I
The last time we were actually present when the Good Companions began a performance was on a Saturday night, the first real Night they had, at Sandybay, months ago. That was a tremendous occasion‚ÅÝ‚Äîor so it seemed then‚ÅÝ‚Äîbut it was nothing to this, a Saturday night at the Gatford Hippodrome. Susie‚Äôs birthday, Susie‚Äôs benefit, with Mr.¬ÝMonte Mortimer due to arrive almost any time, and every seat in the house taken‚ÅÝ‚Äîeven the box. Yes, the Gatford Hippodrome had a box‚ÅÝ‚Äînot four boxes, not two boxes, but one solitary box. Its curtains were rather dingy, and it was difficult to make out whether its four little chairs were gilded or not, but nevertheless it was a proper box, ready to receive any great personage visiting the town who expressed a wish to attend a performance at the Hippodrome. And of course it could be booked, in the ordinary way. But as great personages rarely visited the Hippodrome and other people preferred to sit in comfort, this box was not often occupied, though professional friends of the manager would occasionally accept a seat in it for an odd hour. But now, on this great night, it had been taken. Nobody knew who had taken it, or at least nobody admitted having any knowledge. Thus, Jerry Jerningham might possibly have known something about it. He was not asked, partly because he was not there to be asked until there was barely time for him to change and make up for the opening chorus, and then again because no one imagined he would know anything about it. Mrs.¬ÝJoe might have asked him, because she was more pleased, excited, and curious about that box than anybody else. In her opinion, the box gave Tone to the whole evening. She looked forward to catching the gleam of a white dress front, to hurling a good chest note at a possible diamond tiara. And then again, as she pointed out, with a box you never never knew; anybody might be in that box, and anything‚ÅÝ‚Äîa solid contract for Bournemouth, for example‚ÅÝ‚Äîmight come out of it. She was interested, excited, and made no secret of the fact. Perhaps the prophetic instinct was working in the depths of her mind‚ÅÝ‚Äîall conscientious contraltos, after all, sound prophetic‚ÅÝ‚Äîfor it must be admitted that that box was important.
Indeed, everything is important now. The sands are running out, so that every grain has some significance.
That is why we must be there in time to see the curtain rise. We have done it before, but we must do it again because this is the last time the curtain will rise on the Good Companions. There will never be another opening chorus for them all after this one. That is what none of them knows, not even Mrs.¬ÝJoe, who has the deep notes of Cassandra herself. They are all eager to make this night a success, and the thought of the packed house recurs to them continually, warming them like wine. But most of them are still wondering about things. Miss Trant, having a word here, a word there, behind the scenes, still wonders what she is to do about it all, and now and then remembers the figure of a man in a car, a man so like the ghost that has long haunted the dim corridors of her mind. The older players are still wondering about the future, that Bournemouth offer. Inigo and Susie are troubled by thoughts of Mr.¬ÝMonte Mortimer. Jerry Jerningham obviously has concerns of his own, which he keeps to himself. Even Miss Mamie Potter keeps asking herself what these propose to do and whether she had better stick to them through the summer and then take a chance in town in the autumn. And Mr.¬ÝOakroyd wonders what is going to happen to him, and what is happening in Canada, and what is happening in Bruddersford, for no news has trickled through from Ogden Street for some time. There they are then, all as eager and excited as you please but all busy wondering and wondering and planning a little. And not one of them guesses that this is the last time they will troop on together, that their semicircle is about to be broken forever, that already the powder has been heaped and the train set and fired.
