Buch lesen: «The Camp Fire Girls' Careers»

CHAPTER I – Success or Failure

The entire theater was in darkness but for a single light burning at one corner of the bare stage, where stood a man and girl.

“Now once more, Miss Polly, please,” the man said encouragingly. “That last try had a bit more life in it. Only do remember that you are supposed to be amusing, and don’t wear such a tragic expression.”

Then a stiff figure, very young, very thin, and with a tense white face, moved backward half a dozen steps, only to stumble awkwardly forward the next instant with both hands pressed tight together.

“I can’t – I can’t find it,” she began uncertainly, “I have searched – ”

Lifting her eyes at this moment to her companion’s, Polly O’Neill burst into tears.

“I am a hopeless, abject failure, Mr. Hunt, and I shall never, never learn to act in a thousand years. There is no use in your trying to teach me, for if we remain at the theater for the rest of the day I shall make exactly the same mistakes tonight. Oh, how can I possibly play a funny character when my teeth are positively chattering with fright even at a rehearsal? It is sheer madness, my daring to appear with you and Margaret Adams before a first-night New York audience and in a new play. Even if I have only a tiny part, I can manage to make just as great a mess of it. Why, why did I ever dream I wished to have a career, I wonder. I only want to go back home this minute to Woodford and never stir a step away from that blessed village as long as I live.”

“Heigho, says Mistress Polly,” quoted her companion and then waited without smiling while the girl dried her tears.

“But you felt very differently from this several years ago when you acted with me in The Castle of Life,” he argued in a reassuring tone. “Besides, you were then very young and had not had two years of dramatic training. I was amazed at your self-confidence, and now I don’t understand why you should feel so much more nervous.”

Polly squared her slender shoulders. “Yes you do, Mr. Hunt,” she insisted, bluntly. “However, if you really don’t understand, I think I can make you see in a moment. Four years ago when I behaved like a naughty child and without letting my friends or family know acted the part of the fairy of the woods in the Christmas pantomime, I had not the faintest idea of what a serious thing I was attempting. I did not even dream of how many mistakes I could make. Besides, that was only a school-girl prank and I never thought that any one in the audience might know me. But now, why at this moment I can hear dozens of people whispering: ‘See that girl on the stage there taking the character of the maid, Belinda; she is Polly O’Neill. You may remember that she is one of the old Sunrise Hill Camp Fire girls and for years has been worrying her family to let her become an actress. I don’t believe she will ever make a success. Really, she is the worst stick I ever saw on the stage!’”

And so real had her imaginary critic become that Polly shuddered and then clasped her hands together in a tragic fashion.

“Then think of my poor mother and my sister, Mollie, and Betty Ashton and a dozen or more of my old Camp Fire friends who have come to New York to see me make my début tonight! Can’t you tell Miss Adams I am ill; isn’t there some one who can take my place? I really am ill, you know, Mr. Hunt,” Polly pleaded, the tears again starting to her eyes.

Since Polly’s return from the summer in Europe, two years of eager ambition and hard work had been spent in a difficult training. As a result she looked older and more fragile. This morning her face was characteristically pale and the two bright patches of color usually burning on her cheek bones had vanished. Her chin had become so pointed that it seemed almost elfish, and her head appeared too small for its heavy crown of jet-black hair. Indeed, at this time in her life, in the opinion of strangers, only the blueness of her eyes with the Irish shadows underneath saved the girl from positive plainness. To her friends, of course, she was always just Polly and so beyond criticism.

Having finally through years of persuasion and Margaret Adams’ added influence won her mother’s consent to follow the stage for her profession, Polly had come to New York, where she devoted every possible hour of the day and night to her work. There had been hundreds of lessons in physical culture, in learning to walk properly and to sit down. Still more important had been the struggle with the pronunciation of even the simplest words, besides the hundred and one minor lessons of which the outsider never dreams. Polly had continued patient, hard-working and determined. No longer did she give performances of Juliet, draped in a red tablecloth, before audiences of admiring girls.

