Petrova knew nothing of the technicalities of acting, and cared less; she just knew that ‘timing’ was saying a line at the right moment, instead of the wrong, and that ‘pace’ was picking up your cues properly, and she felt thankful that Mustard-seed said so little that once she had the ‘And I’ speech right, she could not go far wrong. She thought the rehearsals a frightful bore, but she brought her handbook on aeroplanes with her, and when not wanted for the fairy scenes, or to work at one of the innumerable ballets, would curl up in a corner, and study it.
One day they got a special call for five o’clock, and there they learnt a thing which pleased Pauline, and made Petrova take an entirely different view of rehearsals. They were to fly — Oberon, Titania, Puck, their four selves, and some extra fairies. The flying apparatus was on small trolleys in charge of men in the gallery from which the scenery was lowered. Petrova, who was ignorant of theatre terms, called them ‘Men up in the roof’, but Pauline said correctly that they were ‘in the flies’.
Before flying they were fastened into small harnesses, to the back of which was fixed a wire. Petrova had hoped, when she heard that she was to fly, that she would be held up in the air by a wire, and could propel herself where she liked. It was not nearly as easy as that; but it was tremendous fun. Each actual flight that any of them made was done from a fixed point to a fixed point, which was managed by the angle of the wire to the trolley overhead. They could fly in any direction, because the trolley moved all round the flies; but they could not fly at all except on an arranged cue to an arranged place.
Pauline, Petrova, and the extra fairies, trained as they were as dancers, in no time picked up the way to make a graceful flight; but the grown-ups had great difficulty. Oberon was a brilliant actor but a clumsy mover, and did not look a bit like a fairy king, but more like a sack of potatoes being lifted on a crane. Titania used her arms stiffly and awkwardly. Puck wanted to do strange Puck-like movements in the air, which were good ideas when they were in his head, but looked rather silly on the end of a wire. The whole flying rehearsal was more like a game than work, they laughed so much.
Petrova, with her birth certificate and two photographs, had, of course, been to the County Hall, to be examined for a licence. Pauline came too, as the three months allowed on her last licence had long ago expired. Sylvia had a joint letter about their work from Doctor Jakes and Doctor Smith. This being Pauline’s fourth licence, she and the County Council authorities were old friends. They knew this was the last licence she would need, and said they hoped she would go on with her savings-bank account. Petrova, though she was quite strong, did not look anything like as well as Pauline, as she was naturally thin and rather sallow. The doctor could find nothing wrong with her, though he took a long time examining her; but he told Sylvia she must be careful of her hours of rest, and horrified Petrova by suggesting extra milk. She had not Pauline’s way of expecting everybody to be a friend, and was terrified by the London County Council man, and answered all his friendly questions with monosyllables, which made her sound bad-tempered, though she was not; only embarrassed at so much attention focussed on her.
‘There,’ said Pauline, when they got outside. ‘I told you there was nothing to be frightened of. Aren’t they nice?’
Petrova did not answer; she felt glad to have got her interview over, and her licence granted. She admitted in her mind that they were as nice as any people could be who had to examine you all over, and stare, and ask questions, but she was not feeling good-tempered enough to admit it.
There was a répétition générale of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ — at least, that was what the papers called it. Pauline and Petrova called it a dress rehearsal to which you could invite friends. The people invited by the management sat in the stalls, the friends of the principals in the dress circle, and the rest of the theatre was for those holding tickets from the ballet and walkers-on. Pauline and Petrova were each allowed to invite two friends. Nana would be behind with them, and Mr and Mrs Simpson were away, so they asked Sylvia, the two doctors, and Posy. Theo had a seat in any case, because quite a lot were sent to the Academy, as so many of the children were supplied from there. To begin with, Nana and Sylvia said that it was too late for Posy, and they could not think of allowing it; but Theo, hearing they were all going, and not the argument about Posy, managed to get seats in the pit for Cook and Clara. That settled it; Posy could not be left in the house alone, so she was allowed to come on the understanding that she went home when the others did, before the last act.
