Lucinda slept that night--and that she slept at all crossed her
presentiment--but fitfully, in spells of profound and wasting lethargy
broken by wretched watches of half-waking dread under the dominion of
the incubus that agonized her dreams, that phantasm of the land-bird
lost, spending its slender strength against the cruel vasts of night and
sea and storm....
Toward morning exhaustion claimed her absolutely, sponging out every
care, and for some hours her slumbers were unbroken. But she woke up as
it were against her will, heavy of heart and without sense of having
rested.
Sluggish resentment crawled in her mind, that she should feel so worn
and old whose first moments after sleep were as a rule her happiest,
when she would lie serene, luxuriating in whole refreshment and with
normal optimism very like a child's looking forward to the day, making
plans to fill in with small pleasures every hour that wasn't to be
devoted to her work.
There was still the feel of immaturity in the day, the chilly souvenir
of night which so frequently renders the mornings of Southern California
sickly, before the sun finds strength enough to burn away the high fog
that, like a thief in the dark, is wont to steal in after sundown from
the sea.
What, then, had awakened her so far in advance of the customary hour?
Something hideous and hateful skulking like a torpid snake in the
shadows beyond the threshold of consciousness, some foul shape that she
instinctively shrank from calling up....
The bedside clock struck nine, and Lucinda started up in a flutter
excited by the thought that she would yet another time be late and so
afford fresh reason for dissension with her director ... then sank back
to her pillow, cringing from memories that came trooping in the wake of
the reminder that she was to know no more of Barry Nolan in her life....
No more of Nolan, no more of Nelly, no more of Lynn ... no more of
Love....
With a convulsive movement she flung over in the bed and lay almost
prone, her face snuggled into bare arms whose pure lustre lent fire to
the crimson that glowed in a lunette of cheek, the one ear visible, even
in her neck's sleek loveliness.
Things that Nelly had told her, resting on that very bed, plain tales of
the life that Lynn by preference had led, related in the flat and
toneless accents of emotional prostration, therefore the more likely to
be free from overstatement; things Lynn himself had owned inadvertently
or injudiciously at the urge of vanity craving greater prestige in her
sight; things that she knew of her own experience with the man, little
circumstances of their association that had threatened its harmony,
things she hadn't liked and wilfully had been blind to, denied, or
disbelieved: all swam up from the deeps of memory to float like scum
upon the surface of her consciousness.
Lonely and restless, starving for affection and all too eager to snatch
at shadow and proclaim it substance, self-dedicated victim of a
ready-made infatuation....
And she had called that Love!
What dishonor, what humiliation, what reproach!
What an escape! and at what cost!... a cost not yet all paid, and which
if she would she might not pay alone, but must see others pay in part
for her, Nelly and Lynn perhaps with their lives, Bel too in his way, in
another way Zinn ... all called upon to lay down things they held dear
that she might have her lesson, that she might learn Love is never
lightly to be won, no, nor put by, either....
In the room adjoining she could hear her maid quietly moving about,
tidying up, with presently a chirrup of the telephone, then a guarded
mumble as the woman answered.
She was hanging up when Lucinda, dragging on a neglige, flung open the
communicating door.
The maid said Mr. Zinn had called up, and gaped to see Lucinda's glance
grow dull and the spirit of her entrance pass abruptly into apathy.
Sinking wearily against the door-frame, she desired to know what Zinn
had wanted.
"He asked if you was up yet, ma'm, and when I told him no, he said it
didn't matter, would I kindly take the message, he couldn't keep his
date with you to look at the rushes today, and maybe not tomorrow, he'd
give you a ring 'safternoon and let you know."
"Very well," Lucinda said without interest.... "I'll have my bath,
please."
Waiting for the water to be drawn, she wandered to a window. The high
fog still held the day against the sun, a dense, cold pall of grey, as
flat as a metal plate, closing out the blue, closing in an atmosphere
lifeless and bleak.
