by Mary Astor
White with rage, he spoke between his teeth. “You damn little cheat! You never even opened it!”
The rain cleared the following day. The sky was sullen as Charlie’s mood, but they moved on because Charlie said he’d have to get out of the sticks or go crazy. Mavis sat miserable and mute; and Charlie drove the car at top speed, adding to her nervousness. He was determined to reach the sizable city of Boynton by nightfall, a place where maybe he could find someone civilized to talk to. He would have given anything to hire a plane and go on into New York without any more nonsense, but now the idea of leaving Mavis at his home was urgent, and there were no other connections that would get them there any quicker than the car.
Boynton was a bustling crowded industrial town, and its impact hit Mavis like a blow. She had felt that she was becoming travel-wise and used to civilization, but the big crowds and the dirt and the noise brought on a kind of panic. She clung to Charlie’s arm as they made their way from the garage along a block to the hotel. His steps were too long for her, and each time as people passed her on the other side she would drop back a step. He tugged her along. “Honey, don’t give way like that! Keep moving, let the others get out of the way!” Impatiently he took her elbow and guided her up the steps through the tide of people emerging from the hotel.
In their room, she sank onto the bed, too exhausted to observe the first decent surroundings they had been in since leaving Clarke Falls.
Charlie’s spirits had risen. “Well, now, how about this, huh? Now we’ll have a real dinner here in the room,” and to himself he thought, “God, she needs clothes, I’m sick of that damned red sweater, can’t take her into the dining room in that outfit.” He went on, “Then, maybe a good movie afterwards, what do you say?”
She opened her eyes at his pleasant tone, and smiled. “That will be nice, Charlie.” If she could only sleep, just get a bath with lots of hot water and then sleep. If only he’d take her in his arms and just hold her, quietly, she could relax, and all the voices of people and the noise and hooting and whistling would go away. And her heart ached within her for the deep sound of the wind in the pines beyond her window at home. There was a difference, she thought, between sound and noise. The forest was never really still for long, there was always a sound of water, the chatter of a squirrel, the murmur of a breeze, the crash of a dead branch. A wave of homesickness swept over her, surprising and shocking, so that she sat up straight on the bed, feeling that she had been secretly disloyal to Charlie.
The novelty of the movie had revived her a bit, but in a little while the screen hurt her eyes, she could make nothing of the story, and what people said seemed to have no relation to life. For a while she whispered questions to Charlie, but it seemed to annoy him, so she just shut her eyes and stayed very quiet. It seemed only a moment before Charlie nudged her and her head snapped back on her neck. She had fallen asleep! Impatiently, Charlie took her arm and pulled her along with him to the aisle, bumping and bumbling over the other people in the row of seats.
He said nothing to her on the way back to the hotel. The silence was stiff between them. He took her to their room and said, “I’ll be back in a little while—why don’t you just go to bed, you seem to need sleep so badly.” It was the first time he had left her alone for more than a few minutes. At first she thought she’d be worried, but as she undressed, a sense of peace and relaxation and relief came over her. Also, she seemed wide awake. After a luxurious hot bath she brushed her hair till her scalp tingled. Ignoring the expensive, too heavily scented jars of cream that Charlie had purchased for her, she took the cork from a plain bottle and poured some drops of her own glycerine and rose water into her palms, smoothing it into the skin of her face and neck and hands. Its very familiarity of texture and scent was pleasant. From the ancient suitcase of Grand-mère’s she drew out one of the clean cotton flannel nightgowns that Charlie had laughed at on their wedding night, saying, “Till I can buy you decent lingerie, you’ll sleep raw! I refuse to put my arms around an old cheap blanket.” To her, as she now pulled its generous folds over her head, it smelt of the sun, of the clean wind that had snapped it dry, of the beeswax touch of her iron. In the bedroom she flipped off the overhead “crystal” chandelier, pulled the cords of the floor lamp by the heavy plush sofa, and the one beside the desk with its orderly pile of hotel stationery and cards describing the services of the hotel. In the light from the one lamp on the bed table the room became mellow, the red carpeting softened, and from beyond one of the blinds that she had pulled down carefully came a streak of pale white light. It looked as though the moon might have risen and found its way through the crack. She rushed to the window to welcome it, and ran up the shade, but it was only a street lamp, cold and glaring on the opposite corner. Slowly she drew the shade down again, bringing it precisely to the window sill, orderly, carefully. She thought, “I must get used to it. I must do what Charles wants me to. I must learn his ways, and then someday he will be proud of me.” She began to go over her catechism: “Don’t turn around and stare at people.” “Don’t make a face when you taste some new kind of food.” “Don’t wipe the silverware with your napkin at the table.” Oh, the list became longer every day! “Don’t hang onto my arm——” How could she not cling to him, in the confusion of traffic, a curb that was always a surprise, the strange hostile glances of the city people. He solved problems so easily, so swiftly, and often he did so much to please her. When, after they were married, she had gently suggested that she would like it if Grand-mère knew that all was well with her, he had miraculously found a Western Union, and as she leaned over his shoulder saw how he neatly printed the message that she was married and happy and sent her love, and she thought with delight of the cubbyhole in Emile’s general store where his taciturn younger brother would somehow mysteriously receive it on the chattering little key.
