  Peggy hadn’t really known what to expect of the New York Dramatic Academy, but whatever it was, it wasn’t this! The Academy was housed on two floors of an ancient office building only a few blocks away from their hotel. On either side of a tall door that led into a long, dim hallway was an assorted collection of name plates, telling passers-by what to expect inside. One somewhat blackened brass plaque, about a foot square, gave the name of the Academy. Other plaques, some brass, some plastic, some polished and others almost illegible, announced that the building also provided offices for a dentist, studios for two ballet schools and a voice teacher, and the workshop of a noted costume designer. Other trades represented included theatrical agents, song writers, an export-import company, an advertising agency, and a custom bootmaker specializing in ballet footwear. At the end of the hall, two old elevators wheezed and grunted their way up and down in grillwork shafts. Over the ornate elevator doors were indicators telling on what floors the elevators were. Neither of them worked. But, when one car landed with a sigh of relief and its gates slid open with a creak, Peggy found that the operator was, surprisingly, a young man, quite good-looking and smartly uniformed. He greeted her courteously and took her to the top floor with the air of a man who was giving her a lift in his own chauffeured limousine. The minute Peggy looked around her, any misgivings she had about the building vanished. The atmosphere was ageless, shabby, and completely theatrical. The elusive smell, both indefinable and familiar, but which was nothing but the smell of backstage, perfumed the hall. Through a closed door to her left, Peggy heard a chorus reciting in unison some lines from a Greek play she could not identify. Directly in front, through an open door in a wall of doors, Peggy saw a tiny theater of perhaps one hundred seats. A few people lounged in the front seats while on the bare stage, under a single floodlight, two young men acted out what sounded like a violent quarrel. To the right, where the long hallway was crossed by another hall, a boy appeared, swinging a fencing foil. He turned the corner out of sight. “This must be where I go,” Peggy thought, starting for a nearby door marked OFFICE. She took a deep breath, opened the door, and walked in. The pretty receptionist, greeting her by name, said that she was expected and that Mr. Macaulay, the director of the Academy, would see her right away. The first thing that Peggy noticed was the office, in the elaborate clutter of which Mr. Macaulay seemed to have disappeared. It was a large, square room, its walls paneled from the Oriental rugs to the high, carved ceiling. Two tall windows draped in red velvet showed glimpses of rooftops and river through lace curtains. Every available piece of wall was covered with pictures: photographs of people who were surely actors and actresses, paintings of people and of places, heavily framed etchings, newspaper clippings, book jackets, theater programs, old theater posters, magazine articles and, apparently, everything else that could possibly fit into a frame. Where there were not pictures, there were books, except for one narrow wall space between the windows, where there was a small marble fireplace, over the mantel of which rose a tall mirror. The mantel itself was a jumble of pipes, tobacco tins, more pictures in small frames, china figurines, candlesticks and boxes assembled around a pendulum clock which stood motionless under a bell-shaped glass cover. In one corner of the room was a heavily carved black grand piano, covered with a fringed cloth and stacked high with ragged piles of sheet music, play scripts, books, more pipes, more pictures. In the opposite corner stood an immense desk, also heavily carved, and behind its incredibly cluttered surface rose the tall back of a thronelike chair. In the chair, almost lost from view, sat Mr. Macaulay. When Peggy first realized he was there, she almost laughed, thinking of various animals whose protective coloration lets them melt into their natural backgrounds, the way the dappled coat of a deer seems merely more of the forest pattern of light and shade. Mr. Macaulay was as ornate as his room. He was a small, round man who concealed a cherubic smile beneath a pair of curly, white handlebar mustaches. His red cheeks and white hair made the perfect setting for bright blue eyes that glittered behind an old-fashioned pair of pince-nez glasses perched precariously on his nose. A black ribbon from the eyeglasses ended in a gold fitting secured in his lapel. The round expanse of his shirt front was covered by a brocaded, double-breasted vest such as Peggy had never seen except in movies set in the Gay Nineties, and when Mr. Macaulay rose in smiling greeting and came around the end of the desk, Peggy could not help looking down to see if he wore gray spats. He did. “Welcome!” Mr. Macaulay boomed in a surprising bass voice. “Now let’s sit down and talk this over.” He motioned Peggy to sit on one of a pair of straight-backed chairs, while he stood by the other with one foot up on its petit-point seat. “Now,” he said abruptly, “what makes you think you can act?” Taken aback, Peggy stammered a little. “Well ... well, I’ve been in a lot of plays in college and high school and ... and I always got good reviews ... I mean, everybody always thought that I was....” “Won’t do.” Mr. Macaulay cut in decisively. “You’re telling me why other people think you can act. What I want to know is why you think you can act.” This time, Peggy answered with more control. “I don’t really think I can, Mr. Macaulay,” she said calmly and earnestly, “even though I did get those good notices. But I know that I want to, and I hope that I can learn here.” “A good answer!” the little director thundered happily. “Now tell me why you want to act, and how you know it’s what you really want to do, and we’ll be well on the