The Town in Bloom

  I said, ‘But there are lots now, surely? I’m always seeing them – in shops and on barrows and in flower women’s baskets; and of course in Regent’s Park. Window boxes, too.’

  ‘Are there? I don’t seem to notice them now. Remind me to have those tulips in the hanging baskets replaced by geraniums.’

  ‘Even though the theatre’s dark?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. One must always give a particularly good impression when a new play’s in production. It encourages the advance booking.’

  The theatre felt dark when we went back to the office. I asked if we were the only people working in it. She said Brice Marton would be back-stage somewhere – ‘He spends as much time here as I do. We’ll knock off early tonight.’

  But we didn’t. When we had finished work we sat talking over our coffee. I now drank it black – having got bored with carrying up milk – and was becoming an addict.

  ‘Are you still miserable about not understudying?’ she asked, pouring me a third cup.

  ‘A bit. You see, while I thought I’d get an understudy, I could tell myself I’d made a start on the stage.’

  ‘Shall I send you home in a petty-cash taxi?’

  ‘No, thanks. I’m not eager to get back. I shall have to break my bad news to Molly and Lilian.’

  ‘Poor Mouse.’ I had told her the girls called me that and she now did, too. ‘But we really should go. It’s nearly eleven.’

  On my way to the bus I decided to walk part of the way home; walking had often helped me during my aunt’s long illness. I went now along Shaftesbury Avenue and saw the audiences coming out of several theatres. Not one theatre had I been to since arriving in London. I had been too absorbed to worry about this, still … ought I to let myself settle down as a secretary? Those introductions from Mr Crossway might never materialise.

  I intended to take a bus at Piccadilly Circus but they were so crowded that I went on walking. I was half-way up Regent Street when a large chauffeur-driven car stopped beside me. One of its rear doors opened and Mr Crossway leaned out and told me to get in. As I sat down beside him he said I ought not to be walking alone at this time of night.

  I assured him I hadn’t minded at all.

  ‘Well, I mind for you. You’re too young – and you look even younger than you are. Someone might kidnap you. What’s the address of this Club you live at? I’ll drive you home.’

  He relayed the address to the chauffeur, then told me he had been to a first night. ‘My wife went on to the management’s party but I said I had work to do. There’s nothing, nothing, worse than a first-night party after a doomed play.’

  ‘Is this one doomed?’

  ‘I fear so. And I keep thinking, “But for the grace of God there go I” – in three weeks. Oh, I’ve just remembered: you’re prob ably out of friends with me. I take it Miss Lester’s told you I can’t let you understudy?’

  I nodded. ‘It was a bitter blow.’

  ‘You’re well out of it, really.’ He then said everything Miss Lester had, about the dreariness of understudying.

  ‘But even so, I’d have had all the interests of rehearsals – of seeing you bring the play to life.’

  ‘You flatter me – and the play, judging by this morning’s rehearsal. But I’m always pessimistic at this stage of things.’

  ‘I suppose I couldn’t slip in sometimes, when Miss Lester could spare me?’

  He said he was afraid not. ‘No one unconnected with the play is supposed to be there. It makes the company jumpy if there are strangers around, not to mention what it does to me when I’m directing.’

  Would I count as “strangers”?’

  He laughed. ‘Well, not to me. But I couldn’t break the rule for you.’

  ‘Suppose I sat with the understudies? Then the company wouldn’t notice me.’

  ‘No, young woman. Not that you’ve yet learned to take no for an answer, for which I admire you. I wonder …’

  As he didn’t go on, I said after a few seconds, ‘Did you have some idea?’

  ‘Not a good one, I’m afraid – probably quite impracticable. Still, I’ll talk to Miss Lester about it. Now don’t ask questions, and don’t count on anything. Tell me about this Club of yours. Have you made some pleasant friends?’

  He firmly kept the conversation on the Club until we reached it. Then the chauffeur came round to help me out. I thanked Mr Crossway for bringing me home and begged him not to forget the idea he’d had, whatever it was. He said he wished he hadn’t raised my hopes as there was only the barest chance…. But he smiled very kindly as he said it.

