Movie Shoes

by Noel Streatfeild

  Miss Delaney took Bee and Jane to a big place she called the wardrobe. Evidently they were expected. A woman in a white linen coat came and was introduced as Mrs. Gates. She looked Jane over as if she could measure her just by looking at her; then she said to Miss Delaney, “Not far out. Of course, Ursula’s a bit bigger.” Jane was surprised to find Ursula was bigger than she was, for My-Mr. Browne had spoken of Ursula as “little.” She had no time to say her thoughts out loud, for Mrs. Gates led them over to a place where clothes were hanging under cellophane coverings. She threw back the cellophane. “What would you like to wear dear?”

  Jane was thrilled. Of course, she liked dressing up, and this was dressing up in a big way. She had not thought of Mary in The Secret Garden as having a great many clothes, but evidently she had. There were whole rows of frocks and coats and some nightdresses and a dressing gown. Mrs. Gates said to Bee, “They look funny now, don’t they? You wait till I show the little petticoats and the frilled drawers that go with them. They’re just darling.”

  With advice from Mrs. Gates and Miss Delaney, Jane chose one-of the plainer frocks. It was pink with a very full skirt. She was ashamed of the underclothes. Although the skirt of the dress was longer than her own, if she turned quickly the frilled pants showed. Miss Delaney said she thought they were cute, but Jane thought them awful. The dress needed a little altering, and while this was being done, Miss Delaney took Jane and Bee to another place where there was a hairdresser. He was a man with a lot of black hair and very sparkling eyes. He stood away from Jane, looking at her with his head on one side; then he made pleased noises, pulled out a chair, and gently pushed her into it. After untying her braids, he started brushing and combing her hair and trying out different parts in such a possessive way that Jane nearly asked him if he thought her head belonged to him.

  Out again in one of the main streets of the lot, Jane felt dreadfully self-conscious. Her hair was brushed out and tied with a bow and the ends had been curled. A warm wind was blowing, and though she kept holding her skirt down, she was sure those dreadful pants were showing. But she was the only person who seemed to think her clothes queer, for though there were masses of people hurrying along, nobody looked twice at her After a while she saw why, for on a film lot it was more usual to be dressed up than not to be dressed up.

  Mr. Browne was waiting for them in a huge room with lots of little rooms opening off it. Each of the little rooms had one wall missing, for they opened straight into the big room. The one nearest Mr. Browne seemed to be a bedroom, for there was a very grand bed in it.

  They did not start on the test right away. Mr. Browne took Jane around and showed her things. The place they were in was studio twelve, where most of the interior scenes of The Secret Garden were scheduled to be shot. The garden was in another studio. Mr. Browne led Jane around and explained that what she had thought was a big room was a “floor”; would hear people say a picture was on “the floor,” and meant it was being shot in a place like the one they were in. He explained that what she had thought were little rooms were really like scenes in a theater. Each one was built to the scenes in the script. Most of them were rooms in Misselthwaite Manor. He showed her the script where it written that the scene was in Colin’s bedroom, and then showed her the piece of room with the grand bed in it and told her that she was going to act one of her test scenes there and did she know which?

  “Of course,” Jane said promptly. “That’s the scene where Colin’s screaming and I tell him to stop.”

  Mr. Browne asked if Jane would like to go over her line before the test and led the way to two chairs which were by themselves in a comer. Jane began to feel odd again the moment Mr. Browne mentioned lines.

  Mr. Browne saw how she felt, for he laughed and said there was nothing to be scared of.

  Jane knew all the words perfectly; she had almost known them when she had come home the day before, and Peaseblossom had been hearing them off and on until the car came but in the fuss of saying them at that moment, Jane felt Mr. Browne could not be trusted to remember what he had said, so she gabbled very fast both her lines and his directions.

