“I guess so.”
“Good. Now I must go. A million things to attend to. Get well as fast as you can; we want you on the first night, and that’s the day after tomorrow. And—Schnak, here’s a kiss. Not a romantic one, or a brotherly one, God forbid! but a friendly one. Fellow artists—isn’t that it?”
He was gone. Schnak dozed and thought, and dozed and thought, and when Gunilla came to see her late in the afternoon, she was decidedly better.
“It must have cost him a good deal to talk like that,” said Gunilla, when Schnak had given a version of what Geraint had said. “Lots of so-called lovers wouldn’t have been as direct with you, Hulda. It isn’t easy to be like Geraint.”
8
It was the final dress parade, on the Friday afternoon preceding the final dress rehearsal, which was to take place the same night. In Row G of the theatre sat a little group: Geraint Powell the dominant figure, with Dulcy Ringgold as his first lieutenant and Waldo Harris on his other side; in front of them sat Gwen Larking, with both her assistants, and a gofer poised to run with messages too delicate to be shouted toward the stage. One by one the actors, dressed and made up for their roles, walked to centre stage, did little excursions to right and left, bowed, curtsied, drew weapons. Now and then Geraint shouted some request to them; when they replied they shaded their eyes against the stage light, to see him if they could. Geraint whispered comments to Dulcy, who made notes, or explained, and occasionally expostulated if he wanted something that could not be managed in the time that was left before the opening.
A queer moment, thought Darcourt, who sat further back, by himself. The moment when all that is important is how the singer looks, not how he sings; the moment when everything that can be done to make the singers look like the people they represent has been done, and whatever has not been achieved must be accepted. A moment when inexplicable transformations take place.
The two black Knights, for instance, Greenlaw and LeMoyne, who looked superb in armour and the turbans Dulcy had given them to mark them as men of the East. But Wilson Tinney, as Gareth Beaumains, simply looked dumpy, although he was not an ill-looking man in his ordinary dress. His legs were too short. When he appeared without his armour he looked like a kewpie doll in his short robe. He had made himself up with very red cheeks, doubtless to suggest a life of adventure on horseback, but the effect was merely doll-like. In his robes as Merlin, Oliver Twentyman was convincingly magical, because his legs were long; he loved dressing up, and was enjoying himself. Giles Shippen, the Lancelot, looked less like a heart-breaker in costume than out of it; he was a reasonable figure, but he had Tenor written all over him, and his big chest made him look shorter than he really was.
“Did you put lifts in his shoes?” hissed Geraint to Dulcy.
“As much as I dared, without putting him in surgical boots,” said she; “he just doesn’t look like much whatever you do.”
“Nobody will believe a woman would leave Hoizknecht for him. Hans looks magnificent.”
“Every inch a ruler,” said Dulcy; “but everybody knows women have funny tastes. Nothing to be done, I’m afraid, Geraint.”
As was to be expected, Nutcombe Puckler had a great deal to say, and was full of complaint. “Geraint, I simply can’t hear in this thing,” he said. He was referring to his camail, a headpiece of chain armour that hung down from his fool’s bonnet to his shoulders, over his ears. “If I can’t hear, I may make a false entrance and screw up. Can’t something be done?”
“The effect is splendid, Nutty. You look the perfection of a merry warrior. Dulcy will put some pads under it, just over your ears, and you’ll be all right.”
“It fidgets me,” said Nutty. “I can’t bear to have my ears covered on the stage.”
“Nutty, you’re far too much of a pro to let a little thing bother you,” said Geraint. “Give it a try tonight and if it really doesn’t work, we’ll find another way.”
“Like hell we will,” murmured Dulcy, making a note.
Among the women the assumption of costume brought about similar changes in emphasis. As Queen Guenevere, Donalda Roche looked handsome, but very much a woman of the present day, whereas Marta Ullmann, as the Lady Elaine, looked so much a creature of the Middle Ages, and so infinitely desirable, that none of the men could take their eyes off her. Clara Intrepidi, as Morgan Le Fay, looked an undoubted sorceress in her gown of changing colours and her dragon head-dress—but a sorceress who was a fugitive from some unidentified opera by Wagner. She was taller than any of the men except Hoizknecht, and her appearance suggested that when she was at home she had a full suit of armour in her closet.
“Can’t be helped,” whispered Dulcy, “unless she consents to act on her knees, or sitting down all the time. Luckily she’s Arthur’s sister; great height runs in the family. Look at it that way.”
“Yes, but look at Panisi,” said Geraint. “He’s supposed to be her son, and Arthur’s son as well. Surely a child of those two would be a giant?”
“Incest makes for funny-looking children,” said Dulcy. “Use your imagination, Geraint. You did the casting, you know.”
The ladies of the court were, upon the whole, a splendid group, except for Virginia Poole who, as the Lady Clarissant, looked like a woman with a grievance, as indeed she was, onstage and off. Dulcy had put some of the younger women in the cotehardie, a tight-fitting medieval bodice that showed off a fine bust to the utmost advantage.
“You’ve let your natural inclinations run away with you, haven’t you, dear?” said Geraint.
“You bet I have. Look at Polly Graves; it would be a black sin to muffle up such a splendid pair of jugs. And Esther Moss; an evocation of the mystic East? A whiff of Baghdad in Camelot?”
“They didn’t look quite that way in the designs.”
“Don’t fight your luck, Geraint. These girls are for the tired business man.”
“And woman, dear. I’m not complaining. Just surprised. You never know what’s under rehearsal clothes, do you?”
“Primrose Maybon looks good enough to eat with a silver spoon,” said Waldo.
“Too bad the women look so much better than the men,” said Gwen Larking. “But our sex does have its compensations, when we can show ‘em off.”
“Let’s see you with your trains over the arm, girls,” said Dulcy. “Left arm, Etain. That’s the girl.”
To Darcourt they all looked wonderful, even the nuisance Puckler. Dulcy had drawn heavily on Planché’s Encyclopaedia, and she had obviously studied the work of Burne-Jones, but the result was all her own. If not all the singers looked as well as they should in their costumes, the total effect was superb, because of the way in which colours called to one another, not obviously but subtly, in every grouping. This was an element in the opera of which Darcourt, the greenhorn in the theatre, could have had no idea.
When every costume had been seen in its final form, and all the notes made and all the complaints heard, Geraint called: “Before we break, I want to rehearse the curtain calls. Stand by, will you.” And when at last these tableaux had been arranged to his satisfaction—”And of course when that’s over, you, Hans, go to stage right and bring on Nilla, who takes her bow, and then, Nilla, you beckon into the wings for Schnak. And Schnak, you must come on in full fig—the fullest fig you possess—and Nilla takes your hand and you curtsy.”
“I what?”
“You curtsy. You mayn’t bow; not old enough. If you don’t know what a curtsy is, get somebody to show you. Thank you. That’s all for now. I want to see all the animal-handlers backstage right away, please.”
“But why me?” said Darcourt to an unwontedly pleading Schnak, who had sidled up to him with her request when the rehearsal was over, and the singers had gone to their dressing-rooms.