clean-shaven men of indefinite age who had been sitting in the wings
rose and came forward. Mr. Dresser joined them, and his manner suggested
a certain increase of his ordinary nervous tension. A well-preserved
elderly lady left her seat on one side of the aisles under the
proscenium box and came through the door which led from the auditorium
to the stage. She was followed by a slight, graceful girl, a blonde with
clear gray eyes.
"Mrs. Castleman--Miss Marvin," said the prompter, seeing them; "now we
are all ready."
And then the serious business of the rehearsal began. Mrs. Castleman
came down to the centre of the stage and took up a newspaper and read
the date of it aloud, and remarked that it was just five years since
master and mistress had parted in anger, adding that neither of them had
put foot inside the old house in all the five years, and yet it was not
an hour from New York. Then one of the minor actors, an awkward young
fellow, one of the two who had been standing in the wings, entered with
a telegram, which he gave to Mrs. Castleman. She tore it open and read
it aloud; the master would arrive early that evening. Then Miss Marvin,
the girl with the clear blue eyes, came forward with an open letter in
her hand and told Mrs. Castleman that the mistress of the house would be
home again at last late that afternoon. And thus the rehearsal went on
gravely, every one intent upon the business in hand. The speeches of the
actors were interrupted now and then by the stage-manager. "Take the
last scene over again," he might command, whereupon the performers would
resume their places as before and begin again. "Don't cross till he
takes the stage, my dear. And when he says, 'What is the meaning of
this?' don't be in a hurry. Wait, and then say your aside, 'Can he
suspect?' in a hoarse whisper. See?"
Finally there was a jingle of sleigh-bells, and the orchestra, beginning
faintly and slowly, soon worked up to a swift _forte_, and then Miss
Daisy Fostelle made her first appearance through the broad door at the
back of the stage. Finding that she had taken everybody by surprise, she
smiled sweetly, and said, "You didn't expect me, I see--but I hope you
are all glad to see me once more."
A thin, cadaverous man with a heavy, black mustache here stepped forward
to face the wife he had not seen for five years. "We are all glad to see
you once more," he had to say, "very glad indeed, and we are gladder
still to see that you seem to be in such excellent health and such high
spirits! The separation has not dimmed the brightness of your eyes,
nor--" Here the tall, gaunt actor stopped and hesitated. "I don't know
what's the matter with that speech," he said, impatiently, "but I can't
get it into my head. I never had such tricky lines!"
The prompter gave him the word he needed, and no one else paid any
attention to this out-break.
The two authors were seated at the table in the centre of the
footlights, and Harry Brackett whispered to Carpenter: "Stark is getting
the big head, isn't he? The idea of a mere cuff-shooter like that taking
himself seriously!"
Then there followed an important scene in which the wife gave her
husband a witty and vivacious account of all her doings during the five
years of their separation, ending with the startling announcement that
she had spent six weeks in South Dakota and had there procured a divorce
from him! But there is no need to disclose here in detail the plot of
"Touch and Go," as the new American comedy unfolded itself scene by
scene. As the end of the act approached Sherrington pressed the actors
to play more briskly so as to bring the curtain down swiftly on an
unexpected but carefully prepared tableau.
When the act was over the stage manager had the final passages repeated
twice, to make sure of its going smoothly at the first performance; and
then the stage was cleared so that the scene might be set for the second
act.
Carpenter watched the graceful, gray-eyed girl go back into the dim
auditorium and take a seat beside her mother; and his heart thumped
suddenly as he found himself wondering when he would dare to tell her
that he loved her and to ask her to be his wife. Then he also left the
stage and dropped into the chair behind mother and daughter.
"It was very good of you to come this evening, Mrs. Loraine," he began.
"I feel as if having your daughter act in this play of mine will bring
me luck somehow."
"The idea!" said Miss Marvin, smilingly.
"Mary had told me how clever the piece was," the elder actress
responded, "but it is really better than she said. The dialogue is very
brilliant at times, and the characters are excellently contrasted--and,
what is more important, the whole thing will act! The parts carry the
actors; they've got something to do which is worth while doing. It will
go all right to-morrow night!"
"It's a beautiful piece," Mary Marvin declared, "and I think my part is
just lovely!"
