Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1950)

Wnal t#et& mem m me wna aao Aa&t v£ mete Itm men mat /tiade Jertia^ rmwund mie-nt f /m ra auu ana / wva/m Smtmev io c/eefiw? Very softly, Walter Manning came out of the bedroom and closed the door behind him. He stood for a moment, staring down the dark stairway, but he did not move toward it to descend. He had no wish, any longer, to run away from the problem that he had just left in the room behind him. Now, he knew, it must be faced; there could be no more running away. His study downstairs, the typewriter at which he had so often lately tapped in a pretense of working — they must no longer be counted on for escape. This was the gravest crisis of his married life, the life he had shared with Portia; the lie he had just told her might mean the end of that life. Now he must face the whole thing, decide once and for all what kind of man he was, and was going to be. The whole thing — the thing that had started when his brother Christopher, whom he hadn't seen for twenty years, had rung the bell last week . . . Oh — wait a minute, Walter told himself roughly. Let's not begin by lying all over again. Christopher's coming made a difference — but not all the difference. You were in trouble before that. You were feeling yourself to be a failure before Christopher came along to measure himself against you — his glamorous, much-traveled background, his world-wide reputation in his field, his wonderful clothes and the hand-made shoes that had all Parkerstown discreetly gaping; and his warm, brilliant personality. It had started months before— It was so easy for a writer to see himself as a failure. One story that didn't sell, and there you were. Walter knew that he could write now as well as ever — better, in fact. But there had been that one thing that came back from Jonathan Hale, his New York agent, with .a short note saying that it wasn't "up to form." And after that, glum depression from which, try as he might, he could not pull himself. Portia's attempts to cheer him up had merely irritated him, making him conscious that she understood what he was going through and wanted to help. He didn't want help. He only wanted her to go on looking up to him, treating him as a successful, creative human being who never needed help. Once, just a short time before, he had been such a person. They'd even said so in Hollywood, hadn't they? And when you were successful there, you really were way up on top. Well — he'd been there once, hadn't he? Walter Manning, brilliant author of "Challenge." Walter Manning at the Brown Derby with the star of his new picture . . . and so on and so on. He'd had it all. Portia had had it all, too — the excitement, the money, the big-time thrill of achievement. He wasn't just a small-town hack who couldn't sell his stuff. He was Walter Manning, who'd done it once — and would do it again. It was a happy thing for the Mannings that little Shirley came along when she did. Occupied with the new baby, Portia had less time to hover — as he secretly expressed it — over Walter. Even though Miss Daisy, the housekeeper, took partial charge of Shirley, Portia and everyone else in the house had the infant's well-being, schedule, activities, her new and exciting presence, constantly in mind. Even young Dickie, who'd had a bit of a struggle taking into his heart a baby sister instead of the brother he'd naturally expected, now found her irresistible. And Walter had set to work at his typewriter with a fresh and fierce conviction that now, surely now — for (Continued on page 96) CHALLENGE ftCfsi/x RADIO MIRROR READER BONUS Portia Faces Life is heard M-F at 5:15 P.M., EST, over NBC stations, sponsored by Jell-O. 65