A Charmed Life (36 page)

Warren was wringing wet when he emerged from the phone booth. His knees wobbled as he came out into the sunlight and started to cross the street. In the distance, he recognized Harriet Huber, with a shopping bag, and he ducked behind a telephone pole. He was afraid to be seen coming out of the Digby drugstore; it might be guessed that he had been making a telephone call there. He felt that his complicity with Martha was written all over him, and he attributed unusual insight to every native he saw. He was not known in Digby, but this very fact, he feared, would imprint him, as a stranger, on the minds of the Digby population. They would all remember that a small gray man in corduroy had been in the drugstore an exceedingly long time.

It was only one o’clock when he parked in front of the New Leeds liquor store. Warren felt he had lived centuries since he had got up in the morning. His experience with Miles, just by itself, would take him a lifetime to digest. Miles had told him some home truths in the course of his tirade. Was he really a leech and a brain-sucker? He supposed he was, as a matter of fact. Martha had implied something like that, though in a politer way. But Miles had killed a precious part of him—the nerve of intellectual curiosity. He would never be able to ask a serious question again. Some time, much later, he would talk all this over with Jane. She would be bound to find out, before long, that he had tried to collect for the painting. And he would have to produce some reason to explain his behavior, without implicating Martha. The number of lies he was already committed to made him question his sanity. Was this he, he asked himself wonderingly. He wanted to call up Martha, to tell her what had happened, but if John answered the phone, he would have to prevaricate again. If he called here, from the drugstore, the girl at the fountain would hear him, while if he called from home, when Jane was in the village, there were the neighbors on the party line. Yet he was not sorry for what he had undertaken. It was worth it, to know the truth, worth it, to help Martha. He felt honored that she had asked him.

Paul was out to lunch. Warren found him in the grille and indicated that he would like to speak to him, alone, when he was finished. Warren was too excited to eat anything himself. The vicomte nodded and handed him a rusty key. “Meet me in the shop.” Waiting in the dark antique shop, amid the dust of marble and the smell of worm-eaten old furniture and moldy upholstery, Warren felt very adventurous, though a little queasy inside. The shop, he thought, had a secretive, almost criminal atmosphere, as though any shady deal could take place here. It occurred to him, suddenly, that the vicomte would know where to find an abortionist.

Paul, when he came in, was not at all perturbed at being asked to serve as a letter-drop. “It is not the first time,” he said equably. “You would be surprised. This little shop is very convenient, for all kinds of business. You have a little
affaire,
I suppose, something you do not wish to tell Jane.” “Not exactly,” said Warren, “It’s more of a commission, you might say. Something a friend has asked me to take care of. I can’t tell you without betraying his confidence.” “Of course,” said the vicomte. “I have no wish to pry. It is very serious, this commission?” “Very,” said Warren, with feeling. “I see that,” said the vicomte. “A check will come in the mail,” explained Warren. “When it comes, will you call me up? We ought to have a signal, I suppose.” “Naturally,” said the vicomte. “That goes without saying. When the letter comes, I will telephone that I have a new shipment of wine I want you to try. I will have the letter in the liquor store.” “I don’t suppose you could get the check cashed,” said Warren. “It’ll be made out to me, a bank check.” The vicomte pondered. “If you indorse it, I could take it to Digby. Or Trowbridge, if you prefer.”

