Rather grimly Richard Hunt gazed at the card he held in his hand. It bore a name that was not Polly O"Neill"s and the address of a quiet street in Boston. What on the face of the earth could she be doing? It was impossible to guess, and yet it was certainly nothing very unwise if her mother knew and approved of it.
Whether or not he had the right to find out, Richard Hunt had positively decided to take advantage of his recognition of Polly O"Neill and insist upon her confidence. He could not have explained even to himself why he was so determined on this course of action. However, it was true, as her friend Betty Ashton had insisted the night before, whether or not you happened to feel a liking for Polly, you were not apt to forget her.
In the past few months it was curious how often he had found himself wondering what had become of the girl. He recalled her having run away several years before to make her first stage appearance and then their meeting in Margaret Adams" drawing room in London later on. Well, perhaps curiosity was not alone a feminine trait of character, for Richard Hunt felt convinced he would be more at peace with himself and the world when he had learned Polly"s story from her own lips.
CHAPTER XII-After Her Fashion Polly Explains
The next afternoon a dark-haired woman a little past thirty came into the boarding house sitting room to see Richard Hunt before Polly made her appearance.
"I am Mrs. Martins, Miss O"Neill"s chaperon," she explained. "Or if I am not exactly her chaperon at least we are together and I am trying to see that no harm befalls her. No, she is not calling herself by her own name, but she will prefer to give you her own reason for that. I have met her mother several times, so that of course I understand the situation." Mrs. Martins was a woman of refinement and of some education and her p.r.o.nunciation of her own name showed her to be of French origin.
Already the situation was slightly less mystifying. Yet there was still a great deal for Polly to make clear if she chose to do so. However, it was curious that she was taking so long a time to join them.
Mrs. Martins continued to talk about nothing in particular, so it was evident that she intended making no betrayals. Now and then she even glanced toward the door in some embarra.s.sment, as though puzzled and annoyed by her companion"s delay. And while Richard Hunt was answering her politely if vaguely, actually he was on the point of deciding that Polly did not intend coming down stairs at all. Well perhaps it would serve him right, for what authority did he have for forcing the girl"s confession? And she was certainly quite capable of punishing him by placing him in an absurd situation.
Nevertheless nothing was farther from Polly O"Neill"s intention at the present moment. She was merely standing before her mirror in her tiny upstairs bedroom trying to summon sufficient courage to meet her guest and tell her story.
Once or twice she had started for the door only to return and stare at herself with intense disapproval. She had rubbed her cheeks with a crash towel until at least they were crimson enough, although the color was not very satisfying, and she had arranged her hair three times, only to decide at the last that she had best have left it alone at first.
Now she made a little grimace at her own image, smiling at almost the same instant.
"My beloved Princess or Mollie, I do wish you could lend me your good looks for the next half hour," she murmured half aloud. "It is so much easier to be eloquent and convincing in this world when one happens to be pretty. But I, well certainly I would serve as a perfect ill.u.s.tration of "a rag and a bone and a hank of hair" at this moment if at no other."
Polly glanced down at her costume with more satisfaction than she had found in surveying her face. It was not in the least shabby, but a very charming dress which her mother had sent as a part of her Christmas box.
The dress was of dark red crepe de Chine with a velvet girdle and collar of the same shade. And although under ordinary circ.u.mstances it might have been becoming, today Polly was not wrong in believing that she was not looking even her poor best. She was tired and nervous. Of course it did not matter so very much what Mr. Hunt might think of the story she had to tell him, but later on there would be many other persons whom she would have to persuade to accept her point of view. And somehow she felt that if she failed to convince her first listener she must fail with the others.
Then unexpectedly, before hearing the sound of her approach, Richard Hunt discovered a cold hand being extended to shake his, and in a voice even more chilling Polly O"Neill was apologizing for having kept him waiting. Yet on the way down the steps had she not positively made up her mind to be so cordial and agreeable that her visitor should forget her other deficiencies?
With a feeling of amazement mixed with despair Polly seated herself in the darkest corner of a small sofa next Mrs. Martins, deciding that it was quite useless, that she should attempt no explanation. Mr. Hunt and her companion could talk together about the weather if they chose, for she could not think of a single word to say. Afterwards her visitor could go away and give any account of her he wished, although naturally this might frustrate all her hopes and ambitions and make her dearest friends angry with her for life. Yet if one were always to suffer from stage fright at all the critical moments of one"s career what else could be expected?
