HANDMAID TO FAME

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 February 1939, Page 10

HANDMAID TO FAME

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

COPYRIGHT.

BY

BERTA RUCK.

CHAPTER XIII.

(Continued). “Lucky is the playwright who can be thousands of miles away from the theatre on the first night of his play and can't hear for days how its gone,” Vai muttered to himself in his dressingroom, twenty minutes before the curtain was due to go up on “Action For Breach,’ a new play by Theresa Grey and Valentine Lavery.” No getting away from the theatre for him. If the whole thing was to be the ghastly failure it promised to be he would consider that it was his fault, and that he had brought this, not only upon himself, but upon the girl he loved. In a bad attack of stage-fright Terry had said she would spend the evening, she thought, at a Promenade Concert. From this he had dissuaded her. “You can’t desert me, Terry. You’ve simply got to be in the house.” She had agreed with a sigh from the depths; really anyone would think it was a funeral instead of a First Night, and the coming true of so many dreams. “Very well, I’ll be in the house, Vai. I’m too nervous to bear it ——” "If you’re nervous, what shall I be?” “I know. Well, I won’t be anywhere where you’ll see me. The back of the gallery.” “Make it the wings. “More appropriate perhaps. More handmaidenly.” She had made up her mind that after this first night it must be the end. She didn’t want to write another play. She didn’t want to live in this see-saw of emotion working for a man she adored. “Let me go back,” she thought, “once more the obscure efficient secretary to some elderly politician ” “Another first night—even before it begins—would kill me!” thought Terry. “Wasn’t it a thrill for you?” people asked both of them afterwards. Quite truthfully Terry could tell them, “I don’t know. I was too petrified with terror even to know what was going on for the whole of the first act!” As for Vai ??

“The first act gives no idea of how any play is going. But this is going badly. It’s going dashed badly!” thought Valentine even in the middle of his best lines. He was conscious of his audience. Too many. A speckle of pink O’s, all faces, all criticising him. “Why?” he asked himself as he came of, “did ever I leave films?” He flung himself on the couch in his dressingroom. “I’m not seeing anybody,” he told his dresser. He thought “Terry’s probably gone home. Poor kid, I hope so. Daresay she wishes she’d never met me.” - The second act went better. The third act, he was prepared to say, went unexpectedly well. The dress rehearsal had given no idea of how well it was going. Vai alone of the cast was not prepared for the warmth of the applause at the end of that third act, and, in that applause, he sensed something which every artist, every speaker, every puppet-mas-ter covets and recognises in a flash—the note of reality, the cheers, the applause from the heart. They need not be loud. But how unmistakable is that note, that indiscribable note with the .true ring. Definitely Valentine Lavery’s performance had “got” the house. There were nine curtain-calls. Again and again the cast, tired, over-excited, weary-eyed under their make up, but satisfied, smiled and bowed to the audience. Then Vai and his leading lady held the stage alone, bowed to the excited audience, bowed and smiled to each other. Then, when the curtain fell, came cries for “Author! Author!” with redoubled enthusiasm as there stepped forth in front of the curtain the leading man himself. “Speech! Speech!” The shouts died down. Vai’s pleasant voice was heard. “Ladies and gentlemen: Thank you so very much for this kind reception of our play. Every play owes something to a good many people ” he went on to enumerate them down to the stage hands “even the authors. But lam not the fellow who provided the idea. That bright brain is in the house ” There was more applause. “Please! Terry!” he called, and looked over his shoulder into the wings. There she stood, his little hand-maid-en, in a very simply-cut white frock, wearing over it her small high-collar-ed summer-ermine wrap. The only touch of colour on all that ivory was a large spray of scarlet roses which had been sent with his card —“From Vai.” She looked back at him, shook her head, beseechingly, as he again called “Terry!” Then he threw into his voice the tone of impersonal civility, his voice of every day before they had become friends. “Miss Grey!” Miss Grey almost mechanically moved forward. She looked he thought tenderly, extraordinarily like some little lost kitten that had strayed on to the stage, in that furry white coat, with her bright eyes enormous with stage-fright Smilingly he took her hand, and again the house rose at them. “Speech! Speech!” He smiled encouraging at her. He gave a little shake to the hand he held. It clutched his. “Oh Vai, 1 can’t. You! You make the speech.” “I’ve made mine.” “You must make mine, too.” “Only on one condition " “Oh what, what?" “Speech!” clamoured the house. “Speech!” and clapped again. They could pick cut individual voices. Mr Osgood’s carrying Californian drawl. Mrs Lavery’s tinkling treble, Walter Giey’s baritone laugh . . .

“Terry, I have nothing more to say to them ” Vai muttered quickly, “unless you will allow me to announce our engagement?” “Engagement of what, Vai?”

