Motion Picture Classic (1923, 1924, 1926)

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And a Girl's Escape From Herself |iiil had had scene shifters 01 juveniles 01 charactei men .is tem|>oran and evei shifting nursemaids. Ton .jtiil hail subsisted upon fried food, skim milk and folli m order to attain to that creature comfort known as "l full stomach." It was in the role of Camille that Jonquil best 01 -t remembered her mother. It had been hei mother's rite part "1 understand, Catnillc," her mother had I "I become one with her it i ^ my hope thai I •.hall some da) be recognized as having given one <>t the world's greatest Cainilles to the theater." Jonquil remembered sitting one night in the scant audi . yawning awa\ the time until her mother should have ■1 Comities highly emotional departure from the flesh. \ man next to her smiled at her unabashed yawns and said, "Dont blame you . . . that woman is the world's worst Camille ... 1 congratulate her. I thought I had the gamut." Jonquil had felt like crying. Her mother would have l>een so hurt. Still, he had said that he congratulated her, too. Grown-ups said such mixy things. Congratulate meant something nice. A more prominent part, a raise in salary, a week's stand. Something like that. Lillian and I'ercival f)e \ ere were the owners and proprietors of a second-rate stock compan) playing two-night stands in thud 1 towns, Now and then the) had a lummei engi but it Was Onl) now and then Thej played a catholii and comprehensive repertoire I heir repertoire was a great point of pride with them Jonquil had, among her hazier memories of her mother, visions ot her m tulle and butterfly wings, a golden ( olumbint; or again as a languid Juliet lying in a stiffly composed nightdress upon a nightmarish catafalque made of papier mache. ( >r, again, as the dismal ( amilh dis mails expiring in her best nightgown which had been dul) washed and hjMg to * 1 1 > in their hedroom each night be tore the performance of Camille, Perhaps, after all. Jonquil's most potent memory of mother was the last one. She never seemed able '"in pletly to efface it. Years later, in the shadow w >rld, this memory would recur to her. the realest thing in the unreal world. And yet she was never quite able to distinguish as to whether it had actually happened in one of their hotel rooms or whether it had been a singularly poignant performance on the stage. Possibly it had been another one of those times in the best nightgown or on the papier mache catafalque. She felt sure of the best nightgown, at any rate And it must have been in the hotel room because her memory did not conjure up any footlights, but merely the dirty gray wash of early mouning. Anyway, her mother had been lying on something or other clad in the best nightgown and breathing more and more heavily with every difficult breath. Jonquil had called her and she hadn't answered— only breathed harder than ever — and then, all at once, she hadn't breathed at all. She had been terribly still. The lace on her breast hadn't stirred even when a puff of icy wind came from nowhere at all and played about the bed. Jonquil had supposed her sleeping and had slipped out of the room and had gone downstairs to breakfast. She remembered thinking that she would bring her mother something on a tray. Her mother loved to have breakfast brought to her on a tray. She had said that it made her feel "refined." And then they could 'still catch the train. . . . Papa had not been in their room all night but he came in to breakfast while Jonquil was having hers. Jonquil had known that he would he "mad" because mama wasn't up and had hastily told him that mama would surely make the train but that she was so tired she hadn't even breathed and that she was going to take her some breakfast on a tray. . . . Papa had glared at her and she had noticed that his eyes were redder than usual and had thought how horridly his lower lip hung down, almost as tho it were going to drop sloppily off. But it had never hung so low as when she had said that mama wasn't breathing. Papa had turned and left the room when she said that, which was strange, because he never did anything, certainly nothing for mama, until he had eaten himself. She supposed that mama was going to "get it" harder than ever and the thought took away whatever flavor there might have been to the cold bacon ami storage eg Jonquil never saw her mother again. They had wanted her to look at her when she was lying in her coffin but she had cried and begged them not to make her. She had felt (Continued on page 68) 27