by Peggy Gaddis
She made herself go back to the living room and sip the drink Terry had mixed for her. She listened to his praise of Eleanor until at last when he rose to go, she was almost unbearably weary.
Terry stood for a moment looking down at her, and there was gentleness and compassion, even tenderness, in his eyes.
“Poor Phyl!” he said very gently. “You’ve had such a rotten break—I wish there was something I could do.”
She smiled at him through a mist of tears that she tried desperately to control.
“You idiot! As if you hadn’t done so much—” Her voice broke, but she made herself smile at him. “Run along home now and dream about your Eleanor.”
Terry said quietly, gravely, “Like me to stay, Phyllis? I will, you know.”
Her face burned scarlet and her eyes, shamed and bitter, dropped away from his.
“Thanks, no, Terry,” she said through her teeth. “That would be just a little too much, knowing that your thoughts would be with Eleanor.”
Terry nodded. “It wouldn’t be much fun,” he agreed, and there was something in his voice that jerked her eyes back to his. “I know, because of the times when your thoughts were with Rutledge.”
And on that he walked out of the apartment, and Phyllis could only stand very still, staring after him, wide-eyed and shaken. Had he meant that last as merely a remark, or had he meant to plunge his clenched fist hard between her eyes—because that was the way she felt.
She lay awake a long time, staring into the darkness. She had never felt so cruelly alone, so bitterly bereft in all her life. And she traced the thought mercilessly to its source; in the fact that always before, when she had been low in her mind, there had been the knowledge that to Terry she was somebody very special, very precious. And now Terry’s heart was completely preoccupied by this stranger.
It was wickedly wrong, Phyllis knew, to feel jealous and bitter because Terry, who had loved her and accepted what shreds of her heart she could give him, should have found someone who was completely his, with no shadow of another man to lay across his happiness. It was what she had wanted for Terry. Well, damn it, in any case it was what she should have wanted.
Wistfully she thought of all the fun she and Terry had had. The times when just the knowledge that she was alluring and precious to Terry had lifted her spirits, had warmed a heart chilled by the knowledge that her love for Kenyon Rutledge was a wasted thing.
Suddenly she sat bolt upright in bed and stared, wide-eyed and stunned, into the thin darkness. Because a realization had flashed over her so suddenly that she was dazed by it, as if she had suddenly turned on a neon light in a pitch-black cellar. The realization that she was in love with Terry, not with Kenyon Rutledge.
“Oh, you poor damned fool,” she whispered to herself, appalled by the revelation.
Terry’s love had wrapped about her like a warm garment, and because it had been given unasked and unsought, she had not realized its worth until it had been taken from her. She had gone around like a blind fool thinking that her purely physical emotion for Kenyon Rutledge had been love, flinging Terry a bone now and then, almost contemptuous of his humility and his desire to be of service to her in any way. And now, when Terry was lost to her forever, when Terry had gathered up his heart and his thoughts and his desire and had given them to another girl—a girl who would be glad to marry him and keep his house and bear his children and love them until death—now Phyllis realized the truth. That it was after all, Terry she loved and wanted.
It was a discovery that shocked her so much that she thrust back the covers, slid out of bed and wrapped a negligee about her. She thrust her feet into slippers and went into the living room, switching on the lights, lighting a cigarette, forgetting to smoke it until the fire burned out and the taste was bitter on her tongue.
She paced up and down, wrestling with the knowledge that had just dawned upon her until suddenly she was laughing hysterically and the sound of her laughter was frightening to her own ears.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FOR A LITTLE WHILE, things moved smoothly in the office. Letty and Kenyon were to be married late in September, and they were to have a month’s honeymoon trip, and while Kenyon was gone, Phyllis would maintain order in the office. So they worked hard, getting things in shape so that Kenyon’s honeymoon would not have to be interrupted by a hurry call about business.
