Marriage Bed

by Dixon, H. Vernor

  He drained his Martini, pursed his lips, and shook his head. “Not exactly.” He took my glass to mix two more drinks and spoke over his shoulder: “I don’t think I gave it much thought. We look exactly alike and most of the time we think alike, but there are differences. I’m considerably more ambitious than Jeff, for example, so I’ve dismissed any thoughts of marriage from my own mind until I reach a certain goal I’m after. I guess I assumed, subconsciously, that Jeff’s attitude was the same.”

  I left the window to stand near him and said, “Then his sudden marriage must have been quite a surprise to you.”

  “Oh, yes! It was very unexpected. But the point I wish to make, you see, is that it would have been just as unexpected if he had married someone we knew.” He handed me the chilled glass and raised his to touch the rims. “Skoal.”

  “Salud.”

  “So the fact that he married someone I didn’t know,” he continued, “had nothing to do with my attitude. To be honest with you,” he chuckled, “I was rather angry. But not now, not after meeting you.”

  “Well, thank you.”

  “You’re as pretty as I should have known you would be, but I was stupid enough to think otherwise.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. A New Yorker, a playwright, a lot of talk about backing Broadway shows — ”

  I started to laugh. “Now, really, don’t tell me you were picturing a gold digger.”

  He flattered me by grinning sheepishly, which was the best apology he could have made.

  “Your judgment of Jeff’s intelligence,” I said, “was pretty low. But I can rest your mind on that point.”

  “I’ve already done that.”

  “It isn’t a bad idea to settle it once and for all, though. Fortunately, I have been unusually successful in my profession. So much so that I am independent of anyone’s wealth, including Jeff’s.”

  “Now, please — ”

  “And,” I continued, ignoring his protest, “when I married Jeff I really didn’t know that he was a wealthy man. That came later. Also, when Jeff suggested backing our shows, I told him it wasn’t necessary. Sam and I never had difficulty finding backing, when,” I added, “we had sufficient time to look for it. But I liked the idea of Jeff and me being sort of — well, partners. Furthermore — ”

  But John interrupted. “Don’t make me eat crow.”

  “Very well,” I laughed. “But we understand each other?”

  “Perfectly.”

  I took a deep breath and decided to make the plunge. “Apparently that’s what you and Jeff argued about.”

  “That,” he said stiffly, “we will discuss at some other time. Shall we go to dinner?”

  His refusal to discuss the quarrel amazed me. He had definitely been leading to that point. What, I wondered, could have changed his mind so quickly? There was only one answer to that, and it meant tossing bouquets at myself. He did not like the idea of Jeffrey’s marriage at all and had made up his mind to dislike me. He had intended letting me know of that dislike by indirection, in telling me of the quarrel with Jeffrey. Then I would know how I stood in the Hamlyne household. But something about my attitude or appearance or something had struck his fancy and he realized that he liked me.

  I decided that I liked the idea of his liking me and gave him a warm smile as he helped me on with my coat. He gave me a slow wink and the two of us laughed. We were going to be friends.

  We had cocktails in the glass-walled room on top of the hotel so that John could show me the whole panorama of the city, then went to Jack’s restaurant for dinner. The meal was excellent, but I was far more interested in John. He studied the menu, but he was the kind who consulted the waiter before making a decision. Settling the question of which wines to serve took at least ten minutes. Then, as each course arrived, John held forth on its particular merits, or compared it with a former way it had been prepared. It was surprising to learn that he was a gourmet, in spite of the fact that he toyed with his food and actually ate very little. I remembered that Jeffrey had been particular about his food, too, but not so fussy as John. These little differences continued adding up in my mind.

  It rather pleased my vanity to notice that a large number of the people in the restaurant either knew John personally or knew who he was. There was a great deal of whispering and many glances directed toward me. John whispered that Jeffrey’s marriage had received a great deal of publicity in San Francisco and that our pictures had been in the papers. So I was known and the people thought John was my husband, Jeffrey. Posing as a husband amused him, so he asked me not to give our secret away.

