I Know a Secret/Chapter 7

by Christopher Darlington Morley

Jack Beanstalk and the Pea Princess

IN THE world of toys, just as in real theatres, an actor's life is very uncertain. There are long intervals of unemployment, when the Junior. Theatre (made out of an old packing-case) stands idle in the workroom. The little marionettes lie in a box in the corner and grumble because they have nothing to do. Summer time, always difficult for actors, is specially hard for the Junior marionettes. The workroom in the garage gets very hot, and their faces, modelled out of paraffin, sometimes melt out of shape. Once, on a very sultry day, before a matinée, Cinderella had to be put in the ice-box to keep her in good condition for the performance. The other puppets, who had no such luck, were very jealous. Cinderella's older sisters kept complaining throughout the show that she smelt disgustingly of cheese. The Prince, who had been left out in the sun after rehearsals, had very bad luck. He was a handsome fellow, with bright blue painted eyes. But his nose drooped, his cheeks sagged, his chin slipped. The blue from one eye trickled down almost to his neck. It changed his whole career. When the theatre reopened in the autumn he could never again play parts as a Leading Juvenile. They tried to lift his face but it had fallen too far. He was given skirts and had to be a Wicked Fairy. This was great bitterness to him, and accounted for his success in this new character. The tragedy of his private life gave a fine savagery to his acting.

The marionettes, whose bodies and limbs are cut out of cardboard and cunningly jointed together with loops of string, get very bored in their periods of idleness. They lie all hunched up, just as they have been tumbled into the box, and have pins-and-needles feelings in their legs. But they do not lose heart, for they never know when a spell of business will come. Theatre managers are always temperamental. Suddenly, perhaps on a rainy day, the theatre will be hoisted up onto the workbench for overhauling. The marionettes hear the thrilling click of the little rings on the wire as the curtains are pulled to and fro. Paints and cardboard are got out, there is the excellent smell of turpentine and linseed oil. New scenery is planned.

Is there anything more fun than painting scenery? I doubt it. A back-drop of a dark pine forest, with sunset colours burning between the tree-trunks, is a great favourite. Or a castle, with pointed turrets, outlined black on a mountain top against blue evening sky. These things don't even have to be very skilfully painted: when the theatre is set up in the dining room, and the little bed-lamp that serves as footlights is well adjusted, even crude scenery looks quite marvellous.

And the Junior. Theatre is blessed with a Perfect Audience, an Audience that takes art seriously. The stage is set between the sliding doors of the dining room. A steamer rug hung above it conceals the manager and his assistant. It is a typical matinée because the audience is almost entirely feminine. Louise, Helen, Blythe, Bonnie June, Marie, Jean, and Cissie—seven ladies. Johnny Snyder is the only gentleman. Christopher and Buzzy, of course, are behind the scenes. The audience sits on cushions on the floor. The small phonograph plays a nursery rhyme record as overture. The light clicks on, the curtains open. The play perhaps is The Three Bears. There is the favourite back-scene, the gloomy forest brightened with slices of sunset. Goldilocks, descending gracefully at the end of her string, teeters gaily toward the little cottage. Even Bonnie June, who is thirteen and getting so long-legged that she takes up a lot of room on the floor, is not yet too old to be thrilled.

So you can imagine what fun it is to be a marionette actor. To enjoy the attentive silence of the Perfect Audience, to feel the strong supporting threads that hold you up and guide your gestures, to hear the voice above you that says your lines, to know that through all the play everything has been planned for you beforehand and you need not worry. Your hands, your feet, your head, all have that comfortable sense of the string holding them up, telling them what to do. It is a fine feeling. No wonder the marionettes, in their gossip about their art, give greatest credit of all to the String.

 

The chief topic of conversation among the marionettes, while the theatre lay idle that summer, was the love of Jack Beanstalk and the Pea Princess. That Jack should admire the Princess was natural enough: she was a beautiful creature. You remember her story. An old King and Queen sit in their castle late one stormy night and hear a knocking at the gate. All the servants have gone to bed, so the King goes downstairs himself and opens the big oak door. There, draggled in wind and rain and mud, is a lovely young lady, begging for shelter. The old King brings her in, and they dry her off by the fire and give her hot-milk toast. In the conversation she explains that she is really a Princess of high degree.

Naturally the old King and Queen are doubtful. What would a Princess be doing wandering about like that at night? So when the Queen goes to fix the guest-room bed she slips a dried pea under the mattress. In the morning they ask their visitor how she rested. Oh, wretchedly, wretchedly, she says; I could hardly sleep at all. She explains that: there was something hard in the bed that bruised her black and blue. Then they know she was a real Princess: only a royal person could have a skin so tender.

So that was the Pea Princess. But Jack came from quite a different story. He was just a plain country boy, though brave and steady. He was the boy who climbed the bean-stalk and outwitted the giant. He was not handsome. He tried to pretend it was the warm weather that had lengthened his paraffin face into such a soft and melancholy expression. But it was not the warm weather, it was love.

Jack was too shy to tell the Pea Princess how he felt about her. Besides, he knew very well that they belonged in two entirely different stories, and there is nothing so difficult as getting out of your own story and into someone else's. But it would be silly to suppose that Sweet Pea (as he called her) was not aware of his condition. Even if she had not guessed it, some of the other puppets would have told her. As they all lay there, jumbled together in the box, she could feel his admiring eye always fixed upon her. This was not unpleasant, for young women enjoy being admired. But the truth is, she was so very uncomfortable that she was thinking chiefly of her own troubles. A person so sensitive that even a pea under the mattress kept her awake, naturally suffered terribly in such crowded quarters.

