UNDERSTANDABLY, Miriam avoided my presence during our walk to the theatre through the grounds of the Hudson estate, instead huddling close to Henry, who sought to offer what comfort he could to a woman whose dog has unexpectedly died: an arm around the shoulder, a few tender words, and threatening glances in the direction of the person thought to be responsible for the death of the poor creature, which is to say, me. He was an odd sort, Henry. To borrow a Morley tag, altissima quaeque flumina minimo sono labi.
Morley, Molly and the Hudsons, meanwhile, were doing their absolute best to keep the party’s spirits up. Morley was entertaining everyone with tales of his adventures: I had no idea that he had explored King Frederik VIII Land as part of a meteorological survey back in the early 1930s, or indeed that he’d met and befriended the nationalist leader Habib Bourguiba during his travels in the Maghreb and that they shared a great love of Tunisian checkers.
Neither Morley nor Mr Hudson made any mention to me of the death of Lizzie Walter.
Our final approach to the theatre was made through an area that looked as though it were a woodland that had recently been felled.
‘Is this what I think it is?’ asked Morley.
‘It rather depends on what you think it is,’ said Mr Hudson. ‘But if you think it is what I think you think it is, it most certainly is!’
‘Really?’ said Morley. ‘A stumpery?’
‘Indeed!’ said Mr Hudson.
‘It’s a stumpery, Sefton!’
‘A stumpery?’ I said.
‘Yes, yes, take a note. A stumpery!’ exclaimed Morley, as though he were Howard Carter at the tomb of Tutankhamun.
‘A stumpery?’ I repeated, producing from my pocket the small German-made notebook that I kept about myself at all times for the sole purpose of jotting down Morley’s remarks, enthusiasms and observations.
‘Like a rock garden, Sefton, except made from stumps.’
‘Right-o.’
‘Marvellous for ferns, as you can see.’
‘And mushrooms,’ said Mr Hudson. ‘We’ve had the most incredible crop this year.’
‘I was thinking of developing one at St George’s,’ said Morley, who during my years with him redesigned his gardens at least half a dozen times. A stumpery would certainly have been an innovation.
‘It’s all about the quality of the roots,’ said Mr Hudson, ‘and what can grow among them. Oak is best, obviously. But you can also achieve tremendous effects with sweet chestnut. Beech. And then the plants just sort of take over. Ferns. Winter aconites, snowdrops, scilla, epimediums, uvularia. Mahonias.’
‘We love a good mahonia,’ said Mrs Hudson.
‘Oh, me too, quite so,’ said Morley.
‘But the mushrooms,’ said Mr Hudson. ‘Look: like you wouldn’t believe.’ He pointed in the growing dusk towards what were indeed some unbelievable – enormous, multitudinous – specimens clinging around the sad and ugly stumps and I suddenly recalled a dark afternoon in Spain, gathering wood, sodden leaves everywhere, and suddenly coming across just a few spindly-stalked mushrooms and our Spanish compatriots becoming highly excited. They dried them over the fire and made tea from them, which they swore had extraordinary mind-expanding properties, but which I recall tasted largely of soil and produced little but a slight feeling of sickness and sway. I suppose I have been spoiled over the years by strong drink and advances in modern pharmacology.
Eventually, we approached the famous Hudson theatre, which had been famously converted from a barn. Converting a barn into a theatre is, I suppose, a process that might take an afternoon, a week, a month, or years, depending on the state of the barn and your idea of what exactly constitutes a theatre. The Hudsons’ idea of what exactly constitutes a theatre was not inconsiderable and their barn was by no means average – and I speak as someone who is more than familiar with the average barn.
Morley’s Guide to the Farm Buildings of the British Isles (1938) was yet another of his books that I expected to sell approximately no copies whatsoever, and which in fact sold in its tens of thousands, enjoying reprint after reprint – popular, presumably, not only with farmers and landowners but with country-dwellers, would-be country-dwellers and anyone else with an interest in cowsheds, pig sheds and threshing barns. Farm Buildings was in fact almost as popular as Morley’s book on the Settle–Carlisle railway line, 72 Miles, 1,728 Yards (1935), a perennial bestseller that eventually allowed Morley to indulge his own passion for rail and steam and to build a small miniature railway in the grounds of St George’s. In similar fashion, the proceeds from Farm Buildings allowed Morley to update and upgrade his own farm buildings, a process of reciprocity and reinvestment that Morley called – hilariously – a sty for a sty.
