After the excitement of the Public Show the usual end-of-term performances in the theatre seemed rather an anti-climax, and the Blue Doors were inclined to rest on their laurels. The holidays came ever nearer, and Sandra got excited about returning to her filming.
“And what are we going to do in the holidays?” demanded Bulldog.
“Work!” came a chorus of voices.
“But where?”
“We really ought to try to get into reps.,” said Nigel, “to see how a professional company is run.”
“But who’d have us?”
“We can but try.” That evening they sat round the large dining-table at No. 37, armed with pens and ink and imposing notepaper, and photos of themselves.
“I wish we had a typewriter!” sighed Bulldog, after he had written his first three letters. “From my writing it looks as if it’s a slightly rheumatic spider who’s applying for the job.”
“It’s awful to apply for a job and have to say that you’ve not had any professional experience at all,” grumbled Lynette. “I almost wish I’d been like Billy—part of a ‘theal act’ ever since I could walk.”
During the next week Mrs. Bosham would appear at breakfast clutching several large envelopes and say, “Well, I never did! What a lot of post for you again!” And although the Blue Doors opened each letter with trembling hands, they knew that they would only find their own somewhat battered photos and a brief note from the secretary of a repertory company saying that they would be “put in the files” and “borne in mind”.
“It’s quite obvious that with our lack of experience we shall never get a job,” growled Lynette.
“But how do people get their first jobs?” asked Vicky. “One must start somewhere.”
Then one morning Lynette and Vicky received identical envelopes with red crests on the outside, and inside the most beautiful letters they had ever seen:
“If you are willing to assistant stage manage a ten-week season with this company at a nominal salary of two pounds ten shillings a week, and a chance of playing small parts, we should be glad to see you about 29th July. Please let us know as soon as possible.”
Vicky and Lynette looked at each other.
“Yes. A rep. at Tutworth Wells.” They giggled inanely with excitement, and handed the letters round to the others.
“A very nominal salary!” remarked Nigel, not without envy.
“But why did they pick on you two?” Bulldog queried. “We all wrote.”
“Liked our photos, I suppose,” said Lynette smugly.
“More likely they thought they’d choose two rather silly-looking young females so that they could offer them a ridiculously low salary,” suggested Jeremy.
“I do think you’re beastly!” flared Lynette. “It’s a wonderful piece of luck, even if the pay is bad.”
“Yes, we’re only envious,” Bulldog admitted.
“Oh, well, you’ll just have to tell them that you’ve got three no-good brothers on the dole to keep, so they must raise your salary.”
But next day the boys were invited by Mr. Whitfield to go on a schools tour of Julius Caesar.
“We’re only playing odd citizens and messengers,” said Bulldog. “But it will be something to do.”
The night before Sandra went home and the two girls departed for Tutworth Wells, in the depths of the Midlands, they had a little celebration at a Chinese restaurant in Soho. Choosing at random from the mysterious menu they found that they had ordered a meal large enough for ten, but somehow it all disappeared.
“I never wish to see another noodle,” gasped Bulldog, leaning back heavily. The waiter brought them pale China tea in tiny dolls’ cups, which they pronounced delicious, although secretly it struck them all as rather resembling dish-water. There was a tinny, four-piece band, consisting of an African drummer, a Chinese pianist, an Indian trombonist, and a Cockney trumpeter who occasionally crooned through a rather crackly microphone. There was a pocket-handkerchief space in which to dance, and this was crowded with young people of every nationality.
“I suppose we’ve got to dance,” remarked Jeremy unenthusiastically.
“Yes,” said Sandra firmly. “But no jitterbugging, Vicky and Bulldog. There isn’t room.”
“I could no more jitterbug in my present condition than I could fly.” They stayed until the restaurant closed, just to be sure of getting their money’s worth, and then split the bill scrupulously between the six of them.
“I hate leaving London,” remarked Lynette on the way home. “Even though it’s only for ten weeks and I’m very keen to go.”
“Think what it will be like in about a year’s time, when we leave for good,” reminded Jeremy.
“Oh, don’t! I shan’t be able to bear it.”
“Even Mrs. Bosham’s seems lovable when one’s about to leave it.”
