Mask of Silver

by Rosemary Jones

  Sydney shook his head and waved his arms in a way that he probably thought looked theatrical or authoritative. It always reminded me of a duck flapping its wings. He quacked a bit, too.

  “Places, places, again. Fred,” he shouted, “get ready.”

  Max grabbed the slate and chalk, scribbling the scene number and that it was the second take, and then held it in front of the camera.

  “Action,” yelled Sydney. Max whipped the slate away. Fred kept rolling, his hands as steady as clockwork on the handle of 242. No matter how flustered everyone else got, Fred always made the cranking of the camera look easy. I never once saw him miss a beat.

  Renee altered her course, heading toward the portrait of the hussar, with Lulu trailing along behind her, and Sydney running parallel across the room, careful to stay out of camera range. “That’s it. Go toward the portrait. Stretch out your hand. You feel as if he is about to speak, to impart great secrets if only you have the wisdom to hear his painted words.”

  Virginia, still looking a bit bewildered, whispered to me, “Do I start playing again?”

  “You might as well,” I said, although it was obvious that Sydney had forgotten all about the music teacher trying to accompany our film.

  “Twelve cents a foot,” muttered Max as he walked behind us. “How many takes today?”

  “As many as it takes?” I said. Max winced at the almost pun.

  Renee reached the portrait. She stretched up her hand. Darrell had packed away his notebook and was just watching her. It appeared that he was holding his breath. Renee’s fingers lightly brushed the frame. She gave a quick little cry of pain, as if shocked by the touch.

  At her cry, I started forward, almost committing the sin of getting into frame and ruining the shot. I felt a brief burst of fury, convinced Sydney was indeed playing tricks on us for a reaction. I don’t know how he did the frogs and mouse feet, but he could have hidden a pin or something sharp on the frame to prick a reaction out of Renee. Directors did things like that. One even shot off a real gun on his set just to see the actors react. “How could he,” I muttered, even though I’d never known Sydney to play such tricks on Renee before.

  Unaware of the camera, Darrell yelled and lunged toward Renee, knocking my sister to the floor. After a brief, startled moment, we all started shouting as the portrait flew away from the wall. This time I ran toward Renee, no longer caring about the shot. The portrait of Saturnin Fitzmaurice crashed to the ground, crushing Darrell’s leg under its heavy metal frame.

  Lulu began to scream in earnest.

  Chapter Nine

  The doctor pronounced Darrell fit enough to go home. The leg was bruised but not broken, but she advised staying off it for a day or so.

  “You’ve twisted that knee pretty badly,” said Doctor Wills. A blunt-faced woman with a mop of frizzy hair twisted back into a bun secured by a pencil, she snapped her bag closed authoritatively. “However, you’ll do.”

  “As long as my camera isn’t broken,” said Darrell, who had been more concerned about that than his leg.

  We’d called the operator and she’d called Doctor Wills to the house for us. By the time the doctor arrived, Fred had Darrell settled on a couch in the parlor. A closer examination of the portrait showed no damage to the wire or the nail from which it hung. Nobody could explain how it fell on the young reporter. And no one admitted to moving it from one end of the room to the other. As for that moment when it appeared to fly through the air, well, none of us mentioned that either to the doctor or discussed it among ourselves. Darrell only said that he’d seen the picture move toward Renee when he’d jumped to intercept it.

  I dragged Fred to the other room while the doctor examined Darrell and quizzed him about Sydney’s instructions. He claimed, and I believed him, that Sydney never said anything about changing the scene. Which left me stumped. Why would Sydney play an elaborate hoax, especially one that might have endangered Renee, if it wasn’t for a filmed reaction? For the first time, I considered if someone else had sabotaged the scene, perhaps to remove Renee altogether. I didn’t want to believe that of Lulu or Eleanor. But nobody else would gain from Renee breaking an arm or leg, or even her head, when that portrait fell.

  When Doctor Wills asked about the accident, Sydney came forward. He told her that a prop had fallen off the wall and struck a blow to Darrell’s leg.