“I’ll pay you for your trouble,” volunteered Warren. “If you wish,” said the vicomte. “It doesn’t matter. I am always glad to do a service for my friends. Living here, all alone, I can so seldom repay hospitality. How much is the check, if I may ask?” “Seven hundred dollars,” said Warren. The vicomte raised his fair eyebrows. “Someone is to get a present, perhaps?” Warren studied his sneakers. “Don’t tell me,” said the vicomte. “I prefer to guess. It has to do with a lady. Possibly a married lady who is to get an expensive present her husband doesn’t know of. That is Maupassant—a little out of fashion. Or possibly it is not a lady. Someone has stolen something, and restitution is to be made, on the q.t.” Warren said nothing. Paul, he perceived, really meant it when he said he did not wish to be told. He closed his blinking eyes, like a medium, and put a fat finger to his forehead, seeming to relish, voluptuously, the sense of mystery with which he himself was enveloping this request. “Or could it be a girl? An unmarried girl who finds herself in trouble, as we Americans say.
Pauvre fille.
I am sorry for her. Possibly I can help. There is a doctor, a refugee, in Boston, who will sometimes take such cases.” Paul took his wallet from his pocket and slowly thumbed through a grimy collection of business cards. “Here,” he said, handing one to Warren. “This is the man. A nice old fellow. A Jew. His father was physician to my family. The son cannot get a license to practice in this country; he is too old to pass the examinations.” Warren gave the card a gingerly inspection before handing it back to Paul; the doctor’s name and address were firmly stamped on his memory. “Thank you, Paul,” he said. “But it isn’t that kind of trouble, this time.” He gave a daring laugh. “Ah well,” said the vicomte, indifferently, “so much the better. I will not have a sin on my conscience. Blackmail, could it be?” He continued his ruminations. “Some little irregularity, a taste for young boys?” His round blue eyes revolved over Warren, who had a painful sense of shock. Between his uncle and the vicomte, he stood convicted as a regular Cellini. What horrified him most was the way it was taken for granted that anything was possible, for a respectable married man. He thought of what Martha had said yesterday, about how everybody mistrusted appearances and yet no one really cared what the truth was. “Blackmail,” mused Paul, still studying Warren with an air of connoisseurship, “is rather rare here, in New Leeds. It is many years since we have had a case of it. Emotional blackmail, yes. The other kind, no. The community is so tolerant that a blackmailer could not make a living here. I’ve often thought of this, Warren, in a speculative way, to pass the time. I am ideally situated, you might say, to make a profession of blackmail here. As a Catholic, I receive many confessions; you atheists take me for a priest, though I cannot give absolution, naturally. Then there is my work in the liquor store and my work in A. A. When I go around to buy furniture for the shop, I see a good deal. But if I were to try to capitalize my knowledge, I would not make a penny.” He lifted his huge shoulders. “It is a community of glass houses. One can only sit by and watch. Now and then there is a soul to be saved.”

“Excuse me,” ventured Warren. “But how do you reconcile your religion with what we were just talking about? I mean, that card you wanted to give me. I thought you Catholics were against that sort of thing.” “Officially—
ça va sans dire,”
said the vicomte. “But I am not the church, my dear Warren. I am only one poor sinner. I believe in works of charity. Here is a poor Jew in Boston who is deprived of his means of livelihood. It is only a work of charity to put him in touch with a poor girl who will be disgraced if she bears a fatherless child. The church frowns, but God is merciful. He winks, I think, at such cases. I commit a little sin, but God will forgive me, probably. I do not pretend to know. Only God knows what he will do with my soul. I will have to wait and find out. I am not in a hurry.” “That’s awfully interesting,” said Warren. “Do you really believe in a life after death?” “Naturally,” said the vicomte, with an air of astonishment. “I am a Catholic.” “But how do you reconcile that—?” “Reconcile, reconcile,” pronounced the vicomte, impatiently. “That is all I hear from you atheists and Protestants. ‘Paul, how do you reconcile …?’ I do not need to reconcile; I leave that to God. On earth, I am agnostic, though I keep the sacraments. In Heaven, I will be a believer, for then the meaning will be revealed to me. In Hell, if I am sent there, I will have to believe too; that will be my punishment, to know that I am a scoundrel for all eternity.” He sighed. “What is the expression? It will all come out in the wash.” He looked at his watch; it was time to open the liquor store. Warren followed him out of the shop.

Three days later, in the waning afternoon, John Sinnott sat in Martha’s study, trembling with anger. The front door had just banged; she was hurrying down the hill to the garage. For the first time in months, they had had a violent quarrel. Martha had provoked it, deliberately, out of nothing. The phone had rung while she was typing out her manuscript, and she had jumped up to answer it, though he had told her over and over to leave the phone calls to him, when he was in the house. It was never anything important enough to justify her interrupting her work, especially now when she was almost finished. She had promised to let him read the play before she went to Boston, the day after tomorrow. But she would not have it ready if she kept jumping up and down. This time, it was only Warren on the phone, with an invitation to tea, which Martha immediately shrilled at him to accept, though they were already committed to have dinner with the Hubers. One invitation a day, they had agreed, was enough; there was no reason why they could not see the Coes tomorrow instead. But Martha had flown into a passion when he, paying no attention to her, told Warren to make it tomorrow. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to, but I’m going,” she had breathed, defiantly, snatching the telephone from him to tell Warren she would come, alone.

