CHAPTER IX
THE CASTLE OF LIFE
It seemed to Esther Crippen that she had been sitting in the wings of the theater every evening for half her lifetime, although it had been only a week since Polly"s initial appearance as the Fairy of the Woods in the dramatization of the ancient legend "The Castle of Life."
At first she had spent every moment after Polly"s departure from the dressing room in peering out from some inconspicuous corner at whatever action was taking place upon the stage. Now, however, the play and even the actors themselves had become a comparatively old story. Her interest centered itself chiefly in Polly--in Polly and the odd human characters that she saw everywhere about her. Indeed, except for her nervousness and care of her friend, this week had been almost as absorbing to Esther Crippen as to the other girl. For after the first two nights she had lost her fear that Polly might make an absolute failure of her part, and also the impression that either of them might be insulted or unkindly treated by the men and women about them.
People had been rough perhaps, but thoroughly business-like. And if Polly were told to hurry, or to move on, or corrected for some mistake in her work, it was all done in so impersonal a fashion that both girls had learned valuable lessons from the experience. Esther had been amazed at the spirit in which Polly had accepted the discipline and hard work. Perhaps, after all, she had been making a mountain out of a mole hill and this disobedience on Polly"s part, wrong though it certainly was, might not result in anything so disastrous as she had at first feared.
And there was no doubt that Polly was achieving a real success, one that surprised her and every one else. Her part was only a small one, with but few words to speak; otherwise she could never have managed it with no previous experience and so little time for rehearsing.
Nevertheless she had made one of those sudden yet conspicuous triumphs that are so frequent in stage life. Sometimes it may happen with a girl playing the part of a maid, sometimes with a man who has not half a dozen sentences to recite. It is the quality in the acting that counts. And the manager in choosing Polly for the special role he had desired had chosen wisely. For it was not so much the girl"s method of playing that had won sympathy and applause, as her manner and appearance.
And curiously enough, though Polly was frightened the first night of the performance, she was not so much so as on that evening of the Camp Fire play the previous year, before an audience of friends.
Polly felt herself at the heart of her first great adventure. The play itself, the other actors and actresses, the strangeness of her surroundings, all occupied her to the forgetting of her own individuality. It seemed as though she were only living out a kind of dream. Nothing was real, nothing was actual about her. The audience did not terrify her, nor the lights, nor the darkness, nor the queer smell of dust and paint and artificiality, that is a necessary part of the background of stage life.
Perhaps the girl had found her element. For there is for each one of us a place in this world, some niche into which one really fits. And though this place may seem crowded, or ugly, or undesirable to other people, if it should be our own, it holds a feeling of comfort and of possession that no other spot can.
But Polly had not been thinking of niches or elements or anything of the kind either tonight or during the week past. All of her being was too deeply absorbed in the interest of the play and the actors and her own little part.
At the present moment she was in hiding behind a piece of scenery, eagerly awaiting the cue for her own entrance; yet she was as keenly intent upon each detail of the acting taking place upon the stage as if tonight it were a first experience.
The players happened to be the two persons who had been kindest and most helpful to her in the company. And one of them one was the brown-eyed girl whose lead she had followed on the day of her own engagement. Polly had been glad to make the discovery later that this same girl had been engaged to play the part of Grazioso"s grandmother in "The Castle of Life." The other actor was the star, a young man of about twenty-six or seven, who was impersonating Grazioso, the hero of the fairy story.
The stage was in semi-darkness, while the grandmother related to the boy the tale of her first meeting with the fairies. A small, shabby room revealed a low fire burning in the grate. In an armchair sat the old woman, while her grandson lay on the floor at her feet with his head resting upon his hand.
