Up in the gallery, Peter was no longer talking down to Kit. If anything, Jill noticed with amusement, Kit was talking down to him, and to Miles, and she certainly seemed better informed than they were about the subject under discussion. This was the evolution of the nineteenth-century theatre after the production of Tom Robertson’s Caste. Kit was pointing out that it was a forerunner not only as regards naturalism but also as regards disapproval of class distinctions. Jill, after listening for a few moments, said to Thornton, ‘I hadn’t realized Kit was so specially interested in the theatre.’
‘She isn’t. Oh, she may be, this particular week, because of your husband; but I’d say she’s equally interested in all the arts. Indeed, she can get herself interested in almost any subject. She has an astonishing all-round intelligence.’
‘Any particular talents?’
‘Not outstanding. She can write a bit, paint a bit, play the piano fairly well, but it’s her general intelligence that impresses me. I sometimes worry about her. She seems to me a sort of prodigy of general intelligence. And prodigies, one knows, sometimes fizzle out.’
‘I doubt if Kit will.’
‘So do I, really. There’s nothing freakish about her. I daresay she’s just the result of my grandmother’s theory that children, from the moment they can understand the spoken word, should begin their education. Kit’s probably just a few years ahead of her age. Still, Robin had the same upbringing and, though she’s bright enough, she’s not, at seventeen, as bright as Kit is at fifteen.’
‘Anyway, they’re both of them darlings. There’s a waltz beginning. You must fly to the arms of the Mayoress.’
While discussing Kit, they had drawn a little apart from the others. Now momentarily on her own, Jill leaned on the gallery rail and looked down, interested to compare the dresses here with those of the theatre. She decided that those occupants of the stalls who had come on here weren’t dancing. There were indications of wealth among the dancers but not much elegance. Bright colours abounded and seemed to be specially favoured by women who filled their dresses rather too well. Most of the young girls were wisps and most of the middle-aged women were overweight. It was hard to believe that the wisps would eventually become overweight but probably matrimony, babies and too much bread would do the trick. Presumably the inelegant ladies came from the prosperous New Town and were likely to be better off than the ladies of the Spa Town. She found herself resenting the New Town, on behalf of the Spa Town, and then accused herself of snobbishness. But she knew she had been too poor, and was too conscious of her very mediocre background, ever to be really snobbish. She just liked elegance for its own sake. Still, all these people looked kind and jolly. And if there were no lovely long suede gloves, the Mayoress had handsome white kid ones, which somehow managed to suggest that they could creak. Dancing with her, Geoffrey Thornton looked even slighter than he had felt.
Kit, suddenly at Jill’s elbow, said, ‘Won’t you come and join us, please?’
‘I was admiring the Mayoress’s gloves,’ said Jill.
‘They’re what our great-grandmother called twenty-button length. They only had six buttons so I suppose it meant that there would have been room for twenty. Well, if she trips Father up I do hope he manages to fall on top. Oh, look!’
For an instant, Jill feared that Thornton and the Mayoress had met with catastrophe, but it turned out that Kit had merely spotted Cyril-Doug Digby sitting all by himself watching the dancers.
‘I think something should be done about him,’ said Kit. ‘Would he like it if I asked him to dance?’
‘It just might embarrass him,’ said Jill. ‘Let’s see what my husband and Peter Hesper think.’
Peter, consulted, said, ‘Nothing would embarrass that lad.’ Miles was slightly dubious but decided that Kit would cope all right. She flitted off and they watched her approach Cyril, who shortly took the floor with her.
‘Good God, he’s wearing a miniature dress suit,’ said Peter. ‘He must have swiped it from a ventriloquist’s dummy.’
Miles said, ‘Do you still dislike him, now you’ve seen his effect on an audience?’
Peter, after consideration, said, ‘I’m afraid I do still dislike him. It’s odd, that – because, usually, if an audience accepts an actor I dislike, I get over my dislike out of sheer relief. Well, I’m relieved all right about that midget but I can’t like him. I suppose the truth is that I find him unattractive; quite a bit repulsive, really.’
