Lynette dreamed that it was exam time at school, and she woke with that sick feeling in her stomach. The rain was beating greyly down and her porridge was lumpy. Then she remembered that she was lunching with Timothy at a famous theatrical restaurant. It was the first time that either of them had dared to go there, for one had almost to produce one’s pedigree to secure a table. While she was dressing there was a phone call for her. She ran down the stairs in her house coat. Maddy spoke from a long way away.
“Hullo, Lyn. I’m speaking on behalf of the Blue Doors, your parents, my parents, the Halfords, and the Bishop, and—oh, ooms of people in Fenchester. We just want you to know that we’re thinking about you—and wishing you all the best for tonight. They wanted us to ring you this evening at the theatre, but we knew you’d be in an awful flap by then.”
“It was awfully sweet of you to think of it,” said Lyn gratefully.
“How did the dress rehearsal go?”
“Fine. Terrific.”
“Good. We saw a lovely picture of you in that magazine.”
“How’s the Blue Door Theatre going?”
“We’re nearly ready to open. Gosh, we’ve been working round the clock.”
“What are you opening with?”
“We’re not quite sure. But we’re going to do all the things we know first.”
They chatted for a long time, until the pips became too insistent, and Maddy rang off with final wishes for good luck.
“Gosh,” thought Lynette, “I’m glad Maddy has come round a bit. She had every reason to feel a bit mad at my letting them down.”
She dressed in her best dress, and Timothy called for her at midday. As ever, he was in a state of nerves, but she managed to calm him down enough to enjoy his lunch. The restaurant was crowded with actors and actresses, writers, painters, and musicians, and they had such fun picking out people that they did not realize that people were looking at them and wondering who they were. The lunch was delicious: pâté, and pheasant, and an enormous ice-cream trifle, and black, sweet Turkish coffee. They sat over their empty cups talking for a long time. De Whit, with a crowd of friends, came over to speak to them.
“Hullo, children. Stoking up for tonight?”
“Yes, rather!”
“Mind you have a rest this afternoon, Lyn dear. You look tired.”
“Yes, I’m going home to rest now.”
“Good girl.” And off he shot to chat and laugh at all the neighbouring tables.
Lyn walked slowly back to No. 37 and put her alarm on for four-thirty. “And, please, Mrs. Bosham, knock me up as well. It would be awful if I overslept.” But she did not sleep at all. There were so many thoughts and images and worries and fancies in her brain that she just lay on her back and studied the cracks in the ceiling that she thought looked like a rabbit, and that Maddy had held strongly were a lion.
Before four-thirty she was up and dressing again in her best in case they should go out afterwards to celebrate. She took a taxi to the theatre, thinking, “After all, it’s a day on which to be rash.” The doorkeeper greeted her with, “Nice batch o’telegrams for you, miss.” She fell on them and carried them up to her room. They were from the most surprising people. People whom she thought had forgotten her years ago, vague aunts and distant cousins. There was one from Terry, the scenic artist at Tutworth, another from Miss Gaunt, her old school mistress, and piles from people at the Academy. She put them up round her mirror and surveyed them happily, then began to get made up. De Whit popped round to tell her that the house would be packed out and even some people standing.
“A very distinguished audience, too,” he remarked. “Good luck, dear.”
Others of the company came in to wish her good luck, and she popped along to Marcia and Vivian Conroy. Marcia, apparently completely unconcerned, was already entertaining some of her friends, talking sixteen to the dozen as she put on her make-up. When Lynette returned to her dressing-room she gasped with delight, for there was a mass of flowers which Mrs. White was arranging.
“Aren’t they beauts?” the dresser said happily. “I’ve left the cards on them so that you can see which is which.”
There were yellow roses from De Whit, red roses from Timothy, chrysanthemums from Helen, and a pathetic bunch of Michaelmas daisies from the garden of No. 37 from Mrs. Bosham.
“How kind people are,” she thought, and began to put on her first act dress with Mrs. White’s assistance. It was then that the full realization of what was before her rushed over her.
“Last night was all right. But that doesn’t help tonight. Gosh, I must be good. There are so many people I mustn’t let down. Timothy, and the Blue Doors, and my parents.” She was still trembling all over, and when Timothy came round to wish her luck he too was shaking so much that they just looked at each other and roared with hysterical laughter.
The calls came with relentless regularity, the half, the quarter of an hour, five minutes please, overture and beginners. Lyn kept thinking of the enormous auditorium—row upon row of hungry faces, ready to criticize her, to ruin her, or to make her. She ran down into the wings, her coat thrown round her shoulders to stop the shivers. In the wings there were more hurried wishes of good luck from the stage management and stage hands. The overture was blaring out, and then it began to fade. Lyn found herself wishing desperately that it would continue.
