"To tomorrow's morning star of the screen, Linda Lee!"
Thus Lynn Summerlad, mildly exalted, graceful and gracious even beyond
his studied habit, flourishing a glass of California champagne above the
dinner table in his bungalow in Beverly Hills.
The toast went by acclamation, and Lucinda laughed, at once gratified,
diverted, and disposed to deprecate the spirit of these felicitations as
premature.
It all seemed rather ridiculous, when one stopped to think, this taking
for granted the success of a venture projected so lately, by no strain
of imagination to be considered as already launched, and based wholly
upon the postulation that the greenest of novices might by some sorcery
of the cinema be ripened overnight into a genius of sorts.
A phrase of Culp's recurred unbidden: "A lot of kids, that's what we got
to make pitchers with, a lot of kids."
It was childish, in a way; on the other hand, it was undeniably pleasant
to think of oneself as one was being tempted to, as a sort of Sleeping
Beauty of the screen only waiting to be awakened to vivid life by one
wave of the witching wand of courage and self-confidence; pleasant to
let oneself go and believe such things might be.
Nor was this difficult. Whether it resulted from the catching enthusiasm
of her company, or from self-reliance new-born of her success in doing
without Bellamy, or whether it were the glamour of this romantic land,
where man since time out of memory had been accustomed to see his
maddest dreams come true, certain it was that there seemed nothing
essentially improbable in the assumption that "Linda Lee," could figure
if she would as "tomorrow's morning star of the screen."
One had only to listen to the gossip of Lontaine and Summerlad to
appreciate that stranger things had happened in the history of
motion-pictures. Nothing, indeed, was conceivably more strange than that
same history, more fantastic and incredible than the record of its
growth, almost within the span of a single decade, from the status of a
toy to that of an institution forming an inseparable part of the fabric
of life, taking its toll of the humblest, and throning and dethroning
kings of finance with the impersonal ruthlessness of an elemental force.
One of the greatest of the producing organizations, whose studios
covered whole blocks of the heart of Hollywood, had had its beginnings
in a trifling story photographed under a big sun-umbrella in a vacant
lot. Its most formidable rival, with which it had ultimately
amalgamated, had been first financed with the mean savings of a
fur-cutter from the lower East Side of New York. Men whose abilities had
proved inadequate to command steady employment at fifty dollars a week
in the legitimate theatre were drawing a daily wage of five hundred
dollars as directors of motion-pictures. The one-time pantomime comedian
of an English company presenting a knockabout vaudeville act had made
himself a multi-millionaire through clowning before a camera. Young men
whose dramatic equipment was limited to the knowledge of how to show
their teeth and slick their hair, young women who had walked into favour
on the strength of their noble underpinning alone, were selling their
services to the cinema under contracts running for terms of years at
five thousand dollars a week; and you could take it from Mr. Summerlad
that most of these had come to Los Angeles with not more than one dollar
to click against another.
"Why, look at me," he invited in an expansive moment: "never had earned
a dollar in my life. Didn't have to, you know: folks had a little money.
Six years ago my little sister caught a bad cold and the doctor
prescribed a Winter in California. Mother and I brought her out and
rented a bungalow in the foothills, up back of the Hollywood Hotel. One
day while I was wandering about I saw a car-load of people in paint and
evening clothes stop in front of a house with good-looking grounds. I
stopped, too. So did others; quite a crowd collected while they were
setting up the camera. Presently a little fellow in riding-breeches,
with an eyeshade, a shock of red hair, and more freckles than anybody
ever saw on a human map before or since, came weaving through the crowd
as if he was looking for somebody. When he saw me, he stopped and said:
'You'll do. Got a dress suit?' I laughed and said I had. He took out a
little book, wrote down my name and address and said: 'Studio tomorrow
morning at eight, made up. We'll need you about three days. Five a day.'
Then he hustled on. I went home and told my mother and sister the joke.
They egged me on to try it for the fun of it. Within two months I was on
the payroll at a hundred a week, and now...."
Summerlad flashed an apologetic smile. "One of the worst faults we movie
actors have, Mrs. Lee, is talking big about our salaries. So I wont say
any more than this: outside the Big Four--Mary and Doug and Charlie and
Bill Hart--there's mighty few that drag down as much green money a week
as I do."
"I'm glad to absolve you of the sin of boasting, Mr. Summerlad."
