23
Ella
There is often a grumpy nothing-nice-will-ever-happen-again feeling after Christmas. The Winters usually had severe attacks of this, but this year so much was going on they missed even a touch of it. Even Rachel remained gay long after Christmas. Her dancing lessons stopped for a while around Christmas, but there were Manoff’s Saturdays. To Rachel, Manoff’s dancing mornings were so exciting that all the rest of Saturday after them she went around in sort of daze. She tried to tell her family what it was like.
“Of course, most of it’s much too difficult for me, but just being there is simply superb. Manoff shows us steps, three or four at a time, some of them terribly difficult. When he does fast ones, it’s like fireworks just going off, and when he does slow ones, they all slide together like water coming out of a tap.”
“Splendid, dear,” said Peaseblossom. “Wonderful chance for you; up the Winters!”
For Tim there was no question of Christmas grumpiness. There was that absorbing box of tricks, and there was Hiram’s Hour, with Brent and more tricks. In spite of John’s, Bee’s, and Peaseblossom’s efforts, Tim managed to work three tricks on Aunt Cora: the ink one on her desk, a cat’s meow from under the cushion of her chair when she sat down, and a snake in her bath. The last was so realistic that Aunt Cora had hysterics and had to go to bed for the rest of the day with not only a nervous but a dizzy spell. The hysterics caused such confusion that even Bella was cross, and Tim could see he had gone too far. He knew for certain he had gone too far when John told him that he was a pestiferous little horror and that if he played one more trick on Aunt Cora, the whole box of jokes would be burned. Tim said, “Don’t fuss, Dad. I won’t do any more to her. As a matter of fact, I won’t even do one in a room where she could go. But I wish I didn’t have an aunt who’s like that.”
Fortunately all the jokes were a riot on Hiram’s Hour. The audience adored them, and the men who sang about Mr. Hiram P. Sneltzworther’s secondhand cars adored them. Driving home after the broadcasts, Tim would describe in detail the cast’s and staff’s reactions to every trick played on them. John would say, “Fine, old man, but what did you play?”
“Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu and then Mendelssohn’s Rondo Capriccioso, and oh, Dad, I forgot to tell you about the spider that came down in front of the lady who was singing...” And off Tim would go again, describing other tricks played and not-very-well-told versions of Brent’s jokes.
Peaseblossom found Tim’s calm acceptance of all that was happening to him annoying. She had never thought him sufficiently impressed by the goodness of Jeremy Caulder in offering to give him lesson. She had been really shocked at the offhand way he had treated Mr. Caulder’s suggested list of music for the radio program. She thought it sad that after she had sat in, as she usually did, to listen to Tim on Hiram’s Hour and been impressed and moved by his playing, all he talked about when he came home was water spouting out of trombones or a trick played on the gentlemen who sang the singing advertisements. Bella, who always listened to Hiram’s Hour and rocked to and fro, did not mind a bit that all he talked about was tricks and jokes. Though she had heard the program, she enjoyed it all over again with Tim, laughing until she ached. But not Peaseblossom; she felt all the hilarity showed disrespect on Tim’s part for a gift for piano playing. She tried in a hinting way to make him see her point of view.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity for giving pleasure that few boys of your age have the chance to give.”
These discussions always went on during Tim’s supper. He would eat stolidly while Peaseblossom talked, and she always hoped he was being improved by what she said; but she was always disappointed. Tim enjoyed Hiram’s Hours so much he found it impossible to be serious after them. Peaseblossom talked earnestly about Mendelssohn, Bach, or whatever music she was discussing could mean in people’s lives and how perfectly splendid it was a Winter to have a chance to be that influence, Tim was thinking of better and brighter tricks. When Peaseblossom was finished talking, he would say some thing like “I wonder if Brent could put some stuff on the microphone which would make everybody hiccup. Hiccups would be gorgeous, especially if you had to sing.”
Peaseblossom tried not to let herself be discourage, but after one Hiram’s Hour she lost her temper. It had been a particularly riotous program, so riotous that Tim came home in what John, describing it to Bee, called a “thoroughly-above-himself mood,” and it was a long time before Peaseblossom could get in her talk. At the end of it Tim said, “Brent’s got the hiccup stuff. He s going to use it on a lady singing ‘Cherry Ripe.’”