Then one fine day some leading spirit among the marionettes suggested a new idea, that they should put on a play of their own. It had never occurred to them before that they might do this, but after all, why not? Quite a buzz of talk rose from the box as they argued about it. Some refused to believe that it could be done without the Manager to handle the strings. But they decided to try. Stiff from lying idle so long they clambered out of the box and stretched themselves.

The great difficulty was to get their strings untangled. Shuffling round in the box, the delicate threads had got all snarled together. This is quite likely to happen to marionettes unless they are put away very carefully. If the tangle is badly complicated they can never unravel it themselves. They have to wait for the Manager. There was a quarrelsome time while they all pulled and tweaked and twisted. They all had different ideas about what to do with their strings when they disentangled them. Some wound them neatly around themselves, under their costumes, so they would not be in the way. Others carried them proudly, coiled at their waists, like cowboys with lassoes. Much excited they walked to and fro on the stage of the theatre, happy to see it again. The scene happened to be set for the first act of The Sleeping Beauty, so they agreed to give that play.

In the long time since the theatre had been used, some of the actors had been lost. Sleeping Beauty was nowhere to be found. The only person suitable to play that part was Sweet Pea. But then, as they sorted themselves out and began to get things in order, came a painful problem. The strings of Sweet Pea and Jack Beanstalk had got so knotted together that they could not be separated. Neither one could go anywhere without the other trailing after. It was very embarrassing. Cinderella's older sisters burst into jeering laughter, and several other puppets whispered unkindly among themselves.

The poor Princess was terribly unhappy. Here was her great chance to play a leading rile, apparently spoiled by this entanglement. She sat miserably on the edge of the stage while some of the older marionettes tried in vain to pick out the knots with their cardboard fists. Jack, very ashamed, stood as far away as the tether of string would allow, and looked grim. In his heart he was very angry at the careless Manager who had allowed this humiliating thing to happen.

Then Sweet Pea, seeing how wretched he was, did a charming thing. She forgot her own disappointment. With tears still on her pretty little paraffin face she said bravely: "Never mind! Let someone else play Sleeping Beauty, Jack and I will watch. If I had to be tangled up with anyone, I'm glad it's him."

This was too much for Jack. There came to his aid the courage he had once shown in climbing the tall swaying bean-stalk. He seized a pair of scissors and with a quick snip he cut off his own strings. This was the most daring thing that any marionette can do. For all he knew, he might have fallen dead on the spot. The others gazed in horrified amazement. But, except for one sharp twinge of pain, he seemed all right.

Sweet Pea jumped up, radiant. She bundled together the trailing ends of string and hid them under her cape where they did not show. Now all was clear, and they went on with the play.

Jack was not in this performance: his costume as the simple bean-climber was not fine enough for the part of the young Prince who comes to wake Beauty from her trance. So he stood off at one side, behind the wings of cardboard scenery, watching. He was quite content not to be on the stage as long as he could watch Sweet Pea. Also he felt different from ever before. The other puppets had all looked at him strangely when he cut off his strings. It was as though they expected some mysterious doom to come upon him. Naturally this made him self-conscious. But inwardly he felt a happy certainty. He was trembling with a new lightness and freedom.

Sweet Pea surpassed herself in this play. How beautiful she was! Some of the marionettes, unaccustomed to acting without any Manager to control them, were awkward and clumsy; they tripped over their strings, forgot their lines, caught their feet in the slits cut for the scenery. But Sweet Pea was perfect. There seemed unexpected grace and meaning in her proud easy ways. In the scene where she goes exploring in the old forbidden attic, and finds the spinning wheel, and pricks her finger, she was thrilling. Her acting was wonderful when she pretended to feel the magic swoon coming upon her. While the Wicked Fairy cackled in triumph Sweet Pea tottered to the window and looked wildly out.

"Will no one save me?" she cried. "In all the sweetness of my youth, must I yield to this cruel spell? Wicked Fairy, you laugh too soon. I shall be saved!" And then she sank motionless on the couch.

Jack, watching from offstage, was deeply moved by this scene. He had watched her pale face, and it seemed there was more than just acting in her look. Also, he suddenly thought, if she had to sleep a hundred years it would surely be fatal. She, so gently bred that only one pea under a mattress could bruise her, how could she survive a whole century on that rickety old couch?

The other actors were already crowding into the wings for the end of the scene—the King and Queen, the fairies and maids of honour. But Jack strode through them, shoving aside the gailydressed puppet who was to be the rescuing Prince of the last act. He felt a strange sureness he had never known when there were strings to guide him. Almost afraid that she had really gone into a hundred-year trance, he leaned over the Princess and touched her gently. She opened her eyes. To the horror of all the other marionettes, whose sense of artistic propriety was outraged, she sat up and held out her arms. They rang the curtain down at once, but it was too late. Already she was in his embrace.

They got out through the back of the theatre while the indignant puppets were still gaping. "Be careful of your strings," he said. "They're coming down."

"As if I cared!" she whispered to him. "Here, I'll show you." She seized the scissors.

Two little tangles of threads, all knotted together, lying by the stage door, were all they ever found of Jack and the Pea Princess. All sorts of rumours went round among the marionettes, and the old King and Queen, who had found her that wet night outside the castle gate, said they had always suspected she would come to no good. But it's my belief that you'll still find them, somewhere in the vegetable garden, keeping house very happily at the top of the tallest bean-pole.

"I never was much of an actor myself," Jack says, "but you should have seen my wife when she was on the stage. She might have had a great career . . ."