow. He’s been a gentleman, he says, but he’s fallen on bad times. I think it would be lovely to set him on his feet again. I lent him the money to get that suit out of pawn. Doesn’t he look lovely with his hair cut, too?”
“Oh, Maddy,” groaned Nigel. “The friends you make!”
“But don’t you think he’d look lovely in the box office? Sort of imposing?”
“But how could we trust him to handle all our money? Don’t forget it’s not even our money. It’s the Town Council’s.”
“But he’s been an accountant. A chartered one, too,” pleaded Maddy.
“Well, why isn’t he still?” Nigel wanted to know. “He probably got kicked out.”
“He wasn’t,” Maddy cried hotly. “He left to go on the stage. Surely you can understand that?”
“Oh, Maddy, you’re incredible…”
Over supper Nigel told the others of the reappearance of Mr. Chubb, and they were all exceedingly intrigued.
“If only we could be sure about him,” said Vicky. “He was certainly a striking-looking old man. And being fairly old he would sort of add weight to the company. Because, after all, we are terribly young to run a company, aren’t we?”
“It’s the kind of thing one would love to do,” agreed Lyn, “to take someone from the gutter and give him a fresh chance. But dare we do it?”
“Let’s have a look at his references,” said Sandra, and read them all carefully.
“Gracious!” she cried. “This one is signed E. Moulcester—I wonder if that’s Lord Moulcester? Is his initial E., Maddy?”
“Yes—Ernest. There, I said Mr. Chubb knew all the best people.”
“Then we’ll write to Lord Moulcester straight away,” said Nigel, “and find out about Mr. Chubb.” The letter was posted that night, and two days later a telegram arrived that said, “Edwin Chubb my old schoolmate. Please employ.”
“That’s settled, then,” said Nigel. “If he’s not trustworthy Lord Moulcester can answer to the town council.”
“Of course he’s trustworthy,” Maddy expostulated. “Look how he gave me my share of the barrel-organ earnings. And he paid for the jellied eels.”
Mr. Chubb was overcome with delight when he next visited the Blue Doors, and sat drinking coffee with them in the dining-room, toasting the success of the Blue Door Theatre. It was only when he crossed his legs in a lordly manner that Nigel noticed the newspaper that padded the worn-through soles of his highly polished shoes. “Yes,” thought Nigel, “I think he needs this job enough to make a go of it.”
The last term sped by, and because they knew that the time was so short, everything about the Academy seemed miraculously dear. The long hours spent sunbathing on the roof, supposedly learning lines, and then going in to the dark and coolness of the underground theatre; walking round the sunny square arm-in-arm with friends, indulging in long psychological discussions in the dressing-rooms, they were conscious of a “never again” feeling that added sweetness to the summer days. Lyn sometimes stopped to think, “These are, and have been, the happiest days of my life. This is what it is to be young. And so soon it will pass. And other people will be leaning on this parapet looking out over London and thinking how happy they are, and listening to the ballet class piano in the distance and eating strawberries bought from the fruit stall in the square…”
And there was nothing to be done about it.
12
PUBLIC SHOW
“I hope,” said Maddy firmly, “that you will all win something in the Public Show. I shall be most ashamed of you if you don’t.”
“We’ll do our best, ma’am. But it all depends what parts we’re given. Someone’s got to play the uninteresting parts, and if it’s us—we’re done for,” said Bulldog.
“Nonsense!” replied Maddy. “Felicity Warren says that an actress should be able to recite the alphabet backwards, and still make it sound interesting.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Lyn. “How would you win the gold medal if you just had to play a maid, and say, ‘The carriage awaits without’?”
“I’d fill it simply chock full with meaning,” said Maddy. “Think how many ways there are of saying it. You can say it gaily—‘The carriage awaits without’”—she bared her teeth in what she hoped was a vivacious smile—“or you can sweep on and declaim it melodramatically, like this.” She swept across the room, with her hands clasped tragically, and wailed, “The carriage awaits—without.” For a long time they played this new game, until every way of announcing the carriage had been exhausted and they were weak with laughter. But although they joked about it, the question of what parts they would be allotted in the Public Show was an important one, for so much depended on it.
“If only one could win that gold medal,” sighed Lynette. “It would be a start—such a start.”
“What good would a gold medal be in Fenchester?” asked Bulldog. “People like Mrs. Potter-Smith would merely ask if it were made of real gold.”
“But if one of us got it, it would justify us to our parents, and show the Town Council that one at least of us was dependable.”
“When we hear the cast lists we shall know our fates,” said Vicky. “It is quite obvious that whichever of Lynette and Helen gets the better part will also get the medal.”