Kneeling beside her bed and folding her hands, she said her prayers, something she hadn’t been able to do since the night before they had fled from the Falls. Whispering, she asked God to bless her beloved, to teach her not to be a stubborn, silly girl, to obey her husband as she had promised.
There was the sound of a key in the door, and quickly she jumped into bed, pulling the covers around her. Charlie’s voice, talking to someone else, and then the rumble of another man’s voice, made her eyes widen. He had brought someone back with him! She was about to leap from the bed and run into the bathroom to hide—maybe it was a bellboy for something—when the door opened.
“Hi, honey,” said Charlie cheerfully. “Not asleep yet, you naughty baby!” He leaned over and kissed her. His mouth was wet and soft, and he breathed a sour stench of whisky and garlic.
He waved his guest inside the door. “Come in, Art, it’s all right, she’s covered up.”
Art was a glassy-eyed individual, in dinner jacket, with blooming cheeks, a small paunch, and a cheerful grin.
“Want you t’meet the bride, Mrs. Carewe, Mr.—ah—Affonston, did you say, Art?”
“Haversmith. How do you do, Mrs. Carewe.” His h’s and c’s seemed to come from his throat, like phlegm.
“Never mind the formalities,” Charles said, weaving a little as he went to the phone on the desk “It’s Art and Mavis—pretty name, huh, Art? Got it from her English mother—she’s French and English, speaks both languages perfectly, don’t you, sweetheart?”
“Look, you’ll have t’excuse us, Mrs. Carewe, butting in like this, but Charlie said you were a good sport and wouldn’t mind—you don’t mind, do you, now, do you? I ’preshiate it!” He cracked his cheerful face and bowed cavalierly.
Mavis sat frozen, the blankets up around her chin. On the phone Charlie was ordering ice and soda in loud obscenities. Over his shoulder he said, “Make yourself at home, Art—take off your coat—the glasses are in the bathroom, I’ve got the rye in my suitcase—wait’ll you taste it, it’s the las’ bottle I brought from New York—none of this swill we’ve been drinkin’.” Art disappeared into the bathro
om, and Charlie spoke to Mavis in a loud stage whisper: “Get up, get up, put your robe on, you look fine. Be nice to this guy, now will you?”
“Charles,” whispered Mavis, “how could you bring—a stranger——”
“Now, damn it, I mean it!” He spoke roughly and Mavis hastily pulled on her robe and sat on the edge of the bed, trembling. “Now, try not to act like a damn clod—this man is my friend,” and then more gently, “Don’t worry, hon, I’ll tell you after he’s gone why he can be very important to us. We’re jus’ gonna have one nightcap and that’s all.” From the bathroom came the sound of loud prolonged urination.
