The Town in Bloom

  I decided to go on listening but I wanted to hear better than I could from where I was. So I walked down into the prompt corner. (I knew all about such things as prompt corners, having twice played children’s parts in amateur theatricals before my aunt gave up acting.) It did not strike me that I was doing anything outrageous and I had stopped feeling nervous of Brice Marton. A man who read as badly as that couldn’t be of the least importance; still, I was glad to find he had his back to me.

  This girl read better and was allowed to go on to the end of the scene, thus giving me a clear idea of the part. I felt I could play it admirably and I was sorry to hear Mr Crossway, say to the girl, ‘Come down and have a word with me. Brice, show her the pass door.’ It sounded as if she might get the job before I’d had a chance to win it.

  I hastily got out of the prompt corner and was careful to keep out of Brice Marton’s sight when he brought the girl back to the wings, took her down some stone steps, and opened a narrow iron door for her. He then went back to the stage, taking another girl with him. I went closer to the open pass door and could see the rose-red carpet and the brocaded walls of the theatre. A moment later, I heard Rex Crossway’s voice, and though I could not see him I felt sure he had come to the side of the stalls to talk to the girl. He was speaking too quietly for me to make out the words so I went right down the steps to the pass door, determined to find out if the girl really had got the job. I was in time to hear him say, ‘Weil, I mustn’t decide for a few days but you can count on hearing from me one way or the other. Now perhaps you’d like to go out of the front of the theatre.’ Then he held open one of the swing doors of the stalls – I could see him now. The girl went out and he turned to go back to the middle of the stalls.

  I flung myself towards him saying, ‘Please, please! Just a minute! Will you please read this?’

  He swung round, looking startled; then said, ‘Good gracious, what is it? A reprieve?’

  I suspect my explanation was far from coherent but he got the hang of it quickly and said he remembered my aunt very well and was indeed sorry to hear of her death. He then accepted my letter, saying he would read it later and arrange to see me.

  I said, ‘But then it may be too late for this part. Won’t you please let me read it to you now?’

  He said that would be unfair to me as I’d had no chance to study the part. I assured him I’d listened to two girls and knew what kind of a part it was. He still shook his head so I added, ‘Then let me do something on my own. Shakespeare, Sheridan – I’ve an enormous repertoire.’

  He capitulated. ‘All right. Do anything you like, but keep it short. I’d better hear you at once.’ He went to the front of the stalls and said: ‘I want to slip someone in here, Brice. She’s coming up now. Sorry, my dear’ – he turned to the girl who was waiting to read – ‘I’ll hear you in a moment.’

  I rushed through the pass door and up to the stage. Brice Marton was just coming into the wings. He stared at me and gave a disgusted snort, then said, ‘Someone will have to lend you a script.’

  The girl who had come off the stage with him offered hers. I thanked her politely but said I shouldn’t need it. ‘And I shan’t need you, either,’ I said to Brice Marton, not at all politely, and sailed out to the front of the stage.

  Feeling that I could not be at my best if trammelled by hat, cloak, handbag, gloves and umbrella, I flung them from me. Then, having decided how I could best show my talent for Society comedy, I smiled into the dark auditorium and announced: ‘The School for Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan.’ (Aunt Marion had trained me to let people know what they were in for.) After which, I launched into the first quarrel scene between the Teazles.

  I played both of them. First, as Sir Peter, I looked to my right and used a deep, rich voice. Then, looking left, I became Lady Teazle and used a lighter voice than was natural to me. Backwards and forwards from right to left I went, speaking fast because I feared Mr Crossway would stop me. I particularly wanted to reach what was, for me, the high moment of the scene, when Sir Peter tells Lady Teazle she had no taste when she married him. Lady T. then goes off into fits of laughter – that is, she did in my interpretation. And never had I laughed better, louder or longer than I did for Mr Crossway. I checked my laughter with some very amusing gasps and continued the scene. Still Mr Crossway did not interrupt me. So I went on until Lady Teazle’s exit when I sketched a pert curtsy to Sir Peter – and then made a very deep one to Mr Crossway.

