“I was just going,” Elizabeth said hastily.
“Me, too,” Ben said.
They walked to the stage door where Joe was still sitting on the steps.
“Say, Ben, since you want to watch Andersen, you might as well stick around now and see the whole dress rehearsal,” he said. “You can hold the book for me.”
“Okay, Joe. Sure.” He turned to Elizabeth. “Listen, honey, don't rehearse too much this afternoon. It's hot as Tophet. Don't wear yourself out.” He walked down the path with her. “And tell the others I'm sorry to miss our practice.”
“I suppose Miss Andersen's rehearsal will go on till all hours of the morning?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yeah, like as not. It'll be interesting, though. Wish you could watch. You'd learn a lot. Thatâ” he caught himself. “I can't say what I think of Dottie in front of you.”
“Oh, Ben,” Elizabeth said, “I wish I didn't have to go back to Jordan after this week. I'm going to miss you terribly.”
Â
Walking back to the Cottage through the sun-stifled streets, Elizabeth passed various members of the company on their way
to the theatre, and when she got to the Cottage she found Kurt stretched out on his back on the stone rail of the porch, smoking lazily and blowing smoke rings into the hot still air above him, his dark hair moist with perspiration, his pale green eyes half closed.
“I came over here looking for you, Liebchen,” he said. “What are you doing this afternoon?”
“Well, we thought we'd rehearse
Twelfth Night.
I want to try Viola. And I thought maybe you'd be an angel and read Orsino for me.”
Kurt groaned. “Oh, dearheart, not on Sunday and in this heat!”
“You'd make such a beautiful Duke,” Elizabeth said. “I imagine Orsino just like you, with beautiful black hair and stone green eyes and long secret black lashes andâ”
“Go on,” Kurt said. “Don't stop. This is the kind of talk I like to hear. Don't forget my strong yet passionate mouth and my virile body.”
Elizabeth sat down on the old wicker swing and began to rock gently, looking over at Kurt so elegantly stretched out. “Don't tease. I mean it seriously. You
would
be a beautiful Duke and you could wear the costumes. So few men ever look anything but silly in Shakespearean costumes.”
“Were you planning to use costumes this afternoon?”
“Don't be a nut.” Elizabeth gave the swing an extra hard push.
Kurt threw his cigarette into a barberry bush, then rolled over, leaned on one elbow, and looked down through the heavy
shadows of the porch at Elizabeth on the swing. “What've you been doing since lunch?” he asked.
“I was over at the theatre talking to Ben.”
“Are you in love with Ben?”
His voice was casual but Elizabeth stopped swinging, put her feet on the cement floor, and said in a startled voice, “No!”
“You see an awful lot of him.”
“I see an awful lot of Jane and John Peter and Ditta andâand
you
, too.” Her voice held a trace of anger. She had managed to put John Peter's words about Ben out of her mind and she did not want Kurt, of all people, bringing the subject up.
“Yes. But usually in a bunch. You're always going off with Ben alone.”
In spite of her anger Elizabeth felt a kind of wondering gratification at the thought that Kurt might actually be jealous of the moments she spent with Ben. If Kurt could be jealous, then he really must care. “Ben doesn't find it easy to talk to most people.”
“Ben!” Kurt exclaimed. “He never shuts his mouth.”
“Yes, but it's all gags. I mean serious talk. We just get along. He's been in the theatre since he was a kid and I love to hear him talk about it. He's told me lots of funny things that have happened, like once when he was about five he was touring with an old-time actor in a melodrama and in one scene at the climax of the play the actor had to come running across a moat with hounds baying behind him and then he had to jump off the moat and land on a mattress and stick his head in a bucket of water so that when he came up it looked as if he was swimming.
And Ben said that one night the stagehand who was responsible forgot to put the bucket and the mattress out and when the actor got ready to jump he looked over the moat and saw no stagehand, no mattress, no bucket; but the hounds kept getting nearer and nearer and finally he just had to jump. Well, he landed like a ton of bricks, chinned himself up over the edge of the moat, looked out over the audience, and said, âBy golly, the moat's frozen over.'”
Kurt did not laugh. Instead he said, “If you aren't serious about Ben, I wouldn't see so much of him if I were you.”
“Why not?” Now Elizabeth's anger flared.
“People are beginning to talk.”
“Who's people?”
“Dottie, for one.”
“If you want to take seriously anything Dottie says about meâ”
“Calm down, Liebchen. It isn't that important. I don't take it seriously, but other people might.”
“I doubt if anybody's that stupid.” But she kept remembering Jane and John Peter and their kindly if blundering warning.
“I wouldn't be so sure if I were you, dearheart.”
“Don't call me âdearheart' when you can say things like that!”
Kurt got down from the stone porch rail and came over to Elizabeth on the swing. “Elizabeth, my darling, please do not get angry with me. I shouldn't have told you this thing, but I thought perhaps you ought to know.”
“What has Dottie been saying?”
“Nothing of any importance.”
“Kurt, please tell me. If she's been saying anything at all about me, it's important.”
Kurt shrugged. “It's simply because she was furious with you because of the
Macbeth
business. And she's all the more furious with you because it was her fault, not yours.”
“But what has she been saying?”
“Let's just forget it, Liebchen.”
“No. Please, Kurt.”
“Only that she didn't think you yourself were serious about Ben and she didn't think it was fair of you to lead him on if you weren't.”
John Peter's words. Elizabeth went pale with anger. Her rage at Dottie and John Peter and Kurt and Ben and herself was so enormous that no words would come out.
