“Well, not necessarily,” said Killian.
“He is—unless you stop her from going on with this divorce.”
“Well, she might change her mind,” said Killian. “She often does.”
“She won't. She's doing this, in a hurry, so that she can get free—to marry you.”
“Well,” said Killian, “the chances are she'll drop it.”
“John, won't you see to it that she doesn't go on?”
He did not answer.
“Won't you stop her?” cried Elly.
“Well...” he said, with a vague smile.
Elly rose. “I suppose,” she said, unsteadily, “that you don't care what happens to Charlie. You don't care about anything but marrying Jocelyn.”
It was very hard for Killian not to burst out laughing. He could not control a wide grin.
“What are you grinning at?” Elly demanded.
“I'm sorry,” he said, hastily. “Just a reaction.”
“Will you stop her? Get her to go to Reno.”
“I'll see what can be done,” Killian assured her.
But she was not satisfied. “Please try to realize what this means to Charlie,” she said. “His whole career is wrecked.”
“He hasn't managed very well,” Killian said.
“He was desperate,” said Elly.
How desperate? thought Killian. Desperate enough to tip her overboard? Was he with you all the time that evening, Elly? Every minute? Or did he leave you for a little while? A thing like that wouldn't take long to do.
“I thought you'd help me,” said Elly.
“Well, I'll see,” he said.
Her stretched lip quivered; her dark eyes, fixed on his face, filled with tears. She was hurt, astounded, bewildered by his vagueness.
“All right!” she cried. “If you don't care...”
“I don't care about anything but marrying Jocelyn,” he said to himself, and laughter came rushing up again, and he had to gulp it down. Jocelyn's so absent-minded, he thought. She forgot to mention that she was married. Not that it matters, of course. Only, when she was talking about marrying me, she might just have mentioned it. Casually. Darling, I will marry you, as soon as I get rid of Chauverney.
He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor. “You've made a fool of me, Jocelyn,” he said to himself. “Something more than a fool. You've done something to me. I don't quite know what, but maybe you've ruined me, too. Among others. I think I feel ruined. You bed to me. You've been false to me. False, in every way. And now I quit.”
He got up. “I'll see what I can do, Elly,” he said. “I'm sorry, very sorry.”
She didn't believe that. She didn't understand, and he could not explain.
“See you later,” he said, and left her.
He went into his own room, and locked the door. “I quit,” he said to himself. “I'm sorry about Elly; but I can't help it. I quit. It's finished. I can't see Jocelyn again. I couldn't speak to her. I don't hate her. I just want to get away from her, that's all. No explanation, no note. I'm going, that's all.”
She's poison, he thought. She can't help that, any more than a rattlesnake can help it. But you have to get away from her. My father would be upset. He's an upright man. He'd be very much upset if he knew I'd been making love to another man's wife. Worse than that. Getting all set to marry another man's wife.
He could laugh now. I fed her with toast. I knew she was a little tramp—but I did not know she was a rattlesnake. Married to Chauverney, and living on Mr. Bell. On blackmail. Chauverney's got away, to a hospital; and Doctor Eric Ponievsky is going to get away, to Poland. And where am I going?
Back to New York. To look for room with refined couple, mid-town section, references exchanged. I'll walk into the office tomorrow morning. Hello, Killian! How was the trip? Fine, fine! How about the beautiful senoritas down there in South America? Oh, boy! Oh, boy! Come out and have a drink and let's hear about the beautiful senoritas. Sorry, but I'm poisoned. By Cupid's darts.
Someone knocked at the door, but he thought he wouldn't answer. The someone rattled the knob.
“What do you want?” he called.
“It's Harriet.”
What of it? he thought. “I'm dressing,” he said.
“Put something on and open the door,” she said. Not imperiously, just in a young way.
He opened the door, and in she came.
“I've been talking to mother,” she said. “She says she's told you about—the situation. Of course, you had to know it; but it must have been hard to bear.”
“Not so good,” he said, embarrassed.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “I think you're a darn nice boy.”