I lived through the entire process of the writing and production of Farm Buildings with Morley, taking most of the photographs, writing most of the captions, and indeed large parts of the text, and it was for me what one might these days call a ‘learning experience’. In my early twenties I would have been unable to distinguish between a barn and any other kind of a farm building. By the time I was thirty years old I could tell a brew house from a bake house, a cart shed from a coach house and if pushed would probably also have been able to identify a hemmel, a bee bole, a cheese room and a root store. To this day, if you are having trouble distinguishing between, say, a typical Breckland granary building and a Cumbrian salving shed, I’m your man.
In Farm Buildings Morley – or, rather, I, at Morley’s request – attempted to identify a standardised set of features among British farm buildings, dividing them roughly into three categories: those buildings used for the storage and processing of crops (barns, granaries, hop kilns, oasts, cider houses, fruit stores, etcetera); those used for transport and machinery (cart sheds, mostly); and those used for the housing and managing of farm animals (cattle yards, stables, pigsties). Often, I discovered, farmsteads relied on one building to perform all such functions, rendering our system of identification if not entirely worthless then perhaps of merely scholarly value. Nonetheless, my extensive studies of the possible functions of farm buildings meant that I knew exactly what to expect in the Hudsons’ barn: a series of internal subdivisions, with the doors opening to a large threshing bay, where the harvested crop would be beaten and the grain separated from the chaff in the cross-draught, with perhaps a small adjoining chaff house. In a barn converted into a theatre I suppose what I expected was perhaps a small stage, some scattering of chairs, and the threshing bay thoroughly swept and cleared of grain.
‘So it’s a sixteenth-century barn,’ began Mr Hudson as we arrived, ‘typical of its age—’
‘Fifteenth century,’ said Mrs Hudson.
‘Sixteenth century,’ insisted Mr Hudson.
‘Parts of it are fifteenth century,’ said Mrs Hudson.
‘But it’s mostly sixteenth century,’ continued Mr Hudson. ‘No foundations, obviously, when we began, so we had to remove the stone walls and the plinth—’
‘Blue Lias plinth,’ said Mrs Hudson.
‘The Blue Lias plinth,’ agreed Mr Hudson, ‘and restore the frame—’
‘The oak frame,’ said Mrs Hudson. ‘And the east end constructed in Coldwaltham sandstone, with galleting.’
‘Roof redone,’ said Mr Hudson.
‘Hand-made clay peg tiles,’ said Mrs Hudson.
‘You note the catslide roof,’ said Mr Hudson.
‘Excellent,’ said Morley. ‘Wonderful.’ In The County Guides, he describes the Hudsons’ barn as ‘one of the finest surviving barns in Sussex’. It was doubtless one of the most expensive – not least because inside its fully reconstructed exterior, the barn was a fully functioning proscenium arch theatre.
‘Goodness me,’ said Morley, as we made our way through the big restored barn doors. ‘This is quite extraordinary.’
‘Well, it’s not quite La Scala or the Estates Theatre in Prague,’ said Mr Hudson.
‘Look at this, though!’ said Morley, throwing out his arms in a gesture of appreciation and wonder. ‘In a barn!’ He threw his arms even wider. ‘In Sussex!’ And wider still, as if he might scoop the whole place up and embrace it.
‘Well, we’ve been very lucky,’ said Mr Hudson. ‘We’ve been able to achieve most of what we hoped.’
Most of what the Hudsons hoped looked to me exactly like a West End theatre: a large stage and raked seating in place of the threshing hall.
‘I thought it might simply be benches,’ said Morley.
‘Ah yes, the seats, yes. We were tremendously lucky with the seating,’ said Mr Hudson. ‘They were refurbishing a music hall in Brighton and we managed to snap up a lot of the fixtures and fittings. The seating, some of the lighting. The curtains, of course.’
At the west end of the barn was the raised wooden stage, with billowing red curtains forming the wings. Beyond the wings, linked to the barn from the backstage area was a one-storey building that housed the dressing rooms and a green room, and which had been converted from an old icehouse and a slaughterhouse, completely disassembled and reassembled ‘brick by brick’, according to Mr Hudson.
