What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
By Henry Farrell, Mitch Douglas
Grand Central Publishing
All rights reserved.
1959
I don't give a hang what Father says. I'm in love with you, Meg.What are all the Standish millions next to an angel like you?"
He was a clean-cut young man with dark lustrous hair combed down close to hishead. As he spoke, his companion, the blonde girl with the lovely sooty eyeslooked up at him. Her brows, which were no more than thinly penciled crescents,lifted slightly at the inner corners, giving her a look of pained enquiry. Anintense moonlight beamed down from somewhere behind, nesting in her platinumhair in a perfect halo. She wore a frock with enormous puffed sleeves ofgossamer organdy and a skirt that flared widely from the knees. Music frothed upout of the magic night, as from the very air around them. The tune—theirtheme—was called "Moonlight on Fifth Avenue."
"But he'll cut you off without a penny. Oh, Jeff, you've never had to work for aliving."
The young man, though, now had the strength of his love, and he smiled to showit. "I'll learn to work for you, Meg. I want to. You'll see—you'll beproud of me."
The girl lifted her eyes to his and though they were moist, her face was placid."But it isn't that simple. You were born to"—her gesture included thealabaster terrace upon which they stood, the mansion in the background, theacres of clipped lawn, the fountains, the two glasses of half-tasted champagneon the balustrade—"to all this. Can you even guess what it's like, livingin a cold-water flat?"
"It would be heaven—with you."
"Oh, Jeff, you poor—romantic—fool!"
As "Moonlight on Fifth Avenue" murmured yeastily on, they embraced. The sootyeyes opened wide and then closed, presumably with ecstasy. A saxophone moaned.Violins, a hundred of them, swelled the night with heady vibration. And then, asif banished by the sheer din, the terrace, the mansion and, finally, the loversthemselves faded from view. In their place there appeared a man with a strainedsmile and circles under his eyes....
"Sorry to break in on this fine feature film, folks, but you'll be glad I didwhen you see what I have here for that favorite pooch of yours!"
Moving her comfortably expanded bulk forward in her easy chair, Mrs. Batesreached out and turned down the volume. Smiling softly with gentle reminiscence,she looked around at Harriett Palmer seated at the other side of the coffeetable on the divan.
"Oh, I remember, when I first saw that picture I thought it was just grand.Claude took me—on a Sunday afternoon." Seeing that Harriett's coffee cupwas empty, she rose and picked it up. "It was showing at the old Majestic."
Harriett Palmer smiled pleasantly and nodded. "I think I saw it; I'm not sure.Do you remember when it was made?"
Mrs. Bates paused at the entrance to the hallway. " 'Thirty-four. That's what itsaid in the program in the paper."
When she returned with the replenished cup, she crossed to Harriett and put itdown on the table before her.
"You know, I don't believe I ever missed a Blanche Hudson picture." She glancedback at the set to make sure the commercial was still on. "I was such a fan ofhers—right up until the time she had her accident. Oh, do you rememberwhen that happened? I felt so awful it might just as well have been someone inmy own family."
Harriett, taking a sip of the coffee, looked up, nodded. "Oh, I know. Shewas beautiful. I still think so."
Even there in the muted lamplight, the difference between the two women, thoughthey were both in their early fifties, was striking. Mrs. Bates, beingundeniably plump both in face and figure seemed somewhat older than HarriettPalmer, who had kept herself stylishly slim. Where Mrs. Bates had let her hairturn a natural steel gray, Harriett had rendered her own a sleek silver blonde.Mrs. Bates wore a loose-fitting house dress with a pattern of pale flowers;Harriett had on a pair of fitted black slacks and a white silk blouse. Mrs.Bates had just moved out west from Fort Madison, Iowa. Harriett Palmer hadalways been a native of Hollywood, California.
For all of their differences, though, the two women had gotten along famouslyfrom the very first day of Mrs. Bates's arrival there on Hillside Terrace. Mrs.Bates, a widow of less than a year, had come to California to be away from allthe familiar sights of home which had become only sad reminders of happier daysbefore her husband's death. Harriett Palmer was married to a corporation lawyerwho spent a great deal of time out of town. Both of them being somewhat at looseends, they were grateful for each other's company. As they were doing tonight,they spent a great many of their evenings in Mrs. Bates's comfortable, homeyliving room watching television.
"Have you ever seen her?" Mrs. Bates asked. "I mean, does she ever show herselfoutside the house?"
Harriett promptly shook her head. "Not that I know of. Oh, I've seen her from adistance—sure—in the car, when they have to drivesomewhere—but not so you could tell what she really looks like. I figureshe must be at least fifty by now."
Mrs. Bates smiled with a faint show of hesitation. "You know—I shouldn'ttell this on myself—but when I bought this house, the thing that reallydecided me was when they told me Blanche Hudson lived next door. Isn't thatsilly—a woman my age? And I haven't had even a glimpse of her."
