Genteel Spirits (Daisy Gumm Majesty Books) (12 page)

Harold must have seen me eyeing Lillian because he leaned over and whispered, “
You shouldn’t believe what you see
any more than you should believe anything
John
Bohnert
says. Lillian is the best assistant any costumier ever had.”

“I’m sure she is,” I whispered back.

Then we saw, coming toward us at a dead run, Gladys Pennywhistle, her spectacles bouncing. “Daisy!” she cried. “Daisy, we need you at once.
Now
! Oh, please, come at once!”

Harold, Lillian and I exchanged a glance. I gulped. Lillian adopted a pitying expression and reached out to pat my arm. Harold said, “Good luck, kiddo.”

So, bracing myself for what was to come and pasting on a smile that felt as phony as a three-dollar bill, I called out to Gladys, “Coming, Gladys! I’m right here,” and I walked toward my doom.

Chapter Six

V
ery well, so it wasn’t my doom
toward which I walked
. What I walked toward was the huddle of people surrounding Lola de la Monica, who was, according to Gladys’s panting explanation, experiencing a major temperament.

“Having a temper tantrum, is she? How come?”

Gladys drew a handkerchief from a pocket of her sensible blue suit pocket
, wiped her brow,
and said, “Who knows? The woman is impossible.”

Oh, boy. W
as I ever happy to hear that.

“I thought you were Mrs. Winkworth’s secretary, Gladys.”

She huffed. “I am, but she’s
lending
me to the picture folks for the duration of this shoot.”

“You don’t sound awfully happy about that.”

“I’m not,” she said succinctly, and speeded up her pace. I got the impression she didn’t want to talk about how she managed to get “borrowed” by the picture folks.

I heard the sobs as we approached the group, and a man turned toward us.
John
Bohnert
. As soon as he saw me, he heaved a breath of relief and smiled. I smiled back, but I didn’t mean it.

“Thank God.” He turned back to a heap on the ground I presumed to be Lola de la Monica. “
Everything
’s
all right, Lola. She’s right here.”

Up from the ground she arose
. I think
that’s
a slightly revised
line from an old hymn, but I don’t mean it in any sort of reverential context here. What she did was leap to her feet, and I saw that her dark hair streamed
wildly
down her back, her face was beet red, her eyes swollen, and her garments, which had started out that morning white,
were
streaked with grass stains. Harold was going to love that, if she was wearing a costume he’d designed for the picture.
In short, she put me in mind
of the mad Mrs. Rochester before she threw herself from the burning roof of Thornfield Hall—or did she burn up in the Hall? Pooh, I can’t remember. At any rate, she was every inch a wild woman.

“Mrs. Majesty!” Lola cried, using every ounce of dramatic training she’d ever had and then some. “I
need
you! Come to my dressing room at once!”

One glance at my companions told me I was stuck. Nobody else evinced the slightest tendency to come to my aid
or that of Miss de la Monica
. In fact, all the persons gathered there stepped back a pace or six and left me to the demented female.

I reminded myself that I was being paid for this—and a good deal, too—held out one of my well-manicured, very white (because I always wore
heavy
gloves and a wide-brimmed hat when working in the garden or pruning our orange trees) hands, and said in my most soothingly ethereal spiritualist’s voice, “My dear Miss de la Monica, this will never do. You must take control of the demons haunting you. Yes, I will come to your dressing room, and we will deal with this problem.”

Although I noticed a good deal of eye-rolling and significant-glance-passing going on among the assembled watchers, I paid no
heed
. My focus was on Lola de la Monica, and Gladys had been absolutely correct: she was in the very midst of a major t
emperament. Lucky me. I’d been elected
the animal-trainer in this particular circus.

Taking one of Lola’s arms, I guided her to— And then I
stopped in my tracks and
remembered something vital. I had no earthly idea where her dressing room was. I turned toward where I’d last seen
John
Bohnert
. Where he’d been s
tanding not seconds earlier, now
stood, rather like a largish, immovable boulder, Sam Rotondo, his fists on his hips, his legs apart and planted
solidly
on the well-tended lawn, frowning at me.

Giving him back a good, hot scowl of my own, I let my glance slide sideways and whispered to the stranger standing beside Sam and whom I hadn’t yet met, “Can you direct me to Miss de la Monica’s dressing room, please? I fear she’s rather too upset to provide coherent directions.”

The man I’d addressed gulped, exposing a
fairly
protuberant
Adam’s apple as he did so, and said, “Yes, ma’am. I’ll take you right there.”

Bless the f
e
llow, he stepped right up, took Lola’s other arm, and we headed
toward the marble-like building I’d noticed a few minutes earlier
, Lola staggering every now and then as if the weight of her problems was tilting her slightly off kilter. It passed through my mind to wonder if the woman had been drinking, but it was only about nine in the morning. Then again, she
did
belong to the
maniacal
world of moving pictures, and
those folks
were an odd lot, even if you didn’t believe everything you read in the papers.

The
building
we arrived at
in a few moments
turned out to be
yet
another
grand
house on the grounds of the Winkworth estate. I learned later that there were a total of three houses situated on those massive grounds: Mrs. Winkworth’s, Mrs. Hanratty’s and this one, which had been unoccupied until the motion-picture folks took it over for
The Fire at Sunset
.

The fellow helping with Lola dropped her arm, which precipitated another stagger, this one guiding us right for several steps. By the time I’d managed to get us on-course again, the man had opened the door and was hurrying back to us, looking as if he feared his departure might have permanently damaged Our Star.

