"As you know, Connatt, I will make a speech before the curtain. After
that, I'll come backstage and stay in your dressing-room. What you must
do is get the sword that you use in the second act. Bring it there and
keep it there."
"I've told you and told you that the sword meant nothing against him."
"Bring it anyway," he insisted.
I heard Sigrid's clear voice, calling me to the stage door. Pursuivant
and I shook hands quickly and warmly, like team-mates just before a
hard game, and we went together to the lodge.
Entering, I made my way at once to the property table. The sword still
lay there, and I put out my hand for it.
"What do you want?" asked Elmo Davidson behind me.
"I thought I'd take the sword into my dressing-room."
"It's a prop, Connatt. Leave it right where it is."
I turned and looked at him. "I'd rather have it with me," I said
doggedly.
"You're being foolish," he told me sharply, and there is hardly any
doubt but that I sounded so to him. "What if I told Varduk about this?"
"Go and tell him, if you like. Tell him also that I won't go on tonight
if you're going to order me around." I said this as if I meant it, and
he relaxed his commanding pose.
"Oh, go ahead. And for heaven's sake calm your nerves."
I took the weapon and bore it away. In my room I found my costume for
the first act already laid out on two chairs--either Davidson or Jake
had done that for me. Quickly I rubbed color into my cheeks, lined my
brows and eyelids, affixed fluffy side-whiskers to my jaws. The mirror
showed me a set, pale face, and I put on rather more make-up than I
generally use. My hands trembled as I donned gleaming slippers of
patent leather, fawn-colored trousers that strapped under the insteps,
a frilled shirt and flowing necktie, a flowered waistcoat and a
bottle-green frock coat with velvet facings and silver buttons. My hair
was long enough to be combed into a wavy sweep back from my brow.
"Places, everybody," the voice of Davidson was calling outside.
I emerged. Jake Switz was at my door, and he grinned his good wishes.
I went quickly on-stage, where Sigrid already waited. She looked
ravishing in her simple yet striking gown of soft, light blue, with
billows of skirt, little puffs of sleeves, a tight, low bodice. Her
gleaming hair was caught back into a Grecian-looking coiffure, with a
ribbon and a white flower at the side. The normal tan of her skin lay
hidden beneath the pallor of her make-up.
At sight of me she smiled and put out a hand. I kissed it lightly,
taking care that the red paint on my lips did not smear. She took her
seat on the bench against the artificial bushes, and I, as gracefully
as possible, dropped at her feet.
Applause sounded beyond the curtain, then died away. The voice of Judge
Pursuivant became audible:
"Ladies and gentlemen, I have been asked by the management to speak
briefly. You are seeing, for the first time before any audience, the
lost play of Lord Byron, _Ruthven_. My presence here is not as a
figure of the theater, but as a modest scholar of some persistence,
whose privilege it has been to examine the manuscript and perceive its
genuineness.
"Consider yourselves all subpenaed as witnesses to a classic moment."
His voice rang as he pronounced the phrase required by Varduk. "I
wonder if this night will not make spectacular history for the genius
who did not die in Greece a century and more ago. I say, he did not
die--for when does genius die? We are here to assist at, and to share
in, a performance that will bring him his proper desserts.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I feel, and perhaps you feel as well, the
presence of the great poet with us in this remote hall. I wish you joy
of what you shall observe. And now, have I your leave to withdraw and
let the play begin?"
Another burst of applause, in the midst of which sounded three raps.
Then up went the curtain, and all fell silent. I, as Aubrey, spoke the
first line of the play:
"I'm no Othello, darling...."
_15. "Whither? I Dread to Think--"_
Sigrid and I struck on the instant the proper note of affectionate
gayety, and I could feel in the air that peculiar audience-rhythm by
which an actor knows that his effort to capture a mood is successful.
For the moment it was the best of all possible worlds, to be exchanging
thus the happy and brilliant lines with the woman I adored, while an
intelligent and sympathetic houseful of spectators shared our happy
mood.
But, if I had forgotten Varduk, he was the more imposing when he
entered. His luminous pallor needed no heightening to seize the
attention; his face was set off, like some gleaming white gem, by the
dark coat, stock, cape, books, pantaloons. He spoke his entrance line
as a king might speak in accepting the crown and homage of a nation.
On the other side of the footlights the audience grew tense with
heightened interest.
He overpowered us both, as I might have known he would, with his
personality and his address. We might have been awkward amateurs,
wilting into nothingness when a master took the stage. I was eclipsed
completely, exactly as Aubrey should be at the entrance of Ruthven, and
I greatly doubt if a single pair of eyes followed me at my first exit;
for at the center of the stage, Varduk had begun to make love to Sigrid.
I returned to my dressing-room. Pursuivant sat astride a chair, his
sturdy forearms crossed upon its back.
"How does it go?" he asked.
"Like a producer's dream," I replied, seizing a powder puff with which
to freshen my make-up. "Except for the things we know about, I would
pray for no better show."
"I gave you a message in my speech before the curtain. Did you hear
what I said? I meant, honestly, to praise Byron and at the same time
to defy him. You and I, with God's help, will give _Ruthven_ an ending
he does not expect."
It was nearly time for me to make a new entrance, and I left the
dressing-room, mystified but comforted by Pursuivant's manner. The
play went on, gathering speed and impressiveness. We were all acting
inspiredly, maugre the bizarre nature of the rehearsals and other
preparations, the dark atmosphere that had surrounded the piece from
its first introduction to us.
The end of the act approached, and with it my exit. Sigrid and I
dragged the limp Varduk to the center of the stage and retired, leaving
him alone to perform the sinister resurrection scene with which the
first act closes. I loitered in the wings to watch, but Jake Switz
tugged at my sleeve.
"Come," he whispered. "I want to show you something."
We went to the stage door. Jake opened it an inch.
The space behind the lodge was full of uncertain, half-formed lights
that moved and lived. For a moment we peered. Then the soft, larval
radiances flowed toward us. Jake slammed the door.
"They're waiting," he said.
From the direction of the stage came Varduk's final line:
"Grave, I reject thy shelter! Death, stand back!"
Then Davidson dragged down the curtain, while the house shook with
applause. I turned again. Varduk, backstage, was speaking softly
but clearly, urging us to hurry with our costume changes. Into my
dressing-room I hastened, my feet numb and my eyes blurred.
"I'll help you dress," came Pursuivant's calm voice. "Did Jake show you
what waits outside?"