CHAPTER XIII.CASSIE, THE SOUBRETTE.
Frank was given the manuscript of the play, and he began looking the part over at once.
He had a wonderful memory, and he put his mind onto the lines in such a manner that he did not hear Cassie Lee, the soubrette, till she had spoken to him three times.
“I don’t want to bother you, Frank,” she said, “but accept my congratulations, and I hope you’ll just paralyze ’em to-night. Somehow I believe you will astonish ’em.”
“I shall do my best, Cassie,” said Merry.
“I know it,” nodded Cassie, an unusually animated light coming to her eyes. “I heard what Dunton said, and I was mighty glad Ross gave him that call down. Dunton is a flub, but he’s got a bad temper, and he’ll hate you worse than sin now. Look out for him.”
“He won’t trouble me.”
“Don’t you be too sure.”
“Well, I shan’t worry about it. I’m not afraid of him.”
“That’s just it. You’ll be too careless. I wouldn’t trust him as fur as I could sling a mule by the tail. I don’t like his eyes. They’re too shifty. He alwus struck me as treacherous.”
“Well, he must hate Havener worse than he does me.”
“He won’t dare touch Ross, and that’s the very reason why he may try all the harder to do you. My! but I wish this old rehearsal was over.”
“You’re tired.”
“As a dog.”
“This business of playing so many different parts is too much for you.”
“It’s work, but I like it.”
“Better than playing ‘Topsy’ regularly?”
“Sure. I was dead sick of that old part. I’m glad ‘Uncle Tom’ is only played once in a while, but pop is heartbroken.”
“He’d rather stick to the old piece?”
“Lord, yes! He’s been playin’ parts in it for the last twenty years, and he knows every line and every bit of business. He thinks the country is degenerating when people get stuffed with ‘Uncle Tom’ and don’t want no more of him. He wouldn’t stay with the company if it wasn’t for me, and he’s liable to break loose any time and get on a reg’l’r tear. I’m watching him all the time and hold him down. Pop is all right when he lets red-eye alone, but he’s worse’n an Indian when he gets on a tear.”
“I hope you will be able to keep him straight, Cassie; but this watching is wearing on you. You don’t get rest enough, and you show it.”
She shot him a quick look.
“It ain’t that so much,” she muttered. “It’s something else the most. You know what ails me.”
“Yes, I know,” admitted Frank. “Can’t you break away from the habit, Cassie?”
“How can I? Look at me! I’m dull as a rainstorm, my head feels like a block of wood, and my feet are like lead. Wouldn’t I be in nice shape to go on before a house? Time I did it twice, Haley’d fire me, and he wouldn’t be to blame.”
“But isn’t there anything else——”
“Nope. Got to use the same old stuff till the season’s over anyhow.”
“But it’s getting an awful hold on you, Cassie.”
Hard lines formed round her mouth—a mouth that had once been rather sweet and pretty.
“Can’t help it,” she said, grimly. “It wasn’t my fault in the first place, and I’ve got to live. All summer there won’t be nothing for me to do, and I must stick the season out, so as to have something saved up for hot weather. I tell you, this life ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. A girl that’s got a good home and wants to go on the stage is a fool. She don’t know when she’s well off.”
Frank nodded his conviction that this was true. He had not seen much of theatrical life, but already he was convinced that it was a hard life to follow, especially for a girl.
“I was brought up to it,” Cassie went on; “and that was just my hard luck. Never had no good chance to get an education.”
“You can educate yourself now.”
She shook her head slowly.
“No use,” she said. “I’m too old now.”
“Too old! Why, how old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“Only eighteen?”
“That’s enough. Most girls are ready to leave school when they’re that old.”
Frank did not tell her, but he had fancied that she was twenty-three or twenty-four. He now realized that it was the life she had led that had made her seem so much older than she was in truth.
Life on the stage in cheap dramatic companies that play one-night stands is hard at best; but Cassie’s life had been particularly hard on account of her father, who had neglected and abused her when he drank.
