Unsuspected

by Charlotte Armstrong

  “Who was in your lifeboat?”

  “There were twelve of us passengers, and three crew members.”

  “Was it cold? Was the weather bad? Did you suffer?”

  “It was quite warm,” said Mathilda. “It was a lovely night.”

  One of the newsmen was a little redheaded fellow, a fidgeter. “O.K., so you got picked up.”

  “The S.S. Blayne,” said one of them. Somebody sighed impatiently.

  “How come they took you all the way to Africa?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mathilda. Never guess when you don’t know.

  “Did you realize that no message came through from you?”

  “We couldn’t be sure,” she said a little too quickly. Be careful. Don’t say too much. She went on more slowly, with a little frown, as if she were taking pains. “Of course we tried. But they wouldn’t use the ship’s radio. And the port where we were taken was quite confused.”

  She looked straight at the female one. They would have no way to guess how she’d felt about it, how she hadn’t really made much of an effort to get a message through. Mathilda knew now that it had been childish, that mood of not trying, that babyish, rebellious thought. Let him think I died. Then he’ll be sorry. Her heart bounced, as it always did with the thought of Oliver or even at a hint that she was about to think of him. Push it down.

  “What happened there?” somebody was asking.

  “At the African port, you mean? Why, just waiting, really. You see, although we had to wait so long for a returning ship, we never knew but what we might be sailing the next morning. So we were busy waiting.” Watch it. Don’t be colorful.

  “Where did you stay?”

  “At a very nice little hotel.” She saw it vividly—more vividly, almost, than she could see anything else in her memory. It was brilliant in the sun, that terrible aching sunlight that had poured over everything. And she could smell it. But she mustn’t say so. Nor must she give them any hint of the brooding pain that filled all her days there under that brutal sun, the headache and the heartache all mingled together.

  “But what did you do with yourselves?”

  “Do?” she repeated slowly. Take your time.

  “Yes, while you waited.”

  “We tried to be patient,” she said gently. “Sometimes we played cards. There wasn’t much to read.”

  Their faces were getting bleaker and bleaker. She knew they wanted adventure. And yet, she thought, honestly there hadn’t been anything adventurous. Or if there had, she hadn’t recognized it. Maybe someday, when she was old and looked back, details such as flies and headaches would have faded out; maybe it would look like an adventure then.

  “Weren’t there any interesting people?” asked the one who was a girl.

  “Very nice people,” said Mathilda primly. “There was Doctor Phillips and his wife. He is a clergyman. There were Mr. and Mrs. Stevens—”

  “No men?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Young men?”

  “N-no,” said Mathilda. “At least not younger than about forty.” Mr. Boyleston had been forty. He had only one eye, but better not say so.

  “No natives?”

  “Of course there were natives,” said Mathilda. “Although we didn’t see very much of them.”

  Something eager was dying out of their faces. They were giving her up. All except the red-haired man, who still watched her face as if he were searching for signs.

  “But finally you got a ship, huh?”

  “Yes, finally we did,” she said brightly. “It took us to Buenos Aires.”

  “That message gave the whole country a thrill. In fact, you made Page One.”

  Mathilda smiled politely and moistened her lips. Was it thrilling to Oliver? she wondered with the familiar sickening lurch of her heart.

  “There was a chance to fly to Bermuda, and I took it,” she said, “because I have a house there and people knew me.” She glanced down at her suit. Better not go into the ragged crew they’d been.

  “Did you have any money, Miss Frazier?”

  “People were very kind,” she said evasively. She kept smiling. Don’t boast. Better not let them know that the mere rumor of her wealth had inspired enough kindness to bring them home.

  “What do you plan to do now?”

  “I must get home,” she said. Was Oliver there? Was Althea there? Mustn’t ask.

  “To Dedham, you mean, of course? To Mr. Grandison’s house? He broadcast a piece about you,” said the female one chattily. “‘Tyl, dear, wherever you may be—’ He had me bawling.”

  Mathilda’s eyes stung. Don’t give them an emotion, even a good one. She swallowed.