  “There’s steps I come down looking as if it were fairyland and I say how still it is how still and look at the tree Mrs. Craven fell out of and I remember-“

  Mr. Browne stopped her. He said he thought she should take a deep breath and start again, and this time all she should do was to tell him what Mary said. This worked very well. Jane said every line in each scene perfectly, though with no expression at all, except a little in the scene by Colin’s bed, which was the scene she really liked. When she finished, Mr. Browne said they would go to the garden, as she was ready for her test.

  The garden was the queerest garden Jane could imagine. It was partly real and partly painted. The trees seemed to be real, growing in real earth, but the roses were not real, nor were the little plants real-the pansies, delphiniums, larkspur, roses, pinks, poppies and all the other flowers that grew in the garden. Queerest of all was the grass, which looked like grass until Jane got close to it and saw that it was artificial. It was easier to understand a made-in-the-studio garden when she and Mr. Browne came to the end of path and found a different garden. That garden was not finished, the men were still working on it. It was going to be a winter garden; the trees had no leaves, and the ground was a tangle of plants all wound together. Jane said, “That’s going to be the place where Mary scraped about and found bulbs trying to come through.”

  Many preparations had to be made for the test. The distance between the camera and where Jane was to stand was measured, and great big cameras were pushed around. A lot of people seemed to be gazing at Jane all at once; she hated that. Mr. Browne saw how she felt. He came and sat beside her on the top step leading into the garden. He said some people could be themselves one minute and then imagine themselves being somebody else the next, but he did not think Jane was that sort of person. That he did not want her to try too much; he thought that Jane and Mary could behave have very much alike, and it was his job to try to use all the bits of Jane that were like Mary. Only in this scene Jane would have to think about Mary. If she did not, there would be a piece of film showing Jane Winter walking into a garden, looking at it scornfully as if she were saying, “This isn’t a real garden, just a painted one.” Jane knew her words and knew what he wanted her to do. Would she try very hard to do it. This was a picture he very much wanted to direct, but if she was not good in this scene, he was very much afraid Mr. Bettelheimer would decide not to make the picture now, and he would hate that. He was sure Jane would try hard, but he thought a prize might help. If she were so good that Mr. Bettelheimer and the other important men thought she should play Mary, he would give her a prize. Did she have a watch, or would like one?

  Jane gazed at him, her eyes shining. A watch! Would she like a watch!

  “Oh! A wristwatch would be the grandest prize in the whole world.” Then suddenly, as she said these words, she thought of Chewing-gum. It was awful to say no to a watch but she had to do it. “There’s something I want more than watch. Something I made a secret vow I’d get somehow. A food parcel for Chewing-gum.”

  Mr. Browne looked at Jane in a funny way; then he pulled one of the curls the hairdresser had taken such trouble to make.

  “That’s a bargain. You get the part of Mary, and Chewing-gum shall get the best food parcel that’s to be had in Los Angeles. We’ll start shooting now; do what you can about those tears.”

  A film studio in Hollywood was a difficult place in which to feel miserable about a dog in London, and nobody left Jane alone. First a woman in white coat combed out her hair; then somebody else dabbed at her face with a piece of paper, and then Mr. Brown brought up a fair girl in queer, old-fashioned clothes and introduced her. She said she was Betty, who was standing in for Mrs. Craven.

  Jane thought Betty looked nice, but her mind was really on those awful tears.

  “I do hope you won’t think me rude if I don’t tal
k much. You see, I’m trying to cry. If I do, Mr. Browne will buy a food parcel for my dog, Chewing-gum.”

  “Well, isn’t that just darling! I suppose your dog is pretty hungry all the time.”

  “Not hungry, exactly. He has horse. You don’t eat horse much in America, do you? It’s nice, but you get tired of it. I think Chewing-gum does.”

  Betty was looking at Jane intently as if she were thinking or something. Then she said, in a dreadfully grave voice, “That’s right. Must have variety. I don’t think horsemeat is healthy food. I wouldn’t let my dog touch it. I buy her food in specially packed cans. Sterilized, you know. I’m scared stiffer than a statue of germs. One germ and... “ Betty did not finish but shook her head in a very frightening way.

