“I know,” I said. “Thank you for telling me about him.”
“What about your kid?” Ralph said to me.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you better get him out of this house while you can. He’s going stir crazy, and he needs a change. If you want, I can take him up on the tramway this weekend.”
“Not without me. I’ll think about it.”
Monica nodded impatiently. “Yes, of course Keith must go up the tramway, Carol. Everyone makes that trip. Get Jason to take you. I have something else for Ralph to do.”
“Sure,” Ralph said. “What?”
She dabbed at her cheeks with tissue, and got up to move nervously around the room. Sometimes she reminded me of one of her own cats.
“I want you to go to Beverly Hills, Ralph—to Cadenza. I want you to pack up everything there is in the house except the furniture, and have it shipped here. Bill Aldrich said I’d better get it cleared out right away, though Owen Barclay may want to buy some of the large pieces. Perhaps Carol and I will drive out before you finish the job. She really ought to see the house. Right now, I only want to rest.”
She leaned on Ralph’s arm as he helped her toward the bedroom. At the door she looked around at me with a sudden radiant change of mood.
“Carol, I did it, didn’t I? Last night! They loved me!”
I knew what she meant. The audience had accepted more than the Monica Arlen they’d seen on a screen. They’d responded to the beautiful and courageous woman she’d given them on that stage. A woman who had been created out of her own determination, but who could hold them in her hand, nevertheless. That was the reassurance she needed more than anything else. Perhaps it would help her get past her loss.
“Of course they loved you,” I told her.
Her moment of exhilaration faded as she remembered Saxon, and she promptly wilted. Ralph got her to the bed and looked around at me.
“Hey,” he said, “who do you think did it?”
His complete insensitivity angered me. “I have no idea,” I said coldly.
Monica tilted her chin. “Don’t keep anything from me, Carol. If you or Linda learn anything, you’re to tell me right away.”
A number of things happened in the following days, though nothing conclusive was discovered about Saxon’s death. The police were still investigating, but if anything useful had emerged, they weren’t talking, and in a few days Saxon’s body was released for burial.
Though Saxon Scott had no family left, old friends stepped in to take care of the funeral arrangements and the burial was to be at the Forest Lawn in Glendale. There were two other Forest Lawns, but famous movie stars were usually taken to Glendale. Saxon had been a wealthy man, and there was no problem about money, though his will asked for a simple funeral. To me, it seemed especially sad that he had even less family than I did.
Neither Monica nor Linda went to the funeral. Monica wanted to go, but Linda put her foot down and wouldn’t allow her to face the strain of what might happen. There would be crowds at the gate and the usual delirium, and Monica mustn’t become part of a spectacle.
In the end, I was the one who went. Paul Webster, who had been Saxon’s friend and attorney, sent a car to meet me at the Los Angeles airport, and I was driven to Glendale. When we reached the cemetery, it was to find the anticipated crowd gathered outside the gates. Hollywood funerals were a specialty here, and our car was ushered through slowly, while strange eyes peered at me, wondering if I was “anybody.”
Listening to the service held in Wee Kirk of the Heather, I found the fact of Saxon’s death still impossible to accept—as sudden death always is, especially when shrouded in the horror of violence. Two or three of Saxon’s friends spoke, including his attorney, but the ceremony was kept brief, as Saxon himself had wished.
Before it was over, I found myself crying. In a sense, I was an old friend too—like some of those who stood outside at the gate—and I had been ever since I was a child. My tears were for Monica as well—for wasted lives and useless feuds that should never have been, and only injured the living. I wept as well because it was too late to mend anything, and Monica would now carry an added scar forever. She, at least, had wanted to make up with him that last night. It was he who rejected her.
Afterwards, just as I was leaving, Mr. Webster disengaged himself and came to speak to me. He was an impressive man whose rugged, weathered look gave him an air of assurance and dignity.
