As Maddy rounded the corner and saw the Academy in the distance she was overtaken by her two best friends, Buster and Snooks. They fell on each other delightedly, and for a few minutes there was nothing but back-slapping and giggles.
‘Did you have gorgeous Easter hols?’ asked Buster, who was thin and weedy.
‘Jolly exciting,’ Maddy answered.
‘We heard the broadcast from the Blue Door Theatre,’ said Snooks. ‘It was wonderful.’
For the rest of the way to the Academy Maddy told them what was happening in her home town of Fenchester, where her elder sister, Sandra, and her friends were running a repertory company. ‘It was all so exciting that it seemed a pity to have to come back,’ she finished up.
‘I suppose when you’re old enough to leave school you’ll stay at Fenchester and work with the Blue Door Theatre Company,’ said Snooks enviously.
‘Yes, of course,’ answered Maddy.
‘So you’ll never go up into the proper Academy?’
The British Actors’ Guild Academy was divided into two parts. The junior department was for children of school age, and provided ordinary lessons as well as stagecraft, but the senior school was concerned entirely with stage subjects, such as voice production, diction, fencing and dancing. In order to get from the junior to the senior Academy it was necessary to pass a stiff entrance test, just as did the people coming from other schools.
‘Don’t expect I’d pass the test anyhow…’ said Maddy.
Although for her age Maddy had had a considerable amount of stage and film experience, she did not always get on very well at the Academy, for she was inclined to speak her mind too freely and to do exactly what she thought she would do just when she wanted to do it. This did not make her particularly popular with her teachers.
‘What did you two get up to in the holidays?’ Maddy remembered to ask Snooks and Buster.
‘We did some television; it was lovely. It all happened through the Academy. You see, some small, thin children were needed to be orphans in a play, and so Mrs Seymore suggested us, and we did it.’
‘I’ve never done any television,’ said Maddy enviously. ‘Is it like filming?’
‘Don’t know,’ said Snooks, ‘I’ve never done any filming.’
By now they were outside the Academy, which stood in a quiet square lined with plane trees. It was a tall, grey house with stone lions at the door posts. The juniors were all devoted to this main building of the school, which had carved above the door, ‘They have their exits and their entrances’. It was so much more exciting than the rather bleak schoolhouse round the corner where they did their lessons and which seemed to have a dusty, chalky atmosphere. Here in the main building there was always the noise of a piano being played, always the rise and fall of verse-speaking voices, and the thud of dancing classes in full swing.
‘Wonder what this term will be like…’ said Maddy as they went through the swing doors.
Inside was a seething mass of students from twelve-year-olds to twenty-year-olds, all talking at the top of their voices about what they had done in the holidays. Maddy and Buster and Snooks were soon submerged in a rush of their chattering friends, and the noise did not subside until they were sitting in the theatre, waiting for prayers, and Wainwright Whitfield, the principal of the Academy, strode on to the stage. Instantly there was silence, for the tall, grey-haired figure had a dignity that subdued even the faintest giggle.
Although Maddy had already spent several terms at the Academy, she was always impressed by the simple but effective service that was held every morning. No one was compelled to go. Attendance was entirely optional, and yet the theatre was always full.
The ‘Babies’, as the juniors were called, spent the mornings at the Academy, and after lunch went round to the schoolhouse for their lessons, from two o’clock until five. Then as often as not they were back again at the Academy to cram in an extra ballet lesson or rehearsal for a student production. Sometimes they had to do school lessons on Saturday mornings in order to make up the requisite number of school hours.
Last term their class had been small—only a dozen of them—but this term the numbers had swollen to fifteen. Two of the newcomers were boys who had been at a choir school, but whose voices had just broken, and the third was a girl of striking appearance. She was about fifteen and had long dark hair, a peaches-and-cream complexion and beautiful dark blue eyes. She seemed absolutely paralysed by everything at the Academy. During prayers she sat with her head bowed so low that Maddy had thought she must be extremely devout, but now, while they sat waiting for their diction lesson to start, she sat in exactly the same posture, staring fixedly at the floorboards. Hers was such an unusual face that nobody could keep their eyes off the girl, and this made her more and more embarrassed. Apart from her face, her dress also attracted attention—it was so peculiar. Other students wore jeans, slacks, dungarees, kilts, practice tights—a most mixed collection—but the new girl was wearing a hideous tan-coloured velveteen dress with a lace collar. It was obviously home-made, and was many years out of fashion.