And before he could say anything in fit acknowledgment, Mrs. Loraine
went on: "Yes, Mary's part is charming. And I think she will play it
very well, too!"
"I'm sure of it!" he cried, unhesitatingly.
"I think there is more in it than I thought at first," said Mary's
mother, "now I've seen the play, and I'll go over Mary's part with her
to-night and show her what can be done with it. I'm waiting for that
scene in the second act with Fostelle. I think that Mary ought to share
the call after that. In fact, I'm not sure that she can't take the scene
away from Fostelle."
"Oh, mother," the daughter broke in, "that would never do! I should get
my two weeks' notice the next morning, shouldn't I? And I don't want to
be out of an engagement just at the beginning of the season when all the
companies are made up."
"Are you sure that the ghost will walk every week with this Fostelle
company, if you strike bad business for a month or so?" asked Mrs.
Loraine, with a suggestion of anxiety in her voice.
"I think Zeke Kilburn is all right," the dramatic author responded; "he
made a pile of money last year on that imported melodrama, the 'Doctor's
Daughter'; and, besides, he has a backer."
Mrs. Loraine laughed gently, showing her beautifully regular teeth. She
was still a handsome woman, with a fine figure and a crown of silver
hair.
"A backer?" she rejoined; "but who backs the backer? I've heard your
friend, Mr. Brackett, there, say that a jay and his money are soon
parted."
Carpenter answered her earnestly. "I really think Kilburn is pretty
solid, but I suppose that a great deal does depend on the way that the
play draws. They've got open time here in New York, and if 'Touch and
Go' catches on they can stay here till Christmas. So it comes down to
this, that if our piece is a go the ghost will walk regularly."
"I hope it will make a hit," Mrs. Loraine answered, "for your sake, too.
You haven't sold it outright, have you?"
"No, indeed," the young dramatist replied. "Harry Brackett is too old in
the business for that. We've got a nightly royalty, with a percentage on
the gross whenever it plays to more than four thousand dollars a week.
We stand to make a lot of money--if it makes a hit. What do you think of
its chances, Mrs. Loraine?"
"The first act is all right," she responded. "That's the most I can say
now. But come and ask me after I've seen the third act and I'll tell you
what I think, and I believe I can then prophesy its fate pretty well."
By this time the scene of the second act had been set. It represented a
stone summer-house on the top of a hill overlooking the Hudson just
below West Point. It was picturesque in itself, and it was ingeniously
arranged to provide opportunities for effective stage business.
Carpenter accompanied Miss Marvin back to the stage when the time drew
nigh for the second act to begin.
As he was passing through the door between the auditorium and the stage,
he found himself face to face with Dresser, who was fidgeting to and
fro.
"Oh, Mr. Carpenter," he cried, "I'm so glad to see you! I want to ask
your opinion about this. After all, you know, you wrote the play, and
you ought to be able to decide. In my scene with Marvin in this act, am
I really in love with her then, or ain't I? Sherrington says I am, but I
think it's a great deal funnier if I'm not in love with her then--it
helps to work up the last act better. Now what do you think? Sherrington
insists that his way of playing it is more dramatic. Well, I don't say
it ain't, but it isn't half as funny, is it?"
After Carpenter had given his opinion upon this question, Dresser
allowed him to escape. But he had not advanced ten yards before he was
claimed by Mrs. Castleman.
"Mr. Carpenter," the elderly actress began, in her usual haughtily
dignified manner, "how do you think I ought to dress this part in the
first act? She's a house-keeper, isn't she? So I suppose I ought to wear
an apron."
The young dramatist expressed his belief that perhaps an apron would be
a proper thing for the house-keeper to wear in the first act.
"But not a cap, I hope?" urged Mrs. Castleman.
Carpenter doubted if a cap would be necessary.
"Thank you," said Mrs. Castleman. "You see, I have always hitherto been
associated with the legitimate, and I really don't quite know what to do
with this sort of thing." Then she suddenly paused, only to break out
again impetuously: "Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Carpenter, really I did
not mean to imply that this charming play of yours is not legitimate--"
The dramatic author laughed. "You needn't apologize," he declared; "I'm
inclined to think that 'Touch and Go' is so illegitimate now that its
own parents can't recognize it!"
At last the rehearsal of the second act began, the two authors sitting
at the little table with the stage-manager.
