CHAPTER XIII
An Indian Love Song
Although Polly O’Neill could never afterwards be persuaded that her failure had not marred the Camp Fire play, nevertheless there were many members of the audience who never realized that anything had gone wrong, so promptly had the other girls acted and so swiftly had the curtain been rung down.
And then, within a remarkably short space of time, Esther had reappeared to close the entertainment with her song. The stage had been left as it was in the final act, the piano was already there, and almost immediately the accompanist, Esther’s music teacher in the village, seated herself before it.
The only delay was of a few minutes, caused by the fact that Esther had insisted on wearing her ordinary clothes. A week before, therefore, Betty had had made for her a simple white dress and this Miss McMurtry very quickly helped her into, braiding her red hair into a kind of crown about her head. Her toilet was of course made in a great hurry, but then Esther was so convinced of her own homeliness that she cared very little except to look neatly and appropriately dressed.
Herr Crippen and Esther then walked out on the platform together, the man leading the girl with one hand and carrying his violin with the other, and it was curious the similarity in their coloring.
Very little of the Indian idea had the girls thus far brought into their Christmas Camp Fire entertainment, but now Esther’s song was to bring with it this suggestion, although it had been chosen chiefly because of its beauty and suitability to Esther’s voice. It was, however, a wonderful Indian love song, which Dick had found quite by accident the summer before for his sister’s friend.
Esther was also dreadfully nervous and frightened at the beginning of her song, but fortunately for her she was thinking more of the music itself than of the effect she was to produce. Nevertheless, it was with sensations of disappointment that the friends, who cared most for her singing, listened to the first verse of her song. Dick Ashton, who had found himself a seat in the back of the room, when he was no longer needed to assist with the management of the curtain, moved impatiently several times, thinking that Betty had probably been making unnecessary sacrifices to cultivate her friend’s voice and that they had all probably been mistaken in the degree of Esther’s talent.
However, Dick changed his mind so soon that he never afterwards remembered this first thought, but sat spellbound with delight, feeling every nerve in his body thrill and quiver with the pathos and loveliness of a voice that was so clear, so true and so sympathetic that not a single member of Esther’s audience failed to respond to its beauty. The song had a kind of plaintive cadence and had been arranged either for a tenor or soprano.
“Fades the star of morning, west winds gently blow,
Soft the pine trees murmur, soft the waters flow.
Lift thine eyes, my maiden, to the hill-tops nigh,
Night and gloom will vanish when the pale stars die.
Lift thine eyes, my maiden, hear thy lover’s cry.
“From my tent I wander seeking only thee,
As the day from darkness comes for stream and tree.
Lift thine eyes, my maiden, to the hill-top nigh;
Lo! the dawn is breaking, rosy beams the sky.
Lift thine eyes, my maiden, hear thy lover’s cry.
“Lonely is our valley, though the month is May,
Come and be my moonlight, I will be thy day.
Lift thine eyes, my maiden, oh, behold me nigh;
Now the sun is rising, now the shadows fly.
Lift thine eyes, my maiden, hear thy lover’s cry.”
Hearing the applause which broke out like a storm at the close of Esther’s singing, Betty managed to get away from Polly and to find Esther shivering in the kitchen which opened just off their stage and had been used for the entrance way that evening. But no power or persuasion could have induced Esther to go back upon the stage, not even when Herr Crippen added his entreaties, nor when Dick slipped out into the cold and came around through the back door to congratulate her. If Esther had pleased Betty and Dick and Miss McMurtry, really she cared very little for any one else’s criticism.
Nevertheless, later that evening, when the company was enjoying a kind of informal reception, she could not refuse to be introduced to the celebrated Miss Margaret Adams, who sent one of the girls especially for her. Esther was awkward and tongue-tied and nervous as usual when the great lady congratulated her, very different from Polly, who when she had recovered from her faintness had come immediately out into the living room and gone straight up to Miss Adams and taken her hand.
