When Rudolf Schmidt called into the Port of London, he was tired of travelling, The wanderlust called him in boyhood, and no sooner was he free of school, then he started off to see the world. Working his way, on ship or shore, he journeyed from land to land. The war found him out East and gathered him in, adding to his stock of experiences and leaving him his appetite still unsated, to resume his wanderings. But the post-war world in which he found himself was a different one; ‘there was no longer the job going for the man who would pick it up, hungry crowds fought for work or bread in the cities where he had so easily made a living. Shrugging his shoulders at the irony of it, he shipped on a boat sailing to England and sought, in the land of his late enemy, a chance to live. In the Port of London, his journeyings came to an end for as he passed down a street, a girl smiled and Rudolf was lost. 

Twelve years he had wandered and women, brown, yellow and white had smiled at him

 without an answering smile. They had smiled at him for his big square-cut figure for his strong, handsome face but they had fallen back vanquished before the stern Lutheran morality which came to him from a line of pastors and teachers. Why then he surrendered his impregnable citadel to Ivy is known only to that queer power which from the beginning has drawn man to woman and woman to man. Maybe there was something in her fair prettiness, in the blue of hor eyes, the yellow waves of her hair that came as a refreshing breeze after the dark skinned natives, the  sun-bleached white women of the tropics. Perhaps faintly she reminded him of the girls of his boyhood, whose fair pigtails he had pulled on his way to school.

Surely, said those who watched his surrender, surely a man who had travelled so much could guess at the emptiness behind the baby blue eyes, could see that not only the waves of her hair were artificial but the very soul of her. Surely, they said, he could see - but strangely, Rudolf could not see.  He followed her dancing steps, dazzled and blinded.

As for Ivy, slimy gay and twenty, it seemed equally strange to the gossips that she should encourage this slow speaking German - Ivy, who, at twenty, could count her "boys" by ‘the score; who would cheerfully promise Jim and Alf and Bill for the same night, only to leave them all waiting in vain while she sat in the warm dark of the cinema with a fourth. For to Ivy “the pictures" were more than an amusement, they were a passion. Snuggled against the boy of the moment, she would gaze eyes wide, lips parted in breathless interest while love dramas were unfolded before her. Boy after boy hed learnt the uselessness of conversation till the final Kiss and fadeout. Ivy was not only engrossed in the film heroine, she was the heroine, and till she was delivered from the multitudinous peril which beset fil heroines, she had neither eyes nor care for the real world.

Bob, Jim, Alf - they meant as much or as little as each other, a means to the fairy world of the cinema and a possible personification of the hero. The former role they filled admirably, but each failed sickeningly, heartbreakingly, in the latter. Fresh from the glories of the film world, she would came out into the streets aglow with life, the young sex. of her ready to claim its mate, quiveringly ready for the masterful. gesture, the perfect phrase of the pictured hero. And at the first stammered-sentence, the first awkward movement of the real man, the glow died. Frustrated, exasperated, she snubbed, cruelly only. to smile the next time, hope springing afresh. Perhaps this time, she thought as with the sidelong smile she had learnt from the screen and practised carefully before her mirror, she drew back the snubbed one. Perhaps this time…

It was as she came from the cinema with her latest hero substitute that she ran straight into Rudolf and stopped with a startled “Oh!" She rubbed her eye, still dazzled with the sudden glare of the streets and looked up at him, and again she said “Oh” a long-drawn “O-Oh!” of surprises of reluctant admirations, Lips pursed, she took him in from head to foot, the whole six-foot of him, broad~shouldered and powerful, and her eyes widened. This was he at last, the film hero in the flesh. 

Rudolf took Off his hat and bowed gravely..

“I .. as.. Your pardon,”  he said, in his slow, careful ‘English,

“If I have hurt..” 

His eyes met hers, blue, enticing.Below them her rosy lips were still pursed in that “Oh!” of surprised admiration. Unhurried but purposeful, he turned and fell-in at her side. '

“Here I say,” protested the original escort. "This is a bit of all right, this is. You can't walk orf wif another feller’s girl like — this, you cant.”

Rudolf stopped and considered hin, gravely and judiciary, rather as a St Bernard might regard a yapping terrier. His silent regard lasted so long that Alf, unaccustomed to silence, first squirmed and then broke into hasty speech. 

“Wot I meant ta say," he protested. “Ivy's out wif me.”