She thought of Lynn fighting for his life, perhaps losing, perhaps
already still in defeat.
And Nelly ... at whose fate one could only guess....
She recalled that bright hour of sunset, so clear and warm, through
which she had motored in gladness toward his arms whom she had called
her beloved, that hour in the dread light of this so weirdly unreal, so
inconceivably remote; and the old, embittered plaint of Abdu-el-Yezdi
found a melancholy echo in her heart:
"Strange that Life's Registrar should call
That day a day, this day a day." ...
Bel came in about ten, by that many sleepless, active, anxious hours
more jaded than when she had seen him last. Road-dust powdered his face
and hands and lay caked in the folds of his coat, and he carried the arm
in the sling with more open confession of acute distress. Lucinda
herself opened for him, and he met her eyes with a short nod.
"You've found her, Bel? Where?"
He glanced round the room, caught sight of the maid through the open
door to the bedchamber, and indicated her with a brusque jerk of his
head.
Lucinda called the woman. "You've had no breakfast?" she added.
"No time. Been on the road all night. Just got in."
"Let me order you something...."
"Well ... I would be glad of a cup of coffee--nothing else, thanks."
Lucinda sent the maid on the errand, and as soon as they were alone gave
intuition voice: "Bel: something has happened to her? she's dead?"
With a weary nod, Bel dropped into a chair. "We got as far as Santa
Barbara without picking up a sign," he said. "It was getting daylight
then, and I made up my mind we'd taken the wrong road, that Nelly had
lied or changed her mind about the way she meant to go. But she hadn't.
When we turned back we found her ... what had been her...."
He bent forward with his sound elbow on his knee, covering his eyes as
if to hide their reminiscent horror.
"There had been an accident?"
"She ran your car off the road at a turn and over a low cliff to a rocky
beach. Must have been killed instantly. If so, it was a mercy, for
nobody had noticed the wreck till a few minutes before we turned up. I
happened to catch sight of the crowd on the beach and made my chauffeur
stop...."
He didn't look up, and neither spoke again till the maid returned. Then
Lucinda made another pretext to get rid of her for another while,
apparently to her considerable annoyance.
"How much does she know?" Bellamy asked, as the woman took herself off
with an aggrieved flounce.
"There's been nothing for her to know, Bel," Lucinda returned without
resentment.
"I didn't mean ... I was merely wondering if she knew where you were
expecting to dine last night. She must have helped you dress."
"I don't recall saying...."
"Better give her a good present and make her understand a tight mouth
pays."
"Very well."
Bel sipped his coffee, frowning. "Heard anything from your friends the
Lontaines this morning?"
"Not yet. Fanny will call up, of course, or come round to see me as soon
as she hears."
"Risky to wait. Better get hold of her at once, let her hear about this
business first of all from you, and tell her she's got to protect you if
she has to lie like Sapphira."
"But surely we can count on Fanny's discretion!"
"Can we?" Bel's grin was skeptical. "I'm not so sure. Nolan knew last
night you'd been due at Summerlad's for dinner. Told Zinn he had his
information from Mrs. Lontaine."
"Barry Nolan! I don't understand...."
"Only know what Nolan told Zinn. Stopped in at the studio just now, saw
Zinn for a few minutes.... By the way"--Bel's manner was studiously
casual--"it may interest you to know, the latest reports say Summerlad's
holding his own."
"I am glad," Lucinda said simply. And Bel's eyes wavered under her
level regard, lightly charged as it was with contempt. "You were telling
me about Nolan...."
"Zinn says he telephoned all over Los Angeles last night trying to
locate Nolan--because he and Summerlad had always been so close--but had
no luck till about three this morning, when Nolan got home and found
Zinn's message waiting for him. Then he hurried over to the
bungalow--with at least three sheets in the wind, according to Zinn--and
the first question he asked was where you'd been when the shooting took
place. Zinn swore you hadn't been there, and the Jap backed him up
nobly.... But there you are, if you're asking for proof that your friend
Fanny tells everything she knows."
