Part 6

Meanwhile, the moon waned and waxed again while we rehearsed our play and between rehearsals swam, tramped and bathed in the sun. Not one of us but seemed to profit by the exercise and fresh air. Sigrid's step grew freer, her face browner and her green-gold hair paler by contrast. I acquired some weight, but in the proper places, and felt as strong and healthy as I had been when first I went from the Broadway stage to Hollywood, eight years before. Even Jake Switz, whose natural habitat lay among theatrical offices and stage doors, became something of a hill-climber, canoeist and fisherman. Only Varduk did not tan, though he spent much time out of doors, strolling with Davidson or by himself. Despite his apparent fragility and his stiffness of gait, he was a tireless walker.

One thing Jake and I did for our protection; that was to buy, on one of our infrequent trips to the junction, an electric flashlight apiece as well as one for Sigrid. These we carried, lighted, when walking about at night, and not once in the month that followed our first encounter with the non-shapes did we have any misadventure.

The middle of July brought the full moon again, and with it the approach of our opening night.

The theatrical sections of the papers--Varduk had them delivered daily--gave us whole square yards of publicity. Jake had fabricated most of this, on his typewriter in our boathouse loft, though his most glamorous inventions included nothing of the grisly wonders we had actually experienced. Several publishers added to the general interest in the matter by sending to Varduk attractive offers for the manuscript of _Ruthven_, and receiving blunt refusals. One feature writer, something of a scholar of early Nineteenth Century English literature, cast a doubt upon the authenticity of the piece. In reply to this, Judge Pursuivant sent an elaboration of his earlier statement that _Ruthven_ was undoubtedly genuine. The newspaper kindly gave this rejoinder considerable notice, illustrating it with photographs of the judge, Varduk and Sigrid.

On July 20, two days before opening, Jake went out to nail signs along the main road to guide motor parties to our theater. He was cheerfully busy most of the morning, and Sigrid deigned to let me walk with her. We did not seek the road, but turned our steps along the brink of the water. An ancient but discernible trail, made perhaps by deer, ran there.

"Happy, Sigrid?" I asked her.

"I couldn't be otherwise," she cried at once. "Our play is to startle the world--first here, then on Broadway----"

"Sigrid," I said, "what is there about this play that has such a charm for you? I know that it's a notable literary discovery, and that it's pretty powerful stuff in spots, but in the final analysis it's only melodrama with a clever supernatural twist. You're not the melodramatic type."

"Indeed?" she flung back. "Am I a type, then?"

I saw that I had been impolitic and made haste to offer apology, but she waved it aside.

"What you said might well be asked by many people. The pictures have put me into a certain narrow field, with poor Jake Switz wearing out the thesaurus to find synonyms for 'glamorous'. Yet, as a beginner in Sweden, I did _Hedda Gabler_ and _The Wild Duck_--yes, and Bernard Shaw, too; I was the slum girl in _Pygmalion_. After that, a German picture, _Cyrano de Bergerac_, with me as Roxane. It was luck, perhaps, and a momentary wish by producers for a new young foreign face, that got me into American movies. But, have I done so poorly?"

"Sigrid, nobody ever did so nobly."

"And at the first, did I do always the same thing? What was my first chance? The French war bride in that farce comedy. Then what? Something by Somerset Maugham, where I wore a black wig and played a savage girl of the tropics. Then what? A starring rôle, or rather a co-starring rôle--opposite you." She gave me a smile, as though the memory were pleasant.

"Opposite me," I repeated, and a thrill crept through me. "_Lavengro_, the costume piece. Our costumes, incidentally, were rather like what we will wear in the first part of _Ruthven_."

"I was thinking the same thing. And speaking of melodrama, what about _Lavengro_? You, with romantic curly side-burns, stripped to the waist and fighting like mad with Noah Beery. Firelight gleaming on your wet skin, and me mopping your face with a sponge and telling you to use your right hand instead of your left----"

"By heaven, there have been lots of worse shows!" I cried, and we both laughed. My spirits had risen as we had strolled away from the lodge grounds, and I had quite forgotten my half-formed resolve to speak a warning.

We came to a stretch of sand, with a great half-rotted pink trunk lying across it. Here we sat, side by side, smoking and scrawling in the fine sand with twigs.

