The Twenty-Fourth of June Part 19

Richard Kendrick not only took off his hat but waved it with a gesture of entreaty, as he quickened his steps, and Ruth, much excited by the encounter, bade Thomas stop the horses.

"Would you take a pa.s.senger?" he asked as he came up; "unless, of course, you're going to stop for some one else?"

"Do get in," she urged shyly. "No, I'm all alone--going on an errand."

"I guessed it--not the errand, but the being alone. You looked so small, wrapped up in all these furs, I felt you needed company," explained Richard, smiling down into the animated young face, with its delicate colour showing fresh and fair in the frosty air. There was something very attractive to the young man in this girl, who seemed to him the embodiment of sweetness and purity. He never saw her without feeling that he would have liked just such a little sister. He would have done much to please her, quite as he had followed her suggestion about the church-going on Christmas Day.

"I'm rushing down to find a scarf of a certain colour for Rob,"

explained Ruth, too full of her commission to keep it to herself. "You see, she's playing _Katherine_ to-night. The girl who was to have played it--Ethel Revell--is ill. Do you know any of Miss Copeland's girls?

Olivia Cartwright plays _Petruchio_."

"Olivia Cartwright? Is she to be in some play? She's a distant cousin of mine."

"It's a school play--Miss Copeland's school, where Rob teaches, you know. The play is to be in the Stuart Hendersons' ballroom." And Ruth made known the situation to a listener who gave her his undivided attention.

"Well, well,--seems to me I should have had an invitation for that play," mused Richard, searching his memory. "I wish I'd had one. I should like to see your sister act _Katherine_. I suppose it's quite impossible to get one at this late hour?"

"I'm afraid so. It's really not at all strange that any one is left out of the list of invitations," Ruth hastened to make clear. "You see, each girl is allowed only six, and that usually takes just her family or nearest friends. And if you are only a distant cousin of Olivia's--"

"It's not at all strange that she shouldn't ask me, for I'm afraid I've neglected to avail myself of former invitations of hers," admitted Richard, ruefully. "Too bad. Punishment for such neglect usually follows--and I certainly have it now. I know the Stuart Hendersons, though--I wonder--Never mind, Miss Ruth, don't look so sorry. You'll tell me about it afterward, some time, won't you?"

"Indeed I will. Oh, it's been such an exciting day. Rob's been rehearsing her lines all day--when she wasn't trying on. She says she could have played _Petruchio_ much better, because she's had to coach Olivia Cartwright for that part so much more than she's had to coach Ethel for _Katherine_. But, then, she knows the whole play--she could take any part. She would have loved to play _Petruchio_, though, on account of the boots and the slashing round the stage the way he does.

But I think it's just as well, for _Katherine_ certainly slashes, too--and Rob's not quite tall enough for _Petruchio_."

"I'm glad she plays _Katherine_," said Richard Kendrick decidedly. "I can't imagine your sister in boots! I've no doubt, though, she'd make them different from other boots--if she wore them!"

"Of course she would," agreed Ruth. Then she began to talk about something else, for a bit of fear had come into her mind that Rob wouldn't enjoy all this discussion of herself, if she should know about it.

She was such an honest young person, however, that she had a good deal of difficulty, when she had done her errand and was at home again, in not telling Roberta of her meeting with Richard Kendrick. She did venture to ask a question.

"Is Mr. Kendrick invited for to-night, Rob?"

"Not by me," Roberta responded promptly.

"He might be, by one of the girls, I suppose?"

"The girls invite whom they like. I haven't seen the list. I don't imagine he would be on it. I hope not, certainly."

"Why? Don't you think he would enjoy it?"

"No, I do not. Musical comedies are probably more to his taste than amateur productions of Shakespeare. But I'm not thinking about the audience--the players are enough for me." Then, suddenly, an idea which flashed into her mind caused her to turn and scan Ruth's ingenuous young face.

"You haven't been inviting Mr. Kendrick yourself, Rufus?"

"Why, how could I?" But the girl flushed rosily in a way which betrayed her interest. "I just--wondered."

"How did you come to wonder? Have you seen him?"