The music disappeared altogether, there was a few seconds of breathless silence, filled only by the thumping of Lynette’s heart, and then the curtain rose. There were murmurs as the audience admired the set, late-comers banged and shuffled into their seats, and then Marcia entered. There was a vigorous burst of applause, and the show had started. Lyn’s cue came, and she walked on, icy cold, and more frightened than she had ever been in her life. She did not remember saying the first five minutes of dialogue, but she must have done, for Marcia sailed gaily on, playing up with verve and charm, and all the tricks of her trade. Tonight’s audience were definitely more sticky than the previous evening’s, and the laughs were not so frequent. When Lyn ran up to change for the second act she was still shaking and uncertain.
“Oh, yer ’ands are cold, Miss Darwin,” cried Mrs. White. “Here, stick them under the hot water tap.”
Neither Timothy nor De Whit came round between the acts. “That means they’re—not sure,” Lynette thought fearfully.
It was when she entered in the second act that she realized something was wrong. In the wings everyone had had a rather strained appearance, and when she began to act with Marcia she realized why. The leading lady had entirely changed the reading of her part. Instead of a poisonous, difficult harridan she was playing the role of a delightful, middle-aged woman; in fact, the kind of part that she always had played previously, the part in which the audience knew and loved her. All the unsympathetic lines she played with a delicious gurgle in her voice that turned them into comedy lines and the audience roared with laughter. Consequently all Lynette’s lines, in fact her whole character, missed fire, and she knew that she was going for nothing, that Marcia was acting her off the stage. All the tricks and wangles that the ageing actress had ever learnt came into play. She edged upstage, so that Lynette had almost to turn her back to the audience to address her, she cut all Lyn’s best lines, she did bits of comedy “business” during Lyn’s longer speeches, and the characters turned into a lovable, witty-minded mother, and an unsympathetic, spineless, dreary daughter. Soon Lynette was completely put off her stride and disheartened. Tears were not far off, and her voice was muffled and indistinct. Marcia continued to charm the audience and carry them with her, to take the centre of the stage, and to play to the gallery. In the wings the little stage director was literally dancing with fury, and the company looked on aghast. At Marcia’s exit there was terrific applause, and Lynette heaved a sign of relief.
“Now, perhaps, I shall have a chance,” she thought. But poor Vivian Conroy was so put off by the extraordinary performance he had witnessed that he fluffed and dried and perspired heavily under his make-up. The audience were obviously not interested in any other character but the mother, and there was even a loud yawn from the gallery. They hurried through their scene, and at last the second act curtain fell. Vivian Conroy sat heavily on the sofa.
“What on earth has come over the woman?” he demanded, wiping his face with his handkerchief. Lynette could not speak. She walked dimly up the stairs, conscious of alarmed whispering round every corner.
“Why, ducky!” cried Mrs. White as Lyn entered like a ghost.
De Wit flew in, seething with rage, his spectacles glinting furiously.
“I’m so livid—so livid. Oh, you poor darling—but, dear, you must play up. This act will be agony if you don’t.”
“But what can I do?” Lyn asked, breathlessly calm. “She won’t let me do anything.”
“I know, dear, I know. She’s ruining the play, even if she is snatching a rather precarious success for herself. I’ve tried to talk to her, but she won’t even open her dressing-room door. Oh, Lynette, you must be a brave, brave girl,” and he darted off to try to calm everyone else. A deathly pale wraith then appeared in the doorway. It was Timothy. They stood and looked miserably at one another. Then Timothy sank down on a chair.
“I can’t watch any more,” he said brokenly.
“I’m sorry. So sorry,” said Lyn softly.
“It’s not you! It’s that—viper! How could she? How could anyone?”
“Act Three beginners, please,” shouted the call-boy in a maddeningly cheery voice.
“I can’t,” said Lynette pathetically, frightened and feeble.
“You must, I suppose.”
“Yes, I must.”
On the stairs, members of the cast were standing looking at one another, horror-stricken. Marcia was still in her dressing-room. When she swept on to the stage for the first scene of the third act she got another round of applause. But soon even the audience realized that there was something wrong. The third act was written so strongly that it was completely ruined by Marcia’s refusal to play in any other way than sweetly and whimsically. Everyone attributed the faults to the play, and Lynette’s attempts at emotion and hysteria became entirely unnecessary and out of place. Marcia purred and laughed and used her most endearing charms, but of no avail. The audience began to shuffle and cough and several seats banged as people got up to go out.
Lynette tried so hard. She pretended that she was back at the Academy, acting with someone who was doing it all wrong, but she must not let it affect her. And yet, when she did manage to get her words out as they should have been, they made the play even more senseless. The third act wore on, and Lyn, Loraine, and Roger Revere did their best to restore a little balance, but by this time the audience had lost patience. Lyn just did not bother to scream and sob as she should have done, for inside her she was cold and dead as stone. Left alone on the stage she panicked and made her exit before the curtain fell instead of holding the stage and waiting for it. They took their bows stiffly, all except Marcia, who was smiling as graciously as ever. Someone in the gallery shouted out, “A lot of rot.” And the curtain fell and did not rise again.
“Only one curtain call? On a first night!” Marcia complained.