He stared at her. A nice boy?
“Well, no,” he said presently.
“I think so,” she said. “I wanted to tell you that before I go.”
“Going away?”
“Yep. Going home. I have a nice little apartment in New York.”
You're a girl, he thought. You have a nice little apartment. You have a job, and you have friends. You go to the movies. You're an honest-to-God girl. He felt as if he had known her a long time ago, and lost her, and now he wanted her back. He wanted all of that back. This is Sunday, he thought. You could go to the zoo, with everybody else. You could go to a little French table d'hote for dinner, and take a ride on top of a bus. With everybody else. I used to have all that. I used to work and live along with everybody else—until somehow this happened, and I got cut off.
I am cut off now. Like a ghost.
Harriet came over to him, and put her arm around his shoulders; she tried to draw him close to her, but he was too bony and unyielding. Oh, God! he thought. I feel like going all to pieces. I feel like resting my head on your shoulder and closing my eyes. And letting go.
“I'm sorry about all this, Johnny,” she said.
“I'm sorry about what happened to you,” he said, politely.
“About Eric?” she asked. “That's different. It was a jolt, but it's different. I'm different from you. Tougher, I guess.”
“Maybe you are,” he said.
“Mother said you're taking Jocelyn out on the boat.”
“I'm not!”
“Do!” she said. “Get it over with.”
“It is over with.”
“But you'll have to hear what she's got to say for herself.”
“No,” he said.
“You'll hate yourself, if you don't.” She took away her arm. “Johnny, ring me up soon, and I'll ask you to dinner. I'm in the telephone book.”
“She thinks this is going to end,” he said to himself when she was gone. “That was a very strange idea. She thinks I can have an honest, manly talk with Jocelyn; and then we shake hands and say good-by. 'Tis better thus. Oh, God! A nice boy.”
Get it over with. You'll hate yourself if you don't. And you'll hate yourself if you do.
CHAPTER TWELVE
HE STAYED IN his room, sitting on the edge of the bed, smoking. He was on guard, very alert; he was all ready—for something. For a knock at the door. He was ready for it, tense and resolute. Waiting for something.
It came, as sudden and breath-taking as a pistol shot; a knock. He got up.
“Well?” he said evenly.
“Miss Frey says she's ready, sir,” said a soft little voice. “Oh! Oh, thanks,” he said.
“Miss Frey says shell meet you on the terrace, sir.”
“Thanks,” he said.
I'll have to see Mr. Bell, Killian thought. And Elly. And Sibyl, and Harriet. Now, let's see. What face shall I wear? The nice-boy face? I've lost it. He looked in the mirror while he combed his hair and straightened his tie. I don't know what face to wear. Jocelyn's made a fool of me, only I don't feel like a fool. I feel like a ghost. All right! Be a ghost Walk down the stairs and out on the terrace, like a zombie. Don't speak, and don't look at anyone.
He walked down the stairs and out on to the terrace, and there wasn't anybody there
. Nobody there. That made you feel pretty flat, my boy. Nobody here. Just look at the nice quiet Sunday afternoon. The sun is shining, and that lawn is like green velvet, and there are those fine old trees against a blue sky. You came ready to be melodramatic, and here's what you find. I'm smoking up all the Bahia cigarettes I bought to give my friends.
Jocelyn came out of the house. She came in her drifting way, light as a leaf. Her hair was tied at the temples with little black bows, and she wore a thin, long-sleeved white blouse and a white flannel skirt, and she carried a white coat over her arm.
“Isn't the car here?” she asked.
“I don't see it,” he answered.
She sat down in a chair and leaned back, with her ankles crossed. She looks like a girl, he thought. She looks gentle and tired, and she's beautiful, and she's nineteen.
“What's the matter?” she asked, in her slow, muffled voice.
“Nothing at all, Mrs. Chauverney,” he answered. You thought that was going to be dramatic, did you? Wrong, m'boy! She never turned a hair.
“Do you want to talk about that?” she asked.
