Household

by Stevenson, Florence

  “Mr. Grenfall, I am telling you that he is a rotten actor,” the director said clawing at his hair. “I can do nothing with him. Griffith could do nothing with him. By now Von Stroheim would have murdered him!” He clawed at his hair a second time. “If he stays, I will not be responsible for my actions!”

  “Save your tresses, Mr. Vernon,” Septimus said soothingly. “I will be glad to stand in for my son if, of course, he agrees.” He glanced in the direction of Richard who was talking with Kathie. “If I may be allowed to broach the subject to him...”

  “Please do,” Matthew said tensely.

  As Septimus strolled casually across the platform, Ruth also tensed. Until this moment she had not thought of the effect that Matthew Vernon’s announcement must have on the man she was sure she loved, even given her innate prejudice against actors. They had been out together two more times, and each time she saw him, she found that parting from him was full of that “sweet sorrow” so admirably described by Shakespeare. However, actors, even those so monumentally inept as Richard, did have tender egos. She watched breathlessly as Septimus, facing his son, put a hand on his shoulder, speaking quietly and probably apologetically, she guessed, wishing that the back of Septimus’s head were as eloquent as his dark eyes.

  She shuddered as a great yell erupted from Richard. The sound, replete with that resonance learned in a lifetime spent facing audiences who were not shy about chanting, “Louder!”, beat against Ruth’s eardrums. It seemed full of grief. Tears pricked her eyes, and she sank lower in her chair, “Ruth!” Richard was at her side in three bounds. “I don’t have to do the damned thing!” he cried triumphantly. He stared down at her, his expression of joy slowly fading. “My dear, why are you crying?”

  She stared up at him, her poise irretrievably shaken, “I... I thought it would hurt you to be told that you were no longer needed,” she confessed.

  “Hurt me? I’m ecstatic. I hate acting.”

  “Oh,” she said joyfully, “I knew you couldn’t be an actor.”

  “And that pleases you, doesn’t it? Why?”

  “Because I really don’t respect actors and from the first I did respect you.”

  “Oh, Ruth...” He paused, feeling rather than seeing his father’s eyes on him. More than his father’s eyes, he could feel the whole Household staring at him. Though that was clearly his imagination, he groaned, and moving away from Ruth he turned toward Matthew Vernon saying jerkily, “I guess I’ll go home if you don’t need me any more.” He could also feel Ruth’s beautiful eyes, puzzled and perhaps even sorrowful. He wished that she were in his arms.

  “That’ll be okay, Mr. Grenfall. Sorry,” Matthew said gruffly.

  “I’ll go, too.” Kathie joined them.

  “But I’m not through with you, Miss Grenfall,” Matthew protested.

  “I am through with you, Mr. Vernon. Don’t you have any heart—firing my brother right in front of everybody?” Kathie caught Richard’s arm. “Let’s go,” she muttered under her breath.

  “You don’t need to come,” he muttered back.

  “Yes, I do,” she whispered. “Start walking, please.” As they moved out of earshot, she continued, still speaking sotto voce, “I’m leaving for the same reason you are. I know how you feel about Ruth. I feel the same way about Matthew, but we’ll be on the road again soon. I’m sure of it.”

  “Oh God, darling, so am I. And even if we could stay, they would never understand.”

  “No, they wouldn’t,” she agreed sadly. “Remember how Miss Fiske reacted that first day?”

  “That’s what I’m remembering,” he groaned.

  Septimus, facing an angry Matthew and a Ruth, who was looking at him with puzzlement written large upon her features, shrugged and said, “I’ll have Kathie back tomorrow. They’re very close, she and her brother, and obviously she misunderstands the situation.”

  “If you can’t explain it to her, we won’t have a picture,” Matthew said.

  “I’ll explain it to her, never fear.” Septimus followed his son and daughter.

  “I need a drink.” Matthew stared bitterly down at Ruth.

  “So do I!” she exclaimed with equal bitterness.

  “How’s about getting soused?”

  “You’re on,” she said clutching his proffered arm.

  The sun had descended, and in the cellar the beast rattled its chains, snuffled and whined. It was dreaming again.