  When I talked to Molly and Lilian, up in the village, they thought my having been driven home by Mr Crossway quite outweighed the sad news that I wasn’t understudying.

  ‘Our Mouse is in with the Management,’ said Molly.

  ‘That usually means a girl is sleeping with the Management,’ said Lilian.

  ‘But our innocent Mouse has achieved it through charm and personality. Give her a slice of Veda bread.’

  None of us could think what Mr Crossway’s idea could be. My best guess was that he would let me sneak in at the back of the gallery sometimes. It would be better than nothing, I supposed; but it would hardly compensate for not being in the company. In spite of being ‘in with the Management’ – if I really was – I felt pretty depressed when I finally settled down to sleep.

  5

  The next morning, when I was in the lounge with the woeful waiters for the telephone, I was surprised to be called to the telephone myself.

  It was Miss Lester, asking me to come to the office. She said she had news for me. ‘Oh, don’t get too excited – it’s not an understudy. But I think you’ll be pleased. Can you come now?’

  ‘This minute. Can I take a petty-cash taxi – the one I didn’t have last night?’

  She laughed and said I could.

  When I got to the office she told me Mr Crossway had suggested I might act as his secretary during rehearsals, sitting beside him and taking notes. ‘He always needs someone in the last weeks of rehearsals and I usually have to do the job myself. It’s agony being tied up when all my own work’s waiting, but when I got him to try my assistant he hated her. I wonder if you realise what a compliment he’s paying you.’

  I said he was doing it out of kindness.

  ‘A bit, perhaps. But he wouldn’t do it if he didn’t like you. I must give you some hints before you join him this afternoon. He doesn’t really need you yet but he thought you might as well get started.’

  I asked if it would be difficult for her to spare me. She said it would be easier than sparing herself to do the job. ‘And there’s not so much work here when the theatre’s dark. Besides, I’m hoping you’ll come back tome for the evenings, though it’ll mean a long day. Of course you must have extra money. I’ll arrange for it.’

  I said that would be marvellous and I didn’t mind how long I worked. Then she settled down to give me advice.

  I gathered it was particularly important to hear what Mr Crossway said the first time he said it. ‘He dislikes being asked to repeat anything but dislikes it even worse if one gets the notes wrong. Lean towards him the minute he starts to speak. If he’s in a note-giving mood, use shorthand – and memory. Then write the whole note out in long-hand, very clearly, when you get the chance. Use two pads, one for your jottings, and one for the written-out note, which he’ll take with him when he talks to the cast after the rehearsal. He may want you with him then, to remind him what he meant by the note. Of course you may not know, but I usually do. If you concentrate on every line of the play you can generally follow what he means, and remember.’

  ‘How can I concentrate on the play and write out my notes?’

  ‘Sometimes there are breaks, when he discusses things with the cast or talks to Brice Marton, or something. And while I think of it, keep your notes short. He hates it if you sit beside him scribbling madly. And use your torch as little as possible; I mustn’t forget to give you on
e. Oh, you’ll just have to feel your way into the job.’

  ‘I’m beginning to doubt if I can do it. No, I’m not. I shall manage.’

  ‘For one startled second I thought you were losing your supreme self-confidence. We’d better have lunch now and I don’t want to leave the office, so cut out and get us sandwiches.’

  A little before two-thirty I went down to the stalls carrying two large note-pads, a tiny torch, and a supply of fiercely sharp pencils. Mr Crossway was not yet back from lunch but I could tell where he would be sitting by a rack, fixed to the back of a stall, with a script on it. I settled myself near this and watched the company assemble on the stage. I felt a pang when the understudies came through the pass door and sat at the back of the stalls. Taking notes might be interesting but it wasn’t being an actress.

