Death of a Beauty Queen (3 page)

‘It is neither honour nor pleasure to be here, either for me or for–' and a slow, condemnatory movement of his hand indicated all the audience.

‘Oh, come, Mr Irwin,' protested Sargent uncomfortably.

‘I know you and your friends call me a killjoy,' Irwin went on. ‘It is not true. For one thing, no one can kill true joy, and, besides, joy is always good. But where's the joy or the good, or the fun either, of watching a lot of empty-headed girls preen themselves one after the other like a lot of peacocks on a terrace in a park?'

‘Oh, well, now then, Mr Irwin,' protested Sargent feebly. ‘Besides, as far as that goes, aren't peacocks good to look at?'

‘Yes, and good for nothing else,' retorted Irwin, in the same level, controlled tones in which nevertheless one could feel his passion beating against the bars of his self-restraint like an angered tiger at the bars of its cage. ‘Foolish girls showing themselves off like toasted cheese in a trap for silly mice,' he pronounced.

Mr Sargent turned so as to bestow an unseen wink on the vacancy behind him. He thought:

‘I know what's biting the old man, and making him talk like the day of judgment.'

Aloud, he said:

‘Oh, that's a bit hard on 'em – on us all. What's the good of being pretty if no one ever sees you? It's a talent and gift like any other, and it oughtn't to be hid.'

‘Hid?' repeated Irwin, with a terrific emphasis, as he flashed his eyes at the stage where a girl had just entered in what she fondly believed to be a real mannequin glide; and he was going on to say something more when Sargent interposed quickly:

‘I see your boy Leslie is behind to-night.'

The old man always held himself so stiff, so rigid and upright, he could not well grow more so. But all the same there was an almost visible increase of tension in his voice and attitude as he said slowly:

‘I thought you always told us you never allowed anyone behind who was not there on business? Is Leslie there on business?'

Sargent shrugged his shoulders.

‘That's all right in the ordinary way,' he declared. ‘Speaking generally, we never do. It's the sack for any of the staff who lets in anybody not on business. But a night like this is different. There's dozens of competitors, and they've all brought their fathers and their mothers and their uncles and their aunts, and they're all rushing in and out because they've forgotten their nail-polish or they've just thought of some new gadget for their frocks or their hair or their noses, and then there's telegrams and bouquets and chocolates being fetched along without stopping – why, it's all more like the first day of the winter sales in the West End than a well-managed, self-respecting cinema. How can we sort out the chap who's bringing a competitor the lipstick her life depends on – and she'll throw a fit of hysterics if she doesn't get it good and quick – from the chap who only wants to kiss one of 'em good luck?'

Mr Irwin looked grimmer than ever.

‘Promiscuous kissing,' he commented. ‘That, at least, I think could be controlled. And you tell me Leslie is taking part in all this?'

In spite of himself his voice softened as he pronounced his son's name – for the moment a kind of radiance showed through the austerity of his tone and attitude and then was gone again. At his side, Sargent was indulging in a little bad language, though only thought, not uttered. ‘Promiscuous kissing, indeed!' A nice twist the sour old puritan had given his words. Who could tell what that phrase might not have grown to in a day or two? But he judged it prudent to control his wrath. Irwin had a large and influential following in Brush Hill, and altogether was a personage with whom a quarrel was best avoided. So Sargent permitted himself only the mildest of protests.

‘I don't think I said anything about promiscuous kissing,' he remarked; ‘and I'll tell you one thing, Mr Irwin. This is the last Beauty Contest that'll ever be held here – never again. Handling that crowd of girls, all of 'em all worked up, all of 'em making eyes at you because then they think you'll give 'em the best chance, and all of 'em dead sure you're favouring the other one – handling a horde of hungry lions is nothing to it: nothing at all,' declared Mr Sargent, pausing to wipe a forehead that had begun to perspire gently at the mere memory of all he had been through that night.

‘If Leslie is behind,' Mr Irwin said unexpectedly, ‘I suppose there can be no objection to his father joining him?'