Phyllis was glad to work hard, to be so exhausted at the end of the day that she could go home and sleep. She saw Terry now and then. She learned to brace herself to listen to his praise of Eleanor. He even read her bits of Eleanor’s letters, his eyes lingering tenderly on those portions he did not read. And Phyllis clenched her hands hard and smiled with lips that felt stiff, and made herself show an intelligent and friendly interest.
She was too absorbed in her own tangled emotions to realize that Anice was being less annoying than usual. In fact, Anice seemed to have attracted a little group of her own friends with whom she frequently went to dinner or the theater or night-clubbing. Phyllis was merely grateful for the fact that once more her apartment seemed her own. For it was only occasionally that Anice was at home to dinner, and more and more, when she was, she suggested that they go out somewhere and admitted she was a little bored with cooking and housekeeping.
Late one afternoon, just as she was about to close her desk and call it a day, Phyllis’ office door opened and, startled, she looked up to see Letty standing there, immaculate and exquisitely groomed in a black-and-white frock, a tiny black hat half hidden by white flowers perched airily above one eye.
“Hello. May I come in?” she asked, all bright friendliness and gay good humor.
“Of course, please do,” said Phyllis politely, and indicated the chair beside her desk.
Letty nodded, and dropped into the chair. Phyllis sat down and Letty took out a package of cigarettes, offered one to Phyllis and held a match for both of them. And when she had shaken out the match’s tiny flame, she said coolly, “I feel, Miss Gordon, it is only fair that I should warn you that you apparently have an enemy.”
Phyllis stiffened and said swiftly, “But why should you be my enemy, now?”
Letty tipped back her pretty head and laughed.
“My dear girl!” she protested. “Surely you don’t think I meant myself? Goodness, you’re quite right. Why should I be your enemy, now that we understand each other so well?”
Phyllis looked bewildered and Letty hesitated for a moment, all laughter gone from her lovely face.
“You remember, Miss Gordon, I told you on … on that rather embarrassing night a week or ten days ago that I had had a telephone call, suggesting I drop in at the office?” she asked, and now she was entirely grave.
“Yes, of course.” Phyllis waited tensely.
“I told you it was a woman’s voice—a pleasant, musical voice?” Letty went on.
“I remember.”
Letty looked at her straightly.
“I’ve just heard it again, in Ken’s office,” said Letty quietly.
Phyllis said, startled, “You mean someone here in the office?”
Letty nodded, her eyes never leaving Phyllis’.
“I have an excellent memory for voices,” said Letty. “It’s—well, almost a hobby with me. My friends tease me about it. I’m rarely ever wrong. Just now, while I was waiting for Ken to finish some work, the telephone on his desk rang. He was busy at the other side of the room and said casually, ‘Catch that for me, will you, sweet?’ Naturally, I did, and the same voice that called me that night spoke over the phone. It was something Ken had to answer. I gave him the telephone, and when he had finished, I asked him who it was. He said, ‘Oh, a little file clerk here in the office. She was looking up a paper for me.’”
Phyllis found her hands clenching tightly on the edge of her desk, and she could not manage her voice to speak. But Letty saw the question in her eyes, and nodded.
“Ken said it was a girl named Mayhew, he thought. Anyway, he s
aid she was your cousin and you had gotten her the position here,” Letty finished quietly.
Somehow Phyllis wasn’t really surprised. Or if she was, she was unforgivably stupid. Even Terry, when he had heard of the telephone call that had summoned Letty to the office, had instantly suspected Anice. Yet, Phyllis, little as she liked or trusted Anice, could not quite believe that the girl would do so senseless a thing from which she could hope to gain nothing for herself. Had there been any advantage to Anice in the telephone call, Phyllis would have been convinced that she had made it. As it was, seeing nothing that Anice could gain …
Letty stood up and put out her cigarette in the small copper tray that stood on a corner of Phyllis’ desk, and said quietly, “I thought you should know, Miss Gordon, that you have an enemy here, so close. After all, women can be such filthy beasts to each other. I felt it only fair that you should be warned, so that you may protect yourself hereafter—if you can.”
