MR. SAMPSON LONGVALE CALLS
ADELE LEAMINGTON waited till the studio was almost empty before she came
to where the white-haired man sat crouched in his canvas chair, his
hands thrust into his trousers pockets, a malignant scowl on his
forehead.
It was not a propitious moment to approach him: nobody knew that better
than she.
“Mr. Knebworth, may I speak to you?”
He looked up slowly. Ordinarily he would have risen, for this
middle-aged American in normal moments was the soul of courtesy. But
just at that moment, his respect for womanhood was something below zero.
His look was blank, though the director in him instinctively approved
her values. She was pretty, with regular features, a mop of brown hair
in which the sunshine of childhood still lingered. Her mouth firm,
delicately shaped, her figure slim—perfect in many ways.
Jack had seen many beautiful extras in his career, and had passed
through stages of enthusiasm and despair as he had seen them translated
to the screen—pretty wooden figures without soul or expression, gauche
of movement, hopeless. Too pretty to be clever, too conscious of their
beauty to be natural. Dolls without intelligence or initiative—just
“extras” who could wear clothes in a crowd, who could smile and dance
mechanically, fit for extras and nothing else all the days of their
lives.
“Well?” he asked brusquely.
“Is there a part I could play in this production, Mr. Knebworth?” she
asked.
His shaven lips curled.
“Aren’t you playing a part, Miss—can’t remember your name—Leamington,
is it?”
“I’m certainly playing—I’m one of the figures in the background,” she
smiled. “I don’t want a big part, but I’m sure I could do better than I
have done.”
“I’m mighty sure you couldn’t do worse than some people,” he growled.
“No, there’s no part for you, friend. There’ll be no story to shoot
unless things alter. That’s what!”
She was going away when he recalled her.
“Left a good home, I guess?” he said. “Thought picture-making meant a
million dollars a year an’ a new automobile every Thursday? Or maybe you
were holding down a good job as a stenographer and got it under your
toque that you’d make Hollywood feel small if you got your chance? Go
back home, kid, and tell the old man that a typewriter’s got a sunlight
arc beaten to death as an instrument of commerce.”
The girl smiled faintly.
“I didn’t come into pictures because I was stage-struck, if that is what
you mean, Mr. Knebworth. I came in knowing just how hard a life it might
be. I have no parents.”
He looked up at her curiously.
“How do you live?” he asked. “There’s no money in ‘extra’ work—not on
this lot, anyway. Might be if I was one of those billion dollar
directors who did pictures with chariot races. But I don’t. My ideal
picture has got five characters.”
“I have a little income from my mother, and I write,” said the girl.
She stopped as she saw him looking past her to the studio entrance, and,
turning her head, saw a remarkable figure standing in the doorway. At
first she thought it was an actor who had made up for a film test.
The newcomer was an old man, but his great height and erect carriage
would not have conveyed that impression at a distance. The tight-fitting
tail-coat, the trousers strapped to his boots, the high collar and black
satin stock belonged to a past age, though they were newly made. The
white linen bands that showed at his wrists were goffered, his
double-breasted waistcoat of grey velvet was fastened by golden buttons.
He might have stepped from a family portrait of one of those dandies of
the ’fifties. He held a tall hat in one gloved hand, a hat with a curly
brim, and in the other a gold-topped walking-stick. The face, deeply
lined, was benevolent and kind, and he seemed unconscious of his
complete baldness.
Jack Knebworth was out of his chair in a second and walked toward the
stranger.
“Why, Mr. Longvale, I am glad to see you—did you get my letter? I can’t
tell you how much obliged I am to you for the loan of your house.”
Sampson Longvale, of the Dower House! She remembered now. He was known
in Chichester as “the old-fashioned gentleman,” and once, when she was
out on location, somebody had pointed out the big, rambling house, with
its weed-grown garden and crumbling walls, where he lived.
“I thought I would come over and see you,” said the big man.
His voice was rich and beautifully modulated. She did not remember
having heard a voice quite as sweet, and she looked at the eccentric
figure with a new interest.
“I can only hope that the house and grounds are suitable to your
requirements. I am afraid they are in sad disorder, but I cannot afford
to keep the estate in the same condition as my grandfather did.”
“Just what I want, Mr. Longvale. I was afraid you might be offended when
I told you——”
The old gentleman interrupted him with a soft laugh.
“No, no, I wasn’t offended, I was amused. You needed a haunted house: I
could even supply that quality, though I will not promise you that my
family ghost will walk. The Dower House has been haunted for hundreds of
years. A former occupant in a fit of frenzy murdered his daughter there,
and the unhappy lady is supposed to walk. I have never seen her, though
many years ago one of my servants did. Fortunately, I am relieved of
that form of annoyance: I no longer keep servants in the house,” he
smiled, “though, if you care to stay the night, I shall be honoured to
entertain five or six of your company.”
Knebworth heaved a sigh of relief. He had made diligent inquiries and
found that it was almost impossible to secure lodgings in the
neighbourhood, and he was most anxious to take night pictures, and for
one scene he particularly desired the peculiar light value which he
could only obtain in the early hours of the morning.
“I’m afraid that would give you a lot of trouble, Mr. Longvale,” he
said. “And here and now I think we might discuss that delicate subject
of——”
The old man stopped him with a gesture.
“If you are going to speak of money, please don’t,” he said firmly. “I
am interested in cinematography; in fact, I am interested in most modern
things. We old men are usually prone to decry modernity, but I find my
chiefest pleasure in the study of those scientific wonders which this
new age has revealed to us.”
He looked at the director quizzically.
“Some day you shall take a picture of me in the one rôle in which I
think I should have no peer—a picture of me in the rôle of my
illustrious ancestor.”
Jack Knebworth stared, half amused, half startled. It was no unusual
experience to find people who wished to see themselves on the screen,
but he never expected that little piece of vanity from Mr. Sampson
Longvale.
“I should be glad,” he said formally. “Your people were pretty well
known, I guess?”
Mr. Longvale sighed.
“It is my regret that I do not come from the direct line that included
Charles Henry, the most historic member of my family. He was my
great-uncle. I come from the Bordeaux branch of Longvales, which has
made history, sir.” He shook his head regretfully.
“Are you French, Mr. Longvale?” asked Jack.
Apparently the old man did not hear him. He was staring into space.
Then, with a start:
“Yes, yes, we were French. My great-grandfather married an English lady
whom he met in peculiar circumstances. We came to England in the days of
the directorate.”
Then, for the first time, he seemed aware of Adele’s presence, and bowed
toward her.
“I think I must go,” he said, taking a huge gold watch from his fob
pocket.
The girl watched them as they passed out of the hall, and presently she
saw the “old-fashioned gentleman” pass the window, driving the
oldest-fashioned car she had ever seen. It must have been one of the
first motor-cars ever introduced into the country, a great, upstanding,
cumbersome machine, that passed with a thunderous sound and at no great
speed down the gravel drive out of sight.
Presently Jack Knebworth came slowly back.
“This craze for being screened certainly gets ’em—old or young,” he
said. “Good night, Miss—forget your name—Leamington, ain’t it? Good
night.”
She was half-way home before she realized that the conversation that she
had plucked up such courage to initiate had ended unsatisfactorily for
her, and she was as far away from her small part as ever.