Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  Michael was made to lie down, with a corner of his mother’s black gabardine skirt over his face, and he heard above him the tiny clinking which meant that she had, as usual, taken out her rosary beads.

  Very soon, however, the little rosary slipped down on to the sands, near Michael’s leg, and she did not pick it up again.

  Michael cautiously raised himself on one elbow, and saw that she was sleeping, her head hanging forward, propped up with one hand, her elbow resting on her knee. Miss Armstrong was fiat on her back the newspaper completely covering her face and head, snoring loudly.

  Looking all round him he saw that a good many people seemed to be lying down, sleeping.

  Michael picked up the rosary and hesitated for a moment. Finally he put it into the pocket of his knickerbockers, so that he could give it back to mother and make her pleased with him if anything happened to vex her. He walked quietly away from the sleepers.

  After all, he hadn’t been told to rest all the afternoon — only for a little while.

  The sea had receded from the strip of sand where he had played in the morning, and an entrancing game of cricket was going on.

  There was a man in grey flannel trousers, without a coat, bowling with a real cricket-ball to a boy of about Michael’s age. They had put up a stump and the boy had a fine cricket-bat. There were two other boys playing as well and a little girl in shorts and a jersey.

  Michael crept nearer and nearer.

  He had always terribly wanted to play cricket, but of course the nuns at the kindergarten couldn’t and the elder boys very seldom allowed him to join them. None of them had a real leather cricket ball like this one, either.

  “Well hit!” shouted the man.

  The boy with the bat had sent the red ball flying across the sands in Michael’s direction.

  Michael longed to run after it, and throw it back to the bowler, but he did not dare. He stood, watching and listening eagerly, while the game went on.

  When the stump fell at last, the man said “Hard luck!” — although it was his ball that had knocked it over — and the little girl ran forward, calling out: “Let me bat now, Daddy!”

  “All right. Stand here then, and hold the bat like that — no, straighten.”

  He told her just how to stand, and what to do with the bat.

  Michael, deeply interested, moved closer still.

  Again the ball came his way, and this time he picked it up boldly and threw it in.

  “Well thrown!” shouted the man, and although the boys scarcely glanced round, Michael felt from that moment that he was playing their game with them.

  Presently one of them called to him: “It’s your turn,” and handed him the bat.

  “Hold it that way,” the father explained, just as he had before.

  Cricket was a splendid game, although it was much more difficult to hit the ball than Michael had thought it would be. He would have liked to go on and on playing, but after a time the others got tired, and they all sat down.

  He had learnt their names by now, from hearing them shout to one another: Sid and Stanley and Leslie, and the little girl was called Doris.

  They all called the father Dad.

  Lying on the sand, Dad began to chuck little flat stones into the sea, doing ducks and drakes. He did them very well. The boys supplied him with the stones, which were rather hard to find.

  Before Michael at all wanted him to leave off, he had begun to build a sand castle, and they were all helping. It grew enormous.

  Doris, after the manner of girls, spoilt it all by saying that she wanted to go to Mummie.

  The father said: “By cripes, I suppose it’s getting late. Come on, boys.”

  He lifted Doris up on to his shoulder, and the boys, with Michael, followed as he ploughed his way across the sands to where a woman in a blue jumper sat reading in a chair.

  “Hallo, Ma,” said the man.

  “Oh, there you are!”

  “We played cricket...”

  “I bowled...”

  “Oo-er! it’s been ever so lovely.”

  Michael, as suddenly as he had become one of their number, found himself detached from them.

  He turned and walked away, wondering rather uneasily how he should find mother and Miss Armstrong again.

  They were not far away, as it happened, and he very soon caught sight of them.

  “Had a nice time, sonnie?” his mother asked. “Oo-er — lovely!”

  “Don’t use those common expressions, Michael; mother’s told you before, she won’t have it. And you oughtn’t to have stayed away so long, either. We’re going to have a cup of tea in the town, on our way to the station.”

  “But we aren’t going back yet?”

