convince Mal and Randy in some way that it won’t happen again—I know
they want you back!”
“That’s nice of you, Peggy,” Paula said, “but I can’t explain. And
there’s no point in my trying to. No, the part is yours.”
“But I don’t want it!” Peggy said earnestly. “I’d never have been able
to play that scene if I hadn’t seen you do it so often! All I was doing
was a fair imitation. You’ve got to come back and do the part!”
“Peggy,” Paula said with sudden intensity, “it’s not a question of my
wanting to come back and do the part or not. It’s a question of being
accepted back. Of course I want to do it! But Mal and Randy have to make
the decision that they’re willing to let me come back after the terrible
way I acted this evening.”
“If you could just tell them why—” Peggy began.
“I can’t. Honestly, I can’t,” Paula interrupted. “I would if I could,
but if they’re going to take me back, it can’t depend on an explanation.
They’ll just have to do it on faith—and on my promise that nothing like
this will happen again. That’s the only assurance I can give them.”
“Are you so sure it won’t?” Peggy asked. “I mean, it was such an
emotional outburst, you hardly seemed to know what you were saying. How
can you be positive that you won’t fly off again like that? I don’t mean
to be hard on you, but they have to know.”
“All I can say, Peggy,” Paula answered, “is that as long as the
rehearsals are as private as they have been, and as long as Sir Brian
doesn’t come around the theater till opening night, I’ll be all right.”
“And after opening night?” Peggy pursued.
“Oh, once we open, I don’t care who comes!” Paula said. “In fact, all I
want is to have the whole world come to see us!”
“Well,” Peggy said after a moment’s reflection, “I’m convinced that
you’ll be all right, and I’ll do what I can to convince the boys. But I
won’t mention what you said about Sir Brian not coming around. It’ll
just sound peculiar, and I’m sure he won’t come anyhow, he’s so busy.
We’ll be lucky if he even comes to a performance.”
“Thanks, Peggy,” Paula said warmly. “Thank you so much for your faith in
me. You’re a wonderful friend. And I know you’ll convince the boys! I’ll
call you in the morning to find out, all right?”
“Fine. Meanwhile you’d better get a good night’s sleep. You look as if
you need some rest. We’ve all been worried about your health. I’ll see
you tomorrow at the theater, I’m sure!”
The whole visit with Paula had taken only fifteen minutes, and Peggy
arrived at Dodo’s Coffeehouse only a minute after the others, who had
taken a bus. She sat down and looked in silence at the three expectant
faces that confronted her.
“You look like baby birds,” she laughed, “waiting for a worm!”
“How’s Paula?” Amy asked. “Is she all right?”
“Yes, she’s all right,” Peggy replied, “and I think she’ll be all right
for the rest of the play, too, if you’ll have her back, Mal. The only
thing that troubles me is that she can’t—or won’t—explain what happened
to her tonight. She wants to be in the play, but she says that if you
want her, you’ll just have to take her back on faith.”
“Is that all?” Mal asked.
“That and her promise that it won’t happen again,” Peggy answered. “I
know it sounds pretty unreasonable, but, Mal, I really believe she knows
what she’s saying, and that she’ll be okay. I don’t know what’s wrong,
but as I told Randy, I’m sure she’s in some kind of trouble, and if she
is, we shouldn’t make it worse. I think we ought to try to help her in
whatever way we can. Maybe if we trust her, and show her that we do by
taking her back, she’ll get to trust us, and tell us what’s wrong.
Anyway, I think that we should take the chance.”
“How about you, Amy?” Mal asked.
“I agree with Peggy,” she said.
“Randy?”
“I’m for taking her back. If not on her own word, then on Peggy’s. And
besides, I think everybody ought to have a second chance.”
“All right,” Mal said. “I don’t want to hold out against the rest of
you. She’s back. Peggy, do you want to be the one to tell her?”
“She’s going to call me in the morning to find out,” Peggy answered.
“Good,” Mal said. “And while you’re at it, tell her she’d better start
reading up on the whole play again, with special attention to Act One,
Scene Three. That’s what we’re starting on in the next rehearsal
tomorrow night.”
That settled, they turned their attention to coffee and cake, and their
conversation to the five-thousand-dollar investment and what they would
do with it—as if, Peggy thought, it had been the least important part of
the busy evening’s events!
