THE CURTAIN RISES.
Dick slipped cautiously into the stage entrance of the Concert Hall, and
went directly to Demarest’s dressing room. No one must see him until he
was made up, or the fat would be all in the fire.
Swiftly lighting the gas jets, he locked the door, and opened the
make-up box, which stood on a bare table underneath a large mirror. It
was not the first time he had disguised himself so that his best friend
did not know him, but he found that the very strength of the likeness
between Demarest and himself was more a hindrance than a help.
His keen sense of observation, however, had taken in the several
important differences in their faces, and he proceeded to skillfully
make his own an exact duplicate of the actor’s. It was delicate work,
but he did it well; and, ten minutes later, after he had rearranged his
hair in the manner Demarest wore it, it would have taken an amazingly
keen eye to see that he was not the actor himself. He had scarcely put
down the brushes, when there came a light, quick knock at the door.
Inwardly a little nervous, but to all appearances perfectly at ease, he
stepped across the room, turned the key, and flung the door open. Marion
Gray was standing on the threshold, her face worried and anxious, but,
as she saw him, her eyes brightened, and she gave a gasp of relief.
“Oh, Austin, I’m so glad!” she cried. “What a fright you have given us!
I’ve been worried nearly to death for fear you wouldn’t get here in
time. What in the world kept you?”
“I’m sorry, Marion,” Dick returned, “but it really couldn’t be helped.
There isn’t a question now about Hemingway giving us a show if we make
good here.”
Putting all his powers of mimicry into play, Merriwell reproduced the
tones of Austin Demarest’s voice with an accuracy which surprised even
himself. The girl evidently had no suspicion of the substitution, for
she went on quickly:
“Austin, I’m afraid of Bryton. I’m afraid he’ll try to prevent the
performance in some way. I saw him in the street outside just now, and
yesterday he did his best to persuade me to throw up my part.”
“What a scoundrel he is!” Dick exclaimed. “But, of course, I have no
fear of his succeeding. You’d never throw me down that way.”
Marion Gray caught her breath suddenly. Her eyes were full of tears, and
she was evidently in a very nervous condition.
“I’m glad you realize that much,” she faltered. “I couldn’t do such a
thing as that, though sometimes it’s dreadfully hard——”
She broke off abruptly, and Merriwell looked at her questioningly.
“Hard?” he repeated.
Her face was turned away from him.
“Yes—hard to have you—make love—to me—on the stage,” she whispered
chokingly.
Dick drew a quick breath. Great heavens! The girl was madly in love with
Demarest, and she was as much as telling him so. There was no mistaking
the tones of her voice. He had not thought of this complication, and for
a moment he did not know what to do or say. He had no idea what the
actor’s general attitude was toward this extremely attractive young
woman, and, even if he had, he could never bring himself to behave in a
sentimental manner toward the girl who was mistaking him for another
man.
“There, my dear,” he ventured presently, in Demarest’s whimsical tones,
“you’re worried sick over this fellow Bryton. There’s nothing to be
afraid of. He can’t stop the performance now. Come, it’s time we started
the ball moving. The stage must be waiting for us.”
Drawing her arm gently through his, he led her out of the dressing room,
and a moment later they were upon the stage, which was thronged with the
members of the company, who greeted him enthusiastically, and in tones
of distinct relief. They, too, had been worried, and with good reason.
Capable actors as they were, they well knew that if Demarest’s play
failed to make a hit, many of them would be in a pretty bad way for a
job. Unlike Marion Gray, they were far from being indespensable to the
trust.
It was a trying moment for Dick. He did not even know one name from
another, though he had thoroughly memorized the cast, and as soon as the
rehearsal commenced, he would find out their various identities from the
parts they took. Consequently, he plunged at once into the business at
hand.
“Howdy, everybody,” he began cheerily. “Beastly sorry to have kept you
all on the fence this way, but it couldn’t be helped. We’ll have to make
up for lost time by hustling things along. Let’s get busy at once. Clear
the stage for the first act.”
Once the plunge was taken, things came easier. The first act went
through with a rush. Dick made few slips, and covered them so skillfully
that no one noticed them. The cast was letter-perfect in their parts,
and had rehearsed so often that they had the business at their finger
ends.
