“Very well, Katherine,” he said firmly. “You can live like that if you like. I won’t stop you. But listen to me. Whatever you do, don’t cut yourself off. I’ve been through it. I know what it’s like.” He lowered his voice to a gentle whisper. “Besides, it doesn’t help.”
Katherine Nelson turned without a word and walked slowly away. Her face was a wooden mask that hid—what? Peggy wondered.
XIII
The Ordeal
Katherine Nelson was as good as her word. In the hectic days that followed, she never spoke to Tom Agate unless it was absolutely necessary. Her manner was cold, aloof, and imperious. She listened to Craig Claiborne whenever he directed her, but seldom followed his advice. With the older members of the cast she was icily polite, a pose that was frequently shattered by violent outbursts of temper. As for Peggy, Katherine Nelson studiously ignored her. Peter Grey explained it by saying that the actress had discovered it was Peggy who was largely responsible for Tom’s presence in the cast.
Actually, Peggy didn’t see much of Peter. Both he and Pam were too busy with the thousands of chores that go with sending a theatrical company on the road. The only other person in the company, aside from Pam, who was close to Peggy’s age was Marcy Hubbard, the girl playing the part of the young daughter. Marcy was a breath-takingly beautiful girl with a clever sense of timing and a pleasant, friendly, off stage manner, but Peggy never got to know her well. Marcy, very much in love and recently engaged, spent every available spare moment with her fiancé, a quiet young man who picked her up at the theater immediately after rehearsals.
This left only Amy, May Berriman, and Randy Brewster to talk to. Not that they weren’t eager listeners. But because they never had a chance to see any of the rehearsals, Peggy was forced to go into great detail in order to answer their many questions.
“You mean to say that she never speaks to him?” Amy asked one evening, during the second week of rehearsals. They were sitting in May Berriman’s private sitting room on the ground floor of the Gramercy Arms. Amy, Peggy, and Randy had all been to dinner together, and when they came back May had seen them and invited them in for coffee.
“She hardly ever speaks to anyone,” Peggy said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Goodness,” Amy said wonderingly. “That must put a strain on things.”
“You don’t know,” Peggy answered. “It’s as if we were rehearsing a play about the end of the world or something—not a romantic comedy that should be full of laughs.”