VII
An Intermission
It was a good thing, Peggy thought, that she was going to the New York
Dramatic Academy and not to a more conventional kind of school. Mr.
Macaulay, the director of the Academy, approved of his students’ taking
part in off-Broadway plays, and made certain concessions to those who
were doing so, such as excusing them from school plays. While this
eliminated the necessity of learning the lines of two plays at once, and
also gave Peggy more free time than the other students, it did not
excuse her from her regular school work.
She attended classes in History of the Theater, Elizabethan Playwrights,
Restoration Drama, Acting for the Camera, Ballet and Modern Dance, and
Make-up Techniques.
It was a full schedule all by itself.
But, of course, it wasn’t all by itself. Classes filled the day from
nine in the morning till three in the afternoon, and rehearsals began at
six in the evening at the Penthouse Theater and ran on to midnight. On
Saturdays, rehearsals and scene painting and construction filled the day
from nine to six. This grueling schedule left Peggy only three hours
each day to study for her classes at the Academy and to learn her lines
for _Come Closer_, and practically no time except Sundays for such
things as hair washing, personal laundry, letter writing and all the
other things that usually seem to take no time at all because they are
spread through the week.
Sometimes she wondered how she would ever do it all. But other times she
wondered how she could ever again enjoy a life that was less full, less
active, less exciting. She was very busy, and very, very happy.
Now it was a few minutes past six on a Saturday evening, and she and Amy
were carefully washing the paint from their hands and faces. Peggy
leaned across the basin, very close to the mirror, for a minute
inspection, found one last little spot of green on the lobe of her ear,
and carefully removed it.
“I think I’m all clean,” she said. “How about you?”
“Just a few more spots,” Amy answered. “Then I’ll inspect you and you
inspect me.”
“Oh, we don’t need to be that thorough,” Peggy said. “If we hurry, we’ll
have plenty of time for baths at home before the boys come to pick us
up.”
“I would surely like to know what you call plenty of time,” Amy laughed.
“The boys are coming for us in two hours, and we have to face the
Saturday night line-up at the bathrooms, which can be worse than waiting
for tickets at a World Series game!”
“No, the worst is over by now,” Peggy said. “I happen to know that
Irene, the Beautiful Model, has a date picking her up at six-thirty,
which means that she’s climbing out of the tub right now. Greta is
staying home tonight, which means she’ll let us have the bath first. Dot
is out of town, so that just leaves us, Gaby and Maggie to share the two
baths. I think we’ll make it!”
“You have it planned like a general!” Amy said. “I salute you.”
“Right down to the camouflage!” Peggy laughed in answer. “Mine is the
dark blue cocktail dress. What are you wearing to divert the troops?”
“A print,” Amy said, with an unusual air of decision for a girl who
could never make up her mind about what to wear until the last possible
minute. “The only thing I haven’t decided yet,” she added, “is whether
to wear my print with the three-quarter sleeves, or yours with the cap
sleeves, or Maggie’s sleeveless chiffon. What do you think?”
“Why not wear any one of them, and take the other two in a little
suitcase?” Peggy teased. “Then you can change during the evening and
keep us in a constant state of surprise!”
By this time, they had finished washing, had changed from their
stagehands’ coveralls, and were dressed to go. They found Greta waiting
for them in the little lobby downstairs, and the three set off for the
Gramercy Arms.
“How did your rehearsal go today, Greta?” Peggy asked.
“Fine,” Greta said, but her tone was a little doubtful.
“Is something wrong?” Amy asked.
“No. Not exactly, that is. The scenes we were working on are shaping up
very well, but all of us are still a little worried about Paula. Not
about her acting,” she added hurriedly. “We think she’s just wonderful.
It’s ... well, it’s something else.”
“You’re not still worried about last week, are you?” Peggy asked. “I
mean about that scene at Paolo’s? If you are, I’m sure that—”
“No, it’s not that,” Greta said. “We’re all convinced that whatever it
was that caused that blowup, it won’t happen again. She’s not at all a
temperamental person. No, we’re worried about her health. At least I
am.”
“So am I,” Peggy confessed. “Amy and I were talking about it today. She
looks so drawn and pale and ... tense. I’ve tried to speak to her about
it, but she just refuses to admit that there’s anything wrong.”
