Backstage Nurse (3 page)

Shirley felt that she understood the meaning of the old man's slight inflection on the last few words. "He still has a drink problem?"

"Unfortunately, yes." The old actor paused. "But I have confidence in the man. I don't think he'll let me down. By an unhappy coincidence, there is a girl in our company who seems very fond of him, but she could be a bad influence on him. She's a wild, restless sort."

"I see," she said quietly. It seemed to her that Hugh Deering was one of those people whom fate enjoyed facing with the worst of breaks. She wondered if he would be strong enough to overcome them.

"You'll meet her at rehearsal," Oliver Craft went on. "Her name is Joy Milland. Attractive, but thoroughly spoiled!" He settled back in his chair and gazed down at the street once more.

Shirley moved quietly to the bathroom and finished cleaning up the glasses and putting the medicine away. When she had completed her task, she went back into the living room and saw that his eyes were closed. She left on tiptoe and went back to her own room.

It was a large, old-fashioned room with the ornate ceiling work of another era. But the management had painted the walls a modern flat beige color, relieved by several attractive paintings; the walnut furniture was also new.

Yet this room reminded her of those other hotel rooms she had known when she was a regular part of show business. All this was bringing it vividly back to her. She had been fond of the make-believe profession, and if it hadn't been for the jolt of her father's death, she probably would have gone on as an actress for some time. Not that she regretted her decision. But there was still a nostalgia about the theater for her.

On Monday morning when she arrived backstage at the Colonial Theater on Oliver Craft's arm, she felt almost as if she were to be part of the rehearsal. The old man had been especially well in anticipation of the great day of coming back. He led her directly onstage, where several busy stagehands were erecting the set—a dark, unattractive prison scene.

Indicating a tall, moody-looking blond young man, he said, "This is Lyon Phillips, our stage manager. Lyon, I want you to meet my nurse, Shirley Grant."

Lyon Phillips smiled, and his face seemed less long. He extended his hand. "Good of you to bring the Chief back to us, Miss Grant."

"Just don't handle him too roughly," she joked, deciding that Phillips was a matter-of-fact young man she would like and could depend on.

Oliver Craft guided her across the stage to the right, where a florid-faced man of middle age was chatting earnestly with Hugh Deering. The two turned as they came up. Deering smiled a greeting, and the other man eyed her with an interested glance.

"You've already met Hugh," the old actor said easily. "And now I want you to meet my co-star in
The Cardinal
, Jeffrey Sayre. Jeff, this is my nurse, Shirley Grant. She'll be with us for the duration of the tour."

Jeffrey Sayre stepped forward and took her hand. As he did so, she recalled seeing him in pictures. "I've seen you in the movies," she told him. "I wasn't quite sure for a second."

He threw back his head and laughed heartily. "Because you see me now without my wig!"

When Shirley had seen Jeffrey Sayre in his many movie roles, he had worn a wig of thick blond hair. Now he stood before her quite bald, with only a fringe of graying hair.

"Don't be alarmed," he told her. "I shall be wearing it at every performance. Offstage, I can afford a shining dome." Turning his attention brusquely to Oliver Craft, he continued: "I hope they've made no mistake in letting you come back to us, Oliver."

"They've made no mistake," Craft said quietly.

"I would have been willing to take on your role for the balance of the tour," Sayre said, in a tone that indicated he thought that was what should have been done. "Neither the company nor the management need have suffered." Then, smiling rather unpleasantly, "Assuming the public would have turned out as well for me as they do for you."

Oliver Craft patted his arm. "I'm quite sure they would have. But in answer to an old man's whim, the doctor has been kind enough to let me return."

"Chief! You're really back!" This came in a loud, friendly voice from behind them. And Shirley and the old actor turned to see a short, fat man in a black suit and Homburg hat smiling radiantly at them from stage center.

Craft went to the little man with an air of greeting an old friend. "Charles! I have missed you!" He clasped an arm around the man affectionately and, turning to Shirley, said, "Another excellent actor—Charles Victor."

Charles Victor winked at her. "A new, pretty girl backstage to flirt with! Maybe this won't be such a bad tour after all!"

Lyon Phillips appeared through the center arch of the set and spoke to Oliver Craft: "Everything ready, Chief. Shall we begin?"

