Джеймс Хилтон - Morning Journey

She rested, changed, then drove downtown where the dinner was to be held. She was a little late, yet she drove slowly, choosing the quieter residential streets. Suddenly a dog came scampering through a gate and into the roadway in front of her car; she passed right over. She felt her heart brake sharply with the clenching of feet and hands; she pulled to the kerb, then looked back. It was true, except that the car, not the wheels, had passed over; and the dog, a black spaniel, was now back on the sidewalk, scared but unhurt, desperately trying to re-enter the gate. She got out and approached the animal, almightily angry and tender; in a deep convulsion of deliverance her heart began to hammer again as she stooped to fondle him, but he was unresponsive, merely wanting to be back in his own garden. She unlatched the gate and let him in. Then she resumed the drive. Nobody had seen the incident. How baffling was the alchemy of inches and seconds… and she thought of Norris in his jeep with that girl on the Rhineland road. And that other German girl, lovely Wanda Hessely, killed by bombs. There was hazard enough in the lives of those who wanted to live, and for those who wanted to die, was there too much—or not enough?…

At the dinner she received a warm welcome from the five or six hundred guests already congregated. She had met many of them before, casually and at other parties; some gave her the appraising welcome of those who knew she was on the upgrade in the local hierarchy, but there were others doubtless who were jealous of her success; she had been in show business long enough to accept that as one of the facts of life, not as any particular proof of evil nature. She smiled and shook hands a good deal as she found her place at the high table, next to Calvin Beckford. Greg was on his left, and Paul, to her slight surprise, some way down the table between two pretty girls. Her neighbour on the right was introduced as a Mr. Hare—a small man, sharp-eyed and friendly; he said he thought he had seen her once in a play in Boston when he was at Harvard, and someone who overheard this laughed because that made her (as she certainly was) at least forty. “I can’t remember the play, but I couldn’t forget YOU,” he said, plugging the hole in his gallantry so promptly that she wondered if he had made both remarks to fix her interest in him. Then Beckford commandeered her and would not let go throughout the first part of the meal. He was a type she had often met and knew how to get along with—showy, glib, eager to impress, to please, to be flattered in return. She much preferred the other man, and at the first chance she turned to him. “I think it must have been Quality Street you saw me in, Mr. Hare,” she said.

“That’s right, so it was.”

“Because I don’t believe I ever played in Boston in anything else. Not in those days.”

“Not so very long ago.”

“Twenty years.”

He smiled. “What does it feel like to be a well-known actress all that time and then have people behave out here as if they’d discovered you?”

She laughed and was aware of the freemasonry between them of those for whom movie standards were too important to be disregarded but too inept to be taken seriously. “It’s funny,” she said.

“I hope you’ll tell them that in your speech.”

“Oh, do I have to make a speech?” She knew she had, of course, but she had an impulse to act a part—only a small part, just to keep her mind off other things.

“I’m sure we all hope you will,” he answered. “But it needn’t be a long one. Do speeches make you nervous?”

“Other people’s do occasionally.” She was thinking of Paul; she had caught sight of him down the table; he seemed to be in the throes of not having a good time; his two neighbours were talking to each other across him, a thing that would always put him in an ill humour. She added, aware that Mr. Hare was studying her: “Paul’s especially. Paul Saffron—the director. He can be so tactless.” She wondered why she had said so much, then added hastily: “No, I’m not exactly scared to speak in public, but I find it much harder than acting. Perhaps that only means I find it hard to act the part of myself.”

“Ethel Barrymore once told me practically the same thing.”

She wondered who he was; he did not seem the kind that would say a thing like that just to let her know he knew Ethel Barrymore. Probably someone important in the picture world, otherwise he would not have been put next to her. Then a wisp of memory flicked her from somewhere—Hare— Hare—there was a lawyer named Hare who had handled something for somebody she knew… she remembered it because she had thought it sensible… a clause in a will limiting burial expenses to five hundred dollars. Every celebrity ought to have it, Hare was supposed to have said, like insurance against nuisance suits, and it had been his idea to make it mandatory so that executors and relatives wouldn’t be made to look like cheap skates… Yes, a good idea. By then she realized that Mr. Hare was saying nice things about Morning Journey. “A real triumph for you, Miss Arundel. I expect you’re already bored by people who tell you so.”

“No, I enjoy it. Thank you.”

“Of course you won’t go back to the stage again. I say that because I hope you will.”

“I might.”

“But first, I suppose, another picture?”

“No, I’ve no plans for that. I’ve no definite plans for anything, except perhaps a vacation in Ireland… By the way, Mr. Hare, you’re the lawyer, aren’t you?”

“THE lawyer? Let’s settle for A lawyer.”

“I wonder if you could help me.”

She had the sudden idea she would ask him about the letter from Walsh. What it could possibly mean. What she ought to do about it. Whether, when she met Walsh, she ought to be alone or to have another lawyer with her. She read in Mr. Hare’s attitude such personal friendliness that she felt she could tell him the whole story—if only she herself knew what the whole story was. But of course she didn’t. Then how COULD he help her? How could he possibly judge from Walsh’s letter what it meant? He would probably advise her to see Walsh and find out. It was therefore absurd to bother him about something nebulous. She changed her mind so abruptly that when he answered, “Of course. Trouble of some kind?”—she had to think fast to find any answer at all. She said: “Oh, nothing very important. I thought of sub-letting my apartment while I go to Ireland, but the lease says I can’t.”

“Be glad to help you,” he answered. “Send—or better still— bring the lease along to my office and I’ll see if anything can be done.” The chairman had risen and was trying to get silence for his opening remarks. Mr. Hare went on hurriedly: “Any time. Tomorrow morning if you like.”

“Thanks. Tomorrow morning, then,” she answered, stampeded into another absurdity, as she well realized. For she rented her apartment by the month —there was no question of sub-letting. She wondered what on earth she could say if she did visit him, or alternatively, what he would think if she made some excuse not to go. Then she thought of a better way out; she would say, when she got to his office: “I’ve decided not to sub-let, anyhow, but meeting you made me think of something you once did for someone I knew, though I can’t remember who it was, but I remember WHAT it was… a clause in a will limiting burial expenses…” Macabre but reasonable. Then she wondered whether, even with this excuse, she really needed or wanted to visit Mr. Hare at all…

The chairman was speaking. She glanced down the table and watched Paul for a moment, failing to catch his eye. His chin was sunk disconsolately in his chest; she might have thought he had drunk too much but for knowing that he never did, any more. Yet somehow, looking at him, she was apprehensive; she wished he had had a neighbour who could have given him some good conversation, instead of the two chattering starlets he had been stuck with. It occurred to her that he would doubtless consider his bad position at the table a slight; but she was fairly certain it was not, and that he had been put between two pretty girls because someone might have supposed he would enjoy himself there… Meanwhile she was planning what to say when her own turn came. After her remarks to Mr. Hare, he would probably expect her to be not so good; she would surprise him, therefore. Yet it was true; she felt uncovered, vulnerable without the protection of an imagined personality.