"There's another reason why I have been happy during this month of rehearsal," said Sigrid shyly.

"Yes?" I prompted her, and my heart began suddenly to beat swiftly.

"It's been so nice to be near you and with you."

I felt at once strong and shivery, rather like the adolescent hero of an old-fashioned novel. What I said, somewhat ruefully, was, "If you think so, why have you been so hard to see? This is the first time we have walked or been alone together."

* * * * *

She smiled, and in her own individual way that made her cheeks crease and her eyes turn aslant. "We saw a lot of each other once, Gib. I finished up by being sorry. I don't want to be sorry again. That's why I've gone slowly."

"See here, Sigrid," I blurted suddenly. "I'm not going to beat around the bush, or try to lead up diplomatically or dramatically, but--oh, hang it!" Savagely I broke a twig in my hands. "I loved you once, and in spite of the fact that we quarreled and separated, I've never stopped. I love you right this instant----"

She caught me in strong, fierce arms, and kissed me so soundly that our teeth rang together between lips crushed open. Thus for a second of white-hot surprize; then she let go with equal suddenness. Her face had gone pale under its tan--no acting there--and her eyes were full of panicky wonder.

"I didn't do that," she protested slowly. She, too, was plainly stunned. "I didn't. But--well, I did, didn't I?"

"You certainly did. I don't know why, and if you say so I won't ask; but you did, and it'll be hard to retire from the position again."

After that, we had a lot more to say to each other. I admitted, very humbly, that I had been responsible for our estrangement five years before, and that the reason was the very unmanly one that I, losing popularity, was jealous of her rise. For her part, she confessed that not once had she forgotten me, nor given up the hope of reconciliation.

"I'm not worth it," I assured her. "I'm a sorry failure, and we both know it."

"Whenever I see you," she replied irrelevantly, "bells begin to ring in my ears--loud alarm bells, as if fires had broken out all around me."

"We're triple idiots to think of love," I went on. "You're the top, and I'm the muck under the bottom."

"You'll be the sensation of your life when _Ruthven_ comes to Broadway," rejoined Sigrid confidently. "And the movie magnets will fight duels over the chance to ask for your name on a contract."

"To hell with the show business! Let's run away tonight and live on a farm," I suggested.

In her genuine delight at the thought she clutched my shoulders, digging in her long, muscular fingers. "Let's!" she almost whooped, like a little girl promised a treat. "We'll have a garden and keep pigs--no, there's a show."

"And the show," I summed up, "must go on."

On that doleful commonplace we rose from the tree-trunk and walked back. Climbing to the road, we sought out Jake, who with a hammer and a mouthful of nails was fastening his last sign to a tree. We swore him to secrecy with terrible oaths, then told him that we intended to marry as soon as we returned to New York. He half swallowed a nail, choked dangerously, and had to be thumped on the back by both of us.

"I should live so--I knew this would happen," he managed to gurgle at last. "Among all the men you know, Sigrid Holgar, you got to pick this _schlemiel_!"

We both threatened to pummel him, and he apologized profusely, mourning the while that his vow kept him from announcing our decision in all the New York papers.

"With that romance breaking now, we would have every able-bodied man, woman and child east of the Mississippi trying to get into our show," he said earnestly. "With a club we'd have to beat them away from the ticket window. Standing-room would sell for a dollar an inch."

"It's a success as it is," I comforted him. "_Ruthven_, I mean. The house is a sell-out, Davidson says."

That night at dinner, Sigrid sat, not at the head of the table, but on one side next to me. Once or twice we squeezed hands and Jake, noticing this, was shocked and burned his mouth with hot coffee. Varduk, too, gazed at us as though he knew our secret, and finally was impelled to quote something from Byron--a satiric couplet on love and its shortness of life. But we were too happy to take offense or even to recognize that the quotation was leveled at us.

_13. The Black Book_

Our final rehearsal, on the night of the twenty-first of July, was fairly accurate as regards the speeches and attention to cues, but it lacked fire and assurance. Varduk, however, was not disappointed.

"It has often been said, and often proven as well, that a bad last rehearsal means a splendid first performance," he reminded us. "To bed all of you, and try to get at least nine hours of sleep." Then he seemed to remember something. "Miss Holgar."