“I’m very glad you came, Miss Hamilton. This is an appropriate place for Saxon. He picked it out himself because he said he wanted to look down into Burbank and thumb his nose at the Warner studios.”
I liked Mr. Webster, and was glad to have him escort me back to my car.
“I’ve been wanting to talk with you,” he said as we walked along. “Would it be possible for you to come with me to my office before you return to Palm Springs? You’ll be driven to the airport in time for your plane.”
The invitation surprised me, but I agreed, and went with him to his long black Lincoln. We were whisked down to Wilshire Boulevard, and I was brought into a beautifully muted and expensive office high above the street.
Seated in a leather upholstered chair, I faced the attorney across his polished desk. Why I was here at all puzzled me.
“Saxon spoke very warmly of you,” he told me. “He liked you very much.”
This too was surprising. “I hardly knew him. Of course I’m glad if he felt that way, since I grew up watching him on the screen—along with my great-aunt, Monica Arlen.”
Mr. Webster nodded. “A few days ago Saxon called me to Indian Wells to add a codicil to his will. He has left you rather a large sum of money, Miss Hamilton, as well as an important property.”
While I listened in astonishment, he explained that Saxon had left me half a million dollars, and had willed me his restaurant as well. Saxon’s and the Mirage Room! When I could recover from my first shock, I asked Mr. Webster hesitantly—not sure of the propriety—if anything had been left to Monica. He didn’t mind my question, but told me that she had never been mentioned in Saxon’s will at any time.
I still felt stunned and thoroughly bewildered. “Why—why in the world did Mr. Scott do this? I’m a stranger. It makes no sense.”
“He gave me a reason,” Paul Webster said, “though I don’t fully understand it. He said you were related by blood to Monica Arlen, and he had cared more about her—when she was young—than for any other woman in his life.”
“Yet he didn’t speak to her for the last thirty-six years!”
“That wasn’t altogether his doing. Something happened long ago that Monica could never forgive him for.”
I found the courage to ask about the episode when Peggy Smith had died. “Did he ever tell you about that?”
Mr. Webster hesitated so long that I was afraid he might not answer. When he did, he told me little more than I already knew.
“He said that he was to blame for her death. But that he never meant to kill her. This was confidential, of course, since he’d escaped a murder trial.”
“Then you know Monica’s role in this?”
“Yes. I expect that what they did together built the barrier that grew up between them. Neither could forgive the other.”
“I think Monica was ready to forgive, but that he wasn’t,” I said.
There was nothing more to discuss. Mr. Webster told me he would be in touch shortly, and I left for the airport.
I was glad for the flight back to the desert, since it gave me a quiet time to think. There was so much now to consider. My money problems would be resolved in an unexpected way, though this would make little difference in how I would live right now. I would continue to work on Monica’s biography, of course, and when that was done, I’d find other writing projects. With new money coming in, it was even possible that I might help Monica, if the sale of the house fell through. Was this, I wondered, the real reason why Saxon had put me in his will? Because, th
ough he wouldn’t leave anything to her directly, he knew I would look after Monica?
In Palm Springs I took a taxi and reached the house in time to have dinner with Linda and Keith. Jason had gone back to work, and Monica was dining upstairs again.
Linda took little interest in my account of Saxon’s funeral, her resentment against him still high. All her sympathy was for Monica, and I said nothing about the will. The time wasn’t right and she might even resent this act of Saxon’s.
The next day Jason took Keith for a tour of the museum, and my son came home filled with excitement about all that he’d seen. Now that he’d had a taste of freedom, he wanted more, and he returned to the idea Ralph had planted in him of a trip by tramway to the top of Mt. San Jacinto.
Jason said, “Why not Saturday? I can take you both up, if you like.”
It was difficult to give up my worry about every step Keith took away from the house. However, there did seem to be a lull in Owen’s moves against us, and I gave in. Even the newspapers spoke of his being in New York, and we hadn’t been watched by Gack or anyone else in a long while. So we began to plan almost lightheartedly for the trip. Ralph would be in Beverly Hills by that time, and Keith was disappointed that his friend couldn’t go up the mountain with him.