"Fine!"

Craft and Shirley left the stage with the others so that the play might start. Following Dr. Trask's instructions, Shirley had a chair placed in the wings for her patient to sit on while awaiting his cue.

As they waited for the rehearsal to begin, Shirley noticed Hugh Deering standing near the wall of the theater talking with Charles Victor and a middle-aged woman, who must be one of the two females in the play. The other, the one she wanted to meet, would be Joy Milland. She wondered why the Milland girl hadn't yet made an appearance.

Then the cue was given for the play to begin, and she watched Charles Victor and the woman go onstage for the opening scene. The play gradually took shape. It was laid in an unnamed Communist state. Oliver Craft was the imprisoned Catholic Cardinal who had dared to take a stand against the corrupt leaders.

When it was Hugh Deering's time to go onstage, she watched with breathless interest. Deering played the part of a secondary leader in the Communist regime. He was supposed to be hard, cynical, and unswerving, and he brought all these qualities out in an excellent manner. Shirley had enough knowledge of the theater to see that he was doing a superb job. Almost automatically, she wondered if he had been just as good a doctor. What a pity that medicine had been robbed of his precise, quick mind!

In the scene with Hugh Deering, the leading role was taken by the ex-movie actor, Jeffrey Sayre. He was the head of the party; a ruthless, cruel type played expertly by the big, bald man. The part was almost as important to the play as the Cardinal's. It was a meaty, rewarding part for any actor, Shirley realized, and in the hands of an actor like Sayre, it would certainly mean something.

When Oliver Craft's first cue came, he gave her a nod and a smile and stepped briskly out. Shirley watched the tall, gaunt man's graceful movements on the stage and heard him utter the Cardinal's lines with all the regal dignity for which they called. It was a dazzling, exciting performance the old actor gave. Watching him, she couldn't believe that he was still in the grip of the cancer which had brought him to the hospital, that his vitality was even at this moment being drained by the dread disease.

The first act proceeded without any breaks or interruptions. It was apparent that the forced layoff had not cost the company any of its keen edge. The people in the play seemed to enjoy it and got that enjoyment across the footlights.

Finally the act ended on a long, bitter exchange of dialogue between the Cardinal and the Communist leader. Shirley saw that this scene was taking a great deal from Oliver Craft. His face had become completely white as the scene advanced, and though his voice was strong and clear, she thought he was trembling. She wondered why Jeffrey Sayre had not noticed this and toned down his playing. Surely there was no need to play at this peak during a rehearsal, nor should it be done this way in the theater. The pace that Sayre was setting made it necessary for the old man to work extremely hard to top him. And the scene required that the Cardinal should tower above his opponent.

Jeffrey Sayre snarled out the lines of the rabble-rouser: "I have won the country with my army! I will hold it with my army! Tell me, Cardinal, how many legions do you have?"

As the Cardinal, Oliver Craft smiled faintly at him, and then, turning to the window of the prison in which dawn was just appearing, he said quietly, "I count them every morning in the sunrise."

On this line, the first-act curtain fell. For a moment, Shirley stood in silence. It was a truly great scene she had just watched the two men play. Then, remembering her patient, she rushed onstage to meet Oliver Craft. "Are you all right?" she asked.

The old actor nodded. "Fine! Fine! This is like a tonic to me." But he was perspiring and she saw that he walked a bit unsteadily.

"You're to rest on the cot in your dressing room until the second act," she said, taking his arm. "Doctor's orders!"

Against his will, she persuaded him to lie down and she gave him one of the pills Dr. Trask had provided for moments like this. She left the actor stretched out on the cot, relaxing at last.

As she stepped out into the corridor, fat little Charles Victor hurried up to her. His face was filled with concern as he said, "The Chief doesn't look good to me, Miss Grant. Do you think this is too much for him?"

Touched by his upset state, Shirley said, "Not if he's careful. And in cases like this, it always seems best to let the patient have his way."

"I see." Victor nodded glumly. "It's that bad. I'd heard rumors, but I wasn't sure."

"If only he didn't have to play the scenes at such a high level of emotion," Shirley said. "Couldn't the whole play be toned down a bit so that he won't have to draw so heavily on his energy?"