  Slipping out of her coffin, Juliet said, “Poor Mark, he’s bad tonight.”

  “Naturally,” Colin said. “It’s the first night of the full moon. It’s a pity. He was really getting interested in the art of makeup, and they offered him a job at Magnum after he gave them those suggestions on the movie.”

  “A vampire movie.” Juliet giggled. “Fancy them not knowing us any better than that, making the men all bald and ugly with fangs jutting over their lips. Good gracious, they’d all starve to death!”

  “That’s the German influence. They’re copycats here in Hollywood in case you didn’t notice.” Colin cocked his head. “Listen to Molly.”

  “Oh, she’s really at it tonight, isn’t she? I get so used to hearing her that I really don’t hear her, if you know what I mean. And that actress, too. She’s beginning to sound very hoarse.”

  “Trying to top our Molly and Grimalkin, too.” Colin smiled but his eyes remained somber. “I have a feeling we’ll soon be on the road again.”

  “Do you really think so?” Juliet inquired anxiously.

  “Don’t you feel it?” He gave her a penetrating look.

  “I like it here,” she said in a low troubled tone.

  “As long as you can dance with Gareth Garnet, I expect.”

  “Have you seen much of that silly Morna?”

  “She’s not silly!” he exclaimed angrily.

  “Nor is Gareth. He likes to talk as well as dance.”

  “That’s reassuring,” Colin commented acidly.

  “Colin, I won’t speak to you when you’re in such a mood.” She dressed hastily, slipping into a flattering pink sequined shift that stopped just below her knees.

  Colin was clad in a Harris tweed suit. His coat hung open over a blue silk shirt, and he was wearing a loose kerchief instead of a tie. His brown and white Oxfords came from an expensive store in downtown Los Angeles.

  Juliet said lightly, “My, don’t we look deshabille. No dancing tonight?”

  “My life’s not bounded by the dance floor,” he retorted, and then moving to her, put an arm around her. “Sorry, Juliet, pardon my bad mood.”

  “And mine, love,” she apologized. “I almost wish we were on the road this very minute. It’s getting so hard not to...”

  “I know,” he said hastily. “For me, also.”

  “I’ve never...” she began.

  “Nor have I,” he concurred. “I’m beginning to understand a lot of things.”

  “So am I.” She looked sadly up at him. “But I do love you so much, Colin.”

  “I love you, too, my dearest.”

  Their glances, unhappy and full of a new understanding, met; then both turned aside.

  ❖

  “My God, you look beautiful,” Gareth Garnet said half an hour later as Juliet joined him on the corner of the block she had told him was her own. She was glad he believed the elaborate story she had concocted about a sick aunt who didn’t want her going to dances.

  “How are you, my dearest?” she said warmly.

  “Relieved because you’re here. Usually I’m not a very fanciful guy, but every time we say good night, I get this crazy feeling we’ll never see each other again.”

  “And you’re wrong every time.” She laughed a trifle shakily and tucked her small hand into the crook of his arm.

  He gave it a little squeeze. “I want to keep on being wrong, too.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “House of a friend of mine—big dance floor, big orchestra, lots of notables of the Hollywoo
d variety.”

  “That sounds like fun.”

  “It wouldn’t be, if you weren’t with me, Juliet. God, I am crazy about you.”

  “Crazy, period,” she teased.

  “Maybe,” he said soberly. “I think about you all the time. You’re in my blood, baby.”

  “Ugh, don’t talk that way,” she begged. “It’s so clinical. How did the shooting go today?”

  “Great when I didn’t have to kiss Barbara la Marr.”

  She gave him a stricken look. “Don’t say that,” she reproved.

  “Why not? I mean it. I don’t want to kiss anyone except you.”

  “You should...” she began.

  “Hey.” He stopped walking and stared down at her indignantly. “Do you go around kissing other guys when I’m not with you?”

  “No.”

  “Then why shouldn’t I feel the same? I’m not the Sheik of Araby, even if I do look like Rudy. And the next picture I make, I’m being me—and me’s a one-woman man, so put that in your pipe and smoke it!”

