Isabelle went directly to their town house and demanded a bed of the
caretaker, who was an old family servant. At ten in the morning she
presented herself at the stage door of the New York Theatre, and sent in
a card to Mr. Cartel. Word came out that he had not arrived. She was not
permitted to go in, and to her great indignation she had to march up and
down the alley for an hour until the great one came.
At sight of him she felt that all her troubles were at an end. She
hurried forward with a confident smile, as he stepped from his motor. No
gleam of delight at the sight of her overspread his features, however.
He saw her; he bowed.
"Ah--I got your message," he said, absently. "I don't think that there
is anything for you."
"There's got to be something for me," said Isabelle with promptness and
vigour. "You let me desert my family for a career, and you've got to
help me."
"But, my dear girl, I urged you not to break with your family, you
know."
"It's too late to talk about that. Here I am. Now, what are you going to
do about it?"
"Well, come in," he said, curtly; and they went into the theatre.
It was Isabelle's first view of the hindside of the mysteries. It was a
hot day, and rehearsal was in progress. A group of people sat listlessly
about the stage, on kitchen chairs, while a man in a neglige shirt and
no coat urged them to get a little "pep" into the scene "for the love of
God!" Cartel's arrival caused a ripple. All the actors sat up, as if
electrified. The stage manager advanced at once to speak with him. He
glanced at Isabelle, but Cartel made no move to introduce them. In fact
he seemed to have forgotten about her. He issued brief orders, asked a
few questions, turned to go. Then, as if on an afterthought, he added:
"By the way, Jenkins, this is Miss Isabelle Bryce. Try her out in the
maid's part, will you?"
Mr. Jenkins nodded to Isabelle, who was furious at her hero for this
casual treatment of her career.
"Come over here," ordered Jenkins, indicating a chair and offering her a
script. "Read 'Mary,'" he added, briefly, and went on with the
rehearsal.
Isabelle was dazed. It was so different from her idea of it. She had
supposed Cartel would introduce her to the company and the manager as a
genius he had discovered this summer. She thought she would be made much
of, as his protegee. Instead of which she was set upon a kitchen chair,
like a strange kitten, and told to read "Mary." Nobody paid any
attention to her. They did not even look at her. They went on,
indifferently, reading their parts, moving here and there on orders from
Jenkins. Suddenly her name was rapped out:
"Your cue, Miss Bryce."
She fumbled her script, blushed furiously, found the place, and read
stupidly, beginning with the cue.
" . . . Where is she? Mrs. Horton telephoned she would be here at five,
sir."
"Well, get up," ordered Jenkins, testily. "You enter R., upper door.
Come front and answer Horton, who stands L. C. Then you exit L., up
stage."
They all looked at her now. She felt their impatience, their supercilious
smiles. She knew she was that leper in the theatre--an amateur. She did
not know what Jenkins was talking about with his down R's, and his up L's.
He entered as Mary and showed her the business. She caught the idea at
once, and he grunted something which might have been approval or a curse.
The rest of the time she spent in fevered attention to the script, looking
for the signal, "Mary," but it came no more in that act. They went all
over it again, and she managed it without a hitch. Then they were
dismissed until two o'clock, and every one hurried off for lunch.
Isabelle waited, thinking that of course Cartel would ask her to lunch
with him. But there were no signs of him. She inquired where his office
was, and ascended the stairs with the intention of expressing her
dissatisfaction with her part. She stopped outside the door at the sound
of voices--Cartel's and Wally's. She went in.
"Well!" exploded her father, "so there you are!"
"Good morning, Wally. Max wired you?"
"She did. You will come home with me at once."
"There is no need of our boring Mr. Cartel with our family rows," she
said, sweetly. "I have no intention of going anywhere with you. I've
decided upon a stage career, and I'm rehearsing with Mr. Cartel now."
The manager stifled a smile.
"You're not of age, young woman, and you can be _made_ to do things!"
said Wally.
"Take it to law, you mean? Jail and all that? Public announcement that
you and Max can't manage me? Stupid, Wally, very stupid."
"You're not through with your education. It will be time enough to
decide on a career when you finish school."
"I have finished school. That I am determined upon. You may as well face
it, Wally. I am on the stage, and I intend to stay on it."
"Look here, Bryce, take a word of advice from me. I meet this every day.
Girls get this germ, and my experience is that it's better to let the
disease run its course. If you force her to go back to school, she has a
grievance for life. If she goes back of her own accord, she's cured."
"It's ridiculous! We'd be the laughing stock of the town!"
"Oh, no; it happens in the best families. Believe me, it is not such bad
training for young women who have never been disciplined--like your
daughter. She'll get it, in this business. She'll learn to obey orders
and to respect authority."
"But she's struck on herself now, and if she goes on the stage----"
"Don't bother; we'll take that out of her," remarked Cartel.
Wally looked from Isabelle's set face to the manager's smiling one.
"What is your idea?" he asked.