I was only relieved, and began to look forward to a day spent with Jason. We hadn’t seen much of each other, though he’d been in touch with Linda every day. I knew he was still holding a distance between us, sorting everything out. To what end, I couldn’t be sure. Sometimes I wished I didn’t care as much as I was beginning to, but there seemed no help for that.
The afternoon before the tram trip, Linda asked me to come into the garden with her. She wanted to talk to me away from the house, where no one could overhear. Her edgy manner made me uneasy, but I left my typewriter to go with her, not knowing what to expect.
When we reached the upper level, she cast an anxious look toward the house, but Monica wasn’t visible. We sat on a bench in the little summer house, and bougainvillea shielded us from view, draping purple blossoms over latticework.
“I’m terribly worried,” Linda said. “She’s carrying on much too much. Perhaps she feels guilty because she was out on that stage having a marvelous time, while Saxon was lying dead. But it’s more than that. She’s got a new notion in her head that I don’t know how to deal with. She’s saying that something dreadful is going to happen to her. She says Annabella is forecasting terrible events. This is really crazy, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
My fingers played with a handful of dried petals. Bougainvillea was so beautiful, so brilliant, but it never lasted away from the nourishing vine—like Monica Arlen. For her, Hollywood and her years in films had been the vine that kept her young and alive. Away from the source, she had faded and dried up, as Saxon had not. The movies had never been his life’s blood. But then, he’d never been the actor that Arlen was. So there was much more for her to lose.
“Is there any way to get her back to work?” I asked. “I don’t mean playing major roles. That would be too much for her—at least to begin with. But look what Bette Davis is doing. And Myrna Loy and Claudette Colbert. Janet Gaynor is making a hit in summer theaters, and Mary Martin is co-host on a television show. Perhaps Monica could start with a cameo bit now and then, where her name would mean something. They’d jump at a chance to get her, especially with all this publicity surrounding her now.”
“There’s publicity, all right.” Linda sounded irritated. “Have you any idea how many papers and magazines want to do pieces about the two of them? Yet she won’t talk to anyone. She won’t stir out of this house, and she’s working herself up into a state of fear.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I hadn’t realized—”
“Oh, I don’t blame you for not seeing what’s under your nose! It’s important for you—and for her—that you bury yourself in this book. Besides, you have Keith to worry about.… Carol, do stop playing with those petals!”
I brushed them from my knees in surprise. I’d never seen her quite so tense. “You’re not taking this seriously, are you—about something happening to Monica?”
“If I don’t take it seriously, I have to believe that she’s really going out of her mind. That’s why you want to distract her, isn’t it? All this talk of getting her back to work?”
“Why not? Work could turn her in a healthier direction. Even the college circuit might want her, if she won’t think of a play or movie.”
Linda stood up impatiently. “Go and see her! Go and see her right now. Then tell me what you think.”
“Wait, Linda. Of course I’ll go. I’ve been trying to see her for a couple of days, and she keeps putting me off. First, though, I have to tell you something. Then you can help me to prepare Monica.”
She sat down again and listened as I told her the astonishing news of my inheritance from Saxon. She heard me blankly at first, then in dismay, and finally with rising anger.
“How could he do such a thing? Didn’t he ever understand how much she loved him?”
“Listen to me,” I said. “It won’t do any good to be upset by Saxon’s will. It’s a fact. I don’t understand why anything has been left to me, but it has. So now we must go on from there. If Owen backs out on buying her house, I can still help Monica. She won’t have to give up this place, or go anywhere else, unless she wants to. There’ll be income from the restaurant—or I can sell it—and when my writing begins to earn something again, we’ll be in a strong position—no matter what.”
“And you think she’ll accept your charity? When she should have been his wife! Everything he has should have come to her!”
