Now, having just awakened, he rubbed his eyes, scratched his scalp and looked foggily around the room to see where Maggie was and where the man’s voice was coming from.
After a few moments he located the lighted television screen, Brad in black and white and, finally, Maggie on the floor before it. He rubbed and scratched again, rearing a little higher on his elbow.
A faint flush came into his dark cheeks, adding to his look of ferocity. The flush was incited partly by the sight of Brad on television and partly by the sight of Maggie on the floor, each part for different reasons.
“What the hell are you doing down there on the floor?” he demanded.
She did not answer or turn her head. Her lips kept forming the shapes of words.
“You’ll catch your death of cold,” he told her.
Brad in the box, telling a funny anecdote all the while, kept writing numbers and letters on the blackboard with chalk, and there on the board all at once, as simple as could be, was the answer to everything, the whole problem, and Maggie was exorbitantly proud of Brad for getting the answer, even though she couldn’t see how, or why anyone would want to. Her lips formed the shape of the answer slowly, with pleasure, as if it had taste and the taste was good.
“You’d better answer if you know what’s good for you,” Buddy said.
“Shut up,” she answered, her voice carrying no inflection whatever.
His flush deepened and his heavy brows drew together over his nose, but he was quiet just the same, lying propped on his elbow and watching the finish of the algebra lesson. The lesson was already finished, as a matter of fact, and now in the last minute or two Brad was merely being clever about making the assignment. He faded away with his last word, and the theme came up, and credits began to appear on the screen one after another.
Still Maggie did not move. She continued couchant, belly down and chin cupped, apparently intending to remain in that position until the next lesson next Saturday. It was not a position, to say the least, that was calculated to alleviate the mixed emotions of Buddy behind her, scorned and contemptuously silenced. He was obviously brooding over this summary treatment, for when he spoke again it was with ominous truculence.
“What the hell did you mean,” he said, “telling me to shut up?”
“What I meant was plain enough,” she retorted. “Do you have to have the simplest thing explained to you in detail?”
“You’d better be careful how you talk to me, that’s all.”
“Oh, God! I’m utterly terrified.”
“What’s the matter with you? Are you crazy or something?” he demanded, his voice carrying a note of honest puzzlement.
“Maybe I am. I must be crazy to have anything to do with you.”
“That’s not the way you talked last night.”
“Well, don’t let it confuse you. What I said and did last night don’t necessarily mean anything this morning.”
“I ought to give you a good beating, that’s what I ought to do.”
“What you ought to do is get dressed and get out of here. I can’t stand you first thing in the morning,” she told him flatly, still not deigning to look around at him.
“Come here and I’ll show you how to stand me.”
“No, thank you. I prefer to stay here.”
“Why do you want to keep on lying there on the floor?”
“Just because I want to, that’s why.”
“You can’t go on lying there all day,” he pointed out.
“I can if I choose. I may do it.”
“Maybe you think if you lie there long enough your precious Professor Cannon will come back on television.”
“If I lie here long enough, that’s exactly what he’ll do. Next Saturday morning.”
“He’s about the worst creep there is. I don’t understand what you see in him.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re too stupid.”
“You’re a hell of a one to talk about being stupid,” he snorted. “You didn’t have the least idea what he was talking about.”
“That’s all right. He gave me some other ideas that were a lot more interesting.”
“You better not get any ideas about trying any funny business with him, I can tell you that.”
“You can’t imagine how grateful I am for your advice. What would you do if I did?”
“Don’t worry. I’d stop it one way or another.”
She rolled over then and sat up, hugging her knees and staring at him angrily over the tops.
“Would you really? Just try it. Perhaps you’d like to have the truth known in a certain place about a certain hit-and-run accident. Manslaughter, I think they call it. I wonder how much time they give you in prison for something like that.”
“Don’t try to threaten me. You’ll never tell,” he muttered, his glance wary and savage.
“Don’t be too sure. I will if you cause me any trouble.”
“If you did, I’d kill you.”
“Talk, talk! You always talk big. In my opinion, in spite of looking like a hoodlum, you’re nothing but a coward.”
“You’ll see. Just try any funny business with old Cannon, and you’ll see.”
She bared her teeth in a tigerish little smile, at the same time studying him with an air of judicious detachment. The truth was, she had a kind of soft spot for him in her heart. As nearly soft, that is, as she could come to softness. As nearly in her heart, that is, as she could come to having a heart.
He was interesting and sometimes exciting, and she would have liked to keep him around for times when he was wanted. But if it became necessary to send him away or eliminate him somehow, it was nothing that would give her any sense of enduring loss or even the least regret.
She did not feel quite so easy about him, however, as she pretended. He was lazy and a little dull, surely, but there was a depth of darkness in him out of the common — a kind of disturbing mutation that made him a very dangerous young man. In short, to draw a comparison, he was quite a lot like her.
