There had been time when Bethel's feeling for Mabel Staghorn had been somewhat less than adoration. Mabel asked questions about her feelings for Andy; Mabel looked at the notes on Bethel's little pad; Mabel had a hot and puffy hand. But now did Mabel arise and become a comrade at arms.
'Excuse my intruding, Mrs. Porch, but Beth is so shy she'd never tell you--but you know she's cuing all of us every evening--gracious, almost till dawn, sometimes--and of course you know that she'd have to buy the tickets, and eight times two-eighty--what does that make?--I never was any good at figures, but it'd set her back somewhere around twenty-five bucks, wouldn't it, and nobody asked me, but it strikes me that's a whole lot to ask of a cousin you never seen before!'
'Oh, if you feel that way about it, but I must say, it strikes me as a pretty poor return for all my efforts to introduce Bethel to some of the most influential people in town!' said Mrs. Porch to Mabel, and to Bethel, 'But of course if you prefer casual people you just met on the stage to your own flesh and blood, well, all I can say is--'
'Good night,' suggested Charlotte.
And Mrs. Porch was stamping out, and Bethel was very happy and a professional and a success beyond dreams . . . for ten minutes more.
She had assumed that the lot of them would go somewhere to celebrate, that night. Andy would take care of it--trust old Andy.
She came out into the waste of cement floor about the dressing-rooms, to see Zed going off with Iris, Charlotte with her two friends and with Henry Purvis, Vera Cross with young Douglas Fry, and then a whole cavalcade. Andy's rich cousin and his wife were leading it, and after them, laughing, shouting, misquoting Shakespeare, came Andy, Mahala, Mrs. Boyle and Hugh Challis, and they were all in evening clothes.
It was the first time that Bethel had ever seen Andy in the unapproachable magnificence of tails, white tie, top hat and ebony stick. Mahala was in an ivory frock, and Andy's cousin was Raleighesquely hanging her cape about her.
They all went past Bethel, at her dressing-room door, with not one look.
She felt not so much poor and dull-tongued and unbeautiful as immature and brattish. How had she ever dared to think that she could be really friendly with smiling, surefooted, older gods like Andy?
She saw herself walking alone back to the hotel, into the littered double room to which Iris would not return till dawn. The glory of being Epilogue in a silk dress was gone. And the small of her back hurt with weariness. She turned toward the stairs up from the basement.
Then there was Andy, flying down to her, his Inverness cape (so silly to her, and so darling!) agitated with his speed, crying to her, 'Beth, it just occurred to me that some of you kids won't be having a party to-night. How about you and Iris and Vera?'
'They're--uh--going dancing.'
'You're alone?'
'It doesn't matter, I'd rather be. I'm so tired.'
'Darling! Poor sweet darling! Now you do look like a half-drowned kitten--back all ruffled and paws all wet--shaking 'em so ruefully! I'll tell you what. Come along with us.'
'I couldn't.'
'You'd save my life! My cousin is the worst stuffed shirt in a family renowned for stuffiness and shirtiness.'
From the stairs, the voice of Romer Ingalls, the cousin: 'Andy? Where are you? Come on! We're waiting.'
Andy urged her, 'Oh, come on. It'll be a favour to me. I'll have somebody to talk to.'
'Huh! You'll have your Mahala.'
'Our Mahala is talented, but--well, she's too fond of being coyly rebuking. No, honestly, I wouldn't go to the party at all--champagne and the rumba and Corona-Coronas--except to work up some carriage trade for the show.'
'I'm merely an understudy, Mr. Deacon!'
'Please don't be haughty.'
'But Andy, honestly, I haven't an evening dress. I will have, as soon as I save up, and then--'
'Look, kitten, I'll take you out and buy you a frock tomorrow. Shall we?'
'No, I'm afraid not.'
'I'd like to!'
'I couldn't wear anything I didn't earn. I'd feel--' She didn't quite end up the sentence 'like an Iris.'
'I know, darling. And if this show goes over--as it will!--maybe you'll have a big enough raise in salary to earn twenty dresses, all gold and emeralds. Good night. I'll miss you!' And he was gone with a kiss that--she wasn't quite sure but that it had almost meant something.
She had a warm small happiness curled inside her then, and she turned to find Doc Keezer looking on, friendly, only a little sardonic. He said nothing about Andy's kiss; he merely yawned, 'Come on to the Yorkshire Grill and I'll buy you a bevy of chops.'
It was consoling to walk the winter streets to the Grill with Doc Keezer. He did not prance like Andy or Zed or Douglas Fry, did not pour out plans to vanquish fairyland. He walked steadily, held her arm steadily, knew exactly where he was going, waited for the red light at street corners, and told her that on stage she 'gargled her l's too much', which was the most useful thing anyone had said since Sol Gadto.
The Yorkshire Grill was an imitation of all the New York Chop Houses that imitate Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, of London, which imitates itself. Bethel was ashamed of her Lone Cinderella role back at the theatre when she saw that there were plenty of other members of the company who were not festive on first night.
At the Grill, Tudor Blackwall and Victor Swenson were sedately eating Irish stew--'Oh, Bethel, darling, you were too, too lovely to-night!' they chorused. Old Wyndham Nooks (steak, rare) was telling Mrs. Golly, the wardrobe mistress (deviled beef bone) of his early triumphs--early or not at all. Bethel heard from him a trailing, 'So I said to Dave Belasco, "Dave, I've got an idea that'll make a fortune for you", and Dave said to me, "Wyndy, let's have it".' Douglas was demonstrating to Vera Cross a ground plan for a new setting for Macbeth.
She was at home again, and comforted, and Doc Keezer ordered chops, with bitter ale in pewter mugs, which, for the sake of her well-loved Dickens and J. B. Priestley, she tried to enjoy, and which for her own sake she thought was nasty.
'Get a wire from Fletch Hewitt to-night, Beth?' said Doc Keezer.
'Yes. A nice one.'
'You're the kind of young woman, chick, neither too maternal nor too grasping, with a career but not willing to step on everybody to get it, that'll always have good, steady, dull dogs like Hewitt and Charley Hatch hanging around you, claiming they want to support you, but really wanting to be supported mentally.'
'How did you ever know anything about Charley Hatch?'
'I watched him when he came to visit you at Grampion. An old unmarried trouper like me--oh, I was married for about a year one time, when I was a hoofer; but she liked Italian orchestra leaders with moustaches--most of us get to be great hermits, and as tightwad as a Yankee character actor--walk twenty blocks out of the way to find a hotel room that smells more of old carpets and costs fifty cents less a night. And we sit off one side backstage and nurse our arms, and prob'ly we only know our own parts, and never find out whether Juliet marries the apothecary or Prince Escalus at the end of the play.
'But we do get a kind of compensation: we study the people around us, all the time, and get to know 'em. I know you better than Andy does, or young Wintergeist or any of 'em. They think you're a lively kid, pretty naive yet, but sweet. I know you're a serious student--maybe you'll never be a great actress, but you'll be a dependable one, if the luck runs with you. Ergal, you ought to count a lot more on me than on those young flibbertigibbets--who I also know them better than you do. Andy is better'n ninety-five per cent of Rich Young Men. But if he doesn't make a ten strike at play producing quick, it'll be a wonder if he doesn't go back to his gardener and his butler. Wintergeist has ability. If he stays clear of booze and gold diggers. He's the kind that's born drunk, and born in love, and just one extra drink or one more girl will send him haywire.'