Bethel Merriday

For the first time in a week, he seemed his old, gay, adventurous self.

The others had scarce gone, and Bethel was just sitting up, a modest grey blanket thick about her shoulders, when Zed galloped in.

'This is great! Now you'll have your chance, Beth,' he exulted. 'To-night a new Star is born! You'll wow them. Maybe you won't be as smooth as Mrs. Boyle--'

'She won't!' said Andy, sourly.

The two young men had instantly changed roles; Andy was hard now, and demanding; Zed was all one sun of certainty.

'How do you know she won't? It's true that Mrs. Boyle has talent and a technique that clicks like a--'

'Like a safety razor,' from Andy.

'Oh, shut up, boss. But what Beth has, I think, that the Boyle can never buy, is a feeling for all the human emotions in the world. I don't know how she does it; I wouldn't call her sentimental, and yet she has a feeling for everything from a baby bawling for its rattle--'

'Babies don't have rattles any more.'

'--to an old farmer who's going to have the mortgage foreclosed. She has a real grandeur of emotions--'

'You haven't seemed to think I had any kind of emotions worth paying attention to, these last few weeks, Zed,' snapped Bethel.

'Huh? Me? Why drag that in? . . . Andy, don't cue her any more. Mahala says you did all night--and oh, say, is our Mahala sore that Beth is our new star. Let her alone now.'

Andy turned on Zed with, 'I thought you believed in driving 'em! I seem to remember some powerful remarks about no rehearsal being worth anything unless it lasted all night and the actors dropped in the wings sobbing.'

'I think I have said something of that sort, but I'll bet the poor kid's already done her sobbing. Let's take her to the theatre, and just run through her crosses, and fix up her costumes, and then I'll take her for a drive, and at four-thirty there's a recital by the Schnoelberg Chamber Quartet--a lovely lot of Brahms--and that'll rest her.'

Bethel looked brightly and beady eyed from one to the other of the young men (sitting on the edge of her bed!) fighting over her welfare. They had both pretty well managed to forget it till now.

Andy complained, 'No, that'll just tire her out. Let her alone now!'

It was, rather surprisingly, Zed who was discerning enough to suggest, 'Of course we might ask Beth what she'd like to do? Little drive, pet? Some nice, rich, chocolaty Brahms?'

'Yes! That's what I'd like.'

And Andy was generous, as only Andy could be. He broke out smiling. 'Good! I just wanted--Now we're really getting some action on our tour. Beth! Maybe you can go on playing Juliet. I can drop Mrs. Boyle if I want to, now, on threat of charges filed with Equity, and if I could just save on her salary, I think we could afford to keep going. Bless you both, and happy afternoon. See you at the theatre in an hour about costumes, Beth? I . . . I . . . sort of wish I were going with you two!' He sounded wistful but he looked content.

'And if you'll get out of here now, Zed--' said Bethel.

'Eh? What? Oh, that's so. I suppose you do want to put on some clothes.'

As she dressed she thought how odd it was that Andy, reared to a family which probably took an annual subscription to the Worcester symphony concert series and gave its young a choice between Piano, French, and Small Boat Sailing, would not have thought of preparing for a crisis by going to a concert, while to Zed, brought up on a Montana ranch, music was as daily and as necessary as bread.

There was a hectic hour at the theatre while Mrs. Golly, the wardrobe mistress, made safety-pin alterations in Mrs. Boyle's costumes. The star was not much taller, but vastly more expansive at the waist, and Mrs. Golly kept admonishing Bethel, 'Listen, dearie, I guess this will hold, but in your emotional scenes don't emote too much or the Citizens of Verona are going to see your maidenly dresses turning into Mother Hubbards right before their eyes. My! I'll never forget one time when I was playing bits with David Warfield, and . . .'

Zed took her to a slow and expensive and beautiful lunch at the Muehlebach. The talk was good. It dealt entirely with the theatre.

In a taxi they drove out to the cliffs above the plain of the Missouri River, looking on a valley whose wide snowfields not long ago had known the Caw Indians and bearded men with rifles. Shivering there, while in his seat the driver of the taxi shivered also and looked annoyed, Zed was moved to remember his own West: the first show he had ever seen, which was Old Dr. Kippipoose's Navaho Elixir International and Oriental Al Fresco Entertainments, with the Old Indian Doctor, who had a charming sing-song Swedish accent, making a violent ventriloquist melodrama with three puppets. And so, at sixteen, Zed had run away from home and a widowed father of no particular sobriety and had joined another Indian Doctor and himself become a ventriloquist.

'No! You're not!' thrilled Bethel. 'You can't do ventriloquism!'

Seemingly it was the taxi driver who answered her: 'Certainly he can. And in this state Zed gallops night by night through Bethel's brains, and then she dreams of love.'

'Oh, you're wonderful! Anybody can be a perfect Mercutio, but to do ventriloquism--'

And she hugged him impulsively, and, arms about each other, in great good spirits, the two children of the stage went back to the taxi, and on to the melancholy sweetness of Johannes Brahms.

He held her hand through the concert--not too tightly, just comfortingly.

Zed was the excellent concert companion. He neither chattered, nor yet frowned if she moved in her seat. And whenever she fell down from the heights of the music into worrying, and was seized with the fear and nausea of First Night Sickness, he seemed to know it and pressed her hand, and she felt part of his angry strength. And when, at the close, he said, 'Darn swell concert--that 'cellist is one grand fiddler', she understood that he had expressed it all with poetry and elegance.

Dinner was tea and toast, and it lasted four or five years.

She had, for this week, a dressing-room of her own. No one dared suggest that she take that of the star--who was now reported to be smiling in her sleep--but for her changes she did have Mrs. Boyle's maid, Hilda. She would gladly have lost Hilda and Hilda's stare. Now Bethel knew what a basilisk looked like. Trembling, she tried to make her eyes particularly large and yielding. She didn't feel yielding at all. She felt sick.

When she was in her first costume, Juliet's tight youthful house dress, Andy came in, looking weary.

'Darling, did you have a good afternoon with Zed?'

'Oh yes. He was sweet. I think he kept me from committing suicide. Andy! He can do ventriloquism!'

'He wasn't rude? Didn't bawl you out?'

'Of course not! He knew what I've got ahead of me.'

'Yes. I'll hand it to Zed, he has a real devotion to the stage. We all love you, and we're all rooting for your success. And you're going to put it over to-night, and you'll be our permanent Juliet, maybe, and with good old Zed and me and you working together, this whole tour is going to take on a new life and go over with a slam.'

'I'm sure of it!'

Before the curtain, Andy announced that Mrs. Boyle was suddenly 'indisposed with the flu, and though we have every hope and expectation that to-morrow evening she will again be with us, to-night I have a pleasant surprise for you, and the part of Juliet will be played by one of the most brilliant and lovely of the young modern actresses, Miss Bethel Merriday'. He said nothing about the audience getting their money back, and only five people did go out to get it, which was just as well, considering that the audience was merely a fan-shaped darkening of the middle of the theatre.

Nathan Eldred took Bethel's place and spoke the prologue, wearing--after hasty consultation about it with Andy--the morning coat and striped trousers which he had in reserve as understudy for Capulet. Later, nobody could quite remember just why he had worn this banker's uniform for a prologue.