"Well," Harriett grinned, "it does give the old hill a touch of glamour. Therewas quite a colony of movie people up here in the old days, but she's the onlyone left."
Mrs. Bates nodded. "Back in Fort Madison—well, you just didn't ever seeany movie stars—not in the flesh." Her gaze went to the row of Frenchdoors that comprised, almost totally, the east wall of the room, and to thedarkness beyond. The Hudson house, a white, two-story Mediterranean absurdity,loomed in ghostly dimness at the end of the garden. "Can she walk at all?"
"I don't know. I think I heard once that she had partially recovered the use ofone leg. But apparently she still has to be in a wheel chair all the time."
Mrs. Bates made a soft clucking sound of sympathy. "I'd love to meet her," shesaid wistfully. "A real movie star. Sometimes I wonder ..." Her voice trailedoff thinly.
"Wonder what?"
"Oh, it's just some more of my silliness." Mrs. Bates turned back to her guest."I spend so much time out in the garden. Sometimes, I'll be out thereand—well, I just wonder if she's watching me——" She broke off,darting her gaze quickly to the television set. "Oh, the picture's on!" Hurryingforward, she turned up the volume again.
The blonde girl and a female companion stood on a busy street corner infront of a cafeteria. As the camera moved in for a medium shot, she consultedher wrist watch, then glanced off anxiously down the street. Her dress wassimple but attractive and her hair caught the sunlight, as it had previouslycaught the light of the moon, in a perfect halo.
The other girl was smaller and stouter. Her face was that of a pouting andsomewhat fatigued cherub, making her appearance, at once, comic and sad. Herdark hair was arranged in a profusion of absurd ringlets. Her dress was fussyand tasteless, and she had lavished upon her eyes and mouth far too much make-up. As the blonde girl turned to her, she made her eyes wide and foolish in anobvious striving for humorous effect.
"If they don't show up soon," the blonde girl said, "I guess we just aren'tgoing to get fed."
The brunette nodded vigorously. "You said a mouthful. We've got to be back atthe office in twenty minutes."
"Well—let's give them five more minutes—and then we'll just goahead."
"Sure. Besides—when it's Dutch treat who needs a man anyway?"
Harriett sat sharply forward, pointing at the screen. "That's her!" she said."The other one, I mean—there!—the sister."
Mrs. Bates stared in blank confusion. "That dark girl?" she asked.
"Yes. Don't you remember? It was in Blanche's contract that they had to use hersister in all of her pictures. I forgot until just now. They used it in all ofher publicity."
"Oh, yes! Yes, I do remember now. But I never knew which one was her. Forheaven's sake! Have you met her?"
"Her?" Harriett looked around with loftily raised brows. "You just don't meether. She's very funny—strange—everyone says so." She sighed."Sometimes I wonder about the two of them over there in that big old house allalone. They don't ever seem to do anything—or have anyone in for company.It must be awful...."
Mrs. Bates looked again toward the French doors and the night beyond. "It'snice, though, that she's stayed and taken care of Blanche all these years. Shemust be a nice person to do a thing like that."
"Well, maybe," Harriett said darkly, "and maybe not. They say she had somethingto do with that accident, you know."
Mrs. Bates looked around sharply. "She did? The accident where Blanche gothurt?"
Harriett nodded. "There was some story around at the time about how it happened.I forget now exactly what it was, but she was supposed to be responsible."
"Oh—how could she have been? It was just a plain automobile accident,wasn't it?"
Harriett waved a hand in light dismissal. "Oh, there's always talk. Around thistown, there is. You can't really tell what to believe."
Mrs. Bates nodded thoughtfully. "I've forgotten," she said; "what's her name?You told me once, didn't you?"
"Jane?" Harriett asked. "Her name's Jane. She was famous, too, I understand, wayback when she was just a little girl. Maybe you remember hearing abouther—they called her Baby Jane Hudson."
"There they are." The clean-cut young man, dressed now in workman's clothespointed ahead up the street. "Come on, Mac."
The other young man, fat and jolly-looking, glanced ahead and frowned. "Whichone's Gertie? No, don't tell me. I know already."
A reverse shot showed the blonde girl and the brunette as they looked up, sawthe men and smiled in greeting. The camera then returned to the men. The fat manshook his head.
"Boy, is that Meg some dish! No wonder you're ga-ga over her."
And then the four of them met. In a close shot the blonde girl and the young mangrinned at each other in vigorous noonday ecstasy. The fat man held his arm outto the brunette in an exaggerated gesture of gallantry.
"Ready to tie on the feed bag, Gorgeous?"
The brunette giggled and looked up at him with broad archness. "Okey-dokey,Slim," she said, linking her arm through his. "Don't mind if I do."
The blonde girl with the sooty eyes, looking up at the clean-cut young man withmute adoration, put her hand in his, and together they looked after theirretreating friends and smiled.
