Jack and Susan in 1913 (15 page)

On her practical-shopping forays she began stopping in shops that did ladies' hair, asking if anyone knew who Irene Castle was and could cut her hair in the style of the actress's. She had decided that a haircut was a luxury she could afford. Finally, she did find such a person—an old he-gossip with a smooth pink face and lacquered black hair in a tiny blue shop on Broadway between Sixty-first and Sixty-second streets. This gentleman assured her that he had seen Irene Castle many times on the stage, adored her, worshipped her appearance, and said that someday every woman in America would shear off their dreadful long tresses in favor of a style delicious and short. He would be pleased to shape Susan's hair in imitation of Miss Castle's. The crutch was leaned against a wall in one corner of his little shop, Tripod was tied to a chair, and Susan watched in the mirror as her long hair was snipped away.

The feeling of weightlessness she experienced as she emerged from the shop, promising the old he-gossip to return, was exhilarating. She paused on the street and gazed at her reflection in a shop window. It was apparent that she was at the height of
some
sort of fashion—with bobbed hair (which was still rarely seen off the stage), a crutch under one arm, and a three-legged dog on a yellow leather leash.

As she made her way up the stairs to her apartment she noticed that Jack's door was wedged open, a sign that he hoped she'd stop in. This was just one of half a hundred small signals they'd devised, hardly recognizing that they had patterns—lovers' patterns at that.

She pushed open the door, and Tripod very nearly fractured his neck in trying to get at Jack, who was standing at the table by the window.

Before Susan had a chance to say, “Do you like it?”—referring to her hair—she noticed a great change here, too. Gone were the greasy machine parts, the cogs and wheels and valves, that mélange of small industry. There was no longer the smell of oil permeating the atmosphere of the room. That odor had been replaced by the scent of pine soap—evidently even the floors had been scrubbed. The two tables, the divan, and a couple of chairs remained, but otherwise the room was almost bare. In one corner stood three moving-picture cameras, and spread out on one of the tables were the inner workings of a fourth. Indeed, even Jack looked newly scrubbed and neat, in woolen trousers, a clean white shirt, and a tweed jacket that hardly looked patched.

“I'm devoting all my time to my invention,” Jack announced succinctly. “And your hair suits you splendidly.”

Susan's progress now was rapid, and within the apartment building she scorned use of the crutch. Now that Jack's sitting room was presentable, Susan spent as much time there as Jack had previously spent on the floor above. Tripod did not approve of this arrangement, as he was not allowed to visit Mr. Beaumont's apartments.

While Jack tinkered with his cameras, Susan often read magazines. This was not an idle occupation. It was through the dreadful stories published in the ladies' and general circulation magazines that Susan got many of her ideas for scenarios. For instance, a tiny scrap of dialogue in a story called “A Romance of Cash” suggested an entire two-reeler. And once after reading a small paragraph in the
Sun
relating a touching incident in the life of a washerwoman, Susan immediately sat down and penned the scenario for the melodramatic “Cotton Veils,” the saga of a washerwoman (played by Ida Conquest) who had once been proposed to by an English duke.

So Susan read and scribbled, and Jack laboriously worked away at his mechanism. But despite all the time that the two spent together, not even a hint of a proposal of marriage fell from Jack Beaumont's lips.

One day Jack reported that he had made significant progress on his invention. No thing of beauty, he admitted—an awkward-looking collection of wheels and levers that wouldn't even sit up on a table properly—but when hooked up to a moving-picture camera, it prevented the jiggling and flickering that was so annoying to viewers and gave moving pictures an unrealistic look.

One Sunday afternoon Jack, Susan, Hosmer Collamore, and Tripod made an expedition to the Sheep Meadow in Central Park. With the new device installed in a camera, Hosmer photographed Jack and Susan walking hand in hand; Jack stealing a kiss from Susan; Jack fending off an unleashed Tripod; Jack falling off a bicycle and ripping the knee of his trousers; Susan sitting on the ground with Jack's leg thrown across her lap as she mended the rip; Susan throwing Tripod high into the air and the dog spinning around and around in a way that dogs with four legs are utterly incapable of; and Jack snaring the sleeve of his jacket on a thorny bush while attempting to pick a bouquet of flowers for Susan.

Hosmer planned to have the film developed the following day, but that proved impossible. That Sunday night, Patents Trust hooligans once more broke into the laboratories of the Cosmic Film Company, overturned containers of chemicals, slashed or exposed film, and generally made a wreck of the place. Mr. Fane told Hosmer that he felt certain the ruffians would have set fire to the laboratory if the building had been exclusively the property of the film company. Fortunately, there were unrelated businesses on the first two floors of the building, and the ruffians apparently had
some
honor.

