Bethel Merriday

XVI

That Thursday afternoon, the fourth of the George and Margaret run, Bethel had a letter from her father:

DEAR DAUGHTER,

It is fairly cool for July up here, I always say the sea may be all right but you cant beat the hills for real nice summer weather, we took out the car last evening & had a nice joy ride to Norfolk to see Cousin Mary, you wont remember her she is the daughter of old Squire Patten, still has her teeth @ eighty and eyesight as good as a girl's. Well, you have only 5 weeks after this week in summer theatre & am sure you realize none better that you must now give some solid thought to question of what you will do in the fall.

We have an idea you will be wanting to fly off to N Y and look for a job in the theatre but we have been talking a lot to Mr. Sampson you remember him, though now in mercantile business he had a lot of experience with the stage, vaudeville & Shakespeare & so forth when a boy, he says N Y is a terribly dangerous place for a young girl, gets more so every year with all these immoral shows & dance hall and so on.

Now Bethel we want you to do whatever you think is right, we have every confidence in yr good sense & if you absolutely feel you must go on the stage, shall stand back of you always. We have decided we can manage to let you have $25.00 a week till you get a job, though as you probably know business is bad & collections simply terrible I swear they are almost as bad as in 1930.

But we beg of you to stop & think if you are not still pretty young to try & cope with the temptations in N Y & if we couldn't persuade you to stay home for a year & then tackle the city. We are not getting any younger though thank God we are both still hale & hearty but we are both at a time of life when we can never tell how much longer we will have a chance to see our daughter & visit with her & of course Ben has a girl friend, several of them I guess, & we don't hardly ever see him except at breakfast, & while we certainly do not complain & enjoy the radio & occasional movie as much as anybody, it sometimes gets lonely here & it certainly would brighten up this household a terrible lot if we could hear our bright girl chatting & entertaining her friends here in the evening, maybe our last chance to see anything of her, but dear, you must decide, we honestly don't want to put any pressure on you. The dog was sick last week, too much whoopee, I guess. Well, I must close now & hope you are enjoying every second of your stay with all those clever people.

With all our love,

Yours faithfully,

Your loving,

FATHER AND MOTHER.

She cried.

She saw them, alone in the evenings, waiting, talking about her; she saw their eyes, so cautious yet so kind; timid dull eyes that she could so easily brighten with her chatter. Surely the least she could do for them was to give them a year of her life--

But she had to hasten to the theatre.

After the play, Fletcher stuck his head in to drawl, 'Gent to see you, Beth. Looks to me like the boy friend from back home. Charley Hatch.'

'Oh, dear!' wailed Bethel. 'Tell him to wait!'

Already it seemed to her natural that Fletcher, Andy, Roscoe should see her in loose dressing-gown and bare feet. They belonged to the sacred order of wandering vagabonds. But Charley was an outsider--how dismayingly an outsider she perceived now.

She flung on a skirt and sweater and sandals and scrabbled her hair into some sort of a knot and crept out. Before she could face him with the gaiety and poise suitable to an actress, she had to halt inside the dressing-room door, her throat throbbing. She was not insincere; nothing so masterful as that. She was plain frightened by the kind demand that she return to babyhood and the back streets and the evenings of loving vacuity.

'Why, Charley! This is too divine! Did you drive down to see the show?'

'Yes, I guess so. Well, no, I drove down to see you, mostly, I guess.'

'But you were out front?'

'Uh?'

'I mean, you saw our play?'

'Oh yes--yes, sure.'

'Why didn't you let me know and I'd've had a ticket for you.'

'Well--Kind of thought I'd better buy my own. And I wanted to surprise you.'

'And you certainly did! In such a lovely way, I mean.'

'Let's go somewhere and talk.'

'Oh yes, Charley--oh yes, of course. Uh--have you got your car with you?'

'Sure.'

'Then we might drive to the Lobster Pot. It's a ducky place.'

'Is it?' Nothing more from Charley, as he escorted her to the car. She felt as frothy as Mahala Vale. She became very geographical about the neighbouring estates as they drove into Grampion Centre.

At table in the Lobster Pot, Charley, very virile and dominating, demanded, 'Want a drink, Bet?'

'No, I don't believe so.'

'You can have one if you want to. I'm getting wise to the world. You got to, if you're a streamlined salesman. You don't have to conceal any vices from me.'