 “So?” said Rudlof, measuring with his calm eye Alf's tunted figure and weedy arms. Alf hedged.

"Well, wot about it, Ivy?" be demanded. “Aint I taking you out?”

Ivy looked from one to the other and behind her innocent blue eyes coldly calculated the possibilities of the situation. Something had stirred in her at the sight of Rudolf, who so wonderfully fulfilled the outward requirements of film hero, but she had not tried him yet. Alf, for all hls imperfections had a good Job ani Ivy was not one to throw away a certainty for a possibility. What would Gloria Swanson do in such a contingency? she asked herself, and then, slipping quickly into the role she had so easily practised, she extended hand to the amazed Alf and’ bestowed on him a dazzling smile.

“Of course I was out with you; Alf,” she said. “ The pictures was lovely, Thank you so much.See you on Wednesday.” 

Before he could realise: the full meaning of this astonishing speech, she had slipped her arm into Rudolfs and passed down the street. 

So it began and so, to the astonishment of the neighbourhood, it went on.  Perhaps it was only Maud, Ivy’s best friend, who really understood why all the rest of Ivy's sultors were rejected for this bigs slow-speaking German.

"But what do you see in 'im?” she had insisted, “he’s so slow, got no go in ‘m. Never says nothing unless you make hin, and then all solemn like, so it sounds like a sermon” °

“I dunno,” said Ivy, "he don’t say much, but the way he looks at you -i's just like the strong, silent hero. And his name Rudolf, same as Valentino's. Oh I dunno..” 

Her limited vocabulary could not describe the feelings that had been aroused, the certainty that here at last was the hero of her dreams, big strong and silent, like the man of the films, beautiful of face and with a name of romance. And more than that - Almost incredibly, Rudolf talked like a hero. After the halting slang of Bill, Alf and Jim, it was to Ivy the language of romance. 

Rudolf, had he cared to explain, might have given a more prosaic explanation, but Rudolf never explained unnecessarily, and it had not occurred to him to elaborate the statement that he had learned English as a boy from his uncle as a boy. Ivy had no knowledge of the evenings spent in the pastor's study when the old man and the boy read together the English classics, stumbling through Shakespeare and the Bible, a grounding which had left Rudolf with a quaintly old-world phrases. When he brought his unaccustomed tongue to form love, speeches, the forgotten reading of his boyhood came back, and with touches of Romeo he wooed. To Ivy it was the screen come true, the world of romance brought out of the cinema and, caution throws aside, she responded to the wooing and wooed in return.

Before many months were past, in a flurry of white ribbon and confetti, Ivy became Mrs Sxhmidt. As she drove from the church in the hired car amid the cheers of the neighbourhood, she experienced her triumph. Then real life stepped in, and drew the vail from her eyes.

It was only half a house that Rudolf had prepared for her. Ivy had tried to coax him into starting with a splash and found him unexpectedly obdurate. Obsessed by her dream world, she had let the matter go with a shrug.

 "Wait until we are married,” she thought,"I‘ll soon make him move.” 

“As they entered the tiny kitchen the smallness and the pokiness of her new home came to Ivy with something of a Jar. With a shiver, she slipped to the fire and Rudolf, following, drew her on to his knee. There was silence for a times, Ivy relaxed, knew the Joy of being held in strong arms, Rudolf, overwhelmed, murmured incoherently. Then, feeling her power, Ivy broached a matter she had never dared to mention.

 “Rudolf, darling," she whispered,” we don't want any kids yet awhile, do we?” 

“Nott any children?” answered Rudolf, a little surprised. “We will, shall have them when it pleases God to send them." 

Ivy wiggled her shoulders.

 “But we needn’t if we don't want to, Rudolf, Don't let's have any at first. I hate kids.”

Rudolf swung her round to face him and looked sternly into her eyes.”

“We shall live together in Christian marriage,” he replied, “and If the good God shall send us children, it shall be his will.” 

"But Rudolf …” Ivy beat impatiently on his knee. 

Rudolf pressed his lips to the pouting mouth and Ivy, exasperated, silenced, knew herself beaten. 

Gradually, as the veils dropped from her eyes, she realised the type of man she had married. Poles apart in upbringing, in beliefs, they clashed at every turn. His rigid morality starting back in shocked amaze at her care-free abandon. Even the cinema, with which she had Identified him, became a cause of dissension. 

