Books: Jill the Reckless)

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What, he broke off to ask, did Pilkington think of the idea?

Pilkington thought the idea splendid. Miss Mariner, with her charm
and looks, would be wonderful in the movies.

There was, said Uncle Chris, a future for a girl in the movies.

Mr Pilkington agreed cordially. A great future.

"Look at Mary Pickford!" said Uncle Chris. "Millions a year!"

Mr Pilkington contemplated Miss Pickford, and agreed again. He
instanced other stars--lesser luminaries, perhaps, but each with her
thousands a week. There was no doubt about it--a girl's best friend
was the movies.

"Observe," proceeded Uncle Chris, gathering speed and expanding his
chest as he spread his legs before the fire, "how it would simplify
the whole matter if Jill were to become a motion-picture artist and
win fame and wealth in her profession. And there can be no reasonable
doubt, my boy, that she would. As you say, with her appearance and
her charm . . . Which of these women whose names you see all along
Broadway in electric lights can hold a candle to her? Once started,
with the proper backing behind her, her future would be assured. And
then. . . . Of course, as regards her feelings I cannot speak, as I
know nothing of them, but we will assume that she is not indifferent
to you . . . what then? You go to your excellent aunt and announce
that you are engaged to be married to Jill Mariner. There is a
momentary pause. 'Not _the_ Jill Mariner?' falters Mrs Peagrim. 'Yes,
the famous Miss Mariner!' you reply. Well, I ask you, my boy, can you
see her making an objection? Such a thing would be absurd. No, I can
see no flaw in the project whatsoever." Here Uncle Chris, as he had
pictured Mrs Peagrim doing, paused for a moment. "Of course, there
would be the preliminaries."

"The preliminaries?"

Uncle Chris' voice became a melodious coo. He beamed upon Mr
Pilkington.

"Well, think for yourself, my boy! These things cannot be done
without money. I do not propose to allow my niece to waste her time
and her energy in the rank and file of the profession, waiting years
for a chance that might never come. There is plenty of room at the
top, and that, in the motion-picture profession, is the place to
start. If Jill is to become a motion-picture artist, a special
company must be formed to promote her. She must be made a feature, a
star, from the beginning. That is why I have advised her to accept
her present position temporarily, in order that she may gain
experience. She must learn to walk before she runs. She must study
before she soars. But when the moment arrives for her to take the
step, she must not be hampered by lack of money. Whether," said Uncle
Chris, smoothing the crease of his trousers, "you would wish to take
shares in the company yourself . . ."

"Oo . . . !"

". . . is a matter," proceeded Uncle Chris, ignoring the
interruption, "for you yourself to decide. Possibly you have other
claims on your purse. Possibly this musical play of yours has taken
all the cash you are prepared to lock up. Possibly you may consider
the venture too speculative. Possibly . . . there are a hundred
reasons why you may not wish to join us. But I know a dozen men--I
can go down Wall Street tomorrow and pick out twenty men--who will be
glad to advance the necessary capital. I can assure you that I
personally shall not hesitate to risk--if one can call it
risking--any loose cash which I may have lying idle at my banker's."

He rattled the loose cash which he had lying idle in his
trouser-pocket--fifteen cents in all--and stopped to flick a piece of
fluff off his coat-sleeve. Mr Pilkington was thus enabled to insert a
word.

"How much would you want?" he enquired.

"That," said Uncle Chris meditatively, "is a little hard to say. I
should have to look into the matter more closely in order to give you
the exact figures. But let us say for the sake of argument that you
put up--what shall we say?--a hundred thousand? fifty thousand? . . .
no, we will be conservative. Perhaps you had better not begin with
more than ten thousand. You can always buy more shares later. I don't
suppose I shall begin with more than ten thousand myself."

"I could manage ten thousand all right."

"Excellent. We make progress, we make progress. Very well, then. I go
to my Wall Street friends--I would give you their names, only for the
present, till something definite has been done, that would hardly be
politic--I go to my Wall Street friends, and tell them about the
scheme, and say 'Here is ten thousand dollars! What is your
contribution?' It puts the affair on a business-like basis, you
understand. Then we really get to work. But use your own judgment my
boy, you know. Use your own judgment. I would not think of persuading
you to take such a step, if you felt at all doubtful. Think it over.
Sleep on it. And, whatever you decide to do, on no account say a word
about it to Jill. It would be cruel to raise her hopes until we are
certain that we are in a position to enable her to realize them. And,
of course, not a word to Mrs Peagrim."

"Of course."

