At last, amid turmoil and excitement, the opening day came. Brainard and
Farson had been at the theater since early morning, doing what they could
to bring order out of chaos. About lunch time MacNaughton rushed up to
them, his face white with excitement.
“A telegram from Miss Leroy!” he gasped. “Doctor thinks she’s got
appendicitis. She’s got Einsteinitis, all right,—that’s what is the
matter with her! We can’t raise an actress in New York who knows
Cordelia’s lines, let alone having rehearsed it. We’ll have to postpone
the opening!”
“Not that!” Brainard said, with tightening lips. “Not if you read the
lines, Mac!” The old actor stormed back and forth, snapping his fingers
and cursing with equal warmth stars and managers, the stage and life.
“Isn’t there some one in the company who could take the part?” Brainard
asked.
“Not one, man or woman!” the Scotsman growled. “We’re using the whole
company.”
“Where’s Louisiana?” Farson inquired, a little smile wreathing his lips.
“You mean that Kansas kid? She’s knocking about the stage somewhere,”
MacNaughton replied. He had had several passages with Miss Delacourt
already, and had no great opinion of her ability except in repartee.
“You aren’t thinking of that child?”
“Let’s find her,” Farson said. “She knows Shakespeare by heart—her
mother used to put her to sleep on it—she’s always getting it off when
she isn’t ragging the show with her Kansas slang.”
They found Louisiana sitting on a pile of properties, playing with a
lanky pup. She smiled on Farson in a friendly fashion, and ignored the
manager.
“Say, what’s broken down now?” she drawled. “Have Miss Leroy’s stays
given warning, or did the big bass fiddle bust a string?”
“Look here, Miss Louisiana,” Farson replied. “Quit your guying, and get
ready for Cordelia. We’ll rehearse you all the afternoon.”
“Gee whiz!” the young woman remarked, rising and yanking the puppy by the
leash. “But you’re sudden, my dear!”
“Miss Leroy is sick—going to have an operation.”
“She needed it, if ever a woman did!” Miss Delacourt tossed back over her
shoulder as she tied the puppy to the gilded throne.
“She’ll do!” Farson whispered encouragingly.
“She’ll do something,” MacNaughton growled gloomily.
It was not an auspicious outlook for the opening of the People’s Theater.
* * * * *
At eight o’clock that evening, the new playhouse was fairly well filled
with what the local press calls a “highbrow audience.” Of these, not a
few had come to scoff, for from the beginning the newspapers, led by the
_Beacon_, had taken the People’s Theater as a pet toy with which to play
during the silly season. It was variously described as the “Sulfur
Extravaganza,” the “Cowboy Show,” or the “Arizona Théâtre Français.”
For ever since that fatal luncheon, the editor of the _Beacon_ had
directed the most skillful members of his celebrated stiletto gang in
their sneers at Brainard. To the New York newspaper mind it was simply
inconceivable that a man with a great fortune could put it to so purely
childish a use as running a popular theater. A few friendly souls,
however, were scattered up and down the house—those who follow the banner
of “new ideas” wherever it may wave; and there were a few of the
“people”—a very few—on free tickets.
As the curtains slowly parted, Brainard, sitting alone in the rear of the
house, regretted more than ever that they had attempted to open with
_Lear_. There were surely some in the audience whose memories, like his,
would carry them back to the godlike fury of the elder Salvini. What
could they make of the squat figure, the perspiring muscularity of Dudley
Warner?
As the fated king waddled forth and began, Brainard shut his eyes. He
opened them suddenly on hearing:
What shall Cordelia do? Love, and be silent.
It was Louisiana in walk and bearing,—the swagger from Iole, Kansas,—but
the voice was rich and sweet, with an unpremeditated, girlish modulation
that suggested depths of feeling unsuspected.
The audience, puzzled, was respectful through Cordelia’s humble replies,
until the young actress essayed her first long speech:
You have begot me, bred me, loved me; I
Return those duties back as are right fit . . .
Haply when I shall wed,
That lord must take my—my—
Louisiana stumbled at the word, then brought out triumphantly: