“Yes, it’s a nice little thing,” said Bruce’s voice in the side wings. Francie turned around, not understanding his tone: he sounded unnaturally polite, as if he were addressing some strange customer in the shop. A moment later he came into sight, leading the way for the Mr. Morris she had met once before at Fredericks & Worpels. Bruce looked startled at sight of her, and not very pleased, though she didn’t pay much attention to that. She was wondering why he should have chosen this night of all nights to take a new friend sight-seeing.
“I didn’t realize anybody was here before us. You’re an early bird, Francie,” said Bruce. “You know Mr. Morris, I believe.”
Mr. Morris nodded; Francie nodded. In the pause that followed her impression grew stronger that Lucky didn’t want her there for some reason. She didn’t mind obliging him by going away—it was time for the rest of the gang to arrive anyway, and she should be in the dressing room getting ready, but she was curious. However, there was no use hanging around and becoming less popular with every tick of the clock. Francie left the stage to the gentlemen. A moment later she was pounced on by a frantic girl who wanted grease paint. The gang had arrived, and in a confusion of rushing, giggling and last-minute catastrophes, she forgot all about Bruce and his unexplained pal.
When you don’t make an appearance for a good part of the play’s beginning, it is hard not to feel in the way. People keep brushing past you, bound importantly for the stage or just as importantly bustling off it, their lines delivered. The property man gives you a glassy stare as he moves a chair out from under you. No matter where you are, it seems to be the wrong place. Francie resigned herself and decided to relax and not mutter all the lines of the first act under her breath on behalf of the actors who were actually onstage. Instead she managed to find for herself a spyhole, or a spycrack, through which to check up on the audience. There were familiar faces all over the place, of course: she saw Pop first, squiring Aunt Norah and Mrs. Clark and evidently enjoying every minute of the performance. Florence Ryan had arranged to sit with them; she looked very prim and dressed up in navy with white lace collar and cuffs. To look at her, thought Francie, you certainly wouldn’t guess that she had such extravagant taste in lingerie. There was Marty, who must have made up her quarrel with Jinx, because there they were with the whole crowd of youngsters, amicably side by side. The companions filled up a whole row. Biddy was undoubtedly there, though not in evidence.
One by one Francie accounted for such friends as weren’t behind the footlights with her, and still she stared and waited, and forgot to watch the play. It wouldn’t have mattered to her at that moment if the whole cast had dried up and needed, the attentions of the prompter. She wasn’t listening; she was waiting for a missing party. At last it arrived, later than anybody else in the audience—Glenn with his mother and the girl. They rustled and tip-toed down the middle aisle, going cautiously in the half-dark, so that Francie had a good look before they settled down in their seats. Valerie Potts was small and slight, with straight very fair hair, cleverly cut. Her clothes were good. The New York-trained Francie felt cattily sorry about that. She had somehow expected that the girl, without benefit of Madison Avenue or Fifth, wouldn’t know how to dress; she had evidently underrated the West Coast.
The audience laughed heartily at something said on the stage, and with a guilty start Francie turned her attention to where it belonged, with the play.
It was over, and it had gone well. To all intents and purposes the worst was passed. Tomorrow night there would be one more performance, but everybody who mattered to the amour-propre of the players had already seen the first night. Chadbourne’s Dramatic Society, as people had somehow got into the habit of calling it, was a success.
After all the curtain calls and the delivery of enormous flower baskets, after all the congratulations, the squeals and kisses and compliments, came a letdown. Francie felt it. Perhaps not everybody was affected in the same way, but when she had rubbed off the make-up and put on her ordinary clothes and entertained Aunt Norah and Pop and Anne Clark in the crowded communal dressing room, she was tired and out of sorts. She had been invited, like the rest of the cast, to go on up to Chadbourne’s and finish the evening with a grand bust, but she had begged off. Bruce, who proposed to drive her there, said that he was disappointed and perplexed and disgusted that she should let him down in such a way, but she didn’t think he took it to heart really. He looked fatigued too; they were all tired, truth to tell, and small wonder. Francie wanted to go home with Pop and the others and have one nice cup of coffee, a hot bath, and a good long sleep.
