Bethel Merriday

By now, the temptress had everyone but Andy, Bethel, Hugh Challis and Mahala.

She sighed along the table, and in the voice of the Lorelei called, 'Dear Miss Vale, do come down here. I want to tell you how very charming I think you have made Lady Capulet.'

Mahala went. She might have returned to the folds of righteousness, but suddenly Zed Wintergeist, who had been drinking, discovered Mahala as a new adventure. He put his arm about her with infuriating casualness. He took enough interest in her to be rude to her. He said that it was a shame that Mahala, obviously the most beautiful and flexible of all actresses next to Mrs. Boyle, was yet so lazy that she didn't settle down to work and show up all the young leading women of her own vintage.

Mahala simpered.

At the Boyle end of the table the chairs were now two deep and the conversation tenfold. At the other, Andy and Bethel and Challis and Tertius sat solemn among empty chairs. Andy tried to look satisfied with his party, and he interrupted a long Challis story to mutter, 'I suppose I ought to make some kind of a little speech'.

Bethel wanted to beg, 'Oh, don't'. Before she could get started on it, Andy was up and, while the heathen end of the table looked embarrassed or derisive, he struggled, 'Before we have a chance to break up, I want to tell you that this has been the greatest Christmas of my life, and I'm sure that all of us will say that, next to the chance of spending the day at our own hearthsides, we have found this the best bunch of friends and co-workers that has ever been known, so, with Tiny Tim--or was it Alexander Woollcott?--let us say, "God bless us everyone".'

Bethel was never quite certain whether Mrs. Boyle interrupted him or just capped him, but their embarrassment glided away on her voice, soft as across wide waters, singing 'D'ye ken John Peel?' It was a hunting song and then a lullaby and then the inexplicable magic of her homesickness for Devonshire mornings.

When Bethel turned from the singer, she found that Andy was gone. She sprang up, blundered away without tactfulness. She knew where Andy's room was--who could have missed his laughter that Christmas morning?

Perhaps to make up for the feast, Andy had taken the cheapest room in the hotel. She tapped at his door and, unanswered, peeped in. The room was primitive: a brass single bed, a bureau, one chair, an unshaded electric bulb. Most of Andy's luggage was piled outside in the hall, and his imperial black-and-gold dressing-gown lay bunched on the gritty matting on the floor. She saw all this only in pity; for Andy lay on the bed, face down on the pillow.

She sat on the bedside; stroked his hair. He looked up angrily. He looked fifty years old, and grey. Then he smiled. He took her hand, tucked it under his cheek, and again buried his face. For minutes they talked thus, without words, comfortingly.

He sat up abruptly, his arm lightly about her. He said, 'Shall I give up the tour?'

'Oh no-no!'

'Most of the gang are discouraged. They blame me for everything. That's all right--that's my job as producer, I guess. After all, if we went over big, it'd be me who'd get the profit. They think the show is a flop.'

'I don't!'

'Well, I'll stick as long as just one person believes in me-- especially if that one person is you, because--Oh well, I remember the case of firing Mr. Nooks! That is, I'll stick it as long as I have one cent left, though--'

There was an astonishing change. He broke instantly, and his round face was bewildered.

'Why do they all buck me so? I can stand audiences not being so crazy about me, but when my own fellow-troupers let me down--I'm going to chuck it!'

'Fight 'em!' She heard herself as strident and demanding as a battling old woman. 'You've been too good to 'em. They all take advantage of you. You're too apologetic to 'em. If you keep saying you're an amateur, what do you expect them to say?'

'I can't stand ill will around me.'

'Oh, are you a child? Have you got to be coddled? Have you always got to stay in Newport, with the dear old loving nurse, and in Yale, with the dear old loving senior society members? You're out in the world now, Andy, and people aren't so awfully sweet. I'm ashamed of you, my dear!'

She was astonished. To have talked thus to her Sun God!

He spoke, and he sounded confident again:

'Yes. You're right. Thanks! I just needed a shot in the arm. I'll go on. But Beth, tell me--I haven't anybody except you and Tertius that I can really talk to, on the level. Did you feel this afternoon that there's a kind of organized conspiracy now to crab the show?'

'Yes.'

'With Zed and Tony and Jeff the chief assassins?'

'Yes. You might try firing the whole lot of 'em.'

'Even Zed?'

'Sure.'

'I thought you were pretty strong for him.'

'I am. I think he's a fine actor. And honest. But he's so young.' (Venerable, wan, world-weary Bethel!) 'He's a spoiled brat. If he doesn't get his own way exactly, he has a tantrum and lies on his back and kicks.'

Andy fretted. Yes, I wouldn't mind his being pretty rough on me personally, if it didn't affect his acting, but of course his work--the work of most of 'em--is going off. They're just saying lines.'

'I doubt if Zed realizes that. Why don't you have a knockdown talk with him, Andy?'

'He wouldn't listen to me. Why don't you?'

This time she was not astonished that he turned to her, and it was with all gravity that she consoled him, 'I'll see if I can't. But Andy, do you realize the real trouble we've got ahead? Mrs. Boyle! She'll join the conspiracy.'

'Never. She's a conscientious artist.'

'Is she? She's also a woman, and she wants every advantage for Pluto. If she thinks the tour won't succeed, she'll want to get back to New York before it's too late to get another job this season, and we can look for some pretty fine tour-ending and play-busting tricks on Aurelia's part.'

'You really think so?'

And stoutly, very maturely, she said, 'I really do.'

Among all the celebrated crises of burgeoning youth, first dancing, first powerful oration in school, first money earned, first love that comes from another human being and not from books, one triumph has gone unsung: the first time that an adult takes your advice seriously. With a sageness at which neither of them laughed, she theorized:

'Zed and Douglas just have vague feelings that they don't like the method of production. Tony Murphy doesn't ever like anything. But Boyle, and maybe Jeff Hoy, want to get home without having it on record that they've been fired. Oh, you will fight them, Andy?'

He was turning his head to the pillow again. 'Yes. Because you're such a true woman. But--I am so tired.'

That Christmas night, in a strange town, she walked the streets half the evening.

If this tour closed, would she ever have another engagement--ever have the luck of finding another royal and job-bearing Andy? Would she be just a girl back home in Sladesbury, boasting to bored friends of having 'once been on the stage myself', and hoping that a Charley Hatch--almost any Charley Hatch--would marry her?

XXX

During the holiday week, between Davenport and Kansas City, Bethel was not certain whether Mrs. Boyle had consciously joined the conspiracy of failure. But she was certain enough that Mrs. Boyle was drinking too much. She arrived at the theatre sober and soreheaded; by the beginning of the last act, she was superb; but she left the theatre benign and domestic-looking and quite drunk.