Linda Lee, Incorporated: A Novel

"What!"

At that monosyllable of dismayed protest, Lucinda saw Zinn's little eyes of a pig grow wide with surprise; which emotion, however, might have been due quite as much to what Bellamy was saying.

"But I am fortunate, Mr. Zinn, in already having the honour of Miss Lee's acquaintance." Bellamy took possession of her hand. "How do you do, Linda? So happy to see you again – looking more radiant than ever, too!"

"Is that so? You two know each other! Whyn't you tell me?"

"Wasn't sure it was this Miss Lee I knew until I saw her."

"Well, well! Ain't that nice! You ought to get along together fine, both working in the same studio and everything."

Lucinda found her voice all at once, but hardly her self-possession. "It isn't – it can't be true! Bel: it isn't true you're – !"

"Afraid it is, Linda." Bel's smile was lightly mocking. "The picture business has got me in its toils at last. Only needed that trip out here to decide me. Now I'm in it up to my ears. Something to do, you know."

"But not – not as an actor?"

"Bless your heart, no! All kinds of a nincompoop but that. No: I'm coming in on the producing side, forming a little company and starting in a modest way, as you see, on leased premises, with the most economical overhead I can figure. If I make good – well, I understand Mr. Zinn is willing to sell his studio, and I'll be wanting one all my very own."

"Any time you want to talk business, Mr. Druce, you know the way to my office. Don't stand on ceremony, and don't let nobody kid you I'm into a conference and can't be disturbed by anybody who wants to buy me out of this Bedlam: just walk right in, slap the cheque-book down on my desk, and unlimber the old fountain-pen; you'll find me willing to listen to reason. Well: got to get along, folks. They're going to run some of Miss Lee's rushes now. Maybe you'd like to look at them, if she don't mind."

"I hope very truly she won't," Bellamy said, smiling into Lucinda's eyes.

Lucinda uttered a faint-hearted negative: no, she wouldn't mind. No other way out till they were alone… But her heart was hot with resentment of the way that Bel was forever forcing situations upon her in which she must accept him on his own terms.

Immediately the door had closed behind Zinn, however, Bel's manner changed, his show of assurance gave place to diffidence or its fair semblance.

"I'm sorry, Linda – I really don't mean to be a pest – "

"Then why are you here? Why won't you keep out of my way?"

"Give me half a chance, I think I can make you understand – "

"You had that chance weeks ago, and deliberately refused it. Do you imagine I will give you another opportunity to affront me as you did?"

"But surely you got my note – "

"What note?"

"The note I sent to the Hollywood, explaining I was called East on two hours' notice, but would return as soon as I could; begging you to consider our interview merely postponed – "

"If you sent any such note, I could hardly have failed to receive it."

"But Linda! I did send it, an hour before I left, by special delivery – 'pon my word I did!"

"Possibly," Lucinda suggested with laboured scorn, "you misaddressed it, forgetting which of your numerous feminine acquaintances you were writing to."

"I addressed it," Bel insisted stoutly, "to Mrs. Bellamy Druce."

"If so, that explains it. They know me at the hotel only as Linda Lee."

"How was I to know that?"

"Your sources of information concerning me seem to be fairly busy and accurate."

"I'm sorry if you've been annoyed" – Lucinda cut in a short laugh of derision – "no, really I am! But I had to – "

"Wait!" Lucinda had become aware of a head framed in the little window of the projection-booth and regarding them with a smile of friendly interest. "Not now – later."

"All ready, Miss Lee," said the operator, unabashed – "if you are, I mean."

"Yes, thank you, quite ready." As she settled back into her chair and Bellamy placed himself by her side she added in a guarded tone: "As soon as I've looked these scenes over, we can go to my dressing-room…"

The ceiling light winked out, stuttering rays thrashed through the dark to paint in black and white those winsome gestures which Lucinda had described before the camera. But her interest in her pictured self for once had lapsed, vanity itself was for the time being wholly in abeyance, she watched without seeing the play of light and shadow, and when it faded from the screen could not have said what she had seen.

Weird, to sit there in the dark with the man beside her who had once filled all her heart that was now filled with longing for another…

When the screen once more shone blank and the ceiling light flashed on, Bel was smiling cheerfully.