But when they came out of the stage door and got into the car, somebody parked next to them gave a joyous honk on the horn and made them wait. “Looks like the Stevens chariot,” said Pop. Sure enough, it was Glenn who climbed out from under the wheel and came over.
“Hello, sir,” he said. “Hello, everybody. Hi there, Francie; you were swell, keed. I laughed myself sick. Listen, Mother says why don’t you all come on over for a little while and hold your post-mortem in comfort?”
“I don’t know,” began Pop. He glanced doubtfully at Francie.
“Thanks, Glenn, but we’ve got a young lady here who’s ready to drop on her feet,” said Aunt Norah.
But Francie cut in decisively; she was not going to let Miss Potts suspect she couldn’t face the music. “I’d love to come,” she said. “You aren’t in a hurry, are you, Mrs. Clark?”
No, Mrs. Clark was not in a hurry.
“Just for a little while, then, Glenn,” said Pop. “You pull out ahead of us. I guess your mother’d like to get to the door ahead of her guests.”
The Stevenses were at the door, still unlocking it, when Francie’s party arrived, and the introductions to Valerie Potts were performed on the doorstep. After Biddy’s comments, Francie expected to be greeted with cold, sulky silence from the young lady, but it must have been Biddy and Biddy alone who had a deadening effect on Valerie. From the moment they met, she chattered. She had a lot to say about the play, which she discussed in the lightly patronizing tones of the expert.
“I must contratulate you. It was very cleverly done,” she said. “Quite impressive even to an old hand like me.”
“You’re interested in little theater, Miss Potts?” asked Pop.
“Oh, do please call me Valerie. Well, when you say interested.… Out on the West Coast we naturally pay a lot of attention to the drama. The surroundings, you see, and the influence of Hollywood—I mean, the world’s best actors always come out sooner or later, don’t they? Even in Seattle we feel the effect; and then I go visiting every year. There’s this very dear friend of mine in Carmel and I’m back and forth a lot—madly rich, my dear, I keep telling Glenn I hardly dare to introduce him to her!”
“I wouldn’t trust him if I were you,” said Aunt Norah playfully.
“I don’t trust any man,” said Valerie. She turned to Francie. “But do tell me more about your little society. Have you ever tried anything more ambitious? Out on the Coast—”
“This was our first attempt, I’m afraid.”
“Not really!”
“Couldn’t you tell?” asked Francie.
“Well, now that you mention it.… There was the teeniest lack of polish. But I’m sure it’s nothing that a little practice won’t cure.”
Valerie had ushered the Nelson party in and seated them with a hostesslike manner. She arranged herself on the sofa. In the background, Glenn was bringing out a table and setting it up; Francie tried once or twice to get a look at his face, but she didn’t succeed. Mrs. Stevens had gone into the kitchen and was apparently preparing some sort of refreshment. Any Jefferson girl in Valerie’s place would have gone in to help her, but Valerie was engrossed in conversing with, or rather at, Francie, and didn’t seem to notice what was going on.
“You have one man who’s really good, though,” she said. “He must have been on the stage pretty often. The man who played Jack.”
“Oh
yes,” said Francie. “That’s Lucky Munson.”
“He’s a good actor,” said Valerie. From behind her, Glenn suddenly broke in with a laugh.
“I hear different,” he said, explaining. “Ruth’s cousin, that little Jenner kid, says that on the contrary, he’s a bad actor.”
“Whatever do you mean, silly? He was the best of all,” said Miss Potts.
Glenn said, “Never mind, dear, what I mean isn’t of interest to anybody in this town, anyway, except Chadbourne Fredericks.”
“Riddles!” said Valerie lightly. “You and your small-town gossip!”
Francie didn’t know if her cheeks felt so hot because of the comment on Bruce or because Valerie had called Glenn small-town. Whatever it was, she made no objections when Pop gulped a hasty cup of tea and announced that it was time to go. Certainly it was time to go. She had had quite enough of the evening, of being polite to Valerie and avoiding Anne Clark’s shrewd though kindly scrutiny. What with knowing that her own family’s future was a topic of open discussion in this house, the effort of being brightly courteous and cordial to catty little Valerie, and that unfortunate crack of Glenn’s she didn’t much care if she never saw Stevens again.
