In April she learned that the opera would probably last until the middle or the end of May, according to the size of the audiences. Next season it would go on the road. She wondered if she would be with it. As usual, Miss Osborne, owing to her moderate salary, was for securing a home engagement.
“They’re putting on a summer play at the Casino,” she announced, after figuratively putting her ear to the ground. “Let’s try and get in that.”
“I’m willing,” said Carrie.
They tried in time and were apprised of the proper date to apply again. That was May 16th. Meanwhile their own show closed May 5th.
“Those that want to go with the show next season,” said the manager, “will have to sign this week.”
“Don’t you sign,” advised Lola. “I wouldn’t go.”
“I know,” said Carrie, “but maybe I can’t get anything else.”
“Well, I won’t,” said the little girl, who had a resource in her admirers. “I went once and I didn’t have anything at the end of the season.”
Carrie thought this over. She had never been on the road.
“We can get along,” added Lola. “I always have.”
Carrie did not sign.
The manager who was putting on the summer skit at the Casino had never heard of Carrie, but the several notices she had received, her published picture, and the programme bearing her name had some little weight with him. He gave her a silent part at thirty dollars a week.
“Didn’t I tell you?” said Lola. “It doesn’t do you any good to go away from New York. They forget all about you if you do.”
Now, because Carrie was pretty, the gentlemen who made up the advance illustrations of shows about to appear for the Sunday papers selected Carrie’s photo along with others to illustrate the announcement. Because she was very pretty, they gave it excellent space and drew scrolls about it. Carrie was delighted. Still, the management did not seem to have seen anything of it. At least, no more attention was paid to her than before. At the same time there seemed very little in her part. It consisted of standing around in all sorts of scenes, a silent little Quakeress. The author of the skit had fancied that a great deal could be made of such a part, given to the right actress, but now, since it had been doled out to Carrie, he would as leave have had it cut out.
“Don’t kick, old man,” remarked the manager. “If it don’t go the first week we will cut it out.”
Carrie had no warning of this halcyon intention. She practised her part ruefully, feeling that she was effectually shelved. At the dress rehearsal she was disconsolate.
“That isn’t so bad,” said the author, the manager noting the curious effect which Carrie’s blues had upon the part. “Tell her to frown a little more when Sparks dances.”
Carrie did not know it, but there was the least show of wrinkles between her eyes and her mouth was puckered quaintly.
“Frown a little more, Miss Madenda,” said the stage manager.
Carrie instantly brightened up, thinking he had meant it as a rebuke.
“No; frown,” he said. “Frown as you did before.”
Carrie looked at him in astonishment.
“I mean it,” he said. “Frown hard when Mr. Sparks dances. I want to see how it looks.”
It was easy enough to do. Carrie scowled. The effect was something so quaint and droll it caught even the manager.
“That is good,” he said. “If she’ll do that all through, I think it will take.”
Going over to Carrie, he said:
“Suppose you try frowning all through. Do it hard. Look mad. It’ll make the part really funny.”
On the opening night it looked to Carrie as if there were nothing to her part, after all. The happy, sweltering audience did not seem to see her in the first act. She frowned and frowned, but to no effect. Eyes were riveted upon the more elaborate efforts of the stars.
In the second act, the crowd, wearied by a dull conversation, roved with its eyes about the stage and sighted her. There she was, gray-suited, sweet-faced, demure, but scowling. At first the general idea was that she was temporarily irritated, that the look was genuine and not fun at all. As she went on frowning, looking now at one principal and now at the other, the audience began to smile. The portly gentlemen in the front rows began to feel that she was a delicious little morsel. It was the kind of frown they would have loved to force away with kisses. All the gentlemen yearned toward her. She was capital.
At last, the chief comedian, singing in the centre of the stage, noticed a giggle where it was not expected. Then another and another. When the place came for loud applause it was only moderate. What could be the trouble? He realised that something was up.
All at once, after an exit, he caught sight of Carrie. She was frowning alone on the stage and the audience was giggling and laughing.
