SHORTLY
UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT
It hung immediately under the tatter of a Victorian playbill that he had seen on his first remarkable visit.
THE BEGGAR GIRL’S WEDDING
In response to
Overwhelming Solicitation!! –
Mr Adolphus Ruby
When the painters cleaned and resurfaced the façade, Peregrine had made them work all round that precarious fragment without touching it. ‘It shall stay here,’ he had said to Jeremy Jones, ‘as long as I do.’
He opened the front doors. They had new locks and the doors themselves had been stripped and scraped and restored to their original dignity.
The foyer was alive. It was being painted, gilded, polished and furbished. There were men on scaffolds, on long ladders, on pendant platforms. A great chandelier lay in a sparkling heap on the floor. The two fat cherubim, washed and garnished, beamed upside-down into the resuscitated box-office.
Peregrine said good morning to the workmen and mounted the gently curving stairs.
There was still a flower-engraved looking-glass behind the bar but now he advanced towards himself across shining mahogany, framed by brass. The bar was all golden syrup and molasses in colour. ‘Plain, serviceable, no tatt,’ Peregrine muttered.
The renovations had been completed up here and soon a carpet would be laid. He and Jeremy and the young decorator had settled in the end for the classic crimson, white and gilt and the panelling blossomed, Peregrine thought, with the glorious vulgarity of a damask rose. He crossed the foyer to a door inscribed ‘Management’ and went in.
The Dolphin was under the control of ‘Dolphin Theatres Incorporated’. This was a subsidiary of Consolidated Oils. It had been created, broadly speaking, by Mr Greenslade, to encompass the development of the Dolphin project. Behind his new desk in the office sat Mr Winter Morris, an extremely able theatrical business manager. He had been wooed into the service by Mr Greenslade upon Peregrine’s suggestion, after a number of interviews and, he felt sure, exhaustive inquiries. Throughout these preliminaries, Mr Conducis had remained, as it were, the merest effluvium: far from noxious and so potent that a kind of plushy assurance seemed to permeate the last detail of renaissance in The Dolphin. Mr Morris had now under his hand an entire scheme for promotion, presentation and maintenance embracing contracts with actors, designers, costumiers, front of house staff, stage crew and press agents and the delicate manipulation of such elements as might be propitious to the general mana of the enterprise.
He was a short, pale and restless man with rich curly hair, who, in what little private life belonged to him, collected bric-à-brac.
‘Good morning, Winty.’
‘Perry,’ said Mr Morris as a defensive statement rather than a greeting.
‘Any joy?’
Mr Morris lolled his head from side to side.
‘Before I forget. Do we want a caretaker, watchman, day or night, stage-door-keeper or any other lowly bod about the house?’
‘We shall in a couple of days.’
Peregrine told him about Mr Jobbins.
‘All right,’ said Mr Morris. ‘If the references are good. Now, it’s my turn. Are you full cast?’
‘Not quite. I’m hovering.’
‘What do you think of Harry Grove?’
‘As an actor?’
‘Yes.’
‘As an actor I think a lot of him.’
‘Just as well. You’ve got him.’
‘Winty, what the hell do you mean?’
‘A directive, dear boy: or what amounts to it. From Head Office.’
‘About W. Hartly Grove?’
‘You’ll probably find something in your mail.’
Peregrine went to his desk. He was now very familiar with the looks of Mr Greenslade’s communications and hurriedly extracted the latest from the pile.
Dear Peregrine Jay,
Your preliminaries seem to be going forward smoothly and according to plan. We are all very happy with the general shaping and development of the original project and are satisfied that the decision to open with your own play is a sound one, especially in view of your current success at The Unicorn. This is merely an informal note to bring to your notice Mr W. Hartly Grove, an actor, as you will of course know, of repute and experience. Mr Conducis personally will be very pleased if you give favourable attention to Mr Grove when forming your company.
With kind regards,
Yours sincerely,
STANLEY GREENSLADE
When Peregrine read this note he was visited by a sense of misgiving so acute as to be quite disproportionate to its cause. In no profession are personal introductions and dear-boy-manship more busily exploited than in the theatre. For an actor to get the ear of the casting authority through an introduction to régisseur or management is a commonplace manoeuvre. For a second or two, Peregrine wondered with dismay if he could possibly be moved by jealousy and if the power so strangely, so inexplicably put into his hands had perhaps already sown a detestable seed of corruption. But no, he thought, on consideration and he turned to Morris to find the latter watching him with a half-smile.
‘I don’t like this,’ Peregrine said.
‘So I see, dear boy. May one know why?’
‘Of course. I don’t like W. Hartly Grove’s reputation. I try to be madly impervious to gossip in the theatre and I don’t know that I believe what they say about Harry Grove.’
‘What do they say?’
‘Vaguely shady behaviour. I’ve directed him once and knew him before that. He taught voice production at my drama school and disappeared over a weekend. Undefined scandal. Most women find him attractive, I believe. I can’t say,’ Peregrine added, rumpling up his hair, ‘that he did anything specifically objectionable in the latter production and I must allow that personally I found him an amusing fellow. But apart from the two women in the company nobody liked him. They said they didn’t but you could see them eyeing him and knowing he eyed them.’
‘This,’ said Morris, raising a letter that lay on his desk, ‘is practically an order. I suppose yours is, too.’
‘Yes, blast it.’
‘You’ve been given a fabulously free hand up to now, Perry. No business of mine, of course, dear boy, but frankly I’ve never seen anything like it. General management, director, author – the lot. Staggering.’
‘I hope,’ Peregrine said with a very direct look at his manager, ‘staggering though it may be, I got it on my reputation as a director and playwright. I believe I did. There is no other conceivable explanation, Winty.’
‘No, no, old boy, of course not,’ said Winter Morris in a hurry.
‘As for W. Hartly Grove, I suppose I can’t jib. As a matter of fact he would be well cast as Mr W. H. It’s his sort of thing. But I don’t like it. My God,’ Peregrine said, ‘haven’t I stuck my neck out far enough with Marcus Knight in the lead and liable to throw an average of three dirty great temperaments per rehearsal? What have I done to deserve Harry Grove as a bonus?’
‘The Great Star’s shaping up for trouble already. He’s calling me twice a day to make difficulties over his contract.’
‘Who’s winning?’
‘I am,’ said Winter Morris. ‘So far.’
‘Good for you.’