Lucinda coloured resentfully. "I am sure," she insisted, "Fanny never
dreamed of hurting me when she told Mr. Nolan--whatever it was she did
tell him. But it's easy enough to find out...."
She took up the telephone, but had to wait, receiver at ear, several
minutes before the Lontaine's number answered. Then a voice with a
drowsy sound, like a tired and husky imitation of Fanny's: "Yes? Hello!
who is it?" And when Lucinda made herself known a brief stammer prefaced
a shift to honeyed accents: "Oh! is it you, Cindy darling? Heavens! what
time is it?"
Lucinda named the hour, heard Fanny give a smothered exclamation, and
added: "Did I wake you up?"
"I was simply dead to the world when the telephone rang," Fanny declared
with an equivocal giggle. "The poor dear eyes are hardly open even now."
"I'm so sorry, dear. I supposed of course.... Is Harry there?"
The reply came readily and without suggestion of uncertainty: "Why, no,
darling: he isn't."
"Are you sure?"
"Quite----"
"I mean," Lucinda persisted, in some perplexity, "if you've just waked
up, you've hardly had time to find out."
"Oh!" Fanny interrupted herself with an uneasy laugh. "Oh, but I know he
isn't! I ... he ... I mean to say, darling, Harry must have gone out
quite early. I mean ... O dear!" An audible yawn and then an apologetic
noise. "I'm simply drugged with sleepiness, Cindy. What I'm trying to
say is, I was awake when Harry left the house, but went to sleep again.
Have you tried the studio? If he isn't there, I'm sure I haven't the
remotest notion where he can be." Then with a quite unmistakable accent
of apprehension: "Why, darling? is something the matter?"
"I'll explain when I see you," Lucinda temporized--"if you wouldn't mind
running round to the hotel when you've had your breakfast."
"Mind, darling! I'll simply fly into my clothes, be there in no time at
all."
The meditative expression with which Lucinda put the telephone aside
drew from Bellamy the direct question: What had Fanny said?
"It wasn't what she said, it was the funny, embarrassed way she said it.
As a general thing, Fanny's as transparently candid as--as a plate of
glass."
Bellamy made a doubting mouth. "You're pretty thick, you two," he
supposed--"you tell her everything?"
Irritation in a gust shook Lucinda till her voice shook in sympathy.
"Really, Bel! you seem fairly possessed by desire to believe my life out
here full of things an honest woman would want to hide."
"No," Bellamy dissented slowly. "But I do seriously believe--in fact,
know--you haven't always been altogether discreet, you've done things
here, without a moment's thought, you'd have hesitated a long time
before committing yourself to at home."
"You forget this is now my home. What Fifth Avenue holds inconvenable
isn't anything to bother about on Sunset Boulevard."
"Well ... if life has taught me anything, Linda, it is that it never
does to trust too much to the good will of one's friends. We're all too
exclusively creatures of selfishness: self always comes before the
claims others may have or impose on us. It pleases us no end to believe
our friends so devoted that they'd put our interests before their own;
but when the test comes, as a general thing, we find out we've been
self-deluded."
"How funny, Bel: _you_ philosophizing!"
"That isn't philosophy, it's common sense based on observation of the
underside of human nature.... I'm not blaming you for clinging to your
friends, or standing up for them, I'm only anxious you shan't suffer
from finding them out."
"I fancy I know Fanny, at least," Lucinda retorted severely.
"You think you do. And I don't dispute your superior knowledge of every
side of her but one, the side she shows only to the men she picks out to
flirt with."
"For example, yourself."
"Exactly."
Lucinda openly enjoyed an instant of malicious amusement. "Do you really
believe you're learning to see through women at last, Bel?"
"You'll admit I've served a long apprenticeship"--Bellamy gave a
deprecating grunt--"enough to have learned something."