But next day the excitement of packing and catching the train obliterated any sorrow at leaving London. First they all saw Sandra off at Victoria.
“Don’t break the camera!” they shouted rudely as the train steamed out. Then the boys saw Lyn and Vicky off at Paddington.
“Good ‘Caesar-ing’!” Lynette wished them.
“H’m! We’ll never make our names by shouting ‘Hail, Caesar!’”
“And mind you insist on playing small parts,” Nigel said paternally. “Don’t slave away A.S.M.-ing all the summer for nothing.”
“And don’t be rash with your wages!” Bulldog teased.
“Well, at least we shall be working for ours!”
As the train drew out of the station they waved from the window, then sank back into their corners and looked at each other.
“Funny not to see them again for ten whole weeks. Just you and I. We’ve never been away for so long before, since we met.” They watched the rows of grey little houses slipping by, then the factories, and on out into the countryside, and bound for Tutworth Wells.
“I wonder what sort of place it is,” Vicky speculated.
“I should imagine it’s very respectable if it’s a spa,” said Lynette. “Dowagers in bath chairs and all that sort of thing.” Vicky wriggled in her seat.
“Oh, I’m so excited! How long do you think this slow train will take?”
“I wish we knew more about real stage management,” said Lynette. “We’ve never done any at the Academy, and at the Blue Door Theatre it was all rather hit-or-miss.”
“And we usually left it to the boys.”
Throughout the journey they tried to read, but their eyes kept wandering from the pages and meeting, which made them giggle excitedly.
“I wonder if there will be anyone to meet us?” said Vicky.
“I don’t expect so. A.S.M.s are such a low form of life I don’t suppose they’ll bother. Anyway, we didn’t let them know what train we were coming by.”
The station at Tutworth Wells was remarkably neat and clean for a station. But there was no-one to meet them. They lugged their cases out and decided to leave them in the left luggage office for the time being until they had found digs.
“But first let’s find the theatre. That’s the most important.” They set off through the wide airy streets with little flowering gardens on either side. There were many elderly people in bath chairs as Lyn had prophesied, but also quite a large percentage of younger holiday-makers. There seemed to be hundreds of hotels and boarding-houses, and the shops were attractive.
“I think,” said Lyn, “I like it here.”
“Let’s ask the way to the theatre,” suggested Vicky, and stopped at the next policeman.
“Ah—you’d be wanting the rep. Good show there this week,” he remarked as he directed them.
“Seems popular,” observed Lyn.
The theatre was small and rather ugly, fronted with red brick. It was called the Pavilion and the play billed was George and Margaret. They studied the photos outside with interest.
“I don’t know the names of any of them,” said Lyn, “or the faces.”
“Ought we to go in through the front of the theatre or through the stage door?” puzzled Vicky. Lyn thought they should go through the stage door. Vicky thought the front entrance would be better. Finally, they could not find the stage door, so they had to enter past the box office and through the door marked “Stalls”. Inside, the theatre was dim, with only a working light on the stage where a rehearsal was in progress. A pale-faced young man and a rather pretty girl were going through a love scene somewhat half-heartedly. Every few minutes they dried up and either stopped despairingly and said “Sorry,” or threw a brusque “Yes?” to someone in the wings who gave them the line in a muffled voice.
Lyn and Vicky slipped into seats at the back of the auditorium and drank it in. Just as all seemed to be going well for a few minutes, both the people dried up and shouted “Yes” and “Please” in vexed tones, but no reply came from the prompter. Someone sitting in the front row of the stalls jumped up angrily.
“Where is the prompter?” she cried. “Is there no-one on the book?” There was still dead silence.
“Well, I mean—we can’t go on like this,” the pale youth muttered sulkily. “And whoever’s that at the back?” The three members of the company all turned and stared accusingly at Lynette and Vicky. Lyn plucked up her courage and stepped into the gangway. Her voice quavered slightly as she said, “Please, we’re the new assistant stage managers.”
“Thank heavens! For goodness’ sake get into the wings and prompt, will you, dear?” Lyn was handed a tattered script and she mounted the wooden steps on to the stage.
“How lovely to see an assistant stage manager!” said the pretty girl. “And two of them—amazing!” The tall woman, who appeared to be producing, called back to Vicky, “Would you like to go round into the yard and help Terry with some painting?”