‘I don’t feel that at all,’ said Miles. ‘I’ll admit he looks distinctly comic in that suit but that strikes me as touching.’
Jill, looking down, said, ‘Seeing them together, you’d say he looked younger than Kit – and she looks young for her age.’
For a moment they all watched the little couple; then Miles and Peter fell to discussing the play, covering almost exactly the same ground they had covered after yesterday’s dress rehearsal but from a more optimistic standpoint. Jill listened, or watched the dancers. And later, she danced again with Geoffrey Thornton. They all had supper together and then walked home along moonlit Spa Street. Miles, deprived of Peter, who had gone back to the station hotel, squired Robin and Kit. Before leaving the Assembly Rooms he had put Cyril in a taxi and paid the driver in advance. Cyril’s last words were, ‘Smashing evening, wasn’t it, Mr Quentin? Let’s hope we all get gorgeous write-ups in the papers tomorrow.’
Distant View of the Lion
She had arranged for the two morning papers to be left outside the bedroom door. Bringing them in, with a quietness that was unnecessary considering the depths of Miles’s sleep, she felt apprehensive. Some provincial critics, anxious to demonstrate that their reactions were not provincial, were apt to do so by writing tough reviews. And bad notices, even in the provinces, would depress Miles as much as the first-night success had cheered him. But the notices in the Spa Town and the New Town dailies were both excellent – for the play, the acting, the scenery, the theatre and the audience. Possibly the glamour of the occasion had disarmed the critics. Anyway, all was more than well.
Of the players, naturally Miles came in for the most praise, but Cyril had made a very real success. And Jill was particularly enchanted to read, in the Spa Town paper, about ‘the brilliant directorial touch whereby the under privileged boy gradually attempts to imitate Mr Quentin’s beautiful English.’ Peter, having an unfailing sense of humour, would laugh about that – but later, very possibly, come to think it was a directorial touch. Well, with these notices in hand she could happily awake Miles. He read them with delight, then reminded her that they did not, of course, ‘count’ as regards London. This was merely a form of touching wood. She knew that he would let himself believe that they ‘counted’.
He had arranged to be at the theatre at ten-thirty to discuss the notices with Peter. Jill did not offer to accompany him as it was one of her rules, as a non-interfering wife, never to join in back-stage discussions unless invited; also, though more than glad about the notices, she had no particular desire to put in a couple of hours talking about them. But sitting alone in the lounge she felt at a loss for something to do, and was glad to be joined by the Thornton sisters.
‘We’re on our own for the day,’ said Kit. ‘Father has constituency work that doesn’t call for our presence. Anyway, he thought not.’
Robin said, ‘Our principle is always to be available but never to push ourselves.’
‘Like me with Miles,’ said Jill.
On hearing that she, too, was on her own they eagerly invited her to accompany them to a concert of chamber music in the Pump Room. She liked the idea of visiting the Pump Room but said she knew nothing about chamber music and rather feared it might be beyond her.
‘It’s the loveliest music in the world,’ said Kit. ‘The only drawback to it is that it can put one off symphonic music, which now seems to me rather a noisy blur. Anyway, if you know nothing about chamber music, you can’t know if you dislike it. You’ve just heard that it’s difficul
t.’
Robin said, ‘I’m not as up in chamber music as Kit is – all the late Beethoven quartets simply eat out of her hand. But I do think you’d like the Schubert Octet, which they’re playing this morning. It’s full of wonderful tunes.’
‘You can invent stories to fit them,’ said Kit. ‘That’s frowned on by purists but it does help beginners. Dear me, how abominably patronizing that sounds. I do apologize.’
‘You needn’t. No one could be more of a beginner than I am. Anyway, I’ll come.’
