Night at the Vulcan (5 page)

“I couldn’t agree more, old boy, and I’m bloody angry about it. Yes, dear, wait a moment, will you?” Mr. Bennington rejoined, running his speeches together and addressing them to no one in particular. This is my wife’s new dresser, J.G.”

“Really?” Mr. J. G. Darcey responded and bowed politely to Martyn. “Good morning, child. See you later, Ben, my boy. Thousand thanks.”

He rose, looked kindly at Martyn, dropped his monocle, passed his hand over his hair and went out, breaking into operatic song in the passage.

Mr. Bennington made a half-hearted attempt to put his flask out of sight and addressed himself to Martyn.

“And what,” he asked, “can I do for the new dresser?”

Martyn delivered her message. “Cigarette case? Have I got my wife’s cigarette case? God, I don’t know. Try my overcoat, dear, will you? Behind the door. Inside pocket. No secrets,” he added obscurely. “Forgive my asking you. I’m busy.”

But he didn’t seem particularly busy. He twisted round in his chair and watched Martyn as she made a fruitless search of his overcoat pockets. “This your first job?” he asked. She said it was not and he added: “As a dresser, I mean.”

“I’ve worked in the theatre before.”

“And where was that?”

“In New Zealand.”

“
Really
?” he said, as if she had answered some vitally important question.

“I’m afraid,” Martyn went on quickly, “it’s not in the overcoat.”

“God, what a bore! Give me my jacket then, would you? The grey flannel.”

She handed it to him and he fumbled through the pockets. A pocket-book dropped on the floor, spilling its contents. Martyn gathered them together and he made such a clumsy business of taking them from her that she was obliged to put them on the shelf. Among them was an envelope bearing a foreign stamp and postmark. He snatched it up and it fluttered in his fingers. “Mustn’t lose track of that one, must we?” he said and laughed. “All the way from Uncle Tito.” He thrust it at Martyn. “Look,” he said and steadied his hand against the edge of the shelf. “What d’you think of
that
? Take it.”

Troubled at once by the delay and by the oddness of his manner Martyn took the envelope and saw that it was addressed to Bennington.

“Do you collect autographs,” Bennington asked with ridiculous intensity—“or signed letters?”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” she said and put the letter face-down on the shelf.

“There’s someone,” he said with a jab of his finger at the envelope, “who’d give a hell of a lot for
that
one in there. A hell of a lot.”

He burst out laughing, pulled a cigarette case out of the jacket and handed it to her with a flourish. “Purest gold,” he said. “Birthday present but not from me. I’m her husband, you know. What the hell! Are you leaving me? Don’t go.”

Martyn made her escape and ran back to Miss Hamilton’s room, where she found her in conference with Adam Poole and a young man of romantic appearance whom she recognized as the original of the last of the photographs in the foyer — Mr. Parry Percival. The instinct that makes us aware of a conversation in which we ourselves have in our absence been involved warned Martyn that they had been talking about her and had broken off on her entrance. After a moment’s silence, Mr. Percival, with far too elaborate a nonchalance, said: “Yes. Well, there you have it,” and it was obvious that there was a kind of double significance in his remark. Miss Hamilton said: “My poor Martyn, where
have
you been?” with a lightness that was not quite cordial.

“I’m sorry,” Martyn said. “Mr. Bennington had trouble in finding the case.” She hesitated for a moment and added, “Madam.”

“That,” Miss Hamilton rejoined, looking at Adam Poole, “rings dismally true. Would you believe it, darling, I became so furious with him for taking it that, most reluctantly, I gave him one for himself. He lost it instantly, of course, and now swears he didn’t and mine is his. If you follow me.”

“With considerable difficulty,” Poole said, “I do.”

Parry Percival laughed gracefully. He had a winning, if not altogether authentic, air of ingenuousness, and at the moment seemed to be hovering on the edge of some indiscretion. “I am afraid,” he said ruefully to Miss Hamilton, “I’m rather in disgrace myself.”

“With me, or with Adam?”

“I hope not with either of you. With Ben.” He glanced apologetically at Poole, who did not look at him. “Because of the part, I mean. I suppose I spoke out of turn, but I really did think I could play it — still do for a matter of that, but there it is.”

