Poor Caroline (31 page)

'What do you think? Do you think it's good? Do you
think he'll do anything?'

'I don't know. I'm no expert in these things. I don't
know how good the Western Syndicate Film is supposed to
be. Macafee's is certainly better. Do you want Brooks to
like it?'

'Frightfully,' said Eleanor. 'When I talked to you the
other day, in that restaurant at Earl's Court, you remember, alter we met here for the first time, I told you I didn't much
care. But since I came to work here, I feel enormously interested in the whole business and the Tona Perfecta's
nothing to the new colour film we're making.'

She was a new creature, Roger thought. The self-
interested Macafee had given her something that he, Roger,
for all his love and anguish and solicitude, could never
give.

'I believe that this is the thing I've been wanting,' she
continued. 'Of course, I want to go in on the business, not the technical side of the film industry, but I must know
something about processes first. I've got schemes for whole
sale manufacture of our improvement of the Van Dorn
Kelley Pryzma films at astonishingly low rates. I do wish I'd learned more about optics. Oh- look - there's Hugh got
on to his colour work. I do believe, I do believe your Mr.
Brooks is interested. You know, the colour film is going to
be
the
thing. It is indeed. I wish it were ready to show. How
long is Brooks staying in England?
⁵

'For another ten days, I think.'

'Oh, he must. Wouldn't it be gorgeous, gorgeous, if he really took up Hugh and gave him a free hand, and I got in
sideways somehow? Wouldn't it be great?'

Roger looked down at her flushed happy face. He could
not do less than wish that her own wishes might be ful
filled.

'Yes,' he said, trying to believe he meant it. 'It would be
great.'

§5

Eleanor was right. Brooks was far more impressed by the
possibilities of the colour film than by the Tona Perfecta,
and Roger gradually realized that the outcome of this visit might be very different from his intention. Brooks might
refuse to take any interest in the Tona Perfecta, and the Christian Cinema Company would still be left with that doubtful and unrealizable asset; but he might very easily
make some sort of offer for the uncompleted colour film. He
might persuade Macafee to return to California with him,
and Eleanor, who was clearly doing her best to persuade the
great man to accept her as an indispensable part of Maca
fee's equipment, might be snatched away by Brooks to another continent.

'The best thing that can happen, of course,' Roger told
himself. But his heart and his nerves refused to respond to
the dictation of his reason. He stood just outside the group,
feeling ridiculously alien and
unwanted. Nobody seemed to
remember that it was due to his initiative that Brooks had
ever heard of Macafee.

But at last D'Aynecourt and Brooks began to move.

It was arranged that Macafee should give Brooks a chance
to see the colour film directly it was ready for demonstration.

'Can we give you a lift, Miss . . . er . . .?' murmured
D'Aynecourt dutifully. He really disliked young
women of
Eleanor's type, who became so much interested in light-
refractions and complementary colour-values that they forgot the obligation of their sex to charm. 'Chemistry is
an unwholesome pursuit for a woman,' he murmured to
Roger.

'I've got to stay and help clear up and do one or two odd chores, thanks,' said Eleanor. 'I'm all right. I always get
myself home.'

'May we have the pleasure of your company again, sir?'
Brooks asked Roger.

'Thanks. I'm seeing Miss de la Roux home.' Yes, by God,
Roger told himself. Nobody shall deprive me of that half-
hour's sweet torment.

The storm seemed fiercer than ever when Brooks and
D'Aynecourt left the laboratory. While Roger waited for
Macafee and Eleanor to put away the apparatus, he heard
the wind whistling round the room. Once or twice there
was a splintering clatter as slates fell, or as the broken frag
ments of glass still left in the gaping windows of the main building rattled down. He felt angry and depressed, resent
ing their indifference to his presence.

But Eleanor was ready at last, buttoning herself into her
tweed overcoat.

'You've got a smudge on your nose,' observed Macafee.

'Thanks, Where? Here?'

'No. Here.' He took her handkerchief from her and
rubbed her face with the rough familiarity of a brother.

'Damn him. Damn him. Well, in any case, I've got her
now. For half an hour,' reflected Roger.

'Are you ready. Miss de la Roux?' he said aloud.