‘Oh, marvellous! Let’s start now and then we can walk round the gardens before the concert begins.’
When they were on their way along sunny Spa Street, Jill said, ‘This will be the first concert I’ve ever been to.’
Both sisters looked astonished. Then Robin said politely, ‘I expect that’s because you’re so much occupied with the theatre. Do you go every evening?’
‘Only during provincial try-out weeks like this. Once the play opens in London I shall hardly ever go. And I don’t much care to go to other theatres when Miles isn’t free to come.’
‘Then what do you do with your evenings?’ Kit enquired.
‘I expect Mrs Quentin has lots of friends,’ said Robin.
‘Not very many, really. As a rule, I just look at television or read, and then I call for Miles and we go out to supper. That’s easier than having it at home.’
Kit said, ‘The evenings would be a wonderful time for you to get interested in serious music. Have you a record player?’
‘No, but I could get one, I suppose. But I must see how I react this morning.’
The Pump Room, a circular building, its many windows separated by fluted columns, was surrounded by lawns, flower beds and gravel paths. Kit, sniffing, said, ‘They’ve been cutting the grass. How that takes me back to childhood.’
Jill asked if anyone still drank the waters.
‘Visitors do, sometimes,’ said Robin, ‘but seldom more than once. Hello, there’s an attendant at the spring.’
A young woman in vaguely eighteenth-century costume could be seen in the entrance hall, doling out glasses of water. A few visitors to the Festival obliged her by accepting one; there was no charge.
‘They’ll be sorry,’ said Kit. ‘It tastes of nothing, gone slightly bad.’
They took a turn round the gardens and then went in; the Pump Room was filling up.
Jill, looking at the flowery toques and gracefully drooping brims of elderly Spa Town ladies, punctuated by the wild hair of some of the Festival visitors (both sexes), found the occasion pleasant. The atmosphere was different from that in a theatre; indeed, as the light buzz of conversation died down when the instruments had finished tuning up, there was a moment of almost religious awe. She felt as if at a church service not one word of which she would be able to believe in, but which she must sit through with deep respect.
But only a few minutes after the music began she found she could enjoy it. If this was chamber music, where had it been all her life? For a time she listened carefully, following the melodies, watching the players and trying to note which instrument was playing what. She had no desire to accept Kit’s suggestion that she should invent stories to fit the music, but she did fairly soon allow it to become a background for memories, mainly of herself in this town twelve years earlier. These lasted through the gentle, reflective second movement. Then the scherzo began and she had an instant, involuntary vision of a small town band composed of fat, jolly, little men, marching along Spa Street. She had an idea that such bands still existed on the Continent but doubted if there were any in England. And anyway, the band in her mind’s eye was a toy band, with a drummer who was almost as round as his drum; she saw him so vividly that, on taking a swift look at the platform, she was surprised not to see him there. She returned to her mental picture. The toy band was funny as well as charming. She found herself smiling broadly.
Kit whispered, ‘You’re enjoying it, aren’t you?’
‘Oh, madly,’ Jill whispered back.
She thought the variations and the minuet went on rather too long – she located them by consulting her programme – but she liked the last movement most of all. This, like the scherzo, presented her with a mental picture – or rather, a mental adventure; a confused and confusing one and, though she enjoyed it almost deliriously, it left her with a slight feeling of guilt. Why? She must investigate this later, or would it be better to forget it? Certainly it ended with the music and, not for the life of her, could she have found words to describe it.
But she was able, on the walk back to the hotel, to describe the comic little town band she had seen during the scherzo. Kit was fascinated by this – ‘Perhaps there was a town band here in the old days. Perhaps you’re psychic.’
‘Oh, it wasn’t in the old days, because the chestnuts were pollarded. They were in bloom, by the way, and their candles were pink.’
‘Their candles are pink – and you couldn’t know that, could you? So you still may be psychic.’
‘Anyway, I’m sure you’re very musical,’ said Robin, ‘because you didn’t fidget. You sat still as a statue.’