They have crowded in from Mundley and Stort as well as from Gatford itself, and many of them have seen the show before and know who Susie is and why she is having a benefit. Mechanics, fitters, electricians, clerks, and cashiers from the motor works, with their wives and sweethearts; typists and milliners and elementary-school teachers; women who might be anybody‚Äôs wife or nobody‚Äôs; men who might at any moment be awarded a medal or given five years‚Äô penal servitude, who might be heading for the town council or the gutter; lads who gape and nudge one another and guffaw; girls who wriggle their shoulders, slap their companions, and giggle; quiet girls whose lives are as yet only a vague dream; decent young men who slip in and out of the works and their lodgings, always near a crowd and yet as lonely as Crusoes; jovial middle-aged fellows who earn good money and can eat anything, and their tired wives, who have been fighting, right up to six o‚Äôclock this very evening, the week‚Äôs long battle for cleanliness and respectability; wistful virgins who are eager to feast their eyes on the face of Jerry Jerningham, and amorous gentlemen who have a fancy for Miss Mamie Potter‚Äôs legs; people who ought to be in hospital, people who ought to be in prison, people who ought to be attending the Victoria Street Wesleyan Chapel concert, the Triangle Girl Guides Rally, the debate at the Mundley Y.M.C.A., the Gatford Cycling Club Whist Drive, people who ought to be helping their father in the shop, people who ought to be in the Blessed Isles, so long and hard have they laboured in this unblessed island; they are all here, staring, chattering, eating chocolates, reading football scores in the paper, turning over their programmes. And now, just when they are all tired of amusing themselves, out go the lights above and up come the footlights illuminating the lower folds of the curtain in the old enchanting way. Is the curtain going up now? No, they will play something first; they always do. There it goes: Rumpty-dee-tidee-dee, Rumpty-dee-tidee. Some of the audience know this tune. It is a song called ‚ÄúSlippin‚Äô Round the Corner,‚Äù and that good-looking young fellow, who dances, sings it. Is‚Äëern‚Äëtit lovely? And at this moment, as it comes softly twirling through the magically lighted curtain, the mischievous lilt of it working like leaven in the dark mass of the audience, it is lovely indeed, a rhapsody of love and idleness, news from another and brighter world than this in which we portion out our wages. It dances Gatford clean away; the streets, the factories and shops, the long rows of houses, the trams and lorries, the ugly little chapels and the furtive pubs, they tremble a little, they sway, they rock violently, and then off they go, jogging away into nothing, slipping forever round some vast unimaginable corner. A little louder now, as if in triumph. Nothing remains but clean earth and a blue spangle of stars, and the lilt and the beat and the Rumpty-dee-tidee pulsating in the velvet darkness. Louder still now, more triumphant. And up it comes, shaped and coloured anew by the sorcery of the flying crotchets and quavers, this other Gatford, shining and fair, a suburb of Old Cockayne, with fountains sprouting the alternate black and gold of Guinness and Bass, gold-flake and honeydew heaped in the streets, arcades of meat and pudding done to a turn, silk stockings and jumpers to be picked where you like, dances round every corner and a prize for everybody, goals to be scored at any hour of the day, girls like laughing and passionate queens, boys who would love you forever and always in evening dress, and children, swarms of them, rosy and fat, with never a white drawn face or a twisted limb, scampering everywhere, running and tumbling out of the happy houses, out of the depths of memory, out of the very grave.‚ÅÝ‚Ää‚Å݂Ķ
Ah, that was good, that was. Took you back, took you out of yourself, took you somewhere, you didn‚Äôt know where. It deserves a clap. And tonight it‚Äôs getting one. The piano by itself now. The curtain‚Äôs going up. There they are, singing away, pretty as a picture. Give them another good clap. The two girls look lovely, don‚Äôt they? You can‚Äôt call that other one a girl; she‚Äôs getting on, she is; but she‚Äôs a fine singer for all that, a real good turn. But the two girls look lovely. That‚Äôs the new one, the one in the blue. But the other‚Äôs the one, her in the red, Susie Dean. It‚Äôs her that‚Äôs having the benefit. Make a cat laugh, the way she takes people off, but she‚Äôs nice and pretty too. Look at her smiling. That red dress just suits her, dark eyes and dark hair. Well-made too, that girl. She‚Äôll be married though, they always are. If she isn‚Äôt, she‚Äôll be marrying that nice-looking boy, Jerry they call him. Oh, he‚Äôs a good turn. Just watch his feet. And there‚Äôs the comic, the little one at the end, twisting his face about, Jimmy Nunn. He‚Äôll come on as a postman soon‚ÅÝ‚Äîand laugh, he‚Äôd make you die laughing! That tall one‚ÅÝ‚Äîno, the very long thin man, him with the eyebrows‚ÅÝ‚Äîhe plays the banjo and then he does conjuring. They say he‚Äôs played before the King and Queen or something like that. Quite a comic too, in his way, when he‚Äôs conjuring. That other one, with the big shoulders on him, is a singer. He usually starts them off. That‚Äôs right: ‚ÄúCourtney Brundit will sing Number Twenty-seven on the programme.‚Äù That‚Äôs him. And that young fellow at the piano can play all right, my word he can! It‚Äôs a gift to be able to play like that. They say he‚Äôs just married that new one, but of course you can‚Äôt believe everything you hear.
The curtain is up, the show has begun. It is time we left the audience and went behind the scenes. We shall never find our way there again, after this night.