Bethel Merriday

XXXII

'I'm more sensitive than you give me credit for. I've noticed how you cock an eye at me every time you catch me long-distance telephoning. Well now, I can't do much more phoning even if I wanted to. I'm too busted,' said Andy to Beth, in the presence of his palace guard: Mahala, Zed, Hugh Challis, Doc Keezer and Tertius Tully.

'But at the same time, I've just really started my campaign to get more backing. I'm going after every poor unfortunate that I know or that my dear mother knows. Beth, you can type, can't you?'

'Yes.'

'Want to be my stenographer--unpaid--along with your acting?'

'Yes, sure.'

'I can't afford even hotel stenographers any more--and I don't want them to know too much about our difficulties, and maybe let them out to the press. So we'll start in.'

Mahala had an icy explosion.

'My dear Andy, if you want to play around with Miss Merriday all the time--'

'With who?'

'Miss Merriday!--and if you can't endure being separated from her, why don't you say so? Why all this pretence about her being a secretary? I'm sure I don't care.'

Andy let her have it. 'Maggie, your sudden anaesthesia to my charms couldn't have anything to do with the fact that now I'm just another poor young man, could it?'

'Oh, you are vile! I knew you were phony--Andrew Deacon, the great Yale amateur!--but I didn't think you could so misjudge one who's been your best and truest friend!'

Mahala swept out of the room, at her most sweeping.

All this was at mid-afternoon, in Sedalia, Missouri, on Thursday, January 5th, 1939.

Mrs. Boyle had re-arisen from her abyss of Scotch and cognac on Wednesday, the third and last day in Kansas City, and had played Juliet more wistfully, more movingly than ever before. Watching the two parts of her, the sick and trembling woman and the serene actress, move deftly on together, Bethel the Understudy again savoured her own failure.

But Andy expected the spree to be repeated. And he had thus called, in Sedalia, the meeting of his inner ring.

He went on, after Mahala had done her aristocratic out-sweeping:

'The next thing is: I've got to ask for a fifty per cent cut in all salaries over eighty dollars. I know that's like the verdict of guilty and you just wait for sentence to be pronounced and the tour ended, but I honestly believe that if the cast will vote and take this cut, we can pull through. If they won't take it, I'm finished. I'll have to put up our closing notice on next Monday. So, Doc, as Equity deputy, I want you to call a meeting of the cast after the show this evening.'

Doc hemmed, 'All right, Andy. But you know this cut will break your run-of-the-play contract with Mrs. Boyle, if she wants to take advantage of it, and she can give you her two weeks' notice.'

'I know, and I don't care.'

It is not festive for the cast of a touring company to meet and vote on the choice between taking cut salaries and seeing the closing notice put up on the call board. That notice, put up on Monday, will, unless it be taken down by Thursday night, end the tour the following Saturday night.

Andy, though he was actor and Equity member, was, as producer, not permitted to attend. And Mahala murmured that Bethel ought not to be--she was only a miserable junior member of Equity and, as Andy's new and slightly irregular secretary, was completely suspect.

Bethel glared at her and attended the meeting, in the littered storage room beneath the stage where the musicians played pinochle. They perched on a workbench, on broken chairs, on paint buckets. A few minutes ago, they had been the gentry of Verona, noble in their woes, above such sordidness as jobs and meal tickets; now they were an anxious group of workers, with street clothes not quite so fresh as when they had left New York six weeks ago.

Doc Keezer made a speech voluminous and abstruse:

'Well, boys and girls, I guess you all know why we've got together. Andy is asking for a fifty per cent cut above eighty. He's a straight guy, and he wouldn't ask for it if he could help it. Personally, I think that with the cut, the show has a chance. All in favour sig'fy raisn' ri' hand.'

Oh no, none of that for Mrs. Boyle, with the Scotch still in her, and a pretty good grievance.

She said that she was a very fine actress, and that she had come on this tour for a miserable thousand dollars a week merely to bring culture and . . .

She would not vote against the cut; but if it came, she would give notice; and after two weeks more of such inexpressible tortures as having to sleep in hotels and travel on trains, she would return to decency.

Doc looked at her as he would look at a handsome specimen of the three-toed sloth, and remarked, 'A'favour sig'fy rice'and.'

The cut was accepted, and they all looked relieved.