  From the dark auditorium came his voice and he certainly sounded impressed. ‘Thank you, thank you. Come down and see me again.’

  I dashed off the stage, forgetting all my belongings, and ran down the steps to the pass door. Brice Marton called after me, ‘Come back for your clothes!’ but I took no notice. When I reached the stalls Mr Crossway was coming to meet me.

  ‘That was really remarkable,’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘And you were especially good as Sir Peter. When I play that part – and I’m nearly old enough – I shall come to you for hints.’ Then he probably guessed from my expression that I thought he was making fun of me, because he went on, ‘Seriously, I was impressed by your diction, and you know how to project your voice. And you use your hands prettily, though rather too much even for period comedy. Yes, yes, you undoubtedly have, er …’ He paused to choose the word.

  ‘Yes, individuality. And I wish with all my heart I had work to offer you—’

  I interrupted him. ‘But you have. That part the girls have been reading—’

  ‘You’re out of the question for it. You’d have to play a scene with me – and you’d make me look a giant. I simply must have a tall girl.’

  Just then there was a slight thud: my belongings had been thrown through the pass door.

  ‘Dear me, that was very rude of my stage manager,’ said Mr Crossway. ‘We’re in disgrace for interrupting the audition. Now I really must send you away.’

  He picked up my cloak and put it round me, then handed me the rest of my things, remarking, ‘What a very tall umbrella!’ I told him it had been Aunt Marion’s. His smile faded and he said, ‘That dear, pretty woman. I am so sorry she’s dead. Now go up to my offices – you can reach them through the foyer – and give your name and address to my secretary, Miss Lester. And tell her from me that she’s to be very nice to you.’

  As he turned to open the swing door for me a young man came hurrying through it. Mr Crossway spoke to him. ‘Everything all right, Tom?’ The young man said, ‘Yes, sir. I chose lilac. They’ll deliver it this afternoon.’ Mr Crossway said, ‘Good. Now get back to Brice. I’m in his bad books for borrowing you.’ Then, turning to me, he said, ‘Goodbye, my dear,’ very kindly, and held the door open. My spirits sank as it swung to behind me. I had been elated at getting into the audition, and by his praise … but I hadn’t got the job.

  And there was something else troubling me, something I only realised fully when I got to the foyer. Here, amidst the mirrors, rose-red brocade and cream and gold paint, was an oil painting of Rex Crossway as Charles Surface. That was the man with whom, for years, I had been in love. True, the words meant no more to me than when I used them about a character in history or fiction, and I knew one did not really fall in love with men one had not met. But I had never fallen in love with any man I had met and Rex Crossway had at least been the most exciting man I had ever seen. The man in the stalls had been kind but scarcely exciting. There had not been enough time, or light, for me to study his face carefully but my impression had been that, though pleasantly humorous, it was almost ordinary, a shade plump and surmounted by hair barely bright enough to be called fair (a poor substitute for Charles Surface’s gleaming white wig). And whereas I had thought of him as a tall man with a magnificent figure, he was – if certainly tall – a trifle heavy. Worst of all, he seemed to be definitely middle-aged. Well, I knew from reference books that he was forty and, come to think of it, that was middle-aged. But I never had thought of it before.

  I stood i
n front of the oil painting trying to believe that Rex Crossway in the stalls had at least borne some slight resemblance to Rex Crossway as Charles Surface. It couldn’t be done. So, one way and another, I was depressed as I started to walk up the stairs from the foyer.

  At the back of the dress circle was a door marked: ‘To the Crossway Company offices only’. I opened it and found a much narrower staircase and went up and up. It ended at last at a landing, where a door stood open. I could see no bell so I knocked on the door.

  A woman’s voice told me to come in and I went into an entrance hall dimly lit by a dirty glass roof. I saw several closed doors and one open onto an office from which the woman’s voice called again: ‘Come in here.’

  I went into a long, low room which had four not very large round windows. The parapet of the roof hung out over these a little, cutting off some of the bright morning sunshine. The effect was curiously pleasant, the parapet somehow suggesting sun-blinds protecting the room from high summer heat.

