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.
Saul took his place at the head of a great wooden table, a piece of furniture that Simon could believe was really centuries old. Eleven places were set, with earthenware dishes of a simple, handpainted design. The comparatively modern silver was anachronistic but not jarring. Saul sat alone at the head; the place to his right was empty, and Vivian sat to the right of that, with Simon next, between her and Emily Wallis. Round the corner from Mrs. Wallis at the table’s foot was fat Arnaud. There was a second empty setting at Arnaud’s right.
At Saul’s left sat Sylvia, wearing a low-cut Renaissance bodice, about the kind of thing that Simon had expected Vivian to wear. Jim Wallis was at Sylvia’s left, and at his left was Hildy. Seated next to Hildy was the one remaining guest that Simon had not yet met, a coffee-colored, youngish man introduced only as Mr. Reagan. “No relation, man,” he said, grinning, as they shook hands. Simon grinned back somewhat uncertainly. Reagan was dressed up as a cowled monk, and when he sat down with a swirl of robe and beads, Simon got the impression that something was wrong about the oversized crucifix hanging at the end of the belted rosary. Getting another look a little later he saw that the cross was fastened on upside down. An attempt at a joke, maybe, or possibly just an accident. Anyway Simon felt odder things about Reagan than just that. And about Arnaud too if he stopped to try feeling for them.
Enough of that. He was supposed to use the atmosphere to support the act, not be overcome by it himself.
“I’m expecting one more guest, a very important one,” Vivian told Simon quietly, as conversation got under way. “Besides your young lady, I mean. I’m not sure if my friend will be able to make it or not.” And her gaze turned for a moment to the empty setting and chair at her own left, between her and Saul. The quick turn was the closest thing to an involuntary movement that Simon had ever seen Vivian make, today or any other time, and it conveyed to him forcefully the idea of the guest’s great importance.
“Then I hope he does make it. Or she,” said Simon, wondering. Then he was suddenly sure, without quite knowing why, that the expected one was a man. He now observed belatedly that there were on Vivian’s hands no rings that might indicate marriage or engagement. So far at the party she’d had no obvious companion except himself. He supposed she was between lovers and/or husbands at the moment. That she might really be without some male attachment for any length of time had not really occurred to Simon as a possibility, though so far he had not the least evidence that any such attachment existed.
He added: “Will your important guest be here before I start the show? I mean, do you want me to wait for him, or—”
“Oh no.” Vivian was quite positive, and for some reason lightly amused at the thought. “No, you must assume that your audience is now complete.”
“Okay,” said Simon, and turned to answer Emily Wallis, who had just spoken to him from his other side. Old Emily looked a little lost, he thought; she probably hadn’t found much in common with Arnaud, who sat at her right hand.
And where, mused Simon in the next interval without chat, where is the promised show business connection? Not that he had all that much hope for it, but he was curious. Could Reagan, if that was really the man’s name, be in the business, some kind of an oddball performer? The more Simon thought about that name, the more he became convinced that it was false, only an evening’s joke. What about Arnaud?
He looked more closely at the fat man, who, garbed elaborately enough to be a king, sat at the foot of the table beside the empty place reserved for Margie. Margie would be glad that dinner was over when she popped out. Arnaud’s costume covered his neck where it was presumably still bandaged; he looked steadier and stronger now than he had a little while ago. His face was still somehow as familiar as it had seemed when Simon first saw it at poolside.