Picturegoer (Jul-Dec 1937)

PICTUREGOER Weekly STELLA DALLAS— Continued " Darling ! You shouldn't have. You must have it all back. I don't need a fur coat. Besides, none of the girls I met at Mrs. Morrison's are allowed to have them yet." "Oh ! Tell me about Mrs. Morrison. 'What's she like ? " " She's lovely. She reminds me of a rlower I once saw — pale and delicate, and strong, too. I don't know what you call it." "Gracious, Lollie ! I don't care what kind of a flower she looks like. Ts she tall or short, dark or light, fat or thin ? How old is she ? " " She doesn't seem any special age. She's like one of those goddesses in my mythology book that way." "Well I never ! And how did your father happen to meet this goddess ? Has she a husband ? " "No, he died. Didn't I write you ? " "Dead, is he? Well, that's convenient." "No, it isn't a bit convenient, because when Mr. Morrison died he left lots of houses and horses and money, and Mrs. Morrison has to look after them all by herself. She said she wouldn't know what to do without father to help and advise her." So that was how the land lay? Stephen had never told her that, before his father's financial crash, he had wanted to marry Helen. But Stella knew quite enough to feel anxious. Self satisfaction was pierced. She saw that if she wanted to hold Stephen at all and keep Laurel, the menage must improve. By the following Christmas Eve the house was shining with cleanliness and polish and the decorated tree in the living-room. Cruel that, just as Laurel was expected, Ed should come in literally replete with the Christmas spirit and carrying an enormous turkey which he would insist on putting into the lighted gas-oven head, feet and all. She managed to keep him out of Laurel's way, when Stephen also appeared, very charming and rather apologetic. Could he take Laurel to the Morrisons' for Christmas ? His train left in an hour. While Laurel ecstatically packed a suitcase, Stephen said : — "The place looks awfully nice, Stella, and the tree. I'm afraid you had plans." " I didn't like to write about them, but I did think we'd all three be together for once in a while. You see, I knew you'd be coming to see Laurel. ..." "Of course. I'm awfully sorry now I see all you've done. It didn't occur to me before ; but why should you spend Christmas alone just because I've been thoughtless and selfish ? There must be a later train to Beacon Hill. I'll 'phone and see." His hand was on the telephone book and Stella's heart was beating faster than it had done in years when a too familiar voice was followed by the too familiar figure of Ed at the rolling stage of inebrity. She thought to have successfully pushed him out of the back door, but there he was stuttering out his satisfaction at having come back and declaring he wished he'd never brought the turkey. Stephen said little, but when Ed had staggered out, seeing, he was not wanted, he said quietly : "I'm sorry, Stella. I'm afraid the next train would be too late." Bitterness ate into her when Stephen and Laurel had gone. Later, when Stephen/ s solicitor tentatively suggested divorce proceedings in case either Stella or her husband wished to re-marry, she fiercely vetoed it. Stephen was still making her a good allowance. On it she intended, now Laurel had left school, to give her a good time at an expensive hotel. Stephen was not to be the only person to launch Laurel in good society. The hotel was chosen, but an illtimed chill kept Stella in bed for the first week of the stay. " And me with a trunk full of new clothes my skin's just itching to get next to," she moaned when Laurel, looking delightful in tennis kit, came into the bedroom with talk of a Richard Grosvenor's mother, who wanted so much to meet Mrs. Dallas. "She says she would love to come and see you while I'm at the polo this afternoon with Richard," I-aurel said. What? Mrs. Grosvenor see me for the first time in my nightgown ! No, Lollie, I couldn't; but you go to the polo. No sense in us being both cooped up. Yes, you must. Wear your blue jacket. I love you in that, and when I'm up again we'll have Mrs. Grosvenor and her Richard to dinner." An overwhelming wish to meet the mother of the boy who was obviously attracted to Laurel hastened Stella's recovery. Laurel was out cycling with a party of young people, including Richard, when Stella dressed with the intention of finding Mrs. Grosvenor somewhere in the hotel grounds. For the meeting she let imagination run riot over her favourite combination of patterned voile and white fox. An upstanding cat clinging to the back of peroxided curls, heavy makeup, bangles, kid gloves, and ornate sandals completed the effect as she strolled into the gardens, having os ktentatiously tipped a bellboy for directing her to the tennis courts. Laurel in character was growing like her father . . . she was fond of study and picture galleries . . . fastidious about her clothes. . . . Flattered at the glance of more than one guest, she covered the entire hotel premises in a fruitless search. Passing by the ice-cream bar, she failed to notice Laurel among the returned cycling party, who suspended chatter over sundaes and chocolate whips to nudge one another and look at the woman they didn't know was Laurel's mother. But Stella couldn't help seeing, as she entered the bedroom, that something was seriously wrong. " Packing, Lollie ? Why on earth?" "Mother, we're going 'home." "What's the matter? What happened ? Ah, I know ! You had a quarrel with your young man." "Mother — please ! " Stella pleaded, coaxed, cajoled, but that was all Laurel would say. Lying