He was glad for the girl"s sake that Baird had approved the work of both. He had been afraid she was overdoing the New York society manner in the boldness of her advances to him, but of course Baird would know.
His conscience hurt him a little when the Montague girl added her praise to Baird"s for his own work. "Kid, you certainly stepped neat and looked nice in that love scene," she warmly told him. He would have liked to praise her own work, but could not bring himself to. Perhaps she would grow more shrinking and modest as the drama progressed.
A part of the play now developed as he had foreseen it would, in that the city men at the hotel pursued the little sister to her own door-step with attentions that she should have found unwelcome. But even now she behaved in a way he could not approve. She seemed determined to meet the city men halfway. "I"m to be the sunlight arc of this hovel," she announced when the city men came, one at a time, to shower gifts upon the little wild rose.
Later it became apparent that she must in the end pay dearly for her too-ready acceptance of these favours. One after another the four city men, whose very appearance would have been sufficient warning to most girls, endeavoured to lure her up to the great city where they promised to make a lady of her. It was a situation notoriously involving danger to the simple country girl, yet not even her mother frowned upon it.
The mother, indeed, frankly urged the child to let all of these kind gentlemen make a lady of her. The brother should have warned her in this extremity; but the brother was not permitted any share in these scenes.
Only Merton Gill, in his proper person, seemed to feel the little girl was all too cordially inviting trouble.
He became confused, ultimately, by reason of the scenes not being taken consecutively. It appeared that the little sister actually left her humble home at the insistence of one of the villains, yet she did not, apparently, creep back months later broken in body and soul. As nearly as he could gather, she was back the next day. And it almost seemed as if later, at brief intervals, she allowed herself to start for the great city with each of the other three scoundrels who were bent upon her destruction. But always she appeared to return safely and to bring large sums of money with which to delight the old mother.
It was puzzling to Merton. He decided at last--he did not like to ask the Montague girl--that Baird had tried the same scene four times, and would choose the best of these for his drama.
Brother and sister made further trips to the hotel with their offerings, only the sister now took jams and jellies exclusively, which she sold to the male guests, while the brother took only the improved grape juice which the rich old New Yorker bought and generously paid for.
There were other scenes at the hotel between the country boy and the heavy-faced New York society girl, in which the latter was an ardent wooer. Once she was made to s.n.a.t.c.h a kiss from him as he stood by her, his basket on his arm. He struggled in her embrace, then turned to flee.
She was shown looking after him, laughing, carelessly slapping one leg with her riding crop.
"You"re still timid," Baird told him. "You can hardly believe you have won her love."
In some following scenes at the little farmhouse it became impossible for him longer to doubt this, for the girl frankly told her love as she lingered with him at the gate.
"She"s one of these new women," said Baird. "She"s living her own life.
You listen--it"s wonderful that this great love should have come to you.
Let us see the great joy dawning in your eyes."
He endeavoured to show this. The New York girl became more ardent. She put an arm about him, drew him to her. Slowly, almost in the manner of Harold Parmalee, as it seemed to him, she bent down and imprinted a long kiss upon his lips. He had been somewhat difficult to rehea.r.s.e in this scene, but Baird made it all plain. He was still the bashful country boy, though now he would be awakened by love.
The girl drew him from the gate to her waiting automobile. Here she overcame a last reluctance and induced him to enter. She followed and drove rapidly off.
It was only now that Baird let him into the very heart of the drama.
"You see," he told Merton, "you"ve watched these city folks; you"ve wanted city life and fine clothes for yourself; so, in a moment of weakness, you"ve gone up to town with this girl to have a look at the place, and it sort of took hold of you. In fact, you hit up quite a pace for awhile; but at last you go stale on it--" "The blight of Broadway,"
suggested Merton, wondering if there could be a cabaret scene.
"Exactly," said Baird. "And you get to thinking of the poor old mother and little sister back here at home, working away to pay off the mortgage, and you decide to come back. You get back on a stormy night; lots of snow and wind; you"re pretty weak. We"ll show you sort of fainting as you reach the door. You have no overcoat nor hat, and your city suit is practically ruined. You got a great chance for some good acting here, especially after you get inside to face the folks. It"ll be the strongest thing you"ve done, so far."
