Wynn said nothing for a time. Finally: “I said what I did—that she hadn’t any intention of going—because I used to hear her and Mother talking. My room in the apartment was next to theirs. I had my window open one warm evening. Mother was sitting on her balcony.” Wynn wheeled around to face his father. “I shouldn’t tell you this, sir. I haven’t any right.”
“Go ahead. I can take it.”
“Gladys was inside. They were talking back and forth—you know how—but I got every word Mother said. She said, ‘Of course Dean loves you. Why shouldn’t he? I’m only a shell of a woman.’ ”
Dean started to protest the suggestion as sheer madness.
Max raised a hand. “Did you hear Gladys answer?”
“Not clearly. But Mother said, ‘I know it’s only natural. He’s still a young man, and you’re strong and healthy, Gladys.’ She began to cry. Gladys came out on the balcony, and I heard distinctly, ‘Be brave, dear. Don’t cry.’ ”
Max said, “Remember, your mother wasn’t well. She might have imagined anything.”
“You couldn’t make a mistake, sir. You could tell by the way Gladys answered, she wanted Mother to believe Dad was in love with her. She didn’t deny it. She just said, ‘Be brave, dear,’ as if Mother had to take it.”
“Was anything more said?”
“Not that night.”
“Other nights?”
“Plenty. I got so I believed it too.”
“You mean you thought we were lovers?” Dean demanded.
“That’s what Mother thought.”
“I swear I never thought of Gladys in any way except to be thankful for the help she gave Pauline.”
“Help she gave Pauline?” burst from Wynn. “Help her to want to die—that’s what she did.”
“Good God, Wynn!” Dean’s hands were on the boy’s shoulders.
“I can’t help it. All last summer while she was making a play for you and you didn’t know it, I kept thinking how people subject to melancholia—how easy it must have been for Gladys to convince Mother she wasn’t wanted.”
Dean’s hands gripped tighter. Then they dropped, and he turned helplessly to Max. “You talk to him.”
But again it was Ned who did the talking. “Listen, kid, you think your Dad is tops, don’t you?” The look Wynn gave his father answered. Ned hurried on, “Sixteen—that’s all you were when this nutty idea got you. Well, you’ll be eighteen soon, and in uniform. Two years make a lot of difference to a guy. The way he thinks; the way he reasons. Fight this thing out with yourself before you tackle the fight with your enemies.”
Max added, “You overheard snatches of conversation which led you to certain conclusions. The intonation of a person’s voice isn’t admitted as evidence in court. Did you ever see any evidence in your father’s relationship to Gladys to justify these conclusions?”
“No,” Wynn admitted.
“Then, without justification, you were actually ready to believe your father would carry on an affair with a woman under his own roof.”
“No! I told myself that couldn’t be.”
“But you just said what you overheard made you believe it. You see how confused you must have been.”
“I think”—the look the boy now gave Dean was heartbreaking—“you’ll never forgive me for this, but I’ve got to tell you what I think.”
“I want you to, son. What do you think?”
“That from the day Gladys came to take care of Mother, she meant to marry you.”
Dean said. “Wynn, all the years ahead of us are going to be decided tonight. If you leave me with this corrosion going on inside you, can’t you see we’re finished? I take it you still think something of me—my judgment, my integrity?”
“And how!”
“Leave the solution of this misunderstanding to me. Trust me to clear away all doubts. Just keep on having faith in me, son.”
Wynn said, “You know I will.” And relief was in his white face.
Before he returned to Dartmouth the following day, he told his father he was glad to have unburdened himself; it was like letting down prison bars. Not for a moment did Dean consider seriously the fragmentary bits with which Wynn had built his prison. His own boyhood had created tragedy out of less.
At Rockland once more, he went to his study and stretched in his favorite lounge chair. It was good to be alone for a while. He too had shed a burden.
Toward five Cara burst in, yesterday’s difficulties forgotten. Ned had telephoned from town. She had to dash for a train and have dinner with him. On the way out she flung over her shoulder, “Don’t think Gladys and I were alone last night just because you and Wynn deserted. Her good-looking cousin Barclay Haggart was here. I couldn’t make her ask him to stay over.”
Gladys came in from skating and pulled off her gloves, stretching hands toward the fire. More than ever they looked like marble against the flames. “I didn’t ask Barclay to stay,” she explained when Cara had gone. “I wouldn’t let him bother you.”
“Bother?”
“He came to borrow money—quite a sum.” She tossed her knitted beret on a chair. “The boardinghouse is terribly in the red. I didn’t mean you to know. I thought I’d manage to work it out with the little savings account I had.”
“How much does Mrs. Mayden need?”
“Several thousand. I don’t want to ask you for that much, Dean. It’s only because Mother is ill.”
He went to the desk. “I must arrange to give you enough in your own name to use as you please.”
“No, don’t do that. I don’t want any money of my own.” The fright in her voice amazed him. Then she said, “It’s a new and heavenly sensation to have a man pay my bills. Don’t stop doing it, darling.”
“But you’ll want to take care of your mother.”