  Jane was horror-struck. She knew lots of things might happen to Chewing-gum, but that he might eat germs with his horsemeat was a new danger.

  “You mean a germ could kill him?”

  “Faster than an atom bomb.”

  A voice shouted, “Quiet, everybody.” Lights blazed down on the garden.

  Mr. Browne called, “Come along, Jane. Open the door, and come to the top of the steps.”

  Jane was not actually crying but rather near it because the idea of Chewing-gum dead of a germ was dreadful to think of. She opened the door and came to the top step and looked down at the secret garden.

  Film lights are queer things. They are very bright and very hot, but they give special color to everything as well. When Jane walked around the garden with Mr. Browne, there had been no bright lights; now that the lights were on, the garden had changed. Jane found it was like opening a book to a painting of a lovely garden and suddenly finding she had the power to walk into it. She forgot about Chewing-gum, but the tears that had nearly fallen were still in her eyes as she looked around, entranced by the strangeness.

  That was the only nice moment of making the test of that scene. Mr. Browne and everybody were so slow, and Jane could not see why. There were the steps. There was Betty ready. There was even a toy robin ready in a tree; all she to do was to come down the steps and say her lines. But the moment she had finished looking around the garden before she had time to come down the steps, Mr. Browne said, “Cut.” All the bright lights were switched off, more measuring was done, and somebody came and dabbed at her face again with another piece of paper. It was even worse when they got to the place where she spoke. For no reason that Jane could discover, Mr. Browne made her say “How still it is! How still!” four times.

  The bit with Betty was a little less tiresome, for Betty seemed to expect to have to kiss Jane several times even though she did it right the first time.

  “It’s so stupid doing everything so often.” Jane grumbled, “and I hate having my face patted with that paper every time the lights go out.”

  Betty laughed and said they would look anything but pretty if it didn’t happen. Under the hot lamps everyone perspired and needed wiping off.

  Jane pulled down her pink skirts, for she was still conscious of her frilled pants. “Do lots of dogs die of germs?”

  Betty’s eyes twinkled. “Got to cry anymore?”

  Jane shook her head.

  “Cheer up. I never knew a dog to die that way. I was just trying to jerk a few tears out you so your dog would get his package.”

  Suddenly the test in the garden was over. Jane wanted to find Betty to say good-bye because she liked her so much but the woman in the coat took her by the hand.

  “Come along, dear. I want to change you.”

  Almost before she knew what was happening Jane was dressed in a nightdress and dressing gown, and she was standing with a candle in her hand talking to a strange boy who was in Colin’s bed. The boy couldn’t be Maurice Tuesday because everybody called him Ted. Jane never found out who he was because every time Mr. Browne said, “Cut,” he got out of bed and went and went and talked to one of the men who had something to do with the lights. When he was in bed, he half-sat up, as he was told to do, and looked at Jane, but nobody could have looked at her in a more bored way. Jane told Bee afterward that he looked at her with a fish-queue face, and Bee said she knew exactly what she meant. Luckily it did not matter how Ted looked, for Jane was bored and tired and spit out her words at him to let off her feelings. Words spit not like that were just what Mr. Browne wanted. After Jane had recited them three times, he laughed and said, “Two o’clock, boys.” The lights went out. Everybody, including Ted, went away. Mr. Browne turned to Bee.

  “Get her changed quickly. She’s meeting David Doe in the commissary.”

  15

  David Doe

  Jane was given menu with so many lovely things on it to choose from that it would have been hard to make a choice even if she had her mind on it, but he mind on the door. What was he going to be like, this boy who tamed animals? Was he going to be friendly and sensible and explain exactly how training was done, so that she could make a skilled dog of Chewing-gum as soon as she got home?

  Jane knew it was David the moment he and his father came in the door. He had a great mop of dark red hair, and queer wide-apart greenish eyes, and all over listening look birds and animals have, a look which makes you know that in one second, if they don’t like the sound and smell of you, they will be out of sight quicker than you can feel a puff of wind.

