There had been several hard knocks in Bunny Brinkerhoff’s married life, several times when things had grown rather dark before his eyes, but never with such Stygian inkiness as this time. Never before had he felt so humiliated. Never before had the situation seemed quite so grave, as he assured Mary that evening in the charming little living room of their charming little apartment on the upper West Side. He had to wait until Emily had finished clearing away the supper things from the dining room before he began.
Mary, curled up in one corner of the mulberry-colored davenport, with a yellow cushion behind her head, and invisible as to feet, looked exactly like Mona Lisa caught in the act of borrowing her mother’s white gloves for the junior prom. She had on a pink lawn dress, for Bunny’s benefit, the fichu of which crossed in a V disclosing the full column of her throat. She did not deny anything, even before she knew he had that letter whose possession he had failed to make Florry explain. Her frankness had always made similar situations seem less hopeless to Bunny.
“Yes,” she admitted, “I’ve been seeing an awful lot of Mack. He’s the most interesting unattached man I know. Yes, he is, Bunny—terribly interesting. Of course he has perfectly outrageous ideas, but he has a lovely nature underneath. Very poetic and imaginative and beautiful. Only he doesn’t show it to everybody. He just doesn’t care what people think of him.”
“And I don’t, either.” Bunny stopped pacing long enough to face her sternly. “But I do care what they think of you.”
Mary Mary arched her straight black eyebrows over troubled eyes. “Of course I don’t expect people to understand what I see in Mack. I don’t even expect you to, Bunny, because he doesn’t show himself to you the way he does to me.”
“No!” Bunny’s glasses began to grow misty, denoting agitation. “If he did I’d break his neck!”
Mary looked at him. He threw the letter into her lap. “He wrote you that letter, didn’t he, Mary?”
Mary nodded but did not lower her eyes. “Where did you find it?” she asked curiously. “In my pocket-book?”
Bunny felt suddenly overwhelmed with the hopelessness of it all.
“Oh, Mary, how could you let a man write you that way?”
“What do you mean—‘let him?’” She settled her smooth head more snugly into the cushion at her back. “He just did. I told him not to do it again because you wouldn’t like it.”
“I wouldn’t like it! But, Mary, you don’t like it, do you?”
“Oh—me?” She shrugged.
“Mary! Don’t you resent it?”
Instead of answering she withdrew one satin-slippered foot from the pink concealment of her skirt and regarded it thoughtfully.
“Why, Mary,” he burst forth, standing before her, his hands dug deep into his pockets, “it’s positively sickening! Anybody can see the man is in love with you! Every line—every word—”
“That’s what makes me so sorry for him. When he told me—”
“You’ve discussed it with him? He’s dared to tell you—”
“Well, if a thing is, I can’t see the harm in discussing it. I’m not a baby.”
“Well, then, stop talking like one! Stop and think! You admit this man makes love to you, and still you continue to go out with him, you entertain him here. Mary Mary, why do we have things like this coming up in our lives? Don’t I satisfy you, Mary?”
“Why, Bunny! What an idea! Of course you do. But you always said you didn’t object to my having men friends.”
“I don’t. But you don’t seem able to keep men, friends. You let them make love to you.”
“Heavens, Bunny, don’t get so tragic! You know I don’t take that seriously.”
“Well, how do I know you take anything seriously? How do I know you take me seriously?” He would not meet the hurt look in her eyes. “You take constant chances of losing me. Don’t look that way, Mary. When you go down to a man’s studio—a man who is in love with you and to whose avowals you have listened—not only you, but some of the other passengers on top of a Fifth Avenue bus”—she whitened—“you’re gambling with my love. Moreover, you’re gambling with something for which I have paid rather a high price under the delusion that it was to be my exclusive property.”
“Oh, Bunny—how on earth can you talk that way? You know that everything that really counts in me belongs to you.”
“Well, you can hardly blame me for not being willing to have you dangle it before strangers as the stakes of a more or less thrilling game at which I know you are a good player—or, at any rate, a very lucky one.”
“Bunny! Don’t say things like that.”
“Why not? Are we to be the only two people in the world who are not to discuss your little affairs frankly? Other people—”
“Oh—other people make me sick. They always misunderstand.”
“You bet they do. That’s why you ought to be careful not to give them things they can misconstrue into a unanimous conclusion that I’m a fool. I’m not a fool. And I don’t think you ought to keep making me look like one.”
“Oh, Bunny! Such a mountain out of nothing! You know Mack Mullen doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“Well, it’s even less complimentary to me to think you would take a chance of making me look ridiculous for the sake of any casual stranger who happened to pay you a little flattering attention.”
“Bunny—that isn’t fair!”
“Well, is it fair for you to do things which make it look that way to other people? If you have no pride about those matters, Mary, be good enough to consider mine!”
“Stop it, Bunny! You mustn’t talk that way to me. It isn’t kind. It isn’t necessary. If there’s anything you don’t want me to do, you just have to say so and I’ll—”
Bunny sighed. “I have said so, Mary; many times.”