‘Who on earth is she?’ whispered some of the girls to each other, behind their hands.
The whispering ceased as Roma Seymore entered to give the class their diction lesson. She was grey-haired, with a pleasant face and the most beautiful voice imaginable. For the first few minutes she just chatted with the class, then she took the register. The names of the three new pupils had been added to the end of the list, so there was no doubt as to who was intended when Mrs Seymore came to the last name—Zillah Pendray.
Maddy pricked up her ears. The name rang a bell. She had heard it somewhere before—Zillah Pendray. The new girl raised her head and was staring in a hypnotised fashion at Mrs Seymore, but made no answer. Mrs Seymore looked round the room, then said sharply, ‘Well, speak up, if you’re here…’
All the others had answered ‘Yes, Mrs Seymore,’ ‘Adsum,’ ‘Here’ or whatever they chose, for it was a tradition to answer in the way they had been accustomed to at their previous schools. To everyone’s amazement Zillah finally answered in a very small voice, ‘I be here, thank you.’
There was an instant shout of laughter from the class. Mrs Seymore looked sharply at Zillah to see if she was trying to be funny, but seeing the hot flush that covered the girl’s face and neck she made no comment. When the merriment had died down, to cause a diversion Mrs Seymore said, ‘I’m pleased to be able to tell you that you are going to have a new class this term. The recent growth of television has convinced us that you should all learn something about the technique of television acting, as it is so different from that of the theatre. Therefore we have managed to get a T.V. producer to come along and give instruction. You younger ones may be directly concerned, because the demand for children on television is enormous. Now, two of you have done some already, haven’t you? Let me see—Valerie and Gladys, wasn’t it?’ Valerie and Gladys were Buster and Snooks, under their real names. ‘Which reminds me, Gladys, we must settle on a stage name for you, mustn’t we? Your mother and father agree to you changing from Gladys Snooks, don’t they?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Snooks. ‘They want me to, and everyone at the television studio said I simply must change it.’
‘Have you or your parents any suggestions?’ asked Mrs Seymore interestedly.
‘Well,’ said Snooks rather shyly. ‘I had thought of Gloria de Silva—that keeps to my real initials, you see.’
Maddy giggled rudely. ‘Snooks suits you better.’
Mrs Seymore tried not to smile. ‘I think perhaps Gloria de Silva is going a little too far,’ she said. ‘Gloria would be quite suitable, I suppose, but what about a more everyday surname? Something beginning with S, if you like.’
The whole class began suggesting names, ‘Smythe’, ‘Stanton’, ‘Sadler’, ‘Sutherland’.
‘Sausage,’ said Maddy hopefully.
‘What about Stratford?’ said Mrs Seymore. ‘It has good theatrical connections.’
‘People might think of Stratford East, instead of on-Avon,’ said Gladys gloomily.
‘But that Stratford—Stratford-atte-Bow—has a lovely old theatre,’ said Mrs Seymore.
‘I don’t think I want to be called after a place,’ objected Snooks. ‘I’d rather be called after a person. What a pity your name is Seymore. Gloria Seymore sounds lovely.’
Mrs Seymore tried it over.
‘Yes, it does. And I haven’t acted for years. I tell you what, I’ll lend it to you, Gladys. But you mustn’t ever trade on it, will you?’
‘Trade on it? Oh, you mean pretend I’m related to you. No, of course not, Mrs Seymore. Thank you ever so much for lending me the name.’
Snooks beamed all over her face.
The whole class buzzed with envy at anyone being given Mrs Seymore’s name.