"And now you're warning me against the wiles of my best friend!"
"I'm warning you against all such adventurers.... Oh, yes! the Lontaines
are just that, both of them. Chances are they haven't got a dollar
between them they didn't get from you. Neither did Mrs. Fanny set her
cap for me just to keep in practice, she gets enough of that in other
quarters. No: she had another motive, and it wasn't any way altruistic."
"What was it, then?"
"Think I can leave that to your intelligence. I've never noticed you
were--one might say--dense concerning the psychology of your sex,
Linda."
Indignation threatened to find expression in a rush of tears, but
Lucinda winked them back.
"I do wish you wouldn't try to make me angry with you----"
"I'm only trying to tell you, one can't afford to trust anybody in this
world except those who have nothing to gain through cultivating one's
friendship."
"--Just now, when I've so much to be grateful to you for, when you're
doing--have done so much to save me from the consequences of my
folly----"
"Ah! you realize that."
"Both my folly"--Lucinda nodded gravely--"and all you're doing to repair
it. So this once I won't resent your calling my friends adventurers."
Bel chuckled as he got up. "Because you know in your heart that's what
they are, neither more nor less.... Think I'll be getting along now. I
want sleep badly, and I must stop in at the studio first and have a word
with Lontaine, if he's there. And then I need Nolan's address."
"You're going to see him. Do you think that wise?"
"I won't permit him to spread gossip about your being with Summerlad
last night."
"Do you think he'll admit your right to dictate?"
"I don't imagine it will be news to him that you're my wife, if that's
what you mean. Your friend the actor seems to have been tolerably busy
crowing about his conquest of Mrs. Bellamy Druce--always, of course, in
strictest confidence. Zinn knew all about you before I appeared on the
scene. And Nolan was Summerlad's bosom pal...."
The thrust told shrewdly, rewarding Bel with a fugitive moment of
sardonic satisfaction. Then the courage with which Lucinda took
punishment exacted his admiration.
"But I'm afraid," she said quietly, "you won't have much success with
Nolan, even if he does recognize your right to interfere."
"How so?"
"He has too little reason to feel well-disposed toward me."
"On account of your quarrel with him yesterday...."
"I didn't know you knew."
"Who in Hollywood doesn't, do you suppose?" Bel snorted. "Gossip travels
like grass fire, out here. I heard five different versions yesterday,
myself, before your cameraman told mine what I imagine was the
approximate truth."
"Then I presume you know, as well, about my new arrangement, with Mr.
Zinn taking over the production?"
"Yes?"
The single syllable of assent carried the rising inflexion of enquiry as
well. Lucinda mildly curious, replied that she had merely been
wondering....
"Well, I'm wondering, too," Bel countered, eyeing her intently. "Of
course you understand that arrangement's not necessarily to be
considered binding till you've signed up."
"We shook hands on it," said Lucinda: "I gave Mr. Zinn my word. Why?"
"Oh, nothing; unless what's happened since has had some effect on your
attitude, I mean, made your bargain with Zinn seem less desirable. In
that case, of course, I'll be glad to use whatever influence I may have
with him...."
The tensing of her body betrayed the temper in which Lucinda met his
suggestion. "What you really mean is: Have I changed my mind about
continuing in pictures, because of this dreadful accident to Lynn?"
Bel's eyes and mouth tightened. "It's not an unnatural supposition, that
you may have concluded you've had enough."
"Enough, Bel?"
"Of both...."
"That can't be anything but calculated impertinence!"
"Call it what you like. Nothing I could say would convince you to the
contrary. Does it matter?"
"Then your suggestion doesn't deserve my notice."
"In that event"--Bel smiled in a knowing fashion difficult to
tolerate--"I've got my answer, plain enough: you're bent on going on."
"Have you any objection?"
"If I thought my views had any weight with you I might be tempted to
tell you."
"You'd waste your time--if you think I don't know what you'd say."