Spider Boy/Chapter 3
The arrival of Ambrose Deacon at the Dearborn Station in Chicago coincided with a remarkable demonstration. As he neared the dingy gates beyond which the Chief waited to drag him westward he was forced to push his way through a cheering crowd. Hats were in the air. Flashlight powder exploded into a blinding splendour. Timidly, he questioned a policeman.
It's Imperia Starling, the movie star. She's on her way to Hollywood.
Her public could have been no more turbulent, Ambrose fancied, had she been on her way to heaven. He made her out now, on the platform of the observation car, bowing and smiling, with that taut smile which so easily may be transformed into an expression of malice, her unnaturally pale white face framed by her short black hair, her slender figure emphasized by her gown of white crêpe georgette, partially concealed by a chinchilla cloak. In her arms she carried what Ambrose computed to be about seven hundred dollars worth of orchids, not only the common catelya, but also uncountable sprays of the yellow marshallianum, and a mottled variety that he remembered having seen on the coloured page devoted to these flowers in his dictionary.
The police had wedged an adequate path through the crowd, and following this, behind his porter with his bags, Ambrose made his way through the gate and down the long platform to his car. Determining to eat dinner in his own compartment, he dispatched his porter for the menu as the long train was pulling out, with the further request that he page Mr. Abel Morris. Mr. Morris, it developed, was not on the train, but a telegram delivered to Ambrose later explained that he had been detained in Chicago, gave Ambrose his Kansas City address, and invited him to be his guest at any time he found it convenient.
The rest of the trip I make alone, Ambrose vowed, but he discovered to his astonishment that he was disappointed to be deprived of the companionship of Abel Morris. There had been something quite winning, he reflected, about the personality of this financial magnate of the Middle West.
He ate his dinner in comparative peace of mind, wondering a good deal about Fred Harvey, as any one must who travels on the Santa Fe. Later, the cloth and dishes removed, he tried a game of solitaire, but his mind wandered and without the beneficent assistance of Abel Morris he found he was losing the game. With a sigh he extracted from his bag a book by J. S. Fletcher. He read the last page, then the first, and finally peeped into the seventh chapter. This particular detective story, he decided, would not serve to hold his interest. Yawning, he called the porter to make up his bed.
In the morning the arrival of the train at Kansas City was accompanied by rain. The day, with the dreary Kansas prairie in prospect, was likely to prove intolerable. Ambrose dressed slowly and drank his coffee in the seclusion of his compartment with the door closed. Then, feeling restless, he ventured forth to stroll to the observation car where he sipped a split of Apollinaris. The outskirts of Kansas City, he believed on scrutiny, were more sordid than those of any other metropolis with which he was acquainted. On second thought he recalled that this was his consistent reaction towards the outskirts of any city he viewed from a train. The stenographer addressed him by name and asked if he wanted to send any messages. He considered a telegram to Abel Morris, but quickly relinquished the idea. An extremely pretty girl, who knew how to dress, sat opposite him, swinging a flesh-coloured leg over her knee. To his confusion he observed that she appeared to be staring at him, that there was even a shadow of a smile in her stare. His eyes met hers for two seconds of acute embarrassment before he returned his gaze to the uninteresting view outside. An old gentleman entered the car from the platform, drawing a draught of chill air after him.
Want to play a game of cards?
It had begun so early in the morning! Ambrose shook his head weakly at the intruder, a pious, snivelling fellow of meagre build in a black morning coat. Surely a card sharp this! No Abel Morris at any rate: that much at least was apparent. Fortunately, the fellow did not urge him. Ambrose approached a table to fumble with a pile of magazines in their stiff black covers. He did not select one, but he contrived to drop two or three on the floor. As he stooped to recover these the handkerchief of the pretty girl fluttered toward him and as he rose he could see that she made no effort to conceal her annoyance when it was rescued by the elderly gentleman. Ambrose realized his innate inability to rescue ladies' handkerchiefs in these circumstances, even supposing he cherished the desire to do so. In a state of extreme self-consciousness he left the car to walk the entire length of the train to the club car, passing porters making up berths, ladies in nondescript dressing-mangowns, hairy-armed men in their undervests on their way to make their toilets, whole coaches of compartments with mysterious closed doors behind which, could they be thrown open, Ambrose was fully aware that nothing mysterious lurked.
