He managed to get Sheila an engagement with the production called “A Friend in Need.” The part was not important, but she could travel with her great-aunt, Mrs. Vining, who could serve as her guardian and teach her a vast deal about acting as an art and a business. Also Polly decided to give Sheila her own maid, Nettie Pennock, a slim, prim, grim old spinster whose very presence advertised respectability. Pennock had spent most of her life in the theater, and looked as if she had never seen a play. Polly said that she “looked like all the Hard-shell Baptist ministers’ wives in the world rolled into one.”
But Pennock was broad-hearted and reticent, and as tolerant as ministers’ wives ought to be. She was efficient as a machine, and as tireless. She could be a tyrant, and her faultfindings were sparse and sharp as drops of vinegar from a cruet. Polly was more afraid of them than of all the thumps of the bladder-swatting critics.
Yet that frosty face could smile with the sudden sweetness of sunlight on snow, and Sheila’s arms about her melted her at once, except when she had done some mischief or malice. And then Pennock could be thawed only by a genuine and lengthy penance.
Roger urged Polly to fill Sheila’s ears with good counsel, but Polly Farren knew how little impression advice makes on those whom no inner instinct impels to do the right thing anyway.
After the usual rehearsals in New York, “A Friend in Need” had the usual preliminary weeks on the road before it was submitted to New York.
When the time came for Sheila to leave home and strike out for herself, it fell to Roger to take her to the train. Polly was suffering from one of those sick headaches of hers which prostrated her when she was not at work, though they never kept her from giving a sparkling performance. Indeed, Kemble used to say that if the Angel Gabriel wanted to raise Polly from the grave on Judgment morning, all the trumpets of the Apocalypse would fail to rouse the late sleeper. But if he murmured “Overture!” she would be there in costume with all her make-up on.
On the way to the station with Sheila, who was as excited as a boy going to sea, Roger was mightily troubled over her. She was indeed going to sea, and in a leaky boat, the frail barge of dreams. He felt that he must speak to her on the Importance of Being Good. The frivolous comedian suffered anguishes of stage-fright, but finally mustered the courage to deliver himself as Polonius might have done if it had been Ophelia instead of Laertes who was setting out for foreign travel.
It was a task to daunt a preachier parent than Roger Kemble, and it was not easy to talk first principles of behavior to a sophisticated young woman who knew as much about things as Sheila did.
Roger made a dozen false starts and ended in gulps, till Sheila finally said: “What’s the matter, old boy? You’re trying to say something, but I can’t make out what it is. Tell me, and I may be able to throw you the line.”