On the way home Aunt Norah remarked in her slow, gentle voice that the little Potts girl seemed very high-spirited and pleased with life.
“Pleased with herself, you mean,” said Pop.
“Now, Fred. That’s uncharitable.”
Anne Clark said, “She seems to have that effect on people. On me, too.”
Home at last, and soaking in a hot tub, Francie had just begun to relax when she heard the telephone shrilling. Oh, bother! She climbed out and wrapped herself up in a bathrobe and opened the door in time to hear Pop answering it. He sounded surprised, and after a minute she realized it was because it was late and she was being asked for. She heard him say that he thought his daughter was in bed.
“No, I’m not,” she called. “Wait a minute.”
“You ought to be,” said Pop gruffly as he handed her the receiver.
It was Bruce. “Hello, Baby. I was afraid you might be in bed.”
“Not quite. Is anything the matter? Where are you?”
“Nothing’s the matter,” said Lucky, “only this party’s all wet without you and I wanted to tell you so. It’s still going on. Listen, why did you run out on me?”
“I was tired,” said Francie.
“Sure that was all?”
“Absolutely. Why do you ask? Is there anything I ought to be mad at or something?”
“Well, I thought you might be sore,” said Bruce.
Francie was alert now. She ran things over in her mind. “There’s nothing I can think of,” she admitted at last. “And she—you know who she is—she was actually decent to me tonight when we bumped into each other.”
Lucky was slow on the uptake. “Who was?” he asked.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake. Your keeper, dumb cluck. Mrs. Fredericks.”
“Oh. Nobody’s listening over there, are they? I can’t talk on this end. All right, honey, get yourself a good rest and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Good night, Lucky. It was sweet of you to call.”
“I’m a sweet guy,” said Lucky. “I wish I could make you believe that. ’Bye now.” There was the sound of a smacking kiss in the telephone.
Francie climbed into bed. The call had cheered her up, though as she told herself, there was really no reason why she should need cheering. It was ridiculous to feel so depressed merely because Glenn was marrying a girl she didn’t like very much. After all, Glenn quite obviously didn’t like her Bruce, either, and she was going to marry him. Wasn’t she?
Of course I am, she thought. It was the first time she had come to that decision once and for all. Immediately, she fell asleep.
“Morning, Francie,” said Florence Ryan, already at her little office desk and reading her mail. She had told her assistant to be an hour late that morning, and Francie had been glad to accept the suggestion. “There isn’t much doing,” said Mrs. Ryan. “I thought, the minute I got out of the theater last night, what a dope I was not telling you to take the whole day off. Anne Clark would have been glad to help.”
“Oh, I’m not so fragile as all that, Mrs. Ryan; I don’t have to rest up for the whole day after saying my two lines and a half. Have you unpacked that shipment of ash trays yet? Otherwise I might as well get down to it.”
“Yes, that’d be a good idea.” Mrs. Ryan spoke absently and slit open another envelope. “It was a very funny play, Francie. I thought it made a big hit, and that was a good review in the paper, didn’t you think?”
Francie was tying on a big apron. “They could hardly say it stinks,” she said cheerfully. “Frankly, I thought the costumes made the whole show. Didn’t you?”
“Oh, Anne’s a clever woman,” said Florence Ryan, and darted a quick look at the girl’s face.
Francie was aware of the glance—she was getting used to Jefferson’s little delicate ways. Deliberately she replied, “She’s a very clever woman, and a doggone nice one, too. I don’t know anybody nicer in this town. Do you?”
Florence could hardly have missed the significance of this. Her face lit up and she would have said something revealing, without doubt, if she hadn’t happened to notice the letter she was holding. She forgot the conversation and began to read it to herself. In the shop Francie was carefully bringing out the pottery ash trays one by one, dusting them, and stacking them in the shelves where they were kept, when she heard Mrs. Ryan calling from the office.
