Daring Darleen, Queen of the Screen

by Anne Nesbet

  “Who is that man sitting next to her?” asked Darleen.

  “Why, that’s my tragical Uncle Thomas, who went out on a solitary stroll, long before I was born, and never returned.”

  They admired those pictures together while the motorcar made its way through the busy New York streets, skillfully avoiding streetcars, other motorcars, men dashing across the streets, and the poor beleaguered horses, who must be wondering why their city in recent years had gotten so much louder and faster and filled with dangerous roaring beasts made of metal.

  “She must have been a tremendous woman, your grand-mère,” said Madame Blaché.

  “Oh, yes,” said Victorine softly, and then she went very quiet. Darleen could see a little tremor in her fingers as she put the locket back around the bear’s small neck.

  “Oh, dear,” Victorine said finally. “Do you know, I’m having a funny sort of thought.”

  “What sort of thought?” asked Darleen.

  “About — about Theo,” said Victorine. “It’s very silly of me, I know, but look at his little face. He was all alone in that great big house, and he must have thought I had gone for good! If you hadn’t rescued him, he would have waited on and on in that room, with no one there to give him a kind word or to pat him on his fuzzy head occasionally. I told you it was a silly sort of thought.”

  She wiped her eyes, and Darleen was so full of sympathy that she felt as wobbly as gelatin.

  “It is not easy to leave one’s home,” said Madame Blaché. “This I know well, Miss Berryman. This I know very well.”

  The offices of Mr. Ridge were in an impressive building, all dark paneling with brass accents. They were on the seventh floor, and, most thrillingly, there was a mechanical elevator that carried you up into the heights. Darleen had never been in an elevator before, and the jolt as the box started up reminded her a little of her adventure in the lighter-than-air balloon. It was a most interesting and peculiar sensation. Her stomach was slightly unsettled anyway because of the upcoming conversation with the lawyer. Like elevators, lawyers were not something that Darleen had encountered before in her everyday life.

  “You will follow me into this meeting room of his, I think, girls,” said Madame Blaché. “And then, after I have explained the situation to your Mr. Ridge in an introductory way, you, Miss Berryman, will take over the conversation.”

  That was the plan.

  Madame Blaché sailed in through Mr. Ridge’s door, and the girls followed in her wake. Mr. Ridge looked rather nervous, as well he might, since he could not know what this visit was about.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. . . . er, Blatchy?” he said.

  As she handed over her card, she said, “So delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Ridge. I am Madame Blaché, director of the Solax Company, which produces photoplays. You have heard of us, perhaps?”

  Mr. Ridge mumbled polite phrases while his puzzled eyes made little questioning zigzags as he tried to figure out what any of this meant.

  But as he studied Madame Blaché’s card, the puzzlement shifted to a kind of awe. Perhaps he was remembering something he had heard or read about Madame Alice Guy Blaché, about the work she did, the company she ran, or perhaps even her photoplays.

  “What, er, brings you here today?” he asked, wringing his hands. “We have not spoken previously, I believe?”

  “These brave girls here have discovered a document that I think you will find most interesting and valuable: an amendement — I believe in English you would call it a ‘codicil’ — to the will of the late Mrs. Hugo Berryman.”

  Mr. Ridge looked quite shocked, which was only to be expected.

  Then Madame Blaché took the will out of its protective brown-paper envelope and popped it right into his surprised hands.

  “You should know, Mr. Ridge,” she said in a mild-mannered way, “that I have made a number of photographic copies of this document, since I am convinced as to its importance. Those photographs are safely in my possession. I say this merely as an aside.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Mr. Ridge. “But there must be some mistake. Mrs. Berryman, bless her soul, is no longer among the living and therefore cannot be providing new versions of her last will and testament.”

  “I think you should tell Mr. Ridge the story of this codicil now, Miss Berryman,” said Madame Blaché, and at the sound of Victorine’s name, Mr. Ridge actually gave a start, quite as if he had run by accident into a fence.