“That’s the way she’s been with all of us,” Greta said. “She insists
it’s just our imaginations, and that she never felt better. Or she says
that it’s a case of character identification, and she’s beginning to
look like the part she’s playing. But if that’s true, then she’s the
best actress in the history of the theater.”
“Which she may well be,” Peggy said loyally. “But even if she is, I
don’t think that’s the cause.”
“Since there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about it,” Amy
commented, “I think the best thing to do is to leave her alone and not
bother her by asking about it. If she wants help, she knows we’re her
friends.”
“I guess so,” Peggy agreed reluctantly. “Still, I’m worried.”
They continued home in a rather troubled silence.
[Illustration: Preparing for an evening’s date]
Peggy’s planned attack on the bathtubs worked out just perfectly, and
the two friends had plenty of time to prepare themselves for the
evening’s date. The comforting dip in the hot tub and the change to
their best party clothes (or, rather, Peggy’s best party clothes, since
Amy elected to wear her print dress) served to change their mood as
well. By the time that Randy and Mal rang at the door, Peggy and Amy
were ready and waiting, in a cheerful mood of anticipation.
This was the first time that they had taken a real night off for over a
month, and they were all looking forward to an enjoyable evening, free
of the worries of the production. After a few minutes devoted to
discussion, they decided to go for a drive into Westchester County for
dinner and dancing in the country. All agreed that if they were trying
to get their minds off the play, the best thing to do was to get out of
the city, with its permanent air of show business.
It was a clear and starry night that had mixed in it the elements of two
seasons—the end of winter and the first hint of spring. The stars were
as hard and bright as in winter’s clear skies, but the air was almost
soft, and the trees silhouetted against the pale sky, though still bare
of leaves, were fuller in the bareness than they had been a week before;
the buds on the branch tips were swollen, nearly ready to burst into
little green flags.
Randy’s car, an old, but still elegant English convertible sedan, purred
smoothly through the countryside. Peggy, settled comfortably in the deep
leather seat, felt as if she were already a thousand miles away from New
York, the theater, and her hard week’s work.
Randy drove with skill and confidence, and in far less time than they
had thought possible, they were pulling into the driveway of a low stone
restaurant with a slate-shingled roof, screened from the road by
evergreens and shrubbery. The restaurant overhung a little lake in whose
still surface its lights were reflected.
Inside, in a low room illuminated only by candles, a small orchestra was
playing quiet dance music, and a few couples drifted about the floor. A
courteous headwaiter, after checking their names on the list of
reservations, led them to a small room containing only about a dozen
tables. Their table was at the side of the room, by a picture window
overlooking the lake, which could be seen, dark and bright, through the
reflections of themselves and the swaying flames of the candles on their
table.
“A thousand miles away,” Peggy was thinking. “No, a million miles!” as
the conversation, as light and pleasant and unimportant as the music,
went on. They were talking about the charming restaurant, the
countryside, and the pleasures of getting out of the city.
“We’ll have to come here in summer,” Randy was saying. “They have little
boats on the lake and you make them go with paddlewheels worked with a
kind of hand crank. They have fringed canvas awnings on top, and
cushioned seats to lean back in. The lake is bigger than it looks, and
has lots of pretty coves and inlets, and even a landscaped island up at
the far end. It’s a nice place to drift around.”
With a little twinge of feeling that she did not care to examine too
closely, Peggy found herself wondering whom Randy had rowed around the
lake, but she quickly put the thought out of her mind. She had no right
to think about things like that, she told herself. Her relationship with
Randy was ... well, it was what it was.
Peggy had no desire to be serious, except about the theater. And even
the theater, she thought, should stay in the background tonight. She and
the others had been living nothing but theater lately, and it was good
for them to sit in this cozy, candlelit room and talk about things that
didn’t matter; things like the coming of spring, rowing on the lake, or
what to have for dinner.
But keeping actors from talking about the theater is as hopeless as
trying to keep the tide from coming in. No matter what they start to
talk about, it always ends up on stage. If the conversation is about
books, somebody soon mentions a book that was made into a play, and
they’re off again in stage talk. If the conversation is even about
something as far removed from the theater as, say, sailboat racing,
sooner or later somebody will be reminded of a sailor who wrote a play,
or was an actor, and ... on stage.