Mr Sargent fairly jumped, the suggestion surprised him so. But he accepted it very willingly. The crabbed old Puritan would be able to see for himself that ‘behind' was no sink of iniquity, that no mysterious ‘orgies' were going on there, but that it was merely a workshop like any other, where the always serious and often tedious business of entertainment was seriously and often tediously, practised. Besides, the old man would soon discover there was no ‘promiscuous kissing' – the phrase still rankled – going on, and, if any story founded on those two unlucky words got about, Mr Irwin's visit would provide an effective reply. Of course, it was hard luck on young Leslie Irwin – a little like throwing him to the wolves. The boy would have the scare of his young life when he saw his formidable old father in die one place where he must have thought he would be safe from meeting him. But then Mr Sargent had his own reason for not objecting to that happening.

‘Why, certainly, Mr Irwin,' he answered. ‘Always pleased for any responsible person like yourself to have, a look round. We'll go now, shall we?'

They went along the deserted corridor together, and in the abrupt and direct style he practised – for the injunction to be wise as serpents, harmless as doves, was the one scriptural injunction he never felt had any personal application – Mr Irwin said:

‘I suppose you know well enough it's the Caroline Mears girl has brought Leslie here?'

‘Oh, half Brush Hill knows that,' retorted Sargent, with a note of resentment in his tone that entirely escaped his companion's attention, absorbed as the old man was with his own thoughts.

He put out his hand now, and laid it heavily on Sargent's shoulder.

‘It would ruin the boy,' he said. ‘He shall never marry her – never.'

‘Ow-w, my shoulder,' gasped Sargent, almost doubled up under the weight of that fierce grip.

I am sorry,' Mr Irwin said, releasing him. ‘I feel strongly. I mean it. The boy shall have no wife so light-minded, so worldly – a girl with nothing in her head but dancing and running about and all kinds of frivolity.'

Sargent was rubbing his shoulder – whereon, when he undressed for bed, he found the marks of his companion's fingers still visible. He said in the same sulky and resentful tones:

‘That's all right. I should feel that way myself. It would never do. Only, how are you going to stop it? They're both of age.'

I will find a way. I will not have Leslie ruined – ruined body and soul,' the other answered, with a slow concentrated force that had about it something almost terrifying. ‘That's what it would mean,' he added, more quietly. ‘I've seen it happen. I would give my own soul to make sure it does not happen to Leslie.'

As always when he spoke of his son, his voice softened to gentleness, for the moment a sort of radiance surrounding him, though soon it passed, and soon he was his own stern self again.

‘Oh, well,' Sargent muttered, scared a little by the almost demoniacal energy that throbbed in the other's tones, ‘there's no need to worry. As a matter of fact, I happen to know Miss Mears has given him the chuck – I mean, she's breaking off her friendship with him, completely and entirely.'

‘With Leslie,' repeated Mr Irwin, and something that was nearly a smile plucked momentarily at the corner of his mouth. He made a little gesture of incredulity with one hand – such a gesture as a man might make if he heard that another had refused a fortune. ‘She'll never do that,' he said slowly. ‘She may pretend, for her own purposes, but that's all. I doubt he'll never be safe while she's alive – never. Only death will make him safe from her.'

‘It's through here,' Sargent said, opening the door. He turned, and looked up suddenly at Irwin, who was some six or nine inches the taller. ‘Maybe you're right,' he said, ‘and death's the only cure.'

He had spoken with some energy. A stage-hand, who was passing, heard, and turned to stare. Sargent saw him, and shouted angrily:

‘You, there, get on with your job, can't you?'

The man vanished in a scutter, and Sargent said morosely: ‘They spend half their time yarning and gossiping instead of working. Come this way, Mr Irwin.'

Paul Irwin had never since his childhood been in any place of public entertainment – museums excepted, if they come within the terms of the definition – and never even in his wildest imaginings had he supposed that one day he would find himself behind the scenes of a theatre or a cinema.

He had no idea, therefore, that what he was now witnessing was not entirely normal, or that in the ordinary way activity ‘behind' is as disciplined, controlled, and regular as that in any warehouse or office, all present knowing their jobs and intent only on carrying them out.