"No wonder you fell for the screen so hard, Linda: you're exquisite, and no mistake. If you stick at it, never fear; it won't be long before you'll be wiping the eyes of the best of them."

"Thank you," she said stiffly – "but I don't think I want that. I only want a life I can live and hold my self-respect."

"And you come to Hollywood to find it?"

She flushed darkly and with an angry movement got up. "Please come."

Her maid was waiting in the dressing-room, but Lucinda sent the woman to explain to Mrs. Lontaine that they might be a few minutes delayed, and told her not to come back till sent for. Alone with Bellamy, she showed him a face on fire with challenge.

"You said you wanted to explain, Bel; you won't get another chance."

He nodded soberly. "Quite realize that. But this once will do, can say all I want to in three minutes. Then you're free to call it quits for good, if you like."

That posed her rudely. Did he mean – could it be possible he meant he had become reconciled to the rift in their relations? Had the arrow she had loosed into the dark, that night when Bel had broken his appointment with her, flown straight to the mark? Was Bel really "cured?" He had that look; there was deference without abasement in his bearing, if regret now and then tinged his tone it conveyed no hint of repining. By every sign he was doing very well without her.

"Can you doubt that's what I'll 'like,' Bel? Or what must I do, more than I've already done, to prove I ask nothing better than to call it quits for good with you?"

"Oh, you've done all that was needed, thanks. I'm convinced – have been for some weeks, if you want to know – in fact, from the moment when I found out you'd lost your head over a movie actor."

"Indeed?" Lucinda mastered an impulse to bite her lip. "And have you anything to say about that?"

"Not a blessed thing. That's your affair."

"Pity you didn't know in time to spare you the trip."

"I'm not sure, Linda. Knowing you as I did, I don't think I'd have believed anything I didn't see with my own eyes – "

"Anything so greatly to my discredit, of course!"

"Easy, Linda! I didn't say that. You know best what you want – that's something nobody else can ever tell one. I'm not criticizing, I'm merely explaining."

"And very good of you, I'm sure."

But Lucinda had not been able to utter the taunt without a tremor.

Bellamy gave his head a stubborn shake and stepped nearer. "Please don't be angry because of anything stupid I may say. You see, you misunderstand me: I came out here that first time dead-set to win you back at any cost, still madly in love with you, absolutely unable to conceive of a life that didn't pivot on you, Linda. I was prepared to give you any pledges you could possibly ask – "

"Did you flatter yourself any pledge you could give would mean anything to me, when you'd broken your word so often?"

"I hoped I could make you understand what a blow your leaving me had been, how it had brought me to my senses at last, jolted me up on the water-wagon, where I've been ever since – I haven't had a suspicion of a drink, Linda, since that night you ran away – and made me see what an unspeakable rotter I'd been, fooling around with women as I had. That's another thing I cut out like a shot. I haven't looked sideways at another woman since…"

"Not even after discovering I'd fallen in love with another man?"

"Not even after that. Somehow casual women don't mean anything to me any more – I mean, casual flirtations. They're too damn stupid – silly waste of time. I guess I had to be squiffy as I used to be most of the time, not to be bored by them. Oh! I'm not saying I shan't ever fall in love again, just as you have; but when I do, it will be the real thing, Linda – not the simple cussedness that makes a child play with a gun because he knows it's loaded."

"This is all very interesting, I'm sure. But after all, it doesn't explain – now, does it?"

"It explains why I followed you out here the first trip, why I had to see you in another man's arms, kissing him, and then hear all the small-town gossip about you two before I'd believe…"

"There is gossip, then?"

"What do you think? According to all reports, you've been going it, rather, you and this chap Summerlad – 'stepping out together,' as they say in Hollywood."

Lucinda affected a shrug of indifference: Bel mustn't guess she cared what people said.

"But I am still waiting to hear why you've come out this time; what it means when you hire quarters here in the studio where I am working daily, and pretend you're going into the producing business. You may be able to make Zinn believe that tale; at least, he won't ask embarrassing questions so long as you put money in his pocket; but you can hardly expect me – !"

"You're wrong there, Linda. I'm just as much in earnest about becoming a producer of good motion-pictures as you are about becoming a star. I got a little look into the game that fascinated me, in those two days while I was killing time, waiting for the night you'd set for our talk. You ought to be able to understand: you were fascinated yourself at first sight."

