“The old Torso squiffed?” said Roger. “Why?”
“She says she took just a nip to give her courage for the performance. That nip went to her head, so she had another to straighten her out, and they both went to her legs.”
“As who wouldn’t?” said Geordie, and was crushed by an austere look from Professor Vambrace, who now had a beard two feet long.
“She’s been nipping at intervals ever since,” Freddy continued. “She has a flask in the girls’ dressing-room. She may have to be put down with a strong hand.”
Solly had come in. “Talking about The Torso?” said he. “Juno has certainly been hitting the jug. When I last saw her Griselda was holding an ice-bag on her head, and Cora Fielding was laying hot-water bottles to her feet. A gay girl, lovable and undependable.”
The door opened and an elderly man with two teeth, carrying a violin case, entered The Shed, followed by a colourless thin woman, and a dark and greasy man with a piano accordion hanging around his neck on a leather strap.
“This where we come?” asked the old man. He then caught sight of Solly.
“Oh, hello there,” said he. “Glad to see you, Mr Bridgetower. Can we just have a little run over the play before we start? You tell me where you want the music to come, and we’ll fit it in somehow.”
Solly turned white. “Good evening, Mr Snairey,” said he, and fled through the door.
“It is useless to appeal to me in this matter,” said Humphrey Cobbler when, a few minutes later, he, Valentine, Mrs Forrester, Solly and the Snairey Trio gathered on the lawn outside The Shed. “I am a musician, and as such I have come here to provide music for this play. I have devoted approximately twenty hours of rehearsal to it. I have assembled a choir of ten and an orchestra of eight, and they are all in readiness at this moment. We have rehearsed the music with the full company six times. Now, if you want me to go away, I shall do so. If you want me to stay, I shall be delighted. But what I positively will not do is wrangle with Mr Snairey.”
“Solly, I told you to tell Mr Snairey that we had changed our plans,” said Nellie, close to tears.
“You told me to get Mr Cobbler, which I did,” said Solly. “You distinctly said that you would see Mr Snairey yourself.”
“You were the fella come to see me first,” said Mr Snairey. “I’m a reasonable man, but I got my living to make, same’s anybody else. Joe here coulda had two other jobs tonight, but he come here to oblige me. Either we play or we sit out, and we get paid either way. Don’t know’s I ever seen you before, young fella,” he said, turning toward Cobbler with what he probably intended as a look of menace.
“I don’t suppose you have,” said Humphrey; “I’ve only been in Salterton about five years.”
“Oh, what shall we do?” moaned Nellie. “Val, do something.”
“I don’t altogether see why I should,” said Valentine. “You and Solly have created this situation. I suppose you must pay Mr Snairey; I don’t imagine his rates can be very high.”
“Union scale,” said Joe the accordionist. “You got a big show here. Musicals come high.”
“It’s not the money so much as my feelings,” said Mr Snairey. “Fella my age doesn’t like to get pushed around like he was some young punk. We come here to play, and I guess we better play.”
From inside The Shed Larry’s voice boomed through the loudspeaker, announcing that it was five minutes till curtain time.
“Oh, what shall we do?” cried Nellie, weeping openly. “I must get to Larry. We can’t possibly begin till all the people are in their seats. He may want to start before some really important people have come. Oh, I wish we’d never attempted this damned play!”
“What’s the trouble, hon?” said a bland voice behind them. It was Roscoe Forrester. In a rash, Nellie explained, assisted by Valentine and Solly.
“I’ll handle this,” said Roscoe. “The rest of you just get on with what you have to do. Now, Snairey, you listen to me.”
Oh, sweet relief! Oh, miraculous lightening of hearts! How they thanked God for Roscoe, the man of business, accustomed to dealing with difficult situations. Valentine could subdue a group of hostile actors or dominate an unfriendly audience, but the Snaireys of this world, the pushing incompetents, daunted her. Solly and Nellie hurried away, blaming each other in their hearts. And after three brisk minutes with Roscoe the Snairey Trio climbed into its Ford and struggled down the drive of St Agnes’, against the steady stream of cars bringing people to the play.
Behind the scenes Nellie bustled up to Larry. “It’s all right,” she said. “We can begin at once. They’re all here. Mrs Caesar Augustus Conquergood has just taken her seat.”
Larry pressed a button. In the shrubbery where Humphrey Cobbler was established a red light flashed on his music desk, and then a green. The National Anthem burst forth, somewhat blurred by the sound of eight hundred people rising to their feet. The Tempest had begun.
Sending flowers to Griselda in June was carrying coals to Newcastle indeed. The gardens at St Agnes’ were filled with flowers, and Hector’s two dozen roses could add nothing to the splendour of the arrangements which Mr Webster’s housekeeper placed at every advantageous spot in the house. Further, Hector’s card disturbed Griselda. So she could count on him for anything, could she? But she didn’t want to count on him. He was a bore, and he had a dreadful habit of staring at her. Griselda knew that she was well worth looking at, but she hated to be followed by what appeared to her to be a fixed and baleful glare. After a moment of brief annoyance at his card, she decided to put Hector’s roses in the girls’ dressing room, and if necessary to explain that they were a tribute from Mr Mackilwraith to the female members of the cast.
It was from the window of that dressing-room that she leaned out as the actors trooped along a garden path from The Shed to the back of the stage, immediately after Larry’s five-minutes call. Roger looked up and caught sight of her.
“You’d better hurry up,” he called, “or Larry will be in a stew.” He looked more intently at her, and blew a kiss. “You look like the Blessed Damozel, leaning down from the golden bar of Heaven,” he said.
How nice he looks as Ferdinand, thought Griselda. And he’s obviously not angry any more. I must have made myself quite clear last night. He doesn’t think I’m a Pill. From the dressing-table nearby she took one of Hector’s roses from its vase, kissed it, and tossed it down to Roger, who fielded it expertly, fastened it to his doublet and hurried on toward the stage.
“Who was that for?” asked The Torso, who was sitting miserably in a chair, with her head almost between her knees. Pearl Vambrace was putting cold compresses on the back of her neck.
“For Roger,” said Griselda.
“Pearl, honey,” said Bonnie-Susan in a controlled voice. “Don’t squeeze that damned cold water down my back.”
“I’m sorry, Bonnie-Susan,” said Pearl. “My hand jerked.”
“A likely story,” said The Torso. “Just leave me alone and run down there and fascinate the open-mouthed throng. With that makeup and my falsies you should get yourself a beau or two. They just dote on us painted creatures of the theayter.”
Exhausted by this flight of irony she dropped her head between her knees again, and moaned softly. Moaning seemed to ease her pain.
Hector had seen the rose thrown from the window; there were roses everywhere, but he was sure that it was one of his. However, he had no time to brood deeply about it, for he was needed in the first scene. To simulate the rolling and pitching of a ship at sea Larry Pye had devised an ingenious contraption upon which the actors stood, partly screened by shrubbery, while they were tossed and heaved hither and thither by the tempest, the sound of which was simulated by Cobbler’s orchestra and a variety of wind-machines and thunder-strips backstage. It was a taxing scene and Hector, who had never been good at doing two things at once, had to exert all his wits in order to keep his balance and recognize his cues when they came. When this ordeal was over, and the audience was applauding heartily (as audiences always do when they see actors being put to great inconvenience and indignity) Hector was just able to roll seasickly to a bench and close his eyes, trying to calm his queasy stomach; he had had virtually nothing to eat for the past forty-eight hours, and the world swam giddily about him while the great voice of Professor Vambrace was heard from the stage, in Prospero’s seemingly interminable narrative of misfortune.