The rivalry between Lynette and Helen still existed. As each developed in her own way, their styles of acting grew even more different. Now that they were in the Finals, and persons of importance, the Academy was split into two followings, Helen’s and Lynette’s. Lynette’s satellites accused Helen of being too stark and “arty”, and Helen’s upholders regarded Lynette as too flighty and artificial in her acting. And yet the two girls themselves were always on excellent terms. Although not exactly friends, the secret that they shared about Helen’s job as waitress in the low café during the first term seemed to bind them together.
“You can tell,” thought Lynette, “that the theatre is in her b
lood. So many things that I have to be taught she knows by instinct.”
And then came the fateful day on which the parts for the Public Show were announced. Roma Seymore and Mr. Whitfield were sharing the producing, but it was Miss Smith who read out the list in her clipped, emotionless voice.
“Scenes will be performed from Major Barbara, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Hay Fever, Uncle Vanya, Othello, and Hamlet.”
“Hamlet!” breathed Jeremy, already visualizing himself in black tights with a touch of white at the neck.
“Major Barbara!” breathed Vicky, imagining how much a Salvation Army bonnet would become her.
“Uncle Vanya!” thought Lynette. “Let me see—Sonya? Or Ilena? Which do I want?”
But then the list was read, and the Blue Doors turned to each other helplessly, white with disappointment.
“Of course, there’s no reason why we should be given all the good parts,” murmured Lynette, completely stunned, for she was playing Jenny, a small part of a pathetic little Salvation Army girl in Major Barbara, and Jeremy was not playing Hamlet but a vaguely comic diplomat in Hay Fever. Sandra was playing a decorative but dull widow in the same comedy, and Vicky was playing a Merry Wife, which she had done before, and Bulldog was playing Falstaff, also for the second time. Nigel had a good part in Major Barbara, Bill Walker, the Cockney thug. But as they listened to the rest of the casting, they realized that all the plums had fallen to the lot of other people.
“I think that either Ali as ‘Othello’ or Helen as ‘Sonya’ in Uncle Vanya will get it,” prophesied Lynette.
They went home through the drizzling rain, dragging disconsolate feet.
“We must just make the best of it,” said Sandra with an attempt at cheerfulness. “Come on, let’s go down to the library and try to get hold of copies of the plays.”
“Can’t be bothered,” said Jeremy. “Couldn’t care less about the part.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t be such a drear. We’ll have to learn the parts whether we like them or not.”
“It really is a little thick,” grumbled Lynette. “We sweat for months and months, studying as hard as we can, and then, when we get a chance to prove ourselves, to be given such bad parts!”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Bulldog cheerfully, “they might be worse. One girl has only got three lines, you know.”
“It’s all right for you,” retaliated Lyn. “You couldn’t have a better part than Falstaff. It’s absolutely you.”
“Type-casting, of course,” agreed Bulldog. “But all the same it wasn’t the part I wanted.”
“Oh, you’re never satisfied!” Maddy scolded them. “At least you haven’t got to announce the carriage.”
The atmosphere in the Finals’ class was extremely tense during these last few weeks. Everyone was so deeply immersed in his own particular little bit for the Public Show that the team spirit usually apparent had entirely disappeared. There was constant friction among the students and between the teachers, and every day produced its own tears and scenes. Nigel and Lynette quarrelled bitterly over their scene in Major Barbara, and Sandra and Jeremy were so bad that they were threatened with having their parts taken away from them.
“What a climax to our brilliant careers at the Academy!” laughed Jeremy cynically. “However we dare to think of opening a professional company I can’t imagine!”
In order to give everyone a scene it meant a tremendously long programme that was difficult to rehearse in the few short weeks that were left of the term, and they were kept late at the Academy nearly every evening. The days were very hot and stuffy, and at night their rooms at No. 37 were almost unbearable. One extremely hot night the three boys could stand it no longer, and got up and carried rugs into Regent’s Park, where they slept under the starry sky until a policeman prodded them in the ribs at seven o’clock next morning, and it was time to hurry home for a bath and breakfast before work.
This year, as the weather was stormy, it was not to be an out-door show, but would take place in the little theatre, which had been newly decorated, ready for the occasion, and smelt sickeningly of fresh paint.
“I shall really be glad to leave, after these awful rehearsals,” said Lynette at the end of a particularly bad session that lasted until seven o’clock in the evening and left everyone exhausted and hot and bad-tempered.
“Unless you all improve considerably,” Mr. Whitfield had thundered. “We shall have to cancel the show. In any case it will be the worst we have ever put on.” “He says that every year,” Roma Seymore told them.
Maddy had been asked to distribute programmes, as she was the youngest, yet the most distinguished pupil of the Academy.
