"You're right, Charlie. I will."
So they went to Yuma. After some weeks I got a telegram. "Home on Friday. Love. Nick and Linda." Soon afterwards came another. "Confidential. Can you possibly outline alternative script? Western, South Sea, or other simple natural background. Repeat confidential. Nick."
After some thought I drafted a rather humorous farm story, of the sort that made Mabel Normand in the good old days. I thought it would hardly appeal to Belinda, but I was under contract. Orders were orders.
I was at the airport to meet them. Linda alighted first, and was at once seized on by the press. I heard the words husband, doggies, cookies.
"Charles," whispered Mahound. "A word in your ear. Have you got that outline? That rough script?"
"Yes. I've got it. What's the matter? Are you stalling on the real battle-ships?"
"Charles, she wants the real New York."
"Well! Well! Well! Never mind. I've got a farm story. She can have real striped stockings."
"She thinks big, Charles. She may feel it rather a letdown after the real New York."
"Don't worry. You go off to the hotel. Everything's fixed up for you. I'll look in after supper."
Late that evening I went round to see them. Something told me that all was not harmony in the romantic mnage. Mahound was frowning over a heap of bills.
"You've bought a lot of rather impressive orchids, Charles," said he, in a worried tone.
"Nothing's too good for you and Linda," said I, smiling. "You're my best friends in pictures."
"Yes, but it all goes down on the expense account"
"There you go again, dear!" cried Linda. "He's got all mean, Charlie. He says he can't afford to buy me New York. For the bombardment scene. Where I save it. I can't act in front of a lot of paste-board, Charlie. You tell him."
"There's something in that, Nick," said I. "Still, listen, Linda, I've got a new script for you. The part's sort of lovable. Farm. Birds singing. Real birds. Hens, too. You come in scattering the corn. With comedy stockings on. Real stockings. Real comedy."
"Nick, is this just a bad joke, to welcome me home?"
"Now, listen, honey," said Nick. "Give the writer a chance. He's put his life's blood into this story. Go on, Charlie."
"That's true, Linda. There's smiles and tears in this script"
"Smiles?"
"Where you get a sock in the puss with a custard pie. A real . . ."
"Say. What have you got lined up for me next? A burlesque act? I'm out. I'm through."
"Joan of Arc started on a farm, honey."
"Joan of Arc never got no custard pie."
"She got worse than that, milking the cows, sweetie," said Nick. "I was there. I fixed it."
"What do you mean, you were there?" cried Belinda. "Are you starting in lying to me already? I'll fly to Reno. No, I won't, though. Don't forget what you put in my contract, out in Yuma. I've got to O.K. every script."
"Well, sweetie, Charles'll write you one you'll really like. Maybe where you're a young girl, mad to get on the stage. Then you can do your Juliet speech at a party. Where there's a big producer."
"No, he won't"
"Yes, he will."
"No, he won't. That's flat."
"Yes, he will," said Mahound. "A lovely script. A part that'll make you drive the whole world crazy. The real world. Won't you, Charles?"
"Well, as a matter of fact," said I, "I won't"
"What?"
"Look at the clock. Didn't you hear it strike twelve?"
"What of it?"
"Well, Nick," said I, "it's two months. Today but now it's yesterday my first option came up for renewal. I'm afraid you've let it slip by. I'm free!"
"Hell! I could sink through the floor!"
"Nicky, you got to sign a writer who'll put me in New York. And parts for my doggies."
"Your doggies are dead," I told her. "They ate your cookies."
"Ow! Charlie! My doggies!"
"I could sink through the floor!" muttered Nick. "To slip up on an option!"
"Yeah," said I. "You've slipped. Sink away!"
"I will, too," cried he, stamping his foot.
And with that he seized Belinda, and, WHOOSH, they were gone through the floor.
I chose one of the smaller orchids for a button hole, and went off to a night-club. Next day I returned to Malibu.
WET SATURDAY
It was July. In the large, dull house they were imprisoned by the swish and the gurgle and all the hundred sounds of rain. They were in the drawing-room, behind four tall and weeping windows, in a lake of damp and faded chintz.
This house, ill-kept and unprepossessing, was necessary to Mr. Princey, who detested his wife, his daughter, and his hulking son. His life was to walk through the village, touching his hat, not smiling. His cold pleasure was to recapture snapshot memories of the infinitely remote summers of his childhood coming into the orangery and finding his lost wooden horse, the tunnel in the box hedge, and the little square of light at the end of it. But now all this was threatened his austere pride of position in the village, his passionate attachment to the house and all because Millicent, his cloddish daughter Millicent, had done this shocking and incredibly stupid thing. Mr. Princey turned from her in revulsion and spoke to his wife.
"They'd send her to a lunatic asylum," he said. "A criminal-lunatic asylum. We should have to move away. It would be impossible."
His daughter began to shake again. "I'll kill myself," she said.
"Be quiet," said Mr. Princey. "We have very little time. No time for nonsense. I intend to deal with this." He called to his son, who stood looking out of the window. "George, come here. Listen. How far did you get with your medicine before they threw you out as hopeless?"
"You know as well as I do," said George.
"Do you know enough did they drive enough into your head for you to be able to guess what a competent doctor could tell about such a wound?"
"Well, it's a it's a knock or blow."
"If a tile fell from the roof? Or a piece of the coping?"
"Well, guv'nor, you see, it's like this "
"Is it possible?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Oh, because she hit him several times."
"I can't stand it," said Mrs. Princey.
"You have got to stand it, my dear," said her husband. "And keep that hysterical note out of your voice. It might be overheard. We are talking about the weather. If he fell down the well, George, striking his head several times?"
"I really don't know, guv'nor."
"He'd have had to hit the sides several times in thirty or forty feet, and at the correct angles. No, I'm afraid not. We must go over it all again. Millicent."
"No! No!"
"Millicent, we must go over it all again. Perhaps you have forgotten something. One tiny irrelevant detail may save or ruin us. Particularly you, Millicent. You don't want to be put in an asylum, do you? Or be hanged?
They might hang you, Millicent. You must stop that shaking. You must keep your voice quiet. We are talking of the weather. Now."
"I can't. I . . . I . . ."
"Be quiet, child. Be quiet." He put his long, cold face very near to his daughter's. He found himself horribly revolted by her. Her features were thick, her jaw heavy, her whole figure repellently powerful. "Answer me," he said. "You were in the stable?"
"Yes."
"One moment, though. Who knew you were in love with this wretched curate?"
"No one. I've never said a "
"Don't worry," said George. "The whole god-damned village knows. They've been sniggering about it in the Plough for three years past."
"Likely enough," said Mr. Princey. "Likely enough. What filth!" He made as if to wipe something off the backs of his hands. "Well, now, we continue. You were in the stable?"