In the club car Ambrose ordered another split of Apollinaris, fumbled futilely with another heap of periodicals, and thought more about the plight of the farmer, about Calvin Coolidge, and about God. Another inadequate stranger annoyed him by demanding if he'd like to make a fourth at bridge. Flustered, he paid the porter for his water and returned to his compartment. More solitaire, another book—this time he succeeded in reading seventy-three pages—occasional sterile glances through the rain-spattered window, unrewarded save by an uninterrupted view of the prairie, the snow turning to mud under the drizzle, with here and there an ugly farmhouse, a pitiful, gaunt tree, a lonely cow, and always the rhythmic accompaniment of passing telegraph poles. At last it was lunch time.
Ambrose regretted he couldn't enjoy the company of Abel Morris at lunch. That would be a protection for, forgetting the danger of an encounter with the pretty girl of the observation car, Ambrose elected to eat this meal in the public coach.
The pretty girl fortuitously was missing. Ambrose, seated alone at a table in the half-empty car, scanned the menu. He thought some more about Fred Harvey. Fine fellow, Fred Harvey. Ambrose recalled that some one had once told him that Fred Harvey's dying words were, Cut the ham thin, boys. The boys had, ever since. Ambrose ordered ham and eggs.
I beg your pardon, but aren't you Mr. Ambrose Deacon?
Ambrose glanced up at the speaker to recognize him as one of the men who had stood beside Imperia Starling while she was saying farewell to her devoted Chicago public. His fork slipped from his fingers as he murmured a fragile affirmative. He was beginning to be more and more certain that he would have done better to remain in New York. Would the Indians of New Mexico, he wondered, behave in this obscene fashion?
Bowing, the fellow presented a card. Ambrose fumbled with it, dropped it on the floor, stooped to pick it up, rose, flushed with the exertion, and finally read: Herbert Ringrose, Director Invincible Film Company, Culver City, California. Grudgingly, he offered a flabby palm which Ringrose grasped with cordiality. Then the director, uninvited, seated himself opposite the playwright.
On your way to Hollywood, I presume, was his opening speech.
No, I'm not going to Hollywood, Ambrose replied.
Frank disbelief was published on the countenance of Herbert Ringrose.
I know, I know. He uttered these syllables with an air of impatience. You can't be too careful. Have you signed with any company?
I don't know what you mean, Ambrose protested, and then added, No, in a guilty manner.
Herbert Ringrose leaned forward. When he spoke his tone was both confidential and portentous.
His words were: The films need men like you.
Ambrose's terror increased.
Call it an industry, call it an art . . . Ringrose waved such unimportant distinctions away with his hand . . . Why quibble? The writer is perhaps the most essential single factor—saving always the director—in Hollywood. Stories, stories . . . he sighed . . . the cameras eat 'em up. Swallow 'em. Creation, inventive genius: that's what we need. We have to take what we can get, but a man of your calibre can give us something to put our teeth in.
I don't know anything about motion pictures, Ambrose reminded his visitor.
You've said the very thing that convinces me you would be a genius in their construction, Ringrose cried enthusiastically. Your modesty is positive proof of your potential ability. Too many famous authors go to Hollywood with the idea that they know more about pictures than we do. They want to reform the industry. Take—as Ringrose hesitated, rat poison was on the tip of Ambrose's prompting tongue—Maeterlinck. I've seen your plays, Ringrose continued. I've read your stories. I've studied 'em from every angle. Not film material in themselves, perhaps. Not enough plot. But what character! What human interest! Every line indicates you have an enormous talent for screen-work. You are a creator, if I may say so. Turn you loose with me on a lot and we could produce a masterpiece. I see a mediæval castle with a moat, a chase of men in armour. . . .
But I never wrote anything like that, Ambrose interpolated.
You don't know what you can do, Mr. Deacon, indeed you don't know till you try.
There isn't much good talking about it anyway, Ambrose explained. You see I'm really not going to Hollywood. I'm . . .
Ringrose modulated his interruption to a different key: You know perhaps that Miss Imperia Starling is on this train?
Yes, I saw . . .
A good half of that spectacular demonstration you witnessed, for which we were totally unprepared, was in my honour, the director inserted. Miss Starling, he continued suavely, would not like to miss this opportunity of meeting you.
I'd be glad to meet Miss Starling, stammered Ambrose, but you see . . .
