ROBERTA "ARRIVES"
It was dress rehearsal night for the Belden House play, and the hall in
the Students' Building, where the big house-plays are performed was the
scene of a tremendous bustle and excitement. The play was to be "Sara
Crewe," or rather "The Little Princess," for that is the title of the
regular stage version of Mrs. Burnett's story which the Belden House was
giving by the special permission of the Princess herself. The pretty
young actress who had "created" the part was a friend of Madeline's
father, and Madeline, being on the committee to choose a play, declared
that she was tired to death of seeing the girls do Sheridan and
Goldsmith and the regulation sort of modern farce, and boldly wrote to
the Princess for permission to act her play, because it seemed so
exactly suited to the capabilities of college girls. The Princess had
not only said yes, but she had declared that she should be very much
interested in the success of the play, and when Madeline, writing to
thank her, had suggested that the Belden House would be only too
delighted if she came up to see their performance, she had accepted
their invitation with enthusiasm. Of course the committee and the cast
were exceedingly flattered, but they were also exceedingly frightened
and nervous, and even the glorious promise of a live monkey, with a
hand-organ man thrown in, did not wholly reassure them.
To-night everything seemed to be at sixes and sevens. Though most of the
committee had toiled over it all the afternoon, the stage resembled
pandemonium rather than the schoolroom of Miss Minchen's Select
Seminary, which was to be the scene of the first act. The committee were
tired and, to speak frankly, cross, with the exception of Madeline, who
was provokingly cool and nonchalant, though she had worked harder than
any one else. The cast were infected with that irresponsible hilarity
that always attacks an amateur company at their last rehearsal. They
danced about the stage, getting in the way of the committee, shrieking
with laughter at their first glimpses of one another's costumes, and
making flippant suggestions for all sorts of absurd and impossible
improvements.
Meanwhile, regardless of the fact that the rehearsal ought to have begun
half an hour before, the committee and Mr. Carrisford's three Hindu
servants were holding a solemn conclave at the back of the stage. The
chef-d'oeuvre of their scenic effects was refusing to work; the
bagdads that were to descend as if by Hindu magic and cover the bare
walls of Sara's little attic bedroom when the good fairies, in the guise
of the aforesaid servants, effected its transformation in the second
act. There weren't enough of the draperies for one thing, and some of
them wouldn't unroll quickly, while others threatened to tumble down on
the servants' devoted heads.
"Well, we'll just have to let them go for to-night," said Nita Reese
dejectedly at last. She was chairman of the committee. "To-morrow we'll
fix them all up again, the way Madeline says is right, and you three
must come over and do that part of the scene again. Is everybody ready?"
"Miss Amelia Minchen isn't," said Betty, "She just came in carrying her
costume."
"Then go and help her hurry into it," commanded Nita peremptorily.
"Madeline, will you fix Ram Dass's turban? He's untwisted it again of
course. Georgie Ames, line up the Seminary girls and the Carmichael
children, and see whether any of their skirts are too long. Take them
down on the floor. Everybody off the stage, please, but the
scene-shifters."
"Oh, Nita," cried Polly Eastman, who had just come in, rushing
breathlessly up to the distracted chairman, "I'm so sorry to be late,
but some people that I couldn't refuse asked me down-town to dinner. I
ate and ran, really I did. And Nita, what do you think----"
"I'm much too tired to think," returned Nita, wearily. "What's happened
now?"
"Why, nothing has actually happened, only I was at the station this
afternoon, and I asked the shoe-shine man about the monkey, and he
hasn't heard, but he told the organ-man that the play began at half-past
eight, and all the trains have been horribly late to-day, so if he should
plan to get in on the eight-fifteen----"
"Have him telegraph that it begins at six," said Nita, firmly. "Go and
see to it now."
"Why, I did tell him to," said Polly, sighing at the prospect of going
out again. "Only he's so irresponsible that I think we ought to
decide----"
"Go and stand over him while he telegraphs," said Nita with finality.
