He gave a short laugh. ‘You’re improving, Laura. Those are pretty strong lines …’
‘They’re not lines. I’m just telling you what is. You’re the only person I’ve ever been able to love, and I suppose it’s my misfortune that it happens to be you. It would have been much better for me if I’d been able to love Larry, who deserved to be loved. But it is you ‒ no one else. You probably don’t know what you’ve done, but you’ve done it, and there it is. I have to accept all the conditions you make because I need you.’
He spoke harshly. ‘Sweetie, don’t pretend about what we are to each other. You don’t love me. You don’t love anyone. You just love an identity you think can get you back on the stage, or in front of the cameras …’
‘No, Phil! It isn’t true! If you would just believe me … Oh, God ‒ don’t hang up, Phil! Don’t!’
She looked with frightened eyes about the hotel room, which was so lifeless and barren; desperately she sought for something which seemed missing ‒ she dug inside herself for some spark of truth and integrity which might be produced now to save Phil for her. This was playing for the real thing; if she had any truth left, it had to come out now. But behind her there was only the long line of compromise ‒ the compromises of her two loveless marriages, the compromises of the easy, mediocre acting jobs, the television commercials selling appliances ‒ all the compromises for ease and comfort and implied security. Inside her there was no truth to fall back on ‒ nothing with which to convince Phil.
She wet her dry lips. ‘What can I say to make you believe me?’ she said in a hoarse whisper. ‘How can I convince you that I don’t care about the part ‒ but I do care about you, Phil. This is the one good thing I have. And I have to convince you of that. Just let me come and talk to you, Phil. I know that I …’
He cut her short. ‘I’m sorry, Laura. You can’t come. I have company. This isn’t Tuesday, you know.’
And then he hung up.
VI
Small groups of men kept on the search all through Saturday night. They did this without much hope, because in the darkness the chances of missing a sleeping child were very great, but with the onset of Chrissie’s second night in the open the odds on finding her alive grew shorter. The pressure was on, and the need to make even a futile gesture was strong. Some of them searched because Ted Talbot was their friend; some of them had never seen Ted Talbot but they kept on searching because of their own young children asleep at home, or in the trailer camp. The wiser ones got some sleep to be ready for the first light of the dawn.
Ted Talbot spent the night crashing through the woods he had known all his life, feeling suddenly now that he did not know them, that this was an alien place, an unfriendly place. He was hoarse from calling Chrissie’s name, and he was filled with a terrible sense of helplessness.
VII
The small bubble of publicity on the search for Chrissie Talbot which had started in the Saturday noon editions expanded rapidly. One of the television networks ran a short clip of an interview with Ed Peters on its seven o’clock New York newscast that evening. The local stations carried it more fully. The Sunday newspapers, hungry for news, gave it much bigger coverage. All the special facilities which Amtec was using in the search were reported.
‘We are part of this community,’ one of them quoted Ed as saying, ‘and whatever happens here is of prime importance to us. We are not only an organisation; we are people.’
In New York, E. J. Harrison, Chairman of the Board, looked pleased as he read the story. He tapped the newspaper for a few seconds reflectively. Then he looked across at his wife.
‘Ed’s doing a good job on this,’ he said.
She barely glanced up from the fashion section. ‘Yes …’ she said.
After a few minutes he spoke again. ‘I think we’ll just take a run up to Burnham Falls. Tell Garson to have the car round in about half an hour.’
She snapped to attention then. ‘We can’t go to Burnham Falls. We’re having lunch with the Waterses.’
‘Call and make our apologies.’ He got to his feet briskly. ‘This is public relations.’ In the doorway he turned back towards her. ‘Oh … and don’t wear anything too elaborate, will you?’ It was a statement, not a request. ‘Simplicity is the note here … simplicity.’
When E. J. Harrison arrived in Burnham Falls he was very displeased to learn that Laura wasn’t available to pose with him for the photographers ‒ that in fact she wasn’t in Burnham Falls at all, but in New York. He thought that Ed’s muttered excuses were inadequate.