I'll come after you directly and take you to her, Ringrose insisted. Where can I find you?
I'm in A, car 407, Ambrose replied. He sensed the hopelessness of evasion: the fellow would find him anyway.
I'll be after you in fifteen minutes, the director assured him.
Left to himself again, Ambrose made a sorry effort to dispose of his cold ham and eggs. What was he going to say? What was he going to do? Write motion pictures! Meet movie stars! Men in armour and moats! What could the fellow be thinking about? Paying his cheque, Ambrose returned to his room with a rapidly growing determination to leave the train at the next stop. He did not resume his game of solitaire or think about God or Coolidge or read the seventy-fourth page of the novel he had commenced. Rather he settled into a mood of glum despair in which he was still plunged when Herbert Ringrose appeared at the door.
Miss Starling, it developed, occupied a drawing-room in an adjoining coach which was emblazoned with the euphonious name of Zjickalfels. As they approached her domain a series of piercing shrieks, above which mounted a deep-voiced, vociferous Damn you! rent the air. The door of a room four yards ahead of them flew open and a maid in uniform, her hair dishevelled, tears streaming from her eyes, dashed out and disappeared around the bend of the further corridor. It was on the door that slammed behind her that Ringrose presently tapped gently, the while he whisperingly explained to his companion: Miss Starling is slightly temperamental.
A voice as sweet as that of Bernhardt in one of her more mellifluous moments bade them enter. The next instant Ambrose was bowing awkwardly as the director presented him to this celebrated woman.
She spoke, Ambrose was sane enough to note, with a slight foreign intonation which he did not recognize. Perhaps she was Czechoslovakian or from Trebizond. The papers said . . . What did the papers say? He could not remember.
Herbert . . . the exotic product of America's fourth largest industry was speaking . . . do leave me alone with Mr. Deacon. I am sure we have so much to say to each other, isn't it?
Ringrose gracefully retired. Ambrose silently regarded his companion with rapidly increasing alarm. He was certain that he could find no single word to speak to her. The pupils of her extraordinarily lustrous eyes, the borders of which had been darkened by mascara, seemed to expand. Did she, he wondered, employ belladonna? She was dressed very simply in black, but her wrists were heavy with flexible platinum bracelets in which huge emeralds and diamonds gleamed. The pearls on her fingers and in the lobes of her ears were of an incredible size. Ambrose breathed in an indescribably pungent odour. She had never erased the ingratiating smile from her magenta lips and at last she spoke.
I'm afraid, she suggested almost coyly, you heard . . . you saw . . . my maid . . . Poor Elissa! she adores me! She couldn't work for anybody else. . . . Imperia was smoking and while she talked, she fingered her shagreen lighter and cigarette case which lay in her lap. . . . In Hollywood, she went on, they say I am temperamental. Why? Because I cannot play a love scene to cheap jazz. The orchestra plays a banal tune. I stop. What is the matter? the director asks. I tell him I cannot act to such music. The music is changed. Another day I stop again. Why? Because there are visitors on the set. They spy on me. They spoil my mood. I go home for the day. Another day when I am dressed and made up they lead me to an open car to drive to location. I will not go.
You see it is this way, Mr. Deacon, my work is very serious to me. Besides, when I am joyous, I am joyous. Happy and carefree! I love the world. . . . She flung her arms wide. . . . I take pleasure in everything. But when I am upset I become a fiend . . . her voice grated and scratched . . . and I was upset just now. Very much upset. Fortunately it was only Elissa. I nearly killed an electrician once. You see I am always right and I am serious, isn't it? They understand me after all in Hollywood. . . . She was smiling once more. . . . They know I am only a child. They humour me. They pet me.
Ambrose wondered whether he wouldn't prefer to be alone in a cage with a leopard. He was quite in capable of devising any comment. Fortunately, he found it unnecessary, for this fascinating animal with ivory teeth went on at once:
How marvellous on this loathsome journey to meet a fellow artist! How grateful I am to have you for a companion de voyage! Your beautiful plays are always in my mind. They occupy the most important shelf in my library.
In two short sentences, Ambrose reflected, she had published and pluralized his comedy.