"But you – ! Bellamy Druce dabbling in the motion-picture business!"

"Well, what price Mrs. Bellamy Druce in the same galley?"

"No, Bel: frankly, I don't believe you. You're here with some wild idea you can influence me to do what you wish – whatever that is, since you say you've given up wanting me to come back to you."

"Oh, as to that – absolutely!"

"Then why must you set up your shop here, where we can't help running into each other half a dozen times a day?"

"Because there isn't another inch of stage to be hired in all Los Angeles today. I've had a man looking round for me ever since my first visit, he's tried every place. The only thing I could do to avoid renting from Zinn was to build, and that meant a longer wait than I wanted. Ask anybody who knows the local studio situation, if you doubt what I say."

"So you didn't come out this time with any idea of seeing me at all, Bel?"

"Of course, I did. I had to see you. Things couldn't rest as they were, especially after you'd taken up with this Summerlad. I'm assuming you're serious in that quarter, of course."

"And what has that to do – ?"

"Just this: I don't like it. As I say, if you want to run around with a movie actor, that's your affair; but so long as you remain my wife, it's my affair, too. Don't forget it's my name you're trailing through the muck of this sink-hole of scandal."

She flamed at him – "Bel!" – but he wouldn't heed.

"You don't suppose you're going to get away with the Linda Lee thing much longer, do you? If all these people don't know it's an assumed name now, they jolly soon will. How do you suppose I found out you were up to this game? No: not through detectives, but simply by calling on your friend, Ben Culp, the man who first put this picture bee in your bonnet. Nelly Guest gave me that cue, and I thought Culp might know something helpful. Well: he did, when I called he had on his desk a trade paper that carried a report of the incorporation of Linda Lee Inc. Did you imagine anybody would need more than that name, coupled with Lontaine's as president of the company? Culp himself was the first to tumble to it… And that's what I'm here to ask you. If you're going through, if you're bent on leading the life you have been leading ever since you fell in with these people, be good enough to keep my wife's name out of it! Get your divorce and get it soon. That's all I have to ask of you."

Lucinda replied with a slow inclination of her head.

"What you want is my dearest wish," she said. "Depend on it, Bel, I shan't waste a day, I'll take the first train I can catch for Reno, after finishing this picture."

"That's simply splendid of you!" Bellamy declared heartily. "Anything I can do to help along, of course – just let me know."

"I'll be glad if you'll go now," Lucinda told him. "I think I've had about all I can stand for one day."

"Then good bye, my dear – a thousand thanks!"

XXXI

Lucinda told Fanny that, when the dressing-room door had shut Bellamy out, she "didn't know whether to laugh or to cry"; though it's true that the laugh, if any, being admittedly on herself, she was the more moved to weep. And for some minutes she stood in thought, with a curiously uncertain expression, a look that, trembling between a smile and a frown, faithfully reflected a mind that couldn't readily choose between relief and chagrin. In the end throwing herself into a chair, she hid her face in her hands and shook with mirth which she really wasn't able to control, all the while aware that, but for the assurance of Lynn's love to cushion the shock to self-esteem, tears instead must have been her portion.

After all, one couldn't deny that it had been a facer, that complete snub Bel had administered to her expectations with his cool relinquishment of all pretense of claim upon her, barring that which was his beyond dispute, his right to demand the speediest feasible dissolution of their bonds.

"And you really think divorce is what he's after?" Fanny doubted darkly, having duly turned the matter over in her mind.

"I'm sure you'd think so, if you had heard him."

"I don't know… Of course, he was your property long enough, you ought to know his wretched little ways. But I wouldn't trust any man to mean what he says to a woman under such circumstances."

"Fanny! how long is it since you set up to be such a cynic?"

"As long as I've been an honest married woman, darling. I think the first thing a woman with her wits about her learns, once she begins to convalesce from that foolish bride feeling, is that men are just as treacherous as we are in affairs of the heart, so-called. Anyway, if your Bellamy were mine, he'd wait a long time for me to give him his freedom, precisely as long as he insisted on sticking round and making me uncomfortable… The most outrageous proceeding I ever heard of!"

