“Of course you’ll start this term,” Mr. Macaulay said. “We begin in two
weeks. Miss Carson will give you all the necessary forms and the
catalogue and anything else you need. Glad to have you with us!”
“But ... but ...” Peggy sputtered. “You mean I’m accepted? Without even
reading for you? Just like that?”
“Just like that,” Mr. Macaulay agreed calmly. “I don’t believe in
readings. What I look for is personality and presence and a feeling for
the stage. The right kind of feeling for the stage,” he added. “As for
the readings, I’ll be glad to hear you after you’ve had about six months
of work with the Academy. I can tell you’ll be one of our good ones.”
With a few words of farewell to the confused Peggy, he led her to Miss
Carson’s desk and quickly retreated to what Peggy already thought of as
his “natural habitat.”
Only after she was through with Miss Carson and her papers and forms and
was on the way down in the ancient elevator did it finally dawn on Peggy
that she had actually gotten what she had wanted for years—she was
accepted in the best dramatic school in New York! The elevator seemed
hardly big enough to hold her; she wanted to run, to jump, to sing! What
she was actually doing seemed the silliest thing imaginable. She was
grinning a wide, foolish grin and at the same time tasting the salty
tears that were probably smearing her mascara.
“Congratulations,” said the elevator operator. “Not everyone makes it.”
“Oh! How did you know?” Peggy gasped, dabbing at her eyes with her
handkerchief.
“Knew you were trying when I saw you come up with the play scripts,” he
answered. “And I knew you made it when I saw your face.” He slid back
the squealing grillwork gate. “So long,” he said. “See you in a couple
of weeks.”
At the end of the long hall, the doorway filled with sunshine seemed to
be paved with gold. Outside, it seemed to Peggy, the whole city was
paved with gold. She impulsively ran to the door, poised in the
sunlight, and blew a theatrical kiss at the sky.
When Peggy, bubbling with her news, returned to the hotel, it was
decided to fill the time before lunch with a necessary shopping tour.
She needed so much, now that she was to live in New York. Mr. Lane
decided to let Peggy and her mother take care of this aspect of the
trip, while he visited some old newspaper friends. He arranged to meet
them for lunch at the hotel in two hours, kissed them fondly, and
boarded a bus downtown.
Rockport was never like this, Peggy thought, as she and her mother
walked along looking in shop windows. They were so excited just deciding
which stores to shop in and what things she needed, that before they had
a chance to actually buy anything, it was time for lunch.
“At least we had a chance to find out where all the nice stores are,”
Mrs. Lane said. “And it doesn’t matter that we didn’t get you your
things. You’ll probably have more fun going shopping by yourself or with
some of your new friends when you come back here to live. Besides, we
won’t have to bring things home and then carry them all the way back to
New York again.”
Peggy agreed that it made sense, and at the thought of her “new friends”
and of buying her own things in New York’s world-famous stores, she got
a little thrill of pleasure and anticipation.
After lunch, made memorable by Mr. Lane’s new collection of newspaper
stories picked up from his old friends, it was time to travel downtown
to meet May Berriman and see where Peggy would be living.
As their taxi took them downtown from the hotel, Peggy noticed how the
city seemed to change character every few blocks. The types of buildings
and the kinds of stores changed; the neighborhood grew progressively
more shabby; there were more trucks in the streets and fewer taxis.
Peggy wondered what sort of neighborhood May Berriman’s place was in.
Mrs. Lane, too, looked a bit concerned and whispered to Mr. Lane, “Are
you sure we’re going the right way?”
He nodded and said, “You don’t know New York. Wait and see.”
In the middle of what appeared to be a district of warehouses and office
buildings, the cab turned a corner, and a swift change again overtook
the city. Suddenly there were well-kept apartment houses and residential
hotels and then, with another turn, it was as if time itself had been
turned back!
The street ended in a beautiful old-fashioned park surrounded by a high
wrought-iron fence in which were set tall gates. The street around the
park was lined with old, mellow brick mansions whose steps led up to
high doors fitted with gleaming brass knobs, knockers, and hinges. Peggy
almost expected to see top-hatted gentlemen emerge from them to descend,
swinging slim canes, to waiting carriages.
“This is Gramercy Park,” her father said. “It’s still one of the most
fashionable and beautiful parts of the city. May’s house is just off the
park, and she tells me she has park rights for herself and the girls who
live with her.”
