CHAPTER VII
ROBERTA “ARRIVES”
It was dress rehearsal night for the Belden House play, and the hall in the Students’ Building, where the big house-plays are performed was the scene of a tremendous bustle and excitement. The play was to be “Sara Crewe,” or rather “The Little Princess,” for that is the title of the regular stage version of Mrs. Burnett’s story which the Belden House was giving by the special permission of the Princess herself. The pretty young actress who had “created” the part was a friend of Madeline’s father, and Madeline, being on the committee to choose a play, declared that she was tired to death of seeing the girls do Sheridan and Goldsmith and the regulation sort of modern farce, and boldly wrote to the Princess for permission to act her play, because it seemed so exactly suited to the capabilities of college girls. The Princess had not only said yes, but she had declared that she should be very much interested in the success of the play, and when Madeline, writing to thank her, had suggested that the Belden House would be only too delighted if she came up to see their performance, she had accepted their invitation with enthusiasm. Of course the committee and the cast were exceedingly flattered, but they were also exceedingly frightened and nervous, and even the glorious promise of a live monkey, with a hand-organ man thrown in, did not wholly reassure them.
To-night everything seemed to be at sixes and sevens. Though most of the committee had toiled over it all the afternoon, the stage resembled pandemonium rather than the schoolroom of Miss Minchen’s Select Seminary, which was to be the scene of the first act. The committee were tired and, to speak frankly, cross, with the exception of Madeline, who was provokingly cool and nonchalant, though she had worked harder than any one else. The cast were infected with that irresponsible hilarity that always attacks an amateur company at their last rehearsal. They danced about the stage, getting in the way of the committee, shrieking with laughter at their first glimpses of one another’s costumes, and making flippant suggestions for all sorts of absurd and impossible improvements.
Meanwhile, regardless of the fact that the rehearsal ought to have begun half an hour before, the committee and Mr. Carrisford’s three Hindu servants were holding a solemn conclave at the back of the stage. The chef-d‘œuvre of their scenic effects was refusing to work; the bagdads that were to descend as if by Hindu magic and cover the bare walls of Sara’s little attic bedroom when the good fairies, in the guise of the aforesaid servants, effected its transformation in the second act. There weren’t enough of the draperies for one thing, and some of them wouldn’t unroll quickly, while others threatened to tumble down on the servants’ devoted heads.
“Well, we’ll just have to let them go for to-night,” said Nita Reese dejectedly at last. She was chairman of the committee. “To-morrow we’ll fix them all up again, the way Madeline says is right, and you three must come over and do that part of the scene again. Is everybody ready?”
“Miss Amelia Minchen isn’t,” said Betty, “She just came in carrying her costume.”
“Then go and help her hurry into it,” commanded Nita peremptorily. “Madeline, will you fix Ram Dass’s turban? He’s untwisted it again of course. Georgie Ames, line up the Seminary girls and the Carmichael children, and see whether any of their skirts are too long. Take them down on the floor. Everybody off the stage, please, but the scene-shifters.”