VIII
They found Chrissie early on Sunday afternoon. It was a brilliant, sunlit day, with the autumn woods gone mad with colour, and at first, to the man who saw her, it seemed that the golden hair and the yellow sweater were only more of the colour. Then an exultant shout ripped through the woods.
‘It’s her! It’s the little girl!’
Twenty yards away, Tom Redmond heard the shout, and came racing towards it. The woods were alive with the sound of crashing boots as the men from all around started converging on the place where the red-jacketed construction worker knelt beside the child.
Chrissie’s eyes flickered a moment; she saw the group closing in about her, and then started to cry ‒ a thin cry of terror and exhaustion. The men stood there watching her, momentarily helpless.
‘She don’t look too bad … she looks as if she’s O.K.,’ someone said close by Tom’s ear.
She was scratched and bruised; her sweater and hair were full of burrs. But her cry held more of fear than pain. The construction worker had slipped off his jacket and wrapped it about her, then very tenderly he lifted her in his arms.
‘Easy on there!’ another voice said. ‘Should you move her ‒ she might have injuries. Better wait for the stretcher.’
The man shot a look of furious scorn towards the speaker. ‘Listen, bud, I ain’t leavin’ this kid lying here on the ground another minute. I’ll carry her out nice and easy-like, and there won’t be no harm done.’
He looked down at the child in his arms. ‘There, sweetheart ‒ there ain’t nothin’ to hurt you any more. We’re goin’ t’ get you to your mommy right away.’
Tom stayed beside the man for the mile or so walk back to the Laboratories, finding the easiest path through the brush, holding back the low branches. Chrissie had turned her face inwards towards the man’s shoulder; occasionally Tom heard her muffled little cries. They were faint, feeble cries ‒ a whimpering almost.
Someone had already been in touch with the Laboratories by walkie-talkie. The doctor and the mobile unit were on the way to the nearest point by road. A strange hush lay over the men who walked back in that procession. The big construction worker bent over his burden jealously, tenderly, murmuring to Chrissie now and then, reassuring her, trying to share his own great strength.
Sally saw it in Tom’s face as soon as he entered the kitchen. There was a kind of radiance in it, a joy that he couldn’t hold back.
‘We found her! She’s going to be O.K.! She’s fine! The doctor said she’ll be right as rain in a few days.’
‘Oh, God!’ Tears came into Sally’s eyes. She put her arms about Tom and drew him down close to her. ‘Oh, God, that’s wonderful.’
Tom said softly. ‘I guess it was one of the best moments of my life. I didn’t realise until I saw her how much I wanted that kid to be alive. I wanted her so badly to be alive, Sal.’
Sally’s baby was born that night. It was two weeks early, but the birth was easy and swift. She bore her child as she had always wanted to ‒ with joy and a sense of completion, with little pain. Listening to its birth cries, she knew why Tom had so much wanted the other little girl to be alive.
Eighteen
All day Sunday Laura stayed in the hotel room. She had taken off her skirt and sweater, and lay in her slip huddling between the sheets, cold even in the heated room. She had watched the daylight come, and the hours of the day pass away, and now it was the earl
y October dusk again. She didn’t want to move, or think ‒ just lie there, and by refusing to think to hold at bay the pain and the terror of her aloneness.
Through the day the telephone had rung twice, and she had known it was Ed, and had not answered. She did not even hope that it could have been Phil; there was no more hope in that direction. She had sent away the maid who had come to clean the room. She hadn’t eaten any food since dinner the night before, and that didn’t seem to matter either.
At some time during the day she had counted the money in her handbag. It had totalled eight dollars and twenty-seven cents. Then she went back to bed and lay waiting for something to happen.
About six o’clock it did happen. The telephone rang, and then some minutes later she heard the rapping on the door. She recognised Ed’s quick, almost peremptory knock, and she knew the waiting was over. She got up wearily, and padded across to the door in her bare feet. She hadn’t bothered to switch on any lights, and when she opened the door the light from the corridor was strong, and it hurt her eyes. Ed’s figure was outlined against it.