It was obvious that he was speaking at Poole. Martyn saw Miss Hamilton look from one man to the other before she said lightly, “I think you could too, Parry, but as you say, there it is. Ben
has
got a flair, you know.”

Percival laughed. “He has indeed,” he said. “He has had it for twenty years. Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Honestly, I
am
sorry.”

Poole said: “I dislike post mortems on casting, Parry.”

“I know, I
do
apologize.” Percival turned ingratiatingly, and the strong light caught his face sideways. Martyn saw with astonishment that under the thin film of greasepaint there was a system of incipient lines, and she realized that he was not, after all, a young man. “I know,” he repeated, “I’m being naughty.”

Poole said: “We open on Thursday. The whole thing was thrashed out weeks ago. Any discussion now is completely fruitless.”

“That,” said Miss Hamilton, “is what I have been trying to tell the Doctor.”

“John? I heard him bellowing in here,” Poole said. “Where’s he gone? I want a word with him. And with you, Parry, by the way. It’s about that scene at the window in the second act. You’re not making your exit line. You must top Ben there. It’s most important”

“Look, old boy,” Mr. Percival said with agonized intensity, “I
know
. It’s just another of those things. Have you
seen
what Ben does? Have you seen that business with my handkerchief? He won’t take his hands off me. The whole exit gets messed up.”

“I’ll see what can be done.”

“John,” said Miss Hamilton, “is worried about it too, Adam.”

Poole said: “Then he should talk to me.”

“You know what the Doctor is.”

“We all do,” said Parry Percival, “and the public, I fear, is beginning to find out. God, there I go again.”

Poole looked at him. “You’ll get along better, I think, Parry, if you deny yourself these cracks against the rest of the company. Rutherford has written a serious play. It’d be a pity if any of us should lose faith in it.”

Percival reddened and made towards the door. “I’m just being a nuisance,” he said. “I’ll take myself off and be photographed like a good boy.” He made an insinuating movement of his shoulders towards Miss Hamilton, and fluttered his hand at her dress. “Marvellous,” he said—“a triumph, if the bit-part actor may be allowed to say so.”

The door shut crisply behind him, and Miss Hamilton said: “Darling, aren’t you rather high and grand with poor Parry?”

“I don’t think so. He’s behaving like an ass. He couldn’t play the part. He was born to be a feed.”

“He’d
look
it.”

“If all goes well Ben will
be
it.”

“If all goes well! Adam, I’m terrified. He’s—”

“Are you dressed, Helena? The cameras are ready.”

“Shoes, please, Martyn,” said Miss Hamilton. “Yes, darling. I’m right.”

Martyn fastened her shoes and then opened the door. Miss Hamilton swept out, lifting her skirts with great elegance. Martyn waited for Poole to follow, but he said: “You’re meant to be on-stage. Take make-up and a glass and whatever Miss Hamilton may need for her hair.”

She thanked him and in a flurry gathered the things together. Poole took the Persian lamb coat and stood by the door. She hesitated, expecting him to precede her, but found that he was looking at the cheval-glass. When she followed his gaze it was to be confronted by their images, side by side in the mirror.

“Extraordinary,” he said abruptly, “isn’t it?” and motioned her to go out.

When Martyn went out on the stage, she was able for the first time to see the company assembled together, and found it consisted, as far as the players were concerned, of no more than the six persons she had already encountered: first in their fixed professional poses in the show-frame at the front of the house, and later in their dressing-rooms. She had attached mental tags to them and found herself thinking of Helena Hamilton as the Leading Lady, of Gay Gainsford as the Ingenue, of J. G. Darcey as the Character Actor, of Parry Percival as the Juvenile, of Clark Bennington regrettably, perhaps unjustly, as the Drunken Actor, and of Adam Poole — but as yet she had found no label for Poole, unless it was the old-fashioned one of “Governor,” which pleased her by its vicarious association with the days of the Victorian actor-managers.

To this actual cast of six she must add a number of satellite figures — the author, Dr. John Rutherford, whose eccentricities seemed to surpass those of his legend, with which she was already acquainted; the man in the red sweater, who was the stage-manager, and was called Clem Smith; his assistant, a morose lurking figure; and the crew of stage-hands, who went about their business or contemplated the actors with equal detachment.

