Hunt with the Hounds

by Mignon G. Eberhart

  A bit of kindling snapped and flared; the rain was louder. Jed took her hand.

  She’d been wrong to think that she was free.

  “You can’t mean that, Fitz. You’ve forgotten. I’m the woman in the case. I’ll always be that. Marked and … You can’t want to marry me. Besides …” How very wrong she’d been! “… besides there’s Jed.”

  2

  AFTER A PAUSE he put her hand down upon the chair arm. “Yes, well, there’s Jed.”

  He crossed the room and touched a bell; he stood there, not looking at Sue, his face and attitude unrevealing until a colored maid, neat and attractive in her uniform and crisp white apron, came to the door. “Jason isn’t here. Can I get you something, Mr. Fitz?”

  “Jason’s at Bedford. He’ll be home as soon as he takes Miss Poore home.” The girl’s eyes went to Sue and she smiled as Sue spoke to her; Fitz said, “Miss Caroline Poore, I mean. I brought Miss Sue here and she needs some tea, we both need tea. Mamie, you’ll be glad to know that the verdict is in and Mr. Baily is acquitted.”

  “Oh, I am glad. Oh, that’s good.” Her dark eyes beamed with sympathy and with recognition of Sue’s widely published place in Jed’s life. “Miss Sue, I’m so glad for you. Now you just rest. I’ll have tea here soon as I can. Why that’s good news, Mr. Fitz, that’s good news. Everybody’s going to be happy about that.”

  She whisked away. Fitz came slowly back to the rosy circle of light around the fireplace. He sat down in the deep chair with its hollowed red-leather cushions, its reading table and light, its ash trays and papers, its stacks of books and magazines where obviously, habitually, he sat and read or worked.

  Sue said huskily: “You think of everything … Aunt Caroline. I’m glad Jason will take her home. She’s been wonderful, like a rock. But you know that, you’ve seen her. You—how can I ever thank you for everything you’ve done for me!”

  “I’ll tell you how. You can listen to me. There are some things you’ve got to get straight. Both for your own sake and for mine.”

  He paused, staring at the fire, thinking. A telephone rang distantly and was answered; Fitz turned toward the door as Mamie appeared again. “It was Mrs. Luddington. She wanted to know if you’d heard; I told her yes. Do you want to speak to her, Mr. Fitz?”

  “No; not now. Thank her; tell her I’ve heard. And Mamie, if the telephone rings again, say I’ve heard about the acquittal; say I’m not here. Understand?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.” Again she whisked away. Fitz said, without looking at Sue, “Take off your hat.”

  She hesitated, vaguely surprised, then took off her small hat, gray like her suit, and put it on the table beside her; she ran her hands through her short, light hair, fluffing it out. She had worn the gray suit with fresh white blouses and the same gray hat every day of the trial; it did not seem possible that it was over, and the removal of her hat was like a proof of it. She leaned her head back against the chair and let the peace of the book-lined room enfold her. Seeming very far away, the telephone rang again and was silenced.

  Fitz was watching her. He said quietly, “I want you there always, Sue. There are things I want to say and I will when you’re ready to talk. But all of them sum up to that.”

  She wouldn’t look at him. But when she closed her eyes she could still see the red armchair and the books, symbols of the center of Fitz’s life. She could feel the warmth, she could hear the rain, shut out; the scuffle of the dogs who wanted in.

  “You are crying, Sue.…” Fitz’s voice came nearer. He was kneeling beside her; his arms took her against him and his hard cheek pressed down upon her own. “Don’t. I’m never going to let anyone hurt you again. Don’t …”

  He stopped then and held her without speaking.

  She could no longer hear the whisper of the fire or the soft murmur of the rain. Fitz turned her face and kissed her and kissed her again as if for all his life and all that life held for either of them.

  “You do love me, Sue. Don’t you?”

  She moved her face against his shoulder, pushing it down into the warmth and roughness of his coat.

  He said, “I love you so much.”

  A silvery tinkle came along the hall. He put his hand under her chin, lifted her face, looked into her eyes, with a very serious, direct question in his own gaze and then as if she’d replied to him, kissed her again lightly and got to his feet. He was standing before the fire when Mamie entered with a tea tray.