"Let her try it. Let her live at home. Send her back and forth in your
car; protect her, of course. But let her have her fling; it won't take
long," said Cartel, with a wise nod at Wally.
"Try it, Wally, just give me a chance," cried the near actress.
"Your mother will raise the roof!" he began.
"She'll come round, if you back me up."
"I don't know," he said, miserably.
Isabelle flew at him and hugged him wildly.
"Oh, Wally, you're a dear," she cried, thus committing him to partnership.
"We needn't treat Cartel to our family reconciliations," he said.
"Come take me to lunch, then. I have to be back at two. That isn't much
of a part," she added to Cartel.
"No? Well, we all must begin, you know. That is the first blow to young
ladies of your proclivities."
He rose, and bowed them out, as sign of dismissal. Wally and Isabelle
went to lunch, and it took them so long to work out their plans--where
Isabelle was to stay at present, how the matter was to be presented to
Max, and such weighty subjects--that Isabelle was late to rehearsal, and
was sharply reprimanded.
She felt this to be very unjust as her line did not come for a long
time. At the end of a long, tedious day, she went home to dine in lonely
state with the caretaker as cook, and to crawl into bed immediately
thereafter.
Wally managed the situation very well. He made Max see the futility of
fighting their child; he assured her that Cartel promised that the
seizure would be brief. He looked up old Miss Watts, and engaged her to
act as companion to the girl, accompanying her to all rehearsals. They
were to live in a suite of rooms, opened for them in the house, with the
caretaker providing their meals.
It was all satisfactory to Isabelle. She remembered Miss Watts with
pleasure, and she proved an unobjectionable companion. She took a book
and read during rehearsals. She seemed interested in Isabelle's future.
The career was not exciting so far. The first real event was the day
Cartel came to rehearsal. Everybody was on tiptoe with excitement. The
stupid, mumbling thing they called the play suddenly took shape, and
point, and brilliancy. It infuriated Isabelle that her only chance lay
in a vagrant, unimportant line here and there, when she knew she could
play the lead, Mrs. Horton, with a dash and distinction totally lacking
in the performance of the actress who was to play it.
She told Cartel so, on one of the infrequent occasions when she saw him
to talk to. He laughed.
"The nerve of you kids!" he said. "You think the Lord has made you an
actress, don't you? All you need is a chance at a leading part, in order
to startle New York!"
Isabelle tried to reply, but he swept on.
"This is an Art; you want to desecrate a great, important Art! It takes
long years of preparation, hard labour, infinite patience, aching
disappointment; it takes brain, and passion, and intelligence to make an
actor. Now where do you come in?"
"Well, but you thought this summer----"
"I thought you were a clever little girl doing a sleight-of-hand
performance," was his crushing answer.
"But----"
"Can you dance? Can you fence? Can you run? Is your body as mobile and
lithe as an animal's? Do you breathe properly? Can you sing? Is your
voice a cultivated instrument with an octave and a half of tones, or
have you five tones at your command? Do you know how to fill a theatre
with a whisper? Can you carry your body with distinction? Can you sit
and rise with grace? Is your speech perfect?" He hurled the questions at
her.
"No," she admitted.
"Then you don't know the a-b-c's of this art. When you can say 'yes' to
all these questions, then you are ready to begin, and not until then.
Mind you--to _begin_!"
"But everybody on the stage cannot say 'yes' to all those things."
"No, worse luck! Because soft-hearted fools like me permit crude little
girls like you to speak a line without any excuse for so doing. We'll
have no great acting in America until we shut the door upon every boy
and girl who thinks he can act, by the grace of God."
With this finale, the great man walked away, leaving Isabelle feeling
very young and very flat. But she rallied presently. Of course, he had
exaggerated it. It might be that the majority of people had to go that
long, hard road of preparation, but always there would be some who would
leap to the top without the ladder. In her deepest, secret heart she
knew herself to be of that few.
She took up the subject again that very night, after dinner, with Miss
Watts.
"What do you think is the most necessary thing for success, Miss Watts?"
"Work."
"But in something like the stage, I mean."
"It doesn't make any difference what it is, true success is the result
of hard work and nothing else," that lady persisted, bromidically
enough.
"Don't you think it is ever an accident?"
"If it is, it's the worst accident that can happen to you."
"Why?"
"Because then you have to live up to something you haven't earned. You
don't know what to do, and in most cases you slump back into mediocrity."
"But there must be some people who don't grind----"
"Geniuses, maybe; but they usually do."
"How do you suppose geniuses recognize themselves?"
"They don't, in most cases."
"But if you felt that you had a great gift, that you were going to do
wonderful things, mightn't it be that you were a genius?"
"I should say that it meant that you were merely young," smiled Miss
Watts.
Isabelle decided that doubtless all geniuses met with this lack of
recognition in those about them. She pinned her faith to herself! In
spite of Cartel and Miss Watts--who, after all, were _old_--she rather
thought that on the opening night, when she spoke her lines, few as they
were, the critics would say simply, in large-type headlines:
"CARTEL HAS FOUND A GENIUS!"