‘Gloria Seymore.’ Snooks tried it over. ‘I feel better already, now that I’m not Gladys Snooks any more. Will you change it in the register, please, Mrs Seymore?’
‘I still think Gloria Sausage is a name people would have remembered,’ Maddy whispered to her.
‘Now we’ve chatted long enough,’ said Mrs Seymore. ‘We must get on with some work. I’ll hear your holiday tasks.’
Everybody groaned, not because they minded saying their pieces to Mrs Seymore, but because it had been such a difficult job to find time for learning during the holidays.
‘Now, we will go round the class alphabetically. Beautiful diction, please.’
At the Academy they were so used to standing up and reciting Shakespeare and other poetry at all hours that any embarrassment at being called upon to do so had disappeared during their first term or so, and it had become a pleasure. The three newcomers, of course, were not in this happy position. One by one the others got up and recited Shelley’s ‘Ode to a Skylark’ with great attention to clear vowels and sharp consonants. The newcomers thought that, as they had had no chance to prepare the piece, they would escape attention, but when all the old pupils had finished, Mrs Seymore turned to the two choir-school boys.
‘Now I should like to hear you two do something—anything that you have learned by heart—it doesn’t matter what. Who’ll go first?’
The boys blushed and stuttered and looked at each other for inspiration.
‘We don’t—er—don’t really know anything.’
‘Well, what about one of the songs or hymns you used to sing at your old school; you must have learnt the words. Just say a few verses to me.’
Their performances were really rather funny. Speaking the lines was a totally different matter from singing them. They stumbled and forgot the words, and at times seemed about to burst into song. Their diction, however, was perfect, as they had been carefully trained at the choir school.
Then it was Zillah’s turn. Everyone looked at her expectantly. The poor girl was going through agonies of fear and embarrassment.
‘Now come along, dear, you know something by heart, I’m sure,’ said Mrs Seymore encouragingly.
Zillah shook her head in silence.
‘Some poetry, surely?’
‘No. My dad doesn’t hold with it,’ she breathed.
Roma Seymore was shocked.
‘Doesn’t hold with poetry?’
‘No.’
‘Well, there must be something—nursery rhymes—does he hold with them?’
‘No.’
‘Well, the Bible then? Do you know anything from the Bible?’
Zillah nodded doubtfully.
‘Well, I tell you what,’ said Mrs Seymore kindly, ‘you can have a few minutes to yourself to think about it. Go over there and sit by the window and just make sure you remember a few passages from the Bible, while the rest of us do some consonants exercises. There were some very lazy consonants in the “Ode to a Skylark”. Now, everyone else, divide up into groups of three or four.’
In the confusion that always followed an order to divide up the class Maddy slipped across to Zillah. The fact that her father ‘didn’t hold with poetry’ had jogged Maddy’s memory.
‘I say,’ she whispered to Zillah. ‘Do you know who I am?’
Zillah looked at her with wide, deep-blue eyes.
‘Yes, you’re Maddy.’
‘How do you know?’ Maddy demanded.
‘They said you had short, fair pigtails, and you talked more than anyone else.’
‘What a nerve!’ snorted Maddy. ‘You mean the Blue Doors, of course? They told me all about you, too—how Sandra, Vicky and Lyn met you in Cornwall and tried to persuade your father to let you come here for training. So he did let you come?’
‘Yes,’ said Zillah. ‘And now I wish I hadn’t.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m that frightened. London’s so busy, and there’s no grass. And I’m frightened of they escalators.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Maddy. ‘You’ll soon get used to it all. Where are you living?’
‘At the Y.W.H.A. Dad arranged for me to go there.’
‘But you were supposed to come to my digs—Mrs Bosham’s. It’s lovely there—she’s a terrible cook, but ever so nice…’
‘Maddy,’ called Mrs Seymore. ‘What are you doing? Talking as usual. Come back to your group. I really thought you might have improved a little this term.’