“Let's go round to the Palace tonight,” she greeted him, as he came in from his work. There's "One Night of Love."

Heavily he sank in a chair, and pulled off his boots. 

‘I do not wish for. any pictures to-night, Ivy. I by my own. fireside will stay.” : 

He smiled at her and held out his arms , 

“Why would I to the pictures go to watch the making of love? Have I not my hearts desire in my own home, my never to be enough adored one?”

Ivy signed petulantly.

“But  we’ve been in ny the fireside every night this week too,”

“Let us stay by it for every night of next week too," said Rudolf, complacently and for the weeks to come. The pictures", he shrugged. “They are all artificial, they are not real at all. The men and the women, pooh! ‘they are not so in real life. I know. I have seen." 

He held her close and Ivy, reluctantly consenting, dropped the subject for the time. But came up again and again, and it was when fighting vainly against Rudolfs obstinate calm, ivy suggested that AIf might take her instead, that their first real quarrel broke out. Roused, Rodulf dominated the now frightened Ivy and passionately laid down the law of his house as he would have it. His english grew biblical, confused and lapsed at times into german but it left Ivy with no doubt that in the eyes her promise to obey had been no idle words, that the creed of Kirche, Kuche, Kinder for the woman was a living one for him and not just as it had seemed to her. Weeping she submitted, but against her will, and fought inwardly against the bonds he had tied so tightly. 

Then she found herself one day to be pregnant and beat her hands in exasperation at this new encumbrance.

“Rudolf,” she flung at him in without preamble,” I’m going to have a kid.”

”So drawled Rudolf, and smiled approvingly. “That is well. It shall be a son, I hope."

 “Do yout?” flashed Ivy. “I  don't. I hope it dies, so there.” 

The sternness of his reply silenced her.

Her coming motherhood aroused the interest of the other women in the house who visited her with advice and consolation, gathering in the tiny kitchens to exchange stories of pain and disaster - their kindly meant, if strange, method of preparing her for her ordeal.

 “What you want now, my dear,” said slatternly Mrs. Jones from the top Floor, “is to get out a bit an keep yourself cheerful, Doesn't do to brood, if you know what I means. Don't go to the pictures much, do you?”

"He doesn't care for then,” muttered Ivy, and the woman nodded understandingly. Husbands had queer ideas, one had to humour them. There would be no money else. But there were ways round their ideas. 

"Cone along of us next Saturday,” said Mrs, Jones, “I‘ll talk to your ‘usband.”

 Talk she did so that Rudolf quailed beneath her tongues promising money for plicture, for outings, lest Ivy, brooding, should succumb to the awful ailments Mrs, Jones so vividly pictured. 

It was a breath of the open again to Ivy, and soon the Saturday night out with the Joneses became a regular custom which it seemed hard to break when her time came, and the incubus arrived to tie her in. It was a son, a sturdy youngster, who held more of his father's placidity than his mother's restlessness. Once asleep he slumbered peacefully and Ivy fidgeting round the room where Rutolf calmly read the paper, brought herself at least to hint that even a mother might have some free time. 

"It isn't as if he were any bother,” she said, hastfil, as Rudolf raised surprised brows. “I’ve put him to bed and he’s asleep, he'd be all right till I come in. You'd be there to hear if anything happened. I could leave a bottle for if he woke.” 

Rudolf’s brows contracted. ‘There had seemed to him something wrong something unnatural in the fact that Ivy not only did not want to, but actually could not feed her baby. But, since it was so,  he could, perhaps at a pinch, minister to its needs. His eyes lifted to hers, and saw with compunction how drawn her face was, how much of hor young beauty was gone. 

“It shall be so, heart's dearest,” he said, with that slow smile that still could give her a throb. °Go with your friends. I will the baby mind.”

 Ivy threw herself upon him with something of her old vivacity. "Rudie darlings you don’t know how sick I am of nothing but houses, and babies.” 

She flew round the room, getting ready with that whirl of confusion that so Jarred on Rudolf orderly mind. With a final kiss she was gone, and he rose slowly to his feet and put the room to rights before he continued his reading. 

Her face, when she returned, was gayer than it had been for weeks, and again the Saturday night outings became a routine. Gradually they became more frequent for only in the cinema did Ivy find escape from the harshness of reality. There men and women played and adventured, they did not sweep floors nor wrestle with stoves. They loved in the moonlight, but they did not face the endless routine of baby-tendings. Babies, in the film world, smiled once in awhile from their cot, or toddled to unite their estranged parents. They were never sick or sleepless or urgent in their demands for food. So Ivy consoled herself for dull reality and Rudolf, his brows a little more contacted watched her in silence.

