CHAPTER XIX
IN LOS ANGELES
When she felt bewildered, Jean had the trick of appearing merelyreserved; and that is what saved her from the charge of rusticity whenRobert Grant Burns led her through the station gateway and into a smallreception. No less a man than Dewitt, President of the Great WesternFilm Company, clasped her hand and held it, while he said how glad hewas to welcome her. Jean, unawed by his greatness and the honor he waspaying her, looked up at him with that distracting little beginning ofa smile, and replied with that even-more distracting little drawl inher voice, and wondered why Mrs. Gay should become so plainly flusteredall at once.
Dewitt took her by the arm, introduced her to a curious-eyed group witha warming cordiality of manner, and led her away through a crowd thatstared and whispered, and up to a great, beautiful, purple machine witha colored chauffeur in dust-colored uniform. Dewitt was talking easilyof trivial things, and shooting a question now and then over hisshoulder at Robert Grant Burns, who had shed much of his importance andseemed indefinably subservient toward Mr. Dewitt. Jean turned towardhim abruptly.
"Where's Lite? Did you send some one to help him with Pard?" she askedwith real concern in her voice. "Those three horses aren't used totowns the size of this, Mr. Burns. Lite is going to have his handsfull with Pard. If you will excuse me, Mr. Dewitt, I think I'll go andsee how he's making out."
Mr. Dewitt glanced over her head and met the delighted grin of JimGates, the publicity manager. The grin said that Jean was "runningtrue to form," which was a pet simile with Jim Gates, and usuallyaccompanied that particular kind of grin. There would be aninteresting half column in the next day's papers about Jean's arrivaland her deep concern for Lite and her wonderful horse Pard, but ofcourse she did not know that.
"I've got men here to help with the horses," Mr. Dewitt assured her,while he gently urged her into the machine. "They'll be brought rightout to the studio. I'm taking you home with me in obedience to mywife's, orders. She is anxious to meet the young woman who canout-ride and out-shoot any man on the screen, and can still be sweetand feminine and lovable. I'm quoting my wife, you see, though I won'tsay those are not my sentiments also."
"Your poor wife is going to receive a shock," said Jean in anunimpressed tone. "But it's dear of her to want to meet me." Back ofher speech was an irritated impatience that she should be gobbled andcarried off like this, when she was sure that she ought to be helpingLite get that fool Pard unloaded and safely through the clang andclatter of the down-town district.
Robert Grant Burns, half facing her on a folding seat, sent her aqueer, puzzled glance from under his eyebrows. Four months had Jeanbeen working under his direction; four months had he studied her, andstill she puzzled him. She was not ignorant--the girl had been outamong civilized folks and had learned town ways; she was notstupid--she could keep him guessing, and he thought he knew all thequirks of human nature, too. Then why, in the name of common sense, didshe take Dewitt and his patronage in this matter-of-fact way, as if itwere his everyday business to meet strange employees and take them hometo his wife? He glanced at Dewitt and caught a twinkle of perfectunderstanding in the bright blue eyes of his chief. Burns made a soundbetween a grunt and a chuckle, and turned his eyes away immediately;but Dewitt chose to make speech upon the subject.
"You haven't spoiled our new leading woman--yet," he observed idly.
"Oh, but he has," Jean dissented. "He has got me trained so that whenhe says smile, my mouth stretches itself automatically. When he sayssob, I sob. He just snaps his fingers, Mr. Dewitt, and I sit up and gothrough my tricks very nicely. You ought to see how nicely I do them."
Mr. Dewitt put up a hand and pulled at his close-cropped, whitemustache that could not hide the twitching of his lips. "I have seen,"he said drily, and leaned forward for a word with the liveriedchauffeur. "Turn up on Broadway and stop at the Victoria," he said, andthe chin of the driver dropped an inch to prove he heard.
Dewitt laid his fingers on Jean's arm to catch her attention. "Do yousee that picture on the billboard over there?" he asked, with a specialinflection in his nice, crisp voice. "Does it look familiar to you?"