“If I wasn’t so used to failing at most of the important moments of my life, I think I couldn’t bear to live after to-night,” she said with characteristic Polly exaggeration. Then, with one of the sudden smiles that so transformed her face and made her fascinating both to strangers and friends she added: “But, after all, I have seen you and I am talking to you now, and as that is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, I am going to try and not care about anything else.”
Then the older woman pressed Polly’s hot hand in both of hers, looking keenly into the girl’s expressive face. Only she knew how much Polly did care about her failure and also that her suffering had not yet fully begun, because until the excitement of the evening was well over the girl would not fully realize all that she at least believed this failure meant.
“Come and see me for half an hour to-morrow, I can judge nothing by to-night. And do please remember, child, that one person’s judgment in this world fortunately does not count for much at best. I want to have a little talk with you just because my cousin, whom I love very dearly, has told me so much about you.”
“And because,” Polly added with her lips trembling, “because you are sorry for me. But I don’t care so much why you want me, I only know I want to come more than anything in the world.”
Of course at the close of the Camp Fire play it was then impossible for Miss Adams to escape recognition, so she was evidently tired on her way back home from the cabin and therefore did little talking. However, after the cousins had undressed for the night she called softly into the next room:
“My dear Mary, I think your Polly is charming, but I am afraid your little girl has the dream and the temperament and that the other plainer girl has the talent. But, then, who can tell when they are both so young?”
CHAPTER XIV
Mollie’s Confidant
Of her visit to Miss Adams, Polly never afterwards spoke, except to Betty and her sister Mollie, asking that they tell Rose Dyer that it was right that she as their guardian should know and promising to write her mother; however, several of the other Camp Fire girls believed that they saw a slight change in Polly dating from her visit. Afterwards she never seemed to give up, at least without some struggle, to her old, utterly unreasonable changes of mood.
To Betty and Mollie, however, Polly confessed that, although Miss Adams had been kind beyond her wildest dreams, she had not said that she had seen any evidences of genius or even of marked ability in her interrupted dramatic efforts; although she had suggested that only the most remarkable people the world has ever known have betrayed exceptional gifts at the age of sixteen, that most people only achieve success by endless patience, faith and work and by what sometimes looks at first like failure. She had then told Polly something of her own early struggle, but this Polly of course did not reveal even to her sister and dearest friend. However, to Mollie’s relief, she did announce that she meant to spend the next two years in doing everything she could for her health by obeying every single Camp Fire rule, that she meant to learn more self-control, to study harder and also to memorize all the plays and poems that she possibly could. For at the close of her graduation at the High School the wonderful Miss Adams had asked that Polly write her and then if her mother was willing, if Polly was well and of the same desire, she would see that she had an opportunity for the kind of study she would then need should she adopt the stage for her profession. For the truth is that though the great actress had not been particularly impressed by Polly’s acting she had discovered two things about her, one that she had the expressive face with quick mobile features and the graceful carriage more to be desired on the stage than either beauty or stateliness and, moreover, like most other people, she had taken a decided fancy to the girl herself.
For a few weeks following Polly’s famous interview her sister Mollie found herself and Polly farther apart in sympathy than they had ever been before in their lives. Under nearly all other circumstances Mollie had always allowed herself to be influenced by her twin sister’s wishes; Polly had always seemed to want things so much harder than other people that she and her mother had usually been willing enough to give in, but now on this question of Polly’s going upon the stage after she had finished her education Mollie made up her mind to stand firm in her opposition at every possible opportunity, even if her mother should give in to Polly’s persuasion. It was utterly impossible for Mollie O’Neill to understand her twin sister’s restlessness and ambition. How could she ever wish to leave her home and mother, to leave her, to follow after such a will-o’-the-wisp?
It was in vain that Polly explained that it was no lack of affection on her part, that she surely loved her own people as much as they could love her, but that she felt she must see more of the world, live a wider life than Woodford could give her. Mollie was always obdurate. There was only one way by which Polly could silence her twin and that was to inquire if Mollie meant always to stay at home, to remain an old maid? And when Mollie most indignantly denied any such suggestion, Polly would then ask how if she loved them could she make up her mind to go away from home on account of a strange man, and if a career wasn’t as good as a husband, until Mollie became too indignant and unhappy for argument and usually by making no further replies carried off the honors of war.