This latest vandalization by the Patents Trust was a real blow for Cosmic. Four two-reel features, three one-reel shorts, and the completed portions of Susan's “Cotton Veils” were completely lost. Everything would have to be reshot, and the studio would have to reoutfit the laboratories completely. This meant that there would be a week and a half in which no new Cosmic Film Company photodrama could appear in the theaters of the country. There would be no income to offset these extraordinary losses.

“I overheard Mr. Fane tell his friend that Cosmic couldn't take another setback like this—the company would go under,” Hosmer confided dismally to Jack and Susan.

“I was under the impression that the Patents Trust was on its last legs,” said Jack. “I thought they were losing their power—that the independents were just too strong for them.”

“That's so,” said Hosmer. “That's probably why this last attack was so vicious. They're desperate. It would be just my kind of luck that the last nefarious act of the Patents Trust would be to drive Mr. Fane out of business—and put me out of a job, and send Miss Conquest back to the stage, just when she is about to become a true star in the moving-picture firmament.”

Jack and Susan exchanged glances over Hosmer's head. They both realized that if Cosmic went out of business, Susan would lose her source of income as well. Maybe she could sell her work to other studios, but it wouldn't be easy, and only after some time spent scouting around.

How typical of her life to now throw this in her face, Susan thought. All her eggs had gone into the one basket, and that basket was labeled Cosmic Film Company, and now she was going to watch as Thomas Alva Edison and his friends in the Patents Trust hurled that basket against a brick wall. It really was
very
aggravating. The only consolation she could think of was that when poverty came knocking, she'd greet it at the door with a leg that wasn't in a cast and a becoming style of hair.

On the first of April, the weather was surprisingly warm. Susan had donned a gray silk sweater over a white shirt-waist, a long gray linen skirt, a pair of gray Burpon hose (without seams), and a pair of brand-new Niagara Maid silk gloves. With unwonted mystery and one of those blushes that turned his face the color of embers in a dying fire, Jack had promised her “something very special” this afternoon.

He appeared at her door wearing light blue flannel trousers and a dark blue jacket. For once his collar was stiff, and he'd shaved his neck right up to his chin. Looking at him dressed like this, she could very nearly imagine him a young broker or businessman—and not merely an impecunious inventor.

“Aren't you going to ask me where I'm taking you?” he asked, once they were on the street.

“I'll let it be a surprise,” said Susan. She had decided not to let anything bother her this afternoon. Any troubles she had seemed miles away as she thought what a very handsome couple Jack and she made. She rather hoped that their destination could be reached by walking. She leaned on Jack's arm in such a way that her limp became almost invisible, then turned and waved to Tripod, who was barking ferociously in the fourth-floor window.

“This is an important day for me,” said Jack solemnly. “It will determine the course of the rest of my life.” With that he hailed a passing taxicab, and Susan climbed in as he opened the door for her.

Jack gave the driver an address through the window, and Susan did not hear it. The sly smile Jack wore when he climbed in beside her told her he had meant to keep it a secret. In the back of the taxicab, Jack took Susan's hand and squeezed it between his, and suddenly it occurred to Susan what the secret was: Today was the day Jack Beaumont was going to ask her to marry him!

Susan decided to feign indifference. She didn't press or ask why this day was to be so important to him. She even pretended not to take too much note of the taxicab's route, as if to indicate to Jack,
I trust you completely
.

The taxi drew up in front of 27 West Twenty-seventh Street—the Cosmic Film studios. Susan felt a slight twinge of disappointment, but still she asked no questions.

As he was paying the driver, the lining of Jack's blue jacket caught on the cab's door handle and a great piece of it ripped out in a long flap as the vehicle took off toward Broadway.

M
R. FANE DID NOT remember that he'd once met Susan Bright. He scarcely glanced at her when Jack introduced them again and was brusque with Jack. “I'm quite behind schedule this afternoon, Mr. Beaumont,” he said, gesturing sharply to one of the crews who were setting up a scene in one corner of the skylighted studio at the top of the Cosmic building. “I'm afraid you'll have to be patient. Watch anything you like, just stay out of the way, you and Miss—” And with that he hurried off, rubbing the side of his forefinger against his mustache in a gesture that suggested he was too important a character to be burdened with inconsequentialities.

Jack looked chagrined.

The studio was much busier than at the time of Susan's first visit. A fourth “stage” area had been set up, and Junius Fane was now filming four productions at a time, in hope of recovering from the recent set-backs. To be out of the way of scurrying workmen, Jack gently pulled her back out of the way against a wall. On one side of them were sections of a rustic fence covered with paper morning glories and on the other was a cardboard cannon that stank of shellac.

Susan looked up at Jack and gently squeezed his elbow. “Don't be disappointed.” Jack said nothing. “You were going to tell Mr. Fane today that I am the Young Lady in Society, weren't you?” Jack looked down at her in surprise. “You see, I did guess your secret, didn't I?” she said.