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.