If only Mollie could have had another girl to unbosom herself to, but there was no one; Polly had asked her not to discuss her affairs with any one of the Camp Fire girls except Betty Ashton, and Betty openly sympathized with Polly. Having no gifts herself she used to say that all she could do would be to live in the successes of Polly and Esther; although Polly used always to assure her in return that a Princess was above the possession of small abilities like ordinary mortals, and Esther that she never expected to have any success beyond learning to sing well enough to make her own living and perhaps some day to have a position in a Woodford church choir.
So Mollie for the month succeeding Christmas kept most of her worry to herself, and to the entire Sunrise Camp Fire club’s surprise and consternation grew quite unlike her usually sweet-tempered, happy self. Sometimes she used to insist upon taking the daily exercise prescribed by the Camp Fire rules entirely alone, if she were allowed, in order that she might think up some possible way of influencing Polly to give up her wholly foolish ambition. Since Polly felt that she must do something toward supporting her mother and herself, she should try to learn to be a teacher like Miss McMurtry or Miss Mary Adams.
One Saturday afternoon, being particularly low in her mind because Rose Dyer had thought Polly not very well and had suggested that she stay at home and take her walk outside the cabin with the newest Camp Fire girl, Mollie had deliberately stolen off while her friends were getting ready for a hard tramp through the woods. She did not care at the time that their guardian might object to her going off alone. She almost hoped that something might happen to her to make Polly feel uneasy. Since Polly was always making her perfectly miserable why she might as well experience the sensation occasionally herself. So, knowing that the other girls were to strike out through the pine woods, find the road and walk over toward the asylum to escort Esther home (who was now having a weekly music lesson with Herr Crippen), Mollie first walked back of the cabin and then found the road through the Webster farm. She didn’t walk very far however. It was perfectly ridiculous of her of course to anticipate trouble, and yet somehow she felt that she and Polly were never going to be just the same that they had been in the past to one another, in some way they would be separated. Suddenly Mollie felt a wave of homesickness, of longing for her mother such as she had not felt since the first few weeks after Mrs. O’Neill’s sailing for Ireland the spring before. So quite unmindful of consequences Mollie dropped down on the stump of a tree, deliberately giving herself up to the enjoyment of tears. It was so utterly impossible ever to cry at the cabin. Some one was always about seeing you and besides all the other Camp Fire girls Mollie solemnly believed to have outgrown the foolish weakness of crying, it was so utterly in contradiction to all their training.
The tears, however, must have been extremely near the surface, since they dried so instantly, and Mollie jumped to her feet indignantly when a hard ball of snow went whizzing past her ear, almost striking her. A moment later she heard footsteps coming up behind her.
“Hope you won’t mind my appearing to pay off old scores in this way; I really had no idea of hitting you, but I had to attract your attention in some fashion, so you wouldn’t run away from me,” said a voice Mollie immediately recognized and a moment later Billy Webster appeared by her side. “Would any one in the world except Miss Polly O’Neill seat herself calmly on a stump in the midst of the winter woods with nothing but snow and ice all about her as if she were in the lap of spring?” he asked. And then, when Mollie made no answer and catching just a side glance at her downcast face, he puckered his lips as though intending to whistle, but better manners prevailing said as sympathetically as he could: “Dear me, Miss Polly, you look as though you were desperately unhappy over something or other. What is it that is troubling you this time?”
Mollie was wearing a long brown coat exactly like Polly’s red one and her brown tam-o’-shanter she had pulled down as low as possible over her face because of the cold January wind, but now she turned with some indignation toward her companion. “I am not Polly,” she announced with a good deal of vexation (the twin sisters never liked being taken for one another). “I am sorry, but I suppose Polly hasn’t a monopoly of all the trouble in this world. Or at least she very often passes it on to other people.”
Instantly Billy’s fur cap was off, showing his heavy hair, which was browner than during the months of exposure to the summer sun, but although his face was also less tanned, his eyes were as blue and as full of humor as ever.