For all of this neglect and abuse, Merry believed old Dan Lee really loved his daughter, for, when the man was sober, he was proud of Cassie, being tender and considerate in all his actions toward her.
Old Dan was very jealous of her. He believed her too good to “tie up” to a common ham-fatter, and so he had blocked the game of every cheap actor who tried to show her particular attentions. He believed that, some day, she would be able to make a “good match,” for other men must see in her all the fine qualities that were so evident to him.
Thus it came about that the girl did not dare let her father know there was a love affair between herself and Roscoe Havener, the stage-manager, for, although Havener had not seen his legal wife for four years, he was not divorced, and the entire company knew it.
When Frank discovered this attachment between the soubrette and the stage-manager he felt like advising Cassie to wait a while before she permitted herself to become very fond of Havener, but he quickly decided that such advice would be a waste of words, and kept still.
That Havener was favorably disposed toward Merriwell, Cassie felt sure, even though he had said little or nothing about the young man. Now, after seeing him give Merry the part that had been assigned to Lawrence, who was really one of the best actors in the troupe, and hearing him call down Dunton, she was certain Havener was aiming for one of two things. Either he had confidence in Merriwell, and wished to give him a chance to show up, or he believed Frank must make a wretched failure in attempting to play on such short notice, which would mean his “release” from the company.
Cassie had such confidence in Frank that she believed that Havener would fail if he was aiming to disgrace Frank.
She wished to encourage Merry, and that was why she had spoken to him as he was sitting on a canvas-covered property tree stump, industriously and hurriedly running over his lines in the first act.
“If you’re only eighteen, you’ve got plenty of time to study and add to your education, Cassie,” said Frank. “You have a way of learning your lines quickly when you take a part. You can read the right kind of books and memorize their contents.”
“I don’t know what kind of books to read.”
“I can tell you.”
“Oh, well, I’ll think it over. I don’t have much time, you know. Can’t do it after the show is over, for I’m dead tired by that time. Can’t do it forenoons, for I’m digging away on new parts all the time now.”
“But you can do it vacations.”
“Oh, I suppose I might. There, I’ve bothered you too much. Didn’t mean to when I spoke to you. Just wanted to tell you I’d bet anything you surprise ’em on the part to-night. Something makes me sure you will. You have lots of lines with me, and I know them lines as well as I do my own. If you get stuck, I’ll be able to give you a lift without the aid of the prompter. Keep your nerve; don’t get the shakes. That’s all.”
“The shakes?”
“Yes.”
“Stage fright?”
“That’s what I mean.”
“I don’t know, but I hardly think I’ll have that.”
“You can’t tell.”
“Why——”
“Nobody can.”
“You ever have it?”
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
“Did I! I should guess yes!”
“Thought you were brought up on the stage.”
“Was.”
“Then I don’t see why you should have stage fright.”
“It’s a mighty funny thing, I tell you. I began as an infant prodigy, and I don’t s’pose anything ever scared me till I was playing soubrette parts. One night I got it, just as hard. Opened my mouth to speak, and, by George! I couldn’t make a sound. I just stood there like I was nailed to the boards. Pretty quick I began to shake, and you’d thought I was taken with the ague. It was terrible, I thought I’d faint. After a while, I got strength enough to rush off, and then I had fits in one of the dressing rooms.”
“That was strange.”
“No. ’Most ev’rybody gets a touch of it sooner or later. When it was all over, I was so hopping mad I didn’t know what to do. I went on again and played right through the piece without a quiver, and I’ve never had a touch of it since. But I had to have it some time. Some people never get over it fully, but with most folks, one attack ends it. I hope you won’t have it to-night, Frank.”
“I hope so.”
“Well, I’ll git. ’Scuse me for the bother.”
She walked away, and Frank followed her sympathetically with his eyes.
“As good-hearted girl as ever lived,” he murmured. “It’s a shame she’s contracted that frightful habit. I’m afraid it has such a hold on her that she’ll never be able to get rid of it. Poor Cassie!”
Then he resumed his studying.