Painted Buttertlies

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 985, 30 May 1930, Page 5

Painted Buttertlies

Published by Special Arrangement.

By

Mrs PATRICK MacGILL

Author ol Dancer* in the Dark. - TKo l/kdd* GirL~ ” The Flam* a! Liie-~ <i« Me

CHAPTER XV. — (Continued) It had not been a difficult matter for Adela Creighton to see Jennifer’s letter propped up against the bottle on Lady Yardley’s dressing-table, for the latter’s door was always left open, except at night when she actually went to bed, and when the servants closed it. It was not an impulsive, but a deliberate theft, and it argued badly for those who had had charge of her moral training that not the slightest qualm disturbed her as she broke the seal and read: My Darling, —This is the last time I shall write to you. Our engagement has to be broken. There is a great deal that you do not know about my life, but if it only concerned myself, I should tell you immediately, for, having done nothing of which I am ashamed, it would be more a matter for understanding than forgiveness. But somebody has a hold over me that, if used, would injure many and hurt beyond healing one who is as dear to me in her way as you are in yours—my mother. Please do not ask for explanations or try to fol-

low me. I am going abroad to do some work and to try to forget, not you—that would be impossible while I live—but myself. It was signed “Jennifer.” “The artful little guttersnipe. .Just the sort of letter to send him chasing after her to the other end of the world, if needs be!” muttered Adela Creighton, fiercely, as, selecting a dainty pink candle from the sealing wax set on her writing table, she burned Prank’s letter in the tiny flame without the least compunction. The letter was actually being burned while Frank was on the longdistance telephone getting through to London, to the flat which he still imagined Jennifer to be sharing wdth Madame Elise. "This is Loakes, the porter, speaking, sir. Madame Elise went to Paris yesterday afternoon for the week-end —flew over, she did, sir. Miss Lome?” as Frank cut in upon the information he neither sought nor desired “Oh, she’s left Madame over a week ago. No, I don’t know where she is at present. Thank you, sir,” as Frank intimated that no more need be said. Several times he made his mother repeat the conversation that she had had with Jennifer. “Did she seem unwell at all —worried or anything?” the hurt, anxious young lover demanded. Lady Yardley shook her white, aristocratic head. “No, she did not. On the contrary, I thought her looking very well indeed.” Then, speaking rather deliberately, as if choosing her words with care, she ventured to give expression of what was her own honest, deeplyconsidered opinion of Jennifer's conduct. “You know, Frank, dear, I am very fond of Jennifer. She is a charming girl, and there are splendid elements in her life; but our world is not hers, in spite of the generous way in which it has received her.” “Rot, Mother!” For the first time in his life Frank Yardley flatly and rudely contradicted the mother whom he idolised in much the same way as Jennifer idolised hers. And, immediately, when he saw her sensitive face quiver with the hurt of it, he was sorry and could have kicked himself.

“Forgive me, mother,” he said, bending over the still lovely figure in the silver evening gown, and pressing the hand that had never done anything more useful than dust china which was so rare as to be priceless, and therefore not to be entrusted to a servant. “But to speak of Jennifer in that way is so utterly to miss all that she is, all that makes her so splendid, making me feel ashamed, somehow, when X am with her —that —well, I am afraid X couldn’t help going off at the deep end a bit." “Ashamed? You, Frank? What has my son ever done that he need be ashamed when in the company of a girl like Jennifer Lome? An unusual girl, certainly, and, as I have already said, an extremely nice one, but not of our world, all the same.” Lady Yardley looked such a picture of genuine distress, and her way of looking at the matter was so purely literal, so entirely characteristic, that Frank forebore to say anything further, except: “It is not what 1 have done so much as what I have failed to do that makes me think Jennifer the finest, spunkiest little girl that ever drew breath. I tell you this,” and the tenderness in the young, pas-sion-filled eyes was wiped out by stern resolve as Frank told his mother, in the manner of one flinging down a challenge to Fate, “If Jennifer Lome will not marry me, no other woman shall ever come to Oversley as its mistress.” Before his mother could frame a suitable reply. Frank was on his way to the garage to get out his twoseater, as his mother had known that he would. Midnight saw him putting