‘Stone by stone,’ said Mrs Hudson.
It was an incredible achievement: built with money, obviously, but clearly imagined and created with love and imagination.
Back in the barn, the arrival of the Hudsons had excited sudden and frantic activity among the various stagehands, technical staff, singers, costumiers, musicians and others who had previously been lounging and lurking in the shadows. Scenery was being hauled on- and offstage. Costumes – ball gowns, mostly, and the inevitable operatic doublets and hose – were being flung around and fitted on performers’ bodies. Lights were being hoisted on pulleys. Stage directions were being issued. Instruments were being tooted, plucked and honked upon. Basically, lots of operatic-type stuff was happening.
‘You’ll excuse me,’ Henry announced to our assembled company. ‘Time to clock on.’
‘Of course,’ said Mr Hudson. ‘The work of a set designer is never done.’
Molly had already disappeared, in a puff of perfume and a billow of her cloak, in the direction of the dressing rooms.
‘One forgets sometimes,’ said Morley, ‘that the opera is in fact an even more labour-intensive and demanding activity than the theatre.’
‘Oh one does, Father, yes,’ agreed Miriam, who was avoiding looking at me or indeed acknowledging my presence in any way. ‘It’s like working in a coal mine.’
In front of the stage there was a large trestle table set up, where Fritz had joined a group of others in intense discussion.
‘We’re lucky, we’re just in time for the probe,’ said Mr Hudson, lowering his voice.
‘The probe?’ I said quietly.
‘Ja, a probe,’ said Morley. ‘It’s what they call a rehearsal in German, Sefton.’
‘Ah.’
‘Or prova, in Italiano,’ said Mrs Hudson.
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘Both words, in both languages, suggesting “trying” or “testing”, I think,’ Morley clarified.
‘Very good,’ I said.
‘I was lucky some years ago to sit through the entire process of the production of The Marriage of Figaro, in St Petersburg,’ said Morley.
‘At the Mikhailovsky?’ said Mr Hudson.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Morley.
‘Oh, how wonderful,’ said Mr Hudson.
‘You might take a note actually, Sefton, for the book.’
I produced my trusty notebook.
‘So,’ he explained, ‘in any production, there’s the leseprobe.’
‘It’s all in German?’
‘Many of the processes and procedures have been codified and described in German, Sefton, yes, of course. Rehearsals are an art in and of themselves.’
‘Of course.’ During my time at college I had dabbled in amateur theatricals – farce mostly. Our rehearsals had always had the air of a sort of jolly jape, the director working haphazardly through any problems over a few drinks. It was all rather clubbable. Here, it felt rather more like a circus or a factory, with people working alongside, around and almost on top of one another in order to get things done.
‘Leseprobe, you’ve got that, Sefton?’
‘Yes, Mr Morley.’
‘The reading rehearsal, and then there’s the sitzprobe, the sitting rehearsal and now, what we have here, is the FD.’
‘FD?’
‘Final dress.’
‘That’s in English?’ I said.
‘Correct,’ said Mr Hudson.
‘And after that the production is frozen,’ said Mrs Hudson.
‘Frozen?’
‘Whatever you see at the FD,’ said Mr Hudson, ‘should be what you see on opening night – though between ourselves I can recall a few cases in which problems at the FD meant that the show could not be performed in front of paying audiences.’
‘Really?’ said Morley.
‘It’s very rare, of course,’ said Mr Hudson. ‘One usually says that the singer is ill or something similar. You know, a kidney infection or some such.’
‘Well,’ said Morley. ‘I never knew.’
‘Ssshhhh,’ said Fritz, in our direction.
‘Molly’s amazing,’ said Mr Hudson. ‘We’re so lucky to have her.’
There was silence as everyone shifted into position. Mrs Hudson excused herself while Morley, Miriam and I settled down in the front row of the stalls with Mr Hudson, close to the orchestra, which I was surprised to discover consisted of no more than about a dozen or so musicians.
‘We’ve had to go for reduced orchestration,’ said Mr Hudson to Morley.
‘Of course,’ said Morley.
‘We’re not quite a full opera house yet.’
