CHAPTER X
TRYING FOR PARTS
"Teddie Wilson has gone and got herself conditioned in psych.,"announced Bob Parker, bouncing unceremoniously through Betty's half-opendoor.
"Oh, Bob!" Betty's tone was fairly tragic. "Does that mean that shecan't try for a part in the play?"
Bob nodded. "Cast-iron rule. And she'd have made a perfect Gobbo, youngor old, and a stunning Gratiano. Well, her being out of it will give K.a better chance."
"But I'm sure Katherine wouldn't want her chance to come this way," saidBetty sadly. "Besides--oh, Bob, have you looked at the bulletin-boardthis afternoon?"
"Babe did," said Bob with a grin, "so you needn't worry yet, my child.Ted says she ought to have expected it, because she'd cut a lot and letthings go awfully,--depended on the--faculty--knowing--us--well--enough--by--this--time--to--pass--over--any small--deficiencies, and all thatsort of talk. And this just shows, she says, how well they do know her.She's awfully plucky about it, but she cares. I didn't suppose Ted hadit in her to care so about anything," declared Bob solemnly. "But ofcourse it's a lot to lose--the star comedy part that was going to behanded out to her by her admiring little classmates, who think thatnobody can act like Teddie. I wish I was as sure of a part in the mob."
"What are you going to try for, Bob?" asked Betty sympathetically.
Bob blushed. "Oh, I don't know," she said, with a fine assumption ofindifference. "Everybody says that you ought to begin at the top andthen the grateful committee won't forget to throw you a crumb when theyget to passing out the 'supers.'" Bob paused and her air of unconcerndropped from her like a mask. "I say, Betty, I do want my family to beproud of me for once. Promise you won't laugh if I come up forBassanio."
"Of course I won't," said Betty indignantly. "I'm sure you'll make lovebeautifully. Do you know who's going to try for Shylock?"
"Only Jean Eastman," said Bob, "and Christy and Emily are thinking ofit. I came up from down-town with Jean just now. She thinks she's got asure thing, though of course she isn't goose enough to say so. If KateDenise gets Portia, as everybody seems to think she will, it will bequite like freshman year, with the Hill crowd on top all around. I thinkJean has been aiming for that, and I also think--you don't mind if I sayit, Betty?"
"I haven't the least idea what you're going to say," laughed Betty, "butI don't believe I shall mind."
"Well," said Bob earnestly, "I think Jean's counting on you to help herwith her Shylock deal."
"I help her!" said Betty in bewilderment. "How could I?"
"What a little innocent you are, Betty Wales," declared Bob. "Have youforgotten that you are on the all-powerful play-committee, and that youfive and Miss Kingston, head of the elocution department, practicallydecide upon the cast?"
"Oh!" said Betty slowly. "But I can't see why Jean should expect me topush her, of all people."
"She'll remind you why," said Bob, "or perhaps she expects me to do itfor her. Can't you honestly think of anything that she might make ahandle of?"
Betty considered, struggling to recall her recent meetings with Jean."She has been extra-cordial lately," she said, "but she hasn't doneanything in particular--oh, Bob, I know what you mean. She expects me tohelp her because she nominated me for the committee."
Bob nodded. "As if fifty other people wouldn't have done it if shehadn't. I may be wrong, Betty, but she had a lot to say all the way upfrom Cuyler's about how glad she was that you were on the committee, howshe felt you were the only one for the place and was glad the girlsagreed with her, how hard she had talked you up beforehand, and soon,--all about her great and momentous efforts in your behalf. I toldher that Miss Ferris said once that you had a perfect command of the artof dress and that every one knew you planned the costumes for the Beldenplay and for the Dramatic Club's masque last spring, also that BarbaraGordon particularly wanted you on if she was chairman, so I didn't seethat you needed any great amount of talking up. But she laughed herhorrid, sarcastic little laugh and said she guessed I hadn't had muchexperience with class politics."
