CHAPTER XXIII GOLDEN DAYS
It was night. All alone Jeanne sat upon the side of that man-made sectionof Big Black Mountain there on the studio lot in Chicago. The faint lightthat reached her, coming from afar, served only to intensify the shadowsof trees and shrubs all about her.
It was perfect, this bit of Big Black Mountain. The trees, the shrubs,the rocks, the little rushing stream, all were perfect.
"Perfect," she whispered. "And the picture we have been making, will itbe perfect, too?" Her brow wrinkled. She was to know. To-night was thegreat night. The picture was finished. To-night came the preview.
"At midnight," she breathed. "Midnight, one o'clock, and after that myhour of enchantment. Shall it truly be? Shall--?"
She broke short off to cast a hurried glance up the slope above her. Hadshe caught some sound, the snapping of a twig, the rolling of a stone?
"Perhaps nothing," she told herself. "I am excited. This is a grandnight."
Ah, yes, this was the night of nights. Two weeks had passed since LorenaLeMar had walked out of her richly furnished apartment and Jeanne hadwalked in.
Two weeks, fourteen days, and such days as they had been! Jeanne sighedas she thought of it now. And yet her lips were able to form the words"Golden Days." They had been just that, beautiful, glorious, golden days.
"It is perfect, this mountain," she whispered. "Even in the dark onesenses the beauty of it. Ah, the rushing cold water, the scent ofmountain ivy, the glint of sunbeams through the trees!"
Yes, it was a perfect little corner of Big Black Mountain, but the littleFrench girl's thoughts were far away. They had wandered to the spot whereBig Black Mountain itself stretched away, away and away until itsglorious green turned to blue that blended with a cloudless sky.
She was thinking of Pietro who rode a donkey so badly he had actuallyfallen off more than once, and who sang his Italian songs so divinely.
She was thinking of Tom Tobin and wondering vaguely which of the two sheliked best.
"I want the picture to be a success for them," she whispered. Her wordswere almost a prayer. "Oh, God, make the critics kind! It is for them,for Pietro and Jensie, for Old Scott Ramsey, for Soloman and--and forTom."
Tom had been with her on her visit to Big Black Mountain. Yes, Tom hadgone, for by this time the story of the possible success of a realfeature written by a Chicago boy and being filmed at Chicago's front doorhad become town talk.
There had been publicity. "Ah, yes, such publicity!" she sighed. Everyday for a week her picture had appeared in the paper. She had been shownamong the dogwood blossoms on the movie lot, on the Enchanted Island witha hundred beautiful children crowding about her, in a gondola riding downthe lagoon like a queen. Ah, yes, there had been publicity.
"And always," she breathed, "I am not Petite Jeanne at all, but LorenaLeMar. Ah, well, what can it matter? To-day one is a queen, to-morrow sheis forgotten.
"And besides--" She smiled a bit wearily. "Besides, how shall I say it?This picture may, after all, be a flop, and if it is, then it is LorenaLeMar who has failed and not I."
Again a little tremor shot up her spine. She _had_ caught a sound aboveher. She half rose as if to flee. But the night was warm. The day hadbeen a hard one. It was good to be alone. Soon the floodlights would beturned on, the press men with their cameras would be here. To-night wasthe preview of that much talked of picture, "When the Dogwood Is inBloom." It had been arranged that the showing should take place in theChildren's Theatre on the Enchanted Island of the Fair.
"There is no one up there." She settled back. "Only a few moments more tothink."
Strangely enough, her thoughts for a moment whirled through a score ofmysteries, the hearse and the two black horses in the dark night, theorgan that played its own tunes, the three-bladed knife, the long-earedChinaman, all these remained as mysteries.
"But these," she told herself, "these are not for to-night. To-morrow orthe day after, perhaps."
Oh, were they not, though? One may not always elect the hour for theunfolding of life's mysteries. Fate at times takes a hand.
But one may choose the subject of one's own thoughts. Jeanne chose tothink of the real Big Black Mountain. What a glorious time she had downthere in the hills of Kentucky! Climbing steep slopes, she had droppedupon beds of moss to catch the call of a yellow-hammer or the chatter ofa squirrel.
At night she had sat for long hours before a narrow home-made fireplace,to creep at last beneath home-woven blankets, and with Jensie at her sideto sleep the long night through.
That had lasted only two days. And then back to the city they werewhirled.
"We must go back!" the producer had exclaimed. "The public is clamoringfor a look at the task we are at, making a feature right in Chicago."
The public had been there. Every afternoon, as they worked at theunfolding of this tense drama, the stadium had been packed.
The picture had grown, too. Under the inspiration of the hour, newfragments of plot were added, new scenes sprang into being. A mountainfeud was added. The scene in a mansion which Jeanne suggested had sprunginto being. A friend of Lorena LeMar, a rich society fan of the movies,had thrown her home open to them. And there in the midst of the greatestsplendor Jeanne had tripped with dainty feet down a winding marblestaircase, only to cast aside her silken finery at last and don hercalico gown to go stealing out of the mansion and borrow a ride in a boxcar back to her beloved mountains.
All this had become part of the thing they were making. Working at whiteheat, inspired by one grand idea that success was to be achieved wherefailure had been expected, they had poured their very lives into thebusiness of creating a thing of beauty that in the hearts of men would bea joy forever.
Never, even in the good days of light opera, had Jeanne so thoroughlylost herself in the thing she was doing. Day and night she lived, movedand breathed as Zola, the mountain girl.
She had worked untiringly, not so much for herself as for others. Onceagain she had gathered about her a golden circle of friends. Pietro,Soloman, Tom, Jensie, Scott Ramsey, all these and many others wereincluded in her Golden Circle.
"And now--" She caught a short breath as she sat there among the trees."Now we have done all that can be done. To-night we shall know.
"We shall know." How her heart raced. Not one foot of that film had sheseen thrown upon the screen. To-night she was to see it all--the pictureshe had made.
"I--I can't wait!" She sprang to her feet.
At that instant floodlights flashed on. Instantly night was turned intoday.
Involuntarily she glanced in the direction from which that disturbingsound had come.
It was only by exerting the utmost of will power that she avoidedscreaming. There, crouching with the three-bladed knife in his hand, notten feet away, was the long-eared Chinaman.
"I must not scream! I will not!" She shut her lips tight.
She looked again. _He was gone._
Scarcely believing her eyes, she stood staring at the spot.
"I must not say a word," she whispered to herself. "This is to be the bignight. There must be no scene! No hue and cry, no wild man-hunt! No! No!No!"
And there was none.
Five minutes later when the photographers came to take one more pictureof the "Queen" on the mountainside, she stood calm and smiling as a Junebride.
"To think," she said to Tom Tobin when this ordeal was over, "to-morrowthis beautiful mountain will be a thing of the past! Not one stick, norstone, nor even a handful of earth will remain. To-morrow a new pictureis to begin, a desert scene, new director, new cast, new setting, a brandnew movie world."
"Sort of life-like," Tom philosophized. "We move a little slower, stay alittle longer on this good, green earth, that's all."
"Ah, yes, but to-night let us forget." Jeanne gripped his armimpulsively. "This, my friend, is our big moment, yours and mine. Let usdream for a moment, hope for an hour. Let us dare hop
e.
"And--" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "And if it is not too much, letus pray a little."