‘No, no, quite understandable,’ said Morley.
To a man – and men they all were – the musicians looked as though they hadn’t slept for several weeks and they were wearing both the clothes and the expressions to suit. Typical musicians. The music began with a thundering chord, though – as it turned out – not nearly thundering enough. No sooner had the poor blighters’ fingers and lips hit their instruments than Fritz leapt to his feet.
‘Darker!’ he cried. ‘Darker! We have discussed this already, yes?’ Molly had explained in the car on the way from Brighton that the company had already spent a week or two in London working together, talking through how the music might work in the context of the staging, and how everything was now set. ‘We must begin in darkness, as we end in darkness.’
‘He’s quite right,’ said Morley, leaning across to me and speaking quietly. ‘It is a very dark ending. You know the opera, of course?’
‘Not perhaps as well as I would like,’ I said, havering.
‘The first note needs to come to us, yes?’ continued Fritz. ‘It needs to come directly to us. It needs to pierce us, yes?’ He indicated the nature of a note coming to us and piercing us by jabbing at his heart with his fingers. The musicians then duly produced the opening chord again, rather heavier and louder, which I suppose might be interpreted as being piercing, and then moved into a Mozarty misterioso sort of sequence.
‘We are in the garden of the Commendatore,’ whispered Morley to me.
‘Right.’
A man appeared onstage, in the obligatory doublet and hose, looking rather shifty.
‘This is Leporello,’ said Morley, ‘Don Giovanni’s servant. He is complaining about his master and daydreaming about being free of him: Notte e giorno faticar. “Night and day I slave away.” The complaint about the master of course being a tradition that stretches back to the commedia dell’arte.’
‘And which persists to this day,’ I said.
‘Indeed,’ said Morley. ‘He is keeping watch while Don Giovanni is in the Commendatore’s house attempting to seduce the Commendatore’s daughter, Donna Anna. Now, Don Giovanni enters, pursued by Donna Anna.’
Don Giovanni did indeed enter, pursued by Molly in wig and gown as Donna Anna.
‘Don Giovanni is masked here, you see,’ said Morley. ‘And Donna Anna tries to unmask him, shouting for help.’
‘Non sperar, se non m’uccidi, Ch’io ti lasci fuggir mai!’ sang Molly, or something similar.
‘“Do not hope, unless you kill me, that I shall ever let you run away!”’ Morley translated.
‘Gosh,’ I said.
Don Giovanni then broke free of Donna Anna’s clutches, ran offstage, with her following, only to appear back onstage moments later, followed by—
‘The Commendatore,’ said Morley.
It was the black American from the Hudsons’ dinner playing the Commendatore and I have to say that his stentorian denunciation of Don Giovanni was really rather magnificent. If I’d been reviewing the opera, I’d already have identified the star.
As far as I could tell – although I have to admit by now I was already becoming rather bored – what happened next was that Don Giovanni killed the Commendatore, escaped with Leporello, Donna Anna returned onstage with her fiancé, Don Ottavio, was horrified to see her father lying dead and made Don Ottavio swear vengeance against the masked murderer, Don Giovanni. And this was the end of the action-packed first scene.
‘Well, what do you think?’ said Morley.
‘It is certainly rather dark,’ I said.
But not dark enough for Fritz, who was once again up on his feet issuing instructions to the cast, who had gathered together onstage.
‘Good, good, yes it is good, but it is too tentative, too too tentative, too dry, too nice, yes? You have the toe in the water, but the whole body must be in the water, yes?’
Don Giovanni and Donna Anna and the others all nodded yes, as if this body in the water reference made any actual sense. To me, it seemed like a horror. I saw Lizzie Walter’s face, the thin shoelace around her neck, everything fragile about her destroyed.
‘We need more tone, more fullness, more resonance, yes?’
Again, they all nodded.
‘It needs to come to me. It needs to pierce me.’
At which piercing moment, Mrs Hudson came howling into the barn.
‘Henry’s been taken away!’ she screamed.
‘What on earth’s happening?’ said Mr Hudson, leaping up.
‘Henry’s been taken away!’ repeated Mrs Hudson. ‘For the murder of a young woman.’
‘What?’
Up onstage, Molly fainted. Miriam ran outside. And I turned to Morley, who had already disappeared.