XII
Return Engagement
One of the most extraordinary features of the entire happening was that it had so little immediate consequence.
Judge Pursuivant reached his cabin safely, and came to visit us again and again, but never remained after dark. If Varduk knew of the attack by the non-shapes, and if he felt surprise or chagrin that Pursuivant had escaped, he did not betray it. By silent and common consent, Jake and I forbore to discuss the matter between ourselves, even when we knew that we were alone.
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 role, or rather a co-starring role—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 sideburns, 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 surprise; 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 sellout, 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.