After they had gone through ‘Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper’ a few times, Mrs Seymore said, ‘Right, you can rest a while and we’ll hear Zillah. Now, have you gone over a passage and made sure you know it?’
Zillah nodded.
‘Good, well, stand up and face the class. Yes, now don’t worry. It doesn’t matter if you are not word perfect. I just want to hear your diction.’
Zillah’s recitation from the Bible was a most extraordinary performance. Her voice was rich and warm and beautiful, and she said the Twenty-third Psalm with deep sincerity, but in the broadest West Country accent.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Mrs Seymore, when Zillah had finished. ‘I remember you from the entrance tests. You won an award, didn’t you?’
This was a polite way of saying that Zillah had gained a scholarship. Nevertheless, she blushed ashamedly.
‘Jolly good,’ murmured Maddy audibly, trying to show her that at the Academy it was considered an honour to be there on a scholarship.
‘You are really rather a problem to me, Zillah,’ said Mrs Seymore. ‘Now, you do know that you have a very thick local accent, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’ Zillah hung her head in shame.
‘It is nothing to be ashamed of. It is a particularly musical a accent, and your voice production is excellent. But I am supposed to teach you diction, and it is my job to get rid of that lovely accent of yours and make you speak like everyone else. For the first time in my life, I feel it will be a pity. But you must consider that there are so many parts that you could not play with an accent like that, and if you are going to be an actress, the greater variety of parts you can play, the better opportunity you have to make a living.’
Zillah did not seem able to take in this speech at all. She still looked miserable and uncertain.
‘I think,’ continued Roma Seymore, ‘I will give you some private lessons to enable you to catch up with the rest of the class, and then I shan’t have to devote a great deal of time to you in class. All right?’
Mrs Seymore smiled questioningly at Zillah, and Maddy willed Zillah to say thank you, but she didn’t.
‘Now we will go on with our consonant sounds,’ said Mrs Seymore hurriedly, somewhat disconcerted by Zillah’s lack of reaction.
When the lesson was over and they were going upstairs to fencing, Maddy caught up with Zillah and said, ‘Do you like it at the Y.W.H.? Are the other girls friendly?’
Zillah looked a little surprised. ‘I haven’t spoken to any of them yet,’ she said at last, ‘but Miss Binns, the manageress, has told me I oughtn’t to be there. She wants me to find somewhere else.’
‘Oughtn’t to be there! Why ever not?’ demanded Maddy.
‘Because I’m too young. They don’t take girls under eighteen. They thought I was eighteen. I don’t know who made the mistake, but Miss Binns doesn’t want me to stay.’
‘Then why don’t you move into Mrs Bosham’s? The Academy recommends her whenever young students have got to live on their own, because she adores coming out chaperoning if we do any work or anything. All the Blue Doors have lived at Mrs Bosham’s.’
None of this made sense to Zillah, so Maddy said firmly, ‘You come along with me this afternoon and we’ll explain everything to Miss Smith, she’s the Academy secretary. She’s a dear, and I know she thinks the world of Mrs Bosham. She’s bound to help. Probably she’ll get on the phone to the Binns ogress and fix it all up for you to move to my place tomorrow. Snooks and Buster and I will come and help you with your bags.’
‘I have but the one,’ said Zillah slowly, then after a long pause added, ‘It’s right kind of you to take all this trouble. I only hope Dad won’t be cross.’
When Maddy told Buster and Snooks what she had done they were not at all pleased.
‘She’s such a drear,’ said Buster. ‘She’ll be a terrible handicap to us. I think you’ve made a great mistake, Maddy. Why ever did you do it?’
Maddy puckered her brow.
‘We-ell—I knew that the rest of the Blue Doors had encouraged her—and I sort of—felt responsible. And she said she hadn’t spoken to anyone at the Y.W.H.—can you imagine it!—and that they didn’t want her there.’
‘You are good, Maddy,’ said Snooks earnestly.
Maddy shouted with laughter.
‘That’s about the first time in my life that anyone’s called me good—it shows you’re my true friend, Snooks—sorry, Miss Gloria Seymore.’