“I know.” She hopped off the sofa and came towards him. “I’m awfully careless, Bunny. I just don’t stop to think.” She was standing in front of him now, her fingers interlaced, her eyes on the third button of his vest. “You’re right. This isn’t the first time. But if you’ll forgive me, and not be angry”—one finger detached itself and hooked itself tentatively round the vest button—“I’ll see that it won’t happen anymore.”
He removed the finger gently. “All right, Mary. I forgive you—again.” She winced. “But, Mary”—still holding her hand gravely—“this must really be the last time. It mustn’t ever happen anymore.”
“It never will, Bunny. Honestly.” She looked at him appealingly. “It never will. I promise.”
“Wait a minute, Mary.” He dropped her hand, fending off the appeal in her eyes. “I want to believe you. I do believe you.” He crossed in front of her to the table. “I don’t believe you really care about things like—this.” He picked up the envelope and tore it in half, then tore the halves in little pieces, very deliberately, and threw the whole thing with an angry flip of his hand into the fireplace. “I believe you mean to play fair. But I don’t think I can quite trust your discretion.”
She looked over at him quickly. He was leaning against the mantel, gazing into the grate.
“You have a reputation for being unable to say no. I will have to safeguard our love against your—your generous heart, Mary. I hate to do it, it sounds so theatrical, but”—he searched her eyes then—“I shall have to ask you not to see Mack Mullen any more. And if you permit him to come in here I shall not consider it my home any longer. As for going to his rooms—”
“Oh, Bunny—please! Please don’t be cross with me anymore.” She came over to him again, her eyes luminous with something very like tears. “If you don’t want me to see him again I shan’t. I’ll tell him you don’t even want me to speak to him if I meet him on the street—and that I intend to respect your wishes.”
Bunny steeled himself against her eyes, her softness, her—oh, well, her whol
e desirableness.
“Tell him anything you like. Only if you ever let him in here again—”
“Oh, Bunny—I won’t. I promise you I won’t.”
“Very well.” Still he did not yield and take her in his arms. The situation was grave. He was quite sick about it all. And he knew that for once he must be so firm that the memory of his firmness, or fear, or something else would step in when his love did not seem compelling or potent enough to keep Mary from doing impossible things. “Very well. We will say no more about it—ever. But understand, Mary, the next time you put me in a position where all the women I know and most of the men are sorry for me, I shall simply—well, I shall simply clear out. You can get any man in the world to make love to you, without even trying. We all know it. Henceforth you will have to be satisfied with that knowledge without putting it to the test any more. I couldn’t stand having our life a series of these scenes, with interludes while you were gathering courage to try again.”
He had been brutal. But Mary had to face the truth. It was high time she realized what marriage really meant, and that this business of having your pie and eating it, too, isn’t exactly feasible. Mary liked having men in love with her. If she could not give up the gratification of that vanity, then she had a small soul and he would be better off without her. If Mary preferred—but that was out of the question. Mary did not prefer. Mary really loved him and she was no baby. All she needed was to have the fear of God thrown into her once and for all time.
And it seemed as if he had been right. For Mary did actually settle down completely, more completely than he had demanded, expected, even hoped for. Mary stopped golfing with men, motoring with them, lunching with them. She devoted every bit of her time and attention and thought to Bunny Brinkerhoff. It was like another and better honeymoon. They seemed to have arrived at a newer, fuller understanding of each other and marriage, even though Mary did poke fun at it all. She was a brazen rascal, was Mary. That was part of her charm.
“I can’t dance with you,” she informed a perfectly strange man, quite gravely, at a party, “because my husband is so insanely jealous that he would undoubtedly shoot you.”
And the strange man was seen to show a marked disinclination for the society of Mr. and Mrs. Brinkerhoff all evening.
Another time she telephoned Bunny at his office to hurry home because there was a book agent going in next door and he was so young and handsome that she was afraid when he came to her she would be unable to say no. And she used to write him anonymous letters to the effect that his wife was on friendly terms with the green grocer, who had been distinctly heard to call her “My dear lady,” and the neighbors were talking, and everybody was feeling so sorry for Mr. Brinkerhoff.
But Bunny could stand a lot of ragging, and he was altogether happy; so happy that for three whole months he failed to show up at the fire house. And although he could not help jumping up when the engines went by, he always promptly sat down again. Mary was trying so hard to please him that it seemed up to him to try equally hard to please her. And although she had never said anything about the engine house he knew she had never been quite happy about it.
One Sunday, along towards spring, when Mary had just settled herself comfortably for a nap on the couch in the living room, the engines went by. Well, you know how it is in the spring. At the first wail of the siren, up went Bunny’s head so that Mary, who had heard nothing at all, recognized the symptoms, and smiled. And when the next call came, punctuated by a staccato whistle and the ding-dong of a locomotive bell, “Ambulance, dear?” she asked innocently.
“Ambulance nothing!” By that time he was hanging halfway out of the window. “There goes Truck Ten.”
After a while he withdrew reluctantly, brushing his hands together to remove the dust of the outer sill.
“I guess it isn’t much of a fire,” he began with fine unconcern.
