“I’ll turn over the pages for you,” he suggested, and he remained standing behind her head, looking down at the pale gold knot of her hair and saying “Now?” anxiously at short intervals.
The tune of “Abdul the Bulbul Ameer” rattled through the room again and again, and Martyn and Sallie and Alfred and Amy all sang it, and General Kendal boomed his usual accompaniment of some rather indeterminate monosyllable repeated over and over again. All the rehearsals seem to me now to have been very much alike.
Bill Patch was always gay and light-hearted and more or less distracted, and Mrs. Fazackerly was always good-tempered and obliging—and almost always untruthful, when appealed to on any question of conflicting opinions.
Sallie Ambrey was always competent, and her acting was very clever. So was Martyn’s. Eventually, they made Bill Patch play the villain’s part himself, after Christopher Ambrey had declined it.
“I’d rather turn over the pages for the orchestra,” said Christopher, and the orchestra smiled at him gratefully in the person of Mrs. Fazackerly.
The Kendals almost always came to the rehearsals. I think Puppa had some idea that his presence inspired the whole thing with a spirit of military discipline. At any rate, he said, “Come, come, come,” every now and then when Bill or I had stopped the rehearsal in order to confer with one another.
And Mumma, I feel sure, enjoyed watching Amy and Alfred on the stage and Blanche and Dolly and Aileen among the audience.
Claire was there, of course. From time to time she interrupted everything, in order to show somebody how to do something. Most of them were very patient with her, and Patch, in all simplicity, always thanked her. I daresay that the others didn’t see it as I did. I find it difficult to be fair to Claire. Mary Ambrey, I noticed, used to find a seat near her and used to listen while Claire explained in an undertone that, funnily enough, she had a great deal of the actress in her and other things like that. So long as one person was exclusively occupied with her, Claire was fairly safe not to make one of her general appeals.
Mary Ambrey was to prompt, and during the first few rehearsals she had nothing to do and could attend to Claire.
“Why not do without prompting altogether?” said Alfred Kendal. “We can always gag a bit, if necessary. Topical allusions—that sort of thing.”