Laura said to Ernest: ‘I’ll find Marigold Tench and tell her to get into my Mrs Peachum costume and stick some make-up on. You push out in front and tell the audience that Melanie has a temperature and can’t continue. Crave their indulgence for a few minutes.’
At this moment Hamilton Haynings, who had been waiting on the Prompt side for his entrance as Lockit, Lucy’s father, came across to them.
‘What’s happened?’ he asked. ‘Is she ill?’
‘Yes. Get on and say so. All right, Ernest. You just put the word round backstage that we shall be resuming as soon as Marigold is ready.’ She pulled the weeping Melanie to her feet. ‘Come on. The dressing-room for you,’ she said. There was a chaise longue in the dressing-room. There was also Marigold Tench. Laura pushed Melanie on to the former and tackled the latter.
‘Put my costume on. We’re much of a height,’ she said. ‘You know the book of words and the solos and duets as well as she does. This is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. I’ll help you dress.’
‘I feel sick,’ moaned Melanie from the chaise longue.
‘Then for pity’s sake go and be it,’ said Laura, hauling her up and dragging her towards the lavatory.
To the credit of the cast, nobody panicked or fluffed. The new Lucy proved more than adequate. She had had enough to drink to excite without intoxicating her and she put up what, under the circumstances, was a most meritorious perforamnce. The audience applauded her warmly, not only out of kindness to an understudy who had been called upon without warning, but as a tribute to a good performance.
As for Hamilton Haynings, he was seen that evening at his best. Going in front of the curtain in the lugubrious rusty black coat and breeches of the master gaoler, he had assumed the Friend and Champion of the People rôle which had served him so well in his public speeches before council elections. He was sorry, he said, for the hold-up. A doctor was in attendance upon Miss Cardew and had diagnosed a temperature of one hundred and three degrees. It had been very plucky of Miss Cardew to attempt to play the part when she was feeling so ill, (applause, for which he waited), but it was impossible for her to continue. He craved the indulgence of the audience for just a few minutes and bowed himself off to further applause.
The opera continued on its course. Having fulfilled the promise of Trinculo’s foul bombard and shed her liquor, Melanie had fallen asleep on the chaise longue. The costume of Mrs Peachum proved to fit Marigold well enough, and Laura returned to her seat next to Dame Beatrice and was soon leading the applause for Lucy Lockit. She had been doubtful whether Marigold’s esprit de corps would prove equal to the demands made upon it and was grateful that her doubts had been dispelled. Eventually a speech from Macheath, ‘Tell the sheriff’s officers I am ready’, had brought the opera to the verge of its final scene.
Willing student hands trundled the fatal cart up the ramp and into position centre-back of the stage, but then came the second hold-up.
‘Where are those wedges for the wheels?’ demanded a voice:
‘In the corner, top of the stairs, where we always put them,’ came a reply.
‘They aren’t there now.’
‘Well, ask the stage manager.’
But the wedges had disappeared.
‘Look, the show must go on. We don’t really need the wedges. They’re only an extra precaution. The rope will hold the cart and two of you can stand by while Macheath mounts it. He’s only up there a matter of minutes, anyway,’ said Ernest Farrow, a speech which was remembered against him later. ‘Do let’s get the scene going. The chaps are ready in the corridor with the bouquets and we’re running late already. Some of the audience have trains and buses to catch and the town hall staff expect to be off duty at ten-thirty.’
Backstage Macheath was proving recalcitrant.
‘I don’t want that beastly thing over my head and I don’t want my hands tied,’ he said.
‘Of course you do,’ said Ernest Farrow, hastening over to him. Two stalwart students, taking their cue from this, pinioned him, merely looping the cord over itself as they had done at the other performances. They crammed the white cap over his head and ears, and patted him on the back.
‘Up you go, sir,’ they said, hoisting him bodily on to the cart which, lacking the wedges for its wheels, wobbled a little but was immediately steadied by the students, one of whom arranged the loop around Lawrence’s neck. It transpired, later, that he had not performed this simple act before, for the students who acted as stage-hands were changed each evening and depended upon the unlucky Ernest Farrow for their orders. He himself left them so that he could appear in front of the curtains where he was joined by the student who was acting as the Player.
Denbigh had cut this scene, as Laura knew, to a minimum. Each actor was to make two speeches only and then the curtain was to rise on Denbigh’s pièce de résistance, Macheath on the hangman’s cart and the ‘rabble’, hearing of the reprieve, rushing rejoicingly on to the stage – ‘although, actually,’ Denbigh had once confessed to Laura, ‘I think they’d have been pretty shirty at being done out of the fun of a hanging.’
Before any of this could happen, Laura had gone backstage to wait in the corridor with James Hunty for the curtain-calls – there were to be three, at least, on this the last evening, more if the applause warranted them. The Beggar and the Player were already half-way through their short dialogue in which Macheath’s reprieve was to be announced, but on this occasion the dialogue did not get finished in its original form, but sustained a surprising modern addition. It ended with these words:
Player: But, honest friend, I hope you don’t intend that Macheath shall be really executed?
Beggar: Most certainly, sir. To make the piece perfect, I was for doing strict poetical justice. Macheath is to be hang’d; as for the other—
‘Good God! Look out!’ But he spoke too late. Something hit his companion from behind the curtain and, taken utterly by surprise, the unfortunate Player was precipitated into the orchestra pit where he found himself spreadeagled across the top of the harpsichord.
Behind the scenes there was immediate and utter confusion. The audience did not know whether to laugh at what some regarded as a rehearsed effect, or whether to view the Player’s mishap with concern. Dame Beatrice, among the latter, darted forward to ask whether the Player was hurt. Reassured, she took the route she had seen Laura take and she and her secretary met face to face in the wings. Laura seized her employer’s skinny arm and said:
‘Quick! Lawrence! Do something! He’ll hang himself!’
Together they hastened on stage.
CHAPTER 18
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The anxiety of continual questioning
The inquest was fixed for the following Thursday, but before it could take place there was a police enquiry in which the whole cast, the stage-hands, the electricians and Dame Beatrice herself were involved.
‘What caused you to go straight away behind the scenes, ma’am?’
‘I was sitting in the front row of the auditorium and heard Mr Farrow, who was playing a part which took place in front of the curtain, exclaim: “Good God! Look out!” ’
‘What did you make of that?’
‘I realised that a fairly heavy property, which was behind the curtain and was mounted on wheels, must have got loose. I could hear the sound of it as clearly as could the two actors.’
‘What happened then?’
‘One of the actors had his legs taken from under him by the force of the impact and was precipitated off the front of the stage. I am a qualified medical practitioner, so I went forward to see whether he was hurt.’