Ruth being Ruth, there was nothing to do but to tell Roberta of the encounter with Richard. "He said he was glad you were to play _Katherine_, because he couldn't imagine you in boots," she added, hoping this news might appease her sister. But it did nothing of the sort.

"As if it made the slightest difference to him! But if he feels that way, I wish I were to wear the boots, and I wish he might be there to see me do it. As it is, I hope Mrs. Stuart Henderson will be deaf to his audacity, if he dares to ask an invitation. It would be quite like him!"

"I don't see why--" began Ruth.

But Roberta interrupted her. "There are lots of things you don't see, little sister," said she, with a swift and impetuous embrace of the slender form beside her. Then she turned, frowned, flung out her arm, and broke into one of _Katherine's_ flaming speeches:

_"'Why, sir, I trust, I may have leave to speak: And speak I will: I am no child, no babe: Your betters have endured me say my mind And if you cannot, best you stop your ears.'"_

"Oh, but you do have such a lovely voice!" cried Ruth. "You can't make even the _Shrew_ sound shrewish--in her tone, I mean."

"Can't I, indeed? Wait till to-night! If your friend Mr. Kendrick is to be there I'll be more shrewish than you ever dreamed--it will be a real stimulus!"

Ruth shook her head in dumb wonder that any one could be so impervious to the charms of the young man who so appealed to her youthful imagination. Three hours afterward, when she turned in her chair, in the Stuart Henderson ballroom, at the summons of a low voice in her ear, to find Richard Kendrick in the row behind her, she wondered afresh what there could possibly be about him to rouse her sister's antagonism. His face was such an interesting one, his eyes so clear and their glance so straightforward, his fresh colour so pleasant to note, his whole personality so attractive, Ruth could only answer him in the happiest way at her command with a subdued but eager: "Oh, I'm so glad you came!"

"That's due to Mrs. Cartwright's wonderful kindness. She's the mother of _Petruchio_, you know," explained Richard, with a smiling glance at the gorgeously gowned woman beside him, who leaned forward also to say to Ruth:

"What is one to do with a sweetly apologetic young cousin who begs to be allowed to come, at the last moment, to view his cousin in doublet and hose? But I really didn't venture to tell Olivia. She would have fled from the stage if she had guessed that cousin Richard, whom she greatly admires, was to be here. I can only hope she will not hear of it till the play is over."

"If his being here is going to make _Petruchio_ tremble more, and _Katherine_ act naughtier, I shall feel dreadfully guilty," thought Ruth. But somehow when the curtain went up she could not help being glad that he was there, behind her.

Roberta had said much, in hours of relaxation after long and tense rehearsals, of the difficulty of making schoolgirls forget themselves in any part. It had been difficult, indeed, to train her pupils to speak and act with naturalness in roles so foreign to their experience. But she had been much more successful than she had dared to believe, and her own enthusiasm, her tireless drilling, above all her inspiring example as she spoke her girls' lines for them and demonstrated to them each telling detail of stage business, had done the work with astonishing effect. The hardest task of all had been to find and develop a satisfactory delineator of the difficult part of the _Tamer of the Shrew_, but Roberta had persevered, even taking a journey of some hours with Olivia Cartwright to have her see and study one of the greatest of _Petruchios_ at two successive performances. She had succeeded in stimulating Olivia to a real determination to be worthy of her teacher's expressed belief in her, even to the mastering of her girlish tendency to let her voice revert to a high-keyed feminine quality just when it needed to be deepest and most stern.

The audience, as the play began, was in the customary benevolent mood of audiences beholding amateur productions, ready to see good if possible, anxious to show favour to all the young actors and to praise without discrimination, aware of the proximity of proud fathers and mothers. But this audience soon found itself genuinely interested and amused, and with the first advent of the enchanting _Shrew_ herself became absorbed in her personality and her fortunes quite as it might have been in those of any talented actress of reputation.

