Linda Lee, Incorporated: A Novel

"Oh! you can?"

"Don't be alarmed: you're not wearing your heart on your sleeve. I can see you're troubled about something, simply because I know you so much better than anybody else. Oh, yes, I do. You never knew how thoroughly I studied you in the dear, dead days of yore. I'll lay long odds no one else has noticed anything, but to my seeing eye you've been flying signals of distress all during luncheon. That being so, it wouldn't be decent of me not to give you a hail and stand by in case I'm needed – now would it?"

Momentarily Lucinda contended against temptation. Then, "You are a dear, Dobbin," she said almost regretfully. "But it isn't fair of you to see too much. If it's true I have secrets I don't want to share, it would be kinder to let me keep them – don't you think?"

"Lord bless you, yes! But it's my observation the human being in trouble has got to talk to somebody, and will to the wrong body if the right isn't handy. Not only that, but you'll find most people will listen to your troubles only to get a chance to tell you their own; whereas I have none except the one you know all about. So you needn't fear reprisals."

She pondered this, sweetly serious, then in little better than a whisper said: "At least, not now…"

Jean Sedley was claiming her attention. "What do you think of that, Cindy? Isn't it a ripping idea?"

"Afraid I didn't hear – I was flirting with Dobbin."

"Yes, I know. But Mr. Lontaine has just made a priceless suggestion about the pageant. He says we can have moving-pictures taken as we enter the ball-room and shown before the evening is over."

"But is that possible?"

"Oh, quite," Lontaine insisted – "assure you. It's really extraordinary how they do these things, three or four hours is all they require to develop and prepare a film for projection. Say your pageant starts at ten: by one you can see yourself on the screen."

"Everybody would adore it!" Nelly Guest declared with deep conviction.

"And you could arrange it, Mr. Lontaine?"

"Easily, Mrs. Druce – that is to say, if I'm still in New York."

"What do you think, Cindy?" Jean urged. "Almost everybody is moving-picture mad. We could sell twice as many tickets on the strength of such a novelty. And it is a charity affair, you know."

"Meaning to say," Dobbin put in, "you're rather keen about it yourself."

"Of course – crazy to see myself as others see me. So is every woman – Fanny, Jean, Cindy – "

"I don't know," Lucinda demurred. "It must be a weird sensation."

"Not one you need be afraid of," Lontaine promised. "If you don't mind my saying so, you would screen wonderfully, Mrs. Druce."

"You think so, really?"

"Oh, no doubt about it, whatever. You're just the type the camera treats most kindly. If you wanted to, you could make a fortune in the cinema. No, seriously: I'm not joking."

"I'm glad of that," Lucinda returned soberly. "It wouldn't be at all nice of you to trifle with my young affections. Still, I will admit I'm skeptical."

"Tell you what," Lontaine offered eagerly: "Suppose you take test, what? No trouble at all to fix it up for you – chaps I know – only too glad – anything I say. I'd like to prove I know what I'm talking about. Take us all, for that matter, just as we are. What do you say?"

"I say it's perfectly damn' splendid!" Jean Sedley declared. "We'd all love it. When can you arrange it?"

"Any time you like – this afternoon, if that suits everybody. Only have to telephone, and in half an hour they'll be all ready for us. Shall I?" Lontaine got out of his chair. "Do say yes, all of you. Mrs. Druce? I know the others will if you do?"

"I don't mind…"

"Right-O! Give me five minutes…"

VII

Lontaine brought back a gratified countenance from the telephone booths. As he had promised, so had he performed. This cinema chap he knew, Culp, had professed himself only too delighted. Rum name, what? A rum customer, if you asked Lontaine, diamond in the rough and all that sort of thing, one of the biggest guns in the American cinema to boot.

Dobbin wanted to know if Mr. Culp wasn't the husband of Alma Daley, the motion-picture actress. Lontaine said he was. Extraordinary pair. Married a few years ago when they were both stoney, absolutely. Now look at them; Culp a millionaire and better, Miss Daley one of the most popular stars. You might say he'd made her and she'd made him. Showed the value of team-work in marriage, what? You pulled together, and nothing could stop you. You pulled in opposite directions, and what happened? You stood still! What?

