Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

M r Poole watched the photograph being taken: Lady Lassiter looked particularly lovely in a dark green day ensemble, and Nikolai beamed as they stood either side of the Dick Whittington poster. Jack’s smile looked a little forced; then he immediately disappeared into the bowels of the theatre with a long to-do list and a harried expression. Lillian offered to show Nikolai the initial designs for the panto set in her office, Wilbur and the photographer returned to the Gazette , and Poole finished the tally of tickets sold for the previous evening’s performance. A respectable house for the first night of The Two Ladies of Grasmere , but not spectacular.

He sighed, and felt an answering draught of wintry air as the door to the lobby was opened and closed. He looked up to see a young woman in a long tweed coat and gold-rimmed glasses stepping hesitantly into his domain. Two circle seats for 2/6, for her and a girlfriend, he thought.

‘Good morning, miss! And how can I help you today?’

‘My name is Bridget Chisholm,’ the girl said, coming towards him. He revised his thinking. People coming in for tickets seldom gave their names. ‘I’ve come to enquire about the assistant’s job.’

Poole blinked. The last advert had resulted in not one single enquiry to date. He had begun to fear every qualified man or woman in the town had already applied, taken one look at Jack’s office, and fled. ‘Have you indeed?’

He ran an assessing eye over the young woman. Neat. A pleasant, round face with not too much powder or paint. Good clothes, modest but tasteful, and her red gloves were a nice touch. Showed a bit of personality. She opened her handbag. ‘I have references from my previous employer in Leeds, naturally. Should I leave those with you, Mr . . .?’

‘Poole, dear. I’m Mr Poole.’

‘I assume I need to make an appointment for an interview with Mr Treadwell. I meant to write, but as I was passing the theatre, I thought I’d enquire first to see if the situation is still available.’

Miss Chisholm spoke with confidence and in an educated voice. Poole’s hopes began to rise. He attempted to quash them – they had been dashed too often before.

‘You might assume that. If you aren’t in a rush, Miss Chisholm, perhaps you might have a cup of tea with me while I peruse your credentials.’ He smiled. ‘Marcus. Tea!’

Poole invited the young lady to take a seat on one of the polished benches in the lobby while he read the papers she handed him. The credentials looked promising: shorthand, typing, bookkeeping! Yes, this looked very promising indeed. So did Miss Chisholm herself. She didn’t chatter or fidget as he shuffled the pages and read the very warm letter of recommendation, just looked around the lobby with a pleasant smile on her face. She thanked Marcus for the tea in a civil manner, and didn’t slurp or smack her lips over it either.

‘And what brings you to Highbridge, Miss Chisholm?’

‘My former employer retired, and I fancied a change from Leeds. I heard Highbridge was a little smaller, but quite lively.’

‘Do you have family here?’ he asked.

‘No, Mr Poole. I’m one of these independent women you hear about.’ A twinkle in her eyes, too! ‘My mother lives in Leeds, and we’re fond of each other, but get along even better when we’re not under each other’s feet.’

Mr Poole had read about these modern women, and thought, as the father of daughters, that they sounded like a jolly good thing.

‘You’ll understand, Miss Chisholm,’ he said after finishing the letter, ‘that a theatre is an unusual workplace.’

‘Naturally, Mr Poole,’ Miss Chisholm said, setting down her teacup neatly on the little tray on which Marcus had delivered it. ‘And some unusual characters, too, I should imagine. That must be very interesting. It sounds rather fun. Hard work, obviously,’ she added, ‘but I do enjoy a challenge, and there must be fresh ones every day in a theatre.’

Mr Poole’s hopes suddenly shot so high, he could barely breathe.

‘When might you be able to start?’

She looked a little surprised. ‘Well, at once, Mr Poole. I have an interview with Lassiter Enterprises this afternoon, and another at Bertram’s tomorrow.’