“Not here.”
“Nobody to interrupt,” she said. “Sibyl and Harriet are shut up together, and Elly's gone, and Luther's taking a nap. He doesn't like that mentioned. He's sixty-five years young. He does exercises in the morning. He has a sort of bicycle machine to sit on—all the windows open. He sits there pedaling away, with his chin up, and then he eats vitamins.”
“Sure. He's a fool. Everybody's a fool. Isn't that so?”
“Maybe. But that's not the way people look to me.”
“And how do people look to you, Mrs. Chauverney?”
She looked at him. “Cruel,” she said. “Like you.”
“Am I cruel to you?” he asked. “When you're so kind to me? So kind, and faithful?”
“I've been kind to you,” she said, still looking at him steadily. “And faithful.”
“My feelings are hurt,” he said, “because you haven't confided in me. I know it's only a trifle, but I'm hurt that you didn't mention you were married. I'd have felt very much embarrassed if I'd found that out after I'd married you.”
“I'd have told you before that,” she said. “But Chauvie's begged me to keep quiet about it.”
“That's a very worthy reason. But still and all, I do think a girl ought to tell her fiance when she's married to somebody else. It's only etiquette.”
“This isn't important,” she said. “I never pretended you were the first man in my life. Our marriage was just wretched. It didn't last six weeks. It was finished months ago.”
“It seems not to be finished.”
“There won't be any trouble with the legal part of it.”
“Mere man-made laws,” said Killian.
“I don't understand you,” she said. “Does it really mean such a lot to you that I've been married?”
“Are married.”
“All right. Call it being married, if you like. Is it so important?”
“You've lied to me,” he said. “You've made a fool of me.”
“I've never lied to you,” she said. “Never once, about anything.”
“This is what's called quibbling,” said Killian. “When I asked you to marry me and you said you would, and you didn't tell me you had a husband, that's what I call a he.”
“All right,” she said. He waited. But she didn't go on.
“Now we just drop the subject?” he asked.
“Well, what more is there to say? Chauvie asked me to get a divorce, and I did. I went to Mexico and got one. I did it on his account. I didn't care. I wasn't thinking about marrying again, ever.”
“Your next plan was different, wasn't it?” Killian asked. “This next divorce was going to ruin him.”
“He wanted to get rid of me, and I tried to do it his way. It didn't work. Do you think I ought to go on, trying to spare Chauvie's feelings? He's nearly twenty years older than me.”
“Even at that age, he won't like being ruined.”
“I'm not vindictive,” she said. “You ought to know that. But I won't pretend I care too much what happens to Chauvie. I want to get free, that's all.”
“I like Elly,” Killian said. “I don't like to see her squashed.”
She clasped her hands behind her head, and then let them fall, as if she were too tired.
“You don't want Elly to be hurt,” she said. “Or Chauvie, or anyone. Only me. I could tell you a little about that marriage. I suppose I could put up a case for myself. But I won't. What's the use? You've made up your mind in advance that I'm in the wrong, about everything. Let it go.”
Made up my mind in advance? Killian thought. Before I heard you? Maybe. But let it go. I don't want Elly hurt, or Chauverney, or anyone, except you? Let that go, too. I'm a zombie, a ghost. I don't feel at all any more. I hope I never do any more.
“Is this a trial?” she asked, in a low, even tone. “I love you. I tried to show you that. But you're standing before me like a judge. What is it you want to know? I've never told you a lie. I'll tell you the truth now, about anything you want. Only tell me what I'm accused of. What is it I've done to make you hate me?”
“I don't hate you,” he said.
“What have I done?” she asked again. “I came here to clear up everything. I wanted to get out of that wretched marriage. Was it my fault that Chauverney nearly killed himself in his panic? I was finished with Eric. I wasn't even interested in him. Was it my fault that he tried to kill me in his panic? Am I supposed to be so wicked and so dangerous that I've got to be killed?”
“I'm not your judge,” Killian said.
