And Now the News

by Theodore Sturgeon

  Lance deMarcopolo bought this picture, book attached, for his night table, and found himself reading the thing. It was the first real book he had read all the way through since Raggedy Andy and it entranced him.

  “Who,” he once answered a critical friend, “wants to read about people you know, anyway?”

  He found complete harmony between book and portrait. Both were open, honest, innocent, good. He was not disenchanted as he came to know her, either. He found what he looked for. Other men had found the same things, but he was the first to believe his own eyes.

  Ultimately, he asked her to marry him—just what she wanted him to ask—and he did it just the way she wanted him to, in a penthouse, on his knees, with the lamps low, and sweet music murmuring from somewhere. She said yes, and he took her home at a decent hour and removed his hat before kissing her good night. Eloise sighed as the door closed after he left, then went and banged the typewriter all night.

  They set a date and made a lot of arrangements, which required pretty close timing what with his out-of-town affairs and her lecture tour and press interviews and all. It was his charming conceit to have her begin married life with nothing she had owned before—everything new, everything custom-made.

  Eloise was charmed—with all that royalty money in the bank she could afford it. Exceptions to the regime of burnished newness were few—the manuscript and notes for her unfinished book, the ancient typewriter on which she had written everything she ever published, some heirloom jewelry.

  Then Binghamton reared its head.

  She called him, in desperation, at the last possible moment and explained. This was the one lecture she hadn’t been able to cancel or postpone. The only possible way to handle everything in time for the honeymoon plane reservations was for her to go to Binghamton now—and so, would he pick up just those one or two things at her place and get them checked somewhere safe.

  She’d leave the door on the latch and put everything where he could see it when he came in, there was a dear, dear man, what would she ever do without him? Lance soothed her and said of course he would do it, or anything else his little princess commanded, all she had to do was just give him tiny little hints, she needn’t even ask. He said they would meet at the airline terminal in the morning, and added a number of other remarks having much to do with a new life in a new world and little to do with this narrative.

  As it turned out, his agreement was impulsive and impractical. It was acutely inconvenient for him to do anything of the kind. He realized this as he set down the phone, and experienced one second of horror at his impracticality. This was followed by a towering disdain for himself—What, call yourself in love? Deny your little princess a little favor just for a little inconvenience?

  His pendulum swung violently to the other extreme. He jammed his hat on, snapped one order—“Take care of everything, Joe”—at his thunderstruck assistant, and took, not an hour, but the entire day for his princess’ small favor.

  Once he had accomplished the enormous thing, he ceased to worry or even think about it—perhaps the secret of his considerable success—and, turning his back on chaos, gave himself over to the service of his beloved.

  He found the place easily, took the elevator upstairs and went down the narrow corridor to her room. He stood there for a long moment, lost in emerald mists of reminiscence and shocking-pink clouds of anticipation, then removed his hat and turned the knob. He clicked the lock as he closed the door behind him and stood, smiling fatuously into the sweet disorder of her parting from this chrysalis.

  Much of the furniture was gone, and the pieces that were left were all tagged—for the Salvation Army, for the superintendent, for one or two persons whose names he didn’t recognize. In one corner of the room was a tumbled clutter of miscellany—a scratched tabouret, some pictures with broken frames, a four-foot model of an Eskimo kayak, a mound of books, papers and magazines, dusty curtains, drapes and slip-covers. Tacked to the north wall, strung around the tabouret and tacked again to the west wall, was a piece of twine, forming a sort of fence around this particular jetsam. Hanging from it was a piece of paper folded in half. On the paper, lettered legibly and tersely, were the words THROW OUT.

  Piled just inside the door were the things she wanted to keep, from all her past, to take into her life with him. There were the old typewriter and a mahogany case—the heirlooms. On top of the case sat a cardboard box, the kind in which one buys a ream of bond paper. It was lettered WIP, which he properly translated as WORK IN PROGRESS.

  On this lay the heavy gold-and-leather frame in which he had enshrined his picture, All my Love, Lance, and, eclipsing this, was a folded sheet of paper. He picked it up. It read, Lance, I do love you so, Ellie.

