Love is Enough

by Denise Robins

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

A dream come true? It certainly seems so to Fleur. She had been working for the film company; mostly office work and minor production jobs. But actually to appear in front of the camera, and in a leading role - she an unknown! Unknown. That's the problem. The film company has to make her name known to the public. When the publicity machine starts rolling, will Fleur's dream really bring her happiness? And will fame help her find true love - or be a barrier? A captivating love story from the 100-million-copy bestselling Queen of Romance, first published in 1945, and available now for the first time in eBook.

Release date: July 24, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 192

Sample

‘Miss Lorraine, Mr. Walton wants you.’

Fleur Lorraine looked up from the long strip of film on which she had been working steadily since nine o’clock that morning and nodded in reply to the summons to her chief’s office. It was now late in the afternoon and she felt really tired. She had hoped to go home early, but if Mr. Walton, head of the film-developing department, wanted her it was pretty sure to mean more work.

That meant no use complaining about a possible trip home in an overcrowded bus in the blackout. The family had learned to expect her return at any time of the day or night and they would not worry. Quite cheerfully she laid down the celluloid strip and made her way through the rambling building to Mr. Walton’s office. The rooms were in their usual state of bustle and excitement. On her left she passed the studio where the new producer had just been directing a scene in the latest picture which the company was making. The set was a desert scene. Sand dunes, palms, blue skies. A really brilliant example of the scene-builder’s craft. Most of that afternoon Fleur had heard the studio orchestra playing sad Eastern music which was supposed to increase the emotional output of the leading lady who was known to be more of a social beauty than an actress.

Fleur shared the contempt of the secretarial and camera executives who openly sneered at the new mushroom-star who had to be coaxed out of her habitual lethargy. The woman had a golden opportunity. Money, clothes and influence were on her side. If only she could be persuaded to use her brains, to be natural and human, she would bring fame to herself and business to the studios.

It had always been Fleur’s ambition to act for the screen. An ambition, she was realist enough to know, that was not likely to be gratified. For the last ten months she had been working at the Filmograph Studios in Balham, first of all doing office work and more recently joining up pieces of developed film. It was a difficult, trying job and not particularly well paid. And nobody seemed to have noticed that she was extraordinarily pretty, nor had anyone troubled to find out whether or not she might have some dramatic talent. Nobody worried about her.

Fleur was left to worry about herself; which she did frequently. She was determined not to remain in her present position for one moment longer than was necessary, and Fleur, besides being very pretty, was a far-sighted girl with plenty of intelligence and personal charm.

She loved to act behind the closed door of her bedroom in her father’s house at Streatham Hill, to put on one of her few evening frocks and, winding a chiffon scarf around her head, walk up and down in front of her mirror with tragic expressions, pretending that she was a thousand-pounds-a-week star rehearsing her latest heart-drama. For Fleur, these moments in the seclusion of her room were really thrilling. She was, in fact, an actress born. Yet she worked under the very eyes of Filmograph’s most highly paid talent-scouts without the fact that she was better than the leading-lady being realised.

At home, where she lived with her invalid mother and eighteen-year-old sister, Fleur was the one to manage the little villa, to plan the meals and, more often than not, cook them on her return from the studios.

This afternoon she felt suddenly elated when she paused outside Mr. Walton’s office. She could hear men’s voices and knew that a group of them would be in there, talking and smoking. The ‘Big Three’ had been in conference most afternoons that week. It would be a splendid opportunity to meet her chiefs and try to get them to display some slight spark of interest in her. She must try to make an impressive entrance, she told herself.

Having knocked on the frosted door marked ‘Private’, she shut it firmly behind her and walked across the heavily carpeted room.

‘You sent for me,’ she said in her soft, well-modulated voice, and stood with her head flung back as though posing for one of the cameras in the studio.

The three men who looked towards her were of varied types but each in his own way bore the indefinable stamp of the film world. Mr. Walton, thin, sleek-haired, and perfectly groomed, sat with cigar in his mouth at his desk, drumming on a blotter with a gold pencil; Mark Manton, the company’s ace publicity-man, stood lounging against the back of a chair which housed the long, untidily clothed limbs of Raymond Summers, who was the accepted authority on all matters relating to scenery and design. He was the antithesis of Mr. Walton. Blue polo jersey, old grey slacks, rough, curly hair. Pipe between his teeth.

There was silence in the smoke-filled office as all eyes were directed towards the girl who, up till this moment, nobody had noticed and who had been just one of the countless workers in the studios who had to be paid every Friday night. The warm spring sunshine streamed through the window and fell upon her, throwing up the vivid tints in chestnut hair which waved crisply over tiny ears. Her skin was camellia white, her cheeks warmed with a colour which could only be her own. Her eyes, large and dark, were deep-set and thick-lashed, under narrow crescent brows; her mouth, a red, inviting curve, half open to reveal small, even teeth. Even these men, used to perfection, saw real loveliness in Fleur’s slender waist, straight shoulders, perfect legs.

Here was really beauty indeed, and all three in the office recognised the fact. Fleur stood for a moment, almost conscious of the impression she had made. Then Mr. Walton broke the tension by coughing and turning his eyes from her, Raymond Summers made a mental painting of her for future use, and Mark Manton looked from the flushed, eager young face and was instinctively relieved to find small, rounded ankles and narrow little feet.

‘The girl’s a beauty,’ he mumbled to himself. ‘A peach.’

‘Miss Lorraine,’ Walton said, ‘I want that last roll of film you were working on. Did they tell you to bring it?’

‘No,’ said Fleur; ‘but I’ll get it at once.’