“It is I who am sorry and glad too, Miss Mollie,” he answered as gallantly as possible. “It seems to be my fate everlastingly to put my foot in it with both you and your sister. I could have sworn not long ago that I would never again mistake you for one another and here I am at it again. But you will forgive me this time. You see you don’t look quite like yourself to-day; you are so much paler and kind of uncertain looking – and cross. But now I beg the other Miss O’Neill’s pardon,” and Billy laughed, not so much as though he cared a great deal about having made fun of Polly, but more in order to cheer up Mollie.
“Better not let Polly hear you say that,” she returned, smiling a little. “You know, like the tiger in ‘Little Black Sambo,’ she would have to eat you up. But Polly is really a great deal better tempered than I am and sweeter than anything nowadays; ask anybody in camp. It is I who am the cross one. And it is all because I am so unhappy.”
And then, to Mollie’s own surprise and Billy’s decided embarrassment, she began crying a great deal harder than before.
There was nothing a fellow could do but just to stand there and watch her for a moment and then Billy had a feeble inspiration. He tucked her arm through his comfortingly. “Come, it is getting dark, these days are so dreadfully short. Let me walk on back to the cabin with you.”
And on the way Mollie discovered herself unexpectedly confiding everything that troubled her about her sister to this comparatively unknown boy friend. Although the Camp Fire girls had seen more of Billy Webster than any one else because of their living so near his father’s farm. For the first few minutes Mollie felt she might regret her outburst, but not for long, for to her satisfaction and indeed to her very real consolation, Billy felt exactly as she did about Polly. It was utterly absurd for Polly to talk about going away from Woodford even to study for the stage; she was not strong enough; the life was a perfectly abominable one for a lady, but for a delicate high-strung girl like Polly O’Neill it was worse than absurd; it was wicked! Mollie should write for her mother to come home to prevent Polly’s getting the idea more firmly fixed in her mind. Later on it might be more difficult to influence her. Billy Webster fairly spluttered with indignation. His mother was a perfect farmer’s wife, devoted to her husband, to her son and a younger daughter, and to the life and work of her farm and very naturally Billy’s mother was his ideal. He liked the two O’Neill girls very much, had known of their struggle to get along and of their mother’s efforts to give them an education, and believed, like Mollie, that it was ungrateful of Polly to wish to leave her home so soon as she was grown up. Besides he did not like to see Mollie so worried! What a strangely difficult person Polly was! There were times when he felt that he almost hated her and then again she was rather fascinating.
“I have got about half as much influence with your sister as that totem pole,” he announced, when he had brought Mollie almost back to the Sunrise cabin, “but if there is anything I can ever do to help you make her change her mind, why count on me up to the limit. Don’t you think the best thing would be somehow to joke the whole idea out of her? She is just the kind of a person to be more influenced by joking than any real opposition.”
Mollie bowed her head in entire agreement. “Yes, but what kind of a joke could we ever think up that could have anything to do with Polly’s wishing to be an actress and meaning to study several years from now?” she inquired doubtfully.
And to do Billy Webster credit he did look considerably confused.
“Well, I can’t say right off,” he confessed, laughing a little at himself, “but if you and I think things over for a week or so, perhaps an inspiration may come to one or the other of us. And in the meantime,” he added this rather hastily, “I wouldn’t mention to your sister that you have spoken of her plans to me. It is all right though, for I shall never breathe what you have told me to any one.”
CHAPTER XV
A Boomerang
Two weeks later Polly received a note at the cabin asking that she come into Woodford on the following Friday afternoon for an interview with a friend of Miss Margaret Adams, who happened by chance to be in Woodford for a few days and wanted an opportunity for talking with her about her future. For whatever resulted from this interview Polly had herself chiefly to blame. She most certainly should never have replied to a note signed by a name which was unfamiliar without consulting the guardian of the Sunrise club. But Polly knew perfectly well that Rose would never have permitted her to have any such conference. She knew also that their guardian and her mother’s friend was almost as much opposed as her sister Mollie to her ambition and considered that she was behaving most unwisely in letting her mind dwell on a possibility which in any case was very indefinite and far away. Indeed, Rose had had a quiet talk with Polly asking her not to discuss the subject of the stage with the other girls and to try and give her own energy and attention solely to their Camp Fire work. Polly had agreed and was apparently keeping her promise, since she felt so assured that the Camp Fire ideals must help every woman in whatever work she undertook later in life.
