II
It was very exciting being at last on the move. She took with her in the car Jimmy Nunn and Mr.¬ÝOakroyd, setting off early so that these two would have an opportunity of putting the stage in order, for the hall they were using at Dotworth, known as the Olympic, was a picture theatre. The others came on later, by train. On the way, she tried to be very cool about it all, told herself that it was, of course, a most absurd frolic, but nevertheless she was very excited. And that night she would see the party‚ÅÝ‚Äîher party‚ÅÝ‚Äîhow ridiculous that sounded!‚ÅÝ‚Äîon the stage, acting before an audience, for the first time. Just before they arrived there she had to make a confession.
“You know, I feel thrilled already,” she told Jimmy.
He was rather troubled about this. ‚ÄúNot that I don‚Äôt understand; I do,‚Äù he said. ‚ÄúI don‚Äôt care if a man‚Äôs been fifty years in the business, there‚Äôs the same old thrill comes back. Opening night‚ÅÝ‚Äîall of a doodah! I know. I‚Äôve had some opening nights in my time. It‚Äôs that as much as anything that ruins a man‚Äôs digestion.‚Äù
“Isn’t yours any better?”
“Better! Worse and worse! Believe me, I’ve nearly forgotten the motions of eating. A knife and fork worries me. I ate so little at Rawsley that even the landlady complained, said it was putting her off her own feed, and her husband came to see me one night and got quite nasty about it, said their food was as good as anybody else’s, and he was tired of eating my meals cold or warmed-up and being called a glutton by his missis into the bargain. But what I wanted to say is this. Don’t expect anything here, Miss Trant.”
“What haven’t I to expect?”
“Anything at all,” he replied promptly. “The show’s not in shape yet. This Dotworth isn’t a real date. I know the place; played it once before, years ago. It’s a dud. All we’re doing, Miss Trant, is trying it on the dog.”
And Dotworth looked rather like a dog. “One of these forlorn yellow little mongrels,” Miss Trant told herself. In the faint sunlight the little town looked yellowish, and there was something forlorn about the streets through which they were passing.
The Olympic was a very small place, sandwiched between an ironmonger‚Äôs and a draper‚Äôs. On a board in front was pasted one of their new bills. There it was‚ÅÝ‚ÄîThe Good Companions‚ÅÝ‚Äîin bold lettering. The sight of it gave Miss Trant a sense of achievement that was very pleasant.
“But look at that,” groaned Jimmy, pointing, “just look at it, I ask you.”
Undoubtedly the bill was not very impressive. It suffered because underneath it was a highly coloured poster of a film. This poster showed several pairs of legs, apparently supporting the Good Companions’ bill, and underneath these legs were letters of flame that said: A Drama from the very Depths of the Soul.
“That’s what they do to you in these one-eyed holes,” said Jimmy. “You’ll have to cover that poster up, Oakroyd.”
Miss Trant had never heard of a “one-eyed hole” before, but the term kept popping up in her mind during the afternoon and early evening, when she was busy running round Dotworth, going from the station to the Olympic, from the Olympic to her hotel. Dotworth certainly was a one-eyed hole, and by the time the doors of the Olympic were opened, she was convinced that the solitary eye would not be fixed upon the Good Companions. It was not the first time she had been anxious about the size of an audience, for she had helped at charity concerts and the like at Hitherton, but she had never felt so anxious before. When she saw the doors open and people walking past them, she positively winced. But if the people went in, she was not happy about them but busy wondering if they would enjoy it. Before the curtain went up, she was able to count the audience. There were ninety-three altogether; twelve in the one-and-tenpenny seats; thirty-seven in the one-and-twopenny seats (but these included ten free passes for people exhibiting bills): and the remaining forty-four were ninepennies at the back. She tried to do a little mental arithmetic but was not successful, so she called it three pounds and reminded herself that their next three performances could only be considered dress rehearsals.