This frantic avidity for social life seemed disgusting to John; it was unworthy of Martha. If she could have seen how her pretty face looked, contorted with rage and terror at the idea of missing a social engagement, she would have bowed her head in shame. Beside himself, suddenly, John had tried to force her to look at herself in the long mirror in the parlor. But she had twisted out of his grasp and fled to the bedroom. It was the nearest they had ever come to blows, and he had felt instantly sickened. Half remorseful and half sullen, he had waited for her to make up with him. But when she came out of the bedroom, finally, all dressed, she said she was sorry yet she made no effort to coax him to come to the Coes’ with her. In fact, he got the impression that she was secretly glad to be rid of his company. She was itching to be off, and when he pointed out that there was no hurry, that if she would wait, while he dressed and shaved, they could stop in at the Coes’ for a minute, on the way to the Hubers’, Martha said coldly, “I don’t want to wait for you. You always take so long.” His anger had risen again. It was almost dark, already, and she was not a good driver; he hated to have her take the car over these roads at night. “I’ll come back for you,” she said, “in time to start for dinner.” And now that she had made sure he was not coming, she had reached up to give him a kiss. “I know it’s dull for you,” she murmured, “listening to me and Warren.” “Go on,” he said icily, pushing her away. “Enjoy yourself. I bore you. I ‘always take so long.’”

Then the door banged, and he had rushed furiously into her writing room, minded to do something destructive. He pulled her manuscript page out of the typewriter, flung it to the floor, and started to type out the heading of a letter. He was going to write to the real-estate agent to put the house on the market. When Martha came back, she would find him packed to leave. He was not going to dinner with the Hubers under any circumstances. Martha had been too peculiar lately, running off to visit people the minute he was gone, complaining of being ill and then insisting she was well again, wanting to go to Boston, and dropping into fits of abstraction several times a day. She had even, Dolly had told him in confidence, tried to borrow some money from her. And now she could not wait a minute while he changed his clothes and shaved. The sound of his electric razor irritated her, probably, though she had delighted in it when she had first known him, as a contrast to Miles’s lather and old Gillette. All this restlessness must mean that she was finally tired of him; after seven years, he was no longer a novelty for her. What she really wanted, probably, though she did not know it, was a new man. The thing they had always said, about the seven-year term, was true. He could tell it himself. As his anger subsided, and he could examine his feelings for her, he discovered only an emptiness, a great hollow of disappointment. He could see her virtues, objectively, but they did not speak to him any more; another man, who did not know her as he did, might find her attractive and winning. He picked up the manuscript sheet from the floor and carefully smoothed it, glancing idly at the lines of dialogue. The temptation to read her play, to punish her, was very strong for a minute, but he set it aside. It would not be fair to read it, when he felt so sad about her. He added the sheet to the pile of manuscript on the writing-table.

Just then the door opened, and Martha appeared. She hurried across the small room and flung her arms around him. “I love you,” she said. “You were thinking I didn’t.” John nodded somberly. “I couldn’t go off and leave you thinking that,” she said. They looked at each other steadily. “I really do,” she said. Her eye fell on the typewriter and traveled to her manuscript. She mistily smiled. “You were going to read my play, to get back at me,” she announced. John laughed unwillingly. “I thought of it,” he admitted. “But you couldn’t be so cruel,” she said reproachfully. “No,” he agreed. “I can’t hurt you, Martha. You’re too vulnerable.” He put his arm around her, lightly, resigned to this fact. “And is that such a deprivation?” she asked, with a faintly quizzical look. “Yes,” he said, speaking honestly. “I’d like to feel free to hurt you.” “How strange,” said Martha, thoughtfully. “That’s very different from me. But I can see how it might be dreadful, never to be able to hurt somebody, like a horse being hobbled. That’s why you feel so shackled. It must make you hate me.” “Sometimes,” he confessed. Martha hesitated. “If I gave you good reason to hate me, would it help, would you feel liberated from these constrictions?” “Possibly,” said John, dryly. She gave him a very searching look and sighed. He distinctly read her thoughts. Her poetical temperament was wondering whether she could “drive him away” from her, like some great tragic heroine, while her prosaic self balked, like a little mule. He laughed. This conscientious transparency of Martha’s was why he could not hurt her. “Go along,” he said, and Martha went, with a troubled backward glance.