Linda Lee, Incorporated: A Novel

If this were all there was to motion-picture acting, then Lucinda could not wonder that, as she was one day informed by a crusty veteran of the colony: "Bums may turn revivalists, and lawyers honest, but there ain't no known cure for a lens lizard."

In the name of all things reasonable! why sigh to be cured of a vocation at once so profitable and so enthralling?

There was another side to the business, of course, there had to be. One knew it couldn't be all beer and skittles, one heard dark hints of the uglier side, one even caught glimpses of it and its workings now and then, as in the instance of Nelly Marquis; but awareness of it had no perceptible effect upon the spirits of those with whom Lucinda found herself associated for the time being. Some of the younger members of the acting division seemed to take life a thought seriously – "life" meaning, as a rule, themselves – but the more experienced, and the men of the technical groups, the directors, cameramen, and their assistants, the property men and jacks-of-all-trades, went about their work with jests ever on their lips. Lucinda heard few orders given or acknowledged other than in the semi-jocular vein known as "kidding." Even Jacques, whose office clothed him with a certain dignity, by which he was intermittently depressed, seemed in his most earnest moments to find it difficult to express himself in terms of becoming gravity. The common attitude summed up to this: that making pictures was all a huge lark and (strictly between those engaged in it) a darned good joke on the people who paid the bills.

As for the part she was supposed to play in this picture of Summerlad's, Lucinda never managed to secure an intelligible exposition of its nature or its relation to the plot. Both Summerlad and Jacques seemed strangely vague in their own minds concerning it, and Alice Drake frankly confessed she hadn't read the 'script and hadn't the faintest notion what the picture was about. She did what Jacques told her to do, and did it very well, and so long as there were no complaints and her weekly cheque turned up on time, she didn't care (she said) a thin red hoot about the story. Neither was this an uncommon attitude, she averred; not infrequently directors imposed it upon the actors and actresses working under them. There was George Loane Tucker, who had directed The Miracle Man; Miss Drake had worked for him and could testify concerning his methods. He never told any of the cast what the story was, only what he wanted them to wear and do and how and when to do it; that was all. He had even invented a secret system of numbering the "takes," so that he alone could properly assemble the thousand or so separate scenes and close-ups which go to make up the average motion-picture when photography on it is finished, scenes which are never by any chance photographed in consecutive order. Nor was Tucker the only one…

Later on, in the projection-rooms of the Zinn Studios, Lucinda saw the "rushes" of the scenes in which she had played; "rushes" being the first positive prints made from the uncut negative: "takes" running anywhere from twice to a hundred times the length of the scene to be finally incorporated into the finished picture and disclosed to the public. She was well content with the way she had done what little had been given her to do, but was left in the dark as to what it was all about. And in the final cutting and editing, that sequence of scenes dropped out of the film altogether. So that nobody ever knew, except possibly Summerlad and Jacques…

To the best of her observation her rôle was that of an involuntary vamp. Not vampire: vamp. No other term will serve so well. Originally a derisive diminutive, the usage of the studios has endowed this monosyllable with a significance all its own, not readily definable. A vamp no longer means of necessity a vampire, a scarlet-mouthed seductress of strong men's souls. A vamp may be a far more socially possible person that that, in fact any attractive woman who comports herself toward another woman's man consistently with the common amenities of civilized intercourse.

As an involuntary vamp, then, Miss Lee was to meet Mr. Summerlad under romantic circumstances and innocently wean him from strict fidelity to the charms of his betrothed (or it may have been his wife) Miss Drake. Of this situation Miss Drake was in due course to become cognizant. What was to happen after that between Miss Drake and Mr. Summerlad was no concern of the involuntary vamp's. Furthermore, she never learned.

The said romantic circumstances proved sufficiently thrilling to bring about an early wedding in most films. Miss Lee was run away with by her horse while taking an early morning canter in mountains conveniently adjacent to her family's suburban villa. Mr. Summerlad, similarly engaged in health-giving equestrianism, happened along at the right time to observe her peril, pursue, and snatch her bodily from her saddle to his arms at the very instant when her mount was plunging headlong over a precipice. After which he escorted her to her home, and on the way the two indulged in such normal love-making as was only to be expected when the facts of the case were taken into consideration.

