In Distant Fields (16 page)

George nodded. He wasn't much given to praying, but it seemed quite a good idea none the less.

The rehearsal time for
The Pirates of Penzance
galloped, not cantered, through the weeks set aside for its preparation; so much so that it seemed to Kitty and Partita that no one would ever be able to get the production together, least of all their producer.

‘Mr St Clare will not have the ladies' hoops swaying, in what he calls “a distressing manner”,' Partita moaned to Kitty. ‘But, as I just said to Mamma, how can the chorus dance if their crinolines are never allowed to sway? I mean to say.'

Kitty folded a letter she had just received from Violet and gave her mind to the matter. It was obviously serious.

‘Perhaps we should remove the hoops, and then he will feel less distressed?'

‘Kitty,' Partita sat down, ‘that is the whole point of the chorus. We
must
cause
distress
, or else it will all seem so dull. That is the whole point of the chorus dancing – it is to cause some kind of distress, if possible to
everyone
!'

Partita laughed, and after only a small delay as the penny dropped, Kitty too laughed, realising what Partita meant.

‘Oh dear, are we about to sink?'

‘Our producer, Mr St Clare, is about to sink the whole operetta, not us.' Partita turned from her dressing mirror and faced Kitty. ‘Mamma is trying to persuade him. She is not stuffy like him. I mean, either our crinolines cause ripples of excitement to go through the audience when we dance onto the stage, and they sway about showing our pantalettes, or they do not. Mamma knows what is wanted, and she is becoming irritated by Mr St Clare. Everyone knows the producer has to let us do what is wanted in a production of this kind. I mean, it is hardly the end of the world if someone glimpses our pantalettes.'

Tinker gave her young mistress a stern look. ‘Pantalettes is to be worn, not seen, Lady Tita, and that's my last word on the matter.'

Kitty was busily pinning up her hair, preparatory
to performing the first of the dress rehearsals while Tinker was redressing Partita's straw hat with small artificial violets.

‘Gracious, Tinker, it's hardly the cancan.'

‘Oh, I do not think there is much that is very gracious about the French cancan, Lady Tita.'

‘No, but it is exciting, Tinker, and that's what
we
want to be.'

Kitty was hardly listening, thinking only of the letter that had arrived from her mother. It seemed that Violet was going away from London for a while. It would be better. She would write to Kitty very soon with all her plans. Meanwhile she sent her all her love. For a second and then a third time, Kitty now reread, ‘I send you, darling Kitty, all my love.' She suddenly felt all too homesick for the mother she had once had, the one who had lived in South Kensington, whose whole life had been Kitty, not the one who was in love with Dr Charles and going away to the – where was it? – oh, yes, the Lake District.

She went for a long walk, alone in the park, returning later in time to watch Valentine Wynyard Errol performing.

There was no doubt at all he occupied the stage as if it was second nature to him, unlike the line of real and pretend policemen, marching and singing behind him, who all looked awkward, some of them smiling self-consciously at the few people who were making up the rehearsal audience, others trying to hide themselves at the back of the stage. Nevertheless
it had to be said they all looked more or less authentic, whatever their stage presence, because somehow or another, someone must have begged, stolen or borrowed their uniforms, with the result there were now ten policemen singing and marching with only a very occasional dirty look thrown at them from the conductor of the newly returned orchestra.

The pirates were called next to rehearse their opening number, and in contrast to the policemen, they occupied the stage as if they were born to it, boisterous, exuberant, their only difficulty seemed to be in not falling over each other's feet, not because they were clumsy, or their feet were inordinately large, but from laughing.

Almeric, eye patch securely in place, was a magnificent Pirate King. He seemed to be born to the role, singing of his delight in sailing under the black flag and spurning a sanctimonious part in society in favour of sallying forth to sea as a pirate king to pillage and plunder.

Pug Stapleton, Julian Sykes, James Millings, Teddy Heaslip, Peregrine and Gus, not to mention Bertie Milborne, were, among others, all part of Peregrine's faithful band, but of course it was Harry Wavell who, bandaged ankle and all, was busily intent on stealing the show.