To Ruth, sitting wide eyed and hot cheeked, her sister seemed the most spirited and bewitching _Katherine_ ever played. Her shrewishness was that of the wilful madcap girl who has never been crossed rather than that of the inherently ill-tempered woman, and her every word and gesture, her every expression of face and tone of voice, were worth noting and watching. By no means finished work--as how should it be, in a young teacher but few years out of school herself--it yet had an originality and freshness of interpretation all its own, and the applause which praised it was very spontaneous and genuine. Roberta had been the joy of her cla.s.s in college dramatics, and several of her former cla.s.smates, in her audience to-night, gleefully told one another that she was surpa.s.sing anything she had formerly done.

"It's simply superb, you know, don't you?--your sister's acting," said Richard Kendrick's voice in Ruth's ear again at the end of the first act, and she turned her burning cheek his way as she answered happily:

"It seems so to me--but then I'm prejudiced, you know."

"We're all prejudiced, when it comes to that--made so by this performance. I'm pretty proud of my cousin _Petruchio_, too," he went on, including Mrs. Cartwright at his side. "I'd no idea boots could be so becoming to any girl--outside of a chorus. Olivia's splendid. Do you suppose"--he was addressing Ruth again--"you and I might go behind the scenes and tell them how we feel about it?"

"Oh, no, indeed, Mr. Kendrick," Ruth replied, much shocked. "It's lots different, a girls' play like this, from the regular theatre. They'd be so astonished to see you. Rob's told me, heaps of times, how they go perfectly crazy after every act, and she has all she can do to keep them cool enough for the next. She'd never forgive us. And besides, Olivia Cartwright's not to know you're here, you know."

"That's true. I'd forgotten how disturbing my presence is supposed to be," and Richard leaned back again to laugh with Mrs. Cartwright.

But, behind the scenes, the news had penetrated, n.o.body knew just how.

Roberta learned, to her surprise and distraction, that Richard Kendrick was somehow a particularly interesting figure in the eyes of her young players, and she speedily discovered that they were all more or less excited at the knowledge that he was somewhere below the footlights.

Olivia, indeed, was immediately in a flutter, quite as her mother had predicted, at the thought of Cousin Richard's eyes upon her in her masculine attire; and Roberta, in the brief interval she could spare for the purpose, had to take her sternly in hand. An autocratic _Katherine_ might, then, have been overheard addressing a flurried _Petruchio_, in a corner:

"For pity's sake, child, who is he that you need be afraid of him? He's no critic, I'll wager, and if he's your cousin he'll be sure to think you act like a veteran, anyhow. Forget him, and go ahead. You're doing splendidly. Don't you dare slump just because you're remembering your audience!"

"Oh, of course I'll try, Miss Gray," replied an extremely feminine voice from beneath _Petruchio's_ fierce mustachios. "But Richard Kendrick really is awfully sort of upsetting, don't you know?"

"Of course I don't know," denied Roberta promptly. "As long as Miss Copeland herself is pleased with us, n.o.body else matters. And Miss Copeland is delighted--she sent me special word just now. So stiffen your backbone, _Petruchio_, and make this next dialogue with me as rapid as you know. Come back at me like flash-fire--don't lag a breath--we'll stir the house to laughter, or know the reason why. Ready?"

Her firm hand on Olivia's arm, her bracing words in Olivia's ear, put courage back into her temporarily stage-struck "leading man," and Olivia returned to the charge determined to play up to her teacher without lagging. In truth, Roberta's actual presence on the stage was proving a distinct advantage to those of the players who had parts with her. She warmed and held them to their tasks with the flash of her own eyes, not to mention an occasional almost imperceptible but pregnant gesture, and they found themselves somehow able to "forget the audience," as she had so many times advised them to do, the better that she herself seemed so completely to have forgotten it.

The work of the young actors grew better with each act, and at the end of the fourth, when the curtain went down upon a scene which had been all storm on the part of the players and all laughter on the part of the audience, the applause was long and hearty. There were calls for the entire cast, and when they had several times responded there was a special and persistent demand for _Katherine_ herself, in the character of the producer of the play. She refused it until she could no longer do so without discourtesy; then she came before the curtain and said a few winsome words of grat.i.tude on behalf of her "company."