way to a lasting friendship.” Peggy thought for a minute before answering. She sensed that her answer would be important in deciding whether she would be accepted as a member of the Academy or not, and she wanted to be sure that the words were a true reflection of what she wanted to say. “Mr. Macaulay, I want to act for the same reason that I grew up in Rockport, Wisconsin. It just happened. I didn’t choose it; it chose me. And I know it’s what I really want because when I’m acting, I feel about one hundred per cent more alive than when I’m not—and it’s a wonderful feeling.” Mr. Macaulay nodded solemnly, removed his foot from the chair and walked twice around the room in silence, neatly dodging the chairs and tables that filled the place. As he seemed to be starting a third circuit of the room, he stopped, turned and replaced his foot on the chair. “Young lady,” the little director said softly, “if you’re any more alive on the stage than you are right here in this room, you’ll light up the audience like an arc lamp!” Then he strode rapidly to the door, opened it, and turned to smile warmly at Peggy. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you,” he said. “But, Mr. Macaulay,” Peggy said, “won’t you even give me a chance to read for you? I’ve got three short selections prepared, and—” “Not for at least six months,” the director cut in. “I never hear readings from beginners.” “Six months? Then I can’t start this term!” Peggy said, almost in tears. “Of course you’ll start this term,” Mr. Macaulay said. “We begin in two weeks. Miss Carson will give you all the necessary forms and the catalogue and anything else you need. Glad to have you with us!” “But ... but ...” Peggy sputtered. “You mean I’m accepted? Without even reading for you? Just like that?” “Just like that,” Mr. Macaulay agreed calmly. “I don’t believe in readings. What I look for is personality and presence and a feeling for the stage. The right kind of feeling for the stage,” he added. “As for the readings, I’ll be glad to hear you after you’ve had about six months of work with the Academy. I can tell you’ll be one of our good ones.” With a few words of farewell to the confused Peggy, he led her to Miss Carson’s desk and quickly retreated to what Peggy already thought of as his “natural habitat.” Only after she was through with Miss Carson and her papers and forms and was on the way down in the ancient elevator did it finally dawn on Peggy that she had actually gotten what she had wanted for years—she was accepted in the best dramatic school in New York! The elevator seemed hardly big enough to hold her; she wanted to run, to jump, to sing! What she was actually doing seemed the silliest thing imaginable. She was grinning a wide, foolish grin and at the same time tasting the salty tears that were probably smearing her mascara. “Congratulations,” said the elevator operator. “Not everyone makes it.” “Oh! How did you know?” Peggy gasped, dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief. “Knew you were trying when I saw you come up with the play scripts,” he answered. “And I knew you made it when I saw your face.” He slid back the squealing grillwork gate. “So long,” he said. “See you in a couple of weeks.” At the end of the long hall, the doorway filled with sunshine seemed to be paved with gold. Outside, it seemed to Peggy, the whole city was paved with gold. She impulsively ran to the door, poised in the sunlight, and blew a theatrical kiss at the sky. When Peggy, bubbling with her news, returned to the hotel, it was decided to fill the time before lunch with a necessary shopping tour. She needed so much, now that she was to live in New York. Mr. Lane decided to let Peggy and her mother take care of this aspect of the trip, while he visited some old newspaper friends. He arranged to meet them for lunch at the hotel in two hours, kissed them fondly, and boarded a bus downtown. Rockport was never like this, Peggy thought, as she and her mother walked along looking in shop windows. They were so excited just deciding which stores to shop in and what things she needed, that before they had a chance to actually buy anything, it was time for lunch. “At least we had a chance to find out where all the nice stores are,” Mrs. Lane said. “And it doesn’t matter that we didn’t get you your things. You’ll probably have more fun going shopping by yourself or with some of your new friends when you come back here to live. Besides, we won’t have to bring things home and then carry them all the way back to New York again.” Peggy agreed that it made sense, and at the thought of her “new friends” and of buying her own things in New York’s world-famous stores, she got a little thrill of pleasure and anticipation. After lunch, made memorable by Mr. Lane’s new collection of newspaper stories picked up from his old friends, it was time to travel downtown to meet May Berriman and see where Peggy would be living. As their taxi took them downtown from the hotel, Peggy noticed how the city seemed to change character every few blocks. The types of buildings and the kinds of stores changed; the neighborhood grew progressively more shabby; there were more trucks in the streets and fewer taxis. Peggy wondered what sort of neighborhood May Berriman’s place was in. Mrs. Lane, too, looked a bit concerned and whispered to Mr. Lane, “Are you sure we’re going the right way?” He nodded and said, “You don’t know New York. Wait and see.” In the middle of what appeared to be a district of warehouses and office buildings, the cab turned a corner, and a swift change again overtook the city. Suddenly there were well-kept apartment houses and residential hotels and then, with another turn, it was as if time itself had been turned back! The street ended in a beautiful old-fashioned park surrounded by a high wrought-iron fence in which were set tall gates. The street around the park was lined with old, mellow brick mansions whose steps led up to high doors fitted with