Peaseblossom gave a snort.
“Disgusting! A lovely song like that ruined by horseplay! Your Mr. Brent should be ashamed; after all, there are listeners who love music. Do you know that the first bars you played tonight were ruined because people had not stopped laughing at Mr. Brent’s ‘crack,’ as you call it? And those notes lost in all that laughing are lost for good.”
Tim had finished his supper.
“Not really. I forgot to tell Dad I’m going to make gramophone records. There’s a gentleman coming to see him about it.”
Peaseblossom’s hands, holding the tray, shook.
“Really, Tim! Make gramophone records! A wonderful compliment, and you forget to mention it!” She put down the tray. “I simply don’t understand you. If you can’t take pride in yourself, you might at least be proud for the family. Records! Our side’s doing splendidly, but you lack the team spirit.”
Tim flung his arms around her.
“Do you think you could make me a little tiny bag with a sponge in it full of red ink? I thought I could squeeze it just as Brent announced I’m going to play and he’d think my nose was bleeding. “
Peaseblossom picked up the tray. “I shall do nothing of the sort. Good night.”
Immediately after Christmas David started to teach Jane to play her pipes. Hearing the little soft-calling music David’s pipes made, Jane thought that after a few lessons she could make the same sounds, but not a bit of it. To play pipes requires patience and a certain natural ability. Jane had neither. If it had not been David who was teaching her, Jane would have lost her temper at her very first lesson. She was clumsy with the pipes, and instead of David’s magic tune, dreary squawks came out of them. It was the most difficult thing Jane had ever done to go on trying hard and to look fairly pleasant at the same time. But somehow she managed it, for she feared that otherwise David would not think her worth teaching. As usual, when anything was going wrong, she kept it to herself. She said to Rachel, “You just can’t imagine how easy it is. Of course, I can only practice between shots when Mickey isn’t there, but if he was, he’d fly straight to me.”
Rachel spoke to Bee about this.
“I do think, Mom, you ought to ask David to teach Jane go-away as well as come-to-me tunes on that pipe. Just think what Saxon Crescent is going to be like if she plays her pipes there. Full of cats, dogs, pigeons, sparrows, and, I expect, sea gulls.”
Bee was surprised. “I will, darling, if I get a chance, but I’m amazed that she’s supposed to be learning fast, for she makes the most ghastly noises; I spend my time apologizing a bout it.”
One day, when David and Jane had done all their lessons in the morning, and had an almost free afternoon, David said in the middle of a pipe lesson, “Reckon that’s better.”
Jane was overwhelmed at what, from David, was terrific praise.
“Do you really reckon it was? Oh, I am glad.”
David turned his pipes around and around. When he spoke again, his slow words seemed more pushed out of him than usual.
“Tomorrow they’ll be shooting almost all my creatures.” “In the garden?”
David had a worried look. “Yes.”
Jane’s eyes shone. “How gorgeous! I’ve done that scene with Miss Steiman; and I thought only Mickey was there.”
David was not listening to Jane but following his own thoughts. “Bob’ll be all
right, but the rest aren’t ready to meet folks; I’m ‘feared they’ll be scared.”
“You mean they won’t work even with you?” “Alone they would, but I can’t be everyplace.”
Jane gazed at David, hardly believing what she had heard. “You mean you want me to help you with them? You me help?”
David nodded. “So they won’t be scared.”
As always, when David was using his creatures picture, he had them on the set well before the shooting began. In this scene Colin had already been helped down the steps and was sitting on the grass and Mary was gardening. As Jane’s-Mr. Browne had planned the picture, Dickon bought a baby lamb to show Colin and was to give it to him to while he sat under a tree and piped. Presently a little fox, four rabbits, Bob, the squirrel, Mickey, and a crow and cock pheasant would be sitting around or on him. Nobody interfered with David or his arrangements for his creatures, for he alone knew what was best for them. When, therefore, he told Mr. Phelps he wanted Jane to be on the set early, Mr. Phelps, though surprised, passed on the message to Bee.