It took all his strength to push the door open. The wind
howling through the factory slammed it behind them, and
they stood in the darkness of the ruin. Blinking until he
grew accustomed to this plunge from vivid light, Roger saw
the jagged angles of masonry reared against the sky. Tat
tered wisps of cloud-like shreds of smoke blew across the
stars. The crazy flapping of an old poster, partly torn away
from the brickwork, made the wind visible. The whole bare
building groaned and whined in travail. Slates clattered
down. Gusts shook the straining walls. Right over the
laboratory behind them swung the black menace of the
tallest wall. Five stories high, with the supporting floors re
moved, it overhung the squat solidity of the one habitable
room.

Dragging Eleanor away from this wall Roger turned and
faced it. Even now it seemed to totter in the wind that blew
its towering mass towards the laboratory.

'That doesn't look very safe,' he shouted. 'I think if you'll
go out to the road, I'll speak to Macafee.'

He started back towards the laboratory. The wind buf
feted the high wall in front of him, each successive gust striking on it like waves over a ship. It seemed probable to
Roger that at any moment the whole mass might go down,
crashing through the laboratory roof, on top of Macafee and
all his cameras, perforators, projectors and loud-speakers.

The door stuck. Roger tugged at it desperately, but when
he opened it he saw the young Scotsman standing in front
of a large chest, rolling up papers covered with coloured diagrams.

'Hullo. You back?' remarked Macafee quite genially.
'Come and look at these - you didn't see them, did you?
These are my improvements on the Pryzma film. Now, you see, in Van Dorn Kelley's work the negative
film
consists of successive pairs of identical images.
..."

'Look here, Macafee,' gasped Roger, 'I think you'll have
to get out of here. That old wall seems a bit shaky.'

'Oh, that's been shaky for a long time. You see, what
I've done is to replace the "flash" exposure of the positive
film
'

'Yes, but you'd better just come and have a look.' Roger
was acutely conscious of their danger. The laboratory gaped
in front of him like a huge white trap. He felt the egg-shell
fragility of the roof and the merciless mass of brickwork over
hanging it. 'The wind's terrific.'

Accumulating exasperation maddened him. He saw himself shut into that trap with Macafee. He saw the inevitable buckling in of the laths, the crumbling avalanche of plaster,
the final overwhelming ruin. So vivid was his consciousness
of their danger that he involuntarily ducked his head. Yet
he knew that while Macafee stood there, he could not save
himself.

'Damn you, man,' he cried suddenly. 'Don't be a blasted
fool. Do you want to be killed?'

Macafee looked up at him with supercilious amusement.

'Tut-tut-tut and you a clergyman. You'd better run away if you're frightened.'

But at that moment the driving hurricane detached an
already-loosened brick from the masonry above. It crashed
through the laboratory roof, falling on to the sink where
recently Eleanor had been working.

'You see —' cried Roger, so anxious to prove his point to
Macafee that he would almost have welcomed a complete catastrophe, if only the inventor would acknowledge himself
in the wrong.

'Eh, well,' said Macafee, and maddeningly cool strolled
across the room. They could hardly push the door open between them, but once it was open, it stuck against some
obstruction outside, and through the open doorway, Eleanor
was blown into the room.

'Hullo,' she cried. 'Are you two coming out? I really
don't think it's safe in here, Hugh.'

'Go away. Get out of here at once, please,' cried Roger,
beside himself with anxiety for her and fear and anger.

But Hugh calmly pushed his way through the door,
looked at the threatening wall, and returned shrugging his
shoulders.

'I'm afraid it does look a bit groggy. I know what we
shall have to do. We'd better take out that chest with
the reels and diagrams. We three ought to be able to
move it.'

'Oh, but you can't.' Roger was about to protest, but
Eleanor was already tugging at the bulky wooden cupboard
into which Macafee had been thrusting his papers and speci
men reels.

It was monstrous. It was inhuman. It was a nightmare
of wanton horror, that Macafee should let her run that risk,
when at any minute the wall might fall in on her.

The sweat started on Roger's forehead; he hurled himself
at the cupboard, meaning at first to seize Eleanor in his arms
and carry her off out of danger; but he realized that this was
impossible. She would struggle and fight, and in the end
more time would be wasted. He could do nothing but
snatch at one corner of the cupboard and take his share in,
pushing the heavy thing towards the door.

Every second seemed like an hour. The chest stuck
against the corner of a sink. Macafee, smaller and less muscular than Roger, stumbled once, and once caught his
leg between the cupboard and a fixed table. They knocked
over a tripod, and the crash made Roger start so violently
that he almost let go his hold. He was conscious of Eleanor, pushing and tugging like a small pony, completely unafraid.