Betty Wales, Senior Part 12

"Of course not, my dear," returned Mrs. Kent, serenely. "She's at the infirmary with a badly sprained ankle. She'll have to keep off it for a month at least, the doctor says."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "OH, I BEG YOUR PARDON"]

"Oh, Mrs. Kent!" wailed Betty. "And she's Ermengarde St. John in the house-play. What can we do?"

Mrs. Kent shook her head helplessly. "You'll have to do without Janet,"

she said. "That's certain. She was on her way home to dinner when she slipped on a piece of ice near the campus-gate. She lay there several minutes before any one saw her, and then luckily Dr. Trench came along and drove her straight to the infirmary. She fainted while they were bandaging her ankle."

"I'm very sorry," said Betty, her vision of a possible hasty recovery dispelled by the last sentence. After a moment's hesitation she decided not to go back to the Students' Building to consult Nita. It would be better to bring some one over from the house to read the part for to-night. It was important, but luckily it wasn't very long, and somebody would have to learn it in time for the play the next evening.

So she hurried up-stairs again and the first person she met was Roberta Lewis, marching down the corridor with a huge Greek dictionary under her arm.

"Put that book down, Roberta; and come over to the rehearsal,"

commanded Betty. "Ermengarde St. John has sprained her ankle, and gone to the infirmary and everybody's waiting."

"You mean that you want me to go and get her?" asked Roberta doubtfully.

"Because I think it would take two people to help her walk, if she's very lame. She's awfully fat, you know."

"We want you to read Janet's part," explained Betty, "just for to-night, until the committee can find some one to take it." And she gave a little more explicit account of the state of affairs at the rehearsal.

"Yes, indeed, I'll be glad to," said Roberta readily. She was secretly delighted to be furnished with an excuse for seeing the dress rehearsal.

She had longed with all her soul to be appointed a member of the play-committee, but of course the house-president had not put her on; she was the last person, so the president thought, who would be useful there. And Roberta could not screw her courage up to the point of trying for a place in the cast. So no one knew, since she had never told any one, that she thought acting the most interesting thing in the world and that she loved to act, in spite of the terrors of having an audience. But she had let slip her one chance--the offer of a part in Mary's famous melodrama away back in her freshman year--and she had never had another.

And now, because she was Roberta Lewis, proud and shy and dreadfully afraid of pushing in where she wasn't wanted, she did not think it necessary to mention to Betty that she had borrowed a copy of the play from little Ruth Howard, who was Sara, and that she had read it over until she knew almost every line of it by heart.

Of course the committee were thrown into a state bordering upon panic by the news of Janet's accident, but Madeline comfortingly reminded them that the worse the last rehearsal was, the better the play was sure to be; and there was certainly nothing to do now but go ahead.

So they began to rehea.r.s.e at last, almost an hour late, and the first act went off with great spirit, in spite of the handicap of a strange Ermengarde, who had to read her part because she was ashamed to confess that she knew it already, and who was supposed not to be familiar with her "stage business." To be sure, she had not very much to do in this scene, but at the end everybody thanked her effusively and Ruth Howard declared that she never saw anybody who "caught on" so fast.

"You ought to take the part to-morrow night," she said.

"Oh, oh!" Roberta cautioned her, in alarm and embarra.s.sment. "They're going to have Polly Eastman. I heard Nita say so. Besides, I wouldn't for anything."

Ermengarde's chance comes in the second act, where, half in pity and half in admiration for the queer little Sara Crewe, she comes up to make friends with her, and, finding to her horror that Sara is actually hungry, decides to bring her "spread" up to Sara's attic. There, later, the terrible Miss Minchen finds her select pupils gathered, and wrathfully puts an end to their merry-making.

At the opening of this scene the attic was supposed to be lighted by one small candle, and consequently the stage was very dim.

"I don't believe Roberta can manage with that light," whispered Nita to Betty who was standing with her in one of the wings.

"Don't let's change unless we have to," Betty whispered back. "You know we wanted to get the effect of Miss Minchen's curl papers and night-cap.

Why, Nita, Roberta hasn't any book. She's saying her part right off."

"No!" Nita was incredulous. "Why, Betty Wales, she is, and she's doing it splendidly, fifty per cent, better than Janet did."

Sure enough Roberta, becoming engrossed in the play, had forgotten to conceal her unwarranted knowledge of it. She realized what she had done when a burst of applause greeted her exit, and actors and committee alike forgot the proprieties of a last rehearsal to make a united a.s.sault upon her.

"Roberta Lewis," cried Betty accusingly, "why didn't you tell me that you knew Ermengarde's part?"

