Louis Vance - Linda Lee, Incorporated - A Novel

"Has he many?"

Mr. Lane looked hurt, but was mollified by the mischief in Lucinda's smile.

"Well, you know what I mean. But we better stop talking, if it's all the same to you, Mrs. Druce, or Miss Daley'll get upset. They're going to shoot now."

The warning was coincident with the sudden deluging of the set with waves of artificial light of a weird violet tint, falling from great metal troughs overhead and beating in horizontally from the metal stands or screens, which were now seen to be banks of incandescent tubes burning with a blinding glare.

Nor was this all: shafts and floods of light of normal hue were likewise trained upon the scene from a dozen different points, until the blended rays lent almost lifelike colouring to the faces of the actors, whose make-up had theretofore seemed ghastly and unnatural to uninitiate eyes.

Stationed just beyond the edge of the area of most intense illumination, the audience sat in a sort of violet penumbra whose effect was hideously unflattering. In it every face assumed a deathly glow, resembling the phosphorescence of corruption, the red of cheeks and lips became purple, and every hint of facial defect stood out, a purple smudge. So that Lucinda, reviewing the libelled countenances of her companions, breathed silent thanks to whatever gods there were for their gift of a complexion transparent and immaculate.

"Camera!"

The command came from King Laughlin. Lucinda could just hear a muffled clicking, and seeking its source discovered a youngish man, with a keen face and intelligent eyes, standing behind the tripod and turning in measured tempo a crank attached to the black box.

Coached by Mr. Laughlin, who danced nervously upon the side lines, the scene was enacted.

"Now, Tommy, come on – slowly – hold the door – look around, make sure the room is empty – hold it – now shut the door – up to the table – don't forget where to put your hat – 'sright, splendid! Now you look at the other door – listen – show me that you don't hear anything – good! Open the drawer – easy now, remember you're trying not to make a noise – look for the papers – show me you can't find them. My God! where can they be! That's it. Now you hear a noise off – ( Ready, Alma! ) – shut the drawer – start to pick up your hat – too late – ! Come on, Alma — come on ! You don't see him, you look out of the window and sigh – let's see you sigh, Alma – beautiful! beautiful! Now, Tommy, you move – she sees you – see him, Alma. Slowly – hold it – wonderful! Now call to him, Alma — Egbert! Egbert!! "

The little man's voice cracked with the heart-rending pathos he infused into that cry; but he did not pause, he continued to dance and bark directions at star and leading-man till the door closed behind Miss Daley's frantic exit; when all at once he went out of action and, drawing a silk bandanna from his cuff to mop the sweat of genius on his brows, turned mild, enquiring eyes to the cameraman.

"Got it," that one uttered laconically.

"Think we want to take it over, Eddie?" The cameraman shook his head. "Good! Now we'll shoot the close-up. No, Tommy, not you – the only close-up I want for this scene is Alma where she gets up. We must get those tears in, she cries so pretty."

There was some delay. The camera had to be brought forward and trained at short range on the spot where Miss Daley had fallen; several stands of banked lights likewise needed to be advanced and adjusted. And then Miss Daley had to be given time to go to her dressing-room and repair the ravages her complexion had suffered in Egbert's embrace. But all these matters were at length adjusted to the satisfaction of director; the actress lay in a broken heap with her face buried on her arms, the camera once more began to click, Mr. King Laughlin squatting by its side, prepared to pull the young woman through the scene by sheer force of his inspired art.

But now the passion which before had kept him hopping and screaming had passed into a subdued and plaintive phase; Mr. Laughlin was suffering for and with the heroine whose woes were to be projected before the eyes and into the hearts of half the world. He did not actually cry, but his features were knotted with the anguish that wrung his heart, and his voice was thick with sobs.

"Now, dear, you're coming to – you just lift your head and look up, dazed. You don't realize what's happened yet, you hardly know where you are. Where am I, my God! where am I? That's it – beautiful. Now it begins to come to you – you remember what's happened, you get it. He has cast you off — O my God! he has deserted you. Fine – couldn't be better – you're great, dear, simply great. Now go on – begin to cry, let the big tears well up from your broken heart and trickle down your cheeks. Fine! Cry harder, dear – you must cry harder, this scene will go all flooey if you can't cry any harder than that. Think what he was to you – and now he has left you — who knows? – perhaps for-ev-er! Your heart is breaking, dear, it's breaking, and nobody cares. Can't you cry harder? Listen to the music and… Good God! how d'you expect any body to cry to music like that?"

The last was a shriek of utter exasperation; and bounding to his feet the little man darted furiously at the musicians, stopping in front of the trio and beginning to beat time with an imaginary baton.

"Follow me, please – get this, the way I feel it. So – slowly – draw it out – hold it – get a little heart-break into it!"

And strangely enough he did manage to infuse a little of his fine fervour into the three. They abandoned their lethargic postures, sat up, and began to play with some approach to feeling; while posing before them, swaying from the toes of one foot to the toes of the other, his hands weaving rhythms of emotion in the air, the absurd creature threw back his head, shut his eyes, and wreathed his thin lips with a beatific smile.

Throughout, on the floor, before the camera, under that cruel glare of lights, Alma Daley strained her face toward the lens and cried as if her heart must surely break, real tears streaming down her face – but cried with fine judgment, never forgetting that woman must be lovely even in woe.

And while Lucinda watched, looking from one to the other, herself threatened with that laughter which is akin to tears, a strange voice saluted her.

"Saw me coming," it observed, "and had to show off. He's a great little actor, that boy, and no mistake – never misses a chance. Look't him now: you'd never guess he wasn't thinking about anything but whether I'm falling for this new stunt of his, would you?"

Lucinda looked around. Mr. Lane had mysteriously effaced himself. In his place sat a stout man of middle-age with a sanguine countenance of Semitic type, shrewd and hard but good-humoured.

"How d'you do?" he said genially. "Mrs. Druce, ain't it? Culp's my name, Ben Culp."

Of a sudden Miss Daley missed her mentor's voice, his counsel and encouragement, and in the middle of a sob ceased to cry precisely as she might have shut off a tap.

In a moment of uncertainty, still confronting the clicking camera, still bathed in that withering blaze, she cast about blankly for her runagate director. Then discovering that he had, just like a man! deserted her in her time of trouble to follow a band, outraged womanhood asserted itself, in a twinkling she cast her passion like a worn-out garment and became no more the broken plaything of man's fickle fancy but once again the spoiled sweetheart of the screen.

As Lucinda saw it, there was something almost uncanny in the swiftness and the radical thoroughness of that transfiguration, the fiery creature who sprang to her feet with flashing eyes and scornful mouth was hardly to be identified with the wretched little thing whom she had seen, only a few seconds since, grovelling and weeping on the floor.