Dawn brought the wide stretches of the Holden lot into gray relief. It
lightened the big yellow stages and crept down the narrow street of the
Western town where only the ghosts of dead plays stalked. It burnished
the rich fronts of the Fifth Avenue mansions and in the next block
illumined the rough sides of a miner’s cabin.
With more difficulty it seeped through the blurred glass of the one
window in this structure and lightened the shadows of its interior to
a pale gray. The long-handled frying-pan rested on the hearth where the
little girl had left it. The dishes of the overnight meal were still on
the table; the vacant chairs sprawled about it; and the rifle was in its
place above the rude mantel; the picks and shovels awaited the toil of a
new day. All seemed as it had been when the director had closed the door
upon it the previous night.
But then the blankets in the lower bunk were seen to heave and to be
thrust back from the pale face of Merton Gill. An elbow came into play,
and the head was raised. A gaze still vague with sleep travelled about
the room in dull alarm. He was waking up in his little room at the
Patterson house and he couldn’t make it look right. He rubbed his eyes
vigorously and pushed himself farther up. His mind resumed its broken
threads. He was where he had meant to be from the moment he had spied
the blankets in those bunks.
In quicker alarm, now, he reached for his watch. Perhaps he had slept
too late and would be discovered--arrested, jailed! He found his watch
on the floor beside the bunk. Seven o’clock. He was safe. He could dress
at leisure, and presently be an early-arriving actor on the Holden lot.
He wondered how soon he could get food at the cafeteria. Sleeping in
this mountain cabin had cursed him with a ravenous appetite, as if he
had indeed been far off in the keen air of the North Woods.
He crept from the warm blankets, and from under the straw mattress--in
which one of the miners had hidden the pouch of nuggets--he took his
newly pressed trousers. Upon a low bench across the room was a battered
tin wash--basin, a bucket of water brought by the little girl from
the spring, and a bar of yellow soap. He made a quick toilet, and at
seven-thirty, a good hour before the lot would wake up, he was dressed
and at the door.
It might be chancy, opening that door; so he peered through a narrow
crack at first, listening intently. He could hear nothing and no one was
in sight. He pushed the latch--string through its hole, then opened the
door enough to emit his slender shape.
A moment later, ten feet from the closed door, he stood at ease,
scanning the log cabin as one who, passing by, had been attracted by its
quaint architecture. Then glancing in both directions to be again sure
that he was unobserved, he walked away from his new home.
He did not slink furtively. He took the middle of the street and there
was a bit of swagger to his gait. He felt rather set up about this
adventure. He reached what might have been called the lot’s civic centre
and cast a patronizing eye along the ends of the big stages and the
long, low dressing--room building across from them. Before the open door
of the warehouse he paused to watch a truck being loaded with handsome
furniture--a drawing room was evidently to be set on one of the stages.
Rare rugs and beautiful chairs and tables were carefully brought out.
He had rather a superintending air as he watched this process. He might
have been taken for the owner of these costly things, watching to see
that no harm befell them. He strolled on when the truck had received
its load. Such people as he had met were only artisans, carpenters,
electricians, property-men. He faced them all confidently, with glances
of slightly amused tolerance. They were good men in their way but they
were not actors--not artists.
In the neatly landscaped little green place back of the office building
a climbing rose grew on a trellis. He plucked a pink bud, fixed it in
his lapel, and strolled down the street past the dressing rooms. Across
from these the doors of the big stages were slid back, and inside he
could see that sets were being assembled. The truckload of furniture
came to one of these doors and he again watched it as the stuff was
carried inside.
For all these workmen knew, he might presently be earning a princely
salary as he acted amid these beautiful objects, perhaps attending a
reception in a Fifth Avenue mansion where the father of a beautiful New
York society girl would tell him that he must first make good before he
could aspire to her hand. And he would make good--out there in the great
open spaces, where the girl would come to him after many adventures and
where they would settle to an untroubled future in the West they both
loved.
He had slept; he knew where--with luck--he could sleep again; and he had
money in his pocket for several more ample meals. At this moment he
felt equal to anything. No more than pleasantly aware of his hunger,
sharpened by the walk in this keen morning air, he made a nonchalant
progress toward the cafeteria. Motor cars were now streaming through the
gate, disgorging other actors--trim young men and beautiful young women
who must hurry to the dressing rooms while he could sit at ease in a
first-class cafeteria and eat heavily of sustaining foods. Inside he
chose from the restricted menu offered by the place at this early hour
and ate in a leisurely, almost condescending manner. Half-a-dozen other
early comers wolfed their food as if they feared to be late for work,
but he suffered no such anxiety. He consumed the last morsel that his
tray held, drained his cup of coffee, and jingled the abundant silver
coin in his pocket.