  “Hark at the child! Isn’t six hours at the seaside enough for you? It’ll be late enough, by the time we’re actually home.”

  Quite suddenly, Michael began to cry, almost to roar.

  “Michael! Give over!”

  His mother pressed her hand over his mouth.

  “Whatever’s the matter with you, acting like a baby?” Miss Armstrong demanded. “You naughty little boy! After being given such a treat, and all.”

  “Hush, dear! Look — mother’s got something for you!” Most unexpectedly, Michael’s mother produced from somewhere an ice-cream cornet.

  “There!” She handed it to him.

  “I don’t want it!” sobbed Michael, and he dashed the ice-cream cornet on to the sand.

  “Well, of all the naughty boys!”

  “Michael, you’ve grieved mother more deeply than she can say.”

  Still sobbing, he followed them up the steps, carrying his spade and his bucket and the string-bag.

  He glanced once behind him, but his tears blurred everything, and besides, he did not know in which direction to look for the boys and Doris and Dad and Ma. He could hear his mother and Miss Armstrong making excuses for him to one another.

  “It’s the heat, and one thing and another. He’s over-tired.”

  “I’ve never known him like this before. I’m positive something has disagreed with him. Michael!”

  Mother turned her head.

  “Tell mother the truth now, Michael. Have you got a pain?

  “Yes,” said Michael, still sobbing.

  He didn’t know what else it could be that was making him cry.

  O.K. FOR STORY

  1

  “I DO hope that one isn’t proving wholly futile in one’s attempts,” said Mervyn wistfully — almost miserably.

  The unfortunate young man was always expressing himself in this manner — a manner that provoked either alarm or amusement in the minds of almost all his fellow-employees in the Britannia Film Company whenever they listened to him.

  They did not, however, listen very often, and never for long at a time.

  Interruptions were continual in the studio.

  People wanted cups of tea, or chocolate, or cigarettes, or merely a chair to sit upon, and they wandered about looking for these things and exchanging a few vague and amiable words with anybody they met.

  The star, Charlotte Roberts, remained in her dressing-room all the time except when she was required on the set, when either the Producer or the Assistant-Producer went in person to fetch her and escort her across the floor. She then walked along with her eyes half-shut, turning her head neither to the right nor to the left, and only snarling slightly in reply to the speeches of her escort. Very occasionally, instead of snarling she emitted a slight sound that might have been one of amusement if her expression had altered — which it never did — and held out a slim, long hand wearing a colossal single-stoned ring, to be kissed.

  The days on which this happened — and they were far from numerous — were Charlotte’s good days. Her bad days were days on which anything might happen, from mere sulks to the partial breaking-up of the set.

  Ivan Scarlett, who played opposite to Charlotte, was quite different. He was good-tempered and friendly, and readi
ly scrawled his autograph on bits of paper whenever anybody asked for it, and was always eager to play noughts-and-crosses with anybody whilst he was waiting for his calls. In fact, he seemed to like playing noughts-and-crosses better than anything else.

  Mervyn Spenser had been engaged by the Britannia Film Company as Poetical Adviser for their film — a Christmas Fantasy in verse, to be entitled Loud Rings Nowell.

  At first, Mervyn had supposed that they had chosen him because he had once published, unhappily at his own expense, a little volume called

  Poems

  in

  Pattern

  and then, after a while, he had supposed that they must have mistaken him for somebody else and didn’t like to say so.

  This was after he had been madly summoned to the studio by telegram at eight one evening, and had sat about there till eleven, unnoticed, and then been told to come down promptly at ten next morning — when the same thing had happened again.

  Now, after three weeks he was getting used to it. But he still said, from time to time, that he hoped he wasn’t proving wholly futile.

  The fact was that Mervyn was terribly anxious to obtain a permanent job, even though it meant having to work regularly — a thing that in the days of

  Poems

  in

  Pattern

  he had disdained utterly. Since then, however, he had discovered that he didn’t really enjoy living on the very small allowance that his widowed mother, at some sacrifice to herself, made him, and that he didn’t like being perpetually in debt, and that he didn’t even care very much about the group of young Bloomsbury-ites that had at first seemed so exciting and amusing.