“Park rights?” Peggy said wonderingly. “Do you mean it’s a private
park?”
“That’s right,” her father answered. “One of the last in New York. Its
use is limited to people who live right around it, all of whom have keys
to the gates. That’s one thing that makes this such a nice place to
live.”
The cab had made almost a complete circle of the park when the driver
turned off into a side street. Two doors down he stopped before a
handsome brownstone house, complete with the steep steps and brass
fittings that were typical of the area. On either side of the steps, at
street level, stood a square stone column, and on each one was a
polished brass plate engraved: Gramercy Arms.
As Peggy started up the steps she caught a glimpse through the windows
in the little areaway below street level. The spacious kitchen she saw
looked far more typical of Rockport than anything she would have
expected to find in New York City, and it made her feel sure that she
would like living in May Berriman’s house.
May Berriman herself proved to be as big and as warm looking and as
countrified as her kitchen. Her erect carriage and bright-red hair
belied her more than sixty years, and her voice was deep and even, with
none of the quaver that Peggy was used to hearing in older people. She
met them at the door with vast and impartial enthusiasm, kissed them all
and ushered them into a tiny sitting room, tastefully furnished with a
mixture of modern and antique pieces. They had scarcely had time to say
hello when tea was served by a bright-eyed, kimonoed Japanese woman who
might have been any age at all. Peggy watched in silent pleasure as May
Berriman poured the tea in the formal English style, using an essence,
fresh boiled water, an alcohol burner to keep the tea hot, and an
assortment of tongs, spoons, and strainers. It was not until each of
them had a fragile cup of hot, fragrant tea and a plate of delicate
little sandwiches that May Berriman sat back, relaxed, for conversation.
“Peggy, your father told me on the phone that you have been accepted in
the Academy. I’m delighted. Now tell me, what do you think of Archer
Macaulay?”
“I hardly know,” Peggy admitted. “I’ve never met anyone like him. Is he
always as abrupt as that?”
“Always!” May Berriman laughed. “Ever since I’ve known Archie—and that
goes back a good many years—he’s tried to act like a bad playwright’s
idea of an Early Victorian theatrical genius. It’s a peculiar sort of
act when you first see it, but after a while you get used to it and
hardly notice at all. Besides, it’s not all sham. He may not be Early
Victorian, but he is a theatrical genius.”
“Was he an actor?” Peggy asked.
“Goodness, no! Only in his personal life! There’s a world of difference
between acting and teaching; you hardly ever find anyone who’s good at
both. Macaulay’s a magnificent teacher, so he had sense enough never
even to try acting.”
“But,” Peggy objected, “how can you teach something you can’t do?”
May Berriman smiled. “Oh, Archie can do, all right. He’s that rarest of
all talents—a talented audience. He knows when something is good and
when it isn’t, and if it’s not good, he knows just what it lacks. He
just keeps asking for what he wants, and when he gets it—if he gets
it—it turns out to be just what everyone else wants, too. That’s why he
has been able to discover and develop more fine talent than any other
man of our time. You’re a lucky girl to be able to work with Archer
Macaulay. Even to be accepted for his school is a great honor.”
Peggy nodded in understanding as May Berriman talked about the talent
for recognizing talent, remembering her last conversation with her
friend Jean Wilson. Maybe some day, Peggy thought, she herself, an old
retired actress, would be serving tea in her own house, and talking in
just such tones of affection and admiration for her friend Jean, who
would then be the famous director of the best dramatic school in....
She was brought out of her daydream by her mother, who touched her arm
gently and said, “Back to earth, dear. Mrs. Berriman wants to show us
the room you’re to have.”
The room was small, but comfortably furnished as a sitting room, with a
large couch that opened to a bed. Two tall windows with window seats set
in their deep frames looked out into the tops of two lacy trees that
rose from a tiny, well-kept garden. An easy chair and a low table stood
in front of a little fireplace that really worked—a rare thing in New
York. An antique desk between the windows and a large bureau opposite
the fireplace completed the furnishings. The couch was covered in a deep
blue that matched the blue carpet, the walls were white, and the windows
were draped in a white fabric with blue cabbage roses. The same fabric
covered the easy chair.
“It’s perfect!” Peggy said, and rushed off to try the big easy chair.
