PEGGY IN HOLLYWOOD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 March 1939, Page 12

PEGGY IN HOLLYWOOD

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

COPYRIGHT.

BY

MRS PATRICK MACGILL.

CHAPTER XV (Continued)

“Well ... at once,” said Peggy, slowly, mystified at the turn taken by events. What had Oscar Lewisohn in his mind that made it necessary for her to say good-bye to David and Opal Orth and return home in such a hurry? Go back to London with tilings as they were, leaving the field clear for Opal? Peggy bit her lips, ashamed of the thought, and it seemed as if the strange old Jew divined something of what was passing in her mind. “You said you trusted me, Peggy. Well, then, prove it,” he told her earnestly.

“Oh, I will. I will, Mr. Lewisohn,” promised Peggy, moving quickly about the apartment, dragging out trunksand filling them swiftly and skilfully. In an hour everything was ready. Oscar Lewisohn looked up from his perusal of the “Los Angeles Times” to say, “Better not be seen with me. so ring for a taxi. David is expecting you at eleven, and I’ve no doubt that you can find the Orth woman at the studio hanging round Finklesteen’s lot. He's still shooting "Flame of Life,” but he’s in her pocket for his next picture. This is his last for Colossal. I happen to know that they are not taking up the option on his contract.” Peggy sighed. She wished that she could see daylight ahead. She had promised to trust and obey Lewisohn and she was certain that he had her own and David's interests at heart, but try how she would, she could not see how they could be served by sending her right away from David, back to London. “Did you say that David expects me at 11?” she asked, turning round from the telephone after she had put in the call for a taxi. “That’s the idea, honey,” was the confident response. “Rub it in that you are going back .expecting David to follow as soon as he is well, and that you don’t intend ever to come to Hollywood again,” said Oscar Lewisohn, when, having helped the driver to pack in Peggy's’trunks, he helped her into the taxi and told her not to forget to inquire for her ticket which would be waiting for her at the office of the railway company 15 minutes before the departure of her train at seven o’clock. “I won’t forget,” promised Peggy, anxious, puzzled, relieved and disappointed all at the same time. CHAPTER XVI. “David, do you want me to go? Honestly. It seems too much to ask of a girl in circumstances like these. Don’t you think so, darling?” David Whitley sat up a little higher amongst his pillows, and his frank, straight-glancing brown eyes looked worried as he spoke. “It would seem so, on the surface, Pegs, but this chap Lewisohn has known Hollywood more years than we have minutes, in a manner of speaking. I thing, as he made such a point of asking to be trusted, that strict obedience might be better in the long run.”

There was a long pause. The white, bare, sanitary little hospital room seemed to hold out friendly arms to David, keeping him safe and secure, but these same arms seemed to repel Peggy, seemed to be pushing her outside of David’s life, sending her thousands of miles away from him, just at the time when he needed her, at the whim of somebody whom they scarcely knew! “David, I don’t want to go,” she whispered, clinging to him and pressing her lips hard to his. “And I don’t want you to go, little love, but if we throw away Oscar Lewisohn’s interest in getting us out of this mess, to whom can we turn? After all, he is not gaining anything by it, so far as I know. And he seems confident of being able to help.” David’s tone was quiet, and utterly convincing. Like Peggy, he had for an instant felt the bedrock of the Jew’s character; his faith was given; his word was pledged. “At any rate, he stopped you from—from —” Peggy’s voice faltered. She simply could not bring herself to finish what she had started to say. David understood. A flush rose to his forehead.

“I promised to leave the police alone as long as they leave me alone until the money from home gives out,” said David, in some confusion, but Peggy understood.

“Good-bye, darling,” she whispered, thrilling in every nerve to the touch of David’s arms around her, every sense savouring the poignancy of parting. “I’ll be thinking of you every minute, beloved,” David assured her. “Remember, I am and always will be, a one-woman man —your man,” were the words that rang in Peggy’s ears and buried themselves, like separate, fragrant flowers, in her heart. On to the studio. The little strip of mirror in Peggy’s taxi reflected her face. It did curious, revealing things. Lines crawled out of secret places —20. 30 years before their time—making Peggy look as she might possibly look when two or even three decades had passed. The soft depth of her dark blue eyes hardened until they looked like blue marbles flecked with the black of her lashes, and they revealed all that lay hidden and hitherto unsuspected within.

The gatekeeper at the studio looked apathetically at Peggy—the beauty of Venus herself would have left him unmoved—and refused to allow her to go through without a pass. “Go round to the information desk in the front of the building and send in your name to Mr Finklesteen if it’s him you want,” he advised Peggy, indifferently. Peggy did as she was told and after waiting an hour, was escorted by a little gum-chewing, Silver-buttoned page boy to the “lot” where Samuel Finklesteen was directing the picture in which she was to have made her debut as a motion picture actress.

Opal Orth was silting on the side lines watching the acting with atentive, critical eyes that did not miss a single movement of the players, nor did her ears miss a solitary word of the dialogue. Finklesteen, in his shirt sleeves, sweating, swearing and tremendously self-important, left off shouting for a moment to come over and greet her.

