Part 3

“Welcome!” Mr. Macaulay boomed in a surprising bass voice. “Now let’s sit down and talk this over.” He motioned Peggy to sit on one of a pair of straight-backed chairs, while he stood by the other with one foot up on its petit-point seat.

“Now,” he said abruptly, “what makes you think you can act?”

Taken aback, Peggy stammered a little. “Well ... well, I’ve been in a lot of plays in college and high school and ... and I always got good reviews ... I mean, everybody always thought that I was....”

“Won’t do.” Mr. Macaulay cut in decisively. “You’re telling me why other people think you can act. What I want to know is why _you_ think you can act.”

This time, Peggy answered with more control. “I don’t really think I can, Mr. Macaulay,” she said calmly and earnestly, “even though I did get those good notices. But I know that I want to, and I hope that I can learn here.”

“A good answer!” the little director thundered happily. “Now tell me _why_ you want to act, and how you _know_ it’s what you really want to do, and we’ll be well on the way to a lasting friendship.”

Peggy thought for a minute before answering. She sensed that her answer would be important in deciding whether she would be accepted as a member of the Academy or not, and she wanted to be sure that the words were a true reflection of what she wanted to say.

“Mr. Macaulay, I want to act for the same reason that I grew up in Rockport, Wisconsin. It just happened. I didn’t choose it; it chose me. And I know it’s what I really want because when I’m acting, I feel about one hundred per cent more alive than when I’m not—and it’s a wonderful feeling.”

Mr. Macaulay nodded solemnly, removed his foot from the chair and walked twice around the room in silence, neatly dodging the chairs and tables that filled the place. As he seemed to be starting a third circuit of the room, he stopped, turned and replaced his foot on the chair.

“Young lady,” the little director said softly, “if you’re any more alive on the stage than you are right here in this room, you’ll light up the audience like an arc lamp!”

Then he strode rapidly to the door, opened it, and turned to smile warmly at Peggy. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you,” he said.

“But, Mr. Macaulay,” Peggy said, “won’t you even give me a chance to read for you? I’ve got three short selections prepared, and—”

“Not for at least six months,” the director cut in. “I never hear readings from beginners.”

“Six months? Then I can’t start this term!” Peggy said, almost in tears.

“Of course you’ll start this term,” Mr. Macaulay said. “We begin in two weeks. Miss Carson will give you all the necessary forms and the catalogue and anything else you need. Glad to have you with us!”

“But ... but ...” Peggy sputtered. “You mean I’m accepted? Without even reading for you? Just like that?”

“Just like that,” Mr. Macaulay agreed calmly. “I don’t believe in readings. What I look for is personality and presence and a feeling for the stage. The right kind of feeling for the stage,” he added. “As for the readings, I’ll be glad to hear you after you’ve had about six months of work with the Academy. I can tell you’ll be one of our good ones.”

With a few words of farewell to the confused Peggy, he led her to Miss Carson’s desk and quickly retreated to what Peggy already thought of as his “natural habitat.”

Only after she was through with Miss Carson and her papers and forms and was on the way down in the ancient elevator did it finally dawn on Peggy that she had actually gotten what she had wanted for years—she was accepted in the best dramatic school in New York! The elevator seemed hardly big enough to hold her; she wanted to run, to jump, to sing! What she was actually doing seemed the silliest thing imaginable. She was grinning a wide, foolish grin and at the same time tasting the salty tears that were probably smearing her mascara.

“Congratulations,” said the elevator operator. “Not everyone makes it.”

“Oh! How did you know?” Peggy gasped, dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief.

“Knew you were trying when I saw you come up with the play scripts,” he answered. “And I knew you made it when I saw your face.” He slid back the squealing grillwork gate. “So long,” he said. “See you in a couple of weeks.”

At the end of the long hall, the doorway filled with sunshine seemed to be paved with gold. Outside, it seemed to Peggy, the whole city was paved with gold. She impulsively ran to the door, poised in the sunlight, and blew a theatrical kiss at the sky.