‘If Harry does not stop coming on so much the
star
, mark my words, before tomorrow evening, he will be lowered into the moat and left there,' Valentine whispered to Partita, as the second dress rehearsal of the day began.

Partita laughed, making a strangely exultant sound, because quite suddenly the whole miracle of the production overcame her – the whole magic of it, the whole excitement – and she wanted to jump on stage and join the pirates and Livia Catesby, who was starting to sing ‘Mabel'. Partita wanted to dance and dance because somehow, this morning and this afternoon,
The Pirates of Penzance
had begun to knit itself together. Despite some of the bolts of silk arriving from London for the costumes not quite matching other bolts of silk, despite the chorus – most of whom had been recruited from the servants' hall – having the most terrible difficulty with their musicality, despite poor Bertie making a dreadful muddle of his role and holding everyone up – something about which he was even now being teased, despite everything, Partita knew that the production was going to be thrilling, all except for Livia, who was even now starting to sing – and failing horribly.

As soon as he heard her Harry could not believe his bad luck. He stood up. The key love affair in the opera is between the bashful and beautiful Mabel and the noble and ever honourable Frederic, and features one of Gilbert and Sullivan's most beautiful and touching love duets, when, having learned that because of being born in a Leap Year, far from being twenty-one and thus free from his contract with the Pirates, according to the Pirate King poor Frederic is in fact only five and a quarter years
old. Mabel assures him she will wait for him to be twenty-one, even though that particular birthday will not fall until 1940.

Mr St Clare, realising the extent of the crisis, stopped rehearsals and Dr Jones was once more called, this time to pronounce Livia's throat badly inflamed and not likely to get better for days.

‘What to do?' Livia asked hoarsely, tears in her eyes. ‘Who can take my place?'

Harry turned to Partita, who turned to Kitty.

‘She can,' Partita announced blithely. ‘She sings like a bird.'

‘Oh, I don't think—'

‘Well,
we
do!'

‘We don't have very long to get it done,' Harry warned Kitty as soon as they started to rehearse. ‘In tact, we only have today and tomorrow.'

‘I do learn quickly,' Kitty reassured him. ‘I have been told it comes from being an only child – so much attention from one's mother, you know. I can memorise a page after only two readings.'

‘I am more worried about me letting
you
down. You have a really exceptional voice.'

‘Oh, no, you go too far. I have an average voice I know because my father told me so.'

‘Your father must be tone deaf. Or stone deaf. Lady Partita is right, you do sing like a lark.'

That was about all the time they had for conversation, since every waking moment for the
rest of the forty-eight or so hours left to them was spent in rehearsing, long after the others had all packed up and left.

‘You have surprised me, Harry,' Roderick St Clare informed him the next morning, after the first rehearsal of the day. ‘I had utterly despaired of you ever getting the remotest likeness to Frederic, yet here you are giving an altogether attractive performance of the young blade. I shall eat my words. Munch, munch.'

Roderick raised two perfectly shaped eyebrows at Harry, then, walking away with quick, light steps, went to start berating the chorus of policemen, whom he did not consider were cutting what he called ‘the mustard'.

‘I still feel woefully unprepared,' Harry confessed. ‘My fault – not yours, I hasten to add—'

‘Yes, but forgive me,' Kitty interrupted. ‘Because you must remember as the leader of the chorus I'm familiar with all the parts. It is finally easier for me than for anyone.'

‘You have already come up trumps, Miss Rolfe.'

Kitty tipped her head to one side and smiled at him. ‘We'll see about that, Mr Wavell. After the curtain falls.'

Kitty need not have worried, although she did of course.

As if in a magical moment that had somehow been brought about by the mutual wills of everyone at Bauders, the young that night sang and danced their way into the hearts of their
audience. Partita's dearest wish that the ladies of the chorus should prove
exciting
came true; and the voices of Almeric and Peregrine, Harry and Kitty could not be faulted, even by Mr St Clare. It was a rare and beautiful evening and one that promised to be repeated, time and time again, in the years to come.