  He had, in fact — as the Bloomsbury-ites did not hesitate to tell him — reverted to bourgeois standards, and the only trace now left of his poetical days was his connection with a literary agency.

  It was through the literary agency that he had obtained his bewildering, but well-paid, temporary job with the Film Company. It was a weekly engagement, and Mervyn hoped that it would go on and on. His reversion to bourgeois standards had led him so far that he actually wished to give his mother a splendid and luxurious week at Christmas at one of the gayer seaside hotels — and if only the job went on long enough, he would be able to do so, as well as pay his debts.

  He was uneasy because, although he was always on the set, he was scarcely ever appealed to, and still more seldom asked to do any work.

  On the other hand, if it ever did occur to the Producer — Mr. Abraham Blomberg, whom everybody called Abe — to ask for his Poetical Adviser’s opinion of the Christmas Fantasy, the Poetical Adviser felt that his situation would be a difficult one.

  The truth was that he thought the Christmas Fantasy — bad to begin with — was growing worse and worse every day. And the more Abe tried to ginger it up by the introduction of slapstick comedy interludes at Ye Olde Englysshe Tavern and special reindeer for Santa Claus’s sledge as it careered across snow-laden roofs and a hill-billy chorus in cowboy costume all singing round the wassail-bowl, the worse it became.

  As for the script, which had been written in rhymed couplets by a Californian poet who had wisely remained in Hollywood and sent his work over by special aeroplane, Mervyn thought it far, far worse than the old book of pantomime doggerel verse that had belonged to his mother’s nursery days.

  No one, however, asked him what he thought.

  Once, when he had gone to the telephone, Abe sent for him and, on his frantic return to the set, hurried him into a corner.

  “I’d like to have a verdict from you on a point that’s worrying me quite a lot.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Blomberg. If I can—”

  “Call me Abe. All the guys do.”

  “Of course. It’s very nice of you.”

  “What I’m aiming at in this picture is to get a real English atmosphere, that’s why we made it a Christmas Fantasy and had an English star like Charlotte Roberts.”

  “I thought she was Welsh.”

  “Well I guess that’s near enough. But I’m not perfectly satisfied.”

  “You mean, because of Ivan Scarlett’s American accent?”

  “No, I don’t. I guess if Ivan can’t get away with being a young eighteenth-century squire in hunting-costume, he may as well quit being in pictures and go into the ice-cream business right away. Nobody’s going to notice a little thing like his accent. No, that’s not what’s worrying me.” Abe fell silent, and began to chew his cigar. The Art Director — Lorenzo del Monte was his name — passed by and said casually:

  “Abe, we’ll have to have period furniture for that Venetian ballroom set. Is it O.K. for me to get what I want from one of the Bond Street galleries?”

  “It’s O.K. by me, old boy.”

  “O.K.”

  “Have it all here by two o’clock, old boy.”

  “O.K.”

  Lorenzo strolled on.

  “Is Miss Roberts — ?” hinted Mervyn, thinking that the temperament of the star might be the cause of his employer’s concern.

  “Charlotte’s O.K. I mean, she’s kind of upset because we had to take that last shot so often, and she’s gone into her dressing-room, and her maid says she’s smashed up the tea-set and thrown the tea all down that white velvet gown that belongs to the ballroom set. But I’ve got Hank Hoyle and old Israel waiting around, to go in and make love to her or something directly she begins to come round. No, Charlotte s absolutely O.K.”

  “Splendid!” said Mervyn, with false enthusiasm.

  “But I’m kind of worried about — Look here, I’d like to get your reaction to this. Come into the office.”

  “Abe!” cried the German voice of Mr. Blomberg’s Assistant-Producer.

  “Yeah?”

  “The camera-man is all set. Do you want to shoot right away?”