“I’d rather have the money come from you.” Her hand swiftly covered the hand holding the pen. “Make the check payable to Mrs. George Mayden. Mother will enjoy the feeling of independence.”
“What do you say to delivering it in person? Would you like to pay her a visit?”
Gladys folded the check in a small square to fit the pocket of her blouse. “No, I want to stay here. With you.”
He got up and held her. He kissed her. “You’ll be happy to learn all the trouble with Wynn is behind us.”
“I couldn’t sleep last night because what he said and the look in his eyes haunted me.”
“Nothing but a sensitive youngster’s imagination.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me?” she prompted.
Dean looked out of the window. It was getting on toward twilight. Ice caked on the pane, and the view was blurred. The sound of waves came like a Greek chorus. Splash, silence, splash, silence…
“Will you feel better—knowing?”
“Yes. Of course, darling.”
“Well, then.” It was difficult to put Wynn’s suspicion into words that would not wound. “I don’t know how to begin.” Again he paused. “Wynn got a notion you and I were in love while Pauline was alive.”
She seemed stunned. “But such a mad idea, Dean!”
“He happened to overhear snatches of conversation and pieced them together.”
“What do you mean, pieced them together?”
“His room was next to the one you shared with Pauline, and he frequently heard you talking to her.”
“Didn’t he tell you what he heard?”
“We had a time getting anything out of him. He wanted to spare me——”
“We?” she interrupted. “Who else?”
“Dear, don’t be so upset. I called in Max Conrick to help straighten things out.”
“Max Conrick—a stranger!”
Her vehemence, like her fright, startled him. “Not a stranger by any means. My attorney, my
friend for years, who has stood by as adviser in every problem I’ve had to handle.”
“Was Max the only one there?”
“Ned Conrick.”
“Ned—that boy! What business——?”
“Wynn confided in him. It was Ned who made Wynn speak up.”
“Everybody except me. Your lawyer, your son’s pal, everybody but your wife! You didn’t give me the chance to defend myself.”
Her eyes had changed from transparent gray to green with a curious glitter. The swift transition was like the effect of one chemical on another. How often he had seen the same metamorphosis take place in laboratory experiments.
“What reason have you to believe you had to defend yourself?”
“Your son makes an outrageous accusation before two other men, and you dare to ask what cause I had?”
“I haven’t begun to tell you all,” Dean continued, and he had an odd feeling of wanting to pull back, like a man walking toward a precipice. “I didn’t expect to tell you. I did my utmost to convince Wynn he was wrong. So did Max. So did Ned. I succeeded in convincing myself along with him, because what he told us appeared too horrible. Too fantastic. But since you’ve put yourself on the defensive…” Still he could not bring himself to speak.
“Tell me,” Gladys insisted. “Don’t torture me like this.”
Dean paused in front of her. “I don’t know how to say it, Gladys. It’s so inexpressibly cruel—to you; to me. Wynn said that you fed like slow poison to Pauline the idea that I loved you and she was in the way. He believes that was the cause of his mother’s suicide. Now you have the whole of it.”
She sat down, and for a second her eyes closed. Then: “You don’t believe it. You can’t believe it, Dean.”
“Until a few minutes ago I was ready to dismiss the whole thing. Completely.”
“Why do you say, until a few minutes ago?”
“Your own reaction—panic, Gladys—that came when I told you Max was present.”
“Isn’t it perfectly natural?” She caught his arm. He felt the pinch of her fingers. “Would I be human if I were willing to have anybody except you hear anything so foul? We know it’s not true, you and I. You said yourself it’s an insane notion. A phobia existing in Wynn’s mind and nowhere else. Dean, you agree, don’t you? Or do you hate me? Has Wynn made you hate me?”
* * *
—
He loosened her fingers. “We’ve been happy. But only one kind of happiness cannot be smashed. We’ve got to trust each other.”
“Dean, don’t you know I couldn’t possibly have done such a thing? Don’t you remember, Pauline was getting better? Why, we all thought she was going to get well.”
“Yes, those last months. I was sure she was going to get well. But she killed herself.”
“That’s why Wynn was eager to read a double meaning into anything I may have said. Oh, not consciously! But you and I married so soon afterward. He doesn’t realize why he hates me; why he’s willing to believe evil. Don’t you see, he’s young and impressionable, and he adored Pauline? Be patient, darling. I’ll make him believe in me.” Her face was against his, and he felt her tears. “You said—trust. Won’t you trust me, Dean?”
But that night, even with her in his arms, her body pressed to his, he kept seeing her eyes chemicalize from gray to green. He lay awake seeing them through the darkness.
* * *
—
Of his own accord Wynn came to Rockland the following Saturday. Until he left Sunday afternoon he was in the house scarcely at all, yet Dean knew how to translate unspoken words into “Okay, Dad.” He could feel it in the boy’s friendliness to Gladys.
