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Sarah sat in one of the seats, trying to pretend to herself that she was not bored. For a mad moment, when she had first come in, she had thought that the old longings to be performing herself would overcome her. But nothing of the sort had happened. She had watched the actors walk their way through the first act, their scripts still in their hands, and her mind had begun to wander almost immediately.

“No, no! Try it again ! Take it from the cue, Jacqueline!” Alec’s voice recalled Sarah to the rehearsal and she winced in sympathy with the unknown Jacqueline. “Which cue? My dear girl, the
last
cue!”

Jacqueline began again, the young man beside her shooting darts of rage at her.

“I—I
can't
!” the poor girl exclaimed. “He puts me off!”

“You’re telling me you can’t!” Alec said in an audible undertone. He cleared his throat menacingly. “Nor can a professional actress allow herself to be put off by other members of the cast. You’re not doing amateur dramatics now!”

The girl, far from pulling herself together, dissolved into tears. Alec ground his teeth and the girl cried harder.

“You all hate me! None of you wanted me to have the part! Why didn’t you choose someone else, if you don’t like the way I do it?”

“I did,” Alec said.

Jacqueline stopped crying for a minute, staring at him across the footlights. “And
-1
suppose everyone else knew all the time!” she declared.

“I did choose someone else, and as a matter of fact, she’s here, watching you. Sarah, go up and show this poor little creature what she ought to sound like, would you?”

Sarah sank further into her chair, hoping that he wasn’t serious.

“Sarah!”

The peremptory tone brought her to her feet. “It wouldn’t do any good, Alec,” she whispered fiercely. “She’s nervous.”

“And you wouldn’t be?”

“Yes, of course I would be. I’d be paralysed with fright, especially if you spoke to me like that! Why don’t you use a little kindness?”

He turned on her. “Any rights you had in a say in this production you lost long ago!” he stormed at her. “You forfeited having an opinion the moment you decided to give way to the frivolous satisfaction of feeling virtuous about your father! Unfortunately, you have more idea of what the author intended in your little finger than Jacqueline has in her whole body, so get up on that stage and show her what it’s all about, or I’ll make mincemeat out of the two of you!”

Sarah tumbled up the stairs on to the stage, deciding it was the lesser of two evils. Jacqueline handed her the script, her tearful face blotched and ugly in the wreathed lights that were all that the building provided.

“I thought he was a friend of yours,” she remarked. “Rather you than me !”

Sarah was beginning to think so too. “Perhaps it’s the way he works—”

“Shut up whispering, you two! All right, get on with it, Sarah!”

It was queer how the old magic came flooding back, taking control of her mind and body. The way of walking that kept her in the centre of attention without blotting anyone else out; the way of speaking that made her voice carry effortlessly to the back of the hall; even how to stand still and register emotion while another was speaking. She took a deep breath, smiled at the young man who had given her her cue, and began to read the part.

It was just as it had always been. Nothing else was real except the part she was playing until she came to the end of the scene. Sitting in the auditorium she had felt nothing at all, but actually being on the boards again pulled her, making her give the best performance of which she was capable.

“And you want to throw it all away!” Alec shouted at her in disgust.

She blinked at him. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I want to give it all up!”

“Tell that to the marines!”

Sarah handed the script back to Jacqueline, her smile lighting her face. “I want much more than this,” she told him, her voice husky with emotion. “I want an ordinary life, with a husband and children—”

“You can’t! You’d be bored stiff without any challenge—”

She silenced him with a gesture. “I think I’ll find loving someone challenge enough.”

Alec looked at her for a long moment. “I don’t know whether to envy you, or brand you traitor!” he said at last. He turned back to Jacqueline. “Think you’ve got the idea now? Then could we trouble you to run through the scene again—just as Sarah did it? With expression, my dear! You’ll find, if you take a look, that you’re made of flesh and bone, not solid wood! Though we might be forgiven for thinking you were!”

