The Silver Star

by Gilbert, Morris

  “Come on. Can you walk as far as the house? We can call a doctor from there.” She heard him mutter, “Guess so—” and they started for the house. He stumbled along, and she bore most of his weight as he shuffled awkwardly. When they reached the door, he fumbled into his pocket, and she took the key from him. Unlocking it, she pushed the door open, reached inside, and switched on the light. “Be careful of the step,” she said. His arm was around her, and she led him into the living room. “You’re still bleeding. It’s going to get blood on the furniture.”

  “Get a towel from the bathroom,” he muttered. He leaned over against the wall, and she ran to the bathroom and got a large towel. She also grabbed a washcloth and wet it with cold water. Running back, she draped the huge bath towel over the couch and said, “Lie down. You might be going into shock.” She helped him over to the couch and made sure his head was on the towel, then she lifted his feet up. Fearfully she held the washcloth tightly on the cut. He winced under her hands, and she whispered, “I’m sorry if it hurts—but it’s got to be done if we’re going to get it to stop bleeding.” She drew a sigh of relief when she saw that the bleeding began to slow. Lifting the cloth a bit, she said, “It’s not as bad as I thought, Nolan, but I think a doctor ought to see it.”

  He shook his head briefly and said, “No, I don’t want a doctor. I just want to lie here and rest a minute.”

  “Do you have any bandages and tape? Maybe some iodine?”

  “All in the medicine kit—in the bathroom.”

  Dorothy rose and went to the bathroom, found the medicine kit, then came back. “Lie still,” she said. “I think I can dress it. I don’t think it needs stitches. Hold this until I heat some water.”

  “All right. The teakettle’s on the stove.”

  She went to the kitchen and heated water over the gas flame. She found a basin, filled it, then got more clean washcloths and returned to the living room. Putting the basin down on the coffee table, she began to wash away the blood. When she had cleaned the wound, she examined it carefully. “It’s not deep. Just wide, and the bleeding’s almost stopped.”

  “It hurts something fierce, but I guess that’s to be expected. Can you put a bandage on it?”

  “Yes, you have plenty of tape and gauze.” She pulled out a bottle of iodine and looked at the skull and crossbones. “This is going to hurt, Nolan,” she said.

  “Go ahead. Hold me down if I kick,” he said, smiling up at her.

  Dorothy removed the stopper and began to apply the fiery disinfectant to the wound. He flinched several times, and she took her free hand and held it gently against his head. “I’m sorry to hurt you,” she whispered.

  He did not answer, and she continued until the cut was treated. She made a bandage and taped it to his head, then said, “How do you feel?”

  Nolan said, “A lot better.” He got up slowly and swung his feet off the couch. She sat down beside him and said, “Be careful with this bandage. It’s hard to fix a bandage there with your hair so close.”

  “I feel all right now,” Nolan said, and indeed strength had come back to him. His eyes were clear, and he reached up gingerly and touched the bandage. “It caught me off guard. I never heard of a thing like that before.”

  “If it had been just a little bit over to one side, it could have killed you, or put your eye out.”

  “I guess I was lucky, then.”

  When he turned to her, Dorothy saw the gentle look in his eyes. The suddenness of it all had knocked all of the confidence out of him. He seemed younger somehow, and Dorothy reached up and touched the bandage again. “Does it hurt?” she whispered.

  Nolan caught her hand, and to her shock, opened it and kissed her palm, then held the hand tightly. “No, it doesn’t hurt at all now,” he said in a voice that suddenly became unsteady. “You’re a good nurse, Dorothy.”

  Dorothy sat there, and her palm seemed to burn where he had planted the kiss. His hands were growing warmer now, and she made no attempt to remove her own. He said nothing for a time but gazed intently at her face. She dropped her eyes at first, and when the silence ran on, she looked up and saw the compassion and the admiration she had so longed for but had not received.