Nevertheless, when the first temptation came Polly fell. One night she spent in indecision, wondering why Miss Margaret Adams had not written to her about her friend or why Miss Adams, their elocution teacher, had said nothing. These questions, however, Polly finally answered satisfactorily to herself, since it is usually easy to find answers that accord with one’s own desires. By morning she had made up her mind that she would go and see the stranger and have a talk with him, since no harm could come of one small visit.
The appointment was to take place at the home of Meg, whose Professor father was one of the most prominent men in the village and Polly was told to bring a chaperon, so from the standpoint of propriety she was committing no offence. She had not seen Meg for a week and so could ask her no questions, and as Betty was the only person who could be relied upon in the emergency, to Betty she confided the whole situation, not in the least asking her advice, since this was not the way with Mistress Polly, but begging Betty to be present with her during the call. If Betty demurred at first, suggesting Miss Dyer, Miss McMurtry, Miss Mary Adams, as more suitable chaperons, she did finally agree. So early on Friday afternoon the two girls started into town in their best clothes, saying that they were going in on an errand. Betty was driving Fire Star and Polly carrying a volume of “Romeo and Juliet” and “Palgrave’s Golden Treasury.” The note had suggested that since Miss Margaret Adams had had no opportunity to hear Miss O’Neill recite, the writer would be interested to know what she could do.
Polly was cold with nervous excitement all the way into town. She was not in the least sure whether she did not dread the coming interview more than anything that had ever happened to her in her life and she also had very uncomfortable twinges of conscience, since this venture of hers had no grown-up sanction. There had been no time as yet to write her mother about it and she had not confided in Mollie, who once had known all her secrets. Indeed, had she not even felt glad that Mollie had decided not to return to the cabin after school that day but to remain in town with a friend, so that no uncomfortable family questions could be raised.
By special request Betty was invited not to talk on the journey in, so that Polly could have the opportunity for repeating to herself the poems she had made up her mind to recite and go once more over Juliet’s famous lament.
The hall at the Professor’s was unusually dark when Meg herself, to the girls’ delight, opened the front door. Polly was by this time in too agitated a condition to stop for asking questions, but although Betty was not, Meg did not seem willing to answer them. Instead she kept shaking her head and pointing mysteriously toward their drawing room door. “The stranger was already in there, yes, her father knew him, Polly must not mind that the visitor had his wife with him, she was also an actress upon whose judgment he placed the greatest reliance, but the girls were not to do more than bow to her, as it bored her to meet people.”
If the hall was dark the drawing room was even darker, but then before joining the Camp Fire club Meg had been a proverbially poor housekeeper, so she probably had neglected to open the drawing room shutters and, as it was a dark February afternoon, the light that came through the slats was not sufficient. Betty felt most distinctly that she was not going to enjoy the approaching interview, that there was already something odd and uncomfortable about it, but she had no opportunity for confiding her views and Polly was not in a critical humor. As for the darkness Polly was decidedly grateful for it. If she had to get up and recite before Meg and Betty and the two strangers it would be far easier to be in the half shadow than to have their critical glances full upon her. This drawing room recitation before so small an audience did not appeal to Polly anyhow, certainly it held none of the glamour of the stage, the music, the footlights, the feeling that you were no longer your real self but a performer in some other drama in some different world.
Betty sat down at once in a far corner, as she saw no notice was to be taken of her, but Polly felt herself having her hand shaken coldly by a tall, broad-shouldered, middle-aged man wearing glasses, with an iron gray, pointed beard and iron gray hair pulled low down over his forehead. He seemed, however, not to have the least desire for conversation, for waving Polly toward the center of the room, he at once asked her to show what she could do, without introducing his wife nor making the least satisfactory explanation of his own presence in Woodford, his acquaintance with Miss Margaret Adams, nor his right to have solicited this meeting with Polly.