Linda didn’t live in a real world, anymore than Monica did. Each looked at her own “reality,” and refused the larger picture. I wondered if Jason could talk some sense into his sister. There was no point in my saying anything else now, and I stood up.
“I’ll go see her at once. Please come with me.”
She wanted to come, obviously. At the moment, I think she trusted me less than ever.
We found Monica sitting outside, looking off at distant mountains, though I suspected that she saw very little. She hadn’t dressed for the day, but still wore an old bathrobe that made her look even older than her years. Her hair seemed grayer than I remembered, and today it was disheveled, as though she’d been running her hands through it frantically. Not one of the cats was in view—ominous in itself. Animals can sense disaster and get themselves out of the way.
“Come inside, dear,” Linda said. “Carol wants to talk to you.”
Now that I’d seen her, I knew how impossible it would be to talk to her at all. I couldn’t bear the look of pain in those once wonderful eyes. I couldn’t bear the thin, tight look of her lips, as though she kept from screaming only by great effort. If at first she had played a tragedienne’s role, it had become real now, and it was frightening to see.
She rose obediently at Linda’s words and came inside, allowing herself to be made comfortable on a sofa with pillows at her back and her feet up. But when Linda looked at me, challenging, I found nothing I could possibly say. After a scornful glance in my direction, Linda spoke the words she wanted me to speak.
“Carol doesn’t believe anything terrible is going to happen to you. She doesn’t believe that Saxon’s death has anything to do with you.”
Monica seemed to pull herself together, and she turned her head to look at us with quiet dignity. “It has everything to do with me. Blood always sheds more blood.”
I’d heard her say those words once in a movie, and I dropped to the rug at her knees and took her hand in mine. There was no emerald ring on her finger today.
“You mustn’t think such things. Movie plots aren’t real life. You are real and alive, and you need to start living again. Really living.”
The movement of her head back and forth was slow and negative. “There’s nothing for me anymore. Not with Saxon gone and my own life in danger. Besi
des, I think you were right about Owen Barclay. His lawyers are becoming evasive about a closing date. I won’t be surprised if he backs out completely.”
“It won’t matter if he does,” I told her. “I may come into some—some money. I can take care of us. Even take care of this house for a while until the biography begins to earn. Then a share of that money will be yours. You’re my family, Aunt Monica.”
At least she wasn’t beyond snatching at a straw, because she opened her eyes and looked at me with an affection I’d glimpsed only now and then.
“You almost give me hope, Carol. But there have been signs. Last night I saw Saxon. I saw him standing in my bedroom, and he was trying to tell me something. Something frightful. He was trying to warn me.”
Linda bent over her soothingly. “You had a bad dream, dear. It’s natural to dream vividly when you’re suffering.”
Monica pushed us both away and sat up. “He blames me!” she cried. “If I had behaved differently, he might never have died. And he’s right!”
Linda spoke to me sharply. “Go away, Carol. You can’t talk to her now.”
I let myself out of the apartment and stood where I could see Keith playing happily with Annabella in the garden level above me. Already the air was growing colder, as the sun made its early dip behind the mountain, its shadow creeping slowly out across the town.
Monica’s state of mind seemed as frightening as Linda had indicated, and I wondered about its cause. Who was it that might be threatening her—and why? No longer Saxon. Only in her dreams would Saxon Scott ever speak to Monica Arlen again.
TWENTY
Sleepless, I worked until after midnight in the Arlen room. There was still so much I needed to read, to make notes about. Work was the one thing that could distract me from a present reality I could do nothing about: Monica’s state of mind. So I threw myself into that deep concentration every writer can summon when the need is great.
Already I’d made lists of questions that must be asked about Arlen and Scott’s film-making days. I’d made lists of people I must seek out and talk to—if they were still alive. Before long, I would need to go to Hollywood itself—that nebulous place that everyone said was so much more an idea than a locality. I’d glimpsed a little of it at Forest Lawn, where the crowds of fans had gathered, and where so many famous stars had been buried.
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