Sherrington consulted them once or twice in regard to the omission of a
line here and there.
"Cut it down to the bone when you can--that's what I say," he
explained; "what you cut out can't make people yawn."
But once he stopped the rehearsal to suggest that a speech be written
in. "You've got to make that complication mighty clear," he declared,
"and this is the place to do it, I think. If you want them to understand
that Dresser here is going to mistake Marvin for Fostelle in the next
scene, you had better give him another line now to lead up to it."
The two authors consulted hastily, and Carpenter, drawing out a
note-book and a pencil, hurriedly wrote a sentence, which he showed to
Brackett.
"That'll do it," said Sherrington; and he read it aloud to Dresser, who
borrowed Carpenter's pencil and wrote in the line on the manuscript of
his part, wondering aloud whether he should ever remember it on the
first night.
A few minutes later Sherrington again interrupted the actors to insist
that the sunset effect should be adjusted carefully to accompany the
spoken dialogue.
"I want a soft, rosy tinge on Fostelle in this scene," he explained.
"Quite right," laughed the black-eyed star; "that ought to be becoming
to my style of beauty."
"And I want it to contrast with the blue moonlight in the scene with
Marvin," said the stage-manager.
"Quite right again," Miss Daisy Fostelle commented. "I'll take the
centre of the stage, and you will order calciums for one!"
"We had better go back to your entrance, I think," Sherrington decided,
"and take the whole scene over."
The actors and actresses obediently resumed the positions they had
occupied when Miss Daisy Fostelle made her first appearance in that act.
The cue for her entrance was given, and she came forward with a burst of
artificial laughter.
"That laugh was very good," Sherrington declared--"better than it was
last time; but you must make it as hollow as you can. Remember the
situation: your best young man has gone back on you and you are trying
to keep a stiff upper-lip--but your heart is breaking all the same.
See?"
The star repeated the laugh, and it was more obviously artificial.
"That's it, my dear," said the stage-manager. "Now keep it up till you
cross, and then drop into that chair there, and then you let the laugh
die away into a sob."
The star went back to the rustic gate by which she had entered, laughed
again, and came forward; then she crossed the stage, sank upon a seat,
and choked with a sob.
Carpenter stepped forward and whispered into Sherrington's ear,
whereupon Miss Fostelle sat upright instantly and very suspiciously
asked, "What's that? I'd rather have you say it out loud than whisper
it!"
The young dramatist explained at once.
"I was only suggesting to Sherrington that perhaps it would be better if
that seat were turned a little so that you were not so sideways: then
the audience would get a full view of your face here."
"It would be a pity to deprive them of that, I'll admit," said the
mollified actress, as she and the stage-manager slightly turned the
rustic chair.
Then she dropped into the seat and repeated her sob.
Miss Marvin stepped upon the stage, and remarked to space, "What a
lovely evening, and how glorious the sunset!" Then she stood silently
watching.
Miss Daisy Fostelle sobbed again, and, in tones heavy-laden with tears,
she said, "What have I to live for now?" Looking back at the other
actress she remarked, in her ordinary voice, "You will give me time to
pick myself up here, won't you?" Then she went on, in the former
tear-stained accents, "What have I left to live for now? My heart is
broken! My heart is broken!" Again she resumed her every-day tones to
ask the stage-manager: "Is that all right? Am I far enough around now?"
Thus they came to perhaps the most important scene of the play--that
between the Stellar Attraction (as Brackett liked to call her) and the
girl Carpenter was in love with. Both actresses were well fitted to the
characters they had to perform. Carpenter, who had no liking for Daisy
Fostelle, was a little surprised at the judgment and skill with which
she carried off the _bravura_ passages of her part; and he was not a
little charmed with the delicate force the gentle Mary Marvin revealed
in the contrasting character.
And so the rehearsal proceeded laboriously, Sherrington directing it
autocratically, ordering certain scenes to be played more rapidly and
seeing that others were taken more slowly, so that the spectators might
have time to understand the situation. Now and then either Carpenter or
Brackett made a suggestion or a criticism, but both yielded to
Sherrington, if he was insistent. The stage-manager kept the whole
company of actors up to their work, and imposed on them his
understanding of that work, much as the conductor of an orchestra leads
his musicians at the performance of a symphony.