  Nolan put his free arm around her, and Dorothy wanted to protest, but she said nothing. He turned to face her and gently drew her closer. Her heart started to flutter, and she was aware of the lean masculinity and the strength of his arms and chest. Almost in a daze, she saw his face and then felt his lips on hers. She tried to break away, whispering, “Don’t, Nolan—” but then as he kissed her again, she felt her resolve weaken and her arms went up and around his neck. As she sensed him demanding more, she pulled her lips away and made one last effort to protest. “Don’t let me do this! Make me stop, Nolan! Make me stop . . . !”

  “I love you, Dorothy. I have for a long time.”

  And at those words, whispered in her ear with such fervent longing, Dorothy Winslow succumbed. She knew she needed to flee, to run, to never look back. But she did none of these things. . . .

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The End of It

  Edwin Porter was two men. On the set he could be a terror, driving the director, the crews, the cameramen, and even the carpenters who worked on the set like a madman. At times his language would become abusive, and his face would glow a ruby red. Priscilla had heard one actor say, “He’s going to have apoplexy and die one of these days while he’s having that kind of fit.”

  But there was another side to the man. He could be charming and persuasive when he chose to be—and he usually chose to let this side of his personality show when he wanted something from someone. More than once Priscilla had seen him turn on the charm and persuade people to do things they had vowed never to do. As she entered his office one rainy February morning, Porter rose from his desk smiling and came over to take her hand. She knew at once that he wanted something from her.

  “Come in, Priscilla,” Porter beamed. His sharp gray eyes glowed with warmth, and he held her hands for a moment, saying, “Why, you’re cold! Come over here and sit down and I’ll get you a drink. What would you like?”

  “Why, nothing, thanks.” She smiled and shook her head as she took her seat in the modernistic chair that looked to be nothing but bent stainless steel wires and two pads of leather. “You never give up, do you, Edwin? You know I never drink.”

  A look of chagrin swept across Porter’s round face, and he shook his head, laughing ruefully. “Well, you’re about the only person in this business who doesn’t drink. How about some coffee, then?” Without waiting for her reply, he moved to the door, opened it, and bellowed in a stentorian tone, “Effie! Fix some fresh coffee for Priscilla, and make it strong and black like she likes it!” Wheeling, he came back filled with energy and marched to his desk. Snatching a sheaf of papers, he sat down across from her, drawing his chair up until their knees almost touched. “Look at these, Priscilla—reviews. All good, and here’s the report on attendance.”

  Taking the papers, Priscilla leafed through them and was pleased with the reviews. The last sheet she studied even more carefully, then looked up, her eyebrows arched with surprise. “Well, they’re very good, but for a serial that comes out in twelve episodes, I don’t see how you can attach the number of people in the theater to them. They come to see the main feature, don’t they?”

  “These are very accurate. All we have to do is compare them with features that show without the serial to boost them up.” He spoke decisively and crisply, running his hand through his thinning gray hair at times. Sometimes when he grew excited he grabbed hold of his hair and appeared to lift himself out of his chair with it, a sight that never failed to amuse Priscilla. “I’m very proud of you,” he said, reaching over to pat her hand.

  “Oh, I’m very proud of you, too, Edwin.” Priscilla returned his smile. She had to be on her guard against most of the men in the theater, but Edwin Porter had been married to the same woman for thirty-one years. He had four chil
dren and seven grandchildren, and his inordinate pride in his clan was manifested by the portraits that completely decorated one wall. She also knew that he had made motion pictures of all of his family, and now she said suddenly, “You’ve been very good for me, Edwin. I appreciate all the times you’ve had to put up with me when I was cranky and hard to live with.”

  “Never a time! Never a single time!” he protested. He got up and began to pace the floor, a restless energy driving him. Effie returned with the coffee. Porter thanked her and poured Priscilla a cup, then one for himself. As he sipped the brew, he talked all the time as rapidly as possible. Finally he cocked his head to one side and set his coffee cup down. “You’re probably wondering why I called you here this morning, Priscilla.”

  “Let me guess,” she said with a smile. “You want me to do something, don’t you?”

  Taken aback, Edwin stared at her for a moment, his jaw dropping slightly, then he slapped his meaty thighs and roared with laughter. “You’re too smart for me, Priscilla! Women are like that . . . they somehow have the gift of knowing what’s going on in a man’s mind.” He shook his head with admiration, then grew more serious. “Only two more episodes, and we’re through with this cliff-hanging business. I expect you’ve got enough bruises, scars, and contusions to do you for a while, don’t you?” he asked wryly.