Lassiter Enterprises should not have her, Mr Poole decided. No, nor Bertram’s, neither. Be still, my beating heart! he told himself. He must show her the task that lay before her; then, if she did not quail, he would bloody well hire her himself.

‘Perhaps I should give you the tour and show you the offices, Miss Chisholm, as you’re here.’

He fetched the keys from under the counter, then paused, remembering what the offices had looked like the last time he had put his head round the door. Mrs Briggs had stopped even trying to clean in there in mid-1925. It might be best to prepare Miss Chisholm a little. ‘You aren’t of a nervous disposition, are you?’

She stood up. ‘I’m not. Is there a ghost or some such?’

‘Oh, the theatre ghost is a dear stick,’ Mr Poole replied brightly, ‘and we were delighted that he decided to continue haunting the new theatre. His appearance is always a sure sign of a hit show.’

He led Miss Chisholm through the lobby doors into the auditorium, slowing his pace so the young lady could admire the luxurious fixtures and fittings. She looked up at the chandelier and mosaic of the Muses and smiled, then wrinkled her nose.

‘What’s that smell?’

Mr Poole picked up his pace. ‘We haven’t seen much of our ghost in the last year, I’m afraid. Not that the shows have been bad, but they’ve lacked a little fizz. And everyone is a little nervous about opening their purses at the moment.’

‘But if the ghost is not a problem, why did you ask if I am of a nervous disposition, Mr Poole?

He decided to be honest. ‘I only wanted to prepare you a little for the office itself. It’s been sadly neglected since young Darien abandoned his career in theatre management. Well, it was sadly neglected before then, too.’

He opened the door from the stalls into the west stalls promenade, then escorted her up the narrow marble staircase which led to the manager’s office suite, and the entrance to the royal box and retiring room.

‘I’m not afraid of hard work, Mr Poole,’ Miss Chisholm said firmly.

Mr Poole whispered a silent prayer that she would not go running off in a panic, turned the key in the lock of the outer office, and shoved it open with his shoulder.

Miss Chisholm followed him in, and for a second or two they contemplated the scene together.

It was worse than Mr Poole remembered. It looked as if a bomb had gone off in a very well-stocked library. Papers, envelopes, scripts, printers’ proofs and correspondence of every sort was scattered over the furniture and silted in piles on the floors. The filing cabinet drawers were extended and overstuffed with unopened packages, and in one case what looked like a part-drunk bottle of whisky.

‘Mr Poole,’ Miss Chisholm said, in an admirably steady voice, ‘I’m not going to find the body of Mr Treadwell’s last assistant buried in here somewhere, am I?’

Mr Poole could understand why that might be a concern.

‘No, we had a postcard from Darien a month ago. He’s in Switzerland. He’s taken up alpinism.’

Miss Chisholm frowned. ‘You found a postcard in all this?’

‘He addressed it to the front office.’ She hadn’t yet fled. Mr Poole thought this encouraging. ‘Will you take the job?’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘I don’t need to meet Mr Treadwell, or the owners of the theatre first?’

Mr Poole thought of the offers she might receive from Lassiter Enterprises or Bertram’s if he were to let her slip away at this point.

‘You’ve seen the office and neither fainted nor burst into tears. Your letters of recommendation are fulsome. I am . . .’ He trembled at his own bravery. ‘I am confident that Mr Treadwell would wish me to hire you immediately.’

‘You’re very kind. Where is he?’

‘Most likely backstage trying to outfox a rat.’

Miss Chisholm inhaled sharply, then shook her head. ‘Suppose I make a start at once?’

Mr Poole’s heart fluttered in his chest and he pressed his hands together. ‘That would be wondrous. Would you like another cup of tea, Miss Chisholm?’

She set her handbag on the floor and removed her gloves.

‘Yes, I think I should.’

Mr Poole heaved a sigh of relief and backed out of the room. ‘Take that, Lassiter Enterprises,’ he whispered, and went to make the tea himself.