When Peggy, bubbling with her news, returned to the hotel, it was decided to fill the time before lunch with a necessary shopping tour. She needed so much, now that she was to live in New York. Mr. Lane decided to let Peggy and her mother take care of this aspect of the trip, while he visited some old newspaper friends. He arranged to meet them for lunch at the hotel in two hours, kissed them fondly, and boarded a bus downtown.

Rockport was never like this, Peggy thought, as she and her mother walked along looking in shop windows. They were so excited just deciding which stores to shop in and what things she needed, that before they had a chance to actually buy anything, it was time for lunch.

“At least we had a chance to find out where all the nice stores are,” Mrs. Lane said. “And it doesn’t matter that we didn’t get you your things. You’ll probably have more fun going shopping by yourself or with some of your new friends when you come back here to live. Besides, we won’t have to bring things home and then carry them all the way back to New York again.”

Peggy agreed that it made sense, and at the thought of her “new friends” and of buying her own things in New York’s world-famous stores, she got a little thrill of pleasure and anticipation.

After lunch, made memorable by Mr. Lane’s new collection of newspaper stories picked up from his old friends, it was time to travel downtown to meet May Berriman and see where Peggy would be living.

As their taxi took them downtown from the hotel, Peggy noticed how the city seemed to change character every few blocks. The types of buildings and the kinds of stores changed; the neighborhood grew progressively more shabby; there were more trucks in the streets and fewer taxis. Peggy wondered what sort of neighborhood May Berriman’s place was in. Mrs. Lane, too, looked a bit concerned and whispered to Mr. Lane, “Are you sure we’re going the right way?”

He nodded and said, “You don’t know New York. Wait and see.”

In the middle of what appeared to be a district of warehouses and office buildings, the cab turned a corner, and a swift change again overtook the city. Suddenly there were well-kept apartment houses and residential hotels and then, with another turn, it was as if time itself had been turned back!

The street ended in a beautiful old-fashioned park surrounded by a high wrought-iron fence in which were set tall gates. The street around the park was lined with old, mellow brick mansions whose steps led up to high doors fitted with gleaming brass knobs, knockers, and hinges. Peggy almost expected to see top-hatted gentlemen emerge from them to descend, swinging slim canes, to waiting carriages.

“This is Gramercy Park,” her father said. “It’s still one of the most fashionable and beautiful parts of the city. May’s house is just off the park, and she tells me she has park rights for herself and the girls who live with her.”

“Park rights?” Peggy said wonderingly. “Do you mean it’s a private park?”

“That’s right,” her father answered. “One of the last in New York. Its use is limited to people who live right around it, all of whom have keys to the gates. That’s one thing that makes this such a nice place to live.”

The cab had made almost a complete circle of the park when the driver turned off into a side street. Two doors down he stopped before a handsome brownstone house, complete with the steep steps and brass fittings that were typical of the area. On either side of the steps, at street level, stood a square stone column, and on each one was a polished brass plate engraved: Gramercy Arms.

As Peggy started up the steps she caught a glimpse through the windows in the little areaway below street level. The spacious kitchen she saw looked far more typical of Rockport than anything she would have expected to find in New York City, and it made her feel sure that she would like living in May Berriman’s house.

May Berriman herself proved to be as big and as warm looking and as countrified as her kitchen. Her erect carriage and bright-red hair belied her more than sixty years, and her voice was deep and even, with none of the quaver that Peggy was used to hearing in older people. She met them at the door with vast and impartial enthusiasm, kissed them all and ushered them into a tiny sitting room, tastefully furnished with a mixture of modern and antique pieces. They had scarcely had time to say hello when tea was served by a bright-eyed, kimonoed Japanese woman who might have been any age at all. Peggy watched in silent pleasure as May Berriman poured the tea in the formal English style, using an essence, fresh boiled water, an alcohol burner to keep the tea hot, and an assortment of tongs, spoons, and strainers. It was not until each of them had a fragile cup of hot, fragrant tea and a plate of delicate little sandwiches that May Berriman sat back, relaxed, for conversation.

