After a fine but hurried dinner in the hotel’s handsome, formal dining room, Peggy and her parents went upstairs to work on her readings. She read first the passage she had marked out fromTwelfth Night, since Viola was a familiar role for her and she needed only a short time to work on it. The speech she selected was the best known in the play, and for that reason it was probably the hardest to do, for everyone who would hear it would have his own idea of how it should sound. Any actor knows how hard it is to put new life into old, familiar words, and Peggy was well aware of this. Still, because this short speech gave her a chance, in only a dozen lines, to indicate the whole character of Viola, she thought it was worth the risk.
Viola, pretending to be a boy, tells the Duke Orsino of a sister she never had, and by so doing, confesses her own love for the Duke. The first difficulty of the speech lay in making Viola seem both a boy and a lovesick girl at the same time. The second difficulty was to make the imaginary sister of the speech seem like a real person.
Mr. Lane began, reading the Duke’s lines, in which he says that no woman can love as deeply as a man. When the speech was done, Peggy spoke, sounding at first completely feminine, “Ay, but I know—” She broke off the phrase in well-acted confusion, as Viola quickly realizes that she has spoken as a woman, rather than as the boy she is supposed to be.
“What dost thou know?”
“Too well what love women to men may owe,” Peggy answered firmly, saying the line with boyish confidence. Then she went on, in a confidential, man-to-man tone: “In faith, they are as true of heart as we./My father had a daughter loved a man,/As it might be, perhaps were I a woman,/I should your lordship.”
“And what’s her history?” Mr. Lane said.
Now Peggy subtly shifted the character, and when she replied, after a short pause, it was not in the manner of either the lovesick girl or the confident, manly boy. Now she spoke dreamily, a story-teller, a poet, as Viola fell into her own pretended character, half-believing in the “sister” she had created.
“A blank, my lord. She never told her love,/But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,/Feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought,/And with a green and yellow melancholy/She sat, like Patience on a monument,/Smiling at grief—”
She was interrupted by a round of applause from both her parents, and responded with a start, suddenly realizing that she was in a hotel room, not in the court of the Duke Orsino or even on a stage.
“But there’s more to the speech!” she said. “You shouldn’t have applauded yet!”
“Couldn’t help it, Peg,” her father said. “Besides, I’m afraid that if you work on that any more, you might ruin it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s perfect just the way it is. You can do the whole speech tomorrow.”
“Oh, you’re just being a loving father,” Peggy answered, in pleased confusion, but she knew that there was more to his comments and compliments than this. She remembered how, during the weeks when she first struggled to breathe life into the character of Viola, her father had read lines with her and criticized sharply every time she did something not quite true to the role. Remembering this, her pleasure now was doubled. Even so, Peggy insisted on reading the whole speech, then doing it several times over, before she would go on to her next marked reading.
Sabina, inSkin of Our Teeth, was a complete change of pace. Peggy worked on the satirical, comic, sometimes silly-sounding lines for two hours before she felt she was ready to go on. Then, two more hours went swiftly by as she developed the poetic, passionate lines of Maxwell Anderson’s Winterset, working on Miriamne’s death scene.
When at last she was satisfied, it was a little after midnight, and Peggy felt exhausted, as if she herself had died with Miriamne.
“I should have done Sabina last,” she said. “Maybe I wouldn’t feel so much as if I had just been murdered after three acts of blank verse!”
“On the other hand,” Mrs. Lane said, “you might not have been so ready for sleep as you are now, and sleep is what you need most, if you’re going to do as well in the morning as you did tonight.”
“That’s right,” added Peggy’s father. “We have just time for eight good hours of rest and a decent breakfast tomorrow before you go to keep your ten-o’clock date with destiny. Let’s go.”
Peggy didn’t argue. She kissed her parents, went to her own adjoining bedroom and, in three minutes, was curled up between the crisp, fresh sheets. Tonight she was too tired to think about the excitement to come. She had barely settled her head on the pillow before she was deep in a dreamless sleep.
Peggy hadn’t really known what to expect of the New York Dramatic Academy, but whatever it was, it wasn’t this!
The Academy was housed on two floors of an ancient office building only a few blocks away from their hotel. On either side of a tall door that led into a long, dim hallway was an assorted collection of name plates, telling passers-by what to expect inside. One somewhat blackened brass plaque, about a foot square, gave the name of the Academy. Other plaques, some brass, some plastic, some polished and others almost illegible, announced that the building also provided offices for a dentist, studios for two ballet schools and a voice teacher, and the workshop of a noted costume designer. Other trades represented included theatrical agents, song writers, an export-import company, an advertising agency, and a custom bootmaker specializing in ballet footwear.
