Spider Boy/Chapter 4
Imperia Starling assuredly had not been boasting when she had described her residence in Beverly Hills as a bungalow. It proved to be larger than many a pretentious Italian villa and generally speaking had been conceived in the style of the Tuscan renaissance, although there were indications that the architect had flirted with the Spanish, the Tudor, and the early American. The grey stucco structure, while it rose to no great height, sprawled over an immense amount of land and contained, to be exact, twenty-seven rooms. It was situated on a hill that might have been a mountain, surmounting a series of terraces, the ultimate one paved with irregular flagstones. The leisurely approach from the road below was accomplished by means of a long winding drive, sheltered and shadowed by palm, pepper, and eucalyptus trees. Parallel with the façade a row of orange trees in green tubs had been arranged.
It was hither that Imperia Starling escorted Ambrose Deacon in her Hispano Suiza after an astonishing welcome at the surprisingly tawdry station in which whistling sirens, floral pieces, fluttering handkerchiefs, and cranking cameras had played their part. It was also at the station that Miss Starling's entourage had been increased by the addition of Count Jaime Supari, of Cuba, Herbert Ringrose had explained, while it occurred to Ambrose to wonder if Cuban Counts were papal. The greeting of Imperia and her noble friend was worthy of a close-up and actually received this tribute, four camera men grinding lustily in the interests of history. The Count, it was immediately apparent, regarded the presence of Ambrose with some suspicion, not to say disfavour, but after a hastily whispered injunction from Imperia he made at least a modest effort to be civil. At any rate during the long drive he relieved Ambrose of the responsibility of conversation—Herbert Ringrose had left them at the station—as he devoted himself entirely to the star, permitting her only an occasional opportunity to point out the passing wonders to her distinguished guest.
The first view of the bungalow was sufficiently imposing, but the sight of the line of footmen in plum-coloured uniforms, beginning at the second terrace and extending, suitably spaced, to the entrance, almost overwhelmed Ambrose. Imperia responded to their low bows with sundry queenly nods. She reserved her effusion for a heroic figure which blocked the doorway.
Mama! she cried, as she descended from the automobile. Extending her arms with an enveloping gesture, she clutched the shoulders of the older woman and implanted swift kisses on either cheek.
Mama, Ambrose noted now or later, weighed nearly three hundred pounds and stood something over five feet six. She had upholstered this unwieldy mass in black satin which fell just above the appropriate ankles to support such a structure. Mama's black hair was combed in a pompadour back from her florid face, furrowed and puffed. Her bead-like blue eyes shone like little points buried deep in flesh. Her huge porous nose was more visible, while her small mouth pouted prettily above a chin that undulated indefinitely downward and inward. It seemed incredible that this flabby monster could have produced so exquisitely finished—a creation as Imperia. Ambrose was further astonished to hear Mama speak with an accent unmistakably middle western in a voice not unlike that of a nasal foghorn.
The party entered a huge hall, hung with tapestries and Spanish shawls and oriental rugs, punctuated with Iberian chests, Moroccan ottomans, Flemish cabinets, Empire commodes, and Italian refectory tables. Everywhere flowers bloomed, spikes and clusters of them, in huge blue porcelain and terra-cotta jars. The procession of footmen mounted the grand staircase with the luggage. Now there was a great sound of barking and a pack of dogs bounded into the room to leap on their mistress: cocker spaniels, police dogs, Schnauzers, English bulls, Airedales, Sealyham terriers, Dalmatians, Russian wolfhounds, Pekinese, Dobermann Pinschers, Irish setters, and Samoyedes: every variety of fashionable canine seemed to be represented. After, with many a pretty gesture, laugh, and mocking reprimand, Imperia had rid herself of their exuberant attentions, she led the group through a doorway to the brick terrace at the rear of the house.
I want to show Mr. Deacon the view, she explained.
The view proved worthy of inspection. First came the broad lawn, magnificently cared for, with clumps of bushes and trees and flowers here and there. Twenty yards away in the bright morning sunlight a great pool of surprisingly blue water gleamed. Beyond, the prospect spread out to an indefinite distance over wavy, feathery green tree-tops, tiled roofs, and tall chimneys, to the maze below that was the city.