“Peggy, your father told me on the phone that you have been accepted in the Academy. I’m delighted. Now tell me, what do you think of Archer Macaulay?”

“I hardly know,” Peggy admitted. “I’ve never met anyone like him. Is he always as abrupt as that?”

“Always!” May Berriman laughed. “Ever since I’ve known Archie—and that goes back a good many years—he’s tried to act like a bad playwright’s idea of an Early Victorian theatrical genius. It’s a peculiar sort of act when you first see it, but after a while you get used to it and hardly notice at all. Besides, it’s not all sham. He may not be Early Victorian, but he is a theatrical genius.”

“Was he an actor?” Peggy asked.

“Goodness, no! Only in his personal life! There’s a world of difference between acting and teaching; you hardly ever find anyone who’s good at both. Macaulay’s a magnificent teacher, so he had sense enough never even to try acting.”

“But,” Peggy objected, “how can you teach something you can’t do?”

May Berriman smiled. “Oh, Archie can do, all right. He’s that rarest of all talents—a talented audience. He knows when something is good and when it isn’t, and if it’s not good, he knows just what it lacks. He just keeps asking for what he wants, and when he gets it—if he gets it—it turns out to be just what everyone else wants, too. That’s why he has been able to discover and develop more fine talent than any other man of our time. You’re a lucky girl to be able to work with Archer Macaulay. Even to be accepted for his school is a great honor.”

Peggy nodded in understanding as May Berriman talked about the talent for recognizing talent, remembering her last conversation with her friend Jean Wilson. Maybe some day, Peggy thought, she herself, an old retired actress, would be serving tea in her own house, and talking in just such tones of affection and admiration for her friend Jean, who would then be the famous director of the best dramatic school in....

She was brought out of her daydream by her mother, who touched her arm gently and said, “Back to earth, dear. Mrs. Berriman wants to show us the room you’re to have.”

The room was small, but comfortably furnished as a sitting room, with a large couch that opened to a bed. Two tall windows with window seats set in their deep frames looked out into the tops of two lacy trees that rose from a tiny, well-kept garden. An easy chair and a low table stood in front of a little fireplace that really worked—a rare thing in New York. An antique desk between the windows and a large bureau opposite the fireplace completed the furnishings. The couch was covered in a deep blue that matched the blue carpet, the walls were white, and the windows were draped in a white fabric with blue cabbage roses. The same fabric covered the easy chair.

“It’s perfect!” Peggy said, and rushed off to try the big easy chair. “I’m going to love it here!” she said. “In fact, I hardly want to go home!”

“I’m afraid, Peg,” Mr. Lane said, looking at his watch, “that that’s just what we’re going to have to do, and in a very few minutes. If we want to make our plane, we’d better be getting back to the hotel to pack.”

The brief good-by, the taxi ride around Gramercy Park and back uptown, the hurried packing, the trip to the airport and the now-familiar process of boarding and take-off seemed to Peggy as fast, as jerky and peculiar as a movie run backward. She wanted to play it back right again, to put everything in its proper sequence, and live over her exciting day.

And that’s exactly what she did, in her mind’s eye, all the way back to Rockport.

V _Starting a New Role_

Rockport had never looked so little as it did from the air. The plane circled the town at dusk, just as the stewardess finished serving supper, and as Peggy looked down from the oval window next to her seat, she saw the street lights suddenly flick on, section by section, all over the town. The familiar streets glowed under their canopies of trees, the houses were almost hidden under other trees and, in the center of the town, a few neon lights added warmth and color.

Peggy hardly knew what she felt for the place where she had been born and where she had lived her whole life. A wave of tenderness came over her for Rockport, so small and homelike, surrounded by its farms and forests and lakes. And at the same time, she compared this view from the air with the sight of New York, towering and dramatic in the afternoon sunshine. Who could settle for Rockport, after breathing the excitement of the giant city? Still ... she wondered if New York could ever be to her the home that Rockport was.

The somewhat bumpy runway of Armory Field was under their wheels. Peggy was home again. But in her mind, she was still in the city, starting her new and wonderful life.