"We can't understudy a monkey. Josephine Boyd, come here and go through
your long speech. I want to be sure that you get it right. It didn't
make sense the way you said it yesterday."
"Oh, Nita." It was Lucile Merrifield holding out a yellow envelope.
Nita clutched it frantically. "Perhaps she's not coming. Wouldn't I be
relieved!"
"It's not a telegram," explained Lucile, gently, "only the proof of the
programs that the printer has taken this opportune moment to send up.
The boy says if you could look at it right off, why, he could wait and
take it back. They want it the first thing in the morning."
"Give it to Helen Adams," said Nita, turning back to Josephine. "She can
mark proof. Go on Josephine, I'm listening, and don't stop again for
anybody."
Josephine, who was the father of the large and irrepressible Carmichael
family, had just finished declaiming her longest speech with
praiseworthy regard for its meaning, when somebody called out,
"Ermengarde St. John isn't here yet."
Nita sank down in Miss Amelia Minchen's armchair with a little moan of
despair. "Somebody go and get her," she said. "Betty Wales, you'd better
go. You can dress people fastest."
It seemed to Betty, as she hurried down-stairs and over to the Belden,
that she had toiled along the same route, laden with screens, rugs and
couch-covers, at least a hundred times that afternoon. She was tired and
exasperated at this final hitch, and she burst into the room of the fat
freshman who had Ermengarde's part with scant ceremony. What was her
amazement to find it quite empty.
"Oh, she can't have forgotten and gone off somewhere!" wailed Betty.
"Why, every one was talking about the rehearsal at dinner time."
The cast and committee included so many members of the house that it was
almost depopulated, and none of the few girls whom Betty could find knew
anything about the missing Ermengarde.
"I must have passed her on the way here," Betty decided at last, and
rushed down-stairs again. As she went by the matron's door she almost
ran into that lady, hurrying out.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Kent," she said. "You haven't seen
Ermengarde--that is, I mean Janet Kirk, have you?"
"No, not yet," said Mrs. Kent briskly. "I only heard about it five
minutes ago. I'm just getting ready now to go up and take the poor child
some things she's sent for."
"But she isn't in her room," said Betty, bewildered but certain that
Mrs. Kent's apparent affection for the irresponsible Janet was very
ill-bestowed.
"Of course not, my dear," returned Mrs. Kent, serenely. "She's at the
infirmary with a badly sprained ankle. She'll have to keep off it for a
month at least, the doctor says."
[Illustration: "OH, I BEG YOUR PARDON"]
"Oh, Mrs. Kent!" wailed Betty. "And she's Ermengarde St. John in the
house-play. What can we do?"
Mrs. Kent shook her head helplessly. "You'll have to do without Janet,"
she said. "That's certain. She was on her way home to dinner when she
slipped on a piece of ice near the campus-gate. She lay there several
minutes before any one saw her, and then luckily Dr. Trench came along
and drove her straight to the infirmary. She fainted while they were
bandaging her ankle."
"I'm very sorry," said Betty, her vision of a possible hasty recovery
dispelled by the last sentence. After a moment's hesitation she decided
not to go back to the Students' Building to consult Nita. It would be
better to bring some one over from the house to read the part for
to-night. It was important, but luckily it wasn't very long, and
somebody would have to learn it in time for the play the next evening.
So she hurried up-stairs again and the first person she met was Roberta
Lewis, marching down the corridor with a huge Greek dictionary under her
arm.
"Put that book down, Roberta; and come over to the rehearsal,"
commanded Betty. "Ermengarde St. John has sprained her ankle, and gone
to the infirmary and everybody's waiting."
"You mean that you want me to go and get her?" asked Roberta doubtfully.
"Because I think it would take two people to help her walk, if she's
very lame. She's awfully fat, you know."
"We want you to read Janet's part," explained Betty, "just for to-night,
until the committee can find some one to take it." And she gave a little
more explicit account of the state of affairs at the rehearsal.