  “I’m glad to see that you are still in practice,” said Sydney, shaking her hand as she collected her things.

  “Not many towns tolerate a woman doctor,” she said with a shrug. “Of course, Arkham couldn’t afford to be choosy after the typhoid epidemic of ‘05. They had trouble enough staffing the hospital. It’s a decent practice now we’ve added that youngster McPherson to help out Simmons and me.”

  “Dr Simmons is making rounds too?” said Sydney. “I remember him calling on my grandfather.”

  “The old goat’s over eighty,” said Doctor Wills, “and he keeps trying to retire. But you know Arkham, never enough doctors. It’s steady work. I’ll send you my bill in the morning.”

  Max told her to address her bill to him in care of the Fitzmaurice house. “The studio will pay for any medical costs,” he told Darrell.

  “Won’t be much,” said Doctor Wills. “He’ll heal quick enough. Come along, Darrell, and I’ll give you a lift home. I’ve another patient out your way.”

  “I will be fine,” Darrell said, waving away Renee’s expressions of concern as he tried to slide off the couch. “It’s been a real honor to meet you, Miss Love. And you, too, Mister Fitzmaurice. Your pictures are terrific. The way that your films show things that… that, well, I didn’t know other people saw.”

  Fred and Max helped the limping Darrell into the doctor’s battered Model T. The car belched a bit of smoke out of its exhaust pipe as it rounded the gate and took to the main road.

  “Well, that’s been exciting,” said Sydney with a bit of a sarcastic laugh. “Now, shall we begin again? I’d like to get this scene done before it gets dark.”

  “Sydney,” protested Lulu. “You can’t ask us to go back into that room.”

  Sydney turned and gave her a patient look. “Of course I mean to finish this scene. The sisters must encounter their ancestors prior to discovering the mask.”

  At the mention of the mask, I heaved a sigh of relief that I’d found something suitable in the attic. All I had to do was make the lighter paper version to mimic it for Fred’s trick shots.

  “Yes, about this mask,” said Eleanor. “What exactly is it meant to signify? Why do the sisters even want it?”

  “Without the mask, the transformation cannot be complete,” said Sydney. “It’s all there in the script.”

  “And about that manuscript,” said Eleanor, “it would be helpful if you simply gave it to me. I could write all the scenarios.”

  Sydney waved her off. “First, let us finish this scene. Fred, where’s Fred?”

  “Here,” said Fred, who had been hanging the portrait of Sydney’s ancestor in the correct location for filming. “Are we starting from the top?”

  “I think we must,” said Sydney. “So many interruptions. Where is that violinist?”

  Virginia stepped away from Sydney as he swung toward her. “I am sorry, Mr Fitzmaurice, but I must be going. I have a music lesson across town. Yes, that’s it. A music lesson. One of my best pupils. I cannot be late.” Despite her interest earlier, she now looked slightly desperate to be away. She kept edging toward the door as she talked.

  “What’s this? You are leaving? Surely we’d agreed that you’d stay until the scene was done.” Sydney motioned to Max. “Max, Max, pay this woman something extra so she can skip her music lesson.”

  Max tried not to look horrified at Sydney’s suggestion.

  “No,” said Virginia, waving off Max. “I must be going. I probably shouldn’t have come. I was just
so curious to see how a movie was made. And that’s all been very interesting. But this house! Darrell’s accident! When I was playing, it felt terrible. I really cannot stay.” She continued backing toward the door as she spoke. “Oh dear, I thought all those things in your movies were just imagination. I didn’t think a Fitzmaurice picture was truly scary.”

  Sydney looked a bit bemused by her statements. “Thank you,” he started to say, but she didn’t stop. Virginia hurried out the door, clutching her violin case under her arm as if one of us would snatch it away from her. I almost wished that I could have gone with her. I too had no real desire to reenter the room or watch the “ghosts” come to life.

