“Yes!”
“Not the Sir Godfrey! The actor?”
And the last thing she needed was for the cast to gather around him and insist he stay and see the show. She led him quickly into the dressing room, shut the door, and set a chair against it.
“Let me take your hat and coat,” she said, hanging them on the screen. “Sit down. What are you doing here?”
“I came to find you,” he said, “a task that has proved somewhat daunting. Your previous employers at Townsend Brothers were under the impression you’d left London, and no one in the troupe has had any news of you for weeks. And to make it yet more difficult, you are performing under a stage name which is, alas, not Viola nor Lady Mary. Luckily, your photograph is displayed outside.”
I knew I should have made Mr. Tabbitt take my picture with my bloomers showing instead of my face.
“Miss Laburnum said she’d heard you had become an ARP warden,” Sir Godfrey was saying, “so I went to any number of ARP posts and St. John’s units and incidents—”
Incidents?
“Oh, you shouldn’t have,” Polly said, looking at him in dismay. Even her disappearing had put him in danger.
“But I had need of you, and it was a chance to play the Great Detective again—a role I had not acted in years. My search led me to the Works Board and a Mrs.
Sentry, who, alas, had been killed by an oil bomb the week before I arrived, and your file there did not indicate the theater to which you were assigned. But as I said, I was able to track you here through your photograph and to confirm that it was you during the performance last night. An impressive theatrical endeavor.”
“I know it’s not Shakespeare.”
“But it’s not Barrie either, which is a point in its favor, and some parts were very amusing. I quite liked your air-raid alerts, and apparently I was not alone. I’d hoped to catch you afterward at the stage door, but there was such a throng I realized I could not possibly compete, and decided to wait and take a more direct approach.”
He smiled at her, and she realized how much she’d missed him, how much she’d longed to tell him about ENSA and the shows.
But she couldn’t. She shouldn’t even be sitting here chatting with him. “Did you have a reason for coming, Sir Godfrey?” she asked briskly. “I’m afraid I haven’t much time, I need to change—”
“Of course. I shall come directly to the point. I am here to ask your assistance with a theatrical endeavor Mrs. Wyvern and I are currently putting together.”
“Mrs. Wyvern?”
“Yes. You may remember her determination to rebuild St. George’s and to aid the children of the East End who’ve lost their parents in the Blitz, or as she refers to them, ‘our poor, sad, helpless war orphans.’ To that end, she has determined on a benefit to aid both her ends. A theatrical production—”
“Oh, dear,” Polly said. “Not Peter Pan, I hope?”
“Worse. A pantomime.”
She couldn’t help smiling. “But aren’t pantomimes usually acted at Christmastime?”
“They are—a point I made several times in attempting to dissuade her, but Mrs. Wyvern is an extremely formidable woman. An amalgam of Lady Macbeth and—”
“Julius Caesar?”
“A German panzer,” he said grimly. “She is impossible to stand against. It’s a pity she’s not in command of the Army. We’d have defeated Hitler already. In any case, I find myself forced to play the Bad Fairy in Sleeping Beauty. Which is why I’ve come. I wish to enlist you in our enterprise. The others of our little band have already agreed to participate. The rector and Mrs. Brightford are to be Sleeping Beauty’s parents, Miss Laburnum the Good Fairy, and Nelson the Good Fairy’s dog. I want you for the lead.”
“Sleeping Beauty?”
“Great God, no! All she does is lie there for three acts, waiting to be rescued. A bolster could play the role. Or a film actress. Mrs. Wyvern is attempting to recruit one as we speak.”
“A bolster?”
He smiled. “No. A film actress. Madeleine Carroll, perhaps, or Vivien Leigh. I want you to be the principal boy.”
“Principal boy?”
He nodded. “Sleeping Beauty’s prince. The male lead in pantomime is always played by a girl, and the prince is quite the best role in the play—except for mine, which is rife with Teutonic shouting and violet smoke. You will get to wave a sword about and wear a plumed hat and substantially more clothes than you do as Air-which is rife with Teutonic shouting and violet smoke. You will get to wave a sword about and wear a plumed hat and substantially more clothes than you do as Air-Raid Adelaide. Come, say you’ll do it.”
“But surely there are lots of other people you could get, like Lila—”
“She’s joined the WAAF.”
“Oh. Well, Mrs. Brightford, then. Or Vivien Leigh. I’m certain she’d rather play the prince than a bolster.”
“I do not want Vivien Leigh. My heart is set on you. You’re the only thing that can make dealing with Mrs. Wyvern for the next month at all bearable. And you were born to play the part. Viola, dressed as a boy. What could be more perfect?”