“Yes,” said Vicky helplessly.
“Well, go by that little door and you’ll find him.” She pointed vaguely and returned to the rehearsal.
For the next three hours Lynette prompted until her eyes swam so that the print danced about uncontrollably, and she thought she would faint with hunger. Out in the yard Vicky found a lanky youth with a fringe like a Shetland pony’s over his eyes, slamming brown paint on to a piece of scenery.
“Er—hullo. I’m one of the new A.S.M.s. I’ve been sent to help you.” Immediately he handed her the brush and said, “Oh, then you might as well be getting on with that. I’ve got some designs to do.” And for the rest of the afternoon he sat comfortably on a packing-case, with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, drawing vague sketches on a block, and directing Vicky’s painting efforts. Her best suit, which she had worn to travel in, became more and more spattered with paint, until she was almost in tears of vexation and hunger.
When the rehearsal broke up, the producer fetched Vicky in and said to her and Lyn, “Well, we’re very glad to see you. We’ve only had one person on the stage-management side for the past few weeks and it’s been pretty ghastly.” She was tall and swarthy, about thirty-five, and wore her dark hair in braids round her head. She had about her an air that was always abstract, as if she were trying to think about several things at once, as indeed she was.
“You both look very young. How old are you?”
“Seventeen,” they chorused indignantly.
“You’ve not done any A.S.M.-ing before, have you?”
“No,” they admitted, shamefaced.
“Oh, well, Jean will soon break you in. She’s the stage manager. You’ll see her tonight. She seems to have disappeared at the moment. The curtain goes up at eight. So be here by seven, as there are sure to be lots of odd jobs to be done, as it’s only the second night of this week’s show. Where are you staying?”
“We’re not staying anywhere yet.”
“Well, you’ll have a bit of a job, I warn you. The town is packed. You might try at the Parade Private Hotel. It’s a bit grim, but quite clean.” When they got outside they saw that it was five-thirty.
“So our time is our own until seven,” said Lyn.
“I’m so hungry,” groaned Vicky. “Let’s eat first. I cannot dig-hunt on an empty stomach.”
“Yes,” agreed Lyn. “Mine is absolutely concave.”
All the cafés looked very arty-crafty, and advertised “dainty teas”.
“I’m not in the mood for lavender and old lace,” said Lyn. “Let’s find somewhere where we can let ourselves go.”
In a slightly less respectable quarter of the town they found a fish-and-chip shop, and in the greasy dining-room they consumed a large quantity, washed down with plenty of strong, sweet tea in thick cups.
“Oh, I feel better!” sighed Vicky. “Gosh. I’ve worked hard this afternoon! I ache all over.”
“And now to find somewhere to rest our heads.”
This seemed an impossibility. Everywhere was filled with visitors and invalids. One of the large hotels would have put them up at eight guineas a week each, but they had to refuse and walk ignominiously out of the gilt and stuccoed building. At last, weary and footsore, they reached the Parade Private Hotel. “Family and Commercial” it said outside; but seated in the lounge window was a collection of old ladies who looked too good to be true.
“I’m sure they’re stuffed!” whispered Lynette, as they rang the bell. The door was opened by an old lady in a white starched uniform that made her look like a hospital matron. When they asked if there were any vacant accommodation she said disapprovingly, “I shouldn’t think so, but I’ll just ask Miss Blackman.”
She disappeared into the gloom, and Lyn and Vicky fidgeted on the doorstep under a battery of lorgnetted stares from the window.
“We’re fifty years too young for this place,” remarked Vicky. At last Miss Blackman appeared, wearing a velvet band round her throat, and looking as if she had swallowed a poker.
“We’re from the theatre,” Lynette began, proudly, but it was quite the wrong approach.
“Oh, dear!” said Miss Blackman. “I do dislike having you people. Such late hours—I like to lock the doors at ten o’clock.”
“Oh, I see!” Lynette said forlornly, and leaned against the doorpost. Vicky felt like sitting on the step and taking her shoes off.
“Come on, Lyn!” she said. “It’s almost seven. We shall quite obviously have to sleep in the gutter.”
The idea of this seemed to trouble Miss Blackman. She thought again.
