Minnie Flynn/Chapter 18

​

MINNIE carefully cut this article out of the paper and pasted it in one of her scrapbooks:

"To think, mama," Minnie said as she emitted a long gratified sigh, "Lords and Ladies are delighted to pal around with us. I do believe Lady Throckmorton would let me call her by her first name if I wanted to, but I wouldn't if I could, because I like to rattle off the 'Lady' Throckmorton. It sounds so distingué! Don't you hope the Eastern papers will carry this story? The Throckmortons are so well-established in Newport society. Wouldn't it be wonderful if I could be entertained there? Gilbert and I were talking about it last night. He can hold his own in any set now. He has so much éclat! So much savoir faire!"

"It costs an awful lot of money, dearie, giving an affair swell enough for nobility. I don't see why you went into it so deep, with you worryin' about not gettin' your salary for three weeks."

Minnie's smile suddenly collapsed. "I am worried, mama," she said. "This morning I went into Watson's office and he stalled around for a couple of hours. I couldn't get anything out of him. Binns wasn't there. He was at the bank again. Looks to me as if they hadn't enough money to go on with the ​productions, and were trying to borrow more. We are beginning to skimp on the picture we are making now, and I tell you, if we do, we're lost. It isn't a good story and the only thing that will save it are the magnificent sets. I thought it was a mistake when we dropped that Prince Charming legend into it. It has nothing to do with the story, but Gilbert loved it. Of course, he does look perfectly wonderful in it, but there is so little for me. And a fairy tale legend doesn't seem to fit in with a sex story."

"Oh, why, Minnie, must you do these sex pictures?" inquired Mrs. Flynn timidly. "I ain't so religious as your father, but I hate to see you always lying on them fancy couches with men who ain't your husband even in the picture."

"We've got to make that kind of picture now, mama. It sells better than the others, although," she admitted rather worriedly, "perhaps I was wrong about doing 'Camille.'"

"Is that the picture where you wear the costume that's naked to the waist?" asked Mrs. Flynn.

Minnie nodded. "That's only in one scene, mama. I had to do it. You see, I'm a courtesan."

"A what, Minnie?"

"A fast girl, mama, of the eighteenth century. You'll see the picture tonight."

"I hope your papa won't be there. He hates to see you playing them chippy parts, Minnie."

"But 'Camille' is a classic, mama. Don't, for heaven's sake, let anybody hear you talking like that. They'll think we're just a common, ignorant family."

They were interrupted by the entrance of the butler. "Your private secretary on the phone, Miss Day. She's calling from the studio."

Mrs. Flynn stood there watching her daughter as she talked ​in quick, gathering sentences, her lips twitching nervously, her fingers beating a tattoo on the table. "But, Miss Graham," she was saying, "you've got to get in touch with them again. They've just got to come! The dinner party was in their honor. Don't, for heaven's sakes, let the papers know they've changed their minds. I guess maybe I'd better phone Lady Throckmorton myself. . . . Oh, I'd gladly give a big donation to that charity fund, I know she's the patroness. . . . After I've talked with her, I'll call you right back."

She hung up the receiver with a nervous, despairing gesture. "Mama," she said, "Lord and Lady Throckmorton sent their regrets—can't come to the dinner party."

"Oh, oh, that's terrible, June! Those engraved invitations you sent out with our family crest on them cost eighty-five dollars. What nerve they've got! I told you when you went and ordered that special Russian caviar, and those fancy birds, I had a hunch they'd do a dirty trick like this. Leave it to the English to have bad manners."

"It's because everybody's trying to get them to their houses, you can't blame them. The picture colony is simply wild over them, especially since they found out they're so intimate with the Prince of Wales. Gilbert will be furious with me. He's counting so on their being here. Last night he rehearsed all the butlers, and wrote the cleverest impromptu speech."

"And you givin' five hundred dollars to that English hospital! Oh, the nerve of them!"

"Ssh—mama, don't begin to cry. I haven't talked to them yet. Maybe I can persuade them to change their minds again. Call Lily, quick! I think it would look rather common for me to ask for her directly."