"Yes?" said Sigrid.

"Come here, with me." He led her to the exact center of the stage. "At this spot, you know, you are to stand when the final incident of the play, and our dialog together, unfolds."

"I know," she agreed.

"Yet--are you sure? Had we not better be sure?" Varduk turned toward the auditorium, as though to gage their position from the point of view of the audience. "Perhaps I am being too exact, yet----"

He snapped his fingers in the direction of Davidson, who seemed to have expected some sort of request signal. The big assistant reached into the pocket of his jacket and brought out a piece of white chalk.

"Thank you, Davidson." Varduk accepted the proffered fragment. "Stand a little closer center, Miss Holgar. Yes, like that." Kneeling, he drew with a quick sweep of his arm a small white circle around her feet.

"That," he informed her, standing up again, "is the spot where I want you to stand, at the moment when you and I have our final conflict of words, the swearing on the Bible, and my involuntary blessing upon your head."

Sigrid took a step backward, out of the circle. I, standing behind her, could see that she had drawn herself up in outraged protest. Varduk saw, too, and half smiled as if to disarm her. "Forgive me if I seem foolish," he pleaded gently.

"I must say," she pronounced in a slow, measured manner, as though she had difficulty in controlling her voice, "that I do not feel that this little diagram will help me in the least."

Varduk let his smile grow warmer, softer. "Oh, probably it will not, Miss Holgar; but I am sure it will help me. Won't you do as I ask?"

She could not refuse, and by the time she had returned across the stage to me she had relaxed into cheerfulness again. I escorted her to the door of her cabin, and her good-night smile warmed me all the way to my own quarters.

* * * * *

Judge Pursuivant appeared at noon the next day, and Varduk, hailing him cordially, invited him to lunch.

"I wonder," ventured Varduk as we all sat down together, "if you, Judge Pursuivant, would not speak a few words in our favor before the curtain tonight."

"I?" The judge stared, then laughed. "But I'm not part of the management."

"The management--which means myself--will be busy getting into costume for the first act. You are a scholar, a man whose recent book on Byron has attracted notice. It is fitting that you do what you can to help our opening."

"Oh," said Pursuivant, "if you put it like that--but what shall I tell the audience?"

"Make it as short as you like, but impressive. You might announce that all present are subpenaed as witnesses to a classic moment."

Pursuivant smiled. "That's rather good, Mr. Varduk, and quite true as well. Very good, count on me."

But after lunch he drew me almost forcibly away from the others, talking affably about the merits of various wines until we were well out of earshot. Then his tone changed abruptly.

"I think we know now that the thing--whatever it is--will happen at the play, and we also know why."

"Why, then?" I asked at once.

"I am to tell the audience that they are 'subpenaed as witnesses.' In other words, their attention is directed, they must be part of a certain ceremony. I, too, am needed. Varduk is making me the clerk, so to speak, of his court--or his cult. That shows that he will preside."

"It begins to mean something," I admitted. "Yet I am still at a loss."

Pursuivant's own pale lips were full of perplexity. "I wish that we could know more before the actual beginning. Yet I, who once prepared and judged legal cases, may be able to sum up in part:

"Something is to happen to Miss Holgar. The entire fabric of theatrical activity--this play, the successful effort to interest her in it, the remote theater, her particular rôle, everything--is to perform upon her a certain effect. That effect, we may be sure, is devastating. We may believe that a part, at least, of the success depends on the last line of the play, a mystery as yet to all of us."

"Except to Varduk," I reminded.

"Except to Varduk."

But a new thought struck me, and for a moment I found it comforting.

"Wait. The ceremony, as you call it, can't be all evil," I said. "After all, he asks her to swear on a Bible."

"So he does," Pursuivant nodded. "What kind of a Bible?"

I tried to remember. "To tell the truth, I don't know. We haven't used props of any kind in rehearsals--not even the sword, after that first time."

"No? Look here, that's apt to be significant. We'll have to look at the properties."

We explored the auditorium and the stage with a fine show of casual interest. Davidson and Switz were putting final touches on the scenery--a dark blue backdrop for evening sky, a wall painted to resemble vine-hung granite, benches and an arbor--but no properties lay on the table backstage.

