XIV
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 granduncle, ‘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.
“No hysterics, please!” snapped Pursuivant. “Connatt, let me give you one stark thought—it will cool you, strengthen you for what you must help me achieve. Think what will follow if we let Miss Holgar take this oath, accept this initiation, however unwittingly. At once she will assume the curse that Varduk—Byron—lays down. Life after death, perhaps; the faculty of wreaking devastation at a word or touch; gifts beyond human will or comprehension, all of them a burden to her; and who can know the end?”
“There shall not be a beginning,” I vowed huskily. “I will kill Varduk—”
“Softly, softly. You know that weapons—ordinary weapons—do not even scratch him.”
The twilight was deepening into dusk, Pursuivant turned back toward the lodge, where windows had begun to glow warmly, and muffled motor-noises bespoke the parking of automobiles. There were other flecks of light, too. For myself, I felt beaten and weary, as though I had fought to the verge of losing against a stronger, wiser enemy.
“Look around you, Connatt. At the clumps of bush, the thickets. What do they hide?”
I knew what he meant. I felt, though I saw only dimly, the presence of an evil host in ambuscade all around us.
“They’re waiting to claim her, Connatt. There’s only one thing to do.”
“Then let’s do it, at once.”
“Not yet. The moment must be his moment, one hour before midnight. Escape, as I once said, will not be enough. We must conquer.”
I waited for him to instruct me.
“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 teammates 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 makeup 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 onstage, 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 makeup.
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. …”