Imperia turned to Ambrose. Beautiful, isn't it? she asked him.
Wonderful, he replied.
It is my home, this simple place. Nothing pretentious, but still my home, and so I am glad to be here. She clung to the slender blond elegance that was known as Count Jaime. And now, perhaps, you will wish to be alone for a while, isn't it? There is much for me to do, always too much when I return from a vacation. Consider this your home, too. Mama will show you to your rooms.
Grateful for this suggestion, Ambrose followed Mama up the grand staircase and down a corridor to the apartment which had been assigned to him. There she left him, after explaining the meaning of a mysterious series of buttons by pushing which he might summon any one from a valet to a chauffeur. He found himself installed in a suite of two chambers, a sitting-room and a bedroom, off which a bath opened. His bags had already been unpacked and his toilet articles—such as they were—distributed in a neat row on the dressing-table while his clothes depended from hangers in the closet.
Ambrose sat down before an open window commanding a view of the rear terrace and the distant populated valley. At least he was alone, although devastated by worry and excitement. His situation seemed, somehow, to verge on an ultimate, inevitable horror. Could he have foreseen this future, assuredly he would have willingly remained in New York to face regiments of Harvard graduates with their esoteric questions.
He tried to form some clear notion of what had happened to him and how it had happened. He had made an effort—at least a mild effort—to avoid committing himself, but nature had not fitted him for argument with beautiful moving picture stars or their aggressive directors. After he had been dismissed from the presence—this phrase seemed accurately to describe the conclusion of his first interview with her—of the provocative Imperia Starling, he had been almost too fatigued in mind to analyze his sensations or to devise a solution for the predicament in which he had found himself. In the past he had not been called upon to struggle with situations which demanded argument. His life, for the most part, had been lived simply, among simple people who had not exacted obedience from him or attempted to invade the more hallowed precincts of his personality. Indeed, speaking generally, he had been left quite alone to follow out his own modest desires. As a consequence he had never learned to say no with any authority. He had never even learned the infinitely simpler process, almost automatic with those New Yorkers who lead largely social lives, of saying yes to save time and subsequently forgetting all about the matter.
Reflecting now, it seemed to him that it would have been comparatively simple to leave the train at Lamy, while the star and her director slept, the morning after his disturbing interview on the plains of Kansas. He groaned as he realized only too vividly that such a procedure would be impossible to him. He had given his promise, a promise exacted by threats, to be sure, that he would go to Hollywood. It was not that he harboured faith in his ability to improve the quality of the output of America's fourth largest industry. It was not even that he believed himself capable of devising a scenario, however humble, for a screen drama. It was that he had been frightened, really frightened, into accepting a responsibility which in its future aspects wore a face that was no less grave because it was somewhat vague in outline.
It had been actually Herbert Ringrose who had secured his unwilling consent, who had set the seal on the pact that had been tentatively arranged between Ambrose and the fascinating and compelling Imperia Starling. The director had visited the playwright soon after his dismissal from the royal presence and had, apparently from the beginning, taken it for granted that Ambrose had agreed to enlist.
So, you are coming with us to Hollywood! was his jovial greeting, an approach so disarming in its disregard of the known facts that Ambrose's lips had discovered no negative with which to combat it. As he had never at any time in his career considered the possibility of visiting Hollywood, even unprofessionally, or of writing for the films from any vantage point whatever, he was not fortified with arguments—supposing he had possessed any talent for argument—against this procedure.
Sitting disconsolately in this charming room, hung in gay glazed chintz, his situation seemed to be desperate. It came down to this: if he could not write his usual story or play in New York how could he expect to do better far away from his habitual environment in a line of work absolutely alien? Why, aside from The Birth of a Nation, Dr. Caligari, and a picture or two with Charlie Chaplin he could not recall that he had ever seen a film. He was quite aware, naturally, of the importance of the industry. No one who lived in New York could long remain ignorant of the oft reiterated statement that pictures were growing bigger and better, or of the fact that cinema theatres were being erected of a size to compare favourably with that of the Colosseum at Rome. The amount of space devoted to advertising these theatres was staggering to one familiar with the prohibitive cost of newspaper theatrical advertising. Such paid publicity, however, had not moved Ambrose to visit the auditoriums these advertisements extolled.
