Golden Afternoon (39 page)

Now in those days there was an unwritten law in Kashmir concerning couples who took moonlit trips on the lakes, particularly when the lotus lilies were in bloom. It was believed (and frequently proved true) that no young man who took a girl out in a
shikarra
on those enchanted waters when the moon was full could resist proposing marriage to her. Or she accepting. For which reason any engagement entered into under those conditions would not be considered valid unless repeated on the following morning in full daylight, and preferably before witnesses.

Bill, pale green from shock and hangover, admitted that he hadn't the faintest idea what he had said or done from the time the picnic party had landed on the island. The whole thing from then on was a blur. Scrambling hastily into his clothes and without even bothering to shave, he fled from the boat, grabbed the first
tonga
he saw and, urging its driver to get as much speed out of his horse as possible, made for the bund where his girlfriend's parents had moored their houseboat; with the intention, he explained to me, of saying, ‘Look, old girl, I don't remember what I said to you on the way back last night, but whatever it was, for God's sake take it with a tablespoon of salt!' Or words to that effect. He did not, however, get the chance …

Bertha had gone out shopping, and it was her Mama who received him. And instead of the frosty reception he expected from her, she advanced on him with a beaming smile and outstretched arms and, addressing him as her ‘dear boy', embraced him fondly and said how pleased she would be to have such a nice son-in-law. And that, said Bill mournfully, tore it. He couldn't possibly, he insisted, explain to her (as
he could have to Bertha) that he had been tight as a newt on the previous evening and hadn't a clue as to what he had or hadn't said or done during at least a third of the festivities. ‘So I said the only thing I could think of,' confessed Bill. ‘I said I couldn't get married for seven years. Which is true of course; her parents must know that. And she's sure to get tired of me long before that. It's not as if she hasn't got loads of boyfriends.'

I wanted to know what on earth he was going to do if his Bertha turned out to be truly in love with him, and the faithful type who was willing to wait for him for years on end. Was he prepared to marry her when the time was up? Bill merely looked uncomfortable and said it wouldn't ever come to that. It seemed that both she and her parents had agreed that in view of the length of the engagement, it would be better not to publish any notice of it in the newspapers — to avoid having to publish a cancellation at some later date, hazarded Bill, hopefully. I was less sanguine, because of the ring —

We chose one at Hamilton's that morning after long deliberation. The deliberation was over price rather than design. Bill's means, as ever, were strictly limited, and as he had no intention of getting deeper into debt if he could help it, he confided to an elderly assistant at Hamilton's the maximum figure he could run to, and urged that it be kept as far below that as possible. We ended up with a small sapphire between a couple of slightly smaller diamonds. As this offering was to be given to his fiancée by Bill in person when they met again in Kashmir, which would not be until his next leave, and since we too planned to spend the autumn in Kashmir, the ring was handed over to Tacklow for safe-keeping when Bill returned to the Frontier a few days later.

Amateur dramatics and the Gaiety Theatre continued to play as large a part in my adult life in Simla as they had during my childhood, and to live up to their reputation for fun, feuds and drama. They also brought me a valued friend, one Judith Birdwood who would in the future, after becoming Judy Messel, turn professional and, under her maiden name, design any number of shows for the Cambridge Footlights and the Marlowe Society, for whom she was designer and wardrobe mistress for thirty-eight years. Her father, later Lord Birdwood, was at that time General Sir William Birdwood, Commander-in-Chief, India. Judy had been charmed by the set and costumes for
Vanity
and had come round the back when the curtain came down after the first night to congratulate
me. We sat together in the green-room talking for hours until old de la Rue Brown threw us out. Later on the two of us managed to get involved in other productions, notably an Edwardian musical comedy,
Miss Hook of Holland, A Persian Garden, The Constant Nymph
and
Faust
.