Ah monsieur . . . her pretty exhibition of dismay would have won a less diffident male at once . . . could you but know the difficulties with which . . . I must contend, the louts, the clods of clay with whom I am forced to deal, the stupid scripts which are allotted me by ces sales cochons d'Hollywood! Director, camera men, extra people, ridiculous actors, all combine to spoil my pictures, to break the beautiful image I have created with so much thought. . . . She paused, apparently to admire the phrase she had wrought. . . . Next to the artist . . . she was pensive now . . . I think it must be the author who is the most important, but what authors they give me! Stories by babes just out of a newspaper kindergarten. Nothing for me to do! Nothing for me to do!
Tears appeared in the lovely eyes and rolled down her white cheeks. With some care to avoid rubbing the mascara she dabbed the moisture delicately with her handkerchief. Ambrose had been listening spellbound, fascinated despite his terror by this sparkling cascade of words.
I read everything, Imperia continued, everything. There is nothing I haven't read, but monsieur, I ask you, do you think Henry James is suitable for the screen?
She paused so long and regarded him so intently that a reply seemed to be demanded. Unreasonably, Why not? was the query that issued from his lips.
Ah monsieur, you are having your fun with me! I assure you that Henry James is not suitable for the screen. No more are most of the great writers. I've read them all, all: George Moore, Frank Stockton, Paul Bourget, Hans Ewers, Booth Tarkingstone, Sinclair Louis, Oppenheims, and Dickens. Not one is suitable to the screen. They wrote before the artist had developed the proper screen technique, isn't it? I had not yet appeared to show what could be done and they were ignorant. But the writer of today, that is a different matter. What an opportunity, monsieur!
Do you know, she demanded, turning to face Ambrose squarely, what my public is?
Your public? he repeated, bewildered.
She swept her arms out in a broad gesture, evidently a favourite with her.
My public is the world, she cried, the wide, wide world, and for eternity! Millions worship at my shrine. Millions wait for my next picture. And think, only think, the record lasts. Always, after I am dead, the public may see me live and move. This is your opportunity too, monsieur. Why don't you grasp it?
I don't think I understand you. Ambrose wiped his moist brow with his handkerchief.
How many people see one of your plays? A few paltry thousands every week, while millions look at my pictures, isn't it? And when your play has run its course, it is finished, except for the few, the very few, who can read it in the library. Think what would happen if you wrote for the films . . . wrote a script for me. There it would be always gleaming on silver screens all over the globe.
I wonder . . .
You doubt me? Her expression was ferocious.
Ambrose hastened to reassure her. You see, he explained, I don't know . . . I couldn't, he brought out at last.
Couldn't! Of course you can! Your modesty does you credit. You are a great writer, isn't it? Think of your plays, your masterpiece . . . The Shanghai Gesture! She flung it at him.
Ambrose flushed. I didn't write that.
You could have written it. You can write anything. I want you to write me a love scene such as no one has ever played before . . . a scene flaming with passion . . . but kind, sympathetic, sweet passion . . . a scene that young girls will revel in, a scene that will give them glimpses, poetic glimpses, of what love will be like when it comes to them. I see a Russian empress with her jewels, her fans, her laces, lying on a couch with an American boy . . .
But I'm not going to Hollywood, Ambrose found courage enough to protest.
Not going to Hollywood! Her face expressed astonishment in the grand manner. But of course you are going to Hollywood. Where else does this train go?
I'm getting off at Lamy.
Lamy? Lamy? Is that near Pasadena or Santa Monica?
Lamy is in New Mexico.
New Mexico! New Mexico! Her tone was replete with scorn. If you want mountains we have them in California. If you want Indians there is a whole encampment near Culver City. There are orange groves and avocados and balmy breezes and acacias. . . .
But I am going to visit a friend. . . .
A friend! Who can be more of a friend to you than I am? I have made up my mind, she went on fretfully. Don't contradict me. Don't argue. You are going to Hollywood to write a script for me, Imperia Starling. I shall insist that Invincible give you a contract at once. You shall stay with me in my little bungalow at Beverly Hills. It is all arranged.
But . . .
I insist. We'll settle the details tomorrow. You are giving me a terrific headache with your arguments. I always have my way. Elissa! Where is that girl?
The door opened and a frightened face appeared in the aperture.
Elissa, my smelling salts . . . and a bottle of malt extract . . . and some rice wafers . . . and she turned to Ambrose: Dear Mr. Deacon, you are adorable, and I shall see you tomorrow, when I am feeling better, to further discuss our plans.