Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1940)

^w^ &€m, *^Wy £?tm/ to free Ireland, and Dermot's admiration for the man caused him to plan to send Rory the next year to live with the Donnelly s and under Kevin's tutelage take up the fight. Maggie was the same age as Oliver and Rory, a serious grey-eyed child so like Rory that it seemed inevitable even then that some day they should marry. PART III NF.T ,T ,TF, was warmer in her manner towards me these days. I was forty. She was a year older. We had been married for nineteen years. Each of us realized the limitations of that companionship. Nothing had ever set it on fire; nothing had given it glory. During the last couple of years its comfortableness had deepened. I think perhaps Nellie was glad to have me to herself. Dermot and Sheila had gone to five in London, taking Eileen with them. Maeve was playing her first part in a London theater. I hadn't seen her in it. I should have to run up to town soon. Her work, when I had seen her once or twice with the Mary Latter Company in Manchester, had surprised and thrilled me. Rory was in Dublin. I knew less of him than of the others. He had written occasionally to Oliver, but now Oliver was away at school, so I didn't see even the letters. An inexpressible sadness settled upon me. I felt that a phase of my life was ended. Oliver gone. The one family in Manchester that had meant anything to me gone. Nellie was still there, sensing my trouble, being maternal. Prowling about, restless as a beast in a zoo cage, fiddling with this and that, I knew suddenly that I would write no more novels about Manchester. I wanted to leave the place; I wanted to go to London. Maeve was growing up. Time I thought about that play I'd always promised to write for her. The corners of the room were full of shadow and I was ruminating in my easy chair when I heard Nellie's voice calling from downstairs: "William! Can you spare a moment?" I went down and found her in the hall with a big gaunt parson, the Rev. W. Wilson Wintringham. It appeared that there had been a breakdown in transport arrangements. The Rev. W. Wilson Wintringham had to get home that night and the car which was to take him to the railway station at Wilmslow had not appeared. "I thought if you were not busy tonight — " Nellie appealed. I got out the car — an open four-seater — and off we went. The train drew in as we reached the platform. A moment later we were watching the red taillight receding in the dusk. We came through Cheadle and turned left into the road that led straight home. I gave the car an extra turn of speed. And there, strolling in the moonlight, came two lovers, oblivious of all save themselves. Oblivious of the car, until the sudden blaze of headlights wrenched them back to the world of sense. Then they stood stock-still, while my heart cried: "Oh, poor young fools! Leap! Backwards or forwards. But leap!" and Nellie's hand went to her mouth, smothering a cry. They did not leap. They dithered now forward, now backward. On me, then, the decision fell, and I drove the car full pelt between them and the hedge at the side of the road. There was a tearing of :hrubs and saplings, a sudden remembrance, piercing me like a knife, that the hedge hid a sharply tailing bank, the car sliding with us beneath it for a little way, then coming to a standstill. I raised my arms, trying foolishly to lift the weight that oppressed us; I tried to move my legs, and agony forced a cry from me; I called: "Nellie! Nellie! Are you all right?" but there was no answer, no sound at all, except the sound of men shouting and of hands rasping on the fabric of the car as it was seized and lifted. A fractured thigh for me. A broken neck for Nellie. They said she must have died instantly. A Statement was taken from me in the hospital, but I could not attend the inquest. Dermot made the formal identification. Dermot and Sheila arranged and attended the funeral in the Southern Cemetery. It was a long time before I saw the grave. Early in the new year I hobbled out of the nursing home, whither I had gone from the hospital. My new car was waiting for me, with a chauffeur at the wheel. mot had told me how to find the grave amid that afflicting wilderness of graves, and it was with a shock that my eyes fell pro ontly upon the mound of clay where Nellie lay sleeping beneath the sodden remnants of the flowers that pity had heaped for concealment of the crude fact of burial. 