At this moment Mrs. Martins excused herself and left the room. Polly saw her go with a characteristic shrug of her shoulders and an odd glance at her visitor. The moment had come. Mr. Hunt would discover that she had not even the grace to keep her promise, and heaven alone knew what he would soon think of her.
Yet after saying good-by to her companion he continued talking in the kindest possible fashion, telling her news of Esther and d.i.c.k Ashton, saying how much he admired Betty and Mollie.
Indeed in less than five minutes Polly had actually managed to forget the reason for her visitor"s call and was asking him questions about her old friends, faster than they could be answered.
"Was their play, A Woman"s Wit, still as great a success as it had been at the start? Was Margaret Adams well or had the winter"s work used her up? Did Betty Ashton seem to have any special admirer in Boston?"
Actually in a brief quarter of an hour Polly"s eyes were shining and her lips smiling. Curled up comfortably on her sofa she suddenly appreciated that she was having the most agreeable time she had enjoyed in months.
Then again her expression changed and her brief radiance vanished. Yet this time her companion understood.
"Miss Polly," he said quickly, "please don"t feel that after what happened yesterday I still mean to force you to make a confidant of me.
The truth is I did want very much to hear that all was well with you and that you were not making any kind of mistake. I am not going to be a coward, so I confess that I came here today expecting to force your secret from you simply because I had an advantage over you. But, of course, now that we have been talking together I can see that you are all right, even if you do look rather tired and none too cheerful. So I want to apologize and then I shall go away and not worry you again. Also you may feel entirely a.s.sured that I shall not mention having seen you to any one."
The man had risen from his chair, but before he could move a step forward, Polly had clasped her hands together and was gazing at him imploringly.
"Oh, please, Mr. Hunt, don"t go," she begged. "All of a sudden I have begun to feel that if I don"t tell some one my secret and ask you to approve of me or at least to try to forgive me for what I am doing I shall perish." Actually Polly would now have pushed her visitor back into his chair if he had not sat down again so promptly as to make it unnecessary.
"You are sure you wish to confide in me, Miss Polly? Of course you understand that I will tell no one. But if your mother knows and approves of you, why surely no other person is necessary," he argued.
In reply the girl laughed. "Mother is an angel and for that reason perhaps she does not always approve or understand me exactly. In this case she is just permitting me to have my own way because she promised to let me try and do what I could to become a successful actress and she never goes back on her word. Of course my method seems queer to her and probably will to you. But after all it is the way I see things and one can"t look out of any one"s eyes but one"s own. Surely you believe that, Mr. Hunt?"
Of course any one who really understood Polly O"Neill, Betty Ashton for instance, would have understood at once that she was now beginning to explain her own wilfulness. Yet her question did sound convincing, for a.s.suredly one can have no other vision than one"s own.
Richard Hunt nodded sympathetically, although Polly was looking so absurdly young and so desperately in earnest that he would have preferred to smile.
She was leaning forward with her chin resting on her hand and gazing intently at him. What she saw was a man who seemed almost middle-aged to her. And yet to the girl he seemed almost ideally handsome. His features were strong and well-cut, the nose aquiline, the mouth large and firm.
And he was wearing the kindest possible expression. For half an instant Polly"s thoughts flew away from herself. Surely if any one in the world could be worthy of Margaret Adams it was Richard Hunt. Then she settled down to the telling of her own story.
"You know of course, Mr. Hunt, without my having to say anything more about it, that ever since I was a little girl I have dreamed and hoped and prayed of some day becoming a great actress. Mother says that there was some one in my family once, one of my Irish aunts, I believe, who ran away from home in order to go on the stage and was never recognized again. I have thought sometimes that perhaps I inherited her ambition.
One never knows about things like that, life is so queer. Anyhow when a dozen girls in Woodford formed a Camp Fire and we lived together in the woods for over a year working and playing, mother and Betty and my sister expected me to get over my foolish ideas and learn something through our club that might make me adopt a more sensible career. I don"t mean to be rude to you, Mr. Hunt," Polly was profoundly serious, there was now no hint of amus.e.m.e.nt in her dark blue eyes or in her mobile face, "you understand I am only telling you what my family and friends thought about people who were actors-not what I think. I don"t see why acting isn"t just as great and useful as the other arts if one is conscientious and has real talent. But the trouble with me has been all along that I haven"t any real talent. I suppose if I had been a genius from the first no one would have cared to oppose me. Well the Camp Fire did not influence me against what I wanted to do; it only made me feel more in earnest than I had ever been before. For we girls learned such a lot about courage and perseverance and being happy even if things were not going just the way one liked, that it has all been a great help to me recently, more than at any time in my life."