  “What?” he said, blinking at Victorine. “Who? But this cannot be. Miss Berryman’s personal effects washed up on the shore of the Hudson. The police tell me that she has almost certainly drowned, poor girl.”

  “Mr. Ridge, it is, however, I. I am Victorine Berryman,” said Victorine. “You will recognize me eventually, I am sure, if you look closely. My grandmother did introduce us at several points. Although perhaps you took no notice of me since I was merely a child. Oh, and here, in case you mistrust your eyes, which I suppose would be understandable, is my certificate of birth. And this little locket, in which you see my dear Grandmama’s picture. You must certainly recognize my grandmother.”

  He stared at her face and then long and hard at the birth certificate and the little locket, with its pictures of a happy family long ago, and then, after taking several rather furtive glances at Victorine, he set the locket down on his desk and passed a trembling hand over his eyes.

  “But this is extraordinary,” he said, quite overcome. “The young heiress rising up from her watery grave! And to think that at this very moment, in the office next door, we were just — But never mind.”

  Darleen saw Madame Blaché raise two skeptical eyebrows (very few people, in real life, can raise only one eyebrow at a time, despite what novels tell us), but Mr. Ridge was already continuing:

  “Really, now, Miss Berryman, if you were not drowned, why did you not swiftly return to your loving guardians and relatives, the Brownstones? Mr. Brownstone has been very concerned about your safety and whereabouts. I know he has written a number of times over the past few days — until the sad discovery of your shoes in the river — to ask whether I had heard anything from or about you.”

  That’s a lot of nerve on the part of the Brownstones! thought Darleen, quite indignant about it. But she kept quiet so as not to make anything more difficult for Victorine. She just reached out and squeezed Victorine’s hand to convey her support and her affection.

  Victorine sat up even straighter than usual and said, “Oh, Mr. Ridge, I know my grandmother most explicitly asked you to be sure that I would be kept safe from harm, that the guardians you appointed would be honorable and kind people. But in the case of the Brownstones, you have made an awful mistake. Perhaps we would not now be in such difficulties if you had consulted with me in person before securing my guardians, but you did not. As I explained when I spoke to you on the telephone, the Brownstones seem to care only about selling off all of my grandmother’s most prized possessions. I thought you would surely come to my rescue when you heard how dreadfully the Brownstones were behaving — because you had had so much respect for my grandmother, you know. But that’s not what happened. Those awful Brownstones fooled you, and you went away without helping me at all. And do you know what happened then? Mr. Ridge, it was terrible!”

  “I must say — this is . . . this is . . . er . . . really —” said Mr. Ridge, stammering a little. “I hardly recall —”

  “What happened next,” said Victorine, not relenting one bit, “is that after you left that day, Mr. Ridge, Mr. Brownstone came to my room in a terrible temper. He kept shouting at me, ‘You went crying to strangers; now we’ll see how you like crying alone!’ And from that day on, they kept me for the most part locked in my room.”

  After a moment of dramatic hush, Mr. Ridge wiped his brow and said a bit weakly, “Oh, dear. How awkward this all is.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is,” said Victorine. “Awkward and awful both. For a moment, when I realized no help was likely to come from my grand
mother’s trusted attorney, I despaired a bit, I admit. My fate seemed very hard.”

  Mr. Ridge squirmed in his chair.

  “But then imagine my happy surprise,” said Victorine, “when one day Miss Brownstone came to my door and told me I would be going with her to the grand opening of the Strand!”

  “Where you were kidnapped,” said Darleen. Hearing Victorine tell her sad story made the little gears in her head begin turning.

  “Where I was kidnapped,” echoed Victorine. “Yes.”

  “And taking you to the theater was the first kindness the Brownstones had shown you in ever so long,” said Darleen. “And we know they aren’t very kind people, not really. So why?” The gears were turning faster and faster. There is a particular speed — about sixteen frames a second, or thereabouts — at which individual images suddenly become a moving picture, and the ideas churning in Darleen’s head were now running at something approaching that magical threshold: they were coming together and beginning to move.

  “Yes,” said Victorine. “Why?”