Never for a moment since their first meeting at the Camp Fire play in Sunrise Hill cabin had Margaret Adams ceased to show a deep interest in the wayward, ambitious and often unreliable Polly. She it was who had recommended the school in New York City and the master under whom Polly was to make her stage preparations. And here at the first possible moment Margaret Adams had offered her the chance for a début under the most auspicious conditions.

The play was a clever farce called A Woman’s Wit, and especially written for the celebrated actress, who was to be supported by Richard Hunt, Polly’s former acquaintance, as leading man.

Of course the play had been in rehearsal for several weeks; but Polly had been convinced that her own work had been growing poorer and poorer as each day went by.

“Look here, Miss O’Neill,” a voice said harshly, and Polly stopped shaking to glance at her companion in surprise. During the last few months she and Richard Hunt had renewed their acquaintance and in every possible way Mr. Hunt had been kind and helpful. Yet now his manner had suddenly grown stern and forbidding.

“You are talking wildly and absurdly and like a foolish child instead of a woman,” he said coldly. “Surely you must know that you are having a rare chance tonight because of Miss Adams’ friendship and you must not disappoint her. If you fail to succeed, that will be unfortunate, but if you run away – ” Suddenly Richard Hunt laughed. What a ridiculous suggestion! Of course Polly had only been talking in a silly school-girl fashion without any idea of being taken seriously.

“Good-by, Miss Polly, and cheer up,” Richard Hunt finally said, holding out his hand, his manner friendly once more; for after all she was only a frightened child and he was at least ten years her senior. “Doubtless you’ll put us all to shame tonight and Belinda will be the success of the evening.” Then as he moved away toward the stage door he added, “It was absurd of me to be so annoyed, but do you know, for a moment you made me believe you really thought of running away. What about the Camp Fire law of that famous club to which you once belonged? Did it not tell you to be trustworthy and not to undertake an enterprise rashly, but, having undertaken it, to complete it unflinchingly. Do go home now and rest, child, things are sure to turn out splendidly.” And with a smile of sympathy the man walked away.

So in another moment Polly was standing alone on an otherwise empty stage, torn with indecision and dread. Was Mr. Hunt right in believing that she had uttered only an idle threat in saying that she meant to run away? Yet would it not be wiser to disappear than to make an utter failure of her part tonight and be unable either to move or speak when the eyes of the audience were fixed expectantly upon her?

Slowly the girl walked toward the door, her face scarlet one moment, then like chalk the next. She could hear the scene-shifters moving about and realized that she would soon be in their way. But what should she do? Polly realized that if she went to her boarding place her mother and Mollie would be there waiting for her and then there could be no possible chance of escape.

Always Polly O’Neill had permitted herself to yield to sudden, nearly uncontrollable impulses. Should she do so now? In the last few years she believed she had acquired more self-control, better judgment. Yet in this panic of fear they had vanished once more. Of course Miss Adams would never forgive her, and no one would have any respect for her again. All this the girl realized and yet at the moment nothing appeared so dreadful as walking out on the stage and repeating the dozen or more sentences required of her. Rather would she have faced the guillotine.

“‘Finvarra and their land of heart’s desire,’” Polly quoted softly and scornfully to herself. Well, she had been hoping that she was to reach the land of her heart’s desire tonight. Was this not to be the beginning of the stage career for which she had worked and prayed and dreamed?

Out on the street Polly was now walking blindly ahead. She had at last reached her decision, and yet how could she ever arrange to carry it out?

CHAPTER II – “Belinda”

It was twenty-five minutes past eight o’clock and at half-past eight the curtain was to rise on the first performance of A Woman’s Wit, written especially for Margaret Adams. And because of her popularity and that of her leading man, the house had been sold out weeks in advance.

The action of the play was to take place in a small town in Colorado, where a man and his wife were both endeavoring to be elected to the office of Mayor. Polly was to play the part of a clever little shop-girl, whom the heroine had brought into her home, supposedly as a parlor maid. But in reality the girl was to do all that was in her power to assist her mistress in gaining a victory over her husband. She was to watch his movements and to suggest any schemes that she might devise for their success.