  Renee tapped Sydney on the shoulder. “I didn’t like having music. It’s a distraction. Let’s finish this scene. We can always use the Victrola if you want more music later.”

  With a huge sigh, Sydney walked back into the other room. “No one understands me. No one appreciates me. Except you, my wonderful muse. You understand what must be done.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Renee. “Let’s just get through this scene. I don’t like this room.”

  The room felt clammy and cold, as if it was the middle of winter instead of a pleasant June day. Outside, the crows set up their insistent cawing. Inside, our crew twittered at each other as we took our places. I helped powder Betsy and Pola, improving their ghostly pallor. Betsy stepped back behind the empty frame so Fred could film her full face and then, after a long pause, in profile. She kept the turning of her head smooth. Although I knew it was Betsy simply standing behind an empty frame with the center filled with gauze, the effect was uncanny. As if a ghost had peered through the frame and watched with deadly gaze as the two sisters walked across the room.

  This time Renee walked right up to the portrait of Saturnin Fitzmaurice. She held herself still for one beat, two beats, and then stretched a trembling hand up to the canvas. Then, at Sydney’s yelled instruction, she dropped her hand sharply and stepped back into the arms of Lulu. The pair stood still, leaning a little against each other as sisters will at the end of a long day of sorrow, when the only thing that keeps them upright is each other.

  Sydney yelled “Cut!” Renee stepped out of the pose.

  Lulu turned to Sydney and said, “Now what?”

  “We begin preparation for our next scene,” said Sydney. “The discovery of the tramp in the woods. Then the nightmare of death. And finally the discovery of the mask.” Eleanor looked intrigued by this recital and grabbed a piece of paper off one of the tables to jot down notes.

  “Can’t,” said Fred, carefully packing up the camera, as I wondered how to tell Sydney that the mask was not ready yet. That I hadn’t started the paper mask. “No more filming today.”

  “Why can’t we film in the woods this afternoon?” said Sydney.

  “Because we’re short on film and the light’s going,” said Fred. “I need to go down to the station and pick up some new reels. Studio’s last telegram said it would be arriving on the next train from New York.”

  “Twelve cents a foot,” muttered Max.

  “Then I shall go wash off this makeup,” said Lulu, “and take a gloriously hot bath. Eleanor, can you take Pumpkin out for a short run? Poor darling has been waiting for me all day.”

  Eleanor glanced at the pug snoring in the corner of the room. “I doubt that dog knows the meaning of the word run, but I’ll boot it onto the grass for a bit.”

  “Eleanor,” fussed Lulu. “You’re always so mean to poor Pumpkin.”

  “I’m a saint around that dog,” said Eleanor. “Especially after it ate my best pair of gloves.”

  “That was not Pumpkin’s fault.”

  “Oh, God, must I listen to the sins of a dog,” moaned Sydney. “I am trying to make art.”

  “Such a lot of bother about a flicker,” said Lulu.

  At that fateful word, we all turned to look at Sydney. “Films are not just…” began Fred under his breath.

  Sydney went for it with his full director’s voice. “Films are not just cheap flickers, meant for a moment of quick entertainment! Movies have the power to rebuild the Tower of Babel and create a universal language. With the right picture, I can unite all the people of the world. They will see our work and understand the power that links us all. There will be no war, because we will speak the same language. We will all understand each other’s deepest dreams and greatest aspirations. We will be united in our efforts to build the perfect civilization.”

  Lulu started to open her mouth, but Betsy, who was closest to her, trod heavily on Lulu’s foot. At her squeak of annoyance, or possibly pain, Betsy whispered: “Hush. It’s one of his best speeches.”

  It was, too. Sydney presented a dream of a world. A dream that began in a quiet movie house, with an audience waiting breathlessly for the first note of the organ and the first moment of light as the film began.

