Base lines.

First published in The Journal, March 1936. Lillian Gish came to tea/Miss Vanbrugh also at Women's Club/ Endearing modesty of two stars

When Miss Irene Vanbrugh and Miss Lillian Gish went to tea at the Northern Counties' Women's club in Newcastle yesterday, they were greeted, first, by a mass of beautiful purple and yellow flowers that lit the whole club with welcome, and, second, by one of the biggest gatherings of members the club has had for a long time.

They all wanted to know if Miss Gish is going to make any more films.

"No-o-o-o," she told them, in a bewitching, lilting voice that would surely make her the world's darling if she went in for talkies. But the long, sung word seemed to say: "I'm terribly sorry if it disappoints you, but the idea is simply too horrid."

"You like the stage best?"

"Oh, the stage! ... I started at the theatre when I was a child of five, and during all the long years I was in films I felt I belonged to the theatres and must get back some time."

"But we'd love to see you in a talking film. Don't you think you will?"

A long shake of the head.

"You cannot do the two things well, and I should like to do this, some day, well..."

She was so modest and sweet, not at all like the popular idea of a film star. Fragile and pale as her name-flower, too, even if she did look healthy and happy and not at all a "broken blossom." And on top of all that, she had such pretty things to say, in an idiom not quite English, and quite charming.

She was dressed in black ( an enveloping great-coat with an embroidered cream silk muffler filling in the neck ( and a quaint, high-peaked felt hat that made her face look all the more slender and pale.

"Do you like English audiences?" they asked her.

"Oh, I like them so much," she answered, her voice low and gentle, like a caress. "The few I have played to... we have not been to London yet. It seems so long, long ago that I was in the films... I have been in the theatre since 1930... I imagined that everyone had forgotten all about those films..."

"No, no, no," cried her audience.

"...It is so warming to come to a strange country and find friends..."

There is "a feeling" against film work in America, she said.

Miss Vanbrugh was modest, too. She was greeted with the warmth that is the special due of old friends, and after she had acknowledged the friendliness of her welcome she just sat back, calm and poised and beautiful, and left the stage clear, so to say, for her younger colleague. It was delightful to see with what kindliness and grace she did it.

One had an impression that she is mothering the little stranger within our gates on this tour. Not with ostentation, of course, but with lots of practical care.

"We are staying at Whitley Bay, so as to get the freshest possible air. We motored through the Lake District yesterday, so as to see all we could of the beauties."

Fortunate Miss Gish, to have Miss Vanbrugh to mother her!

The Women's Club, always cheerful and bright inside, was looking positively radiant in honour of its guests, mainly due to the care of Mrs White, of Birney Hill, who had filled the rooms with flowers.

Mrs JE Alderson was the hostess-in-chief, and welcomed the two distinguished guests with one of the happy little speeches she makes better than almost anybody else. Mrs WL Renwick proposed a vote of thanks to them for coming, and Miss Millican and Dr Ethel Williams also helped, as members of the committee, to make everybody feel happy.

"It is nice to feel that in Newcastle there is a women's community such as this, and you will let us come and share in it," said Miss Vanbrugh.