"I don't see through Bel, myself," Lucinda admitted. "You'd think it would be the last thing he'd do. Of course – I'll speak to Harry about it tonight – we can't stay, we'll have to move as soon as we finish this picture."

"We're lucky to be as well along as we are, in that case. Barry Nolan said today he expected to finish up in two weeks more."

"Then there's no time to be wasted. Your husband will have to begin looking for new studio accommodations right away; though I haven't the least idea where we'll find them, if Bel told the truth."

"It's barely possible he did, of course. And then it's equally possible that he's taking advantage of the demand exceeding the supply to force you out of the business, assuming you'll quit Zinn's even if it involves suspending production, rather than be made miserable by seeing him every day. In which case, of course, he'll have some other scheme ready to make it difficult if not impossible for you to resume."

"Heavens! what a wild-eyed theory, Fanny!"

"Any more wild-eyed, pray, than the facts in the case? – than what Bellamy has done in leasing space in the same studio with a woman whom he has every reason for wishing to avoid, if one can believe a word he says! Cindy: don't tell me you believe Bellamy Druce ever left New York, his home and his friends, to come out here and muck about Hollywood because he likes it, or because he's discontented with having been no better than a drone all his life long and wants to redeem himself by doing something worth-while? If that's his motive, in Heaven's name! what made him pick out the motion-picture business?"

"It is funny," Lucinda confessed. "I don't pretend to understand…"

No more did she. But the seeds of suspicion that conversation planted took root readily and flowered into a dark jungle of strange, involuted fancies in which fears ran wild until Lynn Summerlad came home to charm them all asleep. Lucinda only needed to see him, indeed, to forget her troubles altogether and become once more the voluntary thrall of a species of intoxication as potent to her senses as a drug.

The Lontaines had arranged a supper party at Santa Monica in Summerlad's honour for that night, but considerately had neglected to preface it with dinner. So the lovers had the hours till eleven to themselves. At seven Summerlad called, finding his way unannounced to Lucinda's sitting-room. She went to his arms with a cry of joy, buried her face on his shoulder, clung to him as if she would never let him go.

"I've missed you so, Lynn, I've missed you so!"

He seemed startled and unmistakably affected by the artlessness of this confession, and held her close, comforting her with all the time-old and tested responses of the lovers' litany, with a tenderness in his voice more deep and true than he had ever sounded in the most impassioned moments of his wooing.

"But, my dearest girl! you're trembling. What is it? Tell me…"

"It's so wonderful to have you back, Lynn. Don't ever leave me for so long again."

"You tempt me to," he laughed indulgently. "I think you've learned to love me better while I've been away than you did in all the while that I was here!"

She answered with an odd little laugh of love and deprecation: "I really think I have…"

They dined at Marcelle's, not the happiest selection for their first few hours together, for the place was thronged with picture-folk, as it is always of a Saturday, and acquaintances were continually running over to their table to tell Summerlad how glad they were to see him back. Practically the only moments they had alone were when they danced; so they made excuse to leave early, that they might drive to Santa Monica by the most round-about way.

Nothing was wanting to endue that drive with every illusion of a dream. Spring was so well advanced that the night air, windless, was as warm as it would ever be in Summer. There was again a moon, as on that first night when Summerlad had driven Lucinda and the Lontaines home from dinner at his bungalow and on the way had turned aside to show Lucinda from that high place in the hills all the provinces of her new kingdom mapped out beneath her. Summerlad's car, its superb motor in perfect tune, made light of speed laws on lonely roads far from the main-travelled ways that link the towns. On the back seat, snuggled into the hollow of Summerlad's arm, Lucinda rested a long time in contented silence, watching the molten magic of the night fling itself at their faces, dissolve, blend into rushing shadows, and sweep behind, to music of cloven air like fairy laughter. How could she ever have been so stupid as to harbour a thought disloyal to this land of dim enchantment?

"It is too perfect," she murmured at length, "too sweet to last. It can't last, I know it can't!"

"Why not? So long as we love, what's to prevent all beauty lasting?"

"Life. I mean" – it took all her courage to speak of what she had till then purposely kept back – "Bellamy."

Summerlad's arm tightened protectingly around her. "What about him? Has he come back? Been annoying you any way? Tell me about it."