Tonight was no exception, and by the time they were on their main course
of rare, tender steaks with Idaho potatoes, buttered peas and green
salad with Roquefort dressing, the talk had quite naturally drifted onto
the inevitable subject.
“Are you satisfied with the way the play is developing, Mal?” Randy
asked. “Does the cast live up to your hopes?”
“It’s going well,” Mal answered, with his usual English reserve. “My
worries about making the development lopsided by working out one scene
so thoroughly for the audition have proven to be groundless. If
anything, I think it was a good experience for us all. We learned, under
the most intense conditions, how to work together. We learned to respect
each other, too, and that’s probably the most important thing that can
happen to a company.”
“How about Paula?” Peggy asked.
“A wonderful actress,” Mal said with unusual enthusiasm. “I wonder where
she learned it all. Even a natural talent like hers isn’t all natural,
you know. Somewhere along the line, she had first-rate instruction.”
“She said something to me about coming from California and doing some
little-theater things there,” Peggy said, “but she was rather vague
about it, and I got the feeling that she wouldn’t welcome any
questions.”
“She’s rather vague about everything,” Randy said, “except her acting
ability. That’s as clear as can be.”
“I wonder where she played in California,” Mal said. “I have the feeling
that I’ve seen her somewhere before, and I may have run across her when
I was out in Hollywood. I know she looks familiar, at any rate.”
“She didn’t say,” Peggy replied. “All she told me was California, and I
know it’s a big state. I suppose it might have been in the north, around
San Francisco, but somehow I have the impression it was Los Angeles.
Maybe that’s just because I only think of Los Angeles when I think of
the acting business and California.”
“Why are you so anxious to know?” Amy asked Mal.
Taken aback a little, Mal hesitated before answering. “I’m not actually
anxious to know about her,” he said at last. “For my purposes as a
director I already know all I need to—that she’s a splendid actress.
It’s just that such secretiveness as hers always inspires a little
corresponding curiosity.”
“Well, frankly, I am curious,” Peggy said. “But I’m not as curious about
her past as I am about her present. What worries me is her health.
Haven’t you all noticed how pale she looks, and how thin and drawn she’s
getting?”
“I have noticed her condition, of course,” Mal said with concern, “and
I’ve asked her about it, as you have. She only says that I’m not to
worry, and that she’ll be all right for the opening.”
“Well, I hope she knows what she’s doing,” Randy said. “I’d hate to have
her get ill now, and have to start training a replacement. Besides,
where would we get someone as good as....” He looked at Peggy and
reddened.
“Oh, Randy,” she laughed, “you don’t have to be embarrassed about
telling the truth. I know I’m not nearly as good as Paula, and you all
know it, too. Though it’s very sweet of you to try to pretend that I am.
But I didn’t walk away from the part just because I’m a nice girl and
wanted to help Paula. I’m too much of an actress to be entirely
unselfish when it comes to a good role! No, I just knew it was meant for
her, and it was more than I could handle.”
Since, out of honesty, nobody wanted to contradict her, and out of
embarrassment, nobody wanted to agree, an awkward little silence fell
over the table. It lasted for only a moment, though, until Randy broke
it by asking Peggy if she would like to dance. She nodded happily,
relieved, and Mal and Amy followed them into the next room where the
band was playing.
Randy was a wonderful dancer, having performed professionally as a
song-and-dance man for some time, and Peggy felt that she herself never
danced as well as when she was with him. Once again, the theater and its
worries, Paula Andrews and her mysterious trouble, faded into the
background as Peggy and Randy drifted slowly and easily about the
polished floor.
Once again, the conversation turned light and pleasant and far removed
from their everyday problems, and the candlelit restaurant seemed to
Peggy to be a thousand miles removed from everything real.
But when it came time to leave, and when the car was once more purring
along the road, the thousand-mile distance shrank to its true
proportions of perhaps thirty-five miles. And every mile they drove
brought them closer again to the busy, theatrical city, where even
Randy’s good-night kiss at the doorstep could not remove from Peggy’s
mind a sense of tension and trouble to come.
What the trouble might be, she could not say. What the tension’s cause
was, she did not know. But surely at the center of it was the pale and
sensitive face of Paula Andrews.
VIII
Curtain Fall
“No, not that way, Greta,” Mal called from his seat in the orchestra.