The girl on the screen smiled, and there in the dimness the woman huddled in thewheel chair at the far side of the room seemed, for a moment, close on the vergeof tears. Blanche Hudson, her gaze held fast to the flickering screen in a kindof intense wonder, moved one taut, tapering hand to the collar of her light,rose-colored robe and held it there, palm outward, as if in a gesture ofdefense.
Moonlight on Fifth Avenue was the third of the old movies Blanche hadseen within just the last month, and with each of them she had been leftfeeling, somehow, a bit more decimated. An invalid for more than twenty yearsnow, loathing increasingly the helpless, wasted old woman she had become, shehad begun to believe in the legend of what she had once been on the screen. Shehad begun to believe in the glamour, the charm, the magic that was said to haveonce been hers. For a long, long time now she had managed to warm herself bythis bright image, to hug it close to her where its radiance might reach thespreading chill inside.
Now she saw that it had been a mistake, watching the old movies. They hadbrought with them a sad disillusionment that, in its own way, had been a kind ofdying. Twenty-five years ago, Moonlight on Fifth Avenue had made afortune almost purely on the strength of her name. Gazing now at thepreposterous, posturing creature on the screen, Blanche found it hard tobelieve. What she did see—and this with stinging clarity—was thatthrough all these years her sole defense against empty reality had been simplyhollow illusion.
And yet she had needed the illusion, for it had sustained her. And she needed itstill. Anything was preferable to the stark reality of her present existence.
Reality was crowded so close to her here in this room. It was the large hulkingbed there in the shadows, and the wheel chair, and the invalid's lifting bar,suspended by chains from the ceiling above the bed. And the bedside table filledwith medications. And the writing desk before which there had stood no chair formore than twenty years. That was reality, that and the stale-sweet smell of herown invalidism, which made her think of fallen leaves rotting slowly andhideously in some dank, sunless place. Blanche sighed, and hearing herself sigh,looked around in sudden apprehension at the dark, squat figure seated dimly ather side.
Distracted by her own unhappy speculations, she had quite forgotten she was notalone. Turning now, she looked obliquely at the face of the woman beside her, aface both revealed and obscured by the shadowing dimness. The large, dark eyes,intent upon the images on the screen, were half closed, narrowed really, as uponsome intense inner observation. The contours of the face, underscored by theshadows, seemed not so much softened with age as swollen by it, so that thesagging flesh threatened, greedily, to swallow up the once pert and childlikefeatures embedded within its folds. But there was more there, too, more thanmere age and some dark fledgling thought. There was a fever in the narrowed,watching eyes, and in the face there was a kind of angry justification.
A justification, though, for what? Taking her gaze, by force, from Jane's face,Blanche made herself look back in the direction of the screen. Very likely itwas all just in her imagination; she was attributing to Jane's attitudes andexpressions sinister depths which they did not possess. It was like that whenyou were too much alone; you became oversensitive and you had to be careful notto let your mind play you tricks.
Jane's moods were nothing new, nor were they a cause for alarm. Jane was simplyin the first phase of one of her periodical "spells." They always started thesame way, with the abrupt withdrawal into sullen silence, the dark, furtiveglances and the sudden bright stares of angry defiance. There would be, perhaps,an emotional outburst and then, toward the end, the drinking. Blanche had, yearsbefore, accurately catalogued, in her own mind, the pattern of Jane's spells;they contained no surprises for her now. She understood them. She knew theirroot. She was used to them.
But then why did she seem to detect in Jane's present lapse some specialcharacter that set it apart from the others and made it, even in its beginnings,somehow more disturbing? Blanche again lifted her hand to the neck of her robe,this time pulling the opening more tightly closed. Before, she thought, therehad always been that marked edge of wary defiance in Jane's behavior, but thistime it was lacking and in its place was something more measured, a kind ofpurposefulness, it seemed, as if ... Blanche brought her hand down flatly ontothe arm of her chair. She had to stop this sort of thinking instantly. She wassimply using her imagination to dodge the real truth of the matter; Jane's upsetthis time was nobody's fault but Blanche's own.
She should have been stronger. She should have resisted the desire—thecompulsion, really—to see herself again on the screen. Somewhere at theback of her mind she had known all along that the old films could only bringtrouble. She should never have watched them herself and most certainly sheshould never have let Jane watch them.
Still she couldn't help wondering what thoughts stirred behind Jane's level,hooded eyes. The old jealousy was there no doubt, the old smoldering envy that,through the years, had only slumbered and never, never really died.
Once, during one of Jane's drinking bouts, Blanche had seen clearly the face ofJane's jealousy, and it had been ugly beyond forgetting. Even now it came backto her at times, the dark vision of Jane standing there in the doorway clutchingthe frame for support, making the air between them alive and hideous with herslurred words of anger.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? by Henry Farrell, Mitch Douglas. Copyright © 2013 Henry Farrell Mitch Douglas. Excerpted by permission of Grand Central Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.