To Jane the time spent in the garden withDavid and his creatures before the shootingbegan was something she was to remember all her life. David had inhis arms an almost new lamb, which he stroked all the while he was talking. He spoke even more slowly and softly than usual. He said the lamb was called Ella and was terribly scared, so he would give her to Jane in a minuteto get her accustomed to strange people holding her. Presently he did just that. First he told Jane to pick up a feeding-bottle of milk which was under a painted rose bush and then to sit down. Jane hardly breathed as Ella’s soft little helpless body was laid on her lap. Would Ella stay? Would she? For a moment it lookedas though she would not. She gave a terrified start.
“Stroke her,” David said. “Stroke her; then give her the bottle.” Jane stroked and whispered loving words; then very gently she lifted the bottle and put the nipple into Ella’s mouth. For a second nothinghappened; then Ella gave a wriggle to make herself more cozy and began to suck. Jane dared not speak; but she looked at David, and her eyes would have told him Ella had settled down even if he had not been able to see for himself she had.
David began to talk again. He said that somewhere about were old friends of Jane’s that she had met before Andy, the cock pheasant; four of the rabbits, Joe, Arthur, Mary, and Ann; Pedro, the fox; Jack, the crow; and, of course, Mickey and Bob. Then he began to pipe, and what happened was real magic. Mickey, of course came first. Then two little eyes twinkled from behind a clump of tulips, and Bob hopped out. David stopped piping for a moment and threw a handful of food toward Jane. Then he piped again, and one by one the four rabbits were out nibbling; then very shyly the baby fox crept out from behind a peach tree and crawled up to David. Then, with a I’m-not-afraid-of-anybody caw, Jack, the crow flew from a lilac bush onto David’s shoulder, and last of all, Andy the pheasant, hopped onto the path and stood still, gazing at David with his head on one side. Jane went on stroking Ella and hoping and hoping that just one of the creatures would come near her.
“If they do,” she thought, “I’ll be helping David, and I’ll be starting to be part of taming them,” and in her mind she added Chewing-gum to the group. Not the Chewing-gum, she knew, who was not obedient and inclined to chase down any bird he saw, but a new Chewing-gum, who sat down beside her and looked at Ella with worshiping eyes.
Presently Bob had eaten all the nuts near him, and he skipped toward Jane. He looked at her thoughtfully: Was this the girl he knew? Yes of course it was. As if she were not there, he picked up a nut that was almost touching her knee. Two of the rabbits, Joe and Ann, seeing how little disturbed Bob was, had a word with each other. Jane could imagine what they were saying, “That’s the girl David’s brought along to see us. That’s a good-looking lettuce beside Let’s have a nibble.”
Jane’s-Mr. Browne’s voice came from somewhere behind David.
“Can you get rid of them without frightening them? Then we’ll get cracking.”
David got rid of his creatures by getting up and taking Ella from Jane and wandering off with her down the garden. As he went, the animals scuttled and the birds flew after him.
Jane’s-Mr. Browne took Jane and Maurice through their scenes. The sequence was that Dickon, having wheeled Colin into the garden, had gone to fetch his creatures. Mary, with her rake, was weeding, and as she weeded, she talked to Colin, who was sitting on the grass beside her. They were discussing the magic in the garden, which was not only bringing the garden to life but also making Colin’s legs strong so that he could walk. That scene finished as Dickon’s pipes were heard and was the beginning of the scenes with the creatures in them.
Maurice, as usual, did his scenes with Jane faultlessly, and Jane was better than usual. She was so eager to get to the scenes with David that she could almost be nice to Maurice without thinking of him as a chipmunk. All the same, the time it took to take the first shots bored her dreadfully, and she needed nobody to tell her to look up with a face shining with pleasure when at last she heard David’s pipes.
Maurice was told not to move. Jane was to take a few steps toward David. In the first scene with the creatures only Ella was to be used. While Jane’s-Mr. Browne was explaining to Maurice what he wanted him to do and what he wanted him to feel, David whispered to Jane that it should be all right. Full of the milk Jane had given her, Ella had gone to sleep and most likely would not know that she had been in Maurice’s arms.
It was decided not to disturb Ella by rehearsing her. David pretended to give her to Maurice, and Maurice pretended to take her; but the real giving and taking waited till the cameras were rolling.