"Very well, then, my boy." said Uncle Chris affably. "I will leave
you to turn the whole thing over in your mind. Act entirely as you
think best. How is your insomnia, by the way? Did you try Nervino?
Capital! There's nothing like it. It did wonders for _me!_
Good-night, good-night!"

Otis Pilkington had been turning the thing over in his mind, with an
interval for sleep, ever since. And the more he thought of it, the
better the scheme appeared to him. He winced a little at the thought
of the ten thousand dollars, for he came of prudent stock and had
been brought up in habits of parsimony, but, after all, he reflected,
the money would be merely a loan. Once the company found its feet, it
would be returned to him a hundred-fold. And there was no doubt that
this would put a completely different aspect on his wooing of Jill,
as far as his Aunt Olive was concerned. Why, a cousin of his--young
Brewster Philmore--had married a movie-star only two years ago, and
nobody had made the slightest objection. Brewster was to be seen with
his bride frequently beneath Mrs Peagrim's roof. Against the higher
strata of Bohemia Mrs Peagrim had no prejudice at all. Quite the
reverse, in fact. She liked the society of those whose names were
often in the papers and much in the public mouth. It seemed to Otis
Pilkington, in short, that Love had found a way. He sipped his tea
with relish, and when the Japanese valet brought in the toast all
burned on one side, chided him with a gentle sweetness which, one may
hope, touched the latter's Oriental heart and inspired him with a
desire to serve this best of employers more efficiently.

At half-past ten, Otis Pilkington removed his dressing-gown and began
to put on his clothes to visit the theatre. There was a
rehearsal-call for the whole company at eleven. As he dressed, his
mood was as sunny as the day itself.

And the day, by half-past ten, was as sunny as ever Spring day had
been in a country where Spring comes early and does its best from the
very start, The blue sky beamed down on a happy city. To and fro the
citizenry bustled, aglow with the perfection of the weather.
Everywhere was gaiety and good cheer, except on the stage of the
Gotham Theatre, where an early rehearsal, preliminary to the main
event, had been called by Johnson Miller in order to iron some of the
kinks out of the "My Heart and I" number, which, with the assistance
of the male chorus, the leading lady was to render in act one.

On the stage of the Gotham gloom reigned--literally, because the
stage was wide and deep and was illumined only by a single electric
light: and figuratively, because things were going even worse than
usual with the "My Heart and I" number, and Johnson Miller, always of
an emotional and easily stirred temperament, had been goaded by the
incompetence of his male chorus to a state of frenzy. At about the
moment when Otis Pilkington shed his flowered dressing-gown and
reached for his trousers (the heather-mixture with the red twill),
Johnson Miller was pacing the gangway between the orchestra pit and
the first row of the orchestra chairs, waving one hand and clutching
his white locks with the other, his voice raised the while in
agonized protest.

"Gentlemen, you silly idiots," complained Mr Miller loudly, "you've
had three weeks to get these movements into your thick heads, and you
haven't done a damn thing right! You're all over the place! You don't
seem able to turn without tumbling over each other like a lot of
Keystone Kops! What's the matter with you? You're not doing the
movements I showed you; you're doing some you have invented
yourselves, and they are rotten! I've no doubt you think you can
arrange a number better than I can, but Mr Goble engaged me to be the
director, so kindly do exactly as I tell you. Don't try to use your
own intelligence, because you haven't any. I'm not blaming you for
it. It wasn't your fault that your nurses dropped you on your heads
when you were babies. But it handicaps you when you try to think."

Of the seven gentlemanly members of the male ensemble present, six
looked wounded by this tirade. They had the air of good men
wrongfully accused. They appeared to be silently calling on Heaven to
see justice done between Mr. Miller and themselves. The seventh, a
long-legged young man in faultlessly-fitting tweeds of English cut,
seemed, on the other hand, not so much hurt as embarrassed. It was
this youth who now stepped down to the darkened footlights and spoke
in a remorseful and conscience-stricken manner.

"I say!"

Mr Miller, that martyr to deafness, did not hear the pathetic bleat.
He had swung off at right angles and was marching in an overwrought
way up the central aisle leading to the back of the house, his india
rubber form moving in convulsive jerks. Only when he had turned and
retraced his steps did he perceive the speaker and prepare to take
his share in the conversation.

"What?" he shouted. "Can't hear you!"

"I say, you know, it's my fault, really."

"What?"

"I mean to say, you know . . ."

"What? Speak up, can't you?"