"Oh, I don't know it," protested Roberta. "I only know s.n.a.t.c.hes of it here and there. Polly can learn it in no time."

"She won't have the chance," said Nita decisively. "You must take it, Roberta. Why didn't you tell people that you could act like that?"

"I shall have stage-fright and spoil everything," declared Roberta forlornly.

"Nonsense," said Nita. "You'd be ashamed to do anything of the kind."

"Yes," agreed Roberta solemnly, "I should." Whereupon everybody laughed, and Nita hugged Roberta and a.s.sured her that there was no way out of it.

"Somebody go and get Janet's costume," she ordered, "and any one who has a spare minute can be fitting it over. We shall have to have an extra rehearsal to-morrow of the parts where Ermengarde comes in. Go on now, Sara. Use Lucile's m.u.f.f for the monkey."

When at last act three was finished it was ten o'clock and Nita gave a sigh of utter exhaustion. "If Madeline's rule holds," she said, "this play ought to go like clockwork to-morrow."

And it did, despite the rather dubious tone of the chairman's prophecy.

The Princess arrived duly just after luncheon, and everybody except the cast, who would do their share later, helped to entertain her. This was not difficult. She wasn't a college girl, she explained, and she had never known many of them. She just wanted to hear them talk, see their rooms, and if it wasn't too much trouble she should enjoy looking on at a game of--what was it they played so much at Harding? Basket-ball, somebody prompted. Yes, that was it. The soph.o.m.ore teams which had just been chosen were proud to play a game for her, and they even suggested, fired by her responsive enthusiasm, that they should teach her to play too.

"I should love it," she said, "if somebody would lend me one of those becoming suits. But I mustn't." She sighed. "The newspapers would be sure to get hold of it. Besides they're giving a tea for me at the Belden. It begins in five minutes. Doesn't time just fly at Harding?"

The monkey also arrived in good season, whether thanks to or in spite of Polly's exertions was not clear, since his master spoke no English and not even Madeline could understand his Italian. The bagdads worked beautifully. The new Ermengarde was letter-perfect, and n.o.body but herself had any fear that she would be stage-struck, even though the Princess would be sitting in the very middle of the fourth row. Janet's name was still on the program, for Roberta had sternly insisted that it shouldn't be crossed out; and as neither of the two Ermengardes was very well known to the college in general, only a few people noticed the change. But the part made a hit.

"Isn't she just like some little girl who used to go to school with you--that funny, stupid Ermengarde?" one girl would say to another.

"They're all natural, but she's absolutely perfect."

"Sara's a dear," said the Princess, "but I want to talk to Ermengarde.

Mayn't I go behind? We actor people always like to do that, you know."

So she was escorted behind the scenes, and it was the proudest moment of Roberta's life when the Princess, having asked particularly for her, said all sorts of nice things about her "real talent" and "artistic methods."

"That settles it, Roberta," said Betty, who was behind the scenes in her capacity of chief dressing-maid and first a.s.sistant to the make-up man.

"You've got to try for senior dramatics."

"Do you really think I could get a part?" asked Roberta coolly.

"I think you might," said Betty, amazed beyond words by Roberta's ready acquiescence. "You probably won't get anything big," she added cautiously. "There are such a lot of people in our cla.s.s who can act.

But the girls say that the only way to get a small part is to try for a big one. Don't you remember how Mary Brooks tried for the hero and the heroine and the villain and then was proud as a peac.o.c.k to be a page and say two lines, and Dr. Brooks and her mother and two aunts and six cousins came to see her do it."

"Dear me," said Roberta in frightened tones, "do you suppose my father and my cousin will feel obliged to come?"

"I don't know," laughed Betty, "but I feel obliged to remind you that the third act of Sara Crewe is on and you belong out there where you can hear your cue."

"I hope Roberta won't be disappointed about getting a part in the senior play," Betty confided to Madeline, as they parted afterward in the Belden House hall. "She did awfully well to-night, but I think she takes it too seriously. She doesn't realize what tremendous compet.i.tion there is for the parts in our plays, nor what lots of practice some of the girls have had."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry," said Madeline easily. "If she doesn't get anything, she'll have to do without. She'll have plenty of company. She probably won't try when the time comes."

"Yes," said Betty, "she will, and she's so sensitive that she'll hate terribly to fail. So, as I started her on her mad career as an actress, I feel responsible."

"You always feel responsible for something," laughed Madeline. "While you're in the business why don't you remember that you're responsible for a nice little slice of to-night's performance. Miss Ferris says it's the best house-play she's seen."

"I know. Isn't it just splendid?" sighed Betty rapturously. "And isn't the Princess a dear? But Madeline, you haven't any idea how my feet ache."