That night, from midnight till two in the morning, when their train would leave, Bethel and Andy sat in a cold 'parlour' on the hotel mezzanine getting out letters to be sent off by air mail; letters to friends of Andy's family--Boston cotton brokers, Harvard overseers, Worcester bankers; to classmates of his own and to their parents--New York stockbrokers, Yale trustees, Pittsburgh bankers. The letters all said the same thing: he honestly believed that the troubles were over; he wanted them to invest not less than one hundred and not more than a thousand dollars in the show; he could give them no guarantees whatever.

He dictated to her, on the machine. Her typing was rusty, but as she began to regain speed, it had the exhilaration of swimming. He worked unnervously, gently, but he was disconcertingly swift. Once he smoothed her hair. Mostly he seemed not to know that she was anything but part of her typewriter. But never, not even in acting, had she had more joy than out of this working, as a partner, mature, respected, with a man she liked.

As they drove to the train, she inquired, 'But what are we going to do for a Juliet, with Mrs. Boyle gone?'

'I'm going to give it to Mahala, if that elegant young woman shows proper appreciation.'

'And who's going to take Mahala's place as Lady Capulet?'

'You are.'

'Me?'

'You!'

'After--oh, Andy, after my flop night before last?'

'As a matter of fact, I've talked this over with Zed, and it was he who suggested you. I'm fond enough of you so I don't like the queer fascination that young desperado apparently has for you, but I guess I'm too dumb to lie, and truth is, Zed thinks much more of your performance Tuesday night than I did. It's his theory that you stumbled so just because you did have a big conception of the part--weren't content to play it prettily, but wanted to put more into it than the training you've had would carry. Anyway, you're to play Lady Capulet, and we'll work out your make-up, with the help of Mabel, and Zed and I both think you'll make a small-size Lady Capulet, very cute. Kitten, I think you may have quite an interesting life for the next two weeks. You'll have to learn and rehearse the new part in that time, and play your present parts as usual (we'll put Vera Cross on the prologue, when you switch), and be my secretary two or three hours a day, and travel, and merely give up all sleep and eating. Can you stand it?'

'I'll love it,' she said drowsily.

She was too drowsy even to enjoy fully the comedy on the Pullman, when Andy told Mahala that she could have the part of Juliet if she behaved herself, and she told Andy that she might consent to play the part of Juliet if he behaved himself, but instantly gave herself away with an excited, 'Say! How many sides is the Juliet part?'

Sedalia and Columbia and Jefferson City and Springfield, Missouri. Little Rock, Arkansas. Memphis, Tennessee. But Bethel saw nothing but theatre, hotel rooms, her Lady Capulet part and her typewriter.

One night in each of these cities, and then in St. Louis for a three-night and matinée run: the Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the seventh week of the tour.

The learning by Bethel and Mahala of their new parts was hectic. They were to assume them not in two weeks but in ten days, in Topeka, Kansas, on the Monday night after the St. Louis run, in order to keep the week's advertising consistent.

The moment of that nightmare that she best remembered was playing Prologue and Page and Epilogue with a flu temperature of 99 1/2°, and then being cued, for two hours, by Andy, whose own temperature was 100 1/4°, and who was succeeded, in a hot little reception room upstairs in their old hotel in Little Rock, by Zed, who disdainfully declined to have anything so popular as the flu. All three of them were in rather disgraceful sweaters and overcoats over pyjamas, and the cuing threatened to end for ever when Andy was so foolish as to speculate to Zed:

'Do you know there's one way, perfectly legitimate, that we could put this show over? I'm a better comedian than a romantic, and Doc and Mabel are pretty good. Why not punch the comedy lines a lot harder, even if we do sacrifice some of the poetry?'

Zed yelled:

'Every once in a while I realize that I was a traitor in going against my better judgment and throwing in with you and helping you put this show over--me actually starting in next Monday trying to coax Kansas school kids to please come see the monkeys--instead of letting it die painlessly. "Merely sacrifice the poetry"!'

'But I thought you didn't care so much for that.'

'Andy, I don't suppose you ever can understand even the simplest principles of the modern drama. I want to emphasize the poetry a lot more than you do, but the real poetry, with biology and individuality in it, and use the fine, juicy words, not be used by them, not drool them out, long and lingering, like a poetic congressman quoting Tennyson!'