It was a lovely dress rehearsal. If there was any truth in the supposed superstition that a good dress rehearsal means a bad first performance, then the first night of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ ought to have been the worst in history. Never was a production where so many things could have gone wrong. There were various traps and spring-boards for Puck, there were gauzes which hid Oberon, there was a most elaborate lighting plot, there were difficult cues for the singers, done by lights because they were out of sight of the conductor’s bâton, there was the flying — there were, in fact, dozens of things which might have gone wrong, quite apart from the usual drying-up due to nerves, and none of them did. From the first note of Mendelssohn’s overture, to Puck’s ‘Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends,’ the production was almost faultless, and quite exquisite. It had a real fairy quality, which not only the audience, but the actors, felt.
Pauline, flying over Bottom’s head, with her silk wings streaming behind her, and her toe pointed to alight beside Titania, almost forgot to say ‘ready’ when she came down, because she was thinking to herself how like being a real fairy it was. Petrova, who made her first appearance peeping out from a tree, peered between the leaves at what was going on and thought it all very gay, and stopped wishing she was safely at home. In the dress circle, Doctor Smith and Doctor Jakes enjoyed themselves as true Shakespeareans always enjoy themselves, arguing between each act about the reading of the parts, and the way the lines were said. Fortunately they found plenty to disapprove of, or they would not have enjoyed themselves at all. Posy had never been to see a play before. In order that she should enjoy it, Doctor Jakes had taken great trouble to instruct her in the story; in spite of this, she found the lovers a bore, but was entranced by the rest of the play. She was most impressed by the work of the principal dancer, who, as she explained to Sylvia, was very good. Though forced to dance barefoot — a form of dancing for which she did not care so much as for work on the point — her elevation was quite remarkable.
‘She should be good,’ Sylvia pointed out. ‘She has been principal ballerina in revues for quite a while.’
‘I know.’ Posy nodded. ‘Madame told me. That’s why I’m surprised she’s good.’
‘You are a snob, Posy,’ Sylvia laughed. ‘You’ve never seen a revue. How do you know what the standard of dancing is?’
Posy leant back in her seat.
‘It’s very low,’ she said seriously. ‘When we get home I’ll show you: Madame has shown me.’
‘When you get home you’ll go to bed.’ Sylvia looked down at Posy. ‘I wish you wouldn’t talk in that rather silly way. You are only ten; you can’t know much about dancing, good or bad.’
‘I do,’ said Posy. ‘I always shall.’
Sylvia gave up the argument.
‘Well, come along; Nana will be waiting for you in the foyer; the other two must be changed by now.’
In the pit, Cook and Clara enjoyed themselves enormously.
‘It’s prettier than that “Blue Bird”,’ Cook sighed.
They nudged each other every time either Pauline or Petrova made an entrance. They were not much impressed by their clothes, though they had been well prepared for the worst by Nana. Petrova’s hat was the thing that really worried them.
Cook gave Clara an expressive look.
‘It’s like the hat charabanc parties wear on outings.’
Clara made clicking noises with her ton
gue against her teeth.
‘It’s a shame, that’s what it is. Petrova not having the looks that Pauline has, doesn’t mean that they’ve got to make a comic of her.’
In the tube going home, Pauline and Petrova pestered Posy for criticism of the production; but the moment she made any, they sat on her, asking her what she thought she knew about it. Nana hurried them to bed when they got in, and told them not to talk. Pauline leaned over to Petrova’s bed.
‘Do you think you’ll like working now you’ve started, Petrova?’
Petrova thought. She remembered what fun it was flying on a wire, and how much she, Pauline, and the other two fairies laughed in the dressing-room. Then she thought of her handbook on the mechanism of aeroplanes; as long as the play ran she would hardly have time to open it. She turned over in bed.
‘Not very much, I don’t think.’
Posy was considering the routine of the work of the première danseuse.