True, underneath it, as he plumed himself upon his adventure, was a
certain pestering consciousness that all was not so well with him as
observers might guess. But he resolutely put this away each time it
threatened to overwhelm him. He would cross no bridge until he came to
it. He even combated this undercurrent of sanity by wording part of an
interview with himself some day to appear in Photo Land:
“Clifford Armytage smiled that rare smile which his admirers have found
so winning on the silver screen--a smile reminiscent, tender, eloquent
of adversities happily surmounted. ‘Yes,’ he said frankly in the mellow
tones that are his, ‘I guess there were times when I almost gave up
the struggle. I recall one spell, not so many years ago, when I camped
informally on the Holden lot, sleeping where I could find a bed and
stinting myself in food to eke out my little savings. Yet I look back
upon that time’--he mischievously pulled the ears of the magnificent
Great Dane that lolled at his feet--‘as one of the happiest in my
career, because I always knew that my day would come. I had done only a
few little bits, but they had stood out, and the directors had noticed
me. Not once did I permit myself to become discouraged, and so I say
to your readers who may feel that they have in them the stuff for truly
creative screen art--’”
He said it, dreaming above the barren tray, said it as Harold Parmalee
had said it in a late interview extorted from him by Augusta Blivens
for the refreshment of his host of admirers who read Photo Land. He was
still saying it as he paid his check at the counter, breaking off only
to reflect that fifty-five cents was a good deal to be paying for food
so early in the day. For of course he must eat again before seeking
shelter of the humble miner’s cabin.
It occurred to him that the blankets might be gone by nightfall. He
hoped they would have trouble with the fight scene. He hoped there
would be those annoying delays that so notoriously added to the cost of
producing the screen drama--long waits, when no one seemed to know what
was being waited for, and bored actors lounged about in apathy. He
hoped the fight would be a long fight. You needed blankets even in sunny
California.
He went out to pass an enlivening day, fairly free of misgiving. He
found an abundance of entertainment. On one stage he overlooked for
half an hour a fragment of the desert drama which he had assisted the
previous day. A covered incline led duskily down to the deserted tomb in
which the young man and the beautiful English girl were to take shelter
for the night. They would have eluded the bad sheik for a little while,
and in the tomb the young man would show himself to be a gentleman by
laying not so much as a finger upon the defenceless girl.
But this soon palled upon the watching connoisseur. The actual
shots were few and separated by barren intervals of waiting for that
mysterious something which photoplays in production seemed to need.
Being no longer identified with this drama he had lost much of his
concern over the fate in store for the girl, though he knew she would
emerge from the ordeal as pure as she was beautiful--a bit foolish at
moments, perhaps, but good.
He found that he was especially interested in bedroom scenes. On Stage
Four a sumptuous bedroom, vacant for the moment, enchained him for a
long period of contemplation. The bed was of some rare wood ornately
carved, with a silken canopy, spread with finest linen and quilts of
down, its pillows opulent in their embroidered cases. The hide of a
polar bear, its head mounted with open jaws, spread over the rich rug
beside the bed. He wondered about this interestingly. Probably the stage
would be locked at night. Still, at a suitable hour, he could descreetly
find out. On another stage a bedroom likewise intrigued him, though this
was a squalid room in a tenement and the bed was a cheap thing sparsely
covered and in sad disorder. People were working on this set, and he
presently identified the play, for Muriel Mercer in a neat black dress
entered to bring comfort to the tenement dwellers. But this play, too,
had ceased to interest him. He knew that Vera Vanderpool had escaped the
blight of Broadway to choose the worthwhile, the true, the vital things
of life, and that was about all he now cared to know of the actual play.
This tenement bed had become for him its outstanding dramatic value. He
saw himself in it for a good night’s rest, waking refreshed in plenty of
time to be dressed and out before the tenement people would need it. He
must surely learn if the big sliding doors to these stages were locked
overnight.
He loitered about the stages until late afternoon, with especial
attention to sleeping apartments. In one gripping drama he felt cheated.