Sarah returned quietly to her seat. The magic had gone as suddenly as it had come. Well, it wasn’t surprising. She had spent years diligently acquiring the art of how to appear on a stage. It was unlikely that the knowledge would ever leave her now. It was a part of her, like the school she had been to and the friends she had made. But it wasn’t the future, and she was glad of that. The future was Robert and therefore glorious! She glanced down at her watch. Only twelve more hours to go.

Alec came out to St., John’s Wood to collect her in his car for the theatre that evening. Sarah was put out to see him in a dinner jacket. “I didn’t bring any evening wear with me,” she told him. “I really meant to catch an earlier train back.”

“I hope you don’t expect me to go home and change?”

“No, of course not! Only I feel uncomfortable not being properly dressed. Never mind, while you get the tickets, I’ll slip round and ask Madge how Daddy is. She said she’d leave the tickets at the box office in your name. It will be quite dark in the theatre and we can always pretend that we’re not together!”

“Strangers in the dark? It sounds fascinating!” he said sarcastically. “If your father wasn’t all right, don’t you think Madge would have told you? I wish you wouldn’t enjoy the role of the Lady with the Lamp quite so enthusiastically! I could have wept when you read that scene this morning and I knew you were never going to do it!”

“Goodness!” said Sarah.

Something in her tone made him look at her quickly. “Are you laughing at me?” he demanded.

“Only a little,” she apologised. “You were so beastly to that poor girl this morning you don’t deserve to get a performance out of her!”

“I didn’t!” he said moodily. “I don’t think I ever shall!”

“You will, when she gets used to your snapping at her all the time.”

“She’s not you!”

Sarah giggled openly. “Thank goodness she’s not!”

“I believe you really mean that!”

“I do.” Even to her own ears she sounded complacently happy at the prospect of giving up her career for ever. In fact she was feeling vastly more cheerful than she had all day—only a few more hours and she would be back in Chaddoxboume!

The theatre was only fairly full. Sarah was surprised at that. She had thought that everything in London was packed out, but then it was Monday night and that was not a day that many people came in from the suburbs to see a show. Her stepmother had left them tickets at the box office, bang in the middle of the stalls. That was another sign, Sarah thought, that the play was not being the commercial success that Madge Dryden was accustomed to.

When the curtain went up she saw why. There was no applause to greet the set. Perhaps it was too modern to appeal, with great splodges of colour supposed to represent the sky and the countryside. Such an approach was out of keeping with the simple little story that ran through the music and dancing. And the tunes were sickly sweet and very ordinary. This in an era of experimentation, when people like Burt Bacharach were trying nine or eleven to the bar, and found the old eight, sixteen, thirty-two boring with its constant repetition.

Madge Dryden was the heroine, a young girl who had fallen in love with a man twice her age. As a piece of casting it was a disaster. The man was years younger than her stepmother and, worse still, he looked it. Sarah watched in an agony of embarrassment and wished she hadn’t come. It was some years since she had seen Madge in anything, and then she had been as fresh and light as thistledown. Now there was a touch of desperation in her performance. There was too much of everything —too much make-up, too many flounces on her dresses, and far too many pretty little songs that made her look pathetic rather than touching.

As the lights came up for the first interval, Sarah and Alec exchanged speaking glances.

“Well, well,” said Alec dryly.

“She’s miscast,” Sarah put in quickly.

“You don’t say! Even so, not what I should expect from Madge Dryden. The sooner she gets herself out of this the better! ”

“I expect they’ve tied her up pretty tightly in her contract. My father seems to think so. And those awful sets! No wonder he was so upset about not doing them !”

Alec helped her out of her seat, shaking his head at the curtained stage. “Do you want to go round and have a word with her?”

Sarah nodded. She knew that her stepmother had no change of costume to make in the first interval, because it was then that she often rang up Chaddoxboume to find out how Daniel was. In the second interval, she had a complete change, and consequently less time to chat.

The whole cast seemed to be assembled in the corridors backstage. Their costumes flashed brilliantly against the sombre paintwork that was always such a contrast to the front of the theatre. The Catholic Theatre Guild was advertising for support for a party they were giving in aid of some charity. The disembodied voice came over the intercom, repeating the message again and again. Madge’s dressing room had her name on the door, which was firmly shut against the clamour and laughter that was going on outside.