“I’m going to love it here!” she said. “In fact, I hardly want to go
home!”
“I’m afraid, Peg,” Mr. Lane said, looking at his watch, “that that’s
just what we’re going to have to do, and in a very few minutes. If we
want to make our plane, we’d better be getting back to the hotel to
pack.”
The brief good-by, the taxi ride around Gramercy Park and back uptown,
the hurried packing, the trip to the airport and the now-familiar
process of boarding and take-off seemed to Peggy as fast, as jerky and
peculiar as a movie run backward. She wanted to play it back right
again, to put everything in its proper sequence, and live over her
exciting day.
And that’s exactly what she did, in her mind’s eye, all the way back to
Rockport.
V
_Starting a New Role_
Rockport had never looked so little as it did from the air. The plane
circled the town at dusk, just as the stewardess finished serving
supper, and as Peggy looked down from the oval window next to her seat,
she saw the street lights suddenly flick on, section by section, all
over the town. The familiar streets glowed under their canopies of
trees, the houses were almost hidden under other trees and, in the
center of the town, a few neon lights added warmth and color.
Peggy hardly knew what she felt for the place where she had been born
and where she had lived her whole life. A wave of tenderness came over
her for Rockport, so small and homelike, surrounded by its farms and
forests and lakes. And at the same time, she compared this view from the
air with the sight of New York, towering and dramatic in the afternoon
sunshine. Who could settle for Rockport, after breathing the excitement
of the giant city? Still ... she wondered if New York could ever be to
her the home that Rockport was.
The somewhat bumpy runway of Armory Field was under their wheels. Peggy
was home again. But in her mind, she was still in the city, starting her
new and wonderful life.
After quickly unpacking and changing to a skirt and blouse more suitable
to Rockport than the smart traveling suit she had worn on the plane,
Peggy came running downstairs. Her father sat in his easy chair reading
the two issues of the _Eagle_ that had come out in his absence. Her
mother sat in the wing chair opposite, working serenely on her needle
point. To look at them, Peggy thought, one would suppose that they had
never left home, that nothing at all had changed from what it had been
two days ago.
“I’m going out for a while,” she announced. “I’ve just got to tell Jean
right away, or I’ll burst for sure!”
“All right, dear,” Mrs. Lane said. “But don’t stay out too late. You’ve
had an exciting day, and you’re going to need some sleep.”
With a wave of her hand, Peggy left and, whistling boyishly, skipped
down the front steps. Once on the street, the last of her grown-up
reserve left her, and she ran all the way to the Wilson house to arrive,
panting and breathlessly bright-eyed, a few moments later.
“Jean’s down at the Sweet Shop,” Mrs. Wilson said, “but I know she’ll
want to see you. I’ll call and tell her not to leave, and you can meet
her there.”
Peggy thanked Mrs. Wilson briefly, and ran back home once more to
collect her bike. As she pedaled down Chestnut Street, she wondered how
many more times she would ride her bike again. It was not the sort of
thing one did in New York, obviously. And besides, the bike was a part
of her childhood and early teens, and now she was coming out of them and
off to the great adventure of becoming a woman! Thinking this, she
slowed down a little, so as to enjoy the ride and the familiar sights
around her. Growing up would happen soon enough, she now knew.
Meanwhile, she wanted to slowly taste and enjoy the pleasures of
small-town girlhood that were not to come again.
Her subdued mood lasted only until she arrived at the Sweet Shop. There
she found Jean, Betty Dugan, Alice Schultz, and Millie Pratt crowded
around a soda-laden table, laughing and talking. They managed to make
room for one more chair and as soon as Peggy was seated, turned silent,
expectant faces to her.
Looking from face to face, Peggy suddenly laughed. “You look like a
nestful of baby birds waiting to be fed!”
Then she told her friends the whole story of her trip, starting, of
course, with the main fact that she had been accepted at Mr. Macaulay’s
famous New York Dramatic Academy. Describing him, she acted him out for
them, and soon had the girls in fits of laughter. Then she went on to
tell about May Berriman, the room she would live in, the quaint
old-fashioned neighborhood around Gramercy Park, the private park and
all the rest. When she had finished, she said to Jean, “Doesn’t it make
you want to change your mind? I do wish you’d come, too. It’s going to
be wonderful, but with you there, it would be absolutely perfect!”