"Yes, indeed, I'll be glad to," said Roberta readily. She was secretly
delighted to be furnished with an excuse for seeing the dress rehearsal.
She had longed with all her soul to be appointed a member of the
play-committee, but of course the house-president had not put her on;
she was the last person, so the president thought, who would be useful
there. And Roberta could not screw her courage up to the point of trying
for a place in the cast. So no one knew, since she had never told any
one, that she thought acting the most interesting thing in the world
and that she loved to act, in spite of the terrors of having an
audience. But she had let slip her one chance--the offer of a part in
Mary's famous melodrama away back in her freshman year--and she had
never had another.
And now, because she was Roberta Lewis, proud and shy and dreadfully
afraid of pushing in where she wasn't wanted, she did not think it
necessary to mention to Betty that she had borrowed a copy of the play
from little Ruth Howard, who was Sara, and that she had read it over
until she knew almost every line of it by heart.
Of course the committee were thrown into a state bordering upon panic by
the news of Janet's accident, but Madeline comfortingly reminded them
that the worse the last rehearsal was, the better the play was sure to
be; and there was certainly nothing to do now but go ahead.
So they began to rehearse at last, almost an hour late, and the first
act went off with great spirit, in spite of the handicap of a strange
Ermengarde, who had to read her part because she was ashamed to confess
that she knew it already, and who was supposed not to be familiar with
her "stage business." To be sure, she had not very much to do in this
scene, but at the end everybody thanked her effusively and Ruth Howard
declared that she never saw anybody who "caught on" so fast.
"You ought to take the part to-morrow night," she said.
"Oh, oh!" Roberta cautioned her, in alarm and embarrassment. "They're
going to have Polly Eastman. I heard Nita say so. Besides, I wouldn't
for anything."
Ermengarde's chance comes in the second act, where, half in pity and
half in admiration for the queer little Sara Crewe, she comes up to make
friends with her, and, finding to her horror that Sara is actually
hungry, decides to bring her "spread" up to Sara's attic. There, later,
the terrible Miss Minchen finds her select pupils gathered, and
wrathfully puts an end to their merry-making.
At the opening of this scene the attic was supposed to be lighted by one
small candle, and consequently the stage was very dim.
"I don't believe Roberta can manage with that light," whispered Nita to
Betty who was standing with her in one of the wings.
"Don't let's change unless we have to," Betty whispered back. "You know
we wanted to get the effect of Miss Minchen's curl papers and night-cap.
Why, Nita, Roberta hasn't any book. She's saying her part right off."
"No!" Nita was incredulous. "Why, Betty Wales, she is, and she's doing
it splendidly, fifty per cent, better than Janet did."
Sure enough Roberta, becoming engrossed in the play, had forgotten to
conceal her unwarranted knowledge of it. She realized what she had done
when a burst of applause greeted her exit, and actors and committee
alike forgot the proprieties of a last rehearsal to make a united
assault upon her.
"Roberta Lewis," cried Betty accusingly, "why didn't you tell me that
you knew Ermengarde's part?"
"Oh, I don't know it," protested Roberta. "I only know snatches of it
here and there. Polly can learn it in no time."
"She won't have the chance," said Nita decisively. "You must take it,
Roberta. Why didn't you tell people that you could act like that?"
"I shall have stage-fright and spoil everything," declared Roberta
forlornly.
"Nonsense," said Nita. "You'd be ashamed to do anything of the kind."
"Yes," agreed Roberta solemnly, "I should." Whereupon everybody laughed,
and Nita hugged Roberta and assured her that there was no way out of it.
"Somebody go and get Janet's costume," she ordered, "and any one who has
a spare minute can be fitting it over. We shall have to have an extra
rehearsal to-morrow of the parts where Ermengarde comes in. Go on now,
Sara. Use Lucile's muff for the monkey."