After quickly unpacking and changing to a skirt and blouse more suitable to Rockport than the smart traveling suit she had worn on the plane, Peggy came running downstairs. Her father sat in his easy chair reading the two issues of the _Eagle_ that had come out in his absence. Her mother sat in the wing chair opposite, working serenely on her needle point. To look at them, Peggy thought, one would suppose that they had never left home, that nothing at all had changed from what it had been two days ago.

“I’m going out for a while,” she announced. “I’ve just got to tell Jean right away, or I’ll burst for sure!”

“All right, dear,” Mrs. Lane said. “But don’t stay out too late. You’ve had an exciting day, and you’re going to need some sleep.”

With a wave of her hand, Peggy left and, whistling boyishly, skipped down the front steps. Once on the street, the last of her grown-up reserve left her, and she ran all the way to the Wilson house to arrive, panting and breathlessly bright-eyed, a few moments later.

“Jean’s down at the Sweet Shop,” Mrs. Wilson said, “but I know she’ll want to see you. I’ll call and tell her not to leave, and you can meet her there.”

Peggy thanked Mrs. Wilson briefly, and ran back home once more to collect her bike. As she pedaled down Chestnut Street, she wondered how many more times she would ride her bike again. It was not the sort of thing one did in New York, obviously. And besides, the bike was a part of her childhood and early teens, and now she was coming out of them and off to the great adventure of becoming a woman! Thinking this, she slowed down a little, so as to enjoy the ride and the familiar sights around her. Growing up would happen soon enough, she now knew. Meanwhile, she wanted to slowly taste and enjoy the pleasures of small-town girlhood that were not to come again.

Her subdued mood lasted only until she arrived at the Sweet Shop. There she found Jean, Betty Dugan, Alice Schultz, and Millie Pratt crowded around a soda-laden table, laughing and talking. They managed to make room for one more chair and as soon as Peggy was seated, turned silent, expectant faces to her.

Looking from face to face, Peggy suddenly laughed. “You look like a nestful of baby birds waiting to be fed!”

Then she told her friends the whole story of her trip, starting, of course, with the main fact that she had been accepted at Mr. Macaulay’s famous New York Dramatic Academy. Describing him, she acted him out for them, and soon had the girls in fits of laughter. Then she went on to tell about May Berriman, the room she would live in, the quaint old-fashioned neighborhood around Gramercy Park, the private park and all the rest. When she had finished, she said to Jean, “Doesn’t it make you want to change your mind? I do wish you’d come, too. It’s going to be wonderful, but with you there, it would be absolutely perfect!”

Jean shook her head ruefully. “I must admit it sounds tempting,” she said, “but I stand on what I told you before about what I want to do. I don’t think I’m an actress at all, and if I tried to be one, I’d probably only fail. And that wouldn’t make me happy at all. If I do what I plan to, though, I’ll probably succeed, and that way I’ll have a happy life.”

Peggy nodded her agreement. “I guess I was only testing you, in a way,” she admitted, “just to see if you really meant it. Now that I know you do, I’m sure that you’re absolutely right.”

Then she told her friend about the discussion she had had with May Berriman about Mr. Macaulay, and what the older woman had told Peggy about his great ability as a teacher and his lack of ability as an actor.

“She said, too, that the ability to recognize talent and to develop it is a lot rarer than the talent itself. And all the time she was talking, I was thinking about you and our last talk together.”

“Well, that makes me feel a lot better,” Jean admitted. “It’s good to know that there are other people—real professionals—who think about things the same way I do. Thanks for telling me.”

Then the talk turned to other things besides the theater: clothes, boys, the coming school year at Rockport Community College, for which Peggy would not be there—all the hundreds of things that girls talk about. Before Peggy realized it, it was ten-thirty, and she was beginning to yawn.

“It’s not the company,” she said, “it’s the hour. Not exactly original, but perfectly true. I’m afraid I’d better be getting home.”

The others agreed that it was their bedtime too, and they trooped out to the bicycle rack to say their good nights. Peggy and Jean rode side by side slowly down the leafy street, feeling the first slight chill that announced the end of summer was at hand.