“I’ve had a letter from that Redfern woman, the one you seem to have met at the Merchandise Mart,” she said. “I can’t quite understand something she says here about a Mystery Desk we bought. What desk? I didn’t buy any that I know of.” She broke off and read further. “She says you bought it,” she added. “She must be crazy.”
“Oh, I know,” said Francie. “It’s the one we’re using in the play. Lucky Munson bought it, actually, and lent it to us for the production. Mrs. Ryan, he did pay for it, didn’t he? I was sure he had paid.”
“He must have. What I can’t understand is why she seems to think it was you who bought it,” said Florence Ryan.
Francie felt herself blushing. She was about to talk to Mrs. Ryan frankly, but at that moment the telephone rang.
“It’s for you, Francie,” Mrs. Ryan said, coming out of the office in the back. “A colonel, no less.” She made a wry face.
“A colonel?” Francie was puzzled. “Are you joking?” She went back and shut the door, quite unconscious of Mrs. Ryan’s indulgent smile at this.
A few minutes later she sailed out, her eyes wide.
“That was Colonel Adams.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Colonel Adams, of the veterans’ hospital.”
“Yes, I know.” Mrs. Ryan was vastly amused with Francie’s dreamy attitude. “What did he say?”
Francie took a deep, deep breath. “He wants to know if we’ll’ put on Charley’s Aunt at the hospital. He saw it. He liked it.” She hugged herself. “He asked if we had other things we’d done that we could do for the men in the hospital. Imagine. He loved us. He’d like us to come as often as we are willing to, and they have this creamy recreation room at the hospital. And he’d like us to work with 16 millimeter film, too, with the soldiers. Oh, Mrs. Ryan. Imagine!”
“That’s wonderful, my dear. Wonderful! How did he happen to call you?”
“He called Bruce first, as the director. Bruce said to call me.”
Francie saw Mrs. Ryan frown, and she remembered the desk. In spite of Lucky’s assurances that it was all right, she still thought there might have been something queer about that purchase. But she put the whole thing off, to think about later. A performance a week! As much of an audience as they could possibly want, plays, skits, songs—she forgot about Bruce and the desk. Entirely.
CHAPTER 16
Later she wondered how she could ever have
been able to put this matter out of mind. But there were committee meetings, and reading for material to put on at the hospital, and auditions and rehearsals. Francie studied stage design more seriously than she ever had to learn sets and props and costume. She was in a whirl of fun and work—and new people came flocking to the dramatic group.
And there was another good reason. She and Bruce became engaged.
It was hardly unexpected to her, but the way it came about was a surprise just the same. She had been left alone in the Birthday Box. Florence had gone to the dentist or somewhere in the lunch hour and left her to lock up and hang the sign “Closed until 2” on the door. Then Bruce came along on the sidewalk from Fredericks & Worpels. He looked through the plate glass as he always did nowadays, saw she was alone, and suddenly veered round and through the door.
“Francie,” he said. She looked up and saw him; he stood there at the door, wearing a beatific smile, in the most charming, matter-of-fact way, “I’m not taking things too much for granted, am I? It is understood, isn’t it, that you and I are going to be married?”
“I wasn’t sure,” said Francie, smiling. There was a tray of costume jewelry in her hands, and she put it down on the show case with exaggerated caution.
Lucky said, “Well, you’re sure now, see?” and crossed the floor quickly, and leaned over the case and kissed her. “Okay then,” he said, and strode out, bent on some urgent errand, no doubt for Mrs. Fredericks.
For a day or so Francie waited, but no more word came from him. She wasn’t at all well posted on such matters: what did she do now? In books the girl went and shyly confided her secret to her parents, unless the young man had already asked their permission. But she had only one parent and he wasn’t the kind you shyly told secrets to. Besides, Pop didn’t like Bruce much, Francie felt. Altogether, though, she felt excited and happy. Theirs was hardly a secure kind of engagement, hemmed in as they already were with secrecy: she didn’t dare mention it to anybody, let alone Pop or Aunt Norah. At last, after waiting a couple of days and not seeing her newly betrothed, she called him up when she was alone in the house and couldn’t be overheard.