At the end of the hall, two old elevators wheezed and grunted their way up and down in grillwork shafts. Over the ornate elevator doors were indicators telling on what floors the elevators were. Neither of them worked. But, when one car landed with a sigh of relief and its gates slid open with a creak, Peggy found that the operator was, surprisingly, a young man, quite good-looking and smartly uniformed. He greeted her courteously and took her to the top floor with the air of a man who was giving her a lift in his own chauffeured limousine.
The minute Peggy looked around her, any misgivings she had about the building vanished. The atmosphere was ageless, shabby, and completely theatrical. The elusive smell, both indefinable and familiar, but which was nothing but the smell of backstage, perfumed the hall. Through a closed door to her left, Peggy heard a chorus reciting in unison some lines from a Greek play she could not identify. Directly in front, through an open door in a wall of doors, Peggy saw a tiny theater of perhaps one hundred seats. A few people lounged in the front seats while on the bare stage, under a single floodlight, two young men acted out what sounded like a violent quarrel. To the right, where the long hallway was crossed by another hall, a boy appeared, swinging a fencing foil. He turned the corner out of sight.
“This must be where I go,” Peggy thought, starting for a nearby door markedOFFICE. She took a deep breath, opened the door, and walked in.
The pretty receptionist, greeting her by name, said that she was expected and that Mr. Macaulay, the director of the Academy, would see her right away.
The first thing that Peggy noticed was the office, in the elaborate clutter of which Mr. Macaulay seemed to have disappeared. It was a large, square room, its walls paneled from the Oriental rugs to the high, carved ceiling. Two tall windows draped in red velvet showed glimpses of rooftops and river through lace curtains. Every available piece of wall was covered with pictures: photographs of people who were surely actors and actresses, paintings of people and of places, heavily framed etchings, newspaper clippings, book jackets, theater programs, old theater posters, magazine articles and, apparently, everything else that could possibly fit into a frame. Where there were not pictures, there were books, except for one narrow wall space between the windows, where there was a small marble fireplace, over the mantel of which rose a tall mirror. The mantel itself was a jumble of pipes, tobacco tins, more pictures in small frames, china figurines, candlesticks and boxes assembled around a pendulum clock which stood motionless under a bell-shaped glass cover.
In one corner of the room was a heavily carved black grand piano, covered with a fringed cloth and stacked high with ragged piles of sheet music, play scripts, books, more pipes, more pictures.
In the opposite corner stood an immense desk, also heavily carved, and behind its incredibly cluttered surface rose the tall back of a thronelike chair. In the chair, almost lost from view, sat Mr. Macaulay.
When Peggy first realized he was there, she almost laughed, thinking of various animals whose protective coloration lets them melt into their natural backgrounds, the way the dappled coat of a deer seems merely more of the forest pattern of light and shade.
Mr. Macaulay was as ornate as his room. He was a small, round man who concealed a cherubic smile beneath a pair of curly, white handlebar mustaches. His red cheeks and white hair made the perfect setting for bright blue eyes that glittered behind an old-fashioned pair of pince-nez glasses perched precariously on his nose. A black ribbon from the eyeglasses ended in a gold fitting secured in his lapel. The round expanse of his shirt front was covered by a brocaded, double-breasted vest such as Peggy had never seen except in movies set in the Gay Nineties, and when Mr. Macaulay rose in smiling greeting and came around the end of the desk, Peggy could not help looking down to see if he wore gray spats. He did.
“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 whyyouthink 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 mewhyyou want to act, and how youknowit’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.
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 theEaglethat 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 fromMacbeth, 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.
Then the turning of the plane revealed midtown Manhattan, tall and sparkling! The Empire State Building towered over all, its four bright beams sweeping the sky over the city. The UN building stood out like a solid slab of brilliance against the rest of the skyline. Beyond it, Times Square blazed like a bonfire.
All around her in the plane, Peggy saw the rest of the passengers, including obviously experienced travelers, pressed against the windows, enchanted by the fairy-tale sight below. They were all talking, pointing, comparing notes on the beauty of this or that.
The plane swept lower now, and the skyline seemed to rise and grow even more mighty. Over the East River, the bridges were spider-webs and pearls; small boats like water bugs skimmed under them and out again. Then, abruptly, a new and closer brilliance of searchlights and whirling red and green signals—and the plane settled smoothly into the bustle and roar of LaGuardia Airport.