De Whit strode on to the stage.
“Yes,” he shouted. “And that’s more than you deserve, Marcia Meredith.”
Lynette fled from the noisy scene that followed. As she ran up the stairs the tears began to fall, and she collapsed in a chair, her head down on the dressing-table among the make-up and grease-paints.
“Don’t,” said Timothy, who had sat in her room throughout the last act. “Don’t, dear. It’s not your fault. We’re just—unlucky.”
“Well, what a scandal!” said Mrs. White. “Come along, deary. It wasn’t as bad as all that.” But Lynette could only weep. “Here, deary, lie down on the couch for a bit.” For a few minutes Lynette seemed to lose all consciousness and they fetched sal volatile to revive her. At last she was able to remove her make-up, slowly, with rending sobs. De Whit came in and sank down on the couch.
“That woman—that woman!” was all he could say. “What are we going to do?”
“I can’t possibly go on tomorrow night,” said Lynette, a sorry sight with swollen eyes.
“You’ll have to, dear. Your understudy isn’t ready at all. But I don’t even know that there’ll be another night. I’ve not seen Cathcart or anyone belonging to the management yet.”
“What has Miss Meredith to say?” Timothy asked dully.
“She won’t admit that there’s anything wrong. She just says, ‘But they loved it,’ and is giving a cocktail party in her dressing-room.”
“Incredible—incredible,” gasped Timothy. “Doesn’t she realize what she’s done to me—to Lynette—to you?”
“I don’t think she does,” said De Whit weakly. “She is just a silly, vain, selfish old woman.”
“Thank heaven no-one has come round to see me,” sighed Lynette. “That means it must have been bad. Mrs. Seymore and Mr. Whitfield haven’t come round.”
“Duncan, can’t you tell her that she’s got to play it properly tomorrow night?”
“It won’t matter if she does. The Press were here in full force tonight, and they’re just going to slaughter it.”
“Of course,” said Timothy dully.
One by one the company came to find De Whit to ask in a bewildered fashion what was happening.
“I don’t know. I only know we’re done for,” was all he could say.
They condoled with Lynette and made a fuss of her, but she knew that kind words could not mend the ruin of her first West End first night.
“It was all so unnecessary,” was all she could think. “It could have been a success for us both, if Marcia had only kept her head.”
“Come out and have something to eat,” suggested De Whit. “We’ll go somewhere quiet. We’ll all feel better when we’ve had something to eat.”
They went into the snack bar of the little pub opposite and ordered steak and chips. Lyn could not touch hers; to her it tasted like sawdust.
“Our lovely play!” groaned De Whit. “Last night it was—it was brilliant. Wasn’t it? You all knew it was.”
Timothy was sitting white and silent, looking strangely like a disappointed small boy. And then from over the partition that divided them from the smoking-room came the loud voice of a playgoer who had just come out of the St. Christopher’s, and a friend who had not seen the show.
“Well, what was it like?”
“Pretty bad. Pretty bad. Marcia was all right. Same as usual, of course. But it was a very weak play. Can’t think why Tiller and Webb ever bothered to put it on. Their stuff is usually so good.”
“What was this new girl like?”
“Which girl?”
“Derwent—or some such name.”
“The daughter? Oh, pretty bad. The worst Academy type. Obviously inexperienced. The Meredith wiped the floor with her.”
Lyn rose unsteadily to her feet.
“I must go,” she said in a little voice.
“I’ll come with you,” said Timothy quickly.
“No. No, I don’t want anyone.”
“But it’s raining,” said Timothy stupidly.
“I know.” Lynette pushed her way out of the crowded snack bar and out into the cool evening air and the steadily falling rain.
“The worst Academy type—obviously inexperienced.” And that was what the papers would say next day. She walked blindly through puddles, across roads, regardless of the traffic. It was a grey evening, turning into a black night. The passers-by looked despairing and down-trodden in macintoshes, galoshes, and hoods. Lyn longed to be able to go home to her mother, to tell her all about it and to be put to bed with a hot drink. She was suddenly so tired that she had to lean against a lamp-post and gasp. She stood and watched the cars and people, trying to find some meaning in it all.
“Why? Why?” she cried inside her. And the roaring traffic and the drip, drip of the rain gave no reply. Detail by detail the whole panorama of the awful evening spread out again in her mind, from the first line on which she had noticed something wrong with Marcia, to the last overheard remark, “The worst Academy type… Meredith wiped the floor with her.” Her feet were soaked with rain and she felt she could walk no farther. A policeman spoke to her. “Everything all right, miss?”
For a ridiculous moment she wanted to say, “Well, you see, it’s like this,” and tell him all about it, but then she realized that the failure of another show could mean nothing to him. “After all—it’s only acting,” she knew he would think, and she laughed rather hysterically up at him. “No, thank you. I mean, yes, thanks,” she stammered, and got on a bus. The top deck was deserted, and she fell into a front seat and watched the lights with a reeling head and a heavy heart, seeing London through a mist of rain and tears.