  “I felt it once,” said Sydney, “in the crudest of nickelodeons. I was broke, despairing, ruined in all the ways that a man could be ruined. I paid my nickel and wandered in to escape the rain. And there they were. All manner of people. Dock workers still stinking of their labor, washerwomen with hands so chapped and scalded that they bled onto their aprons, and the street’s children who spoke no English. Waiting together for a film to begin. The piano was out of tune, the player atrocious. It didn’t matter. We all came together in the darkness. Those who could read recited the cards to their neighbors; those who spoke English translated the lines to the friends that surrounded them. But that was not necessary. Speech itself was silenced into a more universal connection. The film itself, the images that glowed upon the wall in shadows of silver and black, that we all understood. We all laughed together. We all cried out with the same terror. We all wept as one. And when we stumbled out onto the street, we fell apart, each going back to their own sorrows and joys. But still we were connected. For we still held within ourselves that precious moment when we experienced each emotion as one entity, one soul. That is what a movie can do that no other art can. That is what we are creating here.”

  There was a moment of silence, then Betsy began to clap, and the others picked it up. For we did believe, we always believed that what we were making was a little different from all the other films being churned out by the score. Sydney was right. There were moments in his films that were unforgettable. Once experienced, a scene or a gesture would stay with you forever. Years later, people would talk about movies, about the thrills or the scares, and they would always conclude, “But it wasn’t like a Fitzmaurice terror picture. That stuck with you.”

  We all knew that. And we all stayed with Sydney because what he made was beautiful. And lasting. And we all, at that moment, wanted to be a part of what came next.

  “The key,” Sydney insisted to Lulu, who now looked as entranced as the rest of us, “is the right piece. I’ve been searching for that perfect movie, the one that will never be forgotten. The one that will be shown around the globe and open doors to worlds that we have never imagined. That piece is this picture. And the key to this picture will be the final sequence, when a beauty is transformed.”

  “I’m still uncertain how you expect that scene to go,” said Eleanor.

  “You will see,” said Sydney. “We will create a perfect construction of terror. We will cause the audience to search their hearts. To pray for relief. And then, then they will be swept up into the shadow. The masked beauty will become them, and, like her, they will be transformed. Transfigured. Transported elsewhere and then brought back to earth again. United as minds have never been united before.”

  “Yes, but–” Eleanor said.

  Sydney kept talking without pause. “The mask ripped aside to reveal the cosmos. The perfect mask for the moment,” he said, swinging around to point at me. “Jeany’s creation will set the final scene. It will be magic!”

  I felt a moment of terrible d
oubt. Would an old stage prop repainted by Humbert really work? But it was only needed for a moment or so. Of course it would work, I reassured myself.

  The others chattered with excitement about Sydney’s vision.

  “It’s better than being on stage,” Betsy said to Lulu, who looked skeptical. “No, really, how many people see you in a play?”

  “Our theater seats nearly five hundred,” said Lulu. “And Eleanor’s plays run for months.”

  “Yes,” said Betsy, “but even if a play ran for an entire year, the most people who could see you would be under two hundred thousand.” That was Betsy, ever calculating numbers in her head faster than the rest of us could write two down and carry one. I liked that about her, the way she used numbers to explain bigger ideas. That, and how she believed the best of everyone, that they could be better than they were, even after they betrayed her. Very few in Hollywood, or anywhere, had Betsy’s courage when it came to forgiveness. Certainly I could never forgive Sydney’s later betrayals of our company.

  “One picture can play in thousands of theaters,” Betsy told Lulu. “There are more than twenty thousand movie houses operating in America right now. And every day they are building them bigger and bigger. Thousands of people in one theater to see you in a movie. That’s millions of people who might see you in the same week.”

  Lulu’s eyes began to gleam. She understood fame. And she’d forgotten about the frights of a few hours before. I could see that. I’d seen the same expression on Renee’s face when Sydney began talking about acclaim and riches and all the other things that came with being a star in the pictures. It kept her coming back, even when Sydney was his most impossible. And I’ll admit, I felt the same. Sitting in the audience and listening to them scream during a Fitzmaurice picture and knowing it was our work that united them in terror was an unbelievably exciting feeling.