CHAPTER VII
ROBERTA "ARRIVES"
It was dress rehearsal night for the Belden House play, and the hall inthe Students' Building, where the big house-plays are performed was thescene of a tremendous bustle and excitement. The play was to be "SaraCrewe," or rather "The Little Princess," for that is the title of theregular stage version of Mrs. Burnett's story which the Belden House wasgiving by the special permission of the Princess herself. The prettyyoung actress who had "created" the part was a friend of Madeline'sfather, and Madeline, being on the committee to choose a play, declaredthat she was tired to death of seeing the girls do Sheridan andGoldsmith and the regulation sort of modern farce, and boldly wrote tothe Princess for permission to act her play, because it seemed soexactly suited to the capabilities of college girls. The Princess hadnot only said yes, but she had declared that she should be very muchinterested in the success of the play, and when Madeline, writing tothank her, had suggested that the Belden House would be only toodelighted if she came up to see their performance, she had acceptedtheir invitation with enthusiasm. Of course the committee and the castwere exceedingly flattered, but they were also exceedingly frightenedand nervous, and even the glorious promise of a live monkey, with ahand-organ man thrown in, did not wholly reassure them.
To-night everything seemed to be at sixes and sevens. Though most of thecommittee had toiled over it all the afternoon, the stage resembledpandemonium rather than the schoolroom of Miss Minchen's SelectSeminary, which was to be the scene of the first act. The committee weretired and, to speak frankly, cross, with the exception of Madeline, whowas provokingly cool and nonchalant, though she had worked harder thanany one else. The cast were infected with that irresponsible hilaritythat always attacks an amateur company at their last rehearsal. Theydanced about the stage, getting in the way of the committee, shriekingwith laughter at their first glimpses of one another's costumes, andmaking flippant suggestions for all sorts of absurd and impossibleimprovements.
Meanwhile, regardless of the fact that the rehearsal ought to have begunhalf an hour before, the committee and Mr. Carrisford's three Hinduservants were holding a solemn conclave at the back of the stage. Thechef-d'oeuvre of their scenic effects was refusing to work; thebagdads that were to descend as if by Hindu magic and cover the barewalls of Sara's little attic bedroom when the good fairies, in the guiseof the aforesaid servants, effected its transformation in the secondact. There weren't enough of the draperies for one thing, and some ofthem wouldn't unroll quickly, while others threatened to tumble down onthe servants' devoted heads.
"Well, we'll just have to let them go for to-night," said Nita Reesedejectedly at last. She was chairman of the committee. "To-morrow we'llfix them all up again, the way Madeline says is right, and you threemust come over and do that part of the scene again. Is everybody ready?"
"Miss Amelia Minchen isn't," said Betty, "She just came in carrying hercostume."
"Then go and help her hurry into it," commanded Nita peremptorily."Madeline, will you fix Ram Dass's turban? He's untwisted it again ofcourse. Georgie Ames, line up the Seminary girls and the Carmichaelchildren, and see whether any of their skirts are too long. Take themdown on the floor. Everybody off the stage, please, but thescene-shifters."
"Oh, Nita," cried Polly Eastman, who had just come in, rushingbreathlessly up to the distracted chairman, "I'm so sorry to be late,but some people that I couldn't refuse asked me down-town to dinner. Iate and ran, really I did. And Nita, what do you think----"
"I'm much too tired to think," returned Nita, wearily. "What's happenednow?"
"Why, nothing has actually happened, only I was at the station thisafternoon, and I asked the shoe-shine man about the monkey, and hehasn't heard, but he told the organ-man that the play began at half-pasteight, and all the trains have been horribly late to-day, so if he shouldplan to get in on the eight-fifteen----"
"Have him telegraph that it begins at six," said Nita, firmly. "Go andsee to it now."