‘But your face changed a lot. First it was sad and then it was gay. And in the last movement it was radiant. Oh, there’s Mr Quentin – just going into the hotel.’
Jill considered asking the girls to join them at lunch but decided against it. She knew Miles would be charming to them but their presence would prevent his talking exclusively about the play, should he want to – as, in fact, he did. His latest news was that it was rather too long for London, and Peter and the author were now working on cuts – ‘Also they’re considering a new slant for the ending. You’ll remember the New Town critic wondered if the boy, after all, isn’t an imposter; he only believes he is. And that’s the final twist of the mother’s revenge.’
‘You mean, first she says he’s your son, and then she says he isn’t, but all the time he is, only you and he never find out? Sounds very confusing.’
‘Peter thought it might add to the play’s stature.’
‘Has it got any?’
‘I suppose not,’ said Miles, looking crestfallen. ‘It’s just that one tries to admire what one’s acting in.’
She regretted her momentary impatience. ‘Anyway, it’s a highly effective play. And who am I to judge its stature? The critics here were impressed with it. Perhaps this new slant will work well.’
But she feared her impatience had been noted for he stopped talking about the play and suggested they should spend the afternoon exploring the town – ‘and you can show me that hat you mentioned.’
‘Fancy your remembering!’
‘Don’t I always like helping you to choose clothes?’
‘It’s one of your nicest traits. All right, then, and I’ll change my dress and do you proud. Anyway, that hat will need a bit of dressing up for.’
She was upstairs, changing, when she heard a very odd noise through her open window. Robin and Kit were below, giving an impression of a town band playing the scherzo from the Schubert Octet.
‘We’re serenading you,’ said Kit, as Jill looked out. ‘Come shopping in the New Town with us.’
Jill explained why she couldn’t, adding, ‘And are there any good shops in the New Town?’
‘Oh, you can often find skittish little dresses,’ said Robin, ‘and at bargain prices. Anyway, the New Town’s worth seeing.’
‘Is it? I hated it when I stayed in it, years ago.’
‘It takes a bit of knowing,’ said Kit. ‘Some of it’s far older than the Spa Town. There are queer little back alleys. Very romantic, really.’ She offered the last words as if they would be a good come-on.
‘Could you show me tomorrow?’
‘We’re spending the day with Father, visiting old friends,’ said Robin. ‘But may we book you for Thursday morning?’
Jill said she would consider herself booked – ‘that is, unless Miles needs me.’
‘We quite u
nderstand,’ said Robin. ‘Well, we hope you and Mr Quentin have a pleasant afternoon.’
Kit, after offering advice as to what they should see, added, ‘Of course, we could show you.’
‘There’s that pushing child again,’ said Robin, marching her sister away.
Jill, setting out with Miles, felt particularly happy. Snatches of the Octet drifted through her head. She had a retentive ear and could often remember a popular song after a single hearing. Schubert was very different; one’s ear could not retain the shimmer. She must certainly get a record player.
As they turned into the arcade, she explained how the hat had been brought to her notice by Geoffrey Thornton. ‘But that was on Saturday, after I met him at the chocolate counter. They may not have the same hat in the window now.’
But it was there all right. And to her surprise it made Miles laugh. ‘Surely that’s just a display hat, a sort of shop sign? You couldn’t possibly wear it, even at a Buckingham Palace garden party.’
Slightly deflated, she said, ‘I expect you’re right – anyway, about me. But I think it’s intended to be worn. Don’t you admire it in its own right?’
He studied it critically. ‘Yes, the line’s beautiful and it’s very well made. Shall we go in and look at some others? Though I don’t really like you in hats; your hair’s too decorative to cover. And I wouldn’t say Geoffrey Thornton’s grandmother’s milliner would be ideal for you.’
She laughed. ‘And if I go in, I shall feel I have to buy something. So let’s just leave it.’