AT THE PLAY
But little light was thrown on the disappearance of Tavia through any
information Dorothy could obtain from Grace Barnum. In fact that young
lady was quite as puzzled as was Dorothy, and when told that Tavia was
not to be found at home a few days previous (this being within the time
when Tavia had left Buffalo ostensibly for her residence in Dalton), Miss
Barnum wanted to communicate immediately with the missing girl’s parents.
Nat, with kind consideration, had declined to step inside when Dorothy
called at the Barnum home. He thought he might better give the two young
ladies a chance to discuss the situation alone, and so, under pretense of
strolling through the little park opposite the house, left Grace and
Dorothy together.
It took the girls but a moment to arrive at the same point of interest.
Grace showed keenest anxiety when Dorothy inquired for Tavia, for she had
fears of her own—since her friend’s visit.
“I must write at once,” she insisted. “What would Mrs. Travers think of
me if anything happened to Tavia?”
“But I have already begun a letter,” stated Dorothy, truthfully enough,
“so perhaps I had better make the inquiry. You know how excitable Mrs.
Travers is. Perhaps I could write without causing her any alarm, whereas
she would surely expect you to know whether or not Tavia was home. I
haven’t the slightest doubt but that she is home—now,” Dorothy hastened
to add. “I am expecting her at North Birchland any day.”
This had the effect of putting Grace at her ease. Of course, she
reflected, Tavia might even be at the Cedars now, as her mother had given
her permission to go about almost as she wished, and she had expected to
pay a number of visits to friends, no special time being set for them.
This Grace knew for she had seen a letter to that effect from Mrs.
Travers to Tavia.
“You see,” said Dorothy, rising to go, “they have always given Tavia so
much her own way. She has been—well, sort of superior to the others at
home. That, I think, is a real mistake, for a girl is expected to know
more of the world and its ways than is consistent with her actual
experience.”
“Exactly,” admitted Grace. “That is what I thought once when Tavia acted
so—well so self-reliant. I do hope she is safe at home. You will let me
know, won’t you Dorothy? I may call you that, mayn’t I? I feel as if I
had known you for a long time, as Tavia has talked so much about you.”
So the two girls parted, and Dorothy’s heart seemed to grow heavier at
each new turn in her quest for the missing one.
“Why should Tavia act so?” she asked herself over and over again, as she
walked along with Nat who tried to cheer her up.
“If you don’t stop worrying, Doro,” he counseled as he noted the look of
anxiety on her face, “you’ll be a sick girl ’way out here in Buffalo.”
“I’m going to be excused from the party to-night,” she answered. “I
really have a headache, and I must have time to write some letters.”
“Great headache cure—letter writing. But I suppose you’ll not rest until
you sift this matter to the very bottom. And, to be honest, Doro, I can’t
say I blame you. I’d give a whole lot, right now, to know where the wily
Tavia tarries.”
As discreetly as she could, Dorothy wrote the letter to Mrs. Travers to
ask the mooted question. She did not say she had been to Grace Barnum’s,
but simply inquired for Tavia’s address. On an early mail the next day (a
remarkable thing for Mrs. Travers to answer a letter so promptly) came
the reply that Tavia was at the Barnums! There was some other news of
Dalton in the epistle, but that concerning Tavia, which her mother had
apparently set down as a matter of fact, stood out prominently from all
the rest.
In spite of her fears, when the letter presented the actual fact that
Tavia was not at home, and, as Dorothy knew she was not at Grace’s, it
came like a shock to the girl already in a highly nervous state because
of what she had gone through. Hoping against hope she had clung to the
slim possibility that some explanation might come from Dalton, but now
even this was shattered.
One thing Dorothy quickly decided upon. She must have another talk with
Alma Mason, and she must be careful not to excite suspicion as to the
real purpose of the conversation.
Realizing at once that she must now move cautiously in the matter, for
the slightest intimation that Tavia was away from home and friends,
without either the latter or relatives having a clue to her whereabouts,
would be sure to ruin Tavia’s reputation, Dorothy now determined that
even Nat should not know of her plans for continuing the search.
How hopeless Dorothy felt all alone in such a work! But find Tavia she
must, and to find her very soon she felt was imperative, for, even in
Buffalo, with her friends, Dorothy could see the dangers of a large city
to an unprotected and unsuspecting young girl.
But the boys were going back to North Birchland the next day! How could
Dorothy act in time to get to Rochester? For to Rochester she felt that
she now must go. Everything pointed to the fact that Tavia was either
there, or that there a clue to her whereabouts could be obtained.
On taking her morning walk alone, for Rose-Mary was a little indisposed,
after the party of the evening previous, Dorothy met Miss Mason. It was
not difficult to renew the conversation concerning Tavia. Bit by bit Alma
told of Tavia’s infatuation for the stage, until Dorothy became more than
ever convinced that it was in theatrical surroundings that the missing
girl would be found.
Mrs. Markin had planned a little theatre party for Rose-Mary and some of
her Buffalo friends that afternoon. The play was one especially
interesting to young girls—a drama built on lines, showing how one
ambitious girl succeeded in the world with nothing but a kind heart and a
worthy purpose to start with. It abounded in scenes of rural home life,
wholesome and picturesque, and one of the features, most conspicuous in
the advertising on the billboards was that of the character Katherine,
the heroine, holding a neighborhood meeting in a cornfield, among the
laborers during the noon hour. The girl appeared in the posters perched
upon a water barrel and from that pulpit in the open she, as the daughter
of a blind chair caner, won hearts to happiness with the gospel of
brotherly love—the new religion of the poor and the oppressed.
