when they were alone bret explained his decision and the heartbreaking time he had had arriving at it. he would not debate it again. he permitted sheila the
consolation of feeling herself an outcast, and she reveled in misery. but the first rehearsal was like a bugle-call to a cavalry horse hitched to a milk-wagon.
she entered the odeon theater again by the back door and bowed to the same old man, who smiled her in with bleary welcome. and pennock was at her post looking as
untheatrical as ever. she embraced sheila and said, “it’s good to see you workin’ again.”
the next person she met was mrs. vining, looking as time-proof as ever.
“what on earth are you doing here?” sheila cried.
and mrs. vining sighed. “oh, there’s an old catty mother-in-law in the play, and reben dragged me out of the old ladies’ home to play it.”
sheila’s presence at the odeon was due to the fact that when eldon asked reben to release him so that he might play in “clipped wings,” with sheila as star and bret
winfield as the angel, reben declined with violence.
when eldon told him of the play he demanded the privilege of producing it. he ridiculed bret as a theatrical manager and easily persuaded him to retire to his
weighing-machines. reben dug out the yellowed contract with sheila, had it freshly typed, and sent it to her, and she signed it with all the woman’s terror at putting
her signature to a mortgage.
one matinée day, as sheila left the stage door, she met dulcie coming in to make ready for the afternoon’s performance.
dulcie clutched her with overacted enthusiasm and said: “oh, my dear, it’s so nice that you’re coming back on the stage, after all these years. too bad you can’t
have your old theater, isn’t it? we’re doomed to stay here forever, it seems. but—oh, my dear!—you mustn’t work so hard. you look all worn out. are you ill?”
sheila retreated in as good order as possible, breathing resolutions to oust dulcie from the star dressing-room and quench her name in the electric lights. that vow
sustained her through many a weak hour.
but at times she was not sure of even that success. at times she was sure of failure and the odious humiliation of returning to blithevale like a prodigal wife fed on
husks of criticism.
bret was called back to his factory by his business and by his request. he did not want to impede sheila in any way. he had gone through rehearsals and try-outs with
her once, and, as he said, once was plenty.
sheila wept at his desertion and called herself names. she wept for her children and called herself worse names. she wept on mrs. vining at various opportunities when
she was not rehearsing.
at length the old lady’s patience gave out and she stormed, “i warned you not to marry.”
“you warned me not to marry in the profession, and i didn’t.”
“well,” sniffed mrs. vining, “i supposed you had sense enough of your own not to marry outside of it.”
“but—”
“and now that you did, take your medicine. you’re crying because you want to be with your man and your children. but when you had them you cried just the same. all
the women i know on the stage and off, married and single, childless or not, are always crying about something. good lord! it’s time women learned to get along
without tears. men used to cry and faint, and they outgrew it. women don’t faint any more. why can’t they quit crying? the whole kit and caboodle of you make me
sick.”
“thank you!” said sheila, and walked away. but she was mad enough to rehearse her big scene more vigorously than ever. without a slip of memory she delivered her
long tirade so fiercely that the company and vickery and batterson broke into applause. from the auditorium reben shouted, “bully!”
as sheila walked aside, mrs. vining threw her arms around her and called her an angel and proved that even she had not lost the gift of tears.
bret was not without his own torments. the village people drove him frantic with their questions and their rapturous horror and the gossip they bandied about.
his mother, who hurried to the “rescue” of his home and his “abandoned children,” strengthened him more by her bitterness against sheila than she could have done
by any praise of her. a man always discounts a woman’s criticism of another woman. it always outrages his male sense of fairness and good sportsmanship.
besides, bret was driven by every reason of loyalty to defend his wife. he told his mother and his neighbors that he would see her oftener than a soldier or a sailor
sees his wife. he would keep close to her. his business would permit him to make occasional journeys to her. their summers would be honeymoons together.
he made good use of the argumentum ad feminam by telling his mother how well the children would profit by their grandmother’s wisdom, and he promised them the
fascinating privilege of traveling with their mother at times.
but it was not easy for bret. he knew that many people would laugh at him for a milksop; others would despise him for a complacent assistant in his wife’s dishonor.
at times the dread of this gossip drove him almost mad.
he had his dark hours of jealous distrust, too, and the very thought of eldon filled him with dread. eldon was gifted and handsome, and congenial to sheila, and a
fellow-artist as well. and his other self, the iago self that every othello has, whispered that hateful word “propinquity” in his ear with vicious insinuation.
he gnashed his teeth against himself and groaned, “you fool, you’ve thrown her into eldon’s arms.”
his better self answered: “no, you have given her to the arms of the world. propinquity breeds hatred and jealousy and boredom and emulation as often as it breeds
love.”
he would have felt reassured if he had seen sheila fighting eldon for points, for positions, and for lines.
there was one line in eldon’s part that sheila called the most beautiful line in the play, a line about the husband’s dead mother. sheila first admired then coveted
the line.
at last she openly asked for it. eldon was furious and vickery was aghast.
“but, my dear sheila,” he explained, “you couldn’t use that line. your mother is present in the cast.”
“couldn’t we kill her off?” said sheila.
“i like that!” cried mrs. vining, who was playing the part.
sheila gave up the line, but with reluctance. but it was some time before eldon and vickery regained their illusions concerning her.
and yet it was something more than selfish greed that made her grasp at everything for the betterment of her r?le. it was like a portrait she was painting and she
wished for it every enhancement. an architect who plans a cathedral is not blamed for wishing to raze whole acres so that his building may command the scene. the actor
’s often berated avarice is no more ignoble, really. and the actor who is indifferent or over-generous is like the careless artist in other fields. he builds neither
himself nor his work.
mrs. vining fought half a day against the loss of a line that emphasized the meanness of her character. she wanted to be hated. she played hateful r?les with such
exquisite art that audiences loved her while they loathed her.
so sheila spared nothing and nobody to make the part she played the greatest part was ever played. least of all she spared herself, her strength, her mind, her time.
but she battened on work, she was a glutton for punishment. she had her stage-manager begging for a rest, and that is rare achievement.
and all the while she grew stronger, haler, heartier; she grew so beautiful from needing to be beautiful that even dulcie ormerod, passing her once more at the mail-
box, gasped:
“my gawd! but that hat is becoming. tell me quick what’s the address of your milliner.”
that was approbation indeed from dulcie.
at length the dreadful dress-rehearsal was reached. the usual unheard-of mishaps happened. everybody was hopeless. the actors parroted the old saying that “a bad
dress-rehearsal means a good first performance,” knowing that it proves true about half the time.
the piece was tried first in plainfield. the local audience was not demonstrative. eldon tried to comfort himself by saying that the play was too big, too stunning,
for them to understand.
the next night they played in red bank and were stunned with applause in the first scene and increasing enthusiasm throughout. but that proved nothing, and jaffer, who
was with the company, remembered a famous failure that had been a triumph in red bank and a disaster on broadway.
the fear of that merciless broadway gauntlet settled over the company. success meant everything to every member. it meant the paying of bills, a warm home for the
winter, a step upward for the future. even one of the stage-hands had a romance that required a new york run.