"You know this is a Friday, Gib?" demanded Jake, looking up from where he was mending the cable of a floodlight. "Bad luck, opening our play on a Friday."

"Not a bit," laughed Pursuivant. "What's begun on a Friday never comes to an end. Therefore----"

"Oi!" crowed Jake. "That means we'll have a record-breaking run, huh?" He jumped up and shook my hand violently. "You'll be working in this show till you step on your beard."

We wandered out again, and Sigrid joined us. She was in high spirits.

"I feel," she said excitedly, "just as I felt on the eve of my first professional appearance. As though the world would end tonight!"

"God forbid," I said at once, and "God forbid," echoed Judge Pursuivant. Sigrid laughed merrily at our sudden expressions of concern.

"Oh, it won't end that way," she made haste to add, in the tone one reserves for children who need comfort. "I mean, the world will begin tonight, with success and happiness."

She put out a hand, and I squeezed it tenderly. After a moment she departed to inspect her costume.

"I haven't a maid or a dresser," she called over her shoulder. "Everything has to be in perfect order, and I myself must see to it."

We watched her as she hurried away, both of us sober.

"I think I know why you fret so about her safety," Pursuivant said to me. "You felt, too, that the thing she said might be a bad omen."

"Then may her second word be a good omen," I returned.

"Amen to that," he said heartily.

Dinnertime came, and Pursuivant and I made a quick meal of it. We excused ourselves before the others--Sigrid looked up in mild astonishment that I should want to leave her side--and went quickly downstairs to the stage.

* * * * *

On the property table lay the cudgel I was to use in the first act, the sword I was to strike with in the second, the feather duster to be wielded by Martha Vining as Bridget, a tray with a wine service to be borne by Davidson as Oscar. There was also a great book, bound in red cloth, with red edging.

"That is the Bible," said Pursuivant at once. "I must have a look at it."

"I still can't see," I muttered, half to myself, "how this sword--a good piece of steel and as sharp as a razor--failed to kill Varduk when I----"

"Never mind that sword," interrupted Judge Pursuivant. "Look at this book, this 'Bible' which they've refused to produce up to now. I'm not surprized to find out that--well, have a look for yourself."

On the ancient black cloth I saw rather spidery capitals, filled with red coloring matter: _Grand Albert_.

"I wouldn't look inside if I were you," warned the judge. "This is in all probability the book that Varduk owned when Davidson met him at Revere College. Remember what happened to one normal young man, ungrounded in occultism, who peeped into it."

"What can it be?" I asked.

"A notorious gospel for witches," Pursuivant informed me. "I've heard of it--Descrepe, the French occultist, edited it in 1885. Most editions are modified and harmless, but this, at first glance, appears to be the complete and infamous Eighteenth Century version." He opened it.

The first phase of his description had stuck in my mind. "A gospel for witches; and that is the book on which Sigrid must swear an oath of renunciation at the end of the play!"

Pursuivant was scowling at the flyleaf. He groped for his pince-nez, put them on. "Look here, Connatt," he said.

I crowded close to his elbow, and together we read what had been written long ago, in ink now faded to a dirty brown:

Geo Gordon (Biron) his book

At 1 hr. befor midnt, on 22 July, 1788 givn him. He was brot to coeven by Todlin he the saide Geo. G. to be bond to us for 150 yers. and serve for our glory he to gain his title & hav all he desirs. at end of 150 yrs. to give acctg. & not be releasd save by delivring anothr as worthie our coeven.

(Signed) For coeven For Geo. Gordon (Biron) Terragon Todlin

"And look at this, too," commanded Judge Pursuivant. He laid his great forefinger at the bottom of the page. There, written in fresh blue ink, and in a hand somehow familiar:

This 22nd of July, 1938, I tender this book and quit this service unto Sigrid Holgar.

George Gordon, Lord Byron.

_14. Zero Hour_

Pursuivant closed the book with a loud snap, laid it down on the table, and caught me by the arm.

"Come away from here," he said in a tense voice. "Outside, where nobody will hear." He almost dragged me out through the stage door. "Come along--down by the water--it's fairly open, we'll be alone."