While Rose-Mary and Alma enthused over the prospect of a particularly
pleasant afternoon, Dorothy seemed nervous, and it was with some
misgivings that she finally agreed to attend the party that was really
arranged for her special entertainment. The boys, Ned, Nat and Jack were
going, of course, and to make the affair complete Rose-Mary had also
invited Grace Barnum.
Grace was a particularly bright girl, the sort that cares more for books
than pretty clothes, and who had the temerity to wear her hair parted
directly in the middle in the very wildest of pompadour days. Not that
Grace lacked beauty, for she was of the classic type that seems to defy
nationality to such an extent, that it might be a matter of most
uncertain guess to say to what country her ancestors had belonged.
This “neutrality” was a source of constant delight to Grace, for each new
friend would undertake to assign her to a different country, and so she
felt quite like the “real thing in Cosmopolitan types” as she expressed
it. The fact, however, might have been accounted for by the incident of
Grace having been born under missionary skies in China. Her mother was an
American blond, her father a dark foreigner of French and Spanish
ancestry and, with all this there was in the Barnum family a distinct
strain, of Puritan stock, from which the name Barnum came. Grace, being
distinctly different from other girls, no doubt attracted Tavia to her,
and now, when received among Tavia’s friends she was welcomed with marked
attention that at once established a bond of friendship between her and
the other girls.
The boys, naturally, were not slow to “discover her” so that, altogether,
the little matinee party, when it had reached the theatre, was a very
merry throng of young people. Mrs. Markin acted as chaperone and, five
minutes before the time set for the play to begin Dorothy and her friends
sat staring at the green fire-proof curtain from a roomy box. Dorothy was
like one in a dream.
All about her the others were eagerly waiting, looking the while at the
programmes, but Dorothy sat there with the pink leaflet lying unheeded in
her lap.
“How much that picture of Katherine resembles Tavia,” was the thought
that disturbed her. “The same hair—the same eyes—what if it should be
she?”
The curtain was swaying to and fro as those behind it brushed past in
their preparations for the presentation of “Katherine, the Chair Caner’s
Daughter.”
Dorothy’s heart beat wildly when she fancied Tavia amid such scenes—Tavia
the open-hearted girl, the little Dalton “wild flower” as Dorothy liked
to call her. Surely no stage heroine could be more heroic than she had
always been in her role of shedding happiness on all who came within her
sphere of life.
Suddenly Rose-Mary turned to Nat and remarked:
“How Tavia would enjoy this.” She looked around on the gay scene as the
theatre was filling up. “What a pity we could not bring her with us for
the good time.”
Dorothy felt her face flush as Nat made some irrelevant reply. Jack
turned directly to Dorothy and, noting her inattention to the programme
opened his to point out some of the items of interest.
But still Dorothy stared nervously at the big asbestos curtain and made
feeble efforts to answer her companion’s questions. Even Mrs. Markin
observed Dorothy’s rather queer manner, and she, too, showed concern that
her daughter’s guest should be ill at ease.
“Aren’t you well, dear?” she asked quietly.
Dorothy fumbled with a lace flounce on her sleeve.
“Yes,” she answered, “but there is so much to see and think about.” She
felt as if she were apologizing. “I am not accustomed to city theatres,”
she added.
Then the orchestra broke into the opening number, and presently a flash
of light across the curtain told that the players were ready to begin.
The introductory scenes were rather of an amateur order—a poor country
home—the blind chair caner at work, and his more or less amusing
customers. One flashily-dressed woman wanted him to put a rush bottom in
a chair that had belonged to her grandmother, but absolutely refused to
pay even the very low price the caner asked for the work. She wanted it
as cheaply as though rush bottoms could be made by machinery. He was poor
and needed work but he could not accept her terms.
The woman in a red silk gown, with a bewildering shower of veils floating
about her, did not gain any applause for her part in the play. Dorothy
noted that even on the stage undesirable persons do not please, and that
the assumed character is taken into account as well as their acting.
It was when the blind man sat alone at his door step, with his sightless
eyes raised pitifully to the inviting sunset, that the pretty Katherine
came skipping into view across the footlights.
Instinctively Nat reached out and, without being observed grasped
Dorothy’s hand. “How like Tavia!” he mused, while Dorothy actually seemed
to stop breathing. From that moment to the very end of the play Nat and
Dorothy shared the same thought—it might be Tavia. The others had each
remarked the resemblance, but, being more interested in the drama than in
the whereabouts of Dorothy’s chum (whom they had no occasion to worry
about for they did not know the circumstances,) they merely dwelt on it
as a passing thought—they were interested in what happened to the chair
caner’s daughter.
At last every member of the company found some excuse to get on the
stage, and then the end was reached, and the curtain went down while the
throng hurried out, seemingly indifferent to the desire of the actors to
show themselves again as the curtain shot up for a final display of the
last scene.
The Markin party was to go to a restaurant for ice-cream, and so hurried
from the box. Dorothy drifted along with them for a few moments, and then
again that one thought came to her, overwhelming her.
“What if that should really be Tavia?”
She had but a moment to act, then, when the crowd pressed closer and
there was difficulty in walking because of the blockade, Dorothy slipped
back, stepped out of her place, and was at once swallowed up in a sea of
persons.