‘You remember where it’s getting dark and Derova comes through the trees and dances? I can remember it all but just the end, Pas Couru, Arabesque Developpeé, then a Pas de Chat took her off; but there was one move in between. What was it?’
Pauline hummed the music.
‘Balancé. Abaisser, then wasn’t there a Jeté before the Pas de Chat?’
‘You’re both wrong.’ Petrova sat up. ‘It’s not a Pas de Chat that takes her off, it’s a Capriole; I noticed most particularly.’
Posy stood up on her bed.
‘Really, Petrova Fossil. A Capriole! So.’ She sprung on to her right foot, then jumped and beat her right calf neatly against her left. ‘Did you see Derova do that beat? And if she didn’t, then it wasn’t a Capriole.’
‘She goes off so quickly, you can’t see what she does,’ Petrova argued.
‘I can. Pauline’s right. Jeté Posy did it. ‘Then Pas de Chat. So.’ She gave another jump, this time with her right leg stretched to second position, then back with the knee bent, she finished almost off the bed with both knees bent, and her left leg across. ‘Isn’t that what she did, Pauline?’
‘Almost.’ Pauline got up. ‘It’s like this, from after the grand Arabesque, Jeté, Glissé, Pas de Chat.’
She did it all beautifully, except that the end of her spring took her off the bed and on to the floor with a thump. She scrambled up to get back into bed; but before she was there, Nana opened the door, and turned on the lights. Nana looked at Pauline, and at the state her and Posy’s beds were in, and she was really annoyed.
‘Get into bed, Pauline; and you lie down and behave, Posy. If the London County Council could see you and Petrova now, Pauline, they’d take away your licences, and I shouldn’t blame them. What’s the good of them seeing you leave the theatre on time, if you play around half the night when you get it? What were you up to?’
Pauline got back into bed.
‘Posy asked about the routine of a dance of Derova’s and we were showing each other.’
‘And for why?’ Nana tucked Pauline’s sheets and blankets into place. ‘Has either of you been put on to under-study her? If so, it’s the first I’ve heard of it.’ She moved over to Posy’s bed and straightened it. ‘As for you, Miss Inquisitive, always wanting to know something, you turn over and go to sleep.’ She patted Petrova’s blankets. ‘You don’t seem to have been behaving like a grasshopper, Petrova; but if there’s been an argument, I expect you’ve been in it.’ She switched off the light. ‘Now, don’t let me hear another sound.’
Posy waited until Nana’s footsteps had died into the distance, then she raised her head.
‘Do you agree it was a Pas de Chat, Petrova?’
‘Ssh.’ Petrova rolled herself up in a ball. ‘Capriole. I’m going to sleep.’
Posy looked at Petrova’s shape with dislike.
‘Such meanness,’ she whispered to Pauline.
CHAPTER XV
Independence at Fourteen
‘A MID SUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM’ was a success. It had been hoped in producing it late in September that it would run until the theatre put on a Christmas production. It did better than that: it ran over Christmas with matinées every day. Pauline and Petrova got two pounds a week each as fairies; for the extra matinées they got an eighth of their two pounds, so that they got five shillings extra for each matinée, which brought their salaries up to three pounds a week. They had been putting one pound into the post office, sending four shillings to the Academy, giving ten shillings to Sylvia for the house, which left six shillings a week for clothes and pocket money, which was not much, with all the clothes they needed, and they very seldom got any pocket money, and never more than a penny or twopence. Their extra matinée money came as a surprise; it was in their pay envelopes, and they were not expecting it. A whole pound more; it seemed immense wealth. Naturally two shillings of it went to the Academy; but that would still leave eighteen.
‘Do you think, Nana,’ Pauline asked, ‘that if we gave Garnie another ten shillings, and you had five for our clothes we could have the extra for spending; that’s six shillings between us, which would be two shillings a week each?’
Nana shook her head.
‘I doubt it, dear, with all that’s needed for you. What do you want two shillings for?’