  Although it was hardly inspired copy, it stopped his heart for a giddy moment. Anyone else might read those words as just those words—he heard them in her eager half-whisper.

  He was delicately fanned by her long lashes as they swept up on do and down on so. He knew her special fragrance and even, for a moment, sensed a sort of nearness which was not heat nor odor nor sound, but just—nearness. He let his breath whistle through his nostrils and stood there, shaking his head and murmuring her name.

  He opened his eyes on the dangling sign which said, so pitilessly, THROW OUT, and for the very first time felt a small curl of regret. She had so submissively agreed to his half-playful dictum to wipe out the past, that he had never thought of what it might cost her.

  He crossed to the twine barrier and ran his gaze over the clutter behind it. He suddenly bent and took up another bond-paper box, also with WIP inscribed upon it. It was dusty and cracked, and written across one corner was Furilla’s Rose.

  Here, he thought, were the worksheets, the carbons, the notes—all the mysterious machine-filings and mold-castings from which a great novel comes—filings and castings Eloise had lived with, slaved over, hoped and dreamed upon—her second novel. Now, because of his arbitrary whim, they were tossed on a heap with a broken kayak and some dusty drapes, under a sign which commanded THROW OUT.

  His passion for her mounted the shoulders of his strange reverence for books, a reverence sometimes encountered in the non-reader, and rose towering over him. He took the box over to the stenographer’s chair pushed against the window, sat down with it on his lap, opened it, read—

  Furilla threw back the drapes and let in a rush of dawn, a very shout of ruddy gold. Then, standing before the tall pier-glass, she flung away her robe and made another daybreak, another, rosier morning in the room.

  Yes, it was the famous opening of Furilla’s Rose. How strange it looked in typescript, in grey-haloed carbon! What currents, what depths flowed and swirled in his kitten-princess!

  He leafed on.

  “Bitch!” Kane shouted hoarsely, “You—you bitch!” His red-rimmed eyes swung close as he bent over her, sitting cool and poised. “Say something, damn you! Can’t you hear me?”

  “Yes thank you,” said Furilla quietly, “I’ll have a crumpet.” She smiled up into his purple, baffled face and added, “Yes, I hear you. The last thing I heard, the last thing a lady could hear, was when you offered me a crumpet.”

  That’s my Ellie! thought Lance deMarcopolo fondly. If it was ugly, she didn’t know it was there until it went away.

  He skimmed on, through the tremendous sequence where Furilla met Maserac and went to live in his house. Maserac was an Older Man, and poor Furilla was quite sure that Older Men were safe.

  “I’m a very lonely man,” said Maserac, “and to have you in my big old house would be like having the sun shining in all the windows at once.”

  “Oh, you mustn’t be lonely! I’ll come, I’ll do everything for you.”

  He tilted her heart-shaped face up with his strong old hand and looked piercingly down into her eyes. “Ah, Furilla—do you know what … everything … might mean?”

  “Yes, oh yes!” she cried. “You never had a little daughter. I’ll be your very own dear little daughte
r!”

  Maserac’s hand fell away. “I’m ashamed,” he whispered, “so ashamed!”

  That was a close one, thought deMarcopolo admiringly. He turned the leaf over, and a blue slip fell out. He bent and picked it up. It was from a desk memo pad and was imprinted with Office of the Publisher. He didn’t mean to read it, but he couldn’t help it.

  It’ll be just like having the sun shining in all the windows at once.

  I’ll have a cab in front of your place at seven.

  Your own

  Brill.

  DeMarcopolo sat staring at the paper, holding it between thumb and forefinger, flapping it like a small blue wing. Brill … Brill? Oh! Brill MacIver! That old fool—the publisher who …

  He shook himself, or shuddered, then set the box down on the floor. He got up and took off his topcoat and draped it over the back of the chair, then sat down again. He put the box back on his lap. He didn’t skim it lightly now, though he didn’t know why. He went rapidly through the sheets.

