CHAPTER III

They opened in Washington the end of August. Cleeburg tried to get Atlantic City but the theater had been booked weeks before his bid for it. Hence, in spite of the star’s popularity, they did not play to capacity. The season in the Capital was at low ebb. Most of the homes were closed and the usual Goring audiences were out of the city. Which after all was an advantage, for the play was still very rough.

All things considered, both Goring and her manager were rather pleased than otherwise. The four weeks of rehearsal had been torrid, record-breaking heat rising from the pavements, the city consumed by fever. The effect upon the company had been in ratio thereto. They were limp by the date of opening, unequal to their best in spite of the utmost effort.

And Goring’s rôle was difficult. She did not like it as well as “Peacock.” There was more drama, more opportunity for emotional acting, but less for the display of gowns and the bizarre beauty that had made both men and women flock to the other play. However, as Cleeburg had said, she couldn’t afford to stamp herself a one-part actress. And there was no denying the interest of the story.

As never before, Cleeburg had put her through her paces. At the theater after the company had dispersed, at her apartment in the evenings, he had gone over her part again and again coaching her scene by scene, speech by speech, until the rest, knowing nothing of those extra sessions, judged her a miracle at quick study.

“Unbend, Jane!” he would say, prancing up and down her long drawing-room. “Come off your perch! You love him, Jane! You love him! D’you know what that means? You’d die for him. He ain’t your kind and you’d go through hell to get to him. Ever felt that way? Well, think about it—concentrate on it—and you’ll get it over.”

Vaguely, like a curtain lifted on another life, memory drifted before her eyes the vision of an afternoon on the Palisades when a vivid-haired girl clung to a brown-haired boy, whispering over and over that she loved him—didn’t want anything ever in the whole wide world but him.

For purposes of the drama she concentrated on it.

Quite like the actress she was, she flung herself into the passion of those first months as if she had lived them yesterday. Fortunately for her the Goring of to-day, the actress, was a shell into which emotion could be poured as one pours burning fluid into an empty vessel.

Little ’Dolph, with cigar twirling, eyes popping, perspiration dripping from his forehead, and a silk handkerchief tied round his short neck, kept her keyed to the highest pitch—no let-down, no time to think of self or the weather or rest; no time for anything but the part in hand. Though he would not have known whence the quotation sprang, with him “The play’s the thing” was a litany.

Critics in the Capital and in Baltimore were almost unanimous in the opinion that it was a vital thing, sure of ultimate success when placed on view for the thumbs-up, thumbs-down decision of that capricious goddess—Broadway.

As a rule Goring and her leading man were the only two mentioned in the reviews, but this time almost every member of the company came in for a quota of praise. The old mother, the character man, the juvenile comedian, even the homely little sister with her wide hungry eyes and the queer catch in her voice, each had a word or two.

Gloria Cromwell was the girl’s name. It was quite as ornate as she was plain. Goring laughed the first time she heard it.

“Sounds as though she found it in a dime novel,” she told Cleeburg. “Why don’t you make her change it?”

“Says it’s her own. Anyhow, it don’t matter.”

“No—I dare say it doesn’t. She’s entitled to something to make her conspicuous.”

Often she noticed the girl at rehearsal sitting in the theater after her bit was done, leaning forward, chin in her cupped hands, mop of reddish hair falling over eyes that devoured every move the star made. Once they met at the stage entrance on their way out.

“Why don’t you go home earlier?” Goring asked. “I’m sure Mr. Cleeburg will excuse you when you’re through.”

“I’d rather stay,” the girl answered in her peculiar breathless tone. “I can learn so much from you, Miss Goring. Besides,” she paused, hesitated, “I—live in a furnished room. It isn’t much to go home to.”

“Have you been in New York long?” Goring put the question as they moved toward the street side by side.

“A year and a half—that is, this time. I used to come whenever I could scrape together the fare while I was doing stock in the West. But there never seemed to be an opening for me. Then I decided I’d best just come and wait around or I’d never get a chance. And I waited, all right.”

Another pause while the wide wistful eyes filled with the same look of fright they had worn that first day at the theater—only this time it was the fright of memory.

“Mr. Cleeburg has been wonderful to me. I’ll never be able to thank him enough.”

They had reached the curb. Goring smiled. “I shall tell him that,” she said, and with a nod stepped into her car and drove off.

In Washington she noticed that Miss Cromwell was looking better, though the eyes were as hungry as ever and the figure as slight. Undoubtedly Cleeburg was right. What she had needed was a few square meals. Her strength seemed to increase as work increased and in their scene together Goring remarked a give and take that made her own work mount to greater intensity. It was a short scene in which the younger sister who had hovered like a silent brooding shadow in the background pleaded with the older not to break away from her own class, not to try to go into a world she did not understand—and was met by the defiance of one molded to make a place for herself in any world. The scene went so well, in fact, that the author, at Cleeburg’s request, lengthened it. At the end when Goring held out her arms and folded the weeping girl in them, a gratifying sniffle and the flutter of white went through the house. Which is the most either star or manager can ask.

The company rehearsed the greater part of the night preceding the New York première, though Goring left the theater early to allow herself plenty of time for rest and the customary massage. She liked to relax thoroughly before the strenuous demands on the nerves which an opening always made. In her sea-blue silk draped bed she would lie for hours while the magic hands of the Swedish woman who attended her each day sent tingling through her veins an injection of new life. And finally a delicious drowsiness would creep over her like a thin veil drawn between her and the turmoil of the outside world. She would find herself presently floating on the waters of Lethe, arms outstretched, a smile upon her lips, a gentle undulation as of waves rising and falling beneath her. Small wonder that when she drifted back to reality some hours later she felt rejuvenated, with a calm and control equal to any emergency.