“Why, it’s little Peggy,” he exclaimed, with an affectation of heartiness that could not disguise the sudden paling of his face, and the dropping of his heavy jaws. He seized her hands with both his, after the manner of Hollywood, and tried to hide his uneasiness

beneath a cloak of concern for his unexpected visitor. “We were all sorry you were sick. It held up production quite a bit, too,” he said, seriously. “Afraid there isn’t anything left now, dear —not even an extra. The last scene was shot at nine this morning,” Finklesteen explained, with pretended contrition. “I am leaving Hollywood, Mr Finklesteen. I came to say goodbye to you and Miss Orth,” said Peggy baldly, explaining in a few words her reason for coming. Hearing her name, Opal Orth, who had pretended not to see Peggy, got up and walked beautifully across the set to the spot where she and Finklesteen, observed by everybody, were standing. As if nothing whatever had happened, Opal showed all her exquisite teeth in a wide, happy 'smile and asked Peggy to have lunch with herself and Finklesteen. “No, thank you. I only came to say that, having had quite enough of Hollywood, I am leaving on the Sante Fe tonight.” Peggy did not hold out her hand to either Opal or Finklesteen. Both looked suddenly relieved; indeed, his sudden happiness apparently went to Finklesteen’s head for he seized Peggy round the waist and danced her across the set before she fully realised what was happening. "Hold it!” yelled a cameraman, suddenly, training his lense on them. Peggy, flushed and indignant, struggled to get away, and the boys and girls in the picture all crowded around, laughing hysterically at their director’s pranks, hoping thereby to curry a little favour. “Peggy, is David going too?” Opal strove to make her voice sound casual, but did not succeed. “You will be pleased to hear that he is not. He is staying at the Haven of Rest until he is quite .recovered,” replied Peggy coldly. There was a decided thrust in Opal Orth’s next remark. “I’ll look after him for you, darling. You don’t need to worry.” Peggy’s words were barbed with meaning as she said, quietly, “Thank you, Miss Orth, but the nurse is very efficient, and so long as she does her job, I shall not worry' about Mr Whitley.” If Peggy thought to snub Opal by the formal usage of David’s name, she was quite mistaken. “Oh, Dave and I understood each other!” Then,' changing the subject, she asked the time of Peggy’s departure. “Seven o’clock,” replied Peggy shortly, as she turned on her heel and walked off the lot, and out of the studio. Half the mad, chaotic movie kingdom seemed to be assembled on the departure platform of the Santa Fe express. There were men and women whose faces were known all over the civilised world holding coloured airballs by long strings which they floated in the electrically lighted air, screaming with laughter when one rode away out of reach. Uniformed bell-hops from fashionable hotels came staggering under huge baskets of flowers and boxes of sweets and parcels of books; the whole scene was vivid, colourful, intensely diverting, even if one had no part in it. Peggy’s trunks were already in; she was leaning out of the window, taking it all in, feeling curiously cold and detached, as if she were in a picture house, watching it all on the screen. Suddenly her eyes widened, and her mouth opened a little. Hurrying down the platform, dodging people here and there and preceded by the inevitable bell hop bearing a huge bouquet of orchids and a silver wrapped box, came Opal Orth, escorted by Finklesteen. She was wearing a spray of orchids herself on a fabulously expensixe chinchilla coat, and her Paris hat riveted every woman’s eye as she passed. “Who's the girl Finky’s angel is seeing off?” was heard on all sides. Nobody seemed to know, but? numbers of those speeding departing friends edged nearer to Peggy’s window to find out. Finklesteen took the bouquet and the silver-wrapped box from the small boy, tipped him a dollar and handed them to Peggy himself. “To wish you God-speed, Peggy, and the best of luck,” he said, in a hypocritically friendly voice, and Opal Orth, stretching up her lemon kid gloved hand, said, "Goodbye, darling. Take care of yourself—and I’ll take good care of David for you,” she added, baring her white teeth in a smile that seemed more like the grin of a fox on the scent to Peggy, who heartsick, replied not one word as, not wishing to attract attention, she took the orchids and the box and placed them on the rack above her seat. CHAPTER XVI (Continued) A famous young film lover had the seat opposite to Peggy. Peggy recognised him. She had seen him on the screen several times. As usual with his kind, he carried his screen manner into his everyday life. The dark eyes ogled Peggy just as she had seen them ogle the platinum blonde in "Love's Flaming Hour.” his last highly romantic picture. He infused synthetic solicitude that almost amounted to passion into his voice as he inquired. "Do you mind if I smoke?” “Not at all,” answered Peggy indifferently, too sick at heart to be even faintly amused. 1 She suddenly felt nauseated, spiritually and mentally sick of her selfchosen world. She wanted to escape from the slime of it all, to retire into herself like some sorely wounded animal. Although she did not express it in that way to herself, Peggy was just paying the fee of the world's greatest teacher —experience. The platform crowd surged in a mass towards its perilous edge to be unceremoniously pushed back by porters' who, when off duty, cheerfully waited for hours in order to secure the illiterate scrawl that often represented the autograph of one of the pushed at that particular moment. “Stand back —right away!” fTo be Continued).