“By George, I won’t stand that!” thought the thespian. “I’m not going to have my work cut up by some one else. Either she quits that when I do my turn or I quit.”
“Why, that’s all right,” said the manager, when the kick came. “That’s what she’s supposed to do. You needn’t pay any attention to that.”
“But she ruins my work.”
“No, she don’t,” returned the former, soothingly. “It’s only a little fun on the side.”
“It is, eh?” exclaimed the big comedian. “She killed my hand all right. I’m not going to stand that.”
“Well, wait until after the show. Wait until tomorrow. We’ll see what we can do.”
The next act, however, settled what was to be done. Carrie was the chief feature of the play. The audience, the more it studied her, the more it indicated its delight. Every other feature paled beside the quaint, teasing, delightful atmosphere which Carrie contributed while on the stage. Manager and company realised she had made a hit.
The critics of the daily papers completed her triumph. There were long notices in praise of the quality of the burlesque, touched with recurrent references to Carrie. The contagious mirth of the thing was repeatedly emphasised.
“Miss Madenda presents one of the most delightful bits of character work ever seen on the Casino stage,” observed the sage critic of the “Sun.” “It is a bit of quiet, unassuming drollery which warms like good wine. Evidently the part was not intended to take precedence, as Miss Madenda is not often on the stage, but the audience, with the characteristic perversity of such bodies, selected for itself. The little Quakeress was marked for a favourite the moment she appeared, and thereafter easily held attention and applause. The vagaries of fortune are indeed curious.”
The critic of the “Evening World,” seeking as usual to establish a catch phrase which should “go” with the town, wound up by advising: “If you wish to be merry, see Carrie frown.”
The result was miraculous so far as Carrie’s fortune was concerned. Even during the morning she received a congratulatory message from the manager.
“You seem to have taken the town by storm,” he wrote. “This is delightful. I am as glad for your sake as for my own.”
The author also sent word.
That evening when she entered the theatre the manager had a most pleasant greeting for her.
“Mr. Stevens,” he said, referring to the author, “is preparing a little song, which he would like you to sing next week.”
“Oh, I can’t sing,” returned Carrie.
“It isn’t anything difficult. ‘It’s something that is very simple,’ he says, ‘and would suit you exactly.’ ”
“Of course, I wouldn’t mind trying,” said Carrie, archly.
“Would you mind coming to the box-office a few moments before you dress?” observed the manager, in addition. “There’s a little matter I want to speak to you about.”
“Certainly,” replied Carrie.
In that latter place the manager produced a paper.
“Now, of course,” he said, “we want to be fair with you in the matter of salary. Your contract here only calls for thirty dollars a week for the next three months. How would it do to make it, say, one hundred and fifty a week and extend it for twelve months?”
“Oh, very well,” said Carrie, scarcely believing her ears.
“Supposing, then, you just sign this.”
Carrie looked and beheld a new contract made out like the other one, with the exception of the new figures of salary and time. With a hand trembling from excitement she affixed her name.
“One hundred and fifty a week!” she murmured, when she was again alone. She found, after all—as what millionaire has not?—that there was no realising, in consciousness, the meaning of large sums. It was only a shimmering, glittering phrase in which lay a world of possibilities.
Down in a third-rate Bleecker Street hotel, the brooding Hurstwood read the dramatic item covering Carrie’s success, without at first realising who was meant. Then suddenly it came to him and he read the whole thing over again.
“That’s her, all right, I guess,” he said.
Then he looked about upon a dingy, moth-eaten hotel lobby.
“I guess she’s struck it,” he thought, a picture of the old shiny, plush-covered world coming back, with its lights, its ornaments, its carriages, and flowers. Ah, she was in the walled city now! Its splendid gates had opened, admitting her from a cold, dreary outside. She seemed a creature afar off—like every other celebrity he had known.
“Well, let her have it,” he said. “I won’t bother her.”
