"I love the smell of powder," said Patty.
"Gunpowder or baking-powder?"
As Patty at the moment had her nose buried in a box of face-powder she
thought it unnecessary to answer.
"It brings back my youth," she pursued. "The best times of my life have
been mixed up with powder and rouge--Washington's Birthday nights, and
minstrel shows, and masquerades, and plays at boarding-school, and even
Mother Goose tableaux when I was a--"
Patty's reminiscences were interrupted by Georgie, who was anxiously
pacing up and down the wings. "It's queer some of the cast don't come. I
told them to be here early, so we could get them all made up and not
have a rush at the end."
"Oh, there's time enough," said Patty, comfortably. "It isn't seven yet,
and if they're going to dress in their rooms it won't take any time over
here just to make them up and put on their wigs. It's a comparatively
small cast, you see. Now, on the night of the Trig. ceremonies, when we
had to make up three whole ballets and only had one box of make-up, we
_were_ rushed. I thought I'd never live to see the curtain go down. Do
you remember the suit of chain-mail we made for Bonnie Connaught out of
wire dish-cloths? It took sixty-three, and the ten-cent store was
terribly dubious about renting them to us; and then, after working every
spare second for three days over the thing, we found, the last minute,
that we hadn't left a big enough hole for her to get into, and--"
"Oh, do keep still, Patty," said Georgie, nervously; "I can't remember
what I have to do when you talk all the time."
A manager on the eve of producing a new play, with his reputation at
stake, may be excused for being a trifle irritable. Patty merely
shrugged her shoulders and descended through the stage-door to the
half-lighted hall, where she found Cathy Fair strolling up and down the
center aisle in an apparently aimless manner.
"Hello, Cathy," said Patty; "what are you doing over here?"
"I'm head usher, and I wanted to see if those foolish sophomores had
mixed up the numbers again."
"It strikes me they're a trifle close together," said Patty, sitting
down and squeezing in her knees.
"Yes, I know; but you can't get eight hundred people into this hall any
other way. When we once get them packed they'll have to sit still,
that's all. What are you doing over here yourself?" she continued. "I
didn't know you were on the committee. Or are you just helping
Georgie?"
"I'm in the cast," said Patty.
"Oh, are you? I saw the program to-day, but I'd forgotten it. I've often
wondered why you haven't been in any of the class plays."
"Fortune and the faculty are against it," sighed Patty. "You see, they
didn't discover my histrionic ability before examinations freshman year,
and after examinations, when I was asked to be in the play, the faculty
thought I could spend the time to better advantage studying Greek. At
the time of the sophomore play I was on something else and couldn't
serve, and this year I had just been deprived of my privileges for
coming back late after Christmas."
"But I thought you said you were in it?"
"Oh," said Patty, "it's a minor part, and my name doesn't appear."
"What sort of a part is it?"
"I'm a crash."
"A crash?"
"Yes, 'a crash without.' Lord Bromley says, 'Cynthia, I will brave all
for your sake. I will follow you to the ends of the earth.' At this
point a crash is heard without. I," said Patty, proudly, "am the crash.
I sit behind a moonlit balcony in a space about two feet square, and
drop a lamp-chimney into a box. It may not sound like a very important
part, but it is the pivot upon which the whole plot turns."
"I hope you won't be taken with stage-fright," laughed Cathy.
"I'll try not," said Patty. "There comes the butler and Lord Bromley and
Cynthia. I've got to go and make them up."
"Why are you making people up, if you are not on the committee?"
"Oh, once, during a period of mental weakness, I took china-painting
lessons, and I'm supposed to know how. Good-by."
"Good-by. If you get any flowers I'll send them in by an usher."
"Do," said Patty. "I'm sure to get a lot."
Behind the scenes all was joyful confusion. Georgie, in a short skirt,
with her shirt-waist sleeves rolled up and a note-book in her hand, was
standing in the middle of the stage directing the scene-shifters and
distracted committee. Patty, in the "green-room," was presiding over the
cast, with a hare's foot in one hand and the other daubed with red and
blue grease-paints.
"Oh, Patty," remonstrated Cynthia, with a horrified glance in the
mirror, "I look more like a soubrette than a heroine."
"That's the way you ought to look," returned Patty. "Here, hold still
till I put another dab on your chin."
Cynthia appealed to the faithful Lord Bromley, who was sitting in the
background, politely letting the ladies go first. "Look, Bonnie, don't
you think I'm too red? I know it'll all come off when you kiss me."
"If it comes off as easily as that, you'll be more fortunate than most
of the people I make up"; and Patty smiled knowingly as she remembered
how Priscilla had soaked half the night on the occasion of a previous
play, and then had appeared at breakfast the next morning with lowering
eyebrows and a hectic flush on each cheek. "You must remember that
foot-lights take a lot of color," she explained condescendingly. "You'd
look ghastly if I let you go the way you wanted to at first. Next!
