The Square Peg or The Gun Fella полностью

They looked at him with wan smiles. The two trumpets blew their blast. He slipped through the stage door to the side of the auditorium, and took his seat. He knew that a great many eyes were turned upon him. He heard a girl say:

“That’s Mr. Mansell, just sitting down now.”

The people in the house settled and became tenser; he had given the strictest orders that no member of the audience was to enter the theatre after the second trumpet. There was now no hurried shuffling to seats; all were seated. The house lights went out; the front stage lights flashed on. The three silver trumpeters appeared, one centre, the others in the wings. Lifting their trumpets, they blew the third blowing, with the air of three Rolands scattering paganism for ever. When they disappeared, the orchestra broke out into the prelude.

The history of the Mullples May Festival has been written by another hand. It has been famous, and has made many people famous, dancers, designers, musicians and poets. It was, while it lasted, the most interesting ballet festival in the world; it ran for one fortnight in each year, for seven years.

What it cost Frampton Mansell can never be known; perhaps in all about fifty thousand pounds, for he imported his musicians, dancers and stage hands and had to house and feed them. But that is all history. At the first performance there were present all Little London’s most elegant four hundred, including all London’s critics. Twenty-three Bright Young Things, including Pob and Pinkie, were turned away by the police for attempted gate-crashing. More than seven hundred persons came out from Stubbington and Tatchester to see the cars enter the car-park. The weather was a deep anti-cyclone centred over Oxford.

It was noticed that when Sorya took her call at the end of the Red Waterlilies, she bore between her lips the red carnation with which she had danced the last scene. She has been known since as the Lady with the Red Carnation. Tenor Cobb’s painting of her with the red carnation between her lips (his masterpiece) is now in the Tate Gallery, and a replica of it hangs in the beautiful town of Melbourne.

She married Frampton Mansell in the June of the first year of the festival.

Frampton Mansell still makes guns and weapons of destruction; but his main interest now is the Red Carnation Theatre of Ballet, in Russell Square. He built and equipped this theatre; he has already made it the most delightful place in London.

Mullples is now a part of St. Margarets, which has become not only the most beautiful garden city in the world, but a part of the Margaret Holtspur National Park. The wood of Spirr (now usually called Holtspur) runs back into Stubbington Great Wood now, and forward almost as far as Coombe. It is well known now to naturalists and nature-lovers; there are beavers in the valley; hoopoes and bitterns nest there; the golden oriole has been introduced and a pair of —— have nested twice and this year raised a brood. Timothy asks me not to say what these birds are.

Frampton and his wife and children frequently go there. The house is a guest-house for nature students and for the young people qualifying for work in the Red Carnation Theatre. Faringdon’s bronzes in the midst of St. Margarets draw many visitors from all over the world. The Stubbington guide-book urges all visitors to the district to be sure to see them. I write, of course, in this present year of 1955.

The Tunster no longer meet at Tibb’s Cross; the national preserve has squeezed them out. Colonel Cuttand-Thrustum has lately taken them over, and told a Press representative yesterday that he hopes to give as good sport as his predecessor.

St. Margarets is a most beautiful place, now that time has made it look like the beloved homes of men. Its first suggestion was a desire to hurt; its first impulse was one of indignation. Indignation has been said to be the voice of God, at whose bidding so many angels rush with fire and the beauty of lilies and songs of exultation.