Merriwell made several changes in the latter, which were all
improvements. It was evident that Demarest knew Cambridge, and the ways
of Harvard men to perfection, but he had slipped up a number of times in
transplanting those ways to New Haven and Yale. They were little things,
but Dick knew that the boys would notice them and probably josh, so he
took it upon himself to do a little altering.
The big scene in the third act went with a dash which brought
exclamations of enthusiastic appreciation from the actors. It was a
scene which the star practically carried on his own shoulders, and they
had never seen Demarest do better.
The last act followed swiftly, and, with a sigh of thankfulness, Dick
realized that this ordeal was over.
He had decided not to go back to his rooms. In fact, he could not
separate himself from the company now without creating suspicion. There
was barely time for a hurried dinner before they would have to be back
at the theatre, so every one made a swift rush to their dressing rooms,
and in ten minutes they began to leave by the stage entrance.
Merriwell waited for Marion Gray. He felt that Demarest would have done
that, and while she was changing her gown, he stepped out to the box
office to see what the chances for a good house that evening were.
The ticket seller was enthusiastic. With the exception of a few seats in
the rear of the orchestra and balcony, the entire house was sold out.
Applications were constantly coming in over the phone, and he predicted
that in half an hour only standing room would be left.
“By Jove!” Merriwell muttered, as he went back to the stage. “I’ve got
to do it now!”
A moment later he was sitting beside Miss Gray in a cab, being borne
rapidly toward the hotel. The girl did not say much, but she seemed to
have recovered her self-control, and was rejoiced when Dick told her of
the splendid audience they would have to play to.
Entering the hotel, they went directly to the dining room. As he passed
the desk, Merriwell saw a tall, dark, rather imposing-looking man start
suddenly, and glare at the Yale man with open mouth and swiftly paling
face, as if he could not believe the evidence of his eyes. At the same
moment he heard the girl beside him draw her breath quickly, and in that
instant he felt intuitively that the man must be Ralph Bryton. No wonder
the manager was astounded to see Demarest here, if, as the latter
supposed, he was responsible for the actor’s detention in New York.
Dick raised his head, and sent a taunting, irritating smile toward the
fellow. Then he passed on into the dining room.
From that moment things went with such a rush and dash that there was no
time at all to grow nervous. The meal was hurried along at breakneck
speed. The actors were all more or less nervous, for any first night is
an ordeal, and this one particularly so.
Dick did his best to cheer them up, as he knew Demarest would have done.
He told them of the sold-out house, and kept up a continual string of
whimsical, amusing comment all the time they were at table.
Dinner over, they returned to the theatre again, and at once dressed for
the first act.
Presently the doors opened, and the house began to fill. Dick had
finished dressing, and was strolling about the stage, resolutely trying
to keep his thoughts from what was coming. Seat after seat in the
auditorium without banged down. The low murmur of conversation gradually
grew louder as the house filled. Presently he heard the sound of
tramping, followed swiftly by jest and laughter, as a crowd of college
fellows made their way to the front.
He shivered a little. They would do their best to break him up, he knew.
They always did. Then suddenly a wave of obstinate determination swept
over him. He would not let them guy him. He would spite them all, and
play the part so well that they would have no time for that.
Presently the musicians began to tune up, and a little later the first
bars of a popular air crashed out. Demarest had had the forethought to
secure an especially fine orchestra, and he was wise. The boys would
have hooted into silence anything less good. As it was, they contented
themselves with keeping time with their feet, and when the chorus of the
song began, they joined in, singing the words.
The thunderous burst of voices was awe-inspiring—almost terrifying.
Those of the company upon the stage shivered, and several turned pale
under their rouge as they realized what they would have to face.
Dick noticed it, and turned swiftly toward them.
“You mustn’t mind them,” he said reassuringly. “They may josh a little
at first, but don’t pay any attention to them. Play your parts for all
that is in you, and they’ll stop pretty quick. We can’t fail, you know,
with such a play as ‘Jarvis of Yale.’”
