Zed had, presumably, been struggling in prayer with Mr. Hoy, for he was almost human as he gave notice. He even went so far as to hope that the tour would go on even when, he being gone, there would be nobody left in the company.
And as producer, Andy gave only one two weeks' notice--to Iris.
'You can't do that!' Bethel wailed, when Andy told her his intention. 'The poor kid! She's just the proud kind that thinks she never could be fired, and'll be all the more broken by it.'
'She's the only one that's dispensable, and you know I've got to save every penny, or go under. It's a choice between her and Vera Cross, and Vera doesn't mind touring, while with Iris it's just too painful for a humanitarian to have to watch her.'
This time Andy did not ask Bethel to do his slaughtering. When she saw Iris on Saturday evening, saw the soreness of tears in the corners of her eyes, Bethel herself wanted to cry, and swore a great vow that she could never again hate any woman . . . not even Mahala . . . much. And she saw Iris draw Doug Fry into the prop room, argue with him, plead with him.
All of Iris's spun-glass superiority was gone then; she was merely a frightened, anaemic girl. Douglas was casually listening to her, indifferently patting her shoulder in comfort. Bethel guessed that Iris was begging him to give his notice so that they might depart together.
But when the company started off for Kansas, Sunday morning, Douglas still had not quit, and all day long, across the snow-blind plain, he sat cheerfully reading Adolphe Appia on scenery, beside a silent Iris, suddenly ten years older and hungry.
As all women do think, now and then, Bethel thought, 'I hate all men!'
Andy was almost cured of extravagance. He gave no parties in St. Louis except that, in exaltation at the good reviews, he did invite all the cast in for drinks after the show on Friday evening.
He had no suite of his own now to house them; for the party, he borrowed one, with a noble kitchenette with electric stove and icebox.
In gaiety, it was a children's party; they played The Game, and Harry Purvis imitated Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Wallace Ford. But it was not childish in the gallantry with which the company put aside the fact that, two weeks from tomorrow evening, they would either be safe for months, or be working people without jobs in midwinter.
Andy was gayest of all.
Bethel and he were the bartenders. They were in the kitchenette, mixing Cuba Libres, and he had just tweaked her ear, with no particular frenzy, when they were aware of Mahala in the doorway.
She stared at them, long, silently, enjoying her own nobility. Her line, thrown at them as she turned away, was, 'So! I thought so! You two are sweethearts!'
But Andy laughed, after Mahala's exit.
'Poor kitten! That settles you. I think her idea is a pretty good one, at that. But anyway, I guess you're stuck with me now. My mother has disowned me, and Joan Hinterwald has broken our engagement about seven times now--she alternates letters, telegrams and telephone calls--and the company, they're casting dice for which gets first stab at Old Man Caesar. So you're about all I've got, my darling!'
He sat, looking charmingly absurd on a small folding stepladder in the kitchenette, to talk:
'This isn't apropos of anything, but I have a picture that comes to me whenever I feel lonely and put-upon. Prob'ly I got it out of some movie accompanied by tin-pan-alley music. It's of flying across the continent, very eager to get back to my girl and to my home, which is on an island, I think, or maybe it's a peninsula. It's not an extravagant place, but there's a big living-room lined with redwood, and from the porch you see the Pacific beyond the pines. And my girl's standing out there when I come home, after hustling from the aeroplane . . . Oh, well, come on; let's take in the drinks.'
On Saturday, after the evening performance, Mrs. Lumley Boyle said farewell, or in a distinguished manner declined to say farewell, before catching the midnight train for New York.
When they had arrived to make up, she had rather lingered in the dressing-room alley, with little cries of 'Well, I'll have breakfast in New York Monday morning!' Nobody said anything more than 'That's so'. Even Lyle Johnson and Tony Murphy looked bored. 'Well, good luck,' they droned.
She caught their indifference. She slammed her dressing-room door. And after the show, as Bethel waited for Andy, she saw a procession: Mrs. Boyle, looking old and tired, a little shabby in a three-year-old suit, carrying her jewel case and the dog Pluto; Hilda Donnersberg carrying a suitcase and the make-up box. They marched to the stage door. The doorman looked up benevolently, with a look that spelled two dollars, and maybe five. Mrs. Boyle halted, shrugged, dropped a fifty-cent piece into his hand and marched out, unspeaking.
But after her galloped Mabel Staghorn, carrying her kitten, Pippy, in its cage.
She came back weeping.
'What is it, Mabe?' said Doc.
Mabel wailed, 'I thought poor Pluto would be so lonely without his little friend, so I offered Pippy to Mrs. Boyle and--the sun of a gun, she took her!'
That was the star's farewell.
Their long Sunday daytime ride in a day coach across Missouri, from St. Louis to Topeka, Kansas, was a grey ride, and a depressed ride. Even the bridge players were quiet.
When Bethel looked out of the train window, the farm-houses, which had come to seem sturdy to her, seemed to crouch amid the snow-waste.
All day Andy alternated cuing her with dictating letters. She was tired. This didn't seem like great acting, like the creation of fabulous queens. Zed stopped by them derisively. 'The Deacon Theatrical Enterprises doing a big business?'
Andy muttered, afterward, 'Sometimes I could almost dislike that brash young man.'
'Why only sometimes?'
'I agree.'
'Cheer up, Andy. To-morrow night you'll have a wondrous new Juliet and a pretty good new Lady Capulet.'
'Yes. Actually, the show will be better knit, a better unit, without that blasted star. And so it's a pity--'
'What? What?'
'I've got to put up the closing notice to-morrow night.'
'Got to?'
'Yes. We made money in St. Louis, but not enough. And I've received only eleven hundred dollars from all our begging letters. But don't worry. And don't tell anybody else. Let them be happy till to-morrow night.'
'We'll be closing next Saturday night? It will all be over?'
'No. Not necessarily. With this new streamlined set-up, we've got the best chance in the world to put it over. I feel thoroughly optimistic.' He didn't sound so. 'I'm sure as anything that I'll be able to take down the closing notice next Thursday evening and that we'll be able to go on for months yet--weeks, anyway.'
She heard none of that; she knew only that to-morrow night, the very night when she would first play a major role of her very own on the professional stage, the closing notice would be put up.
That wasn't at all good enough.
Yes, it had to be! she scolded herself. She would have one week's chance, at least. And she mustn't load any more woes on Andy's now unsteady shoulders.
She patted his hand, she chirped, 'I'm sure everything will go fine. I'm going back and get you some coffee.'
'Good,' said Andy.
XXXIII
This time, in Topeka, she had been too busy all day to let her imagination work up the sick suspense that had broken her down as Juliet, back in Kansas City. She had just time to make up and take her place; she went on and played Lady Capulet with only a shaky qualm or two, a quiver or two as lines came slowly to her. But they came.