October came, dragged by, with the opening night of the play coming
nearer. Wally induced Max to come to town and open the house. It was a
cold autumn and nearly all of their friends returned early, too.
"I had hoped that nobody would be in town when this idiot child of ours
makes her ridiculous debut, but now everybody on earth is home. Even the
weather favours Isabelle's plans," complained Max to her spouse.
"No one need know about it, if we can keep it out of the papers."
"Yes, IF!"
"Better make the best of it. Ask a lot of people to dinner, take all the
boxes, and make a joke of it."
"Isabelle may make a joke of us," commented her mother.
"She gets away with things," Wally encouraged her.
As for Isabelle, she was bored to the point of despair with her career.
Day in, day out, she said her stupid lines. If she varied one inflection
from yesterday's inflection she was reprimanded by Jenkins. Mary and her
lines were as standardized as Webster's Dictionary, and no original
turns were to be permitted. Cartel continued distant, every inch a star,
wrapped in his greatness. The other members of the company paid scant
attention to her, so she made no friends.
It was all very dull and mechanical. The play started off and ground
itself through as automatically as a machine. Jenkins ruled like the
boss of the shop. There was no room for genius.
Just to help herself endure the tedium of eternal rehearsal, Isabelle
invented an absorbing game. She rewrote the play, in innumerable ways,
with the plot revolving around Mary as the central figure. Mary was now
the friend and adviser of Mrs. Horton, now the trusted confidante of Mr.
Horton. But whichever she was, she was a noble, sublimated creature--no
possible relation to Mary, the automatic servant. She had long,
beautiful speeches, interesting and unusual stage business; she wore a
striking maid's costume, designed by Isabelle. This Mary managed to keep
Isabelle's imagination awake during the weary weeks in which the other
Mary walked on and off, with her "Yes, Mrs. Horton," and her "No, Mr.
Horton."
Suddenly a Sunday Supplement blossomed out with a full-page drawing of
Isabelle, and the announcement of her coming debut on the stage, in Sidney
Cartel's new production to open on such-and-such a date. Thereafter every
paper in town blared forth the news of this event. There were full columns
of talk about the Bryces, their money, their position, Mrs. Bryce's
beauty, Isabelle's eccentricities. The originality and daring of their
only child were dwelt upon at great length.
The performance with Cartel at the mountain inn was described. The
hungry public was told how Cartel had seen her genius at a glance and
persuaded her parents to let him have the training of her talent.
Isabelle was snapshotted leaving the theatre, or riding in the Park. She
was not safe a moment from reporters and camera men.
There was unanimous disapproval of this state of affairs on the part of
her parents and her manager. It was difficult to tell which was the
angrier. The Bryces accused Isabelle, but for once she was innocent. She
had no idea how the reports started. She had talked to nobody. Miss
Watts corroborated this statement. Neither of them knew when the artist
made the sketch of her, and they never supposed that the photographers
were taking her picture.
Cartel was furious. It was not in his plans at all to let this youngster
take the middle of his stage on the occasion of his New York opening. He
would have dismissed her at once, had the newspaper talk not gone so
far. As it was he joined her parents heartily in a determined effort to
shut them off. But it couldn't be done. Isabelle had caught the public
eye; she was a marked personality, and editors played her up big.
Secretly she triumphed. It was only the beginning in the inevitable
recognition of her greatness. It strengthened her belief that she was of
the elect, and she rarely ever thought of the "Mary" part with which she
was actually to prove herself, but she hurled herself into the
development of the other Mary, which should have been hers, by all the
laws of right. The two creatures merged--were one. Once or twice at
rehearsal, aroused by her cue from some wonderful scene where Mary held
the spotlight, she faltered for a second for those barren lines of the
real Mary.
"What's the matter with you, Miss Bryce? Keep your mind on what you're
doing," warned Jenkins.
She smiled at him. Poor fool! In a few weeks he would be bragging that
he stage-managed her first appearance. She could afford to be patient
with his bad temper, now.
Dress rehearsal was called and became a fevered memory. The day of the
opening Isabelle spent quietly at home, except for a ride in the Park.
She was to rest, and have her supper in her sitting room. Wally came in,
in the midst of her repast, and fussed about her room.
"Aren't you nervous?" he inquired.
"Oh, no."
"I am. I'm so nervous I could scream!" he exploded. "I hate all this
notoriety. They say the house will be packed."
"We always like a full house," she said, serenely.
"Suppose you flunk it!"
"But I won't!"--promptly.
He looked at her uncomprehendingly.
"If you could only be kept in a cage, in the cellar!"
She laughed gaily at that.
"Poor old Wally! Don't fret. You'll be very proud of me some day."
Max floated in.
"I thought I heard laughter."
"You did," Isabelle replied.
"Are you cool enough to laugh?"
"Quite. Wally is the only nervous one. Who is coming to dinner, Max?"
"Eighteen people. Christiansen for one."
"Oh, good!"
"When do you go to the theatre?"
"Seven."
"Come along, Wally, she ought to rest. For all our sakes, Isabelle, keep
your head and don't make a fool of yourself."
"Much obliged," said Isabelle. "I take it you are wishing me luck."
Wally kissed her cheek, and they went out.
"Poor dears," mused Isabelle, "it will be hard for them to accommodate
themselves to my importance."
Then she gave herself up to dreams of triumph until it was time to go.