Jane had nothing to do in that scene except look interested; that was no trouble at all because she was. Her eyes on Ella, she watched David cross to Maurice and very softly put the lamb in his arms. Ella was either a light sleeper or not as fast asleep as David thought, for the second Maurice touched her she opened her eyes and on seeing him leaped out of his arms and out of the picture. Jane’s-Mr. Bowne said quietly, “Cut” they would start the scene again. They started it four times, but it was no use: Ella just would not be touched by Maurice. It was a new experience for Jane to see a scene being shot over and over again because somebody else was doing it wrong.
“I bet Maurice blames Ella,” she thought. “But I know just how Ella feels, and I don’t blame her at all.
Presently the lights were switched off, and Jane’s-Mr. Bowne and David had a long talk. At the end Mr. Phelps came up to Jane.
“David thinks the lamb’ll come to you. Mr. Browne’ll try it that way.”
Another rehearsal took place. As Jane heard David’s pipes, she was to drop her rake and go sit on the grass beside Colin while he said his line: “It’s Dickon Oh’ I hope the creatures will like me.”
That scene went badly. Maurice was furious that Jane was to hold Ella.
“Come on said Maurice,” Jane’s-Mr. Browne said. “You said those lines at the first take. Now all the life’s gone out of them.”
Maurice made an effort, and after a few tries, because he, really was a good actor; he got the lines fairly right, but never as well as he had the first time. The moment the lights were switched off he ran to his mother, his face scarlet with temper.
“Talk to Browne, Mommy. I’m the star of this picture. People will like to see me holding a Iamb. It will make a lovely still. I won’t have that Jane holding her. It’s my scene. Mine. Mine. Mine.”
Mrs. Tuesday went to Jane’s-Mr. Browne.
“Little Maurice is upset. He was so looking forward to cuddling the lamb; besides, it would have made a sweetly pretty still. I do hope you won’t disappoint him; he is such a highly strung little boy and so easily upset.”
Jane’s-Mr. Browne was used to Mrs. Tuesday. In every picture there was some place where she thought Maurice did not have enough to do and so might be upset. When he could, Mr. Browne gave in to her but not, of course if it spoiled his picture. This time he couldn’t giv
e in because nobody could make Ella do what she didn’t want to do. He explained this to Mrs. Tuesday, but Mrs. Tuesday was not satisfied.
“I shall have a talk with Mr. Bettelheimer. My boy’s the most wonderful little boy Bee Bee studios have ever had under contract, and I won’t have him slighted.”
Jane’s-Mr. Browne told Mr. Phelps to call Jane and Maurice onto the set.
“I guess Mrs. Tuesday needn’t worry any,” he said. “My bet is Ella won’t go to Jane either. In that case we won’t have the lamb in the picture.”
Jane had said nothing since she had been told she was to hold Ella. The hairdresser fussed with her hair, and the makeup woman mopped her face with a tissue; but she never opened her mouth. She stood with her eyes shut, clasping her pipes. When Bee asked if anything was wrong, she only shook her head, and Bee supposed she was playing some game. But it was not a game. Jane was using her will. Over and over again she was repeating to herself, “If Ella comes to me, I’ve begun to learn magic. She’s got to come to me. She’s got to. She’s got to.”
There were no words in the first scene with Ella. As David came slowly toward her, Jane could hear her on beating. Ella was not asleep, and David was stroking her. David came nearer and nearer. The cameras were rolling, the lights blazing down on the garden. Then David was beside her. He knelt and gave her Ella. For a second it was uncertain whether Ella would stay. Then Jane, stroking her gently, whispered a line that was not in the script. “Stay with me, darling. Stay with me.”
Jane’s-Mr. Browne said, “Cut,” and mopped his forehead. Mr. Phelps grinned.
“If you make pictures for the next fifty years, you’ll never get anything more natural than that.” He broke off. “What’s happening?’
What was happening was that Maurice was having a screaming fit. As the cameras stopped rolling, he threw himself on the ground and kicked and howled.
Because of Maurice’s hysterics, the other scenes with Ella and the creatures had to wait until the next day. Bee took Jane home in a taxi. Jane was so quiet Bee asked if anything was wrong. Jane looked at her, her eyes shining.