  “Victorine!” said Darleen, putting her hand to her mouth. “Don’t you see? Perhaps it wasn’t by chance, all of it. Your cousins, the Brownstones — What if they found out about my fake kidnapping from that wicked Jasper and decided to arrange your real kidnapping at the same time? Because the police would think the real kidnapping was just the fake one. Oh, Victorine, your own cousins! What if it was them, all along?”

  “Oh!” said Victorine, and Madame Blaché said, “How dreadful,” and Mr. Ridge stared at Darleen in horror.

  “What? What?” he said. “Who is this loud young person here?”

  “This is Miss Darling,” said Victorine. “And I’ll have you know, Mr. Ridge, that I owe my life to her. Several times over!”

  Darleen wasn’t sure what etiquette demanded on such occasions, so she nodded slightly and tried her best to look modest. Mr. Ridge stared at her and shook his head, evidently still not understanding.

  “Mrs. Blash-ay,” he said (coming just a bit closer to the correct pronunciation). “I’m grateful to you, madam, for bringing back our lost lamb, Miss Berryman. I will be sure to return her safely to her guardians, the Brownstones.”

  “No!” said Madame Blaché, Victorine, and Darleen all at once.

  Mr. Ridge gave quite a start. He had perhaps never been so thoroughly contradicted — and interrupted — by females in his whole life.

  “Have you not been listening, Mr. Ridge?” said Madame Blaché. Suddenly she was all business, so that you could well imagine her spending her days telling dozens of people exactly what to do. “Perhaps we have not been sufficiently clear. As Miss Berryman has explained to you, Mr. Ridge, these people you refer to as ‘guardians’ have behaved very badly, and possibly criminally. Henceforward, therefore, she will no longer be living with these Brownstones.”

  “But according to the terms of the late Mrs. Berryman’s will —” said Mr. Ridge.

  “Aha!” said Madame Blaché. “But you see, Mr. Ridge, this is exactly the point we have come to discuss. Please be so kind as to take a moment to read the recently discovered codicil. I think you may find it illuminating.”

  Everyone else in that room already knew quite well the contents of the document Mr. Ridge now put his glasses on to read:

  “‘Last Will and Testament of Mrs. Berryman: Addendum.

  ‘Since it has always been the writer’s intention that Victorine Berryman, granddaughter and principal beneficiary of Mrs. Hugo Berryman, be protected from those who might seek to profit from her fortune or otherwise bar her from the free exercise of her own good judgment, the following remarks are to be added to the original will:

  ‘1. Any guardians appointed for Miss Victorine Berryman must not only be exceptionally trustworthy and kind individuals but also meet with the approval of Miss Berryman herself.’”

  (When he reached this point, Mr. Ridge looked up in alarm: “Approve her own guardians! But that would be highly irregular!” he said. Madame Blaché had to gesture rather firmly at the will, to remind him to keep reading.)

  “‘2. Should Victorine Berryman (heaven forbid!) vanish, disappear, or die, the entirety of the Berryman estate must be held intact; no money or material goods may be transferred to any person, company, or entity until the date that would have been Victorine Berryman’s twenty-first birthday. At that time, IF she has not appeared to claim the estate, or IF definitive proof has at some point been received of her death, the entire estate will go to the NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY, for the construction of a dedicated reading room for the children of New York so that they may enjoy books as Victorine has always loved them. This change in the will should guarantee that no so-called guardians or other parties will have any reason to try to exert control over Miss Berryman or to cause her harm.

  ‘3. A sum of money, not less than five hundred dollars, shall be deposited every half year in the safety deposit box of Mrs. Hugo Berryman at the American Bank of New York, a box for which Mr. Ridge, attorney-at-law, and Miss Victorine Berryman both possess keys.’”

  When Mr. Ridge finished reading, he set the will down on his desk with a trembling hand and dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief.

  “Goodness, goodness,” he murmured.

  “I am sure you agree with me that this new will seems both practical and wise,” said Madame Blaché, as if they were in the middle of an ordinary conversation. Mr. Ridge opened and closed his mouth a few times without making a sound.

