CHAPTER XXVII HER BIG NIGHT
It was the crew of smiling blacks who carried Florence and Jeanne back toshore. A stout little tug came out for the Polar ship, but that was tooslow for them.
With oars flashing in the moonlight, with their crew chanting a weirdsong, they went sweeping back to Jeanne's "Big Night."
All their friends, the movie company, Tom Tobin and even Erik Nord werewaiting.
"I have it," Florence whispered to Erik. "The three-bladed knife." Sheslipped it into his hand.
"Wonderful!" He gripped her hand. "But the bell? The banners?"
"There's something strange about them."
"Tell me what happened."
She told him briefly as they hurried along with the others to the littletheatre.
"You'll never see him again," Erik said with conviction. "The emigrationofficers are on his trail. They'll get him. He'll go back to China."
"Do you know," Florence spoke in a low, serious tone, "I feel rathersorry for him."
"Yes, one does. But that is often so in China. The old is losing out, thenew is coming. That is always sad. But it must be."
They were at the theatre entrance.
* * * * * * * *
Once, while Jeanne, still quite a young girl, was traveling with thegypsies a man had asked permission to take her picture as she danced withthe bear. Proudly she had posed for the camera man. That had been spring.
"In the autumn when you return this way you shall see your picture," thekindly white-haired photographer had said to her.
She recalled all that now as she sat in the little theatre waiting forthe preview of her picture to begin.
"Ah, yes," she thought, "How thrilled I was when at last we returned tothat village and I was permitted to see that picture! But this! How muchmore wonderful! But, perhaps--how terrible!"
And indeed, what an occasion was this! Never before had she seen herselfin motion. Never had she heard her own voice after the sound had beenallowed to grow cold. And now, now she was to see and hear a featurenever before shown on the screen. And in this feature she was the star.Each act, each movement, every little habit of gesture, yes, almost ofthought, was recorded here. Her very book of life was to be opened upbefore her, or so she believed. And not before herself alone was she toappear, but to an assembled group of notable people. There were rich menand their wives, friends of the producer. There were reporters andcritics. By the judgment of these last the picture must stand or fall.Little wonder then that she actually shuddered and leaned hard onFlorence's arm as Ted Hunter, the director, stepped into the spotlight tomake the accustomed announcement.
It seemed that there were to be still some moments of suspense. They hadmade, Ted Hunter announced, a very short mystery reel which they wouldnow run as a curtain-raiser to the main event.
Too much overcome by thoughts of the immediate future to focus herattention on this mystery, Jeanne watched with half closed eyes untilwith a sudden start she sat straight up, to grip Jensie's arm and whispershrilly:
"Jensie! Only look!"
There was no need for this. Jensie had seen and was staring hard, forupon the screen there walked with solemn tread two black horses. Theywere hitched to an ancient, dilapidated hearse, and on that hearse thererested a coffin.
That this was a part of the mystery Jeanne knew, but what that part wasshe could not guess. She had not followed the plot. One thing was plainand this she whispered to Jensie.
"That's the old hearse. It belongs back of the Tavern in the LincolnGroup. They--they must have borrowed it for this picture. They took it inthe night. That was the time I saw the black horses and the coffin."
"Yes. And you know that organ?" the mountain girl whispered back. "Ifound out about that. It was a colored girl who washes dishes at theTavern. She loves music, so she hid in the closet and slipped out to playthe organ at night. I--I caught her."
"Sh--sh!"
The mystery was over. Once again Ted Hunter was in the spotlight's glare.The great moment was at hand.
Never will Jeanne forget the hour that followed. From a distance sheheard the motor hum. Next instant she saw herself upon the screen. Onegood look, ten seconds, she saw herself. Then she, Petite Jeanne,vanished. In her place, standing among the rhododendrons at the side ofBig Black Mountain was Zola the child of that mountain.
All that hour she looked upon the screen, listened and lived with Zola.She laughed when it was time to laugh, wept when others wept and shoutedas they shouted.
And when the camera gave its last click, when the screen went white andthe lights flashed on, she said to herself, "It was not I."
Yet, even as she sat there they crowded about her, the members of thecast of that picture, the reporters, the critics. They lifted her totheir shoulders, carried her to the platform, set her on her feet, andshouted.
"Speech! Speech!"
Speech? Her head was in a wild whirl.
Then her eyes fell upon the clock. "Listen!" She held up a hand forsilence.
"Listen!" Her voice rose like a captain's shouting a command. A hush, thehush that can come only at two in the morning, fell over the group. Butinto that hush there came no unusual sound, only the distant chimesheralding the hour of two in the morning.
