PEGGY IN HOLLYWOOD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 March 1939, Page 10

PEGGY IN HOLLYWOOD

BY

CHAPTER XII. (Continued). Ignoring the interruption, the doctor said to Peggy: "I will send an ambulance in half an hour. Miss Rooney. I should like to make a detailed examination. If you will come along to the hospital with him, I will have a little chat with you there.” With the briefest of nods to Opal Orth, and a charming, friendly smile for Peggy, Patrick Murphy left the apartment and as he waited for the elevator gave a thoughtful glance at the closed door and said ‘‘Phew!" as he opened the self-operating gates. Young misery, sick and thwarted, looked out of Peggy’s eyes. How would it all end, she wondered? Almost she hated the thought of David’s awakening if he had to face anything so dreadful as Opal asserted. “I love you, darling,” she whispered, seizing a convenient moment when Opal had left the bedroom, bending down and smoothing down David's 'hair back from his hot, damp forehead with cool, firm little fingers. , There was a sneer in the voi'ce just behind her. Opal had seen and heard. “It happens that I do, too, and you needn’t think that I am going to let you win, you little hell-cat! This is a pretty raw earth we are on, my dear, and don’t you forget it!” Before Peggy could speak, the doorbell shrilled through the apartment, the attendant apparently keeping his finger on the bell until the door should be opened. “Come for the patient, please!" said the tall, uniformed man —there were two of them —entering the hall as he awoke. They bore David away to the hospital recomended by Dr. Murphy, and Peggy, without a word or even a glance at Opal Orth, accompanied him, sitting silently by the side of the nurse until the small, private hospital amongst the pepper trees was reached. Directly the ambulance had left Opal Orth called the studio and got. Finklesteen into serious trouble by insisting that he leave the lot where he was busy directing to come and speak with her on the telephone. “Finky, that girl has carted David off to a hospital and insists on paying for him herself. She didn’t seem a bit upset when I told her about last night “Yes . . . yes . . . soft pedal, don’t talk just now, there’s a honey. I’ve got to ' get back. They can’t shoot without me and I’m holding up production talking

here. I’ll see you to-night. Attagirl! Good-bye.” Finklesteen hung .up the receiver, mopped his forehead, and went back to the set with such a sense of impending trouble overwhelming him that he cursed his luck at ever having been tempted to have anything to do with Opal Orth and her affairs. The examination of David at the hospital was very thorough. Dr. Murphy looked grave when he came into the little waiting room to report to Peggy. “I am unable to, say definitely yet what is wrong beyond the fact that both lungs are so severely congested as to make pneumonia the probable outcome. I will keep -in touch with you if you give me your telephone! number.” Peggy gave it, gravely, and the doctor noted it in a little book. “You say that he has only just come to Hollywood and has no friends here?” Dr. Murphy asked, giving a look of mixed concern and keen approval at the white, anxious, little face. “None but myself,” replied Peggy briefly. “The fewer visitors he has the better. In fact, I will give orders that he is not to be visited by anyone but yourself,” said the doctor, barbing his words with unspoken meaning. “Have you a car?” he suddenly asked, as Peggy turned to go. “No, not yet,” replied Peggy with the brave ghost of a smile. “Where do you live?" was the next question. Peggy told him. “Wait a few minutes, then. My office is only a couple of blocks from there.” As she waited, Peggy pi,eked up a book lying casually on the table. It was dog-eared and apparently much read. It opened at a passage that stamped itself for ever- at a single reading on Peggy’s actress-trained brain. “Do not hurry. Have faith. Is your present experience hard to bear? Yet remember that never again perhaps in all your days will you have another chance at the same. Do not fly the lesson. Have faith.” Peggy looked like a picture which in Dr. Murphy’s boyhood had had a tre-

mendous vogue —a young girl with her soul in her eyes gazing heavenwards, her finger and thumb marking a place in a book of poems which she held in her hand. It was called, “The Soul’s Awakening,” and the tall, dark Irishman looked appreciatively at the lovely picture that Peggy made with the worn volume in her hand. “Mr Whitley is awake and is asking for you,” he said gently. CHAPTER XIII. To himself, David Whitley seemed lo lie endlessly between sleeping and waking. He was conscious of the coming and goings of people whose faces and voices were unfamiliar to him. and yet he could not rouse himself sufficiently to speak or in any way to overcome the dull lethargy which held him mentally and physically. It was only when he was shaved, washed, and between fresh, cool sheets, that full consciousness of his strange surroundings obtruded itself, and he sat up. “What is this place? Where is Peggy —Miss Rooney,” he asked of the tall, quiet nurse. “This is the Haven of Rest Hospital, Mr Whitley, and you must lie quietly until I fetch Dr Murphy." said the soothing voice of the girl, who was known as Nurse Mary, David .afterwards learned. A sharp, piercing pain, as though his lungs had been sliced in two with a cruelly-keen knife, prevented any further attempt at speech, but all the time his lips kept forming Peggy’s name, and Dr Murphy understood, understood and liked David’s clean cut. frank face, and the equally frank disposition that looked from the paindarkened eyes. “Easy, old man. take it easy,” he begged, pressing David back gently

MRS PATRICK MACGILL.

