He followed not. I knew that he was slain—”
At that point, I say, the first surprise comes with the servant’s announcement that Ruthven himself has followed his traveling companion from Greece and waits, whole and sound, for permission to present himself.
No stage directions or other visualization; but immediate dialog defines the title role as courtly and sinister, fascinating and forbidding. Left alone with the maidservant, Bridget, he makes unashamed and highly successful advances. When he lifts the cap from her head and lets her hair fall down, it reminds one that Byron himself had thus ordered it among the maids on his own estate. Byron had made love to them, too; perhaps some of Ruthven’s speeches in this passage, at least, came wholemeal from those youthful conquests.
Yet the seduction is not a gay one, and smacks of bird and snake. When Ruthven says to Bridget,
“You move and live but at my will; dost hear?”
and she answers dully:
“I hear and do submit,”
awareness rises of a darkling and menacing power. Again, as Aubrey mentions the fight with the bandits, Ruthven dismisses the subject with the careless,
“I faced them, and who seeks my face seeks death,”
one feels that he fears and spares an enemy no more than a fly. And, suddenly, he turned his attentions to Malvina:
“Yes, I am evil, and my wickedness
Draws to your glister and your purity.
Now shall you light no darkness but mine own,
An orient pearl swathed in a midnight pall—”
Oscar, husband of the betrayed Bridget, rushes in at this point to denounce Ruthven and draw away his bemused mistress. At a touch from the visitor’s finger, Oscar falls dead. Aubrey, arming himself with a club of whitethorn—a sovereign weapon against demons—strikes Ruthven down. Dying, the enchanter persuades Aubrey and Malvina to drag him into the open and so leave him. As the moon rises upon his body, he moves and stands up:
“Luna, my mother, fountain of my life,
Once more thy rays restore me with their kiss.
Grave, I reject thy shelter! Death, stand back! …
“Curtain,” said Varduk suddenly, and smiled around at us.
“So ends our first act,” he continued in his natural voice. “No date—nor yet are we obliged to date it. For purposes of our dramatic production, however, I intend to lay it early in the past century, in the time of Lord Byron himself. Act Two,” and he picked up another section of the manuscript, “begins a century later. We shall set it in modern times. No blank verse now—Byron cleverly identifies his two epochs by offering his later dialog in natural prose. That was the newest of new tricks in his day.”
Again he read to us. The setting was the same garden, with Mary Aubrey and her cousin Swithin, descendants of the Aubrey and Malvina of the first act, alternating between light words of love and attentions to the aged crone Bridget. This survivor of a century and more croaks out the fearsome tale of Ruthven’s visit and what followed. Her grandson Oscar, Mary’s brother, announces a caller.
The newcomer explains that he has inherited the estate of Ruthven, ancient foe of the Aubreys, and that he wishes to make peace. But Bridget, left alone with him, recognizes in him her old tempter, surviving ageless and pitiless. Oscar, too, hears the secret, and is told that this is his grandfather. Bit by bit, the significance of a dead man restless after a century grows in the play and upon the servants. They swear slavishly to help him. He seeks a double and sinister goal. Swithin, image of his great-grandfather Aubrey, must die for that ancestor’s former triumph over Ruthven. Mary, the later incarnation of Malvina, excites Ruthven’s passion as did her ancestress.
Then the climax. Malvina, trapped by Ruthven, defies him, then offers herself as payment for Swithin’s life. Swithin, refusing the sacrifice, thrusts Ruthven through with a sword, but to no avail. Oscar overpowers him, and the demoniac lord pronounces the beginning of a terrible curse; but Mary steps forward as if to accept her lover’s punishment. Ruthven revokes his words, blesses her. As the Almighty’s name issues from his lips, he falls dead and decaying.
“End of the play,” said Varduk. “I daresay you have surmised what roles I plan for you. Miss Holgar and Mr. Connatt are my choices for Malvina and Aubrey in the first act, and Mary and Swithin in the second. Miss Vining will create the role of Bridget, and Davidson will undertake the two Oscars.”
“And Ruthven?” I prompted, feeling unaccountably presumptuous in speaking uninvited.
Varduk smiled and lowered his fringed lids. “The part is not too difficult,” he murmured. “Ruthven is off stage more than on, an influence rather than a flesh-and-blood character. I shall honor myself with this title role.”
Switz, sitting near me, produced a watch. We had been listening to the play for full two hours and a half.
Again a knock sounded at the door. Davidson started to rise, but Varduk’s slender hand waved him down.
“That will be Judge Pursuivant. I shall admit him myself. Keep your seats all.”
He got up and crossed the floor, walking stiffly as though he wore tight boots. I observed with interest that in profile his nose seemed finer and sharper, and that his ears had no lobes.
“Come in, Judge Pursuivant,” he said cordially at the door. “Come in, sir.”
III
Enter Judge Pursuivant
Keith Hilary Pursuivant, the occultist and antiquary, was as arresting as Varduk himself, though never were two men more different in appearance and manner. Our first impression was of a huge tweed-clad body, a pink face with a heavy tawny mustache, twinkling pale eyes and a shock of golden-brown hair. Under one arm he half crushed a wide black hat, while the other hand trailed a heavy stick of mottled Malacca, banded with silver. There was about him the same atmosphere of mature sturdiness as invests Edward Arnold and Victor McLaglen, and withal a friendly gayety. Without being elegant or