Lady Throckmorton smiled to herself as she heard over the phone: "This is Miss June Day's personal maid speaking. ​My mistress would like to address Lady Throckmorton, if you'll kindly announce who it is."

"I'm sorry," said Lady Throckmorton, when she recognized Minnie's voice, "really, I had no idea you'd made such elaborate plans. I'm shockingly tired. Wednesday afternoon is the garden fête at the Children's Hospital."

"I'll be there," pleaded Minnie, "and I'll be so glad to help you. You're in charge of the Lace Bazaar, aren't you?"

"How nice of them to give it to me."

"You'll make the greatest showing of them all! Right now, let me put in my order. A thousand dollars' worth of lace—and you can keep the lace——"

"June!"

"Mama, be quiet! . . . Oh, that's nothing, Lady Throckmorton, it's my pleasure to do it for you—just a little proof of the sincerity of my friendship. . . . Oh, you must let me do it, then for those dear little children. . . . Really, it's nothing to what I gave during the war."

The tears were coursing down Mrs. Flynn's cheeks as she leaned close to her daughter and whispered, "A thousand dollars with you getting no salary for three weeks!"

"Mama, will you be quiet? . . . Oh, that's awfully nice of you, Lady Throckmorton, yes, dinner at eight. . . ." As she hung up the receiver, "Thank God, she's coming, mama. I feel weak enough to faint."

All through the afternoon, a threatening pall of great clouds made a dismal canopy over the somber hills of Hollywood. A low, complaining whisper carried from the eucalyptus trees to the tall, rustling sycamores in the garden of the Carlton home. A warm, damp, oppressive moisture in the air, an ​early sultry sunset. The storm broke at nine o'clock, a frightful downpour that lashed at the sea, swept ruthlessly over the plains, and roared down the many cañons. A fierce, insurgent wind tugged at the moorings of the sturdy oak that stood in the center of the Carlton garden. Thwarted, it whipped out its anger on the bending, frightened palms, tearing them from the protective ground and hurling them against the side of the house. They fell with muffled sound like Gargantuan fists beating upon the wall.

Lady Throckmorton screamed and rose from the table. "How dreadful," she cried. "Is it an earthquake?"

Minnie, pale with fear that her dinner party would be a failure, cued Gilbert, so they both laughed emptily. "Heavens, no! It's only raining. You'll get used to that, Lady Throckmorton. We must have these rains to keep the country beautiful and green. It's really nothing to be alarmed about."

"Most unusual weather, I suppose!" This was the first time Lord Throckmorton had spoken. Handsome old man, thought Minnie, so distingué. Too bad these Englishmen had no sense of humor.

The rain swished against the huge French windows of the dining room, rattling the locks. In the room above, a forgotten window, open, welcomed the drench of rain. When the floor was pooled, a dark stain showed upon the ceiling of the dining room.

Lady Throckmorton, relaxing rather wearily after the elaborate serving of the fourth course, glanced upward. She saw one of the painted cupids upon the ceiling carrying on its shoulders an enormous, rapidly spreading burden. Lady Throckmorton sat there transfixed, reading into the distortion of this picture a parallel of her own position since she had bent to accept the burden of "movie" society. Schooled to ​hide her emotions, she sat there quietly eating, save when she glanced upward, and then a mild curiosity showed in her expression.

Caviar; green turtle soup; terrapin, sauce Charlemagne; breast of wild duck and mushrooms under glass; pheasant; artichoke soufflé; heart of palm salad; a huge glittering dessert which was a veritable festival of ices. Limpid white wines with the terrapin, a rare old sherry with the wild duck and mushrooms, sparkling Burgundies for the pheasant. After dinner, Napoleon brandy—"the only bottle in America, bought from a millionaire's cellar," whispered Mrs. Pete Day, and heavy, perfumed cordials in tall, delicate frosted glasses. Exquisitely served. Minnie's thoughts were singing as she made note of everything, en passant. She used that little French phrase, too, rolling it over and over on her tongue, en passant. Nothing had been overlooked. Six solemn figures in back of the table, who were always watching the guests, like gaunt birds of prey ready to swoop upon the rejected feast and carry it away.