“They’re just showing her off really,” Lynette confided to Sandra. “Everyone will recognize her from Forsaken Crown.”
“Well, I hope she’ll wear something respectable,” said Sandra. “She’s been going round like a little tramp lately.”
The careless clothes affected by some of the students had captivated Maddy, and she now lived in a pair of shabby corduroys, sandals that were always coming to pieces in the street so that she had to stop and take out needle and thread to mend them, and shapeless jumpers that came down almost to her knees. When she heard that she was to be present at the Public Show to give out programmes she was delighted.
“Oh, good!” she cried. “Now I shall be able to lead the applause whenever one of you makes an exit.”
“Don’t you dare,” warned Jeremy.
“Well, at least I’ll be able to listen to what everyone says about you.”
“It will probably be horrid,” moped Jeremy.
An air of depression hung over them and everywhere they went. No. 37 seemed even more squalid than usual.
“It will be nice,” said Vicky, surveying the bath with distaste, “to get home to civilization again.” And yet they well knew that when the day came to leave London and the Academy they would be heart-broken.
There were notices in all the papers that the Academy’s Public Show was about to take place, and mentioning the names of the many distinguished theatre people who were to be the judges. The Blue Doors, knowing how bad they were in their parts, winced at the list.
“If only we’d been eligible at the last Public Show, when we did The Importance,” Lynette moaned.
The last-term students were already on the lookout for jobs, and people were liable to be absent from rehearsals for an hour or two, and then appear, radiant, after a successful audition, or dejected, after a tramp round the agents. The Blue Doors were chafing at their inability to get on with things at Fenchester.
“We’ll be lucky if we open in September,” Nigel observed. “There’s still oodles to be done.”
He and Mr. Chubb, who was proving a tower of strength, went down to Fenchester for several weekends, and returned to report favourably on the building of the dressing-rooms, and the new seating accommodation.
Lynette was in an odd state of dissatisfaction. She was bored with her part in the Public Show, and wishing the term over, and yet she could not bear the thought of leaving London. And suddenly the years that she had spent in constant company with the Blue Doors seemed to catch up on her, and she went out of her way to avoid them, going out in the evenings for long walks by herself, or going to the cinema with other students, whom the Blue Doors considered “outsiders”. She quarrelled with Nigel more than ever, snubbed Maddy, and avoided the other two girls, and although she knew that she was doing it, she could not help it. There seemed to be some problem at the back of her mind that she could not quite face up to. When plans for the Blue Door Theatre were discussed she maintained a remote silence, as though they did not concern her.
“Anyone would think you were longing to be anything but an actress,” complained Maddy. “I should be terribly thrilled if I were ready to leave the Academy and come back with you. I’m always behind the rest of you—and I’ll never catch up. Still, it will be fun to be all on my own up here.”
“I dread to think what mischief you’ll get into,” said Sandra. “But still, it won’t be my responsibility.”
“Mrs. Bosham has promised to ‘look after me like a mother’,” said Maddy. “I jolly well wish she could cook like my mother.”
There was a dress rehearsal of the Public Show which all the students attended, and never was a dress rehearsal worse. It lasted five hours with long waits between acts. The curtains jammed and they had to get the boilerman to come and unstick them, and a piece of scenery fell on Bulldog’s head.
At supper-time Nigel said to Maddy, who had made no comment on the performances, “Well, let’s have it.”
Maddy took a large mouthful of college pudding and said through it, “You were all lousy.”
Lynette flared up. “I’d like to see you do better. On a stage that stank of the paint that was still wet on the scenery, and with a houseful of giggling juniors in front.”
“Don’t wonder we giggled,” retorted Maddy. “That Salvation Army bonnet of yours—golly!”
Before Maddy could be more annoying, Sandra said firmly, “Hurry up and finish your supper. I’m going to wash your hair so that you’ll look nice for tomorrow.”
“Oh, don’t bother,” said Maddy. “I’ll probably have a scarf round my head.”
“Oh, no, you won’t,” said Sandra firmly. “Nor will you wear slacks.”
“Oh, yes, I will.”
“Oh, no, you won’t.”
This continued until Sandra plunged Maddy’s head into the soap suds.
Later in the evening they became conscience-stricken, and had a hurried rehearsal of their pieces for next day, and did voice production exercises as they undressed for bed.
“Moo, mah, may,” intoned Vicky.
“That won’t win you the gold medal,” Maddy told her.
“It’s too late now.”
They all had troubled dreams of going on in the wrong play, or in the right play but the wrong clothes, until Mrs. Bosham brought them up cups of tea.
“As it’s a special sort of day,” she explained.