He might have alleged quite truthfully, further meditation convinced him, that a sick friend awaited him at Santa Fe, a friend looking forward to his comforting propinquity as an aid to recuperation. He had, he recalled, offered this excuse, but it had been regarded as wholly trivial. Ringrose had logically assumed that his friend could wait the two brief weeks required for the development of a screenable idea. Ambrose did not believe he could write a story for the cinema in two years, but he had protested no further.
He had telegraphed Jack Story from the train that he was going on to Hollywood, and somewhere in the desert of Arizona he had received a reply: You poor sap, it read, you must be sicker than I am, and it continued with a parody on the celebrated song of the marines which began, You're in the movies now. Evidently no sympathy was to be expected from this quarter. At the time the message arrived, however, Ambrose was so completely bewildered that its import did not sink deeply into his consciousness.
He had not known where he was going or why he was going there, but whatever small amount of will he had ever possessed had completely deserted him on this occasion. Herbert Ringrose had continued to talk plausibly in terms which conveyed nothing whatever to Ambrose's mind. So, almost without being aware of it, he had committed himself, and ruefully as he now surveyed his situation he was obliged to confess to himself that it might be worse. They would, he assured himself, discover in short order that he was useless for their enigmatic purposes and ship him away from Hollywood or forget about him so that he might escape. In two or three days, he encouraged himself to believe as he gazed at the sunlit palms on Imperia Starling's lawn, they will see their mistake and permit me to go back to Santa Fe.
Unfortunately for his peace of mind, he was quite unable to dismiss so lightly the affair of Miss Wilhelmina Ford. Miss Ford was the young lady who had dropped her handkerchief in his presence in the observation car of the Chief soon after leaving Kansas City. Had she been content to commit merely this minor offence, it is highly probable that Ambrose would have forgotten about her, however perturbed he may have been at the time. Miss Ford, however, had seen fit to carry her campaign through to a triumphant conclusion. Her subsequent incredible behaviour, indeed, had served to strengthen Ambrose in his rapidly growing conviction that every one connected with the movies, even potentially, was a little mad.
On the afternoon of his second day on the Chief, Ambrose had taken advantage of a brief respite from the importunities of Imperia Starling and her equally exigent director to seclude himself behind the closed door of his compartment. He was, as has been suggested, much too bewildered at this time to form any accurate conclusion as to what had actually happened to him. He was convinced that he was either dreaming or drowning or being hanged. Possibly he was insane. There seemed no other logical explanation for the fantastic events of the past two days. They were, he attempted to make himself believe, merely visions, like the temptations vouchsafed to St. Anthony, and as such, fortunately unreal. He would awaken presently to find himself in bed after a bad period of delirium, or, in case he failed to rise to the surface the third time, he would awaken in heaven or on some other mystic plane where he would at least be free of the nightmare in which Imperia Starling and Herbert Ringrose played such dominant rôles. Attempting then, somewhat vainly, to be sure, to console himself with these and other equally childish sophistries, he had been thrown into a new state of terror by a knock at the door. As he did not reply, going so far, indeed, as to hold his breath the more effectually to conceal his presence, despite the fact that the moving train was making as much noise as moving trains usually do, the knock was repeated, this time more definitely, a longer knock, a more determined knock, a louder knock, which resolutely announced that the knocker had made up his or her mind to be answered no matter how recalcitrant the knockee might prove. Ambrose, therefore, groaned, Come in.
The door immediately had swung open and whatever fearful picture his imagination had conjured up was more than fulfilled by the actuality framed in the doorway. There stood the pretty girl of the observation car, the forward flapper who had dropped her handkerchief in an effort to capture his attention. Now she was smiling. He wondered why all the creatures smiled so continuously until he recalled the line about killing with a kiss.