The set showed the elaborately fitted establishment of a fashionable
modiste. Mannequins in wondrous gowns came through parted curtains
to parade before the shop’s clientele, mostly composed of society
butterflies. One man hovered attentive about the most beautiful of
these, and whispered entertainingly as she scanned the gowns submitted
to her choice. He was a dissolute--looking man, although faultlessly
arrayed. His hair was thin, his eyes were cruel, and his face bespoke
self-indulgence.
The expert Merton Gill at once detected that the beautiful young woman
he whispered to would be one of those light--headed wives who care
more for fashionable dress than for the good name of their husbands.
He foresaw that the creature would be trapped into the power of this
villain by her love of finery, though he was sure that the end would
find her still a good woman. The mannequins finished their parade and
the throng of patrons broke up. The cameras were pushed to an adjoining
room where the French proprietor of the place figured at a desk. The
dissolute pleasure-seeker came back to question him. His errant fancy
had been caught by one of the mannequins--the most beautiful of them,
a blonde with a flowerlike face and a figure whose perfection had been
boldly attested by the gowns she had worn. The unprincipled proprietor
at once demanded from a severe-faced forewoman that this girl be sent
for, after which he discreetly withdrew. The waiting scoundrel sat and
complacently pinched the ends of his small dark mustache. It could be
seen that he was one of those who believe that money will buy anything.
The fair girl entered and was leeringly entreated to go out to dinner
with him. It appeared that she never went out to dinner with any one,
but spent her evenings with her mother who was very, very ill. Her
unworthy admirer persisted. Then the telephone on the manager’s desk
called her. Her mother was getting worse. The beautiful face was now
suffused with agony, but this did not deter the man from his loathsome
advances. There was another telephone call. She must come at once if she
were to see her mother alive. The man seized her. They struggled. All
seemed lost, even the choice gown she still wore; but she broke away to
be told over the telephone that her mother had died. Even this sad news
made no impression upon the wretch. He seemed to be a man of one idea.
Again he seized her, and the maddened girl stabbed him with a pair
of long gleaming shears that had lain on the manager’s desk. He fell
lifeless at her feet, while the girl stared in horror at the weapon she
still grasped.
Merton Gill would not have lingered for this. There were tedious waits,
and scenes must be rehearsed again and again. Even the agony of the girl
as she learned of her mother’s passing must be done over and over at
the insistence of a director who seemed to know what a young girl should
feel at these moments. But Merton had watched from his place back of the
lights with fresh interest from the moment it was known that the girl’s
poor old mother was an invalid, for he had at first believed that the
mother’s bedroom would be near by. He left promptly when it became
apparent that the mother’s bedroom would not be seen in this drama. They
would probably show the doctor at the other telephone urging the girl
to hurry home, and show him again announcing that all was over, but the
expense of mother and her deathbed had been saved. He cared little for
the ending of this play. Already he was becoming a little callous to the
plight of beautiful young girls threatened with the loss of that which
they held most dear.
Purposely all day he had avoided the neighbourhood of his humble miner’s
home. He thought it as well that he should not be seen much around
there. He ate again at four o’clock, heartily and rather expensively,
and loafed about the stages until six. Then he strolled leisurely down
the village street and out the lower end to where he could view the
cabin. Work for the day was plainly over. The director and his assistant
lingered before the open door in consultation. A property man and an
electrician were engaged inside, but a glance as he passed showed that
the blankets were still in the bunks. He did not wait to see more, but
passed on with all evidences of disinterest in this lowly abode.
He ascertained that night that the fight must have been had. The table
was overturned, one of the chairs wrecked, and there were other signs
of disorder. Probably it had been an excellent fight; probably these
primitive men of the woods had battled desperately. But he gave little
consideration to the combat, and again slept warmly under the blankets.
Perhaps they would fight again to-morrow, or perhaps there would be less
violent bits of the drama that would secure him another night of calm
repose.
The following morning found him slightly disturbed by two unforeseen
needs arising from his novel situation. He looked carefully at his
collar, wondering how many days he would be able to keep it looking
like a fresh collar, and he regretted that he had not brought his
safety-razor to this new home. Still the collar was in excellent shape
as yet, and a scrutiny of his face in the cracked mirror hanging on
the log wall determined that he could go at least another day without
shaving. His beard was of a light growth, gentle in texture, and he
was yet far from the plight of Mr. Montague. Eventually, to be sure,
he would have to go to the barber shop on the lot and pay money to be
shaved, which seemed a pity, because an actor could live indefinitely
unshaven but could live without food for the merest fragment of time.