“Elizabeth, you foolish child, it really doesn't matter; it isn't an issue of world-shattering importance.”
“It
does
matter! Everything's been so wonderful with Ben and me. I've had such fun with him and we've had such good times together. It's been kind of as though he were my brother. And now it's all spoiled. I'll feel uncomfortable with him. The wonderful thing about Ben and me is that we were always so relaxed together. And now we won't be able to be. At least
I
won't.”
“That's foolish, Elizabeth.”
“It may be foolish but it's true. I hope you told Dottie I
wasn't
leading Ben on.”
“Certainly.”
“Has she talked about it to anyone else?”
“I don't know. I doubt it.”
“Oh, damn!” Elizabeth cried. She jumped up and walked
the length of the porch and back. “I wish I didn't have inhibitions about swearing. I'd like to really let loose.”
“Go ahead.”
“I can't.”
“Listen, Elizabeth, just forget the whole business, will you? Just forget I ever brought it up.” Kurt put his hand on her shoulder in a worried manner.
“Why
did
you bring it up?”
“I never should have. I wish I hadn't. I didn't have any idea you'd take it so hard.”
“I'mâI'm terribly fond of Ben,” Elizabeth said. “As a friend he'sâhe's important to me. I can't bear to think of Dottie saying things like that.”
“Oh well, nobody pays any attention to Dottie.”
But what about John Peter and Jane? Elizabeth thought.
Kurt gave her a little shake. “Come along, Liebchen, forget it. Let's go for a swim.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I was down on the beach this morning. Anyhow, I promised Ditta I'd work with her.”
Kurt ran his fingers affectionately over the back of her neck. “You don't mind if I go down to the beach and forget Shakespeare for this afternoon, do you? I'm much too hot to concentrate.”
“No, of course not, Kurt. Go ahead. You're wonderful to work with us at all. We really appreciate it terribly. Honestly.”
“Now, none of that. But, Elizabeth, forget what I said. I'm extremely sorry I mentioned it, so please just imagine the whole thing unsaid.”
“I'll try.”
“Except one thing, dearheart.”
“What?”
“Are you sure Ben doesn't want more than you can give him?”
Elizabeth answered too quickly. “Of course I'm sure.”
“Well, that's splendid, then.”
But it wasn't splendid.
She went into the Cottage and walked slowly up the stairs. Maybe Aunt Harriet's right, she thought. Maybe the theatre isn't any place for a reasonable human being after all. It keeps your emotions in such a constant state of upheaval. It's really terribly wearing. I wonder if I could stand it, one emotional upset after the other just going on and on for the rest of my life. It must have been that way with Mother. And I'm afraid Mother wasn't a very reasonable human being.
She climbed up to the third floor and peered into her room. No one was there. She went down the hall to Ditta's room and opened the door gently. Ditta, lying sprawled across her bed, did not move. Her mouth was open and her face had drooped into tired lines. Dark circles made the skin beneath her eyes look bruised; and a copy of
The Complete Works of Shakespeare
had fallen out of her fingers and lay on the floor.
I really oughtn't wake her, Elizabeth thought. She looks so tired. Elizabeth tiptoed out of the room and shut the door gently behind her.
Â
Elizabeth decided to go for a walk, and when she reached the garage she heard someone shout her name and, looking up, saw Jane leaning out of one of the windows.
“Liz,” she called, “you aren't going to rehearse, are you? It's much too hot.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Can't find anybody to rehearse with. Ben's over at the theatre and Ditta's sound asleep.”
“Let's go for a walk on the boardwalk or something, then,” Jane said. “John Peter didn't sleep much last night and he wants to take a nap.”
In the Cottage a window screen was flung violently open and Lulu Price stuck her head out. “Will you please be quiet!” she bellowed. “People are trying to sleep. You apprentices are certainly more trouble than you're worth.”
“Ohâsorry,” Elizabeth murmured sheepishly. She cupped her hands to her mouth and whispered up to Jane, “Come on down.”
Jane nodded and joined Elizabeth on the gravel in front of the garage.
“I bet Lulu Price is trying to sleep off a hangover,” Jane said. “I hear she got stewed last night at Irving's. That dame is certainly revolting when she's drunk.”
“Most people are.”
“Yeah, you're right.”
As they reached the boardwalk they met Mariella Hedeman going toward the theatre.
“Hi, Miss Hedeman,” Jane called. “Thought you were at dress rehearsal?”
“Hello, Jane, Elizabeth,” the old actress said. “I am at rehearsal, but Miss Andersen said she wouldn't need me for an hour, so I thought it was worth going down the boardwalk for a glass of ginger ale and a breath of air. My makeup isn't much
this week and it's stifling in that theatre with all the lights on.”
“I expect the lighting's pretty complicated, isn't it?” Jane asked.
“Yes, but it's going to be very effective. It's been most interesting this week working with Miss Andersen. And she's so courteous to her actorsâexcept, of course, when they misbehave, as Dottie has been doing. So many young people seem to forget that discipline is an extremely important part of the art of acting. I hope you two will remember it.”
“We'll try, Miss Hedeman,” Elizabeth promised.
“Yes, Elizabeth. I think you and Jane will. I'm sorry you didn't get your opportunity to be in
Macbeth
this week. You'd have been arresting as the Gentlewoman, and Marian would have made a lovely Lady Macduff. However, it seems that such things are out of our hands.” She looked at the watch which she wore on an old-fashioned watch chain and had tucked into her belt. “I must go and get into my costume. It's as heavy as a bearskin and just about as comfortable on a day like this.”