Jack and Susan in 1913

by Michael McDowell

  A springlike breeze had unsettled Susan’s hair, so she let it down, shook it out, and once more arranged it loosely atop her head. “You sound as if you are at the bottom of a blue funk.”

  Jack shrugged, and continued to fumble with his hat. It suddenly slipped from his grasp, rolled across the floor, and before he could get to it, neatly upended itself in Tripod’s water dish. It was a typical wardrobe accident for Jack—unlikely, and nearly terminal for the article of clothing involved. Jack grimaced, but didn’t seem a bit surprised at the fate of his hat. “Your work is going so well—” he said.

  “And yours isn’t?”

  “I can’t seem to get my mechanism to work properly,” said Jack. “I took it to Mr. Fane today to show him, and the thing fell apart, but not till it mangled the film in the camera. Even Hosmer laughed.”

  “You don’t have the time to work on it,” said Susan. “That’s all. You’re always running about for me, or else you’re downstairs fixing some decrepit piece of machinery for someone who doesn’t have the money to pay you for it. The reason I’ve been successful is that I don’t have anything to do except write. I have you to do my shopping, you to run the scenarios down to the studio, and you to keep me company and pick up my spirits. That’s why my work is going well. I know that if you only had time—”

  Susan stopped suddenly in mid-speech. She realized with a start of unpleasant astonishment that she was sounding just like the dreadful heroine of He and She. She had a splendid career going—going better than her husband’s, in fact. But when he slid into a depression because of his inferior position, she gave it all up. She wondered now if Jack was feeling jealous. Maybe he was angry with her for doing better than him. She had to find out.

  “Jack,” she asked without preamble, “does my success upset you?”

  He looked up at her, a bewildered look on his face. “No,” he replied unhesitatingly. “Have I said something—”

  “I’m only asking. You went down to Cosmic today and showed Mr. Fane your machine—and it didn’t work.”

  “That’s being very polite,” said Jack. “Actually, I felt I was fortunate it didn’t explode.”

  “While at the same time, Mr. Fane bought the scenario you delivered to him.”

  “After glancing at it for about thirty seconds.”

  “Some men would feel that…” She trailed off.

  “Would feel what?” asked Jack, as if he really didn’t understand.

  “That it was the man’s place to succeed,” said Susan.

  Jack stared at her. “My invention failed because I hadn’t done my work properly. Your scenario sold for the simple reason that you had.”

  “And that’s what you truly believe?”

  “Yes.” And then, as if this exchange was boring him, Jack said, “Oh, I nearly forgot. Mr. Fane would like you to dash off something for him. He just bought a lot of fancy-dress costumes—English stuff—and he’d like to use it. So if you could come up with something with Queen Elizabeth or Sir Francis Drake, he’d much appreciate it. Also, he’d like a story line in which Ida Conquest gets to be dressed as a boy. All exteriors to be woodland scenes—Central Park, I suppose. By Tuesday.”

  “He doesn’t want much, does he?”

  “I told him I thought you could manage. And you can, can’t you?”

  “Do you think I can?”

  “I think you can do anything you set your mind to, Susan.”

  Susan smiled. So, whatever was going to be between them, Jack Beaumont and Susan Bright, it wasn’t going to be a tedious replaying of He and She.

  That evening, Jack brought in Susan’s dinner, corned beef and potatoes from a small restaurant around the corner, and shared it with her. She asked him questions about his invention, and learned that one, he was convinced that with enough work, it would operate as he envisioned it; two, he only wanted time to perfect it; and three, he hadn’t as much time now as he’d like.

  “But why are you asking all these questions?”

  “Because you know all about my work—you read all of my scenarios—and I know almost nothing about yours.”

  “My work is sitting at a table in bad light, and filing away at little scraps of metal,” said Jack. “I’ll admit that it’s exactly the kind of thing I like to do and always have. I wouldn’t do anything else, even if I had the opportunity. And I have had the opportunity. I once made a great deal more money than I do now, but I am much more pleased with this occupation than I would be with any other.”