Jean shook her head ruefully. “I must admit it sounds tempting,” she
said, “but I stand on what I told you before about what I want to do. I
don’t think I’m an actress at all, and if I tried to be one, I’d
probably only fail. And that wouldn’t make me happy at all. If I do what
I plan to, though, I’ll probably succeed, and that way I’ll have a happy
life.”
Peggy nodded her agreement. “I guess I was only testing you, in a way,”
she admitted, “just to see if you really meant it. Now that I know you
do, I’m sure that you’re absolutely right.”
Then she told her friend about the discussion she had had with May
Berriman about Mr. Macaulay, and what the older woman had told Peggy
about his great ability as a teacher and his lack of ability as an
actor.
“She said, too, that the ability to recognize talent and to develop it
is a lot rarer than the talent itself. And all the time she was talking,
I was thinking about you and our last talk together.”
“Well, that makes me feel a lot better,” Jean admitted. “It’s good to
know that there are other people—real professionals—who think about
things the same way I do. Thanks for telling me.”
Then the talk turned to other things besides the theater: clothes, boys,
the coming school year at Rockport Community College, for which Peggy
would not be there—all the hundreds of things that girls talk about.
Before Peggy realized it, it was ten-thirty, and she was beginning to
yawn.
“It’s not the company,” she said, “it’s the hour. Not exactly original,
but perfectly true. I’m afraid I’d better be getting home.”
The others agreed that it was their bedtime too, and they trooped out to
the bicycle rack to say their good nights. Peggy and Jean rode side by
side slowly down the leafy street, feeling the first slight chill that
announced the end of summer was at hand.
“When will you be leaving?” Jean asked.
“I guess in about a week,” Peggy said. “The term starts in two weeks,
and I want to get settled in New York before school begins, so that I
can have my mind all clear for work. I think I’ll need a week just to
get really comfortable in my room, do the shopping I’ll have to do, and
find my way around the city. I want to know about buses and subways and
things like that before I get started.”
“That sounds like a good idea to me,” Jean replied. “What I would do if
I were you is to get a street map of the city, and a guidebook, and
spend some time just wandering around so you get the idea of where
things are.”
“That’s just what I plan to do,” Peggy said. “In fact, my father
suggested the same thing. He said that I should go on a few guided
tours, too. They have buses that take tourists all around the city and
show them everything of interest. Dad says that native New Yorkers, and
people who are trying to make other people think that they’re native New
Yorkers, are ashamed to be seen on the sight-seeing buses, which seems
pretty silly to me. The result is that people who come from out of town
often know more about New York than the people who have grown up there!”
Both girls laughed at the idea, then Peggy continued, “I plan to spend
at least a week taking tours, and walking around the streets with a
guidebook, and shopping. I’d better leave next week, I guess.”
“It seems so soon,” Jean said a little sadly. “I’m going to miss you.”
“It is soon,” Peggy admitted, “but I’d rather be rushed than have to
wait for a month and think about nothing but the day I’m going to leave.
Even as it is, there’ll be too much time for good-bys, and I hate saying
good-by. Especially to people I care for.”
The girls rode the rest of the way in silence, each thinking her own
thoughts about their long association which was now to come to an end.
They came to Peggy’s house first and stopped their bikes.
Then Peggy said, “Of course I’ll write,” as if she were answering a
question that Jean had asked.
Jean laughed, “You’re right! That’s just what I was thinking! I wonder
how long it’ll be before either of us finds another person we can do
that with again?”
“I don’t suppose we ever will,” Peggy said. “And it’s probably just as
well. There’s something a little weird about it!”
Then, on common impulse, they recited in chorus the witches’ lines from
_Macbeth_, only changing the “three” to “two.”
“When shall we two meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”
And with laughter and witchlike cackles, they said good night.
The next week flew by in a continual round of farewells, packing,
endless talk in the Sweet Shop about acting and the life Peggy would be
leading in New York and, the night before her departure, a big farewell
party at Jean’s house. It was a tired Peggy, glad to be on her way at
last, who found herself once more at the airport with her parents. But
this time, she was to fly alone.
“Are you sure you packed everything?” her mother asked for perhaps the
tenth time.
“Positive,” Peggy assured her.
“And you know how to get from the airport to Gramercy Park?” her father
asked, also for perhaps the tenth time.