I was to have played the soubrette in
Miss Hook
and sung one of the hit songs in that show — ‘A Little Pink Petti from Peter'. But alas, after rehearsing for weeks my eyes went bad on me, and the eye specialist at the Walker Hospital ordered a week in bed in a blacked-out room — no reading or writing. And, thereafter, spectacles of all dreary things. It was a blow, and when the show was performed I had to watch (through dark glasses and from the back of the stage box) my understudy bringing the house down with endless encores of ‘Pink Petti from Peter'. But although I was out of the show, I had, in partnership with Judy, designed the costumes and sets, and contributed a personal touch that turned one number, the modern one, into a spectacular success.

All ‘dated' musical comedies put on by the Simla Amateur Dramatic Club invariably included one ‘modern' song, slotted in among the original earlier ones. The one we used for Miss Hook of Holland was ‘Tip-Toe through the Tulips'—which in those days was new. Someone had worked out a dance that was meant to turn it into a spectacular number for the entire chorus, but it fell sadly flat until I had a sudden brainwave, which, I am delighted to say, worked a treat. We had a whole lot of paper tulips made in the bazaar, and attached each one to a dart, borrowed from the Darts Club. The dancers carried baskets full of these, and sowed them in lines all over the stage by the simple expedient of dropping each dart with a firm flick of the wrist that drove the point into the wooden floorboards of the stage, and made it possible for the chorus boys and girls to tiptoe through these rows of tulips. Practice made the chorus perfect, and as a final encore, they picked the tulips and stashed them back into their baskets — thus clearing the stage for the next bit of hi-di-ho.

I was exceedingly proud of that simple but most effective bit of stagecraft, and also of a few more that I dreamed up for a production of
Faust
.

I can't remember which year
Faust
came into. Probably 1930, when Judy invited me to spend six weeks at Snowdon, the C-in-C's house in Simla, to help her and her musical brother, Chris Birdwood, put on a production of Gounod's
Faust
at Davico's ballroom. Though it could
have been in 1931 when I was staying with friends of Mother's, Mr and Mrs Bevan-Petman — parents of the artist Hal Bevan-Petman, who was to become, and remain, a dear and much admired friend of my family's until the end of his days. The dates of those two separate visits remain vague to my mind, though I remember that after leaving the Bevan-Petmans I spent a few days with the family of Cyril Drummond, Headmaster of the Stapleton Cotton School, and that while I was there his wife won the silver medal for the best watercolour in the Simla Fine Arts Society's annual show, with a painting called
Mist-swept Kuds
.
^*
Why do some things stick while others escape one? I remember that while I was there I shared a bedroom with a friendly and charming young daughter of the house named Chloë.

My stay at Snowdon was memorable for several reasons, one of them being that a touring theatrical company, the first I had ever come across in India, arrived in Simla and played for at least two weeks at the Gaiety Theatre. Their repertoire included a musical comedy and that grim and great play,
Journey's End
. The company called themselves the Quaints — a name guaranteed, I would have said, to put off the most enthusiastic theatre-goer. But they turned out to be far from quaint, and Judy and I were bowled over by them. One of them, a young man who sang and danced in the musical offering and took the part of the hero-worshipping young officer who gets killed at the end of the last act of
Journey's End
, was to make a great name for himself on both stage and screen: he was the future Sir John Mills. I can't claim to have recognized his performance as particularly outstanding, because we thought they were all outstanding, and Judy and I, reeling under the impact of such excellence and professionalism, were horrified by the fact that contrary to the time-honoured practice of all the amateur dramatic shows, no floral tributes were handed up to the actresses at the final curtain. This injustice would have to be put right.

We hurried back to Snowdon seething with indignation and, first thing next morning, sent for the head
mali
and gave detailed instructions as to baskets that were to be bought in the bazaar, and filled with the best flowers that the garden and the glasshouses could produce. These must be ready in time to be handed in at the stage door of the Gaiety Theatre at such and such an hour that evening, and a
chupprassi
was detailed to
take them in one of the Snowdon rickshaws. Our combined pocket-money did not run to the boxes of chocolates which often accompanied the leading lady's flowers but we could manage the baskets and the ribbon, and the
mali
and assistants surpassed themselves. The floral tributes were a great success.