gleaming brass knobs, knockers, and hinges. Peggy almost expected to see top-hatted gentlemen emerge from them to descend, swinging slim canes, to waiting carriages. “This is Gramercy Park,” her father said. “It’s still one of the most fashionable and beautiful parts of the city. May’s house is just off the park, and she tells me she has park rights for herself and the girls who live with her.” “Park rights?” Peggy said wonderingly. “Do you mean it’s a private park?” “That’s right,” her father answered. “One of the last in New York. Its use is limited to people who live right around it, all of whom have keys to the gates. That’s one thing that makes this such a nice place to live.” The cab had made almost a complete circle of the park when the driver turned off into a side street. Two doors down he stopped before a handsome brownstone house, complete with the steep steps and brass fittings that were typical of the area. On either side of the steps, at street level, stood a square stone column, and on each one was a polished brass plate engraved: Gramercy Arms. As Peggy started up the steps she caught a glimpse through the windows in the little areaway below street level. The spacious kitchen she saw looked far more typical of Rockport than anything she would have expected to find in New York City, and it made her feel sure that she would like living in May Berriman’s house. May Berriman herself proved to be as big and as warm looking and as countrified as her kitchen. Her erect carriage and bright-red hair belied her more than sixty years, and her voice was deep and even, with none of the quaver that Peggy was used to hearing in older people. She met them at the door with vast and impartial enthusiasm, kissed them all and ushered them into a tiny sitting room, tastefully furnished with a mixture of modern and antique pieces. They had scarcely had time to say hello when tea was served by a bright-eyed, kimonoed Japanese woman who might have been any age at all. Peggy watched in silent pleasure as May Berriman poured the tea in the formal English style, using an essence, fresh boiled water, an alcohol burner to keep the tea hot, and an assortment of tongs, spoons, and strainers. It was not until each of them had a fragile cup of hot, fragrant tea and a plate of delicate little sandwiches that May Berriman sat back, relaxed, for conversation. “Peggy, your father told me on the phone that you have been accepted in the Academy. I’m delighted. Now tell me, what do you think of Archer Macaulay?” “I hardly know,” Peggy admitted. “I’ve never met anyone like him. Is he always as abrupt as that?” “Always!” May Berriman laughed. “Ever since I’ve known Archie—and that goes back a good many years—he’s tried to act like a bad playwright’s idea of an Early Victorian theatrical genius. It’s a peculiar sort of act when you first see it, but after a while you get used to it and hardly notice at all. Besides, it’s not all sham. He may not be Early Victorian, but he is a theatrical genius.” “Was he an actor?” Peggy asked. “Goodness, no! Only in his personal life! There’s a world of difference between acting and teaching; you hardly ever find anyone who’s good at both. Macaulay’s a magnificent teacher, so he had sense enough never even to try acting.” “But,” Peggy objected, “how can you teach something you can’t do?” May Berriman smiled. “Oh, Archie can do, all right. He’s that rarest of all talents—a talented audience. He knows when something is good and when it isn’t, and if it’s not good, he knows just what it lacks. He just keeps asking for what he wants, and when he gets it—if he gets it—it turns out to be just what everyone else wants, too. That’s why he has been able to discover and develop more fine talent than any other man of our time. You’re a lucky girl to be able to work with Archer Macaulay. Even to be accepted for his school is a great honor.” Peggy nodded in understanding as May Berriman talked about the talent for recognizing talent, remembering her last conversation with her friend Jean Wilson. Maybe some day, Peggy thought, she herself, an old retired actress, would be serving tea in her own house, and talking in just such tones of affection and admiration for her friend Jean, who would then be the famous director of the best dramatic school in.... She was brought out of her daydream by her mother, who touched her arm gently and said, “Back to earth, dear. Mrs. Berriman wants to show us the room you’re to have.” The room was small, but comfortably furnished as a sitting room, with a large couch that opened to a bed. Two tall windows with window seats set in their deep frames looked out into the tops of two lacy trees that rose from a tiny, well-kept garden. An easy chair and a low table stood in front of a little fireplace that really worked—a rare thing in New York. An antique desk between the windows and a large bureau opposite the fireplace completed the furnishings. The couch was covered in a deep blue that matched the blue carpet, the walls were white, and the windows were draped in a white fabric with blue cabbage roses. The same fabric covered the easy chair. “It’s perfect!” Peggy said, and rushed off to try the big easy chair. “I’m going to love it here!” she said. “In fact, I hardly want to go home!” “I’m afraid, Peg,” Mr. Lane said, looking at his watch, “that that’s just what we’re going to have to do, and in a very few minutes. If we want to make our plane, we’d better be getting back to the hotel to pack.” The brief good-by, the taxi ride around Gramercy Park and back uptown, the hurried packing, the trip to the airport and the now-familiar process of boarding and take-off seemed to Peggy as fast, as jerky and peculiar as a movie run backward. She wanted to play it back right again, to put everything in its proper sequence, and live over her exciting day. And that’s exactly what she did, in her mind’s eye, all the way back to Rockport. |
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