“I’ll never forget!” Peggy laughed.
“Well...” Mrs. Lane said.
“Well...” Mr. Lane said.
They stood, all three, looking at one another, not knowing what to say.
Then Peggy’s mother, with more than a faint suspicion of tears in her
eyes, threw her arms about her daughter and kissed her.
“Oh dear!” she said. “You’d better get on that plane right away, or I am
going to be silly and cry!”
Peggy kissed both her parents and started through the gate across the
concrete strip where the big plane waited. As she turned to wave
good-by, her mother called, “Are you sure you have—”
“Yes!” Peggy shouted back. “I’m sure!”
“And don’t forget to phone the minute you get there!” her father called,
his last words drowned out by the sound of a plane that swooped low
overhead.
At the top of the boarding steps, Peggy waved again for the last time,
then went in to her seat to start her first flight alone—a flight that
would bring her to all she had ever hoped for.
It was dark when the plane arrived in New York this time, and if Peggy
had thought the sight breathtaking when she first saw it, she was
absolutely stunned by this!
In every direction, as far as she could see, the streets stretched out
like blazing strings of lights, white, red, blue, green, with sudden
bursts and knots of brighter light where major streets joined. As the
plane banked and turned, she saw a superhighway winding along the edge
of a bay, interrupted by complicated cloverleafs, underpasses and
overpasses. The lights on the highway were diamond-blue, and the road
was dotted with headlights and taillights of thousands of cars like
fireflies in the night.
Then the turning of the plane revealed midtown Manhattan, tall and
sparkling! The Empire State Building towered over all, its four bright
beams sweeping the sky over the city. The UN building stood out like a
solid slab of brilliance against the rest of the skyline. Beyond it,
Times Square blazed like a bonfire.
All around her in the plane, Peggy saw the rest of the passengers,
including obviously experienced travelers, pressed against the windows,
enchanted by the fairy-tale sight below. They were all talking,
pointing, comparing notes on the beauty of this or that.
The plane swept lower now, and the skyline seemed to rise and grow even
more mighty. Over the East River, the bridges were spider-webs and
pearls; small boats like water bugs skimmed under them and out again.
Then, abruptly, a new and closer brilliance of searchlights and whirling
red and green signals—and the plane settled smoothly into the bustle and
roar of LaGuardia Airport.
Peggy was glad that she had been there before with her parents, or she
might never have found her way out. Crowds of people swarmed about the
place, sweeping past in every direction. Piles of luggage and groups of
waiting travelers seemed to block her way no matter where she turned.
Ignoring the crowds as best she could, and following her sense of
direction and her memory of where she had gone the previous week, Peggy
worked her way to the front of the terminal where the taxi stand was. A
bank of phone booths reminded her to call home before going on. Then she
hailed a cab and gave the driver the address of the Gramercy Arms.
She had planned to take the airport bus to the terminal in Manhattan and
a cab from there, but she had changed her mind. This one extravagance,
Peggy felt, would be worth the price. Settling back in comfort, she
opened the window to a cool rush of air and became absorbed in the
passing sights of parkways, streets, bridges and, finally, the entrance
over the giant Triborough Bridge into the enchanted isle of Manhattan.
“Your first trip to New York?” the taxi driver asked, noticing her
fascination with the sights.
“No,” Peggy answered, feeling herself quite the experienced traveler. “I
was here last week. But that was the first time,” she confessed.
“Staying long?”
“Forever, I hope!” Peggy replied. “I’m going to live here.”
The East River Drive went into a sort of tunnel, supported on one side
by pillars, through which Peggy could see a string of barges slowly
forging upstream.
“You know what’s above us?” the driver asked. “No? It’s a park! That’s
right. This road is built under a park!”
Farther on, after they had come out of the tunnel, they plunged into
another one. “Another park?” Peggy asked.
“Nope. This time it’s an apartment house!”
The third time the road went underground, it was the UN building that
was above them. What a fantastic city! Peggy thought. Everything seemed
topsy-turvy. The idea of driving under parks, apartment houses and giant
office buildings was so queer! She said as much to the driver, who only
laughed. “Miss, you’ll get used to all sorts of queer things if you live
here! I’ve been driving a cab in this town for twenty-four years now,
and I haven’t seen the end of odd things. As fast as you can see one,
they build two more!”