Minnie Flynn/Chapter 17
THREE months before her marriage, Gilbert persuaded Minnie to buy a home worthy of her. Now that she was earning five thousand dollars a week, he told her she was a fool to live in a bungalow, especially one far off the route traveled by the sight-seeing buses. What she must have was a big showy place near enough to the boulevard so the spieler on the buses could inform the eager tourist: "See that swell big house to the right of those eucalyptus trees?—well, that's where June Day, the celebrated moving picture actress, lives!" Here was Minnie getting five thousand dollars a week and living in a dinky fifty thousand dollar place with so many old trees in the front yard that nobody could even see the house!
Minnie loved her home. Gilbert could never understand how weary she was of being looked at. Those waving willows and the tall sweet-smelling pines grew like a protective screen in front of her window. In that room she felt pleasantly remote from the turbulent noisy life of Hollywood's movie circles. All year long the birds caroled their morning song. In the spring they built their nests in the honeysuckle vine which framed her windows. It was cool and fragrant and restful in the warm days of summer. Winters, when the bare branches of the willow flowed before her window like an exquisite fine-lined etching, she could see the purple-shadowed mountains and the azure skies. How could she leave that quiet room? And yet—perhaps they were right—she wasn't making quite enough show for one of her position. Her public was expecting it, and what right had she to disappoint them? Wasn't she, after all, their servant?
So she said nothing of her tears at the thought of parting from this home, but helped in their search for a "mansion." Within voice range of the spielers' megaphones, they found a huge show place; of bastard architecture and with a stupid conventional garden, cluttered with plaster statuary. The house itself looked like a grimacing face, in bas-relief on the side of a hall. The Flynns all thought it was delightfully conspicuous; Michael Flynn alone was daunted by the price of it—one hundred thousand dollars!
Minnie laughed when the color drained from her father's face. "Poor papa! The movies will be the death of you yet! But really, dear, there's nothing to worry about. It's a bargain and we only have to pay ten thousand dollars cash. Think of it—why, it's almost absurd, so little down and three years to pay it in. You don't seem to realize that I'm making two hundred and sixty thousand dollars a year! If I have a good break in my pictures, I'll double my salary at the end of my contract." She was looking at her father and wonder ing why he had aged so in the last few years with nothing to do but enjoy life, with more than plenty to eat, and the fun of watching her skyrocketing success. Minnie had never been so aware of how shabby and insignificant a figure her father was until she saw him against the background of the drawing room of this enormous, garish house. They stood in the empty room under the sparkling glass chandelier. The walls were covered with heavily embossed gold paper. Over the carved fireplace hung a Louis XV gilt mirror. Gilbert was saying:
"You'll have to sell that old stuff in your house, June, because this must be furnished absolutely true to period, Louis XV in this room. In the music room beyond, you can have a slightly Chinese motif if you want. I don't deplore the lack of the conventional in the sun porch or music room. In fact, speaking of Chinese, I'm going to do my room entirely in the Oriental tone, huge carved teakwood—the old teakwood, you understand—none of this terrible stuff you see in these tourists' hotels. I'm going to put my order in right away. In fact, it wouldn't be a bad idea if you would open an account at Marsh's. They've got the only stuff in town I'm interested in."
Minnie wasn't listening to him, she was still looking at her father. His clothes were always shabby, and he would never wear gloves to hide his gnarled, veined hands. He stood there awkwardly fumbling an umbrella which was bright and shiny against the frayed coat. Above his collar protruded his neck, red grooved, with sparse, mouse-colored hair growing unkempt upon it. His head kept jerking back as if Gilbert's words were hands flecking the tip of his nose. Minnie wanted to do something, say something which would take that beaten look out of his eyes. She floundered hopelessly. "Papa, we're going to fix you the most wonderful room of your own—a room fit for a king!"
"Please don't spend any more money on me, little girl."
"Listen to him, Gilbert. And nothing I could do would be half good enough for him!"