In the drawing room, an orchestra played Brahms, Debussy. As the dinner guests left the table, the Liszt "Les Préludes." Later, there would be lighter, gayer music when the dancing began. Dignified, austere dancing. Minnie didn't want these people who hobnobbed with the Prince of Wales to think Americans couldn't dance anything but the modern athletic jazz. They were going to waltz that evening, and as a pleasant surprise, all would join in the old-fashioned minuet, the square dances and perhaps the Virginia Reel. Minnie felt that Lord and Lady Throckmorton would enjoy a glimpse of the old, American folk dances.

Mrs. Flynn was cautioned by Minnie not to lose control of her voice during these dances. They excited her mother, perhaps because they recalled too vividly gay memories of her ​youth—those evenings at the Golden Harp Club when Michael Flynn was courting her.

A happy clatter of voices and applause followed Gilbert's announcement of this amusing innovation. Charming music, notes light as feathers floated through the haze of cigarette smoke and rare incense that swirled to the sparkling chandeliers. The costumed musicians, the patter of jeweled slippers on the polished floor, the brilliant groups pausing to drink champagne, the hostess in an ecstasy of triumph, her husband handsome, flushed, self-confident—all these colored pictures passed before the eyes of the distinguished guests as rapidly as if they were watching the unfolding of a fairy tale upon the screen.

The echoes of the laughter could be heard even in the basement. The feet of the dancers were tapping upon the ceiling. Outside, the infuriated wind, concentrating its strength for a mighty blow, rushed at the window of the basement and scattered a shower of glass at the feet of Michael Flynn. He cried out as he saw the flood of waters, waiting for release, pour into the basement, the floor of which was already covered with the muddy waste. Alone, furiously battling with the elements that threatened to destroy his handiwork, Michael Flynn climbed on one of the wine casks and made a futile attempt to wall up the gaping window. But the wind beat him back. Inch by inch the water crept to the sputtering gas jets under the giant heaters. If these were clogged with débris, they could never be repaired to look like new. A cloudburst roared down the mountainside. Great sweeps of water poured into every pocket of the earth. One newly fashioned river found the snug basement of the Carlton home, and entered, unmoved by an old man's broken cries and curses.

For hours Michael Flynn worked, bailing, bailing, bailing the muddy waters. By midnight he could not check the swell​ing rise. He stood there in nipping rain water to his knees, wringing his hands, the tears streaming down his face. Geysers of mud choked first the gas heaters, then the water heaters; about him this work which was his life's work lay in ruins.

At two o'clock in the morning, the flood had risen to his waist, but still he was bailing. The guests, complaining bitterly of the cold, left hastily. Carlton, irritated, whispered to Minnie. "I suppose the old fool went to sleep on the job."

"What old fool?" asked Minnie. In the excitement she had forgotten her father, the only member of her family who had been afraid to come to the dinner party.

When Michael Flynn lay seriously ill of pneumonia, Minnie pleaded with Dr. Willet to call in all the best known specialists in Los Angeles. "Pay them anything—anything," she sobbed, "papa's got to be saved!"

"Paying them has nothing to do with it," replied Dr. Willet grimly.

"Send to San Francisco if they haven't got anybody here who can help him," with rising hysteria. "Is this all the medicines that you're going to give him?" she cried with agony as she pointed to the few bottles on a tray being carried into the sick room. "He should be getting twice as much as that! Don't spare anything, I beg of you. If there's anything you need, I'll go and get it. Let me be the nurse and take care of him. I'm almost crazy, I tell you!"

For one week they crouched in the hall outside of Michael Flynn's room. The specialists had come and gone. They could make no promises.