When the whole act had been rehearsed, and the final scene was repeated
three or four times until it ran like well-oiled clockwork, the stage
was cleared so that the scenery of the third act might be set.
Sherrington accompanied Miss Marvin through the door behind the
proscenium box into the dark auditorium.
"You will play that scene very well," he said, "but you've got to have
confidence."
"It is a beautiful part, isn't it?" she responded, with enthusiasm. "I
never had a part I could enjoy playing so much."
Carpenter was about to leave the stage to tell Mary what a delight it
was to him to hear her speak the words he had written, when his
collaborator tapped him on the shoulder. As he turned Harry Brackett
whispered in his ear:
"Look out for the Stellar Attraction. I'm afraid she has just dropped on
Marvin's part. If she once suspects that the little girl may get that
scene away from her, she can make herself mightily disagreeable all
round. I guess we had better go up and tell her she is a greater actress
than Charlotte Cushman."
Carpenter laughingly answered: "Take care she doesn't drop on you! It
would be worse if she thought you were guying her."
"There's no danger of that," Harry Brackett returned. "That Stellar
Attraction of ours is a boa-constrictor for flattery--there isn't
anything she won't swallow."
The two dramatic authors found Miss Daisy Fostelle standing in the wings
and discussing with Dresser the personal peculiarities of another member
of the dramatic profession.
As Carpenter and Brackett came up the actress was saying: "Why, she had
the cheek actually to tell me I was more amusing off the stage than
on--the cat! But I got even with her. I told her I was sorry I couldn't
return the compliment, for she was even less amusing on the stage than
off!"
The two dramatists joined in the laugh, and then Harry Brackett began.
"Is it your hated rival you are having fun with?" he asked. "Well, if
she comes to see you in this play to-morrow they'll have to put a
waterproof carpet into the private box, for she will weep bitter tears
of despair while she's watching you in this second act of ours."
Miss Daisy Fostelle snapped her big black eyes at him and smiled with
pleasure.
"Yes," she admitted. "I don't believe she will really enjoy that
scene--and yet she'll have to give me a hand at the end of the act."
"She'll go through the motions, perhaps," Brackett returned, "but she
won't burst a hole in her gloves." Then he slyly nudged his
collaborator.
"The fact is," began Carpenter, thus admonished, "I was just going to
tell Harry Brackett here that maybe we have made a mistake in writing
you a high-comedy part like this--"
The actress flashed a suspicious glance at him, but he went on as if
unconscious of this.
"We can see now," he continued, "that you are going to play this part so
well that you will make a great hit in it, and then the critics will all
be after you to play Lady Teazle and Rosalind. They'll tell you that
you are only wasting your talents in modern plays and that you ought to
devote yourself to the legitimate."
The suspicion faded from Miss Daisy Fostelle's face and the smile of
pleasure reappeared.
"That's so," Harry Brackett declared. "You will make such a hit in this
part, I'm afraid, that Sheridan and Shakespeare will be good enough for
you next season. Now that would be taking the bread out of our mouths!"
The actress laughed easily. "I don't think you would starve," she
returned; "and I might, maybe--if I took to the legitimate. Not that it
would be my first attempt, either, for I played Ariel in the 'Tempest'
when I was a mere child. And it wasn't easy, I can tell you. Ariel's a
real hard part, I think; there's a certain swing to the words, too, and
you can't make up a line of your own if you get stuck, as I could in
this piece of yours."
"No," Brackett confessed, solemnly, "the dialogue of 'Touch and Go' is
not as rhythmic as the dialogue of the 'Tempest.'"
"And I've played Francois in 'Richelieu,' too," continued Miss Fostelle.
"But I don't think I really like any of those Shakespearian parts."
"No," Brackett confessed again, with fearless gravity, "Francois is not
one of Shakespeare's best parts. It wasn't worthy of you, no matter how
inexperienced you were. But Rosalind, now, as Carpenter suggests, and
Beatrice--"
Carpenter here guessed from Dresser's spasmodic manner that the actor
was about to intervene in the conversation, and not knowing what might
be the result, the younger of the dramatists dropped out of the group
and managed to draw Dresser away with him.
After they had exchanged a few words Carpenter looked into the
auditorium to discover where Mary Marvin might be. He saw that she was
by the side of her mother, and that Mrs. Loraine and Sherrington were
still engaged in an earnest conversation. He made a movement as if to
leave Dresser, whereupon the comedian begged him for a moment's
interview.