Betty's eyes flashed angrily. "And in return for what she did, sheexpects me to work for her, no matter whether or not I think she wouldmake the best Shylock. Is that what you mean, Bob?"
"Yes, but perhaps I was mistaken," said Bob soothingly, "and any way Idoubt if she ever says anything to you directly. She'll just dropjudicious hints in the ears of your worldly friends, who can be trustedto appreciate the debt of gratitude you owe her."
"Bob." Betty stared at her hard for a moment. "You don't think--oh, ofcourse you don't! The parts in the play ought to go to the ones who cando them best and the committee ought not to think of anybody or anythingbut that."
"And I know at least one committee woman who won't think of anybody oranything but that," declared Bob loyally. "I only thought I'd tell youabout Jean so that, if she should say anything, you would be ready forher. Now I must go and study Bassanio," and Bob departed murmuring,
"'What find I here? Fair Portia's counterfeit?'"
in tones so amorous that Belden House Annie, who was sweeping on thestairs, dropped her dust-pan with a clatter, declaring that she was"jist overcome, that she was!"
"Which was the only compliment my acting of Bassanio ever got," Bob toldher sadly afterward.
Betty was still hot with indignation over Bob's disclosures when RobertaLewis knocked on the door. Roberta was wrapped up in a fuzzy redbath-robe, a brown sweater and a pink crepe shawl, and she looked thepicture of shivering dejection.
"What in the world is the matter?" demanded Betty, emptying her historynotebooks out of the easy-chair and tucking Roberta in with a green andyellow afghan, which completed the variegated color scheme toperfection.
"Please don't bother about me," said Roberta forlornly. "I'm going backin a minute. I've lost my wedding-pin--Miss Hale's wedding-pin--well,you know what I mean,--and caught a perfectly dreadful cold."
"You don't think that your pin was stolen?" asked Betty quickly. Therehad been no robberies in the college since Christmas, and the girls werebeginning to hope that the mysterious thief had been discouraged bytheir greater care in locking up their valuables, and had gone off insearch of more lucrative territory.
"Yes, I do think so," said Roberta. "I almost know it. You see I hadn'tbeen wearing my pin. I only took it out to show Polly Eastman, becauseshe hadn't happened to see one. Then K. came and we went off to walk. Ileft the pin right on my dressing-table and now it's gone. But thequeerest part is that Georgia Ames was in my room almost all the time,because hers was being swept, and before that she was in Lucy Mann's,with the door wide open into the hall, and my door open right opposite.And yet she never saw or heard anything. Isn't it strange?"
"She was probably busy talking and didn't notice," said Betty. "Peopleare everlastingly tramping through the halls, until you don't thinkanything about it. Have you looked on the floor and in all your drawers?It's probably tumbled down somewhere and got caught in a crack under thedressing-table or the rug."
"No, I've looked in all those places," said Roberta with finality. "Youknow I haven't as many things to look through as you."
"Please don't be sarcastic," laughed Betty, for Roberta's belongingswere all as trim and tailor-made as herself. "How did you get yourcold?"
"Why K. and I got caught in a miserable little snow flurry," explainedRoberta, pulling the pink shawl closer, "and--I got my feet wet. Mythroat's horribly sore. It won't be well for a week, and I can't try forthe play."
Roberta struggled out of the encumbering folds of the green afghan andtrailed her other draperies swiftly to the window, whose familiar viewshe seemed to find intensely absorbing.
"Oh, yes, you can," said Betty comfortingly. "Why, your throat may beall right by to-morrow, and anyway it's only the Portia and Shylocktrials that come then. Were you going to try for either of those parts?"
"Yes," gulped Roberta thickly.
Behind Roberta's back Betty was free to pucker her mouth into a funnyli
ttle grimace that denoted amusement, surprise and sympathy, alltogether. "Then I'll ask Barbara Gordon to give you a separate triallater," she said kindly. "Nothing will be really decided to-morrow. Weonly make tentative selections to submit to Mr. Masters when he comes upnext week. He's the professional coach, you know."