"Why, I did tell him to," said Polly, sighing at the prospect of goingout again. "Only he's so irresponsible that I think we ought todecide----"
"Go and stand over him while he telegraphs," said Nita with finality."We can't understudy a monkey. Josephine Boyd, come here and go throughyour long speech. I want to be sure that you get it right. It didn'tmake sense the way you said it yesterday."
"Oh, Nita." It was Lucile Merrifield holding out a yellow envelope.
Nita clutched it frantically. "Perhaps she's not coming. Wouldn't I berelieved!"
"It's not a telegram," explained Lucile, gently, "only the proof of theprograms that the printer has taken this opportune moment to send up.The boy says if you could look at it right off, why, he could wait andtake it back. They want it the first thing in the morning."
"Give it to Helen Adams," said Nita, turning back to Josephine. "She canmark proof. Go on Josephine, I'm listening, and don't stop again foranybody."
Josephine, who was the father of the large and irrepressible Carmichaelfamily, had just finished declaiming her longest speech withpraiseworthy regard for its meaning, when somebody called out,"Ermengarde St. John isn't here yet."
Nita sank down in Miss Amelia Minchen's armchair with a little moan ofdespair. "Somebody go and get her," she said. "Betty Wales, you'd bettergo. You can dress people fastest."
It seemed to Betty, as she hurried down-stairs and over to the Belden,that she had toiled along the same route, laden with screens, rugs andcouch-covers, at least a hundred times that afternoon. She was tired andexasperated at this final hitch, and she burst into the room of the fatfreshman who had Ermengarde's part with scant ceremony. What was heramazement to find it quite empty.
"Oh, she can't have forgotten and gone off somewhere!" wailed Betty."Why, every one was talking about the rehearsal at dinner time."
The cast and committee included so many members of the house that it wasalmost depopulated, and none of the few girls whom Betty could find knewanything about the missing Ermengarde.
"I must have passed her on the way here," Betty decided at last, andrushed down-stairs again. As she went by the matron's door she almostran into that lady, hurrying out.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Kent," she said. "You haven't seenErmengarde--that is, I mean Janet Kirk, have you?"
"No, not yet," said Mrs. Kent briskly. "I only heard about it fiveminutes ago. I'm just getting ready now to go up and take the poor childsome things she's sent for."
"But she isn't in her room," said Betty, bewildered but certain thatMrs. Kent's apparent affection for the irresponsible Janet was veryill-bestowed.
"Of course not, my dear," returned Mrs. Kent, serenely. "She's at theinfirmary with a badly sprained ankle. She'll have to keep off it for amonth at least, the doctor says."
"OH, I BEG YOUR PARDON"]
"Oh, Mrs. Kent!" wailed Betty. "And she's Ermengarde St. John in thehouse-play. What can we do?"
Mrs. Kent shook her head helplessly. "You'll have to do without Janet,"she said. "That's certain. She was on her way home to dinner when sheslipped on a piece of ice near the campus-gate. She lay there severalminutes before any one saw her, and then luckily Dr. Trench came alongand drove her straight to the infirmary. She fainted while they werebandaging her ankle."
"I'm very sorry," said Betty, her vision of a possible hasty recoverydispelled by the last sentence. After a moment's hesitation she decidednot to go back to the Students' Building to consult Nita. It would bebetter to bring some one over from the house to read the part forto-night. It was important, but luckily it wasn't very long, andsomebody would have to learn it in time for the play the next evening.
So she hurried up-stairs again and the first person she met was RobertaLewis, marching down the corridor with a huge Greek dictionary under herarm.
"Put that book down, Roberta; and come over to the rehearsal,"commanded Betty. "Ermengarde St. John has sprained her ankle, and goneto the infirmary and everybody's waiting."
"You mea
n that you want me to go and get her?" asked Roberta doubtfully."Because I think it would take two people to help her walk, if she'svery lame. She's awfully fat, you know."
"We want you to read Janet's part," explained Betty, "just for to-night,until the committee can find some one to take it." And she gave a littlemore explicit account of the state of affairs at the rehearsal.