  Susan was astonished. Jack Beaumont had never said so much about himself. Certainly what he said—about having once made more money—confirmed her ideas about him. Despite his slightly seedy wardrobe, there was a kind of fumbling grace of manner that someone like Hosmer Collamore, who tried very hard, could never achieve. She had suspected that Jack came from much the same background as she. His childhood and adolescence, she was sure, had been spent in surroundings more congenial and comfortable than those they now had. She had never asked Jack about his family, his home, or his education, and she didn’t ask now. He had told her a little; perhaps the time would come when she would learn a great deal more.

  It was odd. She could imagine themselves in another time and another place, courting under different circumstances. Beneath the stern and watchful eyes of maiden aunts, for instance, in Winter River, Connecticut, or Elmira, New York. Endlessly chaperoned, learning in a few days all there was to know of one another’s histories, antecedents, accomplishments, and prospects. Susan had grown up to think of courtship as a strict ritual, rather like a minuet, in which each move was either right or wrong—and one knew which.

  But now things were different. There were no rules on West Sixtieth Street, no chaperones—only Mrs. Jadd, who already suspected “the worst.” No one told them what they should do, could do, could not do, or ought not be caught doing. Perhaps Susan should allow herself to be seduced by Jack Beaumont, if he made any move in that direction. So far Jack had been the perfect gentleman. He’d kissed her once in the darkened theater, after the showing of Mr. Mixon’s second film with Susan’s story. A kiss in a darkened theater was not as dangerous or suggestive a thing as a kiss in a sitting room.

  When Jack had left, Susan sat down in her chair, and called in Tripod to squeeze in with her. She didn’t seem to be able to get anything done without that dog poking his wooden leg into her side until it ached like a laughing stitch. She tried to think of a story that employed Ida Conquest as a boy, Elizabethan costumes, and woodland settings, but all she could think about was Jack Beaumont.

  If it had been the kind of courtship she understood—in Elmira or Winter River—Susan would know whether she loved him. But in a city of indecision and wickedness like New York, Susan did not know.

  “Do I love him?” she asked Tripod.

  The dog growled.

  “Yes,” said Susan. “I’m quite sure I do love him.”

  With that little question out of the way, Susan began scribbling the scenes for what would turn out to be the Cosmic Film Company’s first three-reel production, Master Manford Hewes. Ida Conquest would play the title role of a talented young actor who, in reality, was a beautiful young girl, the sweetheart of William Shakespeare.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  HOSMER COLLAMORE looked distressed as he sat in Susan’s sitting room a few days later. For one thing Tripod was standing in his lap and licking his face affectionately, and the dog’s pointed wooden leg was embarrassingly situated. It was evident that Hosmer was at a loss to know what to do. He also didn’t know why he’d been summoned upstairs by Susan. Perhaps Susan had begun to suspect that he had been comparing her to Ida Conquest, and that Susan had been found wanting, which was true. A young lady with black hair and slim hips and a broken leg, after all, was no match for a splendid creature with extensive curves, bright blond hair, and a style of dress that put one in mind of shop windows at Christmastime. Since he had seen little of her in the past month, perhaps he now sat wait
ing to be chastised for his neglect.

  Susan had no intention of chastising him, but she needed a favor.

  “Hosmer,” said Susan. “I wonder if you would do something for me?”

  “Anything I can,” Hosmer murmured unconvincingly.

  “Do you know about Mr. Beaumont’s new invention?”

  Hosmer looked up with astonishment. “What invention?”

  “His improvement for moving-picture cameras,” explained Susan.

  Hosmer laughed derisively, and Susan decided that she really did not care at all for this man. In fact, she began rather to hope that Ida would marry him. A man who laughed at Jack Beaumont’s soul-work deserved a woman like Ida Conquest.

  “Well,” Susan persisted, holding her anger in check, “do you know the invention I’m talking about?”

  “I know it exists—at least—in his head,” said Hosmer. “I doubt it will ever exist in a camera.”

  “I’ve no doubt that Mr. Beaumont will be able to perfect the mechanism, given enough time—and freedom from worry.”