Mr Saltzburg, who had been seated at the piano, absently playing a
melody from his unproduced musical comedy, awoke to the fact that the
services of an interpreter were needed. He obligingly left the
music-stool and crept, crablike, along the ledge of the stage-box. He
placed his arm about Mr Miller's shoulders and his lips to Mr
Miller's left ear, and drew a deep breath.

"He says it is his fault!"

Mr Miller nodded adhesion to this admirable sentiment.

"I know they're not worth their salt!" he replied.

Mr Saltzburg patiently took in a fresh stock of breath.

"This young man says it is his fault that the movement went wrong!"

"Tell him I only signed on this morning, laddie," urged the
tweed-clad young man.

"He only joined the company this morning!"

This puzzled Mr Miller.

"How do you mean, warning?" he asked.

Mr Saltzburg, purple in the face, made a last effort.

"This young man is new," he bellowed carefully, keeping to words of
one syllable. "He does not yet know the steps. He says this is his
first day here, so he does not yet know the steps. When he has been
here some more time he will know the steps. But now he does not know
the steps."

"What he means," explained the young man in tweeds helpfully, "is
that I don't know the steps."

"He does not know the steps!" roared Mr Saltzburg.

"I know he doesn't know the steps," said Mr Miller. "Why doesn't he
know the steps? He's had long enough to learn them."

"He is new!"

"Hugh?"

"New!"

"Oh, new?"

"Yes, new!"

"Why the devil is he new?" cried Mr Miller, awaking suddenly to the
truth and filled with a sense of outrage. "Why didn't he join with
the rest of the company? How can I put on chorus numbers if I am
saddled every day with new people to teach? Who engaged him?"

"Who engaged you?" enquired Mr Saltzburg of the culprit.

"Mr Pilkington."

"Mr Pilkington," shouted Mr Saltzburg.

"When?"

"When?"

"Last night."

"Last night."

Mr Miller waved his hands in a gesture of divine despair, spun round,
darted up the aisle, turned, and bounded back. "What can I do?" he
wailed. "My hands are tied! I am hampered! I am handicapped! We open
in two weeks, and every day I find somebody new in the company to
upset everything I have done. I shall go to Mr Goble and ask to be
released from my contract. I shall . . . Come along, come along, come
along now!" he broke off suddenly. "Why are we wasting time? The
whole number once more. The whole number once more from the
beginning!"

The young man tottered back to his gentlemanly colleagues, running a
finger in an agitated manner round the inside of his collar. He was
not used to this sort of thing. In a large experience of amateur
theatricals he had never encountered anything like it. In the
breathing-space afforded by the singing of the first verse and
refrain by the lady who played the heroine of "The Rose of America,"
he found time to make an enquiry of the artist on his right.

"I say! Is he always like this?"

"Who? Johnny?"

"The sportsman with the hair that turned white in a single night. The
barker on the skyline. Does he often get the wind up like this?"

His colleague smiled tolerantly.

"Why, that's nothing!" he replied. "Wait till you see him really cut
loose! That was just a gentle whisper!"

"My God!" said the newcomer, staring into a bleak future. The leading
lady came to the end of her refrain, and the gentlemen of the
ensemble, who had been hanging about up-stage, began to curvet nimbly
down towards her in a double line; the new arrival, with an eye on his
nearest neighbor, endeavouring to curvet as nimbly as the others. A
clapping of hands from the dark auditorium indicated--inappropriately--
that he had failed to do so. Mr Miller could be perceived--dimly--
with all his fingers entwined in his hair.

"Clear the stage!" yelled Mr Miller. "Not you!" he shouted, as the
latest addition to the company began to drift off with the others.
"You stay!"

"Me?"

"Yes, you. I shall have to teach you the steps by yourself, or we
shall get nowhere. Go on-stage. Start the music again, Mr Saltzburg.
Now, when the refrain begins, come down. Gracefully! Gracefully!"

The young man, pink but determined, began to come down gracefully.
And it was while he was thus occupied that Jill and Nelly Bryant,
entering the wings which were beginning to fill up as eleven o'clock
approached, saw him.

"Whoever is that?" said Nelly.

"New man," replied one of the chorus gentlemen. "Came this morning."

Nelly turned to Jill.

"He looks just like Mr Rooke!" she exclaimed.

"He _is_ Mr Rooke!" said Jill.

"He can't be!"

"He _is_!"

"But what is he doing here?"

Jill bit her lip.

"That's just what I'm going to ask him myself," she said.

2.