"It's about that speech of mine in the third act that I want to make a
suggestion," said the actor. "It's a very good speech, too, and I think
I can get three laughs out of it, easy. You know the speech. I mean the
one about the three old maids: 'There were three old maids in our town;
one was as plain as a pikestaff, and the other was as homely as a hedge
fence, and the third was as ugly as sin; and whenever they all three
walked out together every clock in the place stopped short. Their
parents had christened them Faith and Hope and Charity; but the boys
always called them Battle and Murder and Sudden Death.' Now, don't you
think it would help to ring out the point more if the orchestra was to
play 'Grandfather's Clock' very gently just as I say that 'every clock
in the place stopped short'? What do you think? That's my own idea!"
The dramatist said nothing for a second or two, and then told the actor
to consult the stage-manager, who was just returning to begin the
rehearsal of the third act.
The new scene had been set swiftly and the furniture was already in
place. The first of the actors to enter was the cadaverous and irritable
Stark. He began glibly enough, but soon hesitated for a word, and then
broke out impatiently, regardless of the presence of the two authors:
"Oh, I can't get that line into my head! And I don't know what it means,
either! How can you expect a man to speak such rubbish?"
As before, nobody paid any attention to this petulance, and the actor
went on with his part without further comment.
Dresser then entered, and the two men proceeded to misunderstand each
other in the most elaborate fashion. The character which Stark
represented had reason to believe that the character that Dresser
represented was the uncle of the character that Daisy Fostelle
represented and was also a soldier. In like manner Dresser had reason to
believe that Stark was the lady's uncle and also a sailor. They
addressed each other, therefore, in sailor talk and in soldier talk; and
the fun waxed fast and furious. At the height of the misunderstanding
Daisy Fostelle entered unexpectedly and found herself instantly
immeshed in the humorous complication, with no possibility of plausible
explanation.
Once the stage-manager reminded Dresser that he had omitted a phrase.
"You left out 'Confound it, man!'" he said.
"I know it," the actor explained, "but I wanted to save it to use in my
next speech. It goes better there--you see if it does not."
And Sherrington decided that "Confound it, man!" was more effective in
the later speech; so the transposition was authorized, to Dresser's
satisfaction.
The stage-manager had this important scene of mutual misunderstanding
between Stark and Dresser and Daisy Fostelle repeated twice, until every
word fell glibly and every gesture seemed automatic. And so the
rehearsal went to the end, Sherrington applying the finishing touches,
and seeming at last to be fairly well satisfied with the result of his
labors.
The final lines of the comedy were, of course, to be delivered by the
star; but when the cue was given to her Miss Fostelle simply said "Tag!"
everybody being aware that it is very unlucky to speak the last speech
of a play at a rehearsal--as unlucky as it is to put up an umbrella on
the stage, or to quote from "Macbeth."
"That will do," said the stage-manager; "I think it will be all right
to-morrow night."
And with that the rehearsal concluded and the company began to
disperse.
"I hope it is all right," Harry Brackett remarked to Carpenter, "and I
think it is. But I shall have a great deal more confidence after the man
in the box-office shakes hands with me cordially, say, next Wednesday or
Thursday, and inquires about my health. He'll know by that time whether
we've got a good thing or not!"
Carpenter helped Miss Marvin to put on her light cape. Then, after her
mother had joined them, they said good-night to the others and left the
theatre together.
When they came out into the warm night the street was quieter than it
had been when Carpenter entered the theatre. There were fewer cable-cars
passing the door, and the trains on the elevated road in the avenue were
now infrequent. The lights had been turned out in front of the variety
show across the way, and evidently the grand sacred concert was over.
The moon had sunk, and before they had gone a block the bell of the
church tolled the hour of midnight.
The young man who was walking by the side of Mrs. Loraine broke the
silence at last.
"Well," he asked, "what do you think of the play now?"
"I think it is a good piece of its kind," the elder actress answered--"a
very good piece of its kind; and it is well staged; and it will be well
acted, too. Sherrington knows how to get his best work out of everybody.
Yes, it will be a success."
"Is it good for three months here now?" the young author asked, "and for
the rest of the season on the road?"