  A number of people stopped at our table to shake hands with John and be introduced to me. They were frankly curious and, in the manner of Westerners, admitted it. I liked them at once.

  That’s why I was so off-guard when he later encountered the Chandlers. We had returned to the hotel and were walking through the lobby toward the elevators when John came to a halt and snapped his fingers. He said that he just remembered that some Pebble Beach neighbors, the Chandlers, were also stopping at the Mark Hopkins.

  “It’s still early,” he said. “Would you care to meet them?”

  I shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind.”

  He called their room from a house phone, but received no answer. When he rejoined me he was laughing at himself. “I should have known better than to call. Scott never leaves a bar until it closes. His favorite here in the city is just off the lobby, adjoining Peacock Court.”

  We followed the sound of music and stood in the entrance to Peacock Court for a moment to watch the dancing, then turned left into the barroom. John looked about, then smiled and took my arm and walked to the far end of the bar. He stopped behind a couple seated there and said, “Hello, Scott — Vivien.”

  The man and the woman turned about to face us and I received a decidedly unpleasant surprise. The young woman, Vivien Chandler, was staring at me with unconcealed curiosity and resentment. Her husband, Scott, was looking into John’s eyes with an almost murderous gleam in his own. He was a huge bear of a man with red hair and face, freckles, a barrel chest, enormous sloping shoulders, and arms that bulged with muscle even under the sleeves of his coat. When he got to his feet he towered over John and was easily one of the most powerful-looking men I have ever seen, yet, incongruously, he had a small up-tilted nose and a weak and sensuous mouth.

  Vivien Chandler, as one might expect, was a slight wisp of a thing with the substance of a shadow. She was so light that she appeared to be floating. There were faint blue shadows under her eyes and her lips were temporarily pressed into a thin ugly line, but she was, nevertheless, an unusually beautiful woman. Her ash-blonde hair was arranged about her small, finely formed head like a halo. Her heart-shaped face was a perfect frame for enormous blue eyes and her head was balanced on her neck like a lovely flower on its stem. Her beauty fascinated me, even though it was obvious that she disliked me immediately and intensely.

  It was a peculiarly awkward moment. I felt as if a fuse were burning short and an explosion seemed imminent.

  Scott Chandler was definitely anxious to precipitate it by sneering, “I thought blondes were more your type. But your preferences don’t necessarily have to be those of a gentleman.”

  John bit his lip and glanced at me, allowing the fuse to burn dangerously short. It was not reasonable, it could not possibly make sense, but I had the impression that whatever was happening was not as casual or as accidental as it might appear. The expression in John’s eyes, as he watched me, was altogether too calculating.

  Then he turned his attention back to the others. Slowly, maddeningly, he drawled, “Scott, Vivien, I would like you to know Jeff’s wife, Carol. Carol, Vivien and Scott Chandler.”

  The fuse fizzled out with a damp sputter. Vivien tried to pass off the moment by effusively welcoming me to California, but I noticed that her resentment had not lessened.

  Scott was the unhappy one. He was like a small boy caught stealing
melons. His expression became so puckish and so much like a whipped Saint Bernard that I had difficulty keeping from laughing out loud.

  He wrung our hands, virtually crushing mine, and stammered to John, “I — I — mixed up — you two are so much alike. Cripes, John, it was a natural mistake. You know that. I’m so damned sorry.”

  John grinned. “Forget it. We’re always being mistaken for each other. But I must say I don’t understand the way you and Jeff have fallen out, after being such close friends for so long. Anyway, forget it. I’m glad we ran into you. You’re the first neighbors Carol has met.”

  Scott beamed at me. “Well, say, that calls for a big kiss for the bride.” I thought, Don’t do me any favors, but he folded me in his great arms. His kiss, however, was a mere brush.

  Vivien remarked coldly, “Don’t slobber, Scott. She’ll think we’re all farmers out here.” As soon as Scott had set me free, she purred, “I suppose you’re on your way to Lynecrest?”

  I nodded, wondering why she disliked me so intensely, and already afraid that I knew the answer. “Perhaps tomorrow,” I replied. “Jeff has told me it’s very lovely.”