For a few seconds he just stood and looked at her. In that look she saw many things about herself ‒ her bare feet, her slip, her uncombed hair and what was left of yesterday’s make-up still on her face. She let him look, and didn’t try to turn away.
Then he brushed past her and closed the door, flicking on the light switch at the same time. She saw him as if from a great distance, detachedly, but even so the impression of his mood came through strongly, because it had never been possible to ignore Ed, whatever happened. He looked weary ‒ very angry. It was not a passionate anger, or an impetuous one. It had the sustained, even quality of all Ed’s emotions. He had recently shaved, and his clothes were fresh; his weariness had dulled nothing. He was alert and efficient.
‘Well,’ he said quietly, ‘perhaps you’ll be interested to know that we found the Talbot child. She’s all right. She’s quite unharmed.’
Laura licked her lips. ‘That’s ‒ that’s good,’ she said. ‘I’ve been wondering …’
He walked before her into the room. Then abruptly he turned back to face her. ‘Oh ‒ you’ve been wondering, have you? That was noble of you, Laura. You were wondering so much you couldn’t even pick up the telephone to satisfy your curiosity. Well, your wondering helped a great deal. It made a big difference to things in Burnham Falls.’
She took a deep breath, but she didn’t try to answer him.
‘It made a big difference,’ he went on. ‘Essentially when E. J. Harrison showed up this morning. I was able to tell him you were very concerned … but not enough to stay behind and help.’
‘Harrison …?’ she said dazedly. ‘I didn’t know …’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Ed. I’m truly sorry. But my being there wouldn’t have made any difference. I wasn’t doing anything ‒ I was only getting in the way.’
‘I know very well you’re useless,’ he said. ‘But your sole job was to be there. Even that shouldn’t be past your capabilities.’
She winced, and then with the last of her energy, she tried to force a protest, to make some gesture to stem the tide of his anger. ‘Please, Ed ‒ no more now! I’m sorry I didn’t stay. I just had to come. I couldn’t help myself. That’s all there is. I don’t want to talk about it any more.’
‘Well ‒ you don’t want to talk about it any more! I don’t think I’ve got much reason for caring about what you want.’
He strode to the window that looked southwards towards all the brilliance of the city, the lighted skyscrapers against the blackness of the sky. His profile was sharp and clear against it. His face had assumed the look of coldness that she hated.
‘You came running down here to beg Phil Conrad to give you The Right Kind part, didn’t you. You had to make a spectacle of yourself before everyone in Burnham Falls because you hadn’t got enough control to do anything else. You’re a fool, Laura ‒ and a weakling.’
‘I had to try …’ she said.
‘And it didn’t work, did it? Conrad not only threw you out of the part, but out of his life as well. That’s what happened, isn’t it? And you’ve been lying here ever since like a sick cat without guts to pull yourself together.’
She didn’t answer.
‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘Haven’t you anything to say? I had hoped you weren’t quite such a fool as to imagine that your little romance with Conrad could mean anything permanent. That’s one man who doesn’t give anything for nothing, least of all a piece of himself. If you were angling just for the part you might have made it ‒ but trying for the man himself was just plain foolish.’
He came back towards her. ‘Well, now, that episode’s over, isn’t it, Laura? It’s time you got to know exactly what you are about.’
‘Ed, please ‒’
He cut her short. ‘And in case you’re tempted to make a fool of yourself again, let me just tell you a few things.
‘From now on,’ he said, ‘I am the one who will make the decisions. I don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense about lessons with Goodman, or anything else like it. You’re not an actress, Laura, and you never will be. Forget it.’
