It was twenty-five minutes past eight o'clock and at half-past eight the
curtain was to rise on the first performance of A Woman's Wit, written
especially for Margaret Adams. And because of her popularity and that of
her leading man, the house had been sold out weeks in advance.
The action of the play was to take place in a small town in Colorado,
where a man and his wife were both endeavoring to be elected to the
office of Mayor. Polly was to play the part of a clever little
shop-girl, whom the heroine had brought into her home, supposedly as a
parlor maid. But in reality the girl was to do all that was in her power
to assist her mistress in gaining a victory over her husband. She was to
watch his movements and to suggest any schemes that she might devise for
their success.
In the act which Polly had recently been rehearsing she was engaged in
trying to discover a political speech written by the hero, so that the
wife might read it beforehand and so answer it in a convincing fashion
before the evening meeting of the Woman's Club. The play was a witty
farce, and Belinda was supposedly one of the cleverest and most amusing
characters. Yet whether Polly could succeed in making her appear so was
still exceedingly doubtful.
With this idea in mind Richard Hunt left his dressing room, hoping to
see Polly for a few moments if possible before the play began. Perhaps
her fright had passed. For already the man and girl were sufficiently
intimate friends for him to understand how swiftly her moods changed.
Polly had apparently left her dressing room, since there was no answer
to repeated knockings. She could not have carried out her threat of the
morning? Of course such a supposition was an absurdity. And yet the
man's frown relaxed and his smile was one of unconscious relief when a
tall, delicate figure in a blue dress came hurrying toward him along the
dimly-lighted passage-way. The girl did not seem aware of anything or
anybody, so great was her hurry and nervousness. However, this was not
unreasonable, for instead of having on her maid's costume for the
performance, she was wearing an evening gown of shimmering silk and in
the coiled braids of her black hair a single pink rose.
"You are late, Miss Polly; may I find some one to help you dress?"
Instantly a pair of blue eyes were turned toward him in surprise and
reproach. They were probably not such intensely blue eyes as Polly
O'Neill's and they had a far gentler expression, though they were of
exactly the same shape. And the girl's hair was equally black, her
figure and carriage almost similar, except that she was less thin. But
instead of Polly's accustomed pallor this girl's cheeks were as
delicately flushed as the rose in her hair. "Could an evening costume so
metamorphose a human being?" Richard Hunt wondered in a vaguely puzzled,
uncertain fashion.
A small hand was thrust forward without the least sign of haste,
although it trembled a little from shyness.
"I'm not Polly, Mr. Hunt," the girl said smiling. "I am Mollie, her twin
sister. But you must not mistake us, because even if we do look alike,
we are not in the least alike in other ways. For one thing, I wouldn't
be in Polly O'Neill's shoes tonight, not for this whole world with a
fence around it. How can she do such a horrible thing as to be an
actress? Polly considers that I haven't a spark of ambition, but why on
earth should a sensible girl want a career?"
Suddenly Mollie blushed until her cheeks were pinker than before. "Oh, I
am so sorry! I forgot for the moment that you were an actor, Mr. Hunt.
Of course things are very different with you. A man must have a career!
But I ought to apologize for talking to you without our having met each
other. You see, Polly has spoken of you so many times, saying how kind
you had been in trying to help her, that I thought for the instant I
actually did know you. Forgive me, and now I must find Polly."
Mollie was always shy, but realizing all at once how much she had
confided to a stranger, she felt overwhelmed with embarrassment. How the
other girls would laugh if they ever learned of what she had said. Yet
Mr. Hunt was not laughing at her, nor did he appear in the least
offended. Mollie was sure he must be as kind as Polly had declared him,
although he did look older than she had expected and must be quite
thirty, as his hair was beginning to turn gray at the temples and there
were heavy lines about the corners of his mouth. As Mollie now turned
the handle of her sister's dressing-room door she was hoping that her
new acquaintance had not noticed how closely she had studied him.
However, she need not have worried, for her companion was only thinking
of how pretty she was and yet how oddly like her twin sister. For Mollie
seemed to possess the very graces that Polly lacked. Evidently she was
more amiable, better poised and more reliable, her figure was more
attractive, her color prettier and her manner gracious and appealing.
"I am afraid you won't find your sister in there, Miss O'Neill. I have
knocked several times without an answer," Richard Hunt finally
interposed.