  “Oh, to be sure,” said Hosmer, in the unpleasant way that Ida Conquest said those very words. Oh, to be sure.

  “The problem, I think,” Susan said, “is that Jack spends so much of his time in doing small repairs that he—”

  “Jack Beaumont does not spend his time doing small repairs,” interrupted Hosmer. “I took him my alarm clock three weeks ago and asked him to reconnect the bell, and he hasn’t found the time to do that little piece of tinkering. And I even offered to pay. Now I not only have no alarm to wake me up in the morning, but when I do wake up, I don’t know what time it is.”

  Hosmer was the sort, Susan saw for the first time, who harbored small grudges as if they were large ones.

  Susan took a deep breath, fighting the urge to say something unpleasant. “I’d like you to help me make it possible for Jack to have the time he needs to complete his camera device—and to repair your alarm clock, of course.”

  Hosmer looked at her suspiciously, and finally pushed Tripod off on to the floor. He crossed his legs and put his hands into his lap in case the terrier made another leap. “And just how do you propose we help him?”

  “By giving him a sum of money that would allow him to work solely on his invention.”

  “I don’t have a nickel to spare,” said Hosmer, so quickly that it sounded miserly rather than penurious.

  “Well I do,” said Susan, “but I don’t think Jack would accept the money from me. So I’d like you to offer it to him as a loan, and I will provide the money. I recently came into a small inheritance,” she lied unblushingly, to explain the apparently sudden turn in her finances. “Will you help me in this? It is a very innocent stratagem, Hosmer. You can even stipulate that before he does any work on his camera invention, he repair your alarm clock.”

  Hosmer considered her proposition for a few moments. “If Jack Beaumont wanted money,” he said at last, “why doesn’t he just ask his rich lady friend?”

  “What rich lady friend?” demanded Susan sharply.

  “The ‘Young Lady in High Society,’” said Hosmer, and Susan instantly colored. Hosmer did a bad job of suppressing an unpleasant little grin; he evidently thought she was jealous. “The one who writes all the stories for Mr. Fane. His lady friend up on Fifth Avenue. Mr. Fane told Miss Conquest that this lady was crazy for Jack, and that she was not only rich in her own right, but that her father owned two gold mines, three railroads, and half a dozen banks in Kansas and Illinois. If Jack Beaumont needs money, he should ask her. That’s why he can’t get his work done, because he’s always traipsing back and forth from Fifth Avenue down to the studio with scenarios.”

  For some time Susan had wondered how much Hosmer knew about her “alter ego.” Gossip at the Cosmic Film Company was obviously rampant. Hosmer’s jealousy of Jack’s supposed intimacy with the “rich daughter of the industrial magnate” on Fifth Avenue was as pitiful as it was obvious, and probably had been the cause of Hosmer’s new antipathy toward Jack. “It’s not a simple matter to borrow money of the very rich, Hosmer. And it’s certainly not easy for a man to take money from a woman, even though she may have it to spare and he may need it very badly. That shouldn’t be so, but it is the way things are. For whatever reason, Jack has not borrowed any money from the young lady on Fifth Avenue, and that is why I would like to lend it to him myself.”

  “How much money?”

  “Five hundred dollars.”

  Hosmer blinked. “Must have been a tidy little inheritance.”

  “It was. Will you help me?”

  Susan had already considered the extent of her foolishness in this. Even though, strictly speaking, the five hundred dollars was hers. It would be just her luck to have Mr. Jay Austin appear with the signed receipt demanding a full accounting just as Jack was accepting the money. But she didn’t really think that was going to happen.

  It was also a foolish thing to give Jack the whole amount, but anything less would have been a half-measure. Even though the gesture was to be anonymous, she wanted the thing done right. What Susan wanted was for Jack Beaumont to feel financially secure. For Jack, Susan suspected, was the sort of man who would never marry till he felt himself in that happy state.

  Hosmer arrived again at Susan’s apartment about the same time the following evening. He threw himself down in Susan’s chair, kept an overly affectionate Tripod at bay with a rolled-up magazine, and said, “I talked to him.”

  “And?”

  “No,” said Hosmer, shaking his head. “Most definitely no.”