It was the grim resolution of a bent, bedraggled, but unbroken pride.
CHAPTER XLIV
AND THIS IS NOT ELFLAND:
WHAT GOLD WILL NOT BUY
WHEN CARRIE GOT BACK on the stage, she found that over night her dressing-room had been changed.
“You are to use this room, Miss Madenda,” said one of the stage lackeys.
No longer any need of climbing several flights of steps to a small coop shared with another. Instead, a comparatively large and commodious chamber with conveniences not enjoyed by the small fry overhead. She breathed deeply and with delight. Her sensations were more physical than mental. In fact, she was scarcely thinking at all. Heart and body were having their say.
Gradually the deference and congratulation gave her a mental appreciation of her state. She was no longer ordered, but requested, and that politely. The other members of the cast looked at her enviously as she came out arrayed in her simple habit, which she wore all through the play. All those who had supposedly been her equals and superiors now smiled the smile of sociability, as much as to say: “How friendly we have always been.” Only the star comedian whose part had been so deeply injured stalked by himself. Figuratively, he could not kiss the hand that smote him.
Doing her simple part, Carrie gradually realised the meaning of the applause which was for her, and it was sweet. She felt mildly guilty of something—perhaps unworthiness. When her associates addressed her in the wings she only smiled weakly. The pride and daring of place were not for her. It never once crossed her mind to be reserved or haughty—to be other than she had been. After the performances she rode to her room with Lola, in a carriage provided.
Then came a week in which the first fruits of success were offered to her lips—bowl after bowl. It did not matter that her splendid salary had not begun. The world seemed satisfied with the promise. She began to get letters and cards. A Mr. Withers—whom she did not know from Adam—having learned by some hook or crook where she resided, bowed himself politely in.
“You will excuse me for intruding,” he said; “but have you been thinking of changing your apartments?”
“I hadn’t thought of it,” returned Carrie.
“Well, I am connected with the Wellington—the new hotel on Broadway. You have probably seen notices of it in the papers.”
Carrie recognised the name as standing for one of the newest and most imposing hostelries. She had heard it spoken of as having a splendid restaurant.
“Just so,” went on Mr. Withers, accepting her acknowledgment of familiarity. “We have some very elegant rooms at present which we would like to have you look at, if you have not made up your mind where you intend to reside for the summer. Our apartments are perfect in every detail—hot and cold water, private baths, special hall service for every floor, elevators and all that. You know what our restaurant is.”
Carrie looked at him quietly. She was wondering whether he took her to be a millionaire.
“What are your rates?” she inquired.
“Well, now, that is what I came to talk with you privately about. Our regular rates are anywhere from three to fifty dollars a day.”
“Mercy!” interrupted Carrie. “I couldn’t pay any such rate as that.”
“I know how you feel about it,” exclaimed Mr. Withers, halting. “But just let me explain. I said those are our regular rates. Like every other hotel we make special ones, however. Possibly you have not thought about it, but your name is worth something to us.”
“Oh!” ejaculated Carrie, seeing at a glance.
“Of course. Every hotel depends upon the repute of its patrons. A well-known actress like yourself,” and he bowed politely, while Carrie flushed, “draws attention to the hotel, and—although you may not believe it—patrons.”
“Oh, yes,” returned Carrie, vacantly, trying to arrange this curious proposition in her mind.
“Now,” continued Mr. Withers, swaying his derby hat softly and beating one of his polished shoes upon the floor, “I want to arrange, if possible, to have you come and stop at the Wellington. You need not trouble about terms. In fact, we need hardly discuss them. Anything will do for the summer—a mere figure—anything that you think you could afford to pay.”
Carrie was about to interrupt, but he gave her no chance.
“You can come to-day or to-morrow—the earlier the better—and we will give you your choice of nice, light, outside rooms—the very best we have.”
“You’re very kind,” said Carrie, touched by the agent’s extreme affability. “I should like to come very much. I would want to pay what is right, however. I shouldn’t want to—”