  “Put it here, Mamie. Miss Sue will pour.”

  Mamie put down the tray; the shining silver and china caught highlights from the fire. Something smelled of hot bread and cinnamon. Mamie said, touching the teapot with an inquiring brown hand, “That was Miss Duval on the phone. Miss Camilla Duval.”

  Everyone, to the day of her death—to the day of her murder—had called Ernestine by her maiden name, Ernestine Duval, almost never Ernestine Baily; even now Mamie felt it necessary to distinguish between the Duval girls, Ernestine and Camilla, yet Ernestine had been dead now for months.

  “What did she want?”

  “She said she missed you, couldn’t see you anywhere. She said did you know about the verdict. She said there was a lot going on.” Mamie arranged a spoon carefully, her pretty face bent. “She said there was pictures and reporters and everybody congratulating Mr. Jed. She said she never saw such excitement; she said they are going down to Hollow Hill club.”

  “Hollow Hill!”

  “Yes, sir. She said only a few of them, but she said they just have to do something to show Mr. Jed how glad they are.”

  “Well … I suppose that’s right.”

  “Yes, sir. She said please to tell you to come.”

  “Thank you, Mamie.”

  The maid’s face, which had held a certain tentativeness, cleared. “Yes, sir. I knew you’d feel that way. I told her you were out and wouldn’t be back in time, but I’d tell you when you did come. There’s the hot water, Miss Sue, and cinnamon toast and cake.” At ease now, Mamie went away again.

  Fitz pulled a chair up to the shining little table.

  Sue said: “But they mustn’t … it’s like a celebration, it’s …”

  “Oh, that’s all right. Natural. Blow off steam.”

  “Ernestine,” Sue said and stopped. Fitz gave her a quick, perceiving glance.

  “Come on, Sue dear. Pour the tea. And may it be the first of many—oh, my darling, many times.”

  Again she wouldn’t look at him; she went to the straight chair at the tea table; he moved the cups, held them as she tipped the silver teapot with the satiny, soft sheen of age upon it. He said in a conversational way, “Yes, Ernestine. She was a part of everything here and now she isn’t; it was tragic and dreadful, yes. But that is in the past, Sue. Everybody’s got to look upon it as something in the past, and as soon as possible to be put away, finally; nobody can go on all his life thinking, this person, this friend is not here, therefore life may not close over the abyss. This tragedy, this horror has made a wound, a terrible scar. That is wrong. Scars heal, dear Sue. Milk?”

  At her nod he poured milk into her cup, uncovered the muffin dish. “Drink your tea.”

  Someone at last let the dogs in; they came like cavalry, thudding along the hall and hurling themselves into the room, upon Fitz, upon Sue, threatening the tea table, the chairs, the room. There were, when they quieted, only two hounds and a strong, stocky Kerry Blue terrier, who perceived the muffin dish and came to put his whiskered head upon Sue’s knee and look at her with eyes that were purple with longing.

  “It’s all right. Give him a piece if you like.… Now then you—settle down!” They quieted, all three of them, tolerantly, after Sue had divided a slice of cake in three parts, the Kerry Blue swallowing his share in a gulp and then eyeing the others in a still and menacing manner until he decided that they, too, had finished, when he lay down himself at last with a thump.

  It was wrong; it stored up pain; but she let herself savor what she might not keep,
the firelight and the dogs—the consciousness of the man who sat opposite her at ease, his legs stretched out toward the fire.

  They sat for a while in silence except for the murmur of the rain, the thud of old Sally’s leg as she scratched her ear, sighed and flopped over on her side. The Kerry Blue put his head upon his black paws and eyed Sue and the muffin dish resolutely. When Fitz at last lighted a fresh cigarette, rose and went to stand before the fire again, he began to talk quietly, as if merely continuing a conversation. “Now then, Sue, dear, let’s put things as they actually are. Not as you, just now, see them.”

  “It’s the way everybody …”

  “Wait. In the first place, you see, you did a very brave and courageous thing, in coming forward as you did, at some cost to yourself in order to help save a man’s life.”

  “I had to.”

  “Yes. But some women would not have seen it like that.”

  “He didn’t kill her.”

  “Because of your courage and honesty, you have been put through a very bad time.… And very unjustly.”