"My hour of enchantment!" Jeanne sighed blissfully.
"And now you listen!" It was Florence who spoke. "I have heard you saythat many times. What do you mean--your hour of enchantment?"
"All right, I'll tell you." The little French girl's face beamed. "Longago a gypsy woman, a very old and very wise fortune teller, said to me,'Your hour of enchantment is two o'clock in the morning.'
"You too," she hurried on, "each one of you has an enchanted hour--anhour when wonderful things will come to you; good fortune, riches, aproposal, marriage, all these will come to you on that enchanted hour.
"It is true!" She was deeply in earnest, this little French girl, sosincerely in earnest that she did not realize that she was about tobetray a secret.
"You think it strange that my enchanted hour is two in the morning whenmost good people are in their beds.
"But you are forgetting that I am at heart a gypsy, that indeed I once_was_ a gypsy, a French gypsy, a very good gypsy." She smiled. "But agypsy all the same." At this instant the lips of Mr. Soloman parted in alow exclamation of excitement.
"So that is who you are!" he exclaimed. "You are the little French girl,Petite Jeanne! For days I have wracked my brain saying to myself, 'She isnot Lorena LeMar. Who is she?' And now look! You are Petite Jeanne, thestar of my most wonderful picture."
"Oh, Mr. Soloman!" Jeanne's arms came perilously near encircling his fatneck. "You knew I was a fraud, and yet you let me go on! How--how so verywonderful!"
"A fraud!" he thundered. "No! I did not know you were a fraud. I knew youwere a very great star.
"And now, Miss Jeanne," his voice became confidential, "your name will goon that picture and in the lights of every Broadway of the land, for itwas you who made that picture, not Lorena LeMar."
"Oh!" Jeanne caught her breath. "Do you think that would be right?"
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" came in screams from the crowd.
"And what a story that will make!"
"Boys," the producer turned to a group of reporters, "those pictures youtook, they must go with the greatest story of all time, the story of adouble who in two short weeks became a star."
"Yes! Yes! You bet! Rah, rah, for Jeanne!" came from the reporters.
"And now, Miss Jeanne." Soloman drew a paper from his pocket. "Here is acontract for you. We have made you--no, no, you have made yourself--astar; and of course you will make another picture; many, many more."
"Please," Jeanne pressed the paper back into his hand, "not to-night. Myhead is in a whirl. Perhaps never at all, but surely not to-night."
"To-morrow then. I can wait." The great little man folded his paperneatly and thrust it deep in h
is pocket.
"This moving picture," said Jeanne, still feeling that she must make aspeech. "It is beautiful. I have seen. You have seen. It is trulybeautiful. But it is not I who have made it. It is you, my friends, Mr.Soloman, Pietro, Anthony, Scott Ramsey and all the rest. It is the spiritof those so beautiful mountains. It is the soul of that so greatAmerican, Mr. Lincoln. It is every one. It is everything. It is not I.
"And now," she murmured after the applause had died away, "I am verytired. Will you please take me home, not to that so grand hotel but tothe little rooms where my good Florence and I have lived so happily. Nolonger am I Lorena LeMar. I am only Petite Jeanne, the gypsy."
Once more they bore her in triumph on their shoulders, and tucked heraway at last in the taxi between Florence and Jensie, while Erik Nord andTom Tobin took their places on the drop seats before her.
There was little left to be told. It was told in the shabby third floorrooms that were the private castle of Florence and Jeanne. With Tom asher bodyguard Jeanne hurried to the little hotel where she presented hercheck and received in exchange her well filled laundry bag.
When Tom had carried this to the top floor room, she bade him pour itscontents on the floor.
"Behold the bell, the banners!" she exclaimed. "I have had them hiddenaway all the time. Do not ask me why. I am a gypsy. A gypsy needs noreason.
"And now, Mr. Nord, with my good friend's permission, I return them toyou. Florence has told me of the cute Chinese children. May they all getwell speedily."
"And the reward?" Erik Nord looked from Florence to Jeanne.
"Florence may have the reward," Jeanne responded quickly.
"And you will visit China?" He smiled at Florence.
"Perhaps. Some time." She looked away quickly.
Jensie went to college. Jeanne was called back to France. The great Fairclosed, as all fairs do. So ended another year.
Did Jeanne return to America? Did she renew her rightful claim of stardomin the movie world? Did Florence indeed visit that "mysterious land,China"? You may find the answer in the next book, _The Phantom Violin_.
Transcriber's Notes
--Copyright notice provided as in the original printed text--this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.
--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.
--In the text versions, italic text is delimited by _underscores_.
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