1 HAT was a Saturday afternoon. There was a letter waiting for me at the nursing home when I got back. "Dear Uncle Bill"— I glanced at the signature— "Maeve." She was corning to see me tomorrow. "And you've got two things to thank for the pleasure — first, Livia; and, secondly, the intelligent management of this theater which doesn't put the phiy on on Mori'l ty Thi t givi U I ] I Ion • week end. Livia is dying to meet you. She's read all your books, and I don t think she quite belii > that I know you. How wonderful to be a Person, whom mere people want to know! However, I live in hopes. It'll come!" Livia. . . That would be the girl Dermot had told me about when he was up for the funeral, Maeve's roommate in London. There was no more said at the time. Livia Vaynol, I'd gathered, was not much older than Maeve — twenty or so. She was an orphan with a little money; just enough to allow her to contemplate with humor a series of failures. She had scrounged a small part in the Mary Latter Company. That was where Maeve had met her. But she was not good enough. Then she had been in the chorus of a musical comedy and had hated it and left. She had dabbled with writing. She had, indeed, had a few short stories published in magazines. Now she was trying both to compose songs and to do what Sheila vaguely called "designing." "You know," she said, "she just draws shapes — squiggles— that look as if they meant something. Dermot says they're good." Well, that was Miss Livia Vaynol; that was all I knew about her. JYlY dear, what a woman you are!" Maeve had come impetuously into the room. Crippled as I was, I couldn't get up quickly, and she stood looking down at me, holding both my hands in hers, as I sat in my chair, then turned eagerly at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. "Livia!" She opened the door, and Livia Vaynol came in. "This is Uncle Bill," said Maeve, "or, if you want to be reverent, William Essex." As she came into the room Livia Vaynol pulled off a leather motoring-helmet and at the same time shook her hair free from constriction. I think that hair, which had its own startling quality of vitality, was the first thing anyone noticed about Livia Vaynol. It was the color of corn, a gold that was almost white, yet sparkling and gathering to itself any light there was. The sudden apparition of that golden hair was so immediately impressive that I did not at once notice the broad white brow, the eyes that had the blue color of a cornflower, the compassionate mouth, and the way the whole face was shaped like the petal of a rose. She was wearing a stained leather jerkin, and below that a tweed skirt and brogues. Her clothes seemed altogether too utilitarian for so decorative a person. We shook hands, and I said: "Miss Vaynol. you look like a fine flower in a jam jar." "I've brought a suitcase with me," she said, "containing one or two porcelain vases." Her red mouth opened in a smile, revealing the even whiteness of her teeth. That afternoon I left the nursing home and returned to The Beeches. For the first time since I had left it to drive to Wilmslow with Nellie and the Rev. W. Wilson Wintringham, I sat in my study. The girls were to share the bedroom that Nellie and I had used for so long. They were there changing now. I could hear them laughing and talking, then the bedroom door opened, and Livia came out alone. I tried to get up, but at that moment she saw me, crossed the room, and placed both hands on my shoulders. I think she must have felt the tremor which passed through me. She smiled, and said: "Please— don't get up." She crossed over to the fireplace. The bookcase that Dermot had made to contain my novels was over the fireplace. They were all there now. The latest — the twelfth — had arrived a few days before, but it was not yet published. Livia ran her slender fingers along the titles. "What lovely editions!" she said. "I know them all." And then, turning towards me: "I'm really very proud to know you. I suppose a lot of people tell you that?" "Not many. I don't know many people." She sat down in a chair facing mine and crossed one knee over the other, and considered me thoughtfully. Her regard was so calm and inscrutable that I wondered whether I was blushing like a schoolgirl. Presently she said: "When I put my hands on your shoulders just now, you trembled. Why was that?" What answer I should have made I do not know. But at that moment the bedroom door opened. Livia put a finger to her lips and whispered: "Here's Maeve!" There was something conspiratorial about the gesture, that gave me a queer thrill of pleasure. "You're lucky to have two such handsome wenches to take to dinner, Uncle Bill," Maeve said. "Nothing like it will be seen in Manchester this night," I said. "Get your cloaks and let's be off." We had not gone far when something familiar in the appearance of a cyclist who shot past us, head down, hatless, struck me. At the same moment Maeve's grip on my arm tightened and she exclaimed: "Uncle Bill! Wasn't that Oliver?" I told Martin to turn back home. Oliver stood under the light in the hall, his face pale and drawn, his golden hair wind-blown about his forehead. He was wearing no hat or overcoat, and his clothes were mud-splashed. He was altogether a dreadful apparition. He thrust his hands into the jacket pockets and grinned at us rather sheepishly. "Hallo, Dad! Hallo, Maeve!" he said. "I feel rather — ashamed. You all look so gay." "This is Miss Vaynol," I