Genteel Spirits (Daisy Gumm Majesty Books) (15 page)

She lifted a hand to her generous mouth and said, “Oh, my. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Nor did the Virgin Mary,” muttered Lillian.

I hoped Lola
had
n’t hear
d
her.

* * * * *

After that little g
litch about colors, the fitting
of Lola’s costumes went well. She didn’t throw another tantrum until the cast, crew, Sam and I went to take lunch, which was a catered affair taken
al fresco
on a cement slab that had been poured under
yet
more
spreading oak trees in back of the house Pansy Hanratty used as hers. Folding tables and chairs had been set up, and the lunch was served buffet-style. I thought it was a very accommodating and nifty way to serve a whole bunch of people in a short period of time.

Not Lola.

I’d walked to the lunch area with her, Sam clomping at our heels, and Homer Fellowes fawning
along
at Lola’s side. I wanted to let him have her, but Lola clung to me as if I were hers and hers alone. Which, all things considered, I kind of was.

As soon as we entered the dining area, Lola stopped dead. Naturally, since she was attached to my arm, I stopped, too. By this time, I had a h
eadache,
was quite hungry
and was finding it difficult to keep my temper.

In a very sweet
spiritualist voice, I asked, “What’s the matter, Lola?”

She lifted her chin, making me want t
o pop it with my fist. Of course
I didn’t do anything so unrefined. “I cannot dine among this mob.”

Homer Fellowes, chump that he was, said, “I’ll get something for you and take it to your dressing room, Miss de la Monica.”

She eyed him as if he were a worm she wanted someone to squish for her. Naturally, she wouldn’t
squish
anything herse
lf
. “My good man, I never want to see that dressing room again.”

John
Bohnert
, who had come to the dining area shortly after we did, o
verheard her. “What do you mean
you never want to see that dressing room again?”

Lola whirled, taking me with her. I darned near stumbled and fell. Fortunately for me—boy, I never thought I’d
ever say
that
—Sam was right there and caught me before I could skin my knees on the cement.

“Evil has penetrated that room. I cannot use it again.”

Oh, boy, she was back on her high horse with a vengeance. I gazed pleadingly at Sam, God knows why.

But, by gum, he came through again!

“The police will
make sure that your room is safe, Miss de la Monica.”

She turned to give Sam a scowl. I guess she didn’t like her temperamental turns met with such practicality.

“What a brilliant idea!” I said brightly. “And I can make sure there are no evil spirits remaining in the room, too.
I’ve done an exorcism before.
”
That was technically true, even though the being I exorcised wasn’t a spirit.

Suffice it to say, I never did get lunch that day. Poor Homer Fellowes carried a tray of food back and forth from the mobile canteen—that’s what the picture folks called it—to various spots on the grounds where Lola thought she might be able to take sustenance. She finally settled on a bench about a mile and a half away from the canteen. I’m only exaggerating a little bit. However, she got her lunch. When she finally allowed me to return to the canteen, everything
was on its way to being
cleaned up.

Sam, who had wisely stayed behind whilst Lola was searching
for
exactly the right spot to partake of her
l
uncheon, took pity on me and gave me the last couple of bites of his cherry pie and a biscuit he’d been saving
for later
. Neither one was as good as anything Aunt Vi might have fixed, but by that time, I didn’t care.

I sank down onto a bench opposite Sam and gratefully swallowed his leavings. “Thanks, Sam. I don’t think I’m going to survive this job.”

“She’s a piece of work, all right.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

By the time I got home after
the shoot
that
day
I had a raging headache, and I never wanted to see Lola de la Monica again in my lifetime. Since, however, I’d signed on for the duration, I staggered into the house, said a brief howdy to Billy and Aunt Vi, and retired to our room, where I downed some salicylic powders and lay down for twenty minutes or so. That’s all the time I was allowed before I had to get up and set the table for dinner.

Chapter Eight

“And that Homer Fellowes person,
the one
who’s supposed to
be so smart
and who’s got three entire policemen there to guard his invention, thinks she’s the cat’s meow.”

My family and I were
gathered round the table on
the evening of my first day on the job
, and I regaled them all with the events of the day.
Fortunately for me, the powders
had
worked, and my headache was down to a dull throb by
dinnertime
.
I hate to admit it, but I hadn’t been able to wait until Vi got the chicken on the table, but snabbed a wing and got my hand slapped for my efforts. I told Vi I’d been deprived of food
since breakfast
and hadn’t eaten anything except an old dry biscuit all day long, but she said that wasn’t any excuse for bad manners. I told her she ought to spend a day with Lola de la Monica and see how mannerly
she
was. Vi only clucked her tongue at me and said, “Go on with you, Daisy.” She said that a lot. I’m not sure what it means.

“Good Lord,” said Billy, staring at me. “I can’t believe anyone can be that . . .”

He apparently couldn’t think of a good word for what Lola de la Monica was, so I tried to help him out. “Self-absorbed? Conceited? An obnoxious care-for-nobody?
Self-centered?
A selfish pig?
A ridiculous human being?”

My mother sai
d, “Daisy,” in the tone she used
when she disapprove
d
of something I’ve said, generally to Sam. But Sam was in my good book that day. He’d saved my skin several times, in fact. Tonight, all my grievances were directed at Lola de la Monica. I hadn’t yet told Billy that I had to return to the Winkworth mansion that evening, since Harold, Monty and I still had to compare threatening letters. Billy wouldn’t like that one little bit. Neither did I,
but I’d promised
.

