THE LAST REHEARSAL
That afternoon, when the girls gathered for rehearsal, Hester, nor anybody
else, appeared to play "the dark lady of the roses." Mr. Mann made no
comment upon this fact, but he looked very serious, indeed.
The play was acted from the first entrance to the final curtain. The other
characters had to speak of, and even to, the important and missing
character, and it was plain to all as the play progressed that the absence
of "the dark lady" was going to be a fatal hindrance to the success of the
piece.
Even Lily Pendleton, Hester's last lingering friend, showed a good deal of
spleen at Hester's action.
"I never will forgive Hessie," Lily said, almost in tears. And the other
girls had to urge her over and over again to be sure and come herself on
Thursday for the last dress rehearsal.
"If the piece is wrecked, let us be castaways together," begged Jess.
"Don't anybody else fail. Promise, girls!"
They promised sadly. Mr. Mann had hurried away as soon as the last words
were said.
"Too disgusted to even speak to us," Nellie said sadly. "I am real sorry
for him, girls. He has tried so hard."
"He deserves a leather medal," said Bobby emphatically.
"And what do we deserve?" demanded one of the twins.
"I know what Hester Grimes deserves," said Bobby darkly.
It was not likely, however, that Hester Grimes would get her deserts. They
were all agreed on that point, if on no other.
That Wednesday afternoon when the girls separated it was with drooping
spirits--all but Laura Belding, at least. Perhaps it was because she always
had so many irons in the fire that trouble seemed to roll off her young
shoulders like rainwater off a duck's feathers.
At least, when she started for the street car that took her to the hospital
before she went home, she was cheerful of countenance and smiling. She
carried that same cheerfulness into the hospital itself and to Billy Long's
ward.
The active Billy was, as he himself expressed it, "fed up" on the hospital
by now. He was grateful for what they had done for him there and the way in
which they treated him in every way, but confinement was beginning to wear
on his spirits.
"Gee, Laura Belding!" ejaculated the young patient, seizing her hand with
both his own when she appeared, "a sight of you is just a stop-station this
side of eternity. Have they changed the hours? Aren't they twice as long as
they used to be?"
"No, indeed, my poor boy," Laura said. "There are only sixty minutes in
each. I wish I could shorten the time for you."
"Take it from me," growled Short and Long, having hard work to keep back
the tears, "this being in bed is the bunk. Don't let anybody tell you
different."
But Laura caught his attention the next moment with Purt Sweet's trouble.
What Chet had found out from Dan Smith, Hester Grimes' neighbor, interested
the quick mind of Billy Long immensely.
"Gee! I knew it must be something like that. Sure! Purt is shielding
somebody for Hester. That's it!"
"Have you no idea who it can be? The man who drove the car, I mean, or the
one who possibly took the nine-ten express out of town that night? Hester
has no brothers----"
"Say!" exclaimed Billy, "there is somebody who will know. If Purt was there
at the party, so was Lil Pendleton."
"Lily!" exclaimed Laura. "I never thought of her."
"And if she is likely to be sore on Hester now, as you say you all are,"
Billy continued, "she won't be for shielding Hester or any of her friends
or relatives. Let me tell you that!"
"I believe she must have been at the party. Hester invites her to
everything of the kind she has; although she seldom invites any of the
other girls of Central High."
"Go to it!" urged the patient "Ask Lil Pendleton. I'd like to have Purt
cleared of this. I told that man from Alaska so. But, gee, Laura! I wish we
could find some way of giving him the right steer."
"You mean you would like to help him find his name and identity?"
"Yep. He says sometimes he feels that he is just going to remember--then it
all dissipates in his mind like a cloud. He's bad off, he is!"
"I am going to see him now. I have an idea, Billy."
"You're always full of ideas, Laura," the boy said admiringly. "I've been
raking my poor nut back and forth and crossways, without getting a glimmer
of an idea how to help him. He says if we can show him how to find his
memory, he'll do all he can for Purt," Billy added wistfully.
"You are very anxious to help Prettyman Sweet, aren't you, Billy?"
suggested the girl of Central High as she rose to go.
"You bet I am."
"Why? You boys never thought much of him before, you know."
Billy flushed, but he stuck to his guns. "I tell you," he said, "we never
gave Purt a fair deal, I guess. He's all right. He isn't like Chet, or
Lance, or Reddy Butts, or the rest of the fellows, but there's good parts
to Purt."