"No," said Patty, as the butler presented himself; "you don't come till
the second act. I'll take the Irate Parent first." The Irate Parent was
dragged from a corner where he had been anxiously mumbling over his
lines. "What's the matter?" asked Patty, as she began daubing in
wrinkles with a liberal hand; "are you afraid?"
"N-no," said the Parent; "I'm not afraid, only I'm afraid that I will be
afraid."
"You'd just better change your mind, then," said Patty, sternly. "We
aren't going to allow any stage-fright to-night."
"Patty, you can manage Georgie Merriles; make her let me go on without
any wig," cried Cynthia, returning and holding up to view a mass of
yellow curls of a shade that was never produced in the course of nature.
Patty looked at the wig critically. "It is, perhaps, a trifle golden for
the part."
"Golden!" said Cynthia. "It's positively _orange_. Wait till you see how
it lights up. He calls me his dark-eyed beauty: and I'm sure no one with
dark eyes, or any other kind of eyes, would have hair like that. My own
looks a great deal better."
"Why don't you wear your own, then? Wrinkle up your forehead, Parent,
and let me see which way they run."
"Georgie paid two dollars for renting it, and she's bound to get the
money's worth of wear out of it, even if she makes me look like a fright
and spoils the play."
"Nonsense," said Patty, pushing away the Parent and giving her undivided
attention to the question. "Your own hair does look better. Just mislay
the wig and keep out of Georgie's way till the curtain goes up. The
audience are beginning to come," she announced to the room in general,
"and you've got to keep still back there. You're making an awful racket,
and they can hear you all over the house. Here, what are you making such
a noise for?" she demanded of Lord Bromley, who came clumping up with
footfalls which reverberated through the flies.
"I can't help it," he said crossly. "Look at these boots. They're so big
that I can step out of them without unlacing them."
"It's not my fault. I haven't anything to do with the costumes."
"I know it; but what can I do?"
"Never mind," said Patty, soothingly; "they don't look so awfully bad.
You'll have to try and walk without raising your feet."
She went out on the stage, where Georgie was giving her last directions
to the scene-shifters. "The minute the curtain goes down on the first
act change this forest to the drawing-room scene, and don't make any
noise hammering. If you have to hammer, do it while the orchestra's
playing. How does it look?" she asked anxiously, turning to Patty.
"Beautiful," said Patty. "I'd scarcely recognize it."
The "forest scene" had served in every outdoor capacity for the last
four years, and it was usually hailed with a groan on the part of the
audience.
"I was just coming in to see if the cast were ready," said Georgie.
"They're all made up, and are sitting in the green-room getting
stage-fright. What shall I do now?"
"Let me see," said Georgie, consulting her book. "One of the committee
is to prompt, one is to stay with the men and see that they manage the
curtain and the lights in the right places, one is to give the cues, and
two are to help change costumes. Cynthia has to change from a
riding-habit to a ball-gown in four minutes. I think you'd better help
her, too."
"Anything you please," said Patty, obligingly. "I'll stand on a stool
with the ball-gown in the air ready to drop it over her head the moment
she appears, like a harness on a fire-horse. Is everything out here
done? What time is it?"
"Yes; everything's done, and it's five minutes of eight. We can begin as
soon as the audience is ready."
They peered through the folds of the heavy velvet curtain at the sea of
faces in front. Eight hundred girls in light evening-gowns were talking
and laughing and singing. Snatches of song would start up in one corner
and sweep gaily over the house, and sometimes two would meet and clash
in the center, to the horror of those who preferred harmony to volume.
"Here come the old girls!" said Patty, as a procession of some fifty
filed into reserved seats near the front. "There are loads of last
year's class back. What are the juniors doing? Look; I believe they are
going to serenade them."
The juniors rose in a body, and, turning to their departed sister class,
sang a song notable for its sentiment rather than its meter.
"I do hope it will be a success," sighed Georgie. "If it doesn't come up
to last year's senior play I shall _die_."
"Oh, it will," said Patty, reassuringly. "Anything would be better than
that."
"Now the glee club's going to sing two songs," said Georgie. "Thank
heaven, they're new!" she added fervently. "And the orchestra plays an
overture, and then the curtain goes up. Run and tell them to come out
here, ready for the first act."
Lord Bromley was standing in the wings disgustedly viewing the
banquet-table. "See here, Patty," he called as she hurried past. "Look
at this stuff Georgie Merriles has palmed off on us for wine. You can't
expect me to drink any such dope as _that_."
Patty paused for an instant. "What's the matter with it?" she inquired,
pouring out some in a glass and holding it up to the light.
"Matter? It's made of currant jelly and water, with cold tea mixed in."
"I made it myself," said Patty, with some dignity. "It's a beautiful
color."
"But I have to drain my glass at a draught," expostulated the outraged
lord.
"I'm sure there's nothing in currant jelly or tea to hurt you. You can
be thankful it isn't poisonous." And Patty hurried on.