When Maddy went back to her digs in the evening she said, ‘Oh, Mrs Bosham, I’ve let your empty room for you.’
Mrs Bosham was just serving the colourless soup, and she splashed down the ladle in the tureen saying, ‘There now.’ Her round eyes, round nose and round mouth assumed an expression of disappointment. ‘And I’ve just gorn and let it to a commercial gent. And you know I’d much rather ’ave students.’
‘Oh, what a shame,’ said Maddy. ‘Well, could you let this girl share my room for a bit, till you’ve got a vacancy? There is room for another bed, and she’s awfully lonely at the Y.W.H. Nobody’s spoken to her yet, and she hasn’t spoken to anyone, and she’s frightened of escalators.’
‘They don’t have escalators in them Y.W.H.s, do they?’ inquired Mrs Bosham, entirely missing the point.
‘No, and no grass for her either.’
Mrs Bosham didn’t understand this reference, but clicked her teeth sympathetically. ‘The poor dear. Well, well!’
She picked up her eternal piece of knitting and started working furiously while Maddy drank her soup. Maddy had her evening meal earlier than the adult lodgers, because theoretically she went to bed before anyone else, but actually once she got down into Mrs Bosham’s basement and started making toffee or telling Mrs Bosham the latest news from Fenchester, it was usually quite late before she could be chased upstairs to bed.
‘Yes, well,’ said Mrs Bosham after a few rows of purl and plain, ‘I suppose we’d better let the poor duck share your room. I feel that sorry fer you lot, when you haven’t got any parents in London, and you’ve got to be here to study. Is she younger than you are?’
‘A bit older, I think,’ said Maddy. ‘But she seems awfully dopey in some ways. It’s only because she’s frightened, I think. She’s absolutely beautiful, but her clothes are awful. We’ll have to smarten her up a bit.’
It seemed unlikely that Mrs Bosham could ever smarten anyone, for her own clothes, strained round her circular form, were completely timeless. She had worn them as long as anyone could remember, and seemed only to vary her headgear for different occasions—curlers for the morning, scarf or pixie hood for shopping and a rakish hat for really important occasions. ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Bosham, ‘it’ll be nice to have another youngster in the house. I still miss those brothers and sisters of yours y’know.’ Mrs Bosham had never been able to sort out which of the Blue Doors were related to each other and which were not.
Next day, when Maddy told them that Zillah was to share her room, Buster and Snooks expressed their disgust in no uncertain terms.
‘How can you! With someone who speaks like a farmer’s boy,’ said Snooks.
‘Don’t be such a snob,’ Maddy rebuked her. ‘And we can’t all be Cockneys.’
Snooks snorted with rage. She came from Sutton, but Maddy always teased her about having a Cockney accent.
‘You two are just jealous because you can’t come and live at Mrs Bosham’s,’ Maddy went on.
‘Jealous!’ scoffed Buster. ‘Some hopes! I’d rather die than live there. It smells of cabbage, and Mrs Bosham’s hats are a disgrace. I’d much rather live at home.’
‘Would you really?’ said Maddy disbelievingly. ‘I love Mrs Bosham’s. Of course, home’s nice too, but it’s not London.’
Zillah just said, ‘Oh’, when they told her they would come and fetch her bags as soon as lessons were over.
‘And my mother’s sent me a food parcel, with one of her chocolate cakes, so we can have a feast this evening after supper,’ added Maddy.
During the afternoon lessons, round in the schoolhouse, it became apparent that Zillah was a real dunce as far as school subjects were concerned. She could not do maths at all, had no idea of English grammar and knew no French. Maddy remembered that Sandra and Lyn and Vicky had told her that Zillah’s parents had been constantly in trouble with the education authorities for keeping the girl away from school to help on the farm. In a small class like the ‘Babies’ her ignorance showed up appallingly, and she was quite definitely behind all the others, even those who were only twelve. By the end of the afternoon she was nearly in tears with shame.