It was indeed an opportunity for strong acting. He could see that.
He stayed late with Baird and his staff one night and a scene of the prodigal"s return to the door of the little home was shot in a blinding snow-storm. Baird warmly congratulated the mechanics who contrived the storm, and was enthusiastic over the acting of the hero. Through the wintry blast he staggered, half falling, to reach the door where he collapsed. The light caught the agony on his pale face. He lay a moment, half-fainting, then reached up a feeble hand to the k.n.o.b of the door.
It was one of the annoyances incident to screen art that he could not go in at that moment to finish his great scene. But this must be done back on the lot, and the scene could not be secured until the next day.
Once more he became the pitiful victim of a great city, crawling back to the home shelter on a wintry night. It was Christmas eve, he now learned. He pushed open the door of the little home and staggered in to face his old mother and the little sister. They sprang forward at his entrance; the sister ran to support him to the homely old sofa. He was weak, emaciated, his face an agony of repentance, as he mutely pled forgiveness for his flight.
His old mother had risen, had seemed about to embrace him fondly when he knelt at her feet, but then had drawn herself sternly up and pointed commandingly to the door. The prodigal, anguished anew at this repulse, fell weakly back upon the couch with a cry of despair. The little sister placed a pillow under his head and ran to plead with the mother. A long time she remained obdurate, but at last relented. Then she, too, came to fall upon her knees before the wreck who had returned to her.
Not many rehearsals were required for this scene, difficult though it was. Merton Gill had seized his opportunity. His study of agony expressions in the film course was here rewarded. The scene closed with the departure of the little sister. Resolutely, showing the light of some fierce determination, she put on hat and wraps, spoke words of promise to the stricken mother and son, and darted out into the night.
The snow whirled in as she opened the door.
"Good work," said Baird to Merton. "If you don"t hear from that little bit you can call me a Swede."
Some later scenes were shot in the same little home, which seemed to bring the drama to a close. While the returned prodigal lay on the couch, nursed by the forgiving mother, the sister returned in company with the New York society girl who seemed aghast at the wreck of him she had once wooed. Slowly she approached the couch of the sufferer, tenderly she reached down to enfold him. In some manner, which Merton could not divine, the lovers had been reunited.
The New York girl was followed by her father--it would seem they had both come from the hotel--and the father, after giving an order for more of Mother"s grape juice, examined the son"s patents. Two of them he exclaimed with delight over, and at once paid the boy a huge roll of bills for a tenth interest in them.
Now came the grasping man who held the mortgage and who had counted upon driving the family into the streets this stormy Christmas eve. He was overwhelmed with confusion when his money was paid from an ample h.o.a.rd, and slunk, shame-faced, out into the night. It could be seen that Christmas day would dawn bright and happy for the little group.
To Merton"s eye there was but one discord in this finale. He had known that the cross-eyed man was playing the part of hotel clerk at the neighbouring resort, but he had watched few scenes in which the poor fellow acted; and he surely had not known that this man was the little sister"s future husband. It was with real dismay that he averted his gaze from the embrace that occurred between these two, as the clerk entered the now happy home.
One other detail had puzzled him. This was the bundle to which he had clung as he blindly plunged through the storm. He had still fiercely clutched it after entering the little room, clasping it to his breast even as he sank at his mother"s feet in physical exhaustion and mental anguish, to implore her forgiveness. Later the bundle was placed beside him as he lay, pale and wan, on the couch.
He supposed this bundle to contain one of his patents; a question to Baird when the scene was over proved him to be correct. "Sure," said Baird, "that"s one of your patents." Yet he still wished the little sister had not been made to marry the cross-eyed hotel clerk.
And another detail lingered in his memory to bother him. The actress playing his mother was wont to smoke cigarettes when not engaged in acting. He had long known it. But he now seemed to recall, in that touching last scene of reconciliation, that she had smoked one while the camera actually turned. He hoped this was not so. It would mean a mistake. And Baird would be justly annoyed by the old mother"s carelessness.