'I see,' said Andy, placid. 'Well, keep up the cuing as long as you can stand it.'

With Andy gone, Zed was still unpleasant. Bethel didn't like him very much. But he didn't seem to care what she thought, for in face of an Icy Stare--Bethel was sure that not Mrs. Boyle herself could have done you a better Icy Stare--he went on raging:

'I don't know why I take the trouble to cue you. Mahala was right: you're still Teacher's Pet, and what's worse, you sat there and listened to that half-back proposing to hoke Shakespeare, and never raised an eyebrow.'

'Of course I did, you baby. I don't always show what I think.'

'Don't you, pet? Do you ever think? Come on now--see if you can make Her Ladyship sound like anything besides Sladesbury, if that's its name. Oh, why do we go on with all this farce? Just to enable me to address Sunday school maidens in Alhambra, Kansas? Come on--come on. Start with:

St. Louis, in the three days there, was kind to them, and they were kind to St. Louis. It was Mrs. Boyle's last days with the company, and she was enough of a trouper, despite a weakness for vicarages and cold toast which years of Old Fashioned cocktails and America had only partly corrected, to play at her burning top; and Andy desperate enough to throw himself into Romeo with none of the proprieties of the gentleman amateur. And the critics were benevolent. Writing in the Star-Mail, Ben Talerick said:

To confess a boredom with the average production of Shakespeare is as dangerous as to admit a dislike for dogs, and this column declines to state his general position. But he will say that in Mr. Deacon's grand, boyish manner of playing Romeo, and Mrs. Boyle's literally thrilling revelation of youthful beauty in Juliet, he found the most cheering show of this whole current season. By all means go and see it, and learn how the theatre can be experimental without being freakish.

And they did go and see it, in considerable numbers . . . not quite enough, Andy sighed to Bethel at her stenographic labours, to pay the back debts of the company and still have an adequate reserve for starting off across Kansas next week. But the company was cheered up enough so that Andy received only one two weeks' notice--from Jeff Hoy.

Zed had, presumably, been struggling in prayer with Mr. Hoy, for he was almost human as he gave notice. He even went so far as to hope that the tour would go on even when, he being gone, there would be nobody left in the company.

And as producer, Andy gave only one two weeks' notice--to Iris.

'You can't do that!' Bethel wailed, when Andy told her his intention. 'The poor kid! She's just the proud kind that thinks she never could be fired, and'll be all the more broken by it.'

'She's the only one that's dispensable, and you know I've got to save every penny, or go under. It's a choice between her and Vera Cross, and Vera doesn't mind touring, while with Iris it's just too painful for a humanitarian to have to watch her.'

This time Andy did not ask Bethel to do his slaughtering. When she saw Iris on Saturday evening, saw the soreness of tears in the corners of her eyes, Bethel herself wanted to cry, and swore a great vow that she could never again hate any woman . . . not even Mahala . . . much. And she saw Iris draw Doug Fry into the prop room, argue with him, plead with him.

All of Iris's spun-glass superiority was gone then; she was merely a frightened, anaemic girl. Douglas was casually listening to her, indifferently patting her shoulder in comfort. Bethel guessed that Iris was begging him to give his notice so that they might depart together.

But when the company started off for Kansas, Sunday morning, Douglas still had not quit, and all day long, across the snow-blind plain, he sat cheerfully reading Adolphe Appia on scenery, beside a silent Iris, suddenly ten years older and hungry.

As all women do think, now and then, Bethel thought, 'I hate all men!'

Andy was almost cured of extravagance. He gave no parties in St. Louis except that, in exaltation at the good reviews, he did invite all the cast in for drinks after the show on Friday evening.

He had no suite of his own now to house them; for the party, he borrowed one, with a noble kitchenette with electric stove and icebox.

In gaiety, it was a children's party; they played The Game, and Harry Purvis imitated Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Wallace Ford. But it was not childish in the gallantry with which the company put aside the fact that, two weeks from tomorrow evening, they would either be safe for months, or be working people without jobs in midwinter.

Andy was gayest of all.

Bethel and he were the bartenders. They were in the kitchenette, mixing Cuba Libres, and he had just tweaked her ear, with no particular frenzy, when they were aware of Mahala in the doorway.