  Then Mr Crossway came in, sat beside me and said, ‘Well, are you pleased?’ I said, ‘Terribly.’ He said, ‘Good,’ turned towards the stage, and the rehearsal began.

  As he was still at a period when he interrupted the cast to say what he wanted, I guessed that the few notes he gave were just practice for me. After about twenty minutes he had to go on stage to play his own part. He told me to come with him and sit in the wings. When I got there I saw Brice Marton at a table in the prompt corner, with a script and various notepads in front of him. He gave me a civil but unsmiling ‘hello’ and got me a chair. It was the first time we had met since the night when he pushed me out of the stage door.

  Every now and then Mr Crossway came over and gave me a note – as they were all unimportant I suspected he was merely establishing me in the eyes of the company. I wasn’t introduced to anyone but several people smiled at me pleasantly. When the rehearsal ended I handed my notes to Mr Crossway, who said they were beautifully legible, and I could now rejoin Miss Lester and assure her I had managed very nicely. ‘I believe she calls you Mouse, doesn’t she? Well, you may tell her you’ve lived up to the name and been delightfully quiet and unobtrusive. I’m so thankful you’re a silent breather. She once wished a girl on me who breathed like a steam engine.’

  When I reported this to Miss Lester she said she was relieved – ‘Oh, not about the breathing but as regards the unobtrusiveness. I forgot to warn you not to offer advice. Most girls would be too overawed to need such a warning, but you’re not exactly backward in coming forward.’

  I said I’d try to restrain myself.

  ‘Yes, do. But it’s a queer thing, though Mr Crossway loathes anyone to volunteer advice when he’s directing, he’ll sometimes ask for it from anyone who happens to be around: me, the understudies, cleaners, even the stage cat – yes, honestly; once when it got into the stalls and rubbed against his legs he was heard saying, “Oh, pussy, pussy, what can I do with the end of that act?” If ever he asks your opinion, answer quickly and decidedly – and stop the minute he’s had enough. Never argue, and if he does take a hint from you, never remind him that he did. That’s where authors make their mistake. They need to slide their ideas in and then praise the director for inventing them. We’ve got one thing to be thankful for with this play: the author’s in America.’

  ‘I should have thought authors could be a help at rehearsals.’

  ‘So they can, sometimes. But I doubt if they make for any net gain when Mr Crossway’s directing, because they paralyse his inventiveness. He says handling a play with an author watching is like teaching a child in front of its fond parents. Still, he’ll soon be raging because the author isn’t here to do bits of re-writing and agree to cuts.’

  This proved true and in a few days Miss Lester was coping with mammoth cables to and from New York.

  Mr Crossway gave me very few notes during the rest of the week so I was able to watch, listen and get to know the play thoroughly. It seemed remarkably like the one that had just come off. That had been about a faithless husband and a patient wife. The new play was about a faithless wife and a patient husband. In both plays a young girl made a dead set at Mr Crossway. But in the previous play the girl, though ‘daring’, had been childish enough to arouse Mr Crossway’s nobler instincts. In the new play all his instincts were noble; and the girl, rather a dark horse until Act III, seriously menaced them, in a well-written scene in which she told him what a much better wife she would make than his present one. The errant wife, overhearing this scene, decided to reform. The girl’s part was the one I had heard read at the audition. It had finally gone, not to the girl whose reading had impressed me but to a very tall young actress who seemed to me dull. Mr Crossway, however, appeared pleased with her.

  Late one afternoon he dismissed the company except the girl and his own understudy, and said he would watch the last-act scene from the front, with the understudy playing his part. When they finished he praised the girl, said a few kind words to his understudy (who seemed to me awful) and told them they could go. Then, while picking up his script and notes, he said to me, ‘Now you see why you couldn’t have played that part.’

  I said, ‘I see why you think I couldn’t, but I could really. And I’d make it funny.’

  He laughed and said he was sure I would. ‘But it isn’t meant to be funny. She has to be a girl without a sense of humour.’

  ‘But shouldn’t that be made funny?’