A moment later he realized that this must sound decidedly conceited, but
apparently the others did not notice the break. They were too much
intent on their own feelings to think of anything else, but Merriwell’s
cheery words put heart into them, and braced them up.
The music stopped with a crashing bar, and was followed by loud
applause.
“Clear the stage!” Dick said swiftly. “All ready for the first act?”
The first set was on the campus, with Farnum Hall on the drop, and
Battle Chapel looming to the left. A crowd of fellows were sitting on
the steps of the hall, singing in the moonlight. The men took their
places, while the other actors scurried into the wings. Dick was with
them. He did not appear until after the curtain was up. He raised his
hand in a signal, and instantly the trained voices of the quartette
broke the stillness. Softly, at first, they crooned the words of the
familiar college air. Gradually it grew louder and louder, until the
volume filled the wings. Dick felt his heart beating unevenly.
There was another signal, and the curtain slowly lifted, and revealed
the stage.
A prolonged burst of genuine applause greeted the beautiful set, which
had been painted by one of the best artists in New York. The fellows had
found nothing so far to guy. They were fair enough according to their
lights. They never jeered a performance simply for the sake of breaking
up the play. It was only their method of showing displeasure for
inferior acting.
The quartette finished the last verse of the song, and, taking a quick
breath, Dick walked quietly onto the stage.
He spoke the first few words of his lines uninterrupted. Then there came
a prolonged burst of hand-clapping, which seemed to continue
indefinitely. Either this was simply a mode of expressing their approval
of the actor who had produced the play under such disadvantages, or else
the fellows were trying to break him up.
But they did not succeed. Dick waited until the applause had died away,
and then continued his lines as if there had been no interruption.
After a first swift glance at the audience, which seemed to him like
nothing else but a sea of faces rising, tier upon tier, to the very
roof, the Yale man had not felt a particle of nervousness. And with his
first lines he plunged himself into the part he was taking, and from
that moment there was not the least sign of hesitancy in his manner.
In truth, he was not acting at all. He was simply himself, and the
college fellows in the audience became instantly plunged into a
controversy as to whether it was Dick Merriwell or some one else, which
lasted off and on to the end of the play.
Once the plunge was taken, the first act went smoothly, gathering
interest as the plot developed. At first Dick’s lines were punctuated by
bursts of applause, which usually started from a certain quarter of the
orchestra where Buckhart was seated, but, as the play progressed, these
became less frequent, until at length the Texan sat gaping at the stage,
growing more and more certain that there had been some mistake, and this
was not his chum at all.
The first act finished with a brisk round of clapping, which did not
cease until the curtain had risen upon the stage several times, and was
only stilled by Dick’s leading Marion Gray before the footlights.
Evidently the boys were very well pleased. That was plain from the buzz
of talk and favorable comment which arose after the curtain finally
dropped.
“You were splendid, Austin!” Marion Gray exclaimed, as they hurried off
the stage. “I never saw you do better. Oh, I’m so glad! It can’t help
but go now.”
“They seemed to like it, all right, didn’t they?” Merriwell smiled. “We
must keep up the good work.”
“Wait till they see the third act,” she smiled, as she slipped into the
dressing room. “That’ll fetch them.”
The next act went with rush and vim. Demarest had written better than he
knew. There was not an unnecessary word. The plot unfolded swiftly and
naturally, with an ever-increasing interest. The business was splendid,
thanks to Merriwell’s blue-penciling of the afternoon, and more than one
burst of applause greeted some particularly apt sally. The scene ended
with a dramatic encounter between the heroine, played with grace and
spirit, by Marion Gray, and the villain, in which the girl heard the
latter plotting to have _Jarvis_ thrown off the team by means of false
statements that he had betrayed signals to Harvard, and vowed that she
would save _Jarvis_, whom she loved, by going to the captain of the
eleven with what she had just learned.
The curtain fell to a prolonged burst of applause, and again Dick had to
go before it with Miss Gray. Then he hustled back to get into his
football rig for the great scene.
This took place in the track house on the field. Through a great window
at the back could be seen one end of a tier of seats crowded with
spectators, in which the real actors blended into the figures painted on
the drop so perfectly that the effect was one of a vast, shouting,
flag-waving mob of people.