“I’m so very sorry, Miss de la Monica!” cried he. “I only wanted to open the door for you.”

For this man, evidently I didn’t exist
. Huh.

“It’s all right, Homer, darling,” whispered Lola in a failing voice. “I know you meant well.”

Homer, eh? Was this the genius Caltech professor who’d invented the wobble-free
camera
-moving device? As I helped
him
heave Lola into the house, I gave him a good once-over and decided he fitted the absent-minded-professor
stereotype fairly well, except that he wasn’t bald. His eyeglasses were every bit as thick as those Gladys wore, and the expression on his face matched Gladys’s when she’d gazed with adoration at Monty Mountjoy. I felt sorry for
both of them in that moment:
Gladys because Monty would never be hers for reasons already pointed out; and Mr. Fellowes because Lola de la Monica didn’t have a care for anyone in the universe except herself.

“Just take me to the sofa, please, will you?” Lola murmured as if she were Carmen dying in the last act.

“Tell me where it is, and I’ll be delighted to do so,” I said with a trifle more acid in my voice than I’d meant to allow.

It didn’t matter. Lola was performing for the
male
present at
the
moment, which was a good thing
since he seemed to know where the
desired
sofa was. He steered us left
into a big living room, and
together we
managed to get Lola over to the massive
red crushed-velvet
sofa against the far wall. I don’t know why she couldn’t have used the smaller
, plainer
one near the door, but I guess she knew her business. As she sank onto the sofa, I saw with some amusement that the
deep
red
of the
velvet
, her
grass-smeared
white gown, her black hair, and her makeup
formed another nearly perfect rendition of an artwork, this one
perhaps
by one of those pre-Raphaelite guys. Rosetti maybe. Or perhaps Burne Jones. Lola would have done
either
one of them proud.

After she did her sinking routine,
Mr
. Fellowes, if it was he, knelt beside her and took her hand. “Is there anything I can get for you, Miss de la Monica? A
glass of water
perhaps?”

I felt like telling him that nothing so prosaic
as a
glass of water
would do for this particular fainting maiden, but didn’t. Rather, I glanced toward the doorway through which we’d just entered the room and was relieved to espy Gladys Pennywhistle bustling toward us,
John
Bohnert
at her heels and looking peeved.

“Thank you so much, Homer darling, but I need Mrs. Majesty right now,” Lola said in a voice that might have heralded her eminent demise if she weren’t acting, which she was, so it didn’t.

Homer Fellowes got to his feet, his expression radiating his defeat and unhappiness that he couldn’t continue to be the hero of the hour.

“I’m right here, Miss de la Monica,” I said, my tone reverting to it
s
soothing spiritualist quality. I reminded myself to keep it there, no matter what this ridiculous
female
did in the future.

“Is everything all right in here?”
John
Bohnert
gazed down with displeasure at his star. I guess some directors get used to
all
types of histrionics, but
John
appeared to be reaching the end of his tether with this particular actress.

“I
believe
Miss de la Monica only needs a little spiritual guidance. We won’t be long,” I assured him, praying I was right.
Glancing at the solid, ever-practical Gladys Pennywhistle and then at the awe-stricken Homer Fellowes, I had a brilliant idea. “Why don’t you and Mr. Fellowes make up some tea, Gladys? After Miss de la Monica and I chat for a while, I think a bracing cup of tea will be just the thing.”

“It’s
Doctor
Fellowes,” Gladys said in her practical voice.
She wasn’t reproving me, only setting me straight.
“And that might be a good idea.”

“Please, Dr. Fellowes,” I said, latching on to the man’s arm, “go with Miss Pennywhistle, if you will. I’ll deal with this situation.”

“Eh?” Dr. Fellowes glanced from the sprawling star on the sofa and blinked at me.
“Beg pardon?”

“If you will please accompany Miss Pennywhistle to the kitchen and prepare some tea, we should be ready for you again in about ten minutes.”

“Uh . . . I mean . . . I don’t know how to prepare tea,” said the hapless Dr. Fellowes.

“I’m sure Gladys does. You can carry the tray,” I told him, thinking that he and Gladys would make a perfect pair.
They were both brainy, and Gladys had that helpful, practical streak that would assist the ineffectual professor, who only, apparently, knew how to invent things.

“Yes, indeed. Thank you, Dr. Fellowes. I can use your help.” And Gladys led him away, much as Mrs. Hanratty might lead one of her well-trained pups.

“It won’t take any longer than ten minutes?”
John
asked in my ear. “We’ve got to finish dealing with the costumes today, and this damned temperament has already set us behind schedule.” He glanced at
his
watch, one of those nifty new wrist-band varieties, and frowned down at the sofa
some more
.

“I’ll deal with her,” I promised him. “I’ve had lots of practice with hysterical women.”

And
that
was the truth. My spiritualist
persona
had been weaned, so to speak, during the former Mrs. Kincaid’s many hysterical moments.

He huffed with irritation. “I hope to hell you’re right.” And he stomped off
, I guess to do something director-like.

After sending one exasperated glance ceilingwards, I sat next to Lola on the sofa and took one of her limp hands. “Now, you must let me help you, Miss de la Monica. What has happened that has you so upset? I’m sure that, with the help of the spirits, my constant guides and companions, I can assist you through whatever has transpired.” I wanted to add
,
to put you in this nonsensical state
, but didn’t.