  He considered this seriously, then said, ‘No, not in this case. Audiences often like characters who make them laugh, and they mustn’t like this girl or it will be bad for the wife, who has to win sympathy at the end of the play. Still, it’s an interesting idea. Have you any more you’d like to wish on me – especially about my own performance? The director gets no direction.’

  Miss Lester had advised me to answer any request for an opinion quickly and decidedly. I practically shot my answer at him. ‘I think you should be more dramatic.’

  ‘Good gracious! And I always feel I’m over-acting – as I was made to, in my early days, when my father directed me. Where should I be more dramatic? No, don’t tell me yet.’

  He looked up at the stage, where Brice Marton and Tom Morison were waiting for him, called to them that he would be up in a moment, and then steered me out of the stalls and up a narrow staircase, into the little sitting-room behind the royal box. Here he sat on the edge of a gilt table and said: ‘Now, shoot!’

  I plunged into one of his most important scenes; I already knew much of the play off by heart through repeatedly hearing it. But I had to pull up at last and say, ‘I don’t quite know that speech yet.’

  ‘You know it better than I do. How I envy such a memory.’

  Anxious not to waste this God-given opportunity both to help him and demonstrate my talent, I pressed on. ‘Then there’s a bit in Act II….’

  He made no effort to stop me. I finally broke off because I saw he was shaking with suppressed laughter.

  ‘Of course I’m deliberately exaggerating a little,’ I said deflatedly.

  ‘You’re exaggerating gloriously. My dear, delightful child, you want to turn me into my barnstorming grandfather.’

  ‘Of course I don’t! But I do hanker for a touch of you as Charles Surface.’

  He sighed. ‘You and all the nice old ladies who come to matinées. I keep that portrait in the foyer to make them happy. My dear, those days are over. And perhaps I do fall backwards a bit to show they’re over for me. Bravura’s so against the trend of modern acting.’

  About to argue, I remembered Miss Lester had warned me not to. So I checked myself – it was an effort – and apologised for ranting. (Not that I thought I’d ranted.)

  He said soothingly, ‘Oh, you had to, in order to convey your meaning. Now I must go and confer with my stage staff. You wouldn’t believe the time we spend finding chairs with legs the right height to suit my leading lady’s legs, clocks with the right kind of chime, off-stage effects that make the right kind of noise.’ He held the door of the little room open for me, then concluded, ‘Thank you for an honest opinion, which I may have taken to heart more than you think.’

  The next
day I eagerly watched for a change in his performance but I could see none, then or ever.

  We had now reached a time when the company had to do without scripts. I had been getting more and more interested in the play. Miss Lester had told me this would happen – ‘Unless a play’s absolutely awful, you like it better and better. But then it gets set-backs.’ It certainly got one now, as people floundered for words and kept beginning speeches with ‘Well’, to give themselves an extra second to think. Some of them also held things up while they made excuses and swore they had known every word last night. There was one man who usually shouted: ‘Don’t tell me! Don’t tell me! I’ve got it – no, I haven’t. Tom, what is the blasted line?’ Poor Tom, on the book, was highly unpopular for prompting too soon or too late. Mr Crossway was particularly indignant if prompted while making a deliberate pause. Once, when Tom was called to the telephone, I did the prompting myself, from memory. I prided myself on knowing Mr Crossway’s pauses; but he put in new ones, so I came to grief.

  He knew very little of his part. Miss Lester said he always had difficulty in memorising – ‘He won’t concentrate; too many things on his mind. I suppose he’s showering notes on you now?’

  He was indeed, and he had taken to having me with him when he talked to the company; sometimes he referred to me as his little shadow. Once, when we had a discussion about what he had meant by a note and he decided I was right, he said he would bow to his co-director. The company must have seen that he treated me with kindness and amusement; perhaps for that reason, they did too.

  As people got steadier with their lines the play came to life again, especially when Mr Crossway, desperate at his lack of memory, seized a script and read his part. Then we suffered a worse set-back: the scenery arrived.