'I haven't got any to conceal.'

'No? Well, that's all the better.'

'They have lovely waffles and chicken here.'

'Kind of late at night for waffles, isn't it? Well, all right. You can only be young once!'

'Charley! Here's a funny coincidence. I heard from Mama and Papa this afternoon. Did you know anything about it?'

'Why yes, in a way. I kind of got to talking with them, yesterday. Listen: I don't know's you ought to go off and leave 'em all alone. You certainly owe them some gratitude for having brought you into the world, and giving you such a swell education.'

'I know. They've been wonderful.' She spoke wretchedly, in a vision of returning home and, evening after evening, listening to her father chuckling, 'Almost time to hear Amos and Andy on the radio. Don't know how they ever think up all those comical things'. But--yes, she must do it; she couldn't be selfish.

After all, what was a mere year?

'You oughtn't to be so selfish and sacrifice them.'

'I know.'

'And they've been so patient with your notions about acting--even let you come here to this crazy place.'

'What? What do you mean? "Crazy"?'

'Why sure. Isn't it? Lot of grown-up people kicking around on the stage and kissing and Lord knows what-all instead of working for a living.'

'So you don't call acting working?'

'Do you?'

'You don't think it's important like your work--like selling coffee percolators!'

'I certainly do not! That's what you could call a real Mission, and not kid yourself either--thousands of households getting better coffee--'

'And quicker!'

'--yes, and quicker, every morning! And you got no idea what sales resistance there is, these days. It takes guts and scientific training to make folks change their brand of percolator. It's a real man-sized job--not like painting your face and putting on a lot of fancy clothes and pee-rading around in front of a lot of women.'

'I see your idea.'

'Yes, and you'll adopt it, too, when you grow up and realize your responsibilities. Now, Bet, I'm no poet or no actor, but I guess you know I've always stuck to you like a limpet.'

'What's a limpet?'

'Huh? Oh, you know. It's just a kind of expression. And as I say, you're never going to find any of these pretty boys that'll be devoted to you, and forgive all your wild ideas, the way I do. I watched 'em to-night! Bunch of acrobats!'

'Charley Hatch! You look at those two men at that table! Andy Deacon, the big fellow, and Fletcher Hewitt--the Yankee--he's our stage manager. Either one of 'em could lick his weight in Joe Louises. Either one of 'em could build a set out of cardboard, and tour it carrying the set on his shoulders, and play with a fever in his bones. I suppose they're pretty boys! I suppose they're acrobats!'

'I didn't mean to get you sore. I just mean--'

'And what did you just-mean, may I ask!'

'Ah, don't get sore! I just mean things are going fine with me. I'll be making fifty, in less than two years, if you could wait. We could get a dandy little three-room flat, looking right out on the high-school grounds. And a convertible coop with a top that it goes up automatically when you push a button. You've seen 'em? They're dandy.' Wistfully: 'We could have an awfully nice time, driving around to Waterbury and Hartford and every place, on Sunday, and take a picnic lunch along--I'd get a thermos jug. We'd laugh a lot together. I don't laugh so much, now you're gone, Bet.'

'Oh, I'm sorry, but--Oh no, no, no!'

'Not good enough for you, eh? I hear that Deacon fellow has all kinds of dough. I suppose a fellow has to have a Park Avenue apartment and a chauffeur to interest you in him!'

'You see here! I expect to have a hall bedroom, myself, in New York--'

'So you are going there!'

'I certainly am . . . now! I expect to walk my feet off looking for a job at minimum. I expect to model or wait on table while I'm waiting for it. I'm going to act. You've made me see that, no matter if it makes me feel wicked and ungrateful and selfish, no matter even if I fail, I'm going to act. I know now!'

'Well, it's kind of too bad. You and I might've had a good time. Of course you aren't pretty, like Annie McLaut--remember her?'

'In school? Lots of teeth?'

'She's got the finest set of teeth in Sladesbury, let me tell you that! And she doesn't want to go helling around New York and Hollywood. She'd be glad to stay home and keep house. She thinks it's important to increase a sales quota. I think I'll see a lot of her. I don't guess you'll be sore, will you?'

'I certainly won't!'

'Then I guess she and I'll be married in the fall.'

'Oh, that's splendid; that's perfectly splendid.'

