Alibi for Isabel: And Other Stories

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  “Listen, darling,” he said. “We can’t dance the rest of our lives, or live in nightclubs. If we can’t spend one quiet evening alone—”

  He had to shout over the radio, however, and the combination waked the baby. He went at once into one of his best acts, which consisted of getting his head stuck between the rods of his crib, and then telling the world about it. When Chris finally got back to the living room Elinor was cool.

  “For heaven’s sake,” she said. “I thought people trained children these days.”

  “You can’t train a year-old child how to keep from getting caught in his crib.”

  They danced a little after that, but he was too tired to lift the rug, and Elinor left rather early. She said she had to get her beauty sleep, and of course he told her she did not need it. But the total result was discouraging.

  The next few days were practically the same. No help was forthcoming, and Hilda began to look dispirited. She said nothing about a long-distance call from Nevada, however, and of course she did not know of Louise’s visit to the lawyer Chris had engaged for her.

  Louise had sat in his office, looking very nice and young in her new clothes and rather firm about the mouth.

  “So you want a divorce,” said the lawyer, whose name was Smith. “I suppose we can manage it.” He smiled drily. “It’s been done before, out here.”

  Louise looked at him. She did not smile.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t want a divorce.”

  Mr. Smith looked startled. He cleared his throat.

  “I see. It’s the husband, then. Well, that happens too. I suppose it will be the usual charge, mental cruelty.”

  “There will be no charge,” said Louise, looking him straight in the eye. “I’ve said I don’t want a divorce. I mean exactly that.”

  Mr. Smith seemed confused.

  “But in that case what are you doing here? After all—”

  “It’s quite simple,” Louise said. “He’s like a lot of other men just now. He doesn’t know where he is. The army didn’t want him. He has a tennis elbow, and he’s in his thirties. It made him feel as though he was—well, through with things. So he thinks he has fallen in love with another woman.”

  “I see,” said Mr. Smith, thoughtfully. “She’s a sort of substitute for the army. Is that it?”

  Louise smiled, for the first time. He thought she had a most attractive smile.

  “I’ve left my baby at home,” she told him. “She won’t like that, but in a way it is the baby who has separated us. Maybe he can bring us together. I don’t know. It’s a kind of experiment.” She smiled again. “I rather imagine,” she said, “that he’ll think jungle fighting would be easy, after a few days of Bobby.”

  “Strenuous child, eh?”

  “He’s very like his father,” she said demurely.

  “I see. And this other woman?”

  “She’s not domestic. She likes night life. And Chris really doesn’t. His stomach isn’t very good. He feels awful the next day.”

  She sat back, and Mr. Smith inspected her again. She wasn’t only pretty, the thought. She was smart. Well, good luck to her. He might be out a fee, but what the hell? He cleared his throat again.

  “It’s an interesting idea,” he said. “I’d rather like to know how it turns out. I see the end of a good many stories out here, but I don’t often see the beginning of one.”

  “I’ll let you know,” she told him as she got up. “That’s a promise.”

  The story, although she did not know it, was not doing so well just then. Not at least for Chris. He was always tired, what with Bobby’s nights and Elinor’s evenings. Also, what with the ring and an advance on the new apartment his arithmetic was now only a pain in the neck. He was taking buses instead of taxis, and his stomach bothered him quite a lot. Now and then he longed for a good home dinner, but Elinor didn’t care for them.

  There were a lot of small annoyances, too. The apartment itself had subtly changed, had lost its order and cheerfulness. He needed his socks mended, he needed buttons on his underwear, and the laundry had lost his best shirt. When he went out in the evenings he was no longer a gay and debonair cavalier, but a tired old-young man who dragged his feet when he danced and went home to bicarbonate and Bobby. There were even times when he snapped at Elinor and she snapped back.

  “For God’s sake, Chris; if that’s the way you feel why don’t you go home to bed?”

  “That’s exactly the way I feel. And don’t worry. I’m going.”