awake in the lower bunk of the sleeper that evening, Stella heard feminine voices. Two young women from the hotel who had boarded the train at the last moment, could be heard in the adjoining compartment discussing a late fellow-guest. "Paint an inch thick," the derisive voice pursued. "You never saw such clothes and her hair ! What a fright ! Know who she was? Laurel Dallas's mother." "Laurel Dallas! Not the pretty little girl Dick Grosvenor's been running after ? How weird for her to have such a common-looking parent. Poor thing ! She won't wear Dick Grosvenor's fraternity pin long, I'm afraid." "Not when Mrs. Grosvenor hears about it." Tears welled from Stella's eyes down her well-creamed cheeks as Laurel, in her nightgown, slipped down from the bunk above. " It's lonely up here, Mum. I want to come down here and cuddle with you," she entreated. The following week, Stella, for the first time, and a little awed by its simplicity, stood in the dignified hall of the Morrison home. She was not kept long waiting. A woman who might have answered to Laurel's description of a flower — slender, quietly dressed with smooth dark hair — came towards her. " I'm Mrs. Morrison. Won't you come in, Mrs. Dallas?" " I'm sorry to bother you, but what I have to say won't take long. I needn't sit down, really." " But we may as well be comfortable. This is my snuggery. We shan't be disturbed. It's so very warm. Won't you take off your coat? But for once Stella was not interested in revealing the result of her elaborate handiwork. Fidgeting with the ruffles of her jabot, she came hurriedly to the point : " 1 wanted to ask if — if Stephen were free — and I got a divorce like his lawyer wanted — would you two get married ? " "Mrs. Dallas, we would. I'm sorry if it's unpleasant, but I'd rather tell you the truth." "And Laurel. Would you take her. too? " "Indeed, no! I'm a mother. I could never even think of asking a woman to part from her little girl." " But if it was inconvenient for her mother to have her. I mean, there's so much Ix>llie should be doing just now. Going to parties and meeting the right people. You see, if you married Stephen your name would be Mrs. Dallas, too, and when you • went places, strangers, anyway, might think Lollie was your child. You're a mother she might be proud of. You see, I " "Of course we'll have her, but I never knew anyone so unselfish," Helen Morrison said gendly. The words comforted Stella, though they December 25, 1937 could not enable hei to break the news to Laurel. When ultimately I the child left home, it was ostensibly on a visit to her father and his oldest friends. Helen and Stephen, nowmarried, had promised to do the explaining. All day after Laurel had gone, Stella, over the pages of her magazine in the midst of a thorough disorder in the apartment which she quite refused to tidy, pictured the child and tried to imagine her receiving Helen's news. Stella, humble now, and secretly admiring Laurel's innate refinement, never imagined for one moment that the interview would result in a telegram. She read it with a pain which would allow no alleviating sweetness in the knowledge that she was preferred. "Laurel decided she would rather live with you. Expect her this afternoon." The message held only anxiety for Stella, determined as she had never been before upon the child's good. Dressing hurriedly for the street, she rang and knocked at the dooi of Ed Munn's apartment and asked to see him. The landlady took her up. Ed, recovering consciousness after a drunken doze on the bed, half -opened his eyes. "Hello, Stell ! " he murmured. "Look, I still live in the same flat. Take this cash. Get yourself a Turkish bath and a shave, and come right over. Understand ? " "I get it, Stell." She re-entered the apartment, flowers in her arms, a mask of sprightliness as well as paint on her face as she felt herself being hugged. "Mum — mummy darling ! Oh, mother ! " "Why, Lollie! Well, whatever brought you back?" "As if I could ever live without you." Stella disengaged herself from the clinging arms. "Well, now, I should have thought you'd have rather been with your father. Put these in water for me. You remember Ed\lunn. He gave them me. Fix them nicely now, before he gets here. "Mother, you don't mean that you " Laurel's eyes, from which the brightness had faded, fixed themselves on the cheap photo of Ed, above the fireplace. Stella had surreptitiously taken it fiom his mantelpiece in expectation of this moment. Laurel went into the scullery and was silent. When she came back. Stella, in the armchair, was pretending to read. "Mother," the girl began, slowly, anxiously. " Don't you remember, a long time ago. we said— and you promised that " " Lollie, all right. I know what you're driving at, but let me tell you something. I've spent the best years of my life on you, and a woman wants to be something besides a mother, you know — or you will know when you're grown up. You can't explain everything to a child. Nowrun along." The harsh words told. When Stella dared to raise her head from the pages. I .unci was gently closing the door. Ordered by a policeman to go. a woman still lingered by the railings beneath the kindly uncurtained window of the house where Mr. Richard Grosvenor was being married to Miss Laurel Dallas. "Let me see them kiss," she entreated. The last ceremonial words were spoken. Beneath the filmy cloud of her veil, the bride received the groom's kiss. "Gome on; you've seen enough. Clear the pavement." the policeman commanded. With tears in her eyes, joy and pain at her heart, Stella, the mother, moved on.