Jacques used up all of one day and two-thirds of the next staging and shooting the runaway and the rescue scenes, in none of which either Lucinda or Summerlad figured in person. Lucinda, it is true, was photographed from several angles, riding along the mountainside trail at a point where it was broad enough for her horse, with safety to its rider, to shy and start to run away. The animal was an unusually intelligent, perfectly trained and docile trick-horse that, given the right signals, would perform a number of feats such as shying, running away, stopping short, falling dead under its rider. And Lucinda was a good horsewoman, though not good enough for such rough and really dangerous riding as would be required after the start of the runaway. A double was therefore provided for her, a tough and wiry young person of about her height and weight who made her living by risking her life in just such ways, and who, with Lucinda's white coat, hat and boots added to her own white riding-breeches, passed well enough for Lucinda in "distance shots."

A double was likewise provided for Summerlad, though he was a superb rider and vigorously asserted his right to take what chances he pleased with his own neck. But Jacques explained it wasn't Summerlad's neck he cared about, it was finishing a picture in which eighty thousand dollars had already been sunk and for whose completion Summerlad's services would be required for four more weeks. Thereafter he could break his neck as often and in as many places as he liked, for all of Jacques.

So Summerlad held his peace and his place at Lucinda's side, well out of harm's way, while Jacques went ahead and directed the rescue.

Runaway, pursuit and rescue were all staged on a ledge-like trail three hundred feet above the boulder-strewn bed of the brawling stream, and were photographed simultaneously by three cameras, from the river-bed shooting upwards, from the opposite side of the canyon on a level with the trail, and from the trail itself but at a distance great enough to prevent the fact that doubles were used from becoming evident when the pictures were projected.

It was all honestly hazardous and ticklish work, rendered doubly and trebly so by the fact that each part of the action had to be replayed over and over again to satisfy Jacques, an old hand at "stunt stuff" and a painstaking one.

Lucinda's heart, as she looked on, was in her mouth more often than not. It made no difference that it was all played at a far slower tempo than would appear when it was screened; the projection-machine flashes the pictures across the screen at a faster rate than that at which they are taken; consequently it is only necessary to crank the camera at slower than normal speed to attain an effect of terrific speed in projection. Fast or slow, it was risky enough in all conscience; and Lucinda was more than glad when the last repetition had been shot and Jacques gave orders to shift to a location near the mouth of the canyon.

For those scenes of sentiment which Lucinda and Summerlad were to play in person, Jacques wanted the contrast of richer and more abundant vegetation, and the location he selected brought the party at length to a point below that at which the automobiles had been forced to stop.

Here Lucinda and Summerlad were photographed time and again, in distance shots, medium shots, and close-ups, riding side by side, registering the dawn of a more intimate interest each in the other, dismounting to rest in a sweet sylvan glade by the side of the stream, and finally in each other's arms, with Miss Drake riding up to surprise them as they kissed.

Whether by intention or because such scenes are a commonplace of picture-making, Lucinda could not say, but she had not been in any way prepared for the fact that she was to be kissed by Summerlad; whereas she had been flirting with him decorously but dangerously for the best part of three days. Now suddenly, toward the close of the third, she was instructed to permit his embrace, submit to his kiss, and kiss him in response.

She made no demur, for that would have seemed silly, but did her best to ape the matter-of-course manner of all hands, and went through it with all the stoicism, when the camera wasn't trained on her, that was compatible with the emotions she must show when it was.

But her heart was thumping furiously when she felt Summerlad's arms for the first time enfold her; and when, murmuring terms of endearment appropriate to both the parts the man was playing, he put his lips to hers, she knew, both despite and because of the tumult of her senses, that she was lost. Control of the situation between them passed in that instant from her hands to his.

Released at length, she looked round, dazed and breathless, to find that, during the business of the kiss, a party of uninvited onlookers had been added to their professional audience.

A motor-car had slipped up on the group and stopped, and one of its two passengers had alighted and drawn near to watch.

This was Bellamy.

XXVII

Momentarily stunned eyes saw the face of Bellamy only as a swimming blur of flesh-colour shaded by a smile of hateful mockery. Then, not unlike rays of the sun escaping from complete eclipse, Lucinda's wits struggled from out a dark penumbra of dismay to make new terms with the world – or try to, under the handicap of panicy conviction that it was all up now with Linda Lee.

Such was her first thought… In another minute or two, as soon as she was able to acknowledge what she might not much longer ignore, Bellamy's attitude of patient but persevering attention, everybody present must learn that she had no right title to the style by which she had palmed herself off on Hollywood; by nightfall the studios would be agog over the news that Linda Lee was no less a personage than Mrs. Bellamy Druce.

