The dressing-room was unbearable. She wandered out to the stage, which was set for the Prologue, and as it was lighted only by one harsh lamp high up in the flies it was as charmless as an unlit stage always is. Below her, under the device of rollers, like corkscrews, that produced the effect of gently heaving waves, she heard voices: Waldo Harris, Dulcy, and Gwen Larking, arguing with Geraint.
“They work perfectly well, but they make too much noise,” said Waldo. “I don’t suppose you’d agree to leaving them out altogether? We could probably rig up something that would look like moving water.”
“Oh, no!” said Dulcy. “These are the darlings of my heart—and absolutely authentic for the way they did things in 1820.”
“They’ve cost a fortune to make,” said Waldo. “I guess it would be a shame to scrap them.”
“But what can you do?” said Geraint.
“We’d have to dismantle the three rollers and put rubber on the parts that engage. That’d do it, I think.”
“How long will it take?” said Geraint.
“An hour, at least.”
“Then take an hour, and do it,” said Geraint. “I want to see it this afternoon.”
“Can’t,” said Gwen Larking. “The curtain must go up sharp at two. It’s Schnak’s examination, remember?”
“What of it? An hour won’t kill them, surely?”
“From what I hear about this morning, an hour’s delay would put them in a very bad temper. Especially that old fellow who makes all the trouble. We mustn’t make things difficult for Schnak.”
“Oh, damn Schnak! That miserable little runt is more bother than she’s worth!”
“Come on, Geraint, be a sport. Give the kid her chance.”
“You mean Schnak’s chance is more important than my production?”
“Yes, Geraint, from now till half past four Schnak’s chance is more important than anything else. You said so yourself, to the whole cast, yesterday,” said Dulcy.
“I say whatever is best at the moment, and you know it.”
“What’s best at the moment is that we leave this piece of machinery till later.”
“This is just the trade-unionism of women. God, how I hate women.”
“All right, Geraint; hate me,” said Gwen. “But give Schnak her chance, even if you hate her later.”
“Gwen’s right,” said Waldo. “I said an hour, but it could be two. Let’s leave it for the moment.”
“O Jesu mawr! O anwyl Crist! Have it your way then!” Geraint could be heard going off in a huff.
“Don’t fuss! We’ll manage the appearance of the sword! It’ll do for today,” said Waldo, but there was no sound of an appeased director.
Schnak threw up her lunch-time sandwich and cup of coffee into the toilet. It had turned to gall within her. When she had wiped her face and doused it with cold water, she went back to her dressing-room and looked at herself in the mirror. Damned Schnak. Miserable little runt. Yes, Geraint was right.
He’d never love me. Why would anybody love me? I love Geraint even better than I love Nilla, and he hates me. Look at me! Short. Scrawny. Awful hair. Face like a rat. Those legs! Why did Nilla say I had to wear a black jacket and this white blouse? Of course he hates me. I look just bloody awful. Why can’t I look like Nilla? Or that Maria Cornish? Why is God so mean to me?
A tap at the door, and a gofer (the prettiest gofer) put her head inside.
“Fifteen minutes, Schnak,” she said. “And the best of luck. All the girls have their fingers crossed for you.”
Schnak snarled, and the gofer withdrew quickly.
After fifteen minutes more of repetitious self-hate the last call came—from outside the door—and Schnak made her way downstairs, through the undercroft to the stage, and into the orchestra pit. There they sat, the thirty-two villains who meant to destroy her. Some of them nodded to her pleasantly; the concert-master, and Watkin Bourke at the harpsichord, whispered, “Good luck.”
If there is any applause when you step onto the podium, turn and bow to the house, Nilla had said. There was no applause, but from the tail of her eye she could see that the seven examiners had placed themselves here and there in the auditorium, and in the front row, right behind her, a full score on his knees and a flashlight in his hand, sat the ominous Professor Pfeiffer. What a seat to choose, she thought.
The little red light-signal from the Stage Manager flashed on, and at the same time the oyster eye of the closed-circuit television camera directly in front of the conductors desk, which would carry Schnak’s every movement to backstage monitors, for Stage Management, Chorus, and offstage sound of every kind, gave a gloomy blink, like an undersea monster.
She tapped the music desk, raised her baton—one of Gunilla’s own, specially made and perhaps intended as a talisman—and when she gave the down beat, the first mysterious chord of the Prologue rose at her.
The orchestra, aware of her nerves, but oblivious of her hatred, played well, and after fifteen slow bars of the Prologue the curtain swept upward to show the Enchanted Mere. In front of it stood Oliver Twentyman, splendid as Merlin, and Hans Hoizknecht, armoured and cloaked as King Arthur. Merlin apostrophized the waves, and not quite on cue the great sword Caliburn rose above the unmoving waters. Arthur seized it, and invoked all the magic of the sword. Everything seemed to be going well, until Schnak felt herself being tapped—almost punched—in the back, and when she ignored this, there was a loud whistle, and Professor Pfeiffer’s voice crying, “Hold it! Hold it! Repeat from Letter D, please!” Schnak dropped her baton and the music stopped.
“What’s the matter?” It was Dean Wintersen’s voice.
“I want to hear it again from Letter D,” said Pfeiffer.
“They are not playing what is written in the score.”
“A minor change in rehearsal.” said Gunilla’s voice. “Some addition to the wood-winds.”
“I am speaking to the conductor,” said Pfeiffer. “If there has been a change, why is it not in the score as it was presented to us? Repeat from Letter D, if you please.”
So the music was repeated from Letter D. Hoizknecht, who had been pleased with his performance, was not pleased by this unexpected encore; Oliver Twentyman flashed a charming smile at Professor Pfeiffer across the footlights like someone humouring a child, and the Professor did not like it.
Nevertheless, the repeat was performed, and all went well until the end of the Prologue. It had been seen through a scrim, a transparent curtain which lent mystery to the stage, and as this was whisked up into the flies, it did not whisk obligingly, but caught on the first wing on the right side of the stage, and there was a terrible ripping. The scrim was halted in its progress, and Gwen Larking appeared at the side of the stage accompanied by a large man with a pole who fished the scrim away from what was catching it. This did not dismay the stage crew, or the singers, who were used to such mishaps, but it struck coldly into the heart of Schnak, who was sure this would be counted against her by her merciless foe.
What happened during the long afternoon was not, as Geraint wildly cried, like the Marx Brothers in A Night at the Opera, but it included more than the usual number of technical troubles. What really put the rehearsal to the bad was the frequent interruption of Professor Pfeiffer, who demanded, in all, seven repeats of music which he said—quite rightly—was not entirely as it appeared in the score he had been sent three weeks earlier. When he did not stop proceedings by whistling loudly through his teeth, like a policeman, he could be heard muttering, and demanding more light to help him in making notes. The opera, which should have taken two and a half hours, without the single fifteen-minute interval, took rather more than four, and the singers became demoralized, and were far below their best. Only the orchestra, firmly professional, sawed and tooted and strummed imperturbably, and did, under the circumstances, pretty well.