But Roberta turned back from the window to shake her head. "I wouldn'thave you do that for anything," she said, brushing away the tears. "I'lltry for something else if I get well in time. I'm going to bed now. Willyou please ask Annie to bring up my dinner? And Betty, don't ever say Imeant to try for Shylock. I don't know why I told you, except that youalways understand."
Betty felt that she didn't quite understand this time, but she promisedto tell Annie and come in late herself to conduct another search forthe missing pin. She had just succeeded in dismissing Ted, Jean andRoberta from her mind and concentrating it on the next day's historylesson, when Helen Adams appeared.
"Helen," began Betty solemnly, "if you've got any troubles connectedwith trying for parts in the play, please don't divulge them. I don'tbelieve I can stand any more complications."
"Poor thing!" said Helen compassionately. "I know how you feel from thetimes I have with the 'Argus.' Well, I shan't bother you about tryingfor a part. I should just love to act, but I can't and I know it. I onlywanted to borrow some tea, and to tell you that Anne Carter has come toreturn my call. You know you said you'd like to meet her."
So Betty brushed her curls smooth and, stopping to pick up Madeline onher way, went in to meet Miss Carter, whose shyness and silence meltedrapidly before Betty's tactful advances and Madeline's appreciativereferences to her verses in the last "Argus."
While Helen made the tea, Miss Carter amused them all with a drollaccount of her efforts to learn to play basket-ball, "because MissAdams says it throws so much light on the philosophy of college life."
"Then you never played before you came here?" asked Betty idly, stirringher tea.
Miss Carter shook her head. "I prepared for college in a convent inCanada. The sisters would have been horribly shocked at the idea of ourtearing about in bloomers and throwing a ball just like the boys."
"Oh!" said Betty, with a sudden flash of recognition. "Then it was atthe convent where you got the beautiful French accent that mademoiselleraves over. You're in my senior French class. I ought to have rememberedyou."
"I'm glad you didn't," said Miss Carter bitterly, and then she flushedand apologized. "I'm so ugly that I'm always glad not to be rememberedor noticed. But I didn't mean to say so, and I do hope you'll come tosee me, both of you,--if seniors ever do come to see sophomores."
The girls laughingly assured her that seniors did sometimes condescendso far, and she went off with a happy look in her great gray eyes.
"We must have her in the 'Merry Hearts,'" said Madeline. "She's our kindif she can only get over that morbid feeling about her scar."
"But we must be very careful," Helen warned them, with a vividremembrance of her first interview with Miss Carter. "We mustn't ask herto join until most of us have been to see her and really made friends.She would just hate to feel that we pitied her."
"We'll be careful," Betty promised her. "I'll go to see her, for one,the very first of next week," and she skipped gaily off to dress fordinner. After all there were plenty of things in the world besides theclass play with its unhappy tangle of rivalries and heartburnings.
"And what's the use of borrowing trouble?" Betty inquired the nextevening of the green lizard. "If you do, you never borrow the rightkind."
Jean, to be sure, had done a good deal to justify Bob's theory. She hadremembered an urgent message from home which must be delivered to Pollyimmediately after luncheon, and she kept her innocent little cousinbusily engaged in conversation in the lower hall of the Belden Houseuntil Betty appeared, having waited until the very last minute in thevain hope of avoiding Jean. But when they opened the door there wasBarbara Gordon, also bound for Miss Kingston's office, and much relievedto find that her committee were not all waiting indignantly for theirchairman's tardy arrival. So whatever Jean had meant to say to Betty inprivate necessarily went unsaid.
And then, after all her worriment, Jean was the best Shylock!
"Which is perfectly comical considering Bob's suspicions," Betty toldthe green lizard, the only confidant to whom she could trust the playcommittee's state-secrets.