When at last act three was finished it was ten o'clock and Nita gave a
sigh of utter exhaustion. "If Madeline's rule holds," she said, "this
play ought to go like clockwork to-morrow."
And it did, despite the rather dubious tone of the chairman's prophecy.
The Princess arrived duly just after luncheon, and everybody except the
cast, who would do their share later, helped to entertain her. This was
not difficult. She wasn't a college girl, she explained, and she had
never known many of them. She just wanted to hear them talk, see their
rooms, and if it wasn't too much trouble she should enjoy looking on at
a game of--what was it they played so much at Harding? Basket-ball,
somebody prompted. Yes, that was it. The sophomore teams which had just
been chosen were proud to play a game for her, and they even suggested,
fired by her responsive enthusiasm, that they should teach her to play
too.
"I should love it," she said, "if somebody would lend me one of those
becoming suits. But I mustn't." She sighed. "The newspapers would be
sure to get hold of it. Besides they're giving a tea for me at the
Belden. It begins in five minutes. Doesn't time just fly at Harding?"
The monkey also arrived in good season, whether thanks to or in spite of
Polly's exertions was not clear, since his master spoke no English and
not even Madeline could understand his Italian. The bagdads worked
beautifully. The new Ermengarde was letter-perfect, and nobody but
herself had any fear that she would be stage-struck, even though the
Princess would be sitting in the very middle of the fourth row. Janet's
name was still on the program, for Roberta had sternly insisted that it
shouldn't be crossed out; and as neither of the two Ermengardes was very
well known to the college in general, only a few people noticed the
change. But the part made a hit.
"Isn't she just like some little girl who used to go to school with
you--that funny, stupid Ermengarde?" one girl would say to another.
"They're all natural, but she's absolutely perfect."
"Sara's a dear," said the Princess, "but I want to talk to Ermengarde.
Mayn't I go behind? We actor people always like to do that, you know."
So she was escorted behind the scenes, and it was the proudest moment of
Roberta's life when the Princess, having asked particularly for her,
said all sorts of nice things about her "real talent" and "artistic
methods."
"That settles it, Roberta," said Betty, who was behind the scenes in her
capacity of chief dressing-maid and first assistant to the make-up man.
"You've got to try for senior dramatics."
"Do you really think I could get a part?" asked Roberta coolly.
"I think you might," said Betty, amazed beyond words by Roberta's ready
acquiescence. "You probably won't get anything big," she added
cautiously. "There are such a lot of people in our class who can act.
But the girls say that the only way to get a small part is to try for a
big one. Don't you remember how Mary Brooks tried for the hero and the
heroine and the villain and then was proud as a peacock to be a page and
say two lines, and Dr. Brooks and her mother and two aunts and six
cousins came to see her do it."
"Dear me," said Roberta in frightened tones, "do you suppose my father
and my cousin will feel obliged to come?"
"I don't know," laughed Betty, "but I feel obliged to remind you that
the third act of Sara Crewe is on and you belong out there where you can
hear your cue."
"I hope Roberta won't be disappointed about getting a part in the senior
play," Betty confided to Madeline, as they parted afterward in the
Belden House hall. "She did awfully well to-night, but I think she takes
it too seriously. She doesn't realize what tremendous competition there
is for the parts in our plays, nor what lots of practice some of the
girls have had."
"Oh, I wouldn't worry," said Madeline easily. "If she doesn't get
anything, she'll have to do without. She'll have plenty of company. She
probably won't try when the time comes."
"Yes," said Betty, "she will, and she's so sensitive that she'll hate
terribly to fail. So, as I started her on her mad career as an actress,
I feel responsible."
"You always feel responsible for something," laughed Madeline. "While
you're in the business why don't you remember that you're responsible
for a nice little slice of to-night's performance. Miss Ferris says it's
the best house-play she's seen."
"I know. Isn't it just splendid?" sighed Betty rapturously. "And isn't
the Princess a dear? But Madeline, you haven't any idea how my feet
ache."