Out of the Storm

by Grace Livingston Hill

  "Well, not exactly, now; we just got that position filled." The man was still looking her over as if she were some kind of an exhibit at a fair.

  "Oh!" Gail's face fell, and she could not help the distressed look coming into her eyes. They were large eyes, and very telling.

  The man looked pleased.

  "We got another job you might fit into though p'raps. What d'ye think 'bout it, Bob? Would she do?"

  "Bob" nodded not too eagerly, with his eyes squinted half shut.

  "Might," said Bob succinctly. "Got good hair?"

  Gail looked at the man as though his mind were wandering.

  "He means, have you got long hair," explained Farley. "We gotta have somebody with real long hair to take a part in a picture. The girl that had the part run away last night with one of the cameramen, and we gotta fill her place right away. The whole picture's nearly done, except two scenes she was in. Now we gotta do all of hers over again. There's only five of 'em. It's good pay if you can do it. Ever do any movie actin'?"

  Gail shook her head. She knew very little of the world, but she felt instinctively a shrinking from having anything to do with these men. Nevertheless, there flashed to her mind her determination to win in this fight for her life. She forced down her natural instincts and went on with the interview. Of course, these men were coarse and crude, but perhaps they were good hearted, she reasoned. They did not look unkind.

  "What d'ye think about it, Bob?" asked Farley. "Think she'll do?"

  "Lemme see her hair," growled Bob.

  "Yes, take down your hair, miss. Put your hat there on the desk."

  Gail, with her face flaming and an uncomfortable feeling that her father would have rushed her out of this place and her mother would have wept at the thought of it, nevertheless took off her hat and pulled the pins out of her abundant hair. It was only a matter of business, of course, of whether she would do for what they needed in the picture, but it went sorely against the grain to stand up before these men and let them discuss the length and luxuriance of her hair.

  "Say, you've got plenty, ain't yuh, girlie? She'll be a peach all right, don't you think so, Bob?"

  The man called Bob stood silent and dissatisfied a minute or two.

  "You say Kittie won't take the part?"

  "No, she's up in arms. Says she won't be a sub again. She's a star or nothing."

  "H'm! Well, then I s'pose there's no choice. We got to get that picture done. Try 'er out," he growled as he swung away into the other room.

  Gail was trembling as she gathered her long locks into a coil and put in the hairpins. Should she go on? At every step her instinct was to flee the spot, but a voice seemed to remind her constantly that she would again be left to tramp the streets, homeless and starving. She did not stop to analyze the voice or find out where it came from. In a moment more, her hat was on and she was facing her would-be employer again.

  "We'll pay you five dollars a day if you suit," went on the man as if he was pretty well satisfied with her appearance.

  "Five dollars a day!" Gail gasped. It seemed as though she had found a gold mine.

  "Of course, you have to furnish your own costume," enlightened the man as if that were a small matter.

  Gail's face went down again.

  "Oh!" she said dejectedly. "I'm afraid I wouldn't be able--"

  "Why, you look all right just as you are for this film. You could wear those things in every scene except the second. There you'd have to have a silk robe."

  "When do you want me to begin?" said Gail, still half frightened.

  "Right away!" said Mr. Farley. "This bunch has been waiting a half hour already. We hafta pay 'em fer the time. We just got word the other girl skipped. Cameraman has no end of a temper on, so you better work lively and do what you're told."

  "But I don't know what to do. Won't I have a chance to rehearse or anything?" Gail hung back.

  "We'll tell you what to do, and how to look. All you have to do is obey. We're goin' to put you through a stunt or two now to see how you take."

  Gail followed him fearfully through the door down a dark passage and into a big room beyond where a lot of people were all chattering and lounging about in curious costumes. He introduced her to a tall, lean man with a worried wrinkle between his eyes and left her there, going back to the office with Bob, who had beckoned him.

  "Say, Farley, you're pretty rash, hiring kids like that for an important thing like this we've got on hand. She ain't an actor; she's a highbrow. Don't you know she'll spoil the whole show when she gets onto the second act? You'll have her kicking the traces and away, money or no money. She's an innercent, she is; but she won't stand for monkey shines, and you know what Charmer is."

  "Now, Bob, that's right where you make your mistake. She may be an innercent, and she may be a highbrow all right. I grant you that. But that's why I hired her. Don't you know that's just the kind to make the picture more true to life? She won't be actin' and she won't need to be. She'll just be actin' natural. I've seen that kind before. They ain't common an' when you find 'em yu better freeze onto 'em, fer you won't see another in a lifetime. She may kick at the second act. I hope to goodness she does. But she won't kick till the picture is taken. I'm goin' to run her scenes through--all but the one in the second act. Then we'll do that last, and she won't even have to see the rest of the picture at all. I'll tell Charmie to go easy till he comes to the very last minute, and then if there ain't some real actin' I'll eat my hat. She'll kick all right. Let her kick. She'll run from Charmie's arms as if he were poison, and Bob, isn't that what we want her to do?"

  Bob's eyes were growing narrow, and his loose, heavy lips were relaxing into a half grin.