"I suppose that did sound funny; but then, you see, I _am_ a movie
actor, I don't pretend to be better than the rest of us.... You wouldn't
guess who that director was--assistant director he was then--who gave me
my first engagement: Barry Nolan!"
The name was apparently known to Lontaine, for he exclaimed "You don't
mean it!" as if no more exciting information had come to his ears in
many days.
"The man I've got in mind to direct you in your first picture, Mrs. Lee;
that is, if you can get hold of Barry. You couldn't do better, but his
salary's ee-normous. He's working down in Culver City now, and I don't
know how long his contract runs, but you might be lucky enough to make a
deal of some sort. I'd give him a ring and find out for you, but I
happen to know Barry's got a party on at Sunset tonight. We might jump
into my machine and blow down there, if you like."
"There's no hurry, Mr. Summerlad. Remember, Mr. Lontaine hasn't taken
the first step toward forming a company yet; he isn't in a position to
make Mr. Nolan any definite offer."
"Well, but I'd hate to have you lose a chance. Barry's a wonder. Even
Griffith takes a back seat when Barry Nolan picks up the megaphone. And
there isn't anything I wouldn't do for him. Lord! how he worked to break
me in."
Summerlad sighed, reminiscent. "Them was the happy days. We worked hard
for little money, but we had a good time and a healthy one, out in the
open air practically all day long. Light effects were then just
beginning to be discussed; I don't believe two studios on the Coast had
enclosed stages. Generally speaking, all our work was done either on
location or on open stages under diffusers."
Lucinda repeated the last word with an enquiring inflexion, and
Summerlad explained.
"You see, in those days we had to depend on the sun to light our
interior sets, and direct exposure meant hard contrasts of light and
shadow that didn't look natural. So we stretched great sheets of thin
cloth on wire frames overhead, and they broke up the sun's rays and
diffused an even glow all over the sets. But of course that restricted
us to overhead lighting for all interiors, and that was monotonous and
unnatural besides, because ordinary rooms aren't lighted from the
ceiling. And my! but it used to be cosy, working under diffusers on a
summer's day!"
"But if you depended on the sun so exclusively," Fanny wanted to know,
"what did you do in the rainy season?"
"Loafed, that's all: just loafed. There wasn't anything else to do but
loaf around and watch the sky for signs of a break and tell each other
how good we were. That was another reason why artificial lighting had to
come; it cost too much to carry studio overheads with all production at
a standstill during a rainy season that would maybe last five months, or
a heavy production payroll when often the rain would stop camera-work
for five days on end, and you never could count on two clear days
together. So, one after another, the big studios began to build enclosed
stages and work more and more by Kliegs and Cooper-Hewitts, till at
last--well, today the open stage is almost a thing of the past, and
acting for the camera isn't the good fun it used to be--kenneled all day
long on a sweltering stage, and the lights getting your eyes like they
do. Sometimes, after a spell of work on interiors, I'm as good as blind
for a week.... Funny to think--isn't it?--the California studios are
using artificial light almost exclusively, except of course for location
work, when what brought them out here was steady sunlight that didn't
cost anything seven or nine months out of each year."
"But if there is no longer any real reason, such as the economy of
sunlight, why do the producers stop on here?"
"Because they took root in Los Angeles in the early days, before people
had forgotten that principles of ordinary economy might be applied to
making pictures, and what took root grew, till today there are hundreds
of millions invested in picture plants here. Also because all the
picture people have dug in around the plants. Nearly every good actor
has his permanent home here, likewise most of the bad ones; and those
who do get a job in the East hurry back as soon as they finish up, so as
not to be among the missing if they're wanted for another job. You can
cast almost any picture perfectly in a few days in Hollywood, whereas
any place else, except maybe New York, it would take weeks to locate
your people and bring them together, and there'd be transportation to
pay for into the bargain."
Lontaine interposed a question of a technical nature, and as Summerlad
answered him at length, Lucinda's attention wandered, she began to think
more about the speaker, less about what he was saying. Undeniably a most
satisfying creature, at least to look at. Bending over the table, his
face glowing as he illustrated his meaning with an animated play of
hands: though his words were all for Lontaine. Summerlad's consciousness
was constant to Lucinda, his quick eyes were forever seeking hers....
Hard hit and making no secret of it.