At this juncture all rules of etiquette deserted him. He did not rise. He would have been incapable of this politeness at the moment had his visitor been the Queen of England and himself an ardent royalist. The lady, however, had not appeared to take any notice of his odd conduct. She had announced at once that she had been informed that he was the great author Ambrose Deacon whom she had admired for years. She had read all his stories and while she had not as yet seen his play—her residence in Kansas City had up to the present made this impractical—she had devoured the reviews and she had devoted an especial attention to the interviews which had hailed him as a new mystic. She had, it appeared, no kind or manner of doubt but that he was her oyster.
Her expression was so intent as she slipped into the seat opposite him—they all did this with no suggestion of hesitation—that at first he was fearful of a physical attack and accordingly was almost relieved to discover what she really required of him.
She had, he learned, always been assured that she was beautiful. Everybody in Kansas City knew she was beautiful. They wanted to marry her, droves of them—practically all the eligible single men in Kansas City. Wilhelmina Ford—she had given Ambrose her name in the first instance—was merely bored and irritated by those protestations of admiration and devotion. While as yet she had travelled but little she had become aware, through her extensive reading and through an examination of certain portraits in the public prints, that men existed in the great world whose achievements and general personal appearance far exceeded anything available in Kansas City. This discovery, made not too belatedly, had set her resolutely against binding herself, or even giving a tentative promise, to any of the nondescript fellows of her acquaintance. She therefore returned rubies and diamonds by the bucketful, dispatched rich tributes of orchids and Madonna lilies to orphan asylums, and conveyed drayloads of boxes of candy to her less or more fortunate—according to the point of view—female friends.
Latterly her disdainful attitude had not found favour with her parents. They considered her—she was just past seventeen—at an age at which a girl should begin to entertain serious thoughts in regard to her future. She did not take the trouble to explain her projected course of action to them, justifiably believing them incapable of discriminating between the men of her acquaintance and the more plausible males of London, New York, and Rome, save to the disadvantage of the latter group. What they really feared, of course, was that she would never marry at all and indeed it was quite true, if one reasoned by precedent, that a girl of twenty-one in Kansas City who still remained unmarried might be regarded as a spinster, a spinster with a few more chances, to be sure, but none the less a spinster. Discussion thereafter waxed warm. Her father and mother urged her more and more vehemently, and with a frequency which infuriated her, to make up her mind, to bestow her hand and heart on this one or that one. Why had she refused this rich attorney with his brilliant present and a promise of a still more dazzling future? Why was that pump manufacturer abhorrent to her? How could she find this utterly agreeable physician, handsome in the bargain, distasteful? She had no satisfactory explanations to offer. All she could do was to rely on tears and furious fits of assumed anger to postpone the event, to give her a few more weeks of peace.
During this recital the onslaught of words had been so terrific, the sentences had been pitched forward so passionately, that Ambrose had sensed no obligation to comment. Now, however, she paused for an instant before she continued: The situation became so intolerable that I determined to put an end to it. I think, Mr. Deacon, it must have been you who gave me the courage to make my great decision.
Here, obvidusly, was offered abundant opportunity to express astonishment or gratitude or some kindred emotion, but Ambrose had found it entirely impossible to utter a word. His throat was dry, choked, almost as if it had been caked with sand. He had wondered, actually, if he could draw another breath.
If Wilhelmina Ford had been expecting a reply, she generously ignored its lack. Presently, she continued to explain to Ambrose that the reviews of his play had served to emphasize the high opinion she had already conceived of him after a perusal of his fiction. As for that, why else had she purchased the Saturday Evening Post each Thursday? When no new story of his had been included between its hebdomadal covers, she had consigned the periodical to the kitchen and the less limited taste of the cook.
You are not handsome, perhaps, she had assured him, penetrating his very soul with a long stare from her violet eyes, but you have brains and character. I made up my mind long ago that while men like you existed in the outer world I would remain a virgin so long as I remained in Kansas City.
