The entire cast looked at Peggy with a respect so new and surprising that Peggy didn’t know what to think. “You’re not fooling me, are you, Chuck?” she whispered. “I didn’t feel a thing out there. Was I really that good?”
“Oho!” Chuck grinned at her mysteriously. “So our little ingénue has discovered another secret—and all by accident! Listen, Peggy, sometimes it happens that way. Just when you feel dead inside you’ll give a performance so electrifying that everybody wonders what happened. It doesn’t always work, you can’t always be so objective. But I guess that’s what happened to you tonight. Tomorrow it’ll be different, but you’ll never have trouble with Evelyn again!”
And Peggy never did. Whether it was because Alison was no longer in the wings, watching and criticizing, or just because Peggy had finally “caught” it, she finished the week giving a glorious performance that brought more and more people to the theater, and sent them away knowing that they’d had a rare experience.
“This is what really counts,” Peggy thought gratefully. “Not a screen test or my ‘career,’ but the knowledge that I can really contribute something to the theater. Play a part with the author’s intention, not from my personal viewpoint.” Peggy felt immensely gratified to know that she was beginning to return a little of what the theater had already given to her.
XV
Summer Stock
The season closed with a rollicking farce that drew a full house every night. Enough money poured into the box office to pay back the investors and the Chamber of Commerce and even leave something over for the new science lab. On the last night of See How They Run, a tremendous party was held backstage after the show. Everybody was there. Aunt Hetty was hostess, beaming and brusque as ever, with lavish promises of what the theater would do with her barn next summer. For it was certainly established now that the Kenabeek Summer Theater was here to stay!
The directors of the Chamber of Commerce and the members of the School Board were there; all the apprentices and their families came; Mr. Bladen read a special poem of praise for the theater; Mr. and Mrs. Cook and Mrs. Hopkins and all their friends joined the celebration. Mr. Miller and Michael were happy to report that the Merry Mac had not been damaged beyond repair after all, and that next summer she would be back, ready to take the cast across the lake to the Golden Hound for dinner.
“Are you game, Peggy?” Michael asked with a twinkle.
“Any time,” Peggy laughed. “Tonight if you like!”
“Well! That certainly speaks well for my son’s seamanship,” Mr. Miller declared.