CHAPTER XVI. OF SARAH NEVADA MONTAGUE
They were six long weeks doing the new piece. The weeks seemed long to Merton Gill because there were so many hours, even days, of enforced idleness. To pa.s.s an entire day, his face stiff with the make-up, without once confronting a camera in action, seemed to him a waste of his own time and a waste of Baird"s money. Yet this appeared to be one of the unavoidable penalties incurred by those who engaged in the art of photodrama. Time was needed to create that world of painted shadows, so swift, so nicely consecutive when revealed, but so incoherent, so brokenly inconsequent, so meaningless in the recording.
How little an audience could suspect the vexatious delays ensuing between, say, a knock at a door and the admission of a visitor to a neat little home where a fond old mother was trying to pay off a mortgage with the help of her little ones. How could an audience divine that a wait of two hours had been caused because a polished city villain had forgotten his spats? Or that other long waits had been caused by other forgotten trifles, while an expensive company of artists lounged about in bored apathy, or smoked, gossiped, bantered?
Yet no one ever seemed to express concern about these waits. Rarely were their causes known, except by some frenzied a.s.sistant director, and he, after a little, would cease to be frenzied and fall to loafing calmly with the others. Merton Gill"s education in his chosen art was progressing. He came to loaf with the unconcern, the vacuous boredom, the practised nonchalance, of more seasoned artists.
Sometimes when exteriors were being taken the sky would overcloud and the sun be denied them for a whole day. The Montague girl would then ask Merton how he liked Sunny Cafeteria. He knew this was a jesting term that would stand for sunny California, and never failed to laugh.
The girl kept rather closely by him during these periods of waiting. She seemed to show little interest in other members of the company, and her a.s.sociation with them, Merton noted, was marked by a certain restraint.
With them she seemed no longer to be the girl of free ways and speech.
She might occasionally join a group of the men who indulged in athletic sports on the gra.s.s before the little farmhouse--for the actors of Mr.
Baird"s company would all betray acrobatic tendencies in their idle moments--and he watched one day while the simple little country sister turned a series of hand-springs and cart-wheels that evoked sincere applause from the four New York villains who had been thus solacing their ennui.
But oftener she would sit with Merton on the back seat of one of the waiting automobiles. She not only kept herself rather aloof from other members of the company, but she curiously seemed to bring it about that Merton himself would have little contact with them. Especially did she seem to hover between him and the company"s feminine members. Among those impersonating guests at the hotel were several young women of rare beauty with whom he would have been not unwilling to fraternize in that easy comradeship which seemed to mark studio life. These were far more alluring than the New York society girl who wooed him and who had secured the part solely through Baird"s sympathy for her family misfortunes.
They were richly arrayed and charmingly mannered in the scenes he watched; moreover, they not too subtly betrayed a pleasant consciousness of Merton"s existence. But the Montague girl noticeably monopolized him when a better acquaintance with the beauties might have come about. She rather brazenly seemed to be guarding him. She was always there.
This very apparent solicitude of hers left him feeling pleasantly important, despite the social contacts it doubtless deprived him of. He wondered if the Montague girl could be jealous, and cautiously one day, as they lolled in the motor car, he sounded her.
"Those girls in the hotel scenes--I suppose they"re all nice girls of good family?" he casually observed.
"Huh?" demanded Miss Montague, engaged with a pencil at the moment in editing her left eyebrow. "Oh, that bunch? Sure, they all come from good old Southern families--Virginia and Indiana and those places." She tightened her lips before the little mirror she held and renewed their scarlet. Then she spoke more seriously. "Sure, Kid, those girls are all right enough. They work like dogs and do the best they can when they ain"t got jobs. I"m strong for "em. But then, I"m a wise old trouper. I understand things. You don"t. You"re the real country wild rose of this piece. It"s a good thing you got me to ride herd on you. You"re far too innocent to be turned loose on a comedy lot.
"Listen, boy--" She turned a sober face to him--"the straight lots are fairly decent, but get this: a comedy lot is the toughest place this side of the bad one. Any comedy lot."
"But this isn"t a comedy lot. Mr. Baird isn"t doing comedies any more, and these people all seem to be nice people. Of course some of the ladies smoke cigarettes--"