  “Got a pipe on you, love?” she murmured happily.

  Her lips grazed his neck, and her little fangs shot out. The need was upon her, the need and the thirst. Rabbits and squirrels and birds were not enough. She wanted him and had been wanting him not only for sustenance but for love. Love! It seemed to her that the word had become solid. It clattered through her brain, rattling in her skull. He was trying to push her down on a sloping lawn. If they lay together, she would not be able to stop herself. She thrust him back. “Let’s go to your party, dearest. I don’t want grass stains on my dress until later.”

  Excitement electrified his tones. “Don’t think I won’t hold you to that,” he said.

  “I’ll never forgive you if you don’t.” She forced herself to smile up at him and was glad for once that she was denied the solace of tears.

  ❖

  Morna, wearing a simple green sleeveless shift, was waiting for Colin. She watched from her window as he walked up the flagstone path to the small door of her one-story cottage. She had never been so glad that it was her cottage, inherited from her late father. It was not particularly well-furnished nor was it in a very good section of Hollywood, but at least she didn’t have to share it with anybody. She made good money as a secretary in an insurance office so there was always food in the icebox and the electric bill was paid along with the water and the telephone.

  Earlier she had observed Colin from her front window as he strolled along the sidewalk. The moon was bright and round tonight, and the sky was encrusted with stars. She ran a nervous hand through her hair and frowned. Turning swiftly, she hurried into the bedroom to glance in her mirror. Her eyes were wide and a little frightened. She did not want them to be frightened; rather she did not want him to see that they were frightened. She was not actually afraid. She loved him too much for that. She had only seen him three times, but it seemed to her that she had known him much longer than that. Her love for him was boundless and deep. She would do anything for him, anything he wanted. She tried to smile at the idea of such passion. Passion was only for the movies, where it was all silly and overstated. She was no longer interested in the movies and hated to remember the dumb getup she had worn the night they met. She must really have disgusted him!

  When the doorbell rang, she dashed into the living room and flung open the front door. “Hi,” she panted.

  “Hello, Morna,” he said gravely, as she held the screen aside for him. “You seem out of breath.”

  “I was combing my hair, like Rapunzel in the fairy tale, only I bet she was a blonde.”

  “I like brunettes better,” he said softly.

  “I’m flattered.” She forced a smile. “Come in, Colin. Make yourself at home.” She pointed to the couch.

  “Thank you.” He kissed her on the cheek and sat down on the couch.

  It was time for her to offer him some wine but she didn’t. He had refused it the last time he had come, which was last night. It was also the first time she had let him into her house, the first time he had made love to her. It had been an experience she wanted to repeat and repeat, but first she wanted him to feel at ease. He hadn’t been quite at ease the previous night. She sat down beside him, touching him all the way from his shoulders to his legs.

  “I’ve missed you,” she said.

  “And I’ve missed you,” he told her.

  She put her hand against his cheek, feeling the coolness. She said hesitantly, “I watched you come up the street.”

  “Did you?” He leaned toward her, pressing his lips against the hollow at the base of her throat.

  She waited, unafraid, but he lifted his head.

  “Colin, my dearest darling, I watched you... and you cast no shadow.”

  He tensed all over and drew away from her.

  “No!” She flung her arms around him. “I know, I know, and I want you to love me in any way you can. I want to give you anything you need, no matter what it is!”

  Anguish twisted his features. “Morna, you... you can’t know.” He strove to recapture his equilibrium. “There isn’t anything to know. I really don’t understand what you think you mean.”

  “Don’t shut me out, Colin,” she cried. “I’ve known ever since the second time we were together. I can tell. I read up on a lot of stuff when I decided to be a vamp. I’m sort of thorough when I get to researching anything. I look for derivations—and I’m psychic. Besides there are a lot of giveaways, like you never wanting to meet me for lunch and always having had your dinner and never drinking anything either, only pretending and emptying the glass when you thought I wasn’t looking. And I saw you didn’t cast any shadow that second night, too. I guess that wouldn’t occur to anyone who didn’t know, but I want you to know that I’m not afraid of you, Colin. I love you too much.”