She turned and walked out, and as she closed the door behind her, heard Raymond Summers’ voice:

‘You fellows beat me,’ he was saying. ‘You spend weeks searching the country for the right lead in the film. Then you sign up the Langton woman at two hundred a week, when all the time you had the ideal girl under your very noses.’

Fleur paused, her heart racing violently with excitement. She must wait to hear Manton’s reply, she thought. She must. Manton probably had more influence than any other man in the film world. His answer came in that curiously slow, deep voice which held more than a touch of American drawl.

‘Summers is right. Why the hell haven’t we noticed that kid before? What’s her name, Walton?’

‘Fleur Lorraine,’ said Walton.

‘French, or is it really Nelly Jones?’

‘No. It’s her real name. Her father is French. I remember I had her in here to take a call from Paris. She can speak the lingo, too. Her own father died in Paris and she made all the arrangements—first-class business woman—that baby! And her French is as good as her English, and that’s saying something.’

Moving across the room, Mark Manton smote the desk with his fist.

‘Saying something,’ he repeated violently. ‘I’ll say it’s saying something. Here we have June Langton playing the part of a woman who is supposed to be able to speak three languages. Three languages, my foot! I’m no scholar, but it brings tears to my eyes to hear her trying to mouth “Je vous aime” in the first shot.’

Walton held up a hand as though to restrain the flow of words from the publicity man’s lips.

‘I see your point, Mark. This Lorraine girl might have been O.K. But it’s a bit late to think about what we might have done. We happen to be under contract to pay June Langton two hundred a week until the film is made. That’s a lot of money.’

‘It’s a hell of a lot of money,’ Manton returned. ‘You don’t need to tell me. But let me tell you it’s a drop in the bucket compared with what we stand to lose if this picture flops. And, if you ask me, this Langton dame is already half-way to killing it stone dead.’

‘I agree there,’ Summers said quickly. ‘No good spoiling the ship for two hundred a week.’

Walton moved uncomfortably in his chair and fumbled in his case for a cigarette.

‘I’d hate to break the news to La Langton,’ he said, with a thin smile.

Manton gave a harsh laugh.

‘Leave that bit of it to me, George. I owe that young woman a few cracks. The poor dear couldn’t walk on in a Mayfair Repertory company and know what to do with her hands. But this girl … perfect! Face, figure, voice. Perfect, I tell you!’

Fleur did not wait to hear any more, but fled with burning cheeks and tingling pulses to the peace of her own office. A panic of excitement possessed her. With any luck, and not too much opposition from Walton, she might be on the road to success.

Just how far she had travelled along the road she was not to know until the following morning. She had hardly slept all night, instinctively feeling that her lucky star was in the ascendant. At ten o’clock the next day, a warm, brilliant day, when Londoners sweltered in the heat and thought wistfully of cool blue seas and meadows starred with daisies, Fleur was sent for and asked to present herself in Mark Manton’s office.

Face to face with Manton, Fleur felt herself become suddenly cold with nerves and sat staring at the publicity-man with her dark, ardent eyes. He smiled at her encouragingly.

‘Don’t look so scared, Miss Lorraine. What I’m going to say to you will probably be a shock—but I imagine a pleasant one. I’m going to tell you right away that you are the girl we want to play lead in our present production.’

‘Oh!’ she said weakly, and felt her heart hammering.

‘You can act, can’t you?’ he asked.

‘I—I think so,’ she stammered.

‘I think so too,’ said Manton. ‘You came into Walton’s room last night like a tragedy queen. Fine, it was. And you’ve got the right colouring. Deepset eyes, high cheek-bones, a perfect set of teeth. You should be photogenic. Anyhow, I shall have some tests taken of you this morning. Whether you have experience or not doesn’t matter. The part we are going to offer you is a natural one.’

‘Tell me about it,’ said Fleur breathlessly.

Manton leaned back in his revolving chair and clipped the end from a cigar. He told her about the part, and to Fleur it sounded more like a dream than a real offer. The directors had agreed to put her in that part. They were willing to pay off June Langton and to scrap the part of the film in which she had appeared. But the producer had reminded them that Fleur Lorraine was a name which meant exactly nothing to the public, and that it was Manton’s job to see that it should be made into a household word by the time the film was ready to be launched.

Last night Manton had evolved a big publicity stunt which they intended to put into action. His idea was that Fleur should be packed off to the smartest hotel in Monte Carlo, where she would pose as Princess Olga—or some such name—a princess of a fictitious lost European State. When she had been living there long enough to become notorious (she would have all the clothes and jewels she needed) she would suddenly disappear. Rumour would be worked up to the effect that the princess had been captured or kidnapped. At the height of the sensation the film which would solve the mystery would have its world premiere. The directors fully expected that such a result would be a sensational box-office draw.

‘The whole of Europe and Hollywood will ring with it,’ Manton finished enthusiastically. ‘Photographs, columns about the missing princess, will fill the papers. It will be front page news. Think, my dear, of the sensation which will be caused when the film is released!’

Fleur listened in rapt attention, her cheeks aglow with excitement and anticipation.

‘It sounds too marvellous!’ she exclaimed. ‘I can’t begin to tell you what I feel about it all. My only fear is that I may be unable to make the grade.’

‘Nonsense,’ Manton replied, with a shake of his head. ‘That need be the least of your worries. You will merely go to Monte Carlo and act your part. I, myself, intend to go with you as your private secretary, and so direct your movements without raising any suspicion that it is a stunt.’

Fleur swallowed hard. A picture of the sun-drenched harbour at Monaco swam before her eyes. She had read. . .