"There are two fairies," said the grandmother, "two great fairies--the Fairy of the Water and the Fairy of the Woods. Ten years ago I had gone out at daybreak to catch the crabs asleep in the sand, when I saw a halcyon flying gently towards the sh.o.r.e. The halcyon is a sacred bird, so I never stirred for fear I should scare it away. And at the same time from a cleft in the mountain I saw a beautiful green adder appear and come gliding along the sands toward the bird. When they were near each other the adder twined itself around the neck of the halcyon as if it were embracing it tenderly. Then I saw a great black cat, who could be nothing else than a magician, hiding itself behind a rock close to me. And scarcely had the halcyon and adder embraced than the cat sprang on the innocent pair. This was my time to act. I seized him in spite of his struggles and with the knife I used for opening oysters I cut off the monster"s head, paws and tail. And as soon as I had thrown the creature"s body into the sea, before me stood two beautiful ladies, one with a crown of white feathers and the other with a scarf made of snake"s skins. They were, as I have told you, the Fairy of the Water and the Fairy of the Woods."
With these words, Polly moved a few steps nearer the place set for her entrance. On the opposite side she could see the other girl who impersonated the water fairy, also ready to make her entrance. Tonight was New Year"s eve and the house was unusually crowded.
But the grandmother was continuing her speech.
"Enchanted by a wicked Jinn, they were obliged to remain bird and snake until some hand should restore them to liberty. To me they owed freedom and power. "Ask what thou wilt," they said, "and thy wishes shall be fulfilled."
"I thought how I was old and had too hard a life to wish for it over again. But the day would come when nothing would be too good for thee, my child." The old woman leaned over, stroking her grandson"s dark hair. "The Fairy of the Woods gave me a scale from the snake"s skin and the Fairy of the Water a small white feather from her crown. They are hidden in a box under some rags. Open the box and thou wilt find the scale and the feather."
The boy then crossed the stage and a moment later handed the box to the old woman, who appeared too ill to leave her chair.
After bending over and listening to her instructions, he stepped forward nearer the footlights. There in the center of the room was a bowl of water in which he placed the feather and the scale.
"Wish for thyself anything thou desirest, fortune, greatness, wit, power," murmurs the old woman. "But embrace me first, as I feel that I am dying."
But Grazioso did not approach either to embrace or ask the old woman"s blessing.
"I wish my grandmother to live forever!" he cried. "Appear, Fairy of the Woods. Appear, Fairy of the Water!"
And now in perfect silence Polly O"Neill made her entrance. She moved very slowly forward, so slim and young and tall, with such big, dark-blue eyes, and such slender, elfish grace that she did not look like a real flesh-and-blood girl.
The audience stirred, and a little breath of appreciation moved through it, which Polly was almost learning to expect.
She wore her own black hair unbound and hanging loose below her shoulders. It was made blacker by the wreath of leaves that encircled her head. She was dressed in an olive-green gown of some soft, clinging material and a scarf of snake"s skin was fastened over her shoulder.
The Fairy of the Water followed Polly. Her gown was white with a blue scarf, and she was small and blonde. She was a pretty girl, but somehow there was no suggestion of the fairy about her. One could see the same type of girl any time, standing behind a counter in a shop, or dancing at a party of young people.
Polly"s grace and her ardent, unconventional temperament made it easy to understand why the attention should be focused upon her during this single scene. Besides, she had one long speech to deliver.
This was the moment when the girl felt her only real nervousness. For always there was the uncertainty as to whether her voice would be strong and full enough to be heard throughout the theater. Tonight and for the first time she hesitated for a second. Yet no one noticed it, except the actors near her and Esther, who had crept forth, for a closer view in spite of the stage regulations.
"Have you forgotten your lines, child?" the leading man whispered so quietly that no one could overhear.
But Polly only smiled, with a faint shake of her graceful head.
"Here we are, my child," she began the next instant, speaking in clear, girlish tones that showed nothing of indecision or embarra.s.sment.
"We have heard what you said and your wish does you credit. We can prolong your grandmother"s life for some time. But to make her live forever you must find The Castle of Life."
"Madam," replied Grazioso, "I will start at once."