"Yes, indeed, I'll be glad to," said Roberta readily. She was secretlydelighted to be furnished with an excuse for seeing the dress rehearsal.She had longed with all her soul to be appointed a member of theplay-committee, but of course the house-president had not put her on;she was the last person, so the president thought, who would be usefulthere. And Roberta could not screw her courage up to the point of tryingfor a place in the cast. So no one knew, since she had never told anyone, that she thought acting the most interesting thing in the worldand that she loved to act, in spite of the terrors of having anaudience. But she had let slip her one chance--the offer of a part inMary's famous melodrama away back in her freshman year--and she hadnever had another.
And now, because she was Roberta Lewis, proud and shy and dreadfullyafraid of pushing in where she wasn't wanted, she did not think itnecessary to mention to Betty that she had borrowed a copy of the playfrom little Ruth Howard, who was Sara, and that she had read it overuntil she knew almost every line of it by heart.
Of course the committee were thrown into a state bordering upon panic bythe news of Janet's accident, but Madeline comfortingly reminded themthat the worse the last rehearsal was, the better the play was sure tobe; and there was certainly nothing to do now but go ahead.
So they began to rehearse at last, almost an hour late, and the firstact went off with great spirit, in spite of the handicap of a strangeErmengarde, who had to read her part because she was ashamed to confessthat she knew it already, and who was supposed not to be familiar withher "stage business." To be sure, she had not very much to do in thisscene, but at the end everybody thanked her effusively and Ruth Howarddeclared that she never saw anybody who "caught on" so fast.
"You ought to take the part to-morrow night," she said.
"Oh, oh!" Roberta cautioned her, in alarm and embarrassment. "They'regoing to have Polly Eastman. I heard Nita say so. Besides, I wouldn'tfor anything."
Ermengarde's chance comes in the second act, where, half in pity andhalf in admiration for the queer little Sara Crewe, she comes up to makefriends with her, and, finding to her horror that Sara is actuallyhungry, decides to bring her "spread" up to Sara's attic. There, later,the terrible Miss Minchen finds her select pupils gathered, andwrathfully puts an end to their merry-making.
At the opening of this scene the attic was supposed to be lighted by onesmall candle, and consequently the stage was very dim.
"I don't believe Roberta can manage with that light," whispered Nita toBetty who was standing with her in one of the wings.
"Don't let's change unless we have to," Betty whispered back. "You knowwe wanted to get the effect of Miss Minchen's curl papers and night-cap.Why, Nita, Roberta hasn't any book. She's saying her part right off."
"No!" Nita was incredulous. "Why, Betty Wales, she is, and she's doingit splendidly, fifty per cent, better than Janet did."
Sure enough Roberta, becoming engrossed in the play, had forgotten toconceal her unwarranted knowledge of it. She realized what she had donewhen a burst of applause greeted her exit, and actors and committeealike forgot the proprieties of a last rehearsal to make a unitedassault upon her.
"Roberta Lewis," cried Betty accusingly, "why didn't you tell me thatyou knew Ermengarde's part?"
"Oh, I don't know it," protested Roberta. "I only know snatches of ithere and there. Polly can learn it in no time."
"She won't have the chance," said Nita decisively. "You must take it,Roberta. Why didn't you tell people that you could act like that?"
"I shall have stage-fright and spoil everything," declared Robertaforlornly.
"Nonsense," said Nita. "You'd be ashamed to do anything of the kind."
"Yes," agreed Roberta solemnly, "I should." Whereupon everybody laughed,and Nita hugged Roberta and assured her that there was no way out of it.
"Somebody go and get Janet's costume," she ordered, "and any one who hasa spare minute can be fitting it over. We shall have to have an extrarehearsal to-morrow of the parts where Ermengarde comes in. Go on now,Sara. Use Lucile's muff for the monkey."