“She is so young, so gay,” he said to himself,  she must play for a time, She will wiser become as time goes on.” 

Time went on. Twice more Ivy bore a child against her will, and the children, standing between them as living evidence of the triumph of his creeded over hers, pushed them farther apart instead of uniting them. Over the third there was a scene such as Ivy had never before experienced, when Rudolf found that she had been consulting other women as to the means of getting rid of it. Furiously they battled against each other's prejudices. 

"But I don't want it,” she protested, “we've had two..  I’m tired. I can’t go through it again.  I want some life. I’m getting old before my time..  Besides we can't afford it, how can we keep another?  Desperately she ranged her arguments, and against them he let fall the heavy shells of his unalterable beliefs. Right was right and wrong was wrong; such and such was the way that marriage was ordained of God and such should be the way it was observed. Fruitlessly they battled, each unable even to realise the validity of the other's reasoning. 

Ivy flung at Rudolf her haphazard beliefs and he recoiled from them as blasphemy. She, faintly visualising the god of wrath he worshipped, shrank back in disgust. The battle left them battered, but unconverted. Rudolf emerged triumphant, not because he had convinced his wife, but because he held the purse. 

The ordeal over, she resumed her outings and finding MrsJones a ready listener, poured out on her her grievances.

"you ‘ave a good time, my dear,” said that lady. “He’ll be all right, He's big enough to look after himself, did it for twelve years all round the world, didn't he? Well, why should you sit at home looking after him now? Put the kids to bed and come on.” 

About this time Rudolf noted with distaste that the untidiness that he'd once mildly amused him had become a chronic state of affairs. The children, unwashed, shifted for themselves, the eldest already lending a hand with the others; the rooms, dusty and muddled, greeted him at night, if-anything, less welcomingly than in the morning, with the days accumulation of dirt not removed. Ivy, desultrully flicking round, shrugged her shoulders over it.

 "What does a bit of dirt matter? It would be as bad as ever again if I did clear up, what with all them children mucking around.”

!”And is there also no supper for me?” demanded Rudolf, and Ivy looked up petulantly.

 “I hadn’t time to cook anything. There's bread and cheese in the larder. Can"t you get it yourself? I've enough to do-anyway, and I want to finish and get out," 

"Must you be always out?”

“Grudge me that do you?” flashed Ivy. "What sort of a life is this anyway, cooped up here all day and all those kids driving me mad?  Can't I even go to the pictures if I like?" :

Smarting, she hustled the children to bed, seized her hat and went. Inside the warm, darkened cinema her mind moved endlessly on its grievance. What had her life given her? Nothing she decided. It was empty, dull, barren, compared with the pictured life of the screens. Before her a drama unfolded itself and Ivy gave it half hearted attention. The villain had entrapped the heroine and, smiling seductively, was offering flats and Jewels. In the background the hero toiled at his humble jib. Ivy bit her lips, it was wrong all wrong, this humble hero business. What did you get anyway  being good and straight and marrying the humble hero?  Kids and more kids, cleaning and dusting and mending, getting older and older till you looked a hag at forty like the woman next door. 

(“Say the word little girl,” murmured the villain, “there's a flat waiting for you… pearls for your. pretty neck…)

The heroine raised her hand and smote him across  the cheek amid the cheers of the audience. Ivy set motionless. 

“Fool,” she muttered, and her mouth curled scornfully as the heroine leapt to a waiting aeroplane en route for the humble hero. 

The film drew to an end but Ivy remained so engrossed with her thoughts that she failled to follow Mrs. Jones when she rose with the crowd and was parted from her in the rush for the exit, She stood a moment at the door looking to and fro-and her eye chanced to catch the eye of a man on the pavement, a dark, enquiring eye. Ivy let her look linger and the man drew up beside her.

"Going anywhere little girl?” he murmured. Ivy took him in, from head to foot, Flashily dressed, soft spoken, something not quite genuine about him. She recognised him for what he was, the film villain in the flesh. Recklessly she throw back her head and smiled into his eyes. 

"Why, Just    anywhere,” she answered,

Notes and Comments:

Another piece that makes me wonder if it was inspired in part by people she knew...