As the curtain rose, the entire football team was on the stage,
receiving final instructions from the coaches before the game. _Hicks_,
the villain, accused _Jarvis_ of selling their signals to Harvard. The
latter indignantly denied it, and was only restrained from pitching into
his enemy by the efforts of the other men.
_Hicks_ produced his forged proofs, and _Jarvis_ was thrown off the
team. The team rushed off to the field, and _Jarvis_, left alone, threw
himself into a chair, and dropped his head on his arms, outstretched
across a table, in an agony of heartbroken despair.
It was a thrilling moment. The whole vast audience was so still that one
could almost have heard a pin drop. Then a shrill whistle from the field
outside the window split the silence, and the mimic crowd on the grand
stand burst forth into a roar. Still _Jarvis_ did not raise his head.
Then came the sounds of the game. The thudding of many feet upon a mimic
turf, the shrill cries and shouts of the excited spectators, the waving
of many flags.
Slowly _Jarvis_ lifted his head, and looked toward the window. The game
was going on, and he was out of it. He would not look! He did not want
to, but, little by little, against his will, he crept to the window. The
game was in full swing; his blood was thrilled as his eyes were riveted
on the field; unconsciously he followed the progress of the struggle
aloud.
Dick Merriwell’s work in this scene was masterly in its simplicity. He
had forgotten that he was playing a part—had almost forgotten that he
was on the stage. For the time he really was _Lance Jarvis_, and his
expression of the heartbreaking agony of the man ruled off his team at
the crucial moment, watching the progress of the game with straining
eyes and sweating brow, seeing the weakness of his team, and yet not
able to help, was something which could never be forgotten.
The crowded house was thrilled into silence. Men sat on the edges of
their seats, with eyes riveted on that single figure at the window,
scarcely daring to breathe, for fear they would break the spell.
Presently the game began to go against the Yale team. Slowly the line
was forced down the field. The vivid words of the unconscious actor
painted the scene for the excited audience as clearly as if they had
been looking on the game itself.
“They’re gaining!” he cried desperately. “They’re going through the line
with every rush! _Lawrence_ is groggy! They’re hammering him! Another
ten yards and they’ll make a touchdown!”
As if unable to longer watch the failure of his team, Merriwell turned
from the window, and put one hand over his eyes.
This was the cue for the newsboy to rush in with word that the heroine
had been intercepted by the villain’s friends while on her way to save
_Jarvis_, but to Dick’s surprise the boy did not appear. He waited a
moment, and then, turning back for an instant to the window, improvised
a line or two.
Suddenly the door burst open, and the belated boy appeared. His face was
white, his eyes shining with excitement, a smear of blood trickled from
a cut on his face.
Leaping across the stage, he caught Dick’s arm.
“They’ve got her!” he shrilled. “They’re trying to get Miss Gray into a
cab. Hurry! Hurry, or you’ll be too late!”
These were not the proper words at all, but they seemed very appropriate
to the audience, who burst into applause. Dick, knowing full well that
something was wrong, rushed from the stage, with the boy at his heels.
Outside he stopped, and faced the actor.
“What is it?” he demanded. “What are you talking about? What’s the
matter?”
“They’ve got Miss Gray!” gasped the boy. “Down at the stage door.
They’re carrying her off. One of ’em hit me a crack——”
He found himself talking to empty air. Merriwell rushed through the
wings, flung himself down the short flight of stairs, and burst out into
the street.
The boy was right. A cab was drawn up close to the curb, into which two
men were trying to force Marion Gray. The girl was struggling
desperately, and trying to drag away the hand of one of them, which was
pressed close against her mouth to prevent her crying out.
Like a panther, Merriwell sprang at them. With a grip of iron he seized
the collar of one, and tore him away from the girl, planting a smashing
blow on his face as he did so. The next minute the other was stretched
on the ground, and Marion was free.
The Yale man would like to have stayed to complete the job, but he knew
that there was not a moment to lose. They must get back to the stage.
Half lifting, half supporting the girl, who was sobbing hysterically, he
carried her through the stage door, back to the wings.