For himself, it was not so easy. It was as though Wynn had stirred up a hornet’s nest of memories. He remembered Pauline’s sad way of repeating. “Are you sure you love me, Dean? We used to be everything to each other. I know I’m not much good any more, but do you still love me?” He remembered her blue eyes filled with tenderness and appeal; helpless appeal like a child’s. He remembered how often she had murmured, “This isn’t fair to you. I know it isn’t fair, but I’d get well, Dean, if only I knew how. I want to be your wife again—I love you so.” The way she clung to him. “I haven’t any right to spoil your life.” The way he had to reassure her. Constantly.
Memories of little things magnified, like looking through the end of an opera glass bringing the past close in gigantic proportions. This would never do! Obviously the chemicalization was in himself.
At Christmas, Wynn came home again. Ned had to remain in camp in Texas, and Cara went down to be with him. It was Gladys who skied and skated with Wynn. “I’ll make him believe in me.” This had been her promise.
One evening shortly after the New Year Barclay Haggart telephoned Gladys. Mrs. Mayden had had a heart attack in the early morning and, no doctor being available, he had rushed her to the nearest hospital through a snowstorm. Her condition was precarious. Would Gladys come at once?
The message came while they were reading in the study after dinner. Dean heard Gladys answer, “Take a private room. Never mind the money…Do you hear? Don’t talk about money. I’ll bring enough. And get a heart specialist. I’ll see what connections—probably the midnight if I can get into town in time.”
In less than half an hour she was gone. “I won’t stay away from you long, darling,” she said in Dean’s arms.
“You must stay until your mother is better.”
“I don’t believe she’s going to get well.” In her voice was fright, the same breathless thing he had been unable to fathom when she asked him not to give her any money of her own. Yet Gladys never appeared to worry about her mother.
“Dear, you’d better have me with you.”
“No—no! If I need you, I’ll send word. I’ll take a room at the hospital. Barclay can take care of everything.”
“What hospital is it?” And after he had written down the name: “You’ll phone me.”
“Every night.”
Toward midnight Dean stood at the window listening to waves slap against the rocks. Yet the sound was more disturbing than soothing. He realized why. He could not understand what had kept him from going with Gladys. Good Lord, here was her mother critically ill! This cousin, Barclay Haggart, why should he be the one to see her through a crisis? That was a husband’s job.
And so early next morning he boarded a plane. He did not notify Gladys. In a few hours they would be together…
But she faced the crisis alone. Dean arrived at the hospital to learn that Mrs. Mayden passed away in her sleep in the small hours of the morning. Mrs. Steward had gone out to the Mayden place, he was told, leaving Mr. Haggart to take charge of all arrangements.
Dean did not wait to telephone Gladys. Probably she had tried to reach him immediately on her arrival. She would know he was on his way to her.
It was late afternoon when he got out to the Mayden place. In the driveway tire tracks marked the hard-packed snow, but there was no sign of a car. He found the door to the porch on the latch and went inside.
At one side of the hall was the parlor and at the other a reception room, the front half of which was an office.
Before the hearth at the far end knelt Gladys. She did not hear him, and for a moment he stood in the doorway. She was feeding papers to the flames, gathering them in both hands from piles beside her, tossing them into the fire: eager, hurried, as if she wanted to get through quickly.
He stepped forward, and Gladys glanced sharply over her shoulder. She made an instinctive gesture as if to sweep the papers together, to cover them with her body. A foolish, futile gesture.
Then she stood up. The flames sent a flare around her. “You gave me a shock. Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?”
“Didn’t you know? Didn’t you make any attempt to reach me at Rockland this morning?”
“Yes. Yes. I did. When I got here and they told me Mother was gone, I went straight to the telephone. I couldn’t get any connection—the storm.”
He knew she was lying. He looked down at the scattered papers and saw that some were letters with the engraved address of the Steward apartment on the envelope flap. He picked up one and turned it over. It was addressed to Barclay Haggart and the distinctive handwriting was unquestionably Gladys’s.
She reached out a hand and he put the letter in it. “I’m getting rid of a lot of old rubbish,” she said. “Barclay wants me to put the place on the market.”
“Have you the right to destroy your mother’s papers before her will is read?”
“Mr. Carruthers, her lawyer, has the will. Everything is left to me. I’m afraid the estate is largely debts.”
“Is Mr. Haggart aware that you’re burning letters addressed to him?”
“They’re nothing. They just have to do with Mother’s business.”
Dean bent to pick up another. And in that instant’s swift survey, he saw that some were from Rockland and others from New York. But all of those she had attempted to conceal bore Barclay Haggart’s name. “I see you and Haggart had quite an extensive correspondence.”
“Dean, give that to me!”
Panic again! The same panic as when she begged him to give her no money; the same that chemicalized her eyes from gray to green.
“Do you really believe I’d read any letter you wrote to another man?”
“I tell you, it’s nothing. I’ll make a package for Barclay. He can burn them himself.” She shuffled through the lot hastily and tied the package with a string. He saw that her hands were shaking. Those hands always so cool and poised!
“What are you afraid of, Gladys?”
“Afraid? Why do you ask? I’ve just been under a frightful strain, and you open the door and walk in like a—like a ghost.”
“I should have come with you last night,” Dean answered. “Now I’ll stay until all this business is settled.”
The Big Book of Reel Murders Page 180