‘So much to look forward to with such talented young men and women,' was the agreed verdict of all Circe's friends.

‘As good as anything you will see anywhere.'

‘Without doubt that is the very best amateur production of
Pirates
that I have seen,' Ralph Wynyard Errol told the Duchess as he joined the enthusiastic applause that the packed auditorium was bestowing on the cast as they took their bows, their faces glowing in the warm colour of the footlights. ‘The singing was first class, but the acting! The acting, which is usually so sadly neglected, it was simply first rate.'

‘I agree,' General Sir Tommy Sykes, who was sitting on the other side of Circe, announced, clapping his white-gloved hands slowly but with great appreciation. ‘In the wrong hands this sort of comic operetta can be most frightfully tedious.'

There was hardly a person present who was not thrilled by the performance, so much so that Roderick St Clare, while flattered by all the praise that was being heaped on him at the buffet party thrown for the audience and cast
afterwards, found himself insisting that the evening belonged to the cast not him, which he later remarked to a friend must have been really quite a first.

‘Don't know what Wavell's going to make of it all,' the Duke muttered to Circe as he, as the host, enjoyed a measure of reflected glory. ‘That boy of his has talent. Can't see young Harry sitting stuck away in the estate office with a pile of ledgers in front of him now, really I can't, but I ain't his father, thank the Lord.'

It was proving too difficult for the guests to let the cast go. Such was their enthusiasm they kept calling for reprises of their favourite songs. So with Elizabeth once more seated at the piano, the cast duly obliged. To everyone's delight Almeric reprised the number the Pirate King sings when he takes leave of Frederic, thinking his apprenticeship is over.

Away to the cheating world go you – where pirates all are well-to-do

But I'll be true to the song I sing, and live and die a Pirate King
!

Partita danced upstairs to her bedroom.

‘How did you think I was, Tinks, how did you think Miss Kitty was, Tinks? Weren't we all brilliant?'

‘I am sorry to tell you I fell asleep, Lady Partita,' Tinker announced, with some relish. ‘Mind, I did wake up for the Major General's
song. That was excellent; we all thought that he had his words off excellently well.'

‘Did you not see
me
dance, Tinks? Did you not admire my wearing all the costumes you helped to make?'

‘No, Lady Partita, the moment you came on I fell fast asleep and started snoring,' Tinker told her with a straight face. ‘I was fair tired out from all that sitting up and sewing until the clock struck midnight, and that is the truth. We all were. Did you not hear all us ladies' maids snoring, and snoring, why we made such a din I thought we must have drowned the orchestra, truly I did.'

‘Sure take no notice of Tinker, Lady Tita, of course she saw you. She saw all of you, we all did,' Bridie murmured to Partita as she bustled past her to reclaim the curling tongs from the girls' dressing room. ‘She is just teasing you, Lady Partita. You know Tinker, she thinks if she says too much you will get a big head, which of course you will not because you and I know full well Tinker would take her darning needle to it, wouldn't she now?'

Partita turned back and, taking hold of Tinker's hands, she shook them up and down.

‘I promise I will not get a big head if you tell me how wonderful I was, Tinks!'

Tinker freed herself, grinning, and then turning by the door, her arms full of the costumes she had just removed, she said, ‘The star of the evening was Miss Kitty Rolfe, of that there was
no doubt, Lady Partita, and nothing you will say will change my mind.'

Partita looked after the closed door, momentarily sulky.

‘I suppose I must not mind?' she asked, turning to Kitty. ‘I suppose I must give best, I suppose I must acknowledge that you are the star of the evening?'

‘You were beautiful, Partita. As far as the audience were concerned, you could do no wrong. Even the pirates were at your feet.'

‘The
pirates
? What would they know? They were all so busy getting their cues wrong, they would hardly have noticed if Dame Nellie Melba herself was singing.'

‘They were all truly inspired by the end, though, weren't they? Most especially Harry Wavell.'

‘Oh, Harry will end up going to America and making millions on the stage,' Partita agreed. ‘He is a natural show-off, and nothing to be done.'