  “I’ll bet you’re glad to be back,” said the red-haired man, not perfunctorily, but as if he alone knew why.

  “Yes, I am. Very glad indeed.” Her green eyes met his steadily. You can end any interview after a decent passage of time.

  “It must have been quite an adventure,” said the female one a little flatly, as if she doubted it.

  “Yes,” said Mathilda. “I really think that’s about all I can tell you. If you’ll excuse me. Thank you for being so kind.” Always thank them.

  “Well, thank you.” “Thanks a lot.” They were through with her. They made as if to withdraw, all but the red-haired man, who drew closer.

  “Why are you using your maiden name?” he said in a low, conversational tone.

  Mathilda caught hold of her surprise and alarm and controlled it. Just her lashes flickered. “I beg your pardon?” she murmured. She took a step away. She was afraid, if he got too close, the emotional tension she was hiding so carefully would be palpable, like a magnetic field.

  “He’s waiting for you on the pier,” said the red-haired man.

  “Who?” She hadn’t meant to ask. Mustn’t get involved. This was the press. Never converse. Recite.

  “Your husband,” said the red-haired man.

  Mathilda didn’t move, didn’t say anything. It took all her training to stand so still. The thought of Oliver broke through and flooded her whole mind. Could it be Oliver who was waiting at the pier? By some miracle, restored to her? As if Althea had never so easily, so almost lazily, reached out and taken him away? Her heart pounded.

  “All I’m asking is: Do you confirm it or deny?” said the red-haired man in a rapid mutter. “How about it, Mrs. Howard? Can I take that blush—”

  Mathilda said, “If you’ll excuse me, please.” She looked full at him, although she couldn’t see his face. She could feel her lips mechanically smiling.

  “What goes on?” said the female one, abruptly popping up beside them.

  The red-haired man was sending Mathilda a hurt, reproachful look, but she didn’t see it. She said again, still smiling, “Won’t you please excuse me now?”

  “O.K.,” said the red-haired man. “O.K.” But he said it as if he were saying, “All right for you.”

  Mathilda went and sat quietly in a corner of the deck. “Such a nice, quiet girl,” Mrs. Stevens had told the reporters. “Such a little lady. Why not the least bit conscious of all that money. We have become very close friends,” said Mrs. Stevens, with plenty of consciousness of all that money.

  So the Stevenses came and fluttered around her, all talking at once, promising to look her up, never to forget her, begging her to promise them the same. Mathilda kept promising.

  But the whole thing was back now in full force. Just as strong as if she’d never been shipwrecked and carried away to Africa, half the world away. She could see, bitterly, Oliver’s face as it had been two days before their wedding day, when he had come in and been so strangely silent. She had babbled innocently along, happily, naively, all un warned, unprepared, about who had sent what present, about such silly little things. And at last, when she’d stopped the chatter, puzzled, he’d said, “Tyl, are you happy?” And she’d been so startled. The whole thing had caught her in the throat. She’d finally answered in the extravagant language she n
ever naturally used, simply because it meant too much; she couldn’t answer him otherwise. She’d turned her back and cried, “Darling, of course, I’m just about out of my mind with happiness! Aren’t you?”

  He’d said, “Well, don’t worry,” in that flat blunt voice that wasn’t like Oliver at all. And when, in surprise, she’d turned around, he’d been gone. Gone.

  Nor had she, even then, understood anything. How dumb! How could she have been so dumb? Stupid. Blind. Dumb. Did she crack wise? Oh, no, not she! Not dumb-bunny Mathilda, the ugly duckling with all the money.

  Grandy’d had to take her aside into his study that night, with only one dim light, she remembered. Sitting beside her in the shadows, he’d told her in his gentlest voice, “Tyl, darling, I think this belated honesty of Oliver’s is lucky for you. Oh, I realize that you won’t see beyond the surface humiliation and it’s true. Oliver ought to have told you more directly. Poor duckling. But this superficial blow to your pride is nothing, nothing. You must believe me. Someday you will know that this is right. Someday you will know that Oliver, however clumsily he’s done it, hasn’t really done you wrong.”

  Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. But Oliver was lost and there was a whole structure of dream and plan that tumbled down. And she had to learn all over again to be alone. And why did it have to be Althea? Damn her. Oh, damn her.

  All her remembered life, Althea had been there with that power to take away. Never had Tyl had a glow, a hint of success, of happiness, that Althea hadn’t somehow been able to dim it or put it out. Poor penniless Althea, who was so beautiful. Tyl ground her teeth.

  “Nor must you blame Althea,” Grandy’d said. “You must be charitable, my dear. She was in love.”

  “I know,” she’d answered with a proud tolerance, biting back the cry, But so was I! But so was I! And still, in April, her heart was crying, But so was I!

  “Won’t it be wonderful to see all our friends?” sighed Mrs. Stevens. “Just think; any minute. Won’t you come around to the other side, Miss Frazier, dear?”

  Mathilda said desperately, “Won’t you please excuse me?”

  4

  Mathilda’s luggage didn’t keep her long. She seemed hardly to have begun to remember how to stand up on land, when they were finished with her. She was through customs, standing in another lightning storm of cameras, and a tall man had come up to her with a protective air.

  Blinded, Mathilda couldn’t quite see his face, but she heard a strange, kind voice saying close to her ear, “Grandy let me come.” Her eyes filled with tears of relief. She felt a gush of emotion, a sense of coming home.

  The red-haired newsman saw her falter and begin to cry; saw the tall man, with a kind swoop of his whole body that seemed to surround her and guard her, guide her quickly through the groups of people and put her into a cab, very neatly, very fast. The red-haired man ran his tongue around an upper molar. He might have been sneering.

  Mathilda stumbled into the taxi. It took her a minute to find a handkerchief. The man beside her, with an odd effect of pure and scientific curiosity, said, “Why is it they call Althea the beautiful one?”

  “Because she is, of course,” said Mathilda in honest surprise. Now she could see his face. It wasn’t a face she had ever seen before. He was dark—dark hair, weathered skin. His eyes were dark, with heavy lashes. He had the kind of nose that suggests good humor, a nose not in the least chiseled or sharp, but boyish looking. His chin was firm. His face was thin, with no puffs of flesh. It was a formed face, the face of a man who had been, somehow, tested, although he was young. His eyebrows went up at an angle toward his temples. There was something gay about the way they flew when he smiled.

  He spoke again before she had time to form a question. “Grandy would have come down. He wanted to. But he thought it would only complicate the publicity part.”

  Into her mind flitted the memory of the red-haired man and what he’d said. But the thought flitted out again. “Where are we going?”

  “To a hotel. I have to pick up my stuff. And I want very much to talk to you.”

  He did have a nice smile. But it came over Mathilda, just the same, that all this was rather strange. Grandy’s mere name had been enough for that moment on the pier. But now she drew a little away, shrinking back into her own corner of the taxicab.

  “I want to talk to you quite seriously,” he was continuing. She began to feel alarmed. He said lightly, “I’m afraid your Mr. Grandison has been up to some plain and fancy dirty work.”

  Mathilda took a deep breath. Her green eyes opened wider.

  The man said, “I don’t know where to start. I suppose it began with Jane—but of course you don’t know Jane.”

  “I don’t know you,” said Mathilda coldly. “Will you please ask the man to take us to the station? I would like to go to Mr. Grandison’s house by the first train.”

  He looked as if he hadn’t quite taken in what she said. He sat still. If he’d been in a movie, you’d have assumed that the film had stuck. His eyes remained interested and alert. He made no move to redirect the cab driver.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea who you are,” said Mathilda angrily, “and you may as well know that I will not listen to your opinions of Mr. Grandison. Since I’ve never seen you before in my life, I am perfectly sure you can’t know Mr. Grandison anything like as well as I do. And you ought to know better than to think you can run him down to me.”

  He said nothing. Something about his pose collapsed just a little, as if a little air had gone out of a balloon. There was a small crumpling.

