Five nights at the Five Pines

by Harriet A. Gaul

They were better than I had expected—probably because it was in September and the dramatic critics were not yet jaded. Possibly, fresh from the mountains, with the sunburn not yet worn off, they had actually been to see the play and had had a good time meeting one another in the lobby and comparing mileage. At any rate, their remarks were universally good-natured, if not profound, and their intentions beyond cavil. They had one criticism in common—they did not like our ingénue, and I could not blame them any for that.

Will Turnball, on the “Gazette,” said that Myrtle Manners had done all she could to ruin it, but fortunately the play did not depend upon her for its success. He was not aware that it was the playwright who was himself dependent upon her, who put her interests above any one else’s in the cast. I remembered that Turnball knew the girl, and wondered if he had said that deliberately and perhaps on my account. One never knows where an obscure sense of chivalry is going to crop out in a modern knight. We were old friends. He had read “The Shoals of Yesterday” beforehand, one happy day in the middle of last summer, when we were all down at ’Sconset together over a Sunday. And, at the time, he had objected to Myrtle Manners taking that part. He had said she was a trouble-maker, but Jasper, having only recently secured his contract with Burton, who was going to produce the play, did not feel like stepping in and dictating the cast. I had stupidly sustained him. And now Turnball, knowing that what he said could not fail to make Myrtle angry, had nevertheless gone out of his way to say it. I smiled at the reaction I knew would follow, and picked up the next paper.

I was surprised to find that the man on the “Tribune” agreed with him. I did not know this critic at all. And the “Globe” said:

“‘The Shoals of Yesterday,’ the new play by Jasper Curdy, well-known short-story writer, opened last night at the Lyric with great success.... When so many girls are out of work this fall, why hire Myrtle Manners?”

I finished my breakfast with the feeling that I had been revenged.

Jasper had not chosen her, I came to his defense. The manager picked her out, Burton himself, for no better reason than that her father played baseball with him on the high-school team back in Plainfield, New Jersey, and she had come to him with a letter and a sob-story and a pair of blue eyes. She was ambitious, she had told him, and she wanted to work hard. Well, she understood herself; she was all of ambitious, but who was to do the hard work was more doubtful. She was never up at the hour of the day when most of the hard work is done. To do Jasper justice, he had not seen the girl until the first rehearsal, although she had hardly been out of his sight since. Discontented with the part as it was originally written, Myrtle had insisted on changes in it until the whole fabric of the play was endangered. The part of ingénue was not originally important, but her insistence, and Jasper’s willingness to please her, had altered it until it threatened the lead. Therefore it had come about that Gaya Jones, who was creating the difficult part of a society crook, was herself becoming restless. There was no need of antagonizing Gaya. She had started out at the beginning of the rehearsals with all the good-will in the world, and worked up her character with her usual dependable artistry. If she had her lines cut and Myrtle Manners had hers made increasingly important, there was going to be grave trouble. I had looked for Gaya in vain in the crowd who were going out for supper last night. Probably, like myself, she had gone home alone. I wished her better luck in her ice-box than I had found in mine.

Now that the play had been launched I wondered if these two women, upon whose acting it depended, would become reconciled to each other.

The telephone interrupted my foreboding with a new fear.

“O Mrs. Curdy? Myrtle talking. Have you seen the papers? Is Jasper up? Isn’t he? Why, he went home awfully early. He always does, doesn’t he? Broke up the party; so sorry you couldn’t go along! I suppose you’ve read what the papers say about me? I got up to find out; might as well go back to bed again! Some of them were grand, but the ‘Tribune’—Wait till Jasper reads what that awful man said in the ‘Tribune.’ And the ‘Gazette’! I don’t believe they sent any one over at all! That must have been written at the desk by the office-boy! The ‘Globe’ was grouchy, too, but I know why that was; that Jones who writes their stuff is married, you know, and he’s sore at me. Last night, when we were all having supper, it was this way—”

I put my hand over the receiver so that I would not have to listen to her story about the supper. I knew perfectly well that dramatic critics were not loitering around restaurants after plays; they had to get their reviews written before twelve o’clock.