upon his pillows when he made a futile attempt to get out of bed. “I’ll get Miss Rooney to come and speak to you for a few minutes. She is outside/' he told David, nodding to the nurse to take his place by the bed. Peggy followed the doctor through corridors smelling suggestively of ether and disinfectant, and she shuddered. Suppose David should die! Suppose he should get better only to be tried for—her mind shrank from the word that she saw in print in connection with other human beings every day of her life; and yet had never fully realised its awful significance until Opal Orth had made her. If David got well only to undergo such refinement of torture at the hands of his fellows, would it not be better for him to pass away now? Her face was white and wretched, and the brave little twisted smiles that curved her lips as she bent over David was enough to touch the hardest, most indifferent heart. “Sweetheart, don't talk. Get better . . . do all that the doctor tells you, won’t you, darling?" Peggy kissed the hot, ’ parched lips and held the dear head in her strong young arms as if she would pour all her strength into the body of the man she loved. There was knowledge, fear, loyalty and courage expressed in the few words that Peggy spoke as she held David in her arms. "I know!” she whispered, tenderly, and added. “It is going to work out all right if only you have faith. Will you try not to worry, dear —Oh! promise me that/ you will try!” Peggy’s arms tightened as if by holding David there she could keep him safely from all that threatened him, but he grew suddenly heavy in her arms, and his eyes closed. “Nurse!” called Peggy sharply, going to the door. Nurse Mary came in, gave a quiet, experienced look at her patient, and nodded. “I will call the doctor and he will telephone you later on,” she promised. “Yes. Thank you. He.has my number. I will go now. Yes, I will go now.” Peggy’s voice was so strained and unlike itself that it sounded mincing and affected. But the nurse knew, understood, and sympathised. Peggy forgot that the doctor had told her to wait; that he had offered to take her home. She forgot the studio and her part in the film. Only one thing, one human being, mattered in her life. If she had only gone to the party, it might never have happened! She could have insisted; of course she could have; In a vague, dull way, she wondered what the other man said that was so bad that poor David had to kill him! Peggy was still very much a stranger in Hollywood. As she had done

very little walking, she hardly knew where she was. But she wandered on and on, unconscious of the interested glances of the smartly dressed youths who passed her from time to time, some in cars, several of the latter calling out: “Want to go somewhere, honey?” Peggy scarcely heard them, but walked on and on towards the hills, until, through sheer weariness, she sal down for a few minutes rest in a beautiful little wood, which rather surprisingly met her at a bend in the trail. There was no twilight in Southern California; darkness falls somewhat as a curtain. For two hours Peggy lay among the ferns in the green wood near Santa Monica. The redbird called from the cedars; mountains, the cry ol the ocean, the first, faint, pale, shad-

owy star—all blended into one glorious symphony. To do what? To bring peace to one miserable, home-sick girl who felt the issues of Life to be too big for her handling; David had returned her kiss; it was still sweet on her lips. But it only sharpened the dull pain in hei heart. Suddenly, remembering that the doctor had promised to telephone, she scrambled to her feet in a panic and then discovered that she had lost herself. It was nearly dark, she had not the faintest idea where she was nor how far from her apartment, but by o'lancing at her watch, she saw that ri was nearly eight o’clock and she had left the hospital a little before three. In addition, she was ravenously hungry. Nature was demanding that the wastage occasioned by violent emotion be repaired, and immediately. Fortunately she had her purse which contained a few dollars, and her idea was that if only she could find a trail and get on to the street, probably she coulc get a taxi to take her home. It was nearly nine o’clock before she found herself in a taxi, and when at last, dogweary, hag-ridden with the experiences of the day and previous night, she reached her apartment, it was to hear the telephone ringing as she put her key in the lock. Expecting the doctor with news of David, she was surprised to hear the thick, somewhat blurred but genuinely kindly, concerned voice of Oscar

Lewisohn. "That you. Peggy? Say. I’ve been hearing things about you, little girl . . . things that don’t sound so good—" Peggy laughed clearly and shrilly into the instrument. To Oscar Lewisohn listening, the sound carried the suggestion of nerves frayed to breaking point. “What have you been hearing, Mr. Lewisohn?" Peggy's first thought was that Opal

Orth had been pouring her version of the assault into his ears; getting first blow in. so lo speak. But it was not that. “I saw Sam Finklesteen for a few minutes this afternoon, and was he mad? I’ll Say he was! He had to replace you at the last minute on the set and get a girl to do the “bits” he signed you up for. As you were in several scenes yesterday, it will mean retakes of the whole lot. Any company hates losing money over a newcomer, Peggy. That's only natural. What was the matter, honey? Were you sick?” "No, Mr. Lewisohn; at least not in the sense you mean.” replied Peggy. She added, after a second’s pause, “But I'm dead sick of studios and motion pictures and everything connected with them.” A gusty breath, meant as sympathy, came clearly over the wire and sounded in Peggy’s ear. “Well. I’m mighty glad to hear it. Peggy. I told you from the first you were not tough enough for this game. When do you go back? Is that nice young chap. David What-was-his-name going with you?”

It was the mention of David’s name while he was lying so ill at the hospital with such a terrible charge hanging over him that broke down the barriers of Peggy’s restrain!. Dropping the receiver so that it hung down limply from, the well, she let her overwrought nerves have the outlet they had been craving for so many hours that they would no longer obey her will. She leaned against the wall, the tears flowing down her face, while every now and again her whole body shook with sobs and little low moaning cries,, pitiful because they sounded so like a lonely, frightened child, came from her

lips. All of which carried quiet clearly to the ears of the man listening at the other end of Peggy’s telephone wire. ‘•Peggy. . .can't you hear me? What's the matter, child? Are you alone?” The man's voice carried clearly enough through the dangling receiver, but. Peggy was too distracted to hear it. (To be-Continued).