  Her eyes jerked up to meet his. He smiled. “My dear, my dear, can you possibly think for one moment that I believe that you and Jed were lovers?”

  She said after a moment, slowly, “But—the testimony …”

  “My dear Sue,” Fitz said briskly, “if you told me yourself that you had fallen in love with the husband of one of your closest friends, that you led, connived, inspired him to murder his wife, I’d never believe a syllable of it. Now don’t be a fool, Sue. I’ve learned to know you this winter very well. You’ve got some nonsense in your head about this trial and about yourself; you think you’re a marked woman, that you’ll always be—there never was such a pack of nonsense!” He turned abruptly to the fire; after a moment he said over his shoulder shortly: “It’s you that’s important. Marry me, Sue.”

  “I am a marked woman. It’s true. I can’t do that to you.” But how easy, how fatally easy it would be to say something else!

  She stiffened her hands on the arms of her chair. “I must go home. Aunt Caroline will be there and …”

  “I’ve got to make you listen to me, Sue. I love you. I want you to be my wife. I should be very proud for you to take my name. Please believe me.”

  She didn’t answer because she couldn’t. He moved to look at her. She was sitting very still, very small in the high-backed chair, her chin which he had seen lifted so straightly that it betrayed her terror in the witness chair, was lowered now, her whole face was lowered so it was soft and young with the light rosy on her slender cheekbones and shading her eyes softly. The Kerry Blue, single-minded dog, had returned to put his head on her knee and she was patting him absently. The light made her short hair shine softly too; she wore a string of small pearls, fastened with an old-fashioned clasp which had slipped around so he could see it; probably it had belonged to her mother or her aunt. The little string of pearls gave him a kind of wrench, for it gave him an insight, a small measure of the special horror that the trial, the whole ugly concoction of accusation, publicity, police, cross-examination, photographs had meant to her; she felt that she had betrayed not only herself but everyone close to her. “Was Jed Baily worth it?” he thought, with a stab of bitterness.

  His face tightened; for a moment he lost himself in thinking over paths that were already well worn. He saw Sue’s motion, however, when she lifted her hand and touched her eyes and his heart smote him.

  “Jed …” She began and stopped.

  “Have you promised to marry Jed?”

  “No. We never talked of marriage until that night, but he expects—he believes …”

  Fitz made an impatient move and controlled it. “Do you feel in any way bound to him?”

  “He depends on me. He said so. All winter …”

  “But what about you? Are you in love with him?”

  “I thought I loved him. I thought …” she stopped, thinking of those far away weeks before Ernestine’s death; she had been bewildered, torn and perplexed, resolving at last to put an end to that perplexity.

  Fitz watched her for a moment. “There’s no disloyalty in you, my dear, if that’s what’s bothering you.”

  She said, troubled, staring at the fire: “I didn’t think then that I would change.”

  “Perhaps you haven’t changed. Perhaps it wasn’t the real thing. Do you want to marry me, Sue?”

  “Yes, oh, yes,” she said and caught herself. “But I can’t, Fitz. I can’t …”

  Fitz started toward her, and stopped; he had to go very lightly, very cautiously; if only there had been more time!

  But there wasn’t time, he remembered; he had to build his bridges, gather ammunition, map out a defense which might well be costly.

  He would not have told her, however, just then; he would have given her a few more moments of peace. But away off in the kitchen he heard a bell which he knew was not the telephone. The dogs, recognizing it, jumped up; his heart moved again, but this time in fright. Surely they had not come so soon.

  Sue didn’t hear the doorbell; she had no idea of what it might mean; she did not move. He watched her but his whole being was rigidly alert; he was aware of the flutter of Mamie’s white apron along the hall, of her tentative pause for an order, as if Mamie herself, sensitive and gentle, understood that now, just now, was an important segment of time which must not be disturbed.

  He turned to speak to her. But then the front door of the house burst open, the dogs hurled themselves out of the room, there were people, voices, “Fitz, Mamie, is Mr. Fitz at home? Hi, Fitz, where are you?”

  Sue looked up. Fitz took a quick breath. “Sue, my darling, I must tell you something at once. The jury freed Jed; it was an acquittal. But there was something else.”