“Don’t you want to run out, dear, and see? I don’t mind.”
“N-No,” he began, when the persistent note of a higher-pitched siren reached them. “Mm,” he murmured, suddenly tense again, “the salvage corps.”
“Run along, angel cake. I’m going to sleep and you’ll only disturb me doing the caged-lion act. Go ahead and get it out of your system.”
“Well”—he decided to accommodate her—“guess I will run round and see where it is.”
“But don’t forget, Bunny Wiggles, Florry expects us in time for tea.”
“Tea!” He had to laugh. “You don’t suppose I’ll be there from now till teatime, do you?”
“No! Of course not! But just in case you should find it getting later than you had planned, do try to get out and phone Florry. You know how intimately her nervous system is bound up in her waffles.”
“Don’t be silly, Mary Mary.” He tucked a cover about her shoulders. “It’s not quite warm enough to sleep in such a negligee-ble costume.” And when she made a face he stooped and kissed her. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”
“Better arrange to meet me at Florry’s. It’ll save wear and tear on your conscience. Besides, I might leave early and take a walk.”
He was about to assure her again that he would be back within the hour when he heard the shriek of another siren—the clang of another bell.
“Second alarm. Good grief!”
He forgot what he had been about to say. He forgot Mary.
“Honey,” she called after him, “are you coming back here or shall I go straight to Florry’s?”
It was fifteen minutes before she had her answer.
“I’m in the fire lines,” her husband told her over the telephone. “It’s the Dexter Building, and it looks like a real worker. Guess you’d better not wait for me. I’ll go straight to Florry’s.”
“All right, Bunny dear. Try not to be late. And dear, do be careful!”
But he had already hung up the receiver.
It turned out to be mostly smudge, after all; an excelsior fire, which was handled by the first-alarm companies without aid. Bunny hung round and watched. He might as well, since Mary was not expecting him. Suddenly he heard his name called in a familiar voice. It gave him no particular thrill of pleasure. Florry, who was taking a walk with Guil, had come by to look at the fire.
“Mary’s sleeping, isn’t she?” inquired Florry.
“No,” replied Bunny, “I guess she’s out walking by this time.”
“Walking?” repeated Florry. “That’s funny. I called her up and asked her to walk with us and she said she had a headache and was going to sleep all afternoon and didn’t want to be disturbed.”
“Well”—Bunny thought he understood—“probably she will sleep all afternoon. Mary’s an awful sleepyhead.”
“I don’t think,” remarked Florry, and Bunny knew intuitively something unpleasant was in store for him, “that Mary is going to get much sleep today because I just saw Mack Mullen duck into Ryder’s drug store. And the only reason anybody’s ever known Mack Mullen to get this far uptown—By the way, were you coming over to the house, Bunny? If you are we’ll walk back with you.”
“No—no,” said Bunny, whose head was suddenly going round and round, “don’t spoil your walk. I’ll just go home and—change my collar and get Mary, and then we’ll both be over.”
Bunny felt it easier to draw his breath the minute she was out of sight. He drew a long one. Almost before he had drawn the next he was home. He had run all the way. He slipped his key into the lock and pushed the door open. That is, he pushed it. But it did not open because the chain was on.
Now there was nothing unusual at all in the fact that the chain was on. Mary, who was timid, always put it on when she was alone nights. But this was broad daylight.
He rang, and it seemed an eternity before she came. And it also seemed to him that he heard stealthy sounds through the partly open door. Then Mary appeared, and she was just as
he had left her. And he knew she could not have been entertaining callers in negligee. The whole nightmare tumbled down like any other well-behaved nightmare at the first contact with reality.
Still, as he followed her into the bedroom he was conscious that all his senses were terribly alert. Had there been the minutest sound, the least unusual sight—his ear and eye would have detected them. All the time he was changing his collar and brushing his hair and telling Mary rather feverishly about the fire and Florry and what Florry had said, he was watching her in the mirror, watching her face for any signs of—well, of anything. But her poise and her calmness shamed while they did not reassure him. He felt he was wronging her. And still something would not let him relax. Something made him keep watching her while she dressed—very quickly, for Mary, hardly stopping to daub rouge on her lips—and follow her with his eyes when she went to see whether Emily had shut all the windows in the rear of the apartment.
And while he watched he had the queerest sensations about Mary. It seemed to him in the first place, that her eyes were veiled, that her mouth looked strained, and in some way she had become a stranger to him. And in the next place, it seemed to him that he hated her, and that, above all, if he watched carefully enough—And that was how, in the panel mirror of the bedroom door, he saw Mary stoop, far down the hall before the passageway to the kitchen, and pick something from the floor which she crowded furtively into the pocket of her coat. Bunny said nothing but kept watching her with eyes so intent they smarted. And then it seemed to him that she was indeed nervous and eager to get out of the house. And all the way to Florry’s she talked unusually hard and fast. And when he had insisted on taking her coat from her and hanging it in Florry’s closet, he slipped his hand into the pocket and pulled out a handkerchief: a large handkerchief, with the monogram MM in the corner.
The Viola Brothers Shore Mystery Page 15