“I had to see him yesterday after classes because I’m flunking trig,” she said. “We had a nice talk, and then I kissed him. He’s much more fun to kiss than you are.”
“You know what I think? I think you’re a damn liar.”
“Think as you please. It couldn’t matter less to me.”
“Do you imagine a man like him would pay serious attention to someone like you? You’ll only make a fool of yourself.”
“You’re the fool if you think so,” she responded.
“What have you got to gain?”
“You might be surprised. Anyhow, did it ever occur to you that I might be in love with him? He’s handsome and very intelligent, and I’ll bet he’s better in bed than you could ever be even if you took professional lessons.”
“Oh, God, what a laugh! You talking about love!” A sneer wreathed his tight lips.
“You think it’s funny? Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think. Just because it’s impossible to fall in love with an ugly clown like you doesn’t mean it’s impossible with someone else.”
“You’re about as capable of love as a copperhead. Not that it makes any difference to me. I like you that way.”
“Well, haven’t you become suddenly profound! It’s amazing how someone who can barely read and write should possess such wisdom.”
“Oh, go to hell. Pretty soon you’ll be talking some drivel about marriage or something.”
“Perhaps I will. I’m considering it.”
“With old Cannon? You’ve really lost your marbles, haven’t you, Maggie? He’s got a wife, in case you didn’t know, and his wife, they tell me, has a million bucks.”
“That’s true. He would probably be reluctant to give up so much money. It’s a problem.” She appeared to ponder that a moment.
“You won’t solve it with algebra or trigonometry, either. It’s an interesting problem though, I admit. How do you lose a wife without losing her money?”
&nbs
p; “Never mind. I’m considering that, too.”
“Nuts.” He sat up all at once, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. “Stop talking like a fool and come here.”
“No. I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m tired of you. You bore me. I wish you’d go away.”
“If you don’t come here, I’ll come there.”
“Come ahead,” she snapped. “It won’t do you any good.”
“We’ll see.”
“If you touch me, I’ll scratch your eyes out.”
He got up and walked across the littered room and sat down beside her and facing her. She continued to hug her knees, turning her head deliberately away.
“Oh, come off, Maggie,” he said. “Why do you want to act like such a bitch?”
“Is that how I’m acting? It doesn’t matter. If you don’t like it, you can go somewhere else. Do you always just keep staying and staying where you’re not wanted?”
“I was wanted last night,” he reminded her.
“That was last night. It’s simply impossible to get it through your head that things are not constantly the same.”
“You look charming the way you are.”
“Do I? You don’t,” she said. “You look rather absurd.”
He was silent for a few seconds, the flush of anger deep and ugly in his dark cheeks. For a moment, watching him warily from the corners of her eyes, she thought that he was going to hit her, which was something he had done before in anger.
The thought sent a little shiver of aberrant excitement through her folded body held steady by the clasp of her arms around her knees. He was dark and ugly and exciting in anger, and he often did blindly exciting things, although sometimes painful.
Now, however, he seemed to think better of violence. She could sense the fury draining from him, the color of rage leaving his cheeks. He reached out and drew a surprisingly gentle finger down her arched spine.
“Why do you stay on and on here, Maggie?” he said. “You don’t give a damn about college.”
“I’m a career college girl. I plan to spend my life at it.”
“Be serious for once. Why don’t you give it up? There are lots of things you could do that would be more fun and make you some money besides.”
“Why don’t you give it up? You’ll probably flunk everything at the end of the term and get booted, anyhow. You could try working for a change.”
“I will if you will. Give it up and go away, I mean. Let’s go away together, Maggie.”
“Fat chance.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t go across town with you.”
“Please.”
“No, damn it! No, no, no! And don’t beg. You only sound foolish when you do.”
“All right,” he said. “All right, by God!”
He swiped at her suddenly, before she had even an instant in which to duck or defend herself, and his heavy open hand cracked against the side of her head. Still clasping her knees, she spun comically on the pivot or her tail, then went sprawling on the floor with arms and legs flying. She was up on her knees in a flash, spitting obscenities and coming at him with open claws, but he swept her arms aside with a contemptuous gesture and clipped her brutally on the jaw, his hand folded this time into a fist. She fell away again in a flash of pain and garish light fading swiftly to brief darkness, and when the darkness receded she was flat on her back on the floor, pinned beneath the weight of his hard body. She spat in his face and cursed him, but he had been relieved by the catharsis of violence and did not care at all.
His grip was almost gentle and did not hurt her in the least, but it was very strong, unbreakable, and it was impossible to scratch his eyes out, as she had threatened. This, however, was only something she had said to goad him, anyhow, and he was in fact now doing, beginning to do, what she had expected and wanted.