"It is four long days" journey from here," the Fairy of the Woods continued. "If you can accomplish each of these four days" journey without turning out of your road and if, on arriving at the castle, you can answer the three questions that an invisible voice will ask you, you will receive there all that you desire. For there the fountain of immortality will be found."
Then slowly the great stage curtain descended. And this was the end of Polly"s part in the performance, though one more ordeal was to follow.
And though she welcomed this, Polly also dreaded it more than anything else. Always a curtain call came at the close of this scene, when she and the Fairy of the Water, each holding a hand of Grazioso"s, must step forth to the footlights and for an instant face the audience, smiling their thanks for the applause.
But Polly had never been able to summon a smile, for at this moment she had always become self-conscious. The glamour and the excitement of the theater suddenly deserted her and she felt not like a fairy or anything fantastic, but only like Polly O"Neill, a very untrained and frightened girl who was deceiving her family and friends to have this first taste of stage life, and who might suffer almost any kind of consequences: imprisonment in some boarding school, Polly feared, where she might never again be allowed any liberty or an equal imprisonment in Woodford, with no mention of the theater made in her presence as long as she lived. For Polly could not determine to what lengths her mother"s anger and disapproval of her conduct might lead her. And she did mean to make her confession and face the results as soon as her two weeks" engagement was over.
Therefore tonight she kept an even tighter clasp on Grazioso"s hand than usual, her knees were shaking so absurdly. And all the faces in the audience were swimming before her, as though they had no features but eyes. Then suddenly the girl grew rigid with surprise, uncertainty and fear.
In the second row just under the footlights she had discovered a face that was strangely familiar. And yet could it be possible that this person of all others should be here in New York City and in the theater tonight, instead of in the village of Woodford?
CHAPTER X
THE RECOGNITION
Esther was not waiting in the accustomed place where Polly had previously found her when she came off the stage. On her way to the dressing room she shivered a little, missing the coat that her friend was in the habit of wrapping about her shoulders. The night was extremely cold and the back of a theater is nearly always breezy.
Polly hurried faster than usual to her room--a small dark one at the end of a pa.s.sage-way. But even here there was no sign of Esther. What could have become of her? She was not apt to be talking with any of the members of the company; for both girls had decided that it was wiser to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible.
Well, she must do her best to get out of her fairy costume and back into sensible garments by her own efforts. Esther would be coming along in a few moments. She could not stand idle with her teeth fairly chattering and those ridiculous little chills chasing themselves all over her. Wouldn"t it be too absurd to take cold at this particular time and so make a failure of her adventure? For she would thus heap all the family disapproval and punishment upon her own head and incur the righteous indignation of everybody in the company by having to resign her part.
Would any one ever have imagined that a garment could be so difficult to unfasten as this one she was now incased in? For of course the stiffness and shakiness of Polly"s fingers came from the zero temperature in her dressing room and not in the least from the momentary fright she had received from her supposed recognition of a face in the audience. Undoubtedly she had been mistaken. Yet why should she have chosen to believe that she saw about the most unlikely person of her acquaintance? A guilty conscience should have conjured up some ghost who had more right to be present.
Polly finally did succeed in getting into her street clothes without a.s.sistance; and though five, ten minutes pa.s.sed, Esther did not appear in the dressing room. Nor was she anywhere in the hall, since Polly had several times thrust her head out the door to look for her.
Polly was a little uneasy, though a.s.suredly nothing serious could have happened to Esther. Esther had been very good to her during these past days, so staunch and loyal, never reproaching her or arguing once she had become convinced that Polly"s mind was made up, and taking such wonderful care of her, guarding her so closely! If ever there came a time when her mother, or Mollie, or Betty should attempt to blame Esther for her part in this escapade, Polly had determined that they should understand the situation in its true light. And some day she might be able to return Esther"s allegiance and devotion. For always the opportunity to serve a friend will come if one is sufficiently on the lookout for it.