‘I can’t forget it …’
‘You’ll have to, because I don’t intend to subsidise your failures any longer. And I certainly don’t intend to stand by and watch you become a laughing stock. You’ll come back to Burnham Falls with me and do the job that you were meant to do in the beginning ‒ which is quite simply to be the wife of the president. It’s not a small job, and I expect you to give it at least as much energy as you’ve given your abortive efforts to be an actress. Only real talent has the right to make demands on other people, and you haven’t got it. From now on you can just be glad you’ve got me ‒ and Amtec and Burnham Falls. If you haven’t got the brains to be anything more than decorative, then you’ll damn’ well be decorative ‒ and charming.’ He added, ‘After all, I have the right to expect some value for money.’
Dumbly she watched him take out a cigarette and light it. The lighter blazed, shadowing the furrows of his tight, concentrated frown. He snapped the lighter shut, and drew on the cigarette deeply. She could feel herself going down before him, drowning in her own shattered confidence and the force of his will.
‘That’s about all, I think,’ he said. ‘Except for one thing. There isn’t going to be a divorce. I hope you understand that. I don’t intend to go through another divorce and you might as well know it now.’
He sat down in an armchair, and stretched his legs before him.
‘You’d better make the best of it, because there isn’t any alternative for you.’
He leaned back wearily, closing his eyes now as he drew on the cigarette.
‘And now I’ll wait for you to get dressed. We’re going back to Burnham Falls to-night.’
With a kind of numb, petrified obedience, she showered, washed her face and dressed. She had no cosmetics with her ‒ nothing but a comb in her handbag. When she was ready to go the face that stared back at her from the mirror seemed scarcely her own. Without make-up, it was not beautiful, but plain, with hungry-looking hollows in her cheeks. The skin seemed to have shrunken back against her skull, and the veins at her temples stood out. Against her colourless, featureless face the gold of her hair turned drab, and her eyes were without depth or meaning. Without a pencil to darken her plucked brows, her face had the shiny, bald look of an egg. For a moment she glimpsed the face of an old woman in the mirror.
She had to wait in the lobby while Ed signed for her bill, and while his car was brought around. She wondered if he were enjoying the knowledge of her humiliation to stand there while groups moved through to the various dining-rooms ‒ to stand there, dull, and even ugly, among the bright faces and brilliant gowns about her. She endured it because there was nothing else to do.
‘Charlie Connors is coming up to Burnham Falls in the morning. I’ll have him drive your car back.’ These were the only words Ed addressed to her during
the whole journey back to Burnham Falls.
II
Jeannie left Burnham Falls on the first train Monday morning.
‘I still can’t understand why you have to leave now,’ Selma said as they kissed and parted at the station. ‘Surely they’d give you just one day off from your job ‒ in these circumstances. You haven’t had any sleep since Friday …’
Jeannie broke from her mother’s arms, and stretched up to kiss her father’s cheek. ‘Oh, they’d give me a day off,’ she said quickly. ‘But I can’t afford a day … every day I’m not there someone or something gets a little ahead of me.’
‘I wish,’ Selma said, ‘that you weren’t in such a hurry ‒ with everything.’ But she did nothing else to stop her daughter from climbing on board. The whole lighted coach was empty except for Jeannie and the conductor. Jeannie pressed her face against the window to get the last glimpse of them as the train pulled away ‒ her mother and father with their shabby clothes and handsome faces sharply revealed in the light that streamed from the waiting-room. Then they were out of sight and the town was left behind.
Jeannie tried to sleep during the long, slow journey, but sleep eluded her. They stopped at each station on the way down, and passengers straggled in, on their way to early jobs in the city. Their faces looked sleepy and pale, and vaguely resentful. Jeannie stared wakefully out into the darkness and saw nothing but the reflection of the other passengers in the coach. She thought about Chrissie, mostly. She had been given treatment at Kempton General for shock, and ordered a few days of rest in bed. Selma had fed her her first light meal, and then she had slept. She woke briefly to be fed again a few hours later, and then she had gone to sleep holding Ted’s hands. Her need for reassurance was plain, and Jeannie had known that it must come from Selma and Ted, not from herself. In Chrissie’s childish world, Jeannie was already someone distant and vague. She had smiled at her, but turned quickly away to her mother.
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