Richard Hunt nodded gravely. "I see," he said quietly, although in point of fact he did not yet understand in the least what Polly was trying to explain, nor why she should review so much of her past life before coming to her point. He was curiously interested, although ordinarily he might have been bored by such a disjointed story.
Polly was too intense at the moment to have bored anyone. There she sat in her red dress against the darker background of the sofa with her figure almost in shadow and the light falling only upon her odd, eager face.
"I ran away from Miss Adams and from you, not because I was such a coward that I meant to give up the thing I was trying for, but because I knew that I must have a harder time if I was ever to amount to anything.
You see people were trying to make things so easy for me and in a way they were making them more difficult. Margaret gave me that place in her company when I did not deserve it; you tried to show me how to act when I could not learn; my friends were complimenting me when all the time they must have known I was a failure. I couldn"t bear it, Mr. Hunt; really I could not. I am lots of horrid things, but I am not a fraud.
Then Margaret told me what a difficult time she had at the beginning of her career and how no one had helped her. Of course she meant to make me feel that I might be more successful because of my friends" aid, but I did not see things just that way. Oh, I do hope you had to work dreadfully hard at the beginning of your profession and had lots of failures," Polly concluded so unexpectedly and so solemnly that this time Richard Hunt could not refrain from laughing.
"Oh no, it wasn"t all plain sailing for me either, Miss Polly, and it isn"t now for that matter, if it is of any help to you to know it," he added, realizing that his companion was absolutely unconscious of having said anything amusing.
"Before I gave up trying to act Belinda I got a small position in a cheap stock company." Polly had at last reached the point of her story.
"The company has been traveling through New England all winter and is still on the road. We only happened to be in Boston during the holidays.
I have been playing almost any kind of part, sometimes I am a maid, sometimes a lady-in-waiting to the queen; once or twice, when the star has been ill, I have had to take the character of the heroine. Of course all this must sound very silly and commonplace to you, Mr. Hunt, but honestly I am learning a few things: not to be so self-conscious for one thing and to work very, very hard."
"Too hard, Miss Polly, I am afraid," Richard Hunt replied, looking closely at his companion and feeling oddly moved by her confession.
Perhaps the girl"s effort would amount to nothing and perhaps she was unwise in having made it, nevertheless one could not but feel sorry that her friends had suspected her of ingrat.i.tude and lack of affection and that she was engaged in some kind of foolish escapade. Richard Hunt felt extremely guilty himself at the moment.
"Oh no, I am not working too hard or at least not too hard for my health," Polly argued. "You see both my mother and Sylvia are looking after me. Sylvia made me promise her once, when I did not understand what she meant, that I would let her know what I was doing all this winter. So I have kept my promise and every once and a while good old Sylvia travels to where I happen to be staying and looks me over and gives me pills and things." Polly smiled. "You don"t know who Sylvia is and it is rather absurd of me to talk to you so intimately about my family. Sylvia is my step-sister, but she used to be merely my friend when we were girls. She is younger than I am but a thousand times cleverer and is studying to be a physician. She has not much respect for my judgment but she is rather fond of me."
"And your chaperon?" Perhaps Mr. Hunt realized that he was asking a good many questions when he and Polly O"Neill were still comparative strangers; yet he was too much concerned for her welfare at present to care.
Polly did not seem to be either surprised or offended by his questioning, but pleased to have some one in whom she might confide.
"Oh, just at first mother sent one of her old friends about everywhere with me. But when she got tired we found this Mrs. Martins who was having a hard time in New York and needed something to do. She is really awfully nice and is teaching me French in our spare moments. She used to be a dressmaker, I believe, but could not get enough work to do."
Suddenly Polly straightened up and put out her hand this time in an exceedingly friendly fashion.
"Goodness, Mr. Hunt, what a dreadfully long time I have been keeping you here and how good you have been to listen to me so patiently!" she exclaimed. "You will keep my secret for me, won"t you? This winter I don"t want my friends to know what I am trying to do or to come to see me act. I have not improved enough so far."
Still holding Polly"s hand in a friendly clasp, her visitor rose.
"But you will let me come, won"t you?" he urged. "You see I am in your secret now and so I am different from other people. Besides I am very grateful to you for your faith in me and I don"t like to remember now that I first tried bullying you into confiding in me."
Polly"s answering sigh was one of relief. "I don"t seem to mind even that, although I was angry and frightened at first," she returned. "I don"t usually enjoy doing what people make me do. But if you think you really would like to come to see me play, perhaps I should be rather glad. Only you must promise not to let me know when you are there, nor what you think of my acting afterwards."