  Something was frightfully wrong with love’s young dream, but not as wrong as it was to be. For at the end of two weeks Chris went home from the office one night to find the cigarette trays in the living room unemptied, his bed not turned down, his clean pajamas not home from the laundry, and a fully dressed Hilda waiting for him in the hall with Bobby in her arms.

  “I’ve got to leave,” she said. “My sister’s sick. She hasn’t heard from her boy, and she’s sick. She’s sent for me.”

  He stared at her, speechless.

  “But you can’t,” he managed to say. “You can’t leave me like this. What on earth will I do?”

  “I’m afraid that’s up to you,” said Hilda. “After all it needn’t have happened. You had a good wife, and a pretty one. If you wanted to get rid of her for that—that blondined creature you brought in here, that’s your business. It’s not mine.”

  To his horror she handed him the boy and picked up a suitcase.

  “I’ve left his diet list in the kitchen, along with the ration books,” she said listlessly. “And don’t forget to put him on his chair, will you? He’s always been regular.”

  She kissed the baby, and without another word went out the door. Although she closed it quietly it sounded like the crack of doom to him. He was alone, he and his son. There was nobody now, nobody to cook a meal or wash the dishes. Nobody even to send out for food. He stood there helplessly, the child in his arms.

  He opened a can of salmon for his dinner that night, and he managed to bathe Bobby without drowning him. Not without a close escape, however. He went to look for a towel, and the child was submerged when he got back. Chris broke into a cold sweat, but the baby’s lungs were all right. Were wonderful, in fact. They both slept very well that night, probably due to exhaustion, and as Hilda had left some cooked cereal he managed breakfast for Bobby. That is, he got some of it into his son. The remainder, depending on whether Bobby chose to swallow it or not, landed like the wind, whither it listed.

  There was no question of going to the office, of course. He spent most of the day at the telephone trying to get help; and naturally he forgot the baby’s chair. The results were disastrous in both cases, and at five that afternoon he faced his situation. He had missed two important business conferences, there was nothing to eat in the house, his bed had been made by the simple method of drawing up the covers, he himself was still in pajamas and dressing gown, and the baby after a hard-boiled egg for lunch was yelling his head off. In desperation he opened a can of baked beans, and was feeding them to him when Elinor called up. He answered the phone with his son in his lap, tugging at the cord, and with the beans hither and yon on his pajamas.

  “Hello, big boy,” said Elinor gaily. “What’s on for tonight? I’ve heard of a new place. How about trying it?”

  He tried to control his voice.

  “I’m afraid there’s nothing doing,” he said. “Hilda has walked out on me. I’m alone here.”

  “Why, you poor darling!” said Elinor, still cheerfully. “You’ll have to get somebody else, won’t you?”

  “Try it and see!” He gritted his teeth, and released the cord from around Bobby’s neck, where it was slowly choking him to death. “Look, Elinor, this is no joke. I’m in a jam and I need help. Why don’t you come over? And while you’re doing it you might bring a steak. I’m starving.”

  “A steak!” she said incredulously. “Are you asking me to come over there and cook for you? I don’t know how t
o cook.”

  “You needn’t cook it,” he said patiently. “I’ll try my hand at it. All you have to do is to look after the baby while I do it.”

  Her voice was distinctly cold.

  “Listen, Chris,” she said. “I don’t know anything about babies. It does seem to me that you’ve managed everything badly. Anyhow I’ve got a terrible headache. I’d just as soon rest tonight. Maybe I can telephone around and get somebody for you.”

  “Don’t bother,” he said. “Don’t give it another thought. I can manage.”

  He was possessed of a furious rage as he put down the receiver. Elinor didn’t have a headache. She had no head to ache. She had no heart, either. All she had was a pretty face and body, and a pair of tireless feet. He looked down at his son, now sleeping on his knee, and around at the apartment, which looked as though a minor tornado had passed through it. Then he felt his unshaven face, and after that he put Bobby in his crib and going back to the pantry opened another can of salmon, sitting on the edge of the kitchen table to eat it.

