The Lady is Dead. Patrick Laing
minutes before the time the rehearsal had been scheduled to begin. Most of the audience were students, both male and female, but there was also a smattering of faculty members who spoke to us as we came in.
“What’s the play to be, Paddy?” Deirdre inquired as we found seats midway down the center aisle. “I haven’t even heard.”
“Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus,” I replied. “Mark is playing the title role.”
“Dr. Faustus,” she repeated pensively. “I hope the hell-fire will all be confined to the stage.”
We had been seated only a few minutes when Lee Laurence came prancing up to us. “Hello, you two!” she greeted us gaily. “Mark said this morning he was inviting you, or I’d have asked you myself.”
“I didn’t know you had a part in the play, Lee,” Deirdre said. “Should I tell you your costume looks very well, or would that be the wrong thing to say under the circumstances?”
“Just so you don’t make any remarks about type casting,” the girl answered with a light laugh, then explained for my benefit, “I’m one of the devils. How do you like my horns, Patrick?” She bent toward us.
I passed the tips of my fingers over the soft fluff of her bangs, where two tiny devil’s horns nestled.
“Very becoming,” I assured her. “You should try wearing them to class some day.”
She giggled and, saying something about the rehearsal’s being about ready to start, dashed off again.
“Lee seems unusually gay tonight,” I observed to Deirdre. “Have she and Mark had a reconciliation?”
“Not that I know of,” she replied doubtfully. “I’m afraid it’s just an act she’s putting on for his benefit. He’s standing over by the door that leads backstage—talking to a woman.”
“The woman?”
“I imagine so.” Deirdre paused a moment, then added, “And, Paddy, I’m afraid Lee’s description of her was pretty close to the truth. She is a little—well, flamboyant in appearance, and she must be close to her middle thirties, although she’s made up to look much younger.”
Just then Barto came out upon the stage to make a brief curtain speech, and we were obliged to fall silent.
He spoke for barely a minute; then the play began. The speech of the Greek chorus which Christopher Marlowe had written for the opening had been omitted, so that the play started with Dr. Faustus alone in his study. Mark delivered his lines well, better than many professionals I had heard. The shy, immature schoolboy I had known seemed to have vanished, transformed into the elderly medieval scholar philosophizing upon the nature and purpose of his scholarship as he contemplated the forbidden necromantic lore. By the time the first scene had ended and he had made his exit amid a burst of enthusiastic applause from his audience, I found myself agreeing with Barto that the stage was the boy’s natural heritage, and that to deny it to him would be a sin indeed.
“He’s good!” Deirdre whispered to me under cover of the applause. “Even his gestures are the gestures of an old man! I wish his father were here to see him, Paddy. It might make him change his mind about allowing him to go on the stage professionally.”
However, I doubted that. Remembering Eric Fordyce’s impassioned outburst that evening when I had suggested the possibility of Mark’s pursuing a theatrical career, I was convinced that talent or the lack of it had very little to do with the doctor’s attitude in the matter.
The play progressed on a more or less even keel—most of the supporting players were woefully lacking in Mark’s natural ability—up to the conjuring scene wherein Dr. Faustus, yielding to the temptation of the forbidden arts, has resolved to “try the uttermost magic can perform.” Mark had repeated the long Latin incantation, and there came the burst of stage thunder heralding the first appearance of Mephistopheles. And then, before its echo had entirely died away, a voice spoke from the rear of the auditorium.
“Stop!” it commanded hoarsely. “Stop this play at once!”
There was a startled gasp from the audience and the rustle of people turning in their seats to discover who had caused the disturbance. Two or three co-eds giggled nervously, then fell abruptly silent.
Deirdre had turned with the others. “Merciful Heaven!” she gasped, clutching my arm. “Paddy, it’s Dr. Fordyce! He looks angry enough to kill Mark!”
Eric Fordyce strode down the aisle, his footsteps echoing hollowly through the now otherwise silent theater. At sight of his father, Mark must have been stricken speechless, for he had made no effort to go on with his lines.
The dreadful silence continued until Dr. Fordyce must have been within a few rows of the front of the auditorium. Then a voice spoke from the stage.
“What is the meaning of this interruption?” it demanded. It belonged to Antonio Barto.
Eric Fordyce ignored him and addressed his son. “Take off that ridiculous get-up and put on your own clothes, Mark,” he commanded with deadly calm. “You’re coming with me.”
“He shall not!” Barto denied, and now it was he who thundered. “Marco, remain where you are.”
“Did you hear me, Mark?” Fordyce’s voice had become as a blade of cold, tempered steel. “Do as I say.”
There was another of those heart-breaking, leaden silences; then Mark Fordyce spoke.
“Very well, Dad,” he said slowly and distinctly, so that everyone in the auditorium heard his words, “I’ll do as you say—for the last time. But I warn you, I’ll make you regret this if it’s the last thing I ever do.”
CHAPTER IV
Deirdre and I walked home from the little theater building in sober silence. When we were almost there, she spoke for the first time since we had left the auditorium.
“Dr. Fordyce shouldn’t have done that,” she said.
“No,” I agreed, “it was the wrong move to make. Regardless of how much he disapproved of Mark’s taking part in the play, he should never have humiliated the boy in public.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Deirdre explained. “I was thinking of Professor Barto. When he saw that Mark was going to obey his father, his expression became terrible—almost murderous.”
“That’s the second man you’ve described tonight as having murder in his eye,” I reminded her lightly.
“I know,” she admitted. “But this time I mean it literally. It was as if some intense, burning hatred that he’d kept buried deep inside of him for a long time had suddenly broken through to the surface. Paddy, do you mind if we take a turn or two around the block before going into the house? I feel as if I need to walk to get the memory of him out of my mind.”
For perhaps ten or fifteen minutes more, we continued to walk through the quiet night before turning in at our own walk. As we were mounting the steps of the porch, there came to us the sound of muffled sobbing. It seemed to originate in the direction of the swing.
“What in the world—?” Deirdre began wonderingly. “Why, it’s Lee!” She released my arm and ran forward. “What’s the matter, honey?”
Lee choked on a final sob. “Derry, it’s all my fault!” she gulped. “I had to talk to somebody about it, so I came here and waited for you and Pat to come home.”
“What’s all your fault?” Deirdre asked, uncomprehending. “Lee, what are you talking about?”
“What happened back there at the theater.” The sobs threatened to set in again. “I was the one who told Dr. Fordyce about Mark’s being in the play!”
Deirdre led her into the house. “Sit here in this big chair and tell me all about it,” she directed