Night at the Vulcan by Ngaio Marsh Page B

she learnt more about Mr. Jacques Doré. He was responsible for the décor and dressing of all Poole’s productions. His official status was that of assistant to Mr. Poole, but in actual fact he seemed to be a kind of superior odd-job man.
    “General dogsbody,” Cringle gossiped, “that’s what Mr. Jacko is. ‘Poole’s Luck,’ people call him, and if the Guv’nor was superstitious about anything, which ’e is
not
, it would be about Mr. Jacko. The lady’s the same. Can’t do without ’im. As a matter of fact it’s on ’er account ’e sticks it out. You might say ’e’s ’er property, a kind of pet, if you like to put it that way. Joined up with ’er and ’is nibs when they was in Canada and the Guv’nor still doing the child-wonder at ’is posh college. ’E’s a Canadian-Frenchy, Mr. Jacko is. Twenty years ago that must ’ave been, only don’t say I said so. It’s what they call dog-like devotion, and that’s no error. To ’er,
not
to ’is nibs.”
    “Do you mean Mr. Bennington?” Martyn ventured.
    “Clark Bennington, the distinguished character actor, that’s right,” said Cringle dryly. Evidently he was not inclined to elaborate this theme. He entertained Martyn, instead, with a lively account of the eccentricities of Dr. John Rutherford. “My oaff,” he said, “what a daisy! Did you ’ear ’im chi-iking from the front this morning? Typical! We done three of ’is pieces up to date and never a dull moment. Rows and ructions, ructions and rows from the word go. The Guv’nor puts up with it on account he likes the pieces and what a time ’e ’as with ’im, oh dear! It’s something shocking the way Doctor cuts up. Dynamite! This time it’s the little lady and ’is nibs and Mr. Parry Profile Percival ’e’s got it in for. Can’t do nothing to please ’im. You should ’ear ’im at rehearsals. ‘You’re bastardizing my play,’ ’e ’owls. ‘Get the ’ell aht of it,’ ’e shrieks. You never see such an exhibition. Shocking! Then the Guv’nor shuts ’im up and ’e ’as an attack of the willies or what-have-you and keeps aht of the theaytre for a couple of days. Never longer, though, which is very unfortunate for all concerned.”
    Martyn tried to find out from Cringle what the play was about. He was not very illuminating. “It’s ’igh-brow,” he said. “Intellectually, it’s clarse. ‘A Modern Morality’ he calls it, the Doctor does. It’s all about whether you’re brought up right makes any difference to what your old pot ’ands on to you. ‘ ’Eredity versus enviroment’ they call it. The Guv’nor’s enviroment, and all the rest of ’em’s ’eredity. And like it always is in clarse plays, the answer’s a lemon. Well, I must go on me way rejoicing.”
    To Martyn, held as she was in a sort of emotional suspension, the lives and events enclosed within the stage walls and curtain of the Vulcan Theatre assumed a greater reality than her own immediate problem. Her existence since five o’clock the previous afternoon, when she had walked into the theatre, had much of the character and substance of a dream with all the shifting values, the passages of confusion and extreme clarity, which make up the texture of a dream. She was in a state of semi-trauma and found it vaguely agreeable. Her jobs would keep her busy all the afternoon and tonight there was the first dress rehearsal.
    She could, she thought, tread water indefinitely, half in and half out of her dream, as long as she didn’t come face to face with Mr. Adam Poole in any more looking-glasses.

Chapter III
FIRST DRESS REHEARSAL
    Martyn’s official jobs were all finished by about three o’clock, but by some curious process of which she herself was scarcely aware she had by that time turned into a sort of odd-job girl, particularly where Jacko was concerned. He was engaged in re-painting a piece of very modern decoration above the main and central entrance of the second act set.
    “It was