When at last act three was finished it was ten o'clock and Nita gave asigh of utter exhaustion. "If Madeline's rule holds," she said, "thisplay ought to go like clockwork to-morrow."
And it did, despite the rather dubious tone of the chairman's prophecy.The Princess arrived duly just after luncheon, and everybody except thecast, who would do their share later, helped to entertain her. This wasnot difficult. She wasn't a college girl, she explained, and she hadnever known many of them. She just wanted to hear them talk, see theirrooms, and if it wasn't too much trouble she should enjoy looking on ata game of--what was it they played so much at Harding? Basket-ball,somebody prompted. Yes, that was it. The sophomore teams which had justbeen chosen were proud to play a game for her, and they even suggested,fired by her responsive enthusiasm, that they should teach her to playtoo.
"I should love it," she said, "if somebody would lend me one of thosebecoming suits. But I mustn't." She sighed. "The newspapers would besure to get hold of it. Besides they're giving a tea for me at theBelden. It begins in five minutes. Doesn't time just fly at Harding?"
The monkey also arrived in good season, whether thanks to or in spite ofPolly's exertions was not clear, since his master spoke no English andnot even Madeline could understand his Italian. The bagdads workedbeautifully. The new Ermengarde was letter-perfect, and nobody butherself had any fear that she would be stage-struck, even though thePrincess would be sitting in the very middle of the fourth row. Janet'sname was still on the program, for Roberta had sternly insisted that itshouldn't be crossed out; and as neither of the two Ermengardes was verywell known to the college in general, only a few people noticed thechange. But the part made a hit.
"Isn't she just like some little girl who used to go to school withyou--that funny, stupid Ermengarde?" one girl would say to another."They're all natural, but she's absolutely perfect."
"Sara's a dear," said the Princess, "but I want to talk to Ermengarde.Mayn't I go behind? We actor people always like to do that, you know."
So she was escorted behind the scenes, and it was the proudest moment ofRoberta's life when the Princess, having asked particularly for her,said all sorts of nice things about her "real talent" and "artisticmethods."
"That settles it, Roberta," said Betty, who was behind the scenes in hercapacity of chief dressing-maid and first assistant to the make-up man."You've got to try for senior dramatics."
"Do you really think I could get a part?" asked Roberta coolly.
"I think you might," said Betty, amazed beyond words by Roberta's readyacquiescence. "You probably won't get anything big," she addedcautiously. "There are such a lot of people in our class who can act.But the girls say that the only way to get a small part is to try for abig one. Don't you remember how Mary Brooks tried for the hero and theheroine and the villain and then was proud as a peacock to be a page andsay two lines, and Dr. Brooks and her mother and two aunts and sixcousins came to see her do it."
"Dear me," said Roberta in frightened tones, "do you suppose my fatherand my cousin will feel obliged to come?"
"I don't know," laughed Betty, "but I feel obliged to remind you thatthe third act of Sara Crewe is on and you belong out there where you canhear your cue."
"I hope Roberta won't be disappointed about getting a part in the seniorplay," Betty confided to Madeline, as they parted afterward in theBelden House hall. "She did awfully well to-night, but I think she takesit too seriously. She doesn't realize what tremendous competition thereis for the parts in our plays, nor what lots of practice some of thegirls have had."
"
Oh, I wouldn't worry," said Madeline easily. "If she doesn't getanything, she'll have to do without. She'll have plenty of company. Sheprobably won't try when the time comes."
"Yes," said Betty, "she will, and she's so sensitive that she'll hateterribly to fail. So, as I started her on her mad career as an actress,I feel responsible."
"You always feel responsible for something," laughed Madeline. "Whileyou're in the business why don't you remember that you're responsiblefor a nice little slice of to-night's performance. Miss Ferris says it'sthe best house-play she's seen."
"I know. Isn't it just splendid?" sighed Betty rapturously. "And isn'tthe Princess a dear? But Madeline, you haven't any idea how my feetache."