There was a morning newscaster in the box where Brad had been. He watched Buddy and Maggie with professional gravity as he read the latest releases.
8
“WILL YOU have some tea now?” Madelaine asked.
Brad looked up from the book he was reading. It was a dull book, he thought, but even the dullness was pleasant, something he badly needed after the stormy session with Cornelia and the trying television session in the morning.
It had been altogether a pleasant afternoon, a welcome change of pace, and he had spent most of it doing exactly what he was now doing, sitting before his living room fireplace, in which there was a small wood fire, reading sporadically the agreeably dull book.
“Is it time?” he said.
“It’s nearly five.”
“Really? It doesn’t seem possible. Saturday afternoons at home always pass so quickly. A characteristic, I suppose, of all good times and things.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“What? Oh, yes. The tea. I believe I’ll have a cocktail instead, if you don’t mind.”
“I suggest that you don’t. We’re going to the picnic party at the Nortons later, you know, and you’ll have something there.”
“That’s true,” he admitted. “I’d forgotten about the party. To tell the truth, I would prefer to go right on forgetting it. Those damn backyard affairs of old Norton’s are terrible bores. Besides, it’s getting too late in the year for outside parties. We’ll all freeze our tails.”
“I hardly think so. The temperature’s mild enough, even in the evening, and there will be a fire. Anyhow, most guests appear to enjoy Dr. Norton’s backyard parties. I rather enjoy them myself.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to deprive you of your pleasure. We’ll go of course.”
“I should hope so. You can hardly afford to be cavalier with the head of your department,” she reminded him tartly.
“You think not? I doubt that old Norton has much influence left where it counts. No matter, though. I’ll have the tea, as you suggested.”
“If you prefer the cocktail, I’ll mix it. A Martini?”
“No. You’re quite right about it. I’d better have the tea.”
“All right. I’ll have to make it myself. The maid is off this afternoon.”
She turned away from the window against which she had been standing and crossed the room to a door opening into a hall that led back to the kitchen.
Watching her go, Brad gave due credit to her fine figure and the practiced grace of her movements, which had been learned early and never lost. The dress she was wearing was very expensive, he thought, far more expensive than she could have worn if they were living on his salary. But he did not resent this. On the contrary, he fully approved it.
A man of his own appearance and position needed an impressive wife at any cost, and it surely made matters much easier if he didn’t have to pay the cost himself. It was a pity, really, and perhaps not entirely her fault, that she was, like old Norton’s backyard brawls, such a bore. Actually, his feeling for her nowadays was somewhat more positive than mere boredom. It had in it a core of animus that might easily, sufficiently incited, become hatred.
He got up and walked over to the window that Madelaine had left, holding his book folded upon an index finger. Looking across the side yard to the box hedge that separated them from their neighbor, a botanist of considerable repute, he wondered what in the devil he was to do about Cornelia, for it was certain that something had to be done as quickly and quietly as possible.
Well, he wasn’t seriously worried about her, so far as that went. He was positive that she wouldn’t kick up a public fuss and ruin her own career at Peermont, as well as his. But it was possible that she might do something covertly that was calculated to smear him in some way while leaving her untouched. He wondered if she would. Or if she could, if she would. He doubted it. She was, after all, a mature woman, much too sophisticated and intelligent to create a sticky mess over an affair that had been mutually conceived and, until recently, rather pleasantly conducted.
Oh, she would certainly make things difficult when it came to a break. She had already demonstrated that. After a while, however, she would accept it amiably enough, and later on she would probably even convince herself that it was she who had decided to make the break for her own good.
Reassured, aware of a vacancy that Cornelia, in his mind, had already left, he began to think of Maggie. Thinking of her caused his lips to slip into the shape of a slight smile, developing dimples.
She was an odd and intriguing little devil, he thought. She possessed, somehow, a unique quality that made her different from anyone he had ever known before. Puzzling and exciting and somewhat disturbing. What was it?
He stood and tried to think what it was until Madelaine returned, carrying a silver service, and then he turned away, walking back to his chair and pulling it a little forward so that he could reach, sitting, the low table on which the service sat.
“Did you watch the television session this morning?” he inquired.
“No. I have no interest in mathematics. You know that.”
“Of course. I thought you might have watched out of general interest. Merely to see how I did and all.”
“I’m sure you did very well. You always do. The truth is, I slept right through it.”
“It’s an ungodly hour. I wonder sometimes if anyone watches. It will be a relief to be finished with it.”
“As I’ve said before, I’ve had an idea that you rather enjoyed your weekend trips to the city,” she murmured, her eyes oddly intent upon him.
“Not at all. They’re a terrible nuisance. What on earth makes you persist in such an idea?”
“It was just an impression I got. Is your tea strong enough?”
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