Movie Shoes

by Noel Streatfeild

  “The one who trained that pony for the circus?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Tim thought Jane must be making up her story.

  “And they want you to act with him? I bet they don’t. Whatever for?”

  “Because somebody called Ursula Gidden has appendicitis.”

  “But in all America they should be able to find somebody better than you.”

  Jane put out her tongue and made the rudest possible face. “If you want to know, I’m exactly what he and Mr. Benjamin Bettelheimer wanted, so you needn’t be hateful.” Peaseblossom spoke from the top of the stairs.

  “And you needn’t put out your tongue, Jane. I think it must mean that your tongue needs air. Go and sit at the table on the porch with your tongue out and keep it out for five minutes; perhaps by then it will have had all the air it requires and will never need to be put out at anybody again.” It was never any good fighting Peaseblossom. If you argued, things grew worse, but Jane was seething with rage. What a way to treat somebody who by tomorrow might be a film star! Wait until she was. She would crush Peaseblossom. Sit with her tongue out indeed! The insult!

  Peaseblossom came down the stairs where she could keep an eye on Jane’s tongue. She spoke in a quiet voice to Tim so that Jane should not hear. “You were rude, you know. I can hardly blame Jane for being rude, too, though of course, she shouldn’t have put out her tongue.”

  “I didn’t mean to be rude, but I just can’t believe it. Why would anybody choose Jane?”

  Peaseblossom had heard the news from Bee and was wondering just that herself. She had said “Jane!” when she heard. “Why Jane?” and she saw that Bee was bewildered too. You can’t change the way you see people all in a minute. Jane was the difficult one. Jane was the unartistic one. Jane was the plain one. Jane was by far the quickest at lessons but that seemed hardly a quality to make someone pick her out for a film. If it had been just a tiny part, Peaseblossom would still have been amazed, but Mary in The Secret Garden could be only a leading part. She said in what she hoped was not a surprised tone, “And why shouldn’t they choose Jane? She’s having a test tomorrow, and if she is engaged, we shall be very proud, shan’t we? Up with the Winters.

  “I’d be much prouder if she was dog walker to fifty dogs, which is what she said she wanted to be. I should think she’d be simply awful in a film. So we won’t be proud at all.”

  “That’s enough, Tim. Go and wash and put away your music. We must start lessons. All this excitement has made us ten minutes late already.”

  John had not gone back to his typewriter. He wanted to, but instead he went to look for Rachel. He did not have to look far; the moment he reached the porch he heard a choking, hiccupping noise under the table. He leaned down.

  “Come on, Rachel. Come for a walk. Jane’s outside saying good-bye to Mr. Browne, and Tim’s not back- let’s get quickly before anyone catches us.” John put his arm though Rachel’s and tried to draw her down the steps. He thought she was trying not to go, for she was so incoherent crying he could not hear what she said. Then she held out a foot. “Oh, the ballet shoes! Of course, Well, just come down the steps. We’ll find a quiet spot.”

  They found a nice little place. John let Rachel mop her eyes and feel better; then he said, “Bit of a knockout, I know. You thought that they wanted you.”

  In a surge all the things she had been thinking while she cried poured out of Rachel. She explained about Posy’s telephone call. How it seemed the end of all hope that she had not been chosen for Pirouette, especially as everybody had been so sure she would be.

  “If you’d just heard you were not chosen, why did you think Mr. Browne had come about you?” Rachel explained about the faint hope of her being the child dancer. John was pleased. “Well, then there’s still a chance of that.”

  Rachel’s voice grew very small. “I don’t want three day’s work if Jane’s to be Mary in The Secret Garden.”

  “Yet Jane’s playing that part, if it comes off, might be a help all around. There are a lot of rules about any money Jane earns, but Mr. Browne said there would be some sort of salary for whoever looks after her at the studio; she has to have someone there. That might mean we could arrange about your dancing lessons and getting you to them.”

  Rachel’s voice was hardly a whisper. “I don’t want things Jane earns for me.”

