PEGGY IN HOLLYWOOD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 March 1939, Page 10

PEGGY IN HOLLYWOOD

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

BY

MRS PATRICK MACGILL.

CHAPTER X. (Continued). The chill water made Her tingle and glow and produced a gratifying if fleeting feeling of freshness. The dress chosen was a slim little pink silk affair with a big straw, rosetrimrhed hat to match, which made Peggy look like a bewitching, dainty child of 15 or so. She was all ready to go and just about to lock up the apartment when the telephone rang. Thinking that it might be David, her heart started beating a mad tattoo. Laughter lit lamps in her dark blue eyes, and all thought of the studio was pushed into the background until she learned who was calling. She raced through the tiny hall and across the living room, to hear the voice of the porter in charge of the apartment house. "A lady is wanting to see you, Miss Rooney,” he said. “Shall I send her up?” “Will you inquire her name? I am just going to the studio,” said Peggy, and in spite of all her doubts and fears, it was impossible for her to resist just the tiniest feeling of importance as she mentioned her studio. “She says her name is Miss Opal Orth,” same the reply, after a second’s pause for the inquiry. Instantly, Peggy was goaded into startled wariness; the dull, aching certainty of impending trouble returned 10 torment her with a thousand little clamouring voices that would not be stilled. But she did not dream of denying herself to Opal Orth, or of evading whatever might be in store for her through the rich, ambitious woman who could not, seemingly, leave David alone. Her face was white, her voice toneless with the effort that she made to keep it from trembling when she spoke. “Ask Miss Orth to come up, please,” said Peggy, quietly. Sne was standing by the window looking down at the street as Opal paused for a second by the door which had been left open for her. “May I come in, Peggy?” said the older girl smoothly, no trace of stiffness in voice or manner. “Of course. Good morning—isn’t it a lovely day? I’m afraid I have to dash off presently. I have to be at the studio in ten minutes.” Peggy glanced at the wrist watch that she wore. “Oh, that’s all right. Your scene will not be shot until three o’clock this afternoon. I arranged it with Finky an hour ago,” said Opal, easily. Although face, voice and manner gave a surface impression of casualness, Peggy sensed rather than saw that her fears of impending trouble were not groundless; that they would come through the rich, beautiful, exquisitely cruel woman who, having everything as it seemed, yet wanted to snatch as another possession that which was another woman’s by every right, and law known to society —her sweetheart. “Will you sit down, Miss Orth?” Peggy indicated a chair and seated herself on the divan, taking off her big straw hat with the roses and flinging it wearly beside her. She ran her long, nervous white fingers through her glossy black hair ith the splendid carelessness of one who had not to trouble about the setting of waves and curls. Opal watching her pitifully young, inexperienced, earnest rival with not the faintest trace of pity. David lay on the couch in her apartment in the same deep sleep that had fallen upon him after the doctor had given him the sleeping draught. She had come to Peggy fired with the most desperate resolve that her eventful life had so far held. • “How are you feeling this morning, Peggy?” was her chosen method of opening her attack. “Fine, thanks,” was Peggy’s brief reply. Her hand went to her throat and stroked it, a little trick of hers when she was mentally disturbed. Opal eyed the younger girl narrowly. She.was showing the effects of the previous night; her skin, eyes, hair, lips—all were artificially coloured and brightened, but instead of a mere heightening and accentuating of Nature they were a blatant mockery, a substitute for colouring that was dead and a lustre that was no more. “How did you enjoy the barbecue last night, or rather, this morning? David must be all in. I haven’t heard from him yet,” said Peggy, feeling that she would scream if this awful woman did not soon disclose the object of her visit. What was she keeping back? Peggy was certain that she had not dropped in for a mere friendly call at that hour. “Peggy . . ” began Opal Orth, finding her task difficult and distasteful now that it actually faced her. Then before Peggy could break in or Cry out or do anything which would stop her, now that she had started, she hurried on, dealing her blows one after another, crudely, recklessly, utterly callous, to the pain and horror that looked out from the childishly sweet blue eyes. “We did not go to the' barbecue after all. We went to one of the gambling ships at Long Beach. David got into a quarrel with another man. They fought Peggy—they fought—and . . . .David killed him!” Peggy sat still for so long that it seemed as if she had passed into a trance; her eyes had changed from dark blue to a depth that was almost black under the surfeit of emotion held in leash. In her blood a curious ferment was racing. Peggy was the offspring of parents whose Irish ancestry had remained pure for three centuries. The dark glens and hills of Donegal, with their suggestion of hidden mysteries, their hints of black magic, their deeply brooding sorrows—all these forces lying dormant in a nature sensitive as the strings of a harp to a rushing wind, rose up and stirred within the girl, putting iron into her heart, displacing horror, subjugating fear. Her voice was steady, her small face white as marble, but there was no flinching in the look that she bent upon the older girl. “Where is David now? In the police station?” she asked steadily. The scene was not working out as Opal Orth had planned it; on the other hand, she might be magnifying Peggy’s astounding coolness; quite frequently girls who held themselves in as she was doing crumpled up suddenly, like a pricked airball. “No, thank God! The police know nothing, nor ever will. I. bribed the whole lot;' five thousand dollars it cost me.”