She tried to make it enthusiastic, but she had dropped ten thousand feet and landed on rock. She had discovered that she was much worse than wicked; she was dispensable. As Charley babbled about the wonders of Miss McLaut, apparently rather relieved at his freedom to enter a new slavery, Bethel was a very little girl whose family had forgotten to call her for Christmas dinner. It was all of five minutes before she could get up a self-respecting bad temper again.

'You say this Andrew Deacon is quite a husky guy,' said Charley.

'Oh yes. He got his football letter at Yale, and he was Skull and Bones, too, and Phi Beta Kappa.'

'And rich? Don't some guys have all the luck! I don't think he's good-looking like these fellows in the moom [sic] pictures, though.'

'Oh course not, thank heaven!'

'He ever make a pass at you?'

'Don't be absurd! Mr. Deacon doesn't know I exist, except as the dark-eyed kid among the apprentices. He isn't sure whether my name is Bethel or Elizabeth--or Mehitabel.

'But your name isn't anything like Mehitabel.'

'No--no--is isn't.'

'Well, I guess it's all to the good he don't care for you.'

'But he does!'

'But I thought you said--'

'Oh, never mind what I said!'

'Gosh, Bet, this play-acting life is certainly getting you hysterical. Well, never mind. I hear this Deacon fellow's mother lives in a regular high-toned castle, in Newport. He's out of our class entirely.'

'Ours? Charley, I never realized it: you're perfectly content to go on living on a side street in a side-street town!'

'Aren't you?'

'I've never thought much about it. But I guess there's no position in the world that I won't demand--if I can earn it.'

'You're going to let yourself in for a lot of trouble.'

'I hope so!' She was exuberant. 'Yes. I hope so.'

Andy and Fletcher Hewitt were leaving; Fletcher stopped by their table and spoke to Charley:

'I envy you for being an old friend of Bethel. We're very proud of her. I don't believe she knows it herself--she'll probably scratch me for calling her a good Puritanical influence--but I assure you, Mr. Hatch, she's the kind that keeps us all working harder and drinking less and going to bed earlier.'

Charley--her Charley, who so recently had been nothing but the scrubby little boy next door--answered condescendingly: 'Glad to hear that. Guess it's pretty hard to go straight and take care of your health when you associate with a lot of crazy actors that stay up all night.'

'You make me sick!' said Bethel.

But Fletcher answered Charley with gravity: 'Yes, it is. The stage is a good dream, but I long for a little reality sometimes. Good night.'

'Any time you're in Sladesbury, just drop in and see me--the Flamolio sales offices,' said Charley.

'Oh, thank you, that's very kind of you,' said Fletcher.

And what made Bethel glad to see the last of Charley, to feel free when he had gone, was his patronizing summary afterward:

'Well now, that's not such a bad guy, that Mr. Fletcher. I wouldn't hardly think he was connected with the stage. He looks like a regular guy.'

'Yes--yes dear--I think he might be a regular guy. Will you forgive me, Charley? I'm so sleepy.'

Only she felt that it was her youth, and everything she had loved and trusted, that was driving away that night with Charley Hatch.

Iris had not come in yet, at one in the morning--as Iris was likely not to come in, these days, now that the auriferous Pete Chew was fascinated by her. Bethel sat brooding:

'I would go home and stay--oh, not a year, but for months and months. But they wouldn't like it. They wouldn't like it any better than Charley did, when they find out how restless I really am.

'So I'm "out of Andy's class!" Not good enough for him. I'm slightly crazy about you, Mr. Deacon. I like your funny, bristly hair. I like your solid jaw. I would very much like to pat it--except that you would probably sock me. I think your voice is like a whole flock of organs all playing Bach suites. I like your childish grin. But a Merriday of Merriday Grange is as good as any powder-making Deacon and any Mrs. J. Goddard Deacon and your Aunt Victoria Cabot Lodge Sedgwick Lowell Brewster Deacon, if there is one. I come from a very fine family, Mr. Deacon, and my mother's brother is the best accordion player in the state of New Hampshire.

'Anyway, I'm not one of these brats that want to go on the stage just to escape from a beastly home, as Toni does, as Pete Chew does . . . as maybe Andy does. Dear Andy.

'Dear Andy . . . I am so sleepy! . . . When I come in crying, as Gladys the maid--if I just stopped and stood with my mouth open, like an angry cat, not making any . . . I'll try that to-morrow evening. That ought to go over big.'