(Lucinda remarked the patient smile with which Fanny listened. But repetition is, after all, a notorious idiosyncrasy of the married male.)

Charming little woman, Miss Daley. As it happened, she was working in a picture at the studio now. Rare luck; they'd get a look in at practical producing methods in addition to getting shot for their tests. Not bad, what?

Somebody echoed "shot" with a puzzled inflection. But that term, it appeared, was studio slang; one was shot when one was photographed by a motion-picture camera. No doubt because they first aimed the camera at one, then turned the crank – like a machine-gun, Lontaine meant to say.

Lucinda discovered that it was already three o'clock, and wondered how long they would need to get properly shot. Lontaine protested it would take no time at all. Astonishing chaps, these American cinema people, absolutely full of push and bounce, did everything in jig-time, if you knew what he meant.

With two cars at its disposal, the party split up into threes, Mrs. Sedley, Mrs. Guest, and Lontaine leading the way. On the point of entering her own car after Fanny, however, Lucinda recalled her promise to look in at the bridge-tea for the Italian Milk Fund, and bidding Dobbin keep Fanny amused while they waited for her, turned back into the hotel to telephone Mrs. Wade that she would be a little late.

Having seen no more of Bellamy since their encounter near the cloak-room, she had assumed that he had taken her at her word, and had dismissed from her calculations the possibility of his returning. The surprise was so much the more unwelcome, consequently, when on leaving the telephone booth she saw her husband with his hat on the back of his head and his arms full of lavender orchids, wavering irresolutely in the entrance to the Palm Room, surveying with a dashed expression its now all but deserted spaces; a festive spectacle that left no room for surmise as to what he had been up to. And with sickening contempt added to the bitterness already rankling in her heart, Lucinda made hastily for the revolving door.

Simultaneously Bel caught sight of her and, with a blurred travesty of his really charming smile, and a faltering parody of that air of gallant alacrity which she had once thought so engaging, moved to intercept Lucinda. And finding her escape cut off, she paused and awaited him with a stony countenance.

"Ah! there you are, eh, Linda! 'Fraid I'd missed you. Sorry couldn't get back sooner, but – "

"I'm not," Lucinda interrupted.

"Had to go over to Thorley's to find these orchids…" Bel extended his burden as if to transfer it to Lucinda's arms and, when she prevented this by falling back a pace, looked both pained and puzzled. "Ah – what say? What's matter?"

"I said," Lucinda replied icily, "I'm not sorry you couldn't get here sooner. Surely you can't imagine I'd care to have my friends see you as you are, in the middle of the afternoon. It's bad enough to have them know you get in this condition nearly every night."

"But – look here, Linda: be reasonable – "

"I think I have been – what you call reasonable – long enough – too long!"

Bellamy hesitated, nervously moistening his lips, glancing sidelong this way and that. But there was nobody in the foyer at the moment but themselves; even the coatroom girls had retired to their office and were well out of ear-shot of the quiet conversational key which, for all her indignation, Lucinda had adopted. For all of which the man should have been abjectly grateful. Instead of which (such is the wicked way of drink) Bellamy took heart of these circumstances, their temporary isolation and Lucinda's calculated quietness, and offered to bluster it out.

"Here – take these flowers, won't you? Plenty for you and all your friends. Tha's what kept me so long – had to go all over to find enough."

Again Lucinda defeated his attempt to disburden himself. "Oh, Bel!" she cried sadly – "how can you be such a fool?"

"How'm I a fool? Like flowers, don't you? Thought I was going to please you… And this is what I get!"

"You know all the orchids in New York couldn't make up for your drinking."

"Why cut up so nasty about a little drink or two? Way you talk, anyone'd think I was reeling."

"You will be before night, if you keep this up."

"Well, I'm not going to keep it up. I've made arrangements to have the afternoon free, just to be with you. We'll go somewhere – do something – "