up at the Castle Hotel on Hampstead Heath, to await with as much patience as he could the following morning, when he might decently call upon Mrs. Lome in the little villa which she kept neat and clean- for Carlos Mayhew and his child. He had driven past the house at a quarter to twelve in the vain hope that there might be a light in one of the windows. Children often required attention in the night, he believed. But the place was as dark as a tomb, and all the blinds were drawn. This fact conveyed nothing to his consciousness until, calling the nexf morning, he found precisely the same condition of things at ten o’clock. He knocked at the villa next door. A bright-faced girl in a flowered chintz overall, holding a chubby little boy by the hand, opened the door. “Mrs. Lome? Oh, the house is shut up, and —I won’t be sure” —in the emphatic fashion of one who wishes to disclaim any personal responsibility for a statement made, “but I believe it is going to be sold. Mr. Mayhew lost his wife a little while ago, and has since become a famous film actor in America. He ordered Mrs. Lome and his baby to the sea, thinking the air would be better for little Faith than London. Her daughter lived alone in the house for a few days after her mother and the child left, but she went, too, this morning, for good, I’ve heard” —again the emphatic, disclaiming note, which denied responsibility, “that she’s gone abroad, but she didn’t tell the so herself. Always a reserved sort, she was,” the young woman added, in. a faintly acid tone. CHAPTER XVI. Jennifer wore a green velvet dress with an artless round collar from which rose her white little neck as appealingly as that of a child. She was the only one not in evening dress in the smart new restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard, paradoxically named, “Les Miserables,” since its large windows were sapphire squares, resembling the soft Canadian twilig;ht, its dancing floor was of specially made blue glass, while the exquisite orchestra was housed behind a carved golden grille, so that they could only be heard, not seen. “You are the loveliest thing in the room tonight,” Carlos Mayhew, who was Jennifer’s escort, told her, in the soft Southern voice that had sent half the beauties of Movieland into ecstasies. “Well, really, Carlos, there is such a surfeit of good looks in this place that one stands a better chance if one is outstandingly ugly—don’t you agree?” asked Jennifer, as she daintily ate her chicken a la Mary Pickford, with its Salade Marcon Davies, and, with her usual trick of hitting the bulls-eye with a chance remark, voiced one of the truths that most of the Hollywood film aspirants discovered for themselves sooner or later. Jennifer was a huge success in Hollywood, and on her arrival had been photographed in a white blaze of calcium and the next day had seen herself described in big black headlines as “The Baby Lucille,” while a full column of unstinted praise was devoted to the dresses she had designed for “Black Cargo.”

The same night she was entertained to a “little dinner” at Carlos

Mayhew’s bungalow, which was in reality a miniature palace, with an Italian garden and a fountain all complete, with a marble statue of little Faith holding up the basin, the sight of which immediately made Jennifer homesick.

Everybody called her “honey,” and the men scattered “dears” and “darlings” with equal impartiality among old and young, married and unmarried, of the opposite sex. She had her choice of parties, tame or wild, for every night if she cared to accept; she had seen Charlie Chaplin, and taken supper with Harold Lloyd, and she had thrilled to the first' sight of the Paramount Studios lying back from Melrose Avenue, with the building shaped like a ship bulking hugely on the skyline. It was like living in a dream world; even the avenues of waving palms, orange groves and Canna lilies, the mocking birds singing in the pepper trees, the coyotes hiding in the brushwood, all obsessed her with their sheer beauty, but the feeling of taking part in a waking dream persisted until one day in an English newspaper sent out to her by her mother, she read a paragraph in the “Gossip” section, which was like a sudden stab in the back.

It was headed, “The little god smiles,” and the text ran in the usual banal fashion of such items of social intelligence.

“Rumour has often connected the name of the Honourable Adela Creighton, one of the most beautiful and original of society’s younger set, with that of various “young men, but so far Rumour has only sustained its reputation for unreliability. However, it looks as if Cupid is to be rewarded at last, for just lately Miss Creighton has favoured a certain handsome young man with more of her charming company than seems altogether fair to the rest of those who seek her favours. The young man is the only son of a baronet prominent in the shipping world, and an interesting announcement is expected shortly.” Jennifer bit her lip till a shooting pain told her that she had bitten through the skin. Her beautiful eyes saw the exquisitely clad, lovely young forms moving gracefully over the dancing floor through a shimmer of tears.