Some hours later, Jack pushed the door open, stared for a second, then closed it again to check the name on the door. Yes, it was definitely his office. Well, this room was, strictly speaking, the domain of the manager’s assistant, where Darien had refused to ply his trade. Jack’s own office led off the back of it, but he hadn’t managed to get that far in a month.

Darien’s increasingly erratic filing methods had turned the whole room into a churned-up mess of uneven surfaces which had reminded Jack uncomfortably of no-man’s-land. It did not look like that anymore.

He could see the carpet, for a start. And the assistant’s desk was clean and empty – just the typewriter in its cover, and the telephone. There was still a lot of paper about, but much of it seemed to have been corralled into neat piles along a previously unnoticed bench under the window. It was as if Cinderella’s helpers had been through with a bucket of fairy dust and a strong work ethic.

The door to his private office opened, and a young woman with round glasses emerged and smiled at him.

‘Mr Treadwell, I presume? I’m Bridget Chisholm. Mr Poole hired me as your assistant this morning. I hope that’s acceptable.’

Jack was still somewhat dazed by the sight of the carpet.

‘Absolutely marvellous. Good Lord, you must have been working like a Trojan to get all this squared away so quickly. I’m delighted to meet you.’

He put out his hand and she stared at it. That made him look, too, and remember – for the first time since the sight of the carpet had so flummoxed him – that he was somewhat encumbered by a dangling melange of string and wood.

‘What is that, Mr Treadwell?’

‘Oh, it’s my rat trap. A top-of-the-line model! But Harry, the scoundrel, just ate through a couple of wires at the back and the whole thing collapsed. Then he snaffled a nice bit of Stilton I’d laid in there as bait. Just yanked it out of the wreckage and swanned off without a care in the world.’

Miss Chisholm was frowning in concentration. ‘Am I right in concluding, Mr Treadwell, that Harry is a rat?’

‘That is correct,’ Jack replied, looking around for somewhere to drop the remnants, but a little afraid he might antagonise her by doing so. ‘A theatre rat.’

‘If the rat has developed engineering skills, Mr Treadwell,’ she said, a hint of amusement in her voice, ‘perhaps you should be careful to avoid antagonising him.’

‘To live in fear,’ he declared stoutly, ‘is not to live at all.’

Miss Chisholm shook her head. ‘May I ask where you bought the trap?’

‘Bertram’s,’ Jack replied mournfully. ‘Haven’t even paid for it yet. On account.’

Miss Chisholm nodded, then picked up her coat from the rack in the corner of the room and put it on. Jack felt a brief surge of panic. ‘Are you leaving? I don’t suppose the rat will bother you, unless you bring a lot of cold cream into the office.’

She hung her handbag over her arm, slipped on her gloves, then put out her hands.

‘No, Mr Treadwell, I’m going to return the trap to Bertram’s before they close and see The Empire’s account isn’t charged.’

‘You will come back, won’t you?’

‘I will, Mr Treadwell, if my terms are acceptable.’

‘What are they?’ Jack said, knowing he’d fight tigers to keep her.

‘Two pounds ten shillings a week.’

‘Yes! Agreed.’

Miss Chisholm took the collapsed remnants of the trap carefully into her arms. ‘Perhaps if you have some time in the morning you might explain a few things to me, Mr Treadwell. I’m afraid I couldn’t make complete sense of the office diary.’

‘Yes! Delighted to. We shall have buns at eleven, to celebrate your arrival.’

She smiled again at the mention of buns, and Jack’s heart sang like a blackbird’s on the first day of spring.

He bowed to her as she left, then popped into his private room, which lay to the rear of the larger office.

It turned out there was a carpet in there, too. With five minutes available to him and a sandwich to sustain his animal functions, Jack dashed off a letter to the Highbridge Gazette , under an assumed name, wondering if the arch-rivalry between the leads of The Two Ladies of Grasmere would be apparent in their performances this week, and if the citizens of the town would be able to resist being drawn into the feud on one side or other.