Tom touched his cap and said nothing. He had been a good soldier in his time—a first-rate sergeant—but he had never known what to do about surprise attacks, except to resent their sneakiness.
“We’re going to be great friends, Mr—uh—but perhaps I’d better call you Tom right away,” said Mrs Forrester, reaching for his hand. Tom’s hand was covered with muck, and he would have dearly liked to give it to her, but he forebore. Professor Vambrace gave what he doubtless meant to be a friendly glance, but was really a baleful glare, at both Tom and Freddy, to be shared between them.
“Wet,” said he. Classics was his subject, and he sometimes affected a classical simplicity in social conversation.
Freddy was young in years, but old in certain sorts of wisdom; she had learned from her father, for instance, that nothing is so disconcerting as silence, and she was preparing to give Mrs Forrester a lot of it. But Professor Vambrace’s summing up of the weather had scarcely died upon the air before the door burst open again and Griselda rushed in with two more people under an umbrella. The first was Solly Bridgetower, a young man whom Freddy admired in a friendly sort of way; the other was an unknown woman.
“We can finish talking here,” said Griselda. “We’ll get wet if we try to make a dash for the front door.”
Griselda did not recognize The Shed as Tom’s special property. She thought of it simply as an extension of her father’s house. Tom was not the big figure in her world that he was in Freddy’s.
“What about Larry and Mr Mackilwraith?” asked Mrs Forrester.
“We’ll keep an eye out for them,” said Griselda. “Larry wanted to finish his little sketch of the lawn. Anyway, he’s hanging about to look for What’s His Name—the fellow who’s going to play Ferdinand.”
“Mackilwraith will not be here until after four,” said Professor Vambrace. “School.”
“Probably not until after half-past four,” said Solly. “If old Hector hasn’t changed his ways he’ll have some wretched child under his eye for at least half an hour after closing-time. One of the really great detainers and keepers-in of our time, Old Hector.”
“Mr Mackilwraith is a schoolteacher,” said Mrs Forrester to the unknown woman. “I do hope he’ll be able to take a look at the lawn; he’s our business manager, and he can always tell how many it will seat, and what money that will mean, and all those things. A mathematical wizard.”
“A creaking pedant,” said Solly.
Professor Vambrace gave him a look which suggested that while irreverent remarks about schoolteachers did not necessarily affect university professors, they were in questionable taste.
“I speak, of course, in a rich, Elizabethan manner,” said Solly, with a rich, Elizabethan gesture which almost toppled a tower of small flower pots. “He’s not a bad chap really—I suppose. Freddy, I greet you. You and Miss Rich haven’t met, have you? Miss Rich is from New York and she is going to direct our play. This is Fredegonde Webster; she lives here, but splendour has not corrupted her. A pard-like spirit, beautiful and swift.”
“How do you do, Miss Webster,” said Miss Rich holding out her hand.
“I am very well, thank you,” said Freddy, thinking that Miss Rich was a very well-mannered person, and nicely dressed. “Solly is a great tease, as I suppose you have found out.”
“We only met about an hour ago,” said Miss Rich.
“Aren’t we dignified, though?” said Mrs Forrester, with what she believed to be a laughing glance toward Freddy. “When one is just growing up—oh, the dignity of it! I remember when I was that age; do you remember, Val? Wasn’t I just loaded with dignity?”
“I don’t really remember, Nell,” said Miss Rich.
“Well, I do.” Mrs Forrester was firm. “We were both absolutely bursting with dignity.”
“But you got over all that, didn’t you?” said Freddy, sweetly. “I suppose that’s the fun of being grown up; one has shed so many things which seem desirable to somebody of my age.”
“That will do, Freddy,” said Griselda.
Freddy was happy to leave the matter there. Griselda’s rebuke carried little weight, and she was pleasantly conscious of having choked off Old Ma Forrester.
“Well, have we made up our minds?” asked Professor Vambrace. “Will the lawn do? Will those trees give the background we want? If so, let us make our decision. What do you think, Miss Rich?”
“I think the setting is charming,” said she; “if it is agreeable to you, I am quite happy about it. But won’t Major Pye have something to say?”
“He’s sure to have plenty of fault to find,” said Solly, “but he wouldn’t completely approve of any place. You know how technical men are; they love to face problems, and when there are none they create them. They’re overcomers by nature; the way to please ‘em is to give them lots to overcome. “To him that o’ercometh, God giveth a crown.” That hymn was written especially to flatter stage managers.”
“Now don’t begin antagonizing Larry at this stage,” said Mrs Forrester; “his work will be hard enough, and we must let him get well into it before we offer any suggestions. So do be good, Solly, and jolly him along.”
“What I love about amateur theatricals,” said Solly to Miss Rich, “is the way everything is done by jollying everybody. You must miss that dreadfully in the professional theatre. Just a dull round of people giving orders and people obeying them; no jollying.”
“You are quite mistaken,” she replied; “there is really quite a lot of jollying to be done, though perhaps not quite so much as with amateurs.”
“Solly, if you say amateur theatricals again I shall hit you,” said Mrs Forrester; “thank Heaven the Little Theatre left all that nonsense behind years ago. In fact, it may be said that we have a truly professional approach. Haven’t we, Walter?”
“Quite,” said the economical Vambrace.
“I’m sure it may be said, but is it true?” said Solly. “It certainly wasn’t true when I went away; have two years made so much difference?”
“You’re just conceited because you’ve been to Cambridge,” said Mrs Forrester. “But you can’t shake off the fact that you got your start with the Salterton Little Theatre, and that it has made you what you are today, theatrically speaking—”
“Oh, God,” interjected Solly.
“—if you are anything at all, theatrically speaking, which has yet to be shown. And it is a great privilege for you to be working with Miss Rich, and don’t you forget it, young man.”
Mrs Forrester laughed with a little too much emphasis, to show that this lecture was intended to be friendly. She always maintained that you could say literally anything to anybody, just so long as you said it with a smile, to show that there were no hard feelings. It was going to be necessary to keep Solly in hand, she could see that.
“Mrs F., you are being grossly unfair,” said Solly. “You want me to jolly Larry Pye, to keep him happy. Jolly Solly, that’s what I’m to be. But do you jolly me? No, you jump down my throat. Why do you, if I may so express it, make flesh of Pye and fish of me?”
“You’re too young to be jollied,” she replied. “And don’t you call me Mrs F.”
“Well, if you are going to badger me in that tone I certainly can’t call you Nellie. If I’m too young to be jollied, you are certainly too old to be treated with friendly familiarity. What do you want to be called: Dame Nellie Forrester?”
“You can call me Nellie when you are a good boy.”
“And you shall be called Nagging Nell when you are a bad old girl.”
Mrs Forrester never lost her temper. She prided herself upon this trait and frequently mentioned it to her friends. But sometimes, as upon the present occasion, she felt a burning in the pit of her stomach which would have been anger in anyone else. How stupid it was of Solly not to be able to take a rebuke without all this bickering! She groped for something crushing which could be said in a thoroughly good-natured way, but nothing came. Luckily the door opened at this moment and Major Larry Pye came in, followed by a young man in a raincoat, but without a hat.