  “O.K.”

  Abe swung round, but gave Mervyn a parting word.

  “Thanks very much, old boy. That’s absolutely O.K., and we’ll go right ahead and carry out your suggestions. I think they’re grand. Ready, boys? Quiet, please! We’re taking.”

  A deathly silence fell upon the studio. One of the carpenters gave a strangled cough.

  “Quiet there!” roared a voice. “Red light on, please. We’re taking.”

  A young Jew, in a blue singlet, flannel trousers, and a brown leather jacket, stepped in front of the camera lens and proclaimed in a timorous voice, “Scene two-five-two, take one,” and Mervyn felt his accustomed faint stir of resentment that “take” should be a noun instead of a verb.

  The superbly virile Ivan Scarlett, in bottle-green coat, white breeches, top-boots and three-cornered hat, standing beneath a huge painting of Charlotte Roberts dressed as a Watteau shepherdess, raised a goblet to the level of the picture-frame, held it there, and proclaimed, in his agreeable and unmistakably American voice:

  “I’m blue, you’re blue, the world is blue all through, But though I’m blue, my Christmas Rose, I’m true To you.”

  He then quaffed the contents of the goblet: ginger ale.

  Mervyn watched him do this once, and then again, and then again. After each of the “takes” there was a long wait, but Ivan — unlike Charlotte Roberts — was patient.

  After all, thought Mervyn, Ivan was getting eight hundred pounds a week. One might well be patient to the tune of eight hundred pounds a week for three months.

  At last, Abe Blomberg exclaimed:

  “O.K. for sound?”

  “O.K., Abe.”

  “O.K. by me.”

  “O.K.”

  Ivan put down the goblet, stretched himself, and began to eat toffee drops out of a tin.

  His stand-in was called to get into position for the next shot, so that the lighting could be adjusted.

  The make-up man, unregarded by anybody, passed a powder-puff over Ivan’s handsome nose.

  The hairdresser ran a comb through Ivan’s thick hair and pressed Ivan’s marcel wave into greater prominence.

  Mer
vyn Spenser bit deep into a pencil and wondered for the thousandth time when he was going to be asked to do something.

  Perhaps they had forgotten what he had been engaged for? Perhaps they thought he was on the set just for fun, or because he was in love with Charlotte Roberts?

  What had Abe really meant to ask his advice about just now? Had it dawned upon him that his whole script, with its sickening medley of wassail-bowls, true love, Christmas bells, hunting scenes, and snowy house-tops, was utter tripe?

  (For it was thus that Mervyn described, in his own mind, the poetical medium through which the Britannia Film Company had elected to present Loud Rings Nowell to a waiting world.)

  All of a sudden, a stir went through the studio. Although it was between three and four o’clock in the afternoon — the slackest and most somnolent hour of the working day — a general movement was taking place. Women looked up from their muttered confidences, their knitting, their bags of sweets, and their novels; men woke from their slumbers.

  Starting from nowhere, a whisper went round.

  “Lou van Allen is here!”

  “No!”

  “Yes, he is. Arrived by plane, an hour ago... they say he wants to see Charlotte Roberts... they say he’s after Ivan Scarlett.... No, it’s not that; he’s just a friend of Abe’s... he’s going to make a picture of West Africa down at Shepherd’s Bush... he’s looking for new people....”

  And, recurring like a refrain after each fresh rumour, the words:

  “They say he’s worth a hundred and twenty thousand a year!”

  Mervyn, who had been unaware of Mr. Lou van Allen’s very existence before his own connection with the film world, had, of course, heard all about him in the course of the last three weeks.

  His name was mentioned at least once, whenever there were film magnates gathered together, and always with reference to his great claim to distinction: “A hundred and twenty thousand a year!” He was, in fact, the most successful producer of motion pictures in the world.

  At last Abe’s secretary rushed in, pale and excited, and hurried up to him.

  “Guess who’s here?” she cried, in the familiar tones employed by the secretaries of film-producers as by none others.