Screenland (May-Oct 1941)

"But I'm going crazy!" Jonathan protested. "The bishop thinks I'm playing around, Gloria is furious, and that girl is upstairs with the necklace." "It's perfectly all right," Harvey bridled in a way which showed Jonathan beyond any doubt at all that the girl was twining the doctor around her finger, just the way she had old Reynolds. "It's back in the safe and you're not going up there." Jonathan started to say something, then stopped as his father's laugh drifted down to him. It was amazing how close it came to being that old remembered boisterous boom. If the girl meant that much to him he'd just have to wait until she got his father really well again. Anne should have hung out her own shingle, that's how good she was. Why, she was being a better M. D. than Harvey, simply by helping old Reynolds disobey his orders. It seemed awful to her that Reynolds should be refused a cigar when he wanted one so badly and so she sneaked down to the library and got one out of his humidor. "Remember, only ten puffs," she said, looking at him anxiously, even though he did seem to improve right after that first long, luxurious pull. "That's eight !" "No, it was seven." Old Reynolds winked at her. "But if you think I'm wrong, I'll start all over again." "Oh, no, you don't !" Anne chuckled. "We agreed on ten puff's and that's all you're going to get." "Are you calling me a liar for one puff?" Reynolds demanded as she took the cigar away. He was plainly sulking as he turned away from her and began reading some of the messages the butler had just left with him. And then Anne felt as if she had been sent spinning through space as he mentioned the name signed to one. "Stokowski !" she repeated in a hushed voice. "He's a friend of yours?" "Oh, I know him," Reynolds said testily. "But we don't agree on Brahms." "You mean you talk to him?" Anne persisted in that same awed way. "Not about Brahms !" Reynolds said with a note of finality. "He comes here when he's in town." "I'd love to meet him the next time he comes," Anne rushed on breathlessly. "I've studied music. I — I might even sing for him." "For Stokowski?" Reynolds grinned and shook his head. "Oh, no. I know all about you society girlsi with time on your hands who study music. Why don't you pick on somebody else? Stokowski comes here for pleasure !" "But I'm good," Anne insisted. "It will be a pleasure." And then as he shook his head again, "Do you want me to prove it?" She went out of the room before he could answer, running down the stairs to the piano in the drawing room. But it should be nearer to the door so Reynolds could hear better and Anne looked appealingly at the two men from the museum, still waiting like the ravens in the hall outside. "Can you boys give me a hand in here?" she asked and, of course, with her smiling that way, they had to help her, though they plainly thought that she was as crazy as everyone else seemed to be in this utterly fantastic household. Then Anne began to sing and even the ravens forgot to look doleful and woebegone, as befitted their macabre calling and nodded approvingly at each other, and the doctor was tempted in too and then suddenly from upstairs came a suspicious thumping and there on the threshold stood Reynolds himself. "Beautiful, beautiful," he said smilingly. Then he saw the ravens and stiffened as he turned to Harvey. "Brought your own undertakers, eh?" he demanded. "Well, get 'em out of here ! Send 'em back to the morgue!" They might just as well go, for Reynolds certainly was no longer in the market for a death mask. That afternoon he was downstairs fully dressed and demanding steaks. "I been tampered with !" he told Anne, looking ruefully down on his clothes that hung around him in folds. "Used to have the finest waistline in town, the biggest anyhow. I've been robbed. I'll show 'em they can't do this to me. It's incredible." And he glowered as he went over to the humidor and bit off the end of a cigar, which he unsuccessfully tried to hide as young Jonathan came in. "What a girl!" Reynolds said, nodding toward Anne and hoping she would take Jonathan's attention away from the cigar. "I've never seen anyone so excited in my life just because I'm giving her a party Saturday night. She wants to meet a few of my musical friends." "A party ! Saturday night !" Jonathan faltered. He looked at Anne appalled, for he had just promised Gloria that he would have her and her mother there that evening for dinner to meet his father. It had been Gloria's idea that once his father had seen her and, of course, fallen for her charm, telling him the truth would only be a welcome surprise. But now Anne had spoiled all that. There was only one thing to do. Stop the whole farce right away. His father was well now and he could pretend that he and Anne had quarrelled and then when she was safely out of the house, he could go on with his own plans of having his father meet Gloria. But he felt like a worm when Anne agreed to the scheme. She ought to be a good sport about it, Anne thought, blinking back her tears. The whole thing had been too fantastic, right from the beginning. But it was hard, having had all this and then seeing it vanish, pouff , just like that: Jonathan, and even now she had to admit saying