said. "My son Oliver." The formality of it struck me as absurd. Oliver and Livia Vaynol looked steadily at one another, and I had a strange feeling of exclusion — that Maeve and I were both excluded — from that regard. "Oliver," I said, "your presence requires some explanation." I took him by the arm, and led him towards the stairs. At the turn of the landing I paused and looked down. Livia Vaynol stood as if rooted to the ground, watching Oliver's dragging progress. He smiled down at her, but she did not return the smile. "That's a marvelous girl, Dad," he said as he came into the room. "Sit down," I said, unable to keep irritation out of my voice. "Would you rather discuss now what has brought you home, or wait till the morning?" "I'm very tired," he said. "I've been riding for hours." "Hadn't you better go straight to bed?" "I'm very hungry," he said, "and I'd like a bath." "Then you'd better have a bath quickly, and come with us. We're going out to dinner." "Oh, may I?" he cried. "I didn't expect that. That's very good of you." While he was bathing I talked with the headmaster by telephone. I told him that Oliver was at home, and begged him to excuse discussion of a grave matter by telephone. I would bring Oliver to school myself in the morning. The headmaster sounded grim, and reluctantly he left it at that. The girls were hovering, restless and disturbed, in my study. "What a beautiful boy!" Livia exclaimed. "Don't waste your sympathy on him," said Maeve with sudden sharpness, and took my hands in hers. "You poor darling," she said. "I do hope it's nothing serious. Oh, dear! I couldn't have a moment's peace with Oliver. Forgive me for saying that?" I nodded, squeezed her hands, and gazed rather miserably into the fire. We said nothing more, just sat there, till Oliver came into the room. With the happy ability of the young, he had recovered his poise and his looks. He at once addressed Livia as though there were no one else in the room. "Father says I can come out to dinner with you!" She did not answer him, but said to the rest of us: "Well, shall we go?" At nine the next morning I went to Oliver's room. He was sitting up in bed, eating with great heartiness. I feared to open the matter which had brought me there. Oliver did not help me. He went on delving into the shell of a brown egg. "Well—?" I began lamely. "It was Grimshaw," he said. "I've told you about him. I don't like him. His father's a butcher." "You should feel at home with him, seeing that your father was a baker's boy." "He's always getting at me." "Getting at you? As I remember him, he's a small weak boy." "Yes, that's it. He thinks no one will hit him. Well, he was getting at me again, and I saw red, and before I knew what I was doing I kicked him — " "You kicked that poor wretched child?" Oliver burst out explosively. "I didn't mean to. It's the way he gets at me. We were standing at the top of some steps — I kicked him in the shin and he went backward down the steps. He lay quite still at the bottom of the steps." I felt sick, took the tray off the bed to give myself something to do, and then sat down again. "Well, everybody came crowding up. They took him into the san., and old Foxey" — who was Fox the headmaster — "went tearing along there. I hadn't moved off the steps, and when Foxey came back he said as he passed me: 'Come to my study in ten minutes.' I couldn't face it. That's all." "I see. That's all. Without knowing whether Grimshaw was alive or dead, you cleared out." (But I didn't imagine there was much the matter with him, or Fox would have told me on the phone.) "But you do believe, don't you," he pleaded, "that I just acted thoughtlessly?" "I must believe that, if you say so." "And you won't tell Livia what happened?" "I should be ashamed to," I said. "You'd better dress. We leave here at ten." m I HE interview with Fox was not easy. The fact is, you know, Mr. Essex, that Oliver thinks he's somebody. What I mean," he continued, "is that Oliver seems to assume, because he is the son of a distinguished man, that he may, shall I say, take it out of a boy less fortunately circumstanced." "I entirely disagree," I said. "I don't think that has anything to do with it. Don't let's get all wrapped up in theories about it. The facts are simple: There's a boy with an annoying tongue; Oliver couldn't stand his tongue, lost his temper, and kicked him. Now, whatever the provocation, it is agreed that kicking is a dirty trick, and what to me seemed worse was running away without discovering what were the consequences of the kick." "As you know, they were fortunately light. A bruised shin, a superficial head-cut, a brief fainting." We were interrupted by a knock at the door. It was the father of young Grimshaw. He was a sturdy hale-looking chap, and I gathered the impression that he was a better man than his son was likely to be. He shook hands with me. "Ah've bin talking to yon young beggar of mine," he an 36 >?0^^^^