“Well, if you wouldn’t mind sharing, I might be able to put you up in an attic.”
“Anywhere,” breathed Lynette. “The coal-hole will do.”
They followed her up many flights of stairs lined with heavy oil paintings of ugly ancestors, to a small attic at the top of the house. It contained two rather hard-looking little beds and a wash-basin.
“Three guineas all in,” she announced. It seemed a lot, but “all in” sounded comforting.
“Thank you,” said Lyn. “Our luggage is at the station. Could it be fetched?” Miss Blackman looked aghast.
“Oh, no! We haven’t the staff! This is the Season, you see.” She spoke of it in capital letters. When she had gone they looked wistfully at the beds.
“No. It’s nearly seven o’clock,” said Lynette firmly.
There was only time to wash their faces and dry them on the counterpane, as there were no towels provided, before they set off for the theatre once more. As they entered by the stage door they were greeted by a lumpy female wearing a turban and dirty dungarees. She surveyed them without enthusiasm.
“New A.S.M.s?” she inquired brusquely.
“Yes.”
“I’m the stage manager. My name is Jean. What are yours?” They told her their names shyly.
“Academy?” They nodded.
“Hm! I was at the Crosby-Wade School. Well, you’d better get cracking. I want the stage swept and dusted first. There are some old overalls behind the door in that dressing-room. You’d better put them on.”
“What we go through for our art!” murmured Lyn, brushing away at the torn carpet that seemed to stretch for miles.
“So many times I’ve told my mother I wanted to go on the stage, even if only to sweep it, and now I’m doing it!”
When it was finished Jean set them to polishing silver, which had obviously not been done for some time.
“Now I’ll show you how to check the props.” She handed them a typed list under the headings, “Off right”, “Off left”, “On Stage”, “Plant for Act Two”, “Strike for Act Three”, that completely bewildered them, and went round with them seeing that everything was in its correct place. There seemed to be hundreds of meals in the play, entailing trays of imitation foodstuffs that all had to be carefully checked, as one missing plate could ruin a piece of “business”.
“Run and call the half-hour, Lynette,” the stage manager ordered. “Knock on all the doors, or they’ll say they didn’t hear.” Timidly Lynette tapped on each dressing-room door and said, “Half an hour, please.” The usual reply was, “Oh, bother!” or “Not already.” Hurrying figures in wrappers with half-made-up faces flitted from one dressing-room to another, and stared at the new members of the company with interest. The quarter of an hour was called, then the five minutes. “It’s time to start the panatrope.” Jean showed them how it worked and put on a record of a dance tune that soon blared out over the audience, who sat talking and eating chocolates and rustling programmes.
“Watch for the buzz,” Vicky was told as she stood in the prompt corner.
“Watch for the buzz? What buzz? Where?” she thought frantically.
“Beginners, please!” Jean shouted in stentorian tones. And a little buzzer buzzed in the prompt corner.
“It buzzed! It buzzed!” cried Vicky wildly.
“Take the curtain up, then.—Here! Press that button.”
Vicky pressed it with all her might. And miraculously the heavy curtain rose. It was not for some minutes that she realized that the button-pressing had caused a little red light to go on on the other side of the stage, which was the signal for a stage hand to wind away at an enormous handle. Vicky felt a terrific surge of power as she stood in the prompt corner with Jean showing her how to control the house lights, while Lynette sat with her eyes glued to the prompt book, trembling lest anyone on the stage should falter. In between each act there was sheer chaos. Terry, the boy who had been painting scenery, and two decrepit stage hands, appeared to help change the set, but Lyn and Vicky carried “flats” and hammered in “braces” with the enthusiasm of novelty. There was no time to notice the other members of the company, nor what the show was like. It was “Lynette, run and wash these cups up.” “Vicky, take the book for a minute.” “One of you pop round to the front of the house with this message, please.”
The play seemed to be going well, for the audience were laughing considerably, and Lynette did just notice that the players were well dressed. There was one hitch when the leading man opened his cigarette case and found no cigarette there. He made his exit smiling gaily, but once in the wings he turned on Jean in a fury. “Why did you let me go on without a cigarette?”