Peggy was glad that she had been there before with her parents, or she might never have found her way out. Crowds of people swarmed about the place, sweeping past in every direction. Piles of luggage and groups of waiting travelers seemed to block her way no matter where she turned. Ignoring the crowds as best she could, and following her sense of direction and her memory of where she had gone the previous week, Peggy worked her way to the front of the terminal where the taxi stand was. A bank of phone booths reminded her to call home before going on. Then she hailed a cab and gave the driver the address of the Gramercy Arms.
She had planned to take the airport bus to the terminal in Manhattan and a cab from there, but she had changed her mind. This one extravagance, Peggy felt, would be worth the price. Settling back in comfort, she opened the window to a cool rush of air and became absorbed in the passing sights of parkways, streets, bridges and, finally, the entrance over the giant Triborough Bridge into the enchanted isle of Manhattan.
“Your first trip to New York?” the taxi driver asked, noticing her fascination with the sights.
“No,” Peggy answered, feeling herself quite the experienced traveler. “I was here last week. But that was the first time,” she confessed.
“Staying long?”
“Forever, I hope!” Peggy replied. “I’m going to live here.”
The East River Drive went into a sort of tunnel, supported on one side by pillars, through which Peggy could see a string of barges slowly forging upstream.
“You know what’s above us?” the driver asked. “No? It’s a park! That’s right. This road is built under a park!”
Farther on, after they had come out of the tunnel, they plunged into another one. “Another park?” Peggy asked.
“Nope. This time it’s an apartment house!”
The third time the road went underground, it was the UN building that was above them. What a fantastic city! Peggy thought. Everything seemed topsy-turvy. The idea of driving under parks, apartment houses and giant office buildings was so queer! She said as much to the driver, who only laughed. “Miss, you’ll get used to all sorts of queer things if you live here! I’ve been driving a cab in this town for twenty-four years now, and I haven’t seen the end of odd things. As fast as you can see one, they build two more!”
When they arrived at the Gramercy Arms, the driver leaped out and helped her with her bags up the steep front steps. She didn’t know then how unusual it was for a cab driver to help with luggage. He was being really gallant.
“Good luck,” he said, on leaving. “You’ll need it. It’s not an easy town to get started in, but young girls like you come here every day to try, and most of them make it somehow. Just don’t let it scare you. It’s big, but it’s not unfriendly. And there’s no place else in this world that I’d rather live!” With a wave of farewell, he climbed into his cab and rode off around the corner.
Peggy took a deep breath, patted her hair, and rang the bell of her new home.
The door was opened, not by Mrs. Berriman, but by a small, dark-haired girl with huge, black eyes and a gamin grin, who greeted her with a decided French accent.
“Allo, allo!” she said brightly. “Come een! Are you Amee or Peggee?”
“I—I’m Peggy,” Peggy said, somewhat taken aback.
“Good!” the French girl cried. “You don’t look like an Amee! I’m Gaby, wheech ees short for Gabrielle. I leeve ’ere. Maman Berriman she ees out shopping, mais les autres girls sont ici. Pardon. I meex too much French een with my talk. Parlez-vous Français?”
“Un peu,” Peggy said. “A very little peu, I’m afraid. But I understood you. You said the other girls are here, right?”
“Parfait!” Gaby grinned. “Maybee I can teach you how to speak, if you would like that?”
“I would,” Peggy agreed enthusiastically, but added quickly, “not starting right now, though!”
“Okay,” Gaby shrugged. “Come on! I first introduce you.”
Four girls waited in the large, comfortable living room, all looking expectantly at the door. As Peggy entered, a pert-faced redhead bounced out of her chair to say hello.
“I’m Dot,” she announced. “Are you Peggy or Amy?”
“Peggee, of course!” Gaby cut in, before Peggy could answer. “Does she look like an Amee to you?”
“No, I guess she doesn’t,” Dot said reflectively. “Well, welcome!”
“Thank you,” Peggy said. “Now will somebody tell me who Amy is?”
“Let me introduce you first,” Dot answered, taking Peggy by the arm. “This is Irene, our household beauty queen,” she said. Irene, a tall, startlingly beautiful brunette, languidly waved a gesture of welcome with long, perfectly manicured fingers. Smiling, she said, “Don’t mind her jealous tones, Peggy. They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that means that she must love me, or she’d think I was ugly.”
A pretty, round-faced girl with almost white blond hair done in a long single braid came over to Peggy.
“They sound very catty,” she said with a gentle smile, “but we think they wouldn’t know what to do without each other. Now, no fighting tonight,” she said to Dot and Irene. “We want to give Peggy a chance to get used to us first.” Then, turning back to Peggy, she said, “My name is Greta. Your room is right next door to mine. And this is Maggie.”