“Don’t sit down as if you knew the chair was there and as if you knew
exactly what kind of a chair it was. I want you to give the impression
of being unsure of yourself and your surroundings. Before you sit, look
behind you quickly—maybe even touch the top of the chair—_then_ sit
down.”
“But, Mal,” Greta said, coming to the apron of the stage to talk to him,
“I’ve already used this chair earlier in the act, and I should be
familiar with it by now. If I do it this way, isn’t it just going to
look like an awkward piece of acting?”
“No,” Mal said. “When you used it before, it was when you were in a
different personality mood, remember? This little difference will help
to establish the change in your personality. It’s a small thing, and the
audience may not even be aware of it consciously, but it’ll help to form
the impression I want them to get. Try it, anyway, and I’ll see how it
looks from out front.”
Greta agreed, and returned to the wings to pick up her entrance cue
again. This time, when she entered, it was as if she had not been on
stage before at all. She crossed unsurely to stage center to exchange a
few lines with Alan Douglas and, when she was asked to sit down, turned
a little, as Mal had told her, reached out a tentative hand to touch the
back of the chair—but withdrew it before she touched it, and then
swiftly sat down.
“Like that?” she asked Mal.
“Just like that,” he answered with satisfaction. “That chair bit is the
give-away, and it’s perfect. I like your not quite touching it. Keep it
in! Now let’s take it from there, Alan.”
Peggy waited in the wings for her own entrance cue. This time she was to
come on aggressively, as the pampered ex-child movie star, to play
against Greta’s shy confusion. In their previous exchange, Peggy had
been quiet, well-mannered, even subservient in her character of
plain-Jane secretary, for Greta had been acting the crisp, assured
businesswoman.
Waiting, she watched with fascination how the play was taking shape.
This evening was the first time they had been allowed to run through the
entire play from beginning to end. The first time they had tried it,
everyone could see how much work needed to be done, how shaky the whole
structure was. But this time, the second of the evening, Mal had already
done much to establish character and to direct movement on stage, and
the production was gradually achieving a vitality of its own.
It was late, and everyone was tired, but they had all decided to finish
their second run-through of the evening anyway, feeling that they would
gain more from doing it all at once. At the rate they were going, it
would be after one o’clock before they were through, and two o’clock
before most of them were in their beds.
Peggy heard her cue lines coming up, and she got ready. At the right
moment, she entered the stage with a kind of athletic bound, swinging an
imaginary tennis racket. She tossed the “racket” (she would have one in
the play) at the “couch” (a row of three chairs, at present) and perched
on the edge of a table.
“My travel agent said that this place was different,” she said
contemptuously, “and I guess it is, if different means dead.”
“Don’t take it quite so heavy, Peggy,” Mal called out. “You shouldn’t be
so much disgusted with the place as you are, really, with yourself. You
know that no matter how good it really might be, it wouldn’t suit you,
because nothing ever does. Make the expression more regretful than
contemptuous. And for the same reason, tone down your entrance a
little.”
Peggy nodded to show her understanding, and went back to the wings
again.
The scene, when played, would last only about five minutes, but Mal was
hard to please and would let nothing pass. By the time it was over, the
rehearsal of it had taken forty minutes and Peggy was glad to make her
exit and sit down on a box near the switchboard where she could watch
the next scene.
This one would go smoothly, she knew. It was the scene they had worked
on for the audition at Sir Brian Alwyne’s, and although they had not
worked out their stage movements as yet, the cast already had developed
pace and rhythm.
Paula’s entrance, bewildered, awkward and eager to please, was perfect.
She was as graceful and appealing as a doe. One by one, the other actors
came on, each in turn trying to find some point of contact with her,
each trying to please her. And as each failed, he went off, to return
again in another mood or personality. The pace quickened. Paula’s
confusion grew greater. The tension she projected was communicated to
everyone present, those on stage and those in the wings or in the
orchestra seats watching, as it would be to the audience. The second act
was approaching its emotional crisis, uninterrupted by Mal, who sat as
if entranced, on the edge of his seat.
Finally, at precisely the right moment, when it could go on not one
moment more without shattering, the tension broke in a flood of emotion.
Paula dropped to her knees in tears, then sank in a heap on the floor,
sobbing. The scene was over. The actors turned expectantly to Mal,
waiting for his comments, his praise.