“If you’re not capable of taking a cigarette out of the prop box and putting it in your case, I’m sorry for you!” she replied tartly. He snorted, muttered something about “These women stage managers,” and strode off. Jean grimaced. “That’s the sort of thing you have to put up with,” she remarked. “All the kicks and no halfpence. Not even thanks when everything goes all right.”
“What a horrible man! Who is he?”
“Mark Gregory, our dear leading man, bless his little silk socks!”
Vicky and Lynette changed records on the panatrope, brought the curtains up and down, and even helped the leading lady in a quick change. At last it was time for the final curtain to be brought down, and there was a jumble of lighting to be changed, the time to be noted down in the time book, and the whole set to be moved, ready for tomorrow’s matinee. It was about eleven o’clock when Jean finally said, “You’d better run round to the stalls bar while there are still some sandwiches left.”
In the saloon the whole company were assembled, eating sandwiches. When they entered, the producer, whose name they had discovered to be Diana, said, “Oh, here are our two new ewe lambs, Lynette and Vicky. Be nice to them. They’re so hard to get.” Everyone laughed, and the two girls covered their confusion by purchasing orangeade and sausage rolls from the bar.
The youngish girl whom they had seen rehearsing that afternoon came up to them and said, “I hear you’re at the Academy. I was there two years ago. How is everyone? Old Whitfield, Roma, etc.?”
They told her all the latest Academy news, which seemed to interest her.
“These Academy folk! Always hang together, don’t they?” laughed the character woman, a plump, pleasant person of fifty or more. “I was there—about thirty years ago—so that dates me, I’m afraid.”
“Are you going to play any parts?” Chloe, the girl, wanted to know.
“We hope so.”
“Well, we’re doing The Constant Nymph in a few weeks’ time, so I hear. There are enough young parts in that. You’re bound to get something.”
“The Constant Nymph!” breathed Lynette. “Oh, how simply wonderful!”
“I suppose you’ve always longed to play ‘Tessa’ in it? Haven’t we all?” laughed Chloe.
“I’m the only woman in the company who won’t be envious of it,” laughed the character woman.
At this moment a grey-haired man wearing pince-nez came into the bar, and was saluted with respect.
“That’s the boss,” Chloe enlightened them. “He’s Diana’s father. Handles the business side.” After a while he came up and spoke to them, more kindly than anyone had done throughout the whole day.
“I’m very glad to see you both. I hope you will be happy with us and learn a lot.”
“Thank you, sir,” they said.
“How long have you been on the stage?” he inquired.
“Well, this is our first professional engagement,” Lyn explained. “We’re still at Dramatic School, you see.”
“Ah, of course. I forgot. So you’re only with us for ten weeks? A pity.”
Before the last lights in the theatre were switched off and the doors locked Jean said to them, “Rehearsal is at ten tomorrow, but be here by 9.30. There are a hundred and one things to do.”
On their way back to the hotel Lyn said suddenly, “You know what?”
“What?”
“Our cases are at the station.”
“Oh, gosh! Don’t let’s bother—”
“But our washing things! Even our tooth-brushes, and our slacks for tomorrow—”
“And hair-brushes,” agreed Vicky. “Oh, how awful! And our cases are so heavy!”
“I wish the boys were here. We could send them. They’d grumble—but they’d go.”
They trailed down the long road to the station, almost numb with tiredness, only to find the left luggage office shut. It meant a long argument with a half-witted porter before the key could be found and their cases extracted. They stumbled back to the hotel, with frequent intervals of sitting on their cases, looking at the moon, saying, “Oh, why do we do it!”
“Why didn’t we decide to be school teachers?”
“Or clerks?”
“Or merely to sit at home and wait for ‘Mr. Right’ to come along.” But although they said these things, beyond their fatigue there was a feeling that something very exciting was starting, and that Tutworth Wells held out opportunities of work and experience and Life with a capital L.
On the hall table of the Parade Hotel (Family and Commercial) there was a note saying, “Please lock doors and see lights out.—Emily Blackman.”
They toiled up the stairs with their cases, but then were too tired to make much use of the tooth-brushes, sponges, and hair-brushes which they had rescued. Lyn’s last words before she fell into a deep sleep were, “Rehearsal tomorrow at 9.30. Oh, gosh!”