‘Don’t worry,’ Maddy whispered comfortingly in her ear. ‘Lessons don’t count—it’s the acting classes that matter, and you know Mrs Seymore said you have a lovely voice.’
‘I wish your sister and the others had never come to the village,’ said Zillah bleakly. ‘Until then I was quite happy at home with the animals and such.’
‘You’ll soon get over feeling homesick,’ Maddy assured her. ‘Come on, we’ll go out and have a lovely tea at Raddler’s, and then collect your bags.’
Raddler’s was a little restaurant, over a baker’s shop, near the Academy. The whole of the second floor was reserved for the Academy students, as the noise they made was so deafening that they could not be inflicted on the other patrons, who frequented the first floor. The older students allowed the ‘Babies’ to sit at one particular table, and when this became full they had to sit two on a chair, on each other’s laps, or squat on the floor.
Zillah looked around the restaurant as though she were seeing the zoo at feeding time. Everyone tried to talk to her, and even some of the older students came over to have a look at her, but Maddy fended them off, and Buster and Snooks, too, found themselves coming to her defence.
After they had drunk glasses of milk and eaten innumerable sticky cakes, they walked down Tottenham Court Road window shopping. When they reached the Y.W.H. Maddy went up to the reception desk and said firmly, ‘We’ve come for this little girl’s luggage,’ although Zillah towered above her by quite a head.
‘Oh, yes,’ said the clerk, ‘I know all about it. Zillah can take you to her room.’
Zillah led the way up several flights of stairs until they reached her room. It was tiny, clean, light and airy, and looked totally un-lived in. In the middle of the floor was a small and very shabby old Gladstone bag.
‘Is that all?’ demanded Maddy.
‘Yes,’ said Zillah. ‘I’ve only got my Sunday best.’
Snooks thought she had said ‘Sunday vest’ and giggled, but Maddy glared at her.
‘Oh well, it’s best to travel light. Come on.’
As there was nothing for Buster and Snooks to carry they decided to go home, and Maddy and Zillah set off for Mrs Bosham’s. Maddy talked all the way, and was not particularly worried because Zillah did not answer, for she was quite used to people not saying much when she was talking.
Mrs Bosham took to Zillah immediately.
‘What a good looker, eh?’ she whispered audibly to Maddy behind Zillah’s back and puffed upstairs with them to show how she had arranged the room.
‘There now, I’ve given you a nice mattress on me divan from the droring-room. You can put your things in the top drawer of the chest, and there’s room behind the curtain with Maddy’s things fer you to hang yours. Oh well…’ She glanced doubtfully at Zillah’s bag. ‘You won’t need all that space, will you? Now, I’ve got a nice roly-poly for yer supper, and I’ll give you a shout when it’s ready.’
Zillah looked around the room, which had a view of rooftops and chimney pots. Maddy had covered nearly every inch of the walls with pictures—of the Blue Doors, ballet pictures, photographs of her parents. The final result was cosy, if not artistic. Zillah gave what was almost a smile.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it’s nice here.’
Maddy felt greatly relieved.
‘The supper will be awful,’ she confided, ‘but don’t worry. I’ve got Mummy’s cake up here, and we can have a private feast afterwards. It’s lovely having someone to share with. Since the Blue Doors went I’ve had to have midnight feasts on my own, which isn’t so much fun.’
Over supper, which was incredibly indigestible, Zillah began gradually to thaw out. She would make a remark in a very low voice, and then blush furiously, while Maddy and Mrs Bosham, who sat knitting in the corner, would pounce on it, elaborate it and talk for the next ten minutes before Zillah dared to make another observation.
On the pretext of going to bed early they went up and polished off the chocolate cake, and when they had gone to bed Maddy said in the darkness, ‘Do you think you’re going to like it here?’
‘Oh, yes,’ replied Zillah gratefully. ‘Everything is so comfortable.’
Maddy tried to imagine what Zillah’s home must be like, if Mrs Bosham’s boarding house struck her as comfortable, but went to sleep before she could get very far with the thought.