“We were going to have the dress rehearsal next week,” Sallie said. “Which day, Cousin Miles?”
So we were once more absorbed into the atmosphere of the theatricals.
“The Bulbul Ameer,” one could not help feeling, was taking shape as a play in spite of most of the people who were acting in it. Sallie and Martyn both had talent and a certain amount of amateur experience, but Alfred Kendal’s sole qualification appeared to be an unlimited confidence in something which he spoke of, in a very professional way, as “gag.”
This had a disastrous effect upon Bill Patch, and both of them took to appealing to Nancy Fazackerly, as part author of the piece.
Her ingenuity was hard put to it, once or twice, and I was touched when I noticed that she seemed to be making some endeavors in the direction of truthfulness.
Claire noticed it, too, I feel certain, and the atmosphere that she managed to diffuse at rehearsal became less violently hostile than it had been at first.
Everybody else was frankly interested in Christopher and Nancy, and waited hopefully for them to announce their engagement.
“Is it official, yet?” Lady Annabel asked me one day, and when I said, “No,” she assured me that she understood perfectly and that I could rely upon her absolute discretion. The years that she had spent in the Colonial Service, Lady Annabel said, had trained her.
Several people came to the dress rehearsal. Mrs. Fazackerly’s father invited himself, to the unspeakable dismay of almost everybody, and General and Mrs. Kendal, of course, were not to be denied.
“I think that Amy will be far less nervous if she sees me there,” said Mrs. Kendal, with her kindest smile. “Ahlfred, now, is not nervous—but Amy is. I think she may be less nervous if she sees me there. Call it a mother’s fancy if you like, Sir Miles, but I can’t help thinking that Amy will be far less nervous if she sees me in the front row. So there I shall be.”