  “Oh, yes. I doubt if you’ve seen anything quite like it.”

  I thought of some of the estates on the upper Hudson, but decided to ignore the remark. “Do you and your husband live close?”

  She slanted a look at Scott, standing there like an awkward bull, then turned her eyes back to mine. “We’re south of the Lodge. You’re about a mile or so north. We — ah — perhaps will see a great deal of each other,” She laughed, then, a sound with absolutely no warmth to it. “But I’m afraid,” she said, “that we may seem terribly rustic to you, after all the bright lights and amazing people you’re used to in the theatre. We live such secluded lives.”

  Scott burst into a great roar of laughter, but subsided under a sharp glance from his wife.

  I was not at all sure I would ever reach Lynecrest, but I said, “The change will be a welcome one. I’m an adaptable sort of creature.”

  Vivien asked, “Have you been warned about our gossips?”

  “No.”

  “Then let me be the first to assure you that every move you make will be watched carefully and enviously by every woman in Pebble Beach. John and Jeff have been our most eligible bachelors. I don’t suggest that you will be disliked.” She paused just long enough to let that sink in, then continued. “But you have reduced the field by half. That,” she smiled, “isn’t the easiest way to win a popularity poll.”

  “Well—”

  Scott interrupted by turning about and ordering a round of highballs. His drink was a triple Scotch in a tall glass. We raised our glasses in a silent toast and drank. My toast was a healthy desire to slit Vivien Chandler’s throat from ear to ear.

  She glanced about the room, as if looking for someone, then asked me, “Is Jeff meeting you here? It isn’t like him not to get in before the closing hour.”

  John told her, “Jeff’s in El Centro. He said he’d try to meet us here, but I doubt it.”

  The smile Vivien turned upon me was so coldly malicious that it made me shudder. “Why, how ghastly!” she cried. “Do you mean to say he didn’t have the decency to come up here and meet you?”

  “I haven’t said anything.”

  John coughed and cleared his throat to explain quickly, “You don’t understand, Vivien. He’s involved in an important business deal that simply can’t be interrupted.”

  She tossed her head back, her eyes laughing at him. “Nonsense. You’re the businessman, not Jeff. You wouldn’t allow him to get involved in anything that important.” Then she said to me, “It’s perfectly horrible of him to have you come all the way out here and not meet you.”

  I hated to explain, but I had to say something. “Well, he wasn’t exactly expecting me. I didn’t make up my mind to fly out until just yesterday.”

  “Why, how delicious! The unexpected bride.” She put an arm about Scott’s shoulder and asked him, “Isn’t that funny?”

  That was about all I could take. I made my excuses and John and I left the bar. I could feel Vivien’s eyes still upon me as we walked from the room. Her resentment, I knew, had nothing whatever to do with reducing the field by half. It concerned one man only, Jeffrey.

  I asked John about them in the elevator and he said, “Scott has a small inheritance of some kind that allows him to live comfortably. He’s a rugged individual, but, believe it or not, an artist. A dilettante, though. He dabbles in abstraction for the simple reason that he can’t paint.”

  “I can’t picture him standing before an easel.”

  “He does, though. It gives him an excuse for doing absolutely nothing. He takes only two things seriously, Vivien and his drinking. There you have the dominant factors in his life.”

  “He’s a jealous man.”

  “Oh, God, yes! Jealous and envious. That remark I made about their being close friends wasn’t literally true. Jeff has always been amused by him, as he would be by a big stupid dog, but Scott envies Jeff, or used to. Jeff, you see, does everything so damned well and everyone is crazy about him.”

  I placed a hand on his arm and said, “You’re avoiding the main issue.”

  He glanced at me and his lips came together in a thin line. He had nothing to say until we got out of the elevator at our floor. As we walked down the hall he said, “You didn’t miss that crack Scott made, did you?”

  “About blondes? No. And in view of his evident jealousy and his blonde wife and the way he was glaring at you, thinking you were Jeff — ”

  John stopped walking and turned to face me. “I don’t quite know how to say this, but — well, the fact is that Vivien was once rather fond of me. Recently, though, she’s switched her attentions to Jeff and, to be frank about it, has evidently fallen in love with him.”