The late afternoon of the tenth day, Doctor Willet met ​Minnie in the hall. He smiled after he left the house in remembrance of her melodramatic outcry when he had warned her to hope no longer. "Movies! Not a red corpuscle left in their artificial bodies," he said to himself, glancing back at the silhouette of the huge, ungainly, brilliantly lighted mansion. There was even a bright light in the window of the ornate bedroom where Michael Flynn lay. "Grotesque, Aladdin Lamp stuff. No 'Arabian Nights' fairy tale to match it!"

In the upper hall, Minnie lay sobbing where she had fallen after the doctor had left her, her tears deepening the rose in the Chinese rug. Jimmy found her lying there. He was drunk and teetered back and forth when he laughed. He said: "Hotsie-totsie, sis! What's the idea of all the Bernhardt stuff?" and lost his balance, falling to his knees when he reached over to help her.

"Oh, Jimmy—papa is dying!"

It sobered him for a moment.

"Doctor Willet says so. Oh, God, Jimmy, and we almost forgot about papa—he's been so quiet around here. And now we're going to lose him. I tell you, Jimmy, it's a punishment upon us for neglecting him. I tell you it is, Jimmy!"

Jimmy's face had gone pale, and he reached out to catch hold of the balustrade. When he had steadied himself he said with little conviction, "Don't believe anything these docs say, hon. You know the way they hang around you and pull a lot of crape to make you think you owe 'em your life. A thousand dollars for taking out Net's adenoids! Outrage, hon, oughtn't to charge that much for taking out your whole insides!"

Minnie knew that Jimmy was drunk. He had been on a party for several days, but his words comforted her. She thought maybe he was right about the doctor; Willet wanted ​to frighten her so that when her father pulled through he could send her a bill out of all proportion to his services.

"Jimmy, if papa died I don't think I could stand it."

"Come on, hon, stop bawlin'. Nose is all shiny! The ole man's good for twenty years!"

She rose and threw her arms around his neck. They rocked together. "Jimmy darling, where have you been for the last three days? Not even telephoning me when you know how I worry about you!"

Jimmy was fumbling for a cigarette in the platinum case Minnie had given him for his birthday. He answered with a reminiscent chuckle: "It started at Alicia's party. Ev'body drunk and happy, when some little ole wise-cracker says, 'How about Al Morton's yacht?' And no sooner said than done, Minnie. You know how 'tis!"

She drew her hand over his forehead and lightly brushed into place a strand of his oiled straight hair. Minnie loved the shape of his head—it was so round and sleek. Her arm fell upon his shoulder as her eyes eagerly searched his face. She noticed the deepening grooves around his mouth, the pinched look to his nose. Puffs of flesh were bagging under his eyes. "Jimmy, you're going the pace too hard!" she cried, suddenly panic-stricken. "It's beginning to show on you."

"I ain't going it any harder than you are, sis."

She broke away from him and leaned swiftly toward the mirror in the hall. An overhead light threw cruel shadows upon her face. "It's because I'm worn out and I've been crying." Her voice had a metallic ring when she spoke aloud, addressing her reflection in the mirror. And she was terrified for she saw the ravages of time and dissipation as definitely marked on her own face as they were scarred upon Jimmy's. ​

The door of Michael Flynn's bedroom opened and the nurse came stealthily down the hall. Jimmy flung his arms around the newel post and steadied his voice by coughing several times before he asked: "How's the ole man tonight, Miss Lowry?"

"How is my father?" Minnie asked at the same time.

The nurse looked at them gravely. "He was talking a few moments ago. He wants to speak to his children."

Minnie went white and Jimmy's bloodshot eyes filled with tears. He collapsed against the newel post and hung there limply. "It's the curse of God," he was muttering to himself. "Just as Minnie said it was!"

The nurse was looking from one to the other. Her calm, detached expression revealed nothing of what she was thinking. Death seldom stirred her. It came so often as a welcome release to tired, sick bodies. Grief in so many cases was an artificial emotion.

"He wants to see his children," Minnie was saying brokenly. "Do you hear that, Jimmy? Oh, Miss Lowry," pressing the nurse's hand spasmodically, "are you trying to tell me that what the doctor says is true—that papa . . . papa. . . ." Her voice broke and trailed off in a pitiful whimper.