That every corridor should be swarming with excited girls; that rushing about in every direction should be equally excited relatives and friends; that a bewildered stage-doorkeeper should have given up all efforts to keep out unauthorised persons without legitimate reasons for claiming entry, since while he was arguing with one man, who might prove to be the father of a competitor bringing her some fal-lal she had to have or die upon the spot, various others on equally important errands, or on no errands at all, would be dashing wildly by; that girls in smart evening dresses that Paul took for undress, and girls in undress he hoped was smart evening attire, should be darting in and out of overcrowded dressing-rooms sometimes as many as a dozen had to share since there was nothing like enough accommodation for such a tribe of competitors – all this he supposed to be quite normal. He had no idea, even, that the confusion and the excitement were growing worse every minute, for, by now, Wood, the door-keeper, had finally thrown in his hand, and was complaining bitterly to a crony of the opprobrious epithets heaped upon him by a young man he had endeavoured to eject in the belief that he was a mere intruder, but who had turned out to be Roy Beattie, the ‘art' photographer, as he liked to call himself, who had been specially invited by the management to take photographs of the most popular competitors, singly and in groups.

‘Called me a pumpkin-pated foozledum,' bitterly complained Wood, who measured an insult more by syllable than by significance. ‘How was I to know he was here legitimate? – and not like half the rest of 'em, letting on to be fathers or uncles or brothers of girls they've never seen before except to cuddle in a corner. Why, there was one tough looking bloke said he was pa to a Carrie Quin, or some such name, and, before I could look at the list and make sure there wasn't any Carrie Quin, he did a bunk past.'

‘Can't you fetch 'em out again when they try that on?' asked the crony.

‘In a general way,' answered Wood, ‘that's what I do – so quick they never know what's happening till they're outside again smarter than ninepence. But to-night, if I got busy after one, half a dozen more would be slipping in. Besides, this bloke wasn't a young smartie, so I didn't worry; looked more like it was handbags he was after than hugging and kissing round the corner.'

‘Does seem, to-night,' agreed the other sympathetically, ‘like a special crazy evening at Bedlam more than anything else.'

‘Here's the photographic bloke again,' said Wood, bristling. ‘I'm not going to take any more of his pumpkin-pated-foozledum language, even if it costs me my job.'

‘Sock him one in the jaw,' urged the crony, traitorously thinking that, if thus Wood did lose his job, then there might be a chance for anyone happening to be on the spot at the moment.

But Roy Beattie's intentions were quite peaceable and friendly. He was a tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed youngster, good-looking and powerfully built, more like, in appearance, the typical athletic ‘hearty' than an ‘art' photographer whose work tended to be somewhat finicky and precious.

‘Just look after that for me, will you?' he said, handing Wood a small dispatch-case. ‘Take care of it – I've just got some ripping studies of Miss Mears I don't want mixed with the others.'

Wood took the dispatch-case, and at the same time glanced at a paper by his side.

‘She's the favourite, at evens,' he announced. ‘Lilian Ellis was runner up, but she's done herself in the way she bunked off the stage.'

Beattie went red. He was, in fact, a somewhat ingenuous young man, with little in his life but ‘studies' and ‘exposures' and ‘effects,' even though he believed himself most sophisticated, and, on the strength of a stay in Paris and a little chatter about new theories of art, in the very forefront of contemporary thought, with a profound experience of life. At the moment, or rather during such rare moments as he could spare from photography, he was, like other ingenuous and innocent young men of his type, an enthusiastic Fascist, just as he might have been an enthusiastic Communist had their fairy-tales been the first he had chanced to hear. But perhaps in any case the dark ominous threat of the black shirt would always have appealed more to his sense of drama than the Communist red he thought rather commonplace and gaudy – and then you can do so much more in photography with blacks and shadows than you can with reds. Now, though, he went red himself, as he stretched out a long arm, terminating in an enormous hand, and took possession of the paper Wood had referred to.