Pauline fingered her pay envelope. She hesitated to tell Nana her secret ambition, in case she was told it could not be.
‘It’s theatres,’ she explained at last. ‘I never go to any. I want to see the good people act. I’d like to go to a matinée every week, when I’m not working. I could if I saved up all my two shillings.’
‘Theatres!’ Petrova looked disgusted. ‘What a waste of good money! If I had two shillings a week, I’d buy books and books and books.’
‘And what books!’ Pauline remarked bitterly, as both she and Posy disliked Petrova’s idea of a library. ‘All dull things about engines.’
‘Well, there’s no need to quarrel about what you’d do with two shillings,’ Nana put in, ‘for you won’t get it; and if you don’t hurry, you won’t be out of the theatre on time, and that’ll get me into trouble with the stage manager, and him with the London County Council, and you’ll find yourselves without a job, and then nobody will get two shillings.’
The discussion of the extra pound was brought up at breakfast the next morning. Sylvia, in a way, took Pauline’s side; but she insisted that the ten shillings they had planned for the house must go into the post office.
Pauline gave an angry jab at her porridge.
‘But that’s mean, you know you’ve got to have the ten shillings, or we couldn’t take the two shillings; it’s only pretending we could have it if you say that, because you know we wouldn’t take it.’
Sylvia took a piece of toast.
‘There is just one rule that I won’t break, and that is that half what you earn goes into the post office.’
‘It didn’t when I earned two pounds ten shillings,’ Pauline argued. ‘Only one pound went into the post office, and you had fifteen shillings, and ten shillings bought clothes.’
‘That’s true,’ Sylvia agreed. ‘I told Nana that she could have ten shillings for your clothes that once, but I didn’t like it; I was quite ashamed of your savings book, when we took it down to the County Hall.’
Pauline was red with temper.
‘Oh, well, if you’re going to care what they think.’
‘I do,’ Sylvia said quietly. ‘But I care still more that you have a nice lot saved for when you are grown-up. Now don’t let’s argue any more about that pound, or we shall all be sorry you are earning it. Ten shillings of it will go into your savings, two shillings to the Academy, five towards your clothes, and two shillings pocket money for each of you.’
‘Couldn’t you have the five shillings instead of our clothes, Garnie?’ Petrova suggested.
Sylvia sighed.
‘That would be nice; but you want clothes so badly. Nana says that you all need shoes, and Pauline’s got to have a coat. Up till Chr
istmas all she’s had is two pounds fourteen from each of you, and when you grow so fast, that goes a very little way. She told me yesterday ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ would have to run for months to buy all you need.’
Pauline pushed back her porridge bowl.
‘I’m not putting any more in the post office.’
Sylvia, Petrova, and Posy stared at her.
‘A child,’ Posy recited, ‘has-to-put-at-least-one-third-of its-earnings-in-the-savings-bank, or-as-much-more-as-may-be-directed-by-its-parents-or-guardian. This-is-the-law. I learnt that in French with Madame Moulin, I forget what the French was, but that was what it meant in English.’
Pauline looked braver than she felt.
‘It’s quite right. That is the law; but I’m not a child. I’ve just had my fourteenth birthday. The law lets me work; I don’t need a licence, and I can do what I like with my own money.’
‘Pauline!’ Petrova was shocked. ‘You wouldn’t be so mean as to take it all.’
‘You are a fool.’ Pauline looked scornful. ‘You know I wouldn’t. But I was thinking in bed last night; here we are, never any money, Garnie always worried, and we never have any clothes. If the money that I always have to put in the post office is spent on the house and us, we’ll have enough. All I want is the two shillings a week for ourselves. I know it sounds a lot, but theatres are expensive — even the gallery.’
Petrova looked at Sylvia.
‘It is a good idea, Garnie. She needn’t put any more in the post office, need she?’
‘I think it’s a very good plan,’ Posy agreed. ‘If I have two shillings I shall save it till next summer and go and see the ballet at Covent Garden. I could go often for that.’