Jean looked, and pinched her brows together. Just at first she did notcomprehend. There was her name in fancy letters two feet high: "JEAN,OF THE LAZY A." It blared at the passer-by, but it did not lookfamiliar at all. Beneath was a high-colored poster of a girl on ahorse. The horse was standing on its hind feet, pawing the air; itsnostrils flared red; its tail swept like a willow plume behind. Themachine slowed and stopped for the traffic signal at the crossing, andstill Jean studied the poster. It certainly did not look in the leastfamiliar.
"Is that supposed to be me, on that plum-colored horse?" she drawled,when they slid out slowly in the wake of a great truck.
"Why, don't you like it?" Dewitt looked at Jim Gates, who was againgrinning delightedly and surreptitiously scribbling something on themargin of a folded paper he was carrying.
Jean turned upon him a mildly resentful glance. "No, I don't. Pard isnot purple; he's brown. And he's got the dearest white hoofs and awhite sock on his left hind foot; and he doesn't snort fire andbrimstone, either." She glanced anxiously at the jam of wagons andautomobiles and clanging street-cars. "I don't know, though," sheamended ruefully, "I think perhaps he will, too, when he sees all this.I really ought to have stayed with him."
"You don't think Lite quite capable of taking care of him."
"Oh, yes, of course he is! But I just feel that way."
Dewitt shifted a little, so that he was half facing her, and could lookat her without having to turn his head. If his eyes told anything ofhis thoughts, the President of the Great Western Film Company wascurious to know how she felt about her position and her sudden fame andthe work itself. Before they had worked their way into the next block,he decided that Jean was not greatly interested in any of these things,and he wondered why.
The machine slowed, swung to the curb, and crept forward and stopped infront of the Victoria. Dewitt looked at Burns and Pete Lowry, who wason the front seat.
"I thought you'd like to take a glance at the lobby display theVictoria is making," he said casually. "They are running the Lazy Aseries, you know,--to capacity houses, too, they tell me. Shall we getout?"
The chauffeur reached back with that gesture of toleration and infiniteboredom common to his kind and swung open the door.
Robert Grant Burns started up. "Come on, Jean," he said eagerly. "Idon't suppose that eternal calm of yours will ever show a wrinkle onthe surface, but let's have a look, anyway."
Pete Lowry was already out and half way across the pavement. Pete hadlain awake in his bed, many's the night, planning the posing of"stills" that would show Jean at her best; he had visioned them ondisplay in theater lobbies, and now he collided with a hurrying shopperin his haste to see the actual fulfillment of those plans.
Jean herself was not so eager. She went with the others, and she sawherself pictured on Pard; on her two feet; and sitting upon a rock withher old Stetson tilted over one eye and her hair tousled with the wind.She was loading her six-shooter, and talking to Lite, who was sittingon his heels with a cigarette in his fingers, looking at her with thatbottled-up look in his eyes. She did not remember when the picture wastaken, but she liked that best of all. She saw herself leaning out ofthe window of her room at the Lazy A. She remembered that time. Shewas talking to Gil outside, and Pete had come up and planted his tripoddirectly in front of her, and had commanded her to hold her pose. Shedid not count them, but she had curious impressions of dozens ofpictures of herself scattered here and there along the walls of thelong, cool-looking lobby. Every single one of them was marked: "Jean,of the Lazy A." Just that.
On a bulletin board in the middle of the entrance, just before themarble box-office, it was lettered again in dignified black type:"JEAN OF THE LAZY A." Below was one word: "To-day."
"It looks awfully queer," said Jean to Mr.
Dewitt, who wanted to knowwhat she thought of it all; "they don't explain what it's all about, oranything."
"No, they don't." Dewitt pulled his mustache and piloted her back tothe machine. "They don't have to."
"No," echoed Robert Grant Burns, with the fat chuckle of utter contentin the knowledge of having achieved something. "From the looks ofthings, they don't have to." He looked at Jean so intently that shestared back at him, wondering what was the matter; and when he saw thatshe was wondering, he gave a snort.