“It’s all right,” he soothed. “You must brace up, Marion. You’ve got to
think of the play. We’ll have to go on in a minute.”
She caught her breath, and brought all her will to bear to calm herself.
“You’re right,” she faltered. “I mustn’t fail. That’s what he wanted to
carry me off for—to spoil the play.”
“It was Bryton, I suppose?” Dick questioned.
“Yes.”
She put her hand up, and mechanically smoothed her hair. As she did so,
Dick heard their cue to enter.
“There’s the cue,” he said quickly. “Can you go on?”
“Yes, I’m all right now.”
They hurried to the entrance, and stepped onto the stage. Luckily the
situation in the play was enough to account for any signs of emotion
which Marion Gray displayed, but she was very soon herself again.
The first half of the game was over. The men came into the track house,
worn and exhausted by their struggles, discouraged by their failure—for
Harvard had scored. Marion Gray told her story, swiftly, dramatically.
The villain was unmasked, and _Jarvis_ restored to the team to play out
the second half.
The curtain dropped to the sound of thunderous applause. The audience
fairly broke loose. Yells and catcalls made bedlam of the place. Time
and time again Merriwell came before the curtain with Miss Gray. At
length he was forced to appear alone, and shouts of “Speech! Speech!”
rent the air.
This nearly broke him up, but he managed to say a few words of thanks
before he backed out of sight.
The last act was a short one, which simply rounded things out, and tied
up loose ends. The game was over. _Jarvis_ had won a victory for Yale by
a phenomenal play, and appeared on the stage, borne on the shoulders of
his enthusiastic comrades. The play ended with a pretty bit of
love-making between the heroine and _Lance Jarvis_, which Marion Gray
played with all the fascination and art she possessed. It fairly brought
down the house, and Dick found himself wondering how Austin Demarest
could go through that every night of the week without falling head over
heels in love with the attractive actress.
When the curtain dropped it was past eleven o’clock, but no one made a
move to leave the theatre. They simply sat in their seats, thundering on
the floor with their feet, clapping their hands sore, and raising such a
din that the actors on the stage could not hear a spoken word.
The curtin rolled up again and again, revealing the long semicircle of
smiling faces, happy in the knowledge that they had helped score a
phenomenal success. Already they saw themselves booked for a long run at
a Broadway playhouse.
Up and down the curtain went, almost continuously, and still the
crashing bursts of sound reverberated from orchestra to gallery, and
back again.
Presently there was a momentary pause, and then came the deep,
thunderous, blood-stirring roar of marshaled cheering, from a thousand
throats:
“Demarest! Demarest! Demarest!”
As he stood in the centre of the stage, with Marion Gray at his side,
Dick felt an odd lump in his throat, and something like a mist came
before his eyes. He had never known such a sensation before.
“Aren’t you happy?” whispered the girl.
Dick looked down into her eyes, which were bright with tears.
“Yes,” he said simply.
And he was. He had won out for his friend. He had also done a piece of
good work which Demarest would find it hard to equal, but the Yale man
did not realize that at the time. He had simply done his best, and had
succeeded.
At last, after Merriwell had appeared alone before the curtain eight or
ten times, the enthusiastic audience seemed to be content, and, leaving
their seats, began to file slowly out of the theatre. But throughout the
college buildings that night, and in a good many other parts of New
Haven, “Jarvis of Yale,” and the superb acting of Austin Demarest, were
the sole topics of conversation.
* * * * *
About eleven o’clock next morning Merriwell sat alone in his room,
waiting for Demarest. A wire had come two hours before, saying that he
was at liberty, and would take the next train to New Haven, so that Dick
momentarily expected to see him.
He was feeling a little of the mental strain which he had undergone, but
otherwise was in splendid shape. His one reply to the inquiries as to
where he had been last night was to tell the fellows that he had had a
chance to go behind the scenes, and had stayed there throughout the
play. One and all, his friends had commented on the amazing resemblance
between himself and the author of the play, and he had agreed with them
that it was most extraordinary.
He was a little annoyed to find out that Buckhart knew the truth, but,
after all, it mattered very little now, especially when he knew that the
Texan would never divulge the secret. Brad’s utter astonishment when he
found that Dick really had played the part of _Jarvis_ was very funny.