  “Mr. Ridge, are you all right?” said Madame Blaché after a moment.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” said Mr. Ridge, pulling himself together. “But this is not how these things are done! And anyway, how can we have any assurance this codicil represents the genuine wishes of Mrs. Berryman?”

  “If you look at my grandmother’s original will,” said Victorine, “you’ll see the handwriting is exactly the same. Exactly the same.”

  Mr. Ridge sat quite frozen for a moment, his hand still slightly quivering. And then he pulled himself together and said, “In any case, this is a muddle. I’m afraid that your fanciful story here — and this peculiar addendum to Mrs. Hugo Berryman’s will and testament — are not only irregular. They may also be irrelevant, ill-timed, perhaps even illegal.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Madame Blaché.

  The lawyer stood up from his desk.

  “There are complications. Dramatic complications,” said Mr. Ridge. “It has been a most surprising day. Most surprising. And trying. The girl who was drowned by her kidnappers is no longer drowned. Mrs. Berryman’s will is no longer what we thought it was. And that is not all.”

  He stuck his head out his door and said to his secretary, “Please do send them in now, Miss Green.”

  Darleen, Victorine, and Madame Blaché all jumped very slightly in their skins. What was this about?

  The door opened, and in came a man with remarkable eyes (one dark brown, and the other quite light and glittery), followed by the very woman in black whom they had seen getting into a taxicab on Fifth Avenue that morning.

  At this point, everyone in that room except for Madame Blaché and Mr. Ridge made sudden sounds of astonishment or distress. And Victorine slipped her hand into Darleen’s so that they were standing together again as they had stood when facing the kidnappers a few eventful days earlier.

  “Miss Berryman,” said Mr. Ridge. “Here are your cousins, Mr. Brownstone and Miss Brownstone, his sister. Before your rather unexpected arrival, we were discussing the future of the Berryman estate.”

  “The future of the Berryman estate?” echoed Victorine. Darleen could tell from her voice that she was truly, deeply shocked.

  Mr. Brownstone closed his especially glittery light brown eye for a moment, letting the other, dark brown eye pierce Victorine on its own. Then his face changed its shape entirely and became all sadness and perplexity. The sadder version of Mr. Brownstone gestured in Victorine’s direction and said, “But I don’t understand.
Just who is this young woman claiming to be?”

  For a moment even Darleen fell under Mr. Brownstone’s spell; he seemed so very puzzled, so honestly concerned. But then his expression flickered for a moment, and Darleen saw the meanness hiding there, and a surge of indignation raced right through her, quite like the shock those new electric wires might give you when handled carelessly.

  “This, of course, is Miss Victorine Berryman,” she said. “As you very well know!”

  “And you? Who are you?” said Mr. Brownstone, but really he hardly bothered to glance at Darleen. “Our poor Miss Berryman is in the process of being declared legally deceased. Drowned in the Hudson River, alas. It’s a very sad day for us, I’m sure. Not a good time, Mr. Ridge, for foolish conversations.”

  Victorine gasped. Darleen gasped, too, but inwardly. She felt that this was a scene in which every line and gesture might matter, and she drew every bit of herself into one powerful concentrated force, as focused as a lens.

  “How can you say Victorine isn’t alive!” said Darleen. “She’s standing before you right this minute!”

  “And I’m not in the least bit drowned,” said Victorine. “Thanks largely to Miss Darling here.”

  Mr. Brownstone ignored everything the girls were saying and instead settled an arm on Mr. Ridge’s shoulder, as if to steady him somehow.

  “Now, Mr. Ridge. Let’s be logical. Have they shown you any evidence of who they claim to be?” he said. He sounded very reasonable. “Because really, Mr. Ridge, this is most inconvenient and cruel, just when we are mourning the loss of our dear young cousin.”

  Mr. Ridge looked very uncomfortable.

  “She does look rather like the Miss Berryman I knew,” he said. There was a wavering in his voice that Darleen didn’t like. “But children are all so similar, aren’t they? Although she has presented a birth certificate as proof, you know —”

  “And a picture of her own grandmother!” said Darleen.