  David sat in the chair next to Jane, and Jane found that now that she was actually meeting David, whom she could feel she was going to like, she had nothing to say. David was obviously not a person who talked much; he gave Jane a shy smile and then stared at the menu. Bee said, “You must order your food Jane, darling. You’ve only chosen clam chowder. What about fried chicken and ice cream to follow?”

  Jane said, “Thank you, that would be lovely.” Actually she was so interested in David, she would have said “thank you,” if Bee had said, “What about slugs on toast and grilled caterpillars to follow?”

  Luckily Mr. Doe was a man who liked talking and was very nice to listen to, for he had an attractive soft accent and enchanted Bee by calling her ma’am, just in the way you say ma’am in England if you speak to the queen or one of the princesses. Prompted by Miss Delaney when he forgot the most interesting bits, he told Bee the whole story of how David came to be in pictures.

  Mr. Doe had earned his living as a truck driver in the state of Missouri. He had two sons, Gardner and David. From the time he was a baby, David had gone off to the woods every minute that he could to play with the birds and wild creatures. The Bee Bee studios had a movie unit which was traveling all through all the States looking for people who did unusual things. They chanced to come to David’s village, and there someone told them about David. They went off to the woods and found him playing on a pipe he had made to an audience of a rabbit and a chipmunk. The movie unit took some pictures of him and his pets, and everybody thought that was the end of that, except that David’s ma hoped maybe the “short” would be shown someplace near, where they could go and see it. Mr. Doe could never tell Bee how surprised they all had been when one day a letter came from the Bee Nee studios asking him to bring David to Hollywood for a movie test. Mr. Doe went to his truck company and showed them the letter, and they said he could have a leave of absence. The tests had been successful, and David had been put under contract. Just at first Mrs. Doe and Gardner stayed on in Missouri, for they still thought nothing much would come of David’s career in the movies. Then suddenly a certain book became a best seller. It was the story of a boy who tamed a pony and got it a job in a circus; it was just the part for David. The company bought the book. David a real wild pony and tamed it himself, and when the picture was first shown, David found himself famous overnight.

  Bee asked if the Does liked living in Hollywood. Mr. Doe looked sort of homesick and said, “Why, yes, ma’am, we do. We’ve met some real friendly people, and we have a home in a nice neighborhood not too far from the Bee Bee studios. But we sure do miss Missouri, and I miss my driving. David is thirteen now, and maybe soon he’ll be
giving up movie work. When he does, we’ll go right back to Missouri. Yes, ma’am!”

  Bee asked what David was going to do if he gave working in pictures, and Mr. Doe said he thought it would nice to have a ranch. But at that, for the first time, David spoke. He had the same soft voice as his father; only his words came slowly and gently, as if they needed a little push to make them come out. It was not a ranch he wanted but land for a park. A place where wild creatures could live in peace, nobody hunting them, nobody stealing eggs, and where they met human beings as friends.

  Jane was puzzled by this ambition. If she had been David, she would not have wanted that at all. She would have liked a private circus where all the birds and animals she had tamed could perform: whole ballets of rabbits, squirrels as trapeze artists, and, of course, the star of stars, Chewing-gum.

  Immediately after lunch David went to the garden. He told Jane he had a robin and a squirrel for her test, and he was going to get them to feel at home while she was changing. Jane’s Mr. Browne took her to the garden. He told her to walk in very quietly and when she found David to do exactly what he told her. They would make the test as soon as David said he was ready.

  David was sitting under a tree, playing on queer homemade looking pipes. On his shoulder was a robin, and lolling against one of his feet a squirrel. He scarcely stopped playing when Jane arrived but whispered, “Stand still.” Jane stood absolutely still. After a moment David stopped playing said, “This robin is called Mickey, and the squirrel Bob. Mickey and Bob, this is Jane.” Then he played a few more notes and whispered, “I’m going to throw some food around you. While I play, come nearer, but move soft.”