Gilbert's foot was tapping the floor, but he had made up his mind to be patient with Minnie's stupid affection for her father.
"Oh, papa, I've got it!—A job for you! I want you to go down in the basement and see what kind of a layout we've got in the plumbing line. There ought to be some wonderful water heaters in this house, and you heard what the agent said about the gas furnaces being the finest that money could buy."
A timid smile flickered on Michael Flynn's face. "There's one thing I can say for this house, Minnie—the man who done the plumbing job knew what he was about. Them tubs and showers and toilets has the very latest fixin's. There's too many of 'em for a place this size, but they're all up to date and work without a hitch."
Minnie felt triumphant. "You see, papa, it's going to keep you busy looking after the plumbing, and think what your experience is going to save me."
"They do charge somethin' fierce out here for just the ordinary work that I ain't too old to do myself." Michael Flynn was warming up to the subject. "I guess it won't take me no time to learn how to run them patent furnaces. My old boss used to say I was the smartest plumber in his shop when it come to workin' out any new"
Carlton said, "S-sh!" because the agent was approaching. It jarred on his æsthetic nerves to listen to this jargon which belonged to a past he wanted to forget.
In the weeks that followed, there was a noticeable change in Michael Flynn; he was busy. He had an excuse to keep out of sight. He wore overalls and carried a tool kit. His face was smeared with grease. Minnie often heard him whistling, as he disappeared down the steps into the vaulted basement, and she smiled, her father had come into his own at last. She kept his mind off the approaching wedding by giving him complete charge of the wiring for the electrical display. They were to be married in the home, and it was to be a brilliant affair. Mrs. Flynn told the reporters they were planning to spend at least a thousand dollars for decorations and supper; two thousand dollars for the bootleggers' best! Two orchestras had been engaged: an Hawaiian orchestra for the early hours of the evening, the jazz band to arrive at midnight. Her daughter's wedding gown was made by the studio wardrobe department and cost eight hundred dollars. The bridal veil was of real old Spanish lace. She didn't know how much they had paid for that, but some big sum, no doubt, because a queen had once worn it. The reporters hid their smiles when they asked her if it wasn't rather unusual for the bride of a second marriage to wear the conventional virginal white satin and bridal veil. It was Mrs. Flynn who smiled. She asked: "Isn't it conventional for a widow to wear mournin' for her second husband if she wants to?"
As the day for the wedding drew near, Minnie was troubled. She was more in love with Carlton than ever, she could forgive his selfishness, and his egotism, but a specter crept into the waking hours of her nights to warn and terrify her: was he marrying her only because of her position? Did he really love her? Were his protestations sincere? How would he treat her after they were married? What of the sly suggestive glances she had seen exchanged between Gilbert and Alicia Adams? One evening when Jimmy had been drinking more than usual, he had blurted out his fierce resentment against Gilbert. He didn't mind Beauregard's claims to Alicia Adams, he had a right to her favors, seeing that he had made her a big star, but Alicia had no business starting any flirtation—especially when Gilbert had such a classy girl as his own sister. How this confession terrified Minnie! She felt as one does in a nightmare, as if she were standing on the brink of a precipice waiting with growing terror for the long, slow, spinning fall through space. Carlton was ugly when she questioned him about it. Said her nasty suspicions irritated and shamed him. He flung out of the house and though she searched for him all night, she could not locate him. She telephoned to the home of Alicia Adams, but there was no answer. She never knew that Gilbert and Alicia were laughing at the futile ringing of the telephone bells.