Phyllis liked Letty better than she had ever dreamed she could. It was sporting of Letty to come and tell her—to warn her, so that she could watch out for herself in the future. Few women in Letty’s place would have bothered; some, in fact, might even have been pleased to know that Phyllis was being spied upon.
“Thank you,” said Phyllis very quietly, a note of complete sincerity in her voice. “You’ve been more than kind.”
Letty wrinkled her pretty nose and made a gay little gesture.
“Oh, think nothing of it,” she said lightly. “It’s only that I thoroughly despise malice and feminine cattiness. The cards are pretty well stacked against women by the essential nature of things. If we can give each other a bit of a helping hand along the way—well, we should be happy to do it.”
She turned away, and as she reached the door, Phyllis said impulsively, “Mrs. Lawrence, there’s something I think perhaps I should tell you.” She broke off, confused, scarlet.
Letty turned to her and smiled, waiting.
“It’s just that I’d like you to know that—that—well, that you needn’t ever be worried about … my designs on Mr. Rutledge, because I haven’t any—not anymore.” Phyllis made herself finish the little speech despite the burning color in her face and the confusion that clogged her voice.
“Oh, bless you, my dear, I’ve known that ever since that momentous night,” said Letty promptly, and smiled warmly. “I pride myself that I do know a bit about character. You’re the type that might go overboard in the grand manner, but not the type to sneak and connive and indulge in undercover illicit love affairs. If you’d been really in love with Ken, you’d have gone after him openly and told me to go to blazes, and you’d probably have landed him! But you were just emotionally disturbed from working so closely with him for so long. Ken is a darned attractive man—I realize that myself. But you wouldn’t sneak hours with him in the office and be messy!”
“Thanks,” said Phyllis humbly.
“You’re welcome!” said Letty, and laughed a little and went out.
Phyllis sat back at her desk, her mind simmering with the thing that Letty had told her. So Terry’s instant suspicion had been right. It had been Anice who had telephoned Letty. Phyllis was still puzzled. If, by having Letty come in and catch Kenyon and Phyllis in an illicit situation, Anice had hoped to capture Kenyon for herself, Phyllis would have been able to understand that without any difficulty. But just for pure malice … She was appalled.
“How she must hate me,” she told herself, and shivered a little.
She went back in her thoughts to that night. She remembered Anice’s expression when she had greeted Phyllis with pretty solicitude—had there been a look of smugness, of malicious laughter in her eyes? Had she been suspicious of the sort of scene Letty might have discovered? Had she been merely curious as to whether Kenyon and Phyllis were working? She could have had no real reason to doubt that.
Phyllis was conscious of her dully aching head and her physical exhaustion as she let herself into the apartment a little later. There were sounds from the kitchenette that indicated this was one of the nights when Anice had elected to stay in and make dinner.
Even as the thought crossed Phyllis’ mind, Anice appeared at the door of the kitchenette, a gay little apron tied about her slim waist, a kitchen fork in her hand, which she waved gaily at Phyllis.
“Smell that heavenly smell? Darling, it’s a steak, the first one I’ve seen in months—in a market, that is. I’ve been fed a few in restaurants, but not many,” she chattered gaily. “It’ll be done in two shakes, so scoot along and get washed up and ready.”
Phyllis started to speak, but Anice was back in the kitchenette, and Phyllis decided wearily that it might be as well to wait until after dinner to talk to her. She had decided on the way home that the inevitable scene couldn’t possibly end in anything except Anice’s departure.
She cold-creamed her face, washed her hands, slid into a cool spun-linen housecoat and smoothed her hair. She came back into the living room just as Anice proudly bore in the steak, broiled to a turn, deposited it on the table, and stood back to survey it proudly.
“Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it gorgeous?” she demanded happily. “Sit down, Cousin Phyllis, while I get the salad and the rolls. And there’s apple pie—à la mode—even if it is a bakery pie and drugstore ice cream.”
Phyllis watched her curiously as she brought in the mixed green salad in the gaily decorated wooden bowl, and drew up her chair. Phyllis was tired and she hesitated to bring about the unpleasant scene she anticipated. And so she waited until they had finished eating and were dawdling luxuriously over the apple pie. At last the unpleasantness could be avoided no longer, and so Phyllis pushed back her plate, selected a cigarette and through its frail blue smoke looked narrowly at Anice.