“You've judged me, and you've condemned me,” she said. “All right. I'm not going to beg for mercy.”
“What about Bell?” Killian asked, with a painful effort.
“Well? What about him? I told you that story, all of it, except his name.”
“And except that you were living—you're living now, on his money.”
“Why shouldn't I?” she demanded, sitting up straight. “I was a child when I met him. I might have grown into something decent. I wasn't a drunken little tramp then. Doesn't he owe me something?”
“This isn't any good,” Killian said. “We don't see things the same way, that's all.”
“I don't see things any way,” she said. “I don't care about anyone or anything but you. I don't care about a divorce. I don't care about Luther's money. I'll walk out of this house with you now if you want. Just as I am. Without a nickel. Without even a hat.”
“What the hell d' you think I could do with you?” he shouted.
Her eyes were wide, and he thought they were purple. The colour of sorrow? It made him sick to hear himself shout at her. It made him afraid. “I'm sorry,” he said. “But— but that's not practical.”
A car came gliding up, a great, long, sleek black car. She kept on looking at him, waiting to see what he would do, to hear what he would say. Only he didn't know what to do, or what to say.
I can't go now, like this, he thought. I can't turn my back on her, and go. The chauffeur was waiting, and she was waiting. For him. And how did he know what to do?
“Well,” he said, with a nervous, silly smile. “Well, shall we go and get something to eat on the boat?”
She got up and went down the steps. She left her white coat behind, and Killian went back after it.
“You never know,” he said. “It may turn chilly. This time of the year....” I'm talking like Luther Bell. They got into the back of the car, and they were all enclosed in glass; the chauffeur was shut off by a sheet of glass. Snow-white in a glass coffin, Killian thought. He glanced at Jocelyn; she was leaning back with her eyes closed, and her mouth had a line of sorrowful patience. As if she were horribly resigned to any blow.
You've ruined people? he thought. Or have they ruined you? Are you bad, corrupt, beyond any helping? Or are you a victim? I don't know. Would I be a brute to leave you, or the fool of the world to
stand by you? I don't know.
He opened a window, and the sweet air streamed in and blew her hair across her pale cheek. The sky was a clear, faint blue; they were driving past a red barn and a stone wall, and then they turned into that lane again. It's like a dream, he thought. I've seen all this before. It's as if everything that's going to happen has happened before. Jocelyn and I drove in a big black car—when?
They came to the squalid little settlement with the chicken yards; they came to the open space where the wooden pier was. The boat was there, too, just as it had been this morning, and the Captain. Only now he wore a white drill jacket, much too small for him, so that his sunburnt wrists showed, and his shoulder blades were pulled forward. “Miss!” he said, and gave her a smile that made a network of wrinkles in his face.
“What time shall I come back, sir?” asked the chauffeur. “Oh, nine o'clock,” said Killian at random.
The Captain was standing on the deck, holding out both hands to Jocelyn; she took them and stepped on board. He hurried ahead of her and moved one of the wicker chairs a little. She sat down, and he stood beside her, stooping with that broad smile of delight.
“Now we go to the Nort' Pole?” he said.
“Not tonight, Captain,” she said, gently, and seriously.
“You vant to see something fine, you come to the Nort' Pole,” he said. “My, dat's fine! All snow and ice, all glittering. The vater, she's blue and green. Deep. Vat do you say, ve go to the Nort' Pole, hey?”
“I haven't got my fur coat along, Captain,” she said. “I'll need that, you know.”
“That's right! That's right!” he said. “Ve got to vait, hey?”
“I'm afraid we will, Captain.”
She did not smile. She looked into the man's smiling face with a clear, steady gentleness. He wrinkled his nose and frowned, anxious and faintly confused.
“Some day you see dose Northern Lights,” he said. “My dat's fine! I tell you one time I see a polar bear? She's sitting on a berg, floating, floating along, far, far away from shore. She puts up her head, and she cries. She can't get back home.”
“But that's all over now, Captain. It's nice here.”
The Girl Who Had To Die Page 11
