Yet, with it all, Bethel learned more about the drama than she had in four years of college library and of Miss Bickling. The week was an idyll. Whatever foam from Roscoe had to be wiped away, she was working with professional actors: Andy, Mahala, Clara Ribbons, Doc Keezer, Tudor Blackwall, Maggie Sample. Whenever she was sent up to Grampion Centre on an errand, though the bright waters and dancing boats in the harbour beckoned, and the fresh watery odour, she hastened back to the dark interior of the scrubby theatre--a sacred chamber more illuminated than the sun-washed ocean. Through the open doors she could see one gay little pine tree against blue open sky. She felt that it was her friend, her totem, and for her, just now, it was forest enough.
The whole business of rehearsal had an exasperated fascination. She had early noted that the actors who had the fewest lines were those who were least likely to be ready for entrance, and that the less they had to memorize, the less likely they were to know it. Clara Ribbons never fully knew her lines till the Wednesday of actual playing--with the pleasant result that she threw everybody who played with her.
Bethel had resolved not to be one of these slovenly work-men, doomed to dreariness, and yet--you waited so long for your line to come; you sat out on the step, sniffing the air; someone came and spoke to you; or perhaps, alone, you were going over and over, over and over just the line you were waiting to give, and then, in horror, you heard Roscoe yelping, 'Bernice! Where the hell is Bernice? She's on now!' And you bolted into the rehearsal space so rattled that you forgot the line that you had been repeating till you knew it better than your own name! And Roscoe scowled, as you stammered and felt sick and could remember nothing at all. And Fletcher's kind voice gave you the first words, and you said, 'Oh, of course!' And afterward, you laid your forehead on your elbow on the upright piano and looked as though you were weeping, but you were again repeating the line--over and over, over and over.
The acutest twinge of rehearsals, always, was to be going on smoothly, feeling that you were giving a speech perfectly, really becoming Bernice Niemeyer, and then to be jerked out of the superreality of the actor's unreality by Roscoe's sharp, 'All right! We'll go back to David's entrance again'. That was like stubbing your toe when running. And you stumbled thus, and your heart stopped, twenty times an hour.
But the moment came, the last day, when you weren't saying lines, weren't rehearsing, but playing, lost, absorbed, and that was the second when you left the earth and were flying.
During rehearsals the democratic comradeship of the theatre was at its surest. While they were awaiting their scenes, they sat back together, young and old, veteran and raw apprentice; Andy in white flannel trousers unelegantly extended over the top of a seat; Doc Keezer, as the Dr. Randall of the play (he would always be playing doctors and ministers), sitting back with closed eyes, so indifferent to everything but his own lines that it is doubtful whether he knew what any of the play was about; Iris with a small, set, misty smile ignoring the fact that Pete Chew was gaping wistfully at her from the circle of Toni, Tudor Blackwall, Mahala and Cy Fickerty, who were squatting on the stage and shooting craps, while Harry Mihick looked on them in sorrow at such desecration.
At rehearsals they were given to fantastic clothes: Walter Rolf to overalls, sneakers and a lumberman's green-and-yellow flannel shirt; Tudor Blackwall to mauve or maroon lounging pyjamas. But whatever they wore, almost every man carried his brown-covered part in his back pocket.
They were all serious children; very childish, very serious, and apparently the only people still existent, in a world of Hitler and Buchmanism, who enjoyed life. At every mistake, at every dropped line, they laughed, and laughed together. And together they shared the one, profoundest misery that a rehearsing actor could know: that in a wooden summer theatre you were not permitted to smoke. Oh, you did smoke, of course, and flattened the butts with your toe, and kicked them under chairs, but it took away the relaxation.
All over the theatre grounds, as they lay studying lines or reading Steinbeck and Hemingway and Noel Coward or plain sleeping and acquiring a sun tan, and at rehearsals, when they sat slouching on their shoulder blades, listening, there was a flaunting of brown legs of girls in shorts, but they were very nice legs, and so numerous that they became as modest as noses. Some of the students were aloof and arty, but most times they were a gay crew--shouting at each other when they met for rehearsals, goading those who were late--Pete Chew had the disease of chronic, inevitable lateness--smiling generously when a speech had been said with spirit, and fiendishly when an apprentice had earnestly given the line 'How do you justify your terms?' as 'How do you tustify your germs?'
With the most beautiful, baby-like absence of self-consciousness, they were to be seen standing in corners, glaring at a wall, and to it addressing hysterical lines of love. At rehearsals the actor tossed an entirely imaginary cloak about his shoulders as though it were heavy brocade, courteously removed a hat made of air, and seriously set out on a suppositious table a non-existent dinner, after sedulously cooking it on a kitchen range that was a chair. In everything was the spirit of children's play--not the rule-ridden, time-killing play of adults that is a preparation for death, but the busy and credulous play of children that is a preparation for life.
She was rehearsing with Andy! She had a scene with Andy alone!
He came on as the young movie producer--not only handsome and rich but the donor of jobs; and as the desperately pretentious job hunter, she pretended not to see him, preened herself, and babbled to an imaginary auditor offstage: 'Yes, Mattie, an actress's life is such an interesting one. . . . For example, an English actress came into the office to-day. "My dear Harry, how definitely ripping to see you. Definitely ripping!"'
She worked desperately at acting Bernice desperately misacting an Englishwoman, and when (on the stage!) Andy looked at her with irritated pity, she was content.
Their relationship had now progressed so far that Andy usually remembered her name.
The company were beginning to pair off: Andy and Mahala, Doc Keezer and Clara Ribbons. Walter Rolf and Marian Croy read plays aloud; Roscoe Valentine and Tudor Blackwall and Bruce Pasture were usually together; and Bethel and Fletcher Hewitt, who was as busy with script at rehearsals as he was with off-stage noises and curtains during performances, were accepted as uninspired friends. The only active triangle was of Pete Chew and Toni Titmus and Iris Pentire.
Mr. Chew was a fool and Mr. Chew was noisy, but Mr. Chew had a kind heart and lots of money. And Toni seemed to have a good time with him and to like his dancing. It is doubtful if Iris ever thought of having a good time; in her spun-glass quietness she cared for nothing more vulgar than being admired. With Pete, as with Cy Fickerty and Walter Rolf and Fletcher and Bruce Pasture, she was always delicately amused, waiting, unmoving.
Whenever Pete invited Iris to a dance--that must have been, on an average, nine times a week--she refused with pallid sweetness, 'Oh, not to-night, I think, but it's so kind of you'. Whereas Toni always accepted, and always accepted with a whoop of 'Oh boy, ask me, ask me!' So, naturally, Pete fell out of love with Toni and into love with Iris, as devastatingly as he had fallen in love with Bethel, long, long ago--days and days ago. He gaped at Iris during rehearsals; he lolled at her delicate feet on the shoreward rocks; and when she fluted such revelations as 'I think committing suicide on the stage is quite dramatic, don't you?' Pete rumbled, 'It certainly is--you bet your life--it certainly is!'