  “That’s a clear statement. It’s not nice to be jealous, but I can see that you might be just at first. Especially as, if we had stayed at home, you would have been our family star, appearing in your first show. But I think you’ll get over jealousy pretty fast. If you’d danced in a film, it would have been a money help, but it’s nothing in your life. You are, we hope, going to be a real dancer; I’m reckoning by the time you’re eighteen to be sitting in Covent Garden watching dance The Sleeping Princess and whatever that leading part is in Swan Lake. I shan’t care, and you won’t care, that you were never one of fifty girls in a film called Pirouette. What we both shall care about is that in the six glorious months we spent in California you kept up your training, in fact, got some things you never could have got at home and turned the color of a peach as well because of the sun.”

  Rachel rubbed her cheek against John’s shoulder. “Oh, Dad, I do feel better, and I do see all that. Of course that film doesn’t matter. But Jane’s younger than I am, and she’s pretty awful right now. Imagine what she’ll be like if she acts Mary. “

  John laughed. “Poor old Jane! I think if she gets this part, she’s going to be sorry before she’s through. But it may do Jane good. I believe it does everybody good to be the one to shine now and again. So far any shining in our family has been done by you and Tim.”

  “But she won’t shine. She can’t act. She’s bound to be terrible.”

  “We shall see. I suppose these fellows in the film industry know what they’re doing. I daresay we shall have to put up with a little grandeur from her at first if she gets the part, but she’ll settle down. In the meantime, you be nice about it. Now go up to your bedroom and get on with your dancing practice. I’ll ask Peaseblossom to excuse you from lessons this morning.”

  Peaseblossom took Jane to see Mr. Bryan J. Browne that afternoon. Jane strutted along ahead of Peaseblossom, feeling as though she had been rubbed the wrong way. Nobody had done anything mean exactly, but nobody had done anything right. Nobody said, “How splendid! Of course, I knew Jane was just sort of person to be a film star”; instead everyone had startled and unbelieving.

  Aunt Cora, who Jane had supposed would have been pleased than anyone else, had been most annoyed. She was a great admirer of Ursula Gidden and knew somebody who was a friend of Ursula’s parents, and she thought it almost insulting to Ursula that a child who had never acted in her life and was the plain, untalented one of the family should even have a test for her part. Of course, she had not said these things out loud, but she had half said them and looked them and she had said in her whiny voice, “It won’t happen. You’ve no idea, Jane, how these movie people go on. Every day you read stories of people who’ve been discovered. Often the movie company pays their expenses right across America just to make tests like this one you’re to have tomorrow, but not once in a thousand times does anything come of it. I guess most of these so-called discoveries just get their railroad fare home, and nobody hears of them again. Now you take my advice, and don’t expect anything, for you’ll feel lower than a snake when they say you won’t do. It not to be hoped they’ll use you, for that little Ursula Gidden is really something.”

  Even Bella, angelic Bella, whom Jane liked more than she had liked anybody for ages, did not have much faith in a movie career. She shook her head and looked more as if Jane were going to have a tooth out than a test. She had a grandchild who had had a test for the Our Gang films. The family had got so uppity about it that Bella could have slapped them. Then, when nothing came of it, they felt madder feeling that way.

  John had teased Jane at lunch and called her “t
he little star,” but it was only teasing; he had not meant it. And he had backed Tim about the name Brown. He said Jane’s Mr. Browne had an e on his name, but both Browns sounded alike and Tim’s Mr. Brown had been there first, and any other Mr. Browne would have to be called something else; he suggested Mr. Film Browne.

  If there was anybody over whom a fuss was being made, it was Rachel. Peaseblossom, John, and Bee had treated her as of it were her birthday. On top of that Aunt Cora chose that afternoon to take everybody for a drive, and they all had sympathized with Peaseblossom because she could not go, but not with Jane. So with one thing and another, it was a very black-doggish Jane who stumped up Mr. Bryan J. Browne’s porch steps.

  Mr. Bryan J. Browne had everything planned. A chair on his lawn and magazines waiting for Peaseblossom. He had even arranged to have afternoon tea served for her. Jane could see from Peaseblossom’s expression that she approved of Mr. Bryan J. Browne.