  He got to that scene between Furilla and young Harald. Harald had come into Furilla’s life “like a great storm” and, in a famous sequence, there had been a storm—a beaut. It built and built outside, glaring and crashing, silhouetting Harald against its lightning flashes as he climbed in her window. It built and built still more as he pressed closer and closer to Furilla, until, when he reached her, the clouds rolled and the thunder banged and, at last—zing!—a mighty flash burned down the boathouse.

  Just here, a paperclip separated some pages from the main manuscript. It was the scene when, next morning, Furilla awoke, alone, bruised, strangely disturbed, and considered what she was to do.

  She rose, trembling, and ran to the mirror. A dream, a dream—surely it was a wonderful, terrible dream! But no—there in the smooth hollow between shoulder and neck, lay the mark of the beast. “Oh!” she cried, herself to her heart. “Oh wonderful, wonderful beast!”

  “Maserac!” she screamed.

  The sound of her own voice frightened her. She cast about wildly, like a frightened animal, then ran to the wardrobe and threw on the lamé hostess gown. When the old man opened the door, she stood like a pillar of gold, her hair, her eyes aflame.

  “Maserac, Maserac, he loves me!” she sang.

  And she told him, told him all of it, each syllable bringing her closer to the joy she knew he would feel for her, for her love, for the life she had begun with Harald. And, when she had finished, she ran to him, held his shoulders. “Maserac, isn’t it wonderful?”

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” he repeated, and cold shock ran through her at the knell of his voice. “Poor, poor little bird!”

  “What? Why do you say that, why?”

  “Dear little Furilla, don’t you know that true love doesn’t come like a storm? It grows like a flower, unseen, until suddenly it’s there, blooming.”

  She recoiled from him. “I—I thought you’d be glad for me, for Harald and me. I love him, love him, do you hear? And I’m glad, glad!”

  Lance deMarcopolo sat quite still, his eyes on the manuscript but not doing anything. He remembered the scene, but that was not the way it had happened in the book.

  He uttered a soft, puzzled grunt and turned the page. Under it, lay a pink flimsy with some single-spaced typescript on it. He knew that Ellie used pink second-sheets for her correspondence, white for her work. This must be the copy of a letter to somebody, and perhaps he—but before he could have any doubts about it, his quick eye had taken it in.

  Hennigar, Hennigar, Hobart Hennigar—it’s like music. Oh Hobie, Hobie, I’ve been thinking of you, missing you tho’ it’s been only an hour now, thinking about the wonderful love we have, the wonderful life we shall share. Hurry back to me, my darling. I do love you so.

  I do love you so. A numb place existed suddenly in the pit of Lance’s stomach. He did not permit himself to think. He went on to the next sheet—an original, typed with a heavy hand and a pale ribbon on a piece of business stationery with the letterhead torn off.

  Got your note. Been thinking too, especially since I got it. You can’t be serious, Ellie. Don’t tell me you fell for that guff I was handing you. I don’t know what you thought, but I thought I was kidding, talking like those knights-in-armor in your lousy novel. Charades, you know. As for what else happened, why not? Fun’s fun.

  I’m sorry if this hurts you, but I can’t get myself tangled up in anything like this right now, or ever, and it’s only right to tell you so, once and for all. I have to say it again—you can’t be serious! Or—do you really believe people do things like in your book? H.

  I shouldn’t, thought deMarcopolo in panic. This has nothing to do with … But he went on to the next one—another pink carbon.

  Brill dear, I’ll just leave this where you’ll find it when you get there, I can’t face you now. I’m going back to town. I wish I were dead. I needn’t be dead, I’ve been killed, killed! Last night, while you were in the city, Hobart Hennigar did what you tried to warn me about—now I know, now I understand, when it’s too late. I found out this afternoon.

  Brill, he talked to me the way I’ve always dreamed a man should talk to a woman. He was … I thought he was so wonderful, and before I knew it, it was too late. And now I know what he really is, it was all a game to him, and he tells me he thought it was all a game to me, too. I despise myself, Brill dear, but Hennigar—oh! If I were a man, I’d kill him, for he’s murdered a most precious part of me. Ellie.