“What’s troubling you, Jennifer?” asked Carlos Mayhew, putting down his knife and fork, as if to indicate that she and her affairs were of far greater importance than his dinner.

Passion and sincerity dwelt in his voice, and if her mind had not been filled with other matters, ever since her coming to Hollywood, instinct would have warned Jennifer long ago that the latest screen idol of Movieland was in love with her. The fact was, however, that ' though Carlos Mayhew possessed the physical and temperamental requisites for his new calling, his mentality was far too shrewd to allow the paradoxically stimulating yet enervating life that he now led, to eat into his character.

Light flirtations he had indulged in, particularly during the first few weeks, but even the most industrious of the gossips could not connect him with a serious “affair.” and the reason was that, deeming Love wholly worthy, he had waited until Jennifer should come, and until his sense of decency regarding the period of mourning for the dead should be satisfied. He had been present when Jennifer’s engagement to Frank Yardley had been announced at Adela Creighton’s dinner party, and he had seen the subsequent notice of its termination in the “Times.” But Jennifer had said nothing about her own private affairs, only was brimful of information regarding little Faith and her many charms; and Carlos Mayhew was too proud to seek a confidence that was withheld. But his wife had now been dead for ten months, and time had taught him that his love for her, compared with his rigidly-controlled passion for Jennifer, had been as a farthing dip to the blaze of a noon-day sun. Besides, had it not been for this slim slip of a girl sitting opposite to him, apparently self-absorbed, he might never have lived to have tasted the sweets of his present life, an economic independence that, wisely invested, would j yield him a competence, work that was interesting and absorbing, and I some day, if Fate willed it, a married Ilife that should be as perfect as love and effort could make it. “Troubling me, Carlos?” Jennifer

jerked herself out of the twilight of her own thoughts and caught up her companion’s words. “Oh, nothing, nothing that can be helped, that is," said Jennifer, with the quick, sunny little smile that made her so many friends. “But isn’t life a tangle sometimes, Carlos?” she burst out suddenly; it was the nearest to mentioning her own troubles that she had ever been.

Carlos Mayhew did not immediately reply; but in his stillness was a sense of expectancy. His keen man’s blood was racing along his veins; his dark eyes leaped to the quickening of his heart.

“Jennifer, shall we go along to the bungalow and talk about those tangles? Perhaps we might smooth them out a bit,” he suggested, keeping a tight rein upon himself, or he would have taken the slendei-, green-clad form in his arms before everybody, and would have kissed the sweetly tender yet firm little mouth until he had slaked the passion that the mere sight of Jennifer aroused. He knew that she was as clear-eyed as himself regarding some aspects of life, yet her whole personality expressed a candour and a purity that could only be described as child-like.

Jennifer looked up suddenly, sensed the knowledge in the passionate glance, and her sensitive face burned with startled realisation. Carlos! She had never suspected. Putting her hand up to her white throat as if an invisible tight collar obstructed her breathing, she rose to her feet. “Shall we go? It is a lovely night,” she said, conscious of the futility of her remark, for not a dozen nights throughout the whole year in Hollywood are anything else than lovely. They walked beneath the vivid, starhung sky, each conscious of that which neither tongue had named, i and, in an effort to lessen the constraint, Jennifer spoke of her companion's new film, the contract for which had been signed only a few days since, “Does it contain many thrills, Carlos?” she asked, with an elaborate carelessness that revealed rather than concealed her self-consicousness.

“Enough thrills for Fairbanks himself,” was the laughing reply. “One of my scenes is a flight in an airplane that entails the throwing of myself and the girl who is with me from the machine,” he told her, in tones that were kept carefully casual. “Who is the girl?” asked Jennifer, more to sustain the conversation than because she was really interested. “I don’t know. They are doubling Greta Fayne for the part, because she’s nervous! It’s funny how these stars never know the meaning of nerves until two things are assured —their place on the pay-roll, and their pull with the public.” A sudden idea darted into Jennifer’s head. So far, the experiences of her new life had not included a flight in an ’ airplane, and, though she was neither screen-struck nor greedy of sensation, yet somehow the idea of taking part in just one film, so that, when it got to London her mother could see her and Carlos together on the screen, appealed to her enormously. (To be Continued Tomorrow.)