  Her eyes from blue had leaped to a frightened black. “The jury added a recommendation. They strongly recommended that the police immediately resume and prosecute to the fullest of their powers an investigation into Ernestine’s murder. They particularly recommended to them investigation of any persons known to have been in the immediate vicinity at the time of her murder.”

  “Oh, there you are, Fitz!” Camilla stood in the doorway. She looked, in the firelight, so like Ernestine that it was rather shocking. Jed came behind her and pulled her out of the way and came into the room—Jed, handsome, smiling, his slender face, his shining dark eyes, his gleaming black head, the arrogance of his young and handsome body all lighted with triumph. “Sue! I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Sue—what’s the matter?”

  Fitz moved so he stood near Sue, almost between them. “I’ve been telling Sue about the jury’s recommendation.”

  There was a short pause. The dogs surged around the room. Camilla came forward then and slid out of her raincoat. “Oh, that! That doesn’t mean anything.”

  Jed, with the firelight now picking up ruby reflections in his dark eyes, laughed. “Why, that’s nothing, Fitz! They had to say something like that.”

  Fitz said nothing; Sue looked up into his face and caught there the fear and shadow of the thing he foresaw.

  He smiled, trying to reassure her; his heart ached to see the soft and gentle peace leave her face; if personal hatred could have availed, if it were ever anything but destructive and futile, he would have hated Jed Baily.

  “I understand,” Sue said all at once, clearly. “They meant me. I’m the only other …” she swallowed and said, “… suspect.”

  3

  THERE WAS another short silence; even the flames seemed to pause and wait, briefly arrested. The dogs, ever sensitive to human voices and human emotions, turned wondering and slightly troubled eyes to Sue, to their master; Jed took a step forward and cried, “Sue, why what an idea! Who made you think …” he whirled around to Fitz, accusing and angry. “You did this! You’ve frightened her.”

  Sue heard him and didn’t hear him. Fitz’s eyes were dark gray and troubled. “You tried to tell me. You tried to prepare me,” she said, stumbling over
the words, and then she saw that Fitz had also tried to give her the most complete protection a man can give a woman.

  He had offered it knowingly, in advance of her need; in advance of the catstrophe which he had foreseen and feared. Why hadn’t she seen the danger! Another trial, herself as the accused. Accused of the murder of a woman who, they would say, was her rival.

  But then there was brightness everywhere; someone had turned on lights.

  Camilla had moved to the tea table; it was Camilla who had turned on the lights. Her stubby, white hands with their scarlet nails moved among the tea things; her ash-blonde hair was thick and shining (now that Ernestine’s lovely, great coronet was not there to outshine her sister’s); her lips were scarlet, too. She said, coldly, “As Jed says, the jury had to do something like that; they couldn’t just let it drop, Fitz, darling—I’m going to ask Mamie to bring fresh tea.” There was ever so slightly in Camilla’s manner a kind of proprietorship; Fitz nodded shortly.

  Camilla crossed the room again with a swish of silk; except when hunting (for she’d felt, she said, that an occasional hunt would cheer her and that everyone would understand) she’d worn black since Ernestine’s death, very chic black, very smart black, which Jed, her brother-in-law, must have paid for; Ernestine had had nothing when she married Jed; Camilla had had nothing and still had only what Jed gave her. She was now slender and silken and undeniably attractive; the dress was demure, decorous and smart. She knew exactly where the bell was; she went to it directly and put her finger on it with, again, the faintest hint of authority.

  Jed had been standing perfectly still, hands thrust in his pockets, black head unmoving, dark eyes on Fitz. He was wearing the same suit he had worn during the trial, a brown, sleekly tailored sack suit, a city suit which seemed out of the way and wrong on Jed who rarely wore anything but riding clothes. He was unchanged, however, as far as anyone could see, as far as Sue herself had been able to see, looking from her own chair in the courtroom to Jed, unwontedly quiet, alert and listening all the time, but handsome and as composed as anyone could expect. His face, as a rule, was brown and weathered; usually his fully curved lips had a slight and pleasant smile. Now his face was pale; that came from those months, waiting, confined, instead of as usual riding and hunting and in a rather desultory way, farming the land he had bought with Duval Hall.