  "All right. Go ahead. Pull it off if you can, but it'll take some work to do it. Better not tell her the whole tale at first, or you'll be in the soup."

  "Not on your life, I won't," grinned Farley. "I gotta beat it now and see how she takes."

  Meanwhile, Gail had been sent upstairs to a large room lighted by a skylight and filled with scenery. She was ordered to walk back and forth in front of the camera and bow and smile. She was told that she was being tried out to see if her face would photograph well. After this was over, the command came to sit down and wait.

  Soon the rest of the company drifted up, and as Gail waited among the motley crowd, a disturbance was suddenly created by the entrance of a thick-set, coarsely handsome young man, who was hailed with delight as "Charmie." He was introduced to Gail as Mr. Archie Charmer. She discovered that he was the star of the picture and much sought after by every lady in the company. His ways were altogether too free and easy, and his voice was too loud to please Gail, who could not help thinking of the contrast between him and Benedict. Unconsciously, she lifted her head haughtily when he looked her way, thereby calling upon herself the scorn of Kittie and Flossie, two of his strongest admirers. The man himself was not accustomed to such treatment from fair ladies, and this one was fair indeed. He liked it not. But he knew where his revenge could be had, and he bided his time, for he had been well warned about this newest member of the cast. He would show the lady by and by.

  Before long, Mr. Farley came out of the projection room and spoke a few words to the cameraman. Then he called to Gail and began to give her most explicit directions about every move she was to make. She assumed from this that her test had been successful and did as she was told. She thought she was being rehearsed for the picture, and when the director told her to look out of a window at a certain spot as if it were an old friend, she did her best, having no idea that her picture was being taken all the time. The man told her to imagine herself a stranger in a strange land looking out of the window at the sea in the distance. He told her to think of it in its most beautiful moods. The expression that came into her face then must have satisfied him, for he nodded his pleasure at Bob who hovered in the background watching the latest actress with interest. Yes, she would do. She had the artistic temperament, the dreamer's face. Her
eyes were large and tender and faraway, and there was no sense of self-consciousness in her face as she turned at last at the director's command and stepped away from the window. She had thought she was being tried out, but the record of her testing was safely on the film for the introduction of the picture.

  The work went forward then with great rapidity. Gail was not required to be in the acting constantly, so she watched the others, and by the time she was called upon to come through a door and sit by a table reading a letter that contained sad news and brought her great distress, she was quite ready to enter into the spirit of the picture as if it were a game she was playing with them. If she had not been so faint from lack of food and the excitement of it all, she would almost have enjoyed it. It rather startled her that she had to be made up, but then it was all a part of the picture, and she submitted, astonished at the difference a little greasepaint made, how it coarsened the expression of her face. She did not like herself as she saw her reflection in the mirror, but she remembered that of course it would come off easily, and when she thought of five dollars that was to be hers that evening, it did not seem to be an important matter.

  The picture itself seemed to be a simple little affair with quite a moral attached as Farley outlined it to her briefly, giving her pointers in the dressing room and putting her through her motions two or three times before she went out to take her part.

  Gail did well, though indeed much of her part consisted in looking sweet and sad or sitting quietly apart from the others with a book, now and then looking up, but most of the time keeping in the background, a silent foil to the acting of the others. Her hardest part was to go through the act where she applied for position as companion and lady's maid to the silly "Flossie," but her recent experience in hunting employment served her in good stead, and she had merely to go through what she had been doing for the last two weeks. She did it so well that Farley whispered to Bob, "We gotta keep her. She's got good stuff in her. She's the kind that catches the pious people. Give the tip to the company, and don't let any of 'em play any tricks now. We'd sure be in a pickle if she beat it."

  Chapter 16

  Gail went out at the noon resting time and spent her ten cents for milk. It seemed to be the greatest amount of nourishment she could get for her money, and she felt too weary and excited to eat. Besides, Farley had looked after her anxiously as she left the office and asked her to come back a little early; he wanted to coach her. In fact, he felt a little uneasy about her lest after all she might escape him. He saw she had not enjoyed the company's boisterous familiarity and by an instinct knew that only the direst necessity would have brought her into their midst. She had the face of a girl who had always moved among cultured people and lived a guarded life.

  When the outside air blew in her face again and she knew she was free, she wanted to run away, anywhere so that she would not have to return among those people who seemed so utterly alien to her. But then she thought again of the money she must earn and reasoned with herself--if she left now, she would make the company a great deal of trouble now that her face was filmed for the picture. The work would all have to be done over again.

  The afternoon's work was tiresome because there were several mistakes made and some scenes had to be done over and over again. Gail's head was aching, and every nerve seemed ready to jump out of her body. She looked around her at the other actors, their coarse faces perspiring from the heavy, foul air of the place, their figures sagging with weariness. She wondered if it could possibly be true that many young girls yearned to become moving-picture actresses. She had heard that often. If they could only see this place now, she thought, and know how hard they all worked and how tired they were. But she tried to keep a calm face and go through her simple part as it should be done. She saw a look of approval on the face of hard old Bob as she made a particularly happy climax to one scene by turning back and smiling as she went out a door. Gail's smile was something worth looking at, and the keen picture man realized it.