He pronounced the performance as the very “corkingest” thing he had ever
seen.
Suddenly Dick’s quick ear caught the sound of hurried feet on the
stairs, a moment later the door was burst open, and Demarest, his face
aglow with joyous enthusiasm, dashed into the room.
With a sweep of his arms, he caught Dick about the shoulders, and gave
him a great hug.
“Oh, you brick!” he cried. “I didn’t know there was such a bully fellow
alive! As long as I live I’ll never forget what you did for me last
night. It was splendid! But what an old bluffer you are.”
He took a step backward, and gazed at the Yale man affectionately.
Dick looked a little puzzled.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Why, pretending you couldn’t act, of course.”
“But I can’t,” Dick objected. “At least, I didn’t think I could.”
“That’s good!” laughed Demarest. “Why, your performance last night is
the talk of the town. Have you seen the papers yet?”
Dick shook his head smilingly, and the actor raised his eyes to the
ceiling.
“Great Scott!” he cried, in astonishment. “Not looked at the papers!
What do you think of that!”
He dragged a large bundle of newspapers from his pocket and held them
up.
“Notices in every decent New York daily!” he cried triumphantly. “And
such notices! Listen to this!”
Swiftly unfolding one, he found the right place and read unctuously:
“‘Jarvis of Yale,’ produced last night—um—um—— The acting of Austin
Demarest in the title part was a treat which has not been our privilege
to witness in many moons. His rendering of _Lance Jarvis_ was masterly
in its simple directness, its naturalness and truth, while at the same
time his emotional range was wide and his pathos quite distinguished
from bathos. He seemed, more than almost any actor which we can at
present recall, to get under the skin of the character he was
portraying. He was the typical college man. Manly, true-hearted,
generous, full of the eternal joy of youth. One would almost have
supposed that he had stepped directly on the stage from the college
campus so near at hand. A tremendous, and widely enthusiastic audience
crowded the old theatre to the very doors. It is quite safe to predict
that ‘Jarvis of Yale’ will settle down very shortly for a long Broadway
run. Certainly it would be hard to find a more clean-cut, dramatic,
thoroughly wholesome play, without a dull moment from start to finish,
than this maiden effort of the most popular and able leading man of the
past season, who received much of his early training in the company of
the late Richard Manton.”
Demarest tossed the paper aside and turned to Dick.
“There! What do you think of that? There’s a lot more about you and the
rest of the company that I skipped. Not act, indeed!”
Merriwell’s face was serious and his eyes very bright.
“But I didn’t act at all,” he said quickly. “I just learned the lines
and left the rest to luck. All I did was to try and imagine what I would
feel like and what I’d do if I were in _Lance Jarvis’_ place.”
The young actor laughed.
“That’s what we all try to do,” he returned; “but we don’t always
succeed. It’s a shame, though, that I should get all the credit of this!
It doesn’t seem a bit fair. People ought to know that I wasn’t the
fellow who played last night. I tell you it makes me feel pretty mean to
take another man’s laurels.”
“But that’s the only reason why I did it,” Dick objected. “It was to
save you.”
“And you succeeded,” the other put in quickly. “I builded better than I
knew when I sent you that wire. Now tell me all about it. How did
everything go off? Did any one suspect? How did Marion take things?”
* * * * *
Two months later, when “Jarvis of Yale” was at the height of its
metropolitan success, Dick Merriwell received the following note:
“DEAR OLD BOY: Perhaps you won’t be awfully surprised when I
tell you that Marion and I have agreed to travel henceforth
through this weary world in double harness. She knows the secret
of my first performance in New Haven, and when I told her that
you took my place she was perfectly horrified. She won’t tell me
anything, but I gather that something happened that night which
wasn’t on the program. She did say she’d never be able to look
you in the face again. If I didn’t know you so well, I should be
writhing in the grip of the green-eyed monster. As it is, I’m
only curious. Perhaps you’ll put me wise next time you see me.
Yours ever, AUSTIN.”
But Dick never did, and was soon back deep in the athletic sports of the
college.
------------------------------------------------------------------------