The glee club sang the two new songs, punctuated with the appreciative
applause of a long-suffering audience, and the orchestra commenced the
overture.
"Everybody clear the stage," said Georgie, in a low tone, "and you keep
your eyes on the book," she added sternly to the prompter; "you lost
your place twice at the dress rehearsal."
The overture died down; a bell tinkled, and the curtain parted in the
middle, discovering Cynthia sitting on a garden-seat in the castle park
(originally the Forest of Arden).
As the curtain fell at the end of the act, and the applause gave way to
an excited buzz in the audience, Patty hugged Georgie gleefully. "It's
fifty times better than last year!"
"Heaven send Theo Granby is out there!" piously ejaculated Georgie.
(Theo Granby had been the chairman of last year's senior play.)
* * * * *
THE curtain had risen on the fourth act, and Patty squeezed herself into
the somewhat close quarters behind the balcony. There was
fortunately--or rather unfortunately--a window in the rear of the
building at this point, and Patty opened it and perched herself at one
end of the sill, with the lamp-chimney ready for use at the other end.
The crash was not due for some time, and Patty, having lately elected
astronomy, whiled away the interval by examining the stars.
On the stage matters were approaching a climax. Lord Bromley was making
an excellent lover, as was proved by the fact that the audience was
taking him seriously instead of laughing through the love scenes as
usual.
"Cynthia," he implored, "say that you will be mine, and I will brave all
for your sake. I will follow you to the ends of the earth." He gazed
tenderly into her eyes, and waited for the crash. A silence as of the
tomb prevailed, and he continued to gaze tenderly, while a grin rapidly
spread over the audience.
"Hang Patty!" he murmured savagely. "Might have known she'd do something
like this.--What was that? Did you hear a noise?" he asked aloud.
"No," said Cynthia, truthfully; "I did not hear anything."
"Pretend you did," he whispered, and they continued to improvise. After
some five minutes of hopeless floundering, the prompter got them back on
the track again, and the act proceeded, with the audience happily
unaware that anything was missing.
Ten minutes later Lord Bromley was declaiming: "Cynthia, let us flee
this place. Its dark rooms haunt me; its silence oppresses me--" And the
crash came.
For the first moment the audience was too startled to notice that the
actors were also taken by surprise. Then Lord Bromley, who was getting
used to emergencies, pulled himself together and ejaculated, "Hark! What
was that sound?"
"I think it was a crash," said Cynthia.
He grasped her hand and ran back toward the balcony. "Give us our
lines," he said to the prompter, as he went past.
The prompter had dropped the book, and couldn't find the place.
"Make them up," came in a piercing whisper from behind the balcony.
A silence ensued while the two dashed back and forth, looking excitedly
up and down the stage. Then the despairing Lord Bromley stretched out
his arms in a gesture of supplication. "Cynthia," he burst out in tones
of realistic longing, "I cannot bear this horrible suspense. Let us
flee." And they fled, fully three pages too early, forgetting to leave
the letter which should have apprised the Irate Parent of the
circumstance.
Georgie was tramping up and down the wings, wringing her hands and
lamenting the day that ever Patty had been born.
"Hurry up that Parent before they stop clapping," said Lord Bromley,
"and they'll never know the difference."
The poor old man, with his wig over one ear, was unceremoniously hustled
on to the stage, where he raved up and down and swore never to forgive
his ungrateful daughter in so realistic a manner that the audience
forgot to wonder how he found it out. In due time the runaways returned
from the notary's, overcame the old man's harshness, received the
parental blessing, and the curtain fell on a scene of domestic felicity
that delighted the freshmen in the gallery.
Patty crawled out from under the balcony and fell on her knees at
Georgie's feet.
Lord Bromley raised her up. "Never mind, Patty. The audience doesn't
know the difference; and, anyway, it was all for the best. My mustache
wouldn't have stayed on more than two minutes longer."
They could hear some one shouting in the front, "What's the matter with
Georgie Merriles?" and a hundred voices replied, "She's all right!"
"Who's all right?"
"G-e-o-r-g-i-e M-e-r-r-i-l-e-s."
"What's the matter with the cast?"
"They're all right!"
The stage-door burst open and a crowd of congratulatory friends burst in
and gathered around the disheveled actors and committee. "It's the best
senior play since we've been in college." "The freshmen are simply crazy
over it." "Lord Bromley, your room will be full of flowers for a month."
"Patty," called the head usher, over the heads of the others, "let me
congratulate you. I was in the very back of the room, and never heard a
thing but your crash. It sounded _fine_!"
"Patty," demanded Georgie, "what in the world were you doing?"
"I was counting the stars," said the contrite Patty, "and then I
remembered too late, and I turned around suddenly, and it fell off. I am
terribly sorry."
"Never mind," laughed Georgie; "since it turned out well, I'll forgive
you. All the cast and committee," she said, raising her voice, "come up
to my room for food. I'm sorry I can't invite you all," she added to the
girls crowded in the doorway, "but I live in a single."