Modern Screen (Dec 1934 - Nov 1935)

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"My first romance," she said, "was, of course, absolutely different from my dreams. I was at a dinner dance given by some friends in Calcutta. It was almost my first public appearance. During the course of the evening, as I was dancing, I happened to look up just in time to catch a fleeting glance of a tall, fair chap in polo clothes, rather dishevelled. He stood there, glared about him for an instant and disappeared. It never occurred to me that he'd been glaring at me. Why should it? I'd never laid eyes on him before. I forgot all about the incident until, half an hour later, I found myself being introduced to him. "We went into the garden. An Indian moon was low in the sky. There was that. But certainly," Merle laughed, "there was none of the silent, suffering reticence I've dreamed about. For he said to me instantly, 'I am in love with you. I have been for months. I'm returning to England in a few days. Will you marry me?' "I thought at first that he was mad. Then I thought that he was fooling me. I looked at his eyes and knew that he was not. He was quite sane. And completely in earnest. I told him that I didn't understand— how could he be in love with me when we'd met less than five minutes IT appeared that he'd seen me around, here and there. He said that it had been love at first sight. That flattered me ! He said he'd been trying everywhere to get an introduction to me. He'd made a practise of doing just what he had done that night — he'd barge in on places, look them over to see if I were there and then vanish. This time he had dashed in, had seen me, had gone home to dress and there he was !" Merle said, remembering, "I didn't fall in love with him at first sight. It would be more romantic to say that I did but these are my real romances, no fiction allowed ! I was startled. I was impressed. But my dreams had not prepared me for anything so masterful, so matter-of-fact. Such, I thought, was not the way of the poets. And then he left for England, all nice and broken-hearted, and then I knew. Immediately he sailed I knew that I was in love with him. In love for the first time. And I had a beautiful time, writing very bad poetry, languishing, suffering exquisitely. And when, a few weeks later, my uncle's leave fell due I begged him to take me home to England with him. On the trip home, Merle confessed, her dreams of Nicky were slightly involved with her secret ambition to go on the stage. She rather fancied herself as an actress. "On that journey," said Merle, "I spent my time visualizing myself as a sort of composite Shearer and Garbo one moment and as the wife of Nicky, in an English garden, the next. And then there he was, meeting me. We were both very young and very much in love. I was sixteen. He was twenty-one. And not a shilling between us. Both of our families were very violent, indeed, on the subject of early marriage. It was all very young, and, we thought, so very tragic. There were dozens of desperate farewellsforever and more rushing together again and crying, We can't stand this!' Then I began to meet people who said, 'You really should be on the stage, my dear.' And I thought so myself. And so, om page 37) gradually, painfully, Nicky and I drifted apart." MERLE remained in London. Her uncle left her there, reluctantly, with a little money and a great deal of independence. She heard that the H. M. V. Film Company of London was holding an audition at the Cafe de Paris and attended the audition with the hope of being "discovered." She was not discovered. But she did land a job at the Cafe as one of the hostesses. And there . . . "Second romance came to me there," said Merle, "he was an older man, a foreigner, of Austrian birth. He was charming, sophisticated, clever, mysterious. He made me feel as I had dreamt I would feel when love should come to me. Sort of sacred and set apart. I knew that I was in love again because I was tragically unhappy when I was not with him and curiously unhappy when I was. With Nicky it had all been clear and plain and evident. I'd known what he was all about. With this man there was something I didn't understand. There were things he didn't say. Months went by. Merle had begun to work in the studios. One day a friend of hers said to her, casually, "Since when have you taken to going out with married men?" Merle told me, "I can remember now how my heart stopped beating. I thought, 'He is going to pronounce a sentence of death on love.' I didn't dare ask him whom he meant. I knew. And I didn't want to know. "And that," said Merle, "was my first contact with disillusionment. It's very hard to bear at seventeen." "I suppose," said Merle, laughing a little, "fiction writers would call my first romance 'Young Romance' and my second, 'Married-Man Romance.' And now comes one which would be titled, I'm sure, 'The Romantic Friendship.' BECAUSE," said Merle, "if you have read the daily papers, Miss Hall, you know all about the rumors of an engagement between me and David Niven ; I've never made any statement about this. No one has asked me to. But I make one now : There is no engagement. There is no romance in the literal sense of the word. It has been hinted that we are in love, that we may be married any day now and so on. Here is the real truth : I was awfully lonely and homesick when I first came to Hollywood. It was a dream come true, just to be here, but even a dream come true can be a chilly thing when there is no "home'' person to share it with you. David is a home person. I'd met him a few times at home in England. Then he came to Hollywood. He's gay and amusing and clever. We speak the same language. "We are friends, David and I. We are not about to announce our engagement. We've never even discussed the state of marriage. "I'm not being 'clever' about this. I'm not being cagey and secretive. When, if ever, I fall madly and really in love I shall be the first to announce it to the world. Frankly. Proudly. And I'll give up gladly my work, my career, my entire scheme of living for love and home and marriage. But that day has not yet come. Nor that man. And we have completely jolly and satisfying times together, David and I. But the name we give it is friendship — not love." 98