Motion Picture Classic (1923, 1924, 1926)

PAINTED PEOPLE that mama as Camille was all. she could endure by way of memory. In a sense, too, she was somewhat relieved about mama. She had looked so peaceful after she had stopped breathing. Yes, she was a little bit glad about it. Now she wouldn't ever have to feel that funny clutch at her throat when she woke in the mornings to see her mother standing before the mirror rubbing ice over her thin cheeks and muttering, "I've got to look better than this . . . I've got to . . ." Or that same cold clutch when her mother and father would interview some new ingenue and her father would pinch the girl's arm, turn her and twist her around with hands that seemed to loiter stickily over the job . . . she hadn't been able to endure the sight of her mother's face at times like that. Of course, she would miss her. She would miss her frightfully. Her mother had been sweet at times. Times when papa had been in the room every night and when no new ingenues had been forthcoming. At times like these she had really seemed to understand the afraid, hurt little heart that was Jonquil's . . . she would grab hold of her and kiss her all over her little heartshaped face and say, "You poor little kid, vou . . . you poor little kid . . ." Or she would gather her up in her lap and rock her and tell her stories about when she was a little girl at home with Grandmother Rogers in a white house that smelt of. lilacs outside and lavender inside . . . heavenstories, Jonquil thought. But, for the most part, Jonquil was glad that mama had gone, gone out of the sight of papa and the other things that hurt her. Jonquil guessed that there had been a lot of things . . . As for papa, she hated him with a sort of concentrated fury. She mixed him up with her hatred of grease-paint. She couldn't figure out whether papa was to blame for grease-paint or grease-paint was to blame for papa. She knew that she had always hated him. . Papa was known as a hail-fellow-wellmet, whatever that might mean. He had a veinous, red face and curly, reddish hair and very white teeth, one of which was gold, and big paddy-shoulders, and he wore very splendid clothes of plaids and checks. He usually was to be seen biting on a very thick, black, moist cigar. He had a loud voice, too, and louder laughter. He was always telling "funny stories," judging from the shouts of laughter that surrounded him when he was among men and the thin, knifey shrieks that surrounded him when he was among women, as he usually was. He always called women "little gull" or "darling" or "sweetheart," no matter how slightly he knew them and providing they wore sheer blouses and make-up. In some way Jonquil connected her mother's deathly pallor with her father's veinous flofidity. If papa hadn't been so red, mama wouldn't have been so pale. She remembered her father as Romeo. (Continued from page 27) And she often thought that if she had loved papa she would have felt sorrier for him as Romeo than she did for mama as Camille. There were lots of things she knew and didn't know how she knew them. Jonquil lived in a daydream world — a world of whims and fancies. She longed to be understood ^y Papa as Romeo was still florid and loud and veinous. He wpuld bellow forth in mighty tones, "Oh, wer-ould I were the ger-love upon that hand that I might ker-iss that fer-ace I" She had always wanted to laugh' and cry at the same moment. Papa going on like that, with such bulbous eyes and on his knees and everything, and mama standing over him on the balcony, looking so pale and loving. She knew that papa would tell mama to "Shut up, cant you?" in about ten minutes, and that mama would cry herself to sleep because of something connected with papa. No wonder she hated it ! It always seemed too terrible to Jonquil that mama and papa should be Romeo and Juliet. So singularly terrible. It didn't seem so bad when mama was Camille and papa was her lover. After all, when mama was dying as Camille, it was in some way connected with papa. That was as it .should be. It was his fault. It wasn't quite so silly, even tho papa did put his head down on the yellow lace covering and pretend to cry by shaking the pads in his shoulders and sniffling thru his nose the same as he did when he was shaving. Oh, well, papa . . . There were lots of memories connected with papa . . . there was that character woman who had been with the company for five years. Just at first mama had hated the woman. She had called her "that Thing" and had cried whenever she saw papa with her. Then, toward the end, mama had become sort of friendly with her, and Jonquil had come on them once with their heads together, crying . . . sharing . . . something . . . One dreadful night after the evening performance the character woman had come into their room and had shrieked dreadful things at papa. She had seemed to put herself in the same place with mama and had said something about both of them being "poor dupes" and "discards" and other strange, hideous names. Miss del Riaz had been the woman's name. Jonquil had never liked her very much. She had always grabbed hold of her and kissed her, and her arms had been convulsive and her kisses sticky and thick. After that scene, Miss del Riaz had been seen no more, and mama had warned Jonquil not to mention her "in front of papa.'' Jonquil knew that mama and papa hated one another and she often thought that mama was a very good actress indeed not to hit him across the face when he was trying to be Romeo and smirking at her so that his gold tooth glinted quite beautifully. Jonquil had had little parts to do. now and then. A child in "East Lynne" . . . Little Eva . . . pale, precocious little creatures. Mama had told her that she must always "enter into her characters," and she had tried hard. When she was Little Eva, she could never manage to die very sadly, because she couldn't seem to feel that there was anything so very sad about dying. One died and went away amidst a throng of fresh flowers and people dressed up in their Sunday best and was laid away in a field all neat and clean. Papa always said, after a performance, "The kid's got no temperament . . . she takes after the Rogers, I guess." Papa didn't know it, but when he said that, Jonquil came as near as she ever came to liking him. "Takes after the Rogers ..." Oh, if she only did! If only . . . the smell of lilacs outside and lavender inside . . . heaven . . . She usually had to cry on the stage and she felt that she did that very well. She was so frizzed and fussed and nagged before she went on that she felt like crying, anyway, and it was a real relief to be able to do so without having her ears boxed. Of course, the audiences usually laughed at her just in the wrong places, and that meant that papa would slap her when she came off, but she was so glad to get off that she didn't mind the slap. Mama usually said that she had "done fine." And mama was the best judge . . . having been a Rogers. Mama often told her that she was getting "good training" and that some of these fine days she would play on Broadway ami have her name up in electrics. Broadway, it would appear, was mama's idea of an earthly Paradise . . . well, she would like to see Broadway one of these days, but it wasn't Paradise . . . Paradise was where Grandmother Rogers (Continued on page 74) 68