All the committee had been astonished at Jean's success, and most ofthem were disappointed. Christy or Emily Davis would have been so muchpleasanter to work with, or even Kitty Lacy, whom Miss Kingstonconsidered very talented. But Emily was theatrical, except in funnyparts, Christy was lifeless, and Kitty Lacy had not taken the troubleto learn the lines properly and broke down at least once in every longspeech, thereby justifying the popular inversion of her name to LazyKitty, a pseudonym which some college wag had fastened upon her early inher freshman year.
"And because she's Kitty, it isn't safe to give her another chance,"said Miss Kingston regretfully, when the fifteen aspiring Shylocks hadplayed their parts and the committee were comparing opinions. "Yes, Iagree with Barbara that Jean Eastman is by far the most promisingcandidate, but----"
"But you don't think she's very good, now do you, Miss Kingston?" askedClara Ellis, a rather lugubrious individual, who had been put on thecommittee because she was a "prod" in "English lit.," and not becauseshe had the least bit of executive ability.
Miss Kingston hesitated. "Why no, Clara, I don't. I'm afraid she won'twork up well; she doesn't seem to take criticism very kindly. But it'stoo soon to judge of that. At present she certainly has a much betterconception of the part than any of the others."
"You don't think we've been too ambitious, do you, Miss Kingston?" askedBarbara, anxiously. Barbara knew Jean well and the prospect of managingthe play with her capricious, selfish temperament to be catered to atevery turn was not a pleasant one.
"I've thought so all along," put in Clara Ellis, decidedly, before MissKingston had had a chance to answer. "I think we ought to have made sureof a good Shylock before we voted to give this play. It will beperfectly awful to make a fizzle of it, and everything depends ongetting a good Shylock, doesn't it, Miss Kingston?"
"A great deal certainly depends on that," agreed Miss Kingston. "Butit's much too early to decide that you can't get a good Shylock."
"Why, who else is there?" demanded Clara, dismally. "Surely everypossible and impossible person has tried to-day."
Nobody seemed ready to answer this argument, and Betty, glancing at thedoleful faces of her fellow-workers felt very much depressed until a newidea struck her.
"Miss Kingston," she said, "there have been fifteen senior plays atHarding, haven't there? And hasn't each one been better than any ofthose that came before it?"
"So each class and its friends have thought," admitted Miss Kingston,smiling at Betty's eagerness, "and in the main I think they have beenright."
"Then," said Betty, looking appealingly at Clara and Barbara, "I guesswe can safely go on thinking that our play will be still better. 19-- isthe biggest class that ever graduated here, and it's certainly one ofthe brightest."
Everybody laughed at this outburst of patriotism and the atmospherebrightened immediately, so Betty felt that perhaps she was of some useon the committee even if she couldn't understand all Clara's easyreferences to glosses and first folio readings, or compare Booth'sinterpretation of Shylock with Irving's as glibly as Rachel did.
Just then there was a smothered giggle outside the door and six lustyvoices chanted, "By my troth, our little bodies are a-weary of thesehard stairs," in recognition of which pathetic appeal the committeehastily dismissed the subject of Shylock in order to hear what theimpatient Portias had to say. They did so well, and there was such alively discussion about the respective merits of Kate Denise, BabbieHildreth and Nita Reese that the downcast spirits, of the committee werefully restored, and they went home to dinner resolved not to lose heartagain no matter what happened, which is
the most sensible resolutionthat any senior play committee can make.
When Betty got home she found a note waiting for her on the hall tableaddressed in Tom Alison's sprawling hand and containing an invitation toYale commencement.
"I'm asking you early," Tom wrote, "so that you can plan for it, and beso much the surer not to disappoint me. Alice Waite is coming with DickGrayson, and some of the other fellows will have Harding girls. Mymother is going to chaperon the bunch.
"Do you remember my kid roommate, Ashley Dwight? He's junior presidentthis year. He's heard a lot about Georgia Ames, real and ideal, and he'scrazy to see what the visible part of her is like. I think he meditatesasking her to the prom, and making a sensation with her. Can't I bringhim up to call on you some day when the real Miss Ames will probably bewilling to amuse Ashley?"