"You think he has proved himself a better fellow than you thought before?"
"You bet!" said Billy vigorously. "He's been mighty nice to me; and I
always was playing jokes on him, and--Aw! when a fellow lies like I do in
bed and has so much time to think, he gets on to himself," added the boy
gruffly. "Sending dead fish to other fellows isn't such a smart joke after
all."
"I am going to see your friend, the Alaskan miner, now," the girl said,
squeezing the boy's hand understandingly.
"If you find out some way of jogging his memory, I'd like to be in on it,"
Billy cried.
"You shall," promised Laura, as she tripped away.
By this time Laura was so well known at the hospital that nobody stopped
her from going to the unknown man's private room where he was now
established with his particular nurse. He hailed the girl's appearance
almost as gladly as Billy Long had done.
"Your bright young faces make you high-school girls--and the boys, of
course--as welcome as can be," he said. "I'd like to do something when I
get out of this hospital in return for all your kindness to me. But if I
can't get a grip on what and who I am----"
"I have thought of a way by which we may help you to that," interjected
Laura. "You know, you must have been doing something all these years since
you won your fortune in Alaska."
"Surely! But what became of my wealth? That is a hard question."
"Perhaps we can help you find out what you have been doing. Then you will
gradually remember it all. Have you those bank-notes they say you carried
in your pocket when you were brought in?"
"Why, they are in the hospital safe. I haven't had to use much of my money
yet," he said, puzzled.
"I want to look at that money--all of it," said Laura. "It is too late
to-night, but to-morrow afternoon I will come with my brother, and I wish
you would have those bank-notes here. I have an idea."
"I'll do just as you say, Miss Laura," said the man. "But I don't
understand----"
"You will," she told him, laughing, as she hurried away.
There was, therefore, much puzzlement of mind in several quarters that
night--and Laura Belding was partly at fault. She retained all her usual
placidity, and even on the morrow, when she went to school and found the
other girls so very despondent about the play, she refused to join in their
prophecies of ill.
This was the day of the last rehearsal. Mr. Mann had told them that he
wished the actors to rest between this dress rehearsal and the first public
performance of "The Rose Garden" on the following evening.
"I just know it will be a dreadful fizzle," wailed Jess, before Mr. Mann
called the rise of the curtain.
Everything was in readiness, however, for a perfect rehearsal. The curtain
was properly manipulated and the scene shifters, the light man, and all the
other helpers were at their stations, as well as the orchestra in the pit.
The girls had been excused from studies at one o'clock--of course, greatly
to Miss Carrington's disapproval. Since her "run-in" with the Lockwood
twins, as Bobby inelegantly called it, the teacher had been less exacting,
although quite as stern-looking as ever.
Dora and Dorothy, being cheerful souls, had recovered from their excitement
over the incident in history class, and were so much interested in their
parts in the play now that they forgot all about Gee Gee's ill treatment.
Indeed, when the curtain was rung up every girl in the piece was in a state
of excitement. Although they felt that the failure of the part of "the dark
lady of the roses" would utterly ruin some of the best lines and most
telling points in the play, they were all ready to act their own parts with
vigor and a real appreciation of what those parts meant.
Bobby, as the sailor lad, came on with a rolling gait that would have done
credit to any "garby" in the Navy. Jess, as the swashbuckling hero,
swaggered about the stage in a delightful burlesque of such a character, as
the author intended the part to be played.
Then the lights were lowered for the evening glow and "Adrian" turned to
point out the "dark lady"--that mysterious figure supposed to haunt the
rose garden and for weal or woe influence the hero's house and his affairs.
Jess recited her lines roundly, pointing the while to the garden along the
shadowy paths of which the dark lady of the roses was supposed to wander.
With incredible amazement--a shock that was more real than Jess could
possibly have expressed in any feigned surprise--she beheld the dark lady
as the book read, moving quietly across the garden, gracefully swaying as
she lightly trod the fictitious sod, stooping to pluck and then kissing the
rose, and finally disappearing into the wings with a flash of brilliant
eyes and the revelation of a charming countenance for the audience.
It was lucky that this signaled the curtain's fall on the first act, or
Jess Morse would have spoiled her own good work by the expression of her
amazement.