  Susan turned away in frustration. Out the window she could see the windows of a dozen other apartments. What sorts of problems did those anonymous creatures have? she wondered.

  “But he will sell me something for it,” said Hosmer.

  Susan turned back.

  “What? What does Jack have that’s worth selling?”

  “A half-interest in the patent,” said Hosmer. “Which is worth about twenty-two cents, by my estimation.”

  “Did you say yes?”

  “I said I’d think about it.”

  “Go back and tell him yes.”

  “I don’t want half-interest in a piece of worthless machinery.”

  “Hosmer, stop being such a dunce,” said Susan. “He’ll assign half the rights to you, and then you’ll sign them over to me, and then Jack will get his five hundred dollars.”

  “Why don’t you just stick the money into an envelope and shove it under his door?” asked Hosmer. “Wouldn’t that be simpler?”

  “No,” said Susan. “This way it’s not just a loan, and Jack won’t feel obligated to you or to anyone.” She did not add, And he may well take a wife on the basis of that five hundred dollars.

  The business was concluded the next day. When Jack was out of the building, Susan clomped down the stairs, went around to the bank and closed out her account, rather to the annoyance of the officials of that establishment. In their considered opinion, women were tedious, indecisive creatures, and if they couldn’t handle such simple finances as keeping money in the bank, well then it was no wonder they’d never received the vote. And they wouldn’t, either.

  The bank’s appraisal of women was not enough to dampen Susan’s spirits, however, and she returned home in as good cheer as she had left. She had bought envelopes from a stationery store, and placed nine fifty-dollar bills in one of them. She made up the final fifty dollars with ten of the five-dollar bills she’d earned selling scenarios.

  That evening, Hosmer knocked quietly at her door. She opened the door, and Hosmer nodded conspiratorially. He placed a piece of folded paper in her hands, and withdrew with a finger to his lips. As he crept quietly down the stairs, Susan glanced at the paper.

  I, Hosmer Collamore, resident of the Fenwick Apartments, West Sixtieth Street, New York City in the state of New York, hereby assign to Susan Bright one-half speculative interest in Mr. J. Beaumont’s device for improving the moving-picture
camera.

  Hosmer T. Collamore

  March 9th, 1913

  Only a few moments later, Jack raced up the stairs. His tread was quicker and harder than usual, and Susan would have heard him even without Tripod’s barking. Jack’s excitement seemed to have communicated itself to the dog, for Tripod wouldn’t stop throwing himself at the panels, and it was with difficulty that Susan hooked a leash through his collar and dragged him into the bedroom.

  Jack was breathless. “No cold meat tonight,” he blurted. “No bottled beer. No sliced bread. Tonight I’m taking you to a restaurant. But first we’re going to the theater—no nickelodeon, either. And I am paying.”

  In another moment, and without explanation or a word from Susan, he was gone, leaving her to dress. She went into the bedroom, and looked with despair at her wardrobe. It had not been added to for many months now. At last she chose a long woolen skirt with enormous black and white checks, a simple white silk blouse (her best), and a six-inch wide red lacquered belt. She stood against the hallway door and looked at herself in the reflection of the sitting-room windows—a faulty mirror at best—and then tried to see how she looked when she walked.

  Not pitiful any more, just a bit awkward. She wasn’t so awkward when she used only one of her crutches, but no woman ever looked really fashionable with a broken leg.

  Damn Jay Austin.

  Then she thought again. No, don’t damn him. Because it might just be Mr. Austin’s five hundred dollars that would allow the man she loved to have enough self-respect to propose to her.

  The play they saw was the second night’s performance of Charles Frohman’s The Sunshine Girl, with Vernon and Irene Castle. Susan was enchanted, not only with the dancing and the music, which were heavenly, but with Irene Castle herself—an almost boyish figure, with her hair cut boyishly short, wearing no jewelry and the slightest of slight pastel frocks. She made every other woman in New York look heavy and overdressed. Once she got her cast off, Susan knew what she was going to do with her wardrobe. By the intermission, she had decided what she was going to do with her hair.