Charles Victor shrugged. "The Chief always gives his best. But I know what you mean."

They walked along the corridor to backstage, and it was then that Shirley saw Joy Milland for the first time. She was talking to Hugh Deering and Jeffrey Sayre with exaggerated animation. A brunette with attractive, although bold features, her somewhat common face was heavily made up. And the stylish blue suit and mink cape she was wearing, along with a modishly tilted hat in the same color, gave her a flair. Shirley felt plain and dowdy in her nurse's uniform.

Seeing her, Joy exclaimed: "And this is the little girl! The little nurse who is going to look after our Oliver! How lovely!"

Ill at ease, Shirley nodded. "And I believe you're Joy Milland?"

"But yes!" Joy cried. She turned to Hugh. "Isn't that clever of her, darling! She knew me at once!"

"Not too strange," Hugh said dryly in a way that let Shirley see he felt as awkward as she did, "since you're the only other girl in the play. And your picture is posted pretty liberally in the lobby outside."

"Well, of course!" Joy went on loudly. "Hugh tells me you once made a try at the theater, my dear."

"I did some acting," Shirley admitted. "I was in it about two years."

"Well," Joy waved a hand dramatically, "that hardly counts, does it? I mean, such a short time. You'd hardly be more than an amateur!"

Jeffrey Sayre suavely interrupted with: "You've only been in the business four years yourself, if I remember correctly, Joy."

Joy made a face. "But darlings, it's different with me! I have a theatrical background! I was practically born backstage! It does make a difference, you know, dear." She addressed this last to Shirley.

"I'm sure it does," Shirley said, trying to keep the conversation on a pleasant plane. "Actually, that's how I came to enter nursing. My father was a doctor."

"Well, there!" Joy hunched her shoulders and turned her attention to Hugh again. "We're having lunch together today. You remember, darling?"

"I don't, actually!" Hugh laughed rather despairingly. "But if you say so."

"I do! You promised me when I called last night." As she said this, Joy turned to Shirley with a forced smile, as if wanting to catch her reaction to her last statement.

Jeffrey Sayre intervened again. "Why don't we make a foursome of it? They have a fine dining room across the Common at the Hampshire House."

"I'm afraid not," Shirley said. "I'm actually on duty. And I think after this first strenuous workout for Mr. Craft, that I'd better stay with my patient."

"That sounds awfully wise, dear!" Joy agreed, and linking her arm in Hugh's, she marched him off, saying: "There's something I want to tell you privately, darling."

Shirley watched them go, her dismay registered on her face. Then, remembering that Jeffrey Sayre was still there, she turned to him with an apologetic smile. "She's quite vivacious," she managed.

Sayre looked grim. "A bit more than that. You'll get used to her, or else you'll wind up like some of the rest of us, wanting to murder her." With that, he moved away.

Shirley stood in the shadowed darkness of backstage, glad to be alone for a moment. Joy Milland had already decided that Hugh Deering was her private property and the loud, unpleasant little scene she had just played was meant to let Shirley know this.

It was also plain now why Joy could be a bad influence for Hugh. She was loud and nervous, probably unstable in every way, and it would be no surprise to Shirley if she encouraged Hugh in his drinking as the only way she could keep her hold on him. Clearly, Joy Milland was a problem girl.

Lyon Phillips came up to her, a faint smile on his lantern-jawed face. "How about letting me have the star back for second and third acts?"

Looking up quickly, she said, "Oh, yes. I'll get him."

"Noticed you met Joy," Lyon said.

"Yes, I did."

"Cute kid!" Lyon shook his head and went back to the set.

The rest had done Oliver Craft a lot of good and he came back to the second act with some of his old vigor. Everything went well and Shirley watched to see just what the noisy Joy would contribute to the play. She found out when Joy made her entrance at the beginning of the third act. She played the unpleasant, uncouth daughter of the Dictator. It was really a natural for her. She had a short scene, but Shirley had to admit she did it well.

Gradually the play built to a climax and again ended with a long, exacting scene between Jeffrey Sayre as the Dictator and Oliver Craft as the Cardinal. Once more, Shirley watched tensely, seeing how the tiring ordeal drained her patient's strength.