In the act which Polly had recently been rehearsing she was engaged in trying to discover a political speech written by the hero, so that the wife might read it beforehand and so answer it in a convincing fashion before the evening meeting of the Woman’s Club. The play was a witty farce, and Belinda was supposedly one of the cleverest and most amusing characters. Yet whether Polly could succeed in making her appear so was still exceedingly doubtful.

With this idea in mind Richard Hunt left his dressing room, hoping to see Polly for a few moments if possible before the play began. Perhaps her fright had passed. For already the man and girl were sufficiently intimate friends for him to understand how swiftly her moods changed.

Polly had apparently left her dressing room, since there was no answer to repeated knockings. She could not have carried out her threat of the morning? Of course such a supposition was an absurdity. And yet the man’s frown relaxed and his smile was one of unconscious relief when a tall, delicate figure in a blue dress came hurrying toward him along the dimly-lighted passage-way. The girl did not seem aware of anything or anybody, so great was her hurry and nervousness. However, this was not unreasonable, for instead of having on her maid’s costume for the performance, she was wearing an evening gown of shimmering silk and in the coiled braids of her black hair a single pink rose.

“You are late, Miss Polly; may I find some one to help you dress?”

Instantly a pair of blue eyes were turned toward him in surprise and reproach. They were probably not such intensely blue eyes as Polly O’Neill’s and they had a far gentler expression, though they were of exactly the same shape. And the girl’s hair was equally black, her figure and carriage almost similar, except that she was less thin. But instead of Polly’s accustomed pallor this girl’s cheeks were as delicately flushed as the rose in her hair. “Could an evening costume so metamorphose a human being?” Richard Hunt wondered in a vaguely puzzled, uncertain fashion.

A small hand was thrust forward without the least sign of haste, although it trembled a little from shyness.

“I’m not Polly, Mr. Hunt,” the girl said smiling. “I am Mollie, her twin sister. But you must not mistake us, because even if we do look alike, we are not in the least alike in other ways. For one thing, I wouldn’t be in Polly O’Neill’s shoes tonight, not for this whole world with a fence around it. How can she do such a horrible thing as to be an actress? Polly considers that I haven’t a spark of ambition, but why on earth should a sensible girl want a career?”

Suddenly Mollie blushed until her cheeks were pinker than before. “Oh, I am so sorry! I forgot for the moment that you were an actor, Mr. Hunt. Of course things are very different with you. A man must have a career! But I ought to apologize for talking to you without our having met each other. You see, Polly has spoken of you so many times, saying how kind you had been in trying to help her, that I thought for the instant I actually did know you. Forgive me, and now I must find Polly.”

Mollie was always shy, but realizing all at once how much she had confided to a stranger, she felt overwhelmed with embarrassment. How the other girls would laugh if they ever learned of what she had said. Yet Mr. Hunt was not laughing at her, nor did he appear in the least offended. Mollie was sure he must be as kind as Polly had declared him, although he did look older than she had expected and must be quite thirty, as his hair was beginning to turn gray at the temples and there were heavy lines about the corners of his mouth. As Mollie now turned the handle of her sister’s dressing-room door she was hoping that her new acquaintance had not noticed how closely she had studied him.

However, she need not have worried, for her companion was only thinking of how pretty she was and yet how oddly like her twin sister. For Mollie seemed to possess the very graces that Polly lacked. Evidently she was more amiable, better poised and more reliable, her figure was more attractive, her color prettier and her manner gracious and appealing.

“I am afraid you won’t find your sister in there, Miss O’Neill. I have knocked several times without an answer,” Richard Hunt finally interposed.

“Won’t find her?” Mollie repeated the words in consternation. “Then where on earth is she? Miss Adams sent me to tell Polly that she wished to speak to her for half a moment before the curtain went up. Besides, Miss Ashton has already searched everywhere for her for quite ten minutes and then came back to her seat in the theater, having had to give up.”

Forcibly Mollie now turned the handle of the door and peered in. The small room was unoccupied, as the other two members of the company who shared it with Polly, having dressed some time before, had also disappeared.