Not that it mattered, more than for the good it did one's self-esteem to
be respectfully if openly adored by a personable young man whom one
found agreeable. Vanity had been sorely sprung by Bellamy's sacrifice of
his wife's love to his appetite for the cheap excitement of flirting
with women of cheap emotions. His pursuit of her Lucinda valued at no
more than one last effort to salve the hurt her desertion of him had
dealt to his vanity. Neither had Daubeney's devotion meant a great deal:
being something too familiar through old acquaintance not to be
misprized. It had needed some such new conquest as this to make Lucinda
think well of herself again; this at least proved her charms not yet
passee. Reassurance for which she was disproportionately grateful; and
gratitude is commonly the most demoralizing of vices.
Lucinda inclined to approve the style in which Summerlad maintained
himself. The bungalow, secluded in wide and well-kempt grounds, might
have served as the warm-weather retreat of a Grand Duke. And if there
was a suspicion of rule-of-thumb in some of its effects, at least it
could be said that Summerlad had shown sound judgment in selecting an
interior decorator of sound taste.
The dinner had been well cooked and served by a deft Japanese. As it
neared its close a more cheerful partie carree would have been far to
seek. Indeed, had Lucinda entertained genuine misgivings as to the
wisdom of her decision to try her luck on the screen, they must have
been compensated by its action on the spirits of her friends. And it
couldn't have been anything else, for they had partaken sparingly of the
native champagne which, while fair enough of its kind, was nothing to
seduce palates educated on London Dry. Yet Fanny's effervescence outvied
that of the wine. Lontaine's eyes had lost altogether their tense
expression, Summerlad was on his mettle in his dual role of host and
courtier, Lucinda herself was stirred by a gayety she had too seldom
known since the first years of her marriage.
By merely turning her head she could look out through an open casement
to a lawn where moonlight like liquid silver slept between mysterious,
dense masses of purple shadow. The breath of the night was bland and
fragrant. Somewhere at a distance a sentimental orchestra was playing,
possibly at the Beverly Hills Hotel. In Chicago the thermometer had
shivered in the neighbourhood of zero; New York, according to
telegraphic news, was digging out from under a snowfall second only to
that of its legendary blizzard.
"I want to purr," Lucinda confessed, finding Summerlad's eyes upon her.
"You're beginning to fall under the spell of California."
"I told you this afternoon I was already sensitive of its enchantment.
Tonight, I think, completes its work: I am enslaved."
"I must make the most of these moments, then. Presently we'll both be
busy, you in especial far too busy to give me many evenings like this."
"I'm not at all afraid of being doomed to ennui through any lack of
ingenuity in you."
"If I'm not mistaken, that's a dare."
"It's as you care to take it."
He accepted with a smile the smiling gage of her eyes. They understood
each other perfectly.
When it was time to return to the Alexandria, Summerlad insisted on
driving them home himself; and as they drew near to Hollywood swung the
car sharply off the highroad, and took a by-way leading into the
foothills. In a few minutes more they had left behind every hint of
civilization, other than the well-metalled way they travelled, and were
climbing a road that wound snakily up precipitous mountainsides,
threaded unholy gulches, or struck boldly across spine-like ridges from
which the ground, clothed in chaparral, fell dizzily away on either hand
into black gulfs of silence. The air grew colder, Lucinda and the
Lontaines grateful for the wraps which Summerlad had pressed upon them.
In the course of half an hour the car halted on an isolate peak, and all
the lowlands lay unfolded to their vision, from the foothills to the
sea, a land like a violet pool with a myriad winking facets of
blue-white light; as some vast store of diamonds might be strewn by
hands of heedless prodigality upon a dark velvet field.
Pointing, Summerlad began to recite the names of places represented by
lines and groups of lights: Hollywood at their feet, the Wilshire
district with Los Angeles beyond, Culver City, Pasadena away to the
left, Santa Monica far to the right, Venice, Del Rey, Redondo.... "The
kingdoms of the world you're come to conquer, Mrs. Lee."
"I shan't say 'Get thee behind me,'" Lucinda retorted; "I've a sensible
notion you're safer where I can keep an eye on you."
It was true enough that the facile infatuation which California inspires
in the uninitiate already held her senses in fee; she felt as one might
who had miraculously found the way to cross the far horizon and go down
into the magic realms of true romance.
But she fell asleep that night to dream of coursing a will-o'-the-wisp
through a land whose painted illusion failed and faded as she fled, till
in the end there was no more beauty, nor happiness nor hope, but only
the bare grin of the desert savage and implacable.
She started awake with her husband's name trembling on her lips.