When we reached the edge of the lake we faced each other. The sun was almost set. Back of us, in front of the lodge, we could hear the noise of early arrivals for the theater--perhaps the men who would have charge of automobile parking, the ushers, the cashier.

"How much of what you read was intelligible to you?" asked Pursuivant.

"I had a sense that it was rotten," I said. "Beyond that, I'm completely at sea."

"I'm not." His teeth came strongly together behind the words. "There, on the flyleaf of a book sacred to witches and utterly abhorrent to honest folk, was written an instrument pledging the body and soul of a baby to a 'coeven'--that is, a congregation of evil sorcerers--for one hundred and fifty years. George Gordon, the Lord Byron that was to be, had just completed his sixth month of life."

"How could a baby be pledged like that?" I asked.

"By some sponsor--the one signing the name 'Todlin.' That was undoubtedly a coven name, such as we know all witches took. Terragon was another such cognomen. All we can say of 'Todlin' is that the signature is apparently a woman's. Perhaps that of the child's eccentric nurse, Mistress Gray----"

"This is beastly," I interposed, my voice beginning to tremble. "Can't we do something besides talk?"

Pursuivant clapped me strongly on the back. "Steady," he said. "Let's talk it out while that writing is fresh in our minds. We know, then, that the infant was pledged to an unnaturally long life of evil. Promises made were kept--he became the heir to the estates and title of his grand-uncle, 'Wicked Byron,' after his cousins died strangely. And surely he had devil-given talents and attractions."

"Wait," I cut in suddenly. "I've been thinking about that final line or so of writing, signed with Byron's name. Surely I've seen the hand before."

"You have. The same hand wrote _Ruthven_, and you've seen the manuscript." Pursuivant drew a long breath. "Now we know how _Ruthven_ could be written on paper only ten years old. Byron lives and signs his name today."

I felt almost sick, and heartily helpless inside. "But Byron died in Greece," I said, as though reciting a lesson. "His body was brought to England and buried at Hucknall Torkard, close to his ancestral home."

"Exactly. It all fits in." Pursuivant's manifest apprehension was becoming modified by something of grim triumph. "Must he not have repented, tried to expiate his curse and his sins by an unselfish sacrifice for Grecian liberty? You and I have been over this ground before; we know how he suffered and labored, almost like a saint. Death would seem welcome--his bondage would end in thirty-six years instead of a hundred and fifty. What about his wish to be burned?"

"Burning would destroy his body," I said. "No chance for it to come alive again."

"But the body was not burned, and it has come alive again. Connatt, do you know who the living-dead Byron is?"

"Of course I do. And I also know that he intends to pass something into the hands of Sigrid."

"He does. She is the new prospect for bondage, the 'other as worthie.' She is not a free agent in the matter, but neither was Byron at the age of six months."

The sun's lower rim had touched the lake. Pursuivant's pink face was growing dusky, and he leaned on the walking-stick that housed a silver blade.

"Byron's hundred and fifty years will end at eleven o'clock tonight," he said, gazing shrewdly around for possible eavesdroppers. "Now, let me draw some parallels."

"Varduk--we know who Varduk truly is--will, in the character of Ruthven, ask Miss Holgar, who plays Mary, a number of questions. Those questions, and her answers as set down for her to repeat, make up a pattern. Think of them, not as lines in a play, but an actual interchange between an adept of evil and a neophyte."

"It's true," I agreed. "He asks her if she will 'give herself up,' 'renounce former manners,' and to swear so upon--the book we saw. She does so."

"Then the prayer, which perplexes you by its form. The 'wert in heaven' bit becomes obvious now, eh? How about the angel that fell from grace and attempted to build up his own power to oppose?"

"Satan!" I almost shouted. "A prayer to the force of evil!"

"Not so loud, Connatt. And then, while Miss Holgar stands inside a circle--that, also, is part of the witch ceremony--he touches her head, and speaks words we do not know. But we can guess."

He struck his stick hard against the sandy earth.

"What then?" I urged him on.

"It's in an old Scottish trial of witches," said Pursuivant. "Modern works--J. W. Wickwar's book, and I think Margaret Alice Murray's--quote it. The master of the coven touched the head of the neophyte and said that all beneath his hand now belonged to the powers of darkness."

"No! No!" I cried, in a voice that wanted to break.