“I’m not gone on these ’ere pierrots,” she heard somebody say. “Give me pitchers.” Then, a minute later, the same voice went on: “That is so. Just what I’ve said many a time, many and many a time.” The woman cleared her throat mournfully. “Give me pitchers.”
Miss Trant felt like giving her a box on the ears. Pictures indeed! Still tingling, she sat down at the very end of one of the one-and-tenpenny rows, having agreed that for this first night she must keep in front. The great moment arrived. No footlights suddenly and beautifully illuminated the curtain, for there were no footlights. The stage was lighted from above, and now these lights were switched on and those in the body of the hall turned off. There came the thrilling sound of a gong, then the crash of a chord or two, followed by a run, on the piano. The curtain rose about a foot, hesitated, wobbled, then rose another six inches‚ÅÝ‚Äîthen stopped‚ÅÝ‚Äîto reveal several agitated pairs of legs. There was some agonized whispering. Then a voice spoke out from the wings in desperation. ‚ÄúNay,‚Äù it said, ‚Äúshoo won‚Äôt budge an inch.‚Äù
There was some clapping and jeering at the back.
“Sh-sh,” cried Miss Trant fiercely, turning round.
The curtain began wobbling again: jerked up another few inches; stopped again; then suddenly ran up at full speed, presenting the audience with a splendid view of Jimmy Nunn’s back. But that gentleman was equal to the occasion. He did not run off but cooly turned round, made a face at the audience, and said: “Oh, you’re here, are you? Couldn’t make out where you’d got to. I’ll call the others. They’d like to see you.” And he put two fingers to his mouth and whistled, gave Inigo at the piano a nod, sat himself down behind the drums, and they crashed into the opening chorus. It was superbly done. Miss Trant felt as if she had just tobogganed over a chasm. She had not been so excited about anything for years.
It was very odd and amusing seeing her new friends on the stage. She had never known any professionals before, and it was quite different from watching amateurs. When you saw people you knew acting with amateur dramatic societies, they were merely themselves with parts stuck on to them: Mrs.¬ÝCorvison pretended to be a maid, and Major Thompson wore a wig and butler‚Äôs clothes‚ÅÝ‚Äîand that was all. But with these professionals, you lost all sight of the private personalities; they simply came to life on the stage in another sort of way; and as you watched them, you could hardly believe that you really knew them as people. Jimmy Nunn, for example, was all drollery; he had an entirely new voice, very queer and squeaky; and the man she knew who had been so worried about percentages and his digestion completely disappeared. Mr.¬ÝJerningham, whose dancing was so astonishing, became a vivid personality. Mr.¬ÝMitcham was immensely dignified and impressive, and when he was repeatedly contradicted and fooled by Jimmy and pretended to lose his temper, he seemed like an outraged ambassador. Elsie appeared to be ten years younger, and frivolity itself; though her stage personality appealed to Miss Trant rather less than her real one. Even the Brundits, whose singing interested Miss Trant less than any other part of the performance, simply because she had heard much better singing of this kind all her life, at least contrived to be imposing figures. Mrs.¬ÝJoe swam down the stage like a Queen of Song, and acknowledged any applause that came her way with the air of a duchess opening a charity bazaar. And Joe, when he was busy ‚Äúfeeding‚Äù Jimmy, could say ‚ÄúWell, I‚Äôll bet you a fiver, old man,‚Äù and produce a crumpled bit of newspaper, quite in the manner of a gentleman whose pockets are stuffed with fivers. As for Susie, who was best of all, she did not change; she was still her delightful self: but she seemed enlarged and intensified in this new atmosphere; she treated the stage as if it were her own hearthrug and the audience as if it were composed of old friends attending her birthday party. Everything she did was deliciously absurd. She sang ordinary sentimental little music-hall songs, and by letting her voice slide down and down, by catching her breath at awkward moments, by a droll flick of a glance, she turned them inside out and then tossed them away with an easy scorn. Her dancing itself was a delicate parody, a sly comment on Elsie and Jerry Jerningham. And then she contrived to