She had, it appeared, no reason to believe or even to hope that an immediate meeting could be brought about. Indeed it is likely that she had regarded him as a kind of symbol rather than an actuality of flesh and blood, a symbol of escape. The clearest fact in her extraordinary mind had been that it would be quite impossible in the present or the future—what small portion of future was left to a girl of seventeen—to discover any such paragon in Kansas City. She must, she had decided, travel. That, fortunately, was possible of accomplishment. Her parents were in affluent circumstances and she had long possessed an adequate bank account of her own. Flight then was practical, but flight with no definite end in view had seemed ridiculous.
Suppose, I told myself, I should never discover the actual man I am seeking, then my act would not be justified. It would be horrible to crawl back to Kansas City, to be obliged to acknowledge myself a failure. It was necessary then to invent another pretext. The insistent local harping on my beauty furnished me with a cue. It reminded me of the name of a place where beauty is at a premium. I determined at once to go into the movies and I am on my way to Hollywood.
After a slight, if impressive pause, the stream of words cascaded forth once more. She had sought from her mother, in the absence of her father, permission to visit a married friend who resided in Pasadena. She had, indeed, no immediate intention of imposing upon this friend's hospitality, but in the few days she required to find her niche in the world of the cinema her deception would not be discovered. In the end her act would justify itself.
This then was the story of her ambition which, it appeared, had gained in impetus since her fortuitous encounter with Ambrose. Why, she had argued, should she not marry him now and avoid the notoriety and other distasteful aspects of the movies? He had, after all, been her first ideal. She might discover a better later, but he was good enough, certainly good enough to more than satisfy her at present.
At this point a long wail of pent-up anguish had burst from the lips of Ambrose Deacon, and he found himself suddenly voluble, if somewhat incoherent. He was already married! He had vowed never to marry! Besides what did she know about him? In the long run—probably in the short—she would find him as undesirable as the men of Kansas City.
She merely smiled at these vapid objections, announcing that they were music to her ears after all the flattering ointment that had been rubbed into her excessively lovely countenance by the males she had previously encountered. He would, she assured him, eternally be desirable to her if he refused to fall in love with her. The extreme happiness she would derive from being the consort of a man of such distinction and fame would more than compensate for any lack of affection on his part.
However, she had continued resolutely, I've no intention of forcing you to take a step which as yet you have had no time to consider. As a matter of fact, she mused, as if the idea had just occurred to her, I don't insist on marriage at all. In any case, however, I can't give up the idea that whatever is to happen to me some sort of alliance with you will prove distinctly advantageous.
You are, she had continued, on your way to Hollywood. . . . Ambrose had shuddered as he had realized that he could no longer deny this. . . . I have observed you in conversation with Herbert Ringrose. I have seen you consorting with Imperia Starling. It is obvious to me that that sallow dame with a brain like a fish-eye already has marked you for her prey.
Ambrose had opened his mouth to protest.
Don't contradict me, Wilhelmina Ford had cried. You may not even know it, but I know women and I know enough about this particular specimen, after a brief study at close range, to realize she has already sensed it would give her career a great kick if she acquired you in some form or other. I am not worried. I, and destiny, marked you for my own, long before we met. Think it over, she had added, rising. You are going to Hollywood. So am I. We shall meet again.
Ambrose Deacon's meditations on this extraordinary episode were interrupted by a hoarse cry of rage. Presently he saw the Count Supari, his hair dishevelled, dash from the house, followed after an insignificant interval by a splendid Ming peach-blow vase which cut a graceful parabola in the air before it crashed on the brick terrace. Next, the protagonist of this melodrama herself appeared, shrieking guttural insults in fluent Spanish towards the clump of shrubbery behind which the Count had prudently taken shelter:
Tu—cabrón, desgraciado, muerto de hambre, hijo de tu puta madre!
Now Mama emerged from the house. Seizing the arm of the incensed star, she begged her to refrain fzom further destruction.
I'll kill him! Imperia screamed.
Now, dearie, if you do that, you'll spoil your digestion. You can't eat your victuals after murder, Mama expostulated breathlessly.
Quite unexpectedly the tragic heroine became limp. Sobbing softly, she permitted herself to be led back into the house.