However, none of these points weighed upon the girl’s mind at the time. The man looked just as she expected an actor-manager might look, and as for his wife, she could see nothing of her but a figure dressed in a long traveling coat and wearing a hat and heavy veil, who had not even deigned to glance in her direction.
“What – what shall I begin with?” Polly inquired anxiously. “Miss Adams, our teacher of elocution at the High School, says that young girls should try simple recitations, that it is absurd for us to attempt to reveal the great emotions such as one finds in Shakespeare’s plays, or Ibsen’s or Maeterlinck’s, that we must wait until we know something more of life for them. I did not feel sure what you would think about it, but I know some English poems, very famous and very beautiful, perhaps you would like me to begin with one of them?”
There was a slight hesitation in Polly’s voice because personally she found the simple poems much more difficult than the big ones and her taste did not incline toward Whitcomb Riley, or Eugene Field, toward any of the simple character work, which would have been the best possible training for her at the present time.
But the critic fortunately agreeing with Polly’s point of view shook his head gravely over her suggestion of English verses.
“No,” he said a little pompously, it must be confessed, “try the most difficult thing you know and even if you do not make an entire success of it I will be better able to judge what you can do.” The man spoke in a hoarse, strained voice which to Betty’s ears sounded forced and peculiar.
“Would you – would you think it very foolish if I tried Juliet’s speech before she takes the poison?” Polly then asked timidly. “I know I can’t do it very well, it is one of the greatest speeches in the whole world of acting, but perhaps for that very reason I like to attempt it.”
Polly had thrown off her red coat and hat in the hall, but she was wearing her best frock, a simple cashmere made in a single piece, with a crushed velvet belt of a darker shade and a collar and cuffs of real Irish lace which her mother had sent as a Christmas gift from Ireland. Her hair was very dark and her coloring vivid, so perhaps she did not look so utterly unlike the Italian Juliet, whom it is difficult for us to believe was only fourteen at the time of her tragic love story.
“Farewell, – and God knows when we shall meet again,” Polly began in a far less melodramatic fashion than one might have expected; indeed, Betty thought her voice exquisitely pathetic and appealing and even Meg, who had not the slightest sympathy with Polly’s dramatic aspirations, was subtly impressed.
“I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,
That almost freezes up the heat of life.
I’ll call them back again to comfort me. —
Nurse! – What should she do here?
My dismal scene I needs must act alone.
Come, phial.
What if this mixture do not work at all,
Shall I be married, then, to-morrow morning?
No, no; – this shall forbid it: – lie thou there – ”
And here Polly is being carried away by the thrill of her own performance. Almost she believes she beholds a slight suggestion of admiration in the blue eyes of the critic who most assuredly is watching her efforts with a great deal of interest. Unhappily, however, in her preparation for this great occasion, Polly has forgotten the necessary stage equipment and now at this instant remembers that Juliet requires a dagger to make this moment properly realistic. The girl is in a delicious state of excitement. For the time being actually she is feeling herself the terrified and yet superbly courageous Juliet, and there on the parlor table, as though by direct inspiration, is reposing a steel paper cutter of the Professor’s.
With a quick movement of her hand Polly seizes the desired dagger, but also she seizes something else along with it, for the table cover comes off at the same instant, almost overwhelming Juliet in a rain of papers, ornaments and books.
Polly feels as though she would faint with chagrin and mortification, so suddenly and so uncomfortably is she brought back to the hard realities. “I am so dreadfully sorry,” she starts to say, but before she has finished, her attention is arrested by the behavior of the mysterious veiled lady.
She had given a hysterical giggle, first one, then another, as though she were never going to be able to stop. Meg’s face is also crimson with the effort to control her laughter, although she is looking nervously, almost imploringly, toward her strange visitor.
The solitary man in the room has simply turned his back upon the whole situation and is gazing steadfastly at the closed windows.