She stared at them, long, silently, enjoying her own nobility. Her line, thrown at them as she turned away, was, 'So! I thought so! You two are sweethearts!'

But Andy laughed, after Mahala's exit.

'Poor kitten! That settles you. I think her idea is a pretty good one, at that. But anyway, I guess you're stuck with me now. My mother has disowned me, and Joan Hinterwald has broken our engagement about seven times now--she alternates letters, telegrams and telephone calls--and the company, they're casting dice for which gets first stab at Old Man Caesar. So you're about all I've got, my darling!'

He sat, looking charmingly absurd on a small folding stepladder in the kitchenette, to talk:

'This isn't apropos of anything, but I have a picture that comes to me whenever I feel lonely and put-upon. Prob'ly I got it out of some movie accompanied by tin-pan-alley music. It's of flying across the continent, very eager to get back to my girl and to my home, which is on an island, I think, or maybe it's a peninsula. It's not an extravagant place, but there's a big living-room lined with redwood, and from the porch you see the Pacific beyond the pines. And my girl's standing out there when I come home, after hustling from the aeroplane . . . Oh, well, come on; let's take in the drinks.'

On Saturday, after the evening performance, Mrs. Lumley Boyle said farewell, or in a distinguished manner declined to say farewell, before catching the midnight train for New York.

When they had arrived to make up, she had rather lingered in the dressing-room alley, with little cries of 'Well, I'll have breakfast in New York Monday morning!' Nobody said anything more than 'That's so'. Even Lyle Johnson and Tony Murphy looked bored. 'Well, good luck,' they droned.

She caught their indifference. She slammed her dressing-room door. And after the show, as Bethel waited for Andy, she saw a procession: Mrs. Boyle, looking old and tired, a little shabby in a three-year-old suit, carrying her jewel case and the dog Pluto; Hilda Donnersberg carrying a suitcase and the make-up box. They marched to the stage door. The doorman looked up benevolently, with a look that spelled two dollars, and maybe five. Mrs. Boyle halted, shrugged, dropped a fifty-cent piece into his hand and marched out, unspeaking.

But after her galloped Mabel Staghorn, carrying her kitten, Pippy, in its cage.

She came back weeping.

'What is it, Mabe?' said Doc.

Mabel wailed, 'I thought poor Pluto would be so lonely without his little friend, so I offered Pippy to Mrs. Boyle and--the sun of a gun, she took her!'

That was the star's farewell.

Their long Sunday daytime ride in a day coach across Missouri, from St. Louis to Topeka, Kansas, was a grey ride, and a depressed ride. Even the bridge players were quiet.

When Bethel looked out of the train window, the farm-houses, which had come to seem sturdy to her, seemed to crouch amid the snow-waste.

All day Andy alternated cuing her with dictating letters. She was tired. This didn't seem like great acting, like the creation of fabulous queens. Zed stopped by them derisively. 'The Deacon Theatrical Enterprises doing a big business?'

Andy muttered, afterward, 'Sometimes I could almost dislike that brash young man.'

'Why only sometimes?'

'I agree.'

'Cheer up, Andy. To-morrow night you'll have a wondrous new Juliet and a pretty good new Lady Capulet.'

'Yes. Actually, the show will be better knit, a better unit, without that blasted star. And so it's a pity--'

'What? What?'

'I've got to put up the closing notice to-morrow night.'

'Got to?'

'Yes. We made money in St. Louis, but not enough. And I've received only eleven hundred dollars from all our begging letters. But don't worry. And don't tell anybody else. Let them be happy till to-morrow night.'

'We'll be closing next Saturday night? It will all be over?'

'No. Not necessarily. With this new streamlined set-up, we've got the best chance in the world to put it over. I feel thoroughly optimistic.' He didn't sound so. 'I'm sure as anything that I'll be able to take down the closing notice next Thursday evening and that we'll be able to go on for months yet--weeks, anyway.'

She heard none of that; she knew only that to-morrow night, the very night when she would first play a major role of her very own on the professional stage, the closing notice would be put up.

That wasn't at all good enough.

Yes, it had to be! she scolded herself. She would have one week's chance, at least. And she mustn't load any more woes on Andy's now unsteady shoulders.

She patted his hand, she chirped, 'I'm sure everything will go fine. I'm going back and get you some coffee.'

'Good,' said Andy.