She reached the theater a little after seven. On the way in she met Miss Cromwell. The girl’s eyes were burning. Their hungry look had gone completely and in its place had come a glow like a great light from within.

“Oh, Miss Goring,” she breathed in passing, “I’m so thrilled. I’ve lived and lived for this—New York! And now it’s come! It’s actually come!”

Goring nodded, voiced a perfunctory “Good luck,” and wondered in her soul what it would be like to feel once more that closing of the throat, that turmoil of beating heart, that utter abandon of joy in opportunity realized. It thrust her back to the day when she had signed her first contract with Cleeburg. She and Bob had sat facing each other a long space without a word, his two hands gripping hers until they ached. And then—

“I’m so glad, little girl—so damn glad!” had come from him huskily.

Then his hands had loosed and swept round her and he had held her close and she had cried into the lapel of his blue serge coat, tears of sheer happiness.

Cleeburg came to her dressing-room shortly before the rise of the curtain to tell her the house was packed. They were standing three rows deep—he was sure of a knock-out. He brought her a pile of telegrams from members of the profession and friends in the social world. She read them leisurely. It was her first opening on which there was not a long one from her husband. Not that she really missed it, but the lack gave her a curious feeling of wonder as to what had become of him.

Her maid gave her hair a final pat and she stepped back to survey. It was an odd Jane Goring who gazed critically out of the mirror. No jangling jade, no spreading tail, no sensuous color of plumage. Just a blue serge dress of last year’s cut, a little shabby, open at the throat. It had been selected by the author, not without some protest from the star. She had wanted at least to go to a good tailor, but he had dragged her into a department store and made her buy one from stock at twenty-nine forty-nine. She had to admit that the effect, while not beautiful, was absolutely in character. Her shoes she had insisted upon getting at a Fifth Avenue boot shop. Feet are more conspicuous on the stage than anywhere else in life and she must be well shod to do herself justice. Her hair, too, was groomed. The Goring coiffure was abandoned until the last act but the faint wave necessary to it could not have passed unnoticed in the coils clustered about the factory girl’s ears.

She went out, followed by her maid, and waited in the wings for her cue. Then came the inevitable tightening of the heart cords, the tense straining of muscles to achieve the best, the twinge of fear, all the tearing thrill of embarkation on a new venture. It lasted only an instant, however, an instant that ended in her entrance, followed by a crashing burst of applause. She bowed again and again, and the sweetness of it flowed like wine in her blood. The play halted, action suspended in mid-air, while the actress took the tribute she had known would greet her.

After which the audience settled back to be entertained. From the beginning interest was evident, the heroine’s fight to make her own life apart from the prejudice which is as rampant in the lower as in the upper classes holding them. The struggle of evolution is the most human, most vital problem in the world.

All through the first act the conflict endured, the girl’s discontent striking like flint on steel until the final scene when the little sister, matted hair falling over her eyes, dropped on her knees, crying: “All I know is—you’re goin’. You’re leavin’ me! An’ you can’t—you mustn’t! You’re gonna get hurt with them people you don’t know. They’re gonna step on you an’ make fun of you an’ beat you down until you ain’t got no fight left. You don’t belong there—you don’t belong! Stay here with me! I’m your sister, your own blood—an’ I love you, I love you! Nobody couldn’t love you no more’n I do!”

Gloria Cromwell’s slight figure shook with the words, her eyes burned into Goring’s. That queer hysterical note lifted her voice into a throb that was heartrending, and as the star drew her close she seemed to crumple like a broken flower.

The applause that met the curtain’s descent was interspersed with the same gratifying sniffle they had encountered all along the route. A number of times it swung upward, members of the company taking it according to a schedule posted backstage.

CURTAIN—ACT I

First Curtain Tableau. Second 〃 Miss Goring and company Third 〃 Miss Goring and principals Fourth 〃 Miss Goring and principals Fifth 〃 Miss Goring and Mr. Burke Sixth 〃 Miss Goring

The manner and order of taking the curtains had been carefully rehearsed the night before, but as it rose the fifth time with the star and leading man alone on the stage, an incident unanticipated occurred. Someone in the gallery shouted “Cromwell!” And the applause seemed to swell in answer.

Goring at first paid no heed. The curtain fell—rose again and again. The call was repeated insistently. Goring went graciously to the wings and drew the girl onto the stage. She came, trembling so that she could scarcely walk, eyes wide and terrified but shining somehow behind it all. She made an awkward bow, clinging like a child to Goring’s hand.

When several curtains had been taken alone and preparations were finally under way for Act II, Jane Goring picked her way past property men and scene shifters toward the dressing-room with a five-pointed star painted on the door—to an actress the gate of heaven. Miss Cromwell was waiting there.

“Oh, Miss Goring,” she breathed, “that was so—so sweet of you!”

Jane Goring looked down at her. “I take it you have friends in the gallery?” she said.

“No, I have no friends in New York.”

Goring continued to gaze down and her look was not altogether pleasant. But the girl did not see it. With an impulsive gesture, half apologetic, half worshipful, she lifted the star’s hand to her lips.

“God bless you!” she murmured with that queer catch in her voice.