The opportunity for a private conversation with Freddie did not occur
immediately. For ten minutes he remained alone on the stage,
absorbing abusive tuition from Mr Miller: and at the end of that
period a further ten minutes was occupied with the rehearsing of the
number with the leading lady and the rest of the male chorus. When,
finally, a roar from the back of the auditorium announced the arrival
of Mr Goble and at the same time indicated Mr Goble's desire that the
stage should be cleared and the rehearsal proper begin, a wan smile
of recognition and a faint "What ho!" was all that Freddie was able
to bestow upon Jill, before, with the rest of the _ensemble_, they
had to go out and group themselves for the opening chorus. It was
only when this had been run through four times and the stage left
vacant for two of the principals to play a scene that Jill was able
to draw the Last of the Rookes aside in a dark corner and put him to
the question.

"Freddie, what are you doing here?"

Freddie mopped his streaming brow. Johnson Miller's idea of an
opening chorus was always strenuous. On the present occasion, the
ensemble were supposed to be guests at a Long Island house-party, and
Mr Miller's conception of the gathering suggested that he supposed
house-party guests on Long Island to consist exclusively of victims
of St Vitus' dance. Freddie was feeling limp, battered, and
exhausted: and, from what he had gathered, the worst was yet to come.

"Eh?" he said feebly.

"What are you doing here?"

"Oh, ah, yes! I see what you mean! I suppose you're surprised to find
me in New York, what?"

"I'm not surprised to find you in New York. I knew you had come over.
But I am surprised to find you on the stage, being bullied by Mr
Miller."

"I say," said Freddie in an awed voice. "He's a bit of a nut, that
lad, what! He reminds me of the troops of Midian in the hymn. The
chappies who prowled and prowled around. I'll bet he's worn a groove
in the carpet. Like a jolly old tiger at the Zoo at feeding time.
Wouldn't be surprised at any moment to look down and find him biting
a piece out of my leg!"

Jill seized his arm and shook it.

"Don't _ramble_, Freddie! Tell me how you got here."

"Oh, that was pretty simple. I had a letter of introduction to this
chappie Pilkington who's running this show, and, we having got
tolerably pally in the last few days, I went to him and asked him to
let me join the merry throng. I said I didn't want any money and the
little bit of work I would do wouldn't make any difference, so he
said 'Right ho!' or words to that effect, and here I am."

"But why? You can't be doing this for fun, surely?"

"Fun!" A pained expression came into Freddie's face. "My idea of fun
isn't anything in which jolly old Miller, the bird with the snowy
hair, is permitted to mix. Something tells me that that lad is going
to make it his life-work picking on me. No, I didn't do this for fun.
I had a talk with Wally Mason the night before last, and he seemed to
think that being in the chorus wasn't the sort of thing you ought to
be doing, so I thought it over and decided that I ought to join the
troupe too. Then I could always be on the spot, don't you know, if
there was any trouble. I mean to say, I'm not much of a chap and all
that sort of thing, but still I might come in handy one of these
times. Keep a fatherly eye on you, don't you know, and what not!"

Jill was touched.

"You're a dear, Freddie!"

"I thought, don't you know, it would make poor old Derek a bit easier
in his mind."

Jill froze.

"I don't want to talk about Derek, Freddie, please."

"Oh, I know what you must be feeling. Pretty sick, I'll bet, what?
But if you could see him now . . ."

"I don't want to talk about him!"

"He's pretty cut up, you know. Regrets bitterly and all that sort of
thing. He wants you to come back again."

"I see! He sent you to fetch me?"

"That was more or less the idea."

"It's a shame that you had all the trouble. You can get
messenger-boys to go anywhere and do anything nowadays. Derek ought
to have thought of that."

Freddie looked at her doubtfully.

"You're spoofing, aren't you? I mean to say, you wouldn't have liked
that!"

"I shouldn't have disliked it any more than his sending you."

"Oh, but I wanted to pop over. Keen to see America and so forth."

Jill looked past him at the gloomy stage. Her face was set, and her
eyes sombre.

"Can't you understand, Freddie? You've known me a long time. I should
have thought that you would have found out by now that I have a
certain amount of pride. If Derek wanted me back, there was only one
thing for him to do--come over and find me himself."

"Rummy! That's what Mason said, when I told him. You two don't
realize how dashed busy Derek is these days."

"Busy!"

Something in her face seemed to tell Freddie that he was not saying
the right thing, but he stumbled on.

"You've no notion how busy he is. I mean to say, elections coming on
and so forth. He daren't stir from the metrop."

"Of course I couldn't expect him to do anything that might interfere
with his career, could I?"

"Absolutely not. I knew you would see it!" said Freddie, charmed at
her reasonableness. All rot, what you read about women being
unreasonable. "Then I take it it's all right, eh?"