Minnie's company waited for her until two o'clock the following afternoon. When she did arrive, her face was drawn into haggard, sagging puffs, her eyes swollen from weeping. For days they had difficulty photographing her. Sam Binns pleaded with her to take better care of herself. He showed her relentless articles in the magazines that spoke regretfully of the marked change in her! Why would they insist upon June Day in rôles more suited to a young girl? Club women had ruled her name off their approved lists. Ministers, preaching from their pulpits against the picture people whose notoriety had thrown them into the limelight's yellow glare, named Minnie. The flooding volume of fan mail grew less. For the first time, Minnie began feverishly reading them, ashamed and outraged by the challenge she found in so many of the letters. Now she had permitted this scandal to smirch her name, they said they no longer idealized her. They told her frankly that she wasn't so pretty, and the old ladies advised her to guard herself against all evil, because it was leaving its scars upon her face. Hurt, angry, afraid, she threw these letters into the waste-paper basket. A victim of their stupid imagination! She wasn't changed. Maybe a little bit stouter, but everybody around her said that it was becoming and that she didn't look a day over twenty. If there were any fine lines on her face it was the rotten sun in California. A good cold cream would soon get rid of them. Her expression changed? Well, she wasn't going to look like a sap all of her life. What did they expect? If they could only see her in real life they wouldn't notice any change in her, but a moving picture camera is so pitiless, it seems deliberately to ferret out the toll of the years, scarcely perceptible to the eye. Now, a still camera was kinder. In that photograph of her in her wedding gown, she really didn't look a day over eighteen. She gave Pete orders to send copies of this photograph to all of the newspapers and magazines. "What's the idea, sis," laughed Jimmy, "trying to cheat yourself at solitaire?"
On the night of the wedding, Minnie looked almost as young and beautiful as the photograph. The excitement of the final preparations had been so intense she had forgotten even her jealousy of Alicia. For Jimmy's sake, Alicia had been asked to be one of the bridesmaids.
The wedding was as elaborate and formal as if it were a scene in a moving picture. It was a moving picture, Deane remarked to himself, with only an occasional semblance to reality.
When the ceremony was over, he found Michael Flynn and together they sought the seclusion of the broad veranda. There, through the windows, they could watch the slow dissolution of the formal setting as night rolled on and the flow of champagne unloosened and then unbalanced the wedding party. Deane watched grimly, though at times rather amused. But Michael Flynn was terrified; he saw Minnie drinking and teetering and laughing. She had thrown her bridal veil to the fat comedian who put it on, whipped the bouquet out of the bridesmaid's hands who had caught it, and proceeded to amuse them. His cavortings were nastily suggestive, but no one cared. They laughed uproariously at all his vulgarity.
Michael Flynn was shocked to see Minnie laughing. He whispered to Deane that Minnie wasn't a girl who had liked "fence words" as they had called them when little children. "I'm going to get my umbrella and hit that fat fellow," Flynn said to Deane. "He can't talk that way in front of my little girl."
"Minnie wouldn't want you to make any scene," Deane said as he caught Michael Flynn by the arm. "She's been drinking too much, poor kid. She's laughing just because the others are, because Carlton is laughing the loudest of any of them. She probably isn't paying any attention to what he really is saying. You see, Mr. Flynn, you can't stop their doing what they want when they've reached Minnie's age and her independence."
A crash of glassware as the fat comedian kicked the tray from the butler's hand. And again they laughed.
Deane put his arm around Michael Flynn's shoulder. "I think it's time we went to bed. We're working men, Flynn. You get up before six, they tell me. There's a big day's work ahead of you disconnecting all these globes."
"Oh, my God, Deane, look what Minnie's doin' now!"
Her train had been stepped upon and torn so often she was unfastening her skirt. It dropped to the floor and Minnie danced out of it. Another uproar of laughter. Through her lace petticoat could be seen her shapely limbs in their sheer stockings. The fat comedian screamed to the leader of the jazz band to play "London Bridge Is Falling Down." This was their cue to join hands and dance in a swaying circle around the bride and groom.
"There can't be a bridge without water," roared the fat comedian. Seizing an open bottle of champagne, he shook it violently, then aimed the stream of spouting wine at Minnie and Gilbert. Screams, but of laughter, and a rush for the serving tables.
"The fountains of Versailles were pikers compared to us!" bawled the fat comedian. "Come on, let's all drown our sorrows!"