  Hyde Park gave Jane a fine welcome. He remembered her at once and bounced over, licking and barking. As soon as he settled down again, Jane knelt beside him and examined him all over. She could not find a thing wrong; his coat was in lovely condition. Evidently he had got over the effects of eating bad fish.

  Mr. Bryan J. Browne had a big book with a paper cover. Je sat down and opened it, and Jane saw that the pages inside were typed.

  “I’m going to go over with you some short scenes I want you to learn by tomorrow. Are you a quick study?”

  Jane wondered for a second what he meant; then she answered very fast because she wanted him to have a good opinion of her. “Actually very quick indeed.”

  “Can you cry?”

  “Cry! Whatever for?”

  “You’ll have to as Mary.”

  “Why? Mary in The Secret Garden didn’t cry, at least only in that bit at the beginning.”

  Mr. Bryan J. Browne laid the book on his knee and leaned forward and caught hold of one of Jane’s braids. “Stop looking at Hyde Park and look at me. Do you want to be Mary?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you won’t if you argue about what Mary did and did not do I’m the director of this picture, and nobody, certainly not unknown little girls, argues with directors. If I say Mary cries, Mary will cry.”

  “What’s she going to cry about?”

  The first time she finds the garden. She looks around, and she cries because it’s so good to be inside at last. But though she’s crying, her eyes shine through her tears. Do you think you could do that?”

  “Mary wasn’t the sort of silly fool who’d...” Jane remembered about arguing “I mean, getting into a garden seems to me a funny thing to cry about.”

  “What makes you cry?”

  Jane remembered the time she had cried. That day at Dr. Smith’s when she given in about leaving Chewing-gum behind. She did not like remembering about Chewing-gum, so she said in a stuffy voice, “I did about leaving Chewing-gum.”

  Bryan J. Browne looked at Hyde Park.

  So would I, if I had to leave him any place.” He got up and held out a hand to Jane. “Come over here, and see what you can do about this. Let’s pretend that over here are the steps down into the garden. You come down the steps as if you were stepping straight into fairyland. You say in a whisper, ‘How still it is! How still.’ Then you stand still and look around like this.” He looked around as if he were in a village garden. “Then you remember young Mrs. Craven’s story. How she fell out of that tree. You don’t see Mrs. Craven.“

  Jane was so shocked she had to interrupt. “She couldn’t do that. She was dead.”

  “She is dead. It’s her ghost who lives on in the garden. The ghost of the girl Archibald Craven loved.”

  Jane scowled. “Not in my book. There was only a robin in the garden.”

  “In my picture young Mrs. Craven’s ghost is in the garden.”

  “Then, if you don’t mind my saying so, it’ll be a very silly picture. Nobody who has read The Secret Garden will know who she is.”

  “They will. Two very lovely people are playing Mr. and Mrs. Craven. The story opens with them long before Colin is born. We see her fall out of the tree, and we see him lock the garden and bury the key. It’s young Mrs. Craven’s love for her son, little Colin, that puts the idea into Mary’s head to bring Colin to the garden.”

  Jane bit her lip to stop herself from arguing, but it was no good.

  “Very well, Mr. Bryan J. Browne, if that’s how it’s going to be. But if you don’t mind my saying so, it’s not the story in the book called The Secret Garden.”

  Mr. Bryan J. Browne laughed.

  “Perhaps not. But it’s the picture I am going to make, and must you call me by my full name? Wouldn’t just Mr. Browne do?”

  “No. As a matter of fact, that’s a thing I’m very angry about.” Jane explained. “Dad sides with Tim although you’re much the more important Mr. Brown. Dad says I should call you Mr. Film Browne. But I think My-Mr. Browne would better if, you don’t mind.”

  My-Mr. Browne said “Fine,” but his mind was back on his script.

  “Now, let’s get on without any more arguments. As you feel Mrs. Craven beside you, your eyes fill with tears. She kisses you. You look up, still crying but with your eyes shining, and you say ‘Robin your wing brushed my cheek. It was as if you’d kissed me.’ You look up at the robin, you say, ‘No wonder it’s so still.’ Then you clasp your hands and whisper, ‘I’m the first person who has spoken in this garden for ten years.’ Now, let’s see how you do.”

