Again Wanda was at the fireplace. Again the doorbell rang. Again Leonard rushed into the room crying: The count’s room—quickly!
Even without costume and make-up he seemed another man on stage—taller and more robust as he strode to the alcove and threw the doors open.
Pauline gasped and caught Basil’s hand. Russell was lying on the couch exactly as Vladimir had lain, head turned to the audience, one arm dangling. It was as if time had been turned backward. Leonard opened his mouth and closed it as if he could not remember his next line. No one else moved or spoke. Then Russell shifted the position of his head. Someone laughed. It sounded like Adeane’s laugh.
“Steady!” Milhau used his top-sergeant voice again. “Russell!”
“Yes, Mr. Milhau?” The “corpse” sat up on the couch with a grin. Basil could almost hear the tension relaxing all around him.
“Be careful not to move at all after the doors are opened. Get into as comfortable a position as you can, and then keep perfectly still. I know it isn’t easy; but it can be done, and you’re supposed to be in a coma.”
“Yes, sir.”
“O.K.” said Milhau. “We’ll start at the beginning again.”
Pauline dropped Basil’s hand with a sigh. “That’s the first time I ever saw Leonard blow up in his lines.”
Wanda, Leonard, and Hutchins left the stage. The corpse rose and closed the alcove doors. The servants sat around the domino table again.
“Shoot!” said Milhau.
Four!
Six!
Is the master away?
The count’s room—quickly!
Every word, tone, shade of meaning was repeated with mechanical perfection as if they were seeing a movie twice over. This time when the double doors were thrown back there was no longer the same feeling of horror. They had been through that scene once this morning and nothing had happened. The evil spell was broken. Already the memory of the other evening was beginning to fade, to be replaced by other memories. Psychologically this repetition of Fedora was the best thing that Milhau could possibly have done for the actors in his company.
Russell lay still as a log. Rod, in tweed jacket and flannel trousers, was even more inadequate than ever as Dr. Lorek. An accident?
Attempted murder.
Rod moved into the alcove and opened his bag. This time there was no flash of steel. He stood between Vladimir and the audience, so no one could see what he was doing.
Fedora was sobbing. I pray you, as I pray God—save his life! Suddenly Fedora turned her back on Lorek and walked down to the footlights. She was Wanda Morley now and she spoke in an angry voice without a hint of sobbing: “What are you doing here?”
Her gaze went beyond the row of seats where Basil and Pauline was sitting. They turned and saw Margot Ingelow calmly ensconced in the seat behind them. She looked remarkably cool and fresh in a white linen dress printed with large, splashy black poppies. She wore a small white hat, and her head was tilted slightly to one side, a smile curving her lips.
“What are you doing here?” repeated Wanda.
“Enjoying myself.”
“I will not go on with this rehearsal as long as that woman is in the theater!” cried Wanda.
Milhau came up the aisle and spoke in a low voice to Margot. “You shouldn’t have come; but as long as you did, you’ll have to make your peace with her somehow.”
“Isn’t it she who should make peace with me?” retorted Margot. “I didn’t throw a glass of liqueur in her face!”
Milhau stood still for a moment, his eyes narrow and calculating. Then he said: “The only thing to do now is to tell her you’re backing the revival.”
“But you said she’d never stand for that!”
“She’ll have to. This is the only way to rehabilitate her career, and she needs the money.”
“Wanda Morley needs money!” Margot laughed. “I thought she was the actress who always wanted to lead a simple life in the suburbs. This is her opportunity!”
“You’ll have to talk to her—nicely. Or else give up the whole thing.”
“I’m never ‘nice,’” returned Margot.
But she followed him down the aisle to the footlights where Wanda was standing. Wanda leaned down to speak to them, her face ugly with anger. Soon that look gave way to surprise. Evidently it had not occurred to her that Margot was backing the revival of Fedora. Milhau did most of the talking, waving his hands eloquently. Margot was silent and smiling. Finally with a shrug Wanda yielded. Basil decided she did need money pretty badly or she would never have accepted Margot’s backing.
Magpie returned to her seat, and this time Milhau let the company go on from the point where they had been interrupted. But Wanda’s acting had lost fire and conviction. Evidently Margot’s presence troubled her.
With ambassadorial unction, Hutchins delivered the line Basil was waiting for: He cannot escape now, every hand is against him. Basil glanced swiftly at his watch again and noted the time. Leonard left the stage to search for Vladimir’s murderer. Rod announced Vladimir’s death solemnly. . . . Madame, it is the end. . . .
Leonard re-entered through the door at left: Gone!
Wanda ran to the alcove. Vladimir! Speak! She threw herself across Russell’s body, cradling his head in her arms as she had cradled Ingelow’s. Don’t you know me? Speak! Ah! She sank to the floor. It was the end of the first act.
But Vladimir lay still.
On stage every face was strained and rigid. Wanda rose. A topaz ring winked golden as she put out one slim hand cautiously and touched Russell’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“Sure.” He sat up grinning. “Is that the end of the act? Nobody told me!”
Everyone began to talk and laugh a little too loudly. Milhau interrupted. “Second act, please.”
The second act set was brought down from the flies to stage level, and the second act began.
Basil paid little attention to the second and third acts of Fedora. He was lost in calculating the timing of the first act. He had to allow for the minutes lost by each interruption during the rehearsal and its slightly more rapid tempo. But at last he had worked it out. On the opening night the Siriex line—He cannot escape now,—must have occurred at the very moment Hutchins had surmised—twenty-four minutes after the curtain rose, that is at 9:04 if the curtain rose at 8:40. The estimates Rod had made of the exits and entrances in his original time table appeared to be equally accurate, if you assumed that the rehearsal was a shade too fast.
When Basil put down his pencil the third act was drawing to a close. This scene represented the garden of Fedora’s villa in the Bernese Oberland. There was a backdrop of Bernese alps. In the middle distance there was a glimpse of the village of Thun beside a small lake. Then came a gateway and in the foreground a terrace with a profusion of flowers. Stage sunshine brooded over the scene for it was supposed to be an afternoon in May.
Rodney Tait’s portrayal of Loris Ipanov in this scene was just as wooden as his portrayal of Dr. Lorek in the first act; but at least he was young and tall and well proportioned, and all those qualities suited the part. Wanda’s black dress looked absurd against the country background, but her acting had regained some of its authority and enthusiasm. It was she who was supposed to die at the end of this scene and she was putting a great deal of feeling into her last moments. It’s getting dark . . . Everything is fading. . . . But, Loris. I’m not sorry to die. Life and love are unjust . . .