She told him her version of that noon-hour meeting at the studio, Summerlad swearing softly beneath his breath as he listened.

"So you see, my dear – as I said – it can't last. We can't continue to work together in the same studio, with Bel spying on us, or able to do so any time he happens to want to. I'll have to move – you can't, of course, because your contract is with Zinn himself. And I imagine – in fact, I'm sure – the best thing for us both is for me to leave Los Angeles altogether for at least six months."

"Go away from Los Angeles? From me! Linda, you can't mean it."

"Only to make it possible to be nearer to you when I come back, dear. I mean, I must go to Reno, where I should have gone in the first place. If I had, these impossible conditions Bel has brought about could never have been."

"Oh, damn your husband!"

"I don't know: he's making things awkward for us, truly, but perhaps in the end we'll be grateful to him. If it weren't for Bel, it's quite likely I'd keep on putting off my divorce rather than be separated from you for so long. But after all, what are six months, when they earn us the right to spend all our lives together afterwards?"

Lynn made no answer, other than to hold her more tightly. She twisted round to look up into his face. The moonlight showed it set in a scowling cast.

"What's the matter, Lynn? Don't you think as I do about Reno?"

"Of course," the man muttered. "But I don't fancy your being away from me so long. Six months! Anything can happen in six months."

The car was swinging into the streets of Santa Monica. Lucinda gave him her lips.

"Let's forget it for tonight. Kiss me again while there's time."

The restaurant to which the Lontaines had bidden them was the one in those times most favoured by the froth of the picture colony for its weekly night of carnival; an immense pavilion by the sea, but too small by half for the crowds that besieged it toward midnight every Saturday, pathetically keen to rub shoulders with celebrity in its hours of relaxation from arduous labours before the camera. When Lucinda and Summerlad arrived the velvet rope across the entrance was holding back a throng ten deep, a singularly patient and indefatigable lot, its faces all turned in hope toward the lights beyond, eager to catch the eye of the proprietor, though informed by sad experience that the reward would be what it always was for those who had failed to make reservations, a coldly indifferent shake of the head and nothing more. Through this fringe prayers and elbows opened a sullen way till Summerlad's unusual height won recognition from within, and he passed through with Lucinda to a place where pandemonium set to jazz ruled under light restraint.

Round the four walls and encroaching upon the cramped floor for dancing, tables were so closely ranked that passage between them was generally impracticable. It seemed little short of miraculous that so many people could be crowded even into that huge hall, incredible that they should care to be. Yet everybody of any consequence in the studios was there, and everybody knew everybody else and called him by his first name – preferably at the top of his lungs. Much fraternizing went on between the tables, much interchange of the bottles of which at least one was smuggled in by each male patron as a point of honour, against the perfunctory prohibition of the management posted in staring letters at the entrance. An insane orchestra dominated the din by fits and starts, playing snatches of fox-trots and one-steps just long enough at a time to permit a couple to make half the round of the dance floor at the meditative gait imposed by the mob massed upon it, then stopping to let a leather-lunged ballyhoo bullyrag the dancers into contributing their cash as a bribe for further measures. When the musicians rested and the floor was cleared, impromptu exhibitions of foolery were staged by slapstick clowns and applauded with shrieks and cat-calls. The women present, mostly young – for the camera has little use for years beyond the earliest stages of maturity – exhibited themselves in every degree of undress short of downright déshabille. Masculine Hollywood as a rule thriftily saves its evening clothes for service under the Kliegs.

Lontaine's party, a large one, comprising the most influential members of the colony with whom he and Summerlad were on agreeable terms, had been long enough in session already to have become individually exalted and collectively hilarious. Summerlad it took to its bosom with shouts of acclaim, and he seemed to find it easy to catch the spirit of the gathering. But Lucinda sat with it and yet apart from it, a little mused. She could not drink enough to be in tune with her company, and would not if she could. A sense of frustration oppressed her. Before her dreaming eyes the pageant passed again of hills and fields asleep in sweet glamour of moonlight, breathing pastoral fragrance upon the night. She had been happy half an hour since. Here in this heady atmosphere of perfumed flesh, tobacco reek and pungent alcohol, the idyl of her evening grew faint and fled. While the man she loved had no regrets.