  The next morning he telephoned his office that he was down with the flu, and at ten o’clock he rather sketchily dressed his son, who had breakfasted on a fried egg this time, and put him into his perambulator. The elevator man eyed him curiously as they started for the street.

  “It’s a long time since I seen a man wheel a baby carriage,” he said. “In this neighborhood anyhow.”

  “Well, you’re seeing it now,” said Chris coldly.

  “Kinda nice kid you got there.”

  “He’s all right,” said Chris. “Only he has to eat.”

  “What you been feeding him?”

  “Tried eggs and baked beans,” said Chris, and headed for the street.

  A good many people grinned when they saw him, but he shut his jaw firmly. This was his child, and by God, whether his mother had abandoned him or not, he wasn’t going to let him starve. Halfway to the grocer’s, however, he remembered the ration books. He had to turn and go back for them, and for the first time he realized how heavy and hard to manage was an English perambulator.

  Maybe life hadn’t been so simple for Lou, after all. Take this matter of food, for instance, and all this nonsense about ration points. Take this pram, and Bobby night as well as day, wheeling him to the park, feeding him, bathing him, dressing him, even the chair business. No wonder she was tired sometimes. He himself was exhausted.

  He felt an acute nostalgia for the old days, for their quiet evenings, for his mended socks and his ordered home, for gin rummy and an occasional beefsteak and a chance to attend to his job without a hangover. And those orchids when she started for Reno. Who was sending her orchids?

  He got the ration books and started out again. The pram by that time was approximately the weight of a jeep, and when he finally reached the grocer’s he found that buying was not the simple thing it had appeared. He could, on his points, have steak or butter, but not both. To his surprise too he found that he was expected to carry his purchases home. As he had bought lavishly this meant practically submerging Bobby, who protested at the top of his lungs, and was finally soothed only with—at the grocer’s suggestion—a pickled pig’s knuckle.

  “Gives ’em something to chew on,” he said. “My kids love ’em.”

  Chris was sweating when he got back to the apartment. He wheeled the pram, now approximately the weight of a tank, into the hall and stopped for breath.

  To his amazement he heard someone moving about in the kitchen.

  “That you, Hilda?” he called hopefully.

  When there was no answer he glanced into the living room. The windows were up, and it looked its former tidy self. Beyond it the breakfast dishes had been moved from the dining room, and suddenly he realized that from the kitchen was coming the odor of something frying, and the aroma of good strong coffee.

  He was still standing there when Louise stepped out into the hall. She wore her hat, but her sleeves were rolled up, and the odor of good cooking was all around her, like an aura. He gave her a sickly smile, but she did not smile back. She walked firmly to the carriage, removed the pig’s knuckle, and then looked at him coldly.

  “I suppose living this way is your idea of love’s young dream,” she said. “I must say it’s pretty dirty.”

  He tried to summon an air of dignity.

  “What did you expect?” he said. “Hilda had to go to her sister.”

  “I know all that,” she said impatiently. “She wired me and I flew back. Where’s Elinor?”

  “I don’t know. What’s more I don’t care.”

  But Louise did not melt.

  “So she wouldn’t take the job,” she said. “I didn’t think she would.” She looked down at Bobby, still buried in his pram and fishing for the pig’s knuckle. “What have you been feeding him?” she inquired.

  “Well, look at him,” Chris said defensively. “He looks all right, doesn’t he? We managed. We got along fine.”

  “What have you fed him?”

  “Milk and cereal.”

  “What else?”

  “He’s had some canned salmon, and some baked beans.” She looked startled, but he went on. “Now see here,” he said, “don’t act so darned superior. We like each other. We don’t want women butting in, telling us what to do.”

  She was still cold, however.

  “Some woman should have suggested that at least you could shave.”

  “Shave?” he said bitterly. “With a baby under my arm?”

  “That’s the way I usually do my hair.”

  Suddenly he felt exhausted. He sat down on a hall chair.

  “What’s been going on here?” he demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me how heavy that carriage was? And that you were bringing home the groceries?”

  “I didn’t think you were interested.”

  “Well, that’s over, if it’s any good to you.”