  “You... you’re talking nonsense.”

  “I’m not, my darling,” she said gently, positively. “I love you. I want to be with you and share everything. I wouldn’t be saying any of this if I didn’t know you cared for me, too.”

  “I do.” Something inside of him was hurting, and memories buried over a century before were flowing back into his mind. There once had been girls, young and lovely though never lovelier than Morna, who had opened their hearts to him in the days before he had been lost in the woods, the dark woods through which he had been traveling ever since.

  “Love me, please. Come with me.” She took him by the hand and urged him from the couch. She led him into her bedroom and moved away from him, but only for the moment it took her to slip out of her green sheath. Then she put her arms around him again.

  He tried to resist and could not. Warmed by her passion, he lay with her, caressing her. Her body was beautifully white, and through her delicate veins flowed that life-giving fluid which she was so generously offering him. His lips fastened on her neck, on the great veins that he could nip open so gently, so painlessly that she would not even feel it, but instead he moved back, kissing her rosy nipples and caressing her gently. Then he arose.

  “Please stay,” she begged.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “Then...” She stretched out her arms. “Be with me.”

  “I love you too much, child—and you are a child. I wish I’d met you in another summer, Morna.” He dressed hastily and embracing her once more, he left her, walking out of her house and down the street under the huge round moon that denied him a shadow.

  ❖

  The house of Oliver Arno, the head of Arno Films, clung to a cliff high in the Hollywood Hills. Constructed along Spanish lines with white stucco walls and a red-tiled roof, its greatest asset was its vast patio which, according to some facetious spirits in the movie colony, was large enough to harbor and sustain the hordes of poor relations who hung around the producer.

  On this night none of the aforementioned were in evidence, but dancing to the strains of a top jazz band were a great number of filmdom greats. If Mary Pickford h
ad not deigned to put in an appearance, there was Charlie Chaplin dancing with a delicious teenager. Lillian Gish, wraithlike in chiffon, leaned on the arm of tall D.W. Griffith, and John Barrymore winked at Dolores Costello. Richard Barthelmess, his usually slick black hair mussed as he kidded around with Mae Marsh, also had an eye for Juliet. Douglas Fairbanks, swashbuckling even offscreen, was toasting Marguerite de la Motte, who had been his leading lady in his great success The Mark of Zorro. There was the usual complement of directors, rival producers and such agents who had managed to storm the barricades.

  Juliet had just finished a tango with Gareth. She stood close to him, clutching his arm and wishing devoutly that Oliver Arno, who was coming toward them, pushing several of his guests aside in the process, would not reach his obvious destination. Of course, she dared not waft such signals toward their host because he was also producing Gareth’s next picture called, appropriately enough, Tango of Death.

  “Why haven’t I seen you before?” Arno’s stare took in all of Juliet. His small beady brown eyes, set on either side of a red bulbous nose, gleamed lasciviously. He was holding a glass of whiskey, and it was obvious that he was more than a little drunk.

  “Gareth,” he said lurching to the young man’s side and clutching his arm, “Whyn’t you ever bring the little lady around to the studio?”

  “I’ve asked her, Oliver, but she won’t come.”

  “Well, maybe she’ll come for me.” Arno grinned. “You two really look great together. You’d have the gals swooning in the aisles, and she’d have the guys tryin’ to crawl into the screen. I’ve got Helena Browning ticketed for Tango, and Dane Fuller’s been bustin’ his balls tryin’ to get me to pull a switcheroo and drop you out on your ear, Garnet. Only he’s got two left feet when it comes to dancin’ an’ he ain’t no Valentino. Don’t want no college boy for this pix... don’t want this Browning dame if I can have you, Miss...” He leered at Juliet. “Don’t think I caught your name, honey.”

  “Veringer,” Juliet said.

  “Veringer, huh? That’s a bit long for screen credits, but we can change all that. Tell you what I’m going to do, Miss Veringer, honey. I’m goin’ to schedule a screen test for you tomorrow mornin’. Be there at makeup come five o’clock on the nose. Will you do that?”