Sarah knocked on the door, barely waiting for her stepmother’s answer before she rushed in.

“Was Daddy really all right when you left?” she asked her.

Madge looked astonished. “Of course he was. Dear, please don’t fuss! How are you enjoying the show?”

Sarah hesitated. She looked at Alec, but he was examining his already immaculate nails.

“I can’t think why you agreed to it!” she burst out awkwardly. “Madge, it’s awful!” She broke off, dismayed at the expression on Madge’s face. “I’m sorry, but it is. It isn’t—
you
, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

Sarah swallowed. “It’s too young for you—”

“How dare you!” her stepmother snapped. “You’re taking it out of me because you didn’t want to come! I think you’re mean!”

“She’s quite right,” Alec said brutally. “You should have left after the first rehearsal, Madge. However, I doubt it’ll last more than a few weeks. You’d be wise to look more closely at your next part.”

Madge sank down on the stool in front of the dressing table. She looked old and raddled in the harsh light from the naked electric bulbs. Over her head bobbed a roll of soft toilet paper that she used for wiping off her make-up and behind her was a clutter of powder and paint and an abandoned wig that was badly in need of being restyled.

“You’re quite right. I’ve been miserable about it for ages! I’m even more miserable now you’ve confirmed that it’s a ghastly failure! You’ll both have to come out to supper with me afterwards and cheer me up!”

“But, Madge, I can’t! I’ll miss the last train—”

“Rubbish, darling. Alec will take you to the station in his car and we’ll all keep our eye on the time. You’ve got plenty of time.”

Sarah bit her lip. “I haven’t! Truly, Madge. I’d feel much happier if I didn’t. Daddy has been poorly recently on Monday nights—”

“After my visits, you mean! Why don’t you say so?”

“I didn’t mean that!” Sarah said wretchedly, well aware that that was exactly what she had meant. “But it would be awful if I missed the train!”

Alec put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I’ll make sure that you get the train. You can rely on me, can’t you?”

“I suppose so,” Sarah sighed. “But I’d really rather not!”

“Well, darling, I think you might consider me for once,” Madge complained. “I’m sure my need is much greater than your father’s! He is in the pink of health and I’m perfectly miserable!”

“Oh, all right,” Sarah said reluctantly.

Madge gave her a sardonic look. “Don’t let your enthusiasm run away with you!” she drawled.

The musical comedy dragged towards its close, with neither Sarah nor Alec paying much attention to what was going on on the stage.

“I wish you’d backed me up about going straight to the station,” Sarah said in the second interval.

Alec shrugged. “Your stepmother looked all set to throw a scene if I had. Whatever I may think of this wretched story, she has to get through it. I’d never do anything to put an artist off during a performance.” •

It sounded so virtuous, Sarah thought, but what about her? The last thing she wanted was to have to sit through supper with her stepmother when she could have been going home.

The restaurant was within walking distance of the theatre. Madge ordered champagne, which none of them much cared for, and made light of Sarah’s anxious scanning of the menu in her search for something quick and easy.

“Relax, darling. Alec won’t let you miss the train!” Madge looked across the table and winked at Alec. “Not that he’d object if you missed it, I’m sure! You must tell me what you two have been doing over the weekend.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Sarah said.

“I was busy all day yesterday,” Alec let out apologetically. “But we made up for it this morning. Sarah came to one of my rehearsals and saw some of the things I have to put up with.”

“Some of the things your players have to put up with more like!” Sarah retorted.

Madge quelled her stepdaughter with a glance. “Do you ever produce or direct musical comedies?” she asked Alec.

“I never have. I may do in the future.” Their eyes met and, to Sarah’s surprise, it was her stepmother who looked away. “I don’t think a musical play can get away with a bad story these days,” he went on. “There’s no future in the second-rate and wishful thinking.”

They went on talking about the difficulties of bringing any show to the London stage, how expensive it was, and how things had changed since the provincial theatre had begun to come to life again in the last few years. Sarah ate her food in silence, longing to be gone. She looked at her watch a dozen times, but when neither of the other two paid any attention to the time, she stood up.