  “That remains to be seen,” she said, still in that crisp new voice of hers. “At least you can eat. I brought some pork chops. Now if you’ll disinter your son I’ll wash him. He looks as though he needs it.”

  Here, however, something unexpected happened. When she picked up Bobby he eyed her distrustfully, let out a whoop and held out his arms to his father.

  “Dada,” he said distinctly.

  “Give him to me,” said Chris, in a masterful voice. “He and I understand each other, don’t we, son?” He took him and the baby gave him a beatific grin. “That’s right, boy. Show her she isn’t so damned important after all.”

  Her eyes were soft as she looked at them, the messy baby, the tired unshaven man who had tried to divorce her. But she was careful not to let him see them.

  “You’d better shave and then call the office,” she said. “I’ll give you your lunch when it’s ready.”

  He looked at her. She had not forgiven him. She had come back for the emergency, but that was all. And somewhere in the offing was this unknown who sent her orchids. Well, he deserved what he’d got. He went drearily into the bathroom and got out his razor.

  He returned from the office that evening to find Bobby asleep and the apartment fresh and clean. There were flowers and candles on the table, and when Louise called him to dinner there was a thick broiled steak. But his appetite had gone back on him. He could only stare across the table at the detached and charming woman he had tried to get rid of.

  “I’ve been an awful fool, Lou,” he said. “I suppose I don’t need to tell you that.”

  “No, you don’t need to tell me,” she said drily. “I ought to know.”

  But it was not until she was behind the coffee table, pouring out coffee, that she let him talk. And this time it was Chris who burned his tongue. He could still talk, however. He verbally got down on his knees while he told her his troubles, and the table did not whirl at all.

  “What you are telling me,” she said, “is that you want a housekeeper and a nurse. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “You sound like Elinor,” he
said bitterly. “No, I don’t. I want you back, as a wife. If you don’t care about me you might at least think of Bobby.”

  “I suppose Elinor is out?”

  “She was never really in, Lou.”

  She sat very still. Perhaps he thought that was true. Perhaps at least once to every man there came a time when life seemed dull and settled, and he had somehow to renew his youth. That was the time for the wife to use her head. She hoped she had used hers.

  Apparently she had, for Chris was coming toward her and the coffee table was threatening to whirl again.

  Late that night with both Bobby and Chris asleep, she went stealthily to the telephone in the living room and called a number. As she waited she looked about the dear familiar room, its ash trays emptied, its cushions smooth, and the poker with which she had once longed to knock some sense into her husband still a merely useful utensil for poking the fire. She felt calm and happy. When a drowsy voice finally answered her her voice was almost gay.

  “It’s all right, Hilda,” she said. “It worked wonderfully. You can come back in the morning.”

  The Fishing Fool

  I WAS GIVING ONE of the waitresses a permanent wave the night it happened. It was about one o’clock in the morning and I had just finished wrapping her, Minnie being the sort of girl who wants fifty curls for five dollars, and she didn’t get down from the hotel dining room until almost eleven.

  Right away when she came in I saw something had happened.

  “They’ve had a quarrel or something, Ethel,” she said. “He’s eating at his own table tonight, and he looks fit to be tied.”

  “Maybe he’s got some sense at last,” I said bitterly. “He only had ten days, and for seven of them he’s been firing golf balls into the Gulf of Mexico instead of fishing.”

  “That’s love, I guess,” said Minnie.

  “That’s poppycock,” I said sharply. “Now he’s lost Joe, the best fish guide on the island. He hasn’t even a boat. And the tarpon are in.”

  I was pretty sore. For years, ever since he used to come from college on Easter vacation, Win McKnight and Joe had kept up the reputation of the island for tarpon against all the other resorts around. Almost always he got the first fish, and almost always the biggest. He’d had five gold-button fish in the last five years, which means that each weighed over a hundred pounds, and all of us felt that the season hadn’t really commenced until he got there. Now he had only ten days’ leave before he went into the army, and for an entire week, instead of being out in the Pass for the big fellows, he had been trailing a girl around the golf course. And making a fool of himself doing it.