"Won't find her?" Mollie repeated the words in consternation. "Then
where on earth is she? Miss Adams sent me to tell Polly that she wished
to speak to her for half a moment before the curtain went up. Besides,
Miss Ashton has already searched everywhere for her for quite ten
minutes and then came back to her seat in the theater, having had to
give up."
Forcibly Mollie now turned the handle of the door and peered in. The
small room was unoccupied, as the other two members of the company who
shared it with Polly, having dressed some time before, had also
disappeared.
But Richard Hunt could wait no longer to assist in discovering the
wanderer. Five minutes had passed, so that his presence would soon be
required upon the stage. Surely if Polly had failed to appear at the
theater her sister would be aware of it. Yet there was still a chance
that she had sent a hurried message to the stage director so that her
character could be played by an understudy. Even Polly would scarcely
wreck the play by simply failing at the last moment.
He was vaguely uneasy. He had been interested in Polly, first because of
their chance acquaintance several years before when they both acted in
The Castle of Life, and also because of Miss Adams' deep affection for
her protege. The man had been unable to decide whether Polly had any
talent for the career which she professed to care for so greatly.
Now and then during the frequent rehearsals of their new play she had
done very well. But the very day after a clever performance she was more
than apt to give a poor one until the stage manager had almost
despaired. Nevertheless Richard Hunt acknowledged to himself that there
was something about the girl that made one unable to forget her. She was
so intense, loving and hating, laughing and crying with her whole soul.
Whatever her fate in after years, one could not believe that it would be
an entirely conventional one.
His cue had been called and Miss Adams was already on the stage. In a
quarter of an hour when Belinda was summoned by her mistress, he would
know whether or not Polly had feigned illness or whether she had kept
her threat and ignominiously run away.
The moment came. A door swung abruptly forward at the rear of the stage
and through it a girl entered swiftly. She was dressed in a
tight-fitting gray frock with black silk stockings and slippers. There
was a tiny white cap on her head and she wore a small fluted apron. She
looked very young, very clever and graceful. And it was Polly O'Neill,
and Polly at her best!
For the briefest instant Richard Hunt and Margaret Adams exchanged
glances. It was obvious that Margaret Adams had also been uneasy over
her favorite's debut. For her eyes brightened and she nodded
encouragingly as the little maid set down the tray she was carrying with
a bang and then turned saucily to speak to her master. A laugh from the
audience followed her first speech.
The Polly of the morning had completely vanished. This girl's cheeks
were crimson, her eyes danced with excitement and vivacity. She was
fairly sparkling with Irish wit and grace and, best of all, she appeared
entirely unafraid.
It was not alone Polly O'Neill's two comparatively new friends upon the
stage with her, who now felt relieved from anxiety by her clever
entrance. More than a dozen persons in the audience forming a large
theater party occupying the sixth and seventh rows in the orchestra
chairs, breathed inaudible sighs of relief.
There sat Betty Ashton and Dick and Esther, who had come down from
Boston to New York City for Polly's debut. Next Betty was a handsome,
grave young man, who had only a few days before been elected to the New
Hampshire Legislature by the residents of Woodford and the surrounding
country, Anthony Graham. On his other side eat his sister, Nan, a
dark-eyed, dark-haired girl with a quiet, refined manner. Near by and
staring straight ahead through a pair of large, gold-rimmed spectacles
was another girl with sandy hair, light blue eyes, a square jaw and a
determined, serious expression. Nothing did Sylvia Wharton take lightly,
and least of all the success or failure tonight of her adored
step-sister. For Sylvia's ardent affection for Polly had never wavered
since the early Camp Fire days at Sunrise Hill. And while she often
disapproved of her and freely told her so, as she had then, still Polly
knew that Sylvia could always be counted on through good and ill.
So far as the younger girl's own work was concerned there was little
doubt of her success. Each year she had been at the head of her class in
the training school for nurses and had since taken up the study of
medicine. For Sylvia had never cared for frivolities, for beaus or
dancing or ordinary good times. Polly often used to say that she would
like to shake her younger step-sister for her utter seriousness, yet
Sylvia rarely replied that she might have other and better reasons for
administering the same discipline to Polly.