But Richard Hunt could wait no longer to assist in discovering the wanderer. Five minutes had passed, so that his presence would soon be required upon the stage. Surely if Polly had failed to appear at the theater her sister would be aware of it. Yet there was still a chance that she had sent a hurried message to the stage director so that her character could be played by an understudy. Even Polly would scarcely wreck the play by simply failing at the last moment.

He was vaguely uneasy. He had been interested in Polly, first because of their chance acquaintance several years before when they both acted in The Castle of Life, and also because of Miss Adams’ deep affection for her protégé. The man had been unable to decide whether Polly had any talent for the career which she professed to care for so greatly.

Now and then during the frequent rehearsals of their new play she had done very well. But the very day after a clever performance she was more than apt to give a poor one until the stage manager had almost despaired. Nevertheless Richard Hunt acknowledged to himself that there was something about the girl that made one unable to forget her. She was so intense, loving and hating, laughing and crying with her whole soul. Whatever her fate in after years, one could not believe that it would be an entirely conventional one.

His cue had been called and Miss Adams was already on the stage. In a quarter of an hour when Belinda was summoned by her mistress, he would know whether or not Polly had feigned illness or whether she had kept her threat and ignominiously run away.

The moment came. A door swung abruptly forward at the rear of the stage and through it a girl entered swiftly. She was dressed in a tight-fitting gray frock with black silk stockings and slippers. There was a tiny white cap on her head and she wore a small fluted apron. She looked very young, very clever and graceful. And it was Polly O’Neill, and Polly at her best!

For the briefest instant Richard Hunt and Margaret Adams exchanged glances. It was obvious that Margaret Adams had also been uneasy over her favorite’s début. For her eyes brightened and she nodded encouragingly as the little maid set down the tray she was carrying with a bang and then turned saucily to speak to her master. A laugh from the audience followed her first speech.

The Polly of the morning had completely vanished. This girl’s cheeks were crimson, her eyes danced with excitement and vivacity. She was fairly sparkling with Irish wit and grace and, best of all, she appeared entirely unafraid.

It was not alone Polly O’Neill’s two comparatively new friends upon the stage with her, who now felt relieved from anxiety by her clever entrance. More than a dozen persons in the audience forming a large theater party occupying the sixth and seventh rows in the orchestra chairs, breathed inaudible sighs of relief.

There sat Betty Ashton and Dick and Esther, who had come down from Boston to New York City for Polly’s début. Next Betty was a handsome, grave young man, who had only a few days before been elected to the New Hampshire Legislature by the residents of Woodford and the surrounding country, Anthony Graham. On his other side eat his sister, Nan, a dark-eyed, dark-haired girl with a quiet, refined manner. Near by and staring straight ahead through a pair of large, gold-rimmed spectacles was another girl with sandy hair, light blue eyes, a square jaw and a determined, serious expression. Nothing did Sylvia Wharton take lightly, and least of all the success or failure tonight of her adored step-sister. For Sylvia’s ardent affection for Polly had never wavered since the early Camp Fire days at Sunrise Hill. And while she often disapproved of her and freely told her so, as she had then, still Polly knew that Sylvia could always be counted on through good and ill.

So far as the younger girl’s own work was concerned there was little doubt of her success. Each year she had been at the head of her class in the training school for nurses and had since taken up the study of medicine. For Sylvia had never cared for frivolities, for beaus or dancing or ordinary good times. Polly often used to say that she would like to shake her younger step-sister for her utter seriousness, yet Sylvia rarely replied that she might have other and better reasons for administering the same discipline to Polly.

Back of this party of six friends Mr. and Mrs. Wharton, Polly’s mother and stepfather, her sister Mollie and Billy Webster were seated. Billy, however, was no longer called by this youthful title except by his most intimate friends. He had never since the day Polly had teased him concerning it, asking him how it felt to be a shadowy imitation of a great man, used the name of Daniel. He was known to the people in Woodford and the neighborhood as William Webster, since Billy’s father had died a year before and he now had the entire management of their large and successful farm. Indeed, the young man was considered one of the most expert of the new school of scientific farmers in his section of the country. And although Billy undoubtedly looked like a country fellow, there was no denying that he was exceedingly handsome. He was six feet tall, with broad shoulders and an erect carriage; his skin was tanned by the sun and wind, making his eyes appear more deeply blue and his hair almost the color of copper. Now seated next to Mollie he was endeavoring to make her less nervous, although any one could have seen he was equally nervous himself.

