I expressed the desire to study Byron’s life and writings, and Pursuivant opened his suitcase on the spot to lend me Drinkwater’s and Maurois’ biographies, a copy of the collected poems, and his own work, A Defense of the Wickedest Poet.
We ate lunch together in the dining-car, Pursuivant pondering his choice from the menu as once he must have pondered his decision in a case at court. When he made his selection, he devoured it with the same gusto I had observed before. “Food may be a necessity,” quoth he between bites, “but the enjoyment of it is a blessing.”
“You have other enjoyments,” I reminded him. “Study, fencing—”
That brought on a discussion of the sword as weapon and symbol. My own swordsmanship is no better or worse than that of most actors, and Pursuivant was frank in condemning most stage fencers.
“I dislike to see a clumsy lout posturing through the duel scenes of Cyrano de Bergerac or Hamlet,” he growled. “No offense, Mr. Connatt. I confess that you, in your motion-picture interpretation of the role of Don Caesar de Bazan, achieved some very convincing cut-and-thrust. From what I saw, you have an understanding of the sport. Perhaps you and I can have a bout or so between your rehearsals.”
I said that I would be honored, and then we had to collect our luggage and change trains. An hour or more passed on the new road before we reached our junction.
Jake Switz was there as he had promised to be, at the wheel of a sturdy repainted car. He greeted us with a triumphant story of his astuteness in helping Elmo Davidson to bargain for the vehicle, broke off to invite Pursuivant to ride with us to his cabin, and then launched into a hymn of praise for Sigrid’s early rehearsals of her role.
“Nobody in America seems to think she ever made anything but movies,” he pointed out. “At home in Sweden, though, she did deep stuff—Ibsen and them guys—and her only a kid then. You wait, Gib, she’ll knock from the theater public their eyes out with her class.”
The road from the junction was deep-set between hills, and darkly hedged with high trees. “This makes the theater hard to get at,” Jake pointed out as he drove. “People will have to make a regular pilgrimage to see Holgar play in Ruthven, and they’ll like it twice as well because of all the trouble they took.”
Pursuivant left us at the head of a little path, with a small structure of logs showing through the trees beyond. We waved goodbye to him, and Jake trod on his starter once more. As we rolled away, he glanced sidewise at me. His crossed eyes behind their thick lenses had grown suddenly serious.
“Only one night Sigrid and I been here, Gib,” he said, somewhat darkly, “and I don’t like it.”
“Don’t tell me you’re haunted,” I rallied him, laughing. “That’s good press-agentry for a horror play, but I’m one of the actors. I won’t be buying tickets.”
He did not laugh in return.
“I won’t say haunted, Gib. That means ordinary ghosts, and whatever is here at the theater is worse than ghosts. Listen what happened.”
V
Jake’s Story
Sigrid, with Jake in attendance as usual, had left New York on the morning after Varduk’s reading of Ruthven. They had driven in the car Jake had helped Davidson to buy, and thus they avoided the usual throngs of Sigrid’s souvenir-demanding public, which would have complicated their departure by train. At Dillard Falls Junction, Varduk himself awaited them, having come up on a night train. Jake took time to mail me a ticket and money, then they drove the long, shadowy way to the theater.
Lake Jozgid, as most rural New Yorkers know, is set rather low among wooded hills and bluffs. The unevenness of the country and the poverty of the soil have discouraged cultivation, so that farms and villages are few. As the party drove, Varduk suggested an advantage in this remoteness, which suggestion Jake later passed on to Judge Pursuivant and me; where a less brilliant or more accessible star might be ignored in such far quarters, Sigrid would find Lake Jozgid to her advantage. The world would beat a path to her box office, and treasure a glimpse of her the more because that glimpse had been difficult of attainment.
The theater building itself had been a great two-story lodge, made of heavy logs and hand-hewn planks. Some sporting-club, now defunct, had owned it, then abandoned it when fish grew scarce in the lake. Varduk had leased it cheaply, knocked out all partitions on the ground floor, and set up a stage, a lobby and pew-like benches. The upper rooms would serve as lodgings for himself and his associate Davidson, while small outbuildings had been fitted up to accommodate the rest of us.
Around this group of structures clung a thick mass of timber. Sigrid, who had spent her girlhood among Sweden’s forests, pointed out that it was mostly virgin and inquired why a lumber company had never cut logs here. Varduk replied that the property had been private for many years, then changed the subject by the welcome suggestion that they have dinner. They had brought a supply of provisions, and Jake, who is something of a cook in addition to his many other professions, prepared a meal. Both Sigrid and Jake ate heartily, but Varduk seemed only to take occasional morsels for politeness’ sake.
In the evening, a full moon began to rise across the lake. Sitting together in Varduk’s upstairs parlor, the three saw the great soaring disk of pale light, and Sigrid cried out joyfully that she wanted to go out and see better.
“Take a lantern if you go out