He resolved to be on the lookout that day for a barber-shop set. He
believed they were not common in the photodrama, still one might be
found.
He limited himself to the lightest of breakfasts. He had timidly
refrained from counting his silver but he knew he must be frugal. He
rejoiced at this economy until late afternoon when, because of it, he
simply had to eat a heavier dinner than he had expected to need. There
was something so implacable about this demand for food. If you skimped
in the morning you must make amends at the next meal. He passed the time
as on the previous day, a somewhat blase actor resting between pictures,
and condescending to beguile the tedium by overlooking the efforts of
his professional brethren. He could find no set that included a barber
shop, although they were beds on every hand. He hoped for another night
in the cabin, but if that were not to be, there was a bed easy of
access on Stage Three. When he had observed it, a ghastly old father was
coughing out his life under its blankets, nursed only by his daughter,
a beautiful young creature who sewed by his bedside, and who would
doubtless be thrown upon the world in the very next reel, though--Merton
was glad to note--probably not until the next day.
Yet there was no need for this couch of the tubercular father, for
action in the little cabin was still on. After making the unhappy
discovery in the cafeteria that his appetite could not be hoodwinked by
the clumsy subterfuge of calling coffee and rolls a breakfast some six
hours previously, he went boldly down to stand before his home. Both
miners were at work inside. The room had been placed in order again,
though the little mountain flower was gone. A letter, he gathered, had
been received from her, and one of the miners was about to leave on a
long journey.
Merton could not be sure, but he supposed that the letter from the
little girl told that she was unhappy in her new surroundings, perhaps
being ill-treated by the supercilious Eastern relatives. The miner who
was to remain helped the other to pack his belongings in a quaint old
carpet sack, and together they undid a bundle which proved to contain
a splendid new suit. Not only this, but now came a scene of eloquent
appeal to the watcher outside the door. The miner who was to remain
expressed stern disapproval of the departing miner’s beard. It would
never do, he was seen to intimate, and when the other miner portrayed
helplessness a new package was unwrapped and a safety razor revealed to
his shocked gaze.
At this sight Merton Gill felt himself growing too emotional for a mere
careless bystander, and withdrew to a distance where he could regain
better control of himself. When he left the miner to be shorn was
betraying comic dismay while the other pantomimed the correct use of
the implement his thoughtfulness had provided. When he returned after
half--an-hour’s rather nervous walk up another street, the departing
miner was clean shaven and one might note the new razor glittering on
the low bench beside the battered tin basin.
They worked late in his home that night; trifling scenes were taken
and retaken. The departing miner had to dress in his splendid but
ill-fitting new garments and to bid an affectionate farewell to his
partner, then had to dress in his old clothes again for some bit that
had been forgotten, only to don the new suit for close-ups. At another
time Merton Gill might have resented this tediously drawn-out affair
which was keeping him from his rest, for he had come to look upon this
structure as one having rights in it after a certain hour, but a sight
of the razor which had not been touched allayed any possible feeling of
irritation.
It was nine-thirty before the big lights jarred finally off and the
director said, “That’s all, boys.” Then he turned to call, “Jimmie! Hey,
Jimmie! Where’s that prop-rustler gone to now?”
“Here, Mr. Burke, yes, sir.”
“We’ve finished the shack stuff. Let’s see--” He looked at the watch on
his wrist--“That’ll be all for tonight. Strike this first thing tomorrow
morning.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jimmie. The door was closed and the men walked away.
Merton trailed them a bit, not remaining too pointedly near the cabin.
He circled around through Fifth Avenue to regain the place.
Softly he let himself in and groped through the dark until his hand
closed upon the abandoned razor. Satisfying himself that fresh blades
had accompanied it, he made ready for bed. He knew it was to be his last
night in this shelter. The director had told Jimmie to strike it first
thing in the morning. The cabin would still be there, but it would
contain no homely furniture, no chairs, no table, no wash-basin, no
safety-razor and, most vital of lacks--it would be devoid of blankets.
Yet this knowledge did not dismay him. He slept peacefully after praying
that something good would happen to him. He put it that way very simply.
He had placed himself, it seemed, where things could only happen to him.
He was, he felt, beyond bringing them about.