  Mathilda was mad as hops. This was no newsman. She could let fly. She could be as vivid and as colorful with her emotion as she liked. She said, “Grandy has taken care of me since I was nine. He’s been my father and my mother and my uncles and my aunts. He’s taught me all I know and given me just about everything I’ve ever had of any value. All the things you can’t buy. He’s given me my home. He made it home for me. He’s picked my schools. He’s cared. He’s spent thought and trouble on me. He’s my family. And not because we have the same blood, either, but because he wanted to be, because he loved me and I love him. He is, in my considered opinion, the best and wisest man in the world, and anything he chooses to do is all right with me, and always will be. And if you won’t tell the cab driver where to go, I will. Or I’ll scream. Choose one!”

  She saw, through her anger, with satisfaction that the man had really collapsed now. At least he had fallen back into his corner and was sitting there somberly, and it was as if he were locked inside a shell of very thick silence. He was saying nothing in seventeen different languages. He was stopped, gagged. He’d shut his mouth. Well, she thought, he’d better.

  “Driver,” said Mathilda.

  The man got some words out painfully. “No, don’t,” he said. “We are to telephone.”

  “There are telephones everywhere,” she said coldly. “Particularly in the Grand Central Station.”

  “Yes, but my—” He pulled himself together in order to speak at all. “Grandy sent me,” he said. “Nobody’s going to hurt you, you know. You don’t really think so, do you?”

  “Certainly not,” said Mathilda with airy contempt.

  “No train for an hour and a half,” he said. He seemed rather indifferent suddenly. He looked out of the cab window, away from her. “If you like, I’ll leave you after we telephone. You’ll have to wait somewhere.”

  Mathilda sat back. She was still seething. She tried to remember exactly what he had said that had set off so much anger. But the phrase didn’t come back to her accurately. She began to feel that she’d been too vehement. She had made a show of herself. She understood, now, that it had all been part of the home-coming emotion somehow.

  His withdrawn silence smacked of reproach. After all, if Grandy had sent him— She cast about for some remark, something in the way of small talk, to indicate that the storm was over. She said chattily, “I hope you realize that I don’t even know your name.”
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  He did a strange thing. He put his hand up and covered his eyes, and sat very still and tense. She wondered if he had heard. “I don’t know your name,” she repeated.

  “My name is Francis Howard,” he said stiffly. He took his hand down and went back to looking out of the cab window. She could see his ear, the line of his cheek, not his eyes.

  Howard. Mathilda’s mind took what she at first thought was a capricious swoop, back to the interview with the press. Then she cried out, “Howard!”

  He didn’t look around, though he moved his head a trifle warily.

  “That was funny!” Mathilda said. “There was one man who seemed to think— He said my husband— Why, that’s what he called me! Mrs. Howard!”

  “He did?” said Mr. Howard, in a bored, perfunctory way.

  And he said no more. Mathilda stopped talking. Really, he was the limit. Certainly it was an odd thing to have been said and the coincidence was very odd. “Your husband is waiting for you, Mrs. Howard.” Any normal human being, thought Mathilda indignantly, would want to know all about it, especially when it was the same name. He wouldn’t just sit, looking indifferently away, out of the window.

  The cab pulled up. A doorman helped them out, a bellhop came for her suitcase. She knew the place. Francis guided her into the lobby, into the elevator. Mathilda stood stiff and cold. The funny thing was that just as they walked into the elevator, as he gave the floor number to the boy, she caught a flash of his eye on her, and it was a look of both impatience and anger. Mathilda bit hard on her teeth. He had no business being angry with her, for the love of Mike! She marched down the corridor after the bellboy, holding her head haughtily.

  They were admitted to a suite. Mathilda stood in the middle of the floor. She indicated the telephone. Francis was muttering to the bellboy about trains, bags. Without a word to her, he crossed to the telephone and asked for Grandy’s number. He sat hunched over the phone, his right arm dangling. The call went through without much delay.

  “Hello.… Jane?”

  Mathilda thought, Now, who is Jane? It seemed to her that he’d mentioned a Jane before.