"Good Lord!" he said to himself, just above a whisper, and looked away,despairing of ever reading the riddle of Jean's unshakable composure.Was it pose Was the girl phlegmatic,--with that face which was so alivewith the thoughts that shuttled back and forth behind those steady,talking eyes of hers? She was not stupid; Robert Grant Burns knew tohis own discomfiture that she was not stupid. Nor was she one to pose;the absolute sincerity of her terrific frankness was what had worriedRobert Grant Burns most. She must know that she had jumped into thefront rank of popular actresses, and stood out before them all,--forthe time being, at least. And,--he stole a measuring sidelong glanceat her, just as he had done thousands of times in the past fourmonths,--here she was in the private machine of the President of theGreat Western Film Company, with that great man himself talking to heras to his honored guest. She had seen herself featured alone at one ofthe biggest motion-picture theaters in Los Angeles; so well known that"Jean, of the Lazy A" was deemed all-sufficient as information andadvertisement. She had reached what seemed to Robert Grant Burns thefinal heights. And the girl sat there, calm, abstracted, actually notlistening to Dewitt when he talked! She was not even thinking abouthim! Robert Grant Burns gave her another quick, resentful glance, andwondered what under heaven the girl WAS thinking about.
As a matter of fact, having accepted the fact that she seemed to havemade a success of her pictures, her thoughts had drifted to what seemedto her more vital. Had she done wrong to come away out here, away fromher problem? The distance worried her. She had not even found out whowas the mysterious night-prowler, or what he wanted. He had never comeagain, after that night when Hepsy had scared him away. From longthinking about it, she had come to a vague, general belief that hisvisits were somehow connected with the murder; but in what manner, shecould not even form a theory. That worried her. She wished now thatshe had told Lite about it. She was foolish not to have donesomething, instead of sticking her head under the bedclothes and justshivering till he left. Lite would have found out who the man was, andwhat he wanted. Lite would never have let him come and go like that.But the visits had seemed so absolutely without reason. There wasnothing to steal, and nothing to find. Still, she wished she had toldLite, and let him find out who it was.
Then her talk with the great lawyer had been disquieting. He had notwanted to name his fee for defending her dad; but when he had named it,it did not seem so enormous as she had imagined it to be. He had askeda great many questions, and most of them puzzled Jean. He had saidthat he would take up the matter,--by which she believed he meant aninvestigation of her uncle's title to the Lazy A. He said that hewould see her father, and he told her that he had already been retainedto investigate the whole thing, so that she need not worry about havingto pay him a fee. That, he said, had already been arranged, though hedid not feel at liberty to name his client. But he wanted to assureher that everything was being done that could be done.
She herself had seen her father. She shrank within herself and triednot to think of that horrible meeting. Her soul writhed under thetormenting memory of how she had seen him. She had not been able totalk to him at all, scarcely. The words would not come. She had saidthat she and Lite were on their way to Los Angeles, and would be thereall winter. He had patted her shoulder with a tragic apathy in hismanner, and had said that the change would do her good. And that wasall she could remember that they had talked about. And then the guardcame, and--
That is what she was thinking about while the big, purple machine slidsmoothly through the tunnel, negotiated a rough stretch where thestreet-pavers were at work, and sped purring out upon the boulevardthat stretched away to Hollywood and the hills. That was what she kepthidden behind the "eternal calm" that so irritated Robert Grant Burnsand so delighted Dewitt and so interested Jim Gates, who studied herfor what "copy" there was in her personality.
It was the same when, the next day, Dewitt himself took her over to thebig plant which he spoke of as the studio. It was immense, and yetJean seemed unimpressed. She was gladder to see Pard and Lite againthan she was to meet the six-hundred-a-week star whose popularity sheseemed in a fair way to outrival. Men and women who were "in stock,"and therefore within the social pale, were introduced to her and saidnice, hackneyed things about how they admired her work and were glad towelcome her. She felt the warm air of good-fellowship that followedher everywhere. All of these people seemed to accept her at once asone of themselves. When she noticed it, she was amused at the way the"extras" stood back and looked at her and whispered together. Morethan once she overheard what seemed almost to have become acatch-phrase out here; "Jean of the lazy A" was the phrase.
Jean was not made of wood, understand. In a manner she recognized allthese little tributes, and to a certain degree she appreciated them.She was glad that she had made such a success of it, but she was gladbecause it would help her to take her dad away from that horrible,ghastly place and that horrible, ghastly death-in-life under which helived. In three years he had grown old and stooped--her dad!