“When will you be leaving?” Jean asked.

“I guess in about a week,” Peggy said. “The term starts in two weeks, and I want to get settled in New York before school begins, so that I can have my mind all clear for work. I think I’ll need a week just to get really comfortable in my room, do the shopping I’ll have to do, and find my way around the city. I want to know about buses and subways and things like that before I get started.”

“That sounds like a good idea to me,” Jean replied. “What I would do if I were you is to get a street map of the city, and a guidebook, and spend some time just wandering around so you get the idea of where things are.”

“That’s just what I plan to do,” Peggy said. “In fact, my father suggested the same thing. He said that I should go on a few guided tours, too. They have buses that take tourists all around the city and show them everything of interest. Dad says that native New Yorkers, and people who are trying to make other people think that they’re native New Yorkers, are ashamed to be seen on the sight-seeing buses, which seems pretty silly to me. The result is that people who come from out of town often know more about New York than the people who have grown up there!”

Both girls laughed at the idea, then Peggy continued, “I plan to spend at least a week taking tours, and walking around the streets with a guidebook, and shopping. I’d better leave next week, I guess.”

“It seems so soon,” Jean said a little sadly. “I’m going to miss you.”

“It is soon,” Peggy admitted, “but I’d rather be rushed than have to wait for a month and think about nothing but the day I’m going to leave. Even as it is, there’ll be too much time for good-bys, and I hate saying good-by. Especially to people I care for.”

The girls rode the rest of the way in silence, each thinking her own thoughts about their long association which was now to come to an end. They came to Peggy’s house first and stopped their bikes.

Then Peggy said, “Of course I’ll write,” as if she were answering a question that Jean had asked.

Jean laughed, “You’re right! That’s just what I was thinking! I wonder how long it’ll be before either of us finds another person we can do that with again?”

“I don’t suppose we ever will,” Peggy said. “And it’s probably just as well. There’s something a little weird about it!”

Then, on common impulse, they recited in chorus the witches’ lines from _Macbeth_, only changing the “three” to “two.”

“When shall we two meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”

And with laughter and witchlike cackles, they said good night.

The next week flew by in a continual round of farewells, packing, endless talk in the Sweet Shop about acting and the life Peggy would be leading in New York and, the night before her departure, a big farewell party at Jean’s house. It was a tired Peggy, glad to be on her way at last, who found herself once more at the airport with her parents. But this time, she was to fly alone.

“Are you sure you packed everything?” her mother asked for perhaps the tenth time.

“Positive,” Peggy assured her.

“And you know how to get from the airport to Gramercy Park?” her father asked, also for perhaps the tenth time.

“I’ll never forget!” Peggy laughed.

“Well...” Mrs. Lane said.

“Well...” Mr. Lane said.

They stood, all three, looking at one another, not knowing what to say. Then Peggy’s mother, with more than a faint suspicion of tears in her eyes, threw her arms about her daughter and kissed her.

“Oh dear!” she said. “You’d better get on that plane right away, or I am going to be silly and cry!”

Peggy kissed both her parents and started through the gate across the concrete strip where the big plane waited. As she turned to wave good-by, her mother called, “Are you sure you have—”

“Yes!” Peggy shouted back. “I’m sure!”

“And don’t forget to phone the minute you get there!” her father called, his last words drowned out by the sound of a plane that swooped low overhead.

At the top of the boarding steps, Peggy waved again for the last time, then went in to her seat to start her first flight alone—a flight that would bring her to all she had ever hoped for.

It was dark when the plane arrived in New York this time, and if Peggy had thought the sight breathtaking when she first saw it, she was absolutely stunned by this!

In every direction, as far as she could see, the streets stretched out like blazing strings of lights, white, red, blue, green, with sudden bursts and knots of brighter light where major streets joined. As the plane banked and turned, she saw a superhighway winding along the edge of a bay, interrupted by complicated cloverleafs, underpasses and overpasses. The lights on the highway were diamond-blue, and the road was dotted with headlights and taillights of thousands of cars like fireflies in the night.