“Mrs. Lawrence stopped in at my office this afternoon,” she began.
For the barest instant a faintly wary look touched Anice’s face, but the next second it was gone and she was saying eagerly, “She’s beautiful, isn’t she? But of course with the kind of clothes she can afford—”
“Do you remember the last time I worked late, Anice, and someone telephoned Mrs. Lawrence?” asked Phyllis, and at the tone in her voice Anice looked at her with sudden sharpness.
“You told me about it.”
“This afternoon Mrs. Lawrence recognized the voice that called her, and came to tell me,” Phyllis finished quietly.
Anice looked down at her plate for a moment and then up at Phyllis, and her blue eyes were cool, wary and a little contemptuous.
“Oh?” she said politely.
“It was your voice, Anice,” said Phyllis flatly.
For just a moment, Anice hesitated, then she folded her arms on the table and looked squarely at Phyllis and said coolly, “Of course it was. You were an awful fool not to have realized that from the very first, Cousin Phyllis.”
There was insolence, frank and unconcealed, in her voice, and for a moment it took Phyllis’ breath away. She stared at Anice, and after a moment she asked, “You admit it?”
“Why not?” Anice’s delicious shoulders went up in a little disdainful shrug. “Why should I deny it? I only did what I felt was my duty!”
There was an unbearably self-righteous smugness about her.
Phyllis controlled her rising anger with an effort.
“And why should you feel it your duty, Anice—” she began, before Anice flashed forth at her sharply.
“Because I am sick to death of your rottenness,” she struck out. “And because as long as you sleep around with a man who is unattached like Terry MacLean, it’s not so bad, but when you start holding assignations with a man who is engaged to another woman—and in his office, where decent people have to work—well, that’s going just a little too far. I felt it was only right that Mrs. Lawrence should know about it. And I’m proud that I had the courage to call her.”
Phyllis’ anger was no longer under control.
“Courage!” she sneered. “It must have t
aken an awful lot of courage to make an anonymous phone call! Almost as much courage as to send a poison-pen letter.”
Anice studied her, and for once she made no effort to control her expression. Contempt, impudence, disgust rode high in her lovely, flushed face and her flaming eyes.
“When a person is rotten and low and filthy,” she accused Phyllis, “then the only way to fight them is by being rotten yourself. And that’s one of the things I’ve hated about being forced to live with you. You can’t touch filth without being smeared yourself.”
“Then I know you’ll be happy to stop living with me,” said Phyllis swiftly.
“You’re darned right I will,” Anice told her hotly. “I’ve hated every minute I’ve had to watch you—smoking and drinking and being lascivious with every man who’ll give you a second glance. I’ve stayed, because I felt it was my duty! Because I thought maybe I could help you to stop being rotten. Because I thought maybe if I set you a good example, you might get ashamed of yourself and try to straighten up. But I see now that there’s no hope for you whatever and I refuse to go on living in a pigsty just to try to help somebody.”
“Why, you—” Phyllis strangled with fury.
Anice was on her feet.
“Save your oaths and your blasphemy for someone who will appreciate them, Cousin Phyllis,” she said sharply. “I’ve had about all I can take from you. I’ve always been a nice girl, decent and respectable. I’ve never had to refuse to look people in the face; I’ve never slept with a man in my life.”
“Perhaps it might improve your disposition if you did, Anice—you sound a bit neurotic,” said Phyllis gently.
As though that had been a blow that sent her reeling and that left her speechless, Anice stared at Phyllis while every drop of color left her face. And suddenly she looked pinched and ill.
“That’s the vilest thing you’ve ever said to me, Cousin Phyllis,” she said at last, huskily. “I know now what you would do if I stayed. Instead of my helping you to reform, you’d pull me down to your own level. You’re wicked. You can’t bear to see anybody nice without trying to destroy them.”