give lightning sketches of all manner of people; just a phrase or two, a walk, a gesture, a grimace, and you were reminded at once of somebody solemn and ridiculous you had known; if she only had to cross the stage, she would do it in character or caricature, and you had to laugh; she was always being somebody and yet she was always Susie too, for you were always conscious of the girl herself, with her dark eyes and tilted nose, her rather square shoulders, her sturdy figure. Unlike Jimmy Nunn, she did not seem to give you a set performance; her acting was a kind of witty romping, an overflow of high spirits; and it was all essentially feminine‚ÅÝ‚Äî‚ÄúAren‚Äôt they absurd, my dear?‚Äù it seemed to say; and Miss Trant, who remembered so well the times she had felt like that, but could do nothing but bottle it up, adored her. The fact that Dotworth evidently thought the girl an amateurish trifler, who ought to learn to sing a luscious ballad or redden her nose and be really funny, only stiffened Miss Trant‚Äôs allegiance and fed the flame of her enthusiasm. Oh, it had been worth it just for Susie! This girl had to go on and on, that was certain.
When the final curtain came, the applause was only halfhearted. Miss Trant stood up and clapped fiercely. There was the company, her company and her friends, who had worked so hard all the evening and the whole week before this evening; there they were, smiling‚ÅÝ‚Äîfor the curtain had risen again just to let them smile‚ÅÝ‚Äîand these poor Dotworth creatures could only stare or go poking about for their hats. It was not fair. Miss Trant clapped harder than ever, and then, when the lights came on, there was some staring in her direction, but she did not care. At least, one Miss Trant did not care, even if the other did‚ÅÝ‚Äîfor now there seemed to be two of her.
There was the Miss Trant who had been growing up so quickly ever since she left Hitherton. It was this Miss Trant who had so suddenly, so recklessly, so absurdly decided to run the Concert Party, who had plunged into this shabby and adventurous world of minor theatres and had so far enjoyed every moment it had offered her, who had become passionately concerned with dates and rentals and seating and production numbers and costumes, who had already plucked out of this dingy wilderness of lodgings, makeshift theatres, and dull little towns, the fine flowers of work and comradeship and loyalty. But there still remained the Miss Trant who had lived so long at the Old Hall, Hitherton, the woman who had arrived in her middle thirties in a very different world, into which none of her new companions, except perhaps Inigo Jollifant, could ever have found their way; a world full of people who would see very little difference between travelling round with a concert party and singing in the streets. It would be idle to pretend that this Miss Trant had been banished forever almost at a moment‚Äôs notice. She was there in the background, wondering and sometimes wincing. She was ready to point out that this was all very well perhaps for a week or two‚Äôs frolic, while they were moving obscurely in little towns, but that sooner or later the two worlds must clash and then there would probably be a catastrophe in one of them. She had her hour when there came a reply from Mr.¬ÝTruby of Cheltenham, the solicitor, who had had to be told something of what was happening so that he could make arrangements with the bank about forwarding money. Mr.¬ÝTruby had replied that he would do his best to carry out her instructions and did not anticipate any difficulty; he was as solemnly courteous as ever and showed no trace of surprise; yet there was that in his letter which announced in effect that Mr.¬ÝTruby was ready to carry out the wishes of any clients no matter how monstrous they might be, until such time as he received a medical certificate proving their insanity. And that was only a beginning. Very soon there must come a real test‚ÅÝ‚Äîand what would happen then? Could this tiny fantastic army of pierrots withstand the massed forces of Hitherton? Those forces could act through the glance of amazement, the lifted eyebrows, the horrified remonstrances, of a single person; and Miss Trant was aware of the fact, though she had not the least idea who the person might be.
She had not to wait for either the test or the person. They arrived together, on the Wednesday afternoon of the following week, at Sandybay.