  “It’s been fun. It’s been much more interesting than doing a Broadway play, but you’re right. We’ve done three of them, and I think I’ve earned that silver star on my dressing room door.”

  “You certainly have, and I don’t blame you for wanting to try something new.”

  “You know about the play that Maxwell wants Todd and me to do on Broadway?”

  “Yes, Maxwell called me, as a matter of fact. He wanted to know if I could recommend you. In other words, did you have a temperament?”

  “What did you tell him, Edwin?”

  “I told him I wanted to adopt you. You’re the kind of girl I’d like to have for my daughter, and that you’re the most untemperamental star I’ve ever had working for me.” She started to thank him, and he held up his hand, saying quickly, “It’s all true. Every word of it.” Then he drew his chair even closer, and his face became more animated. “I have a script I want you to read. It’ll be something different from these cliffhangers, all right.” He got up at once, went to his desk, and opened a drawer. Pulling out a thick manuscript, he brought it back and said, “Here. Take this home and read it—and read it seeing yourself as the star. It’s different from anything that’s been done.” He grew very serious, then said in a quieter but still intense voice, “It could be good for everybody. Good for Imperial Pictures, good for me as a producer, and good for Stan as a director. Most of all, it could make a star out of you. You could be as big as Eleanor Glyn.”

  Alarm bells suddenly sounded as Priscilla listened to him. The film that had become very big recently in just a short time was entitled Three Weeks. It was an English film, and the first review that Priscilla had read of it had the word of warning: “Not for young ladies!” Though she had doubts, she had convinced herself that as an actress she needed to be informed on the popular films. She had gone to see the film and had been shocked by the blatant, raw sensuality that had flashed upon the screen. She had sat there uneasy and uncomfortable. More than once she was tempted to get up and leave the theater. The story itself concerned a queen of a mythical Balkan land who, forgetting her husband, had a torrid romance with a handsome young man.

  As Priscilla sat there holding the manuscript, flashes of memory came to her, and she recognized that the scenes from the movie had been burned into her mind. She had left the theater feeling soiled, the vivid images troubling her deeply. The movie was titillating audiences everywhere and making the producer extremely rich.

  Running her hand over the top sheet of the manuscript, Priscilla hesitated for just a moment, then looked Porter full in the eye. “Is this like Three Weeks? I mean, is it based on seduction and illicit sex?”

  For once Porter was flustered and lost his normal poise. He stuttered for a moment. “Well . . . uh . . . in a way, I suppose, it has that element in it.”

  “Come now, be honest, Edwin. It is that sort of film, isn’t it? You want to cash in on the popularity of Eleanor Glyn’s work.”

  Porter shifted uncomfortably and pulled his hair with both hands again. If it had not been such a serious moment, Priscilla would have been amused at the sight. Porter cleared his throat and began to speak rapidly. “We’ve got to face reality, Priscilla. You and I know these things are in the world. All we’re doing is showing the world as it really is.”

  “There are things that shouldn’t be shown on the screen,” Priscilla said firmly, knowing that it would get a rise out of Porter, which it did.

  “You’re talking about censorship now, but I’m not going to let a bunch of Puritans dictate what sort of movies I put on the screen! They’re nothing but a bunch of blue noses, anyhow!”

  Instantly, Priscilla challenged him. “The Puritans who came on the Mayflower, and their immediate descendants, gave this country more than any other group. They brought a sense of mission with them, and they gave their lives, over half of them, that first year to found a community where men could worship God freely.”

  Priscilla admired the Puritans greatly. She had read everything available on their lives and their heroic attempts to cross the sea to a place where they could worship freely. She had heard the stories of how one of her own ancestors, Gilbert Winslow, had come from England and founded the House of Winslow in America. “And furthermore, if you knew your history, you’d remember that all of the Ivy League Colleges were founded by the Puritans, as you call them. I mean Dartmouth, Yale, and Harvard. All of these institutions of higher education were founded by men who believed there was a right and a wrong and chose to face danger rather than give in to it.” She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t see how I could do this thing, Edwin.”