And Burns twitted her ironically because she could not simper and loseher head over the attentions these people were loading upon her! Savefor the fact that in this way she could earn a good deal of money, andcould pay that lawyer Rossman, and trace Art Osgood, she would not havestayed; she could not have endured the staying. For the easier theymade life for her, the greater contrast did they make between her andher dad.
Gil brought her a great bunch of roses, unbelievably beautiful andfragrant, and laughed and told her they didn't look much like thosesnowdrifts she waded through the last day they worked on the Lazy Aserial. For just a minute he thought Jean was going to throw them athim, and he worried himself into sleeplessness, poor boy, wondering howhe had offended her, and how he could make amends. Could he havelooked into Jean's soul, he would have seen that it was seared with thefresh memory of iron bars and high walls and her dad who never saw anyroses; and that the contrast between their beauty and the terriblebarrenness that surrounded him was like a blow in her face.
Dewitt himself sensed that something was wrong with her. She was nother natural self, and he knew it, though his acquaintance with her wasa matter of hours only. Part of his business it was to study people,to read them; he read Jean now, in a general way. Not being aclairvoyant, he of course had no inkling of the very real troubles thatfilled her mind, though the effect of those troubles he saw quiteplainly. He watched her quietly for a day, and then he applied thebest remedy he knew.
"You've just finished a long, hard piece of work," he said in hiscrisp, matter-of-fact way, on the second morning after her arrival."There is going to be a delay here while we shape things up for thewinter, and it is my custom to keep my people in the very bestcondition to work right up to the standard. So you are all going tohave a two-weeks vacation, Jean-of-the-Lazy-A. At full salary, ofcourse; and to put you yourself into the true holiday spirit, I'm goingto raise your salary to a hundred and seventy-five a week. I consideryou worth it," he added, with a quieting gesture of uplifted hand, "oryou may be sure I wouldn't pay it.
"Get some nice old lady to chaperone you, and go and play. The oceanis good; get somewhere on the beach. Or go to Catalina and play there.Or stay here, and go to the movies. Go and see 'Jean, of the Lazy A,'and watch how the audience lives with her on the screen. Go up and talkto the wife. She told me to bring you up for dinner. You go climbinto my machine, and tell Bob to take you to the house now. Run along,Jean of the Lazy A!
This is an order from your chief."
Jean wanted to cry. She held the roses, that she almost hated fortheir very beauty and fragrance, close pressed in her arms, while shewent away toward the machine. Dewitt looked after her, thought shemeant to obey him, and turned to greet a great man of the town who hadbeen waiting for five minutes to speak to him.
Jean did not climb into the purple car and tell Bob to drive her to"the house." She walked past it without even noticing that it stoodthere, an aristocrat among the other machines parked behind the greatstudio that looked like a long, low warehouse. She knew thestraightest, shortest trail to the corrals, you may be sure of that.She took that trail.
Pard was standing in a far corner under a shed, switching his tailmethodically at the October crop of flies. His head lay over the neckof a scrawny little buckskin, for which he had formed a sudden andviolent attachment, and his eyes were half closed while he drowsed inlazy content. Pard was not worrying about anything. He looked soluxuriously happy that Jean had not the heart to disturb him, even withher comfort-seeking caresses. She leaned her elbows on the corral gateand watched him awhile. She asked a bashful, gum-chewing youth if hecould tell her where to find Lite Avery. But the youth seemed never tohave heard of Lite Avery, and Jean was too miserable to explain anddescribe Lite, and insist upon seeing him. She walked over to thenearest car-line and caught the next street car for the city. Part ofher chief's orders at least she would obey. She would go down to theVictoria and see "Jean, of the Lazy A," but she was not going becauseof any impulse of vanity, or to soothe her soul with the applause ofstrangers. She wanted to see the ranch again. She wanted to see thedear, familiar line of the old bluff that framed the coulee, and rideagain with Lite through those wild places they had chosen for thepictures. She wanted to lose herself for a little while among thehills that were home.