“Each other. Listen darling. This is not like last time. It’s the real thing. You’ve simply got to marry me! Not because of friendship or because of collaboration, or any nonsense of that sort,” Vai Lavery muttered rapidly. “Simply because I do love you.” The house, waiting for the speech and still clapping, must have imagined that her collaborator was coaching her in what to say. “Terry, I swear that’s the truth. Besides, you must realise it? —you’ve got some flair, girl. You’ll let me make the announcement, won’t you?” ■ “Yes. All right,” agreed Terry with a desperate little nod, “but it’s only because I’m too frightened to say anything myself. Carry on!” Holding her, he lifted his other hand. “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Vai. “Miss Theresa Grey —my co-playwright here thanks you as I do. She has allowed me to announce herewith that the partnership is to continue. We hope that you will all wish us well and that, as many of our friends as can dance —” he flashed a smile from right to left of the front row, Laverys, Osgoods, Greys—“will dance at our wedding. Curtain!’ concluded Vai, authoritatively. He was in haste to get his make-up off and to escape with that collaborator of his. Eluding the mob, they slipped out. Vai had his car. He took her throught the Park —away, out into the sighing midnight countryside. “Too good to be true,” sighed Terry, as Vai drew her into his arms. “Almost, but not quite,” he' replied. “I’ll show you ” “And I thought you were never going to!”

“Child, that was your fault—l thought I was never going to be let! All these miserable weeks I have been thinking you’d gone all to brain and playwrighting and efficiency—that you didn’t care for any of this sort of thing, that you never would ” “Vai, what showed you how wrong you were” • The shoulder against which she leant shook a little with his laughter. “Terry, a rumour got round to me. Shall I own up? A little bird told me that you suffered from delusions.” “What?” “Especially one delusion that you were—what was it?—nothing but a secretary to a bright star —” “Eily!” exclaimed Terry, between laughter and fury. There flashed back upon her that Sunday afternoon in her rooms when Terry, exhausted by Clive’s pestering, Terry; discouraged by life, .had for once broken down and poured out her heart to Eily Regan. Eily, who had vowed she would do anything for Terry. “Eily told you what I said?” “Yes, bless her heart! One day after rehearsal she waylaid me in the corridor and said, “Mr Lavery, I must talk to you about Terry.” I hardly recognised the little thing. She was all trembling and alight. ‘Terry? She’s all right, isn’t she?’ I said. The little Irish girl told me, ‘Mr Lavery, she’s terribly unhappy. Yes, about you — You imagine, how that made me feel —I picked up Eily Regan and kissed her then and there.”

Terry said, “Next time I see her I shall strangle her.” “Don’t do that, darling. Try me instead,” suggested Vai, and caught both her arms about his own neck. Four months later “Action for Breach” was still running, but on Christmas Day there was no performance —which allowed the leading man to attend his sister Madge’s children’s parly at her Chelsea house. Vai had always had “a thing about kids”; it was a taste he shared with his young wife. Behold, therefore, the young Valentine Lavery’s—Vai wrapped in Father Christmas’s traditional robes of scarlet and cotton-wool trimmings, and with the traditional beard concealing half of his good-looking face; Terry, very pretty as his helpmeet, standing below a noble glittering Christmas tree, and preparing to serve out the presents. They were surrounded by the crowd of children; tiny girls in frilly partyfrocks, boys in snowy collared Etons, or immaculate man-o-war suits. But'' suddenly before even the first parcel was handed down, an odd thing stopped the proceedings. Those children, headed by his small nephew, wavered and turned their backs upon the Father Christmas. Someone had passed a word around. A chorus of shrill childish voices took up "Oh look! He’s come! He’s come!” In the entrance, towering above the there was to be seen the new attraction —a gorgeous and glittering figure, complete in helmet and uniform—a fireman. , "Madge had him in because she s always nervous of fires at these parties,” explained Vai, laughing to his young wife. “And d’you see what happened 9 They know that Father Christmas is ‘only Uncle Vai dressed up,’ so they leave Father Christmas and rush over en masse, to the Real Excitement which is an allegory, Terry, d’you see? The pull of the Real over the Artificial. You are always pretending you don't understand why I prefer you to all the glamorous film-stars who ve ever played opposite to me. Darling what have they meant in my life. “Well, what?” “Boredom, make-believe, want of fresh-air and exercise. Scenes, hot studio, lip-rouge. That’s definitely all. Now d’you understand, darling little real girl of my life?” He drew her aside behind the deserted Christmas tree. He caught off the disfiguring beard, then he caught her to him and

crushed upon her soft, responsive mouth kisses more passionate and closer than any film-fan had ever watched in any drama starring the famous Valentine Lavery. “What do you suppose all those others have been, my sweetheart? Just a stand-in for Romance!” “Oh Vai! And you really mean it! I know you do. Actually to think I’m no longer second fiddle to anybody —” “Not even handmaid to fame,” he laughed. “Fame (anything there is to it) is only a handmaid to you.” (The End).

THE SILVER SCREEN

As a brilliant light attracts all sorts of moths in their season, so do the film centres—among which Hollywood is still supreme—draw all kinds of aspirants to dramatic fame. It is a tragic fact that Hollywood makes the few and mars the many. As poles apart are Opal Orth and Peggy Rooney. Opal Orth is wealthy and very lovely; she has an intriguing past, is sophisticated and unscrupulous, and a horde of sycophants assure her that she has only to buy her way into Hollywood to become a world-famous actress. Peggy Rooney resembles Opal Orth only in her urge to become a film actress. Even her beauty is of a very different character, and she is unspoiled and ingenous; further, she is pool’ and alone —except for David Whitley. David also has answered the call of Hollywood though primarily he left England to be near Peggy, whom he loves. Here we have three “moths” whose adventures provide the motif of a cleverely written story of Hollywood from within, entitled—-

“PEGGY IN HOLLYWOOD” BY MRS PATRICK MACGILL. The first inslalmant will appear in these columns on Monday, February 27. '—