“Of course. Any time.” Simon moved down the hall (lit only by torches now; daylight had altogether faded from the high, narrow windows) and followed Vivian into her room. Her suite, rather.
It was a bedroom-bathroom-dressing room that made Simon’s guest quarters look small, and in a movie would certainly have required at least one maid to go with it. Simon wasn’t sure how these matters were usually managed in reality, but at the moment at least no servant was in evidence.
“Drink? There’s a little bar there, fix yourself something if you like. And excuse me just one moment while I change. Things are running just a touch behind schedule.” Vivian, still toweling her dark curls, vanished into the adjoining room.
“I’ll take a rain check on the drink if I may,” Simon called after her. “Going on duty shortly, you know. Can I fix you anything?”
“Not just now.” Vivian’s voice remained unmuffled by intervening doors. Simon looking into the adjoining room from where he was could just see one end of a folding oriental screen; presumably she was dressing behind that. Her offstage voice added, “You’ll find an envelope there on the table. I trust the contents are satisfactory?”
Propped against a black electric lamp with a white dragon shade that shed a glow almost as soft as candlelight, was a small white envelope. Simon took it up. The flap was folded in but not sealed. It was thickly packed with hundred-dollar bills; with a quick finger-riffle he counted fifteen of them.
He cleared his throat. “Miss Littlewood?”
“Call me Vivian, please.” From the other room came a prolonged rustling noise, as of some lengthy garment going on or coming off. “What is it?”
“Well. It’s just that there’s more money here than I was promised.”
“Pardon?” Now her voice was somewhat muffled. Women’s clothing and the rituals that went with it were still mystifying to Simon, despite the number of women with whom he’d been on dressing and undressing terms in the past fifteen years.
He moved a step closer to the doorway between rooms. From here he could see a mirror on the far wall of the inner room, a mirror so placed that if he were to advance one more step it might show him the area behind the screen. It required some effort to refrain from taking another step. He spoke a little louder: “I said, you’re giving me too much money.”
“Really?” Cloth-rustlings continued, but now Vivian’s voice was clear again. “That’s a complaint one seldom hears.”
Simon was staring at the envelope. “Gregory told me that the inclusive fee was to be one thousand.”
“Gregory is an old pinch-penny. That’s not exactly the instruction he had from us.” And now, in a swirl of red-gowned energy, Vivian emerged from behind her screen, to enter the room where Simon stood and pose before him curtseying, as if his approval might be all the mirror she needed.
He usually had no trouble finding compliments for lovely women. But right now he was speechless. There had been no time for her to give the black curls any treatment except to dry them, and yet the curls looked perfect. There was as usual no sign of makeup on Vivian’s face; it was hard to imagine any that could have effected an improvement. And as for her dress…
Unconsciously Simon had expected her to emerge in something very low cut, probably in flaming red. His imagination had been uncannily accurate about the color, but that was all. Vivian’s gown was cut very high and full, with long sleeves and a floor-length skirt. It was of some material of gossamer fineness, yet perfectly opaque, and almost perfectly concealing. Only with movement was there any hint of the shape of the body underneath, and then the hint was subtle. This dress was in one way the very opposite of the yellow bikini. And yet… it crossed Simon’s mind that an appeal to the imagination can sometimes be more powerful than blatant advertisement.
Vivian was smiling; his hearty if silent approval must have been obvious. She said: “There’s a thousand dollars in there for you personally, and five hundred for expenses. I wasn’t sure what helpers or equipment you might want to bring along, or what that kind of thing costs. And I was sure that you weren’t going to stint to bring us the best show possible.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t stint, as you say. But my expenses haven’t been anywhere near five hundred dollars.”
“But of course I insist on your keeping the whole amount anyway. Perhaps it’s wrong of me to even mention your expenses.” Vivian stood, as poised as a model, with tanned hands clasped delicately in front of her. “What I should be doing instead, shouldn’t I, is to prepare myself to undergo a convincing experience. Suspending my disbelief. Getting into the frame of mind that says the powers you are going to demonstrate for us tonight are perfectly genuine.”
Simon waved the envelope in the air once more, slapped it against his palm, and then slid it into one of the inner pockets of his doublet. He spread his hands. “As I will of course claim them to be, as part of my patter during the show. But… well, I hope I’m misinterpreting your tone of voice.”
“Why?”
“Because it sounds to me like you’re saying you actually believe I might have some genuine… psychic powers.”
Vivian remained standing very still. The smile with which she regarded Simon was one of solemn joy. “And that’s not an attitude you frequently encounter?”
“Fortunately, it isn’t. But, unfortunately, I do run into it sometimes. I wasn’t really expecting to encounter it tonight.”
“Why not?” Vivian was still cheerful.
It wasn’t smart to argue with the boss. Simon sighed. This was important. “I was assuming that tonight’s audience would all be educated people.”
“Education is good armor against the supernatural.”
“It should be.”
“You would prefer your audiences very skeptical.”
Simon started to frame a serious answer, then gave up with a brief laugh. Vivian was in the mood for teasing, not serious discussion. “All right. Touche. Of course when I’m working I want people to believe—only what I tell them to believe. But not seriously. Not really to believe that what I’m doing is against the laws of nature. There’s no fun, there’s no art left in my profession if that happens. I’m just a—swindler.”
“Oh, Simon.” And now that he was trying to be light, Vivian suddenly was serious. Her voice was very soft, her eyes luminous and huge. ” ‘Fun’ doesn’t sound to me like the right word. Is there no such thing as joy in serious art?”
“I’m serious about what I do. But I’m an entertainer.”
“And a good one, too. Never mind.” Lightness prevailed again. “We’ll have plenty of time later to talk some more… may I ask you one question now about your act?”
“Shoot.”
“When I saw your performance at the dinner theater, you had a lovely young lady with you as assistant; I gather she was still with you when Gregory met you at the university. I hope he made it clear that both of you were welcome here as weekend guests.”
“He made it clear.” Simon considered. “The young lady’s name is Margie Hilbert. She hasn’t yet, ah, materialized, but I hope we’ll be seeing her later in the evening.”
“Ah, a touch of mystery! Excellent. I just hope the young lady doesn’t get stuck on one of our back country roads, if she’s planning a late arrival. They tend to flood, and some heavy thunderstorms have been predicted.”
Vivian’s eyes were very dark and very deep. Simon had drowned somewhere in the deepness of them, about fifteen years ago. The idea struck him as a fresh poetical discovery; that it was a cliche did not occur to him for several seconds, and even when it did occur it did not matter. The idea was too fitting, in this house of candlelight and centuries.
Vivian had taken his arm by now, and now, somehow, they were out in the torchlit hall again. “Shall we go down?” she asked him. Stringed music, on instruments that sounded as old as the walls, drifted up to greet them as arm on costumed arm they descended the broad stone stair. The past was far more than a feeling now.
As dinner began, the subject of time, in several of the word’s meanings, was much in Simon’s thoughts. He felt reasonably sure that the hour was a little after eight. But if for some reason he had wanted to make sure of this, he no longer had the means of doing so. His wrist watch was upstairs with his twentieth-century clothing. As far as he could tell, no one around him was wearing a watch either.