"All right?"

"I mean you will toddle home with me at the earliest opp. and make
poor old Derek happy?"

Jill laughed discordantly.

"Poor old Derek!" she echoed. "He has been badly treated, hasn't he?"

"Well, I wouldn't say that," said Freddie doubtfully. "You see,
coming down to it, the thing was more or less his fault, what?"

"More or less!"

"I mean to say . . ."

"More or less!"

Freddie glanced at her anxiously. He was not at all sure now that he
liked the way she was looking or the tone in which she spoke. He was
not a keenly observant young man, but there did begin at this point
to seep through to his brain-centers a suspicion that all was not
well.

"Let me pull myself together!" said Freddie warily to his immortal
soul. "I believe I'm getting the raspberry!" And there was silence
for a space.

The complexity of life began to weigh upon Freddie. Life was like one
of those shots at squash which seem so simple till you go to knock
the cover off the ball, when the ball sort of edges away from you and
you miss it. Life, Freddie began to perceive, was apt to have a nasty
back-spin on it. He had never had any doubt when he had started, that
the only difficult part of his expedition to America would be the
finding of Jill. Once found, he had presumed that she would be
delighted to hear his good news and would joyfully accompany him home
on the next boat. It appeared now, however, that he had been too
sanguine. Optimist as he was, he had to admit that, as far as could
be ascertained with the naked eye, the jolly old binge might be said
to have sprung a leak.

He proceeded to approach the matter from another angle.

"I say!"

"Yes?"

"You do love old Derek, don't you? I mean to say, you know what I
mean, _love_ him and all that sort of rot?"

"I don't know!"

"You don't know! Oh, I say, come now! You must _know!_ Pull up your
socks, old thing . . . I mean, pull yourself together! You either
love a chappie or you don't."

Jill smiled painfully.

"How nice it would be if everything were as simple and
straightforward as that. Haven't you ever heard that the dividing
line between love and hate is just a thread? Poets have said so a
great number of times."

"Oh, poets!" said Freddie, dismissing the genus with a wave of the
hand. He had been compelled to read Shakespeare and all that sort of
thing at school, but it had left him cold, and since growing to man's
estate he had rather handed the race of bards the mitten. He liked
Doss Chiderdoss' stuff in the _Sporting Times_, but beyond that he
was not much of a lad for poets.

"Can't you understand a girl in my position not being able to make up
her mind whether she loves a man or despises him?"

Freddie shook his head.

"No," he said. "It sounds dashed silly to me!"

"Then what's the good of talking?" cried Jill. "It only hurts."

"But--won't you come back to England?"

"No."

"Oh, I say! Be a sport! Take a stab at it!"

Jill laughed again--another of those grating laughs which afflicted
Freddie with a sense of foreboding and failure. Something had
undoubtedly gone wrong with the works. He began to fear that at some
point in the conversation--just where he could not say--he had been
less diplomatic than he might have been.

"You speak as if you were inviting me to a garden-party! No, I won't
take a stab at it. You've a lot to learn about women, Freddie!"

"Women _are_ rum!" conceded that perplexed ambassador.

Jill began to move away.

"Don't go!" urged Freddie.

"Why not? What's the use of talking any more? Have you ever broken an
arm or a leg, Freddie?"

"Yes," said Freddie, mystified. "As a matter of fact, my last year at
Oxford, playing soccer for the college in a friendly game, some
blighter barged into me and I came down on my wrist. But . . ."

"It hurt?"

"Like the deuce!"

"And then it began to get better, I suppose. Well, used you to hit it
and twist it and prod it, or did you leave it alone to try and heal?
I won't talk any more about Derek! I simply won't! I'm all smashed up
inside, and I don't know if I'm ever going to get well again, but at
least I'm going to give myself a chance. I'm working as hard as ever
I can, and I'm forcing myself not to think of him. I'm in a sling,
Freddie, like your wrist, and I don't want to be prodded. I hope we
shall see a lot of each other while you're over here--you always were
the greatest dear in the world--but you mustn't mention Derek again,
and you mustn't ask me to go home. If you avoid those subjects, we'll
be as happy as possible. And now I'm going to leave you to talk to
poor Nelly. She has been hovering round for the last ten minutes,
waiting for a chance to speak to you. She worships you, you know!"

Freddie started violently.

"Oh, I say! What rot!"

Jill had gone, and he was still gaping after her, when Nelly Bryant
moved towards him--shyly, like a worshiper approaching a shrine.

"Hello, Mr Rooke!" said Nelly.

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