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Photo-Play Journal
PEGGY HYLAND
IN THE FIRELIGHT
By HELEN CLARK
IT was altogether fitting and proper that Peggy Hyland should invite me to tea when I asked if she could give me some of her time that I might interview her, when you remember her nationality — and as we sipped the tea and enjoyed the toasted muffins which were served before the huge fireplace in the living-room of her California home, I found myself thinking of her in that great gabled countryhouse in which she spent her girlhood in England.
At first she took her place demurely on a wicker chaise lounge which was drawn before the fire, but from time to time the flames failed to leap quite as high as Peggy delights in seeing them and she would replenish the blaze, eventually contenting herself with a cushion on the floor.
"One feels jolly silly being interviewed, don't you know," quoth she in her very British accent — "It's quite alright for statesmen and such to express their opinions, but we're just the same as other girls and — well, I know I don't often think very wise thoughts — "
Of course I didn't contradict her. It wouldn't be policy, but somehow I take exception to her statement. There is something about her — and more than just that, about her very outlook on life in general — which excuses one in believing that she has a goodly essence of wisdom. She "gets" things so very quickly — almost before you have finished voicing them, and while she may find herself with a perspective a trifle biased now and then, that is to be expected. Youth has never achieved perfection and in its very wondering it becomes more charming — more delightful.
Next to the youngest daughter of a very conservative English family, Peggy found objections galore raised when, after completing her education in a Belgian convent, she returned to the family circle desiring a professional career. And that spirit of quiet determination and pluck is still manifest within her — it is not particularly difficult to imagine her journeying to London, establishing herself there and going out to "hunt a job." And it is like her to have been terrified when she was offered a small part and to have pleaded for a part in the chorus "just to get used to it"— and it is like her to have taken the name of a famous horse who had won many races for an alias, because the five clergymen uncles didn't want the family name of Hutchinson posted about — don't you know.
The great door stood open — dusk was slowly enveloping the hills, visible outside — and the breeze which always ushers in a California evening wafted the scent from the roses in the old-fashioned rose garden outside.
"I like to sit this way," she said rather softly, as though thinking aloud. "It seems like a benediction, don't you know — twilight — the lovely hills becoming dim with the fire here on the hearth. I missed the twilight hour the first years I was in America because I was living in either a New York hotel or apartment and it was impossible to spend the hour as I did in the days at home — somehow this reminds me of home — more."
I asked her if she expected to return to England and I saw her face brighten in the fire's glow as she answered :
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