The actors were forming themselves now into a stage “picture” moving in a workman-like manner under the direction of Adam Poole, and watched with restless attentiveness by an elderly, slack-jointed man, carrying a paint pot and brushes. This man, the last of all the figures to appear upon the stage that morning, seemed to have no recognizable jobs but to be concerned in all of them. He was dressed in overalls and a tartan shirt, from which his long neck emerged, bird-like and crepe-y to terminate in a head that wobbled slightly as if its articulation with the top of the spine had loosened with age. He was constantly addressed with exasperated affection as Jacko. Under his direction, bunches of lights were wheeled into position, camera men peered and muttered, and at his given signal the players, by an easy transition in behaviour and appearance, became larger than life. A gap was left in the middle of the group, and into this when all was ready floated Helena Hamilton, ruffling her plumage, and becoming at once the focal point of the picture.

“Darling,” she said, “it’s not going to be a flash, is it, with all of you looking like village idiots, and me like the Third Witch on the morning after the cauldron scene?”

“If you can hold it for three seconds,” Adam Poole said, “it needn’t be a flash.”

“I can hold anything, if you come in and help me.”

He moved in beside her. “All right,” he said, “let’s try it. The end of the first act”; and at once she turned upon him a look of tragic and burning intensity. The elderly man wandered across and tweaked at her skirts. Without changing pose or expression, she said: “Isn’t it shameful the way Jacko can’t keep his hands off me.” He grinned and ambled away. Adam Poole said “Right”; the group froze in postures of urgency that led the eye towards the two central figures and the cameras clicked.

Martyn tried, as the morning wore on, to get some idea of the content of the play, but was unable to do so. Occasionally the players would speak snatches of dialogue leading up to the moment when a photograph was to be taken, and from these she gathered that the major conflict of the theme was between the characters played by Adam Poole and Clark Bennington and that this conflict was one of ideas. About a particular shot there was a great deal of difficulty. In this Poole and Gay Gainsford confronted each other, and it was necessary that her posture, the arrested gesture of her hand, and even her expression should be an exact reflection of his.

To Martyn, Poole had seemed to be a short-tempered man, but with Gay Gainsford he showed exemplary patience. “It’s the old story, Gay,” he said. “You’re over-anxious. It’s not enough for you to look like me. Let’s face it—” he hesitated for a moment and said quickly: “We’ve had all this, haven’t we — but it’s worth repeating — you can’t look strikingly like me, although Jacko’s done wonders. What you’ve got to do is to
be
me. At this moment, don’t you see, you’re my heredity, confronting me like a threat. As far as the photograph is concerned, we can cheat — the shot can be taken over your shoulder, but in the performance there can be no cheating, and that is why I’m making such a thing of it. Now let’s take it with the line. Your head’s on your arms, you raise it slowly to face me. Ready now. Right, up you come.”

Miss Gainsford raised her face to his as he leaned across the writing desk and whispered: “Don’t you like what you see?” At the same moment there was a cascade of laughter from Miss Hamilton. Poole’s voice cracked like a whip-lash: “Helena, please,” and she turned from Parry Percival to say: “Darling, I’m so sorry,” and in the same breath spoke her line of dialogue: “But it’s you, don’t you see? You can’t escape from it. It’s you.” Gay Gainsford made a hopeless little gesture and Poole said: “Too late, of course. Try again.”

They tried several times, in an atmosphere of increasing tension. The amiable Jacko was called in to make an infinitesimal change in Gay’s make-up, and Martyn saw him blot away a tear. At this juncture a disembodied voice roared from the back of the circle:

Poole glanced into the auditorium. “Do shut up like a good chap, John,” he said.

The man called Jacko burst out laughing and was instantly dismissed to the dressing-rooms by Poole.

There followed a quarter of an hour of mounting hysteria on the part of Gay Gainsford and of implacable persistence from Adam Poole. He said suddenly: “All right, we’ll cheat. Shift the camera.”

The remaining photographs were taken without a great deal of trouble. Miss Gainsford, looking utterly miserable, went off to her dressing-room. The man called Jacko reappeared and ambled across to Miss Hamilton. There was an adjustment in make-up while Martyn held up the mirror.