  “You’re an actress, Priscilla! You won’t become the woman in the play—and furthermore the story reveals how this woman has to pay for her sin. That’s what you Christians believe, isn’t it?”

  “Well . . . yes . . .”

  Eagerly Porter hammered his point home. “People need to see that wrongdoing brings retribution. The woman in this play, true, is a wicked and sinful woman, but you have women like that in the Bible, don’t you? What about Delilah? What about Salome? The Bible doesn’t try to cover up such things. From the little I’ve read, it doesn’t hide people’s wrongs.”

  Priscilla could not answer, because she knew he was right. Slowly she said, “I’ll have to think a great deal about it—and pray about it, too.”

  Porter felt he had gained a victory. “That’s fine! Fine!” He reached out, pulled her to her feet, and patted her shoulders. “You can have some input into the story. We could work it out where we could make a good thing out of this.” He hustled her to the door smoothly, saying as he opened it, “Go home right now. Read it as quick as you can. Get back to me as soon as you have finished it, and we’ll go out and talk about it some more.”

  Priscilla went home disturbed by the problem the script was sure to bring. Changing into a pair of rose-colored lounging pajamas and a robe, she made herself some coffee and then sat down to read the play. She stopped only for a sandwich and a glass of milk at noon. By two o’clock she turned the last page of the manuscript over. Setting it down, she sat back in the lounge chair she had curled up in and closed her eyes. The script was not as blatant as she had feared. True enough, it starred a woman who was immoral, and who was the cause of ruin of several men. She had even caused a breakup of a family. But as Porter had said, at the end of the movie retribution overtook her, and she paid a terrible price for her wrongdoing.

  Slowly Priscilla got up and walked around the room, running over the script in her mind. She thought about the elements in the plot that she disliked and wondered if Porter had been speaking truthfully when he h
ad indicated that she could have some control over the script. His offer was unusual. As far as she knew, only the giants in the entertainment world enjoyed this privilege. Going to the window, she stared outside at the trees. Some of them seemed to hold their limbs up as if in prayer to the damp, gray, leaden sky. She turned quickly and went to take a bath. She had washed her hair and was wrapping a towel around it when the telephone rang. She hurried to pick up the receiver. “Hello, this is Priscilla.”

  “Priscilla, this is Todd. I’ll be by in about two hours. We’ll have an early dinner. All right?”

  “All right, Todd.”

  The two talked a few moments, then Priscilla hung the receiver up and went to sit before her dressing table mirror. She wished it were sunny so she could dry her hair outside. But the sun was a thin, pale disk almost hidden behind skeins of dark, low-flying clouds. Instead, she toweled her hair dry and spent some time trying a new hairstyle. When she was satisfied with how it looked, she dressed.

  Since Todd Blakely was not to arrive for another hour, Priscilla sat in an overstuffed chair by the window and watched the clouds score the sky, drifting along driven by the high winds. Picking up her Bible she began to read the Scriptures. Once she let the Bible fall open, and it opened at the book of Proverbs. Her eyes flew to the verse she had underlined, “As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a fair woman without discretion.” She stared at that verse for a long time thinking about its meaning, then quietly she closed the Bible and prayed, “Oh, God, please show me the way! Don’t let me get out of your will!” Priscilla had discovered that sometimes it was possible to talk too much to God. Once she had heard Cass remark, “If we’re talking all the time when we’re praying, how can God speak back to us? That would be impolite of Him, wouldn’t it?” She had smiled at the time, but she had learned there was something to this and had run across many Scriptures indicating the importance of waiting on God. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” This verse had become a favorite of hers. She had, therefore, learned to present her prayers to God and then to simply sit quietly, waiting for any impression that God would give her. It had been a revealing experience for her. She had often heard her parents speak about God talking to them. She had discovered this was the way God spoke to her in the stillness of the night sometimes. She simply thought about the Lord Jesus upon the cross, dwelling on the meaning of His death—and out of that meditation oftentimes an impression would come. It would become stronger until finally she recognized that it did not come from her own imagination, but that God had definitely put it there.