Disregarding the mention of the large sum of money, Peggy repeated her question, quietly, insistently. “Where is David?” The reply came barbed with a flash of self-satisfied cruelty that instantly struck home. “He is at home—in my apartment, I mean.” Peggy’s white fingers pushed the hair off her brow, and as the tips touched her forehead, they felt damp. “What is he doing there?” The words were snapped out like peas from a small boy’s shooter. “Sleeping.” As Opal spoke the one word which was in reality the bald truth, she enjoyed to the full the expression of utter bewilderment and pain that sharpened Peggy’s features, adding 10 years to her age. “Asleep when he has the blood of another man on his hands? Why, what do you mean?” Peggy’s voice was quietly commanding; in some intangible fashion that defied definition on her own part, Opal felt suddenly cheap and meretricious. But there was too much as stake to allow anything or anybody—certainly not this silly child —to stand in her way and seriously thwart her purpose. “The doctor gave him a sleeping draught. It seemed the easiest and safest thing to do—to take him to my apartment,” she explained. “You have a queer taste in friends, Miss Orfn. What had David ever done to you that you should be indirectly responsible for such a situation as this?” Peggy’s voice was icy with accusation, like a whiplash with contempt. It stung the truth from the older woman before she was ready. “The people on the gambling ship were no more my friends than yours, Peggy.” There was so much sincerity in Opal’s voicq that even against ner will, Peggy was obliged to believe her. Opal hurried on, before Peggy could stop the flow of her words. “It is the thing to do, to visit the gambling ships at least once. Numa Tahore suddenly went back on her promise to do her tofch dance at the barbecue, so the whole thing was called off. She suggested the gambling ship, and the rest of us fell in with the plan. That is all. We did not expect David to pick a quarrel and kill a man.” “What or whom did they quarrel about?” asked Peggy, still in the controlled, almost detached voice that puzzled Opal Orth. “You!” was the totally unexpected reply. The telephone bell shrilled into the tense quiet of the room. Peggy lifted the receiver and set it down again without answering. From the open window of an apartment on the other side of the courtyard roared a man’s voice over the radio, “If you need money, borrow on your car.” These things were like straws on the surface of the streams of Peggy’s consciousness; her real ego was submerged in a deep sweet, shining sea of happiness. Around her was flame and music and the glory of the stars. The woman within Peggy thrilled to the admission of the other woman —she who was her rival for David Whitley’s love. For her—Peggy—he had fought so fiercely that blood was upon his hands. Henceforth neither gold, nor time, nor circumstance, nor love of another woman could take him from her. Between them was a bond that would go with them to Eternity itself. The rapture in Peggy’s face puzzled and angered Opal; incapable of understanding she misconstrued its meaning. “You seem pleased more than sorry for David. But that’s all right,” she began. “Opal, is you car downstairs?” There was a shade of impulsiveness in the question. “Yes, why? You cannot go to David, if that is what you want. I’ve come to tell you something else, Peggy, besides what happened last night.” “Yes?” Peggy’s chin was up, her eyes were defiant. “I love David Whitley with every breath of my body, and I mean to marry him,” said Opal, with deadly earnestness. Out of the dead silence that followed. Peggy’s voice came strangely cool and unhurried; almost as if she had been discussing a part in a play. “Of course you are in love with David, Miss Orth! Anybody can see that. But as to your meaning to marry him, is he to have nothing to say in the matter?” Peggy was flaming beneath her brave assumption of self-control. In her heart she was sure enough of David, but she was by no means as sure of herself as she tried to make Opal believe. A thousand fears were tearing her self-confidence to pieces, and her spirit, shocked past bearing by the tragic news that Opal Orth had brought, demanded instant relief. “Suppose we leave the question of whom David is to marry, and concentrate on the immediate problem?” suggested Peggy, icily. “He will marry me, or spend some of the best years of his life behind prison bars —if nothing worse.” (To be Continued).