  "She'll make a hit with the audience if she smiles like that!" growled Bob with a grim smile.

  "What did I tell you?" said Farley. "We'll have to keep her. I wish we didn't have to go through with that second act."

  "Well, you do!" thundered Bob. "I thought you wouldn't have the nerve to carry it through. What if you've spoiled this whole day's work by sticking us with that little highbrow aristocrat?"

  "Don't you worry, now; it'll be all right, Bob. Beat it now and leave her to me."

  Gail had to ask that night for her first day's wages. Bob had advised Farley not to pay her until her part was finished or she might yet slip away from them and spoil another day's work. Gail felt humiliated beyond expression to have to confess to the man how badly she was in need of money. When he heard her, his eyes narrowed and he said shortly, "I'll see if I can fix it."

  He retired into Bob's private office and told him of Gail's request.

  "She must be up against it or she never would have taken the job at all, you can see that. But she's a dandy, an' we got to keep her."

  Bob frowned.

  "If you pay her all she's earned, she's liable not to show up tomorrow."

  "No, you're wrong there, Bob. She's this kind. If you give her her pay and tomorrow's, too, she'll feel she's got to come back an' earn it. You just make an honest innercent like that feel under obligation an' you can do anything with 'em. You mark my words!"

  Bob fairly exploded.

  "Listen here, young feller, you can't expect to pick up a girl from nowheres off the street and trust her with the comp'ny's money. You wasn't born yesterday."

  "Now look here, Bob, I'm not partin' with any long green without cause. I know what I'm talking about. You leave it to me. This kid's not goin' ta skip, an' to show you I know my oats I'm willin' to make it my own kale."

  "Help yourself," said Bob, with a look of utmost scorn as he turned back to his desk. "Take care of a dozen charity infants if you want to."

  When Farley returned, Gail had worked herself into a frenzy of fear that he would refuse. Perhaps she would not be paid until she had worked a whole week. What could she do?!

  "S'all right, girlie. If you're up against it, we'll be glad to help you out. We treat our folks fair. How much would you like? Ten dollars do?"

  "Oh," gasped Gail. "I don't need so much as that. Five would be plenty, or even two or three."

  "Never mind, that's all right," he urged. "You might need it. You are going to earn the rest tomorrow, aren't you? Well, just take it now. So long. See you in the morning, eight thirty sharp. Just leave me your address before you go."

  Gail thought quickly, a little sob rising in her throat at the thought that she had no address to give that she could call her own. She murmured, "YWCA," half under her breath.

  "Right; g'night."

  The bewildered girl seemed suddenly too exhausted to think clearly as she moved out of the office. Her limbs were like lead. At the nearest restaurant she dropped into a chair and said weakly, "Something hot, please."

  Even when she reached her narrow room, she crawled into bed too weak to think or to worry about anything. She only knew that she must get to that studio again in the morning and earn the rest of the money she had taken.

  When Gail awoke in the morning, she began to think over the events of the previous day. She was not pleased with her new position. Her conscience did not dwell easily on the thought of her father's daughter being a moving-picture actress. But, she thought, what could she do now? For she had taken the second day's pay and the night before had--in a moment of terror of being homeless again--paid for her room a week in advance. It had eaten into the second five dollars so that she could not now return it. Besides, there was the picture. It would spoil four scenes if she did not return. And anyway, if she could return the money what would she do for a job again? These thoughts hurried her on her way to the studio.

  It soon appeared that the black-eyed Charmer was the handsome villain of the picture, brot
her to the heroine Flossie whose companion was Gail. It was after lunch that Farley handed Gail a silk robe and a pair of slippers and explained to her that this Charmer was supposed to be enamored of her and that her part was to hold him haughtily at bay, repulsing his every effort at acquaintance. It all sounded very simple and harmless as he told it. She smiled gravely and told him she thought she understood. In her heart she was saying that it would be difficult for her not to look too coldly at the great coarse, conceited creature.

  The act began in her lady's boudoir, where she went through the various offices of arranging her lady's hair and settling her comfortably on a couch with a book and a light. Then Gail's part was to be dismissed and leave the room holding a candle so that the light would shine full on her face, making a lovely focus first on her profile and then on her front face. She was to go to her own darkened room, set the candle on her dressing table, deliberately let down her hair in front of the mirror and brush it out. Then she was to fling herself down on her couch and, after an attempt to read, seem to fall asleep.

  The villain was to be concealed behind a curtain in the corner of her room and from time to time show his face as he watched her. At a given signal, she was to hear a noise and waken to find him stealing out from his shelter, when she would administer a rebuke and order him from her room, locking the door securely behind him. These were her orders. She did not in the least relish the performance, but she meant to do it as well as she could, knowing that if it did not have to be done over she would be done for the day.

  She had no thought that there would be anything in the act to which she could object. Everything so far had been conducted most decorously, at least so far as she was concerned. There had been some things on the part of the other actors that she did not like, but she felt that it was in her own hands entirely how such a scene as this would come out, and she thought that she understood fully just what the manager wished. She had no fear but that she could do it. The last two weeks had given her plenty of practice in repulsing bold glances. She set herself for the act and did her best.