Mavis sat opposite the two men stiffly, while the level of the bottle of rye went down. For a while they had tried to include her in their conversation, and once Art had attempted to apologize for their smutty speech. Charlie had interrupted. “Never mind her, she hasn’t the faintest idea, not the faintes’, what we’re talking about. She understands a lot of things though,” he cackled loudly. “Boy, oh, boy! A virgin wife, can you imagine that, Art! A pure lil thing, couldn’t get her without that golden ring, and God, I love her so, don’t I, sweetiekins?” He winked over at her and waggled his fingers at her. Somehow his arm became very heavy and it dropped to the coffee table of its own accord, knocking over a glass. Mavis got up, quietly, and brought a towel from the bathroom and cleaned up the spilled drink. She had cleaned up after drunks before, and her embarrassment faded as they took their place in her mind with the lumberjacks back at the Inn.
It all became a very bad dream, as she watched the two sitting together on the plush sofa, arguing about politics, stocks and bonds, finances. They now ignored her completely, absorbed in their own profound discussion. Charlie was smoking a cigar, which kept going out but which served him as a pointer for emphasis. Art fastidiously aimed for the ash tray to flick his cigarette ashes with his forefinger, but the ashes fell to his knees before he could make it. Then, brushing at them, he would stub out the cigarette and light a new one from a silver case. They were extremely polite to each other at this point. “Excuse me for disagreeing with you, old boy . . .” “Just a minute, just a minute, wait’ll I finish . . .” “Listen, listen, par’n me for int’rupting, but you called the guy a son’fbitch, and I say you’re absolutely right, except”—and Charlie’s cigar would point—“except that he’s not only a son’fbitch but he’s full of bull——”
Mavis grew chilly as the night wore on; outside the window there was the sound of rain, as though someone were throwing granulated sugar at the panes. She could not move, although she ached simply to leave them and crawl back into her bed unnoticed. As drunk as he was, Charlie seemed to sense it, and would shake his head at her, elaborately reproving. Once she shivered, and solicitously he asked her, “Cold, honey?” and getting up from the sofa, surprisingly steady, got his own coat from the back of the desk chair and threw it over her shoulders. Taking advantage of his proximity, she appealed to him in a whisper, “Charles, I’m so sleepy—please!” Kneeling down in front of her, he took one of her clammy little hands, and speaking as though she were a little child, he smiled his most dazzling smile. “Mavis, honey, baby, you just have to learn to be a gracious hostess!”
“At four o’clock in the morning? Charles, you’ve had too much to drink, haven’t you?”
Coldly, he rose, and slowly shook an admonitory finger. “And you mustn’t cri’icize me, it’s bad taste.” And as he turned away she again ceased to exist.
From the depths of the suitcase, which Charlie had bought somewhere along the line to supplement the hunting bag, appeared another “las’ bottle,” and by the time its level was just a little above the halfway mark Charlie and good ole Art were Indian wrestling. The conversation, if such it could be called, had got around to athletic prowess in college.
The phone rang, and Mavis hurried to pick it up.
“Charles—Charles! It’s the man downstairs, people are complaining!”
“Aw, th’ hell with ’em!” said Charlie, stumbling over a fallen lamp. “Come on, Art, two falls out of three, now——” But Art was sound asleep, full length on the sofa, his hands folded peacefully on his chest. In a moment Charlie too flung himself prone onto the bed, a pillow bunched around his face. Lifting his head, he looked around, but the strain on his unco-ordinated neck muscles was too great, and it flopped like a weight back into the pillow. “Mavis! Come t’ bed! You gonna stay up all night?”
Mavis had sat still and exhausted, with Charlie’s coat drawn tightly around her, until the light began to gray the room. Dressing, she tidied up as best she could around the two snoring men.
Her disappointment, her disillusionment were too deep for her to pay attention to the shallower levels of shyness, and she walked into the coffee shop off the lobby of the hotel as soon as it opened. The few early risers, salesmen perhaps, were engrossed in their own coffee, their early morning mood, and the newspaper, glancing up only at movement, tropistically, indifferent.
Mavis warmed her hands on her own heavy cup of coffee, and her spirits in its hot liquid comfort. Of course, Charles would feel so badly when he woke and remembered. How terribly alike men became when they drank too much—they seemed to find a level of fellowship never achieved when they were sober. She would comfort him in the remorse she knew he would feel, she would be careful not to say a word of recrimination. She knew he was not in the habit of drinking, thanks be to God; never at the Falls had he had more than wine or ale for dinner, he never asked for anything stronger. She must be patient.