  Next was an imprinted office memo, headed Office of the Publisher. Typed by a firm, even hand, were a few lines, which deMarcopolo read without hesitation.

  Ellie, come back. I’ve got to talk to you about this. Don’t worry. It will be all right. But come back—you worry me.

  DeMarcopolo shook his head rapidly, like a man swimming up out of consciousness, and then went back to his reading. Again, it was manuscript. Same scene, but—oh!…

  She rose, trembling, and ran to the mirror. A dream, a dream, surely it was a terrible, terrible dream! But no—there in the smooth hollow between shoulder and neck, lay the mark of the beast. Oh! she cried, herself to her heart. Oh beast, wicked, brutal beast!

  “Maserac!” she screamed. The sound of her own voice frightened her. She cast about wildly, like a frightened animal, then ran to the wardrobe and threw on the gold lamé hostess gown. When the old man opened the door, she stood like a pillar of fire, her hair, her eyes aflame.

  “Maserac, Maserac, he’s killed me!”

  And she told him, told him all of it, each syllable torn from her, agonizing, yet strangely eager, for each syllable brought her closer to the comfort, the strength, protection—all wrongs avenged—which she knew her dear friend would have for her. And, when at last she had finished, she ran to him, blind with tears, and grasped his shoulders.

  “He ought to be killed, killed, for what he’s done!”

  “It’s terrible, terrible!” Cold shock ran through her at the sound of his voice, for here was no anger, no protecting arm. Here was only an uneasy laugh. He said, “But—perhaps it isn’t so bad.”

  “What? Why do you say that, why?”

  “Dear little Furilla, I know it hurts—but it always hurts to learn something important. You have been safe with me—only when you turned away from me, did anything hurt you.

  Now you know—now, thanks to him, you can turn to me, be with me, be safe forever, with never a new temptation or hurt.”

  “Killed!” she cried, “he has to be killed for what he did to me!”

  “My dear child,” said Maserac, as slowly his arms came about her. “My dear, my dear …”

  “No, no!” and she pushed away from him. “He must be punished, he must be destroyed, or there can be no more Furilla, no more for you, no more, even, for me …”

  The next one was another handwritten note on the Office of the Publisher memo paper. “What did she keep them for?” Lance asked himself in amazement. Reluctantly, he admitted he knew the answer. He read—
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  Ellie, for heaven’s sakes answer your phone, or better still, let me see you. You know I would do anything on earth for you,but this—honey, to ask for such a thing, even to want it, is insane. Revenge is childish anyway. Snap out of it, lamb. Get to work again and sweat it out of your system.

  Your own

  Brill.

  Another pink carbon read—

  Work? How can I work? He has to be punished, Brill, destroyed. Revenge has nothing to do with it, and I’m surprised you should think of such a thing. It’s just that, when someone helpless is hurt, someone strong punishes the wrongdoer for it. It’s the way things are. And I thought you were the man strong enough. He has to be destroyed, Brill, or there can be no more Furilla, no more for you, no more, even, for us.

  Ellie

  So neat, thought deMarcopolo, so orderly. All in sequence—carbon and second sheets, in moments of passion. He picked up another publishers’ memo.

  He read—

  Ellie, this has gone on long enough. I haven’t seen you for weeks, and I’m frantic. Don’t you know the Book Club contract deadline is almost on top of us now? You’ve just got to have the first draft of Furilla’s Rose by contract time, or we’ll lose the whole deal. Your own career is at stake. If you don’t care about that, think about me.

  B. MacI

  A pink carbon followed.

  Everything I had to say to you I said in my last note. If you have it, read it again. If not, I’ll send you a copy.

  E

  And—

  Ellie, you’re not keeping copies!! Burn them, now. Oh, you’re innocent, you’ve got to wake up and live in the real world, Ellie, I mean it!

  Now listen, honey, I hadn’t meant to tell you this, but I’m at the end of my rope. Everything I own is tied up in this business and, for years, I’ve been holding it together with my bare hands and a big bright smile, hoping against hope that the big best seller would come along. Well, it did—To Bed, To Bed was it, and you wrote it.