She had, for instance, Taste. Their apartment showed it. Many people would have sworn that only an interior decorator could have produced such an effect. In the living room, he would explain, there were just two Notes of Colour; one was a picture, a print framed in natural wood, of some red horses playing rather violently in a field; the other was a large bowl, of a deep green, which stood on the pickled oak coffee table. All else in the room was cleverly arranged to be of no colour at all. The suite of two armchairs and a sofa was upholstered in a dingy shade called mushroom; the walls were distempered in a colour which recalled, if anything, vomit. The carpet, a broadloom, was mushroom too, and the hardwood floor, where visible, repeated more firmly the walls’ note of delicate nausea. There was one other chair, with no arms, which sat upon a spring-like arrangement of bent wood. This was very modern indeed, and was avoided by all save the lightest guests.
An arch in one wall of the living-room gave upon the dining-room, which was smaller, but just as tasteful. Certain concessions to human frailty were permitted here; for instance, on the top of a cabinet sat an effigy in china of an old woman in a bonnet, offering for sale a bunch of rather solid-looking balloons. The furniture was of old pine, which Mrs Forrester, and Roscoe under her direction, had rubbed down with pumice, and rubbed up with oil, and shellacked until it had a permanently wet look. It was old, and the table was so low that it was rather inconvenient for large guests, but everyone assured Mrs Forrester that the effect was charming. The bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom of the flat were not carried through on this high level of Taste, but they bore many personal touches; the guest towels, for instance, were marked “Yours” (in contrast to “His” and “Hers” which were used by the owners) and by the bedside in the guestroom was a cigarette box with three very dry cigarettes in it, and two packets of matches, wittily printed with the words “Swiped from The Forresters”. Their library was accommodated in a single case in their own bedroom. The most coherent part of it was what Mrs Forrester called “her drama library”; it comprised three anthologies of plays, a curiously unhelpful manual called Play Direction For Theatres Great and Small (written by a professor who had never directed a play in any theatre which might be called great), and a handful of dog-eared acting copies of plays in which Mrs Forrester had herself appeared. There was also a book about acting by Stanislavsky, which Mrs Forrester had read to the end of the first chapter and marked intelligently in red pencil, and which she recommended to amateurs who did not know what to do with their hands when on the stage. There were also several books which instructed the reader that peace of mind of the sort possessed by great saints could be achieved by five minutes of daily contemplation, and two or three complementary books which explained that worry, heart disease, hardening of the arteries, taedium cordis and despair could all be avoided by relaxing the muscles. There was a book which explained how one could grow slim while eating three delicious, satisfying meals a day. There was a copy of the Rubaiyat bound in disagreeable limp suede (a wedding gift from Mrs Forrester’s aunt). And in addition there were twenty or more novels, some bound in cloth and some in paper covers.
“It’s going to be a wonderful lift for our group to work with you, Val,” said Mrs Forrester as they took their coffee into the living-room; she switched on a tasteful lamp, which lit the ceiling very well, and in the increased light the red horses whinnied tastefully to the green bowl, which echoed tastefully again. “I mean, now that you’ve worked with professionals for so long, you’ve got an awful lot to give. Don’t you feel that?”
“I wouldn’t like to say so,” replied Miss Rich; “I feel too often that there are large tracts of the job about which I know nothing at all.”
“Ah, but that just shows,” said Mrs Forrester. “He that knows not and knows not that he knows not—avoid him; he that knows not and knows that he knows not—uh, wait a minute—uh, instruct him; he that knows and knows that he knows—cleave unto him. That’s the way we feel about you.”
“I don’t quite see where I fit into that,” said Valentine, “but I’ll do what I can. I’ve done quite a few outdoor shows. They are always successful unless something absolutely awful happens. People aren’t so critical outdoors.”
“Oh, but that’s just where you’re wrong!” Mrs Forrester caused her eyes to light up by bugging them slightly. “There’ll be people here from other Little Theatre groups everywhere within a hundred miles. And they’ll have their tomahawks with them. They’ll be jealous, you see. They’ve never done a pastoral. They’ve never attempted Shakespeare. They’ll be on the lookout for every little flaw. Won’t they, Roscoe?”
“I guess that’s right, hon,” said Roscoe, smiling.
“The only thing that persuaded us to try it at all was that you would be here to give it a professional finish.”
“But Nell, you wrote me in February that it had been decided, and it was then that you asked if I would help.”
“Well, we were toying with the idea, but we would never have decided on it if you hadn’t been willing. It was only decided at a full meeting of the members; the committee hadn’t really made up their minds. I know that sounds undemocratic, but in these Little Theatres you have to use common sense as well as democracy, don’t you?”
“One of the nicest things about the professional theatre is that it is utterly undemocratic. If you aren’t any good, you go. Or maybe that’s real democracy. I don’t know. I’m not a bit political.”
“If you let democracy run away with you in the Salterton Little Theatre you’d end in a fine mess,” said Mrs Forrester. “I don’t mind telling you that Professor Vambrace and I have to do all the real deciding, and get it through the committee, somehow, and then the committee usually carries the meeting. Otherwise people like Larry Pye would come up with the queerest ideas; all he can talk about is doing a musical comedy, so that he can monkey with lights.”
“I hope he doesn’t want to monkey too much with the lights in The Tempest.”
“Oh, you’ll be able to deal with him. You must be used to cursing electricians.”
“No, I’ve never cursed one that I can remember. You see too many movies about the theatre, Nell.”
“Don’t be afraid to speak your mind to our people. I’ve had one or two real knock-down-and-drag-out fights with Larry. Haven’t I, Roscoe?”
“Sure have, hon.”
“And he respects me for it. You’ll find us fully professional in that way.”
“I can usually find some other way,” said Valentine, who did not wish to appear superior, but who was not going to promise to abuse the Salterton Little Theatre’s electrician merely to gratify Nellie’s desire for disagreeable frankness. She was already beginning to be uncomfortable with Nellie; after all, it was fully fifteen years since they had been on intimate terms. Not that the terms were so intimate even then as Nellie appeared to think. Curious that her memory could so distort a quite ordinary friendship. Valentine’s own memory was excellent.
“I’m sorry about Solly Bridgetower,” said Mrs Forrester, “but you see how it was. When it looked as though you couldn’t come to us, during that two weeks, we were desperate, and somebody thought that Solly might direct instead. He’s at Cambridge, you know, only he’s at home just at present because his mother has been so dreadfully ill. I was going to help him. In fact, I cast the play provisionally before we asked him to direct. Of course he accepted. Then, when you found that you could come after all, we had to ask him to step down, and told all the people who had been promised parts that the final decision would be yours. That was when he said that he would be your assistant. I was against it, but we couldn’t very easily refuse. He says he’ll just be your errand boy, because he wants to learn, but I’ll believe that when I see it. He’s conceited.”