  Close to one of the windows a woman was seated in front of a typewriter. I took in that she had light brown hair and was pretty but no longer young; probably in her late thirties. She said, ‘Yes?’ rather vaguely and did not return my smile. I explained how I came to be there, concluding by saying, ‘And Mr Crossway said – he really did, I’m not making it up – he said I was to tell you from him to be nice to me.’

  She was smiling by now. ‘Well, I hope I would have been, anyway – though it is a busy morning. Now sit down and give me your particulars. And tell me some more about yourself.’

  She listened with apparent interest, asking questions until she must have had a pretty clear picture of my background. Then she said, ‘And now I’d like to hear just how you crashed into that audition.’ When I’d told her all I could remember she said, ‘Well, bravo, you! But don’t ever again watch another girl from the prompt corner; that’s against all stage etiquette. Not that I want to inhibit you. Oh, dear, how annoyed Brice Marton must have been with you!’

  ‘He was indeed. I hated him.’

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t. A stage manager has to be boss of his stage and Brice has to be a bit extra bossy because he’s so young for the job – only twenty-five. He started here as a call boy. By the way, he comes from your part of the world, but from right in Manchester, not a suburb.’

  I said I didn’t know that anyone lived right in Manchester.

  ‘They do when their mothers are theatrical landladies, as Brice’s was,’ said Miss Lester. ‘Listen, that secretarial course you took: how did you get on?’

  I told her I had done fairly well.

  She got up and went to a smaller desk than her own, where there was a second typewriter. I noticed that she was tall, and well-dressed in a casual way that came near to being untidy. Putting some paper in the machine she said, ‘Let me see what you can do.’

  ‘But why? I don’t mean to be a secretary.’

  ‘I know that. Still – come on.’

  I sat down at the typewriter. She dictated a letter addressed to me, regretting that Mr Crossway had no work to offer me. I made no mistakes.

  ‘And you’ve set it out nicely,’ she said, ‘Now we’ll try some shorthand.’

  She dictated again, so slowly that I had no difficulty in keeping pace with her. When I read the words back to her she said, ‘Now don’t jump down my throat. I’m badly in need of help here. I’ve been keeping the job open for a girl who’s been ill and has now decided she doesn’t want to come back. Why don’t you join me, while you’re looking for stage work?’

  I stared at her. ‘But how could I look for it if I was working here?’

  ‘Quite easily. I want someone who’ll come in the afternoons and evenings. You could have the mornings off – well, most of them. And if you’d any special afternoon appointment I’d let you off for that, too.’

  She went on talking persuasively, pointing out that the money she could pay me would help me to keep going until I got a job on the stage. I could see that, but I had an almost superstitious fear that if I once became a secretary I should go on being a secretary. Then she said something which completely changed my feelings – ‘And perhaps Mr Crossway would let you understudy something in the new play; from what you’ve told me, he must think you’re promising. Or he might – not that you must count on it – give you some introductions.’

  I said, ‘Oh, goodness, do you think he would? In that case, of course I’ll take the job.’

  ‘Splendid. And I think you’ll enjoy it. This is a fascinating theatre, for anyone who’s really interested in the stage. But I daresay you’re only interested in your own career.’ She said it quite nicely.

  I assured her I was particularly interested in the Crossway Theatre and its history and had once seen Sir Roy Crossway act. She told me she had worked as his secretary for many years and had thought the world of him – ‘Of course his temper could be frightening but he seldom lost it with me. And he was a wonderful man – the last of the great actor-managers.’

  ‘But surely Mr Crossway’s an actor-manager?’

  ‘Oh, yes, but he’s not interested in the managerial side. Acting has always come first with him. Now you’d better leave me to get on with my work. Could you start this afternoon? No, I shall be too busy with Mr Crossway to show you the ropes. How about this evening at six-thirty? We’ll have a meal together. That is, if you really want to join me here. I don’t want to over-persuade you.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll come. And it’s kind of you to want me.’ I added with belated modesty, ‘I can’t think why you should. I’m not really efficient.’

