“Props,” prompted Ethelbert.
“Props, that’s it,” said Adrian, “nothing but the best of props was good enough—to give her the right background.”
Honoria’s eyes opened wide.
“Honest? Did he say that?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Adrian, blushing slightly.
“Success,” sighed Honoria. “Success at last. Dear boy, of course you may use your elephant.” She bowed graciously to Adrian.
“Thank you,” said Adrian.
“And I promise to give it every consideration on the stage,” said Honoria.
“Thank you very much,” said Adrian, wondering how it would be possible for even somebody as magnificently endowed with temperament as Honoria to cramp Rosy’s style.
“Well, come on,” said Ethelbert. “We’d better go and see old Clattercup and find out what he wants you and Rosy to do.”
The rest of the afternoon was, to say the least of it, exhausting. Mr. Clattercup, as a producer, seemed to have only the haziest notion of what could and what could not be done on a stage, and the more he ranted and raved and tore his hair, the more confused things became. Fights broke out among the Sultan’s harem when it was discovered that Clattercup wanted half of them to stand behind a piece of eastern lattice-work, completely obscured from the audience. People exiting right would bump into people entering right, and, towards the end of the afternoon, everything became so confused that sometimes the principal girl (a fragile, fluffy-haired little creature who, although apparently no relative, was on fairly intimate terms with Mr. Clattercup) got positively hysterical and started singing the principal boy’s songs by mistake. This produced a magnificent display of apoplexy on the part of Honoria and the stage was in such confusion that Clattercup had to allow everybody to return to their dressing-rooms for ten minutes to regain their composure.
During this brief respite Clattercup called Adrian up on to the stage.
“Now, lad,” he said, “follow me. This is Sultan’s palace, see.”
He strode through the painted backdrops of the Sultan’s palace and into the next scene which was fairly plain, dominated by a large piece of extremely unsubstantial-looking rock surrounded by a regiment of drooping palm trees. The rock was supposed to open into Ali Baba’s cave, Mr. Clattercup explained.
“I’ll show you how it works,” he said proudly. “Ali Baba stands ’ere, jew see, and he presses this little button on the floor, jew see, and says ‘Open Sesame’.”
Mr. Clatttrcup suited action to words The rock remained obdurate.
“Where the bloody ’ell’s that props man?” shouted Mr. Clattercup. “Tell him to get this damned cave open.”
A harassed props man came and, after much fiddling with wires, succeeded in getting the rock to swing open with an ominous grinding and squeaking noise and Clattercup, still breathing stertorously, stalked through the hole into the next set which was the cave. Here there were piles of artificial jewels pouring out of great wooden chests and, of course, the indispensable forty great jars in which the thieves were to be incarcerated.
“That’s it,” said Clattercup. “No expense spared, jew see, boy?”
“Yes,” said Adrian, “it’s very impressive.”
“Now,” said Clattercup, leading the way back to the Sultan’s palace, “this is where you and that animal comes in. It’s when Sultan makes his first entry. I want your elephant to come in ’ere and go across there, and then just stand. She’ll be pulling a cart, of course, and the Sultan’ll be in the cart.”
“Forgive me,” said Adrian, “but wouldn’t it be better if he was in a howdah?”
“What’s that?” enquired Clattercup suspiciously.
“Well, it’s a sort of thing that is perched on the elephant’s back.”
Clattercup mused on this for a minute.
“No,” he said at length, reluctantly. “No, it’s too dangerous. That Sultan’s the best baritone this side of Winklesea. If he fell off and broke his leg or something, whole show’d collapse. No, it will ’ave to be a cart.”
“So I just lead Rosy from over there across the stage to here?” said Adrian trying to get things clear in his mind.
“No,” said Clattercup, “you don’t lead her, Sultan drives her.”
“Well, I’m not altogether sure that Rosy will agree to be driven by the Sultan. You see, she’s only used to me giving her orders.”
“Difficulties! said Clattercup bitterly. “I’ve ’ad more difficulties with this bloody show than anything else I’ve put on. But I don’t want you prancing all over stage. Can’t you stand over there and call ’er?”
“If the rehearsal’s anything to go by,” said Adrian, “I don’t think she would hear me.”
“Bloody ’ell,” said Clattercup.
He paced up and down the stage for a minute, casting ferocious looks at the Sultan’s palace, and then stopped.
“By gum, I’ve got it,” he said triumphantly. “We’ll put another gilded pillar ’ere. Sort of ’ollow, jew see, and we’ll put you inside it. There’ll be a little sort of peephole thing and you can shout to the animal from that. Jew understand me?”
“Er . . . yes,” said Adrian doubtfully. “I suppose that would do.”
He still had vivid recollections of Fenneltree Hall and was not at all certain about the success of this manoeuvre.
“Would you mind if we practised it first to make sure?”
“Of course,” said Clattercup. “Rehearsals are most important. I’ll get the pillar up in a jiffy and we’ll ’ave a go.”
Half an hour later a large and Ornate pillar had been added to the Sultan’s palace. Rosy, hitched to a small cart, was waiting in the wings and Adrian was inside the pillar keeping his fingers crossed and waiting for his cue. As the last chords of the opening number died away and the crowd all turned to the wings and shouted “Here comes the Sultan,” just in case the audience should mistake him for a rag and bone man, Adrian hissed from inside his pillar, “Come on, Rosy.”
Rosy flapped her ears, uttering a small squeak of pleasure and shambled out on to the stage. She knew where Adrian was, because she bad seen him go into the pillar and could hear his voice She shambled up to the pillar and patted it affectionately with her trunk.
“Stand still,” hissed Adrian.
Rosy obeyed, flapping her ears and blinking with pleasure at the brightly-lit stage. To Adrian’s astonishment the whole thing went off without a hitch, as indeed did the rest of the rehearsal, and Clattercup was so enchanted with the way Rosy had behaved that he even gave Adrian a cigar.
Jubilantly Rosy, Adrian, Ethelbert and Honoria made their way over the sand-dunes to the cottage, and having told Rosy how wonderful she was and given her a large feed and a pint of ale, they proceeded into the cottage where, with the aid of elderberry wine, gin, fresh oysters, plovers’ eggs and four pints of pink, plump shrimps, they made merry. It was not until after midnight that they stumbled to bed, but only after Honoria, accompanied by Ethelbert, had sung for the fourth time, “I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls.”
16. FIRST NIGHT
The next three days were fully occupied with rehearsal after rehearsal and Adrian’s spirits rose, for, contrary to his expectations, Rosy behaved in the most exemplary fashion. In fact (owing to Mr. Clattercup’s rather extraordinary methods of rehearsal) Rosy was sometimes the only one on the stage who knew what she was doing.
Honoria had formed a deep and abiding passion for Rosy who, she said in her more lachrymose moments, was the only person who really understood her, and she spent a lot of time feeding Rosy on sugar lumps and telling her about her past life.
At length the opening day arrived and the whole theatre was full of bustle and activity. Towards evening, just before the first performance, Ethelbert, Honoria and Adrian sat in the dressing-room awaiting their cues, Honoria had been imbibing fairly steadily since early morning in order, as she put it, to celebrate their first night. Ethelbert had pointed out that they had not had the first night yet, and weren’t liable to if she got sloshed, at which Honoria drew herself up to her full height and said, “I know we haven’t had the first night, but it’s the spirit of the thing that counts.”