Michael Flynn collapsed in Deane's arms, and lay there moaning like something that was hurt. Deane carried him around to the back stairs and up to his room where he undressed him and put him in bed. Something had snapped in Michael Flynn's brain.
Deane heard a terrific crash of glass, a clap of laughter, Minnie's voice rising to a shrill scream—then silence. Fearing that someone was hurt, he hurried downstairs and into the living room. Minnie's face was white and drawn. Her disheveled hair was falling to her shoulders, her clothes, wet with wine, were clinging to her trembling body. "You!" she was crying as she jabbed her finger at the fat comedian. "You hoodlums! Get out of my house, do you hear me? I've had enough of this! and I won't stand for any more of it!"
Gilbert seized her outstretched hand and dragged her toward him. "June, be quiet. You don't know what you're saying. You're making a fool of yourself!"
She was sobbing, "I'm the one that's being made a fool of, and I won't have these drunks in my house any longer. On—on our wedding night."
Gilbert's face was livid now. "You damned little idiot," he said to her, "you were drunk, too, and having a lot of fun until you let that cold wine sober you up." His friend, Gordon Corilla, was passing. "Hey, Corilla! Bring me a good stiff Scotch for my bride, she's getting a flat tire and wants to spoil the party."
He was trying to hide his rage under a forced pleasantness. "Come on, sweetie, cut out the tragedy. There's no camera within five miles of the place! We were going great a few minutes ago, and now look what you've done—almost queered it."
The leader of the jazz band, schooled to hide the chaos of drunken voices, urged the men behind the cymbals and drums to redouble their efforts. Minnie's voice could be heard above their emphases, screaming for the music to cease and the dancers to go home. When she again rushed forward to stop them, she swayed and groped blindly to keep from falling, though she was cold sober now. Several sputtering groups left, their ribald laughter following in the wake of their limousines like long, gay-colored ribbons.
"Go upstairs and get into some kind of a dress," Gilbert whispered to her, his hot breath jetting on her cheek. "Don't make an ass out of me in front of all my friends. I'm not Mr. Day, you know, I've got a position of my own! If they hadn't been my friends, they'd have all cleared out by now." The memory of her calling them hoodlums rankled deep. "When you come downstairs, you'd better apologize to them, or"
"Our best glasses and that rug, Gilbert. I paid fifteen hundred dollars for that rug—and cigarette butts dropped on it—all burns and everything. Oh, Gilbert dear".
He brushed her hand off his arm. "I'm not your 'Gilbert dear'—go on upstairs."
When she passed Hal Deane, she knew that he had overheard. She smiled bravely at him. "Hello, Hal, the party's a riot, isn't it? Did you see me almost crab their act? But sometimes I hate these Hollywood crowds who can't have a good time without smashing the furniture and glasses." Then she added hastily, "But I don't blame Gilbert's resenting my attitude—I shouldn't have bawled them out the way I did. I seem to be only a kill-joy when I've had too much to drink. Funny how you can get sober in a minute, sometimes."
"Oh, Minnie!" It was wrung out of Deane before he was aware the cry had escaped him.
"Don't look at me like that, Hal—as if—as if I were dead—or something!"
"Or something," he repeated mechanically. "Minnie, for God's sake, get a grip on yourself. You're going downhill so fast, you'll soon find that you can't stop. All these drunken parties are debauching. I know I appear like a meddling old psalm-singer, but I've been in the business so long I know what I'm talking about."
"Really, Hal, I can't help drinking. I need it. My nerves are all on edge. I've got to have something to let me down."
"Do you ever try sleep?"
"No, Hal!"
He laughed: it was rather a hollow sound. "This fatherly advice is pretty much of a bore, isn't it? But you know, Minnie, that is the pleasant vice of friends."