The only other thing that I remember with great clearness about the Quaints' visits to Simla was that on one of the nights, returning from the theatre through a blanket of thick monsoon mist and drizzle down the winding, tree-lined drive that led to the side entrance of Snowdon, the two leading
jampanis
of the four who pulled my rickshaw suddenly stopped dead, and, dropping the shaft, retreated to join those at the back, leaving me looking out into a misty darkness illuminated only by the blurred yellow lights of a pair of rickshaw lamps.

In rainy weather the rickshaws were enclosed in waterproof hoods and coverings that left the occupant dry, but gave him or her only a narrow slice of rain-spattered glass to see through. The
jampanis
too were protected from the wet by long capes and hoods of mackintosh, and all rickshaws were fitted with a pair of oil-lamps that were lit after dark. Judy's rickshaw was ahead of mine and I could see, past my own lamps, two faint jogging blobs of yellow that were her rickshaw lamps vanish into the dripping misty darkness. I couldn't think why my own had stopped so abruptly until a movement just beyond the small circle of light caught my attention. Something that showed pale against the blackness of the dense forest of rhododendron, oak and deodar lining the edge of the steep bank on my right. Something yellow and spotted, and with two brilliant points of green light that, as they moved, caught and reflected the light of the rickshaw lamps …

It was a leopard, returning from foraging on the hillside above, which had been checked by the passing of Judy's rickshaw, and would probably have waited to let my own go by if the
jampanis
hadn't happened to spot it and dropped the shaft to take refuge behind me. That sudden stop had obviously alarmed the leopard more than the sight of it had alarmed the
jampanis
, for it hesitated for a full minute, its tail twitching angrily, obviously wondering whether to turn and go up the hillside. Then, abruptly making up its mind, it sprang down on to the road immediately in front of me, paused for a brief moment to turn its head and stare straight at me, unblinkingly, with those brilliant green eyes, before vanishing silently into the misty darkness below the far side of the drive.

My valiant
jampanis
gave it a moment or two to get clear before emerging discreetly — looking extremely sheepish — and we set off after Judy, who wanted to know what had held us up. I said that we had prudently waited to give right of way to a leopard, and Judy merely remarked that the woods were full of them. She was right, of course. In those days India was full of leopards and during my years there I saw a good many of them. But that one is forever bracketed in my memory with Simla, the Gaiety Theatre, and a touring theatrical company called the Quaints.

Chris Birdwood's production of
Faust
was, as far as I remember, in the following summer. This, then, would have been the year in which Judy asked me to stay with her, so that we could work on the scenery and costumes, and I eventually stayed on in Simla with several other friends in order to do the same for two or three other amateur dramatic shows.

Judy and I were given a free hand with the dresses and sets, and everything else was up to Chris, who was at that time masquerading as an ADC to his father, the Commander-in-Chief. He did not appear to be doing a stroke of work in that line, and seemed to spend his days lying on a sofa in the drawing-room at Snowdon, reading sheet music. I suspect his appointment (which was pure nepotism) was due to prolonged nagging on the part of his doting mother, dear Lady Birdwood, and that Sir William must have given in after a hard struggle. But at least when it came to pulling strings, Chris was in an excellent position.

He managed to borrow the Viceroy's band, complete with bandmaster, to act as orchestra, and had no difficulty in rounding up all the best singers available. And a very talented lot they turned out to be. I wish I had had the sense to keep a programme, but I didn't so I don't remember the name of anyone who took part, except for the one who took the part of Marguerite, a Lady Crosthwaite, of whom more later. Nor do I remember why the opera was staged in Davico's ballroom and not in the Gaiety Theatre; probably because the Gaiety was fully booked for the season by the time Chris decided that he would like to have a stab at
Faust
. In fact, Davico's made an excellent and much more commodious theatre, for it boasted a large gallery at one end that doubled as a dress circle, and the stage at the other end was quite as large as, if not larger than the Gaiety's.