MRS. GRUNDY IS NOT YET DEAD!

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 252, 14 January 1928, Page 22

MRS. GRUNDY IS NOT YET DEAD!

A Frozen! Pantomime Rehearsal Fashion’s Bi-Modish Trend . . . “Things I Think I Remember” . . .

(Written for THE SVE by

PAMELA TRAVERS.)

HAD thought, and surely you had thought too, that Mrs. Grundy, dear lady! was dead. But she is either alive or her ghost came back this.

morning from the dead. I was in a tube, shaking about as one does in tubes like a little pea in a veiy large pod. Beside me sat a gorgeous creature beautifully arrayed in all M. Paquin’s glory, with additions from M Houbigant’s and M. Fleury’s cosmetic laboratories. Her skirt, though of a strictly modest length —three inches above the knee —had an air of audacity about it. It was one of those skirts that admost seem to wink. Opposite me sat She. I did not know

she was Mrs. Grundy —never having seen the- lady when she was alive — until she began eyeing the winking skirt not merely unfavourably, but with a certain terror. I could see she was afraid the wisp of a thing might suddenly disappear altogether and shame not only the wearer but herself and all the other people in the carriage. I watched fear and shame chasing each other over the old seamed countenance for some time. Then suddenly, with the prettiest gesture imaginable, Mrs. Grundy, tossing up her bonneted head, leaned forward and tweaked the skirt until it came down below the expensive silken knees. Then she sat back, sighed a little as at a danger overcome and smiled at the owner of the distended skirt. The girl got up and flounced into another compartment and little Mrs. Grundy’s eyes followed her, apologetically wistful, gently remonstrating, pleading. I was just about to tell her that she might tweak mine, too, which was nearly as short, when the train stopped and the guard, banging open the doors, shouted “Vic-tor-ier! Victor-ier!” How apt, how apt! I thought as I went up the escalator and Mrs. Grundy went on, I hope, to further triumphs and rescues. The end of the year, being a time of gloom, is the time for a heavy crop of reminiscences. Every day a new book of memoirs comes from one publisher, or another. They are full of such meaty scraps as — “When I was seventeen a friend of

my aunt's cousin's best friend saw Mr. Gladstone. How well I remember my grandmother telling me that this distant cousin's best friend was told by a friend of hers that he once heard Mr. Gladstone say ‘please’ (or was it ‘thank you’?) when something from the tea-table was offered him. He was alwavs the soul of courte-y and so gallant —as this little story proves.” Among the memoirs there is one, however, which saves the rest of them from complete oblivion. It is called “I think I remember” and is by Magdelen King Hall, whose “Diary of a Young Lady of Fashion” fluttered the dovecots of literature a little while ago. Yesterday I watched a rehearsal for one of the Christmas pantomimes. It was a very mixed cocktail. Short fat girls were ranged beside Viking maidens and mixed among these w-as a handful of "chorus gentlemen” of all ages and sizes. The wind blew bitterly through open doors on every’ side of the stage and every nose w-as purple. The principal boy ramped up and down along the footlights in a fur coat crying jauntily that she "was feeling blue-ue-ue,” and really’ she looked it. Were these huddled forms embryo fairyqueens, shimmering village lasses, bell-ringers of Hymen? Would the Principal Boy ever be able to ungird the fur coat and painfully force herself into tights and a jewelled sheath? I could- hardly believe it. I feel that I shall never be able to enjoy an English pantomime again. I shall want to be behind the scenes staying them all with hot whisky and eiderdowns. This week I have been to see Ruth Draper, who at the Criterion Theatre carries a whole performance upon her own shoulders —but such adequate shoulders! She is an American diseuse who caught the imagination of London some years ago and has never let it go. I have seen nobody so compelling and at the same time so simple since Raquel Meller sang her Spanish songs at the Casino in Paris. Like the Spaniard, Ruth Draper owes much of her success to an extraordinarily mobile face, a face that could carry on any kind of conversation in complete silence. It is not even necessary for her to put a handkerchief over her head or a grim raincoat upon her body. One guesses by her face that she is a Dalmatian peasant or an American sightseer in Florence. It is pleasant to see somebody satirising the English, too, so gently, with such certain aim. Her sketch of four vegetarian dowagers lunching at Claridge's on a bunch of carrots and a boiled potato washed down with the juice of seven lemons is a delight. So is the scene in a church in Florence with the two

The principal ooy romped a fur coat crying jauntily iffVß feeling -blue.ue-sef -M Englishwomen copying the r.nd planning to do the in three days. To this church 9 furn a beggar woman, * m American tourists, a pair o» 9 lovers, a German frau with 9 little boys [invisible but 4tii*i J 9 discernible) who, looking H stained glass windows, talk «MB time of chocolate, ham and Ruth Draper is each of ■ moment by moment, frotno t g § other by means of a lese hat, a shawl. ' 4 •' This was acting—and ania* ill over, that broke the bonds* ** B! craft and went soaring into ti ** ;WS pyrean of Art. ' ' Fashion is at the moment a, that I ca r only describe by »?■ tive of my own—bi-modish. I that women are Dianas by fa,** SI Dolly Vardens by night. And iff* « formation is perfect. Dolly shows no trace of Diana and S? I gives no hint of the frills thtt « ■ deck her at night. If there still exist, any of the 1 Victorians who in the past hare w rl such an outcry against modern f® they must hug themselves now*? J’i ever they enter a ballroom ThaeS 1 tlouncy, coquettish dresses mut*£! S them for the short, straight bom. * ties that the day brings farthh ® matter of fact, for the people «!ifl wear these modern crinolines then * an air of the bal masque about f Osbert Sitwell's new book is 1 day. I have just run an eye 9 “England P jclaimed”—a book * 9 poems—and I cannot at this I|| stage do more than wonder off j Sitwell Reclamation will do tor gJ 9 land. There are some who wouKu- ]|f that in this instance Rwlimt,' mm synonomous with “Reformation, ‘ it §■ not I. The author has written aa* j| book, “Before the Bombardmeit'ta ’ll if he will keep her literature hs '} preciousness and narrow waysthesb 'm may reclaim England as much uk II likes. But I fear that what we need 1 Sitwells, but Shakespeares, and that 1 God love us, are not on every hoop |( And I have just seen Noel Coeafi 9 new play, “Home Chat.” All I vine H say about it is that the little uniati- !§j| ing magazine of the same name s M wittier and more knowledgeable 5 Isn’t she critical?). But it’s true!