Miss Lowry cautioned: "You'll have to compose yourself, Miss Day. Any little excitement runs up his temperature. Your mother broke down in the room this morning and his fever went up so quickly after that, he was unconscious almost all afternoon. You'd better go in there very quietly. I came out to find you. He asked for you particularly, Miss Day, and for Mr. Jimmy Day." She had nothing more to say, so she moved away from them, walking with quick, quiet steps down the stairway to the floor below.

​Minnie faced her brother. The tears were coursing down her cheeks. "Oh, Jimmy!" she said reproachfully in a stunned voice, "at a time like this, and here you've been drinking! Jimmy, if papa detects it, it's going to kill him. You know how he feels about you and me getting drunk. It isn't as if it were Pete—we're his babies, Jimmy. Go quickly to the bathroom, run cold water over your face and wrists, and put your finger down your throat." Then with a wild outcry, "Oh, Jimmy, if papa should die I simply couldn't bear it!"

Jimmy walked solemnly across the hall to his bedroom. Minnie faced the mirror, swiftly adjusted her tousled hair, blew her nose violently, pressed her hand over her heart, for she felt as if a weight were upon it, then ran on her toes to the door of her father's room.

She entered.

Michael Flynn's small, gray face was the only uncolored object in the brilliant, garish room. It looked like a death mask.

The gold lacquer bed, heavily draped in purple silk hangings, was set upon a dais. Festoons of drapes from the canopy overhead were looped to huge brass rings and fell to the ground in graceful folds. The walls had been covered with a heavy flowered silk. The carpet, an inch thick, was a deep rich maroon. Two heavy chairs were set diagonally to the fireplace. They were of solid mahogany and carved on them were huge crests in gold leaf and purple. A portrait of Napoleon, framed in a heavy carved shadow box hung over the fireplace. A desk in one corner of the room well away from the light; over it a bookcase. Books, rare bindings, gilt edge leaves that were never to be opened; the classics, recommended to Miss Day by the interior decorator. A huge dresser of the Napoleonic period. A set of purple enameled toilet articles, the only ornaments on the gold brocade dresser cover. . . . That ​was the way Minnie had furnished her father's room—"a room fit for a king!"

Michael Flynn lay there, his eyes closed, his lids fluttering restlessly. His feverish mind was at work calling his children to him. He saw Pete and Nettie come tripping toward his bed, hand in hand, swinging their schoolbooks. Jimmy was toddling after them. Minnie, the baby, lay on her mother's breast, her round dimpled face flushed with sleep. Michael Flynn owned his own plumbing shop . . . his name was over the door. His wife was calling from the kitchen, "Get up, Michael Flynn! Put your shoes on and come in to dinner. . . ." He struggled to get up and fell back under the weight of two satin, eiderdown quilts, a purple one and a gold one.

"Oh, papa, you're awake! You—you frightened me so. You were lying there so still I thought—I thought I'd scream! Papa darling——"

His heavy gasping breath almost drowned out her voice. He didn't know what she was saying, but he knew it was Minnie. Laboriously he drew his hand from under the covers and felt for her. She seized the light hand and pressed it to her tear-wet face. Michael Flynn sighed. Twisting, turning meteoric years, pulling the roots of their being out of his very heart, had left him numbed with pain and emptiness. He was trying to say aloud, "Annie, bring the children to me." Consciousness was fighting to pull away the veil that fogged the present, making memories more poignant than realities.

"Papa, speak to me!" The shrillness of Minnie's voice was like a tongue of flame that shot out and penetrated his mind.

"Minnie," came from him at last. And a long time later, "Papa's little girl."

She forced a hollow, choking laugh to hide the struggling tears that clutched at her throat. She said to him, "You've ​got to hurry up and get well, papa darling. What do you suppose we're going to do without you, with you sick, and nobody to look after the new gas furnace?"