She was curiously disturbed less because of the circumstances in which her husband had found her out than on account of the menace he presented to the plans she had of late begun to nurse so tenderly. All at once Lucinda discovered how passionately her heart had become implicated in this adventure, how deeply the ambition had struck its roots into her being to win by native ability unaided to those starry eminences whereon the great ones of the cinema sojourned. To hear the inevitable verdict read upon her career before it was fairly launched, "Another screen-struck society woman!" were an affront to decent self-esteem by the side of which it seemed a trivial matter that Bellamy, no more her husband but by grace of the flimsiest of civil fictions, had caught her in the act of kissing another man.

Notwithstanding, her cheeks were hot, she experienced infinite vexation of the knowledge; and – all her efforts to recover hindered by a silence damnably eloquent of general sensitiveness to a piquant and intriguing moment – she was shaken by gusts of impotent irritation in whose grasp she could almost without a qualm have murdered Bellamy where he stood, if only to quench that graceless grin of his, and the more readily since he, on his part, seeing her reduced to temporary incompetence, chose to treat her with the most exemplary and exasperating magnanimity.

Hat in hand, the other proffered in sublime effrontery, smiling his winningest smile, Bel strode blithely into the forbidden ground of the camera lines; while his gay salutation fell upon ears incredulous.

"How d'you do, Miss Lee. Don't say you've forgotten me so soon! Druce, you know, Bellamy Druce – "

"Don't be ridiculous, Bel!"

"Can't blame me for wondering – can you? – the way you stare, as if I were a ghost."

"So you are," Lucinda retorted, shocked into gasping coherence by this impudence. "I can't imagine a greater surprise…"

"I believe you. But think of mine – I mean, of course, my astonishment."

Bel would have her hand, there was no refusing him that open sign of friendship; for an instant Lucinda let it rest limply in his grasp, appreciating there was nothing she could do now but take his cues as they fell, and treat the rencontre as one of the most welcome she had ever experienced…

"But wherever did you bob up from, Bel?"

"From the East, naturally – last night's train. The Alexandria told me where you'd moved, the Hollywood directed me to your studio, somebody there said you might be found out here – 'working on location,' think he called it. So took a chance – and here I am. Hope you don't mind…"

"Mind? Why should I?"

"Couldn't be sure I wasn't violating Hollywood etiquette. Never saw a movie in the making before, you know. Most entertaining. Congratulate you and Mr. Summerlad on the way you played your little scene just now. Only for the camera over there, I'd have sworn you both meant it."

"Don't put too much trust in the camera, Mr. Druce," Summerlad interposed blandly. "Rumour to the contrary notwithstanding, the blame' thing has been known to lie."

"H'are you, Mr. Summerlad?" Bellamy met his impudence with irresistible audacity. "So we meet again. Sure we would some day. Well: pleasanter circumstances than last time, what?"

"Conditions are what one makes them, out here in California. I hope you'll find the climate healthier than Chicago's."

"Trust me for that," Bellamy retorted in entire good-humour. "But, I say" – he glanced in feigned apprehension toward the camera – "not obstructing traffic, am I?"

"No fear, or Jacques would've bawled you out long ago."

"'Sright," Jacques averred, coming forward to be introduced. "All through for today, folks," he called back. "Le's go!"

Breaking into small knots and straggling off to the waiting motor-cars, the company prepared for its journey home, while cameras and properties were packed up and the horses herded away toward their overnight quarters in Azusa.

Slender, fair, insouciant, looking a precocious little girl in her extravagantly brief skirts, but with all the wisdom of Eve a-glimmer in her wide eyes, Fanny sauntered up and permitted Bellamy to be presented.

"My chaperon," Lucinda explained with the false vivacity of overtaut nerves – "the straight-laced conservator of les convenances."

"I hope very truly," Bel asserted, bowing over Fanny's hand – "you never need one less charming or more complaisant."

Fanny giggled, enjoying the contretemps hugely and determined it shouldn't lose savour for want of ambiguous seasoning.

"As for complaisance, the camera covers a multitude of indiscretions. That aside" – her glance coupled Lucinda and Summerlad in delicately malicious innuendo – "taking one consideration with another, a chaperon's lot is not a vapid one."