There was excitement in the air at the theatre. Voices were high, and
eyes were bright. She was greeted loudly from open doors, as she went to
her dressing room. Since the papers had boomed her, her position in the
company had changed. Every one was dressed early and little knots of
people discussed the big house, the critics, the chances of success for
the play. It was a "strong" play, and, so far, the season had offered
only trifles. It was too soon to know yet what the public appetite
craved.
"You got to change its meat. When it's fed up on crooks, ye got to give
it sex; when it turns against that, ye got to try comedy. _My_ opinion
is, this is a comedy season," said the gentleman who played the
butler--a part even more inconspicuous than Isabelle's. They all
inquired the state of her pulse, and marvelled at her calm.
"She'll be a hit, or she'll be rotten," was the butler gentleman's
comment.
"She can't do much in that maid's part."
"_Can't_ she? Remember the time they tried to bury Ethel Barrymore in a
maid's part, when she was a kid? Took the show right away from John
Drew!" said the authority.
Finally the curtain was up, and the play was on. Isabelle's initial
appearance was late in the first act, when Cartel was building carefully
the foundations of plot for the subsequent superstructure. Isabelle
entered with a visitor's card in the middle of an important speech by
Cartel. She had one line. To his intense fury, at sight of her the house
burst into applause, and he had to halt his oration until she disappeared.
The play was a domestic drama, with the popular old-fashioned man, wed
to the popular-new-fashioned woman who wants to "live her life." In the
first act, the husband's point of view and character are expounded and
contrasted with the woman's.
In a daring second act, the husband--on the casual invitation of an
acquaintance to come along to a supper party in a certain man's
rooms--finds his own wife acting as hostess. After the modern manner he
breaks no furniture, makes no scene; but in tense tones, aside, he
demands an explanation from her. She promises him an interview at their
home, the following day, at five. He refuses to wait; she insists. He
leaves. Events follow rapidly. The host has a stroke of apoplexy and
dies. A muddle-headed guest summons a police ambulance instead of a
hospital one. Police arrive, murder is suspected, every one is arrested.
There is a strong finale, with hints of astounding revelations to
come--in act three, of course.
The third act opens with a very tense atmosphere. Horton (Cartel), the
husband--unaware that his wife is under arrest, suspected of murder--comes
to his home, from the club, where he has spent a sleepless night. It is
nearly five o'clock, the hour of the interview. Business of excitement,
pacing, looking at watch. He rings for Mary, who enters.
"Where is Mrs. Horton, Mary?" he asks.
"Mrs. Horton telephoned she would be here at five o'clock, sir," answers
Mary, who, according to the playwright, then goes out. But Mary did not
exit.
"She hasn't been home all night, sir," she added suddenly, unexpectedly,
"and it may be that she is in some trouble."
Cartel turned a fierce frown upon her.
"That will do, Mary," he said, threateningly.
Mary threw herself at his feet.
"Oh, Mr. Horton, don't be hard on her! She may have been misled by this
man; but at heart she is a good woman--I could swear it."
Cartel was shaking with fury. He leaned over and grasped the prostrate
Mary by the arm, so hard that he nearly cracked her bones. "Ouch!" she
cried, "you're hurting me."
The audience slowly grasped the fact that this scene was a surprise to
Cartel. It was so still you could have heard a sigh. Mary resisted any
attempt to get her on her feet, and this side of carrying her off Cartel
was helpless.
"If you'd only make a confidante of me, Mr. Horton, I could be a help to
you in your hour of need," she cried passionately.
"Get out!" hissed Cartel, _sotto voce_.
"It looks as if she committed that murder, but I have facts to prove
that she did not."
The rest of the act was devoted to breaking the news of the murder to
Horton. In one fell line this demon had demolished the play. The
audience began to titter, to laugh, to roar! Cartel dragged Isabelle to
the door, and literally flung her forth. But at the expression on her
face the audience actually shouted with delight, they applauded
deafeningly.
Cartel acted quickly. He went up stage, turned his back, and looked out
of a prop. window, for what seemed a lifetime, till the hysterics out in
front subsided. Finally it was still enough for him to take up the scene
again. But at the dramatic entrance of his wife, fresh from a night in
jail, they were off again. Cartel glared at them, and in a shamefaced
sort of way, they subsided, and the play creaked on, as dead as last
year's news.
Mary had a later entrance, which Cartel cut, but it necessitated the
mention of her name, whereupon the monster mirth was loosed again.
Finally the curtain descended upon the tragedy. Mrs. Horton went into
hysterics, and Mr. Horton, bathed in sweat, went to look for Isabelle.
The company stood about in frightened groups, but he did not see them.
He threw open her door without so much as a knock upon it, and he
shouted so you could have heard him in Harlem.
"You little beast! You--you hell-cat! What d'ye mean by spoiling my
scene like that?"
"Oh, I am so sorry," said Isabelle, "I didn't mean to do it, but I got
the two Marys all mixed up."
"You're crazy--you're a mad woman! What do you think this will mean to
me? It means failure--complete failure! I never could get through the
scene again. It means thousands of dollars, that's what it means.
Because I let a stage-struck fool like you speak a line! Talk about
gratitude! You turn and ruin me!"
"But I didn't know----"
"Don't pull that baby stuff!" he shrieked. "You _did_ know. You
_intended_ to do it all the time. You're so crazy about yourself, that
you'd murder your own mother to get the spotlight! Get out of here!
Don't you ever let me see your face again! Don't you ever step in this
theatre, you dirty spy! Take her away! Take her away!" he raved, now
entirely beside himself.
Isabelle for once was dumb. Poor, terrified Miss Watts seized her by the
arm, and dragged her out the stage door, and down the alley.