good-bye to him would be one of the hardest things she had ever been called upon to do, and old Reynolds, whom she adored, and Stokowski and the party and everything. The party! She stiffened at that. It wasn't only a party. It was her whole future. Why, she'd be nothing but a mouse if she let the plans for her whole life go to smash just because Jonathan was having a few uncomfortable moments. She took a deep breath and then she went into the room where Jonathan was telling his father the sad story of their quarrel. "Darling," she said, running to Jonathan with outstretched arms and feeling like a heel, even though she had promised herself that after she met Stokowski and he had become interested in her voice she would really quarrel with her supposed fiancee and leave the field open to the other girl. "Please forgive me. It was all my fault." She looked away from Jonathan's flabbergasted face to his father and sighed. "I picked a quarrel with him and he acted like a lamb." Reynolds grinned and realized what a fool he was to haver been so upset about a mere lovers' quarrel. Why, the kids would have millions of them before they were through. "Now you two go on," he beamed. "Don't you know why lovers quarrel? For the sake of kissing and making up." It made him feel better just looking at them, the young idiots, and when they left he paced restlessly around the room. It seemed so huge that room since his illness, as if it had gotten even bigger all the time he had been shrinking. He didn't like being alone in it any more. Well, why should he be alone in it anyway, with these youngsters in the house? They'd had plenty of time now to complete their reconciliation. And they were young too. They had plenty of time to be together. But he didn't, and he wanted to spend every minute he could with them and that contagious happiness of theirs. But as he went in search of them he heard their voices raised to a high quarrelling pitch and then he knew this wasn't any lovers' flare-up. For he had heard enough of their recriminations to realize the truth. Impulsively he started to open the closed door that separated them, then he laughed grimly as he went away. Three could play the little game of deception as well as two. He wouldn't let them know that he knew. Not until after the party anyway. It was incredible the way he felt about Anne, just as if she were really the daughter he had always wanted. And there was so little time to enjoy her now, so very little time. He had to cram so much into that time, all the things he had wanted to do for her, having her meet his friends in the musical world, friends who could be so helpful to a girl who wanted to be a singer. Having fun too, discovering that night clubs could be dazzling and magical and not at all boring to a wide-eyed youngster who'd never set foot in them before. Oh, it was wonderful being with Anne, borrowing of her youth so that he felt almost as young as she was, laughing with her. He couldn't let her go now. Tears were waiting there just behind his eyes when he heard Anne singing for Stokowski when the night of the party arrived at last. But it wasn't only for Stokowski she was singing, it w7as for Jonathan too. Maybe only for Jonathan, for her eyes looked so young and lost and vulnerable as she looked from him to the cool dark girl sitting beside him, her hand lying so possessively on his sleeve. Even if there had never been an Anne, Reynolds would not have wanted that other girl for his son's wife. She was everything he had been afraid she would be, vain and self-centered and cold, and his heart was heavy as he stood at the great door bidding his guests goodnight. Then he saw Jonathan coming toward him and suddenly he was afraid as he saw the purpose in his son's eyes. He was coming to tell him about Gloria now. There could be no more make-believe, no more clinging to Anne then. Jonathan was coming to tell him, and there was nothing he could do about it. But wasn't there ? Oh, yes, there was ! Reynolds smiled slyly as he remembered how everybody had scurried around, doing only the tilings that would make him happy when he had been so ill. Well, what was the sense of having gone through all that if he couldn't use it now? He knew how a sudden pain in the heart would make a man clutch at it and how he would stagger. Reynolds clutched at his heart and when he saw Jonathan and Anne running to him, he had to bite back his triumphant laugh. He had been wasting time, he could have played Hamlet, after this performance he was putting on with no rehearsals or coaching at all. This stage of it was easier, lying there with closed eyes, apparently unconscious, listening to their concern as they whispered his name. "Anne," young Jonathan said then, and his voice was different. Everything was different, for he was telling her what a fool he had been not to have realized before what she meant to him. "Anne," he said and the boy's voice made it sound as if it were all heaven as it was all earth. Reynolds cautiously opened one eye and then he opened the other one and smiled his blessings. And all the little lost stars came back fo Anne's eyes, as with Jonathan's arms around her, she leaned down and pressed her smooth young cheek against Reynolds' triumphant grin. 62