Michael Flynn smiled with wan pride. The tears welling up in Minnie's eyes splashed upon the satin coverlet. She was crying within, "he would never have been ill if it hadn't been for that rotten new heater. . . . Oh, papa, it's my fault, letting you go down into the basement. I'm just a miserable, selfish creature, who doesn't deserve anyone like you. . . ." Now she was whispering convulsively: "Dear God, hallowed be Thy name! Bless my father and make him well again. . . . Oh, papa, I love you so! I love you!"

He smiled again as he glanced slowly around the room, but his eyes seemed to see beyond the gold and purple. His restless gaze lingered upon the dresser. Then he made a feeble gesture, pointing to it. "Second drawer, Minnie," he finally managed to say.

Minnie fumbled through the drawer until in one corner she found the sock which had been Michael Flynn's bank for fifteen years. She knew this was what he wanted her to bring him. It was apparently so filled with money and little souvenirs that it looked as if Michael Flynn's knotty, twisted foot were in it.

"Here it is, papa dear. I'll put two nice, crisp one hundred dollar bills in it tomorrow," she said as she folded his hand over it.

A few moments before he could speak, and then in a thinning voice, "Hide it, Minnie—it's a nest egg—for you and mama—some day——"

She knelt beside the bed so her father could lay his cheek against her clasped hands. "Ssh—Minnie, don't cry," he said, "papa's very tired."

​"Go to sleep, darling. June is right here close to you,—she won't let anyone disturb you."

"Who's here?"

"Me, papa—Minnie."

"I thought you said somebody else."

"Nobody else, darling, we're alone together."

His hands were fumbling with the sock. "Untie the knot," he said faintly.

Minnie's hands were as awkward as his, a terrifying weakness had laid hold of them.

She read in his eyes that he wanted her to raise the pillow so he could see his treasures. "A nest egg for you and mama," he kept repeating, "hide it—I'm afraid—Pete was lookin' in my drawer—last night—six hundred dollars—rainy day—baby——"

He concentrated all his strength to draw out the contents of the sock, and raised them to his dimming eyes. His frightful convulsive start shook the bed—a scream tore out of him: "Gone! Gone! Oh, my God . . . where are you . . ."

In place of the bills were wads of tissue paper. They had to pry them loose from his stilled blue hands.

June Day's' father had a magnificent funeral. His picture was in the evening paper under a new, large one of his daughter. A reporter, one of the mob who had waited outside the church to see the distinguished funeral procession, had caught Minnie just as she was stepping into her limousine. She wore heavy mourning, relieved by a corsage of orchids. Pete raised the devil with the editor for publishing the photograph, because Minnie looked so ugly in it. Her face was swollen from weeping.

​A slight accident almost marred the somber dignity of the funeral. As the newspapers had carried the story of how many of the moving picture colony were to be at the church, a great crowd gathered outside. Four of the pall bearers were famous stars. When the doors of the church opened, the eager, restless crowd surged forward. The pall bearers, carrying their light burden, felt the pressure of many hands upon their arms. They heard their names called by hundreds of throats. But theirs was a solemn job, and they were determined to look straight ahead and permit no interference to spoil their scene. The crowd cleft to let a man carry away a girl who had fainted. This threw a dozen elbows into the pall bearers. They swerved, the coffin tilted and almost slipped from their hands.

Minnie screamed.

"Look, look!" cried the mob, "that's June Day under the long, black veil. Lift up your veil—oh, go on, June! Don't be a piker—one little peek."

She lifted her veil to step into the limousine. Her mother, Nettie, Jimmy and Pete followed her. They, too, had been weeping, though Mrs. Flynn knew who had sent flowers and had already estimated their cost. She and Nettie whispered about it. On the way to the cemetery Pete was thinking that Minnie had gone too far to pay so much for a marble mausoleum for her father, although it wasn't such a bad press story: "June Day's beautiful devotion to her father's memory." Pete was sorry the old man had "kicked the bucket," but he couldn't let his grief carry him to extremes as it did Minnie. He smiled as this thought filtered through his mind . . . his father's expression, if he had been told that his final resting place was to cost three thousand dollars. "I'll bet the old man would turn in his grave," he said to himself with grim humor.