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Morning Journey (World Cultural Heritage Library)
Morning Journey - World Cultural Heritage Library Author:James Hilton a selection from the PROLOGUE: George Hare (of Hare, Briggs, Burton, and Kurtnitz) met Carey Arundel for the first time at the annual Critics' Dinner at Verino's. She was to receive a plaque for the best actress performance of the year, Greg Wilson was to get the actor's, and Paul Saffron the director's. These dinners w... more »ere rather stuffy affairs, but the awards were worth getting; this year Morning Journey was the picture that had swept the board, all the winners having scored in it. George had seen the picture and thought it good, if a trifle tricky. He was far more concerned with his luck in being next to Carey at the dinner, for his own well-concealed importance in the movie world did not always receive such rewards. George had an eye for beauty which, combined with a somewhat cynical nose for fame, made him take special notice of her. Of course he had seen her on the stage as well as on the screen, but he thought she looked best of all in real life--which meant, even more remarkably, that she looked really alive at a party such as this, not merely brought to life by ambition or liquor. George left her to her other neighbour for a while; he was lazy socially, content often to talk with those who would seek him out, which many people did, liking him personally and eager for any titbit of scandal that might slip from his legally acquired store. He never spilled anything worth much, but always seemed about to, and nobody realized that he picked up far more than he let drop. He was so shrewd in business that people thought his air of innocence could not possibly be real, but there was a sense in which it was, and thus he often fooled and foiled his adversaries. It was this innocence that had made him say, when introduced to Carey at the table: "You played in Boston once when I was at Harvard--I can't remember the play, but I couldn't forget you." She had laughed, and somebody who had overheard said later that nobody had ever pinned an age on an actress more securely (though that had not been George's intention at all). But now, turning to him again more than half-way through the meal, she said: "I think it must have been Quality Street you saw me in, Mr. Hare." George was surprised she had even caught his name, and this was not modesty so much as an awareness that in a community where big names are a dime a dozen, some of the higher price tags are on the big nameless. He said: "That's right, so it was." "Because I don't believe I ever played in Boston in anything else. Not in those days." "Not so very long ago," he commented gallantly. "Twenty years." He smiled. "What does it feel like to be a well-known actress all that time and then have people behave out here as if they'd discovered you?" She laughed. "It's funny." "I hope you'll tell them that in your speech." She seemed a little perturbed. "Oh, do I have to make a speech?" "I'm sure we all hope you will. But it needn't be a long one. Do speeches make you nervous?" "Other people's do, occasionally." He thought it was just a witticism till she added: "Paul's especially, Paul Saffron--the director. He can be so tactless." She went on hastily: "No, I'm not exactly scared to speak in public, but I find it much harder than acting. Perhaps that only means I find it hard to act the part of myself." "Ethel Barrymore once told me practically the same thing." He proceeded to compliment her on Morning Journey, her first picture and such a success, and she thanked him with a genuine pleasure that lit her face like a girl's, but with life rather than mere youthfulness. George wondered (as one always must with an actress) whether the transfigurement was natural or a practised artifice; frankly he could not judge, and admiringly he did not care--it was quite remarkable either way.« less