  She smiled. ‘The truth is that I rather like you. And I can’t work with people I don’t like, however efficient they are. Now off you go.’

  I went down the stairs feeling cheerful; with the prospect of understudying I could think of myself as an actress, not a secretary. Perhaps I could understudy the part I had heard read at the audition. I opened one of the doors into the dress circle hoping to do some more listening, then decided this might be against stage etiquette like watching from the prompt corner. Just before I reluctantly withdrew, a cleaner who was quietly polishing brass whispered, ‘If you’re looking for Miss Lester, she’s up the stairs, right at the top.’

  ‘Yes, I know, thanks,’ I said nonchalantly. ‘I work here.’

  3

  Back at the Club, I found Molly and Lilian in the lounge and told them about my morning.

  ‘It’s simply staggering,’ said Lilian. ‘Getting a job the first day you’ve looked for one! I can’t believe it.’

  ‘But you told me you had a feeling I would.’

  ‘Oh, that was just to encourage you – or did I really know?’

  This was my introduction to those ‘feelings’ of Lilian’s which it was never safe to count on or discount.

  Molly said, ‘Personally, I’m not one bit surprised, Mouse.’

  ‘Fancy him remembering your aunt,’ said Lilian. ‘Do you think he had an affair with her?’

  I said he only came to tea.

  Lilian giggled. ‘Well, he’s said to be a fast worker.’

  ‘But he’s married, Lilian.’ I had noted it, with regret, in a reference book.

  ‘Oh, that doesn’t stand in his way,’ said Lilian.

  ‘Well, it would have stood in Aunt Marion’s. And I’m sure she wouldn’t have had an affair with anyone. She went on caring for her fiancé, who was killed in the war.’ The very thought of an affair for my aunt seemed shocking, so I dropped the subject by saying, ‘Of course, I haven’t got a job on the stage.’

  Molly said it was sure to lead to one.

  ‘And think what fun you’ll have, being in the know,’ said Lilian. ‘Perhaps you can get us jobs – our show may not run through the summer and I’d quite like to be in a straight play.’

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ said Molly. ‘All I want is to find a marvellous man, so that I can marry him and have dozens of children. Until then, the chorus will do nicely.??
?

  Lilian glared at her. ‘Don’t keep saying we’re in the chorus.’

  We went down to an early lunch; it was Wednesday and the girls had a matinée. Lilian pointed out that the Crossway midweek matinées were on Thursdays, so they could go to one if I could get some complimentary seats. She said it was usual to paper the house when a show was coming off.

  ‘The child probably thinks you mean they get the decorators in,’ said Molly. ‘Paper means free seats, Mouse.’

  Later I got quite a number to scatter around the Club – or, rather, for Lilian to scatter; she enjoyed doling them out.

  After lunch I wrote to Aunt Marion’s solicitor. He was legally my guardian but my aunt had told him I was to be free to try for work on the stage. He had done what he could to help me, finding out about the Club (which was for actresses, musicians and artists) and arranging for my membership; but he took a poor view of the stage as a career for me and would be relieved to know I had a secretarial job. I also wrote to several friends, taking pleasure in describing my adventures and saying I should be sending further instalments – which never got written; from that day on I lost interest in everyone connected with my old life, because my new life was so all-absorbing.

  When I had finished my letters I went up to my cubicle and studied my dresses. I had already decided they must be shortened; I doubt if many young women can be happy in dresses longer than other women are wearing. But I still did not hanker for shapeless tubes; I much preferred my tight bodices and full skirts. Lilian had told me the attendant in the Ladies’ Room would do alterations for me so I took down an armful of dresses. An American girl who came in said they were the cutest things she’d ever seen.

  After tea, with stimulating watercress sandwiches, I started for the theatre in time to get off the bus at Piccadilly Circus and walk up Shaftesbury Avenue, looking at playbills and photo graphs. Then I got lost in the small streets surrounding the Crossway, but I still got there well before six-thirty.