III
Life behind the scenes, as usual, falsified expectation. Marjorie's first visit to the theatre was paid a few weeks after her interview with Lord Eskerley. They entered by the stage-door, Liss explaining to a taciturn but benevolently disposed person in a glass box, whose name appeared to be "Mac," that her companion had an appointment with Mr. Lee. Thereafter, Marjorie was conducted through an iron door, which commanded the thoughtless, by stencilled legend, to close it gently; through a mass of ghostly scenery, past whitewashed walls bearing notices extolling the virtues of Silence; and out through another iron door (marked, somewhat paradoxically, "Not an exit") into the auditorium, rendered dimly visible by the overflow of light from an economically-illuminated stage.
Liss turned back the holland covering from two stalls at the end of a retired row.
"Sit there, dear," she said. "I will grab hold of old Lee some time, and tell him you are here. I can sit with you for a bit. This rehearsal is for principals; the chorus aren't called until twelve."
The rehearsal of the principals consisted, for the moment, of an altercation between a fat man, standing in the middle of the stage, and the musical director, sitting at his desk in the orchestra. It was a most friendly—one might almost call it an affectionate—altercation. No epithet ever fell to a lower level of mutual esteem than "Old Boy!" or "Old Man!"—or, under extreme provocation, a "Dear Old Boy!" As is not unusual in these cases, it was difficult for the casual outsider to discover:
(a) What the argument was about.
(b) Which side of the argument was being sustained by whom.
In the front row of the stalls stood an ascetic-looking man in black tortoise-shell spectacles, apparently acting as umpire. Seated upon a partially dismantled throne beside a step-ladder, up stage, sat a pretty girl in a pink tam-o'-shanter, placidly perusing a crumpled brown-paper-covered manuscript. Other persons were dotted about the auditorium—fat men, cadaverous men; men with tortoise-shell spectacles, and men without; an occasional female. All were conferring in monotone. Round the bare walls of the stage, at present destitute of scenery, sat the ladies of the chorus, most of them wearing rehearsal dresses of unpretentious design—knitting socks of khaki, and occasionally exchanging a guarded confidence. Altogether the atmosphere struck Marjorie as more domestic than theatrical—almost ecclesiastical in its dullness and drowsiness.
"Who are these people sitting about in the stalls?" she asked Liss.
"Oh, just odds and ends! The author, and the lyric writers, and extra lyric writers, and costumiers, and photographers, and people like that—all waiting to catch Mr. Lee, and start an argument with him about something. That's Tubby Ames on the stage. He's having a row with Phil Kay; he has about two a week. I bet you he's trying to get Phyllis Lane's song cut. (That's her, in the pink tam; she's sweet.) It's been going too well lately. Tubby was kept waiting for his entrance in the Second Act last night while she did her third encore dance. Trust Tubby to step on other people's fat! Yes, I thought so."