Concerning Belinda Part 23

But there was a serious side to the complication. There was no telling into what hands the stage-struck girl had fallen, nor where she might have been persuaded to take refuge. It would probably be an easy matter to find her with the aid of detectives, even if she had confided her plans to no one in the school; but meanwhile she might have an unpleasant experience.

So Belinda's face was grave as she ran down to Miss Ryder's study with the letter, and it was still grave as she went out, a little later, to send a telegram to Mr. Wilson, and visit the office of a well-known detective agency. In the interval everyone in the house had been questioned and professed complete ignorance.

The detective was smilingly optimistic--even scornful. The thing was too easy. But when Mr. Wilson, torn 'twixt distress and vexation, arrived that evening the self-confident sleuth had made no progress. Adelina had apparently vanished off the face of the earth. The very simplicity of her disappearance was baffling.

That she would, sooner or later, apply to some theatrical manager or agency, or interview some teacher of dramatic art, was a foregone conclusion, and on the second day after her departure it was found that she had tried to obtain interviews with several managers, and had had a talk with one, who good-naturedly told what had taken place at the interview.

"Handsome young idiot," he said to the detective. "That's why they let her in; but she hasn't a gleam of intelligence concealed about her, and it would take her a lifetime to get rid of her crazy ideas and mannerisms, even if there were any hope of her amounting to anything after she did get rid of them. Her idea of stage life is a regular pipe dream, and she'd never be willing to begin at the bottom. She wouldn't stand the hard work twenty-four hours. She had sort of an idea that she was a howling beauty with a genius that didn't need any training, and that if she could only get to see me I'd throw a fit over her and start her out on the road at five hundred dollars a week to star in 'Camille,'

or something of that kind. She made me tired. I've seen thousands of the same kind, but I talked to her like a Dutch uncle; told her she wasn't so much as a beauty, and that she had a voice like a hurdy-gurdy, and that all her ideas about acting were crazy. Kind of rough, of course, but wholesome, that sort of straight talk is. I told her genius in the stage line was twins with slaving night and day; that they looked so much alike you couldn't tell them apart, and that the kind of genius she was ranting about was all hot air. I said if she could take some lessons and learn to sing and dance a little she might go on in the chorus, but that I'd advise charwork ahead of that, and that I didn't see the faintest illusive twinkle of a star about her. She cried and looked sick, but she seemed to be discouraged and open to conviction. So then I told her the best thing she could do was to go home to her folks and marry some decent fellow and look at the stage across the footlights--not too much of that, either. Yet the Gerry Society doesn't think much of us managers, and n.o.body'd suspect me of heading rescue brigades. I've got a daughter of my own, and she isn't on the stage--not by a blamed sight."

All this was interesting, but the clew began and ended at the manager's office door, and no further trace of Adelina was found during the day.

About nine o'clock that evening Maria, the parlour maid at the school, knocked at Belinda's door in a fine state of excitement.

"If you please, Miss Carewe, Miss Wilson's come back. I let her in and she's gone up to her room, and Miss Ryder ain't here, and she looks fit to drop, and her face is that swollen from crying, and----"

Belinda cut the monologue short and hurried down to the front room on the third floor.

It was dark, but by the gleam from the street lamps the teacher made out a bulky form on the bed, and the sound of stifled sobbing came to her ears.

She went over and knelt by the bed.

"I'm glad you've come back, dear," she said in a cheerful, matter-of-fact voice. "Your father will be so relieved, and it isn't quite right for a girl to be alone in a big city, you know."

The figure on the bed gave a convulsive flop and the sobbing redoubled.

"Don't cry any more. It will make you ill. Nothing very bad has happened, has it?"

Belinda was still prosaically cheerful.

"Oh, it was horrid," wailed the youthful tragedienne with more spontaneous feeling than she had ever put into Ophelia's ravings or Juliet's anguish. "They wouldn't take me in at boarding-houses, and when I did find a place it was so smelly, and they had corned beef for dinner, and I loathe corned beef, and the people were so queer, and the sheets weren't clean, and the bed had lumps; and I thought when Mr.

Frohman saw me and heard me give the sleep-walking scene he'd be glad to educate me for the stage like they do in books, but he wouldn't even see me. Hardly anybody would see me, and when one manager did he told me I hadn't any talent, and that I wasn't even fit for an Amazon unless I could learn to dance, and that I'd better do charwork, and he said such dreadful things about the stage and the work; and then I went back to the boarding-house, and it smelled worse than ever, and one of the men spoke to me in the hall, and--Oh, dear. Oh, d-e-a-r!"

She ran out of breath for anything save wailing, and Belinda patted her on the back encouragingly without speaking.

"And then I felt so sick, and I was afraid to stay alone all night, and I just left my bag and slipped out--and I really do feel dreadfully sick, Miss Carewe. I guess it's a judgment. It'd be a good thing if I'd die. I'm not any good and I can't be a star, and papa and the boys'll never forgive me."

"Nonsense," laughed Belinda. "It wasn't nice of you, but fathers are not so unforgiving as all that, and if you'll just give up raving about the stage----"

"I never want to hear of acting again."

"Well, I don't think your father will be very angry if he hears that."

"But suppose I die?"

Belinda lighted the gas. In the light the girl's cheeks showed scarlet, and when the Youngest Teacher felt Adelina's hands and face she found them burning with fever.

"Small danger of your dying within fifty years, child, but you are tired and nervous. I'll have the doctor come in and see you."

She put the returned wanderer to bed and telephoned for the doctor, but while she waited for him there was a ring at the bell and she heard Mr.

Wilson's voice in the hall.

He was standing in the doorway, uncertainly twirling his hat in nervous hands, and looking even more hara.s.sed than usual, when Belinda went down to him.

"I don't suppose----" he began.

"She's here," interrupted Belinda.

The father's face flushed swiftly.

"And she's all right, only I'm afraid she's going to be ill from the excitement. She's very much ashamed and very much disillusioned, Mr.

Wilson. I think she's had her lesson, and I don't think I'd scold much if----"

There was an odd moisture on the gla.s.ses which Mr. Wilson removed from his nose and wiped with scrupulous care; and he cleared his voice several times before he spoke.

"I won't scold, Miss Carewe. I guess I'm a good deal to blame. She didn't have any mother, and I was pretty busy, and n.o.body paid much attention to what she was doing and reading and thinking. I just gave her money and thought I'd done all that was necessary; but I expect the carpet business could have got along without me occasionally, and I could have known my girl a little better."

They climbed the stairs together, but Belinda left him at his daughter's door.

When she went up, later, with the doctor Mr. Wilson looked more at ease in the world than usual, and Adelina's face was cheerful, though grotesquely swollen from much crying.

"Papa and I are going to Europe for the summer, Miss Carewe," she called out excitedly. Then, as she saw the doctor, her dramatic habit rea.s.serted itself, and she fell into one of her most cherished death-scene poses, looking as limp and forlorn as circ.u.mstances and a lack of rehearsal would permit.

With melancholy languor she held out her hand to the doctor. He took it, felt her pulse, looked her over quickly and keenly.

"Measles," he said crisply. "You'd better look out for the other girls, Miss Carewe."

Adelina sank back in her pillows with a sigh of profound despair.

"I might have known I wouldn't have anything romantic," she said with gloomy resignation.