Her eyes were searching his face. "You are my friend, Hal. I guess the only friend I'm really sure of. That sounds like a pretty bitter statement when I'm surrounded by people who call me friend. But every day I grow more sceptical. What scares me is the attitude of your so-called friends toward you when you've lost out—the minute they think you're a failure. Look at the girls who have been bigger stars than I am—when their day is over—" She stopped short, the pupils of her eyes suddenly contracted. "Lord, but I'll bet they're lonely. It must be terrible—terrible!"
"Minnie dear—" He laid his hand over hers in a tender, but impersonal caress. "All of them face the end of their roads some day—and don't be one of the few who aren't ready to meet that failure."
"Hal, you terrify me when you talk to me like that. Oh, what can I do to help myself?"
"Guard your health, Minnie. Don't spend all your money—and try to live a more normal life."
He did not withdraw his hand. Hers seemed so cold he felt pleasantly aware of warming Minnie through this protective contact. "Your poor father was so frightened tonight. I think, Minnie, he sees what I see."
"What, Hal?"
He didn't answer her. He was wondering how he was going to tell her.
"You—you don't think I'm through already! No, no—not that, Hal!"
His eyes told her.
"But how can I be through when I'm only just started—with my own company—five thousand a week"
"I'm worried about the new company, Minnie. The men backing it aren't listed in Bradstreet's—I heard from a Wall Street broker they were only speculators—two of them have unsavory reputations—and I wouldn't bank too much on them. Watson looks like a slicker to me. Perhaps I'm prejudiced. I despise the parasitical middlemen. I'll find out all about them when I get back to New York."
A shudder passed through her. "You're not going away!" She reached out her free hand and grasped the lapel of his coat. "Why, Hal, nobody told me you were leaving—they were talking about your directing me again—only yesterday it came up, and Binns said Watson was going to approach you."
"I've signed for a year—going back with Beauregard again."
Her face blanched. "You're not going to direct Alicia Adams, are you?"
"I suppose so, in one or two pictures. You see, Minnie, Beauregard has learned his lesson. So long as Alicia is under his management, he is going to star her in the type of production in which she is best qualified to make a success."
Minnie thought she was going to collapse. "But I depend so upon you"
"I couldn't do the type of picture you have chosen, Minnie, it goes against my grain."
Gilbert, stalking into the hall, saw them standing there. His footsteps fell softly upon the deep rugs. They didn't hear his approach until he cried out, "What in hell are you and June trying to pull on me?—Pretty raw, isn't it?"
For a moment they didn't know what he was referring to, until they saw his leering, accusing eyes focused upon their friendly handclasp. Deane shot a warning glance to Minnie. She walked quietly but swiftly up the stairs.
When she reached the upper hall, she ran to her room, threw herself upon the bed and buried her hot white face in the gay pyramid of boudoir pillows.
Because the newspaper men liked Deane, they kept the story of the fight between the two men out of the morning papers. The brief, ugly fight—Deane, the more powerful of the two men was mercifully swift in the punishment he dealt out. Minnie heard nothing of it until weeks later. She thought the cut on Gilbert's forehead had been made by a flying piece of broken glass, for it was dawn when he entered her room sufficiently sobered to talk fairly coherently.
Minnie had fallen into an exhausted sleep. She awakened when Gilbert was bending over her, and his soft hands tangled in her hair. "Darling," he was whispering, "if you'll only forgive me—I didn't intend to make a scene—my rotten jealous nature—only because I love you so. June, June sweetheart, oh, what a cad I am, when I have the dearest, sweetest woman in the world."
Why should that word "woman" startle her at a moment like this? "Girl" was the word.
"Don't draw away from me like that. Look, darling, I'm kneeling before you—so humble—on my knees—let me crawl over to you and kiss your feet. I'm not worthy of you—say you'll forgive me, my darling, my little wife."
"Little wife" stirred her strangely. She moved uneasily but not away from him. Then his mouth sought hers in the darkness, and when he found her half-open lips he crushed them fiercely—her neck, her throat, the white flesh on her shoulders. His cry was triumphant when she lay limp and yielding in his arms, "I knew that you loved me—I knew it!"