Nevertheless, there was a bleak, obscure feeling that the change-over from her kind of life to his was too great. Something of the feeling that he would protect her from everything and everybody had gone. She could not put her finger on the source of her depression. Was she so weak, still a little girl at twenty, that she should have her love washed away by a breath of alcohol? Why, if she had real dignity, couldn’t she have simply insisted that he bid his drinking companion good night, insisted on the right to privacy? Because she was afraid of him? But how love someone and be afraid of him? She felt she must be very like one of the creatures of the woods that had to be carefully coaxed and gently wheedled to come out into the open, still ready to run at the slightest hint of an aggressive move. To run at the slightest smell of evil. Evil? Charles? Her own dear love? And suddenly a wave of tenderness swept over her, and her own stupidity seemed enormous. Of course, he would take her in his arms, blame himself for the idiotic night, feel ashamed that she had had to put up with such embarrassment, horrified at the remarks he and Art had made in her presence. And she would forgive him easily, comfort him and make light of it, and ask for his own patience with her ignorance. She walked up and down the main street of the town, and around several blocks, carefully staying oriented to the hotel building, until her feet began to hurt from the hard pavement and the unaccustomed heels. She must get back to him, whether he was awake or not. She would boot out the intruder, Mr. Haversmith, with a sharp tongue and a no-nonsense look.
The desk clerk gave her a preoccupied grouchy glance and her new strength wilted. The elevator boy was humming tunelessly, slyly appraising her, and she felt the agony of being without Charlie’s protecting arm. The ride to the sixth floor seemed endless.
She took a deep breath of relief at their door and, opening it quietly, she heard Charles whistling in the bathroom. Mr. Haversmith was nowhere to be seen.
“Charles?” She spoke softly as she went to the door of the bathroom.
Catching a glimpse of her over his shoulder, Charlie turned, soap still framing the margin of his shaven face. “Well, where the hell have you been!” he said, wheeling around.
“How do you feel?” she asked, startled. She had fully expected a groaning hangover, and was prepared for a job of fixing cold towels and coaxing broth. Except for his eyes, which looked bloodshot and oily, Charlie had an alert, fresh vigor. Above clean white shorts his body glowed from the shower which still steamed the room, bearing
the odor of English cologne.
“I told you I wanted to get an early start this morning,” he said sharply, “If we get with it, we might reach Nelson by dinnertime. What in hell were you doing roaming around?”
Mavis was speechless.
“Well!” he shouted.
“Nothing. Nothing.” She stuttered.
“Nothing—nothing,” he mocked in falsetto. “Well, get packed up. You had breakfast, I suppose—couldn’t wait for me.” Striding around, he finished dressing, brushing his jacket, carefully tying his tie in the bathroom mirror, absorbed by his own reflection.
Mavis had sat down in the nearest chair, trying to assess the unfamiliar emotion that had taken hold of her. It was anger, yes. It was shock, yes. The tips of her fingers tingled, her chest felt tight, her heart thudded. She grasped feebly at one straw of explanation. “Charles, did the whisky keep you from remembering?”
“Ha!” He laughed shortly. “Really pinned on a beaut! That lousy joker, Art what’s-his-name, damn near drank up all my liquor. Left without so much as a ‘how’ve you been’ this morning. Come on, come on,” he said impatiently, “what are you just sitting there for?” Stopping in front of her, he put his hands on his hips and surveyed her. “You know, you look stupid—just stupid! I never realized how dumb you are. Look at you! Not even a sign of lipstick, your nose shiny, no stockings—God, you’ve got thick ankles, I never noticed.”
“Stop it! Charles!” It was an explosion, high and shrill. Then at the sound of her own voice she suddenly clasped her arms around herself, holding herself tightly.
“Why, what’s the matter with you? You feel sick or something?” Charlie’s widened eyes, his faint smile, were that of complete astonishment.