  At first Jane did very badly. She thought the line about the robin’s wing’s silly and sounded as if she did, and though she made faces as if she were crying, her eyes were not even damp. Then suddenly, just as she was pretending to step into the garden for the sixth time, My-Mr. Browne said, “Poor old Chewing-gum. I bet he’s hungry and lonely. It’s tough on a dog to be lonely. He doesn’t know what it’s all about. He thinks maybe you’ve run out on him.” That did it. In a minute Jane was crying so hard that her nose was red and her eyes were swollen. My-Mr. Browne was nice he said of course, Chewing-gum was fine, that everybody had something that made him or her cry and Chewing-gum was evidently as surefire way to set her off. Then he gave her a Pepsi-cola which was a thing she had never drunk before and tasted very good. Then they started the little scene all over again. This time it went off almost perfectly. Having got upset about Chewing-gum, Jane found that the smallest whisk of a thought of his being lonely made the tears come. My-Mr. Browne was pleased. He said if she acted Mary like that at the test the next day and photographed all right, maybe she’d have a chance.

  The other scenes were easy. The first was the one where she by Colin’s bed and told him what she thought of him. She read the words from the script: “You stop! You stop! I hate you! Everybody hates you! I wish everybody would run out of the house and let you scream yourself to death. You will scream yourself to death in a minute, and I wish you would.”

  My-Mr. Browne took the script back and told Jane to learn the words and say them exactly as she had spoken them the first time.

  The third scene was Mary’s first meeting with Dickon. My-Mr. Browne said that Dickon would be sitting under a tree playing on his pipes, and that all the wild creatures he was taming would be there. That Jane was to look very interested, as if seeing tamed squirrels, rabbits, and a robin were magic. This was so exactly what Jane felt that although she had to imagine the creatures, nothing could have been easier. There were a few lines to say, but most of the words were spoken by Dickon. They went over the lines two or three times for what My-Mr. Browne called inflections, but he seemed pleased and quite soon said that it would do. He would, he said, try to get David to bring along some of his animals or the robin for the test, and then Jane would be grand.

  They went to find Peaseblossom. She was just finishing her tea. She looked with rather an anxious face at My-Mr. Browne. She did not say so, but she was sure his afternoon had been wasted. It was still impossible for her to
believe anyone was thinking seriously of Jane in a film.

  My-Mr. Browne gave Peaseblossom an envelope

  “These are the lines that Jane must know by tomorrow,” He smiled at Jane “A studio car will fetch you at nine.”

  14

  The Painted Garden

  The start for the Bee Bee studios was almost as grand as even Jane could have wished. Bee was taking her, and although neither Aunt Cora nor Peaseblossom said so, it was obvious that each wished she’d had the chance. There was almost the fuss Jane had wished for about getting her ready, enough to give her an idea of how it felt to be important.

  The Bee Bee studios were in Culver City. Long before they got there, Jane and Bee could see the word s “Bee Bee Films Incorporated” written on what seemed to be storage tanks which were built into the air. Close up, the studio looked rather like a prison. There were high walls all around the lot, guarded by a great many policemen and a great deal of barbed wire. The car stopped at gates with a policeman outside; evidently the policeman knew the driver by sight, for he said nothing and let them drive in.

  Jane had hoped that Mr. Browne would be waiting for them; he was not, but he had told somebody else to look after them. She was a nice woman who said her name was Miss Delaney, though everybody seemed to call her Dot. As they walked along, they met all sorts of people, who smiled and said, “How’s my darling Dot?” or, as if it were amazing to meet her, “Dot, honey!”

  Inside, the lot was like a town. Wide streets ran up and down; only instead of houses on each side there were offices and studios. Cars and trucks drove up and down the and there were even street cleaners with brooms. Miss Delaney showed Jane a long, low white building standing back in little garden and said that was the Bee Bee school, where Jane would go for lessons if she got the part of Mary. Jane asked if that was where David Doe went to school, and Delaney said it was, that all the children under contract there. Jane would meet David as soon as he came out school. The test scene with him would be shot after lunch as not to interfere with his morning’s lessons, because if he missed even a few minutes of his lessons between nine and twelve, those minutes had to be made up in the afternoon for that was the law.