“She sounds like
all of those things
,” said my darling Billy, who occasionally still showed remnants of the wonderful person he used to be.

“She is,” I said, reaching for another piece of chicken. “And then some.”

“It’s such a shame,” said Aunt Vi
, tutting
. “She’s such a
beauty
to look at. It’s too bad she’s not lovely on the inside, too.”

“Sure is,” said Pa. “I’ll never be able to
watch
one of her pictures again without remembering how hard she is to work with.”

“You can say that again,” I told him. I took another helping of mashed potatoes and gravy to go along with my second piece of chicken.

“Didn’t they feed you on the set?” asked Billy, eyeing my plate. “I know you like your food, but . . .”

Again he ran out of words. Again I helped him out. “No! No, they didn’t feed me on the set. That’s why I
came home with
a roaring headache. They
would
have fed me on the set, if Lola de la Monica hadn’t latched herself on to my arm and not let me go. By the time I finally got back to the canteen, they’d cleaned up everything.”

“
That stinks,
”
said
Pa
, who
didn’t like
to hear about people going hungry.

“My goodness,” said Ma. “No wonder you’re eating like a pig.”

I frowned at her. “I’m not eating like a pig. I’m taking second helpings because I’m starving to death.
But I’m using good table manners
as I do it
.
”

Ma primmed her lips, but didn’t comment. Therefore, I took a second helping of green beans, feeling defiant, although not nearly so hungry as I’d been when we sat down to dinner.

“So that’s why Sam’s there? To guard this fellow’s invention? And the fellow’s name is Fellowes? That’s kind of funny.”
Billy actually grinned.

“It would be, if he weren’t so pathetic. I was hoping to fix him up with Gladys Pennywhistle, since they seem so admirably suited to each other, but he’s got eyes only for Lola de la Monica, and Gladys has eyes only for Monty Mountjoy.”

“Yeah?” said Billy. “And what about your eyes?”

This wasn’t the first time Billy had shown signs of jealousy. For pity’s sake, a year or so ago, he accused me of running around with Johnny Buckingham! Johnny Buckingham, the most upright, moral person on the entire face of the earth! And besides that, I’d never cheat on my Billy, no matter that our circumstances were far from idea
l
. I didn’t do things like that. I loved him, and I was loyal to him.

Therefore, I gave him a good, hot frown. “My eyes, Bill
y Majesty, are firmly
fixed in my head. I’m doing a job
at that wretched mansion
, and that’s
it
.” I didn’t think it was up to me to tell him that Monty wouldn’t have
gone for me
even
if I were the most beautiful woman in the world, since he didn’t go for girls, period.

I noticed everyone else’s gazes were fixed firmly on their plates. The rest of the family hated to hear us spat. I hated it, too, but golly! You’d think my husband would have known me well enough by
that
time not to be jealous.

“Anyhow,” I said, lying through my teeth, “I think he’s having some torrid affair with Theda Bara.” I’d just slandered two people and felt kind of guilty about it, but neither Monty Mountjoy nor Theda Bara would ever know
about
it
,
and Monty would probably appreciate the publicity if he ever learned of it
, so I figured it didn’t count.

After Ma and I cleaned up the dinner dishes and Aunt Vi had gone upstairs to her rooms—the upstairs of our bungalow consisted of two rooms, which would have been a swell place for a young couple to live, except that Billy couldn’t negotiate stairs by the time the Kaiser got through with him—I decided to face the announcement of my evening’s assignment head-on. No use shilly-shallying. Billy
was going to hate it;
I knew that, and I also knew he wouldn’t like it even if I told him the truth, since he didn’t like “faggots.” Idiotic bia
s
if you ask me
.

Therefore, feeling tired
,
abused and unwilling, I went into the living room where Pa was engaged in reading
The Devil’s Paw
, by E. Phillips Oppenheim. I’d got it for him from the library on my last jaunt there. The librarian knew me and managed to hold all the good detective novels for me if she thought I’d like them. I loved the library. Still do, actually.

Billy sat in his chair, thumbing through the latest issue of
The Saturday Evening Post
. I noticed he had the latest
National Geographic
on his lap along with
Helen Vardon’s Confession
, by R. Austin Freeman. This was a brand-new book, and Miss Petrie said I was the first patron of the Pasadena Public Library to check it out. Since I was pretty sure she’d sneaked it to me as sort of a preview, I
’d
promised her I’d have it back within the week. Which meant Billy had to read it fast, because I wanted to read it, too. However, if he didn’t read fast, I suppose my being unable to read it before it had to be returned
was
just punishment for the disappointment I was about to
inflict upon
him.

Ma was knitting, God knows why. Ma didn’t know how to knit very well, but she kept trying.
She’d
attempted
to knit a sweater for my niece last Christmas, and it had turned out to have arms of different lengths. We’d tried it on Spike, but his legs are so short, he couldn’t move them when he had the sweater on. I’m not sure what Ma did with the thing after that.

Anyhow, my family was snug and secure in our nice little home, and I was about to desert them all. Again. I heaved a deep and heartfelt sigh and headed for Billy, who’d rolled his chair into the inglenook, which
was lined on both sides with padded bench seats. Billy liked to sit there during the wintertime when we had fires in the fireplace, but this was May. I guess he still liked it even without the fire. I sat on one of the benches.