  I asked, “How recently?”

  John frowned and looked down at the carpet. “Well, that I wouldn’t know. I’ve been too busy to notice.”

  “And Scott? He knows?”

  “It rather looks that way. I told Jeff that he’d better have a talk with Scott and straighten out the matter, but you just can’t make sense with him when it comes to women. You have no idea what it’s like. All he has to do is walk through a room and half the women present fall in love with him.”

  “That happened to me, too.”

  He looked down at me and smiled. “You’re different. Anyway, I haven’t been able to discuss the matter intelligently with Jeff. He just shrugs it off.”

  We continued down the hallway and paused before my door. John waited as I unlocked the door. As I was about to tell him good night he mumbled suddenly, “Lately, Carol, I have become almost convinced that Jeff hates me. But now that you’re here,” he sighed, “that may straighten out. I certainly hope so.” Then he smiled wanly and said, “Good night. If Jeff calls, let me know.”

  “I will. Good night, John. And, by the way, I’m glad you’re my brother-in-law.”

  “Thanks, Carol. We’ll get along.”

  Chapter Three

  THE THOUGHT of one twin hating another was monstrous to me, but I hadn’t the desire or the strength to question John that night. I had other matters on my mind that were of more immediate importance to me. Vivien Chandler’s remark about Jeffrey’s not having the decency to meet me was exactly the way I felt, too. Practically any business deal could be put aside for a day or two. Then there was her following statement to consider, that John would never allow Jeffrey to handle any business matter that important. I knew that to be true, at least in principle, as Jeffrey had told me that he was not a good businessman and had no liking for bargaining.

  It seemed all too obvious that Jeffrey wanted me to feel unwanted and that John knew it. I paced the floor, wondering what to do, when my eyes were caught by a huge bowl of flowers on the writing desk near the windows. I realized that they had not been there when we had gone out to dinner and then saw the card dangling from a stem. The f
lowers had been arranged by telegraph from El Centro and the card read: “Sorry I can’t get away. Feel terrible but will see you in Lynecrest and explain. Much love, Jeff.”

  I went to bed and wanted to cry, but, as a pilot would say, it was a dry run. The flowers did accomplish one thing, though. I had to go to Lynecrest and face Jeffrey.

  John and I had breakfast together in the morning and then left San Francisco. I expected to see the chauffeur and limousine, but learned that that car remained in the city for the use of either brother. John had a black convertible Packard in the garage. I helped him put the top down, then settled back in the leather seat as he slid behind the wheel. He threaded his way through the morning traffic with better than normal competence, which was a relief. Bad driving frightens me. That’s why I always enjoy flying. In an automobile you’re rarely more than twelve inches from death, even when you feel safest.

  It was a lovely clear day and fairly warm. John kept the speedometer needle on fifty or under, so that I could drink in the scenery. He said nothing until we approached Salinas; then he roused himself to inform me that he and Jeffrey owned much of the land we were passing through, in addition to produce warehouses, trucking concerns, and ice-packing plants, necessary for transporting produce out of the Salinas Valley.

  We left the main highway at Salinas and turned west toward Monterey, which is also on a peninsula. The country changed almost immediately from flat produce land to wooded hills. John said that we were less than thirty miles from home.

  Something in the tone of John’s voice ended my feeling of laziness. I sat up straighter and twisted about so that I could watch his face. It was like it had been at the airport, gaunt and hollow and void of all expression or emotion.

  “The Hamlynes,” he said, as if I had asked, “came west from Virginia with a couple of wagons and what they were wearing and little else, unless it was a resolve to better their lot. They had that in abundance. They carved out an empire for themselves in this country we’re passing through and were smart enough to sink everything they had into land. When the West grew, the Hamlynes grew. They weren’t robber barons, by any means, but they did grasp every opportunity for acquiring land that presented itself. Our grandfather was a millionaire at a time when Western millionaires could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Our father took that inheritance and coasted along with it. It wasn’t necessary for him to exert himself. It kept growing. He left it all to us.”