As Betty joyously considered how she should answer all this, sheremembered the four box tickets for the Glee Club concert that LucileMerrifield had promised to get her--Lucile was business manager of themandolin club this year. Betty had intended to invite Alice Waite andtwo Winsted men, but there was no reason why she shouldn't ask Georgia,Tom, and the junior president instead. So she went straight to Georgia'sroom.
"All right," said Georgia calmly, when Betty had explained her project."I was going to stand up with a crowd of freshmen, but they won't care."
"Georgia Ames," broke in her roommate severely, "I should like to seeyou excited for once. Don't you know the difference between goingstand-up with a lot of other freshmen, and sitting in a box with MissWales and two Yale men?"
"Of course I know the difference," said Georgia, smiling good-naturedly."Didn't I say that I'd go in the box? But you see, Caroline, if you areonly a namesake of Madeline Ayres's deceased double you mustn't get toomuch excited over the wonderful things that happen to you. Must you,Betty?"
"I don't think you need any pointers from me, Georgia," said Bettylaughingly. "Has Caroline seen you studying yet?"
"Once," said Georgia sadly.
"But it was in mid-year week," explained the roommate, "the night beforethe Livy exam. She mended stockings all the evening and then she saidshe was going to sit up to study. She began at quarter past ten."
"Propped up in bed, to be quite comfortable," interpolated Georgia.
"And at half-past ten," went on her roommate, "she said she was sosleepy that she couldn't stand it any longer. So she tumbled the booksand extra pillows on the floor and went to sleep."
"Too bad you spoiled your record just for those few minutes," laughedBetty, "but I'll take you to the concert all the same," and she hurriedoff to dress.
At dinner she entertained her end of the table with an account ofGeorgia's essay at cramming.
"But that doesn't prove that she never studies," Madeline defended herprotegee. "That first floor room of theirs is a regular rendezvous forall the freshmen in the house, so she's very sensible to keep away fromit when she's busy."
"Where does she go?"
"Oh, to the library, I suppose," said Madeline. "Most of the freshmenstudy there a good deal, and she camps down in Lou Waterson's room,afternoons, because Lou has three different kinds of lab. to go to, soshe's never at home."
"Well, it's a wonder that Georgia isn't completely spoiled," said NitaReese. "Just to think of the things that child has had done for her!"
And certainly if Georgia's head had not been very firmly set on hersquare shoulders, it would have been hopelessly turned by her meteoriccareer at Harding. For weeks after college opened she was a spectacle, ashow-sight of the place. Old girls pointed her out to one another in afashion that was meant to be inobtrusive but that would have flatteredthe vanity of any other freshman. Freshmen were regaled with storiesabout her, which they promptly retailed for her benefit, and then senther flowers as a tribute to her good luck and a recognition of theamusement she added to the dull routine of life at Harding. Seniors whohad been duped by the phantom Georgia asked her to Sunday dinner andintroduced her to their friends, who did likewise. Foolish girls wantedher autograph, clever ones demanded to know her sensations at findingherself so oddly conspicuous, while the "Merry Hearts" amply fulfilledtheir promise to make up to her for unintentionally having forced herinto a curious prominence. But Georgia took it all as a mere matter ofcourse, smiled blandly at the stories, accepted the flowers and theinvitations, wrote the autographs, and explained that she guessed hersensations weren't at all remarkable,--they were just like any otherfreshman's.
"All the same," Madeline declared, whenever the subject came up, "she'sabsolutely unique. If the other Georgia had never existed, this onewould have made her mark here."
But just how she would have done it even Madeline could not decide. Thereal Georgia was not like other girls, but in what fundamental way shewas different it was difficult to say. Indeed now that the "MerryHearts" came to know her better, she was almost as much of a puzzle tothem as the other Georgia had been to the rest of the college.