Back of this party of six friends Mr. and Mrs. Wharton, Polly's mother
and stepfather, her sister Mollie and Billy Webster were seated. Billy,
however, was no longer called by this youthful title except by his most
intimate friends. He had never since the day Polly had teased him
concerning it, asking him how it felt to be a shadowy imitation of a
great man, used the name of Daniel. He was known to the people in
Woodford and the neighborhood as William Webster, since Billy's father
had died a year before and he now had the entire management of their
large and successful farm. Indeed, the young man was considered one of
the most expert of the new school of scientific farmers in his section
of the country. And although Billy undoubtedly looked like a country
fellow, there was no denying that he was exceedingly handsome. He was
six feet tall, with broad shoulders and an erect carriage; his skin was
tanned by the sun and wind, making his eyes appear more deeply blue and
his hair almost the color of copper. Now seated next to Mollie he was
endeavoring to make her less nervous, although any one could have seen
he was equally nervous himself.
Frank Wharton and Eleanor Meade, who were to be married in a few months,
were together, and next came yellow-haired Meg and her brother, John.
Then only a few places away Rose and Dr. Barton and Faith, the youngest
of the former group of Sunrise Hill Camp Fire girls, who had been
adopted by her former guardian and now was known by Dr. Barton's name.
Faith was an unusual-looking girl, with the palest gold hair which she
wore tied back with a black velvet ribbon. She had a curious, far-away
expression in her great blue eyes and the simplicity of a little child.
For Faith had never ceased her odd fashion of living in dreams, so that
the real world was yet an unexplored country to her. Indeed, in her
quaint short-waisted white muslin frock, with a tiny fan and a bunch of
country flowers in her hand, she might have sat as one of the models for
Arthur Rackham's spiritual, half-fairy children. Tonight she was even
more quiet than usual, since this was the first time she had ever been
inside a theater in her life. And had it not been for the reality of
Polly O'Neill's presence, one of her very own group of Camp Fire girls,
she must have thought herself on a different planet.
Herr and Frau Krippen had not been able to leave Woodford for this great
occasion, since they boasted a very small and very new baby, with hair
as red as its father's and as Esther's. But otherwise it looked
singularly like the first of the Sunrise Hill Camp Fire guardians, the
Miss Martha, whom the girls had then believed fore-ordained to eternal
old-maidenhood.
So on this eventful night in her career, Polly O'Neill's old friends and
family were certainly well represented. Fortunately, however, she had so
far given no thought to their presence.
Now Belinda must rush frantically about on the stage, making a pretext
of dusting the while she is eagerly listening to the conversation taking
place between her master and mistress. Then in another moment they both
leave the stage and Polly at last has her real opportunity. For with
Margaret Adams present, naturally the chief attention of the audience
would be concentrated upon her with her talent, her magnetism and her
great reputation.
Yet as Miss Adams slipped away with a fleeting and encouraging lifting
of her eyebrows toward her little maid, suddenly Polly O'Neill felt that
the hour of her final reckoning had come. Curiously, until now she had
not been self-conscious nor frightened; not for an instant had she been
pursued by the terrors that had so harassed her all day that she had
made a dozen plans to escape. Yet with the attention of the large
audience suddenly riveted upon her alone, they were returning like a
thousand fiends.
Polly felt like an atom surrounded by infinite space, like a spot of
light in an eternity of darkness. Her voice had gone, her limbs were
stiff, yet automatically she continued her dusting for a moment longer,
hoping that a miracle might turn her into a human being again. Useless:
her voice would never return, her legs felt as if they belonged to a
figure in Mrs. Jarley's waxworks.
One could not devote the entire evening polishing the stage furniture!
Already she could hear the agonized voice of the prompter whispering her
lines, which he naturally supposed her to have forgotten.
In some fashion Polly must have dragged herself to the spot on the stage
where she had been previously instructed to stand, and there somehow she
must have succeeded in repeating the few sentences required of her,
although she never knew how she did the one or the other; for soon the
other players made their proper entrances and the unhappy Belinda was
allowed to withdraw.
Yet although Polly could never clearly recall the events on the stage
during these few moments, of one thing she was absolutely conscious. By
some wretched accident she had glanced appealingly down, hoping to find
encouragement in the face of her mother, sister, or Betty Ashton.
Instead, however, she had caught the blue eyes of her old antagonist,
Billy Webster, fixed upon her with such an expression of consternation,
sympathy and amusement that she was never to forget the look for the
rest of her life.
In the final scene, the one so diligently rehearsed during the morning,
Belinda did not make such a complete failure. But, as she slipped away
to her dressing room at the close of the performance, Polly O'Neill
knew, before tongue or pen could set it down, the verdict that must
follow her long-desired stage debut. Alas, that in this world there are
many of us unlike Caesar: we come, we see, but we do not conquer!