Frank Wharton and Eleanor Meade, who were to be married in a few months, were together, and next came yellow-haired Meg and her brother, John. Then only a few places away Rose and Dr. Barton and Faith, the youngest of the former group of Sunrise Hill Camp Fire girls, who had been adopted by her former guardian and now was known by Dr. Barton’s name. Faith was an unusual-looking girl, with the palest gold hair which she wore tied back with a black velvet ribbon. She had a curious, far-away expression in her great blue eyes and the simplicity of a little child. For Faith had never ceased her odd fashion of living in dreams, so that the real world was yet an unexplored country to her. Indeed, in her quaint short-waisted white muslin frock, with a tiny fan and a bunch of country flowers in her hand, she might have sat as one of the models for Arthur Rackham’s spiritual, half-fairy children. Tonight she was even more quiet than usual, since this was the first time she had ever been inside a theater in her life. And had it not been for the reality of Polly O’Neill’s presence, one of her very own group of Camp Fire girls, she must have thought herself on a different planet.

Herr and Frau Krippen had not been able to leave Woodford for this great occasion, since they boasted a very small and very new baby, with hair as red as its father’s and as Esther’s. But otherwise it looked singularly like the first of the Sunrise Hill Camp Fire guardians, the Miss Martha, whom the girls had then believed fore-ordained to eternal old-maidenhood.

So on this eventful night in her career, Polly O’Neill’s old friends and family were certainly well represented. Fortunately, however, she had so far given no thought to their presence.

Now Belinda must rush frantically about on the stage, making a pretext of dusting the while she is eagerly listening to the conversation taking place between her master and mistress. Then in another moment they both leave the stage and Polly at last has her real opportunity. For with Margaret Adams present, naturally the chief attention of the audience would be concentrated upon her with her talent, her magnetism and her great reputation.

Yet as Miss Adams slipped away with a fleeting and encouraging lifting of her eyebrows toward her little maid, suddenly Polly O’Neill felt that the hour of her final reckoning had come. Curiously, until now she had not been self-conscious nor frightened; not for an instant had she been pursued by the terrors that had so harassed her all day that she had made a dozen plans to escape. Yet with the attention of the large audience suddenly riveted upon her alone, they were returning like a thousand fiends.

Polly felt like an atom surrounded by infinite space, like a spot of light in an eternity of darkness. Her voice had gone, her limbs were stiff, yet automatically she continued her dusting for a moment longer, hoping that a miracle might turn her into a human being again. Useless: her voice would never return, her legs felt as if they belonged to a figure in Mrs. Jarley’s waxworks.

One could not devote the entire evening polishing the stage furniture! Already she could hear the agonized voice of the prompter whispering her lines, which he naturally supposed her to have forgotten.

In some fashion Polly must have dragged herself to the spot on the stage where she had been previously instructed to stand, and there somehow she must have succeeded in repeating the few sentences required of her, although she never knew how she did the one or the other; for soon the other players made their proper entrances and the unhappy Belinda was allowed to withdraw.

Yet although Polly could never clearly recall the events on the stage during these few moments, of one thing she was absolutely conscious. By some wretched accident she had glanced appealingly down, hoping to find encouragement in the face of her mother, sister, or Betty Ashton. Instead, however, she had caught the blue eyes of her old antagonist, Billy Webster, fixed upon her with such an expression of consternation, sympathy and amusement that she was never to forget the look for the rest of her life.

In the final scene, the one so diligently rehearsed during the morning, Belinda did not make